The Phoenix Crisis Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nighthawk but after witnessing the Rotham fleet
in Imperial space firsthand—with its combined strength of over
thirty warships—Nimoux’s priorities had changed. Currently he’d
ordered his ships to a strategic position that brought them closer
to the regions of the Empire patrolled by the Fifth and Sixth
Fleets, the forces of the Empire responsible for securing the
border to the DMZ. Nimoux believed that even now the Fifth and
Sixth Fleets were being scrambled to respond to the Rotham
invaders, and that his squadron would soon be called into play to
assist. Certainly that was the only reasonable response to the
threat.
    And he knew the Fleet and Intel Wing were
aware of the threat. The instant his forces had safely jumped away
from Remus and the inbound Rotham fleet, Nimoux had sent urgent and
repeated messages to the Fleet and Intel Wing informing them of
this new intelligence—that so many Rotham ships had crossed the DMZ
and been spotted inside Imperial space.
    What he could not understand was that the
Fleet and Intel Wing hadn’t seemed to react to this news. The
messages they sent him back were variations on the same theme:
“Situation under control. Continue standing orders.”
    Nimoux wasn’t sure what to make of it. Did
they not care? Or were they simply trying not to involve him? The
more he thought about it, the more Calvin’s message came to his
mind—warning him of conspiracy and corruption. And Nimoux would
feel a chill trace his spine. Then he’d think of the names of the
ships that haunted the “missing” and “AWOL” lists like ghosts,
silent and dead. 
    The comm panel next to his computer console
beeped. He tapped it. “Nimoux here.”
    “ Pardon the interruption,
Captain,” said the voice of his 2O who currently had the deck. “But
we just got the results back from the probe you dispatched to the
Xenobe Nebular Region.”
    It took a second for Nimoux to even remember
that he’d sent a probe. The last thirty hours or so had rattled him
pretty thoroughly. “Yes, go ahead,” he said, remembering that the
probe was in response to Calvin’s claim that weapons somehow
manufactured from isotome were being made and sold, and that they
had the potential to devastate entire star systems. Since there was
only one spot in the known galaxy that had stable deposits of
isotome, and the amounts there had been well cataloged by survey
and science teams, any discrepancy would be immediately
detected.
    “ According to the probe’s
report… there isn’t any isotome in the Xenobe Nebular
Region.”
    Nimoux felt a shockwave ripple through him
and his eyes grew wide, but he kept the surprise in his voice to a
minimum. “The isotome has been completely removed?”
    “ Or destroyed,” his 2O said.
“The data from the probe has no information as to what happened to
the isotome, just that it’s gone. Even trace amounts have been
removed.”
    “ Any indication when this
happened?”
    “ The last survey of the
region was six weeks ago, so it must have been in the last six
weeks.”
    Unless the survey team had been fooled, or
their results fictionalized... “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
    “ Aye, sir.” The
communication ended.
    Nimoux did a search of the information he
had available—everything from the Intel Wing archives to common
news broadcasts, and found nothing about missing isotome, massively
destructive weapons, or an ongoing war with the Rotham Republic.
There was plenty of speculation about the missing ships, now that
Intel Wing had released the list of missing ships to the public but
it was all only speculation, and most of it not very logically
reasoned, Nimoux found.
    Nimoux dressed into his uniform and then,
using his console, sent a communique to Capital World, office of
the Director of Intel Wing. He was put through to Director Edwards
without delay. Edwards didn’t seem surprised to be hearing from
Nimoux, they’d spoken several times in the past few days.
    “ Do you have a report