The Phoenix Reckoning (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 6)

by Richard Sanders

  “Noted,” said Calvin. “And you said someone is emotionally compromised?” Calvin hoped Nimoux did not mean himself.

  “First Lieutenant Ferreiro appears to have taken the loss of PFC Rodriguez particularly hard. He has displayed an unusual amount of grief; for the time being, I’m unsure his judgment can be trusted.”

  “That is unfortunate to hear,” said Calvin. “So that leaves you with what, one soldier who is fit for duty?”

  “I believe Mr. Ferreiro will be able to return to duty in due course,” said Nimoux. “However, until such time, you are correct. Private Merrill, like the others, fought admirably in the battle—I am given to understand. And he remains emotionally stable and physically well, certainly well enough to remain on active duty. I have decided to award him a field promotion to PFC.”

  “That is, of course, your prerogative,” said Calvin. He didn’t know the soldiers on a personal level, and considering where they came from—a gift from Raidan, who had later used his influence over the soldiers to try to take over the Nighthawk—Calvin had difficulty feeling any emotions at all for the sacrifices the Nighthawk’s soldiers had made. He felt bad about it, but that did nothing to alleviate his general apathy toward the loss of men who were, at best, reformed traitors. To him this only meant he would need to request two or three more Rosco soldiers from Grady.

  “That completes my report.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Nighthawk out.”

  “So, what now?” asked Summers. “Is your gangster friend going to repair the ship and give us the supplies and personnel that we need?”

  “He will if he knows what’s good for him,” said Calvin. “Sarah, contact Aleator One, and as soon they give us clearance, dock with the station.”

  “Aye, aye, Calvin.”

  “Well, for whatever it’s worth,” said Summers, still looking unhappy, “I remain against this course of action. I think it is unwise to give known criminals access to the Nighthawk.”

  “Not known criminals,” said Calvin coyly. “Suspected criminals. What happened to the legal presumption of innocence, honestly?”

  “You joke, but I’m being quite serious,” said Summers.

  “I know that,” said Calvin. “And your objection is noted. But I’ve already made up my mind, and now we’ve earned—through blood—what we need to continue our mission. Grady will be make good on his word, and before you know it we’ll be long gone from Aleator, and you’ll feel all the better.”

  “I just hope you’re right about those Rosco soldiers not having an outside agenda,” said Summers, giving him a cautionary look.

  So do I…thought Calvin, but he did not voice his minute doubt. Instead, he projected confidence. “It will work out perfectly,” he said reassuringly. “Besides, the Roscos will be under Nimoux’s watch. Can you think of anyone better in the Empire who you would trust more to supervise them?”

  “No,” admitted Summers.

  “Clearance granted,” said Summers. “I am moving us into position to dock with the station.”

  As the Nighthawk turned, Calvin noticed Shen at the Ops station, he seemed unusually quiet, even for him.

  “Shen,” said Calvin, getting the man’s attention.

  “Yes?” Shen turned around.

  “Good work. It appears those transports you identified were the only ones carrying any Enclave soldiers,” said Calvin. “Not having to deal with any Strigoi likely saved the station and won the battle. You are to be commended.”

  Shen blushed. “Honestly, sir, it was just dumb luck; there was no way I could have known which transports had Remorii in them,” he said.

  Calvin was not so sure. He remembered Shen’s eyes turning red, and how powerfully the man had insisted Miles change targets. Something had happened, even if Calvin could not explain it, not yet anyway, but something had happened.

  “For that matter, it might not even have been luck,” said Shen. “It’s entirely possible that no Strigoi were part of the invasion whatsoever.”

  “True,” admitted Calvin, but again, he doubted it. Although a natural skeptic, Calvin was almost certain there had been Enclave soldiers on those two transports, and somehow Shen had detected them, and because of that they’d been able to eliminate them in space rather than fight them on the ground—something that might have turned the Roscos into Strigoi themselves, and Aleator into a nest for the monsters rather than a den for the much more preferable crooks and villains of the galaxy.

  “Sarah, dock the ship as soon as you’re able. In the meantime, I’ll be in my office,” said Calvin, and without further explanation, he left the bridge. He locked the door upon entering; although he knew this was an unnecessary precaution, he still preferred to keep his conversations with Grady completely private. He then input the proper codes and waited for the Rosco leader to answer. Calvin wasn’t sure if the man was available currently; he might be too busy coordinating the sweep and repair of his station. But Calvin hoped Grady could take the call, and, as it happened, Calvin’s luck stayed true.

  “Grady here.”

  “I have gotten a report from the ground that your battle is won,” said Calvin.

  “Looks that way, yeah.”

  “You know what that means,” said Calvin. “It’s time to discuss my payment. I delivered you a victory in space and my men helped you coordinate your victory on the ground. I believe that means you owe me.”

  “You have served my family,” said Grady. “We are grateful for your service in our time of need. The requests you made, they are as good as yours.”

  “I knew you were a man of reason,” said Calvin. “Only I have a few specific requests to make.”

  “Let me see if I remember them,” said Grady. “Fix the hull breach in your ship, supply you with ammunition and missiles, give you medical supplies, food, and other inventory that you have requested, and provide twenty Rosco soldiers to accompany you on your super secret mission that you still refuse to tell me about. Is that about right?”

  “Essentially right,” said Calvin. “But I also want three small detachable pods fixed to my outer hull.”

  “Done.”

  “And I need to make sure that the soldiers you are offering are the kind that I need. I need soldiers who will follow Captain Nimoux’s commands to the letter, loyally, and unquestioningly.”

  “Of course. I’m sending you Roscos, not just hired thugs. They will do their job. In fact, I’m sending you some of my very best and bravest, because I feel we owe you a debt of gratitude that deep.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Calvin. “I also need those soldiers to be capable of work alongside aliens.”

  “What? You have aliens in your crew?” Grady sounded disapproving.

  “Only one. An elite soldier. I need to know that the men I’m bringing aboard can work with him, and not have it be a problem. You understand what I’m asking for, correct?”

  “Yes, I understand. Look, I’ll be honest, these men aren’t going to do a song and dance when they find out they have to work with an alien. But they’ll do their job, and if that means working with an alien, then they will work with him. These are good, loyal, obedient men I’m giving you. They’re not about to shoot your alien in the back if that’s what you’re worried about. That good enough reassurance for you?”

  “Yes,” said Calvin, knowing that was the best he was going to get. “That is good enough reassurance. Now, lastly, I need twenty-two soldiers, not twenty.”

  “We had a deal, and the deal specified twenty,” said Grady.

  “I know that,” said Calvin. “But I lost two of my men defending your station. As repayment for their blood, spilled in your corridors, I ask you to give me two more of your best, most loyal men, as a sign of good will.”

  Grady seemed to think about it for a moment. Calvin hoped the way he had chosen to present this request would make Grady feel trapped by his own honor and reputation and effectively force him into going along with Calvin’s reques
t.

  “Very well,” said Grady at long last. “Anything else?”

  “No, that should be everything,” said Calvin. “I’m glad we could come to terms.”

  “As am I,” said Grady, with questionable sincerity. “As am I.”

  ***

  She had been informed what Raidan might do, and she had thought his plan a long shot. Still, Kalila had ultimately made it possible for Raidan to roll the dice as he had. Kalila, in turn, had made certain to enable Raidan by keeping all forces still under her influence from interfering with what many had thought to be a bluff, and many others thought to be insanity. And perhaps it was an insanity of a sort, certainly it had been a desperate play, but considering the darkness of the hour, and the failure of all other efforts, Kalila had decided the risk to be worth it. Especially since she could entirely disavow herself from Raidan’s actions. If they succeeded, she would reap the rewards. If they failed, then the blame fell entirely upon Raidan’s head—Kalila would be seen as blameless.

  Amazingly, and against all reasonable probability, Raidan’s efforts had born fruit. The disavowed, renegade captain, at the head of a forsworn, rogue agency—leading a battlegroup of starships, led by the dreaded ISS Harbinger—had proved credible in their threats. Enough so that Caerwyn’s own ministers and puppet Assembly had turned against him, delivering him into Raidan’s hands in order to stop what appeared to be an authentic attack on Capital World itself. Kalila could only speculate how far Raidan would have been willing to go—perhaps he had become desperate enough to lay waste to the entire planet, if necessary—whatever the case, Kalila was grateful that only minimal destruction had proven necessary. Yes, innocents had died. According to reports, the death toll was in the tens of thousands, and many of the planet’s most important and valuable structures had been reduced to rubble. Nevertheless, it had proven worth the expense, if the recordings were to be believed. And Kalila saw no reason to doubt them.

  The first recording, which she and her senior advisors had watched several times, explicitly showed Raidan execute Caerwyn Martel. It was an unlawful execution, no question of it, the man had committed murder. But that did not matter, not to Kalila. What mattered was that Caerwyn, the obstacle that kept the Empire divided against itself, was dead. Let them cry foul, she thought, let them blame Raidan for the lack of due process of law. They may hunt him from one corner of the galaxy to the next for all I care. Caerwyn Martel is dead, the blame is not mine, and now the Empire may be reunited.

  “Do we pardon Raidan?” Sir Gregory had asked, after the first time they’d watched Raidan’s pistol bring a swift, gruesome end to their primary nemesis. It had been a logical question; Raidan had done them an enormous service. It only made sense to scratch the backs of those who scratched yours. However, Kalila knew the political ramifications of pardoning Raidan would weaken her position among those who remained sympathetic to Caerwyn. And to pardon Raidan would be to rubberstamp the unsanctioned killing of a political prisoner. That would reflect poorly upon Kalila, and so pardoning Raidan remained out of the question.

  “We cannot,” she had told Sir Gregory and the rest of her advisors, half of whom seemed to understand while the rest had appeared taken aback. “To pardon Raidan would be seen by those whose support we currently most need as a royal sanction of an act that was deeply unlawful and unjust.”

  “Unjust?” Sir Gregory had protested. “Surely Caerwyn Martel deserved an even more ignominious end than even the one he received.”

  Kalila’s feelings had been much the same as Sir Gregory’s. Caerwyn Martel had committed crimes against her, her family, and, most importantly, the Empire, which could never be forgiven or undone. Caerwyn deserved to suffer an agonizing death, slow and painful, and he deserved his name to be permanently tainted, spoken only in tones of animosity across all of the Imperial worlds. However, something being deserved and something being a reality often were greatly diverged. Kalila had understood then, as she understood now, that Raidan could never be forgiven for what he had done. Nor could he be rewarded—despite how much he had given them and their cause—because Kalila had to remain sensitive to the political reality that existed throughout the Empire. Many who had been sympathetic to Caerwyn would not accept her rule easily, and would likely not accept it at all if she endorsed the murder of the man that these political factions had believed to be their legitimate king.

  Currently, Kalila stood once more with her senior advisors, reviewing a message that had been transmitted from Capital World to all the rest of the Empire. Only this message had not originated from Raidan, who no doubt had long fled the system, rather this message had been sent by the Imperial Assembly itself. The remnant of the government at the capital had convened an emergency session to determine what action to take—now that Caerwyn had been slain and died without an heir—and only minutes ago they had broadcast their intentions and instructions Empire-wide. Kalila and her advisors remained silent as they watched the recorded message a second time.

  It showed the gathered body of the Imperial Assembly—all who remained. They were not in the Assembly Chamber, which Raidan had destroyed, and instead met in some other large, fancy room that Kalila could not recognize. It could have belonged to any number of elite buildings that densely packed the most valuable real estate in the galaxy.

  Although it was impossible to tell, it appeared that no one who remained to the Imperial Assembly was missing from the recorded message, although she would have to have her technicians pause the wide-angle camera shots and identify each of the many faces in the crowded room to be certain.

  At the forefront of the room, and easily discernible on the picture, stood Representatives Hadriana Cydney and Josef Taggart, the same two that had sanctioned Raidan’s extralegal killing of Caerwyn Martel, and had, also in the previous message, knelt and declared their loyalty for Kalila; although all who had watched the message assumed they had done so under duress from Raidan. Which was why their appearance here, with all their gathered Assembly cohorts, under no indication of duress, was so important.

  Again, both representatives knelt and swore their fealty to Queen Kalila. This was followed by a vote of the High lords and ladies—the few that remained—of the Imperial Assembly, representing the Great Houses, which came to the unanimous conclusion that Kalila Akira was the rightful monarch of the Empire, and Caerwyn’s successor. Although Kalila refused to recognize Caerwyn’s claim, even after his death, she considered herself Hisato Akira’s successor, but the bottom line was the same. She was the monarch of the Empire. Now unchallenged.

  The common representatives then took a vote, and although not quite unanimous themselves, they voted overwhelmingly to accept the recommendations of their leader, representative Cydney, along with the binding vote of the Great Houses, and pledge their support for and recognition of, “Kalila Akira, daughter of Hisato Akira, First of Her Name, Heiress of the Andrevine, and now the true and rightful monarch of the Empire and all its worlds and all its citizens, wherever they may be.”

  The underlying message was very clear. It was meant to inform, and to some extent persuade, any Imperial worlds that had not yet joined Kalila’s cause, that they were to consider themselves her subjects and no longer at war against her, or neutral toward her. The message’s second intention, no doubt, was to inform Kalila that the war was over, that the Imperial Assembly wished for reunification—just like Kalila had been calling for all this time—and the Imperial Assembly was willing to submit to her claims in order to allow such reunification to occur.

  Of course, in order to properly recognize this transmission, and accept the offer the Imperial Assembly had made, for her to return home to Capital World, and from there see to the restoration and reunification of the Empire, she would have to instruct her own body of legislators, the Royal Assembly, to re-legitimize the Imperial Assembly, and recognize their authority, as an extension of the Royal Assembly itself, and thereby legitimize the Imperial Assembly’s offer in the eye
s of Kalila’s sworn worlds and followers. That, of course, would be no trouble. And Kalila intended to do exactly that.

  The message ended with a vote by the Imperial Assembly to recognize Kalila for her heroism in her defense of Thetican System, going to such an extreme as to name her a hero of the battle, despite its tragic end. This part of the message, no doubt, had been meant to appeal to her ego, to flatter her. But unfortunately it had the opposite effect and only tasted bitter in her mouth as she listened to the words. They served only to remind her of her failure, of the loss of nearly half her fleet, and the total destruction of the planet and star system she had committed herself to protecting.

  I’m no hero, she thought as she listened to the words. I am only someone who tried to protect the Empire from the threats I saw, as best I saw them.

  “That’s quite enough,” she said, commanding her advisors to terminate the message. She’d heard enough of the Assembly’s flattery the first time they had watched the message; there was no need to hear it all again.

  “What do you make of it, Your Majesty?” asked Captain Adiger.

  “I believe we have been handed the olive branch we have been waiting for,” said Kalila.

  “If I may, with apologies for disagreeing, Your Highness,” said Sir Gregory.

  “No apologies are necessary for such a thing,” said Kalila. “Speak.”

  “I cannot help but wonder if this is not an elaborate trap,” said Sir Gregory.

  “How so?” asked Kalila with genuine curiosity.

  “It all seems to have been arranged,” he said. “It just seems a bit too perfect, a bit too easy, if you understand my meaning. Could this not be the work of someone else, some other power who means Her Majesty harm, that might have taken control of the Imperial Assembly in Mr. Martel’s absence, and set this as a trap?”

  Kalila considered that for a moment and then rejected it as implausible. “While I am grateful for Sir Gregory’s concern for my well-being, I do not believe this is, or could be, a trap. But, even if it were a trap, we would still have no choice but to take that risk and accept the offer before us, despite such concern.”