The Phoenix Conspiracy (29 page)

General?
Must be a marine base
.

"General Hesso here. Welcome to Iota,
IWS Nighthawk. I'm afraid I'll have to make this brief but, as you
can see, we have a lot of cleaning up to do."

"I understand, sir," said Calvin. "I
just want to know the details of the engagement."

"You should direct those questions to
Captain Anderson. She was in charge of our field response and led
the counter action. She has more information than I do about the
Harbinger's attack."

“Where is she?”

“Her starfighter is still
deployed.”

"Can you have her dock with my ship
and come aboard?"

"Affirmative, I'll give her the order.
Now, is there anything else?"

"Yes, one thing," said Calvin. "Did
anyone from the Harbinger, at any point, go aboard your station or
to the colony below?"

"No. They arrived, blocked
communications, engaged our ships, attacked the Rotham freighters,
disabled one and destroyed two. Then you showed up and the
Harbinger withdrew."

"Can you give us the identities of
those Rotham ships and any information you have on them? It would
be very helpful to our investigation."

"I'll send you what I can, but it
isn't a lot. For some reason, someone above me has thoroughly
classified everything, I can't make heads or tails of it. But I can
at least get you the names of those ships."

"What about their cargo."

"I'll do what I can," the general said
with a smile. He didn’t look hopeful.

"Thanks," said Calvin. The
transmission ended.

“That was short and sweet,” said
Sarah.

Calvin nodded. “Begin a standard
survey pattern, see what we can find. Especially comb that debris
nice and well. When Captain Anderson comes aboard, send her to my
office. Summers, you have the deck."

Summers wasn't surprised by this.
Calvin avoided being on the bridge like it was a
disease.

Chapter 18

Captain Anderson arrived in no time.
She was a thirty-something year old woman with curly dark hair
wearing a minimally decorated flightsuit. She held her helmet
tightly against her side in one hand and saluted with the other. He
saluted back and waved for her to sit down. When she did, he got a
closer look at her.

Her eyes were steel grey and her face
was firm and unbending; Calvin recognized her kind. A leader who
meant business and wouldn't accept any grief for any reason. He
wondered if Anderson and Summers would get along or if they'd see
each other as rivals for tightass of the universe.

"Captain Anderson reporting as
ordered, sir."

"Thank you, Captain, please take a
seat."

She did and somehow managing to look
less comfortable sitting than standing.

"I understand you were in charge of
the action against the Harbinger. I have a few
questions."

"Yes, sir."

"Who fired first?" Calvin paid close
attention to her eyes, wanting to make sure she was completely
honest with him.

"We did. We had orders from the top to
follow a shoot-on-sight policy." She didn't hesitate. In fact, she
didn't seem bothered at all. She was an officer doing her duty and
felt no need to apologize for it. Calvin doubted she was knowingly
involved in any kind of conspiracy, if there was one.

"Walk me through the whole
engagement."

"The ship showed up at about 0400 L.T.
and six million mc's out with a basic heading and speed, similar to
a Winske approach."

"Toward the base?" asked Calvin who,
not being a pilot anymore, wasn't sharp on his
maneuvers.

"Yes, the Harbinger immediately
activated its communication dampening technology and then flew
directly toward the base where three Rotham ships were in a holding
pattern. They'd just left the dock, you see, and were preparing to
clear the system and jump to whatever their destination was. This
was all scheduled."

"Do you know what their destination
was?"

"No, that was classified."

Calvin frowned, he'd expected that.
"Go on."

"When the Harbinger arrived, we had
five sentry ships on a basic patrol pattern with three corvettes as
support and that's all. The ships were in a cluster pattern
supporting each other, so they couldn't cover a lot of area. I made
that call, because knowing the Harbinger's firepower I felt that,
individually, these ships were no match for it."

"Makes sense."

"I wish the General had been as
understanding," Anderson said. Calvin resisted smiling, the ground
forces always seemed to hate being subject to navy commanders for
interstellar defense. "Anyway, the problem was that, when the
Harbinger arrived, our defense force was patrolling the wrong side
of the station. The Harbinger was able to close most of the
distance before our ships could get around the planet and intercept
it. By then, it was too late to cut through its shields and disable
its engines, given the weak firepower of the corvettes and sentry
ships. These aren't capital ships, sir. They just don't have the
punch you need to get through those shields."

Calvin was more than familiar with the
relative firepower of basic starships, but he humored her by not
interrupting.

"So we scrambled our fighter divisions
hoping to distract the Harbinger long enough for the Rotham ships
to escape. They began an orderly and speedy retreat but we were
outmatched."

"Is it your opinion," asked Calvin,
"that the Harbinger knew about your position and chose to enter the
system from the best angle to avoid your defense
patrol?"

She was silent for a few seconds. "No.
My pattern was whatever I thought of at the moment, random and
unplanned. I don't like committing to maneuvers on paper for
exactly the reason you suggest."

"Sometimes even the bad guys get
lucky," said Calvin.

"But I think the Harbinger
deliberately arrived right when the Rotham ships were scheduled to
leave."

Calvin agreed, but wanted to hear her
reasoning. "Please explain."

"The Harbinger headed straight for the
Rotham ships and opened fire, like it knew they were there before
arriving. I expected the freighters to be destroyed within seconds
but, and this is strange, the Rotham pilots performed an evasive
maneuver. A military pattern. With more skill than I would have
suspected from civilian crews. And when they did take hits, their
shields and armor took a beating consistent with modern corvettes.
Much more than I'd expect from freighters."

Calvin smiled. This further supported
his hypothesis that the ships were carrying something important,
and that they shared a common link.

"Two ships were destroyed," said
Calvin. "But the third Rotham ship survived."

"The third managed to get a bit
further away and there was a kind of cat and mouse exchange. They
moved in and out of our station's defenses for protection, looking
for an opening to jump from the system but the Harbinger kept
edging it out and closing that window. Eventually the ship was
disabled. Then you showed up and the Harbinger
withdrew."

"Is it your opinion the Harbinger was
unable to destroy the third Rotham ship?"

"No, the Harbinger had more than
enough firepower and opportunity. It was deliberately disabled and
then ignored. I have no idea why."

"Do you know what its cargo
is?"

"No."

"Let me guess...
classified?"

"Affirmative."

“Anything else strange stand out about
this engagement?” he asked.

“Yes, one other thing,” she said. “I
don’t believe the Harbinger meant to cause any permanent injury to
Imperial property or personnel.”

This also didn’t surprise Calvin. “Go
on.”

“The Harbinger tried not to engage us.
It did everything it could to out-maneuver us. Give us bad shots.
It spent most of its energy boosting its shields and thrusters. The
only casualties we took were a few fighters. But it's really hard
to disable something as small as a fighter without blowing it up. I
don't think the Harbinger shot at our fighters except when it
absolutely had to, to protect its engines. I expect you know that
some fighters, like most missiles, can slip through alternating
shields?"

"I do."

"That was something we tried. But the
dreadnought’s perimeter guns wiped out anyone who got too close. As
long as we stayed outside its shields, however, no one was harmed.
In total, fifteen fighters were lost and twenty-eight personnel
were killed in addition to thirty-two others who sustained
injuries."

"What about damage inflicted on the
Harbinger?"

"Negligible."

“Thank you, Captain, you’re
dismissed.”

She saluted and left. When she did,
Calvin decided it was time to check in with his staff. But
first—

He connected to Grady Rosco’s private
line. "Have you got anything new for me, Grady?"

"Yeah a few people
were
persuaded
into telling us who some of the fellas were that Raidan's team
met with. We used their descriptions and ID’d a few of them. Mostly
they were who we thought, ex-Imperials. But one of them was a guy
named Yanal Kemmer. A hotel tycoon from Capital World who was here
incognito. He transferred a very large sum of money to Raidan's
team. And I mean very large. Like a billion q. We just checked
through some of our... lesser known... you could call them 'banks',
and it's true, that kind of money was moved through here about that
time."

So now Raidan had a real motive for
going to Aleator. He needed funding. Perhaps that was the purpose
of the whole visit? Calvin honestly couldn't hazard a guess yet one
way or the other. He wrote down the name Yanal Kemmer to research
later. "So where is Yanal Kemmer now?"

"Vanished. I think he left the same
time as the Harbinger. Nobody matching his description went aboard
their shuttle but that doesn't mean he didn't go with them.
Wherever he is, he isn't on Aleator now. I'm more than
sure."

"So did you find out anything about
CERKO?"

"Yeah, we nabbed a guy, the
only survivor. And we got a little from him. He needed some
encouragement
too but
eventually he talked."

Calvin knew what Grady meant. Calvin
also knew that information extracted from torture was occasionally
useful but often unreliable. People would say anything to stop the
pain, even if they didn't know anything. Torture led to more bad
information than anything else in the business, but try telling
that to a Rosco.

"CERKO is being organized by someone
outside the group's leadership. They're being paid to take jobs
mercenary style and paid a lot. Not just in q but in weapons and
equipment. They've been organized into cells and given discreet
orders to do specific tasks. The guy here had never met or spoken
with whoever's organizing this. Each CERKO member in a cell reports
to a handler and gets assignments and pay from him. We don’t know
the name of this guy's handler, but we did confirm his cell was
equipped, hired, and transported to Aleator to kill you. And that
the hit came from someone outside of CERKO."

So someone wanted him dead and it
wasn't CERKO, though CERKO was more than happy to pull the trigger
for the right price. Calvin also found it interesting that a
protest group turned terrorist had now turned mercenary. Were they
that desperate for cash or was someone planting a false flag? "I
need to find out who's organizing them," said Calvin. "See if you
can get the handler's name."

"Can't help you there,
sorry."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean our source is dead. We were
trying to get the handler's name when he keeled over, just like
that."

And
that
was the other problem with
torture. And though it may have been effective at getting
something, it ultimately prevented them from getting
everything.

"Well, thanks for what you did find
out," said Calvin. "We're square now."

"Are you kidding?” asked
Grady. "This is all just trying to make it up to you that you were
attacked in
my
house. We haven't even begun to repay the favor we owe
you."

Calvin expected that answer and
decided it wasn't worth arguing. "In that case I'd like you to look
into a guy named Titus Antony. He was on Aleator One using the
alias ‘Jacobi’ when I was there. I played a card game at the Rodeo
Den and one of the dealers seemed to know him. That dealer looked
like—” Calvin thought back. “He was male, tan skin, mid-forties,
large physique, about one-point-eight meters tall, short brown
hair, big round face… that’s all I remember. He seemed to know
Titus as Jacobi, and I’m looking for any connection between Titus
and CERKO. That dealer may have been involved.”

“No problem, Calvin. Any particular
reason why Titus is that interesting?”