The Phoenix Crisis

by Richard L. Sanders

  “Now Princess,” said Calvin. “There are certain things we need to discuss.” He looked at Kalila, seeing here there on his bridge… he couldn’t keep back a smile, but he reminded himself that he was not going to be her pawn, led blindly into the darkness.

  “Certainly,” she replied and gestured toward the CO’s office adjacent to the bridge.

  Summers shot Calvin an urgent look and Calvin nodded, understanding. “Commander Presley, if you’ll please join the princess and me in my office.”

  “Of course,” Summers replied. She tried to hide her pleased look but did not succeed.

  “You’re bringing your XO?” asked Kalila.

  “Yes,” said Calvin. “Summers is my right hand and it would be helpful to get a second perspective on everything. But do not worry, Your Highness, the commander has my full confidence.”

  “Not to mention I have a few questions of my own that I’d like to ask you, Your Grace,” said Summers.

  Kalila looked at her with eyes that could not be read. “You worked for Asari Raidan most recently, before being posted to the Nighthawk, is that correct?”

  “I did.”

  Kalila nodded. “In that case I may have some questions for you as well.”

  Calvin led them into his office and the door closed behind them.

  ***

  Calvin went to his seat and offered the chair opposite him to the princess, which she accepted. He waited for her to sit before he did. Summers, with no other chairs available, was forced to stand. She took up a position next to Calvin, almost like a sentry, and stood rigidly with her arms folded. Defensive and cold. Calvin wanted to be tough with the princess too, since she’d been nothing but mysterious to him and she was the prime suspect in one of the most heinous acts ever to occur on Imperial soil, but he simply couldn’t help but feel warm and happy that she was near. And that she was taking an interest in him. Him. Lowly half-citizen Calvin!

  “I thank you for your aid, Captain,” said Kalila. “Now, I’m sure you have many questions, not the least of which is why I am asking you to go to Capital World. A place that we both know is not safe for your ship. At least as things stand at the moment.”

  “Yes,” said Calvin. “I do want to know about that. But I have a few other concerns that ought to be addressed first.” He considered how to broach the subject. Somehow it was difficult to ask Kalila a challenging question, especially one that seemed to question her integrity and character. There was just something about her that was difficult and intimidating and… he simply did not want to upset or displease her.

  “Why did your ship slaughter all those people on Renora?” asked Summers. Her voice was bald and uncompromising, and she did nothing to sugar-coat the issue or be gentle. Kalila looked surprised—she was probably not used to being addressed in such a way—but she kept her cool.

  “My ship did not attack Renora,” she replied.

  “I’ve seen countless broadcasts that clearly show the Black Swan, an alpha-class ship—one of only a handful in the whole Empire—bombing and slaughtering the people and infrastructure of Renora,” said Summers.

  “It is very suspicious,” added Calvin, wanting to take a part in this discussion—and wanting to remind himself that Kalila owed him some answers if he was going to even consider helping her. True he’d sworn an oath to the crown and it was his duty to serve the royal family, but not at the expense of the well-being of the Empire.

  “I’m glad you bring up the matter,” said Kalila, “for that is why we must go to Capital World with all haste. And why I have need of your help in doing so.”

  “And we should aid and abed a fugitive of the Empire because?” Summers raised an eyebrow.

  “Firstly because you yourselves are fugitives,” said Kalila. “And you know first-hand that you are undeserving of the title. You know—we both know—that there is something rotten that has infiltrated our military. That perverse influence has summoned ships to hunt and pursue you, so that you will not expose it. For the same reason they have planted a false flag at Renora, framing me and my vessel for a brutal attack, which we did not take part in, in order to discredit me and cast doubt upon my family. The very family that raised humanity out of the broken ashes, from fledging disunited colonies into a single, powerful civilization—and has shepherded it ever since. They wish to challenge my father. That is why they attacked Renora in my name.”

  Calvin considered her words. The idea that Renora had been attacked as a way of destabilizing the throne, possibly to create a vacuum of power that would allow the Phoenix Ring to seize the throne, did fit very snug with the facts he already knew, and with the information Raidan had already given him. However making the entire galaxy believe the Imperial colony had been attacked by the Black Swan was no meager task.

  “If it was not you and your ship that attacked Renora—which I am inclined to believe,” said Calvin, not wanting to upset the princess or give her cause to distrust him, “then how did they do it? I’ve seen the broadcasts myself; the ship seemed in every way to be the Black Swan. It had all the right markings, and all the right firepower.”

  “Let me ask you this,” said Kalila. “Did you ever hear a broadcast that included any voice messages from myself or my crew during or before the attack?”

  “No,” Calvin admitted. “The reports are that the ship maintained radio silence as it approached the planet and commenced bombing.”

  “Which it did because the people on that ship who did the bombing were not my people. We were somewhere else. That ship was not the Black Swan. It was another ship, made in secret, designed to the exact specifications as my ship. Meant in every way to seem like my ship. To make any observer believe they are looking at my ship. But if we were ever in the same place, trust me you’d be seeing double.”

  “I want to believe you,” said Calvin. “But I need proof.”

  “And a lot of it,” added Summers.

  Kalila nodded. “As you should. And the evidence that I have with me is complete and convincing. It has taken some time to collect, but it will acquit me not only in your eyes but in the eyes of the Assembly and the Imperial public.”

  “That’s a bold claim,” said Summers.

  “A bold truth,” said Kalila. “I intend to go to the Assembly floor and acquit myself, my House, and my crew before the entire Empire. That will frustrate our enemies’ plans, and hopefully buy us enough time to identify them and expose them. We will root out their festering influence and excise it from the military, the government, and the Empire. Then all will again be as it should.” Her dark eyes shimmered in the office lighting and Calvin was taken in by them. They were unflinching, unyielding, and uncompromising. Calvin had zero doubt that Kalila spoke her words sincerely.

  “That sounds like a pretty good plan to me,” said Calvin. To strike against the enemy in their own house, and purge the Empire once and for all of the Phoenix Ring and all the corrupt elements that had taken hold, that was a worthy goal if ever Calvin had heard one. And it would also mean a chance to find out what had happened to Rafael and, hopefully, come to his aid.

  “I’d like to see this evidence that is so convincing,” said Summers.

  “And see it you shall,” said Kalila. She reached into the pocket of her civilian clothing and withdrew a tiny data disc. “This disc is the key. On it is everything we need to make our case before the Assembly. It must be kept safe at all costs.”

  “Before you start planning your case before the Assembly, perhaps you’d better first make your case here,” said Summers.

  Kalila ignored Summers and looked deeply into Calvin’s eyes. “Here, Calvin,” she handed him the disc. He took it from her gingerly and held it. It was so tiny and yet it represented so much, if it could do what Kalila claimed it would. “I want you to hold onto it,” she said. She reached out and placed a hand on his wrist. He felt a spark at her touch. “Calvin I am trusting you with this. In your hand you hold my fate, my family’s fate, and the fate of th
e Empire.”

  Suddenly the tiny disc felt very heavy.

  “Can I trust you?” she asked.

  He nodded. Too stunned to speak.

  “Enough dramatics, let’s see this evidence,” said Summers. “If it is as strong as you claim, then you have my full support. I am ever a servant of the Empire. But if it is not, if there is room for even a shred of doubt, then I will not be able to trust you. And I think it is only fair that you know that I intend to advise Calvin, in such a case, not to trust you either.”

  Kalila smiled. “Then I have nothing to worry about. And I look forward to counting you among my strongest supporters.”

  With a surprising amount of reluctance, Calvin pulled his hand away from Kalila’s tender touch and inserted the disc into his computer terminal. The princess got up from her chair and walked around the desk so all three of them could get a good look at Calvin’s display.

  On the disc were several file groups. Kalila coached him through the different screens. “This is the one that took the longest to obtain,” she said as Calvin pulled up documents ostensibly taken from the Secure Polarian Archives. It was a network of military and other secrets within the Confederacy that even high-ranking political leaders had no access to, it was the exclusive domain of the Prelains and anyone they considered worthy of such knowledge and access. For Kalila to have obtained it, she would have to have a spy very highly placed in the Polarian Religious circle. Or else have had tremendous success finding a highly established Polarian who was also susceptible to being bribed or blackmailed—two things the Polarians were generally considered immune to.

  “As you can see here, these documents were acquired from ‘an unnamed source’ eight years ago,” she said. The data before them appeared to be extraordinarily detailed schematics of the Black Swan and other advanced Imperial ships. Calvin wasn’t a ship-builder but as far as he could tell everything was here in such cumbersome and complete detail that the information could be used to build an exact replica of the Black Swan—so long as the builder had the considerable resources to do so.

  “And after this was acquired,” continued Kalila, “another anonymous party arranged for construction of the ship to begin. The process was done in secret at a shipyard in Eos Minor and took approximately seven years to complete.”

  “How do we know you didn’t fabricate these documents?” asked Summers.

  Calvin thought that was a fair question, though it did show a little bit of Summers’ inexperience working with these kind of classified materials. Not only would it be extremely difficult to fabricate Polarian documents with such perfection, it would be nigh impossible to fabricate the Black Swan’s design schematics. Even if the engineers at Kalila’s disposal were clever and they used the Black Swan as a medium and tried to infer its design schematics from studying the ship, it would be a cumbersome and difficult process that would take considerable time and inevitably result in a product that was not exact. And the inevitable imperfections in the schematics they fabricated and the actual schematics themselves, no matter how tiny, would be pounced upon once Kalila released these documents to the Assembly and the public in an effort to acquit herself. If these schematics were not the genuine article, Kalila was only putting a nail in her own coffin. Therefore Calvin believed they were genuine. He also doubted Kalila had access to classified military designs and if she’d made any effort to acquire the schematics of her ship, certainly those efforts would have been noted. So, all things considered, Calvin was convinced the most plausible explanation was that Kalila had indeed acquired these documents through her Polarian contact circle, which meant that military secrets were being leaked to the Polarians and a replica Black Swan—one of the fiercest ships in the galaxy—had been constructed.

  “You can see these markings here,” Kalila said. She went on to coach Summers through several of the subtle indicators that demonstrated the documents were of Polarian origin. The review gave Calvin flashbacks of his Intel Wing training.

  “I see,” said Summers, still sounding a bit skeptical once Kalila was finished.

  “There’s more,” said Kalila. She guided Calvin to another set of documents, these were Imperial documents and were certain to be more familiar to Summers. “Here are all of my ship’s logs, including all of our destinations in the past year. Here are the computer records, indicating every course and heading input into the navigation system over the last year… there is a lot of data there but if you run a cross-check on all of these coordinates you’ll find that the ship hasn’t been anywhere near Renora in recent memory. The last time it was even within a light-year of that system was nine standard months ago. See,” she brought up one of the data points. Calvin took her word for it for now, as far as he could tell she was speaking the truth, but he would have the Nighthawk’s computer crunch the numbers for him when he got the chance—just to be sure.

  “And as for the time of the attack on Renora, observe these logs,” said Kalila. She then brought up not only a dataset marking the ship’s tracked positions while the Renora attack was taking place—which showed the Black Swan was indeed nowhere near Renora—she also brought up footage from the ship’s own cameras that showed images of space and stars that corroborated the computer’s claim of where the Black Swan actually was. “These star configurations, in this pattern, clearly indicate that we were at Theos One. Not Renora. If we were at Renora these star patterns would be completely different.”

  Calvin nodded. By this point he was entirely convinced. And not just because he wanted to believe the princess was innocent, but because this was actually a healthy amount of compelling evidence.

  “I’d still like to have the operations chief check over all of this data, as well as the Nighthawk’s computer, to assess the likelihood that any of it was tampered with or outright fabricated,” said Summers.

  “Of course,” said Kalila. “I insist.”

  But it wasn’t to Kalila that Summers was speaking. Her eyes were on Calvin. “Sir, with your permission?”

  “Granted,” said Calvin. “Have Cassidy do a thorough analysis of this data and make a complete report to both of us regarding the probable authenticity of this information. In the meantime maintain present course and speed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Summers said. She bowed her head once to the princess and then swept away. The door slid closed behind her.

  “I don’t think that one likes me very much,” said Kalila.

  Calvin smirked. “I’ve been there before. But don’t worry, for as cold and icy as she is, Summers is completely dependable. And in her own strange way she grows on you.”

  “Indeed.”

  Kalila continued going through the various documents, even though Calvin was already convinced of her innocence. He tried to focus as best he could, but it was difficult when she was standing right next to him, brushing up against him. He could smell her light but splendid perfume and it, combined with her proximity, made him melt a little inside.

  He cleared his throat and tried to organize his thoughts. “Tell me, princess, how did you acquire such high-level Polarian documents?” He knew he had to focus if he was to keep a clear head. Somehow Kalila was just so intoxicating…

  “I have some Polarian agents of my own,” she replied. Calvin remembered their first meeting on Tau Outpost, when he’d caught sight of blue skin hidden behind the hooded disguise of one of Kalila’s bodyguards. He’d suspected then that Kalila had at least one Polarian operative. Perhaps these documents meant she had dozens.

  “Those must be hard to acquire.”

  “Some of them were sought out by my family, in an effort to improve relations and remain informed. Some of our friendships and connections have existed since the Great War, when there was for a time a common enemy, and some of my connections are ones I have sought out myself. But the truly valuable ones…” she paused and turned her head. Her soft raven hair brushed his cheek and he liked how it felt. She looked at him, their eyes very close—he’d never s
een such richness and darkness in a person’s eyes before; they could cast spells!—and she spoke. “The most truly valuable have been the Polarian agents who have put themselves, and in their minds their immortal souls, at risk to give us information, and warnings, because they fear another Great War is coming. These are noble Polarians who love their people, and their families, even above their sacred duty—which is technically blasphemy in their culture—and are willing to give up everything, including eternal bliss, to do all they can to prevent a second bloodbath from occurring. The Great War was not kind to them. And if there is to be a second one…”

  “It would be far worse,” Calvin agreed.

  Kaila didn’t move away and Calvin stared into her eyes. Something about her completely pulled him in. He felt a weakness inside him, a tingling…

  The door opened and Summers stepped inside, followed by Cassidy. “I’m ready to analyze the data, sir,” she said. “Commander Presley has given me full instructions.”

  Kalila pulled herself away from Calvin and stood up. She then walked to the side to make room for Cassidy and Summers next to the terminal. Calvin got out of his seat and gestured for Cassidy to take his place. “You have every resource at your disposal; this is to take top priority.”

  “It will not take long,” said Kalila. “I assure you, you will find the data to be sound and true.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said Calvin. He looked at Summers. “What is our ETA to Ursa Leo?”

  “Twenty-six hours at present jump depth.”

  “That should be ample time,” said Calvin. “Summers, you have the deck. Princess,” he turned back to Kalila. “If you’ll follow me I’ll be glad to show you to your quarters.”

  Chapter 8

  “What is it? This had better be important,” said Zane. He’d been forced to walk out on a meeting with some wealthy potential investors who were sympathetic to the cause. And while it was true that the Phoenix Ring had wealth enough—especially Zane—there was no such thing as too much wealth or too much power, particularly when the fate of the galaxy was being decided.