The Last Praetorian (50 page)

As she turned away from the door, to approach the powerful
warship that was waiting patiently for her, she wondered if she would ever see
Jon again.  His parting words sounded far too much like a final goodbye.  She
wondered if it were she, Jon, or both of them that Jon thought would not live
through the next few hours.  That depressing thought stayed with her for a very
long time.

*****

Meanwhile the battle, swirling outside the station, had
started to turn against the combined Vanguard and Confederation forces.  With
the superior number of ships on their side and the Confederation forces ordered
not to engage the Imperial Fleet directly, the three Vanguard freighters were
taking a heavy pounding.

Under orders from Harkov, the dozen Imperial frigates, which
composed the outer ring of defences for the Imperial fleet opened fire at
maximum range.  Caught by surprise, the heavily reinforced freighters started
to buckle under the concentrated fire of missiles, particle beams and pulse
fire.  By the time that the freighters came within range of their own hidden
weapons, one freighter was already badly listing to one side, with major damage
to its engines, the other two fared little better, having taken major external
hull damage.

Even with the warning from Harkov, the Imperial frigates
were taken by some surprise, when the three freighters finally got within range
to reveal their hidden batteries of rail-guns and missiles.  With concerted
fire, the three freighters managed to disable two Imperial frigates and destroy
a third before the Imperial frigates, recognising the heavy armour on the
ships, shifted their aim towards the now exposed freighters’ gun and missile
batteries.  With the combined fire from the remaining nine frigates, explosions
peppered the hulls of the freighters as one by one the gun batteries were hit
and went dark.

With atmosphere venting from multiple hull breaches in the
freighters and their weapons all but disabled the remaining Imperial frigates
moved in for the kill.

*****

With all the systems on the
Eternal Light
in stand-by
mode, it only took moments for the ship to completely power-up when Jon hurried
into the cockpit.  As he was waiting for final checks to finish, Jon keyed open
a communications channel to
Terra Nova
.

“How are things going?”  Jon asked.

“Not good,” Paul replied, Jon could hear the strain in his
voice.  “While we have the threat from the fighters pretty much contained, our
armed freighters are taking a pounding.  Looks like Harkov did not fall for the
same ruse twice.”

Knowing that Paul could not see him, but shrugging anyway,
Jon replied.  “Well it was a long shot anyway to hope that Harkov would not
know about the armed freighters.  You can only pull the same trick so many
times before it becomes old.  How far away is the Imperial Fleet from the
freighters?”

“Three kilometres and closing, but Jon…”

“Yes?”

“We only drew out the frigates, the rest of the fleet has
not engaged our forces.”

Jon cursed silently, careful to ensure that it was not
broadcast over the communications channel.  Jon knew the importance of keeping
morale up among the crew.   The plan had called for the majority of the
Imperial forces to be drawn out by the freighters, yet another inviting target
for Harkov.  But it did not look like he had taken the bait twice.

Unfortunately it was absolutely essential to the plan, that
all the Imperial forces engaged those ships.  As usual, the battle had barely
started and the plan was
already screwed
.  Well there was nothing else
for it, as there was no other plan.

“Understood,” Jon replied with a confidence that he no
longer felt.  “Launching now.”  With one final check to ensure that the docking
stations clamps were retracted Jon threw full power to the engines, quickly
accelerating away from the station.  “Miranda, where are you?”  Jon inquired
over their tactical communications channel. 

Suddenly the large fighter, almost as large as the shuttle
itself, swooped down and formed up in formation, wingtip-to-wingtip.

“Here,” Miranda replied.

“How are you doing?”

“Good, this baby is not as manoeuvrable as my old
Hawk
fighter, but boy does it make up for it in the
offensive
department!”

Smiling, Jon thought that Miranda sounded like a young girl
that had just been given the keys to the candy shop.  “Understood, now remember
the plan.  Whatever happens you must stay exactly on my tail, and stay close!”
Jon did not need a view-screen to picture the younger woman rolling her eyes.

“Yes boss.”

“So why are you still on my wing tip?” he demanded.

“I’m not,” Miranda replied, laughing.

Jon cast a quick glance out of his cockpit windows and could
no longer see the large fighter.  Shaking his head in disbelief at her
excellent piloting skills, Jon thought that in another life Miranda would have
made an excellent Praetorian.

“Paul, where are the Frigates now?”

“Now holding at two kilometres… Jon I don’t think the
freighters are going to hold up much longer, they are taking a real beating,
even with all that extra armour that we installed.”

“Very well, I guess the frigates are already as close-in as
they are going to get.  Let’s move to the next stage of the plan.”  With that
Jon adjusted the course of the shuttle to put it on a direct intercept course
with the Imperial Fleet, still many tens of kilometres away.  The warring
frigates and freighters were lying directly ahead, almost a dozen kilometres
away.  At this distance, in the darkness of space Jon could not make out the
ships except for the odd spark of pulse cannon fire.  The ships tactical
sensors however could clearly ‘see’ the melee-taking place ahead of the
shuttle, with the frigates and freighters locked in an intimate life or death
struggle.

“Ok, on my mark then,” Paul replied, rising from his command
seat in the C&C on the station to approach one of the command consoles ringing
the room.

“Three,” Paul stated, flicking open a cover on one of the
consoles.

“Two.” Paul entered a short code into the adjoining command
console.

“One.” The button hidden under the cover started to flash an
urgent red warning.

Act Two
, Paul thought to himself.  “Mark,” Paul
stated, depressing the button.

*****

For an instant, nothing seemed to happen, as if something
had gone wrong, the command failed.  Then a bright spark of light lit-up the
space in front of Jon’s shuttle, rapidly joined by another, then another.  The
three pinpricks of light rapidly grew in size, and intensity until the light
coming from ahead of the shuttle dwarfed even the light from the surrounding
stars.

The high explosive charges that had been installed
throughout the three freighters days earlier had detonated exactly according to
plan, causing the three freighters to disintegrate into balls of rapidly
expanding debris.  The well placed charges, caused the debris from the ships to
expand outward in the direction of the encircled Imperial Frigates.  Being
warships, the frigates were heavily armoured and therefore the debris posed
little threat to these ships.  While the debris posed little threat to the
warships, the 3000 odd magnetic anti-ship mines, secreted deep within the
freighters’ holds was an entirely different matter. 

The mines, which had been obtained by Jon and Miranda
several days earlier from the
Erebus
weapons dump, had been tightly
packed into the hold of the three freighters.  Meanwhile flight controls on the
freighters had been adjusted to allow for the remote piloting of the ships. 
Pilotless drones, the ships had become nothing more than flying bombs, awaiting
the arrival of the Imperial forces…

As the expanding debris cloud enfolded the nearest frigate,
a dozen of these mines impacted the ship.  A blossom of explosions ripped along
the length of the hull of the frigate, decimating armour, hull, weapons,
engines… everything.  Within seconds the ship was a drifting lifeless, derelict,
split into dozens of pieces.  As the debris cloud continued to expand, to
encompass the remaining frigates, the same scene was repeated time and time
again.  The massive ships attracted the mines like mosquitoes to blood, and over
and over again the resultant outcome was devastating.  Within the space of a
few minutes of the nine frigates remaining, six were completely destroyed; the
remaining three had all suffered catastrophic damage and were adrift,
powerless…

Checking the ship’s sensors, Jon observed the destruction
ahead.  Where previously the sensors were reporting the three freighters and
almost a dozen frigates, now all the ship could identify was three remaining
frigates.  All three were emitting low power signatures, adrift; obviously
their engines and power plants had taken heavy damage.  Suddenly what had
initially appeared as a strong Imperial task force blocking the shuttle from
the remaining Imperial fleet had vanished, like rain clouds following a storm. 
The ship’s sensors now reported a clear path for the shuttle to the remaining
Imperial fleet…and the
Imperial Star.

“The enemy’s gate is down,” Jon breathed.

*****

“The gate is down,” Paul uttered.  He had followed the
outcome of the mined freighters just as closely as Jon with the station’s
sensors.

“I’m sorry sir?”  Lieutenant Patterson inquired, not
catching what Paul had just quietly uttered.

“Sorry Chris, I didn’t mean to speak aloud,” Paul
apologised.  “It was something that Jon stated when he originally presented the
plan.  “How do you go about slaying the devil when he is surrounded on all
sides by the walls of hell?”

At the confused look from the Lieutenant, Paul answered the
question for him.  “You fight your way into the depths of hell and when you
finally reach the gate, well, you kick it down. That’s what we have done,” Paul
motioned towards the tactical display.  “We have eliminated the Imperial fleet’s
fighter cover, now we have just taken down their outer defensive ring, Jon now
has a clear run to the
Imperial Star.” 
Paul drew a line with his finger
on the tactical display from the
Eternal Light
to the
Imperial Star
.

“I don’t understand sir, I thought the plan was to destroy
the Imperial Fleet?”

“Destroy the fleet?”  Paul looked surprised, as if he had
never considered the thought.  “Of course not, we cannot destroy it, they have
far too many ships, too much firepower, and we would never even get close to
them.  No the plan was always to give Jon one shot, one Hail Mary pass at the
Imperial
Star.
”

“And what is the Commander going to do now he has the
chance?”  Patterson asked curiously.

“I have absolutely no idea, he would not tell me,” Paul
replied in a worried voice, as the tactical display showed the
Eternal Light
passing through the gap recently made in the Imperial fleet defences,
accelerating through the gates of Hell…      

******

“What the
hell
was that?” Harkov yelled, as the
distant horizon lit-up with three bright stars, before they rapidly started to
die away.

“Sir, we have lost communication with the frigate squadron!”
the communications officer called out.

“What the
hell
is going on?” Harkov shouted, red
faced at his deck officers.

“Ships sensors reported that the three Vanguard ships
exploded,” the Captain reported checking the ship’s sensor history with a
frown.

“We destroyed them?”

“It seems unlikely,” the Captain replied frowning deeply in
thought.  “According to the sensors the ships exploded within the space of a
few seconds of each other.  It would seem far more likely that they
self-destructed.”

“Radec destroyed his own ships, killing his own crew?” 
Harkov stated, impressed.  Frankly he did not think that Radec had it in him to
order the deaths of his own people.  Obviously he had underestimated the man. 
“But what about our own ships?  They were destroyed when the Vanguard ships
exploded?”

“Unlikely,” the Captain replied. “They were too far away…”

“I don’t want to know what is
unlikely
!”  Harkov
turned around, yelling at the Captain.  “I want to know how Radec destroyed
those frigates!”

“This is the last sensor reading that we received from the
squadron,” the Captain stated, passing a data-pad to the Admiral.  “Look at the
image of the
Harbinger
,” he explained, pointing towards the numerous
detonations running the length of the hull of the frigate.

“What are these?”  Harkov breathed.  “Some new weapon that
Radec has deployed?”

“Unlike…” this time the Captain stopped mid-word at the
furious look from the Admiral.  “They look like mine impacts to me.”

“Radec has mined the system?” he asked, aghast.

“No, we did a full scan of the surrounding space when we
first exited FTL.  Sensors did not detect any mines.  I think those freighters
were seeding the mines, they either detonated prematurely or one of our
frigates hit one and set-off a chain reaction.”

Falling back into his seat, ashen faced at the thought that
it was only last minute caution that stopped him sending the whole fleet.  If
the
Imperial Star
had been close to those minelayers when they
detonated…

“Incoming ship!” the tactical officer called out,
interrupting Harkov’s thoughts.

“One of ours?”

“Negative sir, it’s not broadcasting any recognition
signals, either Imperial or Confederation.  It looks to be a Vanguard ship. 
Strange… the computer has this ship on file.  It’s registering as the
Eternal
Light
, ship registry has the owner as…Marcus Aurelius,” the bridge went
deathly still at the announcement.