Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series (41 page)

As soon as the stars solidified into a steady arrangement and the
Fossa
whipped into humanity’s old stomping grounds, two things happened.

First, Strange triggered their planned burn, putting them on a trajectory toward Earth. Then, seconds later, a Terran Confederacy gunship thrust itself after them. It had been hovering close to the gate, waiting. Three stinger drones broke off from the Confed gunship and blasted ahead, closing the distance with the
Fossa
.

“About the welcome I expected,” Davin said. He felt his throat tighten and his buttocks clench.

Once the trajectory adjustment burn ended and weightlessness returned, Sierra unclipped from her restraints behind him and held herself between the pilot and copilot’s seats. Strange chomped hard on her gum, eyes glued to the radar screen.

“Jellyfish’re haulin’ ass,” she muttered at the three-dimensional rendering of the stingers closing in on them—bulbous bodies perforated with torpedo holes and trailing long, rippled tails.

“Those things freak me the hell out,” Davin said as their tails splayed into flexible tentacles.

“I remember seeing those,” Sierra said with a faraway look. “When I came to Earth for pilgrimage. They escorted us from the gate to Earth. Probably twenty or thirty of them.”

“Wonder if we’re lucky or unlucky to only have three,” Strange mused.

The video message request icon flashed on the copilot’s screen. “We’re about to find out,” Davin said, then cleared his throat and opened the line. A young Mandarin woman with a neat bob haircut appeared on the screen. She wore a high-collared uniform bearing a Confed symbol pin. Her jawbones protruded inside her cheeks, and her eyes stared with practiced distrust. Since the officer didn’t speak, Davin decided to fill the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m the captain of the
HCC
Fossa
. My name is Davin. We are inbound to the South Levant Spaceport on Earth.”

“State your business on Earth, Mister Davin . . . ?”

“De la Fossa,” Davin replied. “You can just call me Davin.”

“That is your last name?” the Confed officer asked. “‘De la Fossa?’”

“That’s what I go by,” Davin said. “We’re here for business purposes.”

The stinger drones had caught up to the
Fossa
and matched its speed. They drifted closer, tentacles out, already grasping for the Orionite clipper’s hull.

“Please be more specific, Mister de la Fossa.”

“We’re here to see Ernesto Kyger from XM Industries,” Davin said. “Their office is in the Intrasolar District of Dubai.”

“Please stand by.” The officer’s face was replaced by a slow-spinning Confed symbol.

Meanwhile, the magnetic tips of stinger tentacles thunked against the
Fossa’s
hull, one by one, until the jellyfish cords held them from every angle. Attached at probably eighteen places. Davin was too nervous to count. Palms sweaty and legs jittery and mind flitting around like an aggressively caffeinated butterfly.

He swallowed and brushed his fingers through his hair—longer than he remembered. The check was taking a while.

“Come on, Ernie,” he murmured. “Come through for me.”

At the last nexus, he’d sent a message ahead to his old mentor and sex guru, asking for a favor.
Another
favor. Davin figured from all the commotion in the news about the fighting in Sagittarius, the Confed would be on high alert. Seemed like they were always on high alert about something or another, which is why Davin usually kept his distance from the Sol system. He only knew one solitary soul on the Pale Blue Dot, and that was Ernie Kyger the Sex Tiger. Davin hadn’t seen him in years, since Ernie left his clients at Golding in the capable hands of Jimmy Powers to take a job at XM Industries on Earth—an intrasolar import-export company. Jumped quite a few rungs on the ladder. Davin hoped the guy wasn’t too good for him now.

“Who’s that?” Sierra asked from behind. “Ernesto Kyger.”

“Old friend of mine,” Davin said. “Used to do business with him.”

“What kind of business?”

“Machine parts, ship parts, engine parts.” He shrugged, welcoming the distraction. “Anything and everything really. As long as it was valuable enough for his time.”

“He found buyers for our scrap,” Strange clarified.

Sierra tipped her head back in comprehension. “Ah. Got it.”

The waiting grew more painful every second. They were already on a swift path to Earth, traveling at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. But the stingers could stop that at any time. They could jolt the
Fossa
into submission with concentrated mini-EMP bursts through their tentacles. Cripple the ship and usher it into Martian or lunar orbit, where Davin would be at their mercy. He hoped the fact he had come this far showed the Terrans he wasn’t a threat. But the Confed had been hardened through its constant struggle against every form of terrorist group known to mankind. They had to be suspicious of everyone, especially those from outside their territory.

To them, it must have looked odd—an old, deep-Orionite clipper without any Confed ID signal careening into the inner system and burning a path straight to Earth. If Davin were an anti-terrorist watchman, that would trigger something.

The Mandarin officer came back on the screen, even colder this time. “Mister de la Fossa, we have no documents recorded for your arrival. Mister Ernesto Kyger has not filed any temporary business forms for you, nor has your ship been registered for orbital or spaceport parking. We have nothing. Let me ask you again: What is your business in the Sol system? If you don’t give me a straight answer this time, I’ll have to immobilize you.”

She sounded as if she hoped Davin would lie.

Davin forced his dry mouth to swallow. “Could you please ping Ernie—Ernesto’s office? He can verify my business on Earth. I’m here for strictly legal, commercial purposes. Ernesto can verify that.”

He hoped.

The officer frowned in annoyance. Protocol must have forced her to check Davin’s alibi before giving him the shock treatment. “Please stand by.” She disappeared, and the Confed symbol returned.

Strange sank back in her seat. “Well, folks, we’re gonna be waiting awhile. If they gotta shoot a message to Earth and wait for Earth to shoot one back to us, we’re looking at probably an hour of radio silence.”

Davin let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.

“What’s your real name?” Sierra asked.

“What?” Davin asked.

“Your surname,” she clarified. “What’s your real surname?”

“‘Surname?’” He laughed. “It’s like you came straight from Victorian England.”

Sierra rolled her eyes. “Come on, don’t act like you’ve never heard the term before. You’re not
that
much of a barbarian, are you?”

Strange’s face lit up. “Ohhh! About time somebody called him out.”

Davin felt his cheeks flush. “Alright, Strange. Simmer down. Let’s be adults.”

The pilot held up open hands. “Wha—? You’re the one who doesn’t know what
surname
means.”

“Of course I know what it means!” Davin exclaimed, defensively yet unable to suppress a grin. “Don’t insult me!”

“Alright,
last name
,” Sierra said teasingly. “How about that? You know what that means, right?”

Davin crossed his arms, still on edge somewhere deep down but enjoying the pleasant diversion. “Go ahead. Doggy pile on Davin. It’ll make you two feel better about yourselves.”

Strange popped her feet onto the side of the dashboard. “I do feel better about myself. I feel better about myself every time you talk, Cap.”

“Your cut of the next haul just went down by five percent,” Davin shot back.

“That’s fine. I’ll just do some barrel rolls when you’re asleep. Waste some fuel on a joyride to make up for it.”

“But seriously,” Sierra said. “I’m curious.”

Davin shrugged. “Eh. It’s a long story.”

Strange recoiled. “Pssh. No it’s not, Cap.” She twisted in her seat to look at Sierra. “He doesn’t want to go by his dad’s last name, and his mom’s last name has the word ‘dick’ in it.”

“What?” Sierra said with a light giggle. “What’s his mother’s last name?”

The copilot’s screen flashed back to the officer. Davin let out a breath—saved by the bell.

“Mister de la Fossa.” Her face had loosened to a state of mere mild annoyance. “Just moments ago, we received confirmation of your temporary business documentation and spaceport parking registration. Your friend has good timing.” She flashed the thinnest of smiles. “Welcome to Sol.”

The connection cut off. Davin felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He melted into his seat as a wave of sweet relief tingled through his skin. A series of pops vibrated the hull as the stinger tentacles detached. On the rendering screen, Davin watched as the cords drew back together into tails and the stingers drifted away, dissolving into the black abyss.

The cockpit stayed quiet for a while.

Sierra stirred. “So . . . your mother’s last name?”

Sagittarius Arm, near Upraad . . .

Kastor brooded in the champion’s seat of the
Aegis’s
bridge. In the deep, black distance out the windshield, three-quarters of Upraad glowed iron red and shadowed a dozen pellets in its orbit. A zoomed-in section of the smartglass showed tiny flashes flickering at one point of the planet. Bombardment.

Velasco’s armada had arrived ahead of him.

Inside the bridge, between the
Aegis’s
helmsmen and technicians, the severe visage of the Grand Lumis spoke in a holo display, head tilted down and eyes piercing like diamond-tipped drills, boring straight into Kastor’s heart.

“If she lives to be crowned Queen Matriarch . . . I will name you my heir. But if she dies . . . If she dies, you will no longer have a place in my employ.”

The hologram blinked out, leaving Zantorian’s icy glare imprinted in Kastor’s mind. Silence surrounded him, suffocated him. Eyes watched him from every angle, waiting for orders. Off to the side, a young communications officer stood wearing an intense expression.

“Master Champion, the
Cygnus
has sent us orders to stand down! Do not interfere.”

Kastor gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t matter what Swan says. Our orders come straight from the Grand Lumis.”

At the central nav panel, Commodore Vanora glared in defiance. “Lord Velasco is acting within his legal rights. We’d be fools to get in his way.”

Kastor’s fist clenched. “He wouldn’t fire on the
Aegis
, on the champion of his lumis.”

“Don’t test him, Kastor,” Vanora warned. “He’s gone this far.”

Kastor’s gaze swerved back to the windshield and the scene beyond. His life hung in the balance of that glowing orb. That pathetic rock. That foolhardy half-commoner and the half-sister with a soft spot for him. But Kastor had no time to dwell on such things.

“Prepare for full burn,” he commanded. “Arcing pattern. I want to curve into them as fast as our engines will take us. All personnel prep for combat. Drop teams, get to the landers and prepare for launch. No, not landers. Husks. Get in the husks. We’ll slip through their fingers like sand.”

Vanora pursed her lips and shook her head. “That’s a suicide run, Kastor. And you know it.”

“It’s only a suicide run if your guns are slower than Swan’s.”

Vanora jabbed a finger at the windshield, where battleship silhouettes steadily grew. “That’s Swan’s entire armada! Our deflectors can’t handle that much firepower!”

Kastor unclipped himself from his seat. “Tell your pilot to fly fast and nimble. You have your orders.” He surged out of the bridge before Vanora could object again and raised his comm cuff. “Trajan, prepare my armor.”

“
We aren’t a lightweight clipper ship, Kastor!
” Vanora shouted after him, voice ricocheting in the confined space. “
We’re eleven thousand tons of solid metal!
”

Kastor pressed on through the tight corridors. “Time to earn your glory, Commodore!”

Time to earn his own.

And Eagle’s.

And Pollaena’s.

On Upraad . . .

Maxwell’s vision blurred in staticky, horizontal lines as his optic software reconfigured. Damaged. Could be irreparable. His software twitched with intense speed, searching for a remedy. Should have automatically resolved by now. Instead, all he saw was scintillating points of light and a frozen strata of lines updating every few seconds.

He shook off a bout of panic. This blindness would not last. His visual drive would recover. It would repair itself. He concentrated on his body sensors. Most of the sensors in his legs and arms had been crushed. Rocks piled high enough to keep him pinned down. One boulder especially, pressing down on his entire left arm and part of his back. Mobility mechanics pulverized all down that arm. Weapon not functional. He tried pulling in his right arm. It budged closer, then rocks slid and fell onto the pile, immobilizing him at the elbow and wrist.

His head ached. Too much pressure on the cranium. BMI hardware in the middle of a rapid reboot, heating back to full speed, cooking his brain in the process. Hard to think. Had to get help.

Rumaya
, he dispatched on her personal channel.
Rumaya, are you picking this up? Please confirm.

Nothing. He ran diagnostics on his dispatch software, waited several minutes for a result. Dispatch system not responding.

This is Maxwell, is anyone picking this up?
he dispatched across all channels, a desperate yet impassive cry for help.
If anyone is picking this up, please send help. I’m pinned down under rocks at—
His tracking coordinates kept changing, one longitude and latitude then another then another.
—somewhere near the forward trench on the Western embankment. Please send help.

He didn’t want to die here. Not like this. He had seen it approaching from a vast distance, but up close it terrified him. This wasn’t how he’d envisioned it. He had more work to do. His teammates still lived, still hid inside the palace mount, waiting to fight in the tunnels. His mind reeled, yearning to be with them, to fight and fall alongside them.