The Phoenix Rising (15 page)

“
Yes we’re all dying,” said
Rain. “But I’m dying faster. I have a terminal illness.”

“
Oh,” said Calvin. “I’m
sorry,” he was at a loss for words.

“
Don’t be sorry,” she said.
Her eyes weren’t happy but they weren’t sad either. She seemed very
at peace. “We all die. I accept that we each have our time.
Honestly I’m just glad to have had the chance to live at
all.”

He doubted he would be able to deal with
such a diagnosis so gracefully. “How long do you have?”

“
Three years,” she said.
“Five if I’m lucky.”

Calvin felt a wave of sympathy toward her,
and an increased respect, but he also felt more alarmed. And, after
giving himself a moment to try and figure out a polite way of
asking the question, he eventually just asked it. “I’m sorry to
have to ask this but... given your condition...”

“
Am I able to perform my
duties as chief physician?” She’d anticipated the
question.

“
Yes, well... there was
nothing about that on your application or in your records. I’m
just—” he fumbled for words, not wanting to appear unsympathetic.
But he was also concerned for the needs of the ship and
crew.

She walked up to him and touched his
shoulder in a reassuring way. She even smiled as she looked into
his eyes. “It’s alright,” she said. “That is an important question,
I don’t resent you for asking it.”

“
Thanks,” he said, not
stepping away. He looked into her beautiful pale eyes and saw
something more to her.

“
I’m fine,” she said. “The
symptoms of the illness are in a very manageable state for now. And
should be for at least another year and probably longer. My mind
isn’t impaired, I’m not more tired than others. I promise, I can do
my job.”

“
Good to know.”

She let go of his shoulder but remained
close.

“
How do you do it?” he found
himself asking, somehow disarmed by her closeness.

“
Be so positive?” again
she’d anticipated the question.

“
Yes. I think if it were me,
well, I wouldn’t be dealing with it nearly as well.” Honestly he
believed he’d be a total wreck.

“
It’s not as bad as you
think. The less time you know you have, the richer the experience
of living becomes. And your whole perspective changes. All of the
little, petty things fall away and you realize how truly wonderful
it is to be alive, even if just for a moment. The way I see
it—l
ife is all the more beautiful knowing
that it can't last forever, accepting that all of us eventually
pass away. If I had all the time in the universe, I couldn't truly
appreciate it. But knowing that my clock is ticking and that every
new day brings one fewer sunrise for me to gaze upon, that makes
every sight more colorful, every smell sweeter, and every song
lovelier. I want to make the most of every moment. Then, when the
end finally does come, I will be ready for it.”

It was a beautiful
sentiment, and Calvin was grateful to hear it. Even if he couldn’t
quite see the universe in such a sunlit way.

“
Honestly,” said Rain,
“now that
I’ve accepted my condition, I wouldn’t change it.”

Calvin had trouble believing that. Surely if
a cure were found Rain wouldn’t reject it. Still, she seemed
perfectly sincere. And he had no doubt she’d found peace. “Well,”
he said, “if there is anything I can do for you or anything you
need, just let me know.”

Rain smiled. “There is something you can do
for me, Captain.”

“
Name it.”

“
Be happy,” she
said.

The answer took him by surprise.

“
Be happy, okay. I’ll try to
remember that,” he said.

A ship-wide broadcast filtered over the
speakers. “CO, contact the bridge right away. I repeat, CO, contact
the bridge.” The voice belonged to one of the new crewmen.

“
I’d better answer that,”
Calvin said and he dashed to the nearest comm panel. “This is the
CO, what is it?”

“
You have a maximum priority
message coming in, hailing you by name.”

Again?
Immediately he thought of Princess Kalila. Maybe she was
finally giving him more details about her role in the strange
events unfolding in the galaxy.

“
Send it to my quarters,
I’ll be there directly.”

“
Yes, sir.”

***

The message turned out not to be from
Princess Kalila, but Calvin was happy to receive it all the
same.

“
Glad to see you made it in
one piece,” said Calvin.

The image of Rafael on the display showed
him in his Intel Wing uniform in some office somewhere. Other than
looking like he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in days, the man
looked well.

“
I have to make this short,”
said Rafael.

“
I understand.” No doubt
every second he transmitted to Calvin represented a tremendous
risk, despite the thick layer of encryption.

“
I have bad
news.”

Calvin felt his heart
stop.
What now?

“
The other three shuttles
that left Gemini, none of them ever arrived.”

“
What?
”

“
My shuttle—the one headed
to Capital World—made it just fine. But the others… they never
arrived at their destinations. Even the one bound for Epsilon Prime
is hours overdue.”

Epsilon Prime was the farthest destination
of all four shuttles. That meant, of the sixteen former crew and
solders who’d abandoned Calvin on Gemini, only four had made it.
The rest were lost. Either captured or dead.

“
Has there been any kind of
investigation or search?” asked Calvin, feeling alarmed. Those men
and women had abandoned him but… he never wanted any harm to befall
them.

“
No,” said Rafael. “No one
knew the shuttles were coming, except us. When my shuttle made it
to Capital World we were taken into custody and put through an
intense interrogation process before being allowed to return to
duty. We shared info about the other shuttles but Intel Wing has no
other information about them, certainly not enough to begin a
realistic search.”

“
I see,” said Calvin.
Immediately he assumed the Organization had its hands in this.
Perhaps Mira, who’d so openly opposed Calvin’s decision to let
members of his crew part ways with him, had arranged for their
elimination. It was a sick thought. Certainly she had motive,
means, and opportunity. The only thing that didn’t add up was the
fact that Rafael’s shuttle had been spared, even though no one else
knew that Rafael was working for Calvin. “And your shuttle had no
problems?”

“
None. We were never
attacked. The shuttle was swept for bombs after we arrived. No
attempt was made to disable or destroy us.”

If it had been only one shuttle that had
disappeared, Calvin would be tempted to think the shuttle
experienced a structural or systems failure. Deep-space shuttles
were notoriously less reliable than larger ships. But three
shuttles simultaneously experiencing such issues wasn’t really
plausible.

“
There’s more bad news,”
said Rafael.

“
Go on.”

“
You are being actively
hunted by Intel Wing.”

“
I assumed as much,” said
Calvin. He knew Intel Wing would never stand idly by as one of
their most valuable ships dropped off the radar. They would hunt
him down and, if they couldn’t capture him, they’d destroy
him.

“
Yes, but that’s not the
frightening part. We all knew they’d send someone after you. But
it’s
who
they
picked that has me worried.”

“
Who is it?”

“
Captain Lafayette
Nimoux.”

Calvin’s eyes
widened.
Nimoux
?
Nimoux was a legend even outside Intel Wing circles. His missions
had defied outlandish odds and succeeded in incredible ways to
further the interests and security of the empire. His triumphs were
so well known, he’d become a household name. And while Calvin had
once been considered among the brightest rising stars in the
company, Nimoux was the undisputed champion. No one outshined him;
no one had accomplished half as much, and his record boasted no
failures. Part of Calvin was flattered to know it was Nimoux
pursuing him. But the rest of him panicked. Rafael was right to be
concerned. Nimoux was not someone Calvin could evade for
long.

“
Thank you for telling me,”
said Calvin, keeping his composure. “How much of a head start do I
have?”

“
Hard to say. The Desert
Eagle was given a short assignment to take care of before pursuing
you. But, for all I know, they’ve finished it and are at Gemini
already.”

“
It’s safest to assume
that’s true. I’ll be extra careful from here on out. And, should
the worst happen…” said Calvin, his voice trailing off for a
moment.

“
The Nighthawk will still be
a match for the Desert Eagle,” said Rafael. On paper the ships were
nearly identical. And Calvin considered his crew among the best in
the galaxy—after all, he’d handpicked many of them. But he knew it
was probably too optimistic to think the Desert Eagle would attack
them solo.

“
Have you found out anything
new about the Phoenix Ring?” asked Calvin.

“
Unfortunately, no,” said
Rafael. “I’ve looked over the dossier you gave me and done a little
digging but, if there is anything to be found, it’s buried
extremely deep and I don’t want to probe too obviously.”

“
That’s wise. Do what you
have to do to stay under the radar. And make sure you watch your
back out there.”

“
I will. Good luck,
Calvin.”

Chapter 10

“
Keep scanning,” said
Nimoux. “Show me what this brand new, thirty-million q sensor
equipment is capable of.”

“
Aye, sir,” replied the ops
officer.

They’d recently arrived in the Gemini System
and Nimoux’s first order had been to try to get a fix on the
Nighthawk’s alteredspace jump signature. Unfortunately, their
initial sweep had revealed nothing.

“
There is evidence that
several jumps have been made recently from this system,” said the
ops officer. “But it seems impossible to affirmatively link one of
the signatures with the IWS Nighthawk itself. The stealth-frigate
is too small to leave a severe imprint, and any number of ships fit
into the same classification group in terms of mass.”

“
Using our own ship as a
point of reference,” said Nimoux, “is there any way we can isolate
the Nighthawk’s signatures?”

“
Not conclusively,
sir.”

“
In that case, map every
plausible signature that might have been created by the Nighthawk
and then feed that information to the lab. Tell them to create a
probability distribution for each candidate. If we are forced to
guess where the Nighthawk is, then I want to make the best guess
possible.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Another thing, lieutenant.
Are there any jump signatures that might belong to the Harbinger?”
This probably seemed like a strange, off-mission inquiry. But his
officers knew better than to question him.

“
There is one possibility,”
said the ops officer. “Though the signature is extremely faded and
I’m not even sure that my reading is correct. In fact, if it wasn’t
for the advanced sensor, it would be totally invisible. But if it
is an imprint, it must have been created by a massive
starship.”

“
Probable
heading?”

“
Determining that now...”
the ops officer ordered the computer to perform a series of
calculations.

Nimoux waited patiently. He didn’t
understand much beyond the basics of the different bridge
posts—having been brought into the company directly from special
forces, and then promoted directly to command—but he trusted his
officers to perform their duties as quickly and efficiently as was
humanly possible.

“
The Argonis Cluster, sir.
That’s where the massive imprint seems to be pointing.”

“
Renora
,” said Nimoux under his breath. The Argonis Cluster was very
large and included over a dozen systems, but Renora was one of
them. He knew that was where the Harbinger had ultimately arrived,
so the stolen dreadnought had probably come
from
Gemini.

“
A second sweep of the
potential Harbinger jump signature confirms that the spatial
distortion is consistent with an alteredspace jump made by a ship
of the Harbinger’s magnitude.”

“
Thank you, lieutenant,”
said Nimoux. “Sounds like that was 30 million q well
spent.”

“
Indeed, sir.”

“
Have the lab keep me
advised, I want to know the instant we’ve determined the
Nighthawk’s likeliest heading.”

“
Aye, sir.”

Nimoux leaned back in his chair and took in
the view. The once inhabited Gemini planet wasn’t yet visible out
the window, nor was the monolithic conglomerate that orbited it,
however the 3d display showed both, along with a patrol pattern of
ships running defensive maneuvers, completely unaware of the Desert
Eagle’s presence. It was time to announce their arrival.