Pax Imperia (The Redemption Trilogy) (60 page)

The two of them disappearing through the slightly ajar door, leaving him alone—with the dead.

Once they were gone, he carefully stepped around the bodies, retaking his seat. This time it would be different, as he had no final duty to fulfil, no last order to carry out. He wouldn’t leave and let the others die alone. This time he would face the Great Maker in person, having cheated death so many times before. This time he would stand in judgement—

An incessant beeping from the communication console interrupted his thoughts. Concerned it might be David on
Terra Nova
, he cautiously moved to the console, studying it for a moment, before activating the correct sequence to accept the incoming transmission.

As he turned back to his seat, he froze as the view-screen came to life, showing the last person that he ever expected to see again—the pale, tear-stained face of his wife.

“Sofia?” he gasped thankful for the seat behind him, as otherwise he would have gone crashing to the deck. “What are you doing here? I left you with Robert Calis, safe on Callas Prime.”

“You didn’t really think that I was going to remain there did you? While you were off saving the Galaxy?” she sniffled.

For the first time since he had last spoken to her, an honest smile graced his lips, and he was relieved that he had this short time with her—to say goodbye.

“I’m sorry,” Jon frowned. “Why is it that whenever we’re talking I’m always apologising to you?”

“You're my husband, it’s to be expected,” she smiled through the tears. “Don’t worry I forgive you for whatever it is that you are apologising for. Just as long as you promise that you will come back to me, alive and well.”

“I wish that I could,” Jon frowned. “As I would give anything to be able to hold you in my arms one last time, so that I could say goodbye properly.”

“No,” Sofia suddenly shouted, incensed. “I’m fed up with this martyr crap from you. It’s not noble, it’s not courageous and I am not impressed by it. It’s just your own wretched way to try and evade responsibility for your actions. You stay there, we’re going to come and get you,” she insisted stubbornly.

“I don’t particularly look forward to dying,” Jon refuted, frowning. “If nothing else I have a lot of enemies impatiently awaiting for my arrival in hell. Instead I was offered a choice, something that few people have when death comes stalking them. But how could I run, when doing so would condemn everyone that I loved? I’ve already made my peace, now you must decide what is most important—you have to choose.”

“I don’t understand,” Sofia trembled, as she had a terrible feeling that this truly was going to be their final parting. “What choice, what decision?”

“You will observe the shuttles that are in the process of fleeing the station. They contain the entire compliment of the station, including my family—and yours. They desperately need your help. You need to choose which to save, who lives and who dies. Just like I did.”

Sofia could only stare at him in horror. “I cannot make that decision.”

“Look inside yourself, and you will find the right answer,” Jon smiled sadly. “Perhaps in some ways I
do
know you better than yourself. More than that, remember what I told you on Calis Prime, that whatever happens we will always be together, in the end. I promise to wait for you.” He turned around, ready to make a final stand, for while he knew that he couldn’t win, every minute longer that he could hold out would be another minute that the crew would have to escape.

“Jon,” Sofia cried out before it was too late. “You were right. Back on Callas Prime when you said that Marcus is my son. But I never lied to you. There was never anybody else, only you. Marcus isn’t just my son, but yours too, as you’re his father. I’m sorry that I never had the courage to tell you that before.”

Jon stopped, shocked by her words, but looking at her he could see the truth in her eyes, along with the shame. “Thank you,” he whispered gratefully. “I am glad that he is safe then, as I cannot think of anything more important than for a father to protect his family—both of you.” Lifting his eyes, he locked his gaze on Paul, who was standing close behind Sofia. “You will look after them for me—both of them—when I am gone?”

“You have my word,” Paul swore.

“Then it makes what I have to do next easier,” he said, turned away from the view-screen for the last time. He could observe from the tactical display the enemy armada was already starting to close in, the jackals sensing blood, but that would work in his favour too. As he keyed in the necessary commands to activate the ship’s self-destruct, he took great pleasure in knowing Malthus would never take this ship—or him.

*****

“By the Great Maker,” Malthus breathed, astonished at the sight before him. “What does it take to kill this man?” Unconsciously echoing a sentiment similar to that voiced by many of Jon’s other multitude of enemies over the years.

“The
Invincible
has started launching escape pods,” the officer reported. “Looks like they’re abandoning ship.”

“Destroy then.”

“What?” the response came from several different people, all tinged with similar expressions of outrage, disbelief and astonishment.

“It’s likely that Radec is on board one of them. I don’t have the time, or the inclination, to search each and every one of them. So just destroy them all.”

“But what about the rest of the crew?” Miller exclaimed, aghast.

“What do I care?” Malthus shrugged. “I gave you an order Captain and I expect that you carry it out.”

“No,” Miller shook his head. It was bad enough to fire on defenceless shuttles, but this? He had to draw the line somewhere.

“I would remind you Captain,” Malthus hissed into his ear in a poisonous tone of voice. “What happened to Harrison’s family, and what I promise to do when I finally recapture Radec’s. It will be easy enough to arrange for your family to be joining them. Now I expect you to follow my orders, to the letter. Immediately.”

Looking into the steely-grey eyes of Senator Malthus, Miller found no empathy there; he would carry out his threat, as callously as he had just condemned all the crew on that ship to death. “Do it,” he ordered the officer, refusing to meet his gaze. “All ships are to advance on the
Invincible
and resume firing.”

*****

Sofia turned away from the scene, as the enemy ships started to encircle what remained of the
Invincible
. Even from this great distance she could see the bright lights as particle beams and pulse cannon fire licked out, repeatedly striking the dying battleship.

Inch by inch, meter by meter, the lumbering hulk slowly started to move away from the station—and the fleeing shuttles. Jon’s desperate final attempt to buy them a little more time she assumed, never feeling so utterly helpless in her life.

“Sofia? It’s your decision. What do you want us to do?”

Looking between Paul and Miranda’s concerned gaze, she once again spared a quick glance at the view-screen before looking away. She didn’t want to watch Jon die, did not want to live the rest of her life with that image seared across her consciousness. Jon was right, however, there was little other choice. As sometimes you just had to do the right thing, even if you wished with all your heart that you did not.

“We protect the shuttles. Signal the fleet to move to intercept them,” she ordered, knowing that she was condemning her husband to death.

A furious expletive from one of the officers had everybody turning to face him. “They’ve started to open fire on the escape pods, the bastards,” he swore.

The rest of them just looked on helplessly, as the 8
^th
Fleet moved away to protect the fleeing shuttles.

*****

Gunny slowly peered around the corner, taking in the entire scene with a single glance, before quickly ducking back under cover. He cursed quietly, so as not to be overheard by the children. Was it too much to ask to have just one small break? Obviously it was, as there were four guards protecting the enemy shuttle on the docking ring.

Certain that all the shuttles had long since departed with the crew, knowing that there were no spare, Gunny had decided to approach the docking ring, hoping to steal one of theirs. Normally Gunny would have no issue taking on all four of them, as he considered four-vs-one as perfectly reasonable odds, but this was no ordinary situation, not with three kids standing a few feet behind him, watching his back. No way was he going to start a firefight with them there, as all it would take would be one stray shot—

The
click
of a pistol being cocked and pressed against his temple seemed extraordinarily loud in the deserted station.

“Drop the weapon, marine,” a gruff voice emanated out from behind him.

Gunny immediately froze, his eyes desperately seeking out the children, terrified of what he might find, expecting the worse. He was shocked to find them standing where he’d left them, all perfectly fine, all grinning like little idiots. Seriously, none of them were ever going to make good marines. They were meant to be guarding his six.

His eyes flickered along the barrel of the gun resting against his temple, from the hand and arm holding it, up to the owner—wearing the uniform of station Head of Security. Gunny’s heart started to resume beating, having stopped for several seconds back there. “You bastard,” he croaked.

“You got him real good that time, Uncle David.” The children all giggled at Gunny’s pained expression.

“I cannot believe that you did that,” Gunny groaned. “I think my heart missed a beat back there.”

“That was just you thinking of Jane Castle,” David replied with a smirk. “Talking of which, I met her on the way from the C&C, she said that you were looking for the children—I guess that you found them.”

“The shuttles?” Gunny asked hopefully.

“Gone.”

“So what the hell are you still doing here?”

“With the Commander, Paul and Miranda gone, I’m in charge,” David reminded him. “That makes me Captain, and a good Captain is always last to abandon ship.”

“It’s a goddamn space station, not a ship.”

“Same principle applies,” David said cheerfully. “So how many of them are covering the shuttle?”

“Four,” Gunny cursed.

“Fair enough, you take the two on the right, I’ll take the two on the left.”

“Is that your right, or my right?” he asked suspiciously.

“Does it really matter?”

“No, not really. On three?”

David nodded cheerfully. “Three,” he called out, stepping around the corner, lowering his rifle. Gunny cursed, doing likewise, a fraction of a second later.

Both men paused at the scene facing them.

As it never occurred to either of them that the ships might actually still be occupied, and the four that Gunny had observed earlier were simply the vanguard of the disembarking brigade.

Frozen, they stared at the corridor, which was now full of soldiers. While neither of them started a precise count of how many, they simply started at
many,
then progressed to
very many
, finally simply settling on
lots
.

Likewise the
lots
of soldiers stood staring at the two lonely men, standing in the middle of the corridor, weapons lowered in preparation to fire.

“I’ll take the girls, you grab the boy, okay?” Gunny uttered under his breath.

“Sure, on three?” David replied.

Gunny didn’t even wait for one, but dropped his pistol, turned and bolting in the direction of the children. He barely broke stride, as he grasped Elizabeth and Harrison’s daughter under his arms and bolted down the corridor as if all the demons of hell were snapping at his heels. David was only a few lengths behind him, carrying Marcus in his arms.

“Medical,” David called out ahead of him to Gunny. “It’s the closest, most easily defensible position.”

Gunny cut a hard right at the next intersection, followed by an immediate left, until they arrived at Medical. Fortunately the doors still permitted entry, as Medical was one of the few areas of the station that had its own emergency back-up power supply, for just such situations.

“Get the door, lock it and find something to barricade it with,” Gunny called out as soon as they were all inside and had dropped the children to the floor. “I’ll try and find something that we can use to defend ourselves with.”

Yanking open draw after draw, spilling the contents of lockers onto the floor, after a few minutes the most lethal weapon he so far had discovered was a couple of needles for a syringe. Fortunately David seemed to be having better luck, as he had pushed over several cabinets and pressed them up against the door. However, the rhythmic banging against the door was
not
a promising sign.

“David, I cannot find anything. Any idea if the Doc keeps a pistol or something in his office for emergencies?”

“Check in medical locker three. I remember the Doc mentioning something about keeping some weapons back there,” David called out, pressing his back against the temporary barricade to reinforce it.

Knocking beds, chairs and tables out of his way, Gunny finally reached the storage locker indicated by David. A pistol, even a knife would be better than nothing. Swinging open the storage locker, Gunny’s jaw fell open in astonishment, unable to believe what his eyes were showing him. For surely the Doctor must have been a marine at some point earlier in his career, before taking up medicine.

The storage locker contained row upon row of pristine assault rifles, all perfectly aligned, with spare ammunition clips resting on a shelf just above them.

Grabbing an armful of assault rifles, Gunny hurried back to David, dumping a pile of them at his feet. David looked incredulously first at Gunny, then the three children staring at them from behind a gurney with wide frightened eyes.

“There are only two of us, Gunny, and I think I speak for their parents when I say that they’re a little bit young to be holding one.”

“Just grab one and start shooting at
stuff
,” Gunny groaned, ignoring David’s, as usual, terrible sense of humour. “When that one runs out, just switch to another. I’ll go and get more.”