The Phoenix Conspiracy

by Richard Sanders

Chapter 30

  The instant the door was blown aside, a storm of enemy fire surged into the room. Behind the flashes and the smoke, it was impossible to see how many they were up against.

  A wave of five Rotham shock troopers charged in and were cut down instantly. The covering fire from their end was worthless against Pellew’s superiorly positioned troops. The second shock wave also failed. They died trying to clear away the mess of chairs and obstacles Pellew had placed, and their bodies joined the debris. Holding that choke point was something the humans could manage for a while. But both Calvin and Pellew knew their weapons would soon be exhausted. And when they tried to pick up more, from the new Rotham dead, they’d be the ones getting cut down.

  And since they had the men to spare, wave after wave of Rotham soldiers charged into the room only to die violently. They managed a few lucky shots and hit humans here and there; it was uncertain who was dead and who was just wounded. The heat of battle kept Calvin focused on the choke point.

  He unloaded on two Rotham, killing one, injuring the other. His slide opened, and he knew he was out of ammo; he rolled into cover and waited. Marshaling his courage to slip out of cover and try to retrieve a new weapon. Knowing that death came swiftly for him, whether he made the attempt or not.

  It was from this position, facing the window, that he saw the planet moving, and he knew the ship was repositioning. Was the alien squadron leaving the system?

  And then the noise of fighting died down. He dared to poke his head up and see the smoky doorway starting to clear. Below him, the Special Forces soldiers and several crewmen were tense and ready for the next wave. But it didn’t come. Had the Rotham decided they were losing too many men with their direct-assault tactic?

  “What are those lizards waiting for?” asked Miles.

  “Do you think they’ll gas us through the vents?” asked Sarah.

  “Maybe they want us alive?” a soldier suggested.

  The lights went dark, and Calvin assumed power had been cut to them. The display flickered and died, and several other systems seemed to be failing. “They’re going to wait us out,” said Calvin.

  A deep rumble filled the ship. And several other consoles went dead. Calvin looked back at the window and saw the lights of exchanging starship fire. It got brighter and closer. Piercing the darkness for brief moments, again and again, like ghostly flashes.

  And, in the distance, moving ever closer, was the grim steel face of the Harbinger. Its weapons ablaze, shredding the nearest Rotham ship like it was made of paper—the only ship standing between it and the one holding them prisoner.

  Calvin lost sight of it as the ship they were on turned, trying to maneuver away from the Harbinger. But Calvin felt a flicker of hope return, and he shouted. “The Harbinger … I saw the Harbinger!”

  “What?”

  “It’s attacking the Rotham ships!”

  An engineer ran over to the nearest working panel—there weren’t many systems still online. But he managed to confirm it. “The Harbinger is here. Along with three other human ships—including the Liberty Sun.”

  They all cheered once more.

  “Yes! Yes! I knew it! I knew it!” said Miles. “Eat death, you bastards!” he screamed at the window as another Rotham ship was decimated.

  “I don’t believe it,” Summers whispered.

  “Maybe he’s been misunderstood,” Calvin said to her.

  She didn’t look up. “He has a lot to answer for.”

  “Yes,” agreed Calvin. “But not right now.”

  “Oh, look at that!” said Sarah.

  They could see small rockets and larger projectiles penetrate their ship’s shield and slam into the hull. Wiping out its engine before it could jump from the system.

  “Pulsar torpedoes,” said Miles. “They want to disable us.”

  The Harbinger attacked them broadside, and, as they exchanged fire, it was clear the Rotham ship was outmatched. A hailstorm of projectiles swept toward them like a crushing tidal wave. Many of them were intercepted by missiles, energy beams, and basic gunfire. But most weren’t. And for each torpedo that failed to hit its mark, it seemed two more were fired. Piercing the screen of defenses and scoring hits on the Rotham ship’s critical areas.

  In no time the vessel was dead in space. At that point the Harbinger changed angle and disappeared from view out the window.

  “How are things down there, Pellew?” Calvin yelled from the platform.

  “All clear so far,” he said. “Haven’t seen another wave yet.”

  “Why aren’t they attacking us?” asked Miles.

  “I think,” ventured Pellew, “the soldiers have been moved elsewhere to prepare for an invasion.”

  Shen hopped up then and wobbled along the ramp to the raised platform. The field medic moved to stop him, but Shen just glared at the medic until the man moved aside.

  Unopposed, Shen went to the nearest functioning console and, after using it for a few seconds, said, “It’s true. The Harbinger has docked with this ship, and cut and sealed several openings. They’ve begun a boarding operation.”

  “They must have detected our beacon,” said Summers.

  “It’s not all good news,” said Shen.

  “What?”

  “The autodestruct was just enabled.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Several minutes,” said Shen. “It takes a while to heat up the central core to where it can explode. They don’t have enough weapons left to simply detonate them and wipe out the ship.”

  “Several minutes is still not much time,” said Calvin. He looked to Pellew who nodded. They couldn’t stay here.

  “Self-destruct … damn the masochistic moron who invented that dumb-ass feature,” said Miles, followed by a string of progressively stronger profanities.

  “Shen, can you find out where the closest boarding point is that the Harbinger’s soldiers have breached?”

  “Yeah.” He typed away. “Two decks above us, about midstarboard.”

  While Pellew and his men cleared the outside, Calvin and Summers argued.

  “Let’s go help out Harbinger’s men,” said Calvin.

  “No,” said Summers. “The Nighthawk is closer.”

  “They’re almost equally close,” said Shen. “But she’s right. Maybe we can save the ship …”

  “Maybe …” said Calvin. He wanted to save his ship, more than almost anything, but he was worried that the launch bay would be sealed off and that the Nighthawk couldn’t blow its way out fast enough to fly away. Not to mention, if the tractor-beam system were somehow still online, they might not be able to escape at all.

  “We’ve got to decide now!” said Shen.

  He was right; Calvin knew he was right. “All right, let’s go for the Nighthawk,” he said. Hating that the situation wasn’t clearer. “It damn well better be able to fly still.” He imagined the Rotham data-mining the hard drives and tearing out systems to find every secret the Nighthawk had to offer. Hopefully they hadn’t had enough time to do lasting damage.

  They left, carrying their wounded. Leaving their dead. Moving as fast as they possibly could.

  And though they couldn’t feel it, they could hear the ship shaking. Booming sounds echoed along the halls, accompanied by the screeching of warping, twisting metal. Some of the bulkheads were burning hot, deeply saturated with a fiery red. And all around them the temperature seemed to have increased several degrees.

  “What are they doing to their own ship?” asked Sarah.

  They hadn’t gone far when a squad of heavily armed Rotham soldiers spotted them and opened fire. They had little choice but to drop back and shoot, trying to keep moving on their hands and knees in the other direction.

  Pellew ordered everyone to stay low while he talked to Alex—who still seemed cooperative—about a separate path, and Calvin wondered if it wouldn’t be best to just storm the enemy and keep moving forward. Time was a serious issue. Their losses would be heavy a
nd regrettable, but better that some survived than none.

  A rocket-propelled grenade soared through the air and exploded into a bulkhead nearby, sending shrapnel shooting everywhere. A thin piece grazed Calvin’s arm, cutting him lightly. And his ears rang from the report. Everyone broke into a panic and began standing up. The first who did was cut down by energy fire.

  “Covering fire!” Pellew yelled, while waving for everyone to run down a side hallway. He and his soldiers rose to their knees and unleashed a barrage of thundering gunfire back at the enemy, trying to force them into a more limited position.

  Calvin scrambled to his feet and heard the faint words, “Help, help.” They were barely coherent and almost completely lost under the noise of weapons-fire. He spun to see a soldier, one of the field medics, sprawled on the ground, writhing in agony, struggling to get to his feet. Several large pieces of shrapnel were stabbed into his shoulder, stomach, and leg.

  While others scurried all around, Calvin doubled back and ran to the wounded soldier. As gently as possible, but hastily, Calvin helped him to his feet and put his arm around his shoulder. And together, like an awkward three-legged animal, they ambled forward. Trying to escape the raging firefight, which was quickly ending as Pellew and his men retreated.

  The ship creaked and rumbled, and Calvin looked up to see several cracks and burn marks in the ceiling and bulkheads. He and the wounded man were falling behind, and their backs would soon be exposed to the enemy, who would certainly come around the corner soon.

  “Wait up!” Calvin yelled ahead. Pellew turned and, catching sight of him, sprinted back to help. But, before he could close the distance, they heard an explosion and saw a brilliant flash.

  The artificial gravity gave out for an instant, and Calvin felt himself fly free, blown to the side as a small explosion ripped apart the wall next to him. Debris crashed into his side, bruising his ribs. The soldier he was helping was thrown the opposite way.

  Calvin landed hard on his back a second later, when the backup gravity system came online. Despite the pain, he got to his feet resiliently. Wiping dust from his stinging eyes and face. When the haze cleared, he found himself on the wrong side of a debris pile where a major bulkhead had collapsed, revealing a mountain of metal, fireproofing insulation, and electrical wiring that had started a small fire—which ate the precious oxygen. A human arm stuck out of the pile, unmoving; its owner certainly crushed. Calvin dug it out just enough to confirm the man, the medic he had been carrying moments before, was dead.

  “Calvin!”

  He heard the muffled shout through a small hole in the shifted debris pile.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he replied. He tried to find a way through, but most of the debris was too heavy to move, and there was no hole large enough to accommodate his body.

  “You’ll have to go around,” said Pellew from the other side. “I can’t get to you.”

  Calvin could barely hear him. “Okay,” said Calvin. “Go on without me.”

  Then he heard Miles say, “I’m coming.”

  “No!” said Calvin. “Just go. I’ll find another way. Pellew, you and Summers have command. Now go!”

  With that, Calvin about-faced and ran.

  He had no concept of the ship’s layout, and, knowing—between a squad of enemy soldiers and a mountain of debris—that the only ways back to the lower ladders were impassable, he’d have to come up with something else. His intuition told him there would be a set of emergency ladders on the opposite side of the deck. Most ships had similar features. It was worth a try.

  His heart raced, and his footsteps thundered, and somehow he managed to ignore the mind-shattering pain that shot through his body.

  He didn’t dare pass by where the Rotham squad had been. Instead Calvin went around that area, trying to cut corners wherever he could. Defenseless against whatever he might run into. Luckily this deck seemed to have been evacuated, and he saw no one.

  It turned out his intuition had been right; there was an emergency ladder hatch like he’d thought. But, after unsealing it, he realized it was damaged. The section leading down was crushed by a collapsed bulkhead making the only passable direction upward—away from the Nighthawk.

  So, without another thought, he scrambled up, now hoping to meet up with the Harbinger’s soldiers. Trying not to assess his chances of failure. At least death would be swift.

  Two decks above us, about midstarboard. He remembered Shen’s words. At two decks he stopped climbing and ran.

  It looked like a crew-quarters deck, except on fire. The bulkheads and floors wouldn’t burn, but several of the cheap doors were ablaze along with bodies—mostly Rotham, which littered the floor in droves. He began coughing immediately, the life-support system wasn’t online to combat the smoke, and he tried to stay low as he continued forward. On the distant side of the corridor, he saw both muzzle and energy flashes, plus the remains of a Rotham contingent in full retreat as camouflage-clad human swarmed the deck.

  He didn’t have to go far before he ran into a marine master sergeant.

  “Friend,” said Calvin. “Human.”

  “Who are you?” The soldier lowered his weapon once he spotted Calvin’s somewhat tattered black-and-silver uniform.

  “Calvin Cross,” said Calvin.

  “Where’s your crew?”

  “They’re not coming. And this ship is about to blow. Autodestruct is active.”

  The master sergeant spoke into his radio, and his superiors instructed him to escort Calvin back and begin a full retreat onto the Harbinger. They began their speedy withdrawal.

  Calvin was constantly surrounded by dozens of soldiers as he ran for what he now recognized to be a gaping hole in the most distant bulkhead; a jetbridge had been crudely sealed to the breach to maintain air pressure. They practically dragged him inside, and, once they’d all come aboard, the master sergeant sealed an emergency hatch and cut the accessway loose. Through a small window, Calvin watched the jetbridge tumble away into open space as they departed, putting some distance between them and the Rotham ship. His view was limited, yet he kept searching for a glimpse of the little black Nighthawk flying away. But never saw it.

  “This is going to be close,” the master sergeant said.

  Calvin held his breath, waiting for the Rotham ship to rip itself apart in a spectacular display of fireworks. But, when it finally did happen, it was over practically before it began. One moment a drifting crippled warship and the next a rotting black skeleton, pieces thrown thousands of kilometers apart. Many of which must have crashed against the Harbinger’s hull.

  When they all realized they were still alive, Calvin and those around him let out a cheer. He felt the tension in his chest relax a tiny bit. The pain in his ribs returned full strength, as if just given permission. And only then did he fully realize …

  He was on the Harbinger.

  The master sergeant grabbed Calvin by the shoulder and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the bridge. The captain wants to see you.”