by Blaze Ward
28
Valentinian
For once, Valentinian was glad that nobody really felt the need to get wildly experimental in the kitchen, most of the time. Pull something from the freezerbox, run it through the microwave for the correct number of seconds listed on the cover, peel the top, and serve.
His stomach really didn’t need spicy and exotic right now.
“You’re sure?” he asked as Glaxu finished his tale.
“Which part?” the Mondi replied, cocking his head left and then right, like he did when rolling his eyes at someone might seem rude.
“Oh, I assume Butler’s a corpse,” Valentinian laughed. “And good riddance. Probably be worth bribing someone one of these days, if they kept a copy of that fight for their records.”
“They will,” Bayjy spoke up with a grim laugh. “Every time there is a death they have to keep a copy for ten years, in case there’s a lawsuit later.”
“So what is the problem, then, Valentinian?” Glaxu asked.
“How the hell do we deal with something like what she’s building for herself?” Valentinian asked. “Dave, you got any ideas?”
“Run like hell,” the Big Guy offered. “She’s already looking beyond revenge at this point. That’s enough firepower to build her own gang or capture some planet and set herself up for life.”
“And running helps?” Valentinian turned to face him squarely now, pausing only to glance at Kyriaki and see if she had anything to contribute. “While she becomes a pirate queen?”
“It does, actually,” Kyriaki put down her soup and popped her neck once. “Ties her down to a physical location. Limits her reach, at least as far as she had to offer bigger bribes to get people to come after us, since she can’t just chase us if we don’t want to stay put.”
“Is there anything that can stop that ship?” Valentinian looked at each of them in turn.
“My old nest, plus three more like it, would suffer serious casualties in the process of killing her vessel, unless we managed surprise,” Glaxu said calmly.
“A Dominion Shield could mess with her quite nicely,” Dave laughed. “To say nothing of a ZoneStriker. Doubt I’d be able to order someone to chase her down these days.”
The others laughed. It released some of the tension that had built up.
“So what do we do?” Valentinian asked.
He was aware that it would be his decision, but they were committing their own lives if he screwed up, so they needed to be able to be heard.
“Been thinking about options, Vee,” Bayjy spoke quietly.
He turned to her and nodded.
“So we don’t want to head back in the Dominion direction,” Bayjy said. “Laurentia might just welcome her back, but not if she decided to carve out an empire of her own instead of helping fight Dave’s old friends.”
He agreed with that sentiment. So did the others. And the Widow would never settle for being a servant, that much was clear.
“Other direction, we’ve got the sectors where you would find more Mondi nests out being all piratical, like Glaxu here was before,” Bayjy nodded.
Valentinian caught the nod from the Mondi.
“But that leaves us two huge arcs of space to get lost in,” she continued. “Upstream or downstream, depending. We go out one of those and she likely never finds us again, especially if she wants to start her own empire around here.”
“Does she have to stay local?” Kyriaki asked. “Your old captain knew these regions, but with him dead, any place is as good as anywhere else. She could just pick a direction as well.”
“Then we’re playing whack-a-mole, trying to outguess her,” Dave chimed in. “I have no great preference which way we go, as long as it escapes her and my old gang at the same time.”
“Me, too,” Kyriaki added.
Valentinian looked at Bayjy and noted the shadow in the back of her eyes.
“But?” he prompted her.
“I got a gut feeling, Vee,” she said. “It’s still there, under the radioactive sands of Kryuome, whatever it was they put down so long ago.”
“And there’s the risk, isn’t it?” he replied. “The one place the Widow might choose to look for us.”
“That thing’s the size of a Dominion Poniard,” Dave said fiercely. “No way in hell it can land on a planetary surface. Probably had a permanent cargo shuttle or two on blisters, or in one of those boxes Glaxu described. Just because they couldn’t fit Outermost doesn’t mean that they can’t get to the surface. But that monster has to stay in space. Gives us options to run, if she shows up while we’re there.”
“So two votes for Kryuome,” Valentinian said. “Glaxu? Kyriaki?”
“I didn’t kill that M’Rai just to turn around and get cold feet for Dave’s wife,” Glaxu huffed with a laugh. “Let us dig.”
“Rich would be nice,” Kyriaki added.
Valentinian nodded to them, and then himself. It was his ship, at the end of the day. They had chosen to have him as their captain, in charge of their lives, when any of them could have gone elsewhere along the way.
On the one hand, the bad luck to draw the Widow in her new warship, all set to conquer known space. Stacked against it, the chance that they would open an empty hole in the ground, just as the T’Brask muties came rampaging over the hill to kill the infidels that had defiled their holy land.
On the other hand, just the slightest chance of finding true treasure. Screw you money, as his dad had always called it.
The odds were somewhere right up there with drawing a Perfect Arcade on the seventh card.
But he was a gambler. Always had been. Dave had accused him of being able to fall into shit and come out smelling like roses.
Time to put that to the test.
“Pack your hats and suntan lotion, ladies and gentlemen,” his smile seemed infectious, mirrored in the other faces. “Looks like we’re going to the desert.”
About the Author
Blaze Ward writes science fiction in the Alexandria Station universe (Jessica Keller, The Science Officer, The Story Road, etc.) as well as several other science fiction universes, such as Star Dragon, the Collective, and more. He also writes odd bits of high fantasy with swords and orcs. In addition, he is the Editor and Publisher of Boundary Shock Quarterly Magazine. You can find out more at his website www.blazeward.com, as well as Facebook, Goodreads, and other places.
Blaze's works are available as ebooks, paper, and audio, and can be found at a variety of online vendors. His newsletter comes out monthly, and you can also follow his blog on his website. He really enjoys interacting with fans, and looks forward to any and all questions—even ones about his books!
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Also by Blaze Ward
Shadow of the Dominion
Longshot Hypothesis
Hard Bargain
Outermost
Dominion-427
Phoenix
Princess Rualoh
* * *
The Jessica Keller Chronicles
Auberon
Queen of the Pirates
Last of the Immortals
Goddess of War
Flight of the Blackbird
The Red Admiral
St. Legier
Winterhome
Petron
* * *
CS-405
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Packmule
Persephone
* * *
Additional Alexandria Station Stories
&nbs
p; The Story Road
Siren
Two Bottles of Wine with a War God
* * *
The Science Officer Series
The Science Officer
The Mind Field
The Gilded Cage
The Pleasure Dome
The Doomsday Vault
The Last Flagship
The Hammerfield Gambit
The Hammerfield Payoff
* * *
Earth Force Sky Patrol
Birth of the Star Dragon
Flight of the Star Dragon
Call of the Star Dragon
Shadow of the Star Dragon
Trial of the Star Dragon
* * *
Other Science Fiction Stories
Myrmidons
Moonshot
Menelaus
* * *
Earthquake Gun
Moscow Gold
* * *
Fairchild
* * *
White Crane
* * *
The Collective Universe
The Shipwrecked Mermaid
Imposters
About Knotted Road Press
Knotted Road Press fiction specializes in dynamic writing set in mysterious, exotic locations.
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Dominion-427
Shadow of the Dominion: Book 4
Blaze Ward
Copyright © 2019 Blaze Ward
All rights reserved
Published by Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
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ISBN: 978-1-64470-089-1
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Cover art:
ID 40375662 © Luca Oleastri | Dreamstime.com
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Cover and interior design
copyright © 2019 Knotted Road Press
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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