The Last Praetorian (35 page)

“With Engineering and Medical secure and the rest of the
station on lock-down, the next stage of the plan involves deploying reinforced
sweeper teams to secure the station, section by section.”

Jon nodded his head in approval at the plan that he had
signed off a few weeks before.  “I want the teams sweeping the station, from
medical and engineering towards docking bay fifteen.  We are almost certain
that one of those will be their target, if not both.  Ensure that, as each
section is cleared, that it is secured to ensure that no force can out-flank
the sweeper teams,” Jon ordered.

“I’ll let the sweeper teams know sir.”

“Tell them I’ll meet them on-route.”

“Sir?”  Patterson exclaimed, aghast.  “Would it not be
better for you to remain in C&C, or at least wait here for one of the
sweeper teams.”

“I’m not wasting precious resources and time, better spent searching
the station, babysitting me,” Jon said angrily.  “Let them know that I am on my
way.”

“Yes sir,” Patterson replied in a resigned tone.  Their
commanding officer’s habit of placing himself in the firing line was well known
throughout the station.  The crew respected him even more for his attitude,
knowing that he would never order them into a situation that he himself would
not lead from the front.

As Jon was heading towards the exit he noticed Miranda still
following close behind.  “Where do you think you are going?” he inquired
crossly, frustrated with his crew’s habit of trying to wrap him in cotton wool,
to ensure that he was not hurt.

“I said that I wanted to help,” Miranda replied calmly. “It
might be a waste of precious resources and time, better spent searching the
station, babysitting you - for the sweeper teams,” Miranda replied throwing his
earlier words back in his face. “However, as I am not part of any of the
sweeper teams then it won’t hurt for me to watch your back.”

Growling in frustration, unable to refute her logic, Jon
opening the small arms locker in C&C, passing her a heavy pistol, barrel
first, and followed by a few spare clips.  “You know how to use this?”

“David put me through a quick training course,” Miranda
replied checking there was a round chambered and that the weapons safety was
firmly on.  “You are not taking a second gun?”  Miranda asked in surprise,
noticing that Jon’s hands were empty, as he was striding quickly from C&C.

“I’ve got the only weapon I need,” Jon replied, patting the
blade that Miranda only now noticed strapped at his waist.

“You’re taking an overgrown knife to a gun-fight?” she asked
incredulously.

“It’s called a sword.  In this case a Valerian sword,” Jon
exclaimed rolling his eyes.  “Look it up in the ships computer later.”

“Sure,” Miranda groused.  “Probably filed under
Ancient
Historical Weapons
.”          

Jon could only grin; she was probably right.

*****

“So how many of them do you think there are?”  Miranda asked
nervously, peering around a corridor, checking in both directions before
motioning Jon forward.

Trying desperately to suppress a smile at the younger
woman’s antics, obviously she had never been in combat outside of a ship
before, he thought carefully about the question before replying.  “Well, only
one freighter docked, prior to the energy grid problems.  I doubt that they
could fit more than, oh, fifty people onto that ship,” he replied trying not to
laugh as Miranda came to an abrupt halt.

“Fifty?” she replied with an ashen face, picturing turning a
corner and facing fifty armed men all with the intent to kill her.

“Well that’s the worst case scenario.  On the bright side
there might be none.”

“None?”  Miranda echoed, a terrible thought suddenly
occurring to her. “You don’t actually know if there are any intruders on the
station do you?  It could have just been a ship-board accident like the crew
reported?” 

Jon nodded his head in agreement, that it was an equally
plausible scenario.  Thinking intently, Jon finally shook his head.  He was not
wrong. The intruders had made a fundamental mistake when cutting the power to
his office, as they had lost their element of surprise.

Meanwhile, shaking her head in disbelief, that she was
skulking around the darkened station in the early morning, when she could
instead be in her quarters, fast asleep…Unfortunately so engrossed in the
injustice of the entire event, she stepped out into the next corridor without
checking first…

It was only the quick actions of Jon, drawing her back,
against his chest, that saved her life.  The energy bolts whipped through the
air where she had been standing only seconds before!

“Looks like I was right,” Jon whispered into her ear,
glancing around the corner for barely a second.  However, even that was long
enough for a few more bolts to strike the corridor dangerously close to his
head. 

Backing up a few meters to the nearest communication
console, Jon put in the call to C&C.  “Intruders spotted, level 3, Corridor
32J,” he reported concisely. “Looks like half a dozen, armed with energy pulse
rifles and tactical combat armour.”

“Understood Commander,” C&C replied. “I’ll have
reinforcements converge on your location.”

“Negative, we don’t know if there are any other teams on the
station, continue the sweep as originally planned.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Come on, let’s see if we can cut them off at the next
intersection,” Jon proposed.

“Us?” she replied in a doubtful voice.  “But there are only
two of us and six of them,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but isn’t that so much better odds than two of us and
fifty of them.”

Backtracking, Jon led Miranda through a number of winding
corridors and through a number of rooms, until finally they arrived at a
connecting door.  Careful to stand far enough back not to activate the door
sensor, Jon motioned for Miranda to keep quiet.

Whispering to her quietly Jon explained the plan. “The
Syndicate forces will probably pass along this corridor, as it’s the main
throughway to engineering.  We will wait for them to pass, when they do we’ll
ambush them.  We will have the element of surprise on our side, I’ll go first
and distract them, and then you come.”

“Perhaps we should wait,” Miranda suggested nervously. 
“From what you describe it sounds like these are Syndicate Enforcers.  I have
never met any but they have a reputation for being the Syndicate shock troops
of choice when they need a mess cleared up, quickly.  They have a fearsome
reputation, even in the Syndicate.”

Jon looked at the nervous young woman sympathetically,
remembering his own first time into combat.  Impulsively he learned forward
slightly, the two were already standing very close so as to be heard and kissed
her gently, softly on her lips.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered reassuringly.  “Just follow
my lead.” Then he took a stride forward, sliding through the door before it was
half open, straight into the middle of the Syndicate shock troops.

There was a moment of stunned disbelief from the Syndicate
troops, as if this ghost in white had suddenly risen from the ground and
appeared in their midst.  However, that instant, was a heartbeat too long for
two of the troopers as in a blink of an eye, Jon had his sword in hand, and
within a thin mist of blood one of the troopers was dying with his throat slit
open, the other, staring in disbelief at the stump where his wrist ended, where
only moments before his hand had been.

The group disintegrated into complete chaos.  With screams
of pain, cries of anger and fright the group tried to bring their weapons to
bear on the threat that had suddenly appeared in their midst.  However, in the
close confines of the corridor it was a futile task as they all held long-barrelled
weapons.  The few that managed to get their weapons to bear in time held off
firing in fear of hitting colleagues.  Most did not even have the chance to get
their weapons raised, as again and again the sword rose and fell.  Each time
another Syndicate soldier fell, never to rise again.

In desperation one of the troopers depressed the firing stud
on his weapon in the hope of hitting anything, however with a deft touch from
his free hand Jon casually brushed the weapon aside, meanwhile sliding his own
blade through the tactical armour, like a hot knife through butter; the blade
barely felt any resistance passing through the armour into the still beating
heart.

The sergeant, upon seeing his squad being cut to pieces made
the most rational decision of all. Dropping his rifle and reaching for his
combat knife, he took advantage of their attacker’s turned back to snake a
powerful arm around his throat.

The only remaining syndicate soldier seeing a lull in the
attack took a step back and brought his rifle to bear on the now immobilised
enemy.  However, before he could depress the firing stud a loud crack resounded
along the corridor, first one, then two more in quick succession.  The soldiers
face disappeared in a cloud of red mist as the heavy shells tore into his head,
with two more shells hitting him squarely in the chest, throwing him back down
the corridor.

The sergeant, seeing the only remaining member of his squad
die, took advantage of what few seconds he had left, as the swordsman was
unable to bring his own weapon to bear.  As he raised his knife in preparation
for the deadly blow he was astonished to simultaneously see the blade leave the
swordsman hand and rise up in the air.  In a flash the swordsman caught the
blade in his other hand, reversing the grip and suddenly the tip of the blade
was pointing back down, accelerating back towards him!

In desperation he shoved the razor sharp knife between the
swordsman’s rib’s angling up towards his heart.  The impact of the sword
hitting his chest, and a further three shells simultaneously piercing his back
stopped the knife barely centimetres from its final destination.

“Jon!” screamed Miranda, desperately trying to push-off the
heavy body of the syndicate soldier.  Staring in horror at the hilt of the
knife sticking out from his back, with a quickly spreading red patch, radiating
out from the knife, consuming Jon’s immaculate white uniform.  Gently rolling
him over, trying not to jar the knife, but fearing to remove it, she looked
into his eyes.

“Told you that everything would be fine,” Jon quipped.  The
effect only slightly spoilt by the blood beginning to froth from his mouth. 
Jon could feel the weight on his chest, knowing that the knife had pierced one
of his lungs, and he was slowly drowning.

“I’ll get help,” Miranda said frantically but by then Jon’s
eyes had already drifted shut.

*****

Sometime later Miranda reappeared in C&C, having little
idea where else to go.  The thought of being alone, in her dark quarters, was
too terrifying to contemplate.

Paul looked up in concern at the sight of Miranda, her hands
still covered in blood, Jon’s he assumed, as looking over the younger woman
carefully he could not see any other injuries.

“How is Jon?” he asked worriedly.  He had just arrived in
the C&C when Miranda’s frantic call for help had arrived.

“He’s still in surgery,” Miranda replied listlessly. “The
doctor said that he would call when he had any news.”

“Jon’s a fighter, he will pull through,” Paul reassured her
confidently.  Who he was reassuring, Miranda or himself, he was not sure.

“Did we get all of them?”

“It looks like they split into two groups.  You intercepted
one; the other made it to Engineering but was cut down by Gunny with a squad of
Security and Marines.  They were a tough bunch, all fought to the death,
although we offered them plenty of opportunities to surrender…”

“Sir,” a voice from operations interrupted him.  “The
Santa
Maria
is pulling away from the station.”

“Damn,” Paul replied.  He had completely forgotten about the
freighter between consolidating reports from the various sweeper teams, Gunny
and David’s security team.  “Bring the station weapons on-line,” he ordered.  It
was time to finish this.

“What if they have hostages on-board?” the weapons officer
made the good point.

“Unlikely,” Miranda interjected.  “That was a Syndicate
Enforcer squad, they don’t take any prisoners.  They don’t want anybody left
alive to identify them.”

“Station weapons on-line, sir,” the weapons officer replied.

“I know Captain Anderson from the war, he would die before
he would allow anybody to take his ship.  Fire!” Paul ordered.

Surrounding
Terra Nova
was a small asteroid belt;
this was not unusual for similar sized stations. It was far cheaper to
accelerate asteroids towards the location of any new installation, and then
mine and refine the alloys from the asteroids than to ship the refined
materials across the system.  Hence there was nothing unusual about the size or
positioning of the asteroids around
Terra Nova
… except for their
contents.  After extracting all the materials from the cores, after the
construction of the station, several small fusion reactors were placed in
certain asteroids.  These fed powerful particle lasers than had been installed
at the same time.  Combined with the manoeuvring jets from redundant shuttles,
this allowed the station to re-orientate the lasers on the asteroids, at will. 

Hence as the
Santa Maria
tried to desperately escape
the station, the nearest asteroid began to slowly re-orientate itself and track
the fleeing freighter.  When the freighter came within range, a beam of light,
brighter than any sun, shot out from the asteroid, striking the freighter
amidships.  The hull quickly began to crumple under the onslaught; finally the
hull failed completely triggering the collapse of the ship’s own fusion
reactor.  A few moments later there was no trace of a freighter having ever
existed.