The Phoenix Project

by Kris Powers

  “I just wanted to give you a heads up. Our military analysts are predicting a finding against the Ferine.”

  “I don’t need an analyst to tell me that,” Elliot said.

  “There’s more. We’re expecting an extradition request in a few weeks and I’ve got to speak to the Senate and the Prime Ministers.”

  “Extradition request?” Elliot asked.

  “There isn’t an official one yet. We’re expecting one as soon as they find against the Ferine.”

  “They really are that certain aren’t they? I’ll see if there is anything we can do to change that. What do you think the Coalition would do if they ended up with the Ferine in their possession and a guilty verdict?”

  “I think a stretched neck for a Ferine has the same effect as it does for a Human,” Nelson said.

  “This isn’t the eighteenth century.”

  “Concept is the same, Eli.”

  “Surely they wouldn’t resort to that.”

  “Are you sure? Are you really sure?” Nelson asked.

  “Than I assume you are recommending against any extradition request.”

  “Haven’t made up my mind yet,” he replied.

  “I hope you keep me updated.”

  “You’re first on my list,” Nelson said and ended the communication.

  Elliot sighed out stress and allowed his back to sink into the plush couch of grey only to have an involuntary jerk of alarm shoot through his muscles at Nadine’s early buzz for entry. He sat back up and rose to his feet to allow his Coalition counterpart entry into his quarters. He pressed the small dark button next to the door and saw the MERA operative in loose, willowy clothing of sea green with a low neckline to tease Elliot’s eyes. She held a small lavender bag in one hand.

  “Very oceanic, General.”

  “I just got it yesterday. I needed some new clothes,” she said, exposing a satisfied smile.

  “Come in.”

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. Her smile disappeared from her face.

  “Just an update. Do you want some coffee?”

  “Sure,” she said, elongating the word in suspicion of his explanation.

  “Just a minute,” he said and walked to the kitchen. She placed the bag on the floor and followed him on slow legs. Nadine paused at the entrance to the kitchen as he poured two cups of coffee from a fresh pot sitting in the percolator.

  “What kind of update?”

  Elliot gave her a look of obvious incredulity while he readied the drinks. “What do you have in it?”

  “Just milk.”

  He poured milk from a small metal dispenser, prepared his own and brought them to the table. The two wordlessly sat down with Nadine uncertainly taking the opposite chair to him at a transparent table similar to the one in her quarters.

  “If we’re not going to talk about that then can we find something else to talk about?”

  “Sure,” Elliot replied, playing with his cup.

  “Fine,” she said losing patience, “I’ll go back to my quarters.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  She left the coffee and stood up, crossing the room while he continued to stare at his cup. Nadine nearly reached the exit before turning on her heel. She paced back to his engrossed thought and slapped the table with both hands.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Elliot passed the mug back and forth between each hand.

  “I showed you my mind. Tonight you were supposed to tell me about you and now you’re acting like this. What is your problem? Is this cold feet?”

  He said nothing and continued to examine his ceramic, clay colored cup of coffee. Nadine stood up straight and, with a fast left hand, slapped the mug from his hand and sent if flying into the wall.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Have you gotten any updates?”

  “Like what kind of updates?”

  “About the Ferine.”

  “What about the Ferine?”

  “Are you going to extradite them?”

  “Why would we extradite them?” she asked and sat down at the table.

  “Good question. Once the panel finds against them,” Elliot began.

  “That’s not been determined yet,” Nadine interrupted.

  “Don’t tell me you’re that naive.”

  “As far as I know, the hearing is not finished and no judgment has been made.”

  “If I had not seen your mind, I wouldn’t believe it,” Elliot said.

  “Believe me? Why, you don’t trust me anymore?”

  “Maybe you should contact your Council,” Elliot said.

  “And why would I contact them?”

  “I think you’re being kept out of the loop.”

  “I’m in the loop! I’m Catherine’s own,” she said and stopped.

  “Her what?”

  “I’m her daughter, why would she keep me out of anything?”

  “You’re mother is Catherine?” Elliot ruminated on the information with a shocked stare before he continued. “Ask her, since she’s your mother.”

  “I’m asking you!”

  “You want to know? The panel will find against the Ferine and then your great nation will ask for their extradition so they can line them up and execute them,” Elliot said. “Let’s just get all the cards on the table. Do you even know that you’re a puppet?”

  “I am no puppet,” Nadine said.

  “You’re not naive either.”

  “We would never execute an alien species,” Nadine said.

  “Just life imprisonment then? It would be a short sentence for Ranik. I doubt he has many years left in him.”

  “We wouldn’t do that.”

  “You have in the past with other scapegoats,” Elliot said.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “They were minor dissidents and they were Human.”

  “Like Innick?” he asked in reference to a years old public court case.

  “He was a terrorist.”

  “He was a farmer!”

  “And he was dangerous,” she said.

  “You mean he was dangerous to the Council.”

  “The Council is the Coalition!”

  “And that’s why your Council, your mother, will do her best to get rid of Lathiel and Ranik,” Elliot said.

  “Oh yes, those two are such a danger,” she said, sarcastically.

  “They are to the Council.”

  “Sure they are.”

  “Now you sound like a loyal member of the Coalition.”

  “I am a loyal member of the Coalition,” Nadine said.

  “The same Coalition that sent you to bed in tears every night.”

  “I can’t believe that you’d use that against me,” Nadine said and rose to leave.

  “Angry? Why don’t you lobotomize me? You’ve done it before.”

  Nadine’s body stiffened as she faced the door. She stood there while he considered his fate. He looked at her dark, shining hair for quite some time while she stood still. After nearly a full minute of eternity, she slowly turned towards him. He saw the tears flowing down her face. She began trembling and sank to her knees.

  “I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “Why?” Elliot demanded. His face was white with the thought of his own mortality.

  “I couldn’t. Even if I could, I wouldn’t,” she said in a shaking voice.

  “Why am I different? I’m just another Defensive.”

  “No your not,” she said and stopped short of telling him her personal orders.

  “What is it then?”

  “You’ve seen me. No one else ever has.”

  “And?” he whispered.

  “You didn’t leave. You didn’t hate me. You didn’t walk away.”

  “I hate the Coalition.”

  “I hate the Alliance,” Nadine said with a placating gesture.

  “Come here,” he said. She stood up and walked to him. He took her
by the waist and guided her to her knees so that she could face him eye to eye. From his seat he embraced her and brought her face to his. He took a careful hand and softly wiped the tears from her face. Nadine closed her eyes at his caress and felt his lips on her forehead.

  She kept her eyes closed at the feeling followed by the touch of lips meeting hers. Nadine felt the warmth of the kiss and returned the touch with hers.

  They pulled away from each other and looked into the dark pupils of each other’s eyes. They searched for the origin of new emotions held for one another.

  “So tell me about yourself,” Nadine said.

  “Over coffee?”

  “Yours is on the wall,” she said, softly.

  “I’ll clean it up later,” Elliot laughed, “Do you always have such a temper?”

  “You always seem to be able to make me angry.”

  “You seem to evoke some pretty strong emotions from me too.”

  “I’ll get you another cup,” she said and rose to go to the kitchen. As she concentrated on replicating the condiments he had dispensed into his coffee, she felt arms enclose her waist from behind. “Don’t think we’re going to have make—up sex now.”

  “I know,” he said and kissed her neck. She turned around from the completed preparation of his coffee and kissed him again.

  “You know you are a charming man when you want to be.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” he said and kissed the back of her hand. Nadine smiled and issued a soft laugh before thinking of their conversation.

  “Do you really think the Council will try to execute the Ferine?”

  “Nadine, I really am worried about Lathiel and Ranik’s well being.”

  “So am I. I just don’t know what to do,” Nadine said confronting her own dawning realizations.

  “I won’t let anything happen to them,” Elliot said. Nadine reached out with her right hand and took his.

  “Neither will I. The panel is led by Bell and he would advocate a formal punishment under normal circumstances but I believe he would opt for some type of legal sanction for the Ferine.”

  “I don’t think so. I believe the Twelve want them out of the way.”

  “I still don’t understand. Why would that be in my mother’s best interests?” Nadine asked.

  “We were at war when all of this started. The Ferine stopped it by initiating First Contact. The Council wanted to win and early on, before either of the fleets were completed. Something convinced them they would win by committing themselves to a war right away.”

  “And now the Ferine are preventing that,” Nadine said, beginning to understand his line of thought.

  “Exactly, and if you have an obstacle in your path you find a way around it or you simply remove it.”

  “If they were to find them guilty in the hearings, they would move on to a court trial. If you’re right, they don’t have the time for that,” Nadine said.

  “Which is why they would demand the extradition of Lathiel and Ranik to a neutral site like the UN.”

  “That wouldn’t solve the problem,” Nadine said.

  “No, but I’m sure they could conveniently disappear. The other Ferine would be horrified and flee the system.”

  “And the Alliance would be furious. It would lead to a war,” Nadine finished and Elliot nodded his head. “Elliot, they would look like maniacs in such a circumstance.”

  “Who would know for sure that it was the Coalition? The Twelve would accuse the Alliance of taking them as a sympathetic party and the Alliance would accuse them of a secret execution.”

  “The Twelve would have their war and, if we won, access to your new fleet before it was completed,” Nadine said.

  “You got it. Still want to be friends?”

  “I think we’ve headed beyond friends,” she replied.

  “Do you think we can tell anyone that?”

  “I doubt anyone I know would ever understand,” Nadine replied.

  “Josh would be furious. Madi would be okay with it, but Josh would know within hours of telling her.”

  “We always have secrets, don’t we?” Nadine sighed and put her coffee down on the table.

  “The life of a Defensive and an Aggressive,” Elliot replied.

  “Why don’t we make a pact?” Nadine asked.

  “I’m listening.”

  “When it’s just the two of us the contacts are out.”

  “I don’t know, those white eyes,” Elliot said.

  “You said you found them exotic!”

  Elliot stood up and walked to his bedroom.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to get a couple of lens cases.”

  He returned from the bedroom a moment later with two cases and a bottle of fluid. Elliot sat them down on the table. As they removed their lenses, he remembered an earlier promise Nadine had made.

  “Weren’t you supposed to bring something?” he asked. She had one white eye and one blue eye darting about as she searched her mind for what he was referring to.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed and walked to the door. She stopped at the entrance and picked up a forgotten, small, lavender colored bag. Nadine pulled out a dark bottle, brought it to the table, and set it down with a soft clink of glass at the center of the dinette.

  Nadine removed her other contact while Elliot examined the bottle having already taken both his lenses out.

  “Champagne?”

  “I felt like celebrating,” she replied.

  “Well, we’ll need glasses. Let me get some.”

  Nadine looked at her reflection in the window. Behind her image the Earth witnessed her true appearance of all white eyes.

  “I heard that on both sides, we’re always born with normal eyes,” Nadine said while she contemplated her image. Elliot returned from the kitchen with two glasses in his hands.

  “That’s what I understand.”

  “Why is that?” she asked. He opened the bottle with a pop of the cork.

  “I’m not sure. I only know that once the training begins, our irises either become white or black,” Elliot replied. He poured a glass and set it down in front of her.

  “Have you ever met an untrained sensitive?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “No, all of ours are always trained. The Coalition has a strict policy regarding sensitives. We’re all members of MERA.”

  “That’s not such a bad idea in a way,” Elliot said while he poured champagne into his glass.

  “Because there’s something wrong with the ones you have met?”

  “No, not exactly. They’re normal, but if they refuse training, they never go beyond sensing an occasional emotion or seeing a glimpse of a person’s intentions,” Elliot replied.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “They always seem to be a shadow of people like you and me. I can’t help but feel pity for their lost potential. They seem, years later, to be almost ashamed of themselves,” he said, remembering the encounters with atrophied sensitives from his past.

  “Are you sure that’s not just your own opinion clouding your judgment?”

  “Maybe. Would you have preferred to not have been trained?” he asked, looking into her all white eyes.

  “I don’t know. There have been days where I wished I never had these abilities, especially with what I’ve done.”

  “Ah, well I can understand that.”

  “Haven’t you ever had a moment of regret?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “I was about twenty years old,” he recalled. “There was a robbery at a grocery I was in. I felt his insane anger and apathy at killing someone.”

  “I’ve seen that in minds.”

  “I felt his apathy when he shot the store clerk.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I could feel both of their emotions as one of them died and the other stood at the counter looking at his body.”

  “How could that possibly feel to someone?
”

  “Like I never wanted to have known those feelings in the first place,” he replied and looked at his glass of champagne.

  “Would you have refused training?”

  “No, I can’t be less than I am.”

  “Neither can I,” she said and raised her glass of bubbling champagne. “What should we toast to?”

  “Hope?”

  “I have no problem with that, but why?”

  “I haven’t felt it in years, but you changed my mind.”

  “Hope,” she said and clinked her glass with his. Both sipped at the champagne and set the glasses down feeling pangs of hunger in their stomachs.

  “Where’s dinner?” Nadine asked.

  “It’s being kept warm.”

  “And what is dinner?”

  “Turkey,” he said, purposely omitting the rest of the meal.

  “And?” she asked expectantly.

  “Mashed potatoes.”

  “Gravy?” she asked.

  “Enough to sink a ship.”

  “Well, let’s start! I’m hungry!”

  “Hey,” Elliot said while he retrieved the prepared meal from the food dispenser, “do you want to give the Ferine a fair shot?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  Maria entered into a familiar court in Honolulu after three weeks of endless testimony. Her lawyer was at her side as they approached their customary table. She saw a large carafe of coffee on the table and thanked God it was there. She had barely four hours of sleep the previous night, broken by fits of consciousness.

  She sat down with her lawyer in the bright oak—fitted room. The bright sunlight of a warm morning flowed through large, tall windows on the wall past the prosecutor’s desk. She grasped the handle of the carafe and poured a full cup of coffee. She dumped packets of sugar into it while her lawyer watched her trembling hands.

  “I have an excellent closing argument.”

  “I’m sure you do. So does he,” Maria said, looking at the prosecutor who had followed them in.

  “He doesn’t have anything,” Dixon said in a lowered voice. “All of the officers have supported you, every last one of them. Not one bit of testimony has shown you in a bad light.”

  “What about Flanders?” she asked, pouring a generous amount of cream into her cup to counteract the acid that had begun to irritate her stomach.

  “The engineer?”

  “All of that about hull stress analysis,” she replied and grabbed her mug. Morning light glowed on her metal—shod face.