The Phoenix Reckoning (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 6) (14 page)

The first recording, which she and her senior advisors had watched several times, explicitly showed Raidan execute Caerwyn Martel. It was an unlawful execution, no question of it, the man had committed murder. But that did not matter, not to Kalila. What mattered was that Caerwyn, the obstacle that kept the Empire divided against itself, was dead.
Let them cry foul
, she thought,
let them blame Raidan for the lack of due process of law. They may hunt him from one corner of the galaxy to the next for all I care. Caerwyn Martel is dead, the blame is not mine, and now the Empire may be reunited
.

“Do we pardon Raidan?” Sir Gregory had asked, after the first time they’d watched Raidan’s pistol bring a swift, gruesome end to their primary nemesis. It had been a logical question; Raidan had done them an enormous service. It only made sense to scratch the backs of those who scratched yours. However, Kalila knew the political ramifications of pardoning Raidan would weaken her position among those who remained sympathetic to Caerwyn. And to pardon Raidan would be to rubberstamp the unsanctioned killing of a political prisoner. That would reflect poorly upon Kalila, and so pardoning Raidan remained out of the question.

“We cannot,” she had told Sir Gregory and the rest of her advisors, half of whom seemed to understand while the rest had appeared taken aback. “To pardon Raidan would be seen by those whose support we currently most need as a royal sanction of an act that was deeply unlawful and unjust.”

“Unjust?” Sir Gregory had protested. “Surely Caerwyn Martel deserved an even more ignominious end than even the one he received.”

Kalila’s feelings had been much the same as Sir Gregory’s. Caerwyn Martel had committed crimes against her, her family, and, most importantly, the Empire, which could never be forgiven or undone. Caerwyn deserved to suffer an agonizing death, slow and painful, and he deserved his name to be permanently tainted, spoken only in tones of animosity across all of the Imperial worlds. However, something being deserved and something being a reality often were greatly diverged. Kalila had understood then, as she understood now, that Raidan could never be forgiven for what he had done. Nor could he be rewarded—despite how much he had given them and their cause—because Kalila had to remain sensitive to the political reality that existed throughout the Empire. Many who had been sympathetic to Caerwyn would not accept her rule easily, and would likely not accept it at all if she endorsed the murder of the man that these political factions had believed to be their legitimate king.

Currently, Kalila stood once more with her senior advisors, reviewing a message that had been transmitted from Capital World to all the rest of the Empire. Only this message had not originated from Raidan, who no doubt had long fled the system, rather this message had been sent by the Imperial Assembly itself. The remnant of the government at the capital had convened an emergency session to determine what action to take—now that Caerwyn had been slain and died without an heir—and only minutes ago they had broadcast their intentions and instructions Empire-wide. Kalila and her advisors remained silent as they watched the recorded message a second time.

It showed the gathered body of the Imperial Assembly—all who remained. They were not in the Assembly Chamber, which Raidan had destroyed, and instead met in some other large, fancy room that Kalila could not recognize. It could have belonged to any number of elite buildings that densely packed the most valuable real estate in the galaxy.

Although it was impossible to tell, it appeared that no one who remained to the Imperial Assembly was missing from the recorded message, although she would have to have her technicians pause the wide-angle camera shots and identify each of the many faces in the crowded room to be certain.

At the forefront of the room, and easily discernible on the picture, stood Representatives Hadriana Cydney and Josef Taggart, the same two that had sanctioned Raidan’s extralegal killing of Caerwyn Martel, and had, also in the previous message, knelt and declared their loyalty for Kalila; although all who had watched the message assumed they had done so under duress from Raidan. Which was why their appearance here, with all their gathered Assembly cohorts, under no indication of duress, was so important.

Again, both representatives knelt and swore their fealty to Queen Kalila. This was followed by a vote of the High lords and ladies—the few that remained—of the Imperial Assembly, representing the Great Houses, which came to the unanimous conclusion that Kalila Akira was the rightful monarch of the Empire, and Caerwyn’s successor. Although Kalila refused to recognize Caerwyn’s claim, even after his death, she considered herself Hisato Akira’s successor, but the bottom line was the same. She was the monarch of the Empire. Now unchallenged.

The common representatives then took a vote, and although not quite unanimous themselves, they voted overwhelmingly to accept the recommendations of their leader, representative Cydney, along with the binding vote of the Great Houses, and pledge their support for and recognition of, “Kalila Akira, daughter of Hisato Akira, First of Her Name, Heiress of the Andrevine, and now the true and rightful monarch of the Empire and all its worlds and all its citizens, wherever they may be.”

The underlying message was very clear. It was meant to inform, and to some extent persuade, any Imperial worlds that had not yet joined Kalila’s cause, that they were to consider themselves her subjects and no longer at war against her, or neutral toward her. The message’s second intention, no doubt, was to inform Kalila that the war was over, that the Imperial Assembly wished for reunification—just like Kalila had been calling for all this time—and the Imperial Assembly was willing to submit to her claims in order to allow such reunification to occur.

Of course, in order to properly recognize this transmission, and accept the offer the Imperial Assembly had made, for her to return home to Capital World, and from there see to the restoration and reunification of the Empire, she would have to instruct her own body of legislators, the Royal Assembly, to re-legitimize the Imperial Assembly, and recognize their authority, as an extension of the Royal Assembly itself, and thereby legitimize the Imperial Assembly’s offer in the eyes of Kalila’s sworn worlds and followers. That, of course, would be no trouble. And Kalila intended to do exactly that.

The message ended with a vote by the Imperial Assembly to recognize Kalila for her heroism in her defense of Thetican System, going to such an extreme as to name her a hero of the battle, despite its tragic end. This part of the message, no doubt, had been meant to appeal to her ego, to flatter her. But unfortunately it had the opposite effect and only tasted bitter in her mouth as she listened to the words. They served only to remind her of her failure, of the loss of nearly half her fleet, and the total destruction of the planet and star system she had committed herself to protecting.

I’m no hero
, she thought as she listened to the words.
I am only someone who tried to protect the Empire from the threats I saw, as best I saw them
.

“That’s quite enough,” she said, commanding her advisors to terminate the message. She’d heard enough of the Assembly’s flattery the first time they had watched the message; there was no need to hear it all again.

“What do you make of it, Your Majesty?” asked Captain Adiger.

“I believe we have been handed the olive branch we have been waiting for,” said Kalila.

“If I may, with apologies for disagreeing, Your Highness,” said Sir Gregory.

“No apologies are necessary for such a thing,” said Kalila. “Speak.”

“I cannot help but wonder if this is not an elaborate trap,” said Sir Gregory.

“How so?” asked Kalila with genuine curiosity.

“It all seems to have been arranged,” he said. “It just seems a bit too perfect, a bit too easy, if you understand my meaning. Could this not be the work of someone else, some other power who means Her Majesty harm, that might have taken control of the Imperial Assembly in Mr. Martel’s absence, and set this as a trap?”

Kalila considered that for a moment and then rejected it as implausible. “While I am grateful for Sir Gregory’s concern for my well-being, I do not believe this is, or could be, a trap. But, even if it were a trap, we would still have no choice but to take that risk and accept the offer before us, despite such concern.”

She could tell by the confused looks on their faces that they did not follow her logic, so she decided to walk them through it carefully. “Captain Adiger,” she said, choosing one of them arbitrarily. “What is the one thing I have asked for in all of my formal addresses to the Empire?”

He gave this some thought before replying. Eventually saying, “Your Majesty has asked for the people to unite together under your banner.”

“And now they have done that,” said Kalila. “Or at least, made the best effort they know how to do to fulfill that requirement. They have united under my banner by recognizing my claim to my father’s throne. For us to be skeptical of them, to not take them at their word, or to not accept their offer, would be for us to create a situation whereby the Empire cannot be reunited. The conflict between each side must end, as must the distrust between opposing worlds, for us to have any chance to stand against the enemies which we know to be coming; there is only one course of action for us. We must accept their offer, and I intend to do just that, only I shall do so on my terms. Gentlemen, at long last, it is finally time for us to return home.”

“As you command, Your Majesty,” Sir Gregory bowed. “It is true what you say, we must be united if we are to prepare for the threats that loom beyond our borders.”

Not only had the Rotham Republic proven their willingness to attack the Empire—although they had been handed a particularly devastating defeat at Thetican System—now Imperial listening posts along The Rim were beginning to pick up distress signals coming from several Polarian colonies. Of course their cries were in vain, neither the Empire nor the Rotham Republic had the means, nor the motive, to come to the Polarians’ rescue, but the chilling cries for help did act as a kind of warning. An omen for what was coming, which, according to her top analysts, if Polarian colonies were under attack by a seemingly unstoppable Polarian fleet, there was only one logical conclusion. The Dread Fleet had awoken, and was on the move. Although little was known about the structure of such a fleet, the minimal historical records combined with many decades of widespread rumors led to the popularly held image of a swarm of death-black ships scourging planets mercilessly, one after another, hell-bent on destroying any society which the Polarians’ top religious leaders deemed too impure to exist.

Kalila could hardly believe that such a fleet existed, let alone that it was on the move, already wreaking chaos and destruction inside Polarian space, but she also could not ignore the warning signs. And if something was out there, powerful enough to topple the more secular Polarian colonies without resistance, then it likely would make its way into Rotham and Imperial space eventually. And, when it did, only a unified Empire could hope to stand against such a threat.

“Then it is decided,” said Kalila. “I shall instruct the Royal Assembly to send a message of their own, to legitimize the Imperial Assembly once more and to accept their decision to reign as monarch over their worlds.”

At long last it is time
, she thought.
Time for my hour to begin. Time to take my father’s throne and save the Empire that I have, through my efforts, guided only by the very best of intentions, personally endangered. Now it is time for me to redeem myself and my family and save humanity.

***

Calvin disconnected what might be his last ever call from Grady Rosco with a smile. The
Nighthawk
was ready. Finally ready. True, the repairs had been rushed, and the Roscos lacked the equipment and expertise to do a perfect job. But, under the oversight of the
Nighthawk’s
engineering staff, and with no expenses spared, the shipwrights and equipment of Aleator One had managed to fix the hull breach on deck four—not just patch it. They had even managed to bolster the
Nighthawk’s
armor where it was weak, damaged, or completely missing. The metals they used were not the perfect alloys that the
Nighthawk’s
schematics called for; they were not quite so strong as what the starship was used to. However, they certainly were better than nothing, and most importantly, none of the work—including the new armor plating—would compromise the ship’s stealth system. Or so the
Nighthawk’s
engineers had assured Calvin, and reassured him when he expressed extra concern.

“We’re going into Polarian Forbidden Space,” he had reminded them. “You had better be damned sure the stealth system is able to work optimally.”

“Which is why we elected for the materials that we did,” Andre Cowen had said reassuringly. “We shall be as invisible as we ever were.”

Calvin had told Andre that he was going to hold him to it, and he had meant that. Still, the chief engineer’s endorsement had gone a long way toward soothing Calvin’s jittery nerves, and now that the ship had been fixed, re-armored, re-supplied, loaded with weapons, and had taken on twenty-two Rosco soldiers, each of whom had brought their own weapons and gear, but were being immediately trained by Captain Nimoux in the use of proper jackets, helmets, and firearms; now Calvin was eager to return to the stars.