The Phoenix Crisis (29 page)

If Zane had known then that Raidan would
recruit Calvin and that Calvin would become the biggest threat to
Ascension just as the hour was nigh, Zane would have made certain
to eliminate him. Hopefully it wasn’t already too late. He moved
significant liquid capital to see that the matter was taken care
of.

Then he made the truly important call.

***

One of the two false masters contacted
him.

“
I need him dealt with.
Immediately,” the false master said.

Blackmoth closed his eyes and considered it.
He could see the Executor in his mind, a man Blackmoth had never
met or previously interacted with, but his connection to the
targeted soul made no difference. All that mattered was the will of
the One True God. So he opened himself up and asked if Calvin
Cross’s time had come.

The One True God answered him.

“
So will you do this?” asked
the false master.

“
No,” said Blackmoth calmly.
“It is not the will of God. His time will come, and come soon, God
has told me, but the hour of his soul’s liberation is not yet upon
us. There is more he must do before he is thrown into the void.” It
was the will of the One True God, Blackmoth knew, and as the sword
of the One True God, he would obey.

The false master offered him riches and
lands and titles and women, but it was empty. Such treasures meant
nothing. They added no life to a man’s body. And they added no
worth to a man’s soul. They were distractions. Red herrings.
Temptations even. But Blackmoth would not be tempted.

“
Anything you want,” said
the false master.

“
There is nothing that I
want that you can give me,” he said simply. He would take money
from his false masters from time to time—he needed to survive to do
the will of the One True God—but it held no worth to him otherwise.
He existed for only one purpose—to be an angel of death. Nothing
more. And as he watched the great consumerist society surrounding
him, countless people obsessed with the pursuit of material gain,
and lust, and avarice, he pitied them. Pitied them and yet cared
nothing for them. They were lost, strayed souls that would be
thrown into the void soon enough. Blackmoth knew the time of their
deaths was coming soon. For the One True God willed it. And no
material treasures could appease the just and merciful wrath of the
One True God.

“
I understand,” said the
false master, finally accepting that Blackmoth could not be
persuaded to send Calvin Cross to his maker. At least not while the
One True God forbade it. “In that case I have another request for
you.”

The false master gave Blackmoth more names.
He conferred with the One True God and found that this request was
in harmony with the Will of the Divine.

“
I will do as God
demands.”

Chapter 20

“
It’s about time I heard
from you,” said Raidan. He sat in his office on the Harbinger and
stared at the very tired looking face of Lieutenant Masterson.
Masterson stood at attention while Raidan thumbed through a pile of
documents that’d been placed on his desk.

“
I apologize, sir,” said
Masterson. “We did our analysis as thoroughly as we could—we didn’t
want to miss anything—and as such it took longer than my original
estimate.”

“
No matter,” said Raidan. At
least he’d finally be getting some answers regarding the Arcane
Storm. It was still a mystery how the ship had been lost in the
first place. Raidan’s personal theory was that Zander—the previous
captain of the ship and the Group Leader before Raidan—had fallen
victim to mutiny and his rebellious officers had defected to the
Phoenix Ring. Certainly it was a lot more pleasant to imagine that
than the very real possibility that Zander himself had been a
traitor.

“
Is there anything else,
sir?” asked Masterson. He looked eager to leave. Raidan wasn’t
finished with him yet, though.

“
Walk me through the
basics,” said Raidan as he flipped through the pages. The complete
report was the size of a small almanac and he didn’t have time to
waste reading all of it.

“
What do you want to know,
sir?”

“
The end of the story. What
was the Arcane Storm doing adrift in open space with all of its
systems operating but no crew aboard? And no isotome
weapons.”

“
Our best theory is that the
ship was already understaffed when it jumped to the deadspace
coordinates where it was discovered. There the entire remaining
crew, which was only a handful of people, escaped in the one
missing shuttle. Any cargo it was carrying, including any isotome
weapons, was flushed out into open space for safe keeping. Probably
for later retrieval. The missiles themselves, based on the
description of their dimensions provided by the Nighthawk’s people,
would be small enough to avoid notice by most sensors. Especially
if they were designed to be stealth weapons.”

“
Which means the weapons
might have been there and gone unseen,” said Raidan. “In which case
they might still be there.”

“
That’s correct,
sir.”

Raidan nodded. He’d have to dispatch ships
to the deadspace zone immediately. If there were isotome weapons
sitting there, waiting to be picked up by whomever was passing
through, that was priority one. More important even than Renora. As
loath as he was to admit it. “Why would they dump the cargo rather
than leave it on the ship?”

“
It’s likely the crew
believed they would be followed and that the ship would eventually
be taken, no doubt they were preempting the inevitable and making
certain that whatever hostile force captured the ship wasn’t also
getting the isotome weapons as a bonus.”

“
Why abandon the ship
there?” asked Raidan, almost more to himself than to his officer as
he considered the possibilities.

“
As a deadspace zone it’s an
unlikely place for anyone to pass through and notice the weapons.
Our theory, sir, is that the understaffed crew was having
difficulty piloting the ship and believed they would eventually be
overtaken. So they dumped the weapons, which would prove almost
impossible to detect in open space, and then it didn’t really
matter if they lost the ship. The precious cargo could still be
reclaimed by someone who knew where it was.”

Raidan nodded. Based on Tristan’s report, it
was likely that the crew of the Arcane Storm expected to be
followed by the Rotham fleet that had gone to Remus System. That
force might already have tracked the Arcane Storm to the deadspace
zone and claimed the isotome weapons, or perhaps the Arcane Storm’s
people were depositing the weapons there for the Rotham fleet to
find. If Masterson’s theory was true, however, and the crew of the
Arcane Storm was trying to protect the isotome weapons from the
Rotham fleet, that would be a very interesting development indeed.
Perhaps the human and Rotham pieces of the Phoenix Ring were
already more fragmented than Raidan guessed.

There were other possibilities for why the
human part of the Phoenix Ring would want to keep the portion of
the weapons the Arcane Storm was probably carrying. For instance
leverage, or a bargaining tactic, or perhaps it was insurance
against misuse of the other isotome weapons by the Rotham. Like a
countermeasure.

“
Was that all, sir?” asked
Masterson.

Raidan dismissed him and then used his comm
panel to hail the Arcane Storm. Tristan answered the call, now
wearing a full captain’s uniform.

“
I see you gave yourself a
promotion,” said Raidan.

Tristan nodded. “It’s only fitting. Now that
I finally have command of the Arcane Storm.”

“
And now I’m giving you your
first mission as
Captain
Tristan,” said Raidan.

“
Go and resupply the
Nighthawk, yes I know,” said Tristan.

“
Actually the plan has
changed. I need you to jump as swiftly as possible and go to the
deadspace coordinates where you found the Arcane Storm adrift. New
intelligence suggests that the isotome weapons might be there after
all, afloat in open space. Trawl every cubic meter of the region.
If they’re there, I want them found.”

“
Aye, sir. And, if I may
ask, what about the Nighthawk? It’s in bad need of repair and
resupply, and the arrangements have already been made.”

Raidan let out a sigh. He wanted to dispatch
the Mary Gale to deal with it, so the Harbinger could continue its
protective watch over Renora, but the Mary Gale lacked the
capability of a deep space repair. That meant the Harbinger would
have to do it. “I’ll take care of it,” said Raidan. He’d have to
adjust the arrangements so that the Nighthawk would rendezvous with
the Harbinger closer to Renora, ideally within striking range in
case things went poorly. Though it would have to be far enough that
the Nighthawk was not seen.

“
I’ll leave immediately,”
said Tristan, and the call terminated.

Raidan drew up new plans for resupplying the
Nighthawk, and returning its original crew along with some fresh
replacements, and he selected the ideal coordinates for them to
meet up. When he tried to transmit the message to the Nighthawk
over secure channels, he found he was unable. He went to the bridge
and discussed the issue with his operations department and found
that the problem was on the Nighthawk’s end and not theirs. That
meant the Nighthawk would still be heading to the original
rendezvous coordinates.

“
Oh well, they can sit and
wait there for a while,” said Raidan, folding his arms.

“
I’m not sure they can,”
said Commander Mason, the 2O. Raidan went to his position to see
what he was talking about. “New report from some of our Polarian
allies. One of their listening posts detected the ISS Phoenix
entering Polarian space.”

“
And?” asked
Raidan.

“
I think it’s got a fix on
the Nighthawk’s position. The Phoenix is heading straight for Titan
Three.”

Raidan remembered hearing Tristan’s report
about how the Phoenix had gone berserk on the Nighthawk—it was
responsible for most of the damage to the ship—and how the deranged
commanding officer had obsessively tried to destroy Calvin and his
crew, despite orders from Nimoux, his squadron commander, not
to.

If the Phoenix overtook the Nighthawk at
Titan Three, and somehow could detect the ship, perhaps the
Nighthawk’s injuries were causing its stealth systems to fail, then
the Harbinger would never get there in time. “What is their ETA to
Titan Three?” asked Raidan.

“
Over two hours. The
Nighthawk will have already left by then, but the Phoenix could
conceivably catch up to the Nighthawk and ambush it at the
rendezvous point. At best estimation… it would get there about the
same time we would.”

Damn you Calvin, if only you’d met up with
me like we’d planned. Your ship would be fixed and this problem
would never have arisen. And I could have told you…

“
Set course for the
rendezvous point and jump immediately,” barked Raidan. “One-hundred
percent potential.”

“
Aye, sir,” his crew
acknowledged.

“
Relay instructions to the
Mary Gale to maintain protective posture around Renora. It is to
intercept any convoy and defend the planet at all
costs.”

“
Yes, sir.”

He knew he shouldn’t be leaving the Mary
Gale alone to protect Renora. It wasn’t strong enough. But, with
any luck, he’d be back before his enemies noticed his absence. A
part of him reasoned that the loss of the Nighthawk was an
acceptable casualty when compared to what was likely to happen at
Renora, but Raidan still felt compelled to rush to the Nighthawk’s
aid. True, perhaps a little bit of his driving motivation was
knowing that Summers Presley was on that ship. But that wasn’t all.
He still had important plans for the Nighthawk…

“
Sir, is it wise to abandon
Renora?” asked Commander Mason, giving him a concerned
look.

Raidan frowned and stared out the window.
“No it isn’t wise,” he admitted. “So let us hope to god that our
enemies don’t notice our absence.”

***

“
The Harbinger has
withdrawn,” said Ryker. “Mister Martel just told me it jumped into
alteredspace a few minutes ago. His people have been watching
it.”

“
How long before it comes
back?” asked Vulture.

“
Don’t know,” said Ryker.
“Which means--”

“
Phase Two,” said Micah with
hungry eyes.

“
That’s right,” said Ryker.
He took a moment to stare up at the blood-red sky. The light of a
thousand fires bounced off the ashes that choked what had once been
clear and blue. The planet was already in turmoil. But it hadn’t
yet learned the meaning of the word
suffer.

Micah rubbed his palms
together. “
When?
”
he asked eagerly.

“
Soon,” said Ryker. “Raidan
left behind a lone ship to protect the planet, the Mary Gale. It
will have to be dealt with first. But don’t worry, without the
Harbinger’s help it won’t be a match for the convoy.”

Micah grinned.

“
And what are our orders
when this happens?” asked Vulture.

“
Same as always, fan the
flames.” His men knew what that meant. Continue enraging the
populace against the King; keep destroying and harassing Imperial
military equipment, weapons stockpiles, and supply-lines; and
perhaps most importantly, distribute relief supplies to the
populace under the label of the Rotham government.