The Phoenix Darkness (51 page)

“This is shuttle
Explorer I
,” said
Rafael, inventing the ship’s moniker then and there.

“
Explorer I
, identify your command
ship and current mission.”

“Our command ship is…” Rafael struggled to
think. “Supercruiser the
Dauntless
,” he struggled to say the
word. “Our mission is to survey Praxis System and report.” It was
the best reason he could think of on the spot for why they were
nearly across the DMZ, with a heading which clearly indicated
Imperial space.

There was a pause on the other end. Rafael
didn’t like it. He could tell they weren’t buying into his story.
On the 3D display, he watched the sentry ship slowly close in on
their shuttle.

He covered the mic. “I don’t think they’re
buying it,” whispered Rafael to Calvin.

“
Explorer I
,” came the voice on the
other end. “Hold position and prepare to be boarded.”

Rafael terminated the call. “Yeah, they
didn’t buy it,” he said. “They’re
en route
to board us.”

“Shit,” said Calvin, rapidly accelerating
their shuttle. “
Shields
.”

Rafael raised the shields just as they took a
hit from the sentry ship’s energy weapon. “Down to sixty-five
percent,” said Rafael.

“I’m going to jump back into alteredspace,”
said Calvin, charging the drive.

“They’ll just force us back,” said
Rafael.

“Well, we’ve got to do
something
. You
just keep those shields up!”

“Aye, aye,” said Rafael, funneling power out
of all their other systems and forcing the shields to divert their
strength aft. They took a second hit. “Shields at thirty percent
and falling.”

“Clearing to jump,” said Calvin.

They took a third hit. The sentry ship was
right on their tail. “Shields are gone,” said Rafael. “And the
generator is offline, I’d guess permanently.”

“
Jumping
,” said Calvin. The stars
vanished, replaced by blackness. “Let’s see if we can’t shake
them.” He used the yoke to simulate divert a random alteredspace
course.

It didn’t work. A moment later, the ship was
forced back into normal space, stars reappearing in all the
windows.

“Damn,” said Calvin, starting to engage in
evasive maneuvers. “See if there’s anything you can do.”

They took another hit and the lights
flickered.

“What’s going on?” asked Miles. Rafael turned
to see both Miles and Rez’nac had entered the cockpit.

“We’re under fire,” said Rafael, just as they
took another hit. Entire systems were going offline. “We’ve lost
navigation.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Calvin. “Route
everything you can to shields.”

“Shields are permanently down.”

“Then send it all to navigation!”

They took another hit. Rafael did as he was
told, routing all available secondary and tertiary systems to the
shuttle’s thrusters, overpowering them to get a temporary burst of
speed. But even as he did it, he knew it was futile.

“Brace yourselves,” said Rafael. “I’m about
to pull gravity.” He and Calvin strapped in, Miles and Rez’nac
grabbed for whatever they could. The two of them began to float as
the artificial gravity disappeared.

They took another hit. Again, the lights
flickered as power was nearly lost to all systems.

“Can you give me
anything
else?” asked
Calvin.

“Comms are down. Everything is down,” said
Rafael. “We have thrusters and life support.”

“Then drain life support,” said Calvin.

“If you say so,” Rafael diverted the power
out of life support and fed it to the thrusters.

“If we’re going down, so are they,” said
Calvin, flipping their vessel around. They could now see the sentry
ship in their window. It made for an imposing figure, growing in
dominance as they rapidly approached.

“We can’t take much more,” said Rafael.

“
Gentlemen
, it was a pleasure knowing
you,” said Calvin.

“Likewise, sir,” said Rafael, bracing
himself, ready to meet his ultimate fate.

The sentry ship fired on them one more time.
The flash was blinding and nearly disintegrated the shuttle, whose
hull integrity was on the verge of collapse.

“Here goes nothing!” said Calvin, as they
closed the distance.

Rafael coughed and started to feel
lightheaded. He knew their oxygen was rapidly depleting, not that
it mattered now…

Without warning, the sentry ship burst apart
into a million pieces. Calvin yanked the yoke, jerking the shuttle
hard to port to avoid a spray of debris.

“What the hell?” asked Calvin.

“I have no idea,” said Rafael, staring at his
various blank screens. “I have no systems.”

“I don’t…” said Rez’nac, then his eyes closed
and he let go of the wall, floating there, either unconscious or
dead. Rafael didn’t see any signs that the Polarian was still
breathing.

“It’s the air,” said Rafael. “Polarians need
more oxygen than we do.”

“What are our O2 levels?” asked Calvin.

“Not a clue,” said Rafael. Normally it would
be easy to check, but with all systems offline it was anybody’s
guess. “But I’d say we’re breathing in nothing but nitrogen and
carbon dioxide at this point.” The lightheadedness grew worse and
his vision darkened momentarily.

Calvin continued to spin the shuttle around,
yawing to port and pitching upward, looking for what had destroyed
the sentry ship.

Rafael felt his consciousness slipping in and
out. He looked over and saw Miles had let go of the fixture he’d
been clinging to. He, like Rez’nac, was now floating freely, eyes
closed.

“We’re done for,” said Rafael, feeling
himself losing the battle to remain vigilant. His consciousness
seemed to fade in and out. The last thing he saw was Calvin, still
pulling diligently at the stick, looking determined.

Then everything went dark.

***

Since the Organization’s inception, Raidan
knew only of three instances when the Forum had been imposed. The
first time had been to formalize the creation of the Organization.
The second and third times had been to deal with a crisis of
leadership involving multiple Group Leaders. Now this, the fourth
time, would be the last time. Raidan didn’t know that for sure, but
in his gut he was convinced, especially if his appeals were ignored
and he and Mira were forced to take drastic action.

The
option
had always been there on
the table. It was the brainchild of Mira Pellew, and an example of
how conniving and dangerous she was, but it was never an
opportunity Raidan had wanted to pursue. Mira wanted to do it, he
knew; she had then and still did now. She was virtually frothing at
the mouth in anticipation of what she expected to happen. Indeed,
what was likely to happen, much to Raidan’s chagrin. Yet, if it
proved necessary, then it was necessary, and he would shed no tears
about it.

Fortunately, the
option
had never been
something Mira could attempt alone. She wasn’t a Group Leader and,
although she’d strung together an impressive network of influence
inside the Organization, she lacked the actual authority to impose
the Forum, just as she lacked the actual authority to arrange any
kind of meeting with White Rook. There were certain things Group
Leaders could do, according to the Organization’s few but strict
bylaws that other members, no matter how influential, no matter how
powerful, could not. Which was why she had approached Raidan
originally.

He’d been a new Group Leader then, the
newest
in fact, and so she’d wrongly predicted he was an
easy target for manipulation. That assumption had cost her his
trust, permanently, but it had not cost her his ear. Raidan was
willing to listen to anyone, including his enemies, perhaps
especially
his enemies and, as a result of that, he and Mira
had struck up a kind of secret alliance of convenience, one which
Raidan had always believed, and hoped, would never be necessary.
Against Mira’s arguments and pleadings to the contrary, Raidan had
always resisted her urges to exercise the
option
. And, too
bad for her, she’d chosen to approach him about it and so could not
approach another Group Leader seeking the same arrangement. If
Raidan so much as sniffed she was up to such a thing, he'd promised
her he would expose her immediately. And so it had proven for the
greater good she’d chosen him to discuss the
option
rather
than, say, his predecessor, that backstabbing opportunist Zander,
who likely would have jumped at the chance.

But now the dice had been thrown and he'd
used his authority, and Mira’s network of influence, to impose the
Forum upon the entire Organization. Recalling all its Group
Leaders, its officers, its ships, and all its personnel who could
reasonably attend.

These days, those numbers were fewer and less
impressive than when the Organization had been at its height
combating the Phoenix Ring at every level. Now all that remained to
it were six Groups, with six Group Leaders; a combined total of
forty-one warships, including the
Harbinger
, which was
easily the predominant vessel, plus some thirty support ships;
fewer than two hundred spies; about fourteen thousand starship
personnel and officers; three superweapons, two mutagenic and one
chemical; plus eight thousand soldiers; a mere twelve remaining
safe havens; combined liquid assets of about four billion Q; and
one increasingly cautious leader.

And now they met deep inside the Nemesis
Cloud, a vast field of rocks, ice, and dust that surrounded the
dark star Vega Mortem. Among the debris was a field of large
asteroids, some as large as 1,000 kilometers in diameter. They were
spread apart as one would expect of an asteroid belt, so distantly
that the odds of blindly flying into one were about one in a
million. But what made these asteroids so wonderful, aside from
their size and density, was no one of them stood out against all
the thousands of others. Many of them shared that greatly desirable
characteristic which, because of their massive density, they had,
or nearly so, standard planetary gravity. Which was why, when the
Organization had set out to build its most clandestine base, it had
chosen one of the many nondescript asteroids in this field, a place
no one would look and, even if they did, no one would find
anything.

Now the seventy-one ships were massed
together around Anubis, the asteroid which held the secret base,
and delegations from every ship had gone down by shuttle through
the massive airlock doors and docked with the port. From there had
been a short journey to the Great Concourse, where the elite stood
in positions of honor, elevated on the sides. This included Raidan,
the other Group Leaders, and people of great influence such as
Mira, along with each starship’s CO. The remainder of each
delegation stood below. On the highest platform was White Rook,
surrounded by her honor guards. Her ebony face was difficult to
discern from where Raidan stood, but her clothes, a hooded
white-silk uniform, made her easy to distinguish.

“To all the loyal officers and subjects of
The Organization, you who have made it possible for us to defeat
The Phoenix Ring and restore order to the Imperial government, I
welcome you to this Imposed session of the Forum of the
Organization,” said White Rook, addressing them all via a lapel
mic.

“There is
no
order in the Imperial
government,” shouted Raidan, interrupting White Rook. It was a bold
move, but not an unprecedented one; she'd been interrupted before
at past sessions of the Forum, though not usually so quickly into
her address. But Raidan knew, for this to work, he had to assert
himself fast and quickly. He needed to be listened to by the others
and, should White Rook fail to cooperate and the
option
be
exercised, he needed to be seen as her counterbalance, as a strong
force to be reckoned with, so the other Groups would fall into
line. This was something he deeply believed they would do, based on
his personal association with each of the other Group Leaders, many
of which agreed with his call for stronger action to be taken.

“I recognize Group Leader Asari Raidan,” said
White Rook. “It is he who has imposed this Forum now, so it falls
upon him to raise his grievances and see if we recognize them.
Should we do so, it will then be up to us to find a solution to
correct them. Asari Raidan, stand forward and be heard.”

Raidan took several steps forward until he
was against the railing of the balcony on which he stood. He could
be seen by all the Organization now and had made himself,
unfortunately, a possible target for one of Mira’s snipers,
although he did not believe she could dare act against him until
the
option
had been exercised. For although she commanded a
great number of loyal supporters inside the Organization, so did
Raidan. And should he fall to her prematurely, his people had
strict orders to oppose Mira and her people, and in the ensuing
chaos the
option
would certainly fail and that would be the
end of the Organization once and for all.

“Brothers and sisters of the Organization,”
he said, loudly and clearly, aided by a lapel mic of his own he’d
brought. “Fellow Imperial citizens.
Humans
. Our noble Empire
bleeds. There is war from Eurosis to Tarsonis. There has been
bloodshed, human against human, Imperial against Imperial, in the
Apollo System. Bloodshed which has taken the lives of
hundreds
of thousands
of brave and noble officers of our military. A
savage and regrettable carnage that has lost humanity our Yards and
cost us a combined number of some four hundred ships of war.”

“Was it not
you
who destroyed the
Yards?” shouted Beniah Aaron, another Group leader, from across the
concourse.