Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series (46 page)

A blue light blinked in the neckband of Kastor’s suit. It had been blinking for a while, but he’d ignored it when he had more pressing concerns. Now those concerns were dead. He pressed the button on the outside of his neckband to turn his comm back on.

“
—can’t make our way to you yet
,” Gregor, the new drop team leader, said. “
Maybe your input device has been damaged. If you can hear me but can’t reply, signal by switching your comm feed on and off
.”

“Gregor, I can hear you,” Kastor replied. “Do you read me?”

“
Yes! Yes, Master Champion, I read you. Are you alright? Your vitals tracker puts you down in . . . some big room by the river.
”

“It’s the palace banquet hall,” Kastor said. “Yes, I’m alright. How many of us made it down?”

“
Uh, elev—well, there are six of us now. That’s all that matters. We managed to get six clean kills and put on some Swan combat suits. We’re about to commandeer a shuttle from the landing pad. Once we have it we’ll find a place to pick you up. Do you have the princess?
”

Kastor’s eyes flicked to Seraphina’s corpse.

“She’s dead.”

“
Shit. I’m sorry, Master Champion. What do you want us to do?
”

“Get the shuttle,” Kastor said. “Pick me up by the river. We need to slip through the blockade before Swan discovers I’m here. They probably think I stayed on the
Aegis
.”

“
Yes, Master Champion. On our way.
”

Kastor locked eyes with Abelard. For a long time, neither spoke. No words seemed appropriate.

“You should go,” Kastor said finally. “Swan troops will sweep every room of the palace.”

Abelard’s lips moved for a moment without forming speech. “Sera . . .”

Kastor inhaled a long breath. He and this halfblood bastard now suffered the same fate—lifemates taken from them far sooner than they should have been. Only Abelard’s lifemate was a half-sister, and Kastor’s was a lover. His eyes drifted to Guarin, and Kastor realized that the Swan warrior had tasted this bitter fate, too. Their mates had all perished by violence.

Kastor staggered when he realized another bond that connected them. Each of the four of them—living or dead—had killed nobility. Kastor had killed his beloved Pollaena. Abelard had killed Radovan. Seraphina killed Guerlain. And now Guarin had put a bullet through Seraphina’s head—along with his own.

A cycle of death, ending in death.

Kastor knelt over Seraphina’s body, grabbed her rough-woven shirt, and ripped a strip off the bottom, wide enough to cover her face. He wrapped the cloth around her head and tied it in the back. It hid the gruesome wounds well enough. Kastor slid his hands under her neck and knees and lifted. He noticed that her head felt especially light as he made his way to Abelard.

The Upraadi man straightened. His forlorn eyes watched Seraphina approach. Kastor eased her body into Abelard’s arms and stepped back. Abelard stared at the cloth that traced the contours of Seraphina’s face. He looked far older now with such deep lines in his forehead and cheeks. Aged by death and defeat.

“Go,” Kastor commanded.

He watched as Abelard hobbled away, Seraphina’s slender form pressed against his chest, returning to what little world he had left.

But if Kastor’s own life was any guide, even that would crumble soon enough.

Freyz held his folded cloak with one arm and took ginger steps across the battlefield, now quiet and still.

The mountains formed a rocky bowl, sloping to the downed spaceplane on the far side of the valley. Bodies still donning proud, white combat armor littered the uneven path downward. Well-placed shots had punctured their suit joints and left wine-red stains smearing chestplates and running down the rocks. Hundreds of Swan soldiers had come to rest in this valley, sacrificed for their lord. Only a few dozen still stood, lining the ridge or searching the smoldering plane.

Once at level ground, Freyz let his cloak fall behind his back to its normal length, no longer afraid of tainting it with blood. He couldn’t detect any more bodies in the field of boulders protruding up past each other like tombstones. Neither had he seen a single stalk of flora on this barren planet, nothing that could snag or soil his appearance. Soldiers needed a vision of glory after a hard-fought battle. As their Lord General, Freyz owed them that.

He leaped over a gap between rocks and walked into a new scene: metallic bodies, half-hidden behind their rocky cover, strewn around the wrecked plane. Mechanical hands and fingers and vacant black eyes. Machines in the shape of men and women. Broken and damaged parts—limbs, heads, armor pieces—were scattered amongst thicker plane debris. Burn marks and chips in the rock whispered of the battle that had taken place here. Whatever those machine-men were, they had not gone down easy.

A loyalite captain waited by the tail end of the plane. Freyz surveyed the gray craft, finding nothing of interest.

“Where is it?” he asked the captain.

“Up here, m’lord,” the captain replied. “You have to look at it from where I’m standing.”

Freyz stepped across the rocks and came to a stop beside the captain, breathing fast inside his breather mask. He dialed up the power so it would filter faster.

The captain pointed his black-gloved finger at the plane’s tail rudder, dust-coated and damaged from the crash. “It’s there, m’lord. Didn’t notice it at first. Looks like they painted over it.”

Freyz took a few strides closer, narrowing his eyes at the faint color peeking out of the gray. At first, he saw only a sphere, a few splotches of green and blue, a curve of gold. Then he made out letters: “TC.” The symbol became familiar—still lost in a haze of memory, but familiar. He’d seen it before, but where?

The realization cast a dark spell over him. It was obvious. It couldn’t have been anything else. His skin prickled in anger, tempered only by confusion.

“I can’t be sure, m’lord, but it looks like—”

“The Terran Confederacy,” Freyz said.

“That’s what I thought.” The captain stepped closer. “But what would they want with Lagoon?”

“It isn’t your job to ask questions,” Freyz hissed between clamped teeth, annoyed that he didn’t have an answer. “Hail the
Cygnus
. Tell them what you found. Lord Velasco will want to know.”

“Right away, m’lord.” The captain turned and headed back up the slope.

Freyz couldn’t tear his eyes from the symbol, painted over in a quick attempt to conceal its identity. The Terrans thought they could repel Swan’s attack, or at least that they could escape in these planes before anyone could get a good look at them. They thought they could act anonymously—interfere in foreign affairs and reshape the galaxy without consequence or identification.

Freyz made a silent, solemn oath to himself. He would find out why the Terrans did this, and he would make them pay dearly for their vile meddling. He would rain a deluge of death on Earth and any planet allied with them for their subversion.

He would teach them what came from opposing Swan.

Earth, at the South Levant Spaceport . . .

The cityscape of Jerusalem, shimmering and gleaming in the northern distance, inspired a bizarre mix of emotions in Davin. A rolling wave of relief tingled through his skin, but a deep-seated panic also simmered in his chest. Their swashbuckling adventure was about to end. Sierra would link up with her fellow Carinians and go home. War would be averted. The galaxy would breathe a sigh of relief and kick its feet up. Everybody would go back to business as usual.

And Davin could start making money again. At least that. His crew hadn’t gone this long without selling loot in a while.

His nexband vibrated. A vizchat call from none other than Ernie Kyger. His panic doubled. Davin pushed off the suspension bar spanning from the edge of the
Fossa’s
ramp up to the fuselage. He stepped inside the airlock and tried to channel a professional demeanor.

Ernie’s image beamed against a blank space on the wall. Same old Latino face. Same old salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee. He smiled vaguely, leaning back in his desk chair with the Dubai skyline outside the window behind him. Looked like his office was pretty high up.

Davin cleared his throat and spoke in a clear, even voice. “Hello, Ernie, this is Davin.”

Ernie’s face burst with joy as Davin came into view on his end. “Ha! It’s you! I don’t fuckeen believe it!” Same old amusing speech impediment. “Whadda hell are you doing on Earth,
vato
?”

Davin relaxed. Same old Ernie. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain it over drinks in a few days. Anyway, thanks for saving my ass with the Confed.”

Ernie waved it away. “They’re pesky, aren’t they?”

Sierra walked into the airlock wearing a gray peacoat down to her knees, cinched at the waist with a fabric belt. She had fresh facial tattoos again—colorful butterfly curls stretching from her jawline to her temples. She held her hands under her head as if displaying herself for Davin’s approval. A little smile crinkled her cheeks.

He saw a newfound calm in her eyes. A security. A sense of being just a few steps from home.

“Hey Ernie, listen, I gotta go,” Davin said, splitting his glances between Ernie and Sierra.

“Okay, okay,” Ernie said, leaning forward. “Before you go, just tell me this—serious question: you still pulling tens?”

Davin forced a laugh. Sierra gave him a face. “Uh, yeah, we’ll talk about that later.”

“Don’t tell me you’re out of the game,
vato
! You godda ball and chain around your ankle?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Davin said, desperate to end the call. “We’ll talk soon.”

“Come down to Dubai!” His excitement grew every second. “I’ll introduce you to some girls that’ll blow your mind.”

“Alright, bye, Ernie!” Davin ended the call. The image on the wall blinked out. He didn’t even want to look at Sierra. When he finally did, he found her smirking.

The tatts made the twinkle in her blue-green eyes pop. “I think I see why you call him the ‘Sex Tiger.’ Sounds like you’re quite the tiger yourself.”

Davin let out his breath. No use trying to smooth it over. “Ernie and I . . . had some good times. He’s wild. When I’m around him, I just hang on tight and hope I wake up the next morning somewhere I recognize.”

Sierra’s eyes rolled as she shook her head. Still kept the smile though. “I don’t think I could live that life.”

Davin felt a pang of shame. He couldn’t remember ever being around someone so pure, so genuine, so untainted by the dirty world he lived in. His eyes fled hers, resisting contact.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I sounded like a prude just now, didn’t I?”

Davin pursed his lips. “Not at all. We come from different worlds. Different lives.” He managed to look at her again, examining Strange’s tatt work. A truly professional job. “Beautiful.”

Sierra’s lips twitched in a hesitant smile. She breathed a quiet laugh and took a step back.

“The . . . tattoos.” Davin pointed at her face. “Strange did a good job. Even better than last time, I think.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” She exhaled. “She’s good. You should let her do your face sometime.”

Davin laughed. “You think so? Maybe some flowery vines. Big dragon lily on my cheek.”

“I was thinking more like one of those Scottish lions. Bright red.” Sierra stepped closer and touched a finger to his cheek. “One paw stretched out this way, then another going up over your eyebrow. The tail flicking out to your sideburn.”

Her fingers lingered on his face, just long enough to feel something, an openness where before there had been a barrier. A harmony, like guitar strings ringing the same note after hours of tuning. Tension unwound between them and fluttered away, dissipating into the air like steam. Sierra’s warm, sincere eyes looked up at him with no hint of pretense or agenda. Just the simple pleasure of being in his presence and laughing together.

But the moment stretched too long, and Davin hadn’t responded to her move—hadn’t reached out to touch her sides or made another joke to deflate the meaningful silence. He wanted to, and if she had been any other girl he would have. He’d touch her, pull her close, kiss her like he’d never kissed anyone before, let the real world melt away around them. But he didn’t. He froze stiff and did nothing. Why entertain the fantasy that his feelings could ever amount to anything? Why pretend that she wasn’t about to walk out of his life forever? Or that a girl like her and a guy like him could end up together anyway? Davin rummaged through wreckage for a living. Sierra was the prima filia of a galactic nation.

And how could he even know that she was thinking the same thing he was? A touch on the cheek and lingering gaze may have meant something else in her world. For all the sincerity in her eyes, he couldn’t read them, couldn’t discern what she wanted.

So he cleared his throat and ripped his eyes away from her. It felt like ripping a bandage off his heart.

Sierra’s smile receded as she stepped away sheepishly.

“I, uh, I’ve got something for you.” Davin walked to his locker and pulled out a small, leather holster with a black weapon lodged inside. He pried back the magnetic seal, took out the lightweight gun, and extended the handle to her. “Take it.”

Sierra held up her palms and shook her head. “Davin, I appreciate it, but I’m not going to use a—”

“It’s a stunner,” Davin said. “Non-lethal. Don’t think of it as a gun. A shot from this thing could hit a person square in the head and they wouldn’t die. They’d look dead, but they wouldn’t be. It just shocks the body into paralysis for a little while. Long enough to get away.”

Sierra stared at the gun and thought it over. The lines in her face revealed her inner conflict, but clearly she couldn’t come up with any good reasons to turn him down.

“As a last resort,” she murmured, thinking out loud.

“As a last resort,” Davin affirmed.

Her slender shoulders relaxed. “Will you teach me how to use it?”

Davin smiled. “Of course.”