The Phoenix Crisis (44 page)

Ryker watched as a column of soldiers
disappeared in the light of a makeshift explosive. One moment
standing there, holding their line, the next… blood and gore
sprayed everywhere. He had to hand it to the citizens of Renora,
once properly provoked they went all in.

“
And to think, only a few
million casualties,” said Ryker, he lowered his binoculars and
looked at his men. Civilians and soldiers alike had been butchered,
but even the loss of a million soldiers was a mere dent in the
numbers the King had sent. Of much greater concern to them was the
loss of their supply lines, destruction of their safe havens, and
the feverish hostility of the population in every city the troops
tried to occupy. They didn’t have the infrastructure or the
logistical resources to win a war of attrition. And suicide attacks
and other violence against the King’s soldiers grew worse by the
day. And harder to predict. Ryker and his CERKO operatives had to
do very little now. The hive of bees had been whacked enough and
now they were pouring out in droves, furious and thirsty for
revenge.

“
There he goes,” said
Vulture, pointing. Ryker looked back through his binoculars in the
direction Vulture indicated and instantly spotted a large craft
taking to the sky, escorted by several gunships. Once it was
airborne, the remaining soldiers—who were being overwhelmed—broke
into full retreat as the rebels took the capital.

“
Do you think he’ll be
back?” asked Tank.

“
Not bloody likely,” said
Micah. “These people put the fear of god into him. He’ll shit his
pants in his sleep for years to come.”

“
Yes, the Prefect has fled,”
said Ryker. “Exactly as planned. And I doubt very much that he will
be back, but this isn’t over. You can bet the King won’t take this
defeat lightly. The Empire will drop the hammer on Renora. The
important thing is that the citizens of Renora have control of
their planet long enough.”

“
Long enough for what?”
asked Vulture. Ryker hadn’t explained to them the totality of
Martel’s plan. He preferred to keep things on a need to know basis.
Now, though, it was obvious what was going to happen.

“
Long enough to secede,”
said Ryker. “They will secede and then immediately ask the Rotham
Republic to annex them. It’s all been arranged. Just
watch.”

Chapter 30

He tossed and turned in the night.

Despite feeling physically
exhausted, his mind kept him up. Spinning circles, analyzing
everything. He thought of his ship out somewhere in deep
space—possibly in danger. He thought of Summers, and Rain, and
Kalila and felt his heart quicken as a shot of adrenaline and mixed
emotions surged through him. He thought of the Assembly, and how
time was running out. How everything depended on him and how he
needed to round up the Phoenix Ring leaders and expose the
conspiracy—and
soon
. He thought of Kalila again, how she depended on him. He
remembered how it’d felt, pretending to be her husband for that
brief window of time, feeling like he belonged, that he was a part
of a complete whole, rather than a lost and lonely soul.
Was that the purpose of life?
He wondered. Companionship? Or was it simply an attribute of
being a mammal, his own DNA forcing him to crave the company of
others, to only be satisfied when he belonged to social groups—of
which the most rewarding was romantic companionship. An equal
partnership. Someone else to rely on, and trust, and depend on, and
gain support from…

He thought of Christine.
Remembering her gaunt and dying face as the Remorii toxins savaged
her. Calvin hurt to think of it, hating that in his mind’s eye he
recalled every detail as clear as day. He tried to force it from
his mind, tried to make himself believe that Christine was at
peace, that there was no further need to mourn her. But the more he
tried not to think of her, the more she stayed on his mind. He felt
sick and as he flipped to his other side—making another vain
attempt to fall asleep—he thought of Shen. And how the very thing
that’d happened to Christine was happening to him. Rain had
probably had to put the ops officer out of his misery by now. Shen,
Monte, Rose, Major Jenkins, and seemingly countless others.
Calvin’s dear friends and crew had paid in blood. And were still
paying in blood. For all he knew the Nighthawk was space dust by
now, and the Arcane Storm for that matter, making him the last one
left of his crew. A terrifying, nauseating thought. But a
legitimate possibility.
When will it
end?
he wondered.
When will we have paid enough?

Perhaps the universe demanded his life too.
An ongoing expense, demanding everything in exchange for a glimmer
of hope that the Empire—the pride and security of humanity—might be
saved. Calvin remembered from history how the alien
civilizations—especially the Rotham—had preyed on the early,
disunited human colonies. Enslaving them and slaughtering them. It
had only been through the rise of the Empire, guided by the Akira
family, that humanity had been able to unite into something strong
and formidable, something able to defend itself and grow. Out of
the many they had become one. And now that great, rich tradition
that had kept humankind safe for over a hundred years was on the
verge of collapse. And Calvin would have given anything in the
universe to be someone else right now. To not feel as though the
fate of humanity rested on his shoulders. Others looked to him with
confidence and hope, trusting him to make the right decisions and
follow the right leads—Kalila especially counted on him to get
results. But Calvin wasn’t so trusting of himself. He knew his
flaws. He would do his very best, but his very best hadn’t been
enough to save Christine, or Monte, or Shen, or… so many others…
how could he be sure it would be enough to save the Empire?

I’m not in this
alone
, he tried to remind himself. And he
thought of the many who stood by his side. From the Akira House, to
his friends, to those in the military who still remained loyal.
Even Raidan and his dark Organization had an interest in protecting
the King. Calvin knew it was important for him to have hope and not
despair.

He silenced his mind, as best he could, and
made another attempt at sleep. To no avail. He thought of rockets
raining down on armored cars, eviscerating them and violently
tearing apart every soul inside them. Those men had died for
him…

He tossed his sheets from his bed and got
up. Deciding that, if his mind was going to conspire against his
body and keep him from getting the sleep he desperately needed, he
might as well put his mind to work reviewing the intel he had.

He went to the large office in his estate
and sat at the computer station. It was large and powerful with
several more screens and features than Calvin needed—or knew how to
use. He knew he should eat something but somehow the anxiety
swirling inside him, collecting very uncomfortably at the pit of
his stomach, removed his appetite. He hadn’t eaten anything in
almost twenty-four hours. And over the last several days he’d
noticed he’d lost almost five kilograms—and not in a good way.

Of course the desire for equarius seemed
ever-present. It was a constant struggle, one that seemed to fade
at times, enough to make him believe he’d broken free of his
addiction, and then it would return with overwhelming force when it
was most inconvenient. He knew if he had some still, he would
almost certainly take it. Anything to numb the pain and the fear
and the anxiety and everything else that made him want to
simultaneously rip out all of his hair and curl into a fetal
position somewhere and simply die.

Must… keep… fighting…

He made himself believe it was for the best
that he’d disposed of the last of his equarius. Tried to take some
pride in the decision to free himself. But at times like these such
things as pride and dignity seemed worthless, and no freedom seemed
sweeter than freedom from his troubles and concerns. The freedom a
few white pills would give him.

He fired up a game of chess against the
computer and hoped to distract himself with the game. He played
white, wanting to take the initiative and be bold, but was defeated
in only twelve moves. He simply couldn’t focus on the game and,
rather than take his mind from his occupations, the game seemed
simply to be a part of the unimportant background. As he set up for
a rematch, hoping to do better this time, his terminal received an
alert.

It was a dispatch to him and
several other high officials informing them that the operation on
Renora had failed. The Prefect and his soldiers had fled the
planet. Calvin wondered how that was possible. Even in the worst
and most violently hostile circumstances. the millions and millions
of troops that had landed should have been enough to stabilize the
planet and pacify the population. But it hadn’t. Somehow violence
and instability had increased, there were accusations of
mismanagement, accounts of government troops slaughtering civilians
and torching homes and even bombing civilian infrastructure from
orbit. Calvin doubted this was the work of the King’s troops. No
doubt the Phoenix Ring had a hand in this. The result of which had
been a death toll that made Calvin white in the face to look at,
and the perception that the King was a brute willing to slaughter
his own citizens. This was more than a tragedy, it was also a major
political defeat. Calvin was sure this news would be used to force
a vote to oust the King—if a motion for such a vote hadn’t already
succeeded. If the King lost his power, then Calvin would lose his,
and so would the rest of the loyalists. And then the Phoenix Ring
would takeover, alien forces would swoop in, and the Empire would
be splintered into fragments. Probably collapse in the chaos. He
imagined a dark future where Capital World and every other major
human colony was occupied by Rotham.
We
would be slaves…
as he thought about it,
imagining what they would do, he knew they’d first slaughter huge
sections of the population to make it more manageable. Then, those
who were lucky enough to survive, would sweat and toil and die for
Rotham gain. He shuddered thinking about it.

It’s not going to
happen
, he reminded himself. Certainly, if
it came down to that, and that was the future that awaited them
all, Calvin made a promise to himself to go out fighting. He would
give every last breath opposing such a reality until that final
moment when Rotham missiles blew his atoms across the galaxy. At
which point he supposed he would find out the answer to the
greatest mystery of all and then either not exist anymore, or else,
hopefully, be with Christine again.

An update to the dispatch arrived a few
minutes later. Stating that not only had the people of Renora
driven Imperial forces off their planet, they had managed to unite
well enough to form a de facto government and make a Secession
Declaration, disavowing the Empire and affirming their
independence. There was still chaos, and looting, and rioting, and
no proper military to speak of—other than the surprisingly powerful
and shockingly well-equipped rebels who’d managed to overthrow the
Prefect.

They can declare their
independence all they like
, thought
Calvin.
The King will never stand for
it
. Though in truth he wasn’t sure what the
right thing to do was. Perhaps it would be best to allow Renora to
go its separate way and be its own problem. If the people there
truly did want independence, perhaps they deserved the chance to
decide their own destiny and go down in the flames of their own
foolishness. The trouble was, should the King respect such an
unlawful declaration, it would not only begin a slow splintering of
the Empire—perhaps creating a precedent that colonies could leave
the union—it would also be seen as a sign of weakness and failure
in the executive leadership. Many loyalists would withdraw their
support of the King. Confidence would be lost. But, should the King
drop the hammer on Renora, forcing the rebellious colony back into
line, such an act would require an even greater force than what had
been sent before, and would undoubtedly be seen as heavy-handed and
extreme. And perhaps that would cause the King to lose as much
support—or more—than if he chose to do nothing. It was a no-win
scenario.

Damn the Phoenix Ring…

Not ten minutes later a third dispatch
arrived. Bearing the strange and alarming news that the
illegitimate government of Renora, which had seized the capital,
had officially queried the government of the Rotham Republic,
requesting annexation. They stated they would unconditionally
recognize the Republican Senate and Prime Minister as the highest
authority on Renora in exchange for recognized citizenship and
immediate aid.

This was not a move Calvin had anticipated.
Probably no one had. It was one thing for a disgruntled populace to
wish to leave the Empire and proceed to govern itself, but it was
quite another for them to try to join an alien union. There had
never been human citizens in an alien nation before, and the
Rotham—many of whom were xenophobic toward non-Rotham—had
historically been dispassionate and dangerous to humans. How could
they be trusted?

Calvin shuddered to think what the
implications would be if the Republic accepted the proposal of the
Renoran people. It would give the Rotham a foothold in Imperial
space and probably lead to the shooting-war the Empire was so
desperately unprepared for. Calvin recalled the haunting images of
the Fifth Fleet’s flotilla, led by the Andromeda, moving to engage
the Rotham squadron in Abia. And how the human ships had fired on
one-another, until almost complete annihilation, before they were
even in firing range of the Rotham ships. He shivered thinking it
was an apt metaphor for what an Imperial-Rotham war would look like
should one happen. Which seemed a forgone conclusion now.