The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

by Drury, Matthew J.

  Kim’s face twisted in confusion. “The Combine?”

  Chen nodded, her jaw locked. “Let us say simply that the Combine are… a malevolent force… responsible for sending the Asterite to your universe. They are searching for you, Kimberley, using the Asterites to flush you out… but it is something that I alone must deal with. Something only I can fix.”

  Kim shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “While it has never been properly explained to me,” Chen continued, “the Combine believe that you are a key to harnessing the power of Damarus, and using that power to their own ends. But I cannot allow them to succeed. In the end… it is I who must destroy Damarus, and rid this world of his evil forever. I have seen it with my own eyes. My… future self…” Her gaze lowered, and she sighed with some heavy emotion. “Therefore, I feel obligated to protect you, Kimberley, to keep you safe from the Combine’s reach. It’s what your father would have wanted, I’m sure. So here you are.”

  Kim frowned. “This is all so confusing.”

  “I understand,” Chen said. “But you have to trust me, Kimberley.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “Now, I have known Paramo here for many years, since long before he became King… he has been like a father and a mentor to me. You should be safe at the Silver City on Earth with him and his wife, Queen Esme, at least for now. The Combine will not think to look for you here.”

  Bursting into accusing laughter, Kim said: “Trust you? But you shot me! When I was eleven years old you shot me!”

  Lorelei Chen tried to ignore the laughter, her voice dropping to a mesmerising buzz. “I’m sorry. Things were different then. I was different. The Combine changed everything. They changed me.”

  Kim found her eyes turning unaccountably hot, and her vision swam with unshed tears. Her entire world – destroyed?

  “What choice do I have?” she whispered.

  Kimberley Stefánsson gazed up at the weathered granite statue guarding the entrance to the royal tombs outside the Silver City. One of the few remaining statues of Lord Damarus (most of them having been smashed or defaced in the years since his ousting), its proud face seemed to scan the wide orange-red sky, which was crystalline and almost cloudless today. The figure was three times her size, yet it still did not reflect the true scope of the grand figure who had once been her father.

  She adjusted her light jacket against the chill morning air. In the past few weeks, she had found herself coming here often. Though press members were never allowed to get too near, she always made sure they got a good look at her in solemn contemplation. To the public, she would seem the good daughter, seeking solace in the memory of her long-dead father. In truth, she was unsure why she came. Perhaps in search of some paternal approval that would never be hers. Any decent person would have perhaps tried to destroy the offensive statue, when they learned their father had become one of the most hated dictators in the history of the world. But against all odds she liked to come here, to gaze upon the thing, maybe because it was her only link to the past.

  “How could you do it, daddy?” she murmured, as though her father could hear her. “I mean I understand your desire to go back to your own time, to be with me and mom again, but... religion? Adding a Third Testament to the Bible? Forging an empire?”

  She shook her head. It seemed so unlike her father. They had never been a church-going family, having a primarily agnostic view of the world. And he had been a journalist for NBC4 News, somebody with no ambitions for power or control. It was as though her father had been possessed by some external force when he changed into this ‘Damarus’, and no one could tell her it wasn’t so. Queen Esme had suggested that perhaps something called an ‘eidolon’ had taken control of him. His rule had apparently extended across some one-hundred-and-fifty inhabited worlds from one end of the Inner Sphere to the other. Through a series of bloody conflicts - lasting a few decades - he had become the legitimate ruler of those scores of planets and cemented himself as some kind of New Messiah. The people feared him for the next two centuries.

  She understood now Lorelei Chen’s obsession with changing the past, the strength of will that forced her to put a bullet in the man’s head, despite her claims to love him more than any man – or woman – she had loved before. Kim tried not to dwell on the dark, subjective feelings that she felt after her father’s murder, the hatred she had built up for Chen over her teenage years, because that would not make things here any easier. As impossible as it seemed, she had to put the whole ordeal behind her, and adapt to life from this new, enlightened perspective.

  You would be proud of me, father, she told him silently. I miss you so much.

  She had no doubt that Cristian Stefánsson would approve of all that she had done since they had parted. Her father loved sports; he had always been a big fan of the Danbury Whalers and the Bridgeport Bluefish and always encouraged her to do more sports when she eventually started high school. She was confident he would have been proud of his daughter’s actions were he still alive.

  Kim wished she could make Lord Damarus’ masked, graven face turn to look at her and acknowledge all she had accomplished. She would have to wait until eternity for that, however. Nothing broke the stillness, and the eyes of stone continued to gaze up into the sky as if she were not even there.

  The crunch of footsteps from behind caught her attention. She looked over her shoulder to see Lorelei Chen approaching.

  “Lora,” she said.

  “Good morning, Kimberley,” Chen said, looking around furtively as though the dead had ears. “How are you coping?”

  Kim turned away from the statue of Lord Damarus. “I’ve been a guest at the Palace for three weeks now, and… it’s not getting any easier, to be honest with you.”

  Chen stood at attention, rocking slightly on her heels. “Oh?”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Kim said. “The King and Queen are very welcoming, very gracious, and my every need is catered for. I have plenty to do; catching up on five hundred years of world history has been a very interesting experience. I just… feel like a spare part around here. I don’t belong in this time, here, in this place. I’m beginning to feel like a prisoner, though I know I’m not.”

  “What you’re feeling is only natural,” Chen said smoothly, “and you’re certainly adapting to things a lot better than your father ever did.”

  Kim looked glum as she glanced at the sky, then back at Chen. “The world has just changed so radically and I’m… still running to catch up.”

  “I wish things could have been different,” Chen said distantly. “I wish none of this needed to happen. But it has, so we both need to be strong until everything is straightened out.” She sighed. “I will be leaving here soon, to search out the Combine, and you’ll have to stay here until I can return. If I return. Travelling across time and dimensions is dangerous and unpredictable, and I can’t guarantee I’ll see you again. My fate is already locked.”

  Kim nodded slowly, a bad feeling spreading through her gut. “What exactly is this ‘Combine’? I’ve asked Paramo about it multiple times, but he doesn’t seem to know.”

  “He wouldn’t.” Chen’s cheeks reddened slightly. A thin bead of sweat was visible on her brow despite the chill in the air. “It would take too long to explain, so I’ll be brief. The Combine exist in a realm entirely separate from our respective universes, and do not usually interfere with the affairs of humans. “But, after… recent events… they… want to use you to their advantage.” A shadow swept over the cemetery as a lone cloud momentarily blocked the sun over the Silver City. “They think they can control things. But they are wrong.” She tried not to let the frustration show on her face.

  Kim wished she could ask her father for advice right now. How would the great Lord Damarus have handled such a strange crisis? She pulled her light jacket closer against the sudden chill in the air. “Thank you, Lora,” she said. “I don’t understand everything that’s going on here, but, I know you want to help. And for
that, I’m grateful.”

  Chen looked at her, then lowered her gaze. “I’m doing this for your father, not for you.”

  Kim glanced again toward her father’s statue.

  “She will fail,” a voice from somewhere seemed to say, but she heard the words more with her inner ear than from without. She could have sworn it was the voice of her father, and a chill of fear shot through her. She spun angrily on Lorelei Chen.

  “What’s wrong?” Chen asked, taking an involuntary step backward.

  “Did you say something?” Kim demanded.

  Chen was looking at her strangely, her head cocked slightly in confusion. “Yes, Kimberley. I said I will not fail.”

  Yes, that was it. She had misunderstood, though she couldn’t explain how Lora’s voice could have sounded so much like her father’s. “Good,” she told her coolly. “And who knows, right? Maybe we will see each other again.”

  Lorelei Chen bowed, then did a brisk about-face, and walked away. Without another look at Lord Damarus’ statue, Kim, too, then started toward the gate in the stone wall that surrounded this area of the cemetery. The chill of a moment before was still in her. When she reached the iron gate, she looked back, nodding to herself, then turned and walked through the gate.

  She made a mental note. After today, she would never come here again.

  5

  AD 2012

  The automobile jolted and lurched along the ruts of the unpaved road as Lorelei Chen squinted briefly at the dying red sun touching the picturesque rural skyline of Bear Mountain, Connecticut. She was driving the archaic vehicle way too fast, and she knew it, but she wanted to get there as soon as possible. It felt wrong being here, in this time, and she didn’t feel comfortable with it in the slightest. Just the thought of what she was forcing herself to do here made her feel sick, even though the finality of it all was fairly compelling. Out of all the different times and places she had visited over the course of the past seven years, since the Xeilig Ark had come into her possession and this maddening journey had begun, this was the first she had found where Cristian Stefánsson would actually be alive and present. This would be her first opportunity to end his life, to alter the course of history for the better.

  At last. After so many random and uncontrolled time jumps…

  Soon it would be dark and she’d have to slow down. The unmarked road twisting through the hills and farmlands would be unlit except for her headlamps - and the stars. Might as well be driving a Zat’utpyt on an uncharted planet, she said to herself with a degree of sarcasm, feeling a sudden and familiar pang of homesickness. Depression threatened to overwhelm her, and she choked back tears. She’d been gone now, on her self-imposed exile across space and time, for seven long years, and she hadn’t seen anybody familiar, or been anywhere close to her own home, in all that time. She was living a different life now, as a loner, a nomad, perhaps… and it never got any easier. The burden she carried. The knowledge of her own destiny. Paramo, Machiko, Cris… at times they all felt like distant memories, and perhaps they were. But she knew this path would come full circle eventually. She had seen it, long ago, with her own eyes. She just had to keep believing, trusting that it would come to fruition as she knew it ultimately would.

  And here she was, now, in 2012… Was this where the endgame would truly begin? Would her actions here be the catalyst that propelled her on that final journey?

  Eventually, the unmarked sedan coasted to a stop at the end of a long driveway that led to a modestly landscaped farmhouse deep in rural New Haven. The clock on the dash told her it was a few minutes past midnight. According to the information she’d been given, this was the place where she’d find him. Bashford Lane House. Taking a deep breath, she switched off the vehicle’s engine, and the headlamps.

  She sat in complete darkness for a long time, preparing herself for what she knew she had to do. On her lap was the small mousegun - a Kel-Tec P-32 ACP semi-automatic pistol, acquired from an ammunitions store in New York two days previously for this very moment.

  It wouldn’t be easy.

  She loved him so much.

  Lorelei Chen awoke to the sound of distant voices.

  “Come on, Kim! Where are you?” A woman’s voice.

  Then, “Kimberley! Breakfast is ready! Don’t let it get cold!”

  The second voice, she knew, belonged to Cris. It was him. The recognition roared through her body like a thunderclap. It had been so long since she’d heard his voice, and she had underestimated exactly how it would make her feel after all this time. A mixture of anxiety, dread, and excitement simultaneously rippled through her gut, and she swallowed dryly. Taking a slow, deep breath, she slid the pistol into a vertical slit on her combat suit, clicked open the car door and stepped into the morning heat.

  Calmly, she walked down the long, dusty driveway toward the farmhouse. It was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies, but Chen didn’t seem to notice. Her expression was grim: her jaw locked, eyes wide, nostrils flared. Determined, she stepped onto the porch and knocked at the farmhouse door, surveying the immediate vicinity. Evidence of happy times: a basketball rim above the garage door, bikes parked at attention. A wheelbarrow full of plant pots sitting by a large shed.

  Such a shame.

  The front door opened, but the door chain was still latched. Through the crack an attractive blonde woman somewhere in her mid-thirties peered out at the stranger. “Yes?”

  Chen, taken aback, forced a smile. “Mrs… Stefánsson, I presume?”

  “Who wants to know?” came the stark reply.

  Chen’s mind reeled. She never imagined she would ever have to meet his wife. She lied, picking the first thing that came into her mind. “Doctor Lorelei Chen, ma’am. I’m from the hospital.”

  The door slammed closed. Chen snorted, and was about to knock again, when it swung back open. Alexis Stefánsson, still in her housecoat, her hair matted from sleep, scrutinised the strangely-dressed woman coldly. But a moment later, her fierce expression began to melt into one of pain.

  “Wipe your feet,” she said, then disappeared around the corner into the kitchen. Lorelei Chen obeyed her orders, then came into the house. Immediately the smell of cooked breakfast assailed her nostrils, and she realised, fleetingly, that she hadn’t eaten in days. The living room, decorated almost exclusively in white, was a shrine to tidiness. An elderly woman wearing some kind of portable ventilation apparatus sat in a corner, struggling to breathe. Unfortunately, the man she was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

  “Mrs. Stefánsson, is your husband at home?” Chen asked innocently.

  From the kitchen, the sound of something being sliced on a chopping block could be heard. “Yes he is,” Alexis answered. From the tone of her voice it was clear that something bothered her. There was an aura of sadness in the air, of resignation.

  After another uncomfortable moment, Chen asked the woman, “Ma’am, do you think I might be able to speak with him?”

  “You can try. Last door, end of the hall,” she said, and continued her cutting.

  Moving through the living room, Chen passed a mantel full of carefully arranged photos, each one in a frame. She picked one of them up: a dozen people at a backyard pool party making goofy faces into the camera. The stark contrast between the explosion of life in the picture and the absence of it in the house was spooky. She carefully replaced the frame and went on.

  At the end of the hall, she found an open door leading into another orderly room. This one appeared to be some kind of study location, judging from the desktop computer system and the neatly stacked piles of paperwork. Here, Chen found what she was looking for. Sitting in a wooden chair, staring through the window at the tractors working the meadows beyond the backyard, was a barefoot, shirtless, unshaven man wearing only a pair of blue jeans. His greasy hair was down to his collar. He looked like a shadow of the Cristian Stefánsson she had once known.

  Walking into the room, Chen couldn’t stop herself from gasping loudly
. “Cris!” she blurted. “What happened to you?”

  This long-haired, out-of-shape, watery-eyed man looked like he was strung out on drugs. But then, she realised, maybe he was. He was suffering with a terminal case of colorectal cancer, after all, and probably had just months, if not weeks, to live.

  After a long pause, Cris turned his head to look at her. His eyes were so lifeless, he barely seemed to understand she was even there. “Who the hell are you?” he said. “Why are you here?”

  Chen hesitated. She felt lucid. It took everything she had to stop herself rushing toward him and embracing him as her lover. “I… I love you,” she said. “Come away with me, Cris. Maybe… Maybe it’s not too late for us. Maybe I don’t have to do this anymore…”

  The expression on Cris’ face made her immediately regret it. What was she thinking? Panicking, her hand moved to the vertical slit in her combat suit, gripping the cold steel of the pistol within. With a quick motion she pulled out the weapon, pointing the barrel straight at his head.

  Then, before Cris could react, something happened. Something unexplainable. The farmhouse seemed to be warping around them, changing shape, rippling as though it were nothing more than a desert mirage.

  “What…?” Cris threw out his hands, trying to desperately steady himself on a surface that was uneven and moving. “What is this? What’s going on?”

  A moment later, the farmhouse was gone - vanished. They found themselves standing on a patch of wet, grey sand outside in the driveway, sand that hadn’t been there before. Everything was dark, cold, and a torrential rainstorm had begun.

  The timeline… Chen thought, frowning, trying to make sense of it all. Something must be happening to the timeline… But how was that possible? Have I changed things simply by being here?