The Phoenix Rising (28 page)

“
What are you doing?” asked
Pellew.

Calvin cut the man’s bonds then put the
knife away. “We mean you no harm, I promise,” said Calvin. “And
we’re not slavers,” he gave the man the most reassuring smile that
he could. “We just need to get down to the cantons for a bit. You
understand, right?”

The captive nodded.

“
Is this really necessary?”
snarled Tristan.

Calvin looked up at him.
“Yes. It
is
necessary. Look at him, the poor man’s scared to death. What
did you do to him?” Calvin looked at Pellew. “Where’s his
crew?”

“
Oh they’re gone,” said
Pellew, folding his arms. “And if we didn’t need him, he’d be gone
too.”

Calvin stood up, a dark feeling washed over
him. “What do you mean?”

“
That
bastard
flushed them out the airlock,”
said the captive in a hoarse, grief-stricken voice.

“
There wasn’t time to do
anything else,” said Pellew.

“
What?
” Calvin felt rage and horror pour through him. He walked up
to Pellew, shaking his head in disbelief. “You didn’t...” He could
understand the necessity of killing enemy combatants, his own hands
were stained with their blood. But not this. These were innocent
civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time...

“
It had to be done,” said
Pellew.

Calvin was only inches away from him now.
And, as he imagined the cruelty his own people had inflicted only
minutes ago, he lost control. He took a swipe at Pellew, who caught
the blow. Calvin threw his other hand into the mix and a short
melee broke out. Calvin’s elbow caught Pellew in the nose—causing
it to bleed, but the disciplined soldier, who was the better
trained fighter, managed to restrain Calvin.

“
Think about it!” said
Pellew. “There wasn’t time to move them onto the Nighthawk. If we’d
tried, the Nighthawk would have been lost and everyone inside it
would be dead.”

“
We could have hidden the
captives on this ship,” said Calvin.

“
No we couldn’t,” said
Pellew. “Don’t you know they’ll search our ship once we land?
There’s nowhere we could put them where they’d be hidden. This
isn’t the Nighthawk with loads of secret compartments. It’s just a
basic freighter.”

Calvin knew that was true. The ship would
probably be turned upside when they docked—if they were ever
cleared to dock—and any captives would be discovered. Still...
Calvin couldn’t get past the sickness of what they’d just done. Did
the ends really justify the means? Was it so urgent that they reach
Tybur that others had to be killed to pay the price? He felt weak
and his muscles slackened. Pellew released him and firmly pushed
him away.

Calvin stumbled a little, but stayed on his
feet. He wasn’t sure what to say and ended up just shaking his
head.

“
He’s right, you know,” said
Tristan. “There was no other way.”

Calvin couldn’t believe that. Even if it was
true. He couldn’t accept it. If he did… if he could sacrifice
innocent lives so callously and easily for some kind of greater
good that he got to decide, he would have lost a precious part of
his humanity.

“
In any case, it’s done
now,” said Pellew. “No changing that. Now can we proceed with the
mission?”

Calvin nodded. All he could do now was try
to make the sacrifice of the civilians as meaningful as possible.
There was no point in scrubbing the mission now. At least Calvin’s
unexpected display of compassion had seemed to have a positive
effect on their last surviving captive. The ship’s captain had
calmed down and seemed to trust Calvin.

“
We won’t hurt you,” said
Calvin. “
I
won’t
let them hurt you. Just, please
help us.”

The captive nodded.

A beep indicated an incoming message. Pellew
walked over to the control and accepted it. Like most ship-to-ship
communications in the Alliance, it was audio only.

“
Freighter AT-101, you are
cleared to approach Primary Station, docking bay four.”

“
Understood,” replied
Pellew. Then he looked at Calvin. “Are we good?”

“
No,” said Calvin, still
overwhelmingly appalled by what had happened. “But we’ll have to
be.”

***

When they docked, they were instructed to
proceed to a customs checkpoint. With weapons concealed, Calvin,
Pellew, Tristan, and three similarly disguised special forces
officers walked alongside their captive. Ready for anything.

At the checkpoint they were notified that
the freighter would be searched and its computer logs would be
downloaded. Calvin was hopeful that nothing suspicious would be
found.

Tybur was an information-controlled state
with a severe totalitarian regime. The government officials, and
its military, had seemingly limitless authority, and citizens of
the Alliance had learned that that was normal. They believed that
their homes were constantly threatened, and exaggerated rumors of
impending aggressiveness against the Alliance by the Empire, the
Rotham Republic, and pirate raiders kept the populace in a
heightened state of panic. Calvin had read reports from Intel Wing
personnel who had infiltrated Tybur; it amazed him how skewed the
public narrative was here.

Of course the greatest irony of all was that
the Alliance had originally refused to join the Empire, back when
the independent human colonies were falling prey to stronger
civilizations, because they feared that the executive leadership
that came with the Empire was too extreme. Too much consolidation
of power. Now, though, a hundred years later, the Alliance was
ruled by “The President” who was effectively a dictator for life,
and any sense of representative government had long ago
disappeared. Tyburian history books didn’t even acknowledge it had
ever existed. And, just like the rest of humanity had learned when
it formed the Empire, Tybur learned it was impossible to survive in
this dangerous galaxy without strong executive leadership of some
kind—for better or worse.

“
Checks out. You may proceed
to the shuttlebay,” said one of the military police. He directed
Calvin away from the desk and down the long corridor.

Because Calvin and his men had been
identified as the merchant’s armed guards, they’d been allowed to
carry their concealed weapons through security without raising
suspicion. They’d had to produce special permits for this, but the
Nighthawk’s quartermaster had been able to forge the appropriate
documentation. Allowing them to both appear as legitimate citizens
and possess firearms. There was a downside, however. The identities
they used were ones carefully designed by Intel Wing and placed
into the Alliance’s database for future missions. As a result, they
fooled the Alliance nicely, but the identities were no doubt
flagged by Intel Wing operatives, and it was possible—even
likely—that current Intel Wing agents on Tybur would notice these
names on their arrival manifest, and could then communicate to
Intel Wing that something suspicious was going on. Nimoux would no
doubt deduce that Calvin and the Nighthawk had come to Tybur. Which
meant time was of the essence!

Calvin met up with the others in the
shuttlebay where they paid for a two-way ticket down to the planet.
Here they parted ways with their captive. Pellew wanted to kill or
incapacitate him, depriving him of the chance to blow the whistle
on them, but Calvin decided to be more merciful. Believing that
fear would prove sufficient. He ordered the captive to remain on
the station, near the freighter, and wait for them. If he did not
comply, or if he betrayed Calvin, the captive was made to believe
that operatives were standing by to assassinate his family. A total
lie, of course, but one that Calvin made convincing. And the
captive seemed swayed. Pellew looked uncomfortable with this plan
but managed to hold his tongue.

Tristan said they could find the Key—which
apparently was necessary for contacting the Enclave—by going to the
Waeju Canton. So that was their destination. A shuttle went there
every fifteen minutes. They made sure to catch the next one.

Calvin wanted to ask Tristan several
questions about what to expect once they got there, what “the Key”
was specifically, and how Tristan knew so much about the Enclave.
But, because they were crammed into a public compartment with
dozens of other passengers, Calvin decided not to bring it up. His
group apparently thought the same thing, and they avoided chitchat
during the twenty-minute descent.

To pass the time, Calvin stared out the
window next to him and took in the view. Soon, dark opaque clouds
surrounded them, and he couldn’t see much of anything. It was
strangely foreboding, almost terrifying, being swallowed by the
poisonous clouds. And, as they moved through pockets of super dense
gas, Calvin thought of the Remorii awaiting them. The same sick
kind of creatures that had filled the Trinity with screams. Their
gaunt, blood-lusting faces haunted his memory. He wondered if the
fate that had taken Christine was all that awaited them on the
cantons of Tybur.

“
Could we be walking into a
trap?” Calvin leaned over and whispered to Tristan.

Tristan looked at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll
be safe. As long as you’re coming with us.”

“
What the hell does that
mean?” Calvin liked to think he was a decent shot with a pistol and
had enough street-wisdom to keep himself alive on a hostile Set.
But several of the others going with them, including Tristan
himself, were more useful in a tight spot than Calvin. So he could
hardly be expected to protect the others against the likes of type
two Remorii.

The shuttle jerked, blown sideways by some
powerful turbulence. Calvin felt a rush of adrenaline. Spending so
much time in space with functioning gravitational systems, he’d
forgotten what inertial forces could feel like during aggressive
flight maneuvers. It reminded him of the old days, when he’d
trained as a pilot.

“
Sorry about that folks,”
said the shuttle captain over the comm system. “Just some minor
turbulence. Everything is under control. We’ll be arriving at our
destination momentarily.”

The shuttle pitched back to port—presumably
back on course—and continued its descent.

Calvin looked back at Tristan, expecting an
answer to his question. But the lycan wasn’t forthcoming. And
instead struck up a conversation with one of the other passengers
about the local goings-on. Calvin looked back out the window and
allowed himself to be mesmerized by the swirling dark clouds. He
tried to imagine what life would be like had he grown up in this
strange civilization. He doubted he would have liked it, even if
ignorance was bliss.

***

Sadly, the Waeju Canton never became visible
out the window. Even in the patches of lighter gases that the
shuttle flew through, visibility was less than a kilometer before
being blocked by more dark clouds. He kept hoping to catch a
glimpse of the floating metal city, think it must be a truly
curious sight, but he never saw it. His first view of the canton
was from inside the shuttlebay.

Damn
.

As they followed the other passengers out,
the group was rapidly guided into another line where they went
through another security check. Fortunately their fake ID’s proved
as effective here as they had on the primary station, so they were
eventually allowed into the city proper.

“
Okay, follow me,” said
Tristan.

They did.

“
How do you know so much
about the Enclave? I thought your people hated them,” said Calvin.
“And how do you know so much about Tybur?” He could only guess at
how Tristan had managed to infiltrate Tybur’s security in the
past—and clearly he’d been here before.

“
Are you a religious man?”
asked Tristan, deflecting the question.

“
No,” said
Calvin.

“
Neither am I,” admitted
Tristan, “but I do follow the one great commandment.”

“
And what is that? Love thy
neighbor? Do unto others as you would want done unto
you?”

“
No, of course not,” said
Tristan. They silenced themselves as they walked past a group of
policemen on patrol. Once they were out of earshot Calvin resumed
his questioning.

“
Then what is
it?”

Tristan shot him a devious smile. “Know thy
enemy.”

The canton was a series of smaller and
smaller rings that eventually culminated in a circular center. The
rings were either rounded corridors or else they’d been split into
rooms which varied tremendously in size. The outermost rings seemed
to serve administrative and commercial functions, and the inner
rings housed the citizens. One of the rings was entirely devoted to
growing food in lush greenhouses that also aided the oxygen
scrubbers in providing breathable, lightweight air. At the very
center, according to Tristan, there was both a power reactor and an
artificial gravity system—so the citizens wouldn’t be subject to
the buffetings of the intense air currents that buoyed their canton
in the sky. Military presence and state police seemed distributed
throughout all levels of the canton. And, aside from the outermost
ring, there were no windows.

“
Where is this Key?” asked
Pellew.

“
And
what
is it?” added Calvin.