The Phoenix Darkness Read online

  “The ships have made contact,” said one of the flight engineers.

  “Go aboard their ship,” said Anton, now pressing the button that delivered his voice throughout every deck of the ship. “Inspect the weapons for yourselves and then bring them aboard into our hold, safely and securely. The humans are never to touch them again. If they do, kill them.”

  His bevy acknowledged him and the flight engineer on his left reported that the pre-designated Strigoi from deck four had gone aboard the Duchess.

  While he waited, Anton found his fingers instinctively twisting the beads of his necklace, a thin, black-steel cord threaded through twenty-eight human knucklebones. A now nervous-looking Zander had disappeared from the viewer, no doubt to greet his new guests. Anton couldn’t help thinking how much he would like to rip out the traitor’s throat, slowly and painfully, and then add his knuckles to the others. But it wasn’t to be allowed, unfortunately. Although even the First somehow had known Zander would betray them, that he would lie to their faces and attempt to cheat them, the order not to interfere with Zander remained firm. Accept the deal, secure the weapons he has, pay him what he asks, install the tracer, and then depart with all haste.

  Anton had relayed his instructions to his bevy a thousand times and each of them, looking up to him as though he were the First, had accepted their assigned duties and trained as necessary to be able to do them expediently. Now all Anton could do was wait.

  At least I finally caught up to you, slippery bastard…

  When Anton had first been told he was to not interfere with Zander, beyond reclaiming whatever isotome weapons the human currently possessed, but to otherwise leave him unmolested, Anton had questioned why. Not as a challenge, or as a threat to the authority of the First, but as a gentle inquiry of a subordinate to a commander, seeking further explanation, knowing full well no further explanation was owed. All that the First had told him then was, “He will get his justice; I promise you that. One way or another, in the end, he will get it. His fate is already sealed.”

  ***

  The presence of actual Enclave Strigoi on his ship was an experience for which Zander found himself emotionally underprepared. He’d known they would come. In fact, he’d met with them before, directly, while working for them. But he’d never had to deal with them under such circumstances or in such numbers. Now he stood there, playing host to some fifteen Strigoi, any one of which could tear his ship apart and slaughter his crew without so much as the inkling of a challenge.

  On top of it all, he had to pretend he hadn’t just cheated them by hiding away one of their precious and promised isotome missiles, and doing the act while simultaneously managing an unruly and ignorant crew. A staff of outcasts and misfits who, although normally perfect for Zander’s type of operations, seemed currently to be nothing more than a massive liability. Especially since none of them had ever heard of Remus Nine and didn't know what a type-two Remorii was, let alone what a Strigoi could do when provoked. So he’d ordered them to their bunks and demanded they stay there until the transfer was complete. This command was met with resistance, as all commands increasingly seemed to be doing, with the general sense among the crew, according to Rolland, that Zander was involved in some kind of extra lucrative trade negotiation, one far more profitable than the crew had been led to believe, and that he planned to cut them out of the majority of the wealth by keeping them ignorant. For a rabble of misfits, idiots, and outcasts, they were proving surprisingly astute, dangerously so, and he knew he had Jasmine, and by extension himself, to blame for it. Fortunately, however, for the time being they’d seemed to cooperate with his order and none of them could be found as Zander personally greeted the Strigoi as they came aboard his ship. None returned his greeting, a stoic people perhaps, but he extended the courtesy to each of them all the same, as one-by-one they stepped through the temporary jetbridge and climbed down the hatch.

  “The weapons,” demanded the first one down; he seemed to be the one in charge, although it was difficult to tell given the tall stature and grisly appearance that embodied each of his new guests. Strigoi faces were harder to tell apart than human faces, or even Rotham and Polarian faces, in Zander’s experience, and so he probably would have been fooled into thinking this leading Strigoi was Anton himself were it not for the absence of that terrifying necklace of bones the commanding Strigoi had always worn whenever Zander had seen him. For that matter, seemingly all of the Strigoi wore some kind of jewelry, be it a ring through a piercing, a necklace, a bracelet, or whatever had been chiseled out of human bones. Zander tried not to think about it, despite being fully aware that, at the conclusion of their business deal, and perhaps before, should they realize he’d cheated them they would rip his bones from his body and wear bits of him and his crew as ornaments while the Strigoi spread and conquered their way throughout the galaxy, as far and wide as they desired.

  “The weapons!” the leader said again and Zander snapped back to attention, realizing he’d allowed himself to become distracted by his own paranoid thoughts and the frightful sight of the Strigoi.

  “Yes, of course, this way,” he said. As he marched forward, leading them deeper inside his ship through the various corridors of the Duchess to her main hold, he felt a strong and recurring sense of regret. Why did I do it? He asked himself. They’re going to know, they’re going to know, they’re going to know…

  But what was done was done, and now he was committed. He’d already doubled down on his gamble, and there was nothing left to do but see it through, hopefully to its financially lucrative conclusion. Though the presence of so many human bones around him, dangling here, clicking and clanking there, was unnerving. He took some measure of comfort in knowing this was, at least, not the first time he’d tried to pull a scam, and he knew how to look a person in the eye deadpan and bluff his ass off. Would that work on a Strigoi? He supposed only time would tell. So he choked down his fear, kept up his cheery appearance, and guided the Enclave’s soldiers until they reached the hold where, carefully situated and locked firmly in place, were fourteen isotome missiles.

  “Here we are,” he announced. The Strigoi ignored him and immediately fanned out to inspect the weapons, all of the Strigoi except for one who hung back, keeping an eerily watchful eye on Zander while his cohorts did their job. Zander tried not to make eye contact with him, or give any indication he was uncomfortable with the Strigoi standing there.

  They seemed to look approving at the weapons; Zander had kept them polished and pleasing to the eye, but before the Strigoi could take note of the number of them, specifically that there was one too few, Zander played the only trick he had left to him.

  “As you can see,” he said, turning to the Strigoi who’d remained behind. The one who appeared to be in command of the others. “They are magnificent weapons and in excellent condition, so, I think it is only fair we discuss price once again.” At this point, Zander would be happy to trade them for nothing but his life, free and clear, but to make any such gesture would be to admit fault, to essentially point out to the Strigoi that, although repentant now, he had tried to cheat them. So, he did the opposite. No one would dare cheat their business partner by pilfering from the inventory and try to negotiate for a higher cut. The very idea was lunacy; he knew that and counted on the Strigoi to know that too. Hell, everyone knew that! Therefore, because he tried to negotiate for a better price, that must mean he hadn’t pilfered from the inventory and was telling the truth about only finding fourteen missiles.

  “What do you mean, price?” asked the Strigoi, baring his teeth. “The price was already agreed.”

  “Well, now it isn’t,” said Zander. “As you can see, I've taken extra love and care of them,” he waved in the general direction of the gleaming missiles. “And with that unfortunate mishap on Remus Nine, these are the only ones left. I think that more than quadruples their value. But I am a fair man,” said Zander, keeping perfect confidence, or at least the appearance of it. “Why
don’t we meet halfway and call it an even double?”

  The Strigoi scowled, as if not believing what he was hearing. “You overreach, human, as is typical for your inferior species. Don’t you know that with one command I could have you all slaughtered, limb from limb, and take the weapons for myself for no cost at all?”

  “True, you could do that,” said Zander, trying admirably to sound unconcerned by such a possibility. “But is that really the reputation you want for your species?”

  The Strigoi looked momentarily confused, so Zander continued. “What with your fresh start, new territory, and imminent recognition by the Rotham Republic as a member state, your kind will be at the forefront of galactic attention in no time flat. Do you really want rumors to spread throughout the galaxy about how Strigoi don’t pay their debts and instead slaughter honest traders who try to do business with them? Think what that would do for your reputation.”

  The Strigoi seemed to consider this for the better part of a minute and, in that time, Zander stood perfectly calm, trying to imagine he was a leaf on the wind, an exercise he often employed when he knew he needed to feign bargaining power he knew he didn’t have. In this case, it was far more than just profit that fell on the line. Unfortunately, the raised stakes also made it that much more difficult to feign confidence, but he did his best. Just as the Strigoi was about to answer him, one of the others spoke up.

  “There are only fourteen weapons here,” he said, sounding angry.

  “Are you sure?” asked the lead Strigoi.

  “I am sure, I have counted and re-counted them.”

  “Of course there are only fourteen,” said Zander. “What did you expect?”

  “We were promised fifteen isotome weapons,” the lead Strigoi said, hissing as he stood mere inches away from Zander, his superior height adding to his sense of power and dominance. Zander felt his knees tremble and he nearly buckled on the spot, but somehow, by some miracle, he kept himself together.

  “I don’t know about any fifteen,” said Zander. “These are all there were.”

  “I was promised fifteen,” repeated the Strigoi leader.

  “Fifteen or not, these are all that there were,” Zander replied in the best matter-of-fact tone he could muster. “I searched and I scoured and I combed, and all I could find were fourteen.”

  The Strigoi gave him a long hard look and Zander met his gaze, managing to keep his expression as innocent as possible by employing another technique: he used his imagination to change the context of the conversation and instead of obsessing over the savage, murderous, killing-machines right in front of him, who might have just realized he’d cheated them, he thought of woods, summer grass, a babe on a swing, a mother walking her son in the park, and anything else which conjured up ideas of pure harmlessness and innocence in his mind. I am not here, he thought. I am lying in the sand on the beachy shores of Zendricun Alpha. I smell the salt of the sea and feel the sun beating down on me. Next to me sits a beautiful woman. She wears a sunhat and slowly sips on a pina colada. We make eye contact and she smiles…

  “Very well,” said the lead Strigoi after a long pause. He then gave a command to his cohorts and they began to unseal and remove the fourteen isotome weapons. “If this was all you could find, then this was all that was there.”

  “As a certainty,” said Zander. He avoided a smile, but felt a surge of hope begin to balloon inside him. Did I just get away with this? he wondered. “And what about price?” he asked, pressing the issue one final time.

  “We will pay one and a half what we agreed,” said the lead Strigoi. “Less the value of one missile, since there are only fourteen here. Not fifteen.”

  Zander nodded. “We have a deal.” It was all he could do to keep from leaping in the air with joy. He was going to keep his life, he’d successfully cheated the Enclave, squeezed an extra fifty-percent profit out of them to boot, and he still had one last isotome weapon. A missile which, once the other fourteen had been used, would become the most valuable commodity in the galaxy. I could trade it for a planet of my own, he thought blissfully.

  “I expect the transfer of payment to be made before the last missile is offloaded from this ship,” said Zander, still keeping his tone all business.

  “It will be so.”

  ***

  At first, the plan unfolded almost exactly as Mister Martel had said it would. The populace, helped along by some 13,000 CERKO operatives, acting in disguise as the king’s troops, had risen to overthrow the royal government. The last straw had been the massive bombing of the planet, in the name of the king, but also a false flag operation which had left critical parts of the planet in fiery rubble. The capitol and its districts had previously been reduced to ash by what appeared to be the ISS Black Swan, belonging to Princess Kalila Akira, and since then entire city-centers, important agricultural projects, industrial plants, civilian housing projects, and countless other targets, many arbitrary, had been obliterated. The people of Renora hated the Imperial government. They hated the king and just about anything and everything they had any excuse to hate. Once the prefect, who'd been installed by the king to bring order to the troubled planet, by force or other means, had fled the system, the time was ripe for the people of Renora to look for new leadership. In their hour of need, they found supplies and aid in the unlikely form of medical crates, food, water, and other provisions granted to them by the Rotham Republic. This, and a generally democratic sentiment which had long existed on the planet, led to a swift declaration by a provisional government that the planet formally seceded from the Empire and petitioned the Rotham Republic for membership. A petition which was promptly accepted by the Rotham Senate, despite claims from the Imperial Assembly and the Imperial Monarchy that such a petition was against Imperial and international laws, and was therefore nullified.

  All of that had been foretold by Zane Martel to Ryker before he’d ever deployed with his team onto the surface of Renora. And, from the surface of that troubled planet, he'd witnessed each and every step unfold exactly as planned, like layers of an onion. And so it came naturally to his subordinates, and closest associates, to ask him what came next. The Imperial flags had been ripped down, the prefect chased off world, and the Imperial soldiers, mighty force of millions they’d been, —had been withdrawn. Now most major buildings, whatever remained post bombing and looting, were flying the flag of the Republic. So naturally, for a planet still stricken with mass starvation, devastated infrastructure, and oilfields still burning that had never been put out, it was only natural to wonder: what is next? The only problem was, Ryker didn’t know.

  “Zane never told me,” was all Ryker had to offer any of the forty-seven members of his CERKO cell whenever they asked him. And, as the days became weeks and time rolled ever forward, and their own caches of food and water disappeared, the CERKO soldiers themselves became unruly and demanding, almost as much as the displaced citizens of Renora itself. It was then Ryker had disbanded from the cell and taken only his most trusted comrades. They’d gone away from the major city, away from all the cities, and watched the chaos continue to unfold from afar, living off the small freshwater stream they’d encountered and eating berries, fish, and whatever they could manage to trap. All the while waiting for a sign, some new instruction, or something to change. But whatever was happening elsewhere in the galaxy, it seemed to have forgotten about Renora. A planet which burned and suffered and awaited promised aid, yet that aid seemed more a dream now than anything else. Even Zane Martel, who no one had heard from again, stopped being a reliable source of information for Ryker, forcing the CERKO commander to realize he was ultimately alone, left completely to his own devices to execute the rest of a plan he did not know, and to command and keep alive a force of soldiers who continued to look to him for guidance he could not provide.

  That was why he had taken to the woods, along with Vulture, Tank, and Micah, leaving the rest of their cell to fend for themselves. Ever since making that decision, and slip
ping away under cover of darkness, they’d had no contact with any of the other forty-three members of their cell. Likewise, they’d had no contact, and heard no word from, any of the other two-hundred and ninety-nine CERKO cells distributed all over the planet. Some, undoubtedly, had been wiped out. Killed in battle, or killed fighting amongst themselves over ever more precious resources, while others likely starved or resorted to pillaging whatever towns, storehouses, and farms they could find that hadn’t already lost everything or been burnt to the ground. Ryker made it a point to send Vulture out scouting every day with the binoculars. Of their group, he had the sharpest eyes and the instincts of a sniper, but even he'd only been able to watch helplessly from afar as a hopeless situation in the cities nearby seemed to deteriorate into something even worse.

  “You can smell the dead now,” he said, returning from his daily scouting trip.

  “I could smell the dead when we left,” said Ryker. He sat on a log poking a small fire with a stick while Tank set about cooking the three fish they’d caught that day, a veritable bounty compared to their usual victuals.

  “No, not like that,” said Vulture, setting the binoculars down and kneeling down next to the fire to warm his hands. “Not like when we left. I mean now you can smell the piles of corpses rotting away. The scent is carried by the wind, and it’s strong enough I can smell it not two kilometers from here. And it’s growing stronger.”

  “And still no sign of anything?” asked Ryker. He removed the stick from the fire and crushed the burning tip with the heel of his boot, stamping out the tiny flame. It died, much like the embers of hope that had been the revolution on Renora only mere weeks ago.