The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

by Drury, Matthew J.

  “One minute to Slipstream,” Machiko said absently.

  Chen nodded. The calculations required to launch an entire fleet into Slipstream propulsion were so complex that only Nommos scientists could truly understand them. According to their ‘Cynosural Field Theory’, which had only recently been shared with the Terran Alliance after the overthrow of Damarus ten years earlier, faster-than-light travel required what was known as a Cynosural Field, a cosmic anomaly that acted as a pseudo-gravity well. With the correct calibration information, interstellar jump drives could lock onto the field and create a portal into the destination system. Right now, the armada was positioned around the Nommos homeworld, preparing to make the jump. The planet looked like the eye of a serpent, far below them.

  Machiko finished rounding the fleet’s perimeter, checking final calibrations, then pulled into place beneath the flagship, the Ballog II. The time had come. Chen took a deep breath, monitored readouts, and made final preparations for the jump.

  With dry mouth, Machiko made her summary report to Bola Kuolor on the command ship. “Admiral, we’re in position.”

  Grand Admiral Kuolor’s gravelly voice crackled back over the communications system. “Very well. Proceed on my mark. Three, two, one. Mark.”

  Then the moment was upon them: There was a low-pitched humming sound, and the force of the Slipstream jump threw them back into their oversized seats and strained the umbilicals attaching their Rãvier suits to the ship. Bolts of kaleidoscopic rainbow light spread out into a golden sunrise haze; stars elongated into brilliant lines, and tumbled with fractal splendour across the viewport.

  Earth, and Paramo, awaited them.

  Aboard his capital ship, Eldo Drakar watched as the Terran Alliance fleet blended into a single bright sliver and vanished into the slipstream. When it was gone, he turned his head slightly to regard the motionless, floating hulk that was the Nephilim some distance away, and the armada of Nommos ships which would now begin the clean-up operation following the battle. The priest leaned closer to the viewport, and tapped one hand against the portal. In response, a thin membrane slid from side to side, cleaning the transparent surface. The living tissue reshaped, exaggerating the convex curve to provide sharper focus and faint magnification.

  “Just as I predicted, Xam Bahr has escaped,” Irizon Albrem noted absently.

  Drakar turned a measuring gaze upon his companion. Discord between the priest and warrior castes was growing more common, but he could discern nothing amiss in Irizon Albrem.

  Albrem turned to meet the priest’s scrutiny. His gaze was respectful, but direct. “May I speak freely, Eminence?”

  Drakar nodded. “Very well. But do not forget that I am also the brother of the Emperor himself,” he advised, hiding words of caution in seeming assent.

  The young warrior nodded solemnly. “You entrusted these humans to capture Xam Bahr on Ammold Paramo’s recommendation. Yet they have failed in their mission. Does this not also constitute a failure on the Warmaster’s part? Can the Nommos Empire really afford to continue working with these creatures? They are still so… primitive.”

  The priest carefully weighed these words. “That decision rests with the Emperor alone. I cannot intercede with such matters.” He directed his attention back to the Nephilim, his forehead creased in a scowl.

  The swift click of chitinous boots announced a subordinate’s approach. A thin-looking warrior garishly tattooed in green and yellow entered the room, a small orb cradled in his scaly hands. He bowed, presented the orb to Drakar, and placed it on a small stand.

  The priest dismissed him with an absent wave and began to stroke the sentient globe. The outer layer peeled back, and the soft tissue within began to rearrange itself into a visage of Saani Zhet, the Fleet Commander who had led the Nommos forces during the battle. One eye socket was empty and sunken, and the bruised eyelid seemed to sag into the blue crescent sack beneath.

  “Your Eminence,” Saani Zhet began.

  “Your report,” Drakar broke in curtly.

  “We suffered few losses,” Zhet said. “Most of the enemy fleet was destroyed, and the prisoners held on the Nephilim are being freed. Xam Bahr escaped, as did several of the others.”

  “What of the Pala’ras Stone?” Drakar asked.

  “Stolen,” Zhet answered. “It will be in the hands of Xam Bahr by now.”

  Drakar’s eyes widened, and for a moment his expression seemed to suggest satisfaction, but the fleeting emotion swiftly darkened to wrath. “The Emperor will not be pleased.”

  Albrem leaned forward. “Were you able to trace the infidel’s ship?”

  Zhet seemed to consider something. “Not yet. It could be a while before the data is fully analysed… but I do feel confident we can plot a trajectory by measuring the curvature of space caused by the Alcubierre-Sel’varis Drive on his Terran ship. It is a most crude method of hyperspace travel, abnormally intense tetryon fields…”

  Albrem nodded. “It was designed by humans, after all.”

  “Xam Bahr’s mistake,” Zhet agreed.

  Eldo Drakar’s gut tightened.

  This hadn’t factored into his carefully laid plans…

  Lorelei Chen walked behind Machiko Famasika down a large sterile corridor, featureless apart from occasional numbered pressure doors, each bearing the symbol of the Terran Alliance - a decagram fashioned from an ivory-like amorphous metal with a gold circle suspended in the middle. The architecture of Earth Tower One had always made use of abundant symbolic geometry, using pure forms such as circles and squares, and its symmetrically planned layouts featured mostly rectangular rooms and halls. The journey to Earth had taken less than seventy-two hours at slipstream velocity, and after a quick shower and change of clothes at their residence in the Silver City, they were now ready for their debriefing.

  “Feels good to be out of that Rãvier suit, doesn’t it?” Machiko asked. She wore a form-fitting informal dress decorated in very light shades of pearl with iridescent beads in an elaborate lace-type pattern. She was a beautiful woman; thirty-four years old, there was something unreal and eerie about her. Her face, somewhat luminous, had a pale tone to it. The eyes were a piercingly sharp shade of grey. Eyebrows were arched over the curve before dispersing onto the bridge of her dainty nose. Plump, the lips had the strangest curl to them, and her enchanting face was framed by straight blonde-coloured hair, falling to her neck line.

  Chen smiled at her. “After the week we’ve had, Machiko, yes. Though most of the time, I find the Rãvier to be like a second skin. I wear it too much.” She had chosen a black low-necked dress, knee-length and more flowing, emphasising her feminine features. She was now in her late-thirties, but time had been kind to her. Tanned, slender, curvaceous, she was a picture of womanly beauty. She had dark, warm hair, which offset her deep emerald-green eyes.

  At last they came to the Warmaster’s Chamber. The door whispered open automatically, and they proceeded into a vast empty room, looking out into the utter blackness of space through a huge window that was curved both vertically and horizontally. Though the stars must have been shining out there, Chen’s light-adapted eyes could see nothing but black emptiness beyond the curve of the great window. As they started to walk towards it to get a wider view, Machiko pointed straight ahead.

  “Look,” she said. “Can you see it?”

  Chen blinked, and stared into the night. At first glance, it looked to be an illusion - even, heaven forbid, a crack in the window. For spanning the whole height of the window, and obviously continuing out of sight above and below, was a thread of light quite easy to see when she looked for it, yet so one-dimensional that the word ‘thin’ could not even be applied. However, it was not completely featureless; there were barely visible spots of greater brilliance at irregular intervals along its length, like drops of water on a spider’s web. She continued walking towards the window, and the view expanded until at last she could see what lay below them. It was familiar enough: the whole continent of Ol
d Europa, and much of northern Afri’tra, just as she had seen them many times from space. They were standing in an equatorial orbit, at a height of at least a thousand kilometres.

  Machiko was smiling. “Captivating,” she said.

  Earth Tower One was a cylindrical tower, whose gently curving wall had a diameter of several kilometres. But that was nothing compared with its length, for it tapered away down, down, down - until it disappeared into the mist somewhere over Afri’tra. It continued all the way to the surface.

  “How high are we now?” Chen asked curiously.

  “Two thousand kilometres,” Machiko said.

  Chen looked upward, and saw the tower dwindle away until it became a glittering thread against the blackness of space, and she knew that it continued all the way to a geostationary orbit, thirty-six thousand kilometres above the Equator. She pointed towards the distant thread reaching up from the eastern horizon.

  “That must be Earth Tower Two.”

  Machiko nodded. “Yes - built by the Third Faction. We must look exactly the same to them.” There were five Earth Towers in total, built during the reign of Damarus and collectively referred to as ‘the Array’. It served as a last-resort weapon of defence, a planetary superweapon, should the Earth ever suffer another asteroid collision such as that which caused the Apo’calupsis.

  “Welcome back, my friends.”

  Lora and Machiko turned away from the window to see Ammold Paramo standing behind them, wearing the formal black uniform of the Terran Alliance Council, and the insignia of Warmaster. He was eighty-two years old. His grey hair was cut short, exposing the entire length of the scar that ran up from his right eyebrow well into his hairline. A thin streak of white hair followed the path of that scar, as if to emphasise the maturity that had come too soon in his life, and at great price.

  “Paramo,” Chen smiled, stepping forward to greet him. She hugged him warmly, feeling a special closeness to him. Since the loss of Cris ten years earlier, Paramo had been like a father to her. He’d been there for her when nobody else could reach her, radiating an empathy from his very core - something that she alone could see. “It is good to see you again, my old friend. Machiko and I had quite an experience working with the Nommos people this past week. I only wish the outcome could have been better…”

  “Likewise, Lorelei Chen,” Paramo said.

  Machiko gave the man a proper military salute - her right hand placed over her heart, with the palm facing downwards. “Good day, sir.”

  Paramo nodded, an amused smirk coming over his features. “Please, Machiko. I appreciate you have a long history of service to the military, but you’ve known me long enough now. You can lose the salute.”

  She blinked, then seemed to relax. “Forgive me, Paramo. But I…” She hesitated, unsure of his intentions. “I thought you would be angry with us for failing the mission…”

  Paramo’s face betrayed no emotion as he addressed them both. “I read the report submitted by Grand Admiral Kuolor. The mission was not a failure. The Nephilim was recovered, and the hostages saved - which was the primary objective here, after all. We should take comfort in that. Your secondary objective - the kill-or-capture of Xam Bahr - was a high risk objective, with only a slim chance of success. I will admit to feeling some disappointment in his escape, but try not to be too hard on yourselves. There will be another time.”

  Machiko frowned. “But with all due respect, Paramo, you trusted us. You put your reputation as Warmaster on the line by assuring the Nommos Emperor and his council that we would not fail…”

  Paramo seemed to consider this. He turned away from the two women. “You are still learning,” he observed softly. “But for the moment, let us disregard my reputation, or the opinions of Emperor Khonsu. You were assigned to accompany the fleet to the Sirius Sector, no more. We shall not dwell on what may or may not have been. You are still my best and most trusted agents. Now, Xam Bahr’s escape means the Empyreal Sun will continue to exist, and undoubtedly strike back. We should concentrate on anticipating their next move.”

  Machiko glanced at Chen, unsatisfied with Paramo’s response. Lorelei Chen nodded, accepting the evasion as if she’d expected it. “Agreed. I believe there is more to the Empyreal Sun’s attacks that just random terrorism. Our preparedness can only save lives.” She managed a faint smile, and privately marked yet another difference between her friend’s perceptions and her own. Machiko Famasika had been born in Einek, and served in the Einekian military for several years as a special operative, until she was betrayed by the Church of Damarus in an attempt to silence her over the existence of an ancient artefact. Damarus sentenced her to life imprisonment on the penal asteroid archipelago Daam K’Vosh, and she had spent almost nine years there until Paramo eventually had her released.

  Paramo went and stood by the window. He gazed out at the stars, shaking his head. “It frustrates me that there are still people out there who subscribe to Damarus’ teachings. That they still believe he exists, and influences the universe somehow.”

  Chen took a deep breath, feeling flustered. The memory of Cris flooded to the forefront of her mind. “The Lord Damarus Bible was a huge part of our lives growing up,” she said. “Everything we believe in was based around it. Some of us have found it easier to let go than others. Xam Bahr was not alone in his assertion that the inerrancy of the Third Testament was essential for the One Religion - and was being violated by the Neodisestablishmentarianists.”

  Paramo harrumphed. “You sound like one of them, Lorelei. The Empyreal Sun is a cult of fundamentalist extremists, nothing more. It began innocuously enough, being little more than an offshoot of the orthodoxy. I cannot deny that. But as it grew and mutated, however, and gathered more followers, it turned into something else. Blood rituals? Sacrifices in the name of purification and immortality? Well, you know the history.”

  She nodded. “Indeed.”

  “We need to find out why they have instigated this latest series of incursions,” Machiko suggested, “if we are to anticipate them… if indeed these are more than just random attacks.”

  Ammold Paramo stood for a moment, his scarred face conflicted. He patted her shoulder. “We will find our way to an answer soon, of that I am certain. And tonight will be an excellent time to start. There will be a diplomatic dinner at the Palace, and you would do well to attend. Emperor Khonsu and his entourage will be in attendance. Now, then,” he said briskly, “I suggest that you both get some rest.”

  3

  The Doomsday Rock of 2132 was of a type known as a “dark asteroid.” Its surface was as black as tar and reflected only five percent of the light striking it; to see it with the naked eye was impossible. It had been detected more than a hundred years earlier, in 2007: scientists at the time predicted that the rock posed no unusual level of danger to Earth, at least no more than the hundreds of similar objects detected by their infrared space telescopes. But unbeknownst to them, its orbit was sharply tilted from the plane in which most asteroids and comets lie, and difficult-to-observe physical characteristics were interacting with solar radiation as well as other factors, causing anomalous readings. Nobody knew it was coming straight for Earth because they were looking elsewhere, and their predictive computer models had been grossly inaccurate.

  A grim-faced President Harrison announced, “My fellow Americans, I address you tonight, not as the President of the United States, or as the leader of a country, but as a citizen of humanity. It is with deep regret, and sadness, that I must announce to you the impending collision of a mountain-sized asteroid with the Earth from space. The Bible calls this day the Apocalypse, the end of all things. In our complacency as a species, comfort-wrapped by the technological achievements we thought could have protected us, or given us accurate forewarning… we have all been taken by complete surprise by the unforgiving power of Mother Nature. Scientists have confirmed that this asteroid collision will occur in the late afternoon three days from now - on the Seventh of June, Twenty-One-T
hirty-Two. The North American continent, twenty miles off the coast of Alaska, being the most probable impact point. I am therefore ordering the immediate evacuation of the northern and western states in anticipation of a tsunami of unprecedented scale. In an orderly and calm manner, all citizens will need to move at least two hundred miles inland…”

  Chaos that degenerated into panic resulted from the announcement. Roads leading east became hopelessly congested so that traffic moved at a crawl. Desperate motorists took to the shoulder at break-neck speed. Lines snaked for miles from refuelling stations as people angrily competed for the remaining supplies of hydrogen fuel.

  Airports, trains, and buses left filled to capacity, but failed to reappear for additional trips. Pilots, conductors, and drivers who found themselves safe refused to return. Hundreds of thousands fled on foot, carrying what few possessions they could manage.

  Some refused to evacuate out of disbelief, fear, apathy or even pointless greed. Looting of stores and homes began immediately and went unchallenged. Law enforcement personnel had used their vehicles with sirens to flee the coming catastrophe along with their families.

  From deep within Cheyenne Mountain, the President, his cabinet, and Congress urged cooperation and calm. The Speaker of the House intoned, “Now is the time to put away selfish concerns. Take courage. Work together as the great people that we are. Show integrity and bravery as you help your fellow man.”

  The asteroid arrived at the time predicted, but a few miles closer to the coast. The high-speed impact caused the asteroid to vaporise, deformed the floor of the ocean and instigated a massive breakup of the earth’s crust. Hundreds of cubic miles of water vapour and molten rock were ejected. The debris rained over the entire Earth as incendiary fragments from the blast for several days, causing intense global firestorms. The consequences of reentry of ejecta into Earth’s atmosphere included a brief (hours long) but intense pulse of infrared radiation, killing exposed organisms. Of more immediate concern was the shock wave that demolished thousands of cities, destroying all structures along with animals, and people who had remained. The tremendous heat incinerated the ruined buildings as well as crops, forests and other organic bodies. A tsunami, beyond anything in human history, rose to heights of 400 feet to rush far inland, flooding everything in its path. Wave followed wave. The waters slowly drained again into the sea. At last, only silence prevailed.