The Phoenix Darkness

by Richard L. Sanders

  Some of her squadrons had begun to organize into a response fleet as per her orders. Currently they numbered less than one-hundred warships and, although impressive, Kalila knew she wouldn’t be comfortable until the response fleet numbered at least four-hundred warships, if not more. Their duty was to remain on constant battle-alert status and immediately jump to the assistance of any squadron, outpost, essential structure, or star system which had declared for Kalila and experienced a major attack. With major being a fast and loose reference to “attack of significant scope that the local defenses are inadequate.”

  Although there'd been some saber-rattling between the Steward’s squadrons and hers, and enemy ships had been trying to bait parts of her forces into ambush and the reverse, there had yet to be any significant engagement between the two militaries since their colossal confrontation at the Apollo Yards. That battle alone was responsible for the total loss of some forty-percent of the Imperial fleet, in both resources and lives, affecting both sides fairly equally. With the overwhelming majority of ship destructions taking all hands with them, the blood which had gone into the elimination of the mighty Apollo Yards proved a heavy toll. It was a price that felt like a weight around her neck during her waking hours and haunted her sleep whenever she managed to find any.

  Yet it was not guilt over the many casualties from Apollo that had gotten to her. No, she would not allow herself to feel guilty for the tremendous death toll. At first she had, blaming herself and her plan for the engagement’s failure to limit casualties, but the force of that guilt had proven overwhelming. And she could not lead and continue to make decisions that would mean sending men and women to their deaths if she felt herself handcuffed by the disastrous results everyone involved knew might occur. Especially when she’d done her job, as best she’d known how, and devised the finest plan she could in order to minimize casualties. The fact that Caerwyn Martel had somehow uncovered her plot and set an ambush was probably someone’s fault, but not her own. And so she would not allow it to weigh her down.

  The deaths had been regrettable, of course, though only half of them could she feel true feelings for. The deaths of the enemy, although fellow humans and fellow Imperials, had been the result of rebellion against the crown. She wished they'd seen the error of their ways sooner or could have escaped the propaganda trap that chained them to their posts fighting on the wrong and losing side of an unfortunate civil war. But she could do nothing for them, so she refused to feel anything for them.

  As for the other half of the casualties, her own loyal officers and crews, her heart did go out to them and their families. She did not feel guilt for their deaths, she pointedly refused, but she nonetheless regretted their loss and felt it as she read through the casualty reports, a task she promised herself she would perform after every engagement. Every soldier or officer who died in her service deserved to at least have her read his or her name when that man or woman paid the ultimate price. Which, after a monumental clash like the Battle for Apollo, took a great deal of time. Still, she had done it, but she did not weep. For even as she read the names, giving them tribute in that small way and feeling the loss of what their presence had given her war effort, she could not truthfully mourn them. For what they'd done was offer their lives upon the altar of patriotic duty, something to be honored, to be respected, not something to be bewailed and bemoaned.

  No, it truly wasn’t the spilt blood which haunted her; it was the reality that so much had been spent on one solitary engagement. That should her fleet and her enemies continue to meet under similar circumstances, there might not be any Imperial fleet left for her by the time she ended the war and took the throne. If that was so, even standing atop the might of a reunified Empire, how could she possibly protect her people? Especially with resources such as the Apollo Yards no longer available to hurriedly rebuild the Fleet? Not to mention that such was an unrealistic timetable, given Calvin’s warning about the Rotham and the Alliance…The Rotham are coming, she often thought, as she lay awake at night in those precious hours when she desperately needed to be asleep. I can feel them coming…

  If the Rotham did come, as she knew they would, for years she’d been certain of this, how could she possibly protect her people if all that was left for her to command were the ashes of starships and the blood of dead soldiers? And if she could not protect her people, then will all of this have been worth it? Or had she inadvertently caused the very end she’d originally done everything to avoid?

  Can I really live up to my family name? she wondered, thinking about the rich legacy of her great-great grandfather, the savior of humanity. Can I honestly even claim to be any better for our people than my father was, or am I a mere footnote in history? Or worse, remembered for all time as the Last Akira, the final monarch before the fall of humanity…before the Rotham came to slaughter and subjugate us, picking up where they’d left off before my forbearers stopped them…

  It was a grim thought, and one difficult to escape from, but she did her best not to let it suppress her spirits. Hope was a weapon in its own right, and she did all she could to demonstrate and share her hope with her advisors, officers, and everyone she could. She wanted hope to be a contagious disease that took firm root among her loyal supporters and, like a sturdy tree standing fierce against a gale wind, be irremovable.

  “The repairs are going without delay, most of our forces are in some kind of battle-ready status,” she mumbled aloud, in part to keep herself awake and partly to remind herself of the less bleak aspects of the situation. “We are gaining systems, not losing them, and still almost no desertions to report among all my retainers…which is more than I can say for that damned Caerwyn Martel.”

  It was true. Since she’d made her announcement of the creation, or rather restoration of the Imperial Assembly in the form of the Royal Assembly, a number of representatives had fled Capital World and declared themselves for her. Now some eighty-nine representatives, fifty-nine of which had defected from Capital World, convened as an official governmental body aboard the ISS Indomitable until proper headquarters could be arranged. There was any number of core worlds willing to host the body, and Kalila knew the Royal Assembly would eventually need a permanent, fixed home. But she also knew implanting them somewhere would elevate one of her worlds to the status of capital, whether de facto or by official decree, and that might show undue favoritism on her part in the eyes of her other worlds as well as create a ripe new target for the Steward and his rebellious forces to focus their violence, a new vulnerability for her to defend.

  No! For now the Royal Assembly was much better kept aboard the Indomitable. It was a dreadnought that rivaled the power and strength of the Black Swan itself, was a less likely target, better to not keep the monarch and the Assembly in the exact same place and, most importantly, was commanded by Sir Rodrigo Cid de la Fuerza, one of her most trustworthy knights, and crewed by officers and staff handpicked for their loyalty and skill. So long as the Royal Assembly remained aboard the Indomitable, they would not only be well-protected, they would be controllable. The last thing she needed would be for a governmental body she herself had empowered to go rogue on her and start making decisions which were harmful to her greater strategy of unifying the Empire.

  The Royal Assembly had begun sessions and was fast in growing both from defectors and appointments. Kalila had empowered some of her loyal planets whose own representatives remained on Capital World to nullify those appointments and select new representatives. Some had arrived and many more were on their way or due for swift election. Yet despite that, the steady growth had stalled in one very alarming and suspicious way.

  While at first it had seemed to be no trouble for the various members of the now-unlawful Assembly on Capital World to leave the system and join her, officially declaring their defection upon arrival, now the flow of such defections had been stymied. At first Kalila and her advisors assumed this was because those sympathetic to her cause had left, and now those represen
tatives who remained on Capital World were simply choosing to stay aboard a sinking ship.

  That was until intelligence gathered by her spies discovered the number of seated representatives on Capital World had continued to decrease, at least for some while, after new defectors stopped arriving. It would still make sense if these representatives were abandoning their posts on Capital World in order to declare neutrality, or to resign them, or because they’d been recalled by their various homeworlds and were finally choosing to answer the summons. But upon further investigation, it was discovered many of these representatives were simply disappearing altogether, with several of them turning up dead. Their deaths and disappearances were mostly kept quiet, only ever reported when necessary, and always getting the facts suspiciously and conveniently wrong.

  Caerwyn Martel and his propagandists were continually creating the illusion there had been no disappearances; that, aside from those who had already escaped and successfully declared for Kalila, none had tried. As for the disappearances the public had noticed, there was always some story of resignation, voluntary exile, unrelated criminal homicide, or else, as was most common, suicide.

  Kalila’s informers estimated the number of representatives who had abandoned their posts on Capital World’s unlawful Assembly to be over a hundred. Yet the Imperial public knew only of the fifty-nine which now sat on the Royal Assembly and some fourteen others. Twenty-seven more were missing without anyone seeming to have taken notice. And, the more her spies investigated, the more whispers and hints they’d uncovered that a system of discreet killings and bounties had been quietly instated. As well as the machinery, no doubt Intel Wing itself, to disguise the killings as other things and sometimes hiding them altogether. Hard evidence was difficult to procure; certainly her spies had produced virtually nothing Kalila could raise up to prove to the public what was going on. But among those who continued the investigation, there was little doubt.

  It’s time to call Caerwyn out on this, she realized, even though she had little but words to prove the truth of her allegations. The people deserved to know what was going on, even if they didn’t believe it to be true. And if nothing else, by making the allegation public, Kalila would at least be giving some warning to any current representatives on Capital World who might, in the future, choose to defect to her just and rightful side. That way they’d at least be on notice to do so with extreme caution, thus bettering their chances of success.

  And so she made the arrangements and began her broadcast, sending it across the Empire, using all available channels, frequencies, and technologies: kataspace, short-range, piggy-backed signals, everything possible, to every system, Empire-wide. She'd done this before, with great success, as there was little means of jamming and intercepting all possible communications across such a spectrum. Unfortunately, that meant her people had to endure the same tactics from Caerwyn. Hopefully, however, her words would resonate far more and reach far deeper than any rebuttal he may cobble together in response.

  As the cameras activated and the mic turned on, she put on her most dignified and assertive face, used her most regal and authoritative tone, making sure not to sound overly superior but still strong as iron, and relied on the noble efforts of her make-up staff, eye drops, film crew, camera filters, and her sheer force of will to hide even the tiniest sign of weakness or vulnerability on her part, including the mountain of fatigue which made every muscle in her body scream out at her for sleep. She would be strong for her Empire, now and always. The least she could do was look and sound the part.

  “Citizens of the Empire,” she said, making it clear this broadcast was meant for their benefit and not directed at Caerwyn Martel, whom she did not want to legitimize in any way. “Loyal subjects, my loving people, and humans everywhere, I address you as your queen and protector, both to rally your hope and to provide you with warning about a terrible evil that is a crime against us all, and is taking place under our very noses.

  “Since I announced the reformation of the Imperial Assembly as the Royal Assembly, many worlds have answered my call for unity and sent their representatives to sit upon this legal Assembly and help to defend and create the rules of law upon which our security, our liberty, and our very Empire is predicated. Already fifty-nine representatives have abandoned the unlawful Assembly on Capital World and taken their rightful places here, as part of the Royal Assembly. And other worlds have come with them, abandoning their neutrality or their loyalty to the insurgent state which holds our dear Capital World captive. Worlds as diverse as Vega Major, Furud Three, and Zavijada have seen the wisdom in rejoining the Empire and standing together as one people and one nation.

  “This is but the beginning of a new hope for reunification and a symbol of the will of the people, of us, as one people, and one Empire, to be united once more brother with brother, father with son, to stand tall and proud, securely, as Imperials and citizens of the greatest nation this galaxy has ever known.

  “No more must we hope for unity through sword and slaughter. Let there never again be a Battle of Apollo, where friends were forced to slay friends and families broken apart by the cruelties of civil war. The conflict can be brought to an end through peace and diplomacy and respect for the law, as ever more worlds continue to join with us, choosing unity over division and loyalty to the crown. The same crown that has always protected and defended us from alien threats afar and enemies at home, since the moment our first king, my great-great grandfather, put it atop his head. Now it is I who wears the burden of that crown, with all its duties, responsibilities, and promises. And I promise you now, all of you, we can be one people again. Peace is possible, if we but stand up and choose it.

  “To all governments on all worlds, and all their people, to each and every magistrate who took an oath to follow my father, our late king, I implore you, if your world remains neutral, to choose the side that wishes to end this conflict. Declare your loyalty for the Empire once again, to the crown, and rally to our banner of unity, that we may stand strong once more, united against all of our foes. Through the strength of our union we shall cause all who would do us harm to instead fear us, and leave us to our peace.

  “And to all governments on all worlds, and all their people, and to each and every magistrate who remains affiliated with the corrupt and broken state that would oppose us, I urge you to break your chains and choose the side of freedom and loyalty, to choose to rejoin the Empire once more. Cut those shackles that anchor you to that sinking ship of state, whose skipper is the corrupt so-called Steward of the Empire, who would steward each of us into our own graves, which is the only promise on which he has delivered. Come to me instead, choose re-unification, choose the crown, choose the Empire. And be delivered from that corrupt villain who would use you and control you and force you into war against your brothers, friends, and comrades. A war our dear Empire so desperately cannot afford, as our enemies abroad continue to mass their fleets and prepare their invasions, we must unite to foil their plans before it is too late, before we lose the strength to defend ourselves.

  “That is why we may yet have hope, because there remains time. We can unite. We can end this conflict peacefully. By choosing the crown over the chaos. By choosing the queen over the traitor.

  “And now I must tell you of this insidious evil that is rotting at the core of Capital World itself. A crime, still happening, which is so vile it sours the tongue to even speak of it, and yet I must. For you, my beloved people, noble countrymen, and honored citizens, you must know of it.

  “I speak of that black crime of murder, but not of homicide. For it is one kind of evil for a man to kill another, but it is a far darker, far more perverse evil for a captain to kill his own lieutenants, or a shepherd to slaughter his own flock. The victims I speak of are your own representatives on Capital World, and the murderer is none other than Steward Martel himself and the henchmen who do his darkest deeds.

  “Already you know fifty-nine representatives have abandoned C
apital World to join the Royal Assembly. They are safe, I am happy to tell you. But I am mournful to announce many of their cohorts, fellow representatives, who also left Capital World to join the Royal Assembly to seek unification under the crown and peace and all that is right, they have been discovered and hunted and slaughtered by Caerwyn Martel, murdered to prevent them from adding their support to reunification. Slaughtered like savage animals by savage animals to help that villain Martel keep a tight grip on his power so he may continue his war and, if he has his way, doom us all. He would mercilessly and extra-judicially kill any representative who now tries to abandon the Assembly on Capital World in favor of the Royal Assembly, which seeks to establish nothing but peace and a return to order.

  “My informants have uncovered this foul truth about Caerwyn Martel, and the fates of those who chose the right side, to leave him and seek to reunite the Empire, and how he had them tortured and killed and brought to ignominious ends. He even offers contracts and bounties and pays from the coffers of the state treasury itself a king’s ransom to any who would hunt down these representatives who leave his side, who seek nothing but justice and peace for their people, and then bring the corpses and prisoners to him, where he vanishes them away from the sight of the public forevermore.

  “If you do not believe me, then ask yourself about the fourteen disappearances of representatives you do know. If you haven’t heard of them, then I implore you to search your news and your records and databases and I promise you, you will find news of them. Representatives Horowitz, Lori, Truslow, Sayre, Merikoski, Tecilla, Genthner, Gale, Chamberlain, Rowland, Bhagat, Ch’en, Wang, and Ivchenko. Search their names and you will read tales of murders, suicides, alleged resignations and supposed voluntary exiles, but ask yourself this: can that be so for all of them? Representatives of the Assembly? So many to meet such ignominious ends? And over such a short amount of time? Or is there not something more suspicious at work? Is that not more likely?