“This way,” said Rez’nac. He walked through the beacon of light, dragging the High Prelain with him until he reached the far wall. There, he pressed his hand against the stone and uttered a Polarian phrase that Calvin could not identify. The wall, however, somehow, apparently did identify it, because, with a loud creak, a doorway opened, revealing a long tunnel lit by crystalline torches of deep green.
“I’m with Rez’nac and the High Prelain,” said Calvin, moving to the front, and making certain he had the needle where he could access it quickly. “The rest of you bring up the rear, but do not enter the Council Chamber until we give the signal.”
“Or unless you are attacked, I presume,” said Nikolai.
“Yes, or that,” said Calvin. “And make certain you have the correct magazines loaded.” He thought to himself that he was about to find out the answer to his theory and, should he be wrong, more than likely Rez’nac would kill him personally. Or, should he be right, as he strongly suspected he was, then all would see the truth. But neither outcome would stop the shit from going wildly out of control. Either way, this encounter promised to be interesting.
They began the very long walk through the tunnel.
***
Adiger sat in the command position of the ISS Black Swan. He was comfortable in that place; it was his charge to command the vessel, after all, but what made him fidget in his chair was the fact that Queen Kalila was not on board. For the first time in longer than he could remember, it was not his duty to protect her. In fact, he was unable to protect her once the battle was joined. He knew she was safer on the planet’s surface, within the deeply buried confines of the War Room bunker, but he still wished he could play a more active role in her defense. He knew that was what King Hisato Akira would have wanted.
“All ships report, status normal. Standby protocol is active,” said his Comms Chief; Adiger had asked for updates every fifteen minutes from all ships.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said.
Further complicating matters, Queen Kalila had entrusted him with the command of the newly re-organized Seventh Fleet, making him responsible, not just for the safety of the hundreds of souls aboard his ship, but also those aboard scores of others. The duty would typically have fallen upon a Fleet Admiral—after all, there had originally been one Fleet Admiral per fleet—and if one wasn’t available, one of the crown’s knights was usually ready to assume the responsibility; however, in his case, he had such a rapport with the queen, developed over many years of advising and protecting her, that she had decided to raise him to the rank of Acting Admiral and assign him the Seventh Fleet. Of course, Adiger was not one to refuse a royal command, and so he had graciously accepted the assignment; however, now that he sat in the command chair, feeling the added weight of all those other starships looking to him for guidance, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made a mistake. Not that it mattered now.
His force, the Seventh Fleet, was tasked with keeping a relatively tight orbit around Capital World itself. Intel Wing was confident they had determined the likeliest position where the Dread Fleet would materialize—based on obvious strategy—but, in the unlikely event that Intel Wing was wrong, and the Dread Fleet dropped out of alteredspace somewhere else, the Seventh Fleet was so positioned to quickly respond to them. Their duty was to keep the enemy occupied long enough for the rest of Her Majesty’s defense forces to marshal together and counter attack. It wasn’t an enviable assignment, but Adiger accepted that it was an important one. And, despite his distaste for fleet command, he much preferred to be out in space able to take affirmative action in the defense of Capital System, rather than being stuck in some War Room—or worse, a civilian—on the planet’s surface.
“Sir, I may have something here,” said the Ops Chief.
Adiger instinctively stood up and approached the Ops division, where junior officers were scurrying to help the Ops Chief make sense of the various readouts.
“What is it?” asked Adiger, unable to make sense of the displayed data himself.
“We’re detecting an anomaly, it could be nothing—no, no it’s definitely something,” said the Ops Chief.
“Condition One,” said Adiger instinctively. The lights dimmed and the klaxon began ringing. He knew that all throughout the ship personnel were sprinting to General Quarters. While he had just put his ship on alert, he didn’t want to spread the order to the rest of the Seventh Fleet until he knew they’d detected an actual threat.
“It’s ships, sir,” said the Ops Chief. “Lots and lots of ships. In tight formation.”
“Notify the Seventh Fleet,” said Adiger loudly. “All hands on all ships to General Quarters immediately. Assume attack formation.”
“Yes, sir,” said the Comms Chief, as he began to relay the instructions to the rest of the fleet.
“Mister Akram, move us into position at the center of the fleet,” commanded Adiger. He then looked back toward Mister O’Brian, the newly appointed Comms Chief, “Order the fleet into wedge formation. Give the order to commence interception of the incoming ships on my signal.”
“Sir,” said the Ops Chief. “There are…hundreds of them.”
“We’re outnumbered then, at least the Seventh Fleet is,” Adiger muttered, as he returned to the command position. “All hands, strap in. Shields, double front.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said his Defense Chief, while all his people complied.
“How many hundreds are we talking about?” asked Adiger, wanting to know what their chances of survival were before directly engaging the enemy. Rumors persisted that the Dread Fleet was thousands of ships, not hundreds; Adiger hoped it was the case that the tale of the mighty Dread Fleet had been grossly exaggerated.
“Approximately seven hundred ships, sir. We project support ships and warships both, in a one to six ratio,” said the Ops Chief, “Based on the respective mass of each ship.”
“We intercept immediately; put me on speaker with the entire fleet,” said Adiger.
His Comms Chief gave him the thumbs up.
“To all vessels of the Seventh Fleet, we have detected the arrival of seven hundred ships; they will be dropping out of alteredspace in short order. I intend for us to be waiting for them. General order is given, commence interception. Hold to wedge formation as we engage. Further instructions to follow.” He signaled for the communiqué to be terminated.
“All ships acknowledge order,” said the Comms Chief.
“The Seventh Fleet is on the move, as are we, sir,” reported the Ops Chief. On the tactical display, Adiger could see the force of ships, represented as tiny lights, moving in a wedge-like formation away from the planet. As for the 3D display, it was too early to get a projection of the enemy force, but he kept his attention keenly focused upon it, ready for the first glimpse he could get.
“Status of all weapons?” Adiger asked.
“All weapons and gunnery crews stand ready,” said the Defense Chief.
“Now, remember, they will be deploying the Phalanx technology, so we’ll have to get in close and personal to make our kills,” said Adiger, hoping the Black Swan’s armor was up for a beating. However this ended, carnage was guaranteed.
“Closing fast on position,” said the Chief Navigator.
“The intruders are beginning to drop out of alteredspace; they’re—” he cut himself off mid-sentence.
“They’re what?” demanded Adiger.
“Sir, it’s not the Dread Fleet.”
“How do you know that?” he demanded, although in the back of his mind some part of him knew it was too good to be true that the Dread Fleet would send only seven hundred starships to attack Capital World—though he had assumed the maneuver to be some kind of strategic feint.
“Sir, the ships are…Rotham in origin. Every single one of them. More and more are dropping out of alteredspace. Three-hundred of seven-hundred have entered the system.”
What the hell? Adiger wondered. Just what humanity needed, more
enemies to fight. Still, if the Rotham had done like Rotham of the past, and intended to pick away at a beaten and broken human fleet, like vultures, they had arrived too early. The Dread Fleet had not done its work yet.
“The other captains are requesting instructions,” said the Comms Chief. “Do we still engage?”
Adiger wasn’t sure, but he knew it wasn’t his call to make. “Order all ships to hold position and hold fire—unless fired upon,” he said, needing to send this decision higher up the chain of command. “Appraise the queen and ask her for instructions.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
***
Nimoux had command of the Nighthawk. Sitting there, in the command position, it felt eerily similar to his time on the Desert Eagle. He missed his ship. But, unfortunately, there was no time to be sentimental. An unidentified energy vortex—which the Polarian had claimed was intelligent—was closing in on them. Its path was irregular—unpredictable even—but in its own way, it was fast closing the distance, despite the evasive maneuvers that Nimoux had ordered the pilot, Mr. Cox, to take.
“Keep moving us away from that vortex,” said Nimoux, feeling a bit like he was stating the obvious, but unsure what else to do. He could raise the shields, he could clear for action, he could even fire on it if necessary, but he preferred to keep the Nighthawk’s presence as much of a secret as he possibly could, so that their away party could execute their mission protocols by surprise. Although, the fact that this energy vortex, or whatever the hell it was, seemed able to detect the Nighthawk, gave Nimoux cause to wonder that perhaps other objects in the system, maybe some on the Forbidden Planet itself, could also see past the sophisticated stealth system. All the same, he wouldn’t raise shields until he absolutely had to.
“I’m trying to keep us away,” said Mr. Cox. “But that damned thing keeps popping out of nowhere. It’s like…it knows where we’re going to be even before we go there. I don’t think I can keep us away from it, sir.”
“Continue doing the best you can,” said Nimoux. “Ops, funnel whatever power you can to amplify our sublight thrusters; if we can give ourselves a boost, we need to.”
“I’ll try my best,” said Ms. Dupont, the Ops officer. “Drawing power from secondary reserves. See if that helps.”
“It helps a little,” said Mr. Cox. “But I still don’t think I can outrun this damn thing for long.”
“I concur with Jay,” said Ms. Dupont. “The vortex is seeming to warp in and out of existence, each time a bit closer to us. By my calculations, it will overtake this ship, no matter how much power we funnel into the sublight drives.”
“Keep moving us away,” said Nimoux. “As far and as fast as possible.” He hoped that, by retreating from the so-called Forbidden Planet, the energy vortex would lose interest in them. So far, however, the opposite had proved true, as it seemed obsessively fixated upon the Nighthawk.
Just when things seemed unable to get any stranger, Nimoux found himself thrown further off-guard.
“Sir,” announced Ms. Dupont, as she stared incredulously at one of the Ops displays. “There’s another ship appearing close to us, distance of one-hundred thousand MCs.”
“What is it? Where did it come from? Have they targeted us?” Summers asked questions in rapid fire.
Nimoux, knowing that only one question could be answered at a time, chose what he believed to be the most important one. “Are they on an intercept course with us?”
“Negative, sir,” said Ms. Dupont. “In fact, they seem not to be reacting to us at all.”
“How did we not see it before?” asked Nimoux, knowing the Nighthawk to have superior scanning equipment compared to nearly all starships ever built. However, even the best scanners were imperfect.
“I don’t know,” said Ms. Dupont sounding dumbfounded. “We didn’t see it until it just appeared out of thin air—well, out of thin space, as it were.”
“So, it isn’t moving?” asked Nimoux.
“No, sir, it just appeared out of nowhere. Not moving at any point.”
“It’s a Hunter ship,” said Summers, with a look of concern on her face, as she examined the Ops displays. “I’ve heard about them. They are Rotham-designed warships that cannot be detected in flight.”
“Tactical analysis,” said Nimoux. “Can we defeat it?”
“Probably,” said Summers, having returned to the Defense station. “However, so little is known about that particular class of starship that it would be impossible to tell for sure.”
“Guys,” interrupted Mr. Cox. “I hate to break it to you, but that vortex is still closing in on us. It will intercept us at any moment.”
“Us or the new ship,” said Nimoux. “Move us away from the Hunter ship, far away, and see which of us it goes after. If the Hunter ship remains closer to the Forbidden Planet, it would stand to reason that it should become the new primary target for the energy vortex.”
“I already have moved us away, far away; that’s how come we’re not dead yet,” said Mr. Cox.
“And?” asked Nimoux.
“The energy vortex is still going after us. It seems to be leaving the Hunter ship entirely alone.”
“Strange and stranger,” said Nimoux, thinking that a Rotham-designed ship was just as alien, and therefore just as tainted, as the Nighthawk to the sacred sanctuary that was the Forbidden System. Perhaps Custos was unable to change targets once it acquired one, Nimoux wondered. Or, more nefariously, perhaps whoever was controlling the Vortex had made some kind of pact with whoever controlled the Hunter ship. It would explain why the Hunter ship was just sitting there, perhaps awaiting a rendezvous.
“Has the Hunter ship shown any sign that it detects us?” asked Summers.
“Negative, Commander,” said Ms. Dupont. “I don’t believe it can detect us.”
“So, if we raise the shields,” said Nimoux, “We risk starting a fight against two opponents.”
“We are about to be overtaken,” said Ms. Dupont.
“That leaves us with only one option,” said Nimoux, having weighed everything carefully.
“You can’t mean it,” said Summers, a look of betrayal on her face.
“We have to keep the ship intact, otherwise we serve no one any good,” said Nimoux. “Prepare for alteredspace jump.”
“To where?” asked Mr. Cox.
“To anywhere, but not somewhere distant. I just want us to jump away from the planet far enough that the energy vortex leaves us alone. Take us to the far edge of the system.”
“Aye, aye, preparing to jump,” said Mr. Cox.
“We shall be overtaken in twenty seconds,” announced Ms. Dupont.
“Sir,” said Summers, giving Nimoux a stern look. “We are abandoning our people. How can we possibly…?”
“We’re not abandoning our people,” said Nimoux. “We’ll come back for them. Just as planned. The point right now is to keep the ship intact and ourselves alive.”
“Ready for jump,” said Mr. Cox.
“Jump,” commanded Nimoux.
The stars vanished out the window, replaced by total darkness.
“That should be far enough,” said Nimoux, after a minute. “Bring us back into normal space.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The stars returned.
“What is the position—” Nimoux began to speak but was interrupted by Ms. Dupont’s frantic voice.
“It followed us! The vortex is still here! It followed us all this way and it’s closer than ever!”
“Jump us back near the planet,” said Nimoux, hoping that would buy them an extra few seconds—and put them in range to recollect their away team as soon as they were ready. Nimoux then looked to Summers. “Defense, standby to raise shields and arm weapons. It looks like we have no other choice.”
***
“My Queen,” said Adiger over the private channel. “I request your instructions. How do we deal with this unexpected situation?”
“The situation is indeed unexpected,” replied t
he voice of Kalila over the bridge’s loudspeakers. “However, it is not necessarily bad fortune. They might be here peacefully—although one must be cautious in making deals with Rotham.”
“Of course, Your Highness. That is wise,” replied Adiger.
“Demand their intentions. Do not coddle them, do not cater to them, and whatever you do, do not show any sign of weakness. I shall have the Fifth and Fourth Fleets inbound to reinforce the Seventh Fleet, should the Rotham decide that battle is what they want. Or should they represent a danger to this system. But,” said the queen, “Before a single shot is fired—unless they fire upon you first—I want to know exactly why they are here. Demand their intentions, identify them, and report back to me for further instructions.”
“I will do as Your Majesty commands,” said Adiger. He ordered the channel closed and the frequency to the Rotham ships opened. “This is Admiral Adiger of the Imperial Fleet, you have trespassed inside Imperial Space; I demand you identify yourselves and state your intentions. Failure to comply will be met with swift and severe consequences.”
“This is Nau Y’tahn of the Republic Fleet,” came the answer. “Our intentions toward the Empire are peaceful, and we come in answer to your monarch’s cries for assistance against the Dread Fleet.”
Adiger desperately hoped that was true. He ordered the channel cut and the channel to the queen re-opened. “Your Majesty, the Rotham claim to have come in force, not out of aggression toward the Empire, but to assist in the battle against the Dread Fleet.”
“If that is, in fact, true, which it may not be,” said the queen, “Then that is most fortunate news. Ask them why they offer their aid now and why they ignored our pleas for aid at Centuria V. If their answer satisfies you, then it satisfies me. Should you determine that we can make use of them in our defense, see to it that their unit is willing to accept the overall command of Sir Arkwright, and I shall have him organize the Rotham forces so they can do maximum damage to the enemy, and minimal damage to us—should their loyalty prove fickle.”
The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) Page 12
