by Mike Smith
He had already recognised Benson for what he truly was—a bully. The only thing that bullies liked more than spreading misery was to talk. For nothing was worse to them than failing to be recognised for their achievements. “I must congratulate your father, the Senator, on his method of attack on Eden Prime it was—inspired,” Jon goaded him.
Benson frowned, taken aback by the compliment, before smiling in satisfaction. “It should be me that you are congratulating then. My father is a master politician, but he leaves such operational matters up to me. It was easy to find such leverage. I could have chosen any of the senior officers, but I took a great deal of personal delight from watching Captain Harrison crumble, knowing he was the son-in-law of the great Admiral Sterling. It was like screwing them both, after Harrison was promoted over me. It’s just a shame that Sterling wasn’t watching, but I’ve still got personal recordings. Perhaps I will show them to Sterling before my father orders his death. Wouldn’t that be something? I can watch him break—twice.” His chilling laugh echoed around the command deck.
“And Harrison’s family? It was always your plan to murder them anyway?” Jon pressed intently.
“His wife, the silly bitch went and hung herself in the bathroom. I suppose it could possibly have been a comment that I made, something about him killing himself after murdering thousands—but who will ever know? I was going to keep the girl, you know, to taunt Sterling with. Perhaps I could slit her throat after forcing Sterling to watch the recording of his daughter. Now that would be an irony wouldn’t it?” Benson mused out aloud. “Anyway,” he stopped, realising that he had become distracted. “According to your wife, I talk too much, so I will keep this short. Kill him,” he ordered the two guards standing over Jon.
The two marines did not move a finger; instead they seemed frozen in place, like statues.
“I think that you’ve said more than enough,” Jon agreed, levering himself to his feet.
Benson whirled around, observing all eyes firmly fixed upon him, but he found no empathy in their eyes, only anger—and disgust. Finally his gaze came to rest on Alexeyev, who was staring into the distance. “Admiral,” Benson snapped at him. “Order your marines to kill Radec, now. This is your last chance to salvage your honour, career—and life.”
Alexeyev seemed to finally regain focus, glancing at the marines, still frozen behind Jon, before his gaze came to rest on Captain Benson, pale and sweating standing in the middle of the command deck, isolated and alone.
“My honour?” his voice seemed hoarse, as if he was fighting to get the words out. “What of your honour? You who stand there, triumphantly detailing the appalling crimes you have committed, while contemplating more? I met Harrison’s wife, years ago at one of the fleet inaugural balls. We danced briefly while she described her daughter to me. She was so proud of her, as she had only just taken her first steps. She showed me a picture of her, a beautiful little girl with blond hair and mischievous blue eyes.” At this his expression darkened, his face going taunt with fury. “There is only one action that my honour permits me,” he growled, taking a step towards Benson. “Sergeant!” he thundered, “Place Captain Benson under arrest. He is charged with abduction, rape, torture and murder.”
Before anybody could move to intercede, Benson took a step back, drawing the pulse pistol from his side, brandishing it in all directions, his eyes crazed. “Nobody moves,” he screamed fanatically. “I’m in charge here. You all obey me.” Turning once again to face Admiral Alexeyev, he sneered. “My father warned me about you Alexeyev. He told me once a traitor, always a traitor. There is only one punishment for traitors—death.”
With that Benson levelled the pistol, pointing it directly at Alexeyev’s chest, depressing the firing stud. Standing only a few feet away, the bolt couldn’t fail to miss—and it didn’t. It struck the Admiral squarely in the chest and he, with a stunned expression, collapsed to the floor, the dark uniform now stained red, with blood.
“I’m in command now,” Benson shouted confidently, still brandishing the pistol. “You will all follow my orders, and my first order is that Radec dies, here and now. Kill him.”
This time the two Marines did come to life, raising their rifles in preparation to fire, but not in Jon’s direction as the rifles pointed squarely at Captain Benson.
“No,” Jon ordered, taking a step forward, pushing the barrels of the rifles back down. “If either of you move against him it’s mutiny. He is still a Captain in the Confederation Navy; your punishment will be the same as his. Death. I will deal with this personally, as I swore to Captain Harrison that I would.”
Hearing these words, Benson swung around, the pistol still firmly in his grasp, murder now clearly visible in his eyes. “You,” he screamed, pointing at Jon. “This is all your fault, you have turned everybody against me. Well, if they will not follow my orders, I will do it myself.” Once again Benson levelled the pistol, depressing the firing stud, and again the shot flew straight and true, striking Jon firmly in the chest, with a cry of pain he collapsed to the floor, the cloak spreading out around him, forming a pool of darkness on the floor.
“Who is next?” Benson screamed, swinging the pistol around to point first at one officer, then the next. “You will all follow my orders, or you will die, and I will find somebody else—” Whatever else he was going to say next was interrupted by a gasp. Swinging around, Benson’s face went slack with horror, the pistol shaking violently in his grasp.
For where once had stood a pool of darkness on the floor, now a dark shape started to rise, a sword clenched firmly in one hand. The dark hood kept any face within hidden in shadow, but nonetheless a voice emanated from the darkness. “It is time for you to stand in judgement, to face your victims in person, as they are the only ones who will decide the punishment for your crimes.” The dark shape raised the sword in preparation to strike, the blade seemingly absorbing all light, as dark as the shadow holding it.
In terror Benson let loose bolt after bolt, trembling so badly that only one or two hit their target, the shape seemed to waver after each impact, but step by step it still drew closer, before the blade snapped down, faster than an eye could blink.
Captain Benson stared uncomprehendingly at his hand holding the pistol, or at least where it once had been, now simply replaced with a stump at the wrist. Hand and pistol fell to the floor with a thud. His scream of pain, like a mortally wounded animal, reverberated around the room, but nobody made any move to help him, all frozen, as they stared on with no sympathy.
All knowing what was about to come next.
Falling to his knees, clutching at the end of his severed arm, Benson looked up at the shadow looming over him, the point of the blade now resting against his throat. Watching agape, while the dark figure pushed the hood from his head, to reveal the merciless eyes of Jon Radec, as he stared down at him. “It’s time to meet your maker. To stand before all your victims—and face justice.”
“No!” cried Benson. “My father. If you kill me then your family will also die. He will kill them. If you want them to live, spare me.”
Jon hesitated for a moment upon hearing these words, before leaning forward, closer to his ear, so Benson could hear his final words. “The difference between your family and mine? Yours care for nothing but themselves, and your own wealth and power. Mine? They would gladly sacrifice themselves, knowing that their deaths would save the lives of countless more. I will see you in hell.”
With that Jon slid the deadly blade forward. It slid effortlessly through Benson’s throat, appearing out the other side. With a negligent flick of Jon’s wrist, the sword cleaved head from body, the head rolling aside, coming to rest several feet from the body—the disbelief clearly still visible on its face.
Letting the body fall to the floor behind him, Jon approached the body of Alexeyev, where he had fallen. As he approached he was astonished to observe the Admiral’s eyes flicker open.
“Is Benson dead?” Alexeyev painfully asked.
Glancing at the body, still separated from the head by at least half a dozen feet, Jon nodded. “Yes, he’s definitely not going to recover.”
“Thank the Maker,” Alexeyev coughed. “I didn’t think that I was going to live long enough to see you kill the bastard.”
With a quick glance at the Admiral’s chest, Jon knew that he did not have much longer to live. The chest wound was severe, and the internal damage likely worse. There was nothing that anybody could do for him. “Alexeyev, where is Malthus?” he asked.
“Gone,” Alexeyev groaned. “He departed, yesterday, in a shuttle.”
“Do you know where he went?”
With surprising strength, Alexeyev caught Jon’s arm, pulling him closer. “He’s gone to Terra Nova; he is going to take your family. You must stop him. I’m so sorry, my fault. I should have realised earlier… lied to me. Told me you ordered Harrison to fire on the Senate, then murdered him to cover up your actions,” Alexeyev coughed raggedly. “So stupid, what I wanted to believe.”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s all in the past now,” Jon reassured the dying man. For Malthus and Benson had spun the most insidious lies of all. Grounded in the truth, but intermixed with deceit, using the person’s own doubts to make it easier to believe—and swallow whole.
Reaching forward, Jon gently closed the Admiral’s eyes for the last time. Just one more victim of Malthus’s thirst for power, leaving nothing behind him but an ever-growing pile of corpses.
Staggering back to the Admiral’s chair, seating himself heavily in it, Jon looked around the command deck, his gaze stopping, judging every pair of eyes that he met. Finally, in a deep voice, he demanded of them, “Does anybody question my right to command this ship, this fleet?”
Silence was the only answer to the question.
“Very well then,” he declared. “Then these are my orders; signal the rest of the fleet we depart for Terra Nova immediately. It’s time to put an end to this, for once and for all. Malthus must answer for all the crimes that he has committed. He will pay for the lives that have been lost with his own.”
Wiping away the sweat from his pale brow, Jon eased the dark cloak away from his waist. Touching his side, his hand came away bloodied. Where the last pulse round had penetrated the armour that he wore beneath his uniform. Fortunately the dark cloak concealed the injury—and blood.
He was desperately running short of time to find Malthus, and stop him forever.
Chapter Seventeen
Terra Nova Station, Aquila System
The alarm from the Gravimetric sensors had David hurrying into the Command & Control centre of Terra Nova, cursing his painful fingers and toes, a reminder of the days that he had spent on Altair, wandering around the forest at night in sub-zero temperatures, only then to be half-cooked by the heat from the midday sun. That extreme environment had not stopped him doing his duty, and neither would a little pain from frostbite slow him down now.
“What’s the situation, Chris?” He addressed the late night shift commander.
“Gravimetric alarms, Lieutenant,” Chris Patterson reported, hurrying to his usual place at Operations. Deftly tapping a few controls on his console, he accessed the Gravimetric sensors, displaying the latest real-time results. “Major gravity-distortions detected, approximately three-hundred kilometres from the station.”
“Are there any scheduled arrivals?” David asked, bringing up the latest flight schedules.
“No sir, the Kobayashi Maru is still running behind schedule, and we are not expecting any other arrivals. Anyway, based on these distortions it is far more than a single ship. Looks like a fleet of them. Do you want me to alert the crew?”
“Not yet, let’s wait to identify them first. I don’t want to wake up the station for a false alarm,” he decided, considering the lateness of the hour.
“In-bound wormholes forming, sir,” Chris reported unnecessarily, as the station’s powerful sensors were already detecting the wormholes and were actively scanning the ships as they emerged. “By the Great Maker,” he uttered in awe. “Look at how many of them there are.”
“Have we identified any of the ships yet?”
“No sir, still scanning. However, we have an incoming transmission from the arriving ships.”
“Display it,” David ordered tersely, having a sudden premonition that events were going to quickly spiral out of control. A feeling that only went from bad to worse, at the image, which appeared on the view-screen.
“You are Lieutenant David McNeill, Head of Security for Terra Nova,” the silky smooth voice announced enticingly, a voice used to issuing orders and having them promptly obeyed.
“I am,” David responded formally, rising to his feet.
“Then you are just the man that I’m looking for. You will release into my immediate custody Ryan and Irene Radec, along with the boy Marcus.”
David blinked, staring into the steely grey eyes of the older man. “And if I refuse?” he inquired.
“Then I will take them anyway,” Senator James T. Malthus replied, lips curling into a cold smile. “In the process killing every man, woman and child on your station.”
*****
“What are you going to do, sir?” Chris asked in a worried tone of voice, soon after the transmission had ended. “We cannot fight all of them.”
“Well at least I have managed to buy us some time,” David announced grimly.
“Twenty minutes?” Chris replied incredulously.
“I need to talk to the Commander’s parents,” David said. “After all this affects them more than anyone. Them and the boy.”
“You know that he’s going to kill them, don’t you?” Chris continued on relentlessly. “You heard what the Commander said happened to Captain Harrison’s family.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” David snapped in frustration. “You have the C&C until I return,” he called out behind him.
“Whatever you need to think to sleep at night,” Chis muttered darkly, but by then the Lieutenant had already departed.
*****
“That's all I really know,” David concluded stiffly, having woken the family and swiftly explained the situation to them.
With a concerned glance at his wife, Ryan took a step forward. “Thank you for being so candid with us. My wife and I are sorry to put you in this difficult position. We don’t want to endanger any other lives. We will do what he says, and go with him.”
With a twinge of guilt, remembering Chris’s warnings about the likely outcome, David added. “I cannot guarantee your safety once you leave Terra Nova. The Commander, he reported that the last hostages taken by this group were—ill-treated.” He didn’t think it would help the situation to go into details. Instead he was quietly impressed, when on being presented with this news, the couple paled, silently taking each other’s hands. Then, after a wordless communication took place between them, they turned back to him, nodding.
“I will let the Senator know your decision,” David said reluctantly.
“Thank you Lieutenant,” Ryan replied kindly. “We are grateful for the kindness that everybody has shown us since our arrival.”
David simply blanched at this, before making a swift apology, saying he needed to return to the C&C immediately, but in truth he simply had to escape from their presence. They were thanking him for what he was about to do? Outside their quarters, in the deserted corridor, he rammed his fist into the first bulkhead that he came across. It wouldn’t make any difference in the end, but at least the pain made him feel better. It was the least that he deserved.
“Lieutenant, do you have a minute?” a softly spoken voice inquired, from his side.
David spun around, so lost in thought about the current situation he had not even heard the person approach. Blinking twice, he tried to clear his vision, but the woman standing in front of him did not morph into anybody else. He could count on one hand how many times this woman had spoken to him. Carol Harrington, matriarch
of the Harrington clan, was rarely seen and even less frequently heard from, usually busy instead with her large family. “Not really, ma’am,” David replied respectfully, considering her husband was his direct superior. “We have a bit of a situation at the moment,” he added. “I need to get back to the C&C immediately.”
Nodding, unsurprised at his response, she simply commented. “I am aware of the situation. I’ll walk with you.”
“You’re aware of the situation?” David replied incredulously. “How can you be aware of the situation? I only found out about it,” he checked his chronometer, “eight minutes ago.”
“I like to be kept well informed about the goings-on in and around the station,” she replied simply.
Obviously the station rumour mill was far more effective than even he thought, David realised.
“I think you should be fully aware of all the facts before you can make an informed decision that's all,” she continued on regardless.
“What facts?” David replied, confused.
“Well who you are about to hand over to that simply dreadful person,” she replied unperturbed.
“Who I am about to hand over?” he echoed, now thoroughly confused.
“Yes, Jon’s parents, Ryan and Irene,” she explained patiently. “And his son, Marcus.”
David stumbled to a halt so suddenly Carol had already taken a few steps past him before she even realised he had stopped. “His son, Marcus?” David parroted, realising he was starting to sound like a stuck record. “Marcus is Jon’s son?”
“Yes,” she replied simply, perhaps realising that short words with few syllables might help the Lieutenant’s comprehension.