The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) (58 page)

Calvin deliberately saved Miles for last. Partly because the idea of visiting Miles’s graveside felt the hardest and most painful, but also because it seemed like it wouldn’t be real—or, at least, it wouldn’t have to feel real—so long as he delayed going to the graveside. By the time he finally mustered the courage and managed to do so, he found Summers already there. As he approached from behind, and before she realized that someone was coming, Calvin even heard Summers weeping.

“It’s okay, let it out,” said Calvin, practically startling Summers. “I miss him too.” He made an attempt at cracking a smile, but found he couldn’t manage it.

Summers shook her head. “It’s the freshly cut grass,” she said, making an excuse for her wet, reddened eyes. “My allergies…”

“I know, I know,” said Calvin, looking at her, then down at the coffin, then back to Summers, who now had her eyes shut tight.

“He was…such an
idiot
,” she said affectionately. She shook her head. “But God dammit…I still miss him.”

Summers made her peace and moved on, leaving Calvin alone. Calvin knelt and opened his mouth, as if to whisper his goodbyes to his friend of so many years, just as he had done with all the others. But, when he tried to speak, no words came out. He knelt there for what must have been five minutes, his mouth agape, poised as if ready to speak, but finding nothing right to say.

No
, he thought, closing his mouth and rising to his feet.
I’m not going to say goodbye. Because this isn’t goodbye. I refuse to say goodbye, you big lug.

And so Calvin merely whispered, “See you soon, old buddy,” then he turned, ready to leave. Only then did he notice a man standing there; he was an older man, with white hair, and he stood about a head shorter than Calvin.

Calvin moved to step aside, wondering what relation this man had to Miles. But, as Calvin stepped aside, the man spoke.

“You’re Calvin Cross, aren’t you?” he said. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I can tell.”

“Guilty as charged,” said Calvin, wiping the tears from his eyes. “How may I help you?”

“I understand that you and this man, this Miles Brown, were friends, yes?”

Calvin tried not to let the anguish he felt appear too obvious. “Yes,” he said. “You could say that.”

“And the two of you became acquainted while studying at Camdale, yes?” asked the man.

That took Calvin by surprise. “How did you know that?”

“Because I represent the school,” said the old man. “And, in doing my research, I discovered that the two of you studied there at the same time. It was just a guess but, I put two and two together—like they say.”

“Well, you did your math well,” said Calvin. “Miles and I did first become friends at Camdale.”

“We are going to be raising a statue of him,” said the old man. “Now what do you think of that? Nothing ostentatious, of course. But something life-sized. And we’re going to place it in Library Square.”

Library Square
, thought Calvin.
How ironic, the one place on campus where Miles spent the least amount of time
.

“I think it’s a very nice idea,” said Calvin.

“Oh, and you’d be there too, of course,” said the old man.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Calvin, feeling embarrassed. “I’m not sure I would make for a very good statue.”

“Are you sure?” asked the old man.

“I—” Calvin began to speak, still intent on refusing to have a statue of himself placed at Library Square but, the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea that, at least in one place in the universe, there would be a place where he and Miles would still be together. “You know what, I think it’s a great honor. Thank you, sir.”

This seemed to make the old man happy. They said their respectful goodbyes and Calvin wandered off. He got a good look at who remained at the cemetery, and the apparent absence of Kalila, along with the absence of most of the security force that had been there, seemed to confirm what he thought—she had left.

Calvin walked away from the funeral grounds and down the steps toward the street, away from the handlers, where he planned to make use of an automated car. As he waited and slowly approached one, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and was surprised to see Summers.

“Are you going where I think you’re going?” she asked.

Calvin nodded. “Now is the right time,” he said, checking his sidearm—making sure it was loaded and then re-holstering it. Thinking,
there is no time like the present
.

“Just…promise me two things,” said Summers.

“Okay,” said Calvin.

“First, promise me that you’ll be careful. I trust you, but don’t do anything rash.”

Calvin nodded. “Okay. And what else?”

“Be smart,” she gave him a worried look. “Like I said before. The stakes may be higher than you think. Just…promise me you’ll do the right thing.”

“Don’t worry,” said Calvin, feeling his hand instinctively curl around the handgrip of his sidearm. “I will.”

CHAPTER 24

Dusk was getting on, but it wasn’t yet night. That meant Kalila would not have gone to retire to her private chambers for the evening yet. Which, Calvin deduced, meant that she was still in the throne room of the Ancient Palace, a place she had taken quite a liking to, it was said.

Calvin was stopped by several guards as he approached the Ancient Palace, but as both the former Executor of the Empire, combined with his new status as a Hero of the Empire, he had little trouble getting past the guards by claiming that he and the queen had unfinished business. Which, for the most part, was true.

Eventually, Calvin found himself inside the Ancient Palace’s throne room, amidst the massive columns and sweeping tapestries; in the distance, was a grand throne. A feminine figure sat upon it, no doubt the queen herself, though he would not know until he had gotten closer. He advanced, fully confident, although he remained unsure what he was going to say or do. His trigger finger itched; the blood of Miles, and Rain, and all the others screamed inside him for justice. Calvin did not take it easily that he had been duped—
played
really—by this figure of royalty who now sat upon her throne, owed largely in part to Calvin himself, or one of the many friends of his who had died in the struggle to place her there.

More guards intercepted him, especially by the time he was within a few meters of the queen herself.

“I am Calvin Cross, former Executor of the Empire, and I have business with the queen,” he said, marshaling all of his confidence. “I command you to stand down.”

Kalila looked up at him, almost as though she had expected him to come.

“Stand down,” said Kalila, and the guards immediately withdrew.

“Now send them away,” said Calvin, “What we must discuss, we must discuss in private.”

Kalila paused before complying. She then waved her hand, “Do as he says,” she told the guard captain. “There is no need for guards here. Go away and don’t come back until I send someone for you.”

“As you say, Your Highness,” replied the guard captain, and he, along with the rest of Kalila’s personal bodyguards, left the throne room.

No doubt, if I kill her
, thought Calvin.
They will be near enough to hear, and I can expect them to kill me too. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is justice!

“Ah, Calvin, I expected you might come,” said the queen, not rising from her throne. “Our society owes a great debt to you, you know?”

“And
you
owe a great debt to our society,” he replied, no subtlety in his voice.

The queen did not respond for a moment. “Why, Calvin, whatever do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” said Calvin, trying to control his composure. “The so-called Dark Ones, deals to manufacture a crisis, deals to clear the path to the throne, deals for Rotham intelligence.”

The queen shifted her posture, looking at him differently now, more curiously, as if he were no longer her loyal subject, but rather some kind of specimen in a jar. “I know of no
Dark Ones
,” as you call them. “However, I believe you have discovered ENIGMA. And that is of which you speak. Yes?”

“Dark Ones, Skotadi, ENIGMA, whatever you called them, however you represented yourself to them, and they you, I know about the dark and secret pacts you made,” said Calvin, feeling his hand trace the handle of his handgun, tempted to draw it then and there. But he waited.

“I see,” said the queen. “So it is ENIGMA after all. I suppose that means you now see me as I am. No longer the idealist queen, but rather—”

“The master manipulator who purposefully provoked chaos inside our Imperial system,” said Calvin, filling in the words for her. “
You
, you’re no white queen. No, you’re as dark as anything I’ve seen out there trying to clean up your messes. Trying to save lives. Meanwhile, you’re playing goddess, treating people—treating lives—as playthings. As tools.”

“Well, that’s one way to see it, I suppose,” said the queen, sounding more intrigued than afraid. “But I do think you misjudge me, if you examine the big picture.”

“
Oh
, do I?” asked Calvin. “
Miles
?
Nimoux
?
Rain
? Millions of others…no,
billions
…If you’re not the saving grace of our people, then what the
hell
did they die for?”

“Noble deaths, and regrettable ones, of course. But they didn’t die for nothing, Calvin, they died as martyrs. It may be difficult to see now, especially through the haze of blood and darkness you’ve been forced to see as the universe, but the truth is—”

“The truth? That’s
rich
,” he laughed darkly. “
Do
tell me. Please. Spin another web, tell another lie. Paint a picture of things in a poetic way that, under each masterful brushstroke and stirring apologue, you vanish away the cold, hard fact that good people died. Innocent people died! And they died because of
you
. And the whole time they believed they were fighting for someone else. An ideal! A different you. A good you. Someone who could really put things back on course. Someone who could lead our Empire, justly and determinedly, someone who could save humanity and everything we’ve built.”

“I see,” said Kalila. “And you, you believe that I am
not
capable of doing those things? Of being that ideal?”

“Can a shadow cast a light?” asked Calvin rhetorically. “If you speak to me now, as though this is some kind of repenting appeal that in the future you’ll be better, I’m not buying it. I find the best predictor of someone’s future decisions is the ones they made in the past.”

“I don’t mean that. I’m the same person I always was, the person I always will be.”

“Exactly, which is why it’s time to give you what you deserve,” said Calvin, drawing his firearm at last. He slid back the slide, priming the weapon to fire, half determined to exact revenge for Miles and everyone else, and half in disbelief that he was even considering it. “I’m not going to work for the bad guys any longer,” said Calvin. “No matter how beautiful and beguiling they are.”

Strangely, Kalila did not so much as shift in her chair in response to this. Nor did she call for any guards, or attempt to shield herself, as Calvin raised his handgun and pointed it at her. It was as though she accepted her fate, that she deserved what was coming, or else she believed him incapable of performing the deed.
Well, so had her henchman Nikolai
…

“And just who, exactly, may I ask, are the good guys?” asked the queen, momentarily catching Calvin off-guard. He didn’t reply immediately, and so Kalila continued.

“Caerwyn Martel? Zane?” She looked at him candidly.

“I—” said Calvin, feeling momentarily trapped.

“The former sacrificed his own
father
,” said Kalila, “Along with
billions
of souls, refusing to defend them against a Rotham fleet, in order to better his chances at obtaining the throne. A fleet that I, against all my best interest, chose to stand against, if you recall correctly. As for the latter, Zane Martel, he created a violent cult that meant to take subtle, yet violent control of the Assembly and seize all powers like a despot.”

“And you, your plan was much different?” asked Calvin. “It seemed plenty bloody to me.”

Kalila’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t order others to their deaths for my own personal glory or hope to gain. I led from the front, always putting my life on the line, and always doing everything in my power to save Imperial lives. I chose to stand against the Rotham at Thetican System, to defend the billions of lives there, even though it meant—to anyone thinking at the time—that I would very probably die there. And if I survived, my forces would be greatly reduced, leaving me vulnerable to any future engagements with Caerwyn’s fleets. I was risking the throne I so wanted in order to protect the very lives Caerwyn refused to defend.”

“Yet, your so-called self-sacrificing decision made you a national hero, and made Caerwyn appear a coward; you won the love of the Empire that day. And at smaller risk, I might add, than you’re claiming.”

“True, I won some support and he lost some, and the
Black Swan
was a difficult ship for the enemy to attack, but my life was on the line there, notwithstanding. A choice I made, because it was the right thing for the Empire, for my people, and I was willing to sacrifice everything—my own life, the throne, whatever it cost—to save those lives and repel the invasion. And it left me outnumbered by Caerwyn’s forces two to one.”

“Yet the system was lost anyway…”

“Call me what you will, Calvin Cross; call me a pretender, a fraud, a puppet-master, whatever words may come to you, but
never
say, nor even think, not for an instant, that I was behind the terrible tragedy that happened at Thetican System! That was the design of ENIGMA and you know it! They played me! They played us all! And when that weapon deployed, nobody saw it coming. Every day since I have wished desperately that I had known, and that I could have stopped it—or, at least, tried everything possible to do so!”

She seemed almost sincere as she spoke. So much so that Calvin was unsure whether to believe her or not, finding himself nearly persuaded. But then he reminded himself that this was her gift, to fool, to use charisma as a tool, a weapon, an instrument of control. He must not allow himself to be taken in so easily!

“I believe you never meant for the system to be lost as it was,” admitted Calvin. “But you still got in bed with the very worst, darkest elements in the galaxy, and activated a plan, which led eventually, ultimately, to that catastrophe and many others. Including the deaths of the king and your siblings. Do you not see the crime in that?”

Tears formed in her outraged eyes. “I
never
intended for them to die. I never wanted it. I even did everything I knew to ensure their safe protection and relocation. Yes, I meant for them to disappear for a time, so that I could lead the Empire in the way it needed to go—show the courage and make the decisions that needed making—the ones my dear family proved incapable of. But I was duped! Instead of whisking them off to luxurious, temporary confinement, meant to cater to their every lavish whim,
no
, instead my so-called allies betrayed me, and slaughtered them!” Her face was beet red as she spoke, and her eyes showed intensity like he had never before seen.

“Why should I believe you?” asked Calvin. “It did prove convenient, did it not?”

“I
never
wanted that to happen. Never. Not for an instant! And when I learned about their fates, I was as shocked as anyone, and far more saddened than anyone else could have been.” Tears shown in her eyes then, yet her voice did not crack nor waver. “So terrible was my pain—a pain I live with every day!—that I nearly chose to take my own life in shame rather than continue the efforts I had put into motion.”

“Yet, you didn’t,” Calvin challenged her, waving his handgun. “You didn’t accept any blame, or show any of that remorse; instead, you acted the opportunist that you are, and chose to seek power—just as you’d planned all along. And to let others die helping you take it. Even though you knew you didn’t deserve it. Am I wrong?”

This gave the queen a moment’s pause before she responded. “I did choose to continue the plan, as best as I could salvage it. At that time, I still had the most information and greatest amount of influence; no one else could have risen to the challenge and given hope to our crumbling, betrayed Empire. My suicide would have been selfish and ultimately have meant that I’d given up on humanity, that I no longer had any sympathy for our future plight. No, instead I picked up the now-unwanted burden of command and made every decision, twisted every arm, played every card, leveraged every ally at my disposal, and did everything else a monarch would do—nay,
must
do—to defend her Empire.”

“Yet, you knew you didn’t deserve command. You don’t even deny your unworthiness now.”

“I love your mind, Calvin, for it is as innocent and naïve as it is cunning and deductive. Almost a contradiction. And yet it defines you as the wonderfully dependent person you are.”

Calvin was unsure what she meant by that. “If you think flattery will save you, you’re wrong.”

“I don’t intend any flattery. Rather I mean to inform you. You see, the truth is: no king nor queen, nor High Prelain, nor governor, nor knight, nor any person of any significant power deserves that power. Those with the charity, honesty, and idealism to actually deserve their thrones, they never get them. And those who are born to them, yet possess all these great traits that should make a good ruler, they cannot hold onto their thrones for long.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Calvin, wondering if now she meant to confuse him long enough for her guards to come check on her.

“I’m telling you the truth of command,” said Kalila. “The truth of government! The higher you rise, the more of your integrity—your innocence, or idealism—you must have sacrificed away. You have to look for enemies in every shadow, for plots and conspiracies, you have to take prophylactic action to eliminate competition before it can become a threat.”