The Phoenix Rising (34 page)

“
Aren’t you going to finish
your dinner?” asked Sarah.

Shen shook his head, and continued clearing
away his mess. “I’d better go, I... it’s... I’ve got to be on shift
soon.”

Sarah nodded. She pushed her food away and
stood up. “Well then, I’ll go so you can change into uniform and
get ready.”

“
You don’t have
to—”

“
I’d better get going
myself,” said Sarah. “Thank you very much for the lovely dinner.”
She gave him a smile, which he did not return. He looked so
embarrassed, it crushed her. She reached out and gave him a
thank-you hug, and his arms curled around her, holding her much
tighter than she’d expected. She gave him a few seconds and then
pulled out of his grasp.

“
See you in fifteen minutes
or so, then,” she said.

He nodded once, avoiding her gaze. She left.
A little disturbed by the whole experience. Wondering how she could
give Shen back his pride without pretending to have feelings she
simply did not have.

***

“
Detach from the freighter
and move the ship to a safe distance,” said Calvin the moment he
stepped back onto the bridge. The leftover anxiety from his
experiences on Tybur was still with him, but now that he was home
he felt much better. “As soon as you can, Sarah, set course for
Remus Nine and initiate a jump. Eighty percent potential. Let’s get
the hell out of here.”

“
Yes, sir,” she said and set
to task.

Calvin walked past Summers and took his seat
at the command position. Letting out a deep sigh.

“
What happened to you?”
asked Summers, clearly referring to his dirtied and torn civilian
clothing. He wanted to get the ship underway before changing
clothes.

“
Don’t ask,” said
Calvin.

Summers looked annoyed.

“
I’ll tell you later,” he
added, to avoid angering her. He knew she didn’t want to have
information kept from her, and he didn’t blame her. But he also
didn’t want to discuss it right now. He was still rattled by the
violent incident with the Khans, and the loss of a crew member, but
mostly he didn’t want to launch into a conversation that would
ultimately lead to questions about his father.

Calvin’s luck had come through for him when
he’d needed it. He and the rest of the surviving shore party had
been able to get through customs without any problems. They’d left
the canton and shuttled to the station where they reclaimed their
stolen freighter. There had been a brief unnerving moment as they
waited for clearance—and it seemed to be taking unnecessarily long;
Calvin and the others had thought maybe they would be detained. But
things worked out and they were eventually cleared. Security proved
more lax for those leaving Tybur than entering. And the dead Khans
probably hadn’t been discovered yet.

The freighter’s captain had proved more than
cooperative—fearing for his family’s lives. He allowed them back on
his ship, which he’d kept prepped and ready to depart, and then he
piloted them back out into open space where the Nighthawk performed
another discrete docking maneuver. As a reward for his cooperation,
Calvin allowed the man to go in peace. Surprisingly, Pellew did not
object. He’d seemed distracted by the loss of one of his men and
more interested in getting away from Tybur than anything else.
Calvin didn’t blame him.

“
Why are we going to Remus
Nine?” asked Miles. “Isn’t that—”

“
The birthplace of the
Remorii?” said Calvin. “Yes, it is.”

“
Oh, I do
not
want to go
there
!”

“
Unfortunately, we don’t
have a choice.”

“
What did you find out?”
asked Alex. He’d arrived on the bridge, no doubt, to glean whatever
intelligence he could. Summers had objected to his unauthorized
presence but Calvin allowed the Rotham to stay. Some of this
information would be important for him to hear.

“
You’re not going to like
it,” said Calvin.

“
Tell me anyway.”

“
The isotome weapons are on
the planet’s surface awaiting sale to...
the Rotham Republic
.”

Alex hissed. “I don’t believe it.”

“
It might not be a
government representative, but it is a Rotham agent that is
supposed to arrive on the planet’s surface and finish the
negotiations. We are going to get there first and you—if you’re up
for it—are going to pose as the buyer.” Calvin looked at Alex—he
seemed in every way the typical Rotham. Hopefully the seller wasn’t
expecting a specific individual.

“
And when we find out where
the weapons are from him, we will destroy them?” asked
Alex.

“
Yes. They have to be
eliminated.”

“
Very well, I will do
it.”

Calvin was glad to hear it. He hoped that
Alex’s Advent training had prepared him for such a mission,
especially in the face of so many unknowns.

“
What about the mine field?”
asked Miles. “The whole planet is surrounded by semi-cloaked
mines.”

“
That’s a good question,”
said Calvin. “Shen?”

Shen didn’t say anything. He kept his back
to Calvin and stared down at his console unmoving. He wasn’t the
most animated of people, but this level of unresponsiveness seemed
unusual. Calvin worried that maybe he’d worked Shen too hard,
especially since the man was still recovering from burn
injuries.

“
Shen,” said Calvin, “you
asleep over there?”

Shen turned his chair and faced Calvin. He
had a broken expression on his face. “I’m sorry Calvin, I just—I
guess I wasn’t really listening.”

“
Wasn’t
listening?
” asked Summers, bearing down on
him. “Unacceptable,
Lieutenant
.”

“
It’s alright,” said Calvin,
swiftly intervening. “I’m sure Shen won’t let it happen again. Now,
what I need to know is if the Nighthawk can detect the kind of
mines that are distributed throughout Remus Nine? Or will our
approach risk setting them off?”

“
What kind of
mines?”

Calvin looked at Miles. “You looked into
this, didn’t you?”

“
Yeah,” said Miles. He spun
his chair to face them. “They’re type VII proximity mines. Kind of
outdated but still plenty dangerous. They don’t have
fully-developed cloaking technology, but they do have stealth
capabilities that create a field that renders them largely
invisible.”

“
Yeah the Nighthawk should
be able to see them when we get close enough,” said Shen. “They
won’t be a problem.”

“
Good.”

“
We’re clear to jump now,”
said Sarah.

Shen gave her a forlorn look then turned his
back to her. She, perhaps deliberately, did not look at him. Calvin
wondered if the two had had some kind of argument. Or if they were
both simply overworked and fatigued. Hopefully he could give them
all a break soon.

The ship rotated a little then came to a
stop. “Jump calculated,” said Sarah.

“
Execute jump.”

A moment later all the stars vanished, and
blackness filled the windows.

“
Accelerating to jump depth
of eighty percent. ETA forty-four hours.”

“
Good,” said Calvin. “That
puts us there an hour early. Hopefully that’s enough
time.”

“
When is the meeting?” asked
Alex.

“
1530 standard
time.”

“
I’m concerned about what we
will find on the planet,” said Alex. “My intelligence indicates
that there are a lot of... modified humans there. Dangerous ones,”
he looked at Tristan. “No offense.”

“
None taken. They
are
deadly. More than you
could know.”

“
Are there any strigoi or
lycans left on Remus Nine?” asked Calvin.

“
No, I don’t think so. We
all left the planet. Escaped together, actually. If we didn’t, the
type one Remorii would’ve killed us all.”

“
Why didn’t they escape?”
asked Calvin.

“
They’re not intelligent
enough to, and they didn’t need to. They are creatures of pure
instinct—mostly violence—they’re not thinking beings.”

“
I suggest we not land on
the surface,” said Alex. “Instead, our ship should ambush the
vessel carrying the weapons off the surface. Board or destroy it
before it can jump away. The operation could be similar to what we
did to the freighter in Tybur.”

“
We can’t do that,” said
Calvin. “The buyer is being escorted by a large fleet of Rotham
warships. Too many for the Nighthawk to contend with.”

“
How many?” asked
Miles.

Calvin almost didn’t want to say. “Thirty or
so warships.”
Miles’ face went pale. “Oh good lord... We’re dead. We’re freakin’
dead.”

“
We’ll be fine,” said
Calvin. “We’ll get there first, find the weapons, destroy them, and
leave before the fleet ever arrives. Then the galaxy will be rid of
its most deadly threat. We can do this, guys! We
have
to.” Calvin didn’t
mention that his greater concern was not the massive Rotham fleet
but rather interdiction by the Desert Eagle. He only hoped Nimoux
wouldn’t discover where they were going until it was too
late.
Assuming he didn’t know
already…

“
Why don’t we try to get
help from the Fleet?” asked Miles.

“
Because the Fleet can’t be
trusted,” said Summers. Other than her outburst at Shen, she’d kept
quiet until now. Guarding her thoughts and feelings inside the
privacy of her mind. Her increasingly detached nature made Calvin
worry about her.

“
That and there wouldn’t be
enough time to get enough ships into position,” said Calvin. He
looked at Tristan. “Is there any chance the Organization could
marshal its resources and get a fleet together fast enough to
contain the threat?” He doubted it, but the Organization had saved
him from a Rotham squadron in Abia so he figured it was worth a
shot.

Tristan chuckled darkly. “Thirty warships?
If only we had the resources you seem to think we have. Even if we
marshaled every ship in our possession and somehow got them to
Remus Nine first—which is impossible by the way—we would still be
easily defeated.”

Calvin wasn’t surprised. “So then it really
is up to us.”

“
We’ll just have to make it
work,” said Pellew.

“
What about the Arcane
Storm?” asked Summers. “What if the ship is there and tries to
engage us?”

“
We’ll kick its ass,” said
Miles. “No contest.”

Calvin ignored him and looked directly at
Summers. “There is a good chance the ship is there, but the weapons
aren’t on the ship anymore, they’re on the planet’s surface. So
that’s the priority. If we’re lucky, we can disable and capture the
Arcane Storm while we’re there—but our main objective is to destroy
the isotome weapons on the planet’s surface. That’s even more
important than survival. Is that clear to everyone?”

Summers nodded.

The others on the bridge voiced their
assent.

Calvin looked at each of them. They were
tried and true, able officers who’d chosen to stick by him. Even
Tristan and Alex were proving useful to have around... if only he
knew who the mole was that’d betrayed them earlier...

“
Sarah and Shen,” said
Calvin, “maintain the communications lockout.” The last thing he
needed was for someone to tip off Nimoux again. Especially since
their mission was probably the galaxy’s best shot at destroying the
isotome weapons before they disappeared inside the Rotham Republic
and forever changed the balance of power. “In forty-four hours we
end this threat once and for all. Until then, we have preparations
to make.”

Chapter 20

An hour and a half went by; Calvin spent the
time in his office.

He studied the personnel
manifest and began choosing which members of the crew, and
soldiers, would be essential for the mission. He would leave the
Nighthawk under-staffed if he had to. Even if it cost him the ship,
he
would
destroy
those weapons. He’d done some very important work in the past—which
had led to two silver stars and several other awards—but nothing
even remotely compared to this op. If he failed on Remus Nine, that
could mean the deaths of billions of people, the likely rise of
Rotham dominance in the galaxy, and perhaps even the extinction of
the human race.

It blew his mind that such colossally
destructive weapons could even exist. And made him wonder for a
moment if other, perhaps even greater civilizations had once arisen
in the galaxy only to destroy themselves—and all traces of their
achievements and culture—in fiery supernovas. Was intelligence
really a blessing for survival if it gave a species the means to
destroy itself? Bacteria cultures seemed to live for countless
billions of years without it...

The comm beeped. He tapped it. “Yes?”

“
I’m sorry to disturb you
but apparently there’s been an incident,” said Sarah.

“
What now
...?” he held his breath, begging God—or gods—if any were out
there—that the next words out of Sarah’s mouth wouldn’t be that
someone got past the communications lockout.