The Phoenix Crisis (28 page)

Again there was a fervent reaction to this
in the chamber. Many of the Assembly members were personally
offended that the King ignored their recommendation and sent troops
anyway, and there was no question that the size of the army sounded
heavy-handed. Representative Tate had to call for order once
more.

“
The number of soldiers
dispatched was decided based on the strategic advice of the Knights
of the King,” said Kalila. “The brave men and women in the armed
forces whom we deploy are citizens too, and many of them are our
brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, and our fathers and
mothers. To deploy an inadequate force puts them in unnecessary
danger, and encourages attacks on them. My father’s priority is to
keep all of his citizens safe, that includes everyone on Renora and
all of the forces of peace he had to
temporarily
deploy to restore
order.”

Forces of
Peace
… Caerwyn almost scoffed. No one would
believe that. “And tell us, Princess, have your father’s efforts
been successful? Are there signs that he is ready to withdraw his
force of peace? Has order been restored? Are the citizens of Renora
better off?”

Kalila hesitated for a moment. “It is too
early to tell,” she said.

“
I disagree,” said Caerwyn.
“I submit to you all, fellow Representatives, that the situation on
Renora has only worsened. Based on these images collected by Intel
Wing, since His Majesty’s troops touched down there has been a ten
percent increase in starvation,
ten
percent
. A thirty percent decrease in
access to water. Nine percent of the remaining buildings and
infrastructure have been razed to the ground, including civilian
homes. There have been over two million citizens displaced since
the troops arrived. And yet that’s nothing when you consider the
last statistic,” he paused for dramatic effect. “Since the arrival
of His Majesty’s forces, there has been a ten-thousand percent
increase in the number of violent deaths happening on Renora per
day.”

The chamber met him with stunned silence.
Caerwyn kept his face even as he looked them over, from left to
right and back. Judging their reactions. Knowing he’d won a few of
them over. Putting him that much closer to the throne. Of course he
didn’t know if any of the statistics he’d reported were accurate,
Zane had furnished them, but he thought they were as likely as
anything else. And the Assembly members seemed to find them
plausible. Even the Princess had difficulty rebutting them. She
tried. And those who still supported her raised their objections
and made their arguments in her favor, trying to invoke images of
patriotism and pro-Akiran sentiment, but most of it fell on deaf
ears. And Caerwyn knew he’d won the day.

Chapter 19

Raidan hesitated before signing the order.
He didn’t enjoy hurting people. But he’d do it if he had to, if
that’s what it took to save the Empire. He’d do anything. But there
was a delicacy to his operation and it required a lot of
consideration.

“
She’ll be expecting you to
sign it,” said Mira Pellew over the screen. Raidan was in the
privacy of his office on the Harbinger and was communicating with
Mira over kataspace. The paper before him, with instructions on
where and when to deploy the weapon, was meant to be deployed
against someone else.

“
I know,” said Raidan. “But
White Rook trusts me to make the right decision, and I intend
to.”

“
Right decision?” asked
Mira. “This is
war.
Don’t tell me you’ve gone all soft.”

“
It is war,” Raidan agreed.
“But it’s also complicated. And the target we’ve selected… they
haven’t been involved in this war. They’ve taken no part in
it.”

“
Collateral damages,” said
Mira. “We are only taking the game to the same level as the enemy.
They’ve already proven they’re willing to go for the jugular—just
look at Renora. If we aren’t willing to do the same, we may as well
throw in the towel. And start learning to speak Rotham.”

“
I know,” said Raidan. He’d
worked the logic through his head a thousand times. “I just wonder…
if we’re willing to do this, then what separates us from them? What
is the difference between us after that? Is there one?”

“
The difference is this time
it’s not our people getting hurt, it’s theirs. They have made
Imperial citizens bleed and suffer; it’s time to repay the
favor.”

Raidan nodded. It was true. This was the
ugliest, dirtiest sort of war and the side that wasn’t willing to
do what it took to win, wouldn’t. He wrote an amendment to the
order, allowing for the weapon to be moved into position and
prepped for deployment but insisting it not be fired without his
go-ahead. Then he signed the paper.

“
You made the right choice,”
said Mira. The screen winked off. Raidan leaned back in his chair
and let out a sigh. It was a dangerous gambit. By inciting this
attack, if all went well, the human element of the Phoenix Ring
would be blamed. Certainly there was enough evidence for MXR to be
implicated. And that corporation, more than any other, seemed to be
at the heart of Phoenix Ring operations. The danger was, should the
Imperial government be implicated, and not the Phoenix Ring, then
that risked war with the Republic. And war was that last thing the
Empire needed. In truth it was already at war, on the inside, it
didn’t need enemies abroad to catch the death stink and help it
along. The Rotham and even some of the Polarians were like
vultures, circling patiently, waiting for their prey to die.
Coveting the Empire’s vast territory. They had to be stopped.
Something had to be done. Letting things continue on course was
unacceptable, Renora was fast becoming a disaster and the King only
barely clung to his crown. Replicants had spread far and wide and
the Organization’s resources were shrinking, many of its key assets
being killed or vanishing into thin air. The Empire’s days were
numbered and Raidan knew he had to act. Someone had to. And he was
one of the only people in a position to do something.

If all went well the Rotham element of the
Phoenix Ring would blame the human members of the Phoenix Ring—and
not the Empire—for the attack. The seeds of distrust and discord
would be sown. Ending their cooperation and weakening their
influence. Perhaps creating a war between members of the Phoenix
Ring. At the very least, funds flowing out of the Empire and to
god-knows-where in the Republic would be cut off. Maybe the
breaking of ties between the Rotham conspirators and the humans
would be enough to weaken the element that was steering the
Republic toward a course of inevitable war with the Empire.

Raidan silenced his thoughts and tapped the
intercom. He summoned Tristan to pick up his handwritten order. And
wondered if, when the time came, he’d be able to do what was
necessary.

***

So far no one had come forward with
information about Rafael or either of the other two former
Nighthawk officers that’d been seized. It made him anxious and
concerned, but also all the more determined to get to the bottom of
it. And expose the Phoenix Ring.

Calvin did as much of the investigative
grunt work as he could stomach, but the Intel Wing archives, as
well as the public network, contained so much data that it would
have taken him many lifetimes to comb through it properly. So he
instructed his teams on how to focus their investigation, and they
undertook the daunting task.

He identified corporations that had even the
most remote—but still plausible—link to the Phoenix Ring and had
all information on them pulled. He put key corporate officers under
surveillance, had computer hard drives seized and searched, and
used the executive authority of his new office to tap into
communication lines.

He hated that someone, even himself, had the
power to invade the privacy of others so thoroughly and
unilaterally, but with the fate of the Empire on the line Calvin
intended to do everything he possibly could to root out the lead
conspirators and arrest them.

Most angles of the investigation were slow
to produce leads, or did not produce leads at all. Many of the
people they brought in for interviews proved to be very
tightlipped. Calvin’s best lead, he believed, was to crack the nut
that was MXR. That corporation was clearly linked to the Phoenix
Ring. He was sure of it. After all, they’d been behind the intended
purchase of the Beotan Cargo—the replicants. Unfortunately Zane
Martel and his high ranking corporate officers ran a tight ship and
no one in their confidence was willing to talk.

Calvin also investigated the individual
members of the Assembly, with a special interest in Caerwyn Martel.
He hadn’t found anything on him yet, but he had a suspicion that
the Martel family was involved in the conspiracy, and not just
because they owned MXR. It was also because Caerwyn was one of two
likely challengers to King Akira should the king lose his
throne.

An especially difficult angle to
investigate, but an important one, was that of tracking the
movements of the Empire’s military leadership. The very top levels
of the Fleet and Intel Wing were scattered throughout Imperial
space. And of the ones who were headquartered on Capital World,
many had jumped system since Calvin was put in as Executor of the
Empire. He noted their names, ordered investigations into them and
their recent behavior, but he didn’t quite have the authority or
the means to drag them back to Capital World for interviews. Of
those who did remain, none had revealed anything useful.

It was an exhausting and frustrating
enterprise, but slowly and surely Calvin’s teams were putting the
picture together. A clue here and a clue there, bits and pieces of
information that hadn’t been fully whitewashed or buried. Not
enough to go after the big fish, like Zane Martel, but there were
plenty of minnows. Calvin’s teams identified a list of several
individuals, mostly low-level politicians and mid-level corporate
officers, who were likely to be associated with the Phoenix Ring.
Probably as seconds and thirds, each representing one of the top
members. If true, it was an enormous breakthrough. Calvin dared to
be hopeful.

He put out an order for each of the names on
the list to be brought in for questioning. After what’d happened to
Michael Evans, Calvin made sure that this time every person he’d
ordered brought in was to be granted protective custody
immediately. Hopefully it would be enough. Especially since Calvin
now knew he had a leak in his organization—someone had shared that
he’d wanted Michael Evans brought in—and that meant this list of
names would probably be leaked too. He was aware that he was
probably painting targets on these peoples’ heads, but he hoped his
people would find them first. Before the Phoenix Ring decided to
erase them.

***

“
What is this?” asked Zane.
As pleasant as Celeste’s face was to look at over the secure comm
screen, Zane was not happy to see her. She’d interrupted his bath
and now he stood wet in one of his private chambers wearing only a
lavender robe.

“
I forwarded you a list of
names, did it go through?” she asked. There was a surprising amount
of alarm in her voice and it made Zane wonder what had gone wrong
now.

He touched the computer panel and discovered
that yes, Celeste’s list of people had arrived. He scanned over a
few of the names and recognized them immediately. “Some of these
are our people,” he said. Many of the names on the list were
inferior members of the Phoenix Ring, including Zane’s own
third.

“
The Executor has ordered
these people be brought in for questioning.”

Zane felt his heart quicken. There were
enough people here that, under aggressive interrogation, at least
one would crack. And that might give the Executor all the cause he
needed to swoop in and put a stop to everything, possibly even
before the Ascension.

“
Does he have any of them in
custody?” asked Zane.

“
Not yet. His organization
is making security preparations to avoid another
Michael Evans
type
incident before he brings them into custody. There are also several
on that list whose locations haven’t yet been uncovered by the
Executor’s people.”

That was good. At least it gave them some
time. “Tell the others—” said Zane. To his surprise Celeste
interrupted him.

“
I’m sorry but you’ll have
to tell them yourself. I’m jumping planet. I’ll be in touch again
when Ascension comes.”

The screen winked off. Zane almost couldn’t
believe it. Had she hung up on him? And interrupted him? He’d have
to discipline her later, but for now there were far more important
matters.

The Executor of the Empire had just proven
himself too meddling to be left alone. The boy wasn’t just a thorn
in Zane’s side, now he was a legitimate threat. So Zane decided to
deal with it. He reached out to the organizations that might be
persuaded to act against the Executor—though this were merely a
precautionary fallback if Blackmoth wouldn’t take the job. This
list included CERKO, which Zane contacted with some hesitation.
There were several professional, well-operated cells within CERKO
but most were too disorganized and unprofessional for his liking.
One of the less competent groups had already botched one targeted
hit on Calvin earlier on Aleator. Zane now wished he’d paid more
money and hired Ryker and his people for that operation. At the
time, though, Calvin was a name on a piece of paper and not someone
Zane expected to become a key player. He’d ordered the hit almost
as an afterthought, believing that if the officer pursuing Raidan
were brutally murdered and news of that reached the public, it
would damage Raidan’s reputation and put additional pressure on his
organization.