Pax Imperia (The Redemption Trilogy) (46 page)

Jason blinked in surprise, numb, wondering why the display was suddenly covered in a dark-crimson liquid.

Somebody will need to clean that.

Suddenly finding that his legs would no longer support him, he stumbled. Catching the edge of the console, only just managing to avoid falling to the floor. Looking down in surprise, touching his chest, he was astonished to observe that his hand came back covered in blood. His vision starting to grow dim, and dark, he pitched forward unable to support his own weight, not even with the assistance of the console.

He observed with a curious detachment as his blooded hand smeared the console with even more blood, as it slid across the screen and he dropped to his knees. With the last of his strength he reached out with his bloodied hand, hovering it over the send key before letting it drop. The control changing colour from an amber warning to a cool green, confirming the message had been sent.

On the edge of unconsciousness, Jason had only a few regrets. The first was that he never had the opportunity to tell Miranda how he felt about her. The second that he wouldn’t get to enjoy watching as the Commander cut off Robert Calis’ head.

Then everything went black for the last time.

*****

In his darkened quarters on the
Relentless
, Jon observed the star-filled panorama with indifference. He hadn’t realised how much he had come to depend on Anna—until she was gone. Now he rarely interacted with the crew, simply remotely relaying his orders from his quarters. He had sent Gunny and Paul back to
Terra Nova
soon after their return,
along with Captain Harrison’s daughter, as the
Relentless
was no place for such a little girl. At least there she would have other children her own age to play with. It also had the added benefit of getting Paul and Gunny out from underfoot, as both had started to increasingly hover over him.

No matter how many times he reassured them he was fine.

Yet even he started to question if he was really fine, for he slept very little now, barely an hour or two each night, the nightmares having become relentless. Not that it made much difference when he was awake, as in the darkened room he could clearly make out their flickering shadows. Sometimes he even thought that he recognised one or two before he blinked, and they were gone. He could not banish their cries so easily. Pain. Fear. Anger—lots and lots of anger. He could feel it coming off them in waves, but strangely not directed at him, but another. The cause of all their pain, misery and suffering—Malthus. They seemed to constantly curse his name and Jon was only able to placate them, just, with the promise that soon he would find him, and then they would have their revenge.

In the weeks since Anna’s death, upon finding out that Malthus was still alive, Jon had directed every resource at his disposal toward a single goal—finding him. However in that time he had heard nothing, but he would not give up. He could afford to wait, as he had a lifetime to spend—

The chime from his data-pad interrupted his vengeful thoughts. Surprised he turned back to the device resting on his desk, as he had left strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed.

He had to read the communiqué twice, as upon reading it the first time he dismissed it as some person’s idea of a sick joke. It was only upon recognising the digital signature at the end of the message, belonging to Lieutenant Edger, that he stopped and started reading again from the top, more carefully this time.

By the time that he had fully read the message, twice, his hands were already shaking uncontrollably. From shock or fury, he was unsure. The device started to flex alarmingly beneath his hands from the strain he exerted on it and, with a resounding
crack
, it shattered. However, by then he was already discarding the remains of the device onto his desk. Turning his back on the star-filled vista, Jon strode from the room, grasping the sword, ever at his side, in barely restrained rage.

Regretting the day he had let Robert Calis live. Determined not to make the same mistake twice.

*****

“So I’m surprised that you haven’t escaped back to your own job yet,” Robert insisted jokingly, refilling Miranda’s glass of wine. “Don’t they miss you, even a little?”

“The advantage of being the boss, I guess,” Miranda shrugged. “Anyway I’ve a good management team in place. They’re more than capable of running things in my absence. I haven’t had a holiday in over two years, ever since I first arrived, so I think I’m overdue an extended vacation anyway.”

“Well, I for one am grateful for the company,” Robert raised his glass in a toast, Miranda replying likewise. “So how are you enjoying your first vacation?”

“Very well, thank you. I cannot remember the last time that I could simply sit down and relax without worrying about being shot, blown up, killed or worse.”

“Well, except for the occasional assassination attempt,” Robert joked, reminding her of their brief sojourn through his gardens.

“Did you ever catch the assassin?” Miranda inquired curiously.

“Unfortunately no, but my security forces are still on the lookout for him. They will catch him, eventually. Miranda?” Robert asked hesitantly. “Do you ever think about the future?”

“I used to avoid doing so,” Miranda replied cautiously. “For it seemed so clearly mapped out. But now everything seems to have been turned upside down. The attack on Eden Prime, Marcus death, Sofia’s—you know I used to hate her? How often I wished her dead so that I could have Jon all to myself. Now I can only wish for the opposite, for I look at him now and see how he has changed. He isn’t the man that I remember. I think something died inside of him, along with Marcus and Sofia. Sometimes I don’t think I know him at all…”

“What if you could go back? Change things?” Robert urged. “So that Sofia Aurelius survived? Would you?”

Miranda hesitated for a moment, unsure how to reply. For if she had not died then Jon would have been forever lost to her, but at least he would still be the man that she knew, that she loved, not the shadow of the man she came to observe on
Terra Nova
. “I guess we will never know, as we cannot change the past, can we?” Miranda held Robert’s gaze.

The moment was broken by a chime from Robert’s data-pad, which was resting on the table next to him. Frowning, as he recognised the owner of the incoming call, he looked up at Miranda. “Excuse me for a minute, I need to take this.” At Miranda’s understanding nod he picked up the device, taking several steps away from the dining table, before answering the call.

Only able to overhear snippets of the conversation, Miranda nonetheless started to grow increasingly concerned at the deathly white pallor that seemed to engulf Robert.

“Are you sure?” he insisted urgently of the other person. Whatever the response, it seemed to have a profound effect on him. “And what is his condition?” At this Robert looked up suddenly at her, before his gaze quickly flickered away. “And you’re
sure
that he transmitted a message first?” The response to this question seemed to entirely deflate him. “Very well,” he concluded the call. “Then there is nothing else that can be done, yes put them all on high alert. I’m on my way.”

“Problem?” Miranda asked, concerned, as he approached after finishing the call. He seemed to have aged by at least a decade in the past few minutes.

“You need to come with me. We need to leave
now
,” Robert emphasised.

“I don’t understand. Go where?” Miranda asked confused, rising to her feet.

“Down to Callas Prime, we need to go quickly. I have a shuttle already waiting for us.”

“Why the sudden urgency, the secrecy. What are you not telling me?”

Robert sighed, having hoped to tell Miranda when they arrived, but realising that she would not leave without an explanation, and they
had
to hurry. “It’s Jason, he has been shot. He is currently undergoing emergency surgery, but the doctors are not hopeful. He was shot twice in the chest at close range. They don’t expect him to survive.”

“But why? How?” Miranda replied in shock.

“I’ll tell you what I know on the way, but we need to leave now.”

*****

They were only halfway to the shuttle bay, when the first of the alarms sounded. Cursing Robert caught hold of Miranda’s arm, trying to urge her onwards, but it was no use. “Miranda we need to go, there is no more time,” he said. Whatever else she was going to say was interrupted by the deep voice of Captain Vickers echoing throughout the ship.

“All hands report to General Quarters, I repeat, all hands to General Quarters. This is not a drill. We have multiple unknown contacts exiting FTL at close range. All crew to General Quarters,” he repeated.

“Miranda,” Robert tried urging her one last time.

“No,” Miranda shook her head as if in a daze and for the first time recognising her surroundings. “I need to get to the bridge. To see if there is anything that I can do to help.” Pulling away from Robert, she headed back the way that they had just come.

Cursing Robert eyed the empty corridors that led to the shuttle bay and safety, as he knew that if he delayed much longer he would soon be trapped. Swearing instead he wheeled around, following Miranda’s rapidly retreating figure in the direction of the bridge.

*****

“Operations report,” Captain Vickers barked in his direction. “And for God’s sake somebody shut-off all those alarms.”

“Gravimetric sensors are detecting multiple inbound wormholes forming Captain,” the Operations Officer explained nervously.

“I already know that son,” he growled. “What I need to know is how many of them there are and who they belong to?”

“There are too many of them in close formation to get an accurate count,” the officer replied. “Best guess is at least twenty of them, possibly double that. Whoever they are, they’re sure in a hurry, as they are jumping way inside the Heliosphere. This close to the star there is a serious risk of one or more wormholes collapsing from gravitational instability. So whoever it is they’re taking one hell of a risk.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Vickers said. “Helm, bring us around, put us bow facing those incoming ships. Tactical, weapons on-line and ready, but await my orders before firing. Communications, signal the rest of the ships to go to tactical alert and arm weapon systems, but nobody fires without my express orders.”

“Captain, Callas Prime’s orbital defences just powered up their own weapons systems and are preparing to fire. Ships are exiting from the wormhole back into normal space. They’re also powering weapons!”

“And there goes the neighbourhood,” Vickers concluded grimly.

*****

The nearest orbiting defence platform, upon detecting the emergence of the enemy ships from faster-than-light, oriented itself to face the oncoming ships and automatically targeted the lead ship, which also so happened to be the largest. The ship was currently out of range of its numerous railguns and pulse cannons so, instead, the computer controlling this particular weapons platform targeted it with its heavy missiles. Launching its full complement of over one hundred, it started to automatically reload from its reserve magazines, buried deep within the heart of the satellite, as this offered the most protection from enemy fire.

With a blaze of light, the missiles engines ignited, leaping from their launch batteries, their targeting computers easily locking onto the massive enemy warship, which was over a kilometre in length. Quickly accelerating to over one thousand metres per second, the missiles had an intercept time of a little less than a minute, their high-explosive, armour piercing warheads automatically arming long before then.

*****

The
Relentless,
flagship of the 8
^th
Fleet, still travelling at high velocity, was the first to exit the wormhole. As soon as it had successfully completed the transition back to normal space, its extensive sensors started to scan the surrounding area, almost immediately detecting the missiles. With an intercept time of less than thirty seconds, there was little the massive warship could do, as it was far too large to manoeuvre out of the way. Instead its powerful ventral and dorsal railguns turned to face the incoming missiles, but these were massive weapons, designed to target and destroy enemy warships hundreds of kilometres distant. They were next to useless in this situation.

With less than twenty seconds before impact, the battleship didn’t even attempt to target the small, fast moving missiles, which would soon tear it to shreds.

There was no need to, as at that very instant a dozen smaller wormholes opened up around the
Relentless
, depositing its escort frigates around it in close defensive formation. These were much smaller than the flagship, at a little over hundred meters in length, and were much more lightly armed. Each frigate was armed with over a dozen, smaller, high-speed flak cannons. Working on exactly the same principal as their larger cousins on the battleship, these could fire many thousands of rounds per minute, and were able to target much smaller objects. It was for this reason they were classified as escort frigates, as they escorted the larger, more vulnerable warships.

The smaller ships immediately accelerated to full speed, turning to face the incoming missiles side-on, so they could concentrate the majority of their fire. One-by-one they opened fire on the incoming missiles. With so many ships firing all their cannons simultaneously, at their maximum rate of fire, within a few seconds there was literally a veritable wall of expanding weapons fire. The incoming missiles stood no chance against the hail of flak, and all were torn asunder by the withering gunfire.

Meanwhile the
Relentless
main guns continued to swing around to face the direction of the incoming missiles. Finally coming to a halt, they paused for a second before unleashing their devastating broadside. Travelling many times faster than the missiles, it only took several seconds for the railgun rounds to reach their intended target—the orbital defence battery. Although heavily armoured, the defence platform stood no chance against the heavy rounds, which were travelling so fast they penetrated the platform, punching a sixteen-foot diameter hole clear through it before exiting the other side. Of the subsequent rounds that followed, one hit the reserve ammunition magazine, which was in the process of automatically reloading the missile battery. The remaining missiles on the platform exploded like a small super-nova. When the light finally dissipated nothing remained of the station except a small cloud of rapidly expanding debris.