The Phoenix Reckoning (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 6) (24 page)

But what would Lucious want with an isotome weapon? Unless, the obvious, he was working on behalf of someone else, collecting the weapon for their use. But who, Nimoux wondered, could possibly control Lucious Black? The Moth had proven unreliable to Intel Wing not because of his skills—which were peerless—but rather because of his unpredictability. Most notably, his inability to be controlled. So if he was working on someone else’s behalf, and he had stolen the isotome missile for them, then that person or agency, who held the reins of Lucious Black, was more powerful than Intel Wing had ever been. It was a chilling thought, and one that caused Nimoux’s wound to flare up with pain and make him feel troubled in the depths of his very bones.

I hope to God that the weapon Lucious stole from us was NOT the one used in Thetican System
, thought Nimoux darkly. If that were true, then he had a lot more blood on his hands than just the three operatives he had been forced to execute on Korrivan…

No
, Nimoux shook his head,
it wasn’t my fault. I did all I could to stop it
.

But had he really? He tried to ignore the thought pressing down on him, crushing his strained optimism. Certainly, if he had been thinking straighter and hadn’t lost his mental edge—even for a minute—he could have seen Pellew’s mutiny coming, he could have taken prophylactic action and prevented it…

Having given his standing orders—including the newest arrivals, the Roscos—their barracks assignments, he had ordered his men to rest. But something happened along the way to his cabin. Instead of going to his quarters, Nimoux found himself pressing the elevator button for deck four, the deck where the hull had been breached. The deck where Lucious Black had invaded their ship and stolen the isotome weapon.

Nimoux was having trouble making peace with that series of events. And so he wandered the corridors for a time, searching for the spot where the hull breach had occurred. He must have been at this for twenty minutes before giving up. Credit where credit was due, the Rosco shipwrights, under the guidance of the
Nighthawk’s
engineers, had managed to repair the breach so seamlessly that Nimoux himself could not find it.

He was about to wander off when he came upon the observation deck. He knew the
Nighthawk
had one—the
Desert Eagle
did too—and Nimoux would often go there to meditate in silence. Reflecting on whatever thing happened to be troubling him at the time, if anything, and sometimes he would allow himself to get lost gazing out into the stars or the blackness, whichever was visible out the window. There was something serene there. Something tranquil. And so he entered.

For some reason Nimoux assumed, at this hour, that he would be alone. But there was someone else there. The Polarian, Rez’nac was his name. The man was broad, tall, and thickly built, like most Polarians. But this one, whose skin seemed almost more grey than blue, had an even stronger build than any Polarian Nimoux had ever seen. The man was a walking, talking piece of steel, it seemed, tall enough to tower over most humans and physically dense enough that Nimoux would almost be more likely to describe him as the offspring of a wall and a mountain, rather than two Polarians.

“I apologize,” said Nimoux immediately, realizing that the Polarian was undergoing some sort of private ritual. He had never seen much value in the belief system of the Polarians—their superstitions seemed little different than anyone else’s—however Nimoux had always admired their dedication to the search for inner peace, finding their center, achieving and maintaining internal tranquility. They, more than any other culture in the galaxy, valued discipline and demanded it from themselves with a fierce, almost obsessive passion. “I did not mean to interrupt.”

The Polarian was standing still now, having stopped moving his body—surprisingly lithely, through the motions of his ritual. He had stopped chanting as well and now stood in place, silently, looking at Nimoux with a furrowed brow that was either confused or annoyed. Either way, Nimoux realized he had overstepped himself by entering. No doubt Calvin had promised Rez’nac certain hours to use the observation deck to observe his various rites and customs. Nimoux did not wish to intrude upon that.

Nimoux began to back away when Rez’nac stopped him, calling from behind. “Human, wait,” he said, his voice powerful and authoritative. Nimoux could tell that Rez’nac had been bred and trained for command, even if he had no Polarians below him anymore. How he came to be on this ship at all was a story that Nimoux would very much like to hear someday.

“Yes?” asked Nimoux, turning back around to face the mighty Polarian.

“Why have you come?” asked Rez’nac.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Nimoux, instinctively clutching at his chest where the bullet had penetrated through. “I thought no one would be here.”

“If you thought no one would be here, then why did you come?” asked Rez’nac.

Nimoux was surprised by the Polarian’s curiosity. “Same as you, I suppose,” said Nimoux. “I wished to reflect on things and enjoy the tranquility. However, I am happy to wait until you are finished, or to come back some other time.”

“I see,” said Rez’nac. “Seeking tranquility is a noble goal.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you ever heard of the Pon’yor?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Nimoux. He didn’t know much about it, but understood it to be some type of interstellar ritual that the faithful Polarians did to honor their Essences—which were godlike collectives of souls—and to ask the Essences for favor while traversing the “Great Darkness,” which was alteredspace.

“Do you know how it is done?” asked Rez’nac.

“No, I’m afraid not,” admitted Nimoux, whose knowledge of the subject had been strictly academic.

“I was performing the
Pon’yor
,” explained Rez’nac. “
The Offering
. So we might travel between the stars in peace and health, and with gratitude in our hearts.”

“That is very noble of you, thank you,” said Nimoux, uncertain what else to say.

“Normally the Pon’yor is done by more than one soul, but one soul may do it,” Rez’nac continued. “However, there is another of our rituals, called the Urikh-jang that I would prefer to perform. It requires at least two souls. Would you do it with me?”

Nimoux was taken aback. Flattered, of course, but also surprised and confused. “I do not know that ritual,” he said. “Besides, am I not considered ‘rakh’ by your people? Surely the Essences would find me unworthy.”

“You are ‘rakh,’ that is true,” admitted Rez’nac. “But when I failed to complete the Arahn-Fi, I too became an unworthy vessel before the Essences, and so they are as likely to look down upon my rituals as they are to look down upon yours.”

Nimoux wasn’t sure what any of that meant. He had never heard of the Arahn-Fi, and he didn’t know if, by equating Nimoux’s lowly status as “rakh” within the context of the Polarian religion with Rez’nac’s apparently fallen state, that was meant as a compliment, an insult, or neither. Nimoux chose to interpret it as neither.

“If the Essences decry your offerings,” said Nimoux. “Then why perform them?”

“That is a good question,” said Rez’nac. “A curious question, born of a curious mind. You are wise for a human, I believe.”

“Thank you,” said Nimoux hesitantly.

“I perform the rituals for the Essences because the Essences still deserve honor, even though I have none to give them. I do it because I was always taught it to be the right thing to do, and now that I am fallen, I still know of no other way.”

Nimoux could understand that. It was basic psychology for a person, regardless of species, to fall back upon those habits, places, people, and so on, that were most familiar. Perhaps especially when depressed or when confronted with feelings of self-doubt, which Rez’nac was clearly struggling with here.

“I will do the Urikh-jang with you,” said Nimoux, making a snap decision. “If you will teach it to me.” If it meant so much to the Polarian, it was the least he could do; besides, it might even help him along his own path toward inner healing, he thought. Even though he knew the foundation of such a ritual was born of superstition, he suspected the act of doing it could still be cathartic and possibly relaxing.

“It is difficult to do with only two souls,” said Rez’nac. “But it is possible.”

“Then teach me.”

“First you must stand here, in the center.”

CHAPTER 11

It was not exactly how she had imagined it. Instead of the throne room—which, until Raidan had bombed it—had stood for nearly a hundred years, they did the ceremony in the banquet hall of the Akiran estate. The room was adequately sized, all the major houses had sent their representatives along with the elite members of both the Imperial and Royal Assemblies, two government bodies Kalila intended to merge into one as quickly as possible.

She could not take the chair that her father had held, and his father before him, and his before that, and so on, because it had been obliterated. Nor could she wear the crown that had gone missing around the same time Caerwyn had been abducted, not that she had ever cared for its masculine styling.

Instead, there was a diamond-studded tiara meant to reflect the burden of the state, and in place of a throne, there had been set aside a rather ornate-looking chair plated in gold. It was gaudy and ostentatious, but it made the point that needed making: the Akira family represented wealth and success—and wealth and success represented power. This ceremony not just elevated Kalila to the status of monarch of the Empire, it ended the civil war and brought much needed unity to Imperial citizens everywhere. A unity that, she understood, could only be held together under the belief that their new leadership was one of tremendous strength. To rebel now was to be crushed under the boot heel of Akiran influence. That was the message that was being sent to all of the starships and planets everywhere within the Empire. Not in those words of course, but rather in symbols.

I am power
, thought Kalila, as she went through the motions expected of her, making her vows.
I am strength. I will be no one’s puppet
. She knew that the Empire needed strong leadership now more than ever; otherwise, it risked falling to its many enemies, both abroad and within. Although Caerwyn Martel was dead, there were some who remained loyal to him and they, in their silence, did not take kindly to Kalila’s election as monarch. They were too few to stop it, too few even to make a ruckus about it, but they were there. Biding their time. Waiting for Kalila to make that one quick, tragic, fatal mistake that would give them a new banner to rally behind and a new leader to challenge her rein.

I will not give them the opportunity
, Kalila promised herself. As the first female monarch of the Empire, she knew that more was expected of her. Although unbalanced and unfair, it was a fact of the job that she had long been aware of. She represented something different, a new kind of age for the Empire, something that it had never seen before. And since she had come to power on the cuffs of civil war, after her rival monarch had been brutally and unlawfully executed, Kalila knew that she must strike a delicate balance between keeping a firm grip on her star systems, while still allowing some degree of dissonance to live on. Too much dissonance would breed insurrection, she knew, but trying to stamp out dissonance altogether would encourage rebellion. As the queen, she could not allow herself to be viewed as a tyrant. But, as the first female monarch of the Empire, and one whose rise to power was—at best—controversial, she still had to project might.

But, she supposed, that was what ruling meant. To find the pesky balancing points between wildly conflicting ideologies and somehow bring them, and the people representing them, into cooperation, awarding each enough to make them sit at the same table, but awarding neither so much that one thought the other to be favored, or that both thought the queen to be weak and malleable. To be strong but not a tyrant. To be mighty but not overbearing. To send a message of strength that none could deny, but not have to enforce that strength through violence or despotism. That was what ruling was. It was what her forbearers had done. It was what her father had taught her—and tried to do. And now, at long last, it was finally her turn.

“As you have sworn before these witnesses, before all the souls of the Empire, and before any gods that may be; and as these subjects of the Empire have accepted you to perform this providential task and execute this most solemn of duties, I now hereby place this crown upon your head.” The Supreme Judicator put the diamond-studded tiara atop Kalila’s head.

“Now, arise, Your Highness, as Queen Kalila Akira, First of Your Name, Heiress of the Andrevine, Successor of King Caerwyn Martel, Sovereign of the Empire, and Defender of the Realm. Arise and accept your people even as they accept you.”

Kalila despised that her coronation ceremony included legitimizing Caerwyn Martel. As far as she was concerned that name should be stained black for all of history; he was a traitor, a murderer, and most importantly, a usurper. However, after much argument, her many advisors convinced her to allow the allegedly harmless inclusion of Caerwyn Martel’s name in the ceremony.

“It will allow the Imperial Assembly’s vote to elect you as his successor to legally stand,” Sir Gregory had said.

“It will help to bring the more rebellious systems in line, possibly preventing more civil war,” Captain Adiger had argued.

It had taken them three hours to convince her, and even now, as she went through the motions of becoming the crowned monarch before all the peoples of the Empire, she nearly stopped the proceedings to demand a retraction of Caerwyn’s name and for her to be declared the sixth monarch of the Empire, successor to Hisato—her father—not the seventh, successor to the usurper. But she resisted the temptation, despite how strong her urge to speak up, and continued to act as she was expected.

She rose, like the Supreme Judicator had asked, and stood before the people, both those gathered there and those watching from far away—billions upon billions of them. She raised her hands high in the air, as was customary, and the crowd roared with applause and assent. The sound was like music and she took an extra moment, just one, to soak in the euphony and to try to convince herself that this moment had made everything leading up to it worth it. Even though she knew, no matter how wisely she ruled her people, the blood on her hands, the blood on everyone’s hands, was a stain that would never be undone.

She lowered her arms and spoke. “As your queen and monarch, I accept this great responsibility to watch over you and protect you. I am your shepherd. I am your guardian. And I am your advocate. Let us now join together, brother with brother, family with family, system with system, and remember that we are all but one Empire. An Empire that shall never be torn asunder again!”

Another roar of applause and cheering. She had to wait for it to die down before proceeding.

“There are many dangers in the dark galaxy out there, just beyond us, dangers that would prey upon us if we let them. But together again, at last, finally, we stand strong, shoulder to shoulder, side by side as one nation, under one ruler, with freedom and security for all! Let those who stood on the wrong side of the war, who now regret their mistakes, be welcomed back into the fold with mercy and a full pardon! Such is my first act as your queen. All who stood against me, all who defied me…I say to you now, you are forgiven. Let there be no more bad blood between brothers and sisters of the Empire! And let there be no more shedding of blood between Imperials everywhere!”

More applause. Kalila soaked it all in, trying not to grin from ear to ear. She remembered that the ceremony was not yet over; she still had to take the oath. But for the moment, she enjoyed the limelight and hoped that, through her words, she would spread some faith and forgiveness to those reaches of the Empire that needed it most.

“As your monarch, as your queen, as your leader, I swear to you now, before all Imperial citizens everywhere, and before any gods that may be, that I shall honor the Imperial Charter and execute and defend all the laws of our realm! Let this be the dawn of a new day for our Empire. The beautiful beginning of a new age! An age of industry and productivity, and age of safety and security, and most of all an age of justice and rightness! This I promise you, people of the Empire, wherever you may be. And as your queen, elected by the Great Houses and supported by your representatives, I shall bring forth a brighter future than any we have ever seen. Now is our time, my brothers and sisters. Now is our moment to shine and show the galaxy what we are made of! This day is our day! This age belongs to us! To the Empire!”

“To the Empire!” shouted the crowd.

Once the ceremony ended, and the broadcast, it still took a good three hours—mostly spent making appearances with the upper nobility and accepting their pledges of fealty—before Kalila had any time to herself. She was exhausted and longed for nothing more than for her servants to draw a hot bath for her and the chance to get a full night’s sleep for once, but she knew such comforts would have to wait. There remained far too much to do.

The first thing she did was to summon all of her topmost advisors and give them instructions that were to be executed as quickly as possible. Even though the civil war had ended, there remained threats abroad, especially if the intelligence regarding the Dread Fleet proved true, and so there was no time to waste when it came to overseeing the security of the Empire. The systems had been brought back under control, finally, and that was a tremendous victory. But that had come at a tremendous cost, and the Empire, Kalila knew, in its current state, was fragile. If she did not take good care of it, and soon, the entire thing might collapse and humanity would be little more than individual colonies, just as they had been before the rise of the Empire, small targets that were easy pickings for the better organized and better armed civilizations of the galaxy. Kalila refused to be the last monarch of the Empire, just as she refused to ruin her forbearers’ legacy.

“Sir Gregory,” she said, giving her first charge as undisputed queen of the Empire. “You are to ensure that all officers serving this Empire, from the loftiest knight to the lowliest midshipman are to be dosed with equarius, and the administration of the drug is to be dually witnessed and doubly certified for each and every person.”

“That will take some time,” said Sir Gregory. “And significant expense.”

“Spend whatever you have to from the remains of the Royal Treasury,” said Kalila. “Just see that it gets done, done well, and done quickly. The political leaders are also to be subjected to this treatment. Every representative of the Assembly—yes that’s Assembly singular, I am going to merge the Imperial and Royal Assemblies together—no matter how high of station, or low of station, even if they’ve received the treatment before, is to be immune from this procedure. It is mandatory and shall apply to all of you as well.”

“But, Your Majesty, we have each already had the treatment,” protested Sir Gregory.

“Which is why I trust you to ensure that it is correctly executed and done with proper redundancy to make certain there are no replicants anywhere left in this Empire. Not any with any kind of influence, anyway. I also intend to institute a mandatory time frame by which each person of influence must re-certify, and be re-dosed with equarius, after a certain number of days or weeks.”

“Creating such a program will be a monumental undertaking,” said Sir Gregory.

“And yet we have done monumental undertakings before, such as building our fleets and colonizing our worlds. The risk of replicants is too high and I shall no longer allow any such corruption the liberty of existing. Even if no replicants are discovered this way, it will be worth the effort and expense just so I can sleep at night knowing that the humans under my command are, in fact, human.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, I shall see to it at once.”

“It will be an Empire-wide enterprise,” said Kalila. “Make sure you take the funds and resources you need to set it up. I want local governments tested, I want every magistrate on every Imperial World to have had the treatment within a fortnight. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” said Sir Gregory. “It will be difficult—”

“
But
you will do it,” she looked at him with eyes of steel.

“At once,” said Sir Gregory.

“Sir Rodrigo Cid de la Fuerza,” said Kalila. “Go with him. Sir Gregory will need more than just his own squadrons, systems, and people to ensure the task is done efficiently and effectively.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” said the knight.

“The two of you are dismissed. I suggest you get to work immediately.”

“Yes, of course, Your Majesty,” said Sir Gregory. Sir de la Fuerza bowed and the two of them left, already discussing how to implement the queen’s plan.

“Now, Sir Daniel,” she looked to her next knight. “You get to be the one to deliver the news to Intel Wing that they are suspended indefinitely.” That group, according to Calvin’s reports and Kalila’s other sources of intelligence, had proven to be the most infiltrated and corrupt organization inside the Empire. It was time to bring those people in line. She would eventually purge the organization and re-instate Intel Wing. After all, what good was a government without a proper spy agency? But when the spies themselves and their leaders are working for themselves, or for some outside agenda, something that is not in harmony with the monarch’s plans, then they are a threat. Kalila intended to mitigate that threat immediately.

“Yes, Your Highness, though if I may say,” said Sir Daniel. “The Director and the rest of the leadership will not take this well.”

“Nor should they,” said Kalila. “However, I strongly suspect that Director Edwards is a replicant himself.” That too was based on information Calvin had given her, along with her other sources of information. She had also been given notice by Calvin’s people that Captain Lafayette Nimoux, currently on assignment with the
Desert Eagle
, was a replicant, as well as Vice Admiral Harkov, who was also away, herself on the
Andromeda
—a ship that had taken Caerwyn’s side during the civil war.