The Phoenix Darkness (8 page)

***

The presence of actual Enclave Strigoi on his
ship was an experience for which Zander found himself emotionally
underprepared. He’d known they would come. In fact, he’d met with
them before, directly, while working for them. But he’d never had
to deal with them under such circumstances or in such numbers. Now
he stood there, playing host to some fifteen Strigoi, any one of
which could tear his ship apart and slaughter his crew without so
much as the inkling of a challenge.

On top of it all, he had to pretend he hadn’t
just cheated them by hiding away one of their precious and promised
isotome missiles, and doing the act while simultaneously managing
an unruly and ignorant crew. A staff of outcasts and misfits who,
although normally perfect for Zander’s type of operations, seemed
currently to be nothing more than a massive liability. Especially
since none of them had ever heard of Remus Nine and didn't know
what a type-two Remorii was, let alone what a Strigoi could do when
provoked. So he’d ordered them to their bunks and demanded they
stay there until the transfer was complete. This command was met
with resistance, as all commands increasingly seemed to be doing,
with the general sense among the crew, according to Rolland, that
Zander was involved in some kind of extra lucrative trade
negotiation, one far more profitable than the crew had been led to
believe, and that he planned to cut them out of the majority of the
wealth by keeping them ignorant. For a rabble of misfits, idiots,
and outcasts, they were proving surprisingly astute, dangerously
so, and he knew he had Jasmine, and by extension himself, to blame
for it. Fortunately, however, for the time being they’d seemed to
cooperate with his order and none of them could be found as Zander
personally greeted the Strigoi as they came aboard his ship. None
returned his greeting, a stoic people perhaps, but he extended the
courtesy to each of them all the same, as one-by-one they stepped
through the temporary jetbridge and climbed down the hatch.

“
The weapons
,” demanded the first one
down; he seemed to be the one in charge, although it was difficult
to tell given the tall stature and grisly appearance that embodied
each of his new guests. Strigoi faces were harder to tell apart
than human faces, or even Rotham and Polarian faces, in Zander’s
experience, and so he probably would have been fooled into thinking
this leading Strigoi was Anton himself were it not for the absence
of that terrifying necklace of bones the commanding Strigoi had
always worn whenever Zander had seen him. For that matter,
seemingly all of the Strigoi wore some kind of jewelry, be it a
ring through a piercing, a necklace, a bracelet, or whatever had
been chiseled out of human bones. Zander tried not to think about
it, despite being fully aware that, at the conclusion of their
business deal, and perhaps before, should they realize he’d cheated
them they would rip his bones from his body and wear bits of him
and his crew as ornaments while the Strigoi spread and conquered
their way throughout the galaxy, as far and wide as they
desired.

“The weapons!” the leader said again and
Zander snapped back to attention, realizing he’d allowed himself to
become distracted by his own paranoid thoughts and the frightful
sight of the Strigoi.

“Yes, of course, this way,” he said. As he
marched forward, leading them deeper inside his ship through the
various corridors of the
Duchess
to her main hold, he felt a
strong and recurring sense of regret.
Why did I do it?
He
asked himself.
They’re going to know, they’re going to know,
they’re going to know
…

But what was done was done, and now he was
committed. He’d already doubled down on his gamble, and there was
nothing left to do but see it through, hopefully to its financially
lucrative conclusion. Though the presence of so many human bones
around him, dangling here, clicking and clanking there, was
unnerving. He took some measure of comfort in knowing this was, at
least, not the first time he’d tried to pull a scam, and he knew
how to look a person in the eye deadpan and bluff his ass off.
Would that work on a Strigoi? He supposed only time would tell. So
he choked down his fear, kept up his cheery appearance, and guided
the Enclave’s soldiers until they reached the hold where, carefully
situated and locked firmly in place, were fourteen isotome
missiles.

“Here we are,” he announced. The Strigoi
ignored him and immediately fanned out to inspect the weapons, all
of the Strigoi except for one who hung back, keeping an eerily
watchful eye on Zander while his cohorts did their job. Zander
tried not to make eye contact with him, or give any indication he
was uncomfortable with the Strigoi standing there.

They seemed to look approving at the weapons;
Zander had kept them polished and pleasing to the eye, but before
the Strigoi could take note of the number of them, specifically
that there was one too few, Zander played the only trick he had
left to him.

“As you can see,” he said, turning to the
Strigoi who’d remained behind. The one who appeared to be in
command of the others. “They are magnificent weapons and in
excellent condition, so, I think it is only fair we discuss price
once again.” At this point, Zander would be happy to trade them for
nothing but his life, free and clear, but to make any such gesture
would be to admit fault, to essentially point out to the Strigoi
that, although repentant now, he had tried to cheat them. So, he
did the opposite. No one would dare cheat their business partner by
pilfering from the inventory
and
try to negotiate for a
higher cut. The very idea was lunacy; he knew that and counted on
the Strigoi to know that too. Hell, everyone knew that! Therefore,
because he tried to negotiate for a better price, that must mean he
hadn’t pilfered from the inventory and was telling the truth about
only finding fourteen missiles.

“What do you mean, price?” asked the Strigoi,
baring his teeth. “The price was already agreed.”

“Well, now it isn’t,” said Zander. “As you
can see, I've taken extra love and care of them,” he waved in the
general direction of the gleaming missiles. “And with that
unfortunate mishap on Remus Nine, these are the only ones left. I
think that more than quadruples their value. But I am a fair man,”
said Zander, keeping perfect confidence, or at least the appearance
of it. “Why don’t we meet halfway and call it an even double?”

The Strigoi scowled, as if not believing what
he was hearing. “You overreach, human, as is typical for your
inferior species. Don’t you know that with one command I could have
you all slaughtered, limb from limb, and take the weapons for
myself for no cost at all?”

“True, you could do that,” said Zander,
trying admirably to sound unconcerned by such a possibility. “But
is that really the reputation you want for your species?”

The Strigoi looked momentarily confused, so
Zander continued. “What with your fresh start, new territory, and
imminent recognition by the Rotham Republic as a member state, your
kind will be at the forefront of galactic attention in no time
flat. Do you really want rumors to spread throughout the galaxy
about how Strigoi don’t pay their debts and instead slaughter
honest traders who try to do business with them? Think what that
would do for your reputation.”

The Strigoi seemed to consider this for the
better part of a minute and, in that time, Zander stood perfectly
calm, trying to imagine he was a leaf on the wind, an exercise he
often employed when he knew he needed to feign bargaining power he
knew he didn’t have. In this case, it was far more than just profit
that fell on the line. Unfortunately, the raised stakes also made
it that much more difficult to feign confidence, but he did his
best. Just as the Strigoi was about to answer him, one of the
others spoke up.

“There are only fourteen weapons here,” he
said, sounding angry.

“Are you sure?” asked the lead Strigoi.

“I am sure, I have counted and re-counted
them.”

“Of course there are only fourteen,” said
Zander. “What did you expect?”

“We were promised fifteen isotome weapons,”
the lead Strigoi said, hissing as he stood mere inches away from
Zander, his superior height adding to his sense of power and
dominance. Zander felt his knees tremble and he nearly buckled on
the spot, but somehow, by some miracle, he kept himself
together.

“I don’t know about any fifteen,” said
Zander. “These are all there were.”

“I was promised
fifteen
,” repeated the
Strigoi leader.

“Fifteen or not, these are all that there
were,” Zander replied in the best matter-of-fact tone he could
muster. “I searched and I scoured and I combed, and all I could
find were fourteen.”

The Strigoi gave him a long hard look and
Zander met his gaze, managing to keep his expression as innocent as
possible by employing another technique: he used his imagination to
change the context of the conversation and instead of obsessing
over the savage, murderous, killing-machines right in front of him,
who might have just realized he’d cheated them, he thought of
woods, summer grass, a babe on a swing, a mother walking her son in
the park, and anything else which conjured up ideas of pure
harmlessness and innocence in his mind.
I am not here
, he
thought.
I am lying in the sand on the beachy shores of
Zendricun Alpha. I smell the salt of the sea and feel the sun
beating down on me. Next to me sits a beautiful woman. She wears a
sunhat and slowly sips on a pina colada. We make eye contact and
she smiles
…

“Very well,” said the lead Strigoi after a
long pause. He then gave a command to his cohorts and they began to
unseal and remove the fourteen isotome weapons. “If this was all
you could find, then this was all that was there.”

“As a certainty,” said Zander. He avoided a
smile, but felt a surge of hope begin to balloon inside him.
Did
I just get away with this?
he wondered. “And what about price?”
he asked, pressing the issue one final time.

“We will pay one and a half what we agreed,”
said the lead Strigoi. “Less the value of one missile, since there
are only fourteen here. Not fifteen.”

Zander nodded. “We have a deal.” It was all
he could do to keep from leaping in the air with joy. He was going
to keep his life, he’d successfully cheated the Enclave, squeezed
an extra fifty-percent profit out of them to boot, and he still had
one last isotome weapon. A missile which, once the other fourteen
had been used, would become the most valuable commodity in the
galaxy.
I could trade it for a planet of my own
, he thought
blissfully.

“I expect the transfer of payment to be made
before the last missile is offloaded from this ship,” said Zander,
still keeping his tone all business.

“It will be so.”

***

At first, the plan unfolded almost exactly as
Mister Martel had said it would. The populace, helped along by some
13,000 CERKO operatives, acting in disguise as the king’s troops,
had risen to overthrow the royal government. The last straw had
been the massive bombing of the planet, in the name of the king,
but also a false flag operation which had left critical parts of
the planet in fiery rubble. The capitol and its districts had
previously been reduced to ash by what appeared to be the ISS
Black Swan
, belonging to Princess Kalila Akira, and since
then entire city-centers, important agricultural projects,
industrial plants, civilian housing projects, and countless other
targets, many arbitrary, had been obliterated. The people of Renora
hated the Imperial government. They hated the king and just about
anything and everything they had any excuse to hate. Once the
prefect, who'd been installed by the king to bring order to the
troubled planet, by force or other means, had fled the system, the
time was ripe for the people of Renora to look for new leadership.
In their hour of need, they found supplies and aid in the unlikely
form of medical crates, food, water, and other provisions granted
to them by the Rotham Republic. This, and a generally democratic
sentiment which had long existed on the planet, led to a swift
declaration by a provisional government that the planet formally
seceded from the Empire and petitioned the Rotham Republic for
membership. A petition which was promptly accepted by the Rotham
Senate, despite claims from the Imperial Assembly and the Imperial
Monarchy that such a petition was against Imperial and
international laws, and was therefore nullified.

All of that had been foretold by Zane Martel
to Ryker before he’d ever deployed with his team onto the surface
of Renora. And, from the surface of that troubled planet, he'd
witnessed each and every step unfold exactly as planned, like
layers of an onion. And so it came naturally to his subordinates,
and closest associates, to ask him what came next. The Imperial
flags had been ripped down, the prefect chased off world, and the
Imperial soldiers, mighty force of millions they’d been, —had been
withdrawn. Now most major buildings, whatever remained post bombing
and looting, were flying the flag of the Republic. So naturally,
for a planet still stricken with mass starvation, devastated
infrastructure, and oilfields still burning that had never been put
out, it was only natural to wonder: what is next? The only problem
was, Ryker didn’t know.

“Zane never told me,” was all Ryker had to
offer any of the forty-seven members of his CERKO cell whenever
they asked him. And, as the days became weeks and time rolled ever
forward, and their own caches of food and water disappeared, the
CERKO soldiers themselves became unruly and demanding, almost as
much as the displaced citizens of Renora itself. It was then Ryker
had disbanded from the cell and taken only his most trusted
comrades. They’d gone away from the major city, away from all the
cities, and watched the chaos continue to unfold from afar, living
off the small freshwater stream they’d encountered and eating
berries, fish, and whatever they could manage to trap. All the
while waiting for a sign, some new instruction, or something to
change. But whatever was happening elsewhere in the galaxy, it
seemed to have forgotten about Renora. A planet which burned and
suffered and awaited promised aid, yet that aid seemed more a dream
now than anything else. Even Zane Martel, who no one had heard from
again, stopped being a reliable source of information for Ryker,
forcing the CERKO commander to realize he was ultimately alone,
left completely to his own devices to execute the rest of a plan he
did not know, and to command and keep alive a force of soldiers who
continued to look to him for guidance he could not provide.