The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) (53 page)

The Comm blinked and Kalila tapped the accept button. Immediately, she heard the voice of Fleet Admiral Zeller, which confirmed that the ISS
Assassin
, at least, had been one of the blue lights to have survived.

“Your Highness,” said Fleet Admiral Zeller. “Are you seeing this?”

“Seeing what precisely?” asked Kalila. She had a pretty good guess what the admiral was asking about, but exactness was important in effective communication.

“The enemy fleet…they have completely disengaged. They’ve broken formation and are retreating to the far side of the system. All five-thousand or so capital ships, and they are recalling their drones!”

“Why are they doing that?” asked Kalila, still thinking it was too good to be true, and that the danger remained.

“I have no idea, Your Majesty,” said Fleet Admiral Zeller.

“Well, then speculate, Admiral,” commanded Kalila.

“I…I really don’t know,” replied Fleet Admiral Zeller. “One moment we were heavily engaged in battle with them, trading missiles and gunfire, destroying two battlecruisers for every capital ship of ours we lost—we really wanted to get to those devastators and destroy them, Your Highness, just as you commanded.”

“Then what happened?” asked Kalila.

“Then, the next moment, they stop shooting at us. I ordered our ships to continue firing—I didn’t know what they were doing—and we ended up taking out another ten or so of their capital ships before I ordered the ceasefire.”

“And why, Admiral,” said Kalila, “Did you order your forces to cease firing upon the enemy?”

“Because the enemy had begun to withdraw and move away from the planet. Even the devastators had changed trajectory and were fast returning to the main force, along with their remaining escort. Well…as fast as they could, that is.”

“I still don’t understand why you ceased fire, Admiral,” said Kalila. “It would seem to me that when your enemy shows his back to you, especially an enemy so evil and deserving of death as this one, you take your knife and plunge it straight into them, thanking them for the opportunity.”

“I apologize, Your Highness; I did not know you wished us to pursue the enemy and continue firing. I was afraid that doing so might provoke them and possibly cause them to reverse course and return to the battle. A battle that, quite frankly, Your Highness, we knew we were not going to win,” replied Fleet Admiral Zeller.

“Wait,” said Kalila. “You’re saying that you would have had to pursue the enemy to continue to fire upon them?”

“Yes, Your Highness. The devastators, the battlecruisers, the reinforcements that had been sent over, along with the main enemy formation itself, all of it was out of weapons range by that point. I suppose we could have fired off our beam weapons still, for a while, but most of us have all power diverted from those weapons and poured into our shields. It would have taken time to prep them to fire.”

“I see,” said Kalila, now understanding, and actually agreeing with the Admiral’s tactic. “If they were gone out of weapons’ range, then I do not hold you accountable for ordering your ceasefire and leaving your forces to hold position where they are.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” replied Fleet Admiral Zeller.

“If you ask me, that man deserves a promotion,” said Fleet Admiral Lawson, momentarily distracting Kalila.

“There is no higher promotion I can give him,” replied Kalila.

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve one,” said Fleet Admiral Lawson.

“Your Highness,” exclaimed Fleet Admiral Zeller, his voice full of revelry as it came over the War Room’s speakers, “They are leaving. Really and truly. I don’t know why; I honestly have no idea. And for all I know, they will return. But, for now, they are going. Jumping away into alteredspace…I can’t believe it.”

Neither could Kalila when she heard him say those words but, as she looked back down at the tactical display, there did seem to be significantly fewer red lights. And, as she continued to watch it, more and more of them disappeared, quite rapidly, and the mass of them continued to do so.

Can you confirm that they are jumping away from Capital System?” asked Kalila.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Fleet Admiral Zeller. “They are most definitely jumping out of the system and going into alteredspace.”

“Can you trace their alteredspace jump signatures and project what their destination is?” asked Kalila, knowing full well the technology to do so existed, but uncertain whether or not her subjects had done it yet.

“Yes, Your Highness, that was the first thing we did once they began to jump, and the initial results have just come back. Naturally, we will do a more thorough investigation into the jump signatures to confirm our initial findings, but that will take time.”

“And?” asked Kalila, masking her impatience. “What did you discover?” She knew that the answer to this question would imply much.

If the Dread Fleet was jumping a short distance away, they were likely to attack again, and soon. If they were jumping to another human system, that meant their campaign of slaughter on a planetary scale was probably still ongoing. And those humans would be in danger, not to mention entirely defenseless.

If the Dread Fleet was jumping toward a Rotham system, however, then that planet too was a likely candidate for imminent destruction and was in peril. Worst of all, should that prove the case, she had no doubt her new Rotham “allies” would expect her to dispatch the remains of her forces to help defend the Rotham Republic, just as they had helped to defend the Empire.

It only seemed fair, on the surface of it. Though Kalila understood the Rotham and their games, and their cunning, and their plots and ploys well enough by now to know that nothing involving the Rotham, no deals, no treaties, not even wars, were ever exactly as they appeared on the surface. So there really was no concept of “fair” when dealing with them. Mostly because when one interacts with a Rotham, in any way, one cannot really know that one is getting what he expects he is getting. And, most probably, he isn’t. Not to mention the fact that Kalila was not only loath to aid and abet the Rotham in any way, she was also loath to send her ships into battle against the Dread Fleet again so soon.

She was especially averse to asking her subjects to bleed and die for the Rotham, who, she had known from the beginning, since even before the treachery they had revealed during the Great War, that, aside from the pure embodiment of evil that was the Dread Fleet, it was actually the Rotham who were the real threat. The Polarians, for the most part, kept to themselves, honored their bargains and treaties with a kind of religious reverence, and most were simple enough creatures; they did not have it within their DNA to be cunning, under-handed, and double-dealing. The Rotham, however, were the exact opposite in that respect. And Kalila sometimes wondered if the Rotham had it within their DNA to be single-dealing, over-handed, and sincere. In her experience, the answer was no.

And, she had no doubt, the strange arrival of the Rotham fleet here in Capital System, coupled with the even stranger choice by the Rotham to help defend the system against the Dread Fleet, whatever had governed that decision, she was certain that it was part of some kind of design. No doubt the Rotham intended to gain something for it and, for all she knew, perhaps, some way, somehow, they already had. So if the answer came back that the Dread Fleet was headed into Rotham space, although it would seem to be an uncaring and unfair thing, Kalila had made up her mind she would refuse to send her forces to assist them.

Fortunately, the answer that came through over the War Rooms speakers was the best one she could possibly have hoped for.

“They appear to have set course for deep inside Polarian space,” said Fleet Admiral Zeller. Only then did Kalila allow herself to take a deep breath and feel a measure of relief.

They are going. They are really and truly going
, she thought. Hopefully, their departure was for good, and they would never be seen nor heard from again. Or, if they were, that it would not be for decades or centuries to come.
We live
, she thought, taking another deep breath and feeling some soreness in her back where she’d unknowingly clenched her muscles too tightly. But even with the back pain, she felt like a sailing ship, and nothing could take the wind from her sails, not now. Not in this glorious moment.
We live
, she repeated in her mind, relishing each word.
We live to see another day
.

Fleet Admiral Zeller’s voice came over the War Room speakers again. Kalila had almost forgotten that their conversation had never technically ended, because she had not dismissed him. “Whatever they came here to do…I guess they’ve done it. Or else they’ve changed their mind about wanting to slaughter us, for the time being at least.”

Kalila pursed her lips as she considered that. It didn’t make sense. Why send the Dread Fleet all this way, utterly devastating system after system as it went, until finally arriving here, at Capital System, where they engaged a large defensive fleet—albeit comparatively small by their standards—proceed to defeat and destroy the majority of the defense fleet, and then, after achieving a total victory and deploying devastators with a clear path toward the planet, and practically nothing left to stop them, suddenly recall their ships, about face, and flee the system. All in such a seeming hurry to boot. It made no sense to Kalila, and again the whole thing felt too good to be true.

Unless
, she thought,
perhaps they didn’t have a change of mind so much as a change of orders, perhaps even a change of command…

She knew that Calvin and his comrades, whom she’d assumed long dead by now, had chosen to venture into Polarian Forbidden Space, and she also knew that it was from there, or else the nether regions of unexplored space beyond there, that the Dread Fleet was rumored to have originated, and therefore, it seemed logical to conclude, was also likely controlled from. Whether the controlling agent was the High Prelain, the Council of Prelains, or some other as yet unidentified party, that person, or persons, or strange and inexplicable space being, might have been persuaded to recall the Dread Fleet, ordering it to abandon its attack immediately. Perhaps this persuasion had been done by force, though that seemed unlikely, unless the Polarians themselves had done it. Which would make sense, considering the Dread Fleet had scourged some Polarian worlds on its way into human space; such actions were bound to make enemies…or perhaps this change of mind had been brought about by diplomacy, though that seemed even less likely. Whatever the case, and however it had happened, although it seemed to defy every probability, Kalila could not shake her hunch that somehow Calvin and his allies, the bold souls of the
Nighthawk
, had had something to do with it. She hoped that was true. She hoped that Calvin and his companions would swiftly return and regale her with the story of how they had, single-handedly, managed to arrange for the complete withdrawal of the Dread Fleet.

Naturally, that hope was predicated upon many unlikely assumptions, including that Calvin and his companions remained alive, that some action they had done had in fact contributed to the Dread Fleet’s withdrawal, and finally that Calvin and his companions, after somehow achieving such an objective, would manage to survive the return trip back to the Empire. None of these were foregone conclusions. In fact, each and every one of them, on its face, seemed like total lunacy. And yet, Kalila halfway suspected that that was exactly what had happened.
If so, Calvin
, she thought,
Bravo. You are not the mere chess piece I had believed you to be. You are a player of the game, not another’s pawn. Not even my own.

Of course, if all of that were true, that meant she would need to keep a shrewd eye on Calvin, and take nothing for granted. Another player, unlike a mere chess piece, as she’d formerly believed him to be, also brought with him the possibility that one day, should the circumstances prove just right, he could become a credible threat. Should they ever have to match wits and take opposing sides, player against player, it was always true that one player must prevail over the other. That was where true life diverged from chess.

In chess, there always existed the possibility of a draw, or a careless stalemate; but in reality, there could only be one winner when two players engage each other. She did not foresee any future date when that might occur, that Calvin would be a direct challenge to her, but, should her assumptions about his actions in Polarian Forbidden Space prove true, and should he manage to return to the Empire intact, then she would have to keep a very close eye on him. At this point, he probably did not know he was a player, not any more than he had understood that he was a piece, when she had used him, but things change. Kalila knew that better than anyone. And so she would be cautious, yet interested, to see whether Calvin developed into a dangerous adversary or a powerful ally.

I hope you survived
, she thought,
and I hope that was in fact your work that did all of this. If only to have my curiosity sated and that question answered. Friend or foe, Calvin Cross? Loyal subject to Queen and Crown, or dangerous malcontent?

CHAPTER 21

The Hunter ship managed to leave the Forbidden System without
Custos
taking any interest in it whatsoever. By the time they were in alteredspace, Calvin’s uneasiness had begun to fade.
Finally, we’re heading the right direction
, he thought.
Just one quick stop at Aleator and then it’s back home. Assuming the Dread Fleet hasn’t destroyed it
…The ship had also proven intuitive to fly, despite all the text being Rotham.