The Rise of The Dominion: A Dominion War novel

by D. M. Marshall

  “We will see.”

  “I admire your spirit, Admiral. But for now, please be seated again the both of you. We have much to discuss.”

  Jake Bulver was busy helping unload and catalogue the most recent delivery of equipment for Riccard Brams’ new command center when he felt her. He froze, too shocked to do anything other than seek out their presences, to strengthen the feelings beyond doubt.

  Yes, it was really her, she was here.

  “Are you okay, Jake?” asked Kaliko, approaching from off to the side. She looked concerned. “I sensed alarm?”

  He looked at her, his face a picture of surprise and confusion. “She’s here,” was all he could manage.

  Kaliko’s face fell and she looked away. “Thea’s here?”

  “Yes, they’re on the edge of the system but they’re here, and making their presence known to me.”

  Kaliko looked circumspect. “Why? Why would they reveal themselves to you when they know you seek to bring them to justice?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jake, shrugging. He hoped he was hiding his excitement from Kaliko well enough. Finally, after all these months. I will get justice. Even as he thought those words he knew that they were hollow. He was excited just to see her again, or speak to her. Just meeting with her was all he truly wanted, bringing her to justice was very much a secondary objective. His hatred of her had weakened over time but unfortunately his other feelings for her remained strong. He already felt giddy at the thought of going to meet her.

  “I must find out what it is that is so important for her to put herself at risk, and whether they’ve revealed our whereabouts.”

  For a moment it looked as though Kaliko was going to argue with him, but then she relented.

  “I’m going with you, and I don’t care what you say.”

  Jake knew better than to argue with her. She could make even his mother seem meek and subservient when she wanted to. It also sent a little thrill through him that she cared that much about him that she wanted to accompany him. It surprised him a bit to feel that way despite Thea’s sudden appearance.

  They ran at full Astral-boosted speed to their Delta fighters, grinning at each other as they did so. They leapt up into the cockpits without any need for the access ladders. Pre-flight checks were hastily completed and soon enough they were leaving the dead world of Swalt in the wake of their engines.

  Jake led Kaliko along Swalt’s orbit for a while before arcing round to head slowly for the Darkening Horizon. This meant that Swalt’s star would hopefully mask their presence and they would be able to approach with relative safety. Her ship’s scanning capabilities were not well understood and so Jake knew it could be an exercise in pointlessness but it worth the slight detour. Kaliko had hidden away from the Astrals so with any luck Thea would only think he was approaching them and not flee.

  As they move further and further out from Swalt, Jake grew more and more nervous. What would happen? Was it a trap? Was she finally sick of Jake’s attempts to track her down? How was she going to act towards him? Was she still firmly entrenched in the Deep, or would he feel that there was still a chance he could redeem her? His heart thudded away in his chest, unrepentant. Would he have to fight her, kill her? He craved to hear her voice again.

  “Close enough”, said Leilani.

  His heart skipped a beat. It was Thea’s beautifully silky voice. He took a deep breath.

  “Thea,” he said, failing to keep a nervous warble from it.

  “I see you brought a friend.”

  “I did. I’ve learnt the hard way that you are not to be trusted.”

  Thea laughed, ever so delicately, alluringly. “Yes, I guess you have. Jake. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it Thea. You had more than your fair share of chances. I have to take you in, you must be held accountable for your crimes.”

  That laugh again, so haunting. “That isn’t going to happen, Jake. I am here to give you a warning.”

  A warning? No doubt she was up to her old tricks.

  “I can’t promise to believe a word of it, Thea.” Come back with me, he wanted to say, I can help you! You wanted to be an Edo once, you still can be. But he didn’t say any of it, couldn’t.

  “I understand, Jake. I’m only telling you because you’re the only person that I knew would be prepared to listen.”

  There was a pause. Jake realized he wasn’t breathing.

  “The Zhur Thoggu have been uncorked, Jake. They’re back.”

  “What? That can’t be true, they are all on Expen Prosger.”

  “You can feel me, if you dare. I am telling the truth.”

  “You almost duped the entire Edo sect, Thea. You can make even the most heinous lie believable.”

  She almost sounded upset. “I’ve seen them with my own eyes, Jake. The Dominion did a deal with them. Their technology in return for a fleet.”

  “Skavespit!”

  “Indeed,” said Thea. “The Dominion sought to betray them, and defeat them once the fleet arrived in the Nushothi’s old star cluster. Unfortunately for the Ballavendi sent to deal with them, the Zhur Thoggu had suspected as much and defeated the Ballavendi fleet, even with the additional forces I supplied.”

  “You provided extra ships?”

  “You of all people should know how I look to protect myself above all else. I have many interests now, and the Zhur Thoggu’s return would be another serious threat.”

  Another, thought Jake.

  “Finding warships on the black market is more difficult than you might imagine. I cannot defeat them alone, hence why I am contacting you. I know that the Edo are not welcome in the Commonwealth but you still have contacts who will take you seriously. You know as well as anyone how quickly they can grow their fleets. They must be stopped now, or they may never be stopped.”

  Jake’s mouth had gone very dry. If what she was saying was true then he had to get this information to the rest of the Edo immediately. He thought furiously, trying to understand how it would benefit her to lie to him about this.

  He felt her start to move away.

  “I have sent you the coordinates of where the battle took place. Get this to the right people, Jake. I am depending on you, my love.”

  Before he could reply he sensed her disappear off into hyperspace. My love? She’d said, my love. It was the last thing he’d needed her to say.

  “Jake, are you ok?” asked Kaliko, again.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t seem it.”

  There was no hiding anything from Kaliko. He laughed, which helped settle his nerves slightly. “That was rather poor news.”

  “I don’t think it’s just the news that has you so upset,” said Kaliko, somewhat reproachfully.

  Was she jealous, he wondered? “Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s up to us to decide whether to believe what she had to say. We need to get back to Raichel as quickly as we can.”

  “Race you,” said Kaliko, already pulling ahead.

  HK Ne’lom, level three, the highest ranking hunter-killer in the defector Zhur Thoggu, stood with the senior member of each other division on the bridge of their flagship Battleship, the only Hellfire Battleship in their motley fleet.

  Ne’lom’s level three capacity was an embarrassment to himself. As the highest capability-calculated hunter-killer in the new Zhur Thoggu battalion, he should be a level one, or Prime. Unfortunately his actions within the first invasion had been cut short by damage that had nearly been enough to have his N-dimension central processor recycled. That he was nearly terminated was a constant source of anger for him, something he needed to make the biologics of this galaxy pay for. That time was nearly at hand. During the glorious battles to come he would gain the experience and results to elevate him in capacity until he could finally be HK Prime, and then the humanoids and all the other slavers of the galaxy would come to fear him and his armies. His body writhed at the thought.

  He turned to
look at Crafter Jent’i Tasshik. The heretic had almost single handedly worked to make their far-superior technology work with the humans’ worthless ships. Ne’lom would personally terminate the Crafter when the time came to it, so tainted by his work was the Crafter. Ne’lom imagined that Jent’i Tasshik would welcome the moment, bitter release from the memories and results of his unforgiveable deeds.

  “This planet meets your requirements, Crafter Two?” he asked, making his voice as gravelly and fearsome as his new position required. Since the Crafter was level two it actually meant that technically he was superior in class to Ne’lom but by tradition, when actively at war, hunter killers were always given elevation over the other divisions.

  “It does, HK three. Its mantel contains all the elements we require in sufficient mass close to or on the surface. Our nanites will be able to quickly proliferate.”

  “Excellent. Developer Four. Thycul, you have the new designs ready?”

  “Imminently, my lord” said the developer, bowing as much as its strangely simple body would allow. Dressed in a nanite clothing, fairly unusual for any Zhur Thoggu, the unusually thin machine, even by Zhur Thoggu standards, looked eager. She had been one of the first members of the cabal back on Expen Prosger to consider Weststar’s offer. It had already earned her an escalation from level five to four, and Ne’lom imagined that she would seek further advancement as quickly as possible. Her ambition marked her as someone to watch closely. “They will be ready for the Crafters when they begin.”

  “Good.” Ne’lom turned to Agent Cea Ero next. “Agent, are your people ready? We must move with all haste.”

  Cea Ero, a devious entity, like most of the Support division, bowed towards Ne’lom. Whether it was deferential or to mock him, Ne’lom couldn’t be sure. Like most hunter killers, Ne’lom had a great disliking for the Support division. Unfortunately their role was vital, since they managed most of the administrative functions that kept the Zhur Thoggu an efficient organism. It was their side-work as spies and their skills in deception that caused most of the other divisions to view them so poorly. As far as Agents went, Cea Ero was as underhand and manipulative as they came. This meant that his presence was both a blessing and a curse. Whilst the fleet ran well, even with the recent culling for materials of many of the Imperial human crew, there was the underlying feeling that you were never quite sure exactly where you stood, as though every step was into quicksand that might suck you down at any moment.

  “Ready to do your bidding, Ne’lom,” purred Cea Ero. “Initial nanomaterials are loaded for shipment down to the planet as soon as they ordered. Any problems experienced will not be due to the Support division, I assure you.”

  “We shall see,” growled Ne’lom. He motioned to them all, hand squirming towards each leader. “The true revenge of the Zhur Thoggu begins now.”

  The other leaders nodded or bowed and moved away, leaving Ne’lom alone with his thoughts. First must come the building of a fleet. The Imperial vessels would be used to defend the planet until the new fleet was ready. Then would come the expansion across this star cluster to absorb its resources before the resurgence back into the galaxy proper. Eventually the galaxy would fall at the feet of the Zhur Thoggu. Ne’lom’s success would elevate him to Zhur Thoggu Alpha status. He could almost picture it already.

  He alone would return the Zhur Thoggu to glory.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Lee Gaspara watched helplessly from the cockpit of his Stealth Nebula fighter prototype as the token skirmish between the Plemanth defense forces and the invading Imperial force ended.

  He had watched as the Zhur Thoggu hybrid invasion fleet had divided up into six individual task forces before leaping to hyperspace. Gaspara had used their escape vectors to calculate the best-guess destinations for each force and had allocated the three task forces with the highest destination certainties to himself, Raif and August. Dang had remained behind to monitor activities around Citadel.

  Plemanth was a quiet system that lay near the border of Imperial space and had at one point been part of the Dominion. It, like many other hundreds of systems in this part of the outer rim, in light of the current difficulties within the Commonwealth, had made it clear that it would like to return to Imperial rule. Since no formal request had been made by the Imperial Dominion for ownership of the system the Commonwealth had maintained its tenuous grip on the system.

  I guess this is the way the Dominion make their requests now, thought Lee. Claiming a system through force was an act of war, but since the system actively wanted to be part of the invading culture, it made for a tricky issue. It would be interesting to see how the Commonwealth responded. Would they go to war with the Dominion? Were they even capable of mounting an offensive whilst defending other systems from the Imperials? With their Zhur Thoggu technology they were a seriously potent threat.

  Lee’s X4, who he’d taken to calling Ex, tootled - the Plemanth authorities had broadcast a full unconditional surrender. Only one of their cruisers had lost its shields and suffered light damage before the surrender took effect, and Lee suspected that the Plemanth military had coordinated the skirmish with the Imperials. Both parties would be getting what they wanted whilst Plemanth could show that they had put up a defense should the Commonwealth regain control of the system at some point.

  Lee felt torn about Plemanth going over to the Dominion. Lee had spent his entire adult life fighting for the monolithic entity that was now called the Commonwealth. He had helped it move from a small group of systems to a fully-fledged Commonwealth before morphing into what it was now, a galaxy spanning republic. Unfortunately few of the people he’d worked with during that time remained active within it, and he now felt as though it was no longer the thing he’d worked so hard on, risked his life for more times than he could remember, lost more people than he thought possible. Once upon a time losing a star system to the Dominion would have been disastrous and something he’d have worked hard to counter. But now, he was not so sure. Clearly the people of Plemanth wanted Imperial rule. The Dominion was just giving them what they wanted, albeit that they were going about it in entirely the wrong fashion.

  The big but was the regime change within the Dominion and its use of Zhur Thoggu technology. Obviously the new High Doyen, Amos Weststar, had no qualms about killing Imperials or using Zhur Thoggu technologies to meet his needs. What else was he capable of? What would happen to systems that wanted to remain in the Commonwealth, or stay independent? Lee suspected he already knew the answer. No, Weststar must be stopped. How, Gaspara wasn’t quite sure but for now he’d catalogue and report back to whoever would listen, and besides, he was back in a Nebula fighter. A rather fancy one too, he might add. Where else would he rather be?

  Fleet Admiral Adami stood in the gargantuan main hold of her newly transferred flag ship, the freshly renamed Hellfire Class-IV Battleship Vang. It was the newest ship in the Citadel home fleet, and was thankfully entirely bereft of any Zhur Thoggu technology. She had sent the entire fleet of ships mutilated by the Zhur Thoggu ‘enhancements’ off to start the Dominion’s long-overdue expansion program.

  Secretly she had been delighted at the Skave’s command to commence aggressive expansion into Commonwealth territory. Whilst Weststar fretted about what the Commonwealth would do, she could focus on retaking all the systems that were pro-Dominion. Once those were regained either Niettha would have been dealt with and Adami and Weststar could take stock and perhaps sue for peace or they could press on and continue their expansion. Adami knew which option she preferred. It annoyed her that Niettha knew her well enough that she would positively thrive on his orders. For the time being, while their goals were aligned she would continue to dance to his tune but one day he would discover what a mistake it had been to point her own laser pistol at her head. Just why the Skave wanted the Dominion to grow was something she needed to understand as quickly as possible.

  His other command had again been something she had readily agreed to. I
n front of her, lined up two rows deep were all the bounty hunters she had access to at such short notice.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said, commanding their attention. Stood there in her perfectly tailored Admiral’s uniform, with its multitude of medals and emblems, she looked every part the Imperial warlord. Her piercing gaze took each of the bounty hunters in, one by one. Only the most brazen were able to hold her gaze.

  Two mean-looking Qweni were inevitably part of the lineup, along with a heavily tattooed Maldren, almost a dozen humans or as close to human as be indistinguishable of all shapes and sizes, two small Phalees, their snouts twitching in anticipation, a Drakdallian, it’s wings constantly fluttering, a Nantosh and some others that Adami couldn’t even identify.

  “Please pass on this request to your guilds and other interested parties - as good as you are you are going to need help completing our request.”

  She knew that her statement would offend the bounty hunters but with more than one hundred shock troopers gathered behind her she wasn’t worried.

  “The Dominion is putting a bounty on the entire Edo sect.”

  There were a few shocked looks between the men.

  “We will pay a minimum of one million credits, in the currency of your choice - yes,” she said, cutting off one of the humans as they raised a hand, “including Commonwealth credits, for all proven assassinations.”

  Adami started pacing in front of them, head held high, enjoying the moment for all that it was - the first step in a new sequence that would finally rid her of the Edo for good.

  “The payments rise up to fifty million for the Edo we’d most like to see terminated. The list will be provided to you, but chief on that list is Edo Mushur Val Nordin. Whoever deals with him will also get my personal thanks.”