The Phoenix Rising (37 page)

“
Bear in mind you only have
a few more hours.”

“
Trust me,” said Calvin,
feeling the tide of stress rise in his mind. “I haven’t forgotten.”
He would destroy those isotome weapons if that was the last thing
he did, even if it cost him the ship and everyone on board. He
would find a way to make it happen, no matter how bad the tension
was between the humans and Polarians.

It was time to have a talk with Rez’nac.

***

The office door opened and a large,
bluish-grey person could be seen in the doorway. He was so tall and
muscular that he loomed over the tiny office.

In the time since he’d requested Rez’nac’s
presence to the man’s arrival a few minutes later, Calvin had
received six independent requests from soldiers and crewmen alike
for the Polarian force to be disarmed. The situation was indeed
bad.

“
You summoned me?” asked
Rez’nac.

“
Yes,” said Calvin. “Please,
come in.”

The large Polarian stepped inside and the
door closed behind him. Calvin looked up at him unintimidated, even
though this mountain-like alien had at least fifty kilograms on
him.

“
What brings me this honor,
Captain?”

“
Please, take a
seat.”

The Polarian did as asked.

“
As you have probably heard,
there has been a murder on this ship. That is why your men have
been asked to remain in their quarters with the doors
locked.”

“
I have heard. And we’ve
complied. But I must ask—does this mean you suspect one of my men?
If so, the shame of it falls upon me,” Rez’nac’s face contorted
strangely in what was probably an expression of grief.

“
I don’t have any evidence
it was one of your men,” said Calvin. “But the majority of people
on this ship seem to connect the fact that the victim was one of
the men who disrupted your ritual with the fact that it appeared to
be a revenge killing.”

Rez’nac nodded. “I can see why they would
draw such a conclusion. Though those facts alone do not prove the
killer was Polarian.”

“
I agree,” said Calvin,
folding his arms. “Which is why you’re here. I need your
cooperation with an investigation.”

“
Anything. If the killer was
one of my own, he deserves to be punished. And so do I.”

Calvin didn’t agree with
that last statement but decided not to debate it. “I want to send
two officers to where you and your men are quartered who will
interview them one by one. I would like you to accompany those
officers at all times while they are there. I think... how do I say
this? ... I
believe
an unwanted incident involving those officers is less likely
to happen if you are with them. And your men will know that you
support the investigation.”

“
I assure you it is an
unnecessary precaution, none of us wish your officers any harm,”
said Rez’nac. “But I am happy to comply with your wishes
nonetheless, captain.”

“
Good.”

“
I assume you will be
questioning the human soldiers and crew as well,” said
Rez’nac.

Calvin hadn’t really thought about that. As
objective and fair-minded as he believed himself to be, he was only
planning to seriously investigate human suspects if the Polarians
all had good alibis. Ship’s resources were limited after all.

“
We will investigate anyone
who we can identify a motive for,” said Calvin
carefully.

Rez’nac nodded. “Very well.”

“
I would also like you and
all of your men to go with me on my away mission in the next few
hours. I have sent you all relevant intelligence, though I don’t
know if you’ve had a chance to review it yet.”

“
I have not. But I am happy
to accompany and serve you. And so are my men.”

“
Thank you.” Calvin had
decided that mixing human special forces with Polarian soldiers was
too big of a risk for the mission at hand. And he didn’t like the
idea of taking the humans with him and leaving the Polarians on the
ship with the crew. He knew that would make much of the crew
extremely uncomfortable—and justifiably so considering the ongoing
murder investigation—and he was equally concerned that by not
taking all of the Polarians the handful he left behind would be
unable to defend themselves from reprisals from special forces
soldiers or human crew who blamed them for the murder. Besides, the
Polarians were hardy, toughened warriors. No doubt they would prove
their worth against the perils haunting the surface of Remus
Nine.

“
Anything else,
captain?”

“
Not for now. You may go.”
He’d thought about discussing the requests he’d received for the
Polarians to disarm but decided against it. Surely he could not
disarm them by force—not without inviting a bloodbath. He suspected
he could get Rez’nac to cooperate with such a disarmament but
feared that, if he did, nothing would stop some of the humans from
exacting brutal revenge on the suddenly helpless Polarians. By
letting them keep their arms, he knew he was potentially putting
human lives at greater risk, but he couldn’t justify taking their
weapons. Despite the demands.

Chapter 22

Shen stared at his console blankly. His
thoughts were a jumble and he tried to ignore his emotions.

“
Coming up on Remus System,”
said Sarah. “I’m going to drop us out of alteredspace at a
distance, to make sure we don’t hit any of the mines.”

Shen heard her voice but didn’t turn around
and look at her. He’d avoided looking at her since reporting for
duty that day, and he’d avoided talking to her—but somehow it was
much harder to avoid thinking about her.

“
Good idea, Sarah,” said
Calvin. “Shen, can you pick up anything on our scopes?”

Shen blinked and took another look at his
console. He did a quick scan of the system. “Nothing unusual,” he
reported coldly. Automatically. Almost as if he were on autopilot.
“Just the star and the planets—and the orbital station around the
ninth planet. None of the mines are visible and I don’t see any
other ships.”

“
Okay, keep an eye on it and
let me know if things change,” said Calvin. “Sarah, what is the
time?”

“
1350 Standard
Time.”

“
The Rotham fleet should
show up in a little over an hour from now. Hopefully we bought
ourselves enough time.”

“
It’ll have to be enough,”
said Summers.

“
Miles, how is the stealth
system doing?” asked Calvin.

“
Up and running,” said
Miles. “They won’t see us coming.” The bigger man seemed to realize
that Shen wasn’t quite his usual amiable self and shot him a
sympathetic look.

“
They weren’t supposed to
see us coming in Abia,” said Calvin. Shen didn’t turn around to
look at him, he didn’t want to look at anybody right now, but he
could imagine Calvin pacing back and forth anxiously, wanting
reassurance—he knew him that well.

“
I still don’t know how they
detected us in Abia,” said Shen. “But it’s possible they didn’t see
us until we got too close. I agree with Miles’ assessment. Our
arrival should be a secret.”

“
ETA?” asked
Calvin.

“
One minute, fifteen
seconds,” said Sarah.

The ship was still at condition one, a state
it had remained in for the last several hours. Calvin had told them
earlier that a murder had occurred on the ship—of one of the
special forces soldiers. Shen had been shocked to learn this just
like everyone else, but unlike them, a small but growing part of
him envied the slain soldier.

The dead don’t have to worry about women, or
deal with rejection. The worst part was, he didn’t blame Sarah. Not
really. He looked down at his belly, which was bigger than it ought
to be, and then compared himself in his mind to the perfect
physique of someone like Captain Pellew, who not only had a
rock-solid soldier’s body, but also boyish good-looks. Shen doubted
any woman would really look at his bulbous frame with desire when
there were bastards like Pellew littering the galaxy.

“
Now we get to finally see
if it all was worth it,” said Summers. “Or if it was just a wild
goose chase after all.”

“
Thirty-five seconds,” said
Sarah.

“
I assure you, Commander,”
said Tristan, “this is no goose chase.”

“
Thirty seconds.”

“
Alex and Tristan,” said
Calvin, “get to the airlock. I’ll meet you there soon. Pellew and
the Polarians should be there already.”

Shen turned just enough to see the Remorii
and Rotham leave the bridge. Good riddance. Shen never felt
comfortable with them around. He trusted Calvin’s judgment, and if
Calvin chose to tolerate them then so would Shen, but he couldn’t
get past his own nagging suspicion that one or both of them was
toying with Calvin. He chalked it up to his own paranoia. And
decided that it didn’t really matter anyway. He glanced once at
Sarah who was too involved with piloting the ship to notice him.
Not that she would have noticed him anyway...

“
Twenty seconds.”

“
Miles, you’d better get
down there too,” said Calvin. “Summers, call for a replacement and
takeover the defense post until he arrives.”

“
Ha-ha, very funny,” said
Miles, not yielding his seat to Summers when she approached him.
They both looked at Calvin.

“
Ten seconds.”

“
I’m not joking,” said
Calvin. “We’ll need a good gunner for the craft we take from the
station down to the planet and back. I can think of no one better
than you. Now move!”

Miles looked confused and unhappy, but he
did as he was told. Summers took over at the defense post and input
a request for a replacement officer.

“
...Two… One…”

The view filled with stars, the brightest of
which was the local sun. A white speck barely larger than all of
the others.

“
Wow, we’re pretty far out,”
said Calvin.

“
I told you, I didn’t want
to take any chances,” said Sarah.

“
Fair enough,” said Calvin.
“Begin our approach, nice and slow. Shen do a full scan of the
system. I want to know what we can see now that we’re
here.”

“
Aye, aye,” he said and
began scanning. Even though Remus Nine was the ninth planet, it was
still in the habitable zone—meaning relatively close to the local
sun—far enough away that the Nighthawk had a few minutes before
being in danger of striking one of the mines protecting the
planet.

“
See any ships out
there?”

“
Negative,” said Shen as he
looked over the incoming results.

“
Good. Hopefully that means
we beat the Rotham fleet and the Desert Eagle here.”

“
Wait a minute,” said Shen,
now noticing something. “I am picking up something. It’s not a
ship, though. More like... yes, I confirm. It’s an alteredspace
imprint. About two-hundred thousand mc’s from Remus Nine and
partially dissipated. I’d guess the ship that made it left the
system only hours ago.”

“
See if you can identify the
ship.”

“
Doing an analysis now,”
said Shen as the computer tried to extrapolate data on how much
mass the ship had and where its likely destination was.

“
Was it the Arcane Storm?”
asked Calvin.

Shen did a cross-check. “I can’t get a
one-hundred percent positive ID on it,” he said. “But that seems
likely. Everything about the imprint suggests it was made by a ship
of similar mass to the Arcane Storm.”

“
Bullseye,” said Calvin.
“Can you determine its likely destination?”

“
No, not really,” said Shen.
“The imprint has decayed too much. I think it’s being affected by
the stealth field generated by the mines.”

“
Too bad,” said Calvin. Shen
guessed that Calvin would have sent the Nighthawk after the Arcane
Storm—after dropping off the shore party—had they been able to get
a good fix on it.

“
It shouldn’t matter
anyway,” said Summers. “If the weapons do exist, they’re supposed
to be on the planet’s surface, not on the ship.”

“
So long as our intel is
good,” said Calvin, “that’s true.”

The Nighthawk moved carefully closer to the
planet. After a couple of minutes, its advanced sensors were able
to see the clusters of stealthed mines around the planet. “I’m
detecting the mines now,” said Shen. “Forwarding the info to the
projector display.”

The 3d display that showed Remus Nine, a
seemingly white and grey planet choked with clouds, now revealed
thousands of small dots all around it. Each dot was a group of
mines. Deadly explosives packed tightly together, waiting to
destroy any ships that strayed too close. Most vessels in the
galaxy wouldn’t be able to see the mines even though their stealth
technology was crude by modern standards.

“
Can you identify a safe
path for the ship to navigate, so we can approach the orbital
station?” asked Calvin.

“
Affirmative,” said Shen.
“But you’ll have to follow the flightplan
exactly
.” The clusters of mines were
frequent enough, and dense enough, that any ship significantly
larger than the Nighthawk couldn’t avoid striking them.