Dark Dominion: Immortal

The opening to the Dark Dominion Sequence, Immortal, follows Sarai—a former slave turned elite operative with psychic powers and an impossible pregnancy—as revolutionary factions hail her as their prophesied liberator and her unborn daughter the rightful heir destined to overthrow a theocratic empire.

Sarai has Jazz Bashara’s sarcasm from Artemis, faces moral questions as impossible as Rin’s in The Poppy War, and survives with the determination of Violet in Fourth Wing—only here the stakes are maternal protection and galactic revolution.

For readers seeking the sophisticated political intrigue of A Memory Called Empire and Ancillary Justice with the emotional intensity of romantasy and thriller pacing, this is space opera where a mother’s refusal to surrender her daughter becomes the weapon that shatters a galaxy-spanning lie.

Chapter One

Dawn had broken on the horizon, but it would be hours before sunrise, and the sky to the west was still black and specked with stars. Captain izn Dagan studied the bloated shadow of the gas giant hanging low in the northeast and the endless sea of red sand dunes stretching as far as the eye could see.

“She’s late,” the shorter man beside him said. He shared Dagan’s rich olive complexion and tawny hair, but there the similarities ended. Standing together, the captain and his first mate resembled a bull beside a weasel.

“Not yet,” Dagan replied, squinting to the southeast.

His first mate pulled his coat tighter against the cold and shuffled his feet.

“Nervous, Aminar?” the captain asked.

“’Course I’m cursed nervous. You aren’t?”

“No…” Dagan glanced back at the five hulking, dusky Zeshese mercenaries spread out behind him, each kitted in combat armor and carrying a pulse rifle, their long red hair tied up in traditional topknots. “No, not nervous. She’s only one woman.”

“If your informant’s right, she’s more than that. She’s a cursed Dominion agent. An Entity operative. And not just any operative. He warned you.” Aminar traced a star over his chest and spit into the sand to ward off evil. “She’s an—”

“Immortal?” Dagan barked a laugh. “A saahira? Demon-possessed? That’s all propaganda and myth. How many years have we been working the Fringe, you and I? We’ve had plenty of Dominion entanglements and never once run into anyone who could move objects with their mind, stop a heart with a touch, conjure fire, or”—he waved his hand irritably—“any of that nonsense.”

“My grandmother knew a saahira when she was a girl. A boy in her village.”

“Did they burn the poor thing or drown it?”

“Burn, but—”

“Superstition and ignorance. Do you really think people with powers like that exist? That The Name collects them as children and raises them up to be his personal killers? It’s Dominion propaganda to keep the slaves and serfs in line. Nothing more. ‘Eat your nukh and go to sleep or the destroying angels will get you!’ Don’t be a child, Aminar.”

His first mate muttered something under his breath and coughed into his sleeve. Dagan noticed a smudge on the southeastern horizon and pointed.

“See? Here she comes.” He turned back to his security detail. “Stay sharp, men.”

“Should’ve brought more,” Aminar said, looking back at the mercenaries briefly before returning his gaze to the approaching dust plume.

“They’re enough. More would be a waste of good klash.” Dagan chewed on his lip and loosened the blaster in its holster at his side. He’d considered simply calling the whole thing off when his informant had revealed the woman was a Dominion plant, but he had customers waiting on the merchandise she was delivering. Better to take her out here and now and secure the goods. One less spy to worry about. The galaxy would be better for it, and so would his purse. Zeshese muscle was expensive, but he’d still come out ahead.

But if she was really an Immortal… 

He gave a mental shake of his head. Those demons were myths and propaganda. He’d been running guns and flesh for thirty standard years and had never seen one. Never knew anyone reputable who had.

Because no one lives to tell about it, he imagined Aminar arguing, and he frowned as the approaching cargo skimmer came into view.

The bulky craft stopped a hundred meters away, hovering on its repulsors, and a figure wearing heavy robes and a face wrap hopped out of the cockpit and landed softly on the sand. It was clear she was a woman by the way she walked as she approached them, and she was a small one at that.

Dagan forced a smile as she drew near, stopping a few paces away. She really was quite a short woman, not much over a meter and a half tall. He relaxed slightly. Taking her would be easy.

She removed her goggles and unwrapped her scarf, revealing a surprisingly youthful face with a deep russet complexion. Her freckles only made her look younger.

“Izn Dagan,” she said with a curt nod.

“A pleasure to meet you in person, Samira izt Kalib,” he replied with a slight bow. “Please, call me Yarid. This is Aminar izn Rashid, my first mate. You’re late. Trouble getting past Ekron Control?”

“No trouble.” She motioned back to the cargo skimmer, where coolie bots were unloading crates. “I have the cargo. Do you have my klash?”

He patted his coat pocket. “Half kilo of klashium bullion, as agreed.”

She held out her hand, but the captain raised a finger. “Not until I inspect the merchandise.”

Her hand dropped and she narrowed her dark, angular eyes, but one corner of her mouth twitched in a half-smile.

“You wouldn’t be thinking about double-crossing me, now, would you, Captain?”

He shot her a pained expression. “I should hope my reputation precedes me. I may be a gunrunner and flesh smuggler, but my word is my bond. Every slipstreamer from here to Batilbasa knows that. Trust is our currency, no? Without that…” He spread his hands. “Well, that’s just bad for business.”

She motioned to the five men behind him. “And them? That’s a lot of muscle. I came alone, in good faith.”

He shrugged and gave a sigh. “Trust only goes so far, Izt Kalib. You know my reputation, but yours is a bit…” He waggled a hand. “It’s a work in progress, let’s say.”

“You know my associates well enough.”

“True, but it’s always best to be prudent when meeting new friends.”

“Fair enough.” She motioned back to the cargo skimmer again. “Shall we?”

He fell into step beside her, with his first mate at her other side. He knew his security would be spreading out behind them, but that was only a precaution at this point. No matter what training she had, he was confident he could take her down and restrain her alone.

“You’re Wibuiti,” he said. “Most of your people are from this moon, I believe.”

“Yes, I was born here, on Kartum. But my parents weren’t serfs, and emigrated when I was young to Ain Mallaha in the Core.”

“Ah, Freeborn then. One of the lucky few among our race.”

“And you? Kheylan, no?”

“Indeed. But not Freeborn. A runaway. As is Aminar.” He pulled his collar up higher against the cold morning wind. “Dismal, barren place, Kartum. No offense intended.”

“None taken.” She gazed over at the light in the eastern sky. “It is a dismal little rock. Never thought I’d come back here.”

She sounded careless, distracted and lost in thought, and he quickly sidestepped behind her and moved to lock up her arms and take her down to the ground.

Except she somehow anticipated his attack and was now facing him, circling around with a low snap-kick to his knee that shattered it as she batted his hands away.

He fell backward, stunned and gasping in pain as her elbow connected with his head, and was vaguely aware of her producing a holdout blaster from the folds of her robes.

Aminar’s head exploded before he could react, and she moved in a smooth half crouch past his body as it dropped, sending searing bolts toward one of the Zeshese bodyguards. The air reeked of the sharp tang of ozone and nitrocellulose as the other four men returned fire, which she somehow—impossibly, Dagan thought dimly—anticipated and dodged.

Two men were already falling from multiple shots to the head as she tossed aside the discharged blaster before throwing a knife she’d materialized from… somewhere… at the man nearest her, hitting him in the throat.

A lucky burst from his pulse rifle struck her in the leg before he collapsed, and she stumbled, rolled, and then launched herself back to her feet with a slight limp.

And then… the captain wasn’t sure… but it seemed the knife flew back into her hand as one of the remaining two mercenaries rushed forward, slamming his rifle into her, backed by the full brunt of his massive hundred-and-ten-plus-kilo frame. He towered over her a full forty centimeters, but she checked him with a heel-palm strike that shattered his chest plate before nimbly flowing around him, slashing at the back of his leg with her knife, and hamstringing him before delivering multiple rapid blows to his kidney in a spray of hot blood.

The remaining Zeshese man hit her solidly in the back with a burst from fifteen meters that sent her sprawling face-down in the sand. That should’ve finished her, even if she was wearing a combat skin under her robes, but she rolled and leapt back onto her feet, anticipating and dodging a second burst as she closed the distance in a blur, pressing the attack, her knife held in a reverse grip as she struck.

The man lashed out with a devastating roundhouse kick—yet she blocked it with a mere flick of her hand. He followed with a powerful left hook and she flowed into it, slashing his forearm and severing his tendons. Then he jammed his rifle up against her chest and dumped the rest of his magazine into her.

She staggered backward, her robes stained with red, blood streaming from her nose, panting like an animal.

Dagan fumbled for the blaster at his side and raised it as he tried to scoot back—anything to get more distance from this woman who should’ve been dead half a dozen times over.

This witch.

This… saahira.

The mercenary was backing up, swapping magazines, when the demon woman, the Immortal, staggered forward in a rush and lunged up to grab his throat. His body seized as blood erupted from his eyes, ears, and mouth.

The captain shook his head clear and took aim, firing a bolt that sizzled past her head. He fired again and she jerked right, spinning weakly to face him. Their eyes locked as he squeezed the trigger, shifting his aim.

And missed.

Again.

She extended a hand, and his blaster was wrenched from his grip, spinning through the air. She caught it and cast it aside, moving toward him.

He scooted back further, panic clouding his mind as she inexorably closed the distance.

Then he remembered the holdout blaster holstered behind his back. She was moving slowly, and stumbled, falling to one knee. He reached for his backup weapon and snap-fired, hitting her in the chest. She grunted and tried to rise, but fell back to her knees.

He shot her again, and she reached out a weary hand.

Captain izn Dagan felt his heart skip a beat… and then stop completely. Color drained from his face as his vision tunneled. His last thought was to shift aim and pull the trigger. 

And the last thing he saw before he died was the back of her head erupting as her body fell, lifeless, to the ground.

---

I am currently seeking representation for Dark Dominion: Immortal.

Stay tuned for updates!