The Phoenix Conspiracy (32 page)

Perhaps princess Kalila was
representing her own interests and not the Royal Family's. If a war
broke out, or some kind of instability shook the Empire, it might
mean an opportunity to grab for power—outmaneuver her other
siblings and destabilize her father's control of the
monarchy.

He knew less about Kalila than he
would have liked. He’d heard of her charity work and bits and
pieces about her here and there, from news and tabloids, but he'd
never given her, or her family, much thought. They were above and
beyond him and not worth thinking about. Or so he'd assumed. And
now he wished he knew more about her, to better judge her motives
and character.

Calvin frowned. It was hard to
pinpoint just what he believed. The best he could do was continue
collecting information. And the best way to do that was to go to
Abia. He knew that was what he had to do.

But he had to sell that idea to Intel
Wing. If they wanted him to do a good job with his investigation,
they would be supportive. But if they were only interested in
containing Raidan, and preventing the truth from coming out, then
it would mean they’d been compromised too. That some third
influence had its hooks in both intelligence and the navy and that
influence, whatever it was, would see Calvin’s choice to go to Abia
as a direct threat.

He decided that, since Summers had
forced his hand, it was time to test the Fleet and Intel Wing to
see just how far the corruption went.

So he recorded his message.

In it he explained his reasons for
going to Abia. He couldn't tell them about his meeting with Kalila.
And he couldn't tell them why he'd chosen not to fire on the
Harbinger. Or that he'd stolen data from Brimm that implicated
Abia. All he could say was that he'd cracked a code that discussed
Abia, and that he thought it likely Raidan would be there. That his
apparent jump to Zendricun Alpha was merely a ruse.

Being as limited as he was, unable to
fully explain his reasoning, his argument sounded weak. And he knew
it. But he did the best he could. Appealing to his direct superiors
and emphasizing, again and again, that this was definitely the
right move for the investigation; he was certain. More certain than
in previous investigations from which he'd earned silver stars. If
they were objective, and had not been compromised, they would
understand his message for what it was.

But if they
had
been compromised,
they would hear it as:
I'm not working for
you anymore. I've gone rogue
.

How they reacted would tell him a
great deal. If they came down hard, he'd know he was on his
own.

***

Summers typed her report
into the command panel of the access station on the aft side of the
bridge. She could have broadcast it by voice but she didn't want
the other bridge officers to overhear. All three of them: Sarah
Winters, Iwate Shen, and Miles Brown—
especially
Miles Brown, were
sympathetic to Calvin and didn't have any perspective on what was
really going on. Serving together as long as they had, Summers
couldn't expect any of them to look at Calvin objectively. A sad,
predictable fact that helped explain the sorry state of the
Nighthawk's command chain. And because of it, she didn’t want them
to hear what she had to say about their beloved Calvin.

Calvin lacked the ability to truly
command a ship. He'd proven that when he'd melted under pressure
and, in his frozen state, couldn't think fast enough to act against
the Harbinger. How they all survived was an unexplained miracle,
perhaps the act of a merciful god. Who could know? Summers wasn't
going to speculate. Since the Harbinger hadn't destroyed them, she
felt they'd been given a second chance to redeem themselves and
prove their loyalty to the Empire by ending RaidanSometimes she
felt like she was the only one on the ship who kept the wheels
moving forward. She knew people acted differently around her,
almost like she were the only real officer and the rest were
tourists on some kind of government sponsored joy-ride through the
galaxy. In her mind she couldn't suppress the image that, should
she disappear for any amount of time, mojitos and flowershirts
would spring out of nowhere to the beats of lively party music.
Didn't these people go through training?

Despite following orders to the letter
her entire career, here she was in this mess. It drove her insane,
and that feeling came across in her report.

Her tone was still formal and proper,
but it carried a knife-like edge, and she made her case strongly,
clearly, and articulately for why Calvin was unfit for command and
not following the mission. Emphasizing that he'd broken orders and
refused to engage the Harbinger, which had flown right past them.
And how, instead of following the trail to Zendricun Alpha, he was
diverting them to Abia for no good reason. She ended on the
suspicion that he was abusing a substance, probably alcohol, and it
was affecting his judgment. Putting the crew in danger.

She sent the message with
standard encryption and returned to the command position where she
sat and took a deep breath. She had mixed feelings about her
message. Partially she regretted sounding so negative—she didn't
hate
everything
about Calvin. But an even deeper part of her remembered Raidan
and how he'd manipulated her. Used her and set her aside. And now,
if she let Raidan get away—which Calvin seemed more than content to
do, then even more people would die. Whatever else Raidan was, he
was a killer.

Yes, Calvin, Raidan does
want us to go to Abia. But not because he's there. And when we
arrive in the middle of nowhere and dig for clues that don't exist,
Raidan will be torching Rotham ships and murdering civilians. And
all because you, Calvin, are so easy for him to manipulate. Just
like I once was. You just don't know Raidan like I do. He's playing
games with us and you're taking the bait.

***

It wasn't more than ten minutes after
he'd sent his report that Calvin received the very message he
feared most from Intel Wing.

"You are ordered to change course and
make port at CC-Platform B in the Xerxes system immediately." The
Director's face looked strangely blank over Calvin's viewer as he
spoke.

Calvin's heart sank and he
was almost speechless. He'd half expected this reaction, but the
other half of him, the better half, tried to deny it was even
possible. He loved the Empire and now, to one degree or another, he
was sure it had been corrupted. Infiltrated.
Compromised
.

He snapped back to attention and tried
to play his part, feeling sick and more like an actor than a
person. "What for?" he asked, feigning surprise.

"You'll be briefed there. See you
soon," the Director faked a smile and terminated the call before
Calvin could say another word.

Of course, he knew what it really
meant. He was now a liability instead of an asset. They were going
to take him out of the picture. Dump him off on Xerxes, the closest
system with an Intel Wing presence, and then transfer command of
the Nighthawk to someone more dependable. Maybe they'd even take
the ship offline while they washed through the crew and sorted out
who was reliable and who wasn't. He wondered if another Intel Wing
ship had already been given the Harbinger assignment. For all he
knew, more than one ship had been tailing it the whole
time.

"So they want me to go to Xerxes with
my hands in the air and tail between my legs," he said. Of course,
he'd made up his mind years ago that if he ever were in a situation
like this, and knew he was about to get burned and lose everything,
he wasn't going down without a fight.

He figured he had a few minutes to
decide his next move, since Xerxes and Abia were in the same
direction. But once his ship didn't make the course correction
toward Xerxes in about an hour, they'd know he'd gone rogue and
would do everything they could to stop him.

So his first move came right
out of the basic playbook for war.
Disrupt
communications
. He stood up and ran out of
his office onto the bridge.

Summers looked surprised to
see him, or at least surprised he was moving that fast. He didn't
care though. If he did this right, she wouldn't be a threat
anymore, but he
had
to get her off the bridge first. He waved her out of his seat
and took the command position.

"Summers, I need you to go below decks
and check in with engineering."

"All right," she said. "But why don't
I use your comm switch to call them?" She seemed tense.

"Because I need you to pick something
up for me," he lied. She seemed to catch onto this. Ordering the XO
to run and fetch something wasn't going to fool anyone. Everyone
knew it was an excuse to get her off the bridge.

"Why not have someone who's already
there bring it up?" she asked, folding her arms.

"Because it has sensitive information
that I can't trust with just anyone," said Calvin. Summers raised a
curious eyebrow. Calvin had no idea what this object was going to
be.

"What is it?" she asked. "I need to
know what it is if I'm going to get it."

"Just ask Andre, the Chief Engineer.
He'll tell you."

"All... right," she said cautiously.
"I'm on my way." She stepped into the elevator and it whisked her
away below deck.

"Good lord, I thought she'd never
leave," said Miles.

"What's up, Calvin?" asked
Sarah.

"We may be getting some unfriendly
messages in the near future. I don't want to hear them," said
Calvin. "Until I say otherwise we're going to have complete radio
and kataspace silence. Comms between decks will stay online but no
contact outside the ship will be allowed.

Sarah tapped her nose. "All right, I
think I can handle that."

"And just in case," said Calvin as his
heart started beating faster, "Shen, help me lock it out with our
command codes."

"Yes sir," said Shen and he opened the
systems' command prompt while Sarah began shutting things down.
Together, Calvin and Shen used their respective codes as CO and
senior officer of Operations to jointly lockout the kataspace
connector so it couldn't be reactivated without the use of an equal
or higher set of command codes, which Summers didn't
have.

"That ought to do it," said Calvin.
"Continue flying toward Abia and act like business as usual." He
tapped the comm to engineering.

"Andre here."

"It's Calvin. You're going to see the
XO in there very soon. She'll ask you for something to bring back
to the bridge. Give her some random datadisc."

"Will do. May I ask why?"

"Need to know basis, sorry friend,"
said Calvin.

"All right," said Andre. He started to
speak again but one of his junior officers interrupted him. A
moment later his voice returned. "The kataspace connector linkups
and receiving beacons have been switched off?"

"That's correct," said Calvin. "As a
matter of security."

"Let me guess," said Andre. "Need to
know basis again?"

"That's right." He didn't want to keep
Andre in the dark; he was someone Calvin trusted. But he didn't
want to explain the situation over the comm into a room he couldn't
see, where anyone could be listening. "Meet me in my office a bit
later, Chief. When you have things nailed down over there. We have
some things to discuss."

"Will do."

Calvin's next call was to Special
Forces. But before he could call them, they called him.

The Major didn't sound angry, or
rather, not angrier than usual, but there was a kind of alertness
in his voice. Clearly shutting down all outside communications was
a pretty big deal and, as chief of security and direct CO of a
third of the people on the ship, he expected to be in on the
decision to do it. The trouble was, unlike most of the ship's crew,
the Major and his soldiers were not people Calvin knew well enough
to trust with the details. He'd have to invent
something.

"Why are you shutting down all outside
communications, Mister Cross?" His deep voice came across as
grittier and more gravely than usual.

"Well hello to you too," said Calvin,
taking a moment to solidify the story he’d prepared for the
Major.

"I'm waiting," said the
Major. When Calvin didn't reply right away he added,
"
for an answer
."

Calvin’s story relied on the
most clichéd of excuses—‘
it’s a security
threat’
—and that was especially dangerous
since security was the Major's expertise. But nothing else seemed
to make sense. He decided to invent a kind of security risk the
Major—and Summers—would never have heard of before, because it
didn't exist.

"There are several small prototype...
feeler probes," said Calvin, coughing to buy himself a few more
seconds to iron out his exact phrasing. "As I said, feeler probes
that Raidan and his contacts have deployed in order to protect
themselves. They send our ship false messages and when the false
messages are repeated back to them, they can covertly determine our
position so the Harbinger can out-maneuver us
indefinitely..."