by Mike Smith
“Well, that could have gone better,” Ryan muttered out loud to the empty office, before taking another sip of Scotch from his own glass, which he had managed to rescue just in time.
*****
It was much later at night, station time, when Miranda finally rang the announcer for Jon’s quarters, wondering if he was still awake. She had been deliberating for some time whether she should come, as she had not set foot inside his quarters in several months. Last time was when they had danced and would have kissed, had it not been for Jason’s most untimely arrival. She had debated for most of the day whether to come, but her decision had been made for her by what Irene, Jon’s mother, had said to her.
“Go talk to him, dear. You never know, he might surprise you. Jon has been alone for so long. Neither Ryan nor I want him to spend the rest of his life like this. Perhaps you can help him to heal. He has lost everybody he cares about, more than once, and I worry—surely a person can cope with loss only so many times alone in their life,” she had added.
In the end it was those words that had made the decision for her, as she had seen Jon at his worst and, Paul’s assurances aside, she worried this time he would not recover but, instead, just disappear from her life, this time forever. She did not know how she was going to cope with that, never to see him or his smile again, feel his touch. In the end she decided she would give him whatever he required to help him through this difficult time. As the door finally slid open, the dark portal beckoning her to enter, she pulled nervously at the short skirt she had hurriedly changed into. Checking her hair one more time she stepped into the darkened room.
She had only taken three steps into the room, the door sliding closed behind her, when her nerves returned full-force, as she reminded herself that this was not just Jon any longer, but the Emperor. She had watched his broadcast more times than she could remember, trying to catch just a glimpse of the man she had fallen in love with, but it had been futile. The man in that broadcast had borne no resemblance to the one she had once known, the authority and force of personality he projected had been overpowering. As if he really was the last in that long line of Imperial Emperors, with all the raw power, charisma and arrogance that clearly came with the role.
She wondered which person she would find in his quarters, in his bed tonight.
Sensing, rather than seeing his presence, she nervously fell to one knee, uncertain how to address him, she whispered. “My Emperor, you requested my presence.” She did not even see or hear him move, but suddenly he was there. In front of her, pulling her to her feet with a grip that was almost painful.
Leaning closer, until she was face-to-face with him in the dark, she could barely make out his expression, but his eyes were clearly visible. Not the misty-grey she had long come to associate with him, but the dark, angry, heated gaze she recognised all to clearly from the broadcast. The person standing so close to her was not the man she knew, but Emperor Radec, and she could clearly feel his fury, rolling off him in waves, as he hungrily eyed her all over.
“You don’t kneel before me. Not ever. Do you understand?” the Emperor insisted, in a deep, throaty tone of voice.
Miranda was speechless, so just nodded her head in understanding, unable to tear her eyes away from his gaze, which seemed to draw her in, closer to him. She could feel his hard body under her hands, feel the heat and power that seemed to radiate off him.
“Why did you come here?” he demanded.
“Because you asked me to.”
“Why?” he interrupted her again, his grip tightening painfully on her shoulder.
“Because I wanted to, because I want you. I’ve always wanted you, from the first moment that we met, and the way you looked at me with that arrogant, over-confident smirk,” Miranda confessed, surprising even herself at the truthfulness of her declaration. Realising for all her noble intentions of coming here to help him, really it was all just an excuse, and what she really hoped for was to have him, as she had always wanted, to herself.
Her eyes fluttered closed as he took possession of her. Parting her lips, she moaned into his mouth as he deepened their kiss. He gave her his taste and she savoured it. She and Jon had shared many kisses over the years, some soft and tender, gentle, almost loving, others had been powerful, passionate, but none of them had been like this. Demanding, hungry, insistent, he seemed to consume her utterly, his taste exploding in her mouth, and when she took a breath, it was only to breathe in his taste and smell.
Then he stole her breath and made her skin tingle. He drenched her senses in his passionate intent. Pleasure simmered in her veins. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought that it might burst from her chest. She clutched at his shoulders as he repeatedly delved past her lips and into the wet heat of her mouth.
He teased her without mercy, ravaging her senses, staking his claim and tantalising her with peaks and valleys of sensation. He devastated her grasp on reality and sent her spinning into space.
Miranda craved every sweep and thrust of his tongue, every skilled movement of his lips, and then she craved even more of the same, but she knew she wasn’t guilty of greed. She needed him and Jon alone inspired her every wish, just as he alone possessed the power to satisfy it.
He drove his fingers into her thick black hair, fingertips kneading her scalp as he angled his mouth over hers and invaded her once more. She sucked at his deft tongue while her hands roved across his broad shoulders and down his back to his hips.
She silently marvelled over the strength and power of his body, even as reminders of familiar tension came to life within her own. With each thudding beat of her heart, her insides heated and expanded. Straining beneath him, Miranda struggled to get closer. She wanted to crawl into his heart and never leave, just like he had invaded her own.
Sensing her escalating tension, he released her lips and shifted down her writhing body. He clasped her breasts through the thin blouse with possessive hands, pinching and twisting at first one beaded tip and then the other. Miranda groaned low in her throat, the pleasure he gave her cascading endlessly over her like a series of starbursts in the night sky.
She arched more fully into his touch, as he alternated from one taut nipple to the other with relentless, tormenting skill. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, too mindless from his stunning assault on her senses to realise that her nails scratched his skin. He sucked and nipped at her until she nearly screamed from the pleasure that seemed to ribbon through her body like a thousand glittering streamers.
Jon’s mind was going places where it shouldn’t be, realising how easy it would be to take advantage of her now, how appealing she was, how sweet and soft and innocent. The realisation of his own power over her, over her body, made his blood boil. It wasn’t like he hadn’t wanted her before, like he hadn’t toyed with the idea, but this time it was different.
Leaving one hand to keep fondling her chest, he ran his other hand sensuously down her hips, cupping her flank for a short moment. Only for long enough to pull her closer to him, into the ridge of his arousal, before his hand wandered lower, pushing her skirt aside where he ran his hand between her thighs, touching her searing hot, bare flesh. The sudden realisation that she was naked under her blouse and skirt caused his brain to freeze for a moment and his hands stilled.
Miranda blushed, hot with embarrassment, her cheeks felt heated when his hands touched her bare flesh, and then went still. His teeth, which had been busy nipping her neck, stopped too. He moved up until his lips were almost touching her ear and he whispered, his warm breath causing her to shiver in delight. “Do you always walk around the station dressed like this? As seriously, if you do, you need to give me some advanced warning in case our paths cross and I lose control and ravish you in the corridor.”
Miranda let her eyes flutter open, since they had closed of their own accord as her senses had become overloaded with the sensation of his touch, his kisses and his taste. Focusing on his face, she once again found herself staring into h
is misty-grey eyes, his lips upturned in a familiar expression of amusement. “I-I wanted to surprise you,” she stuttered.
“You certainly did that. But why?” he enquired softly, running his hand gently down her cheek and then her long neck. “It’s not as if you needed to attract my attention any more than you already have.”
“I thought that you might not want me any longer, you know, now that you can take your pick.”
“Now that I can have my pick?” he repeated, looking at her quizzically.
“You cannot fool me Jon, I’ve seen the holo-documentaries. What about The Emperor’s Harem? Or The Hundred Concubines of Emperor Aurelius?”
“Never saw the first. Remember the second though,” Jon replied with a smile. “An in-depth peek into the inner circle of Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ court and the constantly revolving door of secret lovers,” Jon quoted with a laugh. “Marcus and I did enjoy watching that one. The only thing that they got correct was that neither of us ever got much sleep. But that was more to do with a punishing workload and never-ending back-to-back meetings, rather than the kohl eyed, scantily clad sex fiends who were constantly paraded around in that documentary. Had that actually been the case I expect the Empire would have disintegrated much sooner,” Jon laughed. “I can quite assure you there is no line forming outside my bedroom and, even if there were, I would not be interested. Not after—” Jon looked away in pain, only for his gaze to come back to rest on Miranda’s sympathetic gaze, when she softly touched his cheek.
“I’m sorry Jon, maybe I shouldn’t have come, certainly throwing myself at you like this, like some cheap—”
“Stop,” Jon interrupted her before she could continue. “You are nothing like that, and anyway, if anybody should be apologising it should be me. After all it was me that asked you to come.”
This time it was Miranda’s turn to look at him quizzically, as she asked, “So if it was not for this,” she motioned between the two of them. “Then why did you ask me to come here so late?”
Releasing her from his embrace, Jon took a few strides to the small coffee table standing in the middle of his apartment, picking up the sole data-pad resting on the surface. Taking a small detour to increase the lighting in the room, he offered the datapad to her hesitantly, like a young boy offering a pretty girl a flower for the first time. “I wanted to give this to you, in person, before I made the announcement public tomorrow.”
Miranda powered on the device and quickly skimmed over the words displayed on the device, halfway through her eyes opened wide with amazement, which made her stop and start reading again from the beginning. After she had read the legal document, twice, to be absolutely certain of what it stated, she looked up at Jon, who was observing her with a nervous expression. “Me? But why now?” was all she could ask, shocked.
“Many reasons,” Jon replied. “Obviously I can no longer run the company, since all my time is going to be occupied trying to stop the Imperium from tearing itself apart. Also I have already discussed this with Paul during the trip here, and he categorically does not want the role. But the honest answer is that you are ready. You have been for some time. You have already been running the company for the past six months, in my absence, and by all accounts have been doing an excellent job. It’s time to make the position permanent.”
“But to sign everything away to me? To put it all under my name? Terra Nova? Everything? I don’t deserve this, with the things I have done in the past.”
“The past cannot be changed, Miranda,” Jon reassured her. “We need to learn to live with the mistakes we have made, to move beyond them. It’s what we make of our future that counts.”
“And you?” she asked perceptively. “Are you ready to move on from your past, your mistakes, and for us to make a future for ourselves here, together?”
“No,” Jon replied honestly, looking aside. “Not yet. I need to finish what I have started first.”
“But after?” she pressed.
“Then after we can have our future together,” he reassured her.
“Then thank you, I accept both the position and the obvious trust that you are putting in me. I won’t let you down.”
“I know that you won’t,” Jon replied warmly, glad that she had accepted the position. It would ensure that no matter what happened to him, her position was now secure and nobody could deny she was the legal and rightful owner of the company and Terra Nova. For what Jon had left unsaid was that he had a feeling he did not have much longer to live. He had already placed his life in peril by deliberately disrupting the plans of whoever was behind the attack on Eden Prime. Furthermore, he had thrown down a challenge, that either the conspirators or he would die first, so it had to be one or the other. Hopefully, the job of running the company and managing the day-to-day organisation of the station would help Miranda overcome her loss. That thought left him in a despondent mood.
“Well I had better be going, as it is getting late and I saw that you had scheduled an early morning briefing with the senior staff.” Miranda broke the silence.
At her announcement, Jon’s eyes widened and he instinctively tightened his grip on her, for suddenly the thought of another night alone with nothing but his memories seemed far too terrible to contemplate.
Recognising the sudden look of fear in his eyes and the desperately tight embrace she found herself in, Miranda halted her departure and added, “Or I could return the favour and stay here with you tonight?” she offered hesitantly, not wanting the offer to be mistaken for another attempt at seduction on her part.
“Thank you,” he uttered with obvious relief. “When I am alone at night, I still hear their cries.”
“What cries Jon?” she asked, looking at him with considerable concern. As his face had gone pale and the earlier expression of fear had returned.
“When I was down on Eden Prime, after the attack, during the storm. I could not see anything, but I could hear their voices carried on the wind, crying out, in fear and solitude. When I am alone at night, when I close my eyes, it’s as if I am back there and I can hear their cries over and over again in my head.”
“It’s just nightmares Jon,” she reassured him. “I will stay with you tonight and I promise that I will not allow anybody to hurt you.”
He nodded his head in thanks, not correcting her, as it was not just while asleep he could hear their cries. And not just their voices, for, as he glanced around the dimly lit room, he could see their outlines, hidden in the shadows, only kept at bay by the light. Not wishing to think about it, but instead glad for the company, only if it were for one night, he led Miranda to his bed.
Tomorrow was sure to be a long day. And the day after that even longer.
*****
The next day found Jon, Miranda and all the senior staff seated around the briefing room table. It was the first time all of them had been together in almost six-months, ever since Jon had announced that Marcus, the Emperor, was still alive. For Jon that had seemed like a lifetime ago, in a time when anything seemed possible, before he had lost his family once again, but this time forever.
He started the meeting by thanking everybody for attending, before recounting in exact detail the events that had transpired in the past couple of weeks, from the moment he had left Sofia and then received the warning about a threat to the Confederation. This took a long time and he was physically drained at the end of it, pouring himself some water and watching his hands tremble as he cupped the glass. The room was silent for several minutes after he had finished, each and all lost in their own thoughts.
“So what do you want us to do, Jon?” Paul was the first to eventually speak. “I know that I speak for all of us when I say we will do everything we can to help, but there are so few of us and it is a big galaxy.”
“I want you to help me find whoever did this,” Jon insisted, looking each of his senior staff, who were also his friends, firmly in the eyes. “I want you to help me to stop them, because I promise you that if we d
on’t, then things are only going to escalate. More people are going to die. They will not stop just because I have interrupted their plans. They have shown this by trying to kill me and my family.”
“I understand the reasoning behind the attempted assassination of you on the Relentless, but I do not understand why they attacked your parents on Altair. It seems incredibly reckless, a huge risk with very little to gain,” David McNeill, Jon’s Head of Station Security, ventured.
“I agree,” Jon said nodding his head. “I have had a lot more time to think about this than you and have come to only one conclusion; that this is more than just an attempted coup, or another attempt to remove the Senate and to seize power. This is personal. The ambush of Gunny and I was well planned. While the destruction of the Senate was devastating, and achieved the purpose of wiping out the government, I think it was really Marcus and Sofia who were the targets. Then the attack on my family, was obviously planned a long time in advance, as it would have taken many weeks of preparation to get the ships and people in place for such an operation. This would all have been organised long before the actual attack, and they already knew I had survived the assassination attempt. Why? I cannot believe that my parents were the objective. What would be the point? However, there was somebody else staying with them, a boy called Marcus,” Jon took a deep breath, trying to ignore the feeling that someone had clamped their fist around his heart. “Marcus is Sofia’s son, grandson of the late Emperor Marcus Aurelius. I believe he was the true target of the attack, which means that whoever is behind this wants to ensure nothing remains of the Imperial family. They mean to eradicate every last trace of the Aurelius bloodline from history.
“Forever.”
Chapter Ten
Two Years Previously,
The Senate, Eden Prime, Eden System
Jon did not taste anything of the meal. For all he knew, or cared, he could have been eating ashes. Instead his attention was constantly drawn to the woman seated across the table. He noticed he was not the only one paying little thought to their meal, as Sofia also played with the food on her plate and had actually eaten very little.