The Sunfire (13 page)

Glancing back at the screen, relieved to see that the
Princess was now showing distinctly less flesh, he cleared his throat, asking
politely. “Ma’am, what can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for the Commander, is he still there?”

“No ma’am. The Commander, Paul, senior officers and the
majority of the crew departed the station several hours ago.”

Sofia blinked. “All of them?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know ma’am. The senior officers would not say. The
Commander just said that it was a rescue mission and they would be gone for
several days. We’re running a skeleton crew here at the moment.”

“You have no idea where they went?”

“No, but
—
”

“Just tell me Chris,” Sofia interrupted insistently.

Lieutenant Patterson blinked, wondering if it was a good
thing or not he was on first name terms with the Confederation President. “It’s
the armoury, ma’am.”

“What about it?”

“They’ve emptied it.”

*****

Sofia spoke to the young officer for several minutes, but
quickly ended the call when it was obvious that he really had no idea where
they had departed to. Damn Jon and his secrets, Sofia raged internally, trying
to think of who else might know where they all went.

In desperation, she tried calling somebody she had only
spoken to infrequently over the past few years. This time the call was
connected almost immediately and Sofia was staring into the face of a surprised
older woman.

“Sofia!” She exclaimed, her surprise morphing into delight.
“It’s been far too long since you last called. You are not getting enough rest
and not eating enough,” she was quick to observe.

Ever since being introduced to Jon’s mother several years
earlier, they had occasionally kept in touch. Mrs Radec had immediately, upon
first meeting her, made it her personal mission to look after her health.
Constantly chiding her on the long hours she worked and the poor diet.

“Mrs Radec, it’s good to see you again.”

Jon’s mother gave Sofia a cool gaze, immediately seeing
through the façade. “I keep telling you to call me Irene and, more importantly,
what has my son done now?”

Sofia sighed, remembering the reason why she now rarely
called. Ever since managing to extract from her the sequence of events leading
up to Jon leaving her, Jon’s mother, Irene, was always quick to assume the
worst about her son whenever Sofia called. “Nothing, really.” She was quick to
reassure her, noticing her disbelieving expression. “Jon just left me a message
that he was going away for a while, I just wondered if you had any idea where
he might have gone?” She asked mildly.

“Gone away?” Irene replied, misunderstanding. “Jon never
goes
away
; I don’t think he has ever taken a vacation since running off and
joining the navy. However, I think he is long overdue one, perhaps he should
pay a visit to Eden Prime, and you could do with a holiday too. You both work
too hard.”

Sofia couldn’t supress a laugh at her words, as Irene had
always been convinced Sofia and Jon were the perfect couple. While Sofia had
never found out what she had told Jon upon hearing of how he left her, Sofia
could well imagine the sharp tongue-lashing that her son had received. “How is
the new house?” Sofia asked, changing the subject when it became obvious Jon
had not told her where he was going and not wanting to worry the older woman.

Irene could only stare out of the wide floor-to-ceiling
patio windows, to the endless garden stretching out around the spacious
property. She could just about make out the imposing gate to their new home, a
few hundred meters distant. “It’s a lot bigger than our last place,” Irene
stated hesitantly. “It takes me days just to clean it from top-to-bottom, but
Ryan and I both love it,” she was quick to add, not wanting to give offence.

After Jon and Sofia’s last visit she and her husband had
moved back into their small apartment in Carrington City on the advice of Jon,
who worried the people hunting them would come after his parents too. Several
months later they were stunned by a knock on the door, a courier giving them an
unmarked package, simply addressed to
Ryan & Irene Radec.
Inside was
a short note from Sofia thanking them for their hospitality and in return a
small gift of her gratitude. The gift had turned out to be the deeds to a
spacious new property on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by beautiful
fields and trees. At the same time they had received a call from their bank,
which had spent the past few years hounding them for the repayment of a loan,
now asking them how they would like to invest their new-found wealth. For it
seemed that their bank balance had swelled significantly, to the point that it
was now worth a small fortune.

To say Irene was shocked was an understatement. It was only
when her husband had taken her aside and informed her who their guest had been
that events started to make sense. Irene had been mortified for weeks after,
remembering how she had asked the daughter of the
Emperor
to help her
prepare dinner!

“It’s beautiful thank you,” Irene finally replied. “But I am
not sure about all the men with guns at the gate. We had a delivery last week
and I had to sit the poor boy down with a cup of tea to stop him shaking so
much. He kept talking about ghosts rising from the ground with guns.”

“I’m very sorry about that,” Sofia replied. “Jon and I were
just worried about your safety, so we thought that it would be a good idea to
ask some of his old friends to keep an eye on your house for a while,” Sofia
explained, embarrassed.

Irene just brushed the comment away unconcerned. “They are
such nice polite young men, I bring them hot cocoa during the evening, as it
gets terribly cold at night.”

Sofia could well imagine the scene, the battle-hardened
group of ex-marines and Special Forces, sitting around being passed cups of hot
cocoa, probably with some roasted marshmallows, by Irene. The mental picture
brought a smile to her face.

Sofia talked for several more minutes with the Radec matriarch,
signing off by promising to come and pay them a visit sometime in the near
future.

*****

Sofia frowned. So far she had spent most of the morning
calling everybody she could think of who might know Jon’s whereabouts or
destination, but nobody knew. Sofia was certain by now the only people who knew
their destination were already en-route. It was just the sort of thing Jon
would do to ensure nobody could discover his plan.

Sofia needed somebody who was paranoid enough to know
everything
—
and everybody. A person who had spies on every
planet, every station and probably even every ship. Somebody who was morally
bankrupt enough to be willing to sell to Sofia Jon’s destination, and purpose
—
for a price. As Sofia was only aware of one person to meet all
these requirements, she booked herself passage on the next ship to the
Memphis
station, under an assumed name.

She asked her aides to clear her schedule for the next week.
There was much complaining at the short notice they had been given, which fell
on deaf ears. With that Sofia turned to her wardrobe. Over the years, aside
from her formal robes of state, she had accumulated many different clothes,
ball-gowns, evening dresses and cocktail dresses. Going through her extensive
wardrobe, it reminded her of how her work had taken over her life, as she had
nothing suitable for such nondescript travel. Finally, at the very back of the
wardrobe, tucked away in a disused corner, she finally found something
practical. Observing herself in the tan coloured blouse, jeans and ankle boots
she wore, she remembered that it was these very clothes that she had arrived
in, almost five years to the day, with Jon. Gazing at her reflection in the
mirror, Sofia was startled by the transformation.

Gone were the dark lines under her eyes, the pale skin and
dull, lifeless eyes, which had stared back at her for so long now. Instead with
these clothes, her hair tied back into a long braid, she looked years younger,
reminiscent of the young woman who had first arrived on Eden Prime. For her
skin now seemed to glow and her eyes sparkled once again. For the first time in
a very long time, she felt she was doing something right. Slipping the knife
Jon had given her into her boot, she set off, lengthening her stride to reach
the spaceport in time for her departing ship.

*****

Stepping off the passenger ship, almost forty-eight hours
later, Sofia was in a foul mood. She had never travelled by commercial
passenger liner before and was amazed at the disorganisation. Although she
arrived promptly at boarding time, the ship had then been delayed many times.
Firstly by a missing passenger and then by the requirement to off-load that
passenger’s luggage. This was quickly followed by a technical fault in the FTL
drive, which resulted in a missed departure window. All-in-all the ship
departed almost six hours late. To add insult to injury, they had then lost
their arrival slot and had to wait for one to become free. The ship finally
docked twelve hours behind schedule, by which time Sofia felt ready to scream.

She had already done a quick search of the station’s
data-net and discovered there were presently one thousand, two hundred
individuals living on the station with the name Albert. As this wasn’t much of
a help, Sofia had decided to start with his last known location, on the
assumption that hopefully somebody might know where he had moved to, assuming
he was still alive, of course. For the last time Sofia had seen Albert,
Harkov’s mercenaries were kicking down his door. Not actually knowing the
address also did not help, so Sofia resorted to following the roundabout route
Jon had taken the last time they were on the station. At the time Jon had
suggested it was necessary to do this to lose anybody who could be following
them. Sofia wondered if she might have to adopt this same plan, because out of
the corner of her eye, she kept seeing a glimpse of movement.

Finally arriving at the non-descript door that was her
destination, Sofia took a deep breath and touched the announcer. After several
long seconds, with no response, her heart fell. It was obvious nobody was
there. Which left her in a bit of a quandary, as she had no idea where to go
next.

She felt the movement of somebody behind her, long before
she heard it, the displaced air raising the hairs on the back of her neck.
Pivoting smoothly around on the balls of her feet, knife suddenly in hand, in a
manoeuvre Jon would have been proud of, she forced her forearm up against her
attacker’s throat, the knife hovering inches from him.

“Agh!” He screamed in terror.

Sofia blinked in surprise. “Albert?” she asked, shocked.
“What are you doing following me around?”

“Grr,” he replied, motioning towards his throat, where Sofia
still had him pinned.

“Sorry,” Sofia apologised, releasing him. “What are you
doing following me around? You scared me to death.”

“Scared
you
to death? You were not the one pinned
against a wall with a knife hovering in front of you. Who taught you to do that
anyway? Sorry, silly question. I need to have a serious word with that boy,
you're an Imperial Princess, girl, he cannot go around turning you into some
sort of warrior Princess.”

Sofia giggled at the description, before enfolding the small
man in a massive hug. Albert had originally come from Kesser IV, where the
gravity was much stronger, so while he was very short, barely over five feet,
he was extremely strong, as he had demonstrated on their prior visit by
effortlessly lifting a table with one hand. “How did you know I was coming
anyway? I was travelling under an assumed name.”

Albert’s gaze softened as Sofia gently let go of him.
Sniffing he replied, “While you might have picked up on Jon’s
way-of-the-warrior, your skills as a spy are absolutely terrible. You were
travelling under the assumed name
Sophie Radec
.”

Sofia blushed, embarrassedly. “When they asked me my name,
it was the first thing that came into my head.”

Albert just rolled his eyes, stepping past Sofia and tapping
his personal code into the door, which slid open. Stepping into the darkened
room, Albert motioned for her to follow. “Come into my humble abode and take a
seat Princess,” he bowed mockingly. “And we can get down to business, as I
assume you did not come all this way in person just to check up on my health?”

“I was worried about you,” Sofia confessed. “However, I just
got so caught up in setting up the new Confederation I lost sight of what was
important in life.” She cast her gaze down, ashamed at her actions in the past.
When she felt his soft hand take hers, her eyes were brought up to stare at
Albert, who was gazing at her with an understanding look in his eyes.

“You are more like your father than you ever realise.”

“You knew my father?”

“Yes, I know him. Although I doubt he remembers me. It was a
long time ago, before you were even born.” Albert subconsciously cursed his
slip of using the present tense referring to her father, but it seemed that
Sofia had not noticed the mistake. “Anyway enough about the past, let’s discuss
the present,” he said rubbing his hands together. “What can I do for you
Princess?”

Looking Albert straight in the eye, Sofia asked. “I want to
know where Jon has gone and why. He left me a message saying goodbye. Whatever
crazy plan he has in mind is going to get him killed and I want to stop him.
It’s long overdue that Jon and I talked.”

Albert leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. Truth be told
he already had a strong idea of the purpose of Sofia’s visit before her
arrival, as some truly incredible information had recently been brought to his
attention. “Yes, I might be able to assist Princess, but there is a price.”