For eons unnumbered, the Granok had followed the Way of Stone, a set of tenets as immutable and unchanging as the planet’s mantle. So it had been for tens of thousands of years. So it would ever be.

Until the Dominion arrived.

In keeping with their customary protocols, the Mechari had flattered the Granok, their blandishments dashed with a touch of intimidation. They had tendered their generous invitation to be assimilated into the most powerful empire the galaxy had ever known. They had demonstrated tokens of their wondrous technology and offered assurances that only races of true merit were ever considered for such a high honor. Their price was but a trifling formality: they asked only that the chieftains kneel and swear eternal loyalty to the emperor.

The Granok warlords were unimpressed. They had peremptorily responded by crushing the emissaries into smoking piles of scrap. Tortuous weeks of war had inevitably ensued, dragging on for months, with both sides taking heavy casualties. Gradually, however, the Dominion’s superior technology began to assert its primacy.

Alone among the Granok warlords, young Durek refused to accept defeat. In a series of daring raids, he led sorties into Dominion camps, commandeering weapons, armor, and vehicles that slowly turned the tide. And for the first time in their history, the Dominion found itself on its heels.

But even as the battered Dominion military came apart, the Granok chieftains had coldly commanded Durek’s forces to assemble outside their tent.

Source: World Story