Pax Imperia (The Redemption Trilogy) (6 page)

“Captain?”

“That was a direct order XO. Bring the dorsal rail-gun battery online now and await targeting instructions.”

“But I don’t understand?”

Finally Harrison looked up into the eyes of his Executive Officer and snapped. “XO, as Captain of this ship I am giving you a direct order. You are not required to understand or comprehend, but to simply follow my orders. If you feel that you are not capable of doing this, then I will have you relieved of your duty. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” the Executive Officer replied stiffly, passing on the order to the ship’s Tactical Officer. A few moments later the officer nodded his head and the Executive Officer turned back to his Captain, a man he thought that he knew well, wondering who this stranger was, sitting in his seat. “Weapons online and awaiting targeting information.”

“Very well,” Harrison replied, before calling out the targeting coordinates that he had memorised days before.

The ship’s Tactical Officer promptly entered the coordinates and then abruptly jerked his hands away from the console, as if it had suddenly become electrified. “Captain,” he exclaimed in horror. “Those coordinates are for the Senate, on Eden Prime!”

Harrison did not even blink when confronted by the news, just nodded his head in acknowledgement. However the reaction from his Executive Officer was far more pronounced. “Captain,” he whirled around to face his Commanding Officer, the fear clearly etched on his face. “What are you doing? Stop this madness now.”

Harrison ignored him and simply ordered. “Confirm when weapons are locked on target, fire when ready.”

The Tactical Officer simply stared at him in astonishment, before glancing at the Executive Officer desperately. Thankfully the Executive Officer just shook his head in disagreement at the absurd orders.

“I refuse to carry out that order, sir,” his Executive Officer stated forcefully. “Furthermore I will escalate to the Fleet Admiralty your actions and respectfully request that you are temporary relieved of duty as you are obviously ill, Captain, and are not thinking clearly.”

Standing suddenly, Harrison turned his piercing gaze on his Executive Officer. “Unlike me, you are not in possession of all the facts. I have given you a valid order and I expect it to be carried out. As you are obviously not capable of doing so, as of now I am relieving you of your duties.” Taking a few steps forward, until he was standing over his Tactical Officer, he stated loudly, for all of the crew on the bridge to hear. “I have just been in communication with President Aurelius, who informs me that separatist rebels have stormed the Senate. The Senate has been evacuated, but the rebels are insisting that if their demands are not met, they will detonate a chemical weapon they claim is in their possession. Furthermore, they claim that the Confederation Fleet is supportive of this action. The President has therefore declared a state of emergency and given me direct orders that we are to fire on the Senate and destroy any possible threat. I don’t need to remind you of the casualties that may occur if that device were to be detonated.” Harrison repeated the story, which he had practised so many times in his head over the past few days that he had almost come to believe it himself.

“No Captain,” the Tactical Officer uttered quietly.

“Then fire.”

Still the Tactical Officer hesitated, but Harrison took advantage of his momentarily indecision and made the decision for him. He quickly pressed down on the controls, releasing final fire control authority to the ship’s computer.

Harrison could feel the deck plates beneath him trembling with the vibrations from the heavy rail guns on the stern of the ship, as they released their deadly payloads and continued to draw additional ammunition from the ship’s internal magazines.

May God have mercy on my soul,
Harrison thought to himself, retaking his seat.
May God have mercy on all our souls.

For a moment he wondered what the wetness was on his face, before he realised that it was his own tears. With his task now complete, Harrison continued to sit there. Where else was he going to go? There was nowhere to run to, assuming he even had plans to try and escape, which he did not.

Instead he sat there patiently, awaiting his fate.

*****

Where the hell was he?

For the hundredth time, Sofia paced up and down the length of their apartment. Jon was nothing if not punctual. She assumed it must have something to do with her husband having been in the navy so long, that when he set a time to be somewhere he was always there exactly on time. Not a minute early, not a minute late.

Therefore, the fact that he was now an hour overdue was starting to get her seriously worried. Their wedding was meant to be getting underway any minute now in the Senate, not that she had even given that a second thought. All she wanted to know was that her husband was alive and well.

Then she could kill him, for scaring her half to death.

She had already tried, many times, to call him over the data-net, but each time the call had failed to connect, with the simple message that a connection could not be established. Unable to contact Patrick either, she had finally, in desperation, reached out to Paul, who had arrived only a short while earlier. Explaining the situation to him, although not able to tell him much, as Jon had been reluctant to tell her anything, he had agreed to go and try to track them down. That had been over thirty minutes ago and, since then, she had heard nothing further from him.

Meanwhile, standing in front of the wide, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Senate, Sofia wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She had been unable to dispel the feeling of terror that had taken hold of her that morning as Jon had departed their home. For some reason she had convinced herself it would be the very last time that she saw him.

A loud rumble of thunder from outside drew her gaze back to the windows and the Senate building, a few hundred meters from their apartment. Sofia frowned in puzzlement, for it was a beautiful crystal-clear day, the sky a bright, azure blue, not a cloud in the sky. How could there be thunder?

Sofia actually saw the first bolt hit the Senate. It was a glowing light, which seemed to descend from the heavens, as if Zeus himself had cast a bolt of lightning from high atop of Mt. Olympus. It travelled faster than the speed of sound, everything seemed to happen in slow motion, and in perfect silence. The bolt glowed brightly from friction as it descended through the atmosphere, before striking the side of the Senate, just underneath the cupola of the building.

The explosion was massive.

First a bright light blinded everything and everyone. Then the resultant detonation threw debris hundreds of meters into the air. Finally the shockwave expanded outwards in all directions. It was a visible thing, as it pushed back on the surrounding atmosphere, carrying dust and fragments along with it.

Since their apartment was only a few hundred meters from the impact site, the blast took less than a second to travel the distance and the huge pressure wave blew out all the windows in its path.

Standing only a few feet from the windows, Sofia would have been killed instantly had the windows been made from ordinary glass. But these windows had been replaced some years before, at Jon’s insistence, with Tri-Aluminium Silica. The same material which was used in the manufacture of windows and viewports on the great starships that plied the heavens. At over half an inch thick, the manufacturer certified that the window would stop any sort of energy weapon, including a direct hit from a pulse cannon and could stop any shell up to and including a fifty calibre, armour piercing round.

That glass saved Sofia’s life.

The blast wave tore off the front façade of the building, with the resulting impact and concussion wave shaking it so hard, she was knocked to the floor. But the glass held, when all others in the building failed. Many occupants of other apartments were killed outright by the flying shards. Anybody caught outside at the moment of impact was already dead, killed instantly by the pressure of the expanding blast wave.

As the impact from the detonation and shockwave started to dissipate, the outline of the Senate building became apparent. The side where the projectile had impacted had disappeared. However, it was a testament to the construction of the building that it had not collapsed. Part of the cupola had crumbled, where the surrounding loadbearing supports had been vaporised in the explosion, but the building stood.

A proud and defiant symbol against all those that would try and tear it down.

Soon after, however, more bombardment rounds started to descend from the sky, in a seemingly random pattern of destruction on the Senate and surrounding buildings.

Stunned by the first impact, half blinded by the resultant explosion, Sofia crawled on her hands and knees to look out of the cracked windows at the scene of devastation. Watching in stunned disbelief at the damage that was inflicted, as one-by-one the railgun rounds impacted. Wherever they fell nothing was left spared, the destruction utter. Sofia could not take in the scene, could not comprehend what was taking place in front of her.

It was only when another round struck a glancing blow on the Senate, that realisation struck.
“Father!”
she screamed, remembering he and the rest of the Senate had already convened for the start of her wedding. Scrambling to her feet, she dashed to the door of their apartment, which had already opened of its own accord, the building’s crisis management programme having long since activated, opening all the exits.

Overcome with shock, Sofia gave little thought to what she would do when she reached the Senate, not even worrying about her own safety as railgun rounds continued to land in the vicinity, causing mass death and destruction.

However, in the end, it made little difference, as a few minutes later one of the last railgun rounds fired by the
Indomitable
directly struck their apartment block. Like the other rounds that landed before, it instantly vaporised the building. Nothing remained of the home Jon and Sofia had made for themselves.

*****

Their small atmospheric transport shuttle, with Jon at the controls, was still several kilometres from the Senate when the first bombardment rounds started to rain down. From a distance they appeared to Jon as glowing stars, descending from the heavens. Having spent almost a decade in the Imperial Navy, Jon understood what his eyes were showing him, but he could just not
believe
it.

Still some distance away, the impacts were bright flashes of light on the horizon, and it took him a couple of seconds to realise the inherent danger that they faced, travelling at an altitude of several hundred meters straight into the oncoming shockwave. However, by then, it was already too late.

The leading edge of the shockwave struck the small shuttle.

This far from the point of impact the blast wave had dissipated significantly, but it was still strong enough to completely flip the shuttle over. Fortunately, as a result of training and habit, Jon was tightly strapped into the pilot seat, as he felt himself pressed sharply backwards into his seat with the shuttle now facing the opposite direction—inverted.

To make matters worse, the dust and debris from the shockwave were instantly sucked into the intake system of the oxygen-breathing ramjet engine. While they were still travelling at several times the speed of sound the engine exploded, depriving the shuttle of its only source of power.

“Brace yourselves,” Jon shouted to the rest of the occupants in the back of the shuttle. “We are going down.”

*****

Admiral Sterling was roused from a deep slumber by the sound of distant alarms and shouting. For a short time he was disorientated, wondering where he was, confused after a lifetime of  too many different ships, systems and emergencies. The Admiral was long past the age of retirement and the Senate had been pushing for him to retire. However, he would be damned if he was going to hand over his command to some wet-behind-the-ears whippersnapper, who had only achieved his rank by kissing political ass—

“Report!” He demanded having slapped the communication console. His voice, deep and gravelly, was still heavy with sleep. What the hell was going on? As memory flooded back, he remembered he was still on board the
Protector
, flagship of the 12
^th
Confederation Fleet, in orbit around Eden Prime. Now fully awake, he recognised the alarm blaring in the background as the sound for General Quarters. But what the hell? How could they be under attack? They were in orbit around the most heavily defended system in the Confederation. However, a panicked voice over the intercom answering his earlier question quickly answered that question,

“Admiral, we need you on the bridge, immediately. We have an emergency situation sir.”

“What’s going on?” he demanded gruffly, reaching for his jacket. He always slept with his pants on; after all, it would hardly look dignified for the Fleet Admiral to arrive on the bridge sans pants.

“It’s the
Indomitable,
Admiral,” the bridge officer continued in a panicked voice. “She has just opened fire.”

“Opened fire? On who? On what?” he roared.

“It’s the Senate, Admiral. The
Indomitable
has just fired on the Confederation Senate.”

At a quick glance at the chronometer next to his bed, Sterling recognised the time and the significance of the event. Jon and Sofia’s wedding had been scheduled to get underway several minutes earlier. The Senate would be packed. Every significant and notable dignitary in the Confederation would be in attendance.

Forgetting his advancing age, Admiral Sterling sprinted for the bridge.

*****

“Report,” he blared for the second time above the din of the shouting and alarms as he stepped out onto his bridge.

Captain Morden, Commanding Office of the
Protector
, promptly approached his side, passing a datapad to him. “Several minutes ago, with no forewarning, the
Indomitable
activated her weapon-systems, targeting the Confederation Senate on Eden Prime and opened fire with thirty rounds from their dorsal railgun battery,” Morden quickly summarised the report on the device for the Admiral.