Free Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series by Austin Rogers

to do with the prima filia?”
    Riahn held his smiling gaze on Aisha for a moment, then patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, my boy. We have more work to do.”

The Minister of Unity

Chapter Thirteen
    Elan Falco slammed his fist onto the Izowood desk. “You went behind my back to form a coalition? This is unacceptable!”
    He stood behind his broad, yellow-tan desk, made from the timber of Baha’runa’s signature tree: Izo. Durable as steel yet flexible as rubber, marvelously appropriate for the prime minister. At least Riahn thought so. Elan Falco governed from staunch principles, but his ministerial appointments often swayed him like an Izo tree in the wind. Even now, he scowled in stern disapproval, but the bags under his puffy eyes spoke volumes of his frailty. Family men did not make for the kinds of politicians who led galactic superpowers.
    Lexar Tahn, the dutiful Minister of Justice, sat in a chair beside Falco’s desk, legs crossed and fingers steepled, features furrowed in a concerned grimace. Clearly, he sided with the prime minister, as most Unificationists inevitably would. Riahn, on the other hand, was unique—a bridge-builder among islanders, neither partisan nor ideologue.
    “Now, hold on, Mister Prime Minister,” Riahn said with open palms. “It wouldn’t be accurate to say we went behind your back . You’ve just lost your eldest daughter. We wanted to be sensitive.”
    Ulrich Morvan, sitting in the next chair over, added in a soft voice, “If I were in your position, I’d want to spend this time grieving, not politicking.”
    Falco relaxed a bit, sighed, and slumped into his seat. “Believe me, I’d like to grieve. It’s all I feel capable of right now. But I have a job to do, and I want to do it. When my ministers withhold crucial information from me, like forming a war coalition, I can’t very well do my job, can I?”
    Tahn, draped in the pristine white of his former appointment as a House of Justice councilman, drew in a sharp breath. “What bothers me most,” said the minister, some hodgepodge of Asian-Pacific races Riahn couldn’t pinpoint, “is the suggestion we ought to bypass a full investigation.”
    “With all due respect, Minister,” Morvan said. “A full investigation would be a waste of both time and opportunity. All preliminary reports indicate this was a professional, military attack on an official Carinian ship, which is more than enough for a resolution of just cause, is it not?”
    “But we don’t have any idea who carried out the attack,” Tahn insisted. “Could’ve been Orionite paramilitaries or a rogue Sagittarian lord. It could’ve been friendly fire for all we know.”
    “ Please , Minister Tahn,” Morvan said. “You can’t seriously believe that. An attack of this sophistication could’ve come from only one source, and that is the Sagittarian Regnum.”
    “We don’t know that!” Tahn protested. “Until they claim responsibility or we have some proof.”
    Morvan shook his head. “That’s a naive way of thinking. They want to abuse our legal system by hiding in the shadows, prevent us from gaining the prerequisites for a resolution of just cause.”
    “So what do you suggest?” Falco jumped in. “Throw out our law altogether?”
    “No, but we should reform our war powers laws to reflect modern challenges, as we Dominionists have been saying for decades.”
    “The Reformists, too,” Riahn added gently.
    “Yes, the Reformists are with us on this front.”
    Tahn bristled. “The fact remains that we have no intel to suggest the Sagittarians carried out this attack.”
    “Another fact is that no one besides the Sagittarians could have possibly carried it out,” Morvan fired back.
    The wrinkles on Tahn’s forehead deepened. “That’s not true, and you know it. Some Orionite groups have the capability. The Sagittarian nobles from Lagoon Nebula could have done it, and they’re only a few dozen gates from Owl.”
    Morvan rolled his