The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7)

by Richard Sanders

  Her last thoughts were of a small smooth stone, skipping quietly along the surface of a large pond, disappearing further and further into the distance. She watched it vanish and smiled.

  ***

  Calvin awoke with a start, immediately disoriented by the bright lights and white walls around him. The last thing he remembered, he’d been on his way down to the pod, to go to the planet’s surface and disable the dampening field. Then…something had happened. But he couldn’t quite remember what. Someone had stopped him. But why? And just how had he gotten here?

  He began to sit up and, as he did, Dr. Andrews approached from seemingly nowhere.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” the man said.

  Calvin, now in a sitting position, finally recognized where he was, but couldn’t fathom how he’d gotten here. He was in the Nighthawk’s infirmary, on one of the medical beds, but that didn’t add up. Had he dreamt the mission? Or had he succeeded?

  “Is the ship moved?” he asked.

  Dr. Andrews looked confused.

  Calvin spoke again. “The ship. The Nighthawk. Did we move? Are we away from the dampening field?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Andrews with a nod. “I don’t know exactly what has been going on up on the bridge, but we’ve stood down from General Quarters. So I take that to mean good news.”

  Calvin looked around, counting the number of medical personnel on the shift, and realizing that Rain was nowhere to be seen. As he thought of her, it seemed to trigger a memory. He had said goodbye to her last, just before he must have gotten into the pod and descended upon the harsh planet’s surface.

  “Where’s Dr. Poynter?” he asked. When Dr. Andrews glanced away, unresponsively, Calvin spoke again. This time getting up and looking the medic directly in the eyes. “Where’s Rain?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Dr. Andrews. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you but…she didn’t make it.”

  “What the hell do you mean, she didn’t make it?” said Calvin, alarmed and confused. He walked away from Dr. Andrews, shouting “Rain. Rain! Where are you? Dr. Poynter!”

  The medical staff stopped what they were doing. Dour expressions were on each of their faces.

  No, thought Calvin, trying to remember what Rain had said to him when last he’d seen her. Something that felt like it had only been minutes ago. Perhaps seconds. No, that can’t be right. Rain is on the ship. She’s fine. She has to be. This has got to be some sort of practical joke. And NOT a funny one.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Dr. Andrews again.

  “I’m telling you,” said the doctor, gently, “She’s not here anymore. Rain’s gone.”

  Rain’s gone. Calvin just couldn’t believe it. Their romance, brief as it had been, poured through his mind; he could still feel her touch, her hands in his, her lips on his mouth, her insights ringing in his ears—and now he would never see her again. Could that really be true?

  “Just what happened?” asked Calvin. “And how did I wind up here of all places?”

  “Rafael brought you here; when his pod returned, he apparently found you passed out on the deck near hatch three,” explained Dr. Andrews. “When you got here, we ran some tests and we discovered that someone had administered a strong general anesthetic into the back of your neck, followed by another medication meant to counter the respiratory depressive effects of the anesthetic.”

  Rain, thought Calvin as he reached behind him and felt two bandages on his neck. “Someone wanted you to be temporarily incapacitated, but that same person also administered an antidote of sorts, to make sure that your vital functions would be safe and that you’d gradually awaken within a short window of time.”

  “It was Rain,” said Calvin, now vaguely remembering their encounter at hatch three. How she’d coaxed him into removing his climate helmet so she could kiss him. He didn’t remember anything else about that encounter, but somehow, the young doctor must have used her wiles to forcibly inject him—no doubt to save his life, and sacrifice her own…

  “After evaluating you, I believe whoever did it was a medical professional,” said Dr. Andrews. “It is reasonable to believe that Dr. Poynter was the culprit. Especially since, according to Rafael’s reports, she entered the pod, wearing your climate gear, and told Rafael that she had taken over that facet of the mission, under your orders.”

  “My orders,” Calvin repeated dryly. Such was Rain, he supposed, always the martyr. He shook his head. “Well, I assure you she was not acting under my orders.”

  “I gathered as much, sir,” said Dr. Andrews.

  “Can you tell me, did my probe idea at least get executed?” asked Calvin, wanting to make sure that everything possible had been done to save Rain.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

  Of course not, thought Calvin. “In that case, I’ll need to use your intercom.”

  “You know where it is,” said Dr. Andrews, gesturing to his left.

  Calvin used the intercom to hail the bridge; Jay responded.

  “It’s good to hear you up and about,” said the pilot.

  “Thanks,” said Calvin, somewhat dismissively. “I need a status report right away, and an update regarding the last several minutes. I want to know exactly what happened.”

  “Understood, sir.” There was silence for a while, no doubt Jay was conferring with whoever had the deck—probably Summers—and then, after a little under a minute, Jay’s voice returned. “Rain was able to disable the dampening field long enough for the Nighthawk to jump to safety. Since then, we have carefully navigated around the trouble spot and evaded the trap.”

  “And what of Rafael and his pod?” asked Calvin.

  “The pod is docked with the ship and Rafael has safely returned,” said Jay. “He’s in his quarters at the moment.”

  “Did he make any effort to retrieve Rain?” asked Calvin, trying to keep his voice under control. “Or did we just abandon her?”

  “We made every effort we could,” said Jay. “We even used one of our probes—like you directed—to try to distract the matrix of tractor beams, to allow Rafael’s pod to return to the planet and retrieve Rain but, unfortunately it didn’t work, and the Nighthawk had to rescue Rafael’s pod just as soon as the tractor beams were switching targets from the probe to the pod. So a return trip to the surface is impossible.”

  “Well, there still might be something else we can do,” said Calvin determinedly. “For all we know, Rain is down there waiting for us. Depending on us to get her back here. And I’ll be damned if we give up now.” He felt his face burn red.

  “I—I’m sorry, sir. Rafael was able to monitor the O2 levels in Rain’s climate suit and…something must have breached her climate gear because she rapidly lost oxygen, shortly after the Nighthawk and the pod were able to escape. She’s now been without oxygen for so long that…well…I’m sorry, sir.”

  Calvin took a moment to let that sink in. Rain really was gone. And not just gone—dead. He knew she would die one day; she had been terminally ill, but somehow he’d never believed that she would actually go. She had been too vibrant, too determined, too full of life and optimism and energy. It had seemed to him that nothing in the universe could have ever truly taken her. And yet it had. The cold, merciless Reaper’s scythe had come for her, just as it would surely come for the rest of them eventually—and perhaps sooner rather than later. He shuddered at the thought.

  “So the decoy probe, is it just sitting there?” Calvin asked, thinking to leave it behind would sloppily leave evidence of their existence for any patrolling Polarians.

  “No, sir. Summers had it thoroughly destroyed.”

  Well, at least there was that, he supposed. “Current position and heading?” asked Calvin.

  “I’m following Rez’nac’s path, moving us carefully through the celestial debris and toward the Forbidden Planet.”

  “Can you give me an ETA on when we’ll be clear of the asteroids and all
their traps?” asked Calvin.

  “Hard to say, as we keep changing speed—out of caution. But it could be quite a few minutes still, at the soonest. I’m sorry I can’t tell you exactly.”

  “That’s all right,” said Calvin. “Calvin out.” He switched off the intercom.

  He left the infirmary, vaguely making his way toward the bridge, but instead he found himself absentmindedly arrive at the observation deck. He was pleased to find it empty. Out the massive window, he could vaguely see various asteroids and other space debris and the Nighthawk’s lights shined on them, and the vessel turned, maneuvering deftly to avoid the obstacles.

  Calvin knew that he should be on the bridge—perhaps especially now, while the ship was still in peril; for that matter, he needed to find out why the order had been given for all decks to stand down from General Quarters—but instead of doing his duty, and following his better judgment, he remained, feeling transfixed by the sights out the window. He approached it, placing his hand against the cold material that separated him from the dark oblivion just beyond. It felt like glass, despite being stronger than steel.

  He gazed at the darkness and wondered about death. Thinking that perhaps there was something beyond life, and perhaps not. For the most part, humanity, himself included, had accepted it as the likeliest possibility that death was the end. It made little sense, logically, to believe that a person could essentially survive their own death. But still, Rain had believed there was something more—or at least had seemed to. Calvin wondered if it was that crazy after all. Or if it was truly naïve, wishful thinking, and nothing more.

  “I’ll never forget you,” he said, as he pressed his palm against the glass. He felt a tear well up in his left eye, but he blinked and fought it back.

  He wondered if he was cursed. First Christine and now Rain. Why was it the women he developed the strongest feelings for had to be ripped away from him so soon and so young?

  And Rain was yet another example of someone who had sacrificed herself in order to protect Calvin. That list began with Jacobi, but didn’t end there; Shen had put himself in harm’s way to protect Calvin, and so had several others. Why?! He wondered, loudly inside his own head. Don’t you fools know that I’m not worth it?!

  He felt helpless and ashamed. Their deaths were his fault—at least to an extent—and now Rain, who had been the glow of optimism that continually buoyed his spirits, and who had helped him exorcise his darkest demons—was gone. For good.

  He stood there feeling empty for some time. Not sure what to think. Not sure what mattered anymore. The universe was a cruel, unforgiving place. If it could steal away Rain from him—from everyone—then surely there couldn’t be a God. Not a kind God anyway…

  Still, despite his aching heart and the pangs of guilt that came with it, accompanied by dozens of if onlys, Calvin did manage to make a sort of peace. More like a truce with his emotional wounds—a ceasefire.

  “I promise you, Rain,” he whispered, as he stared deeply through the window into the darkness of the infinite beyond. “Wherever you are. If you are. I will make the most of this gift you have given me.”

  ***

  Queen Kalila was in the War Room on Capital World. The structure was in a bunker, deep underground, designed to withstand orbital bombardment—at least for a while—but, should the Dread Fleet reach Capital System unopposed, then nowhere would be safe—not even here.

  “And we have confirmed their trajectory?” Kalila asked, turning to the closest of the many advisors that were with her.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” the man said. He was a knight, Sir McTavish—one of the knights she’d inherited from Caerwyn Martel once the civil war had ended—she would have preferred to have Captain Adiger at her side, advising her, but she knew he was better off commanding the ISS Black Swan, a dreadnought that would greatly help their cause—considering how outnumbered and outgunned the Imperial military was when embattled against the Dread Fleet.

  “The Dread Fleet, although moving slowly, is on a direct course for Capital System. We are, I’m afraid to say,” the knight spoke anxiously, “Their next victims.”

  “We’re not victims yet,” said Kalila, gazing over the 3D displays and strategic readouts, trying to find some kind of advantage she could leverage.

  She had done the obvious things: consolidate her forces, order her fleets and squadrons to jump to Capital System at once—and she had re-organized all the broken and fractured fleets into new fleets, with new, better commanding officers—but improving the broken shambles of what had once been a polished war-machine that was the envy of the galaxy and now had become so fragmented took more than just reorganization to return it to glory. If anything, she felt like she was merely spreading things around to make them look fuller and more robust than they actually were.

  Now, with the Apollo yards destroyed—her own fault—the Empire could not quickly rebuild its lost warships. With the heavy losses sustained in that action, along with the Battle of Thetican System, including massive losses by both the Imperial and Rotham fleets to the destruction of the local star; the loss of Imperial forces at Ophiuchus, and now, most recently, the failed effort to stop the Dread Fleet at Centuria…her forces were running excruciatingly thin. Kalila had ultimately been forced to make the unfortunate decision to withdraw her ships from Centuria—leaving them to their terrible fate—but not to do so was to leave many squadrons of the Imperial Fleet to face certain death. And as for the damage they had inflicted upon the Dread Fleet itself, by all accounts, it truly seemed no worse for wear.

  Damn them, she thought. Damn them all! The Dread Fleet was not something she could understand; in fact, Kalila contended that it defied all understanding. It was not a political power, neither did it seek to establish a political foothold, or raid a world for wealth and treasure, neither did they make distinctions between military and civilian targets. It was more like a horde of bees—terrible, terrible bees—that surrounded a colony, no matter how peaceful, and then went completely berserk upon it in every possible way, leaving behind bones, dust, ash, and little else. These were ships that seemed to outnumber the very stars themselves, some of them mighty warships, others mere trading vessels equipped with basic laser arrays, but what mattered was that they acted together, and that the swarm of them was too great, and too numerous to account for. These were all of the ships of the Polarian Confederacy; any starship owner, no matter how petty his station, would come forth and answer the Call of the Reckoning in order to fulfill his or her religious duty, and such was the method by which they had swelled their ranks. Armed with those numbers, and the secrets of the Polarian Phalanx shield-pooling technology, they were more than a match for probably anything the galaxy had ever seen. It had been fortunate during the Great War that the Dread Fleet had never been called forth by the Council of Prelains to assembly, otherwise that war might have ended much differently—and certainly would have been far bloodier.

  It is not the Dread Fleet itself that is so dangerous, Kalila decided. It was their philosophy. They were, as she would describe them, True Believers. Any being, especially any being capable of violence against another being, who is willing to accept a conclusion with absolute certainty—and who has arrived at that conclusion by no logical process or through discovery of no evidence; such a person cannot likewise be swayed by any evidence, or any logical thought process, and these people simply act, with little or no reflection as to the morality of their behavior. More specifically, their morality is handed down to them, through the simplest of channels, and they, in turn pass it along as far as it will go, and dissent, questioning, and doubt—the three pillars of science—are ruthlessly stamped out, or else outright ignored. The followers of the Dread Fleet were True Believers, thought Kalila. They had to be. When they destroyed civilian spacecraft or bombed populated planets into oblivion, they did not need to justify inwardly to themselves or wrestle with their consciences about the reality of those violence choices. No, instead they could
defer the thinking to the Prelains, and have faith that if the Prelains had declared that the Essences wanted a galactic purge, then a galactic purge was necessary—and nothing would be allowed to stand in their way.

  Well, dammit, I’m going to stand in your way, thought Kalila. She had made her mistakes; she had made friends, both good and bad, both loyal and disloyal, along the way during her rise to power. But, now that the throne was hers, she intended to save humanity by any means necessary. Even if it cost her own life. She would do it. She had to. She owed the Empire that much. She owed Hisato that much. And she owed it to Genjiro, Kanna, and Azumi as well. For all that had happened. For all that had been done. It was the least she could do. Save the Empire. Or, if that proved impossible, at least be a stronger leader than her father had been. God rest his soul—if there be any God…

  “I admire your optimism, My Queen,” said Sir McTavish from her side. Only then did she realize that he had been watching her this whole time, trying to study what she was studying on the strategic outputs, as if he believed she had unlocked some kind of silver-bullet strategy, or was on the cusp of doing so, and, when she did, he wanted to be the first to hear of it. Unfortunately, no such luck. She decided to let his compliment meet no response.

  “I need the rest of Fleets Four and Six to understand that they fall under the jurisdiction of Fleet Three,” said Kalila. “See to it that there is no miscommunication, and make it happen.”

  “Would that be the original Fourth and Sixth Fleets or the new ones?” asked McTavish.

  “The old ones,” said Kalila, partly annoyed. She disliked having to repeat herself, or needing to explain the obvious. Though she knew she shouldn’t be too hard on the knight, he was here, like her, working strange hours, robbing himself of sleep, and trying to do all he could to help protect the capital of their precious Empire—its very heart and soul. Because, and of this Kalila hadn’t the slightest doubt, should Capital World fall, the Empire would soon disintegrate ever afterward. It would be the beginning of a long and bloody end. Something she would do anything, risk anything, and try anything to prevent.