The Phoenix Reckoning (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 6)

by Richard Sanders

  “Understood,” said Tristan. “We’ll be ready.”

  Sarah prayed that was true. She gained some more altitude when a few of the figures started to return fire at her. The small arms fire of their energy beams did little damage to the transport’s hull, but she didn’t want to risk a breach or other structural failure on the return trip back to the Arcane Storm, so she climbed to an altitude of two-thousand meters and continued to circle the LZ, waiting to pick up the others…hoping that they had come with enough force to prevail.

  At least let Shen live, she thought desperately. I don’t know if there’s a God out there but, for God’s sake, please don’t let Shen get hurt.

  “Any change?” Tristan’s voice came over the headset.

  “They’re pouring into your complex in horde-like numbers…I can’t stop them. You’re on your own.” She hated to admit it, but it was true.

  “That’s fine, we’ll handle them,” said Tristan confidently. “You just keep that transport intact and near the LZ; we may need a speedy pickup if things go south.”

  “Understood.”

  “And if you can get a shot or two off, see if you can disable or destroy some of those shuttles the bastards came in,” added Tristan.

  “Now that, I might be able to do,” said Sarah, gripping the yoke tightly. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would require multiple passes, and the transport’s guns left something to be desired, but they should be able to handle large targets—like stationary shuttles.

  “Good luck!”

  “Same to you!”

  ***

  Despite what had happened, with many of the most powerful senators being taken into custody right on the Senate floor, the mood of the room was one of measured, calculated calm. Above all, the remaining senators—those who had not been linked to the Rahajiim and hauled off to a secret hole somewhere—sought to appear in command and untouchable. After all, the Senate was not only the highest governmental institution within the Republic; it was the Republic!

  Hardly a minute had passed since the final arrest before the Acting Speaker—the original Speaker was one of the senators who had been dragged away—called order on the floor and summoned the members of the Committee on Internal Security to begin a hearing immediately about what was going on.

  This committee, made up of seven senior Senators—normally there would be ten, but three had been arrested—took the vacant seats on the raised dais to the left of the Speaker’s podium. They then conferred with one another for several minutes before announcing to the audience inside the Senate Chamber, which consisted of some two-thirds of the original Senate and a heavy military and Advent presence. Alex was one of the Advent operatives still stationed inside the Hall; he was there as an observer—to help maintain security—while lower ranking agents had been tasked with guarding the exits. Even though the Senate pretended to be in charge, and would make a great display of that fact—Alex knew—the truth was nobody could leave this room without Advent approval. Not yet.

  The senior members of the Advent were summoned to appear before the committee and, in the interest of keeping this government shakeup from looking like a coup, the Advent leaders complied. It took the better part of an hour to get them all there, but eventually there they were, each of them occupying one of the three seats arranged below the dais, facing opposite the committee. They sat from left to right in order of descending rank: Grand Nau K’torva, Supreme Proxitor Ilishta, and lastly Nau T’ahne. It was rare to see the entire group of them assembled together all in one place—partly because of the tremendous security threat that existed by having all of the Advent’s top leaders in such proximity, where all could be killed in one swift act of terrorism or war; the other reason they rarely were near one another was because they each had vital functions that required their governance, meaning they could be anywhere in the Republic at any given moment. However, in anticipation of this operation, and the likely reaction on the part of the remaining senators, all three had returned to Ro, knowing that they would be summoned to appear. Explanations were in order. No group in the history of the Republic had ever forcefully captured a third of the Senate, and to do so in the High Chamber of the Esteemed Republican Senate itself. Arrests had been made of some of the most powerful figures in the galaxy, under the very words carved into the ceiling of the chamber—WE ARE THE LAW. LET US GOVERN WITH THE WISDOM OF SAGES AND THE PRUDENCE OF GODS.

  The meaning of the motto had long been lost on these corrupt, foul politicians, Alex reflected, and he believed that each and every one that had been arrested had gotten what he or she deserved. These were the very bastards who had, for their own personal gain, made deals with monsters, subjected entire star systems—including Republican systems—to terrorism, and—worst of all—had steered the Republic toward unnecessary war. They would get what was coming to them. Alex only hoped their intelligence had been current and complete enough to prevent many of the Rahajiim-connected senators from escaping; also, a few had undoubtedly slipped through the cracks.

  We will find you, he swore silently. The reign of the Rahajiim is at an end.

  Upon receiving instruction from the Acting Speaker to do so, the Committee President spoke into his microphone, silencing the already mostly quiet chamber. “The Senate recognizes the following witnesses who have been summoned before us: K’torva, the Grand Nau; Ilishta, the Supreme Proxitor; and Nau T’ahne; the political, strategic, and diplomatic leaders of the Advent respectfully.”

  As each of their names were called, the witnesses stood and bowed, then remained standing.

  “Grand Nau K’Torva,” said the Committee President. “Do you give your solemn oath now to speak the truth faithfully, omitting nothing, under penalty of death should you perjure yourself before this committee?”

  “I do, sir.”

  The Committee President nodded. “Let the record so indicate. Now, Supreme Proxitor Ilishta, do you give your solemn oath now to speak the truth faithfully, omitting nothing, under penalty of death should you perjure yourself before this committee?”

  “Yes, I do, sir,” she said.

  “Let the record so indicate,” said the Committee President. “And, finally, Nau T’ahne, do you give your solemn oath now to speak the truth faithfully, omitting nothing, under penalty of death should you perjure yourself before this committee?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Let the record so indicate. You may now be seated.”

  “Grand Nau K’Torva,” said the Committee President, hardly a moment after the three of them had taken their seats. “I shall get right to the point. Look behind you for a moment, do you see all those vacant seats?”

  “I do, sir,” he said, after craning his neck to look behind him.

  “And do you see the heavy presence of military and Advent presence inside this chamber?”

  “I do, sir,” said the Grand Nau, perfectly calm.

  “I ask you, then, did you authorize the use of these military and intelligence resources to storm the Senate Chamber and abduct a third of the Senate? I ask you to think carefully before speaking, for, to me, it sounds like such an order would be an act of treason of the highest order. Yet also bear in mind that your oath has been taken.”

  “I authorized no abductions, only arrests,” said the Grand Nau.

  “So you admit you arrested these missing senators?”

  “I did.”

  “And you did so under what pretext?” The Committee President demanded.

  “I arrested them for crimes against the state.”

  “Crimes against the state?” asked the Committee President, sounding appalled and in utter disbelief. “You are aware that the Senate is the state, are you not?”

  “The institution of the Senate is the state, yes,” said the Grand Nau. “However, that does not mean the senators themselves are the state.”

  “Yet surely it must be so,” said the Committee President. “The members of the Senate enjoy sovereign immunity from anythin
g in the criminal code.”

  “In the criminal code, perhaps,” said the Grand Nau. “But there is no immunity for treason.”

  The accusation of treason was met with stunned silence inside the chamber and, although it was quiet enough Alex could have heard a pebble drop, he could tell that the atmosphere inside the Senate Chamber was one of electrified outrage. He instinctively moved to a more secure position, where he could place his back up against the wall and have a clearer view of the other senators—just in case.

  “You bring a bold accusation of treason against many dozens of senators today,” said the Committee President, yet you, sir, sit here before us as the seeming architect of treason.”

  “How dare you, sir?” demanded the Grand Nau. Just because he was addressing a senator, and a Committee President at that, did not mean one in such a lofty station as his must listen to such slander.

  “I do not sit before you to indict you of treason,” said the Committee President, “however, it does seem suspicious to me that one of our government institutions has unilaterally swept in, using force, and taken away a third of our Senate. Can you at least admit that, on the surface, such lunacy seems the product of a backwards, upside-down world?”

  “How do you mean?” asked the Grand Nau.

  “I mean, sir, that your order appears to be treasonous until it is proven otherwise, do you not agree that that is the protocol before us?”

  There was a pause as the Grand Nau seemed to reflect on the law, or else what he was about to say. Alex couldn’t be sure; all he knew was that a confrontation like this, between the Advent and the Senate, had never occurred before. And, although the Advent had the upper hand now, they only existed at the pleasure of the Senate, and all their power derived from the Senate, and so it was theoretically possible that every Advent agent involved in the operation today had signed his own death certificate in doing so. Although Alex did not think the Rahajiim—whose military and political leaders had been rounded up in one swift, simultaneous strike—had the resources remaining to them to regroup and exert enough control over the Senate, or the military, to take down the Advent. If they did, then the Advent had grossly miscalculated, and there remained no longer any hope.

  “I agree to the protocol, yes,” said the Grand Nau finally. “That is the law. There is neither a presumption of innocence nor guilt, only a finding upon a balancing analysis of the preponderance of the evidence. However, I am confident the evidence weighs in my favor, and that you—and all the rest—shall see that I acted in the necessary interest of the Republic.”

  “Necessary? To abduct members of the Senate?” asked the Committee President incredulously. “Including the Speaker himself?”

  “Not abduct, arrest,” the Grand Nau again clarified.

  “And you,” the Committee President turned to look at the Supreme Proxitor and Nau T’ahne. “Do both of you agree with the Grand Nau’s assessment that this…unprecedented mass arrest of the highest elected public officials was necessary to safeguard the Republic?”

  “I do, sir,” said the Supreme Proxitor.

  “As do I,” said Nau T’ahne.

  The Committee President looked to the other members of the committee, each of whom seemed as baffled, scared, and confused as the Committee President was pretending not to be. None of them offered any word of suggestion; however, it was customary for the President of a Committee, when interviewing summoned witnesses, to lead in the questioning.

  “It may have been your judgment that such sweeping abductions—or arrests as you call them—were in the best, or necessary, interest of the Republic; however, I ask you, by what authority do you make such arrests?”

  “To that end,” said the Grand Nau. “We cite the Security of the State Act, which this senatorial body has passed into immediately effective legislation today.”

  “And how does such an Act grant you so much sweeping authority as to despoil the Senate itself?” asked the Committee President, as he and the rest of the committee pulled up copies of the Act that, unbeknownst to them, the Advent had pressured various members of the Senate to support.

  Alex himself had been the one to persuade Senator Ze’lo to not only support the Bill—which the Advent had carefully drafted themselves—but also to introduce it before the Senate and ensure that it passed. Of course, to perhaps a bit of irony, Senator Ze’lo himself had been among the senators the Advent had arrested and taken away. He protested—claiming that they had gotten the wrong man—but he held his silence about the deal he had struck with Alex, the claim that should he do this, and get the bill to pass, then the wrath of the Advent would pass over him. Not so, Senator Ze’lo, not so. All Rahajiim members and sympathizers deserved the sword of justice, and it would make no sense to allow a little of the rot to remain in order to cut out the rest. No, all of the rot had to be gutted out. Operation Purge took everyone even remotely connected to the Rahajiim. A few might be let off, Alex knew, but better to take too many than too few and allow the Rahajiim to work its slimy way back into positions of power.

  The Grand Nau, in his reply, referred to specific articles and clauses in the Act, ones that gave the Advent broad and sweeping powers to do “whatever necessary” to preserve the Republic from “the enemy within.” The Committee President seemed to have no adequate response for this.

  “And where did you take our colleagues whom you arrested?” he asked, his voice was still hard as iron—there would be no hint of weakness—but Alex could detect the subtlest undertone of defeat.

  “The arrested have been taken into custody and shall stand trial before the Tribunal of Criminal Affairs,” said the Grand Nau. “They are entitled to due process and will receive a fair opportunity to prove their innocence, just as it falls upon the Advent to demonstrate their guilt.” In the Republic, there was neither a presumption of innocence or guilt; judgments were based upon the greater probability after considering evidence from both sides.

  “When are these trials scheduled to take place?” asked the Committee President.

  “That is still being determined,” said the Grand Nau. “Until then, however, the prisoners’ seats in the Senate must remain vacant, as I’m sure you know.”

  The President of the Committee nodded. When a senator stood accused, and a trial was necessary to determine his fate, he lost the privilege of being able to vote on any motion until the trial was resolved in his favor. Similarly, he could not be replaced by another senator, even one in an acting capacity, as, to do so, would be considered a sign of guilt to the Rotham people. And so, until the matter was resolved in the courts, which could take some time, the Senate was operating with only two-thirds of its members, and only they could vote.

  The Committee President dismissed the Grand Nau and continued his line of inquiry with the Supreme Proxitor and Nau T’ahne. With the first, he continued to challenge the validity of the arrests, but his arguments became weaker and more resigned. He then wanted to know what the strategic implications were for the safety of the Republic after such a massive political upheaval. The Supreme Proxitor was reassuring, but made it clear the threat that was being handled was pervasive, elusive, and had managed to get a stranglehold around the throat of the Republic, but now the Advent had stepped in in time to rescue it and, eventually, all would be made right.

  The Committee President dismissed the Supreme Proxitor, but she elected to stay, stating that she had an order of business to raise with the Committee at the earliest opportunity. The Committee President forced her to wait—mostly out of spite, as far as Alex could tell—until he was through interviewing Nau T’ahne about the diplomatic implications of this mass arrest, and whether that would weaken the Republic in the eyes of the other nations, particularly the Empire. Nau T’ahne was reassuring and insisted that, even if Intel Wing had spies in place that had, or would, discover the sweeping arrests made throughout the Republic, the Empire—although its civil war had rumoredly come to an end—had problems enough of its own to de
al with. There was no cause for alarm.

  “That brings me to my order of business,” interjected the Supreme Proxitor, once it was clear the Committee President was through interrogating Nau T’ahne. He waved Nau T’ahne away and then gave the Supreme Proxitor his attention again.

  “What is it?” he asked, still making every effort to appear strong and in command, but his tone was the slightest bit deflated and a little bit of fear cracked through his otherwise iron voice. I wonder if he has something to hide, thought Alex, as he squinted and examined the Committee President as shrewdly as he could from this distance. Either he is afraid the Advent will come for him eventually, or else he is simply afraid that the Senate had given the Advent too much power. Power that would prove difficult to take away with a third of the senators—the ones most likely to vote to rescind the Act—locked away in dungeons awaiting, what could prove to be, a very long series of trials. Until they cleared their names or were pronounced guilty—allowing replacements to be elected in their steads—it was doubtful the Senate would be able to marshal the votes it would need to scale back the Security of the State Act, which was very good for the Advent. Provided they used their power the way they were supposed to.

  We need to get the Republic back on track, restore relations with the foreign powers, discourage war, and reinstate the balance of power that existed after the Great War, thought Alex. Only then can we depend on being left alone to peacefully mind our own affairs.

  “I have reports from our deep space scouts,” said the Supreme Proxitor. “I have confirmed them with our long range listening posts and found the results to be consistent.”

  This piqued Alex’s interest; whatever she was about to report, it referred to intelligence that Alex had not yet personally learned about.

  “Is it a military threat?” asked the Committee President.

  “It could be,” replied the Supreme Proxitor. “It’s too early to tell for certain.”

  “Imperial?” asked the Committee President. No doubt thinking the newly-united Empire still had a bone to pick with the Rotham Republic, especially in response to the total annihilation of one of their Corridor star systems. Even though the Republic had had nothing to do with it, Alex was certain. Though that didn’t mean the Rahajiim weren’t behind it…