I wrote this in the 80s as a teenager. Found a copy on my PC along with other stories I wrote. I was heavily influenced by Jack Vance. Set in the Traveller RPG universe.
The Constraints of Honour
Domagnon of the Third Bastion dreamed of war. His narrow cot quivered beneath a bombardment of phosphorescent lances and the dying spasms of shattered dreadnaughts. Phantasmic warriors, clad in the azure of the Solomani Guard, fought grimly against rapacious mercenaries beneath a flickering aurora of lasfire and shrieking steel. Into this cacophony came a polite chime, the computer’s voice heralding its inevitable summons.
Domagnon opened his eyes with a sigh. The call had been expected. Beyond the porthole of his corsair—a small but formidable vessel—he beheld a sulking red star, catalogued Dismall by the Solomani Scout Corps. Its only satellite was a barren, begrudging world named by no one, and thus known only as Dismall-1 by the indifferent navigation system. A fitting name, he mused.
The landing was uneventful. The settlement revealed itself as a mining colony so despondent, so withered, that it seemed to apologize for existing. Once a Vilani possession, it had been relinquished as reparations after the last great war. Now it merely subsisted—men, women, and children alike toiling in the stubborn earth for… copper. Not adamant, nor titanium, nor any gleaming alloy. Simply copper, mined until their skin bore its oxide and their dreams were leached of luster.
Not even the women offered distraction.
Domagnon disembarked and was greeted by silence and shuttered doors. A Solomani Guardsman, armored and armed, should have commanded gasps or awe; instead, he garnered only wary stares, like carrion crows sizing up a wounded beast. He let his gauntlet rest lightly on the hilt of his chain-sword, then drifted to the grip of his gauss pistol. The message was clear: Not today, little vultures.
Alone amid the dust, he surveyed the town. “Joan,” he said, voice carrying unnecessarily, “seal the ship. Permit no one but technicians for refueling.”
“Of course, Domagnon,” came the response—mellifluous, intimate, the voice he had programmed after a long-dead actress of the lost Second Epoch. A trivial heresy against protocol, but reversible before his return.
He had volunteered for this assignment with visions of clandestine raids, daring rescues, and enemies worthy of the blade. Instead, he inherited this speck at the edge of relevance. The miners had broadcast a desperate distress signal: an invasion by Aslan. But the Scout Corps, with bureaucratic efficiency, had reduced the “invasion” to a solitary Aslan stranded planet-side.
No fleet. No incursion. Merely one.
Domagnon had envisioned a canvas of glory. Instead, he was sent to clean a stain.
A corpulent official met him in the square, sweating visibly under Domagnon’s level gaze. “You’re not here to slay it?” the man blurted, aghast.
Domagnon smiled faintly. “It? Ah—your Aslan. I’ve heard rumors beyond this sector. But alas, my visit is mere sightseeing while my ship refuels.”
The man’s face sagged into despair. “You’ve not come to save us?”
Domagnon waited for the crowd to gather, then elicited from their stammering accounts that the “invader” was indeed one lone Aslan, lurking an hour’s walk from the colony. The mob insisted he was an advance scout for an invasion, sharpening stakes in preparation for slaughter.
Domagnon imagined himself bestriding this savage foe, his blade carving arcs of legend. And for a flicker of a moment, he imagined the reverse.
“I shall face him today,” he declared solemnly. “His head will adorn your square before sundown.”
The Governor eyed him dubiously, but acquiesced. Victory would glorify them; failure merely confirmed their doom.
Domagnon readied his Gyrosteed, the twin ceramic rotaries whirring like roused serpents. He rode until the terrain demanded stealth, then approached on foot, navigating the rocks until he beheld his quarry.
There he sat: massive, leonine, crouched before a cave, methodically carving stakes from stubborn branches. His fur gleamed in the wan light; his eyes were deep, knowing.
Domagnon’s heart surged. This would be a duel worth the epics.
He activated his armor’s servos, sprinting forth. The Aslan rose calmly to meet him, unarmed, surrounded by his stakes but making no move to seize them.
Domagnon faltered. To strike an unarmed foe would violate the marrow of his code. His honor clawed at him. At the last instant, he veered aside, skidding gracelessly into the dust, chain-sword flung from his grasp.
The Aslan approached—not predator, but dignitary. He retrieved the blade, regarded it thoughtfully, then offered it back, hilt-first, with quiet gravity.
Then he resumed carving.
“Fight me!” Domagnon cried, voice amplified by his helm’s resonator. “You are a warrior, not a coward!”
The Aslan bared fangs briefly, not in menace but in sardonic humor. Then he spoke, deep and resonant: “I would rather speak, Domagnon of the Third Bastion. You, so far from Terra.”
Domagnon’s stance softened. The “beast” had become a man. Slowly, he removed his helmet, and sat where the Aslan gestured.
“Why have you come to disturb me?” the Aslan asked.
And thus they spoke—of honor, loyalty, of the crushing edifice of obligation. The Aslan told of his people’s creed, of ritual blood and position. Domagnon recited the Solomani code: that honor bound a man beyond death.
And the Aslan pondered: “What is honor, without wisdom? What is loyalty, absent reason?”
When the stars gleamed above, the Aslan rose. “Tomorrow,” he said softly, “my debts will be paid. And my family’s shame extinguished.”
He gathered his stakes, vanishing into the rocks.
⚜️
Domagnon returned to the colony under night’s hush. The miners crowded him at dawn.
“Did you slay it?” the Governor demanded.
“No.”
“You… spoke with it?” the Governor sputtered.
“I did.”
“It’s a monster!” the Governor raged. “I’ll report you! I should’ve run you off this rock—”
Domagnon’s chain-sword hovered beneath the man’s quivering chin, cool as moonlight. “I will remain. If he proves false, I will answer. Is that sufficient?”
The Governor, reduced to wheezing, nodded.
Domagnon turned away, climbed aboard his ship, and sealed the hatch.
⚜️
At dawn, Joan’s voice awoke him: “Commotion outside.”
Domagnon peered from the viewport. The Aslan had entered the town.
Unarmed. Unbowed.
The humans scattered, mothers clutching children, men calling for action. But the Aslan walked only to Domagnon.
“I require your witness,” the Aslan said gravely. “Come.”
“I must don my armor.”
“No more than an hour,” the Aslan replied. And departed.
Domagnon met him amid the stones, where he practiced with stakes, a whirl of power and grace.
A vessel descended, casting fire across the sky. Six armored Aslan disembarked, their leader saluting grimly.
“A Guardsman stands witness?” the leader asked.
“He does,” the lone Aslan affirmed.
“Then the rite is satisfied.”
They formed a circle. Weapons lifted. The condemned raised his stakes, exhaled a war-cry, and met the first spear.
What followed was swift, bloody, a dance of inevitability. Blades flashed. Spears struck. The condemned parried, struck, evaded, wounded. One fell, then another. But the odds closed like jaws.
At last, a spear pierced his chest. He crumpled, still clutching his stake.
Domagnon’s cry tore the air, but his feet remained rooted by his oath.
The leader commanded his warriors to retrieve their fallen, ignoring the condemned.
“You will leave him?” Domagnon demanded.
“He redeemed his house’s honor,” the leader said coldly. “But his crime remains.”
Then another warrior approached Domagnon, sniffing disdainfully. “Though he was weak, I would see him buried. He was kin.”
He unslung a pouch, extending it. “I offer compensation for this duty.”
Domagnon raised a hand, refusing. “I’ll bury him. No payment.”
The Aslan blinked, then slowly nodded. “Then… my thanks.”
⚜️
Domagnon labored long, carving a grave among stubborn rocks. He laid the Aslan beneath the sky, prayed until sunset, then placed the carving blade in his armor’s compartment.
He walked back to the colony without looking back.
The miners pressed him.
“Did you kill it?” the Governor bellowed.
“Yes,” Domagnon said flatly.
Cheers erupted. “We’ll feast! You shall be our guest of honor!”
Domagnon’s gaze held the Governor until the man’s words withered. Then he boarded his ship.
He did not look back.
⚜️
Epilogue
It was customary for the discoverer of a world to name it. None had bothered with Dismall-1.
But Domagnon of the Third Bastion did.
And long after, when fleets massed under imperial banners, soldiers puzzled over why the old Marshal had named that pitiful planet:
Regret.
