The Phoenix Conspiracy

by Richard Sanders

  ***

  Calvin was asleep in his quarters when the alert came. A blinking red light on the panel with an obnoxious chirping. He rolled out of bed and crashed onto the floor. “Oh, dammit,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse. He got to his feet and answered the call.

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  His second officer, Lieutenant Commander Vincent Rose, spoke from the other end. “Distress call from Brimm Station, sir. Along with a report.”

  “Are they under attack?” asked Calvin, feeling his heart quicken. He grabbed for a shirt and pulled it over his head.

  “They were. I think you’d better get up here.”

  Rose was a good junior commander, and he knew how to handle his crew, the Red Shift, but Calvin had always gotten the distinct impression that Rose had little confidence in himself. Part of Calvin wanted to give Rose as many opportunities as possible to command the ship in difficult situations, but an Imperial station under attack wasn’t going to be one of them.

  “On my way,” said Calvin, and he darted for the bridge.

  When he arrived, his junior officers saluted him. The Red Shift was “second watch” and mostly composed of petty officers and junior grade lieutenants, none of whom had even the full bronze of first lieutenant except Rose, whose uniform boasted the same silver bar Calvin wore. Their group had been on duty since White Shift was relieved five hours ago, and Calvin didn’t miss the eagerness on their faces.

  “Captain on the bridge,” one said.

  “Okay, Rose, what’ve we got?”

  “The Harbinger entered Brimm about six hours ago. The station sent out several patrol craft and ordered it to stand down. When the Harbinger didn’t respond, Brimm launched fighters, but only fifteen were on standby, and they didn’t have weapons that could pierce the dreadnought’s defenses.

  “The Harbinger attacked, disabled, and boarded a Rotham starship, which was there on an exchange program. Its crew of nineteen was captured and taken aboard the Harbinger. The alien ship was then destroyed. After that, the sentry ships engaged the Harbinger, but it ignored them and maneuvered straight for the station, boarding it. There was a small arms battle, and the Harbinger’s crew broke into the station’s computer systems and copied several terabytes of data. They returned to their ship before more security forces could arrive. Then the Harbinger left the system. Brimm had no ships able to mount a pursuit.”

  “Okay,” said Calvin, taking his seat. “What kind of casualties did the station take?”

  “Three dead and six wounded. Eleven others were incapacitated but received no major injuries. Mostly the Harbinger’s assault team used nonlethal weapons. Some of the deaths are reportedly from friendly fire.”

  “Did the station’s security forces take down anyone from the Harbinger?”

  “At least two were shot, but the Harbinger didn’t leave anyone behind.”

  “Okay, contact the station, and tell them their security teams need to carefully comb the area where the fight occurred. Have forensics check it over, and tell the base to review any surveillance footage. We need to know if these people—presumably working for Raidan—are the Harbinger’s crew or if they’re outsiders who commandeered the ship. Also they should identify what data was stolen specifically and give it to us so we can look it over.” Calvin looked to the helmsman, a second lieutenant named Jay. He was an experienced fortysomething-year-old ex-marine more than capable of being a ship’s primary pilot—held back only because Sarah was the best in the business.

  “I’m on it, sir,” said Jay, and he contacted Brimm Station.

  “Now, about that alien ship that was attacked.” Calvin turned his attention back to Rose, who still stood rigidly at alert nearby. “What do we know about it?”

  “It’s the T’orma, a Rotham sloop working in our territory under the joint jurisdiction of the Republic and Brimm authorities. As I said, part of an exchange program. We have one of our own in Rotham space operating under similar conditions.”

  “Is its crew Rotham, human, or both?”

  “Rotham, sir, to the last man.”

  Calvin scratched his chin, wondering if Raidan had attacked the ship simply because it was Rotham owned and operated or because it was engaging in some kind of activity Raidan didn’t approve of, perhaps carrying something he didn’t like.

  “Rose, I want you to run a check on all the individuals who were aboard the Rotham ship—the ones captured and dragged away onto the Harbinger. See if anything interesting pops up.”

  “I can’t do that, sir,” said Rose.

  Calvin tensed. “Why not?”

  “Brimm Station won’t release the identities of the Rotham crew or any information as to their cargo, operations, past activity, or current mission.”

  “That’s … interesting,” Calvin found it very unusual that an Imperial station would refuse to assist an Imperial investigation. “We can force them by inciting the Intelligence Privilege Laws. They’re obviously hampering our investigation, and that’s illegal.”

  “I already tried that, sir. It seems they have special circumstances. The Rotham ship is still property of the Rotham Republic. The exchange treaty allows for complete anonymity and lets the Rotham Republic withhold from us information about their ship as per their request. We can do the same thing with our ship in their space. It’s a gesture of goodwill.”

  “It’s a gesture of bullshit. Did you check with Intel Wing to see if they can circumvent that treaty?” asked Calvin, even though he knew the odds were not great.

  “They said their hands are tied.”

  “Of course …”

  “Sir, we’re approaching Brimm System in one minute,” Jay said from the helm.

  “Shields are up and weapons hot,” the Red Shift defense officer said. He was the rookie of the bunch, hailed as a prodigy at the academy and only nineteen. Patrick O’Conner, a redheaded, hot-tempered, unbridled, albeit talented, sometimes-defiant midshipman.

  “Keep the shields up until we know the area is secure,” said Calvin. “But power down the weapons.”

  “With all due respect, sir,” said Patrick, “the Harbinger could still be out there, and we need to play it safe.”

  “The last thing we want to do is spook Brimm Station by flashing our teeth. Now power down our weapons. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, sir.” He didn’t seem happy, but he complied.

  “Jay, bring us out of alteredspace ten million MCs from the planet. Cassidy, put us at alert Condition Two, all hands standby.” The trim woman at ops acknowledged him, and her lithe fingers fluttered over the controls. She was a quiet one, and, since Calvin spent most of his time with White Shift—his senior officers—he hadn’t yet gauged her skill or picked up much about her personality. He didn’t know how far he could push her, so he didn’t completely trust her yet and suspected she might not trust him wholeheartedly either.

  “Coming out of alteredspace … now,” said Jay. The windows were still black except for the burning yellow sun in the distance which obscured all the stars. “Proceeding on direct course to the station at standard heading. The planet should be visible soon.”

  “Display it,” said Calvin. A projected image of a simple blue-and-white planet appeared. It had very little land and seemed almost completely oceanic. In a simple orbit was a medium-size station. If it was damaged from the Harbinger’s attack, it didn’t show it.

  “Incoming message from Brimm One.”

  “Play it on the main speakers and display visual, if we’re getting that feed.”

  The image of a middle-aged blue-and-black-uniformed man, with the sapphire emblem of full commodore, materialized on an alternate display. His light-colored hair was carefully styled, and the room he was broadcasting from, a private office, looked immaculately clean and organized.

  “IWS Nighthawk, you’re sure a sight for sore eyes.”

  “I understand you’ve been having some trouble out here,” said Calvin. “Any information you can give me
will help us greatly.”

  “We already transmitted our official report to you, Intel Wing, and Fleet Command. But if you have some questions, I’m happy to answer them.”

  “The Rotham ship,” said Calvin. “Who was on it?”

  “I can’t release that information, I’m sorry …” He seemed to squint. “Lieutenant Commander.”

  “I understand,” Calvin lied, still thinking the treaty was stupid. “I hear the Harbinger stole some of your data. It would help us immensely if we could analyze it.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Commander, that data is sensitive in nature, and I’m not authorized to release it.”

  “Who is?”

  “I can’t help you there either.”

  Typical … “You understand,” said Calvin, “that the less information we have, the less likely we are to track down the Harbinger and prevent any future incidents. We also won’t be able to return the abducted Rotham crew.”

  “I can tell you this. The information taken from our computers is not relevant to where the Harbinger is going. In fact we can’t seem to figure out how it could possibly be valuable to those criminals at all. Shipping reports. Personnel manifests. Personal logs. That sort of thing.”

  “If it’s so trivial, why can’t you release it?”

  “It’s complicated, and I’m not at liberty to go into the details. Has to do with international politics. But our sentry ships have studied the Harbinger’s exit signatures and know it is heading toward the Iota System.”

  “I’ll have to verify that escape vector for myself.”

  “I assure you it is correct.”

  Calvin smiled. “Nevertheless.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “Yeah. I have a few more. Your security garrison consists of what, a few hundred marines and other officers?”

  “Six hundred and ten.”

  “How large was the party that boarded your station?”

  “About fifty men and women.”

  “So, if you knew the Harbinger was headed for your station and about to board, why couldn’t your men contain them in the hangar platform? Clearly you have the firepower.”

  “That was just it.” The commodore looked embarrassed. “We sent all available units to hold off the hangar platform, but the Harbinger didn’t dock with us in a conventional way. It hooked itself to the port arm of our base, near where our computer hard drives and main terminals are stored, and more-or-less cut its way in. I’ve never seen anything like it, and somehow they managed not only to cut through the hull of our station but they also sealed the hole to their jetbridges so their own people could board without pressure suits.

  Calvin did not find this surprising. As an Intel Wing member he’d known about recent progress in ship-to-ship breaching technologies.

  The commodore continued, “When they cut the hole, we evacuated that deck, not knowing they would keep everything from being blown out into space, letting them come aboard unopposed at first. By the time we could scramble some teams to engage them, it was too little, too late. They got what they wanted and left. What’s really strange is that they set up a portable force field to keep our broken hull intact without losing too much pressure or more than 15 percent of our atmosphere on that deck.”

  “So they didn’t actually want to hurt anyone or cause any permanent damage,” said Calvin.

  The commodore frowned and said nothing.

  “How did the Harbinger get past your shields?”

  “They fired a barrage of high-impact missiles. We fired back, but a lot of our defense systems have been undergoing maintenance this past week.”

  “I don’t see any damage to your station.”

  “They used pulsar torpedoes.”

  “That’s a technology meant to disable and not destroy,” said Calvin. “Almost like they meant you no harm.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. They did injure several of our people, and three of ours are dead from the encounter.”

  “I heard that was friendly fire.”

  “I admit”—the commodore paused for a deep breath—”the circumstances of the soldiers’ deaths are unclear, and there have been accusations of friendly fire, but nothing has been confirmed officially. The report you’re referring to is the opinion of the commander on the ground and isn’t necessarily representative of our station’s findings.”

  “I see,” said Calvin. “And the invaders used nonlethal weapons?”

  “It appears that way, though three of our soldiers did die.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re done here,” the commodore said.

  “One more thing, sir,” said Calvin. “Can you transfer us the coordinates of the Rotham ship’s wreckage?”

  “Our ships have already combed through it trying to recover the cargo, and—before you ask—no, I’m not authorized to tell you what the cargo was. We recovered what we could. The rest is debris. You won’t find anything.”

  “So is that a ‘yes, you’ll give us the coordinates’ or a ‘no, I’ll have to sweep the system for it myself’?”

  “Yes, we’ll send them over, but you’re wasting your time.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Thanks for your help, Commodore.” Calvin nodded to Jay, and he terminated the call. “Set a course to those coordinates. Cassidy, get a deep scan ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why are we going there if it’s just a waste of our time?” asked Patrick. He turned the defense post’s chair to show his disapproval of Calvin face-to-face.

  “Because we need to know what was on that ship,” said Calvin. “And our scanners are more precise than anything they have on their system’s patrol craft. If they did miss something, we might find it.”

  “Shouldn’t we be chasing after the Harbinger?”

  “It’s got a four-hour head start. Iota is what, eleven hours from here?”

  “Thirteen,” said Jay.

  Calvin continued. “Even at top speed we couldn’t overtake them. At best we’d shave off two hours from their head start. And if we did catch them, what could we do? We couldn’t dream of taking on a dreadnought that many times our size.”

  “Intel Wing seems to disagree,” quipped Patrick.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I should have informed you immediately, sir, I apologize.” Lieutenant Commander Rose said. “We got the order a little while ago. If we find the Harbinger, we’re to shoot it on sight. No waiting for reinforcements, and no attempts to contact it and bring it in peacefully. We’re to send a report to Intel Wing and Fleet Command, and then engage the ship immediately. Focusing on its alteredspace initiator engines.”

  So Princess Kalila had been right. The admirals had decided losing the Nighthawk was worth it if it meant a shot at disabling the Harbinger. “If we find it, we’ll do what we have to do,” said Calvin, but he had no intention of attacking the Harbinger. Suicide didn’t sound very appealing. “But until then, our first duty is to investigate, and you’d do well to remember that, Patrick.” Calvin eyed the young defense officer sternly. “So put your trigger finger away and use your brain for a bit. If you were Raidan, why would you attack a Rotham ship in Imperial space?”

  Patrick shrugged. “Any number of reasons. There’s not enough information to make any kind of informed conclusion, especially if you consider the fact that Raidan’s reasoning skills are probably not as good as my own. So he’s more likely to make irrational decisions, and irrational decisions are the hardest to predict since they border on randomness. Bottom line, I have no idea.”

  “Good, then you have something to keep busy thinking about,” said Calvin. “In the meantime, since I’m awake anyway, I’ll be in my office. Cassidy”—he looked at the ops station—”Make sure you scan the debris thoroughly.”

  “Yes, sir.”