The Phoenix Darkness

by Richard L. Sanders

  Upon arrival, the feeling of guns pressed into his back went away and, although his escort remained at his sides and behind him, they made no further effort to seem hostile. Standing next to the three ranking officers was Alex. Calvin felt a flash of rage as he saw the man, the betrayer who’d put them into Rotham hands in the first place, but Calvin suppressed the urge to walk up to him and strike him in the face, thinking to do so would be detrimental to his own survival.

  “What do you want?” he asked, before anyone else had a chance to speak.

  “Ah, Captain Cross,” said the centermost officer. “How nice of you to join us.”

  “Actually it’s Lieutenant-Commander,” said Calvin.

  “Your precise human rank is meaningless here,” said the centermost officer. “We've brought you here to discuss an offer.”

  An offer? Calvin doubted it. He was in no bargaining position, so this was probably not so much an offer as a do this for us or die kind of arrangement. “What’s the offer?” he asked.

  “It’s quite simple, really,” he turned to Alex. “Proxitor, explain it to him.”

  Alex cleared his throat. As his golden eyes met Calvin’s, Calvin thought he saw a measure of contriteness in the Rotham’s face, or at least something that looked like a kind of apology. Too bad it was far too late for such things. Calvin thought of the torture he’d endured and the fact that Rain, of all people, had been subjected to it, not to mention the rest of his team, and Calvin decided then and there, there would be no forgiveness.

  “The offer is simple, really,” said Alex. “We, as you have certainly deduced by now, are the Advent and we are working against the Rahajiim, our common enemy. We have the chance to deal a major blow to the Rahajiim operation, utilizing the massive fleet you saw congregating, but in order to do it we need your help.”

  “And if I help you, along with my people, then what?” asked Calvin. “You’ll let us go?”

  “Yes,” said the centermost officer, when Alex seemed hesitant to answer. “Return successfully from the mission and we shall arrange for your safe return to Imperial space.”

  Calvin noted a somewhat gloomier look on Alex’s face and realized this carrot they were dangling before him did not really exist. As was often the case for crucial Advent missions, according to Intel Wing files, this was to be a suicide mission. There would be no safe return for anyone involved.

  “And if I refuse to cooperate?” Calvin folded his arms in a gesture of defiance.

  “Oh, make no mistake, human,” said the centermost officer. “There is no refusal. You may cooperate willingly and assist us in our mission, or you will cooperate unwillingly, but you will assist us all the same. And in the end, rather than proving yourselves to be our allies, you will be given up as Rahajiim prisoners.”

  “Rahajiim prisoners?” asked Calvin. “I thought you said you were Advent?”

  “We are Advent. But it will be the Rahajiim who hold your chains when this is over, should you refuse to help us. Listen to the Proxitor, he will explain it all.”

  Calvin turned back to Alex. Who continued, “The plan is for our destroyer to approach the Rahajiim fleet as a common Republican ship on standard patrol. We'll tell them we have just intercepted a ship full of spies and wish to deliver them over to the fleet and resume our patrol rather than divert away to a Republican world to turn them in. The fleet will have noticed this destroyer’s interception, commandeering, and ultimate destruction of the Wanderer, and so the veracity of the story should not be in doubt. They will instruct this vessel to dock with one of theirs. It is not known which one, however there is a plan in place to ensure we dock with the T’Verian supercruiser, one of the primary command ships of the fleet.”

  “Why that ship?” asked Calvin.

  “That ship, it is known, has vital intelligence within its databanks. The intelligence has been secured by forms of encryption we have been able to decode.”

  “So you want to sneak aboard that ship pretending to deliver prisoners, and then somehow blitz your way to the Bridge and take temporary command of the supercruiser so you can steal the information stored there,” said Calvin, thinking this plan sounded unlikely to succeed, but he’d himself attempted crazier things.

  “No, of course not, the Bridge will be heavily guarded and reaching it will run us afoul of any number of patrols. We would need a force of two hundred Teldari to hope to capture the Bridge of such a supercruiser,” said the centermost officer. “Now, please, silence from you; allow the Proxitor to finish his explanation.”

  Calvin chose to comply.

  “The data we need would be accessible from the Bridge, of course,” said Alex. “But we need not take the Bridge to get it. As you can see here,” he pointed to the blueprints on the table before them. Calvin watched closely. “There are several hangars on this supercruiser which could receive our vessel. Six, to be precise. However, it is our belief that, because we are transferring prisoners, they will order us to dock in either A or B, the topmost hangars amidships. The reason for this is it allows the shortest path to the major brig, which is a larger version of the prison block we both found ourselves incarcerated in on the Thorpian attack cruiser back in Abia System.” Alex paused for breath.

  Calvin used the pause to study the blueprint, memorizing as much of it as he could. He saw the hangars, the two Alex referred to, and he even saw that the fastest path from the hangars to the prison block seemed to be to escort the prisoners into the main corridor, head about a hundred meters toward the center of the shaft, and then use one of a series of elevators which had access to some hundred-and-ten decks on the starship. Those elevators could reach as high as the Bridge, but, more importantly, had access to the deck just two below where the prisoners were to be kept. Hangars A and B had easy access to those elevator columns, whereas hangars C through F used a different column of elevators with primary access mostly downward toward the bottom of the ship.

  “We will send our best trained soldiers off this ship escorting you and your companions, in shackles, out of the hangar and to these elevators,” he pointed to the column Calvin had already correctly identified. “Once there, our soldiers will eliminate whatever other guards the supercruiser will have sent with us, and then free you and your team members, provided we have your word of honor you’ll cooperate with us.” Calvin nearly smirked at that. He knew the Rotham culture had little trust for promises and words of honor; those were the kind of things that mattered to the Polarians, but he supposed the Advent had little other means at their disposal than to trust Calvin’s people and every reason to want their cooperation. No doubt their false promise of escape also hinged upon Calvin’s cooperation, and that was how they hoped to truly ensure the cooperation of Calvin and his people.

  “And if we do cooperate?” asked Calvin. “What’s the mission then?”

  “We’ll arm you with the weapons taken from the now deceased enemy soldiers who had been the remaining half of your escort. Then, as one unit, we storm the elevators and send them up two decks, rather than down two.”

  “That column of elevators seems like a central means of transportation for crew and soldiers moving throughout the ship,” observed Calvin. “How do we know they'll not be in use by others, or even available, when we want to use them? We might find ourselves waiting there a long time, long enough to encounter some very undesirable company. If that happens, it'll mean a loud fight, loud enough that it will probably trigger an alarm, which will result in the enemy sealing off all critical areas, including the Action Information Center. And very probably shutting down the elevators altogether to limit our mobility.”

  “You are wise to wonder about such things,” said the centermost officer, almost sounding impressed. “For a human, you show an almost Rotham characteristic for thinking.” Calvin supposed this was a compliment. “Proxitor, explain to him why this is not a concern.”

  “Well,” said Alex. “Because the movement of prisoners will be anticipated by them, they
will have reserved one or more of the elevators for our use, clearing it temporarily of any other traffic that might be wanting to use it. Probably they’ll divert the entire column to us, given the number of prisoners and guards, which will give us a small window of time to pacify the other guards, undo the shackles binding your people, and then rapidly enter the elevators and take them where we want to go. Instead of going here,” he pointed to the prison block two decks below. “We will make for here,” his finger slid upward, stopping four decks above the prison block on what appeared to be some kind of control room. It reminded Calvin of the Action Information Centers often found on human warships of battleship class or greater.

  “And that's where we’ll get the data we need?” asked Calvin.

  “Yes. This is the V’Zinian Lattice. In your terms, you might think of it as the Action Information Center of the ship. The data will be there and it will be far less defended than the Bridge. The second in command might be there and we can expect a number of Teldari guards; we plan on that, but they will be no match for our combined strength, your people and our Advent soldiers. We will quickly overcome them and at once unlock the controls, disable the decryption, and begin to transmit the data off the ship to the destroyer, which will have moved to a safe position.”

  “A safe position where?” asked Calvin, knowing the only safe position away from the fleet would be for the destroyer to have jumped the hell away from it. It would probably have resumed its alteredspace patrol route, leaving it in no position to mount a rescue of its deployed personnel and further proving to Calvin that this mission was not intended to collect survivors. It was suicide.

  “That’s on a need-to-know basis only,” said the centermost officer, with a slight smile. “But you may trust us; the destroyer will be safe.”

  I’ll bet it will, thought Calvin. Safe and the hell away from any danger, and any chance of helping us get out of there in one piece.

  “And that,” said Alex, “is the mission.”

  “What happens once the data is transferred off the supercruiser?” asked Calvin, knowing they wouldn’t have any plan for escape.

  “Then we all take our chances attempting escape together,” said Alex, rather vaguely. Calvin knew that meant the Advent expected to be overwhelmed and killed long before they’d gotten the entirety of the data offloaded from the ship, and their duty, therefore, was to continue transmitting all the data and intel they could until they were physically stopped. Probably they expected Calvin and his people to hold the door with their arms, fighting off any counterattack until they were inevitably overwhelmed.

  It was a great mission for the Advent, but Calvin didn’t see exactly how to leverage it to the advantage of the Empire. The data would be there, more data than his own spy mission could have dreamed to ascertain, and he would have access to those databanks. If only there were a way he could offload some of the data for himself, make a copy of it, and get it to Kalila or the Nighthawk or someone else. Then this mission would actually be worth doing, even dying for. It was obvious the Rahajiim fleet was assembling with the express goal of attacking the Empire. The details of the attack, without question, would be on that supercruiser, so long as the Advent were right about that particular ship being the intel hub of the Rahajiim effort. And, if the Advent lived up to their reputation as a formidable intelligence network, Calvin had no reason to distrust their intelligence.

  “I see,” said Calvin, after a pause. He searched the blueprints carefully for all paths away from the Action Information Center and back to the hangars, and for that matter access routes which could get him to any of the other four hangars. Maybe the Advent were willing to die on this mission, but Calvin wasn’t. He was going to find a way to gather his own intelligence and then get himself, and his people, the hell off that ship somehow. Now, if only he could read Rotham, he would be able to tell which hangar was used for which purpose, indicating the kinds of ships stored there, and then plan a route that would take him and the others there using the most evasive and minimalistic path, no doubt avoiding the elevators as much as possible and making use of what appeared to be an extensive network of emergency ladders. Most ships had such ladders; elevators couldn’t be relied upon when a ship was under fire and needing to divert power from one system to another. But this supercruiser seemed to have ladders which could take anyone from any part of the ship and get them to any other. It was impressive. And a lot to take in.

  “Well,” asked the centermost officer impatiently, perhaps noticing Calvin’s eyes intently flicking about the blueprints before them.

  “I’d like to consult with my team,” said Calvin, hoping to get these blueprints in front of Rafael, who could read them.

  “A consultation is not necessary,” said the centermost officer impatiently. “Either you help us and we free you at the base of those elevators, or you don’t help us and we leave you in your shackles to take your chances, tied up and unarmed, aboard a Rahajiim supercruiser. Now, do you see how your other choice in this matter is to become Rahajiim prisoners?”

  “Yes,” admitted Calvin.

  “Nau,” said Alex, looking at the centermost officer. “There is one among the humans who can speak our language. It is possible the humans will betray us to the Rahajiim if we abandon them in their shackles.”

  Damn you, Alex, thought Calvin, wondering how Alex had determined Rafael was fluent in Rotham. That secret was meant to be leverage over Alex throughout their journey. Yet somehow, the clever former Advent operative, or now, evidently, current Advent operative, had put it together.

  “Which one?” asked the centermost officer. Calvin felt anger. Once Alex identified it was Rafael, the Advent would no doubt eliminate him to handle the risk. Calvin was about to make Rafael’s safety a condition of his cooperation, but Alex spoke first.

  “I do not know which one,” said Alex, much to Calvin’s surprise. Why would he protect Rafael like that?

  “Unfortunate,” said the centermost officer, believing him. Then the officer looked back at Calvin. “In that case, we obviously cannot abandon you in your shackles. So, if you choose not to cooperate with us, we will have to pacify you along with whatever Teldari guard is there.” Calvin didn’t have to be told what that meant. “So whether or not you cooperate,” continued the officer, “we are bringing you and your team along as bait. Your arrival has proven rather serendipitous, actually, as now we have a better plan of gaining access to that ship.”

  Calvin wondered what their previous plan had been, but knew they’d never tell him. Besides, they expected a swift and firm commitment from him now, or else his trust would be placed into serious jeopardy. And they might choose to pacify him and the other humans, and Rez’nac, without giving them the chance to assist in the plan.

  “In that case, you leave me no choice, clearly,” said Calvin. “We will assist in your plan. And we’ll do exactly as we’re told to do,” he paused. “But, I have one request to make first.”

  “You’re in no position to be making requests of any sort,” said the officer. “However, because I am curious, I shall allow it.” He obviously wanted the absoluteness of his authority to remain unquestioned here before allowing Calvin to negotiate for anything.

  “I wish to speak with Alex alone,” he said. Then, when it was instantly obviously none of them knew who Alex was, besides Alex himself, Calvin pointed. “This one.”

  “He means me,” said Alex. “Alex is a term the humans invented for me when they could not pronounce my name.”

  “Is it derogatory?” asked the centermost officer.

  “No, actually I believe it is meant to be endearing. The humans frequently will give cognomen to one another. Usually it is done between friends and family members.”

  “I see,” said the officer, no doubt thinking this human custom to be foolish. “I do not think there is any need to honor this request,” he said. “As the human,” now looking at Calvin, “has already agreed to assist us and spoken for his crew.
”

  “With respect and apology for the interruption, Great Nau,” said Alex. “I would ask that I be allowed to honor his request.”

  The centermost officer looked surprised, although it was difficult for Calvin to read the Rotham’s facial expression with any degree of certainty.

  “He may wish to harm you,” said the officer on the right, speaking up for the first time. Calvin had previously gathered they, like the soldiers around him, were here for show and none were supposed to speak without the pleasure or permission of the highest ranking Rotham here, the one in the center.

  “I swear not to harm him,” said Calvin. “You may even shackle my arms behind my back.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Alex. “I know this one well enough to believe him at his word; he will not harm me. And I wish to know what he would say to me in private.”

  “Very well,” the centermost officer relented. He waved toward a side door and Alex approached it. Calvin felt a push in that direction and understood he was meant to follow. A few seconds later, the two of them were behind closed doors in what appeared to be a tiny crewman’s cabin. The bed, which was Rotham-sized, looked to Calvin like it was meant for a tall child.

  “What is it you would have of me?” asked Alex. Adding quickly, “I know you think I have betrayed you, and I am sorry for the treatment you received upon your arrival; that was out of my control, but I knew we needed to get in touch with the Advent if our mission could succeed and if any one of us could survive.”