Search Worlds Without End

In an alternate universe, the rise of the Nazis has forced the United States and its allies to make common cause with the Draka--an empire originating in South Africa that has reduced all of the African continent and much of Asia to slavery. The allies desperately need the Draka's courage and military might. But they have made a devil's bargain, for the Draka have their own agenda beyond crushing the Nazis: first reduce all of the nations of Europe that they "liberate" to slavery--then enslave the rest of the world.

Tanya von Shrakenberg established a plantation, Chateau Retour, in formerly-French Touraine Province. She purchases as serfs Marya Sokolowska, formerly a Polish nun, Chantal Lefarge, a French Communist and Chantal's sister Therese. The three are escorted from the security holding compound by Yasmin, a senior serf belonging to Tanya. During the journey to the plantation, the convoy is attacked by French partisans who are defeated by forces in the convoy, including Tanya, Yasmin's father Tom and by a Draka response force. The partisans are tortured to death.

The Stone Dogs is the third of four books of S.M. Stirling's alternate history series, The Domination.

During the cold war between the Alliance and the Domination, Frederic and Marya work for the OSS as spies and assassins. During the Draka conquest of India, Marya Lefarge is taken prisoner. She becomes a serf to Yolande Ingolfsson, who after torturing her repeatedly with a neural weapon, forces her to become a "brooder" (i.e. a surrogate mother) for her offspring, Gwendolyn. Yolande also swears vengeance on Fred Lefarge after he kills her lover, Myfanwy Venders, during the Indian Incident.

As both superpowers expand into space, they prepare different doomsday weapons. The Alliance's weapon is a computer virus ("comp plague") secretly planted in Draka military computers by spies; the Draka's is a biological virus called the Stone Dogs that causes infected personnel to go insane. Yolande discovers Marya, who has contacted the OSS, planting the comp-plague and allows her to escape with knowledge of the Stone Dogs. This forces her uncle, Archon Eric von Shrakenberg, to use the weapon prematurely. The Draka win the resulting conflict; however, their incomplete victory leads to Eric negotiating an arrangement whereupon the Alliance is allowed to launch its generation ship "The New America" and the remaining Alliance survivors in space are granted limited Draka citizenship.

Gwendolen Ingolfsson, hurled into a parallel Earth filled with billions of unaltered, antique humans when the molehole experiment she was working on malfunctioned, is very clear where her duty lies. As a member of the Draka, genetically engineered to dominate crude, unmodified humans, her task is to build a molehole device in this universe and establish a bridgehead for the Race to come through. It had been some time since the Draka last had such an opportunity for conquest...

As for Detective-Lieutenant Henry Carmaggio, he'd seen plenty of blood, both in Cambodia and in twenty years of police work. But he'd never seen anything like this. Something was loose in his city, something inhuman that walked among us, killing with the easy precision of a leopard in a flock of sheep. And unless he could track it down it would kill and kill again - until the whole world was its hunting ground.

THINK ABOUT HISTORY. NOW MAKE IT WORSE...

The Domination of the Draka begins as a British possession in Africa, but soon becomes far more. Absorbing refugees after the American Revolution, and later the Civil War, the Draka become a people bred to rule with an iron fist. They permanently enslave the peoples of Africa, when they do not simply kill them.

But this does not slake the Draka thirst for power. Sweeping across the world, the Draka empire engulfs nation after nation, shackling into servitude all who are not Draka. Europe, Asia, and finally all the Earth and its colonies throughout the Solar System fall before the might of the Draka.

But empires are not faceless monoliths; they are made of individuals, complex humans with their own hopes and dreams. And so one might ask: Who are the Draka? What sort of people does the Domination rule? The Draka would have many different answers...