The Phoenix War (12 page)

They began pushing him. And one human
connected a right hook with Rez’nac’s throat. His tough skin
protected him far better than a human’s would have, but the blow
made him recoil backward all the same, gasping momentarily for
air.

They punched him some more, and kicked him.
Two of the humans held him by the arms, no doubt believing they had
the strength to contain him, while the curly-haired man struck him
in the face. Repeatedly.

I could kill them
, he thought again.
And indeed his instinct to fight tempted him, to defend his own
life, to slaughter his enemies, it was so very deeply engrained!
Burning
. It was, perhaps more than anything, who he was. At
his deepest, truest core. A warrior. No longer of Khalahar perhaps,
but a warrior all the same.

“
This
is for Gary!” They struck him
again.

He embraced the pain.
I am nothing
, he
reminded himself.
I am a Fallen One. A Lost One. A Forgotten
One.

The curly-haired human punched him hard in
the gut. Most of the force of the blow deflected off Rez’nac’s
hard, muscular abdomen. But the pain still stung, as did the injury
to his pride. Even mere weeks ago he would never have allowed this.
A leader of the Essence of Khalahar should never stand for such
abuse. He would have killed these men with barely a thought,
snapped their necks the moment they first struck him. And yet now
he was
Fallen
. Now he had to bear this insult. For a Fallen
One, truly, could receive no insult. One must have pride first
before that pride could be hurt. And whatever pride he still clung
to he knew he needed to let go.

This is good for me
, he thought. It
was past time he learned to accept the consequences of his actions,
of his decision to spare Grimka despite everything he knew. And
everything that was right.

The curly-haired man had hit Rez’nac so many
times now that his pale human knuckles had turned purple and begun
to bleed. Yet the man’s eyes burned with fire, glowing with hate
and malice. And he seemed not to care about his own pain. So long
as he could inflict worse upon his enemy. There was a kind of
strength in that, a strength Rez’nac had to respect, but at the
same time a kind of recklessness that could easily lead this human
to put his own comrades in danger to satisfy his foolish pride.
He is not yet broken, this one. He is rebellious. Pellew would
do well to break him and put him in line.

Another blow connected with Rez’nac’s face.
He felt a tooth loosen and blood filled his mouth. He spat it out.
Readying himself for the next blow. He was starting to feel
light-headed, and the many injuries were starting to take their
toll on him. His knees threatened to buckle under him, but he asked
for no quarter and begged for no mercy.

I deserve this. This is just. Grimka was one
of mine when he slaughtered Patterson. And so the sin is upon my
head. And when I went to make him atone for his action, his foul
deed, I chose not to take his life. And by so doing I took my own
life. And, far worse than that, I gave up my eternal honor. And
now, rather cruelly, I yet walk among the living. Unable to find
some kind of peace in the great darkness that awaits the souls of
the soulless and the dishonored.

As another blow struck him, everything seemed
to darken a little. He was vaguely aware of the sound of the door
sliding open.

“Stop this at once!” yelled a man’s voice. It
sounded like Captain Pellew but Rez’nac couldn’t be sure. He
blinked but his eyes were too blurry to see.

The hands let go of him immediately and,
without them holding him up, he stumbled and nearly collapsed. Yet
somehow he managed to keep his feet a little longer.
I am
nothing
, he reminded himself.

“Alldroit! Smith! Baudin! What the
hell
is going on here?”

Rez’nac saw the blur of a man approach and
the soldiers around him stood at attention, saluting.

And then he lost his bearings and
collapsed.

He’d never taken it by needle before. He’d
always taken it in pill form. But they said this was faster, it
should take effect immediately. And they wouldn’t need as high of a
dose, this form of delivery was more bioavailable. He understood
the reasoning, but it still felt odd and a little…
wrong
.

Calvin held still as one of the medics
prepped the site on his upper arm while the other readied the
needle. He stared at its glistening metal tip, thinking about the
dose of equarius that was about to be injected directly into a
large vein, which would take it to his heart.

All my effort to rid myself of the damned
drug, and here I am letting it flow deep into my core
.

“All right, this will sting for just a
second,” said the medic holding the needle as he took Calvin’s arm
in his free hand and readied the needle against the injection
site.

“I understand,” said Calvin, but the prick of
the needle was the last thing he was worried about. What he feared
most, strangely, was also what he wanted most. A part of him missed
the cool, pleasant, almost-apathetic release that equarius gave
him. But that modest pleasure had nearly cost him his ship and, if
he kept turning to it, would eventually cost him much more than
that—including his life.

I have no choice. I have to do this.
Everyone has to
. Even now, as Calvin took his turn receiving
the drug, there was quite a queue of officers lined up behind him
to take their minimum doses of Xinocodone and be certified—most of
the Black Swan’s massive infirmary had been put to the task of
certifying people. Although, out of necessity, only two-thirds of
those aboard could be certified immediately, since the third that
was currently on-duty needed to wait for relief before they could
be administered Xinocodone.

“There,” said the medic as he carefully
removed the needle from Calvin’s arm. If there had been a prick,
the sensation was gone instantly as the equarius entered his
bloodstream. He felt a familiar lighthearted tingle and couldn’t
stop a slight grin from spreading across his face.

“Thank you, doctor,” said Calvin as the
assistant medic cleaned and bandaged the site on his arm.

“Don’t mention it.”

A recorder made a note on his tablet device
that Calvin was certified and the medic who’d delivered the
injection pressed his thumb on the tablet screen to verify the
recorder’s note.

“
Next
,” called the assistant
medic.

Calvin stepped out of the line and headed for
the exit. Before he left he stopped and stared up at the many
lights affixed to the ceiling.
This is a big room
, he
realized, feeling light as a feather. He left.

He wound his way through the many corridors
and elevators of the Black Swan, mostly lucid but occasionally
feeling waves of mild, euphoric disorientation, and returned to his
quarters.

It is done
, he thought. He was
familiar enough with the drug to recognize its soothing,
mind-numbing effects.
I should get some sleep
. He knew that
would be best, he’d wake in a few hours and the effects would be
gone. And it would be as if he’d never broken his word to himself
and had never taken more equarius. The last time he’d been tempted,
when he’d thrown the drug down the toilet, he’d vowed never to take
the drug again. And yet, here he was, feeling just a little bit
airborne.

He stared at the clock, wondering what time
it was. The numbers seemed a little blurry. He squinted to read the
digits and then he realized that he didn’t care what time it
was.

He paced around his room for a bit, in part
enjoying the effects of the drug, and partly because he felt he
ought to do something but no particular thing seemed important
enough to do. Eventually he settled down onto his bed and stared up
at the ceiling. Opening and closing his eyes, slowly and
repeatedly, thinking about how strange it was that such thin layers
of flesh were the only natural protections the soft, vulnerable
organs had.

Not quite sure when it happened, he did fall
asleep. And when he woke, only a few hours later, he didn’t
remember his dreams. No night terrors haunted him, and he awoke
with none of the terrifying vertigo that lately seemed to torment
him whenever he ingested equarius and slept. The only thing he felt
was a dull, throbbing headache, and a dry, parched throat.

He scooped up the water bottle he’d
deliberately set on the nightstand and drank. Not stopping until
the bottle was half empty. Then he wiped his face, took a deep
breath, and set the bottle aside.

For a few minutes Calvin entertained notions
of trying to return to sleep. But after tossing and turning for
some while, he found that his racing thoughts returned and kept him
from slipping back into the dark dreamscape.

War is coming
, he thought ominously.
Thinking of all of the admirals, captains, and knights of the crown
who remained loyal to Kalila that were racing across the Empire to
meet them here, along with whatever strength the Organization still
had. Already the warships had begun to arrive and more were coming.
It promised to be quite a force, and yet… Calvin had serious doubts
that it would be enough. Many of the admirals and starship
commanders Kalila had contacted refused to take a side in the
conflict, or else had declared for the Assembly. And even though
the princess had been very judicious about transmitting their
coordinates, Calvin was one-hundred percent certain their location
had been leaked to the Assembly by now. Not to mention their jump
signature would have been traced when they fled Capital System. It
was best to assume the Assembly and the rest of the Imperial
military knew Kalila was here. Which meant an attempt on her life
was probable.

Only one question remained, how would the
enemy go about it? Would it be through guile and subterfuge?
Perhaps an assassin was already in place aboard this very ship,
which—for all its steel, might, and thunder could easily prove
useless at protecting her. Or perhaps the enemy would corner them
with an even larger force, and Kalila, Calvin, and all the rest
were destined to be destroyed in one final epic, inglorious battle
of human fleets tearing each other apart. Leaving the sad victor
defenseless against the deadly Rotham menace, and possibly the
Polarians too.

Maybe I’m being too pessimistic
, he
thought.
Maybe we’ll have one great decisive battle, and after
our stunning victory Kalila will unite humanity before the Rotham
can figure out some way to get their fleets into Imperial space
without upsetting the Alliance
.

It seemed too much to hope for. But he found
himself hoping for it all the same. Wishing also that he wasn’t
trapped here, on the Black Swan, feeling completely useless while
Summers and the crew of the Nighthawk,
his closest friends
,
risked their lives to thwart an even more sinister evil. The threat
of isotome weapons.
I never should have left the Nighthawk
,
he thought for the umpteenth time.

As he thought of his experience on Capital
World, his boyhood home where he’d so recently proven himself
unable to save the Empire—despite the vast powers granted him, he
thought of the spectacularly miserable result of his efforts and
recalled how narrowly he and Kalila had escaped. And he wondered if
he’d even deserved to escape—he felt a bit like a boat captain
swimming to shore while his vessel and all her passengers went
under—and how lucky Kalila had been to escape the horrifying fate
that had seized her father—
the king
—and all of her older
siblings. They’d each been killed in swift succession, and none of
them by accident, Calvin was certain.

Now that he thought about it, Kalila had been
almost stupefying lucky not to have shared her siblings’ fate. Sure
she’d been safely aboard the Black Swan by then, but each of her
slain family members had been surrounded by layers of protection
that each had proven ineffective. Not to mention that Kalila stood
to gain the most from her father’s and siblings’ deaths…

It couldn’t be! No, now I’m just being
paranoid
, he thought. But, even as he dismissed the suspicions
that swirled inside him, he couldn’t help but consider the ominous
possibility that Kalila herself was behind what had happened on
Capital World. Her father’s death, her siblings’ deaths, maybe even
the deaths of Zane Martel and the rest of the Phoenix Ring’s
leaders.

No, that’s simply crazy
. He blinked
repeatedly, as if to chase away the rush of paranoia that had
overtaken him. He recalled rather vividly how determined Kalila had
been for Calvin’s efforts as Executor to succeed, how she’d
pressured him to achieve results, and how she’d given him the best
resources she possibly could.
Obviously she wanted me to
succeed
.

He was ninety-nine percent sure that things
were as they appeared, that Kalila had taken no part in the brutal
slaughter of the rest of her family, despite the fact that it made
her next in line for the throne. And she’d almost certainly had no
hand in what’d happened to the Phoenix Ring. Someone else was out
there, someone powerful. A grimmer, deadlier threat that remained
in the shadows. Lurking. And yet, as Calvin tossed and turned
thinking about it, he couldn’t stop dwelling on the one-percent
chance that he’d been deceived, that Kalila was more devious and
cunning and self-motivated than he ever would have guessed.

Surely not
, he reminded himself.
Surely it isn’t so
. Another very real, very deadly player
was in the game. Someone more powerful and more threatening than
even the Phoenix Ring had been, and that was the danger Calvin knew
he must focus on. He thought of conversations he’d had with Alex,
back on the Nighthawk, and remembered hearing about the elusive and
deadly Rahajiim organization within the Republic. Perhaps it was
the Rahajiim who was behind the slaughter of the Phoenix Ring’s
leadership and the massacre of the royal family.