The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) (52 page)

“And so, as a complete count, what does that leave us with?” asked Kalila.

The Imperial Fleet in its entirety, not counting losses we are about to sustain in our efforts to eliminate those devastators, and also not counting vessels that have routed from the battle, that leaves us with a strength of…four-hundred and fourteen capital ships.”

“It goes without saying,” said Kalila. “But that is the smallest the Imperial Fleet has ever been. Between the nonsensical civil war, and now the unstoppable Dread Fleet, we have far too few warships left to defend all of our territories.”

There was no response from her advisors, but they seemed to agree with her.

“And what of our seven-hundred Rotham
friends
?” asked Kalila. “How many casualties have they sustained?”

Sir McTavish launched right into it, “The Alpha Flotilla, commanded by—”

“Spare me the details,” said Kalila, again remembering that within very few minutes her planet was going to be bombarded by warships that would slaughter billions of lives with impunity.

“Of the entire force of seven hundred capital ships,” said Sir McTavish. “Several proxitors were killed—about half. But the Nau survived.”

“The ships,” said Kalila. “How many ships?”

“The Rotham sustained approximately forty-seven percent casualties, Your Highness, leaving them with a force of three-hundred and two capital ships.”

“I see,” said Kalila. “And what percent casualties did we sustain?” she expected the number to be higher. No doubt the sneaky Rotham bastards had done all they could to subtly preserve as many of their own ships as possible.

“Of our original force of just over fifteen hundred capital ships, we sustained somewhere around seventy-two percent casualties, Your Highness.”

I knew it
, thought Kalila,
the Rotham had been crafty, as ever, but when it came time to spill blood for blood, they had limited their role in the fight as much as possible.

“Your Highness,” said Sir Vasquez. “The devastators will be in firing range of our most populated cities in approximately five minutes.”

“And our forces, any on track to intercept?” she asked, then looked down at the tactical display, realizing before her advisors could tell her, that the situation was indeed hopeless. Her remaining defenders, although attempting to obey her order, were all much too far afield to get there in time.

“More should have helped Raidan,” said Kalila, using the final minutes to reflect on the utter failure, along with the slaughter about to occur. “More should have gone after those devastators.”

“I believe there were some trust issues, Your Highness,” said Sir Vasquez. “Considering that he was listed as an Enemy of the State and had already attacked Capital World once, himself.”

Kalila did not reply; she mere began counting down the seconds.

“Your Highness, if I may present a somewhat radical solution,” said Sir McTavish timidly. “I took the liberty of having a shuttle standing by; it is waiting to launch, immediately above this bunker. I recommend we all get inside it at once and escape the planet while there is still time.”

Kalila looked at the man with a hateful glare. Then she said, “Very well, if you cowards wish to run and spare yourselves, then go right ahead. As for me, I’m staying here.”

“But Your Majesty,” said Sir Vasquez, who seemed excited by Sir McTavish’s idea, “The remains of the Empire will still need their queen.”

“Then their Assembly may elect one,” said Kalila. “Now, if you’re going to go, go!”

They didn’t argue further. Sir McTavish darted away, followed closely behind by Sir Vasquez. To Kalila’s surprise, Fleet Admiral Lawson made no effort to go with them, nor did she seem any more interested in leaving the doomed planet than Kalila was.

Kalila had her reasons for staying. She had taken many risks and made many sacrifices in her efforts to advance the strength of the Empire and be the kind of strong leader it needed to root out and destroy the corruption that had taken heart at the center of the government itself. The Empire needed a leader who took after her great ancestor, the first king, the Akira who had founded this great nation and forged his dream of a united humanity—at a time when humans were as disjointed and as disunited as they had ever been—and forged it into the greatest civilization the galaxy had ever known.

The Akiras since had proven subsequently weak, most especially her well-meaning but utterly spineless father. As for her siblings, they had been likewise born without the gift. But Kalila had the gift. She was the true heir of her great-great-grandfather’s legacy. Therefore, it had fallen upon her shoulders to return the Empire to the greatness of its potential. She feared now that her efforts to do so had resulted in utter failure. Chaos. Civil War. And now this damned Dread Fleet had arrived at her door, seeking the blood of her people. People she wanted to protect. People she needed to protect. That had always been the only thing she had ever cared about. And look what it had gotten her: utter demise, failure, and imminent death.

If Capital World fell, so too did the Empire, and everything she had ever loved and believed in. And so there was no point in escaping, only cowardice, only a desperate and selfish effort to extend her own life for a few more years or decades, but for what? What did it matter? If there could not no longer be such a society as this in which to live, or a populace for her to govern and protect, then this galaxy, this life, this existence, was not one that Kalila wished to have part in, not any longer.

As a child, she had believed that good always triumphed over evil, eventually. That every person was born with a purpose, almost a predestination, and that each had a path to walk and things to do, very important things, and, should they stray from that path, it would be a terrible thing. Although, while some might err, no one person could disrupt the grand scheme of the universe, whatever it was, for it was like an ancient clock, with gears in motion, set in place through seemingly random processes perhaps, but fulfilling some kind of ultimate destiny. A destiny that, although it defied human comprehension, was ultimately one of goodness and order, where light prevailed over darkness and right over wrong.

But, since she had grown over the years, she had come to realize the truth of the universe was different than she had expected, or even that she’d been taught as a child. In truth,

The government of reality was not order, neither was it chaos; it’s just an arbitrary mayhem where people are born and die, and somewhere in the interim they make choices, create purpose—defining it for themselves—while others never discover any at all.

Meaning was an arbitrary and artificial construct, belonging exclusively to thinking beings. There was no predestination; there was no certainty; opportunities were either seized or lost—never reclaimed, some of the cruelest people to have ever lived enjoyed everything they could ever wish for: they lived lavishly, surrounded by beauty, wealth, power, and more. The Martel brothers, Zane and Caerwyn, came to mind…

Meanwhile, some of the gentlest, noblest, kindest souls struggled just to find food and water, and worse, some of them were stricken with illness, many at an early age, infants and children falling dreadfully ill randomly with incurable and fatal diseases, sometimes given only a few days, or years, to experience anything, never really being given the opportunity to take a chance, create life—or choose not to—because they are gone too quickly, stolen away by senseless death. Their lives a mere flicker, a flash, a single fleeting instant. For a moment they are bright, a shining light of personality and intelligence and identity, and then, when the moment is gone—always too soon—the person is gone also.

The flash fades into darkness, the flicker burns out, the light and intelligence and personality that was, or could have been, vanishes. Stolen away. Never to experience again. It was the cruel imbalance of life that had convinced her, along with the inevitability of death, that, if something is to have meaning, it must be given meaning. And for that meaning to be made great, it must be made great. And for the greatness to last, it took hard work, and sacrifice, and the guidance of an intelligent hand—the touch of the master artisan.

Her great-great-grandfather had given his dreams meaning and made them great by uniting humanity. But, although his memory remained, the legacy of his accomplishments had begun to fade, most through talentless or corrupt leadership.

What Kalila had feared most, when all of this began, was that the Empire, like most societies throughout history, was speedily on course to its ultimate destiny of dissolution, disintegration, and disarray. Everything she had ever done had been an effort to prevent that. And yet, now here she was, counting minutes and seconds until the destruction of all she cared about began.

She noticed that Fleet Admiral Lawson seemed about as lost within her own thoughts as Kalila had been in hers.

“At least we can take comfort in the very likely fact that we stood against the Dread Fleet with greater force, and superior resolve than any before us who have attempted the same thing,” said Fleet Admiral Lawson, breaking the silence.

“For all the good it has done us,” said Kalila, unsure whether Fleet Admiral Lawson had spoken her words as an attempt to console Kalila, knowing it must be difficult for a queen to watch her subjects slain before her eyes, knowing her kingdom was about to collapse; or if Fleet Admiral Lawson had spoken her words because she was genuinely proud of the effort they had made here, this day. Despite the inescapable fact that the entire endeavor had been one tremendous sacrifice, a blood offering of hundreds of thousands of crewmen, soldiers, and officers, along with over a thousand capital starships, and all of it, despite the hefty price that had been paid, had been completely in vain. A wasted enterprise. A pointless ordeal. Just one last chance to band together and suffer, brothers with brothers, and sisters with sisters, the last truly unified effort humanity was ever likely to achieve. And it had failed.

The only question now was whether to wait for the inevitable end to steal her way, or to preempt it by retrieving the pistol now. As she pondered the issue, unsure which fate she preferred, she looked back at the tactical display. At first, it looked perfectly normal; some few remaining clusters of green and blue lights spread across the system, while one solitary cluster, that seemed to have shrunk even smaller, glowed next to a vast host of red lights, challenging them in bold yet suicidal fashion. There was nothing to surprise her, not at first glance. She had ordered her fleets to do that very thing.

But then she saw something odd. And had to check her eyes before looking again. The red lights were moving. The cluster of blue and green lights, small as it now was, had stopped its advance and held stationary, as though the starship commanders had given up on the effort to break through the enemy’s escort and eliminate the devastators. But, as she watched the mass of red lights continue to move, not toward the planet but away, she found herself filled with an ocean of confusion and perhaps a few solitary ounces of hope, although she still had no reason to have hope. For all she knew, the enemy was regrouping, for some reason, and this was their way to form up in order to assault the planet directly, rather than relying on the devastators.

Perhaps my hodgepodge fleet was more effective than I realized
, she thought,
perhaps they had been on the verge of breaking through the escort of battlecruisers and reinforcements, and were about to destroy the devastators, requiring the Dread Fleet to pull them back to safety.

But, she countered, within her own head. Were that the case, Kalila had to wonder, why did it require the complete movement of the entire Dread Fleet, traversing away from the planet? Why not just recall the devastators back to the rearguard of the attack force?

Then, to her further surprise, which increased her tiniest measure of hope ever so slightly, she watched the vast clump of red lights begin to diverge and separate, clearly abandoning their phalanx formation.

“What are they doing?” Kalila asked aloud, not expecting an answer.

“Only they could know for sure,” said Fleet Admiral Lawson. “But, to my aging eyes, it sure looks like they are preparing to leave the system.”

“But…” said Kalila, still more confused than hopeful, and still afraid to allow herself to hope. “They haven’t destroyed us yet. They didn’t so much as fire a single bombardment round at Capital World.”

Fleet Admiral Lawson shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. I’m just an old woman.”

“Old perhaps,” said Kalila. “But also wizened with experience. Not to mention you had the courage to remain here, with me, when the so-called Knights of the Crown fled to save their own lives.”

Fleet Admiral Lawson shrugged. “What can I say? I don’t run as fast as I used to. I probably would never have made the shuttle anyway.”

Kalila knew that answer was not the truth. And Fleet Admiral Lawson’s decision to show modesty, on top of the bravery she had already shown, simply made Kalila’s respect for her increase.

“I would like your honest judgment on this,” said Kalila, pointing to the now very dispersed red lights on the tactical display, all of which appeared to continue their paths away from the planet.

“Like I said, they appear to be leaving,” said Fleet Admiral Lawson. “I cannot fathom why or speculate as to where they are going. They are terrible, evil bastards, I can tell you that much for certain. But what drives them, what thoughts are in their heads, what they think they are accomplishing, either by coming to slaughter us, or by leaving before the job is done, that, I’m afraid, I cannot tell you, Your Highness. And I suspect no rational person anywhere could either.”