Calvin was about to yell at him to get down when he realized the fighting had stopped. The smoke was clearing and the whining of energy blasts was now less than an echo. He could still hear them in his imagination, but the fight was over. They'd prevailed. He climbed to his feet and looked around, just to be sure, and watched as the surviving Advent Elite, still in their Dendari uniforms, checked the corpses of the fallen enemies, now and again stabbing them with their knives, just to ensure they were dead.
In total, there had been many more Teldari here than anticipated. Calvin counted at least twenty Teldari uniforms, each with its own gruesome corpse, and that number didn’t include the many staff officers and technicians who had also been slaughtered, plus a total of only nine fallen Dendari. The Advent Elite had lived up to their name and reputation and had, mostly singlehandedly, won the battle. Though Calvin and his people had taken out some, certainly Rez’nac slaughtered his fair share. And despite all the blood he was soaked in, Calvin was reasonably sure none of it was his. At least none of it looked Polarian.
“This was a glorious victory,” said Rez’nac when his eyes met Calvin’s.
“Looks like it,” said Calvin. He then turned to check on his people. Miles had stayed down during the fighting and was unharmed. Rain also remained out of the fight and had no injury. Rez’nac appeared to have no injuries, but Calvin could never be sure with him. As for Rafael, he looked like he’d taken a small wound from a knife. He’d gotten up close with the enemy, considering where he stood, and by the looks of it he’d chosen to fight alongside the Advent Elite. Now he sported a cut upon his face. It looked superficial, though painful, and Calvin doubted Rafael had been the intended target of the knife. More than likely it had glanced off something else and sliced him.
Everyone is alive, thought Calvin with intense relief. Now there’s no time to waste.
“Alex, Rafael,” said Calvin and he moved toward the center of the control room. True to his word, Alex, who thankfully was still alive, found them a suitable console which hadn’t been ruined in the fighting and decrypted the terminal.
“Have it,” said Alex. He returned to help his own people who had taken control of several terminals. They were quickly aggregating data for themselves and speedily broadcasting it out into space, no doubt to the destroyer, which, by now, should be a safe distance away from the fleet. The speed at which they worked, and their obvious desire to retrieve as much data as possible, was what Calvin wanted also.
“Get everything you can,” he said, as he turned to Rafael.
“I will.” Rafael plugged in the disc and began accessing files.
“Humans,” shouted one of the Advent Elite. “Guard the door!” he pointed at the elevator. Calvin did not want to anger the Advent Elite, but he also wasn’t about to give up the chance to mine all this data.
“Rez’nac, Miles, watch the door,” he said. The two of them obeyed, pointing rifles in the direction of the door from positions of relative cover. Calvin could see Miles was deeply unhappy. Perhaps the Advent’s torture had really gotten to him? Calvin made a mental note to talk it out with Miles later when they had the chance.
For now, Calvin turned his attention back to Rafael’s efforts and the computer station. Everything was in Rotham and so Calvin had no idea what sort of stuff was coming up. Now and again there’d be a schematic of a ship or a picture of a face, but otherwise he was utterly clueless. Rafael, for his part, was too focused to give Calvin a play-by-play commentary of everything he found, though he did mention a few significant finds.
“There are a lot of documents here referring to some unidentified human who is apparently heavily involved in all of this.”
“Really?” asked Calvin, intrigued. “Do they give a name?”
“No name; it seems the Rahajiim themselves don’t know who he is.”
“Or she,” said Calvin.
“Touché, or she. It looks like they were trying very hard to unmask this person, though, and may have even gotten close. Look, here’s something interesting.”
Calvin looked, but all he saw was Rotham gibberish.
“The early reports refer to this mysterious human in a relatively positive or neutral way. Then, after about here, the reports become very negative. I think whoever it was must have double-crossed them or something.”
“Very interesting,” said Calvin, racking his brain to come up with possible candidates of who such a person could be. White Rook was an obvious candidate, not that that helped him much, since he’d never been able to unmask her identity. Perhaps Raidan? It would come as a surprise, but didn’t seem impossible.
“Here we go,” said Rafael. “This is the gold right here.”
“What is it?”
“There are some fairly detailed military plans here, including plans of attack inside Imperial space. There are numbers of ships, even names of ships assigned to the campaign. Some documents mentioning the Alliance and the Enclave; those will be useful. Oh, and get this, the plans have been adjusted to account for the destruction of the Apollo Yards. Apparently, the primary target system has changed now that the yards have been removed as a threat.”
That, more than anything else was what he needed to get to Kalila. If he could tell the queen when and where the Rotham were going to be when they launched their invasion, and what ships would be involved, the queen could mount a stunning defense.
“How imminent is the attack?” asked Calvin, knowing he would have to escape and get clear of the fleet before he could transmit this intelligence. Otherwise, the fleet would know and change its plans.
“It looks like the fleet congregated here is the attack force,” said Rafael. “And judging by the roster here, they’re only missing about three ships. So they could attack any time…”
“And the intended target?”
“Thetican System. Now that they have control of Renora and the Apollo Yards are gone…”
“It’s the perfect foothold for establishing control of The Corridor,” said Calvin, thinking it suddenly seemed so obvious. Whereas before Thetican System seemed like such an unlikely target because it had no obvious natural resource or anomaly to take advantage of. But its positioning, absent the Yards; that was huge!
“They expect only minor resistance,” said Rafael. “They're going to hit the Thetican System hard and fast before the Empire has time to determine what the target is and marshal a response capable of repelling the invasion. Thetican will fall long before that happens. Then, from that point, there are plans to strike several systems. They even have a plan here labeled contingent for attacking Capital World itself.”
“Make sure you get it all,” said Calvin. He looked around and saw the Advent Elite were still at their stations, essentially doing the same thing. Except they had the luxury of broadcasting their data out to their command ship, so they didn’t have to worry about escape in order to hold onto the newly uncovered intelligence. In fact, Calvin was certain none of them, except for Alex, planned to escape at all. They would just keep mining and transmitting data until more Teldari arrived and overwhelmed them. The thought made Calvin anxious, and he knew no matter how juicy the intel was that they were collecting, they had to move soon or they’d be trapped here with the Advent Elite and this would be their grave.
“Apparently, the fleet is primarily waiting for the arrival of k’tcha, whatever that is, before launching the attack. And it is listed here as…'delivery imminent'.”
Delivery of what? Calvin wondered. And then it hit him. “The isotome missiles,” he whispered, “they must be waiting for the isotome missiles!” If so, that meant Summers had failed in her mission to find and destroy them. Calvin worried about the Nighthawk and hoped it and all aboard were safe, despite this apparent failure.
“You know something, I think you’re right,” said Rafael. He smeared blood on his hand as he wiped his brow, stopping it from dripping into his only eye. “It says here the delivery is being made by the Enclave…”
At the mention of the Enclave, Calvin felt a surge of intense fury pour through him, but stowed it away knowing it couldn’t help him here. He needed to escape this deathtrap if he was ever going to deal with those bastards once and for all.
“We need to go,” said Calvin. “We’ve already overstayed our welcome.” He could sense it. There would be trouble here soon, and he needed to get his people out now before it went down.
“I only wish I could broadcast all of this,” said Rafael in frustration. “Like they’re doing.” But it was impossible. The communications transmitters were locked down by forms of encryption even Alex hadn’t known, or so he’d claimed, and besides, the Advent Elite were unlikely to happily share the AIC’s transmitters, which they were using to rapidly offload as much data as they could.
“Come on,” said Calvin. “We’re out of time.”
Rafael finished up and retrieved the disc. As he held it, he looked at Calvin sternly with his one eye, “One of us has to survive. No matter what, this disc gets to the queen.”
Calvin nodded. “Now let’s go so we all survive.”
***
Alex would continue helping the Advent until the last possible moment. He knew the others were more than willing to remain behind, gathering intelligence until they were found and killed, which could be very, very soon. Alex, on the other hand, had every intention of getting away, or trying to, with the humans. And so, as he hurriedly located important data and sent it to the queue for transmission, he kept a vigilant eye on Calvin, watching him for any sign he and his people were going to bail. Calvin had seemed tolerant of Alex joining their escape, but he’d made it clear it was Alex’s duty to keep up and not get in the way. Alex took that to mean, “You can come with us, but we’re not going to tell you when we’re going, or where.”
Some of the information he uncovered was so fascinating it almost made him lose track of his need to keep an eye on Calvin. There were numerous mentions of Polarian Forbidden Space, with conflicting reports regarding alleged contacts from that region. The reports themselves conflicted as to whether these contacts were useful allies or backstabbing enemies. Other documents mentioned the High Prelain himself, though usually only in passing.
Of particular importance to the Advent’s mission was the evidence they’d found involving the senate. There were papers implicating extortion rackets and bribery operations influencing several key senators. Of course, bribery was nothing surprising. Bribing senators had existed since the dawn of representative government and was, in fact, its primary flaw. But knowing which senators were taking Rahajiim bribes, that mattered.
Alex sent his latest dispatch to the queue when he noticed Calvin and Rafael step away from their terminal. They darted into the elevator, along with the Polarian, the female doctor, and the dumb specialist. Alex sprinted away from his terminal and toward the elevator, but the door had closed.
He pressed the call button. Hurry up, damn you. He counted the beeps as the elevator dropped each deck.
He would not be left behind. Just then, he heard a shrill noise; it repeated. The ship’s klaxon! Someone must have noticed something and alerted the Bridge. The Rahajiim are onto us! They’ll be here any second!
***
He heard the klaxon start sounding; they all did. It did very little to boost his confidence.
Calvin stood in the elevator with the others as it took them down eleven decks. He could have gone down only two and fairly easily reached the hangar they’d arrived in, but he knew that would do them no good. There wasn’t a ship in that hangar they could use for a practical escape; it was kept mostly empty. So, after consulting with Rafael and the blueprints, he’d settled on Hangar B. Hangar B could also have been reached from only two decks below the AIC, but that path took them past a guard post and wound them around a long stretch of corridor which could provide no cover at all, nor any place to hide.
Instead, Calvin had planned out a more nuanced path, one which should get them inside the hangar without having to walk directly and obviously through the main doors.
“Don’t worry, guys,” he said, trying to reassure himself too. “The Advent may have come here for a suicide mission, but we haven’t. We’re getting off this ship! Let's sneak around to Hangar B, where we’re going to take control of a drone command shuttle.”
They looked back at him with fear and some hope. He had their trust, every one of them, and he knew it, but even to him his plan sounded unequal to the task. Though they held their silence respectfully, as a demonstration of their trust, he could hear their questions in the silence.
How will we safely get to Hangar B? How will we safety get to, and take control of, such a shuttle? How will we convince a starship, now on full alert, to open its hangar doors? And, most importantly, how will we clear enough distance away from an entire Rahajiim fleet, with ships much, much faster than a shuttle, in order to successfully jump into alteredspace? And, once we do jump, what will stop them from tracing our alteredspace jump signature and chasing us down, forcing us back into normal space where we can be obliterated or recaptured?
All good questions, thought Calvin. And although he had the general idea of a plan in his mind, it wasn’t so detailed nor such a good plan that he dared share it aloud. So all he told his people, to reassure them, using his most confident voice, was, “Don’t worry about the minor details. I’ve got a plan.”
The elevator came to a stop and the door slid open revealing a large round room, not unlike the one they’d seen earlier on deck 110. Now they were on deck 101 and, fortunately, although the klaxon was ringing loudly and clearly, no one was in plain view. Calvin scrambled out of the elevator, pistol at the ready, and his teammates followed him with Rez’nac bringing up the rear.
“This way,” Calvin waved, wanting to keep them moving. He took them out of the round room and into a primary corridor where, directly ahead, stood two soldiers marching opposite them, likely on patrol. The two groups nearly bumped into each other.
The soldiers were more surprised to see Calvin’s team than the opposite and with two quick shots to the head, one from Calvin and the other from Rez’nac at point blank range, the soldiers were easily eliminated. No one else could be seen except in the far distance down the primary corridor.
“Should we take them to the garbage chute?” asked Miles.
“There’s no time,” said Calvin, taking the first left which led the team down a long, skinny maintenance corridor which appeared to dead end.
“Cal,” said Miles, from the center of their group, “I’m not so sure this is the best idea. This looks like a good place for them to trap us.”
“He’s right, Calvin,” said Rafael.
Calvin didn’t slow. “Just trust me and keep hurrying,” he said. His people obeyed.
When they’d gone exactly as far as they should have, based on the schematics Calvin had memorized, he kicked at a panel and it came loose, revealing a series of ladders which seemed to lead either up or down several dozen decks in either direction.
“Bravo,” said Rain.
“Thanks,” said Calvin. Now let’s hurry; they’ll see those soldiers any second and come this way soon. Up the ladders, climb to deck 109. Then go through the hatch; it’ll look just like this one. Rafael, you lead them.”
Calvin waited until last before climbing through himself and taking hold of the ladder. He put the handle of the pistol in his mouth and, with his freed hand, attempted to pull the covering back and conceal the ladders. This proved more difficult than expected and so he left it mostly covered, but imperfectly.
He began to ascend, racing to catch up with the others. As he climbed, he tried not to think about the heights and the fall that awaited him should he lose his grip. It reminded him of Monte and how he’d met his demise. Calvin felt somber for a few seconds, respectfully mournful of his old friend.
***
Alex rushed out of the elevator on deck 101 which, if he’d counted right, should be the same
deck Calvin and his companions had stopped on. At first, when he reached the round room, he wasn’t sure whether to go right or left. He peered down each primary corridor, first checking left. He didn’t see anything, just some staff running around to get to their stations. Probably some guards too, off in the distance. He looked right and immediately spotted two dead Roth Teldari; then Alex knew which way to go.
He sprinted down the primary corridor and then darted left into the maintenance corridor in order to dodge a very large guard patrol he could hear approaching from around the right corner, and knew they would imminently discover the two dead soldiers. They’d immediately fan out and begin a search. Alex decided that, should they find him in this rarely used corridor, he would pretend to be a staff technician, only doing his job. His Dendari uniform may or may not give him away, depending on whether any Dendari served aboard this ship, but that was his best chance of survival. So he sprinted down the maintenance corridor, wanting to be as far away as possible.
He skidded to a stop when he noticed one of the panels slightly askew. He removed it, thinking, this is just the thing to pretend to be fixing when they find me, when he heard footsteps climbing the ladder. He poked his head through and saw several figures, far enough ahead of him that he couldn’t make them out except one who was large and blue and seemed all sorts of out of place: Rez’nac!
Alex scurried up the ladder as fast as he could, desperate to keep up, not even stopping to try to put the panel back into place. He couldn’t lose the humans; he had to keep up.
As surely as he could hear them, they, apparently, could hear him. An energy beam blasted downward right at him. He winced, feeling the heat as it passed by, inches off target. He realized from this distance he doubted the humans could recognize him, though he wasn’t sure if that improved or worsened his chance of survival.
The Phoenix Darkness Page 33