Pax Imperia (The Redemption Trilogy)

by Mike Smith

  Paul eyed the younger man warily; he could not be more than in his late twenties or early thirties, young to be a fleet Captain. “How did you meet the Admiral?”

  “We met via my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Paul exclaimed in surprise. “What has your wife got to do with this?”

  “She is the Admiral’s daughter. Admiral Frank Sterling is my father-in-law.”

  Paul almost dropped his pistol in shock

  No wonder the Admiral was so desperate to find somebody else to lead this boarding action, somebody that was not under his direct chain of command. The two were family. Paul could not get his head around the implications. At the very least it cast the Admiral in a very bad light. At worst, it implicated him in a conspiracy to commit mass murder.

  Matters were only made worse when Harrison continued, “There is no need to restrain my senior officers. I take full responsibility for the actions of my ship. It was me personally that gave the order to open fire. My crew were not involved. They bear no responsibility and it should in no way reflect badly upon them.”

  The calm and unemotional way Harrison announced his sole responsible for the mass murder of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, had Paul once again gripping his pistol firmly and raising it to point at the Captain. Harrison didn’t even blink at the sight of the pistol, his lips in an upturned smile as if he would like nothing better than for Paul to pull the trigger. Reining in his temper, Paul stated, “Captain Harrison, by order of Fleet Admiral Sterling, I am placing you under arrest, pending the outcome of a full navy inquiry. Exact charges will be determined at a later date,” Paul snapped, beckoning for the marines to take the Captain to the brig. The rest of the senior officers were also restricted to their quarters, under armed guard.

  Once the bridge had been cleared, Paul fell back into the seat now vacated by the Captain. He doubted that anybody survived the bombardment on the planet below and the plot to kill the Senate now directly implicated Admiral Sterling.

  What a complete and utter mess, Paul thought despairingly.

  Paul remembered that he had promised to communicate with the Admiral as soon as the ship was secure. Walking to the now empty communication console, Paul found the necessary controls to signal the Protector.

  “Mission complete Admiral,” Paul reported as soon as the Admiral appeared on the view-screen. “The ship is now under my command. Captain Harrison has confessed to the attack and I have placed him under armed guard in the brig. The rest of the crew and senior offices have been restricted to quarters and are also under armed guard.” Paul decided not to bring up the family relationship between the Admiral and the Captain, as he had no idea who else might be listening in on the communication.

  “Good job. Thank you Captain. For the present I will leave you in command of the Indomitable. I will signal you later with further orders. Sterling out.” The communication screen went blank.

  Meanwhile it quickly became obvious that the fleet had put the time spent on securing the Indomitable to good use. Before the communication had even finished, Paul observed dozens of shuttles departing from every ship in the fleet. Their ion engines burned at full thrust as, one-by-one, they turned, diving into the atmosphere, their hulls starting to glow brightly from the friction caused by atmospheric re-entry. From a distance, they seemed like a swarm of brightly glowing fireflies, descending from the heavens.

  When the engines of the shuttles finally disappeared, Paul turned the ship’s view-screen to focus onto the Senate, to see if they could get some idea of the damage—his mouth fell open in disbelief.

  “May the Great Maker have mercy,” a whispered voice from one of the marines still stationed on the bridge uttered.

  Paul could only agree with him. For instead of a glimmer of the Senate and other surrounding buildings, all that could be seen was a great swirling maelstrom, a dark brownish colour in the middle, with flicks of red, grey and black around the edges. It was difficult to estimate its size from such a distance, but Paul guessed that the storm must be at least a few hundred kilometres in diameter, the centre of which was firmly affixed above where the Senate should have been.

  “Great Maker have mercy,” Paul echoed.

  *****

  In the dim twilight the figure was almost invisible, a patch of darkness drifting between the ruins of a dead city. The only indication of his physical passage were twirling streamers of dust that were left in his wake. In the past hour the ferocious storm had abated somewhat and left dust floating in the light breeze. The sound of the wind still carried the muted whispers of the final cries of the thousands who had perished. Their screams of anguish seeming to get louder the farther he advanced. However, visibility was still extremely poor, the little light, combined with the dust, meant that Jon had to navigate mostly from memory and instinct.

  He could still remember Sofia’s last words, crystal clear, emblazoned across his consciousness. That she would wait for him, wait for him to return home. Pushing onwards through the barren and desolate landscape, he was determined to fulfil that promise. He would return to her, but to face what? Jon refused to continue down that trail of thought and would cross that bridge when he came to it.

  In the faint twilight, he could just make out the broken ruins of the Senate a few hundred meters to his right. The cracked and broken cupola were just visible above the ruins of the devastated and shattered landscape that lay empty and abandoned around him. Every instinct, every cell of his body, cried out to him to alter course, to make his way to the Senate, where he knew that he would find his Lord and Emperor.

  His father-in-law.

  Yet his course, his path, did not deviate for an instant. While he had sworn an oath, many years before, to defend and protect the Emperor, he had made another promise, this one sworn with his life. That he would allow no harm to come to the woman he had married. Sofia, his wife, his love and his soul. Anyway it mattered little, for his father-in-law and he shared the same deep-seated need. To protect what was most precious in both of their lives, one’s wife, the other’s daughter.

  Therefore with nothing but a glance over his shoulder at the ruins of the building, he pressed onwards, his pace increasing slightly, as if his body could feel the end of its journey. Gathering his cloak tighter around him, the grip on his sword unyielding, Jon pushed onwards to his ultimate destination.

  *****

  “I cannot see shit, Sarge.” The voice of one of the marines seemed to echo through his head. It was the first voice Gunny had heard in a long time, besides the constant sounds of his harsh breathing in the all-encompassing environment suit the marines were wearing.

  After seeing to their wounded and reassuring them that help was on its way, Gunny and the few remaining uninjured marines had left the shuttle to try and find the Commander. They had only taken a couple of steps before dust and wind had forced them to retreat back to the shuttle for the environment suits.

  “How do we know that we haven’t missed the Commander? We could have walked within ten feet of him and not seen him,” the marine continued.

  Gunny could hear the underlying question in the marine’s voice. How could the Commander have made it this far? They had travelled almost ten kilometres on foot already, wearing light, highly durable nuclear/biological/chemical environment suits and had only just reached the Senate. Whereas the Commander had nothing but the light jacket he was wearing when he slipped out of the shuttle cockpit.

  But none of them knew the Commander like he did. Jon didn’t know what the word impossible meant.

  Gunny knew with absolute certainty where the Commander was heading. Even more, he knew the man would walk through Hell and back, naked, if he felt it was necessary to reach Sofia’s side. What was more, Gunny pitied any Duke of Hell that dared to bar his path.

  He remembered Paul had once described Jon as a person who could achieve the impossible, a man who moved mountains. At the time he had not understood what Paul had meant, but over the years he had come
to agree it was a fitting description. As the Commander could indeed move mountains by doing it one rock, one stone at a time and never contemplate the impossibility of the task, until it was finished.

  “Cut the chatter,” Gunny snapped. “We haven’t missed him. Keep close, I don’t have time to go looking for you young pups if you get lost,” he growled.

  *****

  Scrambling over another pile of rubble, ignoring the stinging of his hands from a multitude of cuts, and blinking away the dried blood and dust from his eyes, Jon strained all his senses.

  He had finally arrived.

  Throwing back the hood of his cloak and trying to blink back the tears caused by the dust, he peered intently ahead, trying to penetrate the thick dust and darkness that obscured his view.

  For just a moment, a frozen instant in time, the wind seemed to drop and disappear altogether, the dust cleared and, in the thin, watery light, Jon had a clear, uninterrupted view of where once had stood their apartment, their home.

  There was nothing there.

  Jon had to blink a few times to make sense of what he saw. Nothing. Not even a pile of rubble or debris, nothing to indicate that once something had stood on that spot. What Jon had originally thought was nothing more than just another pile of rubble was actually the rim of a blast crater. He could just make out the far side, a hundred meters away. Between the two was nothing. A wide, continuous, empty crater, blasted down to the very bedrock.

  Jon just stared uncomprehendingly at the landscape in front of him. Then the realisation hit him. It felt like somebody had struck him in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs, and he fell to his knees. He finally knew that she was gone—forever. That this time there would be no last-minute rescue, no miraculous escape. That he was indeed too late. He would never be able to hold her in his arms again, never tell her how much she meant to him, or whisper how much he loved her.

  He took one last final look up, as if to convince himself what he saw was real and not just some manifestation of a nightmare. However, the sight was the same. No apartment block miraculously appeared from the gloom. It was gone, leaving no trace and taking with it everything that meant anything to him.

  While previously the sound of the voices, drifting in the wind, had been nothing but a whisper, as he stared out across the wide expanse in front of him, they grew in volume. They were crying out in anger, fear and pain. Eventually the sound grew to such a crescendo Jon had to cover his ears, trying to block out their penetrating cries. It made no difference and, with a final piercing scream that was his own, Jon’s eyes rolled back into his head and everything went black. As he collapsed unconscious onto the ground, his black cloak spread out around him, like a burial shroud.

  *****

  Appearing through the dust and gloom, the four figures looked like apparitions from some demonic realm. With their faces covered by the environmental suit, the rest of their bodies painted grey by the dust and with rifles slung across their chests, the group came to a shuddering halt at the edge of the blast crater. One of the group took a step forward, pulling the mask from his face so he could stare at the scene with his own eyes and nothing to obstruct his view.

  “Shit,” Gunny swore, taking in the scene of destruction before them. “This is bad, very bad,” he added. Gunny allowed himself a moment to consider what the Commander was going to do when he found who had done this.

  He shuddered.

  “Spread out,” he ordered the three other marines in the group. “The Commander will be somewhere in the vicinity. Find him.”

  The group spread out in different directions, taking care to always keep at least one other member of the party in-sight at all times to avoid getting dispersed and lost. They found the Commander several minutes later, lying on the ground where he had collapsed.

  Hurrying over, Gunny was relieved to find a pulse. Instructing one of the marines to inform the Admiral, Gunny proceeded to ensure that Jon’s airways were not blocked with dust, before picking him up.

  “Gunny, look at his hand,” one of the marines pointed, at the Commander’s tightly clenched fist. Even unconscious his hand was tightly fisted around something, his fingers white from the exertion.

  With a great deal of difficulty, Gunny prised the hand open and, from the corner of his eye, observed something glisten golden in the weak sunlight as it tumbled and fell to the floor. Reaching down Gunny picked up the object—a plain, unadorned golden wedding ring.

  At a gasp from one of the marines, Gunny looked where the marine was pointing, at the Commander’s now open hand. Branded into the middle of Jon’s palm was a ring, exactly matching the size of the ring now resting in Gunny’s hand.

  Carefully pocketing the ring, Gunny watched as the assault shuttle arrived, the glow of its thrusters piercing the gloom. The shuttle landed in the middle of the blast crater, as it was the only clear space sufficient to allow the shuttle room to land. It had barely touched the ground before Gunny carried Jon aboard. The shuttle quickly rose back into the air, its nose angling upwards as it rapidly gained speed and altitude. Several hundred meters above the surface, it finally broke through the storm cloud, escaping into the azure-blue sky and bright sunshine.

  The storm continued on below them, burying the dead and dying beneath a heavy layer of dust.

  Chapter Three

  The Protector, Flagship of the Confederation 12th Fleet

  The jolt as the shuttle landed on the flight deck awoke Jon from his dazed state. He had regained consciousness midway through the flight and taken some water from Gunny to quench his thirst, as his throat had been parched from all the dust on the planet. Since then he had not said a word, just stared aimlessly towards the front of the shuttle. He felt as if he were trapped in his own worst nightmare and only wanted to awake to find Sofia sleeping peacefully at his side.

  After the ship had landed, while still in a daze, he automatically followed Gunny and the rest of the marines from the vessel. It was only after he stepped from the ship and was almost bowled over by a fearsome embrace that he finally snapped back to his surroundings. Not that he had much choice, as his head was abruptly tilted back at a sharp angle, his eyes forced upwards into the blinding lights of the flight deck, as Doctor Richardson carefully inspected the cut on his forehead.

  “I want you to go immediately to the medical bay and get that checked out.” Neil reinforced the point, knowing Jon’s tendency to avoid doctors in general and especially medical bays.

  He had always hated the forced inactivity and idleness of being stuck in medical and kept under close observation. Consequently, he had made it his mission in life to make everybody else’s life as miserable as possible when he was forced to be there. After all why should he be the only one to suffer?

  But, his automatic response to this edict was interrupted as the Doctor grabbed him in another strong embrace. “I’m so sorry Jon. I heard about what happened on the planet regarding Sofia. I know how much she meant to you and she was like a daughter to me too.” The Doctor trailed off, not knowing what else to say. Finally noticing the waiting shuttle behind the group, he carried on quickly. “Anyway, I must be going, as there are people down there on Eden Prime that need my skills far more than you.”

  Realising Neil was about to depart, Jon focused on the here and now. Pulling his thoughts back from the past where he had been sheltering from the recent events. “Doc,” he uttered quickly before the older man could pull away. “You take care of yourself down there. It’s not safe.”

  The Doctor looked surprised at the response, but finally, with a solemn nod of his head, he gently let go of Jon and made his way towards the waiting shuttle.

  Turning to catch Gunny’s eye, Jon beckoned towards the departing doctor. “Gunny, please go with him and make sure that he stays safe. There are a lot of frightened people down there who are hurt and may not be thinking clearly.” Gunny was obviously about to refuse when Jon added. “Also while you are down there, I want you to find Marcus.
I, I need to know what has happened to him, one way or another. When you find him please call me and I will come.”

  The two men stared at each other, both understanding what was required of them. They recognised there was still a slim chance the former Emperor might still be alive. If he had perished, then they still had a final duty they needed to perform. With a sharp nod of acknowledgement, Gunny turned back to the shuttle, ordering the other marines back on board and ignored their groans of complaint.

  Jon took a step back and, as soon as the group disappeared inside, the boarding ramp retracted and the entrance portal slid shut. The ship’s thrusters fired once again, propelling the shuttle up and off the flight deck. Once clear of the deck it rotated to face the exit of the flight deck, before it accelerated away and was soon lost in the depths of space.

  Exhausted Jon walked away from the flight deck. He needed a shower and some time to reflect over recent events. He knew that he should go and find the Admiral and report what he had personally witnessed on the planet’s surface, but honestly he was not in the mood to do so. He would talk to the Admiral when he was good and ready.

  *****

  The ship’s quartermaster directed him to vacant guest quarters and, upon arriving, he quickly stripped off his clothes, leaving them discarded on the floor. Entering the shower he turned the temperature up to the maximum, before stepping under the stream of water.

  Jon had no idea how long he stood under the shower. He vaguely noticed the water turning his skin from a warm pink colour until it finally became an angry, fiery red, but still he did not feel anything. Instead he waited and waited for the hot water to chase away the chill that had enveloped him on the planet, but it could not.

  Exhausted, he stepped out from the shower and looked at the unrecognisable face staring back at him from the mirror. Despite the heat from the shower his face was still deathly pale, with dark rings underneath his eyes. His eyes had changed from their usual shade of misty grey to black and stared back disdainfully from the mirror at him. It appeared as if the darkness that had surrounded him on the planet’s surface below had somehow been absorbed into him, taking up residence in his now empty soul.