The Sunfire (11 page)

Jon nodded his head in agreement. “Pretty much.”

“Sounds good to me. Now how about lunch? I’m starved.”

*****

After breaking for a light lunch, or a heavy one in the case
of Gunny, who claimed he needed the extra carbs for the up-and-coming mission,
the senior staff reconvened in the briefing room a few hours later. They
immediately discovered a glaring hole in the dash-in-shoot-everything-up-rush-out
plan, as Gunny so eloquently summarised it.

“It’s not going to work,” Paul stated firmly. “Even if we do
manage to get past the Titan defence stations and whatever other fleet assets
that they might have in orbit around Tartarus, they are going to see us coming
from a million kilometres away. Best-case scenario, they will just move Marcus
to another, hidden, location. Worst case they will just threaten to execute him
on the spot unless we back off, so we need to retain the element of surprise.”

“You’re talking about a covert infiltration of the company?”
Jon guessed.

“Isn’t that what we do best?” Paul smirked.

“But how do we sneak past those defence platforms?” Jon
mused out loud. “The way they are positioned gives them complete coverage of
the entire planet, so we will never be able to sneak a ship past them.”

“I might have an idea regarding that,” Jason added. “After
all it’s a company planet; so there are ships coming and going all the time. We
need to simply find the flight schedule of one such ship, hijack it off planet
and then fly it back to Tartarus, on schedule.”

“You propose that we take a page out of the Syndicate
organisation’s tactics?”

“Why not? It worked for them up to a point,” Jason shrugged.

Some months earlier, the Syndicate organisation, a shadowy
cartel of pirates, thieves and slavers, had tried to assassinate Jon by
sneaking onto the station via a hijacked ship, the
Santa Maria
. The
attempt had failed only after they had first tried to cut power to Jon’s
office, in an attempt to murder him by dropping the energy field that protected
his office from the depths of space. Fortunately, the attempt had failed and in
doing so alerted Jon and station security to their presence. Jon and Miranda
had killed one of the groups of attackers, Gunny, David and his marines, the
other. While the attempt on Jon’s life was unsuccessful, their plan had been
tactically sound.

“You can get access to their shipping manifests?” Jon asked
Jason, surprised.

“Not from the Tyrell Corporation data-net, I have already
checked. They have so many firewalls, Trojan programmes and logic bombs, I
worry I might alert them to our presence. However, I can easily obtain the
manifests from a docking control on one of several planets in the adjoining
systems. Every ship needs to file a flight plan before docking control will
permit them to depart. I just need to find one that fits within our schedule
and lists Tartarus as its destination. The more difficult problem will be to
get the flight crew to divulge any authentication codes or docking procedures
we will need to get past the defence platforms.”

“That won’t be an issue,” Gunny replied confidently,
cracking his knuckles.

“Very well, that sounds like a plan then. We will split into
two teams,” Jon summarised. “Gunny, you assemble a team of your best marines.
I’ll accompany you to pilot the ship. No offence but your piloting skill leaves
a lot to be desired. Miranda, you will be my co-pilot, as you have the most
experience flying such freighters.”

“I cannot come with you,” Miranda shook her head sadly.

“Why not?”

“Because I cannot land with you on Tartarus. It’ll kill me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was born in space, I’ve never been planet-side. My heart
cannot adapt to the additional gravity and it would kill me.”

Miranda’s abrupt explanation was interrupted by the doctor
falling off his chair with laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Miranda demanded crossly.

“My dear,” the Doctor replied, trying to supress his
laughter. “I was Chief Flight Surgeon in the Imperial Navy before you were
born. I have never heard such a ridiculous story in all my time in the navy. I
gave you a complete physical when you came aboard
Terra Nova
and can
definitely assure you your heart is perfectly fine. Perhaps the Commander could
also confirm this fact, as I am sure he has heard your heart beating wildly?”
Neil asked with a smirk in Jon’s direction. The older doctor loved teasing Jon.

Jon simply looked away, but not before everybody could see
his flaming cheeks. “I’m sure your heart will cope just fine,” he said,
clearing his throat. “I am just sorry that Tartarus will be the first planet
that you step onto as it’s not much of a place for a vacation. If we all make
it through this alive, I’ll approve a company paid vacation for everybody.” The
declaration reminded Jon he had promised to also take Jason and his
intelligence team on a long holiday. They had been pulling off miracle after
miracle over the past several months and deserved a well-earned break.

Looking around the table, he realised Jason was not the only
one looking ragged. The faces reflecting back at him were all long and drawn,
with too many dark patches under their eyes, symptoms of too many long hours,
not enough sleep and enough stress to last a lifetime. It seemed events had
been non-stop ever since the Magistratus’ visit from the Syndicate a little
over a year ago. Silently Jon made a promise everybody would be given a
well-deserved break after this operation, including himself.

Jon had resorted to tightly clasping his hands together
during the briefing, to avoid any of his crew noticing the uncontrollable
trembling of his fingers. Even his body was starting to show signs of the
continued demands put upon it, having been injured by a stab wound in his back
by a Syndicate enforcer during the battle for
Terra Nova
and then having
died and been resuscitated only at the very last moment by the doctor and his
medical team. No, Jon promised, after this was all over everybody would have a
well-deserved break.

“It’s settled then,” Jon stated finally. “Gunny, Miranda and
I, with a team of Special Forces will infiltrate the complex, locate Marcus and
rescue him. Paul, you will take command of the
Sunfire
and cover our
retreat.”

“Yeah, that should be easy enough,” Paul muttered. “We only
have to fight our way past three orbital defence platforms and whatever mobile
fleet assets that they might have in place.”

“I’ll join your team Commander,” Jason added. “I might be of
assistance once on Tartarus, in locating and freeing the Emperor.”

Jon nodded his head in thanks.

“I will also come aboard the
Sunfire
,” Neil insisted
firmly. “I want to make sure that the ship is safe for the crew. In addition we
are going to take casualties, so you need a medical team on board. Also we have
no idea what condition Marcus is in.”

Jon was reminded the Doctor had been a close friend of the
Emperor for many years, also being his personal physician and present at the
birth of his daughter, Sofia. Of course he would want to come along.

“That raises another problem,” Paul pointed out. “While the
Sunfire
is a modern warship and heavily automated, it still requires a large crew. We
are going to be looking at taking almost all of the crew from
Terra Nova,
which is going to leave the station here woefully undermanned.”

“The station will remain closed for business,” Jon insisted.
“We will leave enough crew to maintain the station. Security should not be an
issue, as we still have a large complement of Confederation warships in the
system to maintain security. We will ask for volunteers from the crew, but the
exact details of this mission remain strictly between us until after we depart.
We will simply inform them that it is a rescue mission. I trust the crew
implicitly, but informing them means we also need to trust their families,
their friends and whoever else they might tell. If word leaks out of our
operation to the Tyrell Corporation, it will have failed before we even start.”

There was a general nodding of heads around the whole table.
Many of them having worked in covert operations before, they knew the
importance of operational security. Their very lives could depend upon it.

“Is there anything else that we need to discuss?” Paul asked
the occupants of the room.

“Just one final question, has anybody heard the name Sejanus
before?” Jon asked. For some reason the name stuck in his mind, as it was now
twice that he had heard the name mentioned. However, once again there was a
general shaking of heads amongst his staff. “Jason?” Jon inquired.

“As I have mentioned before, there is nothing in the public
domain about the owners of the Tyrell Corporation, as it’s a private company.
According to the data-net, there are fifty thousand citizens registered with
that name.”

“Any of them registered as being members of the Imperial or
Confederation Navy,” Jon asked curiously.

Jason raised an eyebrow at the unusual question, before
cross-referencing the names against past and present members of the navy. He
shook his head when the results were displayed a few moments later.

Paul leaned forward curiously. “Why the question about him
being in the navy? Do you have any additional information about this person?”

“Not really, no,” Jon responded. “But it is the second time
I have heard that name.”

“Where did you hear it first?” Paul asked, surprised.

“From Gideon.”

Paul’s eyes clouded over in confusion, before the name
registered. “You mean the old Praetorian Commander? Your predecessor?”

Nodding his head Jon replied, “He mentioned the name in
passing to me once.”

Looking between Paul and Jon, Jason asked hesitantly. “Can
we not ask this Gideon what he knows about Sejanus?”

“No. He’s dead now.”

“Oh,” Jason asked surprised. “What happened to him?”

“I killed him.”

“Oh, why?”

“It’s a long story, but basically it was either me or him. I
won.”

There was a general clearing of throats and averting of eyes
around the table. Nobody was comfortable with this line of questioning. The
history and traditions of the Praetorians were surrounded by a cloak of secrecy
and rumours.

“Well what about asking Harkov?” Paul suggested reasonably.
“Perhaps he knows more about this Sejanus than he is letting on.”

“I will be happy to volunteer to get the information out of
him,” Gunny added with a sly smirk.

“We cannot,” Jon replied, having hoped to avoid this line of
inquiry. “Harkov is gone.”

“Gone?” Gunny asked, puzzled. “Gone where?”

“Harkov made me swear an oath that if he volunteered this
information I would let him go, alive and unharmed.”

“And you did?” Gunny asked aghast, the rest of the table
staring at Jon in disbelief.

“You might have given him your oath, but we certainly did
not,” Paul insisted. “We’ll bring him back here and get the answers we need out
of him. Where is he?”

“Right now?” Jon asked, purposely trying to avoid the
question. Paul nodded. “I would estimate he is floating a few kilometres off
the main docking ring.”

“He’s dead?” Paul asked surprised.

“I would certainly hope so,” Jon said. “As he did not
request either a ship or a space suit prior to his departure, which was
probably a serious oversight on his part.”

The gleaming smiles around the table were indication enough
of what the senior staff thought of that. The only exception was Jason, who was
frowning.

“You never make it easy for your intelligence team,
Commander. I wish you would not go around killing everybody who might have
useful intelligence. Can I please request that in the future you hold off
throwing them out of an airlock, at least until my team and I have had a chance
to interrogate them first?”

Jon shrugged. “Sure.”

As the meeting came to a close, David, who had been pretty
much silent throughout the briefing, finally raised a point that had been
troubling him.

“You are all aware that this plan involves taking the
Sunfire
,
a ship, which, please correct me if I am wrong, is a
ghost
ship, to the
planet Tartarus, the place where souls, judged after death to receive
punishment, are sent for all eternity?”

A deathly silence filled the room following the
announcement, all eyes upon David, in disbelief. “I was just saying…” he added,
self-consciously.

*****

Several hours passed and it was late at night station time,
but Jon found sleep elusive. Speedy preparations had been put in place and all
was ready for an early departure from
Terra Nova
in a few hours.
Unsurprisingly the crew had volunteered almost unanimously to join the rescue
mission, even not knowing the full details. Jon had never been more proud of
his crew. Remembering David’s parting comment about taking the
Sunfire
into the underworld, Jon was confident that if any crew could do it, and return
safely, it would be his.

Unable to sleep, Jon stared at the stars through the small
view-port in his quarters. He had lost count of the number of hours, days,
weeks, years that he had stood in this very spot, gazing into the depths of
space. The last time he stood in this spot, he had been contemplating his own
death, secure in the knowledge he was going to die by flying his shuttle into
Harkov’s flagship, the
Imperial Star
. The fact that he now stood here,
alive, seemed a miracle. A second chance at life, a rebirth. Jon remembered, in
those final seconds before the collision, the regret he would never be able to
speak to Sofia one last time, the regret he would never have the opportunity to
say goodbye. To tell her how much he missed her and how much he loved her.