The Phoenix Project

by Kris Powers

  “Well, do you have your baby?”

  “I don’t know. Elliot, my orders were given to me when I didn’t even know you.”

  “That makes it right?”

  “I didn’t sleep with you on orders,” Nadine said and left her chair. She sat next to him on his bed and laid a hand on his chest. “I did because I wanted to.”

  “That only makes it worse. You’re lying to them now. What if they discover what you’re doing?”

  “What I’m doing?”

  “Nadine, you’ve gone against your orders. You’re interested in the enemy. Can you just go back to the Coalition?” Elliot asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m just reporting in.”

  “I hope so,” Elliot replied and kissed her.

  “I’ll be back for lunch.”

  “Still want strawberries?”

  “Does your vaunted Alliance have whip cream?”

  “It’s been rumored.”

  “Well have some ready. I want you naked before seven o’clock!”

  “Yes Ma’am,” Elliot replied and flashed her with a mischievous smile.

  “Don’t tease me. I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” she said and smiled, “boy toy.”

  “And I’m only forty—eight!” he shot back. Nadine exited through the main doors of his quarters and left for hers accompanied by an obligatory guard.

  Nadine approached her quarters with a certain afterglow but also felt a tinge of foreboding at the prospect of reporting in. She entered her dark abode with the soldier remaining at the door. She noticed the incessant beeping of the Coalition mobile communications unit even before the door closed behind her. She hurried to the unit sitting on an end table in the living room. It had been on the dining table when she was assigned these quarters, but having Elliot over all the time had made her move the unit and then return it afterwards. Eventually, it had become tiresome and Nadine had stopped bothering to move it back and forth every time she had company.

  She picked up the mobile communications unit, moved it onto the coffee table and activated it with the DNA scanner to confirm her identity. Catherine’s image flickered to life on the small screen.

  “I have been calling for over an hour!” Catherine exclaimed. “Just what was keeping you so busy that you would choose to ignore your duties?”

  Nadine prevented herself from recoiling in reflexive fear of the head of the Council of Twelve and instead straightened her back and responded with conviction. “I was doing my duty, Catherine.”

  “At six o’clock in the morning?”

  “That sort of thing does happen more often at night than during the day.”

  “You mean,” Catherine said and moved closer to the screen in an almost conspiratorial posture, “you completed your orders?”

  “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “So you have conceived?”

  “I can’t be certain that I am pregnant yet, but I did feel something unfamiliar.”

  “What did you feel?”

  “Something inside me came to life. No that isn’t it,” Nadine said and sought the correct words, “something independent of myself came to life inside me.”

  “Then congratulations are in order.”

  “That may not mean anything.”

  “You’ve never been pregnant before so I’m not surprised you would respond that way. As an Aggressive and a mother I know what it is you’re feeling,” Catherine said.

  “You’ve felt this before?”

  “Yes, my child. It happens whenever an Aggressive is pregnant. What you felt was the beginning of a new life inside you. With some additional teachings, you will even be able to determine what sex it is only moments after it is decided within your womb.”

  “You’re certain of this?”

  “It happened every time that I was pregnant,” Catherine replied.

  “Well then, your orders have been completed.”

  “That is excellent news, especially in consideration of the new orders I have for you,” Catherine said.

  “New orders?”

  “We will go to war in two days. After that, we have something much better in mind for you, Nadine. In the meantime return to MERA and take a deserved break from diplomatic affairs.”

  “Yes, Catherine,” Nadine replied. “I will gather my belongings and return as soon as I can.”

  “Excellent, I will see you soon,” Catherine said and deactivated the communications link.

  Nadine jumped up from her couch and raced for the exit of her quarters the moment Catherine’s image disappeared from the screen.

  “I need to see Admiral Fredericks immediately,” she told the guard at her doorway.

  Elliot had just gotten out of the shower when he heard the door chime. He took a brief moment to throw on a bathrobe and hurried for the door. It was easy to see his surprise at the sight of Nadine standing there after having left his quarters fifteen minutes ago.

  Once the door closed he couldn’t help but smile.

  “Missed me that much?”

  Her dour complexion cured him of any joviality.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have to leave right away. All Coalition ambassadors are being recalled,” Nadine said.

  “You can’t go.”

  “I’m going to miss you, Elliot,” she said and placed a hand on his cheek. “In two days we’ll be at war. You need to be prepared and I have my orders as well. We won’t see each other again.”

  Before either of them realized it, they were in the strongest embrace of their lives. Nadine and Elliot both wept as they kissed for the last time.

  With the knowledge of her oath to the Coalition, Nadine tore herself from his embrace and turned for the door. She walked out at a quick march and exited with her escort joining her at the threshold. She didn’t see Elliot drop helplessly onto the couch behind her before the door closed.

  “Elik!” a scientist exclaimed from a corner of the situation room.

  “Yes?” Elik replied.

  He strode towards the station. The light of the screen Tamien scrutinized lent definition to the patches of black on an otherwise brown face.

  “Look,” Tamien said, indicating different points on the three—dimensional map. “Do you see it?”

  Elik watched while the icons indicating different classes of Nevargh warship shifted and moved to different positions. New ones appeared on the map as more Nevargh warships exited FTL space.

  “I think so. If I’m correct, they’re moving into the D—Type formation.”

  “This must mean they’re preparing to attack.”

  “Not yet,” Elik stated. “Look at the gaps in their formation. They’re still short by about a hundred ships.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “I would guess no more than a week,” Elik said. “We need our Alliance allies to send reinforcements, and much sooner than expected.”

  “No!” Lathiel exclaimed, “You’ll fry the Graviton Assembly! I know, I know. Try it again.”

  “Lathiel,” a man said from the entrance to engineering, “there’s a call coming in for you.”

  “Can you manage for a minute by yourself?” Lathiel asked Ranik.

  “I’ll try,” Ranik replied through sharp teeth. Lathiel nodded and left the room dominated by a duo of massive glowing columns several stories tall. The engines were powerful, but they paled in comparison to the might of a single fold drive. To accomplish what they needed required tying the superluminal drives together so they would act as one engine. He left the haze of activity and found the engineer’s office just off of the engine room. He sat at a long, narrow black desk and looked up to the communications screen mounted on the wall. To his surprise, it was not Elliot or Joshua on the screen, but Elik.

  “This is a bad time, Elik.”

  “The Nevargh are getting ready to attack Cartise.”

  Lathiel’s face fell. “When?”

  “We can’t be sure. It may be a week o
r only days. They are now short by just over a hundred ships before their formation is complete.”

  “We will be ready to launch in forty hours.”

  “And how long will it be until you and your allies arrive?” Elik asked.

  “With the conversion of their current engines to temporary fold drives, we’ll be there in the standard amount of time: about eighty—five hours.”

  “That may be too long. Is their any way you can get here sooner?”

  “I can run the drives past their normal operating capacity for the trip there, but believe me, we’re racing to meet the activation deadline as it is,” Lathiel replied.

  “How far can you push their drives?”

  “I’m already reducing the operational lifetimes of these engines from one hundred years to perhaps twenty.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent.”

  “I might be able to get them to one hundred and twenty percent of normal operating capacity under the new configuration,” Lathiel said.

  “Good.”

  “That will only get us there fifteen hours sooner,” Lathiel said.

  “Every hour, God above, every minute counts,” Elik said.

  “Come in,” Madison said in response to the door tone. She was surprised to see Elliot standing at the entrance to her quarters aboard the Endeavour, looking for all the world like he had just come from a funeral.

  “I thought we were supposed to receive a warning whenever an Admiral was going to visit,” Joshua said.

  “I ordered them not to,” Elliot said.

  “Never mind that, Josh. What’s wrong, Eli?” Madison asked. She got up from the couch where she had been watching the INN. The news had been reporting plunging numbers on the stock market as rumors of growing hostilities between the Coalition and Alliance came to light. The INN had only spurred the restless masses on by reporting on every rumor they came across.

  “She left me,” Elliot said sullenly. “She’s gone back to the Coalition.”

  “Who,” Joshua asked, “the bitch?”

  “Josh,” Madison said, “go drink something.”

  “But I just,” he began.

  “Just quit while you’re ahead and go hang out with your buddies in the officer’s mess,” Madison finished.

  “Alright,” Joshua said and allowed her to escort him to the door. He turned around in the hallway and faced her. “You usually are pretty good at warning me when I’m about to put my foot in my mouth.”

  “It’s already halfway in there,” Madison said, before she closed the door on his grinning face. She turned away from the door to see Elliot standing in a daze. “What happened?”

  Elliot said nothing and remained standing in place. Madison approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He responded by slowly bringing her into an embrace. Madison placed a hand on the back of his head to cradle it at her shoulder.

  “It’s alright,” Madison said and released a long sigh, “It’s alright.”

  Having finally been able to find some comfort after a long day of preparations, Elliot slowly let her go.

  “She still has her loyalty.”

  “So do you,” Madison said.

  “She’s already chosen her sides as far as I was concerned. Why would she have helped us at the Waypoint Station if she’s still a loyal Coalition soldier?”

  “You know that, but maybe she doesn’t.”

  “You think so?”

  “I saw how she looked at you. The last person who looked at you that way was Lily.”

  “You wouldn’t believe just how much I know that now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you need to sit down to hear this,” Elliot said.

  “Oh God,” Madison said and sat down on the couch. “What is it?”

  “You’ve heard of Defensives?”

  “Who hasn’t? Those are the Cooperative people with psi—powers. I always found them a little creepy.”

  “They’d never force their abilities on anyone.”

  “You’re speaking as though you know this as fact,” she said with a peculiar smile.

  “I do,” he said and sat down beside her. “I’m one of those creepy psi—people.”

  “I was hoping to goad you into finally admitting it.”

  “What?”

  “Josh and I have suspected for some time, Eli. We’ve known you way too long not to have guessed by now,” Madison said.

  “You’re not angry?”

  “Why would I be angry? We knew that Defensives aren’t supposed to serve in the military and what it would mean if anyone found out about your situation.”

  “When did you first suspect?”

  “Back when you and Lily were together. She knew, didn’t she?” Madison asked.

  “Yes, but how would you know that?”

  “Because there were certain questions that she would answer without telling us the full truth. After a few years, Josh and I put the pieces together. Don’t worry; I really doubt that anyone else figured it out. We only know because of how close we’ve been to you.”

  “And all this time you never told me that you two already knew about this?” Elliot asked.

  “I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  “Well, that’s one load off my shoulders.”

  “What about Nadine? Why did you say I wouldn’t believe how much you know now?”

  “She’s an Aggressive,” Elliot said.

  “Now that’s something that I didn’t know!”

  “You need to realize that no one else can be told that.”

  “It won’t go beyond this room, but you have to know that Josh will find out. I can’t keep anything from him; he always seems to know when I’m lying.”

  “I didn’t expect you to. I know the two of you can keep this a secret.”

  “So why does that matter anyway?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know that it would until last night. We discovered that an Aggressive and a Defensive can share thoughts and experiences without words.”

  “How is it that the two of you know that now?” Madison asked. When she saw his face flush she chided herself for not guessing. “Never mind. Please, go on.”

  “It was during that time that I began to sense her more than I ever had anyone else before,” Elliot said and looked down at the couch for a moment. “I still can.”

  “You can feel what she’s feeling right now?”

  “Yes, that’s why I couldn’t believe she’d leave. It was if she didn’t know her own feelings.”

  “What is she feeling right now?”

  Elliot looked into empty space for a moment. “She’s confused about something, but I’m not sure what.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I can’t turn it off now. It’s like something that’s there now and can’t be broken.”

  “I don’t understand why this is a problem,” Madison said.

  “You can’t see why this is a problem? I’ll probably be able to feel what she feels for the rest of my life and you don’t see why this is a problem?”

  “Eli, if I could have something like with Josh, I’d be so happy.”

  “We may never see each other again. She’s pretty certain we never will at all.”

  “Never say never,” Madison said with a warm smile. “With a connection like that I wouldn’t be surprised if you see her again.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “No one can be sure of anything Honey, but I know that you’re worth the effort and she would be a fool to let you go.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Elliot confided, “I really do.”

  “Don’t worry. Do you have some time, or do you need to get back to Phoenix?”

  “Everything I can do is done. The Base is ready for battle and the particle warhead is up and working. There’s nothing else to do but wait,” Elliot said.

  “I was h
oping it would never be up and working, but there’s no point in wishing. We don’t have much else to do but wait as well. Come on, let’s go and join Josh for a drink.”

  “I could use one,” Elliot said and stood up to follow Madison from her quarters.

  Nadine felt an odd sense of guilt as her small shuttle touched down on a landing pad of MERA headquarters. She realized that the guilt was not for having betrayed her nation more than once now, but for having in some sense betrayed Elliot. She turned off the engines of the shuttle and exited onto the tarmac, where an acolyte of MERA waited to greet her. It was an unusually hot day with a strong wet wind blowing in from the ocean.

  She gave a curt nod to the young man who waited for her outside the shuttle. He fell into close step behind her as befit his rank and status within the organization.

  “Catherine wants to see you in her apartments.”

  “Thank—you for the message, you can return to your duties.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” the man said and walked back in the direction he had come from.

  Nadine entered through the large double doors of the building and then walked up the main staircase to the third floor. She proceeded towards the set of doors leading to the Prime Council’s apartment.

  Two armed guards stood on either side of the mahogany doors. Nadine rang the subtly placed electronic bell. The buzzer sounded and the set of doors opened.

  Nadine entered into the living room of an apartment that comprised the largest private dwelling in the entire complex. The furniture was simple but elegant. Plain, blue drapes hung from the windows and extended all the way to the fifteen foot ceiling. The more Spartan approach to the room suited her mother well.

  “I believe it’s been sometime since you have been to my apartments,” Catherine said, entering the room from her private study.

  “You have always preferred a more professional approach to teaching. It was something that I always appreciated.”

  “Well said. But this is a special occasion that I think requires a more personal approach,” Catherine smiled and hobbled on aging feet to one of the blue couches matching the drapes. “It isn’t every day that one of my children is pregnant.”