by Mike Smith
Miranda released the breath she had been unconsciously holding, finally breathing easily once again. She felt the tendril of doubt, which had been residing in her stomach all morning, finally unfurl and disappear altogether. The entire room seemed to fade away, only leaving her and Jon, with his reassuring presence. She suddenly felt safe and secure. It didn’t matter anymore that she had some madman restraining her, with an incredibly sharp blade dug into her back. Miranda knew she was safe, as Jon was there with her and he would never allow any harm to befall her.
With sudden realisation, Miranda finally understood what it must have been like for Sofia to have this man constantly at her side, keeping her safe and secure. Firm in the knowledge nothing in the world could possibly harm her, because it was first going to have to get past him, and never in a million years was he going to allow that to happen.
Suddenly time seemed to speed up again and the room came back into focus. Miranda could still feel Sejanus’ harsh breathing against the nape of her neck, yet for some reason he seemed to be hesitant and unsure, as if he was waiting for something he wasn’t sure would happen.
Jon viewed the scene in front of him calmly and made no move to intervene, as he had looked into Sejanus’ soul, that vile cesspit, and finally understood him. For he realised Sejanus took pleasure in people’s pain but, more than that, he fed off their emotions, their fear, horror or hate. But Miranda was not projecting any of these as she stood as still as a statue, patient, almost seemingly indifferent.
Sejanus had no idea what to do, as none of his previous victim’s had ever acted in such a manner. Glancing at the Commander, who was still standing there unmoved, as if he were indifferent to the events taking place in front of him, he licked his lips and his gaze fell down to the luscious neck on display in front of him. He grew hard and his breathing became ragged, as he remembered how she had felt when he ran his finger over her body earlier. Finally, returning his sword to its sheath, he leaned forward and, with his eyes locked on Radec, he licked along the length of her neck. He enjoyed the shudder he felt run through her body and the sweet tangy taste of her skin.
“Take her to my personal chambers,” Sejanus ordered the nearest guard, pushing her towards him. “I will be there shortly.” The guard caught Miranda by the arm as she stumbled in his direction. Once again she shot a short, concerned glance at Jon, who once again nodded slowly. Manhandling her, the guard pushed her out of the room, leaving only Sejanus, Jon and the few remaining guards.
Approaching Jon, who was still rooted to the middle of the room, with several pistols pointing unwaveringly at him, Sejanus sneered at him. “You should not be the only one who gets to decide who the better fuck is.” At the stunned expression on Jon’s face, Sejanus carried on, delightedly. “So you didn’t know Marcus offered the Princess to me first? Well I hate to break the news to you, Commander, but you were hardly the first in line. Similarly with the beautiful Captain, I always insist on sampling any rewards beforehand to confirm their worth.”
Meanwhile Jon had gone a deep purple, the blood rushing to his face, when at last he realised his deepest, darkest fears had come to fruition. Fisting his hand in the pocket of his uniform, Jon finally lost control. He could see nothing else but the man he was going to kill in front of him and nothing else mattered. Not Miranda, not Marcus, not the dozens of pistols pointing in his direction.
With a wordless cry, in the blink of an eye, he was within arm’s reach of Sejanus. His right arm shot out, hand fastening firmly around his throat, like a clamp and slowly, but surely, he tightened his vice-like grip.
Sejanus was stunned, as he had never seen a man move so fast. One minute Radec was standing in front of him and the next he had his hand around his throat. Desperately Sejanus reached up, trying to prise the hand away from him, but this was impossible, as Radec’s grip was like steel, the hand an ever-tightening vice. Unable to draw breath, Sejanus slumped to his knees, Jon doing likewise to continue to hold on to him. Both on their knees, faces only centimetres apart, Sejanus started to see stars, his vision slowly fading as he failed to draw oxygen into his lungs, his body starting to shut down.
The guards who had been stationed around the room, stunned by the suddenness and intensity of the attack, finally leapt forward to protect their master. Two tried to prise the Commander’s hand away from Sejanus’ throat, but even their combined strength could not break his grip. Finally, in desperation, one of the guards reversed his pistol and hit Jon around the side of the head with the butt of the weapon.
Jon was stunned by the vicious blow, his grip weakened ever so slightly. The second blow left him reeling, only able to see stars as he fell to the floor.
His hand let go of Sejanus’ throat.
“That was a stupid thing to do Commander,” Sejanus rasped, his throat still sore from the sudden attack. “Like everything else about this foolish crusade of yours, it was doomed to fail.”
Meanwhile Jon could only spit onto the bright red carpet, his mouth full of blood where he had bitten his lip. Lying on the floor, Jon opened the fist that moments before had been resting in his pocket. He observed the empty palm of his hand where shortly before he had held the small tracking device from Jason and smiled to himself.
Praetorians, so predictable. So quick to assume that they had already won, just because they always had done so in the past.
“Take him away and kill him!” Sejanus ordered. “I have more pleasurable things to be doing with my time.” Lifting Jon’s head by his hair, Sejanus looked down at him angrily. “In the last few minutes of your life, you might want to think about all the perverse things I will be doing to your beautiful Captain. Exactly the same as I enjoyed inflicting on the Princess, who you seem to care about so much. Unfortunately you won’t live long enough for me to tell you who I enjoyed taking the most. Goodbye Commander.” With that he released Jon’s head, letting it once again fall to the floor. “Take his sword. I told Harkov I wanted his head on a platter, but it looks like you will get to deliver it today,” Sejanus instructed one of the guards.
Good. I’ll want that back very soon, Jon thought to himself, as he found himself being grabbed by both arms and hauled to his feet. “Sejanus,” Jon called after the retreating figure, before he could step through the door. Sejanus turned to stare at him with narrow eyes. “Don’t go too far, I’ll be coming for you shortly.”
Sejanus just gave him a mocking salute, before once again turning his back and disappearing through the door. The guards dragged Jon after him, Sejanus turning right, the guards dragging him left.
Chapter Thirteen
Planet Tartarus, Sigma Draconis System
“It’s almost time Sarge,” Jonas whispered quietly, for all intents and purposes still focussing firmly on the cards laid out in front of him.
“Take it easy son,” Gunny replied in an equally quiet voice. “There is still time. The Sunfire will not arrive in the system for another thirty minutes yet. Is it still just the one guard?”
Jonas’ eyes flicked up from the cards momentarily, glancing over Gunny’s shoulder at the solitary guard standing with his back to the wall facing the room. “Still only one Sarge, but the last time they rotated I counted two more on the other side of the door.”
“Every half hour right?”
“Has been for the past few guard rotations, so we have another twenty minute window before the next rotation.”
“Then I guess that now is as good a time as any,” Gunny replied, observing the other marines in the room. To any casual observer it would seem the marines were taking a relaxing break. A number of them, Gunny included, had broken open a pack of cards; others were lounging around the room, some reading, a few listening to music. Only Jason, in the corner tapping away intently at his datapad, seemed the slightest bit motivated. However, if an observer looked a little more closely he might have noticed the marine reading had not turned a page in over half an hour and nobody had won at the game of cards in a similar period
of time. Everybody in the room knew the time for action was fast approaching and were preparing themselves accordingly.
“You want me to take care of him Sarge?” Jonas inquired disinterestedly.
“I’ll take care of it. You and Jackson get ready to intercept the other two, okay?”
“Sure Sarge.”
“Ready Gunny,” came the reply from the other two marines seated at the table.
“I fold,” Gunny declared in a loud voice that could be heard all over the room, as he reached back and stretched his tired muscles. He had been seated at the table, playing cards, for a few hours now and wanted to fully restore his circulation before making his next move.
“I’m hungry. How about some chow boys?” There were some general affirmative grunts from around the room. Standing up and working out the kinks in his legs, Gunny approached the solitary guard in the room. As soon as Gunny approached the guard, the man tensed and reached for the pistol at his waist.
“What do you want?” The guard asked suspiciously, his hand hovering just over the pistol at his side.
“Easy friend,” Gunny smiled disarmingly. “Me and the boys here were just wondering when it was chow time? Many of us have not eaten since last night.” Gunny waved his arm out wide to encompass the team, who had all turned, eagerly waiting for the answer.
The guard made the mistake of taking his eyes off Gunny, just for a fraction of a second, as they darted around the room to observe the other occupants.
It was all the time needed.
With a sudden burst of speed, which seemed unlikely for a man of his bulk, Gunny had one arm around the guard’s throat before he could utter a single word. At the same time he grabbed the guard’s pistol hand, wrapped it behind the man’s back and jerked it upwards until he could hear a squeak of pain seep past the blockage around the guard’s throat.
Jonas moved quickly to remove the pistol from the guard and dashed over to the other side of the door, on the off chance somebody took that inopportune moment to enter. However, after a minute of no activity, Jackson stood up from the card table and moved to the other side of the door.
At a nod from Gunny the rest of the Marines went back to reading their books or listening to music. “I am going to release my arm from around your throat now,” Gunny explained to the guard in a quiet voice. “When I do, you are going to call your colleagues from outside and tell them to come in here. You are only going to say the following words. ‘Hey guys, I need a toilet break, watch these men for a minute, will you?’ If you say one word different or one word extra, I will kill you. Do you understand?”
The guard only bobbed his head in agreement, as he was not able to draw enough air into his lungs to verbally reply. Slowly releasing the arm from around the guard’s neck, he nodded at him.
“Hey guys, I need a toilet break, watch these men for a minute, will you?” he grated out, loudly. Obviously his throat was still sore. The door slid open a moment later and seeing the usual round of inactivity from the occupants, the two guards stepped into the room. Immediately Jonas and Jackson pounced and quickly overpowered them, distributing the weapons to their colleagues.
“OK listen up people,” Gunny called to the now ready and alert marines. “We have the Sunfire arriving in-system within twenty minutes, so we need to move quickly. Here are the objectives. Firstly, Jason has identified that the nearest armoury is only a little more than three hundred meters from here. Our next objective will be neutralising their main security centre. Finally, we are to secure and hold the hangar bay until the Commander locates and secures the boss. Any questions?” There were none. “Right let’s move out people,” he shouted, motioning for Jonas and Jackson to go ahead as both of them were the most heavily armed, having snatched pulse rifles from the fallen guards. The rest of the group had distributed the three remaining pistols amongst themselves.
Glancing out the doors to make sure the corridor was clear, the two marines slipped out, with the others following closely behind. They followed directions from Jason, who had worked through the night to hack into the facilities’ secured network and download the schematics for the entire complex.
*****
Miranda was roughly pushed through the door and sent sprawling onto the carpet. Fortunately, like Sejanus’s office, this one was also thick and therefore mostly absorbed the impact.
“Well at least this one is not red,” Miranda observed out loud, looking around. The room was decorated in a modern style, with a black carpet, large, white king sized bed, which Miranda instantly looked away from, through to the black leather reclining sofa, coffee table and large audio-visual entertainment system.
“Very chic, but not really my style,” Miranda commented. Moving quickly through the room, she looked for anything she could use as a weapon. Unfortunately the room was sparsely furnished and, after a few minutes of fruitless searching, when the most lethal weapon she managed to find was a desk lamp, she heard the door slide open behind her.
Taking a deep breath, she turned with a resigned expression to face Sejanus. Once again she had to resist shuddering as he looked her over with a heated expression, his dark eyes clouded with lust. “I don’t suppose I could suggest dinner, a couple of glasses of wine and maybe a little dancing first?” Miranda asked hopefully. Trying to use humour to cover the flutters of fear once again starting to take a firm hold in the pit of her stomach.
Sejanus quickly covered the distance between them, catching her wrist in a painfully tight grasp, pulling her towards him. Once he was close enough, his tongue once again caressed the side of her cheek, but this time she could not hide the wave of revulsion that swept through her body.
“No, I didn’t think so,” Miranda replied forcefully to her own question, as her free hand lashed out, clawing at his eyes.
While Miranda wasn’t a skilled fighter like Jon or Gunny, like many of the other crew on Terra Nova she had been through the self-defence classes run by David. These were completely voluntary and offered to all the crew, both ex-navy and civilian on the station. They were also many, many times over-subscribed. Paul and Jon had made it clear to the military men on the station they expected them to participate in the classes and help train the civilians. The military tended to attract a certain type of man; tall, rugged and broad shouldered. Combine that with many years of hard physical labour and you could almost always guarantee a great chest, fantastic abs and strong deltoids. With several of these fine physical specimens of manhood present at each session, mostly dressed in light workout clothes, with close physical contact practically a certainty, it was the closest thing to a dream come true for many of the young, unattached women. It had become a tradition after the session had ended for many of the women to congregate in one of their quarters (Miranda had hosted several of these sessions) where wine was poured freely, shattered nerves calmed and gossip exchanged.
Unfortunately these skills did not stretch as far as to take on a fully trained Praetorian Guard and with a laugh Sejanus snatched her hand out of the air, pulling it away from his face. With both arms now tightly constrained, Miranda was running out of options and desperately tried to knee him in the groin. Unfortunately he was expecting this obvious ploy and easily blocked it with his knee. Pushing her sharply against the wall, Sejanus covered her lips with his own, desperately seeking entrance to her mouth.
Not going to happen! Miranda thought to herself, as she could feel the panic starting to bubble up from her chest and fought to remain in control. For she knew if she gave in to the panic then she would be lost. However, Sejanus abruptly biting her lip distracted her and, without thinking, she opened her mouth to shout in pain, allowing Sejanus to stick his tongue into her mouth. Almost blind with panic Miranda did the first thing that she could think of, she bit down on it.
Hard.
With the taste of coppery blood in her mouth, she heard a cry of pain from Sejanus. He pushed her away and touched his tongue delicately. Miranda only had a moment of self-congrat
ulation before out of nowhere came the back of his hand. The force of the impact snapped her head back, knocking her to the ground. All Miranda could see were stars and she desperately shook her head to restore her vision. However, by then, it was too late, as Sejanus was already on top of her, tearing at her clothes and trying to rip the flight suit off her body.
Miranda screamed.
*****
As he was frogmarched down the corridor, it was obvious Sejanus had given the guards suitable warning about his unarmed combat skills, because while two of the guards manhandled him down the corridor, the remaining guards walked several feet behind, their hands constantly on their pistols waiting for him to make the slightest move.
Finally they arrived at their destination. With a shout of “Lights,” from one of the guards, they painfully dragged him into the middle of the now illuminated room. Jon could only assume it was some sort of unused cargo hold or store room, as the room was fairly large, at least twenty or thirty meters square. Also it looked as if it hadn’t been used for some while, as it was mostly empty. The floor was covered in the yellow dust that seemed to be present almost everywhere else throughout the complex. Jon quickly cast his eye around the room, but could not see anything within reach he could use for a weapon.
Once Jon was in the middle of the room the guards unceremoniously dumped him on the floor, before hurriedly taking several steps back. The four guards now formed a smaller box within the room, with Jon in the centre. They stood a couple of meters away, too far for him to reach them with his hands or feet, but close enough the pistol each guard held in his hand, pointed at Jon, couldn’t miss.
Looking up from the floor, Jon noticed a pair of black boots come to an abrupt halt only a few feet in front of him. Craning his head back, Jon was just able to make out the face of the largest guard, his sword in hand, sneering down at him.
