The Phoenix Rising Read Online Free Page B

granted.
    When it came to selecting replacement crew
for the Nighthawk, Raidan had already done the heavy lifting. He’d
forwarded a list of recommended people to Calvin, many of whom fit
the bill nicely. At least on paper. And, although Calvin couldn’t
trust them until he got to know them, he was eager to work with
many of them. They were experts in their fields, and by all
appearances people of integrity and professionalism—even though
some had no military experience at all. Not many of the civilian
candidates piqued his interest, most of the solid applicants were
former navy officers, but those who did were outstanding.
    What unnerved him most was the need for
replacement soldiers. Raidan hadn’t forwarded any suggestions and
Calvin had mixed feelings about inviting armed strangers onto his
ship. Strangers whose loyalty was still in question. But without
taking the chance and bringing aboard more forces, he would be
severely limited in his ability to assign field deployments. Past
experience had taught him that most missions required some kind of
soldier-driven shore party. Not to mention the benefit of having
more soldiers in the event their ship was boarded. He made a note
in his request form that he needed some disciplined soldiers to
augment his short-staffed Special Forces division, but he doubted
Gemini had anyone qualified to fill the gap.
    Less than five minutes after sending the
request, the panel beeped. He hoped it was Tristan agreeing to set
up the meeting between him and the Organization but no such
luck.
    “ Hey, Calvin... got a
minute?” The voice that filtered over the speakers belonged to
Miles. He seemed less jovial than usual and his tone creaked with
anxiety.
    “ This had better not be
about gambling,” replied Calvin. Even before they’d arrived in
Gemini System, Calvin had forbidden Miles to participate in any
gambling of any kind. He’d bailed out his dear friend once, at
great expense, when the less wise man bet his way into a debtors’
detention cell on Praxis One. As far as Calvin was concerned,
rescuing Miles financially was only worth doing once. His bank
accounts certainly agreed.
    “ Gambling? No. I’ve been
good, honest .”
    “ Alright then, what?” asked
Calvin. If he hadn’t been gambling, then Miles had probably spent
most of the time aboard the station plastered out of his mind. The
local liquor selection was wider and more potent here in Polarian
space.
    “ Just want your take on the
Renora situation. Any chance it’s linked to what happened in
Abia?”
    The mere mention of Abia
made Calvin’s heart start pounding and gave him a nauseous feeling.
“ What situation?”
    “ Haven’t you been watching
the news?” asked Miles.
    “ No. I haven’t paid any
attention to current events since we arrived.” He’d recently been
cut off from the Intel Wing databases and wasn’t yet in the habit
of scouring the civilian news services for their limited
offerings.
    “ I think you’d better.”
There was a dark ominousness to Miles’ words.
    “ Okay...” said Calvin,
feeling a spike of anxiety. “What news service should I tune
into?”
    “ It won’t matter,” said
Miles. “Let me know your thoughts once you get caught up on the
details.” Miles disconnected.
    Calvin used the panel to connect to navigate
the information nets he could and, after tuning into the primary
news service of Capital World, sent the results to his display and
cranked the volume.
    “— no word yet on when that
will happen,” a reporter was saying. The screen was split in half
with a reporter on the right and footage of violence on the left. A
mob of people ran like hell every which way, fleeing heavy ordnance
as it rained down and—in seconds—disintegrated the urban landscape
into fire and debris. Calvin grimaced watching it. Apparently the
graphic images had been captured by a witness on the ground with a
somewhat low quality recorder.
    “ What’s the feeling like
there, Ray?”