“Three, two, one, it’s away!”
The fifteen surviving bombers out of the sixty in the combined strike group launched their torpedo loads. Captain Sabe, along with half the remaining ships turned upwards, making sure that the capital’s particle beam emitters were pointed at the torpedoes as they launched. The space between the attacking fighters and the capitals turned into an insane explosion of missiles, dogfighting ships, and point defence blasts from the Empyreal Sun capital.
“We’ve got lock, we’ve got holding lock,” Sabe shouted.
Machiko turned her fighter to circle around Sabe and saw yet another swarm of enemy fighters cutting in, dropping a wall of missiles on the surviving bombers.
“Captain Sabe, evasive, evasive!”
“Can’t! We still have lock, three seconds, two, one…”
Machiko screamed with rage as five missiles detonated across the top of the wing commander’s ship. It simply disappeared. In that same moment, from off the portside wing, she saw four antimatter torpedoes impacting on the enemy capital’s bow. In the silence of space it seemed somehow surreal; for a brief instant the capital disappeared behind the exploding curtain of antimatter warheads. She waited for the secondary explosions to begin, bracing herself for the inevitable blinding flash.
For a moment, her senses were deluged by bright light.
“We’ve got the bastard!” someone screamed on the communications channel.
And as they waited, the capital ship emerged from out of the fire. It’s forward bow, and for nearly a hundred metres back, was a twisted wreckage, but impossibly the ship continued to purposefully move forward. Making sure her gun cameras were still on, Machiko turned in towards the capital. Wreckage was trailing off from the bow of the ship as she raced in and she could see fires flaring inside the ruins of the forward portside launch bay. She crossed up and over the top, and then suddenly the anti-aircraft defences of the capital kicked back on.
She blinked, unable to believe what her senses told her was true. How could the ships even still exist after four torpedo strikes? Jinxing to throw off the gunners, she raced down the length of the ship, passing one of the aft launch bays. She locked her camera into a laser designator and swung the designator in on the bay. On her small comm screen she caught a quick glimpse inside the ship. Another fighter was coming down the launch ramp, afterburners flaming. Internal lighting was still on and launch crews were purposefully working, some of them still picking themselves up, shaking off the after-effects of the torpedo hammer blows. The image disappeared as she flashed across the stem of the ship.
She looked up and saw that more than a dozen Empyreal Sun fighters were streaking in to pick her off and she went into a violent spin, cutting down over the stern of the ship, her fighter bucking and shuddering as she got caught in the exhaust plume of the capital. She punched through into the fleet communications channel.
“Ballog II, this is Fourteen Leader. No joy, repeat, no joy, Enemy capital still running after four torpedo hits. Catch my video transmit.” She sent the signal through and then looked at her tactical. Space was dotted solid with red, with only an occasional blue dot. There was no sign of any yellow Nommos blips at all now. The strike force had taken its best shot and been destroyed, and the Empyreal Sun Fleet continued on, completely unfazed. Worse still, the enemy flagship, the Retribution, continued its orbital bombardment of the planet Nommon unchallenged - the surface of which now appeared as a molten protoplanet.
“God help us,” Machiko muttered.
Sick at heart, Grand Admiral Kuolor silently watched as the action reports came in. He coughed again, wiping the tears from his eyes. The main bridge of the Ballog II was filled with smoke, the air filtration plant still off line from a torpedo hit.
“Message from the Bra’trag, sir.”
“Put it on.”
A young woman, blood trickling down from her forehead, appeared in the flat wavery image on screen.
“Where’s Kruger?”
“Dead, sir. Last hit took out the bridge.”
Kuolor nodded silently. “Damn.”
“Sir, we have to abandon ship, all engines are dead. We’re moving on inertia and one bank of manoeuvring thrusters only. Secondary generators are going offline, hull integrity is at sixty-three percent, remaining bulkheads are leaking and will rupture with one more hit…”
“Get your people into the escape boats. I’ll have Polowski stand by to pick up survivors.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“You fought them well, lieutenant, you fought them well.” He looked back at the action reports that streamed in across the monitors. Five of the newest Terran capitals and one of the old ones had been destroyed in this battle. The two remaining capitals still appeared to be relentlessly moving forward. Of the more than five hundred and fifty strike craft and bombers he had launched almost two hours ago, less than one hundred were still able to fly. As for their tactical bombers, less than a quarter had returned. And worst of all, the defence forces of the Nommos Empire - well, they had been completely wiped out. Eradicated. There was nothing left of them. Estimates of Empyreal Sun fighter loss stood at just over four hundred, though Kuolor knew the figure would be cut once the debriefing teams had a chance to look at all the camera footage.
In short, they had lost - badly. He looked at the status plot boards. Only twenty-nine bombers and twenty modified Sabre-class fighters were armed and ready for another strike. Already the Empyreal Sun were sending up their next strike wave, which was even stronger than their first, as they anticipated a victory here.
Kuolor turned back to his strategic communications officer. “Signal all ships. We are withdrawing from Sirius.”
His bridge crew looked around at him, a startled silence falling over them.
“We’ll be swarmed under in the second strike,” he continued. “If I thought we had a chance of hitting them back hard enough, I’d do it. There’s no sense in dying for no reason.”
“What about Sirius, sir?” a helm ensign asked angrily. “Damn it, sir, that’s the homeworld of the Nommos Empire. We can’t just leave them!”
“Son, it’s finished whether we stay here and die, or leave. A tactical retreat is the only logical choice. We need time to recoup our losses, to prepare ourselves for when the enemy inevitably turns its attention to the Sol System.”
The ensign looked around, realising he had spoken way out of turn to a Grand Admiral. He started to open his mouth again and was restrained by his section lieutenant who took him by the shoulder and turned him away.
The planet Nommon was already a flaming ruin. Murk’Oh, thirty nine million clicks to port, was now wide open and already a section of Empyreal Sun cruisers was turning towards it. Kuolor didn’t even want to think about how many Nommos people had lost their lives already. “Helm, turn us about. Let’s get the hell out of here,” he snarled. “And send the order to the rest of the fleet! Recall everybody now!”
On the main bridge of the Retribution, Lord Damarus turned to gaze coldly at Eldo Drakar. “Growing soft, Eminence?” he said.
Drakar grimaced, a ghostly expression. He was gazing out the viewport at the continuing bombardment of his own homeworld, trying to suppress his concerns, a rustle of uneasiness rippling through his entire body. Nommon was now a fiery wasteland. This was not how it was supposed to be. “You are taking this too far, my Lord,” he muttered shakily. “This senseless, genocidal barbarism will only arouse them further. You’ve made your point, now please, spare the second planet. Show mercy and it still might weaken their will.”
“There will be no mercy,” Damarus said. “Terror breeds terror, Eminence.”
“Terror can also breed fanaticism and hatred,” Drakar suggested. “Senseless bombardments of civilian populations have always tended to unite the oppressed. There are many examples throughout the history of the Empire. The deliberate destruction of every world in this system will only cause them to fight us tooth and nail to the death rat
her than surrender.”
Damarus turned to look at him, his face shadowed by his dark hooded robe. “And that is what you were hoping for, wasn’t it, Eminence? Surrender? So that you can rule the Nommos Empire in the place of your own brother? Do not think that I am blind to your petty ambition.”
Drakar attempted to control his loathing and rage. “You told me that the Empire would be subjugated, not eradicated. You are a barbarian,” he snapped. “We could simply have destroyed their military defences; instead we have gone on a rampage and destroyed the homeworld, and everybody living there. When you are finished here, there will be nothing left of the Nommos Empire to rule over!”
“That was my plan from the very beginning, or weren’t you listening?” Damarus said indifferently. “You have sworn an oath to serve me, Eminence. I wonder if your true loyalties lie with me, or with your own self? I will not tolerate challenges to my power.”
Drakar snorted. “No. This… this isn’t what I agreed to. I agreed that I would help you, in my drive for vengeance on Khonsu. I can bring the Empire back to its former glory…”
“To what end?” Damarus began to pace. “Your dislike of the humans is no secret, Eminence. Perhaps you plan to wage war on them once I have retaken control of the Terran Alliance myself? Perhaps you intend to betray my trust? Perhaps you intend to destroy me and take my place as Ruler of the entire galaxy?”
Sickened, Eldo Drakar turned away. He knew that the accusations were right, if somewhat twisted.
“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” Damarus said, moving closer, slowly reaching up to stroke his cheek. “I can see your thoughts, Eminence. There is no use in denying it.” He studied the High Priest’s face for some time, regarding him, it seemed, tenderly. But his hand suddenly flew open only inches from Drakar’s face. An invisible force slammed the Priest backward against a nearby bulkhead like a wrecking ball.
“No!” Drakar hissed, pain stabbing through his chest. “You are mistaken. My Lord - please!”
Determined, Damarus moved in for the kill. He reached out and brought his hand down toward the dazed amphibian’s skull. Eldo Drakar was only half-conscious, unable to do anything but watch helplessly.
Damarus’ hand came gently to rest on the head. Immediately, Drakar’s legs shot out stiff, and his whole body began to spasm violently, as if he were receiving an electroshock lobotomy. The head itself began to vibrate at an unnatural rate of speed, and then suddenly went still. Over the next few seconds, his facial features began to distort radically. The skull lost the integrity of its shape, swelling and constricting like a thin bag of water.
Damarus closed his eyes and smiled, commanding the Power of the All, rearranging the molecules of Drakar’s skull, liquefying him from the inside. As serenely as if he were watering flowers in a garden, Damarus stood over the illustrious priest as the life slipped out of him, distracted from the pain by this hypnotic display of gruesome power. When his victim was finally dead, Damarus closed his hand again, stood up straight and sighed.
Calmer now, he turned to the Genome Soldiers who made up the Retribution’s bridge crew. “Let this serve as notice,” he said coldly. “I expect nothing less than absolute loyalty, and unquestioning obedience. Anyone who betrays Me, will be utterly destroyed.” He turned as the dead body of Eldo Drakar was dragged away.
There was a moment of silence.
Sai’bot stepped forward then, from the shadows, and slowly raised his grotesque head toward his master. “What are your orders, O Lord?”
Lord Damarus smiled. “We will annihilate what is left of the Nommos Empire, and then we will go for Paramo, and Earth. The Final Reckoning is at hand.”
22
The sunset over the Silver City was stunning tonight: particulate matter from atmospheric pollutants, coupled with heavy incoming solar radiation, splintered the light of the sun into a prismatic smear across multi-layered clouds in an orange-red sky.
Cristian Stefánsson barely noticed.
On the broad curving veranda that overlooked the private gardens of Lorelei Chen’s apartment, he watched from the shadow of a tall sycamore tree as Lora stepped from the doorway, then turned to lean on the veranda’s balcony about a dozen feet from where he was standing.
She gazed out on the sunset, contemplating her thoughts in silence, but he gazed only at her. This was all he needed right now. To be here, to be with her, now, during this time of uncertainty. To watch the sunset caress her tanned skin. If not for her, he would have felt lost. Hopelessly lost.
Yes.
Yes.
He was ready for this.
He still loved her. That much was certain. There was something about her which still intrigued him, which made him want to be close to her, to hold her, even though he couldn’t explain it. Somehow, across the gulf of life and death, his love for her had remained intact. Perhaps this was the nature of True Love. Perhaps they were destined for each other - a concept he had never really believed in before, even during his marriage to Alexis Jay. He was such an objective person before, with a fairly clinical and dry view of the nature of things, but now… now he wasn’t so sure.
If I could have just one wish,
I would wish to wake up everyday
to the sound of your breath on my neck,
the warmth of your lips on my cheek,
the touch of your fingers on my skin,
and the feel of your heart beating with mine...
Knowing that I could never find that feeling
with anyone other than you…
He said softly, “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She jumped as if he’d pricked her with a needle. “Oh, Cris!”
“I’m sorry.” He smiled fondly as he moved out from the shadows. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She held one hand pressed to her chest as though to keep her heart from leaping out. “No, no, it’s all right. I just - I’m worried about Machiko, that’s all. I still haven’t heard from her since she left for Sirius.”
“I understand.” He took her in his arms.
“I do hope she makes it back okay.” Her hand went from her chest to his. “I’d never forgive myself if… if…”
He nodded. “She’s a good pilot, right? One of the very best. I’m sure she’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”
Chen took a deep breath and smiled. “I love her.”
For a while he didn’t answer. Then, “But you love me as well?”
She closed her eyes, feeling the warm evening breeze on her face. “Yes, Cris. I love you too. It’s - there’s something about you that I don’t see in Machiko. I’m torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool. Loving both of you is breaking all the rules. You were supposed to be dead.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t be… I just don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Don’t despair,” he told her. “I love you, Lora, but maybe you should just step back for a moment. Understand what kind of feelings you are experiencing, and then try to decide which of us you should commit to. If you believe it is important not to lose somebody, you should probably act as quickly as possible.”
She sighed. “It’s easier said than done.”
“It is possible you know which person you want already,” he said. “For the time being, take a deep breath, get some sleep. Put yourself at ease and in the morning, get ready to do some soul-searching. As long as you are honest with yourself, you will have your answer.”
She thanked him for his kind words, then said good-night and went to bed.
He watched her go, then turned back to the setting sun.
For a long while he stood there, lost in thought, watching the last vestiges of sunlight slip into darkness, then the moon and the stars were visible. More than an hour passed. The temperature in the air dropped noticeably soon after that, and he started to shiver.
He went into the bedroom. He found it completely dark, the shutters closed all t
he way. He groped his way toward the bed and could make out the shape of Lorelei Chen’s body lying under the covers, her back to him, her body curved away from him and huddled up. He undressed quietly and slipped naked beneath the sheets. He stretched out one hand and touched silky naked skin. She had not put on her gown and this boldness delighted him. Slowly, carefully, he put one hand on her shoulder and pressed her body gently so that she would turn to him. She turned slowly and his hand touched her breast, soft, full and then she was in his arms so quickly that their bodies came together in one line of silken electricity and he finally had his arms around her, was kissing her warm mouth deeply, was crushing her body and breasts against him and then rolling his body on top of hers.
Her flesh and hair taut silk, now she was all eagerness, surging against him wildly in an erotic frenzy. When he entered her she gave a little gasp and was still for just a second and then in a powerful forward thrust of her pelvis she locked her satiny legs around his hips. When they came to the end they were locked together so fiercely, straining against each other so violently, that falling away from each other was like the tremble before death. It was a period of sensuality that he had never before experienced, a sensuality mixed with a feeling of masculine power.
Afterward, Chen sighed a half-laugh. “I’m a whore,” she whispered.
Cris propped himself up on one elbow. “Don’t say that. We haven’t done anything wrong. Personally, I thought you were terrific.”
She looked away, ashamed. “I’ve betrayed her, you know. Machiko. I’ve cheated on her.”
He sighed. “I love you, Lora. We shared something very special once. Doesn’t that mean anything, anymore?”
She drank it in, the feeling, the touching, what he said. Yes. She’d loved him all along and she’d been waiting ten years of her life for this, had never really expected it to happen. But here it was.
She closed her eyes, blinded by her own tears. “Of course it does. I love you, Cris. I choose you.” She had a feeling of helplessness, of smallness, a loss of control, of insignificance. A sudden and stark realisation of her own vulnerability. She buried her face in his strong shoulder and allowed the tears to flow. “I choose you…”
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 46