The Phoenix Reckoning (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 6)

by Richard Sanders

  She knew, as queen, she had to reach out for everything, far and wide, to give her people the best chance possible of surviving. Even if it meant swallowing her pride and taking a measured risk.

  I’ll keep an eye on them, she promised herself. If they come, it will be for our benefit. That much I swear.

  CHAPTER 19

  “I can see a large mass of figures converging on the LZ,” radioed Sarah as she swung the craft around.

  “Those would be our new friends,” Tristan’s voice crackled over the radio.

  Sarah tried to get a better look, but she couldn’t see any of the landing party, only the hundreds of Type I Remorii chasing after them.

  “Meet us at the LZ ASAP,” said Tristan. “We won’t have a moment to spare.”

  “Roger.”

  “And keep those engines hot!”

  “Wilco!” She turned the craft sharply and dropped fast over the LZ, slowing to a stop just in time for the landing gear to make contact. “I’m in position.”

  “Open the rear hatch,” said Tristan.

  Sarah pressed several buttons to unlock the seal and then open the hatch. Once it was open, she radioed back, “I’m all set.”

  It wasn’t long before she heard what sounded like a stampeding herd enter the craft behind her. She turned around to make sure everyone was there.

  “Where’s Shen?” she asked, not seeing him. For that matter, the group seemed much smaller than the one she’d dropped off.

  “He’s fine,” said the lycans’ leader, Zarao was his name, she was fairly certain.

  “Then, where is she?” she asked.

  “Just prep for launch,” said Zarao, using his commanding tone.

  Sarah folded her arms. “Not until Shen is here. Forget it.”

  “What’s wrong with you, woman?” asked Zarao. “We have hundreds of Type I Remorii chasing after us; they’ll be here any second!”

  “I’m not going anywhere without Shen.”

  Zarao’s eyes burned red, and for an instant, Sarah was afraid he was going to strike her. But then, at that exact moment, Tristan boarded the vessel, hauling Shen over his shoulder. He looked unconscious…or dead.

  “Oh, God!” said Sarah. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” snapped Tristan. “Now lift off; let’s go!”

  Sarah closed the hatch just as the Remorii were upon them, the hands and arms of at least two of them were snapped off by the hatch as it sealed, but Sarah had no time to worry about that. She turned her attention to the controls and fired the launch engines. The vessel lurched upward.

  The face of a Type I Remorii appeared on the forward window, upside-down, as the monster tried to hang onto the ship. Sarah screamed, startled by the occurrence.

  “Stay calm,” said Zarao, “and just get us out of here.”

  “Right,” said Sarah. She accelerated their ascent and then rolled the craft hard starboard then hard port; the maneuver was unsettling to her passengers, but it accomplished what she wanted—it shook free the remaining Type I Remorii that were hanging and dangling from various parts of the ship. Most importantly the frightening Type I Remorii on the forward window, with its ghoulish face and sunken dead eyes, was thrown off, sent plunging to his death. “That’s better,” she said.

  As the craft gained altitude, they were headed into a storm, and Sarah had to keep the better part of her attention intently focused on the task of piloting, but she continued to ask over her shoulder about the status of Shen.

  “Is he all right? What happened to him?”

  She got few answers in response. Mostly her passengers were worried about the shearing winds tossing the ship about and heavy rains beating against them, not to mention the lightning flashes they were quickly approaching. Sarah, however, wasn’t worried about their return trip to orbit—she knew what she was doing. What she did need to know, however, was that Shen was okay. Because he sure didn’t look like it.

  “For God’s sake,” she said finally, letting her irritation get to her that her companions were being so unresponsive to her inquiries. “What is the matter with Shen?”

  “He’s being cured,” said Tristan.

  “Cured from what?”

  Just then, a powerful gust of wind took hold of the ship, like the gods of the air had plucked them between massive celestial fingers, and shook them violently. They even managed to lose some altitude before Sarah could regain control.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, trying to reassure her passengers and remind herself that she could handle these weather conditions—even in this dump of a ship. If Calvin did it, then so can I.

  “Try to hold her steady,” said Zarao. “My people have suffered enough.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Sarah, annoyed. “Where am I taking us anyway? Back to the Arcane Storm?”

  “No, dock us with the Harbinger,” said Tristan. “And, the sooner the better.”

  “The Harbinger?” asked Sarah, surprised.

  “Yes,” said Tristan. “It will be…beneficial for Shen to have access to the Harbinger’s medical facilities.”

  “God dammit, Tristan, you said he was all right!”

  “So I did,” said the lycan. “And he is. He just needs a little…medical attention. But I promise you, he’ll be fine.”

  Sarah doubted Tristan’s word was worth anything, but she forced herself to believe him. Be okay, she thought, I need you, Shen. I gave up everything to be with you. You’d better not leave me now. Not like this. Not so soon.

  “After we get to the Harbinger,” said Sarah, “what happens then?”

  “Why then we take all of our ships and rejoin the Imperial fleet, it would seem.”

  “Wait, what?” asked Sarah, making another adjustment to their flight trajectory. The ground below was now lost under the clouds.

  “It’s Raidan’s idea,” said Tristan.

  “But aren’t you—aren’t we—now wanted criminals? I mean, didn’t the queen declare Raidan and his entire squadron to be enemies of the state?”

  “That’s all true,” admitted Tristan.

  “But…you want to return to the Imperial Fleet. Are you turning yourself in or something?” asked Sarah, still baffled.

  “Oh, Lord, no,” said Tristan.

  “Then what? I don’t get it?”

  “Apparently, the Empire is under attack by some Polarian arseholes.”

  “Polarians are attacking the Empire? Isn’t that the sort of thing the queen can deal with on her own, now that she’s reunited the fleet?” asked Sarah.

  “No. Not this time,” said Tristan, now shouting over the increased whine of the engines. “The Empire is allegedly under attack from the Dread Fleet.”

  The Dread Fleet? Sarah was too stunned to speak. Could it be true? She thought those were only stories.

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Tristan, referring to her silence. “Anyway, the queen has put out a call for all ships willing and able to race to Centuria System to try and stop the attack.”

  “Centuria System? We’ll never get there in time.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Tristan. “Raidan, the bleeding-heart patriot that he is, has decided to take himself and all his forces and offer assistance to the Imperial fleet.”

  “And that includes you?”

  “No,” said Zarao, interrupting. “We belong to ourselves, not to Raidan.”

  “He speaks the truth,” said Tristan. “However, we have voluntarily decided to go and assist, haven’t we, Zarao?”

  “Yes,” said the lycan leader with a grunt. Clearly, he was less enthusiastic about it, but somehow had been persuaded to lend himself, and his people, to the cause. Sarah didn’t understand the relationship between Raidan and the lycans, and wished she knew how it had all begun—and how deep the loyalties ran—but she did believe Tristan was telling her the truth.

  “So it’s like what they say,” said Sarah, “out of the frying pan and, well, you know the rest.”

  “
Sums things up pretty well,” said Tristan.

  ***

  “There, now that we’ve all seen the message from the human queen, I move that we vote to immediately dismiss her offer, and continue our hearing into the accusations by the Advent that many of our colleagues are part of some nefarious—alleged—conspiracy which they refer to as the Rahajiim,” said Senator Kmag’no.

  “Is there a second to the motion?” asked the Acting Speaker.

  “Second,” said Senator Sloecla, raising his hand.

  “Wait!” shouted Alex, from his place guarding the door. He had returned to the Senate Chamber, where the Advent was still keeping the Senate unofficially under house arrest within their own walls.

  Alex had relieved the guard at the southeast door and had been observing the Senatorial process ever since, hoping to find the right opportunity to bring to the floor his concern, and related evidence, that the Dread Fleet represented a direct threat to the Republic generally, and Ro in particular, despite the fact that the Dread Fleet was currently inside Imperial space. As fortune would have it, they had received an urgent communiqué from Queen Kalila Akira, through official channels, addressing the Rotham Senate. In her message, the queen spoke flattering words about the Republic and its noble people, then she carefully emphasized the threat that was the Dread Fleet, described its brutality, and, in no uncertain terms, made it clear that once the Dread Fleet had finished with Capital System, it would eventually find its way to Ro and the Republic. And probably sooner rather than later. To that end, the queen had proposed an alliance, the chance for humans and Rotham to join forces and unite in opposition to the Dread Fleet, hopefully casting it back into the shadows from whence it emerged.

  This is wonderful, Alex had thought at the time, she has made my case for me. But, now that the message was over, it was quickly becoming clear that the Rotham Senate had little interest in helping the humans, and, most likely, did not believe the threat against them to be credible. Many of them even seemed to cheer at the prospect of war between the Polarians and the humans. But, what they didn’t understand, was that this was no political war between the secular states of the Polarian Confederacy and the human Empire; this was something of an entirely otherworldly scale, where ideology itself was as much the battlefield as the space between stars. These Polarians hadn’t come to conquer. They had come to destroy. To scourge the unworthy planets—which by their own standards included many of their own—and to leave nothing behind but ashes and darkness.

  If only I can make them see, thought Alex desperately.

  “The Senate recognizes…” the Acting Speaker paused, trying to get a good look at Alex, who stood with both arms raised, so they would know exactly who had broken decorum and interrupted. “I’m sorry, just who the hell are you?”

  Alex took this as an invitation to leave his post and take a seat opposite the primary dais. He leaned over the microphone so all could hear. “My name is Proxitor Ol’ixe of the Advent,” he said, catching himself before accidentally introducing himself as Alex—the crude name the humans had given him, to which he’d taken quite a liking.

  “And on what basis, and by what right, do you interrupt the proceedings of this glorious assembly?” asked the Acting Speaker. “Why, had your people not dragged him away, I would have half a mind to order the Sergeant-at-Arms to take you into custody for this outrageous outburst.”

  “I come before you now not to cause trouble, nor is it my wish to interrupt the proceedings of this time-honored institution,” said Alex, trying to sound as respectful as possible, knowing that was the only way they would even consider listening to him. “Rather, I come as a son of Ro, a citizen of the Republic, and a concerned intelligence agent with information, critical information, that has bearing on the security and safekeeping of the Republic and all her citizens, wherever they might be.”

  “You make bold and fanciful claims, Proxitor,” said Senator Kmag’no, “but you and the rest of the Advent think you have free run of this place. Well, I have news for you, you don’t! The Advent had no right to invade the sanctity of the Senate Chamber, their continued presence here despoils it, and now one of their officers—and a middle-ranked one at that—has the audacity to interrupt a motion set before the remains of the Senate? I feel compelled to remind you, Proxitor, the Senate is the Republic!”

  “The Senate is the Republic!” came a chorus of voices from behind him, no doubt belonging to the two-thirds of the Senate that had not been arrested.

  Alex tried his hardest to look innocent and humble. “I mean no offense, especially not to you, Senator Kmag’no, nor you, Mister Speaker, I only come as a humble servant of the Republic to bring warning of a grave threat whose shadow looms over us, even now.”

  “You and the human queen both, so many warnings, so many interruptions,” said Senator Kmag’no dismissively. “I ask the Speaker to have this person removed from the Senate Chamber. If he will not do it, then I call upon the Advent Elite to do their duty and stop this interruption. If you are going to pretend to stand guard there, you might as well make yourselves useful.”

  Alex looked around, wanting to see if the senator’s words had swayed any of his fellow Advent officers. To their credit, they didn’t budge. Although he could imagine they were as confused as the senators as to why a lowly Proxitor would approach the Acting Speaker of the Senate, uninvited, and fail to stand on ceremony to do so. Perhaps it was that curiosity that led the Acting Speaker to say, “While this is highly irregular, I am going to allow it.”

  “You cannot be serious,” protested Senator Km’agno.

  “Enough,” said the Acting Speaker, waving for Senator Km’agno to retake his seat. “The hearing will continue, of course, but I see no harm in a short recess to explore the information that Proxitor Ol’ixe has so brazenly chosen to bring before us.”

  “I thank you, Mister Speaker,” said Alex. “You are wise.”

  “That remains to be seen,” said the Acting Speaker. “Now, please, with all haste, give us your intelligence, and do explain why it is coming now, from you, and not through more official channels.”

  “I am presenting this intelligence because I am the one who discovered it,” said Alex, “and there is no time to waste in funneling this information to the Senate using more official channels—as you say.”

  “And what is this discovery?” asked the Acting Speaker.

  Alex cleared his throat. “The discovery is…the Dread Fleet is going to attack Ro.”

  Cries of shock penetrated the room.

  “Order!” demanded the Acting Speaker. Then, to Alex, “Is this true?”

  “Yes,” said Alex.

  “Under penalty of death, you swear that the information you are providing us is the truth, omitting nothing?”

  “I swear it.”

  He could sense that the mood in the chamber had shifted from curious to alarmed.

  “How do you know of this planned attack?” asked the Acting Speaker.

  “I don’t know of it, per se,” said Alex, carefully.

  “But you just swore to the truth of it. Did you not?”

  “I did. But that is because I can logically infer the only, unmistakable conclusion. And that is, like the human queen warned us, the Dread Fleet will not be satisfied with the destruction of the human Empire; they will come for the Republic too. And, of all the worlds and systems belonging to the Republic, there is none a greater and juicier target than Ro.”

  “You seem to be making a lot of assumptions,” said the Acting Speaker. “There is still not a shred of evidence that the conflict between the humans and the Polarians will ever have anything to do with us.”

  “There is historical precedent,” said Alex. “Many generations ago, when last the Dread Fleet was seen, it recognized neither treaty nor truce, respected no ally, and proceeded to purge and destroy anything and everything in its way. I believe that the best of our intelligence even indicates that this is the purpose of the Dread Fleet. It
is a religious war fleet that is commanded by the High Prelain of the Polarian religion, and its duty is to purge the worlds that the High Prelain deems to be impure. No doubt those worlds would be the secular worlds of the Republic and the Empire.”

  “Hearsay and superstition,” said the Acting Speaker.

  “The accounts of the Dread Fleet were something of myth months, even weeks ago, but now that the fleet has been sighted, and our intelligence and that of the humans have both independently confirmed the identity of the vast Polarian force carving a path through the galaxy…I think it is now safe to say the Dread Fleet is real, and the threat such a force represents, with firepower and numbers unmatchable, led by a dangerous and extremist ideology…honored members of the Senate, I believe now the time has come for us to recognize the threat for what it is…and prepare for it.”

  “We will take your opinion under advisement and consider ordering our shipyards to increase production of warships,” said the Acting Speaker. “Of course, the exact figures will be governed by the Supreme Proxitor and the Grand Nau, thank you, Mister Ol’ixe.”

  “Not good enough,” said Alex, slamming the flat of his hand down onto the table, which took the Acting Speaker—and most of those assembled—completely off guard. “Our only hope of success is to ally ourselves with the humans and fight our common enemy together.”

  “I hardly think that’s necessary,” said the Acting Speaker. “For all we know, the Polarians have no quarrel with us, why should we invite one?”

  “Because they are coming for us,” said Alex, feeling frustrated. “You’ll see. It is inevitable.”

  “You are a rather odd one, aren’t you,” mused the Acting Speaker. “Most of the Advent, and indeed most of us here, would consider ourselves non-interventionists. I would have thought the same of you, given your uniform, but clearly you are one who would prefer to meddle in the affairs of the other Empires, rather than managing our own.”