The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7)

by Richard Sanders

  “Standby to jump into alteredspace on my mark,” said Calvin, knowing it was the only way out.

  “Are you mad?” asked Summers. “We could crash right into the asteroids!”

  “Not if we jump back the way we came,” said Calvin. “We have no choice but to jump into alteredspace to free ourselves from the tractor beams, and so we’ll just have to take it back a step and try again.”

  “I could try to isolate the source of the tractor beams and destroy them,” offered Miles.

  Calvin didn’t want to risk opening fire on any part of the Polarian defenses, for fear that it would give away their presence. He hoped that stray asteroids and other debris became trapped by the tractor beams frequently enough that nobody had actually detected the Nighthawk yet. Or drawn suspicion from the appearance that the tractor beams had all independently locked onto what appeared, to most sensors, to be absolutely nothing.

  “Understood,” said Jay. “Reverse alteredspace course plotted.”

  “Punch it,” said Calvin.

  Nothing happened.

  “I said punch it!”

  Still nothing.

  “I’m sorry sir,” said Jay. “I just…I can’t make it go.”

  Calvin unstrapped himself and dashed over to the helm controls. “Move aside,” he commanded. Jay unstrapped and evacuated the pilot’s chair, which Calvin abruptly took charge of. Sometimes if you want something done right, he thought, you’ve got to do it yourself.

  Calvin adjusted the controls, set the alteredspace heading for 0.00001 klicks astern, powered up the alteredspace drive, then hit it. “And that is how…” his voice trailed off as soon as he realized his effort had been just as fruitless as Jay’s had been.

  “What the hell?” he turned to Cassidy, meanwhile prepping to make a second attempt. “Begin a diagnostic of our alteredspace drive and find out if engineering shows anything wrong on their end.”

  “Already on it, sir,” said Cassidy.

  That was the only explanation Calvin could think of. There wasn’t a tractor beam in the galaxy—not even a matrix of them—that could prevent a ship from slipping into the mysterious realms of alteredspace.

  “I’m trying it again,” announced Calvin, once the computer was ready. “Here goes!”

  But, despite his expectation that all would go momentarily dark out the window, nothing happened.

  “Engineering,” he said. “It has got to be engineering.” He just couldn’t explain it any other way.

  “I was afraid of this,” he heard Rez’nac’s deep voice say from over Calvin’s shoulder.

  “Diagnostic shows no systems failure,” reported Cassidy, “And engineering cannot visually identify anything wrong with the alteredspace system.”

  Calvin ignored Cassidy and spun the pilot’s chair around to face Rez’nac, who, being quite tall anyway, seemed to positively tower over Calvin. Nevertheless, Calvin wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated.

  “Rez’nac, you’ve been holding back on us,” said Calvin. “Tell me, just what sort of trap have we stumbled into?”

  “There is a word for them, the closest human equivalent would be…the trap of the rat.”

  “How fascinating,” said Calvin, feigning interest, “Now tell me, how does one escape such a trap? How does it work?” Calvin tried to keep his voice collected and commanding, but he was starting to feel a sense of panic breaking through his tone of voice.

  “We are not just being targeted and held by a matrix of tractor beams,” said Rez’nac, “We are being invisibly held by an alteredspace dampening field.”

  “An alteredspace dampening field?” asked Calvin, sounding equal parts skeptical and confused. “Those actually exist?”

  “Yes,” confirmed Rez’nac. “And they are almost impossible to detect.”

  “I’ve read about those,” offered Jay. “But an alteredspace dampening field only works over a certain cubic region of space, and would have no effect on sublight drives. They only prevent a ship from jumping into alteredspace.”

  “But in the meantime, we are being held down by a matrix of tractor beams that won’t allow us to use sublight or other conventional means of thrust to get away from the dampening field,” said Calvin, annoyed. “If we could get away from the dampening field, we could use alteredspace to escape the tractor beams. If we could escape the tractor beams, we could use conventional thrust, or sublight drives, to escape the dampening field. But two of them together at the same time…”

  “Hence the term,” said Rez’nac. “Rat trap.”

  Calvin shook his head. “Well, I for one, am not about to be caught here like a rat, waiting for some Polarian patrol to come and find me.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Rafael.

  “There has to be a solution,” said Calvin. “There’s always a solution.” Then he remembered what Miles had said earlier. “Miles,” Calvin spun the pilot’s chair to face the defense post across the bridge. “Can you identify the sources of those tractor beams and destroy them?” Calvin didn’t like the idea of using weapons already—they might as well broadcast their presence in the system on all channels—but if that was the only way to free the Nighthawk, then that was what they would have to do.

  “I’m sorry, Cal,” said Miles. “I looked into that, but the points of origin are all hidden. I suspect we’d have to move the ship in order to give me a clear shot…unless you want to try to shoot through the planet. Which, that could be fun.”

  Calvin knew Miles was joking, but, as his crew looked at him for a solution and he found himself coming up blank, Calvin had simply no patience for Miles’s jokes. Not today.

  We can’t move into alteredspace, thought Calvin. We can’t move using conventional thrusters, we can’t destroy the source of the beams or even see the source of the dampening field…still, he reassured himself, there has to be a way.

  “Is there any way we can use our thrusters, or any ordnance we’re carrying, to push off of a celestial object, or otherwise get us away from either the dampening field or the tractor beam matrix?” asked Calvin, knowing it was a long shot. After some conferral between his officers, and a short computer simulation, the answer came back No. Not without destroying the Nighthawk.

  “Damn,” said Calvin, feeling at his wit’s end. “Ideas, people, please. And hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  “There is a way,” said Rez’nac, “And one way only.”

  Calvin looked at him, a combination of grateful and annoyed. “Stop holding back on us,” he said. Then he quickly added, “What is it?”

  “You aren’t going to like it.”

  “I’m sure I’ll like it better than being stuck here until one of your Polarian patrols finds us and decides to bring us in—or kill us,” said Calvin.

  “It is a one way trip,” said Rez’nac. “I promise you this much, whomever you send, he or she shall not be coming back. Which is why I volunteer myself. My life is forfeit in the sight of the Essences anyway.”

  “Now, just hold on, stop getting ahead of yourself; why does this have to be a suicide mission?” asked Calvin, feeling heavy-hearted at the possibility that yet one more person might make the ultimate sacrifice, yet again to save him, among others. It was a thought so foul that Calvin could not bear it.

  “There is a control station on that small, dense planet,” he pointed a long, thick blue finger at the 3D display, which showed an image of the Nighthawk, seemingly trapped in place as the planet rotated ever so slowly—almost too slow to notice. “That control room is what has activated the dampening field. From there, the field can be switched off and the Nighthawk can jump into alteredspace and avoid this trap altogether.”

  “That doesn’t sound suicidal to me,” said Calvin. “Is the outpost guarded?”

  “Yes, however only by a few soldiers, and they are likely on scouting missions, conducting repairs, or otherwise preoccupied.”

  “How do you know all of this?” asked Rafael, somewhat suspiciously.

&n
bsp; Rez’nac looked at him. “I was of Khalahar. There is a great deal that I was made to know—and even more that I chose to learn.” It was obvious Rez’nac considered that a satisfactory answer, even though Rafael did not. However, the human did not push the issue.

  “Someone,” Rez’nac continued, “Must take one of this ship’s three pods, go down there, and deactivate the dampening field.

  “I’m a pilot,” said Calvin, “And I can hold my own in a fight.” And, best of all, he wouldn’t be commanding another person to take such a risk for his selfish benefit. Enough people already had died, or tried to die, saving Calvin’s life. And Calvin thought he didn’t deserve a one of them.

  “It is not so simple,” said Rez’nac. “The dampening field must be continually deactivated.”

  “In other words…whoever goes down there, has to stay down there,” said Summers knowingly. “It’s a suicide mission.”

  “It’s a one-way mission,” said Rez’nac.

  “Wait,” said Rafael. “How will our pods even descend onto the planet if there’s this tractor beam matrix in place?”

  “Currently, the matrix is locked onto the Nighthawk; it won’t grab the pod—it has a preference to lock and hold larger targets—and the pods can descend with the help of gravity down to the planet, if necessary.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” said Summers. “We send someone down in one of our pods.”

  “Not someone,” corrected Rez’nac. “Me.”

  “Fine, you,” said Summers. “You land the pod near the control site, you break your way into the control site, and then you manually deactivate the dampening field. This allows the Nighthawk to jump out of the trap and the ship is free.”

  “Precisely,” said Rez’nac.

  “I don’t see why it has to be a suicide mission,” said Calvin.

  “Because, once the pod ascends from the planet—if the Nighthawk is no longer in grasp—the tractor beam matrix will seize hold of the pod, and there will be no way to free it.”

  “I see,” said Calvin, momentarily frustrated. He wasn’t about to let yet another officer, or friend, die on his behalf, but he also didn’t want to die when he volunteered. Surely there had to be another way. A better angle. Something. Some way to cheat…

  “What if this,” continued Calvin. “Once the Nighthawk is clear, we launch a class III probe, before the pod exits the planet’s atmosphere; we let the tractor beams grab the lifeless probe, and the pod escapes back to the ship.”

  “Clever,” said Rain.

  “I could arrange that,” said Cassidy.

  “But it will not work; the pod will be the preferred target of the tractor beams,” said Rez’nac, “And they will change targets from the probe to the pod, and we’ll never recover our missing man.”

  “Very well then,” said Calvin, not sure his idea was so bad. “What if, instead of launching a probe, we launch one of our other pods, empty, and that way the tractor beams will grab onto it, and our man, in our pod, can escape the surface and reunite with us?”

  Rez’nac considered this for a moment. “That will probably not work either; the empty pod will have less mass.”

  “Not if we fill it full of junk,” said Calvin.

  “I hate to be the one to bring this up,” said Rafael, “But we might need all three pods for our mission.”

  “Then we have to save the man on the surface, so we can recover his pod,” said Calvin, as determined as ever.

  “Actually, technically, we don’t,” said Rafael. We could have two people fly down to the surface in the pod, one disable the alteredspace dampening field, and then, while he does that, the Nighthawk and the pod escape—leaving behind the brave soul who kept the dampening field off long enough for both the Nighthawk and the pod to escape.

  “The pods don’t have alteredspace capability,” said Calvin. “So that still puts us back to square one.”

  “Actually they do—in a really minimal capacity,” corrected Rafael, to Calvin’s surprise. “Though they can’t launch it from the surface of a planet. It has to be from space.”

  “He’s right,” volunteered Cassidy.

  “I see,” said Calvin, still unwilling to simply sacrifice a crew member, or himself, without weighing out all of his options.

  “I think we know what we need to do,” said Summers, a hint of sadness in her voice.

  “And we must act quickly, or a patrol will come and discover us,” said Rez’nac, “Even with our stealth system engaged.”

  Calvin thought it through again and again; he must have thought it through twenty times in less than a minute. And, each time, he could think of no way—save for his probe idea—to keep all the crew and all three pods intact.

  “All right, then, let’s do this,” said Calvin at last, after taking a long breath.

  “I volunteer to go,” said Rain, much to everyone’s surprise, most of all Calvin’s.

  “You?” asked Calvin. He’d meant it in a way as if to say “You? But what if I lose you?” but instead it came out as simple, abrupt, passionless surprise.

  “Yes,” said Rain, still somehow with a smile on her lips. “I’m terminal anyway. I have a lot less life left than any of you and, more importantly, it’s been a good life. I should be the one to do it.”

  “No way. No how,” said Calvin firmly. True, he and Rain might not be the item he wished they were, but he still had feelings for her, and he couldn’t let her simply wander down there and die—maybe being able to complete the mission and maybe not.

  “I have already pledged my life for this,” said Rez’nac, “It would be my greatest honor to die in such a noble way.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a second,” said Calvin. “But this ship is going to still need you for when we reach the Forbidden Planet and confront the High Prelain, and” Calvin hoped, “Prove he’s a replicant.”

  “If not myself or the doctor, then who?” asked Rez’nac.

  Calvin took a deep breath. What he was about to say was perhaps the hardest sentence he’d ever uttered. But, as he thought of the many people who had died on his behalf, not to mention the countless who had died on his watch, he found himself surprisingly okay with this. I can accept this. I don’t want to die. I want to live, more than almost everything, he thought. But if I have to die—as we all do—I can think of no better way than a captain sacrificing himself for his crew.

  “I am going to do it,” he said; immediately, Summers, Rain, Rez’nac, Miles, and Rafael protested. Calvin noted that Jay and Cassidy held their silence; he wasn’t sure whether that was out of respect for the command chain, or if they just didn’t like him that much.

  “Calvin, you can’t,” said Summers. “You’re needed here. We need you. I need you.”

  “The ship will be in good hands with you in the command chair; God knows you’ve proven yourself,” said Calvin.

  “Calvin, are you nuts?” asked Miles. “Ain’t no way in hell I’m letting you go down there, at least not alone. If you’re going down there, you’re sure as hell going down there with me. And since I sure as hell ain’t going down there. That means neither can you.”

  “Calvin,” said Rez’nac, “You are master of this ship, and I am but an unworthy vessel. It is my duty to perform the sacrifice. I owe it to the Essences, I owe it to my son, and above all, I owe it to myself.”

  “You are brave and noble,” said Calvin, “But I cannot let you go. Your knowledge is too important and the mission we are on is one far more important than any one of us; and, you, my great Polarian friend, are too important to fulfilling that mission.”

  “Calvin, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asked Rafael, looking at him squarely with his one eye, the other still covered by the black eye-patch.

  Calvin nodded.

  “In that case, godspeed, my brother,” said Rafael, and they shook hands.

  Rain spoke last. “Calvin, I know you have been feeling guilt about what happened to Christine, and even some sur
vivor’s guilt for your scrape on Aleator, and perhaps you’re even doing this in part because of us—because of what happened between us, or didn’t. But I beg you to think it through. You have a story to tell. A life to live. Probably, someday, children to have. I don’t. My life has been lived. And it was rich, and full, and complete, and, since I am dying anyway, it only makes sense that I am the one to go to fulfill this task.”

  Rain’s was the hardest to hear. “But you’re needed in the infirmary,” said Calvin. “Especially since we don’t know what we’re up against.”

  “Dr. Andrews is a fine physician and he can handle it. For that matter, as my body weakens, it is important that he learn to take over the infirmary himself—one day I will no longer be here. If you are wise, Calvin, that day will be tomorrow.”

  Calvin didn’t want to hear it. Instead, he said his goodbyes and thanked his crew for the wonderful service they had done for both the Nighthawk and the Empire, and of course for him personally. He called them the finest team of officers and civilians-turned-officers that any commander could ever have the privilege of commanding.

  “Besides, I’m not going to die,” he tried to reassure them a little—but mostly he wanted to reassure himself. “Rafael is going to fly us down in his pod, then, when I deactivate the dampening field, he will take the pod to a safe place using its miniature alteredspace drive. Meanwhile, Summers, who shall have command of the Nighthawk, will order the Nighthawk moved somewhere safe. I don’t know how much time I have before the local garrison learns what is going on and comes after me, so it will have to be quick.”

  “And, just how do you plan to survive?” asked Summers, hands on her hips. She now looked much stronger than she had a moment before, but Calvin could see that same vulnerability in her eyes that she had let slip seconds ago.

  “After the pod and the ship are clear, fire a class III probe into the dampening field and let all the tractor beams lock onto it, then Rafael will return to the surface, retrieve me if I am still alive—which I will be,” he added the last part because of their long faces. “Then we will return the pod to the Nighthawk, leave the probe behind, and we’ll have escaped with all personnel and pods intact, just minus a probe.