The Last Praetorian (17 page)

With a last uncomprehending look at the weapon in her hand,
Miranda delicately put it back on the table and pushed it a short distance away.
 A clear indication that she wanted nothing to do with it.  Purposefully avoiding
his gaze, she once again stared out of the window, recognising a faint object
docked to the station, remembering her earlier question she asked.  “Tell me
about your ship.”

Recognising the change in topic for what it was, Jon relaxed
slightly, leaning back in his chair he replied.  “The
Eternal Light
? 
She is my life… or probably better to say that she is all that remains of my
old life.”

“You were in the Imperial Navy?” Miranda inquired. “Paul
told me that you stole the ship, was that true?”  A part of her desperately
wanted to believe that what Paul told her was the truth, to be able to relate
to another person, to understand that somewhere else, someone who had achieved
so much more than her, had once been in the same situation, with few choices,
none good. 

“Stole the
Eternal Light
?” Jon replied with a grin. 
Miranda’s heart sank. “I would describe it more as a loan, but they sure wanted
her back, they sent seven squadrons, over eighty fighters, the full fighter complement
of an Imperial Task Force to ensure that we returned, or at the very least,
ensure that we could not escape.”

“How did you manage to escape?” Miranda asked in disbelief. 
While she had never seen an Imperial task force in actual life - such a fleet
would never be dispatched to a fringe system in the Confederation - she had
seen a holovideo of one as a child and had been in awe.

“My squadron managed to hold them off long enough for the
Eternal
Light
and me to escape into FTL,” Jon replied lost deep in the past.  “It
was a suicide mission, as they were each out gunned many times over, but they
managed to hold off the other fighters long enough for the
Eternal Light
to escape the planetary gravity well and make it into FTL,” Jon explained, pride
in his voice.  Clouded with the sadness of the loss of so many friends and
colleagues.  However, Jon knew that if the situation had been reversed, if he
had been flying as he would normally have, as leader of the squadron, he would
have done nothing different and died proud knowing that his death brought
enough time for the
Eternal Light
to have escaped.   

“I did not realise that you were a pilot in the Imperial
Navy,” Miranda replied.  Subdued at the story that Jon had recited, of so many
pilots sacrificing their lives so the man across from her could be here today.

“I resigned my commission soon after…” Jon replied, still
lost in the past.  “The Imperial Navy was disbanded soon after the announcement
of the supposed death of Emperor Aurelius and the establishment of the
Confederation.  I had few ties and little regard for the Confederation hence
decided to go into business for myself,” Jon waved at the office around them.  “This
used to be an old Imperial Navy repair & resupply station; it was
mothballed by the Confederation and was transferred to me upon my request, as
thanks for service rendered.”

Miranda almost choked at that, what could this man possibly
have done to be given an entire space station as thanks for ‘service
rendered’?  Miranda could not even contemplate the worth of such a facility,
easily running into the hundreds of millions of credits.  Suddenly something
Jon said leapt out at her.  “What do you mean the announcement of the supposed
death of the Emperor?”  Jon considered the young woman in front of him
thoughtfully for a few minutes; he had never given voice to these thoughts
before, not even to Paul who he considered almost family.

“Emperor Aurelius, Marcus...” it had been many years since
he had referred to him by his first name and it felt foreign to his tongue. 
“He knew that something was coming, he confided in me only a short while before
the announcement of his death and the start of the Separatist Civil War.  I
cannot believe that he did not have some plan or strategy already in place.  He
had secrets that even I was not privy to.  There was never any body produced. I
cannot believe he is dead until I see his body with my own eyes.”

Miranda meanwhile was spellbound, feeling like the character
from her favourite children’s book ‘Alice in Wonderland’, she was beginning to
understand how Alice must have felt after falling down the rabbit hole.  She
had managed to read some books and a few holovideos that had described the
Imperium before the death of the Emperor along with his beautiful daughter. 
Miranda had thought the whole thing like some beautiful fairy-tale and as a
young girl had run around the stations pretending that she was an Imperial Princess. 
Here was a man, however, sitting across the table from her, who was
there!
 
Describing events, which he had been part of.

“You knew the Emperor?” Miranda asked breathlessly.

Jon could only nod his head in confirmation, while Miranda
was just rendered speechless.  Wrenching his thoughts back to the present and
trying to get the conversation back on track Jon stated, “Anyway, as I do not
think you pose a threat to any of my crew or this station,” Jon motioned
towards the gun that was still resting on his desk, “the problem still stands, what
to do with you.  As I do not have the resources to guard you in the brig or
confine you to your quarters, I have decided to put you to work.” 

Miranda tensed upon hearing this, with visions of hard
labour or cleaning washrooms leaping to mind.

Jon, however, put her mind at rest as he explained, “As you
seem to have some proficiency with ships I will assign you to our flight deck. 
Report to Reynolds tomorrow at 0900 ship-time sharp, where you will follow all
tasks assigned to him, do you understand?” 

Slightly taken back by the change of tone as Miranda felt
that, only moments before, she was starting to finally understand the
Commander, she nodded in agreement. 

Jon failed to add that Reynolds had been a Gunnery Sergeant
in the Marine Corps during his time in the Imperial Navy and ran the flight
deck in a similar fashion. Jon had complete confidence that he could manage
their newest recruit.

“Please see Paul in C&C and he will assign you some
quarters,” Jon added in a clear dismissal. Again with a nod of her head she
quickly departed his office.  Staring out, once again, at the stars clearly
shining though the space in the wall of the office, Jon did not fail to notice
the pistol that was now missing from his desk.

Smart girl,
Jon thought with a smile, once again
turning back to the stars and memories of his past.

Present Day

Terra Nova, Zeta Aquilae System

The alert arrived at C&C while Jon was reviewing the
latest crew rotation with Paul.  It was common for Paul and Jon to frequently
rotate the crew roster so as to avoid some crew always being stuck on the unsociable
shifts and hence not having the opportunity to spend time with their families. 
It was also an opportunity to give some of the new shift leaders command
experience, always valuable in Jon’s opinion.

The duty officer caught the attention of Jon, explaining,
“It seems that there is some sort of disturbance on the flight deck,” he
reported.

“Disturbance?”  Jon inquired surprised, before exchanging
glances with Paul.  Jon could not remember the last time there had been a
‘disturbance’ on the station.  Possibly a few years back when the annual
station party got a little out of hand.

“You don’t think it has anything to do with Miranda?” Paul
proposed.  “She has only been assigned to Gunny for a couple of days, how much
trouble could she get into in that short amount of time?”  Master Sergeant
Patrick “Gunny” Reynolds was arguably one of the most capable crew chiefs on
Terra
Nova
.  At over six feet in height and weighing almost 200 pounds rumour had
it that Gunny had once single-handedly led a marine boarding action against a
pirate cutter, to have the pirates immediately abandon ship when faced by him.

Once again exchanging concerned glances with Paul, Jon
stated.  “Paul, you have the C&C. I’ll be down on the flight deck
investigating the… disturbance.” 

Paul nodded in agreement and added, “Let me know if you need
a security detail down there?”  Jon nodded his head in agreement before heading
for the lift to take him to the flight deck.

*****

Arriving at the flight deck several minutes later Jon was
surprised to find the deck deserted and instead followed the sound of the
shouting and jeering to one end of the deck where he found a large crowd
gathered.  With some difficulty and a lot of pointed shoving and angry gazes Jon
managed to push somewhat to the front and was disheartened, but not really surprised
by the scene facing him.

Surrounded by a large crowd of flight crew and deck hands,
Reynolds was facing off against Miranda.  It was obvious that this argument had
been going on for sometime, as Gunny was already red faced.  Almost miniscule
compared to the bulk of the Marine, Jon was surprised to see Miranda standing
her ground and even repeatedly jabbing her finger into the chest of the Marine
sergeant!

The crowd quickly quietened down upon catching sight of the
Commander, with what could only be described as a thundercloud hanging over
him.  Meanwhile the antagonists had not seemed to notice the arrival of their
Commander.  With Miranda continuing to jab her fingers into Gunny’s chest,
which was having much the same impact as trying to jab a pencil through a sheet
of steel; however she continued determinedly.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you used to do in the
Imperial Navy, no wonder the entire thing was disbanded…” upon which Jon
observed Gunny go an interesting shade of purple. “I keep telling you; by
running the loading process in parallel you will be able to increase
productivity by at least 20%.  Whoever heard of the absurd idea of loading
ships one after the other?”

Jon had known Gunny for over fifteen years and knew him to
be honourable, if not more than a little blunt spoken; however Jon could see
for the first time Gunny contemplating murder, and decided that he had better
intervene before events got out of control.

“Attention on deck!” snapped Jon.  While none of the crew actually
saluted he did observe a general stiffing in posture, more importantly he
noticed that Reynolds and Miranda had backed off somewhat.

Guess it’s true that you cannot fully take the Navy out
of the person...
Jon mused to himself.  Deciding to quickly get to the
bottom of the situation, Jon rounded on his deck Chief and demanded.  “Gunny! 
What the hell is going on here?” 

Still red faced and obviously trying to control his temper
he replied. “She!” Jabbing his finger in Miranda’s direction, obviously not
even prepared to refer to her by name, “accused me of running an out-dated,
inept, incompetent and poorly organised loading operation.”  Jon winced
internally, glad that he had arrived before things had gotten further
out-of-hand. 

Rounding on Miranda he glared at her and stated. “I assigned
you here under the direct supervision of Gunny with explicit orders to follow
his every instruction, not for you to insult him!” Jon snapped angrily.

“I don’t care what you think either!”  Miranda snapped
back.  “I refuse to be a part of an operation that is so inefficiently run. 
Where I come from we haven’t loaded ships sequentially in years!  You could
increase productivity by at least 20% by implementing my recommendations!” 

By this point even Jon felt his ire increasing and was just
about to let rip when Miranda turned her back on him and stalked towards Gunny
jabbing him in the chest once again and insisting.

“I’ll arm wrestle you over it!  You win, I never set foot on
this flight deck again.  I win, you will at least try my recommendations!” 

The flight deck suddenly went very still and every eyeball
in the room swivelled towards Gunny to see how he would respond to such an
absurd proposition. He towered over the much smaller woman, weighing at least
75 pounds more than her.  Meanwhile the Chief’s jaw had dropped open in
disbelief.  He was obviously about to dismiss the challenge when he realised
that every eye was upon him.  He turned to face Jon with an inquisitive gaze.

“Don’t look at me chief,” Jon raised his hands in a
defensive gesture.  “This is your flight deck, it’s your call.” 

Thinking for a few short moments the Chief hollered, “Clear
a space! Clear a space!” motioning to one of the heavy workbenches not far from
them.  With a loud whoop and cheer the crowd made a space around the large
workbench and the two antagonists moved to either side, facing off warily. 

Slamming his powerful elbow onto the surface the chief
offered with a leer.  “You want to make it the best of three sweetheart?” 

Meanwhile, Miranda delicately glided around to the other
side of the table, completely serene as if she was taking a walk in the park
before laying her arm down, offering her hand to the huge Chief.  “No, just
once is perfectly fine with me,” she replied delicately with a sweet smile
directed towards Reynolds. 

Her sudden shift in mood obviously threw the Chief off
balance as he licked his lips glancing around at all of the intent observers, suddenly
realising that emphatically beating a woman, who was barely half his weight,
was not going to be a resounding victory that was going to echo down the ages.
He relaxed his posture slightly and took her offered hand in his. 

Again, offering the Chief a delicate smile she asked.  “On
three?”  The Chief nodded his agreement and started the count.

“One” he began.

“Two…”

“Three!” he shouted. 

His hand did not move so much as an inch.  Although he could
feel her increased pressure.  Glancing up into her face he was distracted for
an instant when instead of the look of strain he had been expecting she was
still looking into his eyes serenely and wearing a slight smile.  The Chief had
a sudden premonition that this was going to be bad…really bad…when Miranda
suddenly made her move…