The Phoenix Rising (12 page)

Today was the day, he decided. He would stop
being inadequate—Calvin and the others needed him, and he needed
purpose.

The elevator came to a halt and the door
slid open. Shen stepped out onto the bridge and took in the view
like a breath of fresh air. He was home. It was still White Shift
and both Miles and Sarah were at their posts. She was the first to
notice him.

“
Shen!” she said excitedly.
His eyes took her in, so much wonderful loveliness and beauty. She
radiated positivity and optimism. He felt his innards melt ever so
slightly looking at her. It had been days since he’d last seen her,
but it felt like years.

“
Hey, welcome back, buddy,”
said Miles with a grin. The large man behind the defense post was
as much a friend to Shen as anyone else on the ship, even if Shen
didn’t think he was very bright. The only one missing was Calvin,
the man Shen trusted and respected above all others.

“
I’m glad to see you’re up
and about, Mister Iwate,” said Summers from the command position.
“But are you sure you should be here?” She looked directly at the
dressings wrapped around his wound. His uniform had been cropped
back, making it sleeveless on one side, to allow him to change
dressings easily.

“
I’m fine, Summers,” he
said.

“
Commander,” she corrected
him.

Same old
Summers
.

He walked up to the ops officer and relieved
him. Shen had never seen him before and assumed he was one of the
newcomers from Gemini. “You’re dismissed.”

The man, who was probably
double Shen’s age, looked back at Summers for approval. Shen rolled
his eyes. This was
his
shift and he outranked the newcomer, end of story.

“
It’s alright you may go,
I’ll transfer you to a different shift,” said Summers.

“
Yes, sir,” the man replied
with a crisp salute. He left the bridge. Shen tried not to judge
him too harshly; he was a stranger simply doing his job, but for
some reason Shen got a really negative vibe from him. Maybe it was
a subconscious thing, perhaps seeing him in the ops position made
him seem like a squatter.

Shen looked over his controls, not surprised
to see that they’d been rearranged in a sub-optimal way. He’d have
to undo any of the damage the other man had done. No doubt he was
technically proficient, but he simply wasn’t as good at this job as
Shen. No one was.

“
How are you feeling?” asked
Sarah.

Shen spun his chair around to face the helm.
Every time he saw her, it was like a tiny jolt of electricity. “Not
bad, actually,” he said.

“
That’s good,” she smiled at
him. “It just wasn’t the same without having you on the
bridge.”

He smiled back. Before he
could say anything more, Miles cut in. “Yeah, yeah, it’s great
having you back. Glad you’re feeling better, and all that.
Anyway
, you never answered
my original question, Sarah.”

“
I’m sorry, what was it?”
she asked.

Miles and Sarah launched into another of
their common ongoing arguments, this time about the new food
supplies they’d brought aboard from Gemini—apparently the food
wasn’t to Miles’ liking. Almost always these pointless
conversations were initiated by Miles who took a special pleasure
in dragging Sarah down to his level of nonsense. Shen tuned them
out and worked on rearranging his computer displays to the more
efficient pattern he was used to.

The door to the CO’s office slid open. Shen
looked up, hoping to see Calvin.

Instead it was Tristan who exited the
office. He wore a naval uniform and looked completely human. His
eyes met Shen’s and the Remorii nodded slightly as he walked away.
Shen kept watching him until he’d shuffled into the elevator and
disappeared. It made Shen profoundly uncomfortable knowing that
Tristan was on the ship, and wandering freely. And he could only
guess why the lycan had been given access to the CO’s office. Shen
had heard rumors of what Tristan’s kind were capable of and he
couldn’t help but imagine the nightmarish transition from man to
Remorii, if Tristan attacked him.

“
You okay, Shen?” asked
Sarah.

“
Yeah,” he said. “What was
the werewolf doing in the CO’s office?”

“
Probably using the computer
in there,” guessed Miles. “Calvin gave him access to
it.”

“
What?
He has access to the Nighthawk’s computer?”

“
Very limited access,” said
Miles. “He can do some basic research using the public networks and
I think he’s in contact with Raidan. But he can’t get to any
privileged information on the ship or do anything that would affect
system operations.”

Because Shen had not been the one to setup
this limited-purpose user account which Tristan had been given, his
first instinct was to panic and assume it had been done
incorrectly. However, once he calmed down, he knew that was
unlikely.

But he still didn’t like the idea. “Why
would he need to be able to do any kind of research?”

“
Because he’s giving us our
ultimate course and heading,” replied Miles, sounding as nonchalant
as he could. Shen knew better. Miles was like a puffer fish, always
overcompensating, which made him easy to read. His posture was
exaggerated, he pumped excessive confidence into his voice, and he
hid behind a forced smile... the man was terrified. Shen didn’t
blame him.

“
Why is the werewolf giving
us our course and heading?”

“
Calvin’s orders,” said
Sarah.

“
Yeah, but why?”

“
I don’t know,” she
said.

“
And where are we
going?”

“
Into the DMZ. Calvin
wouldn’t say where exactly.”

“
Alright, cut the chatter,”
said Summers.

Shen was surprised Summers had let the chit
chat go on this long. He hadn’t the faintest idea why they were
going into the DMZ—and trusting Tristan to guide the ship. And he
was even more confused why Calvin had decided to leave Miles and
Sarah in the dark; they were some of his closest friends. But Shen
had to assume Calvin had his reasons.

After a few minutes of silence, Miles
resumed his complaining about the food. Summers told him to zip it.
And Shen looked at Sarah. Their eyes met. She smiled, as if sharing
a joke with him. Probably thinking that some things never change.
But as he smiled back, he did so for a different reason.

He’d spent a lot of time
laid up in recovery, resting and thinking. Soul-searching.
Contemplating. And eventually he’d come to the conclusion that it
was time to steel himself and admit his feelings to Sarah. She was
everything wonderful. And time spent with her was his favorite part
of life.
Yes
, he
thought as his eyes soaked in her thick brown hair and sweet honest
smile—he
had
to
tell her. No matter how she reacted. No matter what it cost him. He
couldn’t go on without making his feelings known.

It was just a matter of how to tell her, and
when. He didn’t want to rush into it.

***

Calvin eventually did get around to meeting
all the Polarians. He’d postponed doing it. He’d avoided it.
Polarians had always made him feel somewhat intimidated and
uncomfortable. But he eventually went to them. They were not set up
in the barracks with the human soldiers on the ship, instead a few
crew quarters on the lower decks had been converted for their use.
They slept as many as five to a room.

“
We have enough extra
quarters to house you two to a room,” Calvin had told their second
in command, a young Polarian who was also Rez’nac’s son.

“
No, human, it is not our
way to be so alone. We are brothers in all things.”

Calvin didn’t quite understand the response,
but wasn’t going to force better housing arrangements upon them. If
they preferred to live like sardines, somehow finding a kind of
superior unity in closeness, so be it.

As he introduced himself to them one by one,
the Polarians reacted to him differently. The handful of older
Polarians, like Rez’nac, treated him as though his presence among
them was a kind of sacred honor. The younger Polarians, who were
curiously more deeply blue in color and showed no signs of fading
or grey in their skin, were almost dismissive of him. He was just a
human to them. An imperial. And probably most damning of all, not
part of their religion. He could see it in their eyes; they felt
they owed him nothing, not even respect, and only would cooperate
with him because it was the will of their leader, Rez’nac, to whom
they all belonged. Calvin didn’t understand many of the social
mechanics of the Polarian way of life, but these men, who seemed
fierce and battle-hardened, felt more like honored slave warriors
than voluntary paid soldiers. It was very different from Imperial
culture.

After meeting them, Calvin returned to his
duties. He met with fellow human officers, and spent the next
thirty-six hours sleeping, researching, contemplating, and getting
the various opinions of Tristan, Alex, Summers, and Pellew
regarding their mission. Mostly to validate to himself that he was
doing the right thing going after the Arcane Storm and the isotome
weapons, and not letting Raidan and the Organization manipulate him
into chasing a red herring. Perhaps to divert his attention away
from the ongoing situation on Renora—which was getting bloodier by
the day.

He wanted to race over there and begin his
own investigation, especially to decide whether or not Kalila had
been involved, but he knew that—should the isotome weapons exist—an
uprising on a single planet was nothing compared to the destruction
of an entire star system. That had to remain his top priority, at
least until the issue was conclusively settled.

Calvin noticed Shen back on active duty near
the end of White Shift. It was great to see his friend but Calvin
wasn’t sure the man was ready. Ideally, Shen could use more rest
and recovery time. But with their stretched manpower, requiring
more and more injured personnel in every department to return to
active duty, it was a regrettable truth that they needed Shen back
at his post.

Once Calvin reached his quarters, intending
to retire for some much needed sleep, he received a message from
Rez’nac asking him to attend the first Polarian religious service
right away. Calvin wasn’t interested in doing anything but sleep so
he politely asked Rez’nac to delay.

“
I will honor your wishes,
for this ship is yours and we are but guests in this house. But the
Pon’yor should not be delayed too long.” Calvin was surprised at
the urgency in Rez’nac’s voice.

“
The Pon’yor?”

“
It means The Offering. We
must pledge our loyalty to the ancestors so we may have safe
passage through space. We cannot rest until it is performed.
Otherwise we risk being lost in the cosmos forever.”

Of course
… Rez’nac went on to explain more about the ritual, and made
it clear to Calvin that the Polarians would be very uncomfortable
until it was completed. He wondered if this would have been an
issue had he not volunteered the use of the observation deck for
their religious practices.

“
Alright, alright,” said
Calvin, cutting Rez’nac off after a while. “Let’s do it
now.”

“
Thank you, you are a wise
master.”

***

When Calvin entered the observation deck, he
felt very out of place. The Polarians had already arrived and
assembled into a circular pattern encompassing most of the room. In
the middle of the ring stood both Rez’nac and his son, the two
highest ranking Polarians on the ship. Rez’nac stood in the exact
center and his son a meter away.

“
Welcome, Captain,” said
Rez’nac. “This is the Urikh-jang.”

Calvin nodded. He had no idea what that
meant. He went to the nearest corner and stood out of their way,
arms folded.

“
What is he doing here?”
asked Rez’nac’s son.

Before the older Polarian could reply, the
door whisked open again and Rain entered. Calvin barely knew her,
but he was so glad to see her. Another confused human face was a
welcome sight. She took in the scene very briefly, clearly not
understanding the significance of the standing arrangements either,
then wandered over next to Calvin.

“
There are now two rakh
here!” said Rez’nac’s son.

“
They are not rakh!” replied
Rez’nac. “They are my invited guests. Watch your tongue,
Grimka.”

“
Humans have no place here,”
Grimka fired back. Calvin noted that the young Polarian’s defiance
of his own father, and master of their unit, seemed to provoke
disdain and discomfort in the older Polarians but, curiously, the
younger ones seemed to sympathize with Grimka. At least that was
the vibe Calvin got. It was difficult to be sure.

“
We can leave if we’re
causing a problem,” said Rain.

“
You are welcome among us,
female healer,” assured Rez’nac.

“
She is the healer? The one
who would violate our blood with her unsanctified human arts?”
asked Grimka.

Rez’nac had clearly had
enough of his son’s defiance. “
Silence
! I am your master. I am of the
essence of Khalahar! Unless you would challenge Khalahar you will
not speak again until I permit you!”