The Phoenix Conspiracy (28 page)

"The Fleet hasn't been able to contact
the system either. Last check in was an hour ago. Everything was
fine then. Ships on patrol, defenses powered up, and no word from
the Harbinger."

"No word from the Harbinger, you say,"
Calvin's voice was just above a whisper. "They should have been
there hours ago."

Summers too found it curious. Raidan
wasn’t the type to be intimidated away. Perhaps he’d change
course

Sarah continued speaking. "Two
warships are en route to investigate and, if necessary, reinforce
Iota. ISS Razor and ISS Falcon, heavy cruisers, about an hour
behind us."

"So we get the privilege of arriving
first," said Calvin, he put a small pause between each word. "ETA
now?"

"Sixty seconds."

"Wonderful," Calvin turned his chair.
"Miles, standby all weapons and shields."

"What about the stealth system?" asked
Summers. In her mind it would be completely logical to survey the
scene before announcing their arrival. If there had been a battle,
there could still be hostiles. Stealth would allow them to maneuver
before striking.

Calvin scratched his head. "Not a bad
idea. But I really doubt the station and all its defenses could
have been wiped out by anything less than... ten battleships.
Hmm... well, come to think of it, go ahead and engage the stealth
system."

"Too late," said Sarah. "We're
incoming in five, four, three, two..."

All eyes turned to the
windows.

"One."

The view filled with stars and a blue
sun. "Do a quick scan of the system, and give us a view of the
station. If it's still there."

"It is, and so is... oh my
god!
It's
here
."

Summers moved briskly to stare over
Sarah's shoulder at her screen.

"What is?" asked Shen.

"The Harbinger!" Sarah spun to face
Calvin, awaiting orders.

"I can confirm that," said Miles from
the defense post. "It's about six hundred and fifty thousand mc's
from the station. It's exchanging fire with the station and three
corvettes, five sentry ships, and about two fighter
divisions."

"Project it," said Calvin.

A 3D model of the Harbinger was
displayed, complete with a few burn marks on its hull. Overall,
though, it looked intact. Every now and then there was a blink of
light as its guns intercepted missiles aimed toward it. All around,
tiny blips of starfighters flew circles around it like a swarm of
infinitesimal bees attacking a tiger. They were hard to see at this
resolution.

Summers almost couldn't believe it;
Raidan was finally within their grasp. She'd almost given up hope.
But now she had him, and justice could be served.

"Bring us closer, but keep us out of
close firing range. I don't want to take any fire," said
Calvin.

"Yes, sir."

The Nighthawk maneuvered closer and,
before long, the green and white planet became visible, and as they
moved starboard, it eclipsed the sun. The flashes of energy and
gunfire were visible now to the naked eye through the windows, and
seeing the Harbinger dwarf the corvettes made it appear like a
huge, menacing, grey skeleton.

"Damn that's a big ship," said
Miles.

"Try to contact the station again,"
said Calvin. "See if we can't get through with close-range
radio."

"Again no response," said
Sarah. "The Harbinger is emitting some kind of communications
scrambler. I've never seen any that could block out a radius this
large before, but that's why our messages couldn't get through.
Whatever it is, that instrument most definitely did
not
come standard on the
Harbinger."

Summers had heard of such technology
back at the academy, as part of a general course she'd been
required to take. That was only eight years ago, but back then the
device had been purely theoretical.

"So Raidan's made himself some pretty
powerful allies."

"I'm picking up something else,
Calvin," said Miles. "Debris patterns. Looks like the remains of
two or three ships. Rotham markings, probably commercial class. I'm
guessing freighters."

"Can we ID them?" asked
Calvin.

"Maybe, depends how intact the
identifiers are and whether or not they have black-beacons still
functioning."

"Most Rotham ships don't even have
black-beacons," said Shen.

"And there's something else," Miles
added. "Another ship on the far side, about nine hundred thousand
mc’s from the station. It's a Rotham class C freighter and... it's
just sitting there. Hull is crippled, engines destroyed, but they
still have power. Her operating lights are on, but she's not going
anywhere. Weapons, shields, and engines are all
offline."

"The Harbinger is moving," Sarah
reported. "New heading one, one, seven mark five. Eighty degrees
pitch fifteen yaw, port side."

"And now Raidan sweeps in for the
kill," said Summers. "And the Rotham genocide
continues."

"No it's heading away from the vessel,
it's... facing us now and accelerating. Corvettes and fighters
still nipping at its heels but not doing much damage."

"Uh oh, looks like we got noticed,"
said Miles. "All weapons standing by; what should we
do?"

Calvin just stared at him.

"Sir?"

They waited.

"One point two million mc's and
closing," said Sarah. She looked nervous. They all did. Summers
knew she had to do something. She took charge. Raidan wasn't about
to get away again because of Calvin's idiocy.

"Target their engines," said Summers,
moving to get a view of the defense console. "Standby all missiles
and close in with ninety-percent thrusters, we only get one shot at
this—let's do it right."

"Belay that order!" said
Calvin.

"
What
?" asked Summers. Raidan
was
not
going to
get away! "We have orders from the Fleet Admiral! Shoot on sight.
We
must
comply."

"That's suicide," said Calvin. "All
stop."

Her frustration boiled
inside her. Raidan was going to get away again and kill who knows
how many more people, and all because of this...
boy
. Less her age and
less her rank and there was nothing she could do about it. She
broke protocol and challenged her CO. "The Harbinger is wounded.
This is our best opportunity to end this."

"I said
no
."

Did Calvin even want Raidan brought
in? "But the admiral said—"

He cut her off. "On my
ship,
I
am the
admiral." The sleeping bear had awoken and ferocity burned in his
voice and bloodshot eyes. "Do
not
question my authority again."

Summers was speechless. How dare he
speak to her like that?

"Status?" Calvin asked
Sarah.

"The Harbinger is inbound, holding
speed, a hundred thousand mc's away. Cleared for action and within
missile range."

"What are your orders?" asked Miles.
He looked antsy, like a psycho-maniacal killer with his finger
curled around the trigger, squeezing ever so slightly.

"Do nothing," said Calvin. "Alert
condition one, shields full strength forward. Standby helm, we may
need to do some hard maneuvers."

"Aye, sir," his crew complied,
sounding slightly confused.

"The Harbinger hasn't fired on us
yet," said Calvin. "So I don't want to fire on it until I know what
it's up to."

"Closing in at forty thousand mc's.
We're in range of all weapons."

They waited in tense silence as the
behemoth slowly filled their view. It really was a sight to behold.
A hulking metal beast with ferocity in every contour, being this
close to it was like kissing jaws of steel. Even its wounds and
burn marks—few that they were—served only to intimidate by giving
it scars.

"I
really
think we should do something,"
said Miles.

"Like what, Lieutenant?" asked
Summers, hoping she could get the crew to pressure Calvin into
action.

"Getting the hell out of here would be
nice."

"Patience," said Calvin. He looked
confident. Summers only wondered what was going on in his mind, if
anything.

"The communications scrambler has been
shut down," said Sarah, adding a moment later "incoming message
from the Harbinger."

"Display it."

"It's audio only."

"Go ahead."

The message came over the speakers
loud and clear.

"
Board the damn ship, Calvin.
"

It terminated.

Summers recognized the voice, it was
Raidan's. Hearing it sent a flutter of mixed emotions through her.
There was a time when that rich, deep voice made her smile. Now,
though, it made her all the more determined to take him
down.

"Try to contact them," said Calvin. He
looked more curious than anything else.

"No response," said Sarah. "The
Harbinger is upon us."

They could only see a small portion of
the ship as it slipped past them on the port side. It must have
been several mc’s away, but it felt like only meters. Summers felt
a momentary chill and all of them stared in awe out the window,
silently shaken by the whole experience.

When the ship disappeared, Sarah spoke
again. "The Harbinger is accelerating and has set course for
alteredspace. Clear to jump in fifteen, fourteen," she counted down
until finally "the Harbinger has left the system." And, just like
that, Raidan had slipped through the Fleet's grasp and Summers'
fingers once more. She let out an enormously frustrated
sigh.

"I hope you're happy,
Lieutenant Commander
,"
she said.

"Board the damn ship..." Calvin
mumbled, ignoring her. "I wonder why he wants me to do
that?"

And of course Calvin seemed to
actually be considering it! "Well, regardless of whatever perverse
idea he has, we cannot board that ship. That would be an act of
war."

Calvin nodded. She almost couldn't
believe it. Was he agreeing with her? "I know we can't board it,"
he said. "The Imperial-Rotham Peace Accord is fragile as it is. But
we should still ask ourselves what we might find there." His eyes
brightened a little. "Sarah, contact the crippled Rotham ship and
offer our assistance with repairs, medical needs, and whatever else
they may require."

"Yes, sir."

So Calvin was going to try and worm
his way onto that ship anyway. Summers rolled her eyes. Typical.
Always ready to chase after whatever dead end Raidan threw out to
distract them. However, at least this strategy wasn't
illegal.

"Response from the freighter," said
Sarah. "They respectfully decline."

"What, really?" asked Shen. "They just
want to sit there?"

"Apparently they have their own ship
on the way to assist, and they'd rather their cargo and personnel
be handled by other rotham."

"I'm not surprised," said Calvin.
"They don't want us to find whatever they're carrying. That's why
Raidan wanted us to board the ship."

"How far out is their assisting
ship?"

"Four hours."

"So they're just going to sit on their
asses for four hours?" Miles asked. "Unbelievable."

"Four hours isn't a huge price to
pay," said Calvin. "If their cargo is, say... biological
weapons."

"That's a pretty serious accusation,"
said Summers. "More likely the Rotham trust for Imperial Military
ships is degenerating with each successive attack by Raidan." She
didn't blame them.

"I'm not making any specific
accusations," said Calvin. "But I give it a hundred to one
on
they have something
they don't want us to see."

Summers frowned. Maybe they did; she
knew she couldn't rule that out entirely. But provoking them
wouldn't help anything. What mattered most now was putting an end
to Raidan's crime spree, fixing international relations, and
getting the Fleet back to its usual pristine operating self.
Calvin’s obsession with unsettling everything would only make a bad
situation worse.

"Contact the station and bring us
within fifty thousand mc's of their operating range. Let's find out
exactly what happened."

"You got it," Sarah again spoke into
her headset and Summers' gaze met Calvin's. Meeting his sharp eyes,
which weren't as bloodshot as before, made her defensive—like he
was challenging her. He didn't say anything, but she couldn't shake
away the impression that he wanted to. She blinked and looked
away.

"Connected to the station's Deputy
Administrator, General Hesso."