The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) (3 page)

“That’s good at least,” said Calvin. “What else do you see?”

“A lot of mounted weapons on space junk, some obvious mine fields, and scanners of every stripe searching everywhere for everything—and hopefully unable to find us.”

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

“Still good, Cal. Still good,” the big man leaned back in his chair, the paleness of his face revealed his anxiety, but the rest of his body seemed to be making a show of false confidence. Calvin knew him too well to be fooled, however.

Don’t worry, Miles
, thought Calvin.
I’ll get us through this, just like always
.

“Rez’nac,” said Rafael, who had remained thoughtfully silent until now. “Just what are all these defenses for?”

“To keep Forbidden Space forbidden,” said Calvin automatically, as if the answer were obvious.

“Isn’t that what the
Veil
is for?” asked Rafael. “I mean, isn’t the rest of this a bit…unnecessary?”

“These defenses serve the same purpose as the Veil,” confirmed Rez’nac. “But it is not to keep Forbidden Space forbidden, as our master suggests. Rather, it exists, as does the
Veil
, for a far more important purpose than to keep away the Rotham and the humans—though, as unclean beings, it serves that function too. But, far more important than that, these barriers exist to keep out the Dark Ones. The Fallen Ones. The Betrayers of the Light and Defiers of the Essences,” Rez’nac spoke with contempt as he named these enemies. “The Abandoned Ones. The Deserters. The Outcasts. And everything else that emerges from the shadows that would corrupt our ways and poison our traditions.” Rez’nac spat blue bile. “Those Evil Ones who would take away our lives, and worse—our souls—by leading us away from the truth of the Divine Essences. Such an evil is a threat to everything sacred, and any who would bring it must be kept away and never spoken of.”

Calvin was almost taken aback by the passion in Rez’nac’s voice. He knew that the Polarian hated the dissenters within his own religion, the so-called “Dark Ones,” who had very likely infiltrated the Polarian hierarchy and were, Calvin remained convinced, responsible for the launch of the Dread Fleet, but to Rez’nac the conflict was much deeper and even more personal than Calvin had imagined.

“And yet, despite these many defenses, we’re pretty sure these Dark Ones are already here,” said Calvin. “And have taken a foothold. He wanted to remind Rez’nac why they were there, and to help him focus on helping Calvin and the crew of the
Nighthawk
—by reaffirming that they were all there to fight the same enemy. So long as Calvin’s theory about the infiltration of the Dark Ones proved correct.

“Yes,” admitted Rez’nac. “They must be here. That is the only thing that makes sense. Though I do not understand how they did it…”

“Any luck isolating the best course, yet?” asked Calvin. As he studied the maps on the helm display, several potential paths were lit up, along with corresponding waypoints. Jay had struck several of the options, at Rez’nac’s instruction. That still left a few dozen, however.

“I believe I have determined the best course,” said Rez’nac. “It keeps us clear of the star bases, away from the known mine fields, and brings us around the grey dwarf planet here,” he pointed, “And then through what should be clear space. At least that is my best guess. Though I can make no promises there won’t be traps or obstacles, or other hazards.”

“Tactical analysis,” said Calvin. “If we do run into a disguised mine, is it a threat to this ship?” He wondered if he should drop stealth, raise the shields, and attempt to perform the mission under blitz circumstances. It would be a desperate ploy, but one he felt a duty to at least consider, even if only for a moment.

“We would be destroyed,” said Rez’nac matter-of-factly.

Calvin nodded. “Well…that’s comforting.” He then looked around at the many faces of the crowded bridge, and hoped this wasn’t going to prove to be the last time he saw them all in one piece. The fear of what might happen forced him to hesitate, but only momentarily, and, after a few seconds, he knew that continuing to wait would avail them nothing, so he gave the order.

“Miles, keep our shields down and stealth up, Cassidy keep a hawk’s eye on our close-range scanners—I don’t want to strike any mines; Jay, begin to follow the course Rez’nac advised, sublight drives only.”

“Aye, sir,” his people acknowledged him.

“Sound General Quarters and strap in,” said Calvin. With that, he returned to the command position and strapped in, while everyone who could did the same. There was no seat for Rain, nor one for Rafael, so the two of them braced themselves by grabbing hold of the unused features on opposite sides of the bridge.

The view out the window changed as the ship turned abruptly to starboard, then pitched downward. They accelerated, though the only way to tell was the announcement from Jay that they were moving forward.

“Approaching the asteroid sphere, closing in on waypoint one. Fifteen seconds,” said Jay.

Calvin waited silently, feeling the tension build as the ship maneuvered closer to its possible doom.

“Waypoint one achieved,” said Jay. “Now angling, yaw fifteen degrees port, and accelerating.”

The asteroid sphere was not yet visible out the window, but Calvin could see it in high definition on the 3D display. The current zoom showed the
Nighthawk
fast approaching the cloud of debris; the vessel held course, narrowly missing a large, battleship-sized asteroid spinning in place, continuing its slow orbit around the star.

“We have entered the asteroid sphere,” announced Jay, sounding nervous. “Achieving waypoint two in twenty-five seconds.”

The seconds came slowly, as Calvin expected them to trigger a trap at any moment, or to be spotted and targeted by one of the many outposts, platforms, star bases, or patrol ships sweeping the asteroid sphere—but nothing happened. So far so good.

“Waypoint two achieved,” said Jay. “Altering course for waypoint three.”

Waypoint three had Calvin the most nervous of all, as it brought the
Nighthawk
within only a few MCs of a small dwarf planet, and required the ship to tightly travel around it, almost entering orbit momentarily, as the maneuver was executed.

“One minute and forty-seven seconds until we reach waypoint three,” announced Jay.

Calvin rubbed his clammy palms together and stared at the 3D display, completely fixated on it—and forcing the thought of invisible mines as far away from his mind as he possibly could.

“One minute,” said Jay, after what felt like eternity. The dwarf planet was visible out the window now. It had a rugged moon-like beauty to it; it was grey and rough and covered in craters. If there were any Polarian-built installations, they were too small to see, on the other side of the planet, or else buried beneath the surface. Calvin preferred to imagine the planet was entirely abandoned, except for some outdated, automated guns that would never detect the
Nighthawk
in a million years.

“Fifty seconds,” said Jay, as the planet moved out of sight from the window. “Forty seconds…thirty seconds…twenty—” Jay paused abruptly.

“What is it?” demanded Calvin, knowing something had gone wrong. But no alarms were flashing, and they were all still breathing, so he couldn’t imagine what.

“We’ve struck something,” said Jay. “We’re not moving.”

Calvin felt his heart sink. “What is it? How bad is the damage?” he fired off the questions like machine gun rounds.

“Not some
thing
,” said Cassidy. “We’ve been caught by a tractor beam.”

“A tractor beam?” asked Calvin. “How were we detected?”

“I’m not sure we were detected,” said Cassidy. “More like we set off some kind of proximity trap and a tractor beam automatically engaged. It has a firm lock on us.”

“We need to move before someone real actually sees us,” said Calvin, grateful that the trap they’d stumbled upon hadn’t been a mine. “Reverse course.” Tractor beams had their uses, but as far as technologies went, they were fairly primitive as far as having much tactical use.

“Aye, sir, reversing course,” said Jay. The ship began to move, but was stopped again almost immediately.

“What now?” asked Calvin.

“We’ve stumbled upon another tractor beam,” said Cassidy. “It has halted our reverse motion.”

“Angle the ship and try to free us,” said Calvin, thinking even two tractor beams shouldn’t be able to hold the nimble
Nighthawk
.

“Aye, sir,” said Jay. Then, a moment later. “No luck.”

“What do you mean
no luck
?” asked Calvin, more perturbed than alarmed.

“We can’t move the ship,” said Cassidy, in Jay’s defense. “It’s more like we’ve triggered a tractor field than a couple of tractor beams.”

“A tractor
field
?” asked Calvin.

“They are tractor beams, in the strictest sense,” said Cassidy. “But there are so many of them, and all focused on us, coming from seemingly every direction…it’s like an entire field is holding us in place.”

Calvin started to feel a bit more alarmed, but he comforted himself in the knowledge that tractor beams, even a field of them, were still a primitive technology, and there wasn’t a tractor beam in the galaxy that could keep a ship from jumping into alteredspace. If they did a controlled,
very
short jump, they should be able to break free. The only difficulty would be to avoid returning to normal space and colliding with one of the asteroids, but Calvin’s plan for that was for them to jump backwards and then attempt their approach again, this time changing course enough to avoid the tractor beams.

“Standby to jump into alteredspace on my mark,” said Calvin, knowing it was the only way out.

“Are you mad?” asked Summers. “We could crash right into the asteroids!”

“Not if we jump back the way we came,” said Calvin. “We have no choice but to jump into alteredspace to free ourselves from the tractor beams, and so we’ll just have to take it back a step and try again.”

“I could try to isolate the source of the tractor beams and destroy them,” offered Miles.

Calvin didn’t want to risk opening fire on any part of the Polarian defenses, for fear that it would give away their presence. He hoped that stray asteroids and other debris became trapped by the tractor beams frequently enough that nobody had actually detected the
Nighthawk
yet. Or drawn suspicion from the appearance that the tractor beams had all independently locked onto what appeared, to most sensors, to be absolutely nothing.

“Understood,” said Jay. “Reverse alteredspace course plotted.”

“Punch it,” said Calvin.

Nothing happened.

“I said punch it!”

Still nothing.

“I’m sorry sir,” said Jay. “I just…I can’t make it go.”

Calvin unstrapped himself and dashed over to the helm controls. “Move aside,” he commanded. Jay unstrapped and evacuated the pilot’s chair, which Calvin abruptly took charge of.
Sometimes if you want something done right
, he thought,
you’ve got to do it yourself
.

Calvin adjusted the controls, set the alteredspace heading for 0.00001 klicks astern, powered up the alteredspace drive, then hit it. “And that is how…” his voice trailed off as soon as he realized his effort had been just as fruitless as Jay’s had been.

“What the hell?” he turned to Cassidy, meanwhile prepping to make a second attempt. “Begin a diagnostic of our alteredspace drive and find out if engineering shows anything wrong on their end.”

“Already on it, sir,” said Cassidy.

That was the only explanation Calvin could think of. There wasn’t a tractor beam in the galaxy—not even a matrix of them—that could prevent a ship from slipping into the mysterious realms of alteredspace.

“I’m trying it again,” announced Calvin, once the computer was ready. “Here goes!”

But, despite his expectation that all would go momentarily dark out the window, nothing happened.

“Engineering,” he said. “It has got to be engineering.” He just couldn’t explain it any other way.

“I was afraid of this,” he heard Rez’nac’s deep voice say from over Calvin’s shoulder.

“Diagnostic shows no systems failure,” reported Cassidy, “And engineering cannot visually identify anything wrong with the alteredspace system.”

Calvin ignored Cassidy and spun the pilot’s chair around to face Rez’nac, who, being quite tall anyway, seemed to positively tower over Calvin. Nevertheless, Calvin wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated.

“Rez’nac, you’ve been holding back on us,” said Calvin. “Tell me, just what sort of trap have we stumbled into?”

“There is a word for them, the closest human equivalent would be…the trap of the rat.”

“How fascinating,” said Calvin, feigning interest, “Now tell me, how does one escape such a trap? How does it work?” Calvin tried to keep his voice collected and commanding, but he was starting to feel a sense of panic breaking through his tone of voice.