The Last Praetorian (20 page)

Jon touched the symbol to access the photo library on the
data pad and brought up a picture of a young couple holding a small girl in
their hands.  The girl had short dark hair and sparkling brown eyes with an
impish grin.

“It’s you,” Jon insisted.  “We compared the DNA linked to
your record with the scan that the Doctor took when he revived you.  It’s a
perfect match.”  Miranda just stared at the picture with tears running down her
cheek.

“But why?” she finally asked.  “Why spare me when nobody
else survived?”

“We will probably never know,” Jon replied sadly.  “Perhaps
you were fortunate to have survived the attack when the rest of the crew did
not.  Traditionally, pirate attacks leave no survivors, they do not want to
risk anybody identifying them later.  A small part of me hopes that when they
boarded the ship and found you alive, some grain of their humanity remained,
which let them spare you and rescue you from the freighter.”  Realising that
Miranda probably felt very alone at the moment, having the only life that she
knew suddenly pulled out from under her, Jon pulled her into an embrace. 
Miranda resisted for a moment before resting her head gently against his
chest.  Jon decided that he would just ignore his shirt getting damp from the
tears still running down her face.

Jon was about to reassure her that things would get better,
when the door to the observation lounge suddenly slid open and a giggling
couple that were also entwined stumbled in.  Quickly noticing the couple next
to the observation window there was a moment of shocked silence, followed by a
hasty apology before they ducked out the room and the door slid shut once
again. Letting his chin rest on Miranda’s head for a brief moment with his arms
still wrapped around her. Jon closed his eyes and cursed softly to himself at
their inopportune timing.  Living in such a small tightly knit environment, the
crew did nothing better than gossip.  Jon was certain that the entire station
would think that they were a couple by the start of the next shift.  Realising
that Miranda had enough to deal with at the moment without this additional
concern Jon decided to wisely keep quiet. 

Perhaps he could issue a station wide bulletin at the start
of next shift informing the crew that they were not romantically involved…            

Present Day

Terra Nova, Zeta Aquilae System

A couple of days later the stations senior staff gathered in
one of the large briefing rooms to discuss a recent breakthrough by Jason and
his team in decoding the information contained on the data chip obtained by Jon
on
Transcendence
.  Jon meanwhile had been in a foul mood ever since the
encounter with Miranda in the observation lounge.  As Jon had expected, the
next morning the entire crew was aware of the blossoming romance between the
station commander and their newest addition to the crew.  Jon had decided that
he was going to shoot the next person to congratulate him!  It did not help his
mood that ever since their talk in the observation lounge, Miranda had
obviously been avoiding him, troubled by the revelations regarding her past.  He
wanted to get this meeting concluded, not the least due to the late addition of
Miranda to the meeting for her ‘independent insight’, as Paul referred to it. 

As head of the team tasked with decoding the information on
the chip, Jason kicked off the briefing.  “As I am sure you are all aware over
the past few years there have been a number of uprisings on various colonies
throughout the Confederation.  While this is not unusual - there will always be
grievances and, or, local issues that incite the populace - this general level
of discontent is notable in its increase.”  With a tap on the display controls
to the holoprojector a chart appeared, hovering just above the conference room
table, showing a steady but noticeable increase in colonies in open revolt
during the past 18 months. 

“Again,” Jason continued, “there is nothing alarming
regarding this.  Historical precedents show that these uprisings tend to be
cyclic, with an increased period of discontent, followed by a similar period of
contentment when these uprisings die down, usually after the local issues have
been addressed.”  Again Jason clicked on the controls and the chart was
replaced with another but on a much larger timescale, again you could see the
peaks where the number of colonies in revolt peaked, but also troughs as these
fizzled out and died.  “However, the data recently obtained by the Commander
sheds a worrying new light on the recent uprisings, as these seem to have been
well planned and organised.” 

Leaning forward in interest, his recent foul mood forgotten
Jon inquired, “But surely this is normal?  While I appreciate that occasional
uprisings are fairly spontaneous, caused by some particular flash point, surely
other rebellions are planned.  General discontent causes a small group of
individuals to band together and incite the general mass; again history seems
to support this scenario.”

Jason nodded his head in agreement at the Commanders’
insight, but added.  “The difference this time is that the data chip you
obtained indicates that the planning and organisation for multiple uprisings
comes from a single person, or more likely, organisation located outside the
systems in revolt.” 

The room went deathly silent following this startling
announcement.  

Once again leaning forward, Jon insisted.  “You are
referring to a conspiracy?  A conspiracy by one or more people to insight
revolt and uprising through the Confederation?”

Jason nodded his head in agreement at Jon’s conclusion
before continuing.  “Currently there are 18 systems in open revolt and are
actively pushing to secede from the Confederation.  There are a further 5
systems that are actively leaning in this direction.  Of the approximate 166
systems that currently make up the Confederation my intelligence team predicate
that it would only take a further dozen or so systems to declare that they want
to break away from the Confederation to result in outright civil war.  As you
know the Confederation Charter stipulates that each individual system contribute
to the Confederation Navy.  The outcome of almost 20 per cent of the
Confederation trying to break away would result in a complete disintegration of
the Navy, resulting in a general civil war, especially if the remaining systems
refuse to allow the breakaway colonies to secede and utilise the Navy to retain
these systems.”  The room was speechless after the dire predictions laid forth
by Jason.

“Why does the Confederation not recognise this threat?  Why
is it not being actively debated and discussed by the Senate?” Paul inquired
curiously.

“I can only assume that they do not have the same intel that
we do,” Jason responded.  “The current situation is no worse than it has been
in the past.”  He motioned towards the chart that displayed the historical data
for the past 20 years.  “We have the advantage from the data that we know that
these uprisings have been incited, and we know that additional uprisings are
being actively planned.  Additionally, from reading the after action report
from the Commander, it was obviously the intention of this informant that we
pass this information onto the Confederation.”

Leaning back in his chair for a moment Jon added
thoughtfully, “Thinking back about the encounter it was that aspect that most
stood out for me.  The informant ‘Snow’ was insistent that I pass on this
information.  However, I got the impression that he had a particular person in
mind and not just the Confederation as a whole.  He seemed to suggest that this
person would pay particular attention to this information if it came from me
directly, unlike if he approached the Senate or this person directly.”

Nodding his head in agreement Jason responded. “Intelligence
noted the same thing from your report and we think we know whom this person was
referring to.  Has anybody been following recent developments in the
Confederation Senate?”  Jason inquired to the room as a whole. 

With a general shaking of heads and Paul commenting, “I
prefer the sports channel.  The political broadcasts put me to sleep.”

Jason rolled his eyes and updated the senior staff on recent
events.  “Following political infighting and corruption charges levelled at the
previous Senate President the Senate voted in a new President last month… Sofia
Aurelius,” Jason announced, purposefully averting his eyes from Jon. 

Jon, who had been leaning back in his chair, with his feet
propped up on the table, fell to the floor in complete shock!  Desperately
grabbing an arm of his chair to drag himself off the floor Jon asked in a
strangled voice, “Sofia…my, our Sofia is now President?”

“
The President
…of the Confederation Senate,” Jason
replied succinctly, just in case there had been some misunderstanding with
regards to which presidency she had recently been elevated to.  There was a
general clearing of throats and averted gazes as Jon hauled himself back into
his seat and slumped in this chair.

“I cannot believe it,” Jon stated in disbelief. “She
mentioned that she was thinking of going into politics the last time that I saw
her…” he said, thinking aloud.

“Would that have been the time that she was clinging to you
like a barnacle in tears?”  Paul commented with a wide smirk.  “Or the other
time when she was throwing things at you and threatening bodily harm if you
ever set foot within her sight again?”  Paul was trying to suppress a laugh.

“I do not understand,” Miranda interjected obviously
confused. “Who is this Sofia Aurelius?”

Taking pity on Jon who was still trying to get over the
shock, Paul replied. “Sofia Aurelius was, is, the only daughter of the last
Imperial Emperor - Marcus Aurelius,” Paul explained. “She and Jon had a ‘thing’
going on a while back,” Paul smirked.

“Old Flame,” Doctor Richardson added also grinning.

“Ex-Flame,” Jon interjected giving the occupants of the room
an evil stare.  “We had some history a while back, but we are both long over
that.”  Jon tried to dismiss the matter as unimportant.

“Sure was some history,” Paul quipped. “I remember walking
into your quarters that morning when we could not find her, and found you in
bed with…”

“Thanks Paul,” Jon interrupted before he could continue,
starting to turn an interesting shade of red and noticing the poorly suppressed
laughs coming from many of the occupants of the room.  It seemed to be his week
to be the centre of attention for the station regarding his love life, or lack
thereof!

“Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand,” Jon insisted
trying to deflect the attention away from Sofia and himself. “Jason, did your
team manage to retrieve anything else from the data chip?”

“Only some ship registers, cargo manifests, intercepted
communication fragments, nothing concrete, certainly nothing that we can use. 
However we did come across an interesting correlation.  With the on-going
threat to our ships and crew we have been paying a lot more attention to
Syndicate activity in this system, in particular their ships, routes, cargos
etc.  The computer found an extremely strong correlation between the Syndicate
activity we have been tracking and the data contained on the chip.”

“Interesting,” Jon thought aloud.  “How strong is the data
correlation that you have found?”

“Approximately 88% so far,” Jason said.  “We are still
trying to track down the registration of the other ships detailed in the data
chip, but so far almost everyone is either a Syndicate ship, or one that is
registered to one of their innumerable shell companies.”

Jon raised an eyebrow at such a high correlation in the data
and inquired.  “What is the possibility this is just a coincidence?” 

Jason tapped a couple of controls: the holoscreen was
replaced with a shipping manifest for the “
Eagle Star
” an interstellar
freighter.  “This freighter is owned by Carnival Logistics, which, through
various financial transactions and shell companies, we have confirmed is
actually 100% owned and run by the Syndicate.  This freighter was at the
Lalande system approximately four weeks before the revolt started in that system. 
The cargo manifest lists it as carrying 120,000 kilograms of food-stuffs.”

“That’s a pile of crap,” Paul interjected.  “I know the
Lalande system, their primary export is agricultural foodstuff, the entire
system is one big farm.  It’s the biggest exporter of food in the entire
sector.”

“Correct,” Jason agreed. “This is just one example out of
dozens of others, coincidence? Perhaps, but it’s strange to have such a high
data correlation of what we know for a fact are smugglers and systems that are
soon after in open revolt, often with well-armed insurgents, with excellent
intelligence who quickly overthrow local planetary authorities.  The question
is what are we going to do with this intelligence?”  Jason asked the room. 

Jon reviewed the shipping manifest still projected in the
air and thought about the other intelligence that had been highlighted.  “It’s
not enough,” he concluded.  “What we have so far is all conjecture, speculation
and a lot of coincidences.  We need hard facts and more importantly we need
proof.  I am not going to approach the Confederation Council… or Sofia,” Jon
winced at the thought of how that conversation would pan out, “without some
hard facts people.”  Jon did not think it would be helpful to add that he had
risked his life and cost the lives of a large number of close friends to rescue
Sofia the last time.  He had no intention of telling her anything that was
going to put her life at risk – the Confederation be-damned.

“Suggestions? Proposals?”  Jon addressed the question at his
senior staff.