The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) (35 page)

“Okay…” he said, fighting off his gut reaction to all of this, that it was all too weird for something not to be wrong. The blinking lights, obviously some kind of pattern, the garbled text-only messages. The fact that the
Nighthawk
had been far afield from its expected position when the pod arrived at the pre-determined coordinates. Not to mention the apparent fact that the
Nighthawk
was unable, or unwilling, to answer their hail.

“Scan the ship,” said Calvin, unable to shake his hunch that something suspicious was going on.

“What?” asked First Lieutenant Ferreiro.

“I said, scan the ship,” said Calvin, using a firmer tone. “Do it, now!”

“Yes, sir, right away, sir,” said First Lieutenant Ferreiro. Calvin turned to the Ops display and waited for the soldier to nervously enter the inputs that would command the pod’s scanners to engage.

“Here, I’ll just do it myself,” said Calvin, annoyed. That was the trouble of captaining a ship whose crew was entirely composed of soldiers. Sure, you could fend off a boarding party of space pirates, but good luck getting your staff to even figure out how to maneuver the vessel out of the space dock!

The scan initiated. Calvin wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, though he suspected, if something were seriously amiss, as seemed to be the case, the scanner would pick up on some sort of clue. And any new information, at this point, would be extremely helpful, since, given what he had, he could not make heads or tails of it.

While the scanner did its thing, Calvin decided to continue with the plan as designed. “All right, everybody, listen up. The moment we dock with the ship and the seal is in place, I’m going to blow the hatch, and then everybody is going to get out of this pod as fast as they possibly can. To avoid confusion, I am assigning you an order.” He then pointed to each of them and gave them a number, telling them that that was the order they would use to get through the hatch and onto the
Nighthawk
. Calvin decided that he would go aboard last. That way he could be sure everyone was aboard when he used the corridor intercom to signal the bridge to jump into alteredspace.

God I hope the intercom still has power
, he thought, only now realizing that, if the
Nighthawk
had indeed drained power from everything it possibly could, in order to keep its shields raised and itself intact against the energy bombardment from that damned
Custos
vortex, then the intercom itself might be down. He then wondered what he would do. Hopefully the bridge would know the pod had attached and then simply make the jump, he thought. But if not, then I’ll have to get to the bridge and tell them myself. If the intercom is down, then the elevators will be down too, that means the ladders…he continued forming his plan and coming up with contingencies when he felt he needed to. Whatever happened, whatever they found the situation to be once they got aboard, Calvin wanted to be ready for anything.    

His thoughts were interrupted by a collective gasp from seemingly all of his passengers at once.

“What?” asked Calvin, startled. He looked up and out the window, expecting to see the blinking lights, now closer than ever. Instead, all he saw was
Custos
. Glowing, changing in opacity as it now, apparently, had become stationary. It seemed also to have stopped blinking in and out of existence, for the time being.

“The lights?” asked Calvin. “Where are the lights?” He looked at his men and then back up out the window, expecting to see the
Nighthawk
’s identifier lights turn back on again.
They’re just off, that’s all
, he told himself
, they’ll come on again. That’s what they’ve been doing this whole time. Turning them on and off.

“I…I don’t know, sir,” said First Lieutenant Ferreiro, as if he thought Calvin had addressed his question to him personally.

“There was a big flash,” said Nikolai. “Very bright. Very bright, and very fast. Bright like sun, then gone. Poof. After that…no more running lights.”

“No, no that’s not…” Calvin stuttered as he tried to keep himself from imagining the possibility that the very worst thing had just happened.

Calvin immediately looked at the ongoing scan and saw that the computer claimed not to detect anything matching his prescribed inputs. “No, that’s impossible,” he said, “You
just
detected it,” he said to the Ops terminal. “You can’t just stop detecting it!”

“Sir, I hate to be the one to say it, but I think—” First Lieutenant Ferreiro began to say, but Calvin interrupted him.

“
No!
” said Calvin. “That is
not
the case. Whatever you’re thinking, stop it! The
Nighthawk
is still out there and we’re going to find it and dock with it. This…this is some kind of malfunction.” His voice became increasingly frantic as he spoke. He felt himself trembling, ever so slightly, and part of him, a very small part of him, kept telling him what had most likely happened. It was the only explanation that fit the facts. But Calvin rejected it. He refused to believe it. Especially without any proof.

“There’s got to be an explanation,” he said, returning to the Ops controls and setting it to scan a larger swath of space, and for a greater criteria of objects. “Maybe…maybe the ship moved? Maybe they had to divert away from the vector we gave them,” he said, rambling. “I mean, we were close, but not that close, not close enough to dock, not yet. Barely even close enough for visible range. And they could easily have lost power to the running lights…that’s why they aren’t switching them on anymore, and the scanner, well, this piece of shit can’t detect a—”

Calvin stopped abruptly at the sound of his passengers reacting to something.

“What the hell?” asked one.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked another.

“Are we going to die?” asked a third.

Calvin looked away from the Ops console and back up at the window to see what the hell was going on. The instant he did, he felt something inside his heart die. And all of his denial, all of his defenses, they vanished like vapor.

The window above had been struck by a large, black, sharp piece of metal. It had clearly struck the window at high speed, so much so that the object had implanted itself in the thick, transparent material; a massive crack had even formed, although, fortunately the crack had not penetrated all the way through. Still, there was no mistaking the object for what it was…nor any question as to where it had come from.

It was a mostly-black, metal fragment of debris that had, without a doubt, come from a starship. Almost certainly one that had exploded. By its every appearance, down to the subtlest detail, it reminded Calvin of the hull of the
Nighthawk
. It even had the same unique shade of not-quite-black, and there were subtle lines going longwise across the piece. No there was no longer any denying, nor any question as to what it was that had struck them…Calvin knew his ship. Knew it like a parent knew his own child. The
Nighthawk
had been his home, his sanctuary, his world. He knew its every detail. He could even identify which part of the hull the debris had come from…

“No…” said Calvin weakly; feeling his legs buckle beneath him, he collapsed to his knees, feeling as though all strength within him had suddenly been sucked away. “It…it can’t be…”

“The flash, that was
Custos
, striking the
Nighthawk
again,” said Nikolai. “Only that time, it was clearly one time too many. And, well, the rest you know. I am so sorry, my friend.” He placed a hand on Calvin’s shoulder. Probably he’d meant it to be reassuring, but there was nothing in the universe that could reassure Calvin now.

When he left the surface of the Forbidden Planet, he had already felt empty and depressed, and believed he had lost and sacrificed far too much, practically everything. But now, as the reality sunk in that the
Nighthawk
was gone, destroyed, exploded into a million pieces…and all the many, many people aboard: Summers. Nimoux. Cassidy. Jay. Andre. The medical staff…the engineering staff…the shift officers…
everyone
…Calvin looked around, thinking, only the soldiers survived. And even then, only around half.
So much waste. So much loss of life…

“So, now what?” asked one of the soldiers.

“Yeah, now what do we do?”

Calvin didn’t have the answer to that question. He didn’t even feel like he had the stamina to so much as begin to attempt to figure what their next step should be. It seemed pointless. And hopeless. And, without the
Nighthawk
, perhaps there was no
next step
. Perhaps, trapped here in this pod, floating pointlessly somewhere in the Forbidden System, maybe they had already taken their final step.

They continued to ask him questions, but Calvin did not acknowledge them. Not any of them. He couldn’t so much as look any of his subordinates in the eyes. Instead, he remained on his knees, feeling like a corpse that was only just now learning it was dead.

“I hope it was worth it,” he whispered, thinking of all the blood, all the sacrifice, and the now the loss of the
Nighthawk
and all hands present…

The worst part was, he wasn’t even sure they had actually accomplished anything meaningful during their mission on the planet’s surface. Yes, he believed they had. Or, at least, he had believed that, especially at the time. That was why he had come here and taken the risks; risks he’d known but had mostly ignored. And now here he was, a gambling debtor, finding himself on the wrong side of the table, with the wrong cards in his hands, and the wrong dice roll staring up at him. Taunting him.

Maybe it had been worth it, he tried to console himself. Maybe what they had done down there, by exposing the Dark Prelains to the others, maybe they had saved lives, whether in the present or the future, by helping the highest echelon of Polarians achieve resolution regarding a major conflict that many of them, if not most, hadn’t even known was going on.

Calvin did believe that what they had done down there, in the Alcazar, and in the Sacred Dome, would have positive repercussions…for the Polarian people, at least. Assuming Rez’nac had succeeded in his effort to defend the actual Prelains long enough for them to achieve safety, which, for all Calvin knew, had been a failure as well. But, if he gave Rez’nac the benefit of the doubt, and let himself believe that the Prelains, who now understood that their order had been infiltrated and corrupted, could now make meaningful changes that would promote peace and prosperity, at least among the Polarians, who were, after all, people just as surely as the humans were, then yes, maybe it was worth it.

Maybe then it was a good enough thing for the galaxy to justify the massive expense it had cost. Even though it had cost so many people everything, including their lives. For all he knew that applied to him too; after all, he had no way of getting back to the Empire, assuming there was an Empire to return to and it hadn’t fallen apart.

This pod certainly wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Although it did have limited alteredspace capability, it could never dream of sustaining an alteredspace jump long enough to get them back inside Imperial space. Not from here. And, on top of that, it had neither stealth measures nor defense capabilities that could withstand attack, or help them to elude or fight their way through an intercepting patrol—which was bound to happen. Not that it mattered. Not really.

The soldiers continued to ask questions and demand answers; they were lost with a plan, without a commander telling them what to do and when to do it. And, Calvin believed, they were afraid. Maybe some of them had already concluded what he had, that there was no way any of them could ever get home. No matter how much they might want to.

Eventually, Nikolai spoke up, interrupting the others. He spoke loudly, as though he were in command. “Silence!” he said, shutting everyone up instantly. “The answer is, we will know what the next step is when Calvin tells us what it is. Not before. Now shut up about it.”

Nikolai then bent down, so he could look Calvin in the eyes. Although Calvin felt too broken to engage anyone, in any way, and at first averted his eyes so he did not have to look at Nikolai directly, he eventually put himself back together enough, emotionally, that he could at least look Nikolai in the eyes and talk to him. Even though Calvin still felt shattered, from his head to his toes, as if it hadn’t been the
Nighthawk
that
Custos
had exploded into a million pieces, but rather it had been Calvin that had been destroyed. All of his hope, all of his optimism, his drive, his purpose, his very soul, everything had been somehow connected to that ship. And now it was gone forever. Being the CO of the
Nighthawk
, an investigator in the service of Intel Wing, that was who he was, to his core; he didn’t know how to be anything else.

“Listen to me,” said Nikolai, his voice was neither firm nor especially gentle. “I know you are in great pain. I can see it in your eyes. But you have to get up. You have to pilot this craft. I don’t know where, but somewhere. You know we cannot stay here. And only you can get us there.”