The Phoenix Darkness (43 page)

From there, he tried to make sense of the
battle, which was difficult now that there were so many flashes
firing back and forth, not to mention the smell of various
materials melting, as stray shots hit terminals and burned
equipment. For their part, as best as Calvin could tell, the
Dendari took extra care not to fire at any of the terminals; they
needed them to work. The enemy, however, seemed far less protective
of their own computers and seemed to have an almost compulsive
willingness to fire in nearly random directions, trying to lay down
covering fire across the entire room.

As Calvin peeked out from his cover, he saw
one of the Teldari, an enemy, taking aim at someone. Realizing an
opportunity, Calvin broke his own rule and opened fire, joining the
firefight. This gave away his position and he was forced back into
cover two seconds later as a volley of energy beams scorched the
comms station he sat behind, ruining it. But, when the shots
stopped striking his cover, he peeked out again and saw he’d gotten
his man. The Teldari was crumpled on the floor, a small fire
burning his clothes.

He heard orders shouted in Rotham and then
the Advent Elite stood, some of them getting cut down the moment
they did, but they advanced at a charge, laying down covering fire
as best they could until they reached the enemy and could engage
the survivors at pointblank range. It was hard for Calvin to tell
how many survivors remained, or even if enough Advent Elite had
survived the charge to finish the job.

“I have to go check on it,” Calvin whispered
to Rain. She too had a pistol but, from the way she held it, he
doubted she was ever going to use it. He also doubted he could
convince her to, even to save her own life.

Rain nodded. “Be careful,” she said.

“I will,” he promised. “You stay here.”

With that, he crawled out of cover, remaining
prone at first, and then got to his knees and looked around. Things
seemed to be under control as far as he could tell. The Advent were
quickly finishing off the last few survivors and stamping out fires
so the alert wouldn’t go off. Calvin slowly rose to his feet so he
could check on his people, hoping to see each and every one of them
still breathing. The moment he did, an energy beam fired at
him.

***

Summers sat in the command position of the
Nighthawk’s
Bridge and waited silently. Despite the
intensity of recent events, things had finally calmed down to the
point where she didn’t know whether she felt more agitated or
bored. She hated sitting there, powerless, forced to wait until
others finished their jobs.

The engineers were patching the breach on
deck four, and because of that the ship had to be out of stealth,
apparently, which added to her anxiety. The medics in the infirmary
were still working on Nimoux and Shen, sending any updates through
the comm channel—though there had been very few. Shen, it seemed,
was almost certain to recover, despite having undergone an
experience which should have killed him a hundred times over. As
for Nimoux, the outlook kept changing, which drove her mad.

Her Bridge officers minded their stations,
keen to alert her of any change in status. She looked at each of
them. Mr. Tully still had the helm, something she wasn’t too happy
with, but the man, whatever else he was, had proven a competent
pilot. Directly ahead, Cassidy had the Ops post, Summers having
dismissed the other officer, and on her left Mr. Donaldson
monitored defense. Each of them appeared vigilant, so she forced
herself to remain calm. The view from the command chair was
considerably less bleak now that she’d had Mr. Donaldson drag Mr.
Roy’s corpse off the Bridge and into the CO’s office. She didn’t
like having it in there, either, but for the time being didn’t know
what to do with it.

Eventually, once the breach was sufficiently
patched and climate had been restored to deck four, they would be
able to jump again, though Summers had no ideal destination in
mind. The isotome trail had gone cold and now she was left without
any meaningful orders. She thought she’d probably move the ship to
one of the queen’s core worlds and get a proper repair for the
breach on deck four, instead of just relying on an engineer’s
workaround. Other than that, though, she was left scratching her
head and wondering what she should do. She wished she knew where
Calvin was and could go to his aid, provided he was still alive,
but she guessed the likeliest thing would be for her ship to be
added to the queen’s fleet. Rumors were swirling that the newly
crowned
King
Caerwyn Martel planned to attack Ophiuchus and
wrestle it away from Queen Kalila Akira, which would be a
devastating loss for her. So, no doubt, the queen was marshaling
her forces to defend the system.

Fighting a civil war against other humans was
the last thing Summers wanted to do, and it wasn’t the kind of
thing the
Nighthawk
had been built for. So everything about
it just seemed wrong. She supposed she could get in touch with
Raidan; no doubt he was up to some kind of scheme. But she threw
that notion into the garbage as soon as she’d thought it. Not only
could she not trust Raidan, she suspected Raidan had been behind
Pellew’s actions to take over the ship. Perhaps Raidan hadn’t
actually told Pellew to take over the
Nighthawk
, but he'd
probably hired Pellew to secure the isotome weapon and deliver it
to him.

I should have seen it
, thought
Summers, angrily.
I should have seen it from a mile
away
.

“I’ve got something on the scopes,” said
Cassidy. “An alteredspace entrance signature is forming. It’s a
ship!”

“Defense, what’s our status?” asked Summers,
snapping to attention.

“Still unable to use stealth, but shields are
operable and, other than deck four port side, our armor is mostly
intact. All weapons are operable too, and standing by.”

“Thank you, Mr. Donaldson,” she said, still
wondering if she should simply take over the post herself, since
the man had no prior military training.

“Raise the shields.”

“Shields raised.”

“Midshipman Dupont, can we identify the
ship?”

“It’s beginning to descend into normal space;
I’ll have a positive ID any second,” said Cassidy. Then, a moment
later, “It’s the
Arcane Storm
, sir.”

The Arcane Storm
; Tristan’s ship, not
a friendly sight, but at least not a hostile one either.
Now,
just what in the galaxy are you here for?
she wondered.

“We are being hailed,” said Mr. Tully. “What
shall I do?”

Summers considered it for a moment. Normally,
her instinct would be to immediately answer the hail of another
ship, but since she knew it was Tristan on the other end, she spent
the better part of a minute trying to talk herself into ignoring
their call. Ultimately, though, she capitulated; the protocol to
accept another ship’s hail was far too ingrained to resist.

“On speakers,” she said, deciding whatever
Tristan had to say he could say to all of them. Mr. Tully gave her
the thumbs up, indicating the mic was active.

“This is the IWS
Nighthawk
,” said
Summers. “Go ahead.”

“Ah, so pleasant to hear your magnificent
voice again, Commander,” came Tristan’s voice over the speakers.
“It does my heart wonders to know you’re all right.”

I wish I could say the same
, she
thought. Instead, she said, “what do you want, Tristan? Why are you
here?”

“Now, now, is that any way to greet an old
friend?”

“We’re not friends,” said Summers.

“You wound me, Commander; you wound me
deeply.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” replied
Summers. “What are you doing here?”

“Why, I’m here to help you, of course,”
replied the Lycan. “I can see from here you have a significant hole
in your ship on the port side. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to return
the
Nighthawk
to Calvin in such condition…”

“
You’re
here to help
us
?” asked
Summers, in a tone which did nothing to hide her skepticism.

“Why, of course! I have teams of people and
resources. Together we could patch that hole far faster and easier
than you could alone.”

While Summers had no doubt that was true, she
would never allow Tristan, nor any of his people, to set foot
aboard the
Nighthawk
ever again, under any
circumstances.

“Come on, Tristan, do you honestly think I’m
that stupid?” asked Summers. “To believe you just happened to be
passing by and noticed our distress in the middle of deep space and
now you’re here as some kind of good neighbor to
lend a
hand
?”

“Not as a good neighbor, as a friend.”

Summers said nothing.

“Fine, very well, you caught me, Commander.
I'm not really here to help you. Very clever of you to deduce
that,” said Tristan. “I am here for the same reason as you: to
catch Zander. But, by the looks of the debris about point one kliks
back there, it seems I would need a very tiny microscope to find
him now, and all his pieces. Did you really have to resort to such
violence, Commander? That doesn't sound like you.”

Summers had had enough of this conversation.
“
Look
,” she said, allowing herself to show a bit of temper,
“I’m not going to play your games, Tristan.”

“Games? What are these games?”

She ignored him. “If you’re here for the
isotome weapons, you’re too late.”

“Why, because you have them?”

“No,” she replied immediately. “Because
Zander didn’t have them. Not anymore, anyway. By the time we got to
him, he only had one.”

“So now…you have that one?”

Summers realized he was digging for
information. No doubt sent here by Raidan to gather intelligence on
the isotome weapons. But then, if Tristan were here on Raidan’s
behalf, did that mean Raidan didn’t know about Pellew’s mutiny? If
so, then Raidan obviously couldn’t have been behind it. Summers
head spun just thinking about it.
I really need Calvin back
,
she thought for the millionth time. Together, they could probably
figure this out.

“No, we do not have the isotome weapon,” she
said, deciding that the story of its loss was something Raidan
should know. Because, if he was behind Pellew’s actions, then he
needed to know it was his fault the weapon was now loose in the
galaxy. Though it would be small comfort to Summers, at least
Raidan would have to deal with the guilt of that knowledge. And if
he
wasn’t
behind Pellew’s mutiny, then Raidan still ought to
know what happened, because maybe he had resources which could help
identify and capture the intruder who'd stolen it.

“What did you do with it?” asked Tristan, his
words sounded almost cautious.

“You want to know what happened, I’ll tell
you. After we found Zander and took his ship, Pellew was supposed
to destroy the weapon. Instead, he kept it for himself and brought
it aboard the
Nighthawk
. And, for whatever reason, perhaps
to hide the evidence, he blasted Zander’s ship into that debris
cloud you spotted back there. I wouldn’t allow Pellew to keep such
a dangerous weapon and I commanded it be destroyed. He didn’t take
too kindly to that and so he and his thugs took command of this
vessel. We were about to leave the system, having cleared
significant distance from the debris cloud, when an invisible ship
latched onto us and carved that nice little hole you see on our
portside.”

“An invisible ship?” asked Tristan, sounding
more than a little intrigued.

“Well, we couldn’t detect it anyway, not
until it latched onto us and stopped moving. I’ve heard of ships
like that; they’re called Hunter ships. I didn’t think they really
existed until now.”

“Where did you hear of them before?” asked
Tristan.

“That’s beside the point, but I heard about
them from two prisoners we caught in the Kynar Asteroid Field,
associates of Zander. In any case, what happened next was our ship
was boarded, by a single intruder, a human. No one has identified
him yet, but he has black hair, pale skin, a narrow face, and
apparently very dark eyes,” she thought back to the description
Nimoux had given before losing consciousness once more.

“And surely your soldiers were more than able
to handle this one man?” said Tristan.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Summers.
“Pellew and all his men, except four, went to confront this
intruder. He and all of his men, except the four he left behind,
are now dead.”

“Dead?” Tristan sounded shocked.

“Yes,” confirmed Summers. “Most of their
bodies are floating about on deck four right now, though some have
been lost to space. I’m sure if you scan long enough, you’ll find a
few.”

“Dead? By one man? Impossible,” said
Tristan.

“Not only is it possible,
it
happened
,” said Summers.

“And what became of the isotome missile?”

“The intruder absconded with it.”

“He took it, carving his way through Special
Forces, and then he and his mysterious Hunter ship just up and
vanished. Just like that?” Tristan sounded like he didn’t believe
her a bit.

“That’s what happened,” said Summers. “So you
can go back like a good doggie and tell the man holding your leash
that if he
was
behind Pellew’s mutiny, he made a very
dangerous mistake. Now one more isotome missile is unaccounted for
because of it.”

Chapter 18

Calvin felt an intense wave of heat pass by
him, just shy of his right ear. The energy blast had come so close
to striking him it actually set fire to some of his hair. He
dropped to the ground instinctively to get out of the line of fire,
and then immediately began beating at his hair with the flat of his
right hand. It burned, momentarily, stinging him as he touched the
flames, but he smothered it out.