The Phoenix Reckoning (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 6)

by Richard Sanders

  The ends justified the means, he could almost hear Raidan breathing into his ear. Calvin knew that such reasoning was sometimes true, but he also appreciated how dangerous and fine the line was that separated a justifiably necessary action from something else, something much darker.

  In this second message, under no obvious duress, the remains of the Imperial Assembly held a vote, and almost unanimously, agreed to accept and instate Kalila Akira as the official monarch of the Empire, thereby ending the war, and they extended an invitation for her to return to Capital World and begin the healing process. It’s about damn time, thought Calvin, feeling a measure of hope blossoming inside him.

  The third message was sent from the ISS Indomitable, the command ship that had housed the exiled Royal Assembly. “Its message was brief but very pointed. They re-instated the voting powers of the Imperial Assembly, accepted the remaining legislative officers on Capital World as an extension of the Royal Assembly itself, and they too held their own vote, adding their voices to the once rival Assembly that Kalila Akira was the rightfully elected queen of the Empire.”

  “All good news,” said Calvin aloud, just as the third message ended.

  “Not quite all of it,” said Summers from behind him, momentarily startling him. He hadn’t heard anyone come inside his office, and since he was standing and watching the side viewer, he’d left his back exposed to the door.

  “Oh, hello, Commander,” he said, spinning to look at her. She was stunning as ever, even in her fatigued state. “Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?”

  “Rest,” she forced a smile. “Now that would be something, wouldn’t it…?”

  “What’s the problem?” asked Calvin. Nothing in the messages he’d seen—other than Caerwyn’s brutal but well-deserved execution—had left him with any sense of bitterness or concern.

  “I have received word,” said Summers. “Well, the bridge has received word,” she corrected. “I happened to be on the bridge at the time and so I volunteered to be the one to inform you.”

  Calvin felt his heart begin to race. Was it about his mother? Was it about the queen? Had the invitation to return to Capital World and accept her throne been some sort of elaborate trap?

  “Don’t tell me the civil war is still on,” he said, seeing the look of worry in her tired yet exquisitely beautiful eyes.

  “No, the civil war, thank the Universe, is officially over,” she said, much to Calvin’s relief.

  “What then?” asked Calvin, not sure what bad news she could possibly be bringing him. If it was that Raidan had been cornered and brought to justice, Calvin would feel some pity, but it would hardly reduce him to tears. Whatever justice Raidan received, he had earned. Even if his defiance, or heroism—depending on perspective, had ended the civil war.

  “Word from our listening posts along The Rim,” said Summers. “We are receiving an increased number of distress calls from across the Polarian border. And then, when we try to reply, we get nothing but static and silence.”

  “The Dread Fleet…” whispered Calvin. Rez’nac had warned him that the High Prelain had awoken the Dread Fleet and had called upon all righteous Polarians to join its dark crusade. Their mission would be simple, to purge the corrupt, unfaithful, unworthy elements from the galaxy. That included secular Polarian systems, along with humans and Rotham everywhere.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” said Summers. “Based on our information, no other force could be wreaking such devastation and moving so quickly.”

  Calvin felt a lump in his throat. He had heard stories of the Dread Fleet, from ages ago, and knew the rumors of what they were capable of. Violence to the point of total annihilation of a planet, and they had never—not even once—offered quarter to any system that fell within their sights, including systems that had tried to surrender or convert to their fanatically religious ways. It was also said that the Dread Fleet—although no human knew what the fleet looked like in truth—was supposed to be an overwhelming force and one that had never been defeated in battle.

  “Perhaps they are only purging Polarian Systems,” said Calvin. He was sorry to abandon the few secular allies the Empire had among the Polarian Confederated States, but he also understood the Empire was in no position to come to their aid—especially considering the threat of Rotham invasion, which had proven true only recently.

  “They are on a mission to conduct a galactic purge,” said Summers, looking troubled through her exhausted eyes. “We have been forewarned by some of the Polarian Systems before they fell.”

  “Did we get any more information from them before they fell?” asked Calvin, eager for any data he could get his hands on, such as the composition of the fleet, their numbers, types of starships, anything.

  “No,” said Summers.

  Damn, thought Calvin. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Corruption in the Imperial government, civil war, isotome weapons, and now the emergence of the Dread Fleet. Is there truly no hope for us?

  “There’s more,” said Summers.

  “What could possibly be worse than what you just told me?” asked Calvin, almost wanting to plug his ears so he could remain in a slightly more blissful state of ignorance, at least for a little bit longer.

  “The most recent distress signal from across the border…it came from Gemini,” said Summers.

  Gemini, thought Calvin. It hadn’t been that long since he’d been there, truly, and witnessed the engineering marvel that was the mighty orbital conglomerate that floated high above the exhaustively mined planet. Gemini had once been a safe haven for the Organization, and being a system very near the Imperial border, had always been more secularly governed than most of the Confederation.

  “Not Gemini,” said Calvin. “Surely not Gemini.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. But the most recent distress signals have all originated from Gemini.”

  “That puts them right on our doorstep,” said Calvin, knowing full well that a barely reunited humanity was in no position to resist the unstoppable force of the Dread Fleet.

  “You are correct, sir.”

  “Does that mean they are coming for us next?” asked Calvin.

  “No one can be certain,” said Summers. “But the computer did an analysis of the origin of the distress messages, beginning with the oldest, and has made a projection that indicates the Dread Fleet is moving in a serpentine pattern. They will double back on themselves before entering Imperial space.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” said Calvin.

  “Only slightly,” said Summers. “The same projection has them ultimately entering Imperial space not long after that, carving their way to Capital World itself and then, after that, slicing through the Corridor, and every system along the way, until they reach Ro.”

  “So, the Dread Fleet is not just our problem, it’s the Rotham’s problem too,” said Calvin.

  “Yes,” said Summers, “but they might not see it that way. Especially after the devastating loss of their main fleet at Thetican System. The Republic might see the Dread Fleet as something for us, the Empire, to deal with alone. And, in the meantime, they will repair and rebuild, and once the Dread Fleet has finished us off, then and only then will the Republic engage them. For that matter, they might not even be aware yet that Ro and their other worlds are in any kind of long term danger.”

  “Then we should make them aware,” said Calvin, instinctively marching toward the bridge. Summers followed.

  “Has the queen been appraised of these developments?” asked Calvin.

  “She has,” said Summers. “Much of our intel was sent from her fleet.”

  “Then she knows she must alert the Rotham, if for no other reason than to stop our two peoples from fighting until we can deal with our shared threat,” said Calvin.

  “I should think so, yes,” said Summers. “Although I do not know whether or not the Rotham will see it that way. Instead, they might see our engagements against the Dread Fleet as the ideal time to capture our world
s in The Corridor.”

  “They’d be fools to do that,” said Calvin, taking his seat in the command position—Vargas having happily relinquished it. “And if I know the Rotham half so well as I think I do, they are not fools. They are strategists. Surely they must see the sense in us negotiating a ceasefire.”

  “I would say that is a matter for the queen to determine,” said Summers.

  “I quite agree,” said Calvin. “In the meantime, that makes our mission all the more important.”

  “Sir?” asked Summers. “In light of this new information, you still plan to proceed into Polarian Forbidden Space?”

  “Yes, Commander,” said Calvin. “Now more than ever.” He was surprised by her surprise.

  “Considering the proximity and seriousness of the threat, don’t you think it would be wisest for this ship to join with the rest of the Imperial fleet and mount a resistance together, combining all of our strength?”

  “I don’t doubt the Nighthawk could do some serious damage in such a battle,” admitted Calvin. “But once we start taking fire, we’re done for. And then what will our sacrifice mean? We will not, by ourselves, turn the course of the battle, let alone the war. No, our place is not at the front, our place is deep inside Polarian Forbidden Space. We have to stop the enemy at home. Find out why the Dread Fleet has been sent at all and stop it. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Summers, though she looked confused and disbelieving as to their ability to perform such a feat. Especially since she was, undoubtedly, armed with the knowledge that no expedition inside Polarian Forbidden Space had ever produced survivors. Still, Calvin had to try something. And, in his mind, this gambit was the only thing that made sense.

  “Red shift,” he announced. “New course and heading. We go to Gemini System. Deepest safe jump.”

  “Gemini?” asked Summers. “But that’s where the Dread Fleet is!”

  “Was,” corrected Calvin. If he was right about these bastards, they will have scourged the system and moved on by the time Calvin could get there. With any luck, they will have left some signs as to their numbers and firepower, perhaps even other intelligence that he could feed the queen that might prove useful in humanity’s defense.

  “We don’t know what we’ll find when we get there,” said Summers. “It could be anything.”

  “It could indeed,” said Calvin. “Defense, keep our stealth system engaged. Pilot, get us underway as soon as possible.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” they both acknowledged him.

  “And if we get there and the Dread Fleet hasn’t left?” asked Summers. “What is your plan? Do you mean to engage them?”

  Calvin looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Are you mad? If we get there and they are still there, then we’ll observe them. And if there’s even the tiniest indication that they can detect us, despite our stealth, then we run like hell. That is the plan.”

  ***

  As Shen walked the corridor, slowly rounding the path toward Sarah’s quarters, hoping not to catch her sleeping already, he reflected upon what had brought him here.

  He had always liked Sarah. Their friendship had been a deep one, spanning many years, and somehow she had been the only person who consistently seemed to understand him, appreciate his jokes, and genuinely enjoy spending time with him. She could get him outside of his shell in ways that no other woman could—indeed, in ways no other person could.

  And so, as had been inevitable all along from this, he had fallen head-over-heels in his feelings for her. Feelings that had haunted him day in and day out for over a year, urging him to make some kind of a move, to show her his affection. Yet his own weak confidence, punctuated by his less-than ideal physical appearance and general shyness, had planted doubts in his head. Not just seeds of doubts either, but a blossoming garden of doubts that had grown unrestrained throughout the entire year, and, as much as he wished again and again to take clippers to those vines and a spade to the plants and their deep roots, whenever he saw a picture of himself, or looked in the mirror, or saw Sarah seem to pine after Anand Datar, or Captain Pellew, or any number of men far more conventionally attractive than Shen, he had felt the wind in his sails fade away. And he had done what he always did, played the role of the good friend, and only in secret entertained hopeless fantasies that he and Sarah had something more, that they could have something greater. That, most implausibly of all, a woman like her would ever want—by choice—to be with a man like him.

  Preposterous! The very notion seemed absurd, ludicrous even. He knew his place in the social pyramid of humanity. He was the smart one, the geeky one, and every so often the funny one—with his rare brand of humor that only a few academically gifted minds understood—but he was never the desired one. He had been long relegated to the role of follower, supporter, and tag-along.

  And then something had happened. Somehow, his feelings for Sarah had reached a point where he could no longer live them down; he needed to make them known to her once and for all, and so he had. By cooking her the most lavish dinner he knew how and by spilling his heart to her, letting the emotions ooze out in earnest like blood from a wound, hoping against hope—against probability—against even reality—that she could feel the same way. Not to his surprise, but to his profound disappointment, she had rejected him. Which, as he thought back on the experience, had been a foregone conclusion. She was higher up in the social pyramid and she had the beauty and charm to command more attractive features in a mate; she deserved, by accident of birth and hard work on her part, to become the other half of someone so much better, and so much more attractive than poor old Shen. That had simply been the truth of it.

  Shen had rebelled against that truth. And, in doing so, questioned the value of his own life. If the cards of reality and genetics were to be so stacked against him that he was forced to live next to and work beside the very person his heart most desired, but could never touch her, take her, or demonstrate his feelings to her—and, most painfully of all, never experience her demonstrating those feelings toward him, then what was the point of going on?

  And so Shen had volunteered to go with Calvin on the away mission to Remus Nine. That mission had introduced Shen to fear and horror like nothing he had ever experienced. And, in a moment of unthinking self-sacrifice, he had saved Calvin, an action that caused him to become bitten and receive the Remorii infection. It was a death sentence, but one Shen accepted peacefully.

  Yet, against all reason, he had been given a second chance. Rain had cured him—mostly—and, although Shen retained, or had recently acquired, unique properties that made him feel less than human, or, at least, as something different than human, he still looked the same, had the same thoughts, remembered the same things, and retained the same talents. He was the Shen who had existed before—mostly. Only now he had abilities he could not understand and was haunted by dreams and visions of Tristan, always beckoning him to come and follow. Shen dismissed them as night terrors.

  Things had seemed to be a blur after that. Shen had struggled to regain his feeling of humanity, thrashed within himself to find value in his life and to convince himself that he was a man and not a monster. And, during that struggle—which persisted to this day—he had made the greatest mistake of his entire life. Going down to Remus Nine and contracting the virus had been born of a kind of self-sacrificing, bold stupidity, he knew. But that was not his greatest mistake. His greatest mistake had been to push Sarah out of his life. Sarah, whose genuine compassion he had mistaken for pity. Whose sympathy he had mistaken for charity. She had come to him, ready to accept him, even offering to try to start a relationship with him—everything in the universe that he had ever wanted—and yet he had rejected her and pushed her away.

  Now, that was going to change. And, although Rain had warned him he could not expect to win Sarah back—she was not a trophy or a reward—Shen could still clear the air between them and try to smooth out the waves he had created. Maybe then she would want to be with
him again. Or maybe she would not. Shen knew he had to be okay with himself either way.

  But one thing was certain, whether he be man or monster, the thread that he clung to was his deep affection for Sarah, and if she would have him, he would be hers, truly and faithfully for as long as she was willing to suffer him.

  If she chose otherwise and decided that it was best for each of them to remain apart, Shen hoped he could at least salvage that deep friendship they had once shared. Maybe that was possible still, or maybe he had crossed a bridge too far; there was no other way of knowing but to try.

  So at last, when he reached Sarah’s door, he steeled himself, quieted his nerves, and rang the chime. Ready for anything. Most importantly, ready to be okay with anything. And accepting, deep inside himself, that anything was possible in this universe, and should she reject him now he would be okay. He had to be.

  ***

  Sarah climbed out of bed, put some clothes on, and then answered the door. The chime rang only once and so, by the time she reached the door, she half-expected to find nobody there. For that matter, she wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing.

  But then, when she opened the door, a familiar face was standing there. One that woke her up like a shock of electricity and sent two very powerful, very conflicting emotions pouring through her veins.

  “Hello, Shen,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Hi, Sarah,” he said with a nervous smile. She could always tell when he was nervous. “I was hoping now would be a good time to talk for a few minutes.”

  Sarah thought about the paper flowers and the sincerely-written but half-assed note Shen had left with them days before. The gesture had been enough to get them back onto speaking terms, but it didn’t undo any of the hurt feelings she felt, or any of her confusion.

  “Now isn’t a great time,” said Sarah, folding her arms. “I was trying to get some sleep.”