The Phoenix Darkness (7 page)

“Yes, sir.”

With that, the Bridge came to life as did the
lower decks, now subjected to the
Nighthawk’s
klaxon.

Chapter 3

“The repairs you ordered,
Captain
,”
she said the word with a sneer, “are completed.” Jasmine looked at
Zander with squinty eyes of disapproval and suspicion. And somehow
her insult seemed to come across all the more disrespectful because
of her accent. But because she hadn’t broken any of the codes he’d
created for those serving with him on the
Duchess
, he knew
he could not punish her, not openly.

“Thank you,” he said, as if pretending not to
have heard the derision in her voice. He walked past her, trying to
resist the urge to brush up against her, entirely by accident of
course, and feel just a whisper of her sensual heat. For that was
what made Jasmine so dangerous, what allowed her to challenge him
more openly and more often than any other sailor, trader, or pirate
he’d ever brought aboard. Somehow, in something about her thick
ebony lips and radiating out of her raw, womanly dark curves, which
she made no effort to hide in what she chose what to wear, she had
power. And despite all the alarm bells inside Zander’s head and all
the promises he’d made, that he’d be rid of her tomorrow, that he’d
have her made an example of, that he’d maroon her or jettison her
or otherwise
deal with her
, they never became concrete
plans.

And now again, as he faced an unhappy,
borderline mutinous crew, all of whom had done his bidding and none
of whom had yet been paid for it, Zander knew he should've gotten
rid of Jasmine long, long ago. Better yet, he should have had his
way with her and been off, never to see her again. Though even that
fantasy had its own element of fear deep inside his heart; for all
his pride, he honestly wasn’t even sure he could take her. He half
expected her to rip his scrotum from his body, declare herself the
new captain, and have him fed to dogs…

“What now, Boss?” asked Rolland, the first
mate and most trusted crew member on the ship. Though, despite
their long and shared history, Zander likely wouldn’t be able to
trust Rolland any more than the others, perhaps less, were he not
secretly bankrolling the man under the table. And allowing him to
take certain…privileges with his fourteen year old daughter,
whenever they made port at any place run by the Khans. Zander would
compose the arrangements for the meetings and Rolland would make
certain to pacify the crew. This had worked well, until Jasmine
came along. Suddenly, it wasn’t Rolland’s clever wit and fast
tongue the crewmen paid attention to, but instead the voluptuous
curves and strong, feminine attitude which was Jasmine. The woman
of the people who would stand up to the captain and make sure they
got paid and paid equally. To be fair, Rolland had warned Zander
Jasmine would be trouble when he’d first brought her aboard. Zander
shook his head, angry at his younger self for his mistakes. No
more…after this mission, Jasmine would be gone.

“Yes, we get paid,” he said at last, mostly
to placate the increasingly unsettled crewmembers, each of whom
seemed ready to tear the Bridge apart wherever they stood. As if
the barbarians had forgotten this ship represented not only the
chance for wealth, bounty, and adventure, but it was their only
damned ride home. To any who still had one.

“When?” demanded Jasmine. Her sentiment was
echoed by several others.

“Yeah, when?”

“We keep hearing it, but I don’t feel my
pockets any less empty!”

“Silence!” ordered Rolland, drawing his
rifle. The rest of the crew reacted in two very different ways,
half obeyed and cowed down immediately, the other half drew their
own weapons and aimed them at Rolland.

“Enough!” shouted Zander, to get their
attention back onto him. He looked down at Jasmine and nodded his
head, gesturing for her to help take control. This worked.

“Lower your guns; we’re about to be paid,”
said Jasmine. Because it came from her, the crew calmed down. And
in that moment, Zander realized he was no longer the captain in
their eyes, she was.
Never in my life have I seen a more
mutinous crew of filthy dogs anywhere in the galaxy
, he
thought. After this deal, it would be time to get rid of them all.
All except Rolland…unless he too had some kind of trick up his
sleeve…

“The repair is finished,” said Zander,
referring to the repair of their systems the outpost orbiting Izar
Ceti had performed for them after they'd damaged their own systems,
trying to make it look as natural as possible, so they could fool
the buyer, who unbeknownst to the rest of them was the highly
dangerous Enclave, into thinking that their delay had indeed been
the product of a systems failure, and currently it was fixed. “Now
we move out into open space, dock with Anton’s ship when it
appears, transfer the cargo, get paid, and everybody wins.”

“This had better be worth all that effort,
Captain,” said Jasmine. Others grunted their agreement.

“It will be, I promise,” said Zander. “Now,
just keep your heads down and be ready to move the fourteen units
of cargo onto the buyer’s ship, or let his people do the lifting if
he prefers.”

“What fourteen units of cargo?” asked one of
the men. “I remember there were fifteen.”

“No, there were definitely only ever
fourteen,” said Rolland, obviously trying to corroborate the
Captain’s story. Only he and Rolland had known that, while the crew
slept, they’d cautiously jettisoned one of the isotome weapons to a
hiding spot in open space near the neutron star Rana Kentaurus, far
enough away to keep it safe from the neutron star’s radiation. For
Zander, it was to be his insurance policy. For Rolland, well, God
knows what Rolland expected to get out of it. Half the profit? Not
bloody likely…

“I swear it; there were fifteen,” the man
insisted.

Zander raised his pistol and shot the man in
the head on the spot. It wasn’t the first time he’d killed a man,
though he had a profound distaste for sullying his own hands with
violence. But, in this situation, he felt he had no other options.
Word could not spread to Anton, or anyone in the Enclave, that they
were shortchanging them by one entire isotome weapon, or else their
fates would be far worse than death.

The crew didn’t know how to react. Some
looked defensive, ready to draw their own weapons and fire back;
others merely stared, baffled, including Rolland. A display of
ferocity and strength like this, from the captain, hadn’t been seen
in a very long time. And, to Zander’s pleasant surprise, they
seemed to respect him for it, rather than condemn him.

“His share will be divided up among the crew;
I’ll keep none of it,” said Zander, further endearing himself, at
least momentarily, to the dogs who worked for him. “Now, get that
mess cleaned up, on the double! Our buyer has arrived.” Zander
examined the 3D display on the
Duchess
to see a ship fast
approaching his, a design that, he knew from experience, had his
Duchess
outmatched and outgunned in every respect. Which
meant everything depended upon his next performance. Life and death
itself hung in the balance.

And even if the Enclave did believe him, that
he only found fourteen isotome weapons, that still left another
tremendous open question looming over his head.
Will they pay
us, or kill us?
Zander wouldn’t know until
Hunter Six
arrived and revealed itself to them, because one thing was for
certain: they damn sure wouldn’t see the vessel coming. But if
Zander knew Anton half as well as he thought he did, Anton was
already here, keeping his ship moving to remain undetected until he
knew everything he could about the situation.

By all means, Anton, take your
time
.

***

Anton had been waiting what felt like an
eternity for Zander to arrive. Uncertain whether or not he’d been
double-crossed, and suspecting Zander was up to some nefarious
game, Anton had ordered his ship to continue long orbits around the
star in order to remain undetected. This helped to prevent any
alarm on the part of the humans, should any of them this far out at
such a dump of an outpost care that an unidentifiable Rotham ship
had come to their system. It also allowed Anton to patiently watch
and see what Zander did once his outdated starship the
Duchess
arrived and found the system essentially empty with
no Anton in sight. Would he bother docking with the station to
properly complete the alleged repair? Or would he just sit there,
waiting for Anton to arrive, and either claim he’d already done the
repair or else pretend his inept crew of rejects had corrected the
systems failure on their own. As it happened, Zander did the
former, and docked with the station. Which meant Anton had no
evidence, other than suspicion, that Zander was up to some kind of
trick other than the obvious one. The one Anton had been ordered
not to interfere with, much to his confusion…

After a time, when he’d allowed Zander and
his ship to sit uncomfortably in open space for long enough, Anton
gave the order to stop
Hunter Six
and reveal themselves. No
more reason to delay the exchange.

When the ships began their docking operation,
the face on either side of the viewer was all smiles and cheer. “I
hope you’re ready to become a very powerful man, Anton,” Zander
said. “Because once I hand over these weapons to you, you’ll be the
most powerful one in the galaxy.”

“Indeed,” was all Anton could get himself to
reply. He stood tall on the unlit bridge of
Hunter Six
, a
sloop of the most cutting-edge design, whose capabilities remained
largely unknown to the greater part of the galaxy. The soft glow of
various computer screens and operations panels were the only lights
to be seen. Had any humans been aboard, no doubt all their pathetic
human eyes could distinguish would’ve been long dark shadows moving
about and the occasional glimpse of glowing amber eyes. But the
darkness was no accident. On the contrary, it was comfortable,
natural even. It was home.

The ship belonged to him, one of many gifts
the Rahajiim had bestowed upon his people in exchange for, well, so
far nothing. True, the Rahajiim would never have eliminated the
Alliance threat and opened their space without the ferocious
cooperation of the Enclave, but since the Rahajiim had instantly,
upon victory, given over all of the Alliance’s territory to the
Enclave, including most of the surviving Alliance vessels, and had
provided essential support during the battle…it hardly seemed a
fair bargain. Anton knew it, the rest of the Enclave knew it, and
most
importantly the Rahajiim knew it.

They expected to be paid. And the First had
been forced to continue to ask for time and offer guarantees that
in due and expedient course the Rahajiim would have what they
coveted above all else, the surviving isotome missiles.
Unfortunately, until just now, this human called Zander had made
the process of recollecting the missiles for the Rahajiim an
unacceptably long and difficult endeavor fraught with: delay after
delay, use of seconds and thirds to relay messages when no
communication was required, failures to appear at designated points
at designated times…the list went on.

The First had been unwise to plant his
faith in Zander for safekeeping of the weapons
, thought Anton,
not for the first time. However he kept such thoughts to himself
because it was both dangerous and out of place for him to do
otherwise. He was merely the Second. That made him a leader of
importance in the Enclave, especially now that it had territory and
would soon achieve recognition on a galactic scale, but
nevertheless a position which was completely subordinate to the
First. And to challenge the First was the greatest of all taboos,
and carried the risk of death. Anton was as powerful as Strigoi
could be, but even he dared not challenge the First.

“The ships have made contact,” said one of
the flight engineers.

“Go aboard their ship,” said Anton, now
pressing the button that delivered his voice throughout every deck
of the ship. “Inspect the weapons for yourselves and then bring
them aboard into our hold, safely and securely. The humans are
never to touch them again. If they do, kill them.”

His bevy acknowledged him and the flight
engineer on his left reported that the pre-designated Strigoi from
deck four had gone aboard the
Duchess
.

While he waited, Anton found his fingers
instinctively twisting the beads of his necklace, a thin,
black-steel cord threaded through twenty-eight human knucklebones.
A now nervous-looking Zander had disappeared from the viewer, no
doubt to greet his new guests. Anton couldn’t help thinking how
much he would like to rip out the traitor’s throat, slowly and
painfully, and then add his knuckles to the others. But it wasn’t
to be allowed, unfortunately. Although even the First somehow had
known Zander would betray them, that he would lie to their faces
and attempt to cheat them, the order not to interfere with Zander
remained firm.
Accept the deal, secure the weapons he has, pay
him what he asks, install the tracer, and then depart with all
haste
.

Anton had relayed his instructions to his
bevy a thousand times and each of them, looking up to him as though
he were the First, had accepted their assigned duties and trained
as necessary to be able to do them expediently. Now all Anton could
do was wait.

At least I finally caught up to you,
slippery bastard
…

When Anton had first been told he was to not
interfere with Zander, beyond reclaiming whatever isotome weapons
the human currently possessed, but to otherwise leave him
unmolested, Anton had questioned why. Not as a challenge, or as a
threat to the authority of the First, but as a gentle inquiry of a
subordinate to a commander, seeking further explanation, knowing
full well no further explanation was owed. All that the First had
told him then was, “
He will get his justice; I promise you that.
One way or another, in the end, he will get it. His fate is already
sealed.”