The Phoenix Project (8 page)

    
“Find me.”

    
Nadine sensed them somewhere
on a nearby continent.

    
It was Eastern Europe. Latvia.
Riga. They were
at the Coalition Headquarters.

    
Catherine saw the concern
radiating from her pupil. “No need to worry, my student. We are in our private
apartments.”

    
Nadine sighed in relief. Many
assassination attempts had been carried out there. That was why the Council had
moved their office to MERA Headquarters, citing the presence of other
Aggressives to keep them safe. Their private apartments were a set of rooms
known to themselves and few others. They
 
moved about by way of a maze of secret passages within the predominately
military complex.

    
“Teacher, what lesson would
you teach me within our HQ?” Nadine asked.

    
“Your stumbling block is here.
We are here to remove him.”

    
“General Nadir?” Nadine asked,
remembering the name of the head of diplomatic relations.

    
“Yes.”

    
“Forgive me, my teacher, but I
don’t understand. Why do you need me for this?”

    
“We are going to teach you
something new,” Catherine replied.

    
Nadine’s curiosity was piqued.
“What do you have to teach me?”

    
“You require a lesson in
manipulation, specifically body manipulation,” Catherine replied.

    
“Yes, my teacher.”

    
“Keep your focus: follow me. I
will have my attention on our subject. I can not focus you in this action. If
you wander, I can’t bring you back into it.”

    
“I understand,” Nadine
replied.

    
“Good. I will end
transmission. Be as a bird on my shoulder.”

    
Nadine’s consciousness
followed Catherine’s. She saw the old, black cloaked woman wind her way through
ancient corridors hidden within the Headquarters of the Coalition.

    
General Harcourt Nadir was an
incredibly meticulous person. That attention to detail had provided him the way
into his superior’s heart. Though a little pretentious, he did make an
excellent diplomat. He sat now, straightening his curly ginger hair, which
never obeyed the correction.

    
His office was a large, well
lit, and airy affair. It had a nearly tropical flavour out of place for the
country it was situated in. Harcourt, or “Law” as he was informally known,
knew he was on the list. It was the only list that mattered in the Coalition.
He was finally on his way to becoming part of an inner group of senior officers
that made the real decisions. Law reclined in his chair and closed his eyes
with a satisfied smile on his face. As he relaxed, a small recess parted silently
in the adjacent room he had converted into a private bar and lounge.

    
A silver haired hag exited
from the recess and took small steps into the interior office.

    
Law opened his eyes to a withered,
old witch staring at him.

    
“What?”

    
Nadine, in her alcove at MERA,
gasped at the look of terror on his face. Law stared at this knot of an old
woman who regarded him with a horrifying grin.

    
Before he could say anything
more, he began to feel a tightening in his chest. He gasped and began to
hyperventilate. Law could feel something in his chest contracting in
excruciating pain.

    
Law tried to scream, but found
that he couldn’t; something was stopping him. He convulsed in his seat, a
contorted look of agony was on his face.

    
Nadine began to cry in pain. A
first tear started from her left, nearly white, eye and streamed soon after.

    
“Goodbye, Law,” Catherine
said, emphasizing his nickname. Harcourt felt an excruciating squish as his
left ventricle was crushed. His vision faded to black and his body slumped in his
chair.

    
Nadine passed out.

    
“Now you know,” she heard an
old voice say as her consciousness faded.

    
Maria couldn’t remember the
last time she was this irritated. A throbbing headache stretched from her
temples to the back of her head. She kept trying to massage it out but the damn
thing was persistent. She opened her eyes to the sight of her office aboard the
First Space Station.

    
The last nineteen hours had
featured press appearance after appearance after appearance. Even with a good
night’s sleep, she still found the need for another cup of coffee.

    
Her duties for the press were
finally completed. Any relevant information was being broadcast by the INN now. The pretty little
International News anchor could lob the manure to keep the public happy. Maria
was about to get up from her seat for another cup of creamy coffee when her
earpiece beeped and startled her from her reverie.

    
“Ma’am?” a male voice asked.

    
“Yes, Lieutenant,” she
responded, massaging her left temple.

    
“Ma’am, Admiral Nelson is here
to see you.”

    
“Nelson? Send him in.”

    
Fleet Admiral Nelson came
through the doors of her office with a broad grin on his face until he saw her
fatigue. His smile was wrenched into a frown as he became concerned with her
appearance. He waved her salute away.

    
“I know this had been hard on
you. Media relations have never been your strong suit,” Nelson said as he took
a seat.

    
“You hit the nail on the head,
Admiral,” she said, sitting down with her latest cup of coffee. She’d be wired
in an hour but at this point, who cared?

    
“You know that Horizon has
been shelved now that the evacuation is underway. I’m afraid we don’t have much
for you to do.”

    
“I won’t complain, Ronnie,”
Maria said.

    
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,
but I do have something available for you.”

    
“Oh really?” Maria asked, half—heartedly.

    
“Admiral Riddick is retiring
this month and the Second Battle Group needs a new commander. It’s yours if you
want it.”

    
“Command of a battle group?” Maria’s
ears perked up and the headache began to vanish.

    
“Choose any flagship you
want.”

    
“You know, I served on the
Excalibur
when I was a Lieutenant—Commander,”
Maria said and leaned back in her seat. “I remember that ship as being the
best.”

    
“She is a little older now.
The cruiser
Delphi
is the latest off the line.”

    
“It’s my command. I choose the
ship I want.”

    
“That it is. What do you say?”

    
“When do I start?”

    
“Right away. I relieved
Admiral Riddick an hour ago.”

    
“Thank—you, Sir,” Maria said.

    
“I’ll check in on you later
and see how you’re holding up.”

    
Maria stood as did he and
waited for him to leave the room. She then grabbed a briefcase and began to
pack.

    
Lathiel stood on the bridge of
his ship absent a captain’s chair. Ferine had always believed in a
decentralized command for their organizational structure. If Lathiel needed to sit
down, there was a couch available on either side of the round bridge. The
command center’s walls glowed with a sea blue that was nearly organic in its
texture. The front of the center was comprised of one large screen with an image
of a tiny dying star at its center.

    
“That’s the wormhole?” Lathiel
inquired, turning his cat—like eyes to his cousin at a nearby station. Each of
its panels looked like the surface of a cloud of intersecting amber bubbles.

    
One of those surfaces changed
to an image of incomprehensible data. Ranik looked back at Lathiel once he
finished examining it.

    
“Definitely. In the last
twenty—two hours it has collapsed to that size.”

    
“Could we send a probe
through?” Lathiel asked.

    
Ranik checked through the
advanced sensor data. “We can do it.”

    
“Then launch the probe.”

    
Ranik turned back to Lathiel
again. He knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear by the lowered
eyebrow above Ranik’s slit yellow eyes.

    
“Lathiel, I’m worried about
what’s on the other side of that.” He motioned with his head to the glimmer of
light on the view screen.

    
“What do you mean?”

    
“Have you ever thought of what
or who might be out there?” Ranik asked.

    
“A fin probe is small enough
to be equipped with stealth.”

    
Ranik’s eyes worked at the
possibility.

    
“Yes, yes! But we’re assuming
whoever may be out there is not advanced enough to detect it.”

    
“It’s worth the risk to find
out what damage our weapon might have done. Let’s get started.”

   
“I can’t see this happening in
time,” Madison
said.

    
“Why not?” Joshua demanded.

    
“In three months? The
engineering branch said three months Josh.”

    
The large table Madison and
Joshua were bent over was a bright island in a dim shadow of a room.

    
Elliot half listened to the
exchange while he watched the news on INN.
With only a day to go, ten million people were still left in the red zone of
the United
States.

    
“We don’t have six months to
finish the particle warhead. The project has to start in a month,” Madison said.

    
“Madi, I have talked to the
Engineering Division three times. Two months is the absolute minimum to build a
facility of that size.”

    
“Maybe not,” Elliot said. He switched
off the monitor and sat up on the leather couch.

    
“What?” Madison asked.

    
“How big would an installation
need to be in order to house and defend the particle warhead?”

    
“Massive,” Madison replied. She handed a detailed link
to Elliot.

    
“We’ve got something that big
in storage,” Elliot said to their bewildered expressions. “Earth and every
colony have base components available in case the need should arise. It’s not
common knowledge but they are there.”

    
“Where would they store it? It
would be way too big to store anywhere on Earth, even in pieces,” Madison asked.

    
“Well, you’re right,” he said
to their satisfied smiles. “It’s stored in orbit, in the shipyards to be exact.
We could have it up in about a month, maybe less.”

    
“That solves one problem. On
to the next one,” Joshua replied.

    
“Okay, if the plan is to leave
the Colonized Sphere, where do we put all those people? Naval Analysis has told
us that there is no way to take more than a few thousand civilians with us
onboard our battleships,” Madison
said.

    
“What about the other nine
hundred ships? They won’t have any weapons, but aren’t they still capable of
high FTL speeds?” Elliot asked.

    
“Would they do?” Madison asked Joshua.

    
“We were going to take a
wrecking ball to them. Let me see.” Joshua examined the pile of links on the
table in front of him. Eventually he found the required link and looked up with
a triumphant smile on his face. “It could work. The other nine hundred ships
could serve as civilian transports: they have the speed we want.”

    
“How many can they carry?”
Elliot inquired.

    
“I’ll send a request to the
Science Council. I’m betting that it’ll be a good number. Each of those ships
is almost two miles long.”