The Phoenix War (6 page)

The length of days and nights helped even
though they were impossible to calculate exactly. He knew the
day-night periods were shorter than standard and he estimated the
rotational period of the planet was about eighteen hours total.
This ruled out many more candidate worlds, but several dozen
remained. And he didn’t feel that much closer to knowing where he
was in the galaxy.

As each day passed, both Harkov and Edwards,
usually together, would come and ask him about how planning their
escape was going. Nimoux’s reputation as an Intelligence Wing
super-sleuth had given them a tremendous, and probably undeserved,
amount of confidence in his ability to create a miracle and vanish
them all away to safety. Meanwhile he was stuck, doing all he could
think of, to determine what planet they were on. And when that grew
frustrating he spent his time planning how he would steal the
transmitter and get past the electrified fence.

He tried to blend in with the other prisoners
but it was difficult. Some of the guards recognized him and so did
many of the other prisoners.
Hero of the Empire
they often
referred to him, sometimes in joking tones. He ignored them.
Perfectly aware of the danger his newly tanned—but still
very
recognizable—face put him in.

During his walks around the yard, he did note
several important things about the prison’s design. Most
importantly, it wasn’t a permanent establishment. All of the
buildings, including the barracks and command station, were
portable structures that had been dropped from orbit and were
designed for easy retrievability. The towering electrified fence
was too high to climb even if he could switch off the electricity,
and it reached deep into the earth so tunneling wasn’t an option
either. The fence had several small gates that were just large
enough to let one person through at a time. The guards frequently
used these gates to go in and out of the prison facility, making
sure to keep the prisoners far away as they did, but Nimoux watched
them whenever he could. Making note of the combinations of buttons
they entered. The gates required a valid thumbprint and a six digit
code. The number pad was three by three and the guards never keyed
the bottom row of numbers. He got a sense of the pattern:
Left.
Left. Up. Right. Right. Up
. But it wasn’t enough to determine
exactly what the code was, at least not yet.

As he talked with the other prisoners, trying
to pick up any useful information they had and also memorize their
names and faces in case he ever got out of here, he considered
involving some of them in his escape effort. He only entertained
the thought fleetingly though and ultimately threw it out, knowing
that most of the other prisoners would only be liabilities. And it
was already going to be difficult enough bringing Harkov and
Edwards along.

I’ll come back for you all, though
, he
silently promised his fellow prisoners as he looked at them. None
of them deserved to be here.

That night he decided to determine his
location once and for all. So when dusk settled, and the
loudspeaker ordered the prisoners to form up and return to their
cells, Nimoux chose not to join the others in their rows and
columns. Instead he hid in the yard and waited, lying prone.

It wouldn’t be until all the prisoners were
in their cells, with the count coming up one short, that his
absence would be noted. And then the yard would be searched and
he’d certainly be found. Punishment would follow, that was an
unfortunate reality—though he didn’t know how severe it would be.
Hopefully, if the guards were dim enough, they’d believe his
ruse.

He waited for the sky to dim and fill with
stars, all the while listening intently to the clamor of the
prisoners being locked away and counted. Ever alert, in case his
absence was noticed sooner than he anticipated.

When the night set on, and the planet was
sufficiently dark, he got to his feet and took in the sky. It was
breathtaking. He immediately took note the unique stars, a
large-red one here, a bright-blue one there, and so on. Most were
tiny white specks, far too small and ordinary to stand out. An
ocean of pinpricks poking through a vast black tapestry. But they
were still useful.

If he’d been on Capital World, or another
major planet, he would have seen familiar constellations—different,
of course, depending on which planet’s surface he stood—but famous
and recognizable nonetheless. Here, though, he saw none. All of the
patterns that jumped out at him from the stars were his own.

Another consideration was the concern that
the starlight he saw belonged to stars so vastly distant that the
stars had lived and died in the time it took for the starlight to
arrive, and thus the stars staring down at him were no longer
around, and therefore not useful points with which to orient
himself. Fortunately he could rely on the fact that most of the
stars he could see with his naked eye were visible precisely
because they were near.

He searched the sky. Remembering his list of
potential planets he could be on, keeping in mind the region of
space he thought was possible, and then he tried to match those
possibilities against the star pattern before him.

A red giant star… Alpha Vici perhaps. But
wait, then the blue one just under it would be wrong… No blue star
should be visible there, since none was near Alpha Vici, and any
beyond it, as the one before him looked, would not be so
dominant.

It was surprisingly dizzying for him to try
to imagine what the star patterns should look like, on each of the
potential planets he might have been standing on. Especially when
he had to compensate for the question of which stars would be
visible based on which hemisphere he stood in. But he did manage to
rule out some of the candidate worlds right away.

He spun around, searching the heavens in
every direction. Noting a bright yellow star. Just under it was a
blue star.
Vego and Columbia?
he wondered. He spun back
around, looking again at the largest red star.
That would have
to be Ares, and if that’s Ares…
He turned ninety degrees,
searching the sky for what was sure to be a faint blue light
indicating Lambda—
it should be just in the center
.

An alarm sounded. His absence had been
noted.

He felt his heart accelerate as he
desperately scoured the sky.
Come on, come on!

Searchlights sprang to life and he heard
shouts in the distance. His heart thumped, loud as a cannon. But he
controlled his breathing and remained calm.

There it is!
A tiny blue star, its
faint light barely visible. Tucked away among the
thousands-upon-thousands of its white brothers and sisters
.
Lambda. That has to be Lambda!

Which meant…
Gamma Persei Three. We are on
Gamma Persei Three!

As the lights and footsteps came closer,
Nimoux quickly knelt and lifted the large stone. He used its sharp
edge and scraped it against his temple. Pressing hard enough to
cut, but not so hard he created a meaningful injury. Once his skin
broke and he felt warm blood tickle his face, trickling down his
right cheek, he returned the stone to the ground and lay down, in
such a way that he’d seem to have fallen and struck his head.

As the guards came near—now only meters away,
he heard one of them shout “I found him! He’s on the ground!”
Nimoux feigned unconsciousness. And prepared himself mentally.

“He looks hurt!” the voice said, now just
above him. A bright light shined. Nimoux kept his eyes shut.

With any luck, the guards wouldn’t put it
together that his injury wasn’t likely to have come from the rock,
and hopefully they wouldn’t think twice about the freshness of the
blood on his face—not to mention the implied trajectory of his
apparent fall didn’t seem to mesh realistically with the position
he’d ended up in. Fortunately it was dark, and these were
untrained, unprofessional would-be soldiers, not expert detectives
or intelligence operatives.

Whether or not they believed his ruse would
affect how severely they punished him, he knew, but regardless of
what they did to him, he’d gotten what he wanted. He now knew where
in the vast galaxy he was. Gamma Persei Three.
Directive Two
complete
.

***

Caerwyn Martel sat on the Assembly Floor, not
three meters from where the King’s body had been removed. He stared
at the spot, only half-listening to Representative Tate as she
droned on from her position on the dais, in between the other
members of the Defense Committee.

There wasn’t even the slightest trace of
blood remaining there, Caerwyn observed. No scuff where the king’s
head crashed against the hard floor, no chalk outline, truly no
sort of evidence whatsoever remained to indicate that this was the
very spot a king had been slain. But Caerwyn remembered. He’d seen
the king fall to the ground, and could replay it over and over in
his head.

Hisato Akira. Dead as a doornail. No loss
there.
The fool we meant to hang in the gallows of public
opinion, with Renora as the noose and Zane the executioner… and
yet, as we tightened the rope, he died quite literally. And
annoyingly he kicked the bucket before accepting—or defying—our
order, as Representatives of the Empire, for him to surrender his
throne
.

The assassin was still at large. And his
identity remained a mystery to everyone, including Caerwyn. He
wondered if the king had been killed in retaliation for what had
happened to Renora, perhaps as a kind of revenge for the actions
most of the galaxy believed to be the work of the king’s troops.
Strategically necessary tragedies that Zane and his allies had
arranged to make certain the populace turned against the king. But
if that were so, Caerwyn would need to be extremely cautious, and
make certain that Zane’s dealings were never connected to him.

Caerwyn fidgeted somewhat nervously,
squinting against the bright lights of the Assembly Floor, as he
thought of the news he’d received recently—and discreetly—about his
brother. Zane was dead. His corpse had been discovered alongside
several other members of his Phoenix Ring cult. Caerwyn had known
all along that Zane was getting into bed with the wrong people, the
sort of villains who would bring their sinister problems with them
to any table they sat around, but Zane had never listened to
Caerwyn. And that had always been his folly. And, apparently now,
his downfall. Zane’s death might have been in retaliation for
Renora every bit as much as the king’s, Caerwyn knew. Perhaps
someone had uncovered that Zane and his dark bedfellows had been
behind the plot. Caerwyn desperately hoped such was not the case.
It wouldn’t be a difficult leap to connect Zane to Caerwyn, which
would mean his own life could be in danger…

No, I’m fine. Zane and the King are dead.
Vengeance has been exacted
.
The killing is over
…
Whatever angel of death had seen fit to slay the king, and for some
reason Representative Ri Zhang too, he hadn’t wasted a bullet on
Caerwyn Martel. And he’d clearly had the opportunity, Caerwyn had
been mere meters away from Ri Zhang when the late Representative
had fallen. Dead as the king.

But why had Ri Zhang been assassinated?
Caerwyn could think of no motive whatsoever. Someone had wanted the
king dead—no surprise, truly—but that same person had also taken
the time to kill Ri Zhang too… strange indeed.

If Zhang had been an arbitrary target, a
random killing, perhaps meant to shock the Assembly, or as a
grievance against the nobility, why not eliminate a representative
from a more senior House? Or fire off a few more shots and increase
the body-count?

Caerwyn was terrified just thinking about it.
And as he squinted up at the lights, he imagined a gunman perched
there now, with the Martel heir in his crosshairs.

That’s stupid
. He knew it was
impossible. The Assembly Hall was swarming with more security than
ever before, now that they were in session finally, for the first
time since the king’s death. The government would take no chances.
No one could even get within a kilometer of the Assembly Hall
without all sorts of clearances and checks and double checks. And
professional soldiers patrolled everywhere and kept vigilant eyes
on everything.

We’re fine. We’re safe. Everything is all
right
...

Caerwyn looked at the faces of his fellow
nobles. Paying most attention to the ones who were his rivals,
idiots who entertained delusions of winning the throne for
themselves.

Once the throne was his, Caerwyn had every
intention of consolidating his power and making the others fall
into line behind him. Only one person could guide the Empire
through this, and that man was Brinton Martel’s oldest son and only
surviving heir.

“That concludes emergency business,” said
Representative Tate. Caerwyn perked up, realizing his opportunity
was nigh. “With that I open the floor—”

Before she could finish her sentence, he
stood. “Representative Tate and the honored members of the Defense
Committee, I have urgent business to bring before the
Assembly.”

“The Chair recognizes Representative Martel
of Capital World and House Martel,” said Tate, looking at him.

Caerwyn stepped away from his seat on the
Assembly Floor, separating himself from the other members of the
Great Houses who sat together, front-and-center before the common
Representatives of the Assembly, dressed in black as a pretentious
display of unity and grief for the fallen king.

Caerwyn cleared his throat and checked to
make certain his lapel mic was turned on before speaking—otherwise
he’d need to shout to make himself heard throughout the vast
chamber. “Brothers and sisters of the Assembly, fellow
Representatives of the Empire,” he looked up at the balconies
above, stuffed full with the hundreds of Assembly members who did
not belong to Great Houses. “Representative Tate has just briefed
us on how our world, our
Empire
, is bleeding, and lost
without strong leadership. We cannot hope to stem the tides of
chaos without strong leadership!”