The Phoenix Project (26 page)

    
“I am, but I’m still the lead diplomatic
envoy to the Ferine and I have to accompany them to the hearing. So, I guess I
have double duty,” Elliot sighed.

    
“Keeping you busy?” Joshua asked with a
smile.

    
“Want some of the workload?”

    
“I’ll be quiet now.”

    
“I thought so. Thank—you for the tour,
Peter.”

    
“Sir, we just started.”

    
“I’ll get to it later. I’ll leave the rest
in your capable hands.”

    
“I’m just your tour guide, Admiral,” Peter
said.

    
“Not anymore. I’m sure you can take care of
things here until the rest of the senior staff arrives.”

    
“Yes, Sir.”

    
“I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

    
“Yes, Sir,” Peter said.

    
Joshua and Elliot walked from the platform
and towards the nearest exit. Peter took the command chair with ease and began
issuing orders.

    
“Do you really want to leave everything up
to him?” Joshua asked once they were out of earshot.

    
“He seems capable enough.”

    
“I don’t know. He is only a Commander.”

    
“You were too, once,” Elliot said.

    
“Yeah, but I was better looking.”

    
“You still are baby,” Elliot said with a
grin.

    
“Shut up.”

    
“Give me a kiss, you sweet southerner,”
Elliot said in an improvised accent.

    
“I’ll call Madi and tell her you’re
sexually harassing me.”

    
“I’m scared!”

    
“Trust me, you don’t want to see her mad,”
he said and smirked, “or jealous.”

    
“Enough said,” Elliot replied as they
exited the command center. “Come on, we’ll go get a drink with Lathiel.”

    
“I don’t think I can handle another night
of that.”

    
“A cup of coffee instead?” Elliot asked.

    
“Alright, I’ll tell Madi to meet us.”

    
“And let her come between us?”

    
“You wish,” Joshua replied. Elliot guffawed
in response as they entered the lift.

    
A large, empty court of oak fittings
greeted the Ferine as they headed uncertainly down the center isle towards an
unknown future.

    
“Where do we go?” Lathiel whispered to
Elliot.

    
“Down to the front and sit at the desk to
your right.”

    
“Will you come with us?” Lathiel asked.

    
“We both will. We are still your liaisons,”
Nadine said from their other side.

    
“Thank—you,” Ranik said at her shoulder and
grasped her hand. Nadine squeezed it back. “Look confident.”

    
The foursome proceeded down the center isle
of the courtroom. They walked past the gallery and found themselves at a large
desk with four chairs behind it. The Ferine took the two central seats. Elliot
took the chair to their right. Nadine took the one closest to the aisle.

    
Once they had seated themselves, a column
of the judiciary emerged onto a raised platform complete with a long desk for
the dozen officials of Alliance
and Coalition allegiance. The colors of their nations adorned the hearts of
their black gowns in regal colors to indicate their disparate loyalties. They
sat only after the rest of the audience had taken their seats. With the loud
bang of a single gavel the lead representative, an Alliance citizen despite their minority
status in the proceedings, called the hearing to order.

    
“On this day, September Thirty—First,
Twenty—Two Ninety—Nine, I call to order a public hearing into the events
surrounding the loss of Earth’s moon, Luna, as well as hundreds of thousands of
square miles of Earth’s soil,” the speaker stated. He passed the floor to a Coalition
board member next to him.

    
“The defendant in this case is the Ferine
Assembly, represented here by delegates Ranik and Lathiel. For the beginning of
this hearing, we would like to establish some background regarding the culture
and history of our guests. The questions will be fielded by the panel. Do you
understand what I have said, Delegates?” the speaker asked. He narrowed his pale
blue eyes as he studied the Ferine.

    
Elliot and Nadine took the lead by slowly
getting to their feet. The lost Ferine caught on to their body language and
stood with them. Nadine whispered up to Ranik’s high placed ear.

    
“Both of you need to say “yes”.”

    
“Yes, we do.”

    
“Excellent,” the salt and pepper haired
speaker responded. “Please be seated.”

    
All four of them sat down and the board
member to his right leaned forward.

    
“I would like to hear from the delegate
Lathiel, first,” A grey suited aid from a corner of the room walked to the
Ferine’s table and placed two earpieces on the table in front of them. Each of
the Ferine took an earpiece and clipped it to a small triangular ear near the
top of their heads.

    
“Delegate Lathiel, may I call you Lathiel?”
the Coalition member asked.

    
“Yes, of course.”

    
“Tell me, how far back does your recorded
history go?”

    
“Much of our history is lost, Sir. It is
reliable until approximately one thousand ago. Prior to that our records are
much more fragmented,” Lathiel replied.

    
“Why are they fragmented past that point?”
an Alliance
panel member interrupted.

    
“That time marked the end of the Great War.”

    
“What was this war?” the Coalition board
member asked, reasserting himself.

    
“It was a great interplanetary war between
three of our nations. Our weapons of the time weren’t as advanced as yours, but
still issued a great deal of damage. Many of our records were destroyed in the
conflict.”

    
“I see. After this you gained the weapons
technology to destroy a planet,” the Coalition inquirer stated. The Ferine
looked to each other and then back to the panel.

    
“No Sir, you misunderstand. The weapon was
a remnant from that time,” Lathiel said.

    
“Remnant?” the Coalition member repeated in
angry disbelief.

    
“Yes,” Lathiel responded in honest
confusion. The Alliance
member, who had earlier intervened, did so again.

    
“I apologize for my colleague, Lathiel.
It’s just difficult to believe that a weapon of such destructive power is, in
actuality, a relic from a millennium old war.”

    
“It was the last one and in disrepair when
we chose to reactivate it,” Lathiel said.

    
“There were more?” the Coalition panel
member asked.

    
“Mister Bell, please, this is best left for
a later discussion. I would suggest we return to the subject,” the Alliance member said.

    
“At what point did you achieve our level of
advancement?”

    
“Our best estimate places that event at
fourteen hundred years ago,” Lathiel replied. The board members began
whispering to each other before Bell
spoke again.

    
“In fourteen hundred years, how much farther
have you advanced?”

    
“We’re less advanced than your race,” Ranik
replied.

    
“Excuse me, Sir?” Bell inquired, having momentarily given up
the familiar.

    
“Our weapons technology is less advanced,”
Lathiel replied. “Our propulsion and sensory technology are more advanced by,
perhaps fifty years.”

    
“Forgive me, Lathiel, but how can you
expect this panel to believe that after fourteen hundred years, you are only perhaps
slightly more advanced than us?” Bell
demanded.

    
“The Great War.”

    
“Yes, your “Great War”. Just how does that event
explain this?”

    
“It was a lasting conflict,” Lathiel replied.

    
“It was more than that,” Ranik said, taking
the hot seat. “The war lasted for a century just as your own cold war has, but
it was devastating to our colonies and our home world.”

    
He left his chair and stood so everyone
could clearly see him. “Thousands of warships were involved. Entire cities were
the subject of spatial bombardment and fully four of our worlds no longer exist
in a void beyond our current borders. At the end of that war we did not
surrender to each other.”

    
Bell
took the bait to the hanging story. “If you did not surrender in your Great
War, what did you do? Did one nation crush the others?”

    
“No, Mister Bell.”

    
“Then what happened?”

    
“We had nothing left to fight with,” Ranik
replied.

    
“You had exhausted your resources.”

    
“We no longer had the capability to fight.
Cities, towns, and villages had been blasted back to a primitive state. Every
station and warship had been destroyed. We no longer had the ability to reach
into space and punish our brothers. We had been leveled to a barbaric
civilization barely able to speak,” Ranik said. He sat down quietly and stayed
mute.

    
Silent in reflection, the room waited for
an awed panel to regain it composure. Lathiel stood to replace his emotionally
stricken comrade.

    
“So you see, Mister Bell, it has taken a
thousand years to return to this level of civilization and we have always
looked back to remind us of our violent past and be better for it. We repaired
and reactivated the cannon in desperation.”

    
Bell
regained his composure and meshed the fingers of his hands. “The cannon you
reactivated, can it be repaired again?”

    
“No, Mister Bell,” Lathiel replied.

    
“Why can’t a repair be accomplished?”

    
“These were doomsday weapons. We can not
reactivate them any more than you can detonate a bomb twice.”

    
“This apparatus was also responsible for
the destruction of the four colonies your colleague mentioned?”

    
“Yes,” Lathiel replied.

    
“The one that struck our only natural
satellite as well as our world; what exactly was its original purpose?”

    
“It was intended for the destruction of our
home world.”

    
“So why were they not all used? How many
were there?” Mary Bourgeois asked.

    
“Five in total, more were under construction,
but never finished,” Lathiel replied.

    
“Your ancestors never chose to use the last
one?”

    
“The three nations of the time had equal
populations on our home world. The nation, we believe they were called the
United Front, never thought to use it until it was too late.”

    
“Too late?” Bourgeois asked in confusion.

    
“The weapon’s personnel were massacred in a
massive onslaught in response to the destruction of the other four colonies, so
was the population of the nation planet side,” Lathiel said.

    
“All of them?” Mary asked.

    
“The other two nations went into a killing
frenzy when they heard news that four entire planets had been destroyed by the
United Front. They went so far as to try to strike every reference of the
nation from history which is why we aren’t sure of their name.”

    
“And they killed
everyone
who belonged to that nation?”

    
“There were rumors of survivors who hid
among the other two nations’ populations, but nothing was ever proven,” Lathiel
replied.