The Phoenix Darkness

by Richard L. Sanders

  “Sir Reginald,” she said, choosing him because she believed his reputation, and considerable forces, would have the best chance of intimidating the enemy. And Kalila still pinned her hopes on the possibility that no battle for Ophiuchus System need occur.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” asked the seasoned knight.

  She hesitated for half a second, needing to find the strength within herself to ask of him what she needed to ask of him. It was difficult, and she felt her heart twist inside her, but she showed no outward sign of weakness, knowing it fell upon her, as queen, to make such decisions. And she could not allow emotion to prevent her from exercising the judgment of command.

  “I would ask of you that you lead the defense of Ophiuchus System,” she said. “Do you accept this charge from your queen?”

  “I accept this noble honor,” said Sir Reginald, with no real alternative. He bowed his head, respectfully. “As always, I am pleased to serve in whatever capacity Your Highness would have of me.”

  “Thank you,” said Kalila. She saw looks of relief appear on her other knights’ faces. “The rest of you,” she said, “gather your forces together. Send word to all of our allies and to any who would stand in defense of the Empire; we shall group here, in this system, then together we shall move to The Corridor and there defend our brothers and sisters from alien invasion!”

  ***

  “My Lord,” said the Minister of Strategy, as he scampered into the throne room.

  “You would kneel as you address your king,” said Caerwyn from his perch upon the royal throne. Although the chair was uncomfortable, it felt good to be sitting here at long last, King of the Empire.

  “Yes, Your Highness, my profound apologies,” the minister said, bending his knee.

  “Now then,” said Caerwyn, “just what is it you’re prattling on about?”

  “It’s the DMZ, Your Highness!”

  “What about it?” asked Caerwyn.

  “We’ve just received word, Your Majesty,” said the Minister of Strategy, looking red in the face. “The listening posts have detected sizable activity, My Lord.”

  “Meaning what?” Caerwyn did not have time for guessing games, he preferred his subordinates simply get right to the point immediately.

  “There is a Rotham fleet, Your Highness,” he said. “Heading for the Empire. Three-hundred ships strong and maybe more. They mean to invade The Corridor.”

  Excellent, thought Caerwyn. He knew such a threat would require a response; the people expected nothing less. But, more importantly, he knew his enemy, Queen Kalila, was the type who could not allow such a threat to go unanswered. Which meant she would divert her own forces to defend The Corridor, leaving Ophiuchus System ripe for the plucking.

  “The rebel queen,” the Minister of Strategy continued. “She is sending warnings all across the Empire. She is calling for a ceasefire and for our ships to meet hers, as allies, to combine forces against our common enemy.”

  Caerwyn put his fingers together, forming a triangle, and spent the better part of a minute in silent thought.

  On the one hand, the people would see no response by Caerwyn as a sign of weakness. If Kalila boldly defended the Empire against the Rotham, and Caerwyn did nothing, she would be lauded as a hero and him a craven coward.

  Then again, if Kalila spent herself and her forces in terrible battle against the Rotham, it meant two of his enemies would spend their efforts in the business of exterminating each other. Caerwyn could take Ophiuchus as he’d already planned with little or no resistance, allowing him to keep the better part of his forces intact, alive, and battle ready. Kalila, on the other hand, would either be annihilated by the Rotham, leaving Caerwyn as the sole monarch of the Empire and ending the civil war, or else she will have spent so much of her strength defying the Rotham she could no longer afford to oppose Caerwyn. He would have her outmatched, outgunned and, with Ophiuchus in his possession, she would not have the resources anymore to repair or rebuild her fleets. She might be lauded as a hero, but when next they met in battle, Caerwyn would have hundreds of ships fighting under his banner and Kalila would have dozens; nothing by comparison. Then, when he decisively defeated her, none could oppose him. They might call him Caerwyn the Coward or Caerwyn the Craven, but he would be king, and Kalila, she would be dead. Dead or else forced to bend her knees before him.

  “My Lord,” said the Minister of Strategy, when Caerwyn gave no response. “What would you have us do? Shall I give the order to send the fleets to The Corridor?”

  “No, you shall not,” said Caerwyn, having made up his mind.

  “My Lord?” the Minister of Strategy looked confused. “The people will expect us to respond to her calls for a truce.”

  “Let the people know we do not negotiate with traitors to the crown,” he said. Then asked, “Did Kalila even identify where the Rotham plan to attack?”

  “No, My Lord,” said the Minister of Strategy, still on his knees. “Our listening posts cannot ascertain that, so it is impossible for her or us to tell. Only that the Rotham will invade The Corridor.”

  Caerwyn smiled. That meant Kalila would find it difficult to timely arrive at whichever system was attacked, and made it all but impossible for her to mount an effective defense. “The Corridor is a massive swath of space,” said Caerwyn. “Of course our fleets cannot be expected to defend it if we do not even know which part of it is threatened.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” said the Minister of Strategy. “Shall I continue to deploy our forces according to the original design, then?”

  “Yes,” said Caerwyn. “There is no need to change our plans. If anything, this only gives us greater reason to strike Ophiuchus System. Let us pluck it from our enemy while she is least able to defend it.”

  “Of course, My Lord.”

  Chapter 20

  It was not his watch and Rafael had the helm, which meant it was his turn to sleep. Yet, despite how tired he was, and haggard, and despite how much he desperately needed it, he found sleep to be elusive, not the least because of Miles’s loud snoring. So Calvin climbed out of the small cot in the tiny crew quarters and quietly left the room, making sure not to disturb either Miles or Rez’nac as he slipped out.

  He thought to make his way to the cockpit to either relieve Rafael of his shift or else spend the hours discussing recent events with him. On his way, though, he stopped in the primary hold, where he was surprised to find Rain wide awake, sitting in one of the passenger chairs just staring off into space.

  “Can’t sleep either, I take it?” he asked, walking up to her.

  “Oh, hello there, Calvin,” she said, startled out of her trance. She smiled when their eyes met and he felt a spark of electricity, but tried not to let it affect him.

  He took the seat next to her. “Something on your mind?” he asked.

  “Oh, not really, no,” said Rain. Calvin got the impression that wasn’t true, but clearly Rain didn’t want to open up, so he wasn’t going to press the issue. “What about you?”

  Calvin thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, thinking about how the Enclave was involved with the Rahajiim. No doubt the Strigoi bastards had helped to overthrow the Alliance. Now they were helping to deliver isotome weapons, the deadliest weapon the galaxy would ever know, to the Rahajiim. He thought about his time on Tybur Canton, what it had been like to discover his father living with the Strigoi…there were many unsettled feelings.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” asked Rain.

  “I don’t know,” replied Calvin, not wanting to unburden himself on Rain.

  “Does it have anything to do with the Rahajiim?” she asked. “About what we’ve just been through?”

  “In a way,” said Calvin, feeling a return of the guilty sensation that had overcome him over the past few days. How he’d nearly gotten his team killed, nearly gotten Rain killed, by inviting them along on what had been an inherently insane mission to embark upon.

  “If
you’re feeling bad about what happened…about what we all experienced, you shouldn’t,” said Rain. “We all came here of our own free will. We each knew the risks. And at the end of it, you saw us through it.” She smiled at him. Then touched his hair, where he’d been burned. “All of us made it out in one piece, though it was a near thing.”

  “Does it look bad?” asked Calvin with a slight wince. He hadn’t seen himself in the mirror since he’d nearly taken a heat beam to the face. The feeling his head was on fire when his hair lit up, still felt like some kind of unbelievable dream. He’d had close calls before, but that had been the closest.

  “No…” said Rain, obviously lying. “Really, it’s not bad at all. I think it looks kind of good.”

  He laughed and she chuckled along. “Okay, now that I don’t believe.”

  “Aw, what’s a little hair, anyway?” asked Rain. “Better than if it had been a few inches over.”

  “Depends which direction,” said Calvin, stroking the light burn on his scalp. His fingers met Rain’s as he did, and neither pulled away for a few seconds. He felt the urge to grab her hand, but resisted. After a moment, she withdrew her hand.

  “I’m really glad you’re all right,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said, and both were silent for a time, as if neither knew what to say. It didn’t feel awkward to Calvin. Instead, he closed his eyes and relaxed, allowing the minutes to fly along.

  Before he knew it, he was asleep. Images of the Rotham ship flew before his eyes and faded. He found himself in a dark hallway. There were bones there. He touched at them, noting cobwebs over the skull. When a spider appeared, he withdrew his hand.

  “That was your father,” a creepy voice said from behind. Calvin spun around to see who it was but, as he did, the images around him faded. He was on the Trinity, laughing next to Christine. Both of them were in his quarters. She’d just awoken from a dream that had been so funny she’d laughed herself awake. She’d shared it with him and he too found it hilarious, but he didn’t remember what it was.

  The quarters faded and he was in the corridor, listening to screams. A Strigoi in a torn naval uniform shambled around the corner. Calvin felt the cold steel of a handgun in his hands. He raised it, pointing it at the Strigoi, feeling his arms tremble ever so slightly. His captain was there too, shouting at him, ordering him to fire. But Calvin hesitated, recognizing something in the Strigoi’s face; a familiarity. And then, in a flash, the Strigoi launched into the air, knocking them down with a blow. As Calvin rolled to his feet, raising the pistol, he watched the Strigoi bite Christine. She screamed. The scream stayed with him, echoing, until he was in a hospital looking down at her.

  She was conscious, strapped to several machines, barely being kept alive. There was agony in her eyes as she looked up at him. Did she recognize him? He didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that she was suffering and it was his fault.

  “Calvin. Calvin. Calvin.”

  “What?” he woke with a start, finding himself in the semi-familiar hold of the Rotham ship. It took him half a second, but then he remembered where he was.

  “You were having a bad dream,” said Rain. She was touching him, clenching his shirt with both her hands. No doubt she’d had to shake him to rouse him from the dream. Now that he was awake, her grip on him slackened, but she didn’t move her hands away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, instinctively, as if momentarily confusing Rain with Christine. The dream had seemed so real. As he looked at Rain’s face, losing himself in her beautiful blue eyes, he didn’t see much in her that looked like Christine. Yet the feelings, the feelings were all there as if the two people were one, somehow.

  “Sorry for what?” asked Rain.

  “I…I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head to further waken himself. He slapped himself in the face.

  “Whatever it was,” she said, “your dream, it’s gone now. You don’t owe me or anyone else an apology.” She moved her hands away, then she rested her head on his shoulder. It took him by surprise, yet he liked it. He felt the urge to reach around her and hold her tight, but resisted, not sure if that was what she wanted or not.

  “The Strigoi,” he said. “They were in my dream.”

  “There’s no Strigoi here,” she said soothingly. “And when you see them again, don’t worry. You’ll be all right.”

  She didn’t know that. She couldn’t know that. Yet hearing her say it, somehow, it made him feel better. And he did reach around and pull her close. She seemed to approve.

  They sat like that for some time, cuddled together, listening to the stillness. Eventually, Calvin broke the silence. “It was Christine,” he said.

  Rain pulled away so she could look at him. She seemed confused.

  “In my dream,” he said, clarifying. “I…it was my fault. What happened to her.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” said Rain, resting her hand on his chest. “Whatever is inside you…this guilt…you need to let it go. You can’t just hold onto it forever.”

  “I know,” he said, instinctively.

  “I mean it,” she said seriously, somehow her face moved closer to his, now hardly three inches away. “I want you to promise me you’ll let it go. Promise me that, Calvin. Promise me you’ll finally forgive yourself.”

  He didn’t answer her right away. He wasn’t sure what to think and found himself feeling a strange mixture of guilt, arousal, confusion, and a desire for peace. He stared at her lower lip, hardly able to look away from it. Something about it was just so…alluring.

  “Calvin, listen to me,” said Rain. He blinked and found himself staring into her eyes. Now their faces were barely two inches away. “I want you to promise me.”

  He nodded.

  “Are you listening?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, completely lost in her eyes.

  “Promise me that you’ll forgive yourself for what happened.”

  “Okay,” he said, feeling the urge to kiss her, but resisting.

  “Promise me.”

  He blinked, and then it finally registered what she was saying. He thought about Christine, what they’d shared together. How beautiful and wonderful it had been and how it had felt to have that ripped away, violently, in what was hardly a moment. He thought of her face as she was strapped to all those machines, about how he’d been unable to squeeze the trigger. That hesitation…the hesitation which had cost her so much, cost them both so much…

  “Calvin,” said Rain, bringing him back to the present. Her face, in all its imperfect yet stunning beauty, was still right there just beneath his. “You have to let it go. Promise me.”

  He closed his eyes then, somehow, forced the memory to fade to black. It wasn’t gone for good, neither was the guilt. But somehow, as he sat there, in that moment, it felt lighter. Like this thing that had been around his neck, strangling him, had loosened its grip just enough so he could breathe again.

  “I promise,” he whispered.

  When he opened his eyes again, Rain was smiling at him. She wasn’t beaming and her smile wasn’t perfect. Certainly it wasn’t the kind of smile he’d expect to see in an advertisement, or on a film screen, but somehow it made him feel so warm inside just to see it. Again, he felt the urge to take her head with his hands and kiss her. He felt his head seem to hover a little closer to hers, their lips now only slightly apart.

  Just as he was going to go for it, they were both startled by the sound of the alert going off. Instinctively, they pulled apart, separating themselves, and trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “What is it?” asked Calvin, shooting to his feet. Rain also stood.

  “It’s the alert,” she said. “Rafael must have pulled it.” They stared into each other’s eyes.

  “I’d better go,” said Calvin, knowing he was needed in the cockpit.

  “Yeah,” she said. Not taking her eyes away from him.

  He started to step away then, but before he could process what was happening, he gra
bbed her gently, wrapping his hands around her head and neck, and pulled her in for a kiss. He kissed her deeply, passionately, and she kissed him back, showing an equal amount of affection, kissing him with a kind of fiery craving that matched the color of her brilliant hair.

  He pulled away and let go of her.

  “What was that for?” she asked, as if she too was as surprised by what had happened as he felt.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just needed it.” With that, he left her and went into the cockpit, ready for whatever danger now threatened the ship.

  ***

  Rafael pushed on the yoke, adjusting the shuttle’s alteredspace heading by a few degrees, hoping that would buy them a few more seconds.

  Calvin entered the cockpit and Rafael jumped up, relinquishing the pilot’s chair. Calvin took it. “What have we got?” he asked.

  “Rotham patrol ship,” said Rafael. “It noticed our alteredspace signature and took an immediate interest in us. The sentry ship is currently on an intercept course. Time to interception, about a minute.”

  “Can they force us out of alteredspace?” asked Calvin, checking several readouts and obviously struggling with the Rotham script on all the dials.

  “Yes, they can,” said Rafael, taking his seat in the copilot’s chair.

  “What about jump depth?” asked Calvin, making a few adjustments. “Any chance of us outrunning them?”

  “Negative,” said Rafael. “Not in our current state. Half our alteredspace drive didn’t even make it into alteredspace with us, if you recall.”

  “Time to interception?”

  Rafael checked the screen. “Thirty-five seconds.”

  “Prepare to arm weapons,” said Calvin. “I’m going to bring us into normal space, then throw us hard about. With any luck, we’ll get a few clean shots before they can target us.”