The Sunfire (12 page)

Moving swiftly, before he changed his mind, he slid into his
seat at the communication console, rapidly inputting Sofia’s personal code,
which he knew by heart. Jon felt this mission was doomed to failure anyway, but
he had no choice but to try. He owed it to Marcus and Sofia, for his own
personal failures in the past. If he died trying, well it was for a worthy
cause, but this time it would be different. He would face this having no
regrets and he would let Sofia know of his true feelings for her first.

The communication console chimed to acknowledge the call had
been accepted and the view-screen came to life.

Planet Eden Prime, Eden System

Sofia Aurelius, third President of the Confederation, rubbed
her eyes wearily. It was still early evening on Eden Prime and the last of the
sun’s rays were falling on the Senate. However, she had been awake long before
dawn; attending one meeting after another with regards to the present crisis,
and a crisis it was, even if the average citizen was not aware of the fact.

For what the average citizen did not know was how perilously
close the Confederation had teetered on the brink of an all-out civil war. It
was only by sheer luck one of the navy’s deep cover agents had stumbled across
the conspiracy, managing to pass on the information before his untimely death.
It was even more of a miracle, since the information had been passed to
Commander Jonathan Radec, who had kept it secret, under the misguided belief
that by doing so he would personally protect her. Events had come to a head
anyway when the key conspirators had moved against the Commander and his
station, in the process fatally underestimating the man. The net result had
been their complete and utter destruction. Firstly the shadowy Syndicate organisation
was brought down by public opinion, and then the rogue Imperial Admiral,
Harkov, had been vaporised by a nuclear warhead when Jon, on a suicide mission,
had flown his shuttle into Harkov’s flagship.

Sofia had spent the longest, loneliest week of her life,
honestly believing the Commander, one time Praetorian Commander and her former
lover, was dead. She had only recently been informed he had been found alive.
Her emotions were now a total mess, part despair at the news of his death, part
elation now she knew he still lived, but still with the continual cloud of
uncertainty hanging over them. She could not forget that many years earlier he
had betrayed her for another woman and to this day Sofia did not know the
reason why.

“Madam President, you are running late for the senate
sub-committee meeting on the Zeta-Aquilae crisis,” her aide reminded her. The
name the Senate had given to this latest crisis to rock the Confederation.

“I’m coming,” Sofia replied resignedly, putting the picture
of Jon and her back on the desk, her feelings still in complete disarray. Sofia
had hoped Jon would call soon after he regained consciousness, but he had not.

As she had almost reached the door of her spacious
apartments, the workstation on her desk started to chime, reporting another
incoming call. Sofia wavered, as she had already fended off a dozen such calls
from suspicious senators demanding to know the reason for the recent cover-up.

“Madam President,
we must go now
,” her aide insisted
firmly. Deciding that she could reply to the message later, Sofia Aurelius, the
last Imperial Princess turned her back on the workstation and walked out of the
apartment, ignoring a call she had been waiting at least five years for. After
some time the workstation once again went dark, a blinking light the only
indication of the stored message.

*****

It was later, much later, when Sofia finally returned to her
apartment. Feet dragging she looked the complete epitome of exhaustion. Not
unexpectedly the meeting had overrun, continuing late into the night. It seemed
every member of the committee wanted to use his or her full allotment of time
to make the point, repeatedly, that steps were necessary to ensure a repeat of
Zeta-Aquilae could never happen again. Of course the Senators were a little
vague on how they might be able to accomplish this. The general consensus
seemed to be that further cuts to the Confederation Navy were necessary to
ensure its loyalty to the Senate. This made no sense to Sofia, as it was only
the swift action of the Confederation fleet, with a little assistance from some
civilian ships, that had averted the disaster in the first place
—
or
that at least was what the majority of the Senate thought had happened.

Sofia threw a weary glance at her workstation, observing the
blinking light indicating she had messages waiting for her. Instead, she once
again turned her back on the device, heading for her bedroom. She let her dress
pool at the foot of her bed and crawled under the covers. She was asleep before
her head hit the pillow.

Many years later in life, Sofia looked back on that day,
wondering how different her life might have been had she answered that call.
Possibly she could have responded in time, catching Jon and changing their
fate, and that of the Confederation. Unfortunately that is the thing about
fate—it’s incorrigible.

*****

Sofia slowly came awake to the feeling of a warm, hard body
pressed intimately up against her, its warm breath slowly caressing the back of
her neck. Sofia stretched languidly, pushing herself further into its embrace,
the warmth a cocoon surrounding her, protecting her. Sofia could feel short
whiskers rubbing against her cheek, and their bare legs were entwined. Over the
years Sofia had lost count of the number of times she had woken up to such
sensations. Wondering if fate was just cruel or at least had a twisted sense of
humour.

Turning in her bed, Sofia opened one eye hopefully, praying
this time her dream lover would be there, in the flesh, but as always only
observed a wide expanse of empty bed. On slow mornings, like this one, Sofia
contemplated all those who woke in a similar fashion, wondering who was their
perfect dream lover. For Sofia it was far, far worse, for she knew exactly who
it was. The few mornings when she had actually woken in his arms were seared
across her memory with painful clarity.

She stayed like that for a long time. Lying in the same bed
she always woke up in, staring at the same bare, featureless ceiling, waiting
for the feeling of Jon to recede. His warmth, his smell, his touch and the
taste of him on her lips.

However, finally Sofia did rise from bed. She realised that
if she did not under her own time, she would soon be roused by one of her
numerous aides, politely reminding her of some urgent, over-due appointment. She
poured herself the first coffee of the morning, always smiling at the knowledge
that Jon started his morning in exactly the same fashion
.
After
all it was she who had first introduced him to coffee, made with real coffee
beans.

Without glancing at her workstation, she tapped the screen
to start replaying the messages from the previous day, deeply inhaling the rich
aroma of the fresh coffee. So intently was she enjoying the smell, still
somewhat asleep, that she paid little attention to the voice of the recording,
after all it was a voice she was intimately familiar with. One that occupied
her dreams, every free minute of every day. It slowly dawned on her the voice
that she was hearing was not coming from her, but from the workstation. Turning
back to the screen, she stared into Jon’s deep grey eyes. Forgetting for an
instant that this was a recording, Sofia dropped her coffee in shock. The
contents spilled across the desk before dripping onto the richly upholstered
carpet, the drink totally forgotten.

With a trembling hand she reached out to pause the
recording, needing to overcome her shock before she could focus on what he was
saying. Glancing at the timestamp of the message, she observed that it had been
recorded some twelve hours earlier. Casting her mind back, she remembered the
console lighting up to signify an incoming call just as she had left for the
sub-committee meeting. It had been Jon calling! Sofia would have torn her hair
out in despair, had she thought that it would have made any difference. A call
she had been waiting years for and she had ignored it. To attend a pointless
senate meeting, which meant little and achieved less. Hand trembling, terrified
of what the message might say, equally worried of what it might not, she
hesitantly touched play, Jon’s rich baritone voice filling the room, caressing
her.

“Hello Sofia, I was hoping that I could talk to you, but I
guess that you are busy,” the recording of Jon’s voice started without any
preamble. Sofia could hear the disappointment in his voice. “Anyway, you know
how I hate talking to these things, so I will keep this brief. I am sure you
know by now that rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Even while making the recording Jon realised that Sofia
could tell that the joke fell flat; and instead of smiling he just gave her a
self-conscious shrug. “Anyway I hope that you are well,” Jon continued
guardedly, as if he was unsure of the question or the answer. “I’m not really
sure what the point of this call is, perhaps I just wanted to hear your voice,
to see you one last time.”

A shudder ran through Sofia, as she felt that this message
sounded far too much like a final goodbye.

The recording of Jon seemed to rouse himself from whatever
wave of uncertainty had overcome him and he turned his gaze firmly back to the
screen, a resolute expression on his face. “That's not true,” he said. “I know
exactly why I wanted to talk to you. For in the last few moments of my life,
seconds before my ship was about to collide, I realised that I had a one final
regret. That I could not see you for one last time, to talk to you and say
things to you that I should have said many years ago. However, I was too proud,
or too scared, that you might have moved on with your life and at last found
the joy I could never seem to give you. We parted with such harsh words and I
did not want those words to be the last between us. So maybe it’s a good thing
I can only leave a message, as it will give me the opportunity to tell you what
I should have said many years ago.”

With a quivering finger, Sofia paused the playback, wiping
away the tears from her eyes, so that she could watch the recording clearly.

“The first thing that I need to tell you is that I am sorry.
Sorry for so many things that it would take me a lifetime to list them all.
However, the thing that I am most sorry for is hurting you as I seemed to do so
much of the time when we were together. Although it was never my intention, it
always seemed events around us conspired to keep us apart.

The second thing I wanted to tell you is that I miss you, so
much that it hurts. You exist in my dreams and when I wake up I wonder why you
are not by my side. I go through every day, every waking moment, wondering if I
am truly awake and this is not just a nightmare, and that I will eventually
wake up
—
with you in my arms. My life now exists in shades
of grey, I can barely remember what it was like to live in colour, as when I
was last with you.”

Sofia ran her finger gently across the surface of the
screen, imagining it was Jon’s soft, warm cheek she touched, not the cold,
hard, unyielding screen. Tears streamed down her face. Realising Jon had not
finished, she once again focused on what he was saying.

“I wanted to let you know this, while I still can. I need to
leave for a while and I cannot tell you why or where, but it is something I
need to do, or at least try to do. I could not live with myself if I did not
and I certainly could never speak to you or look you in the eye again. This is
my burden to bear and I must do it alone. If I never speak to you again, please
do not think harshly of me. Forget our last words together, instead remember
this; I will never forget you, as I will always carry a small piece of you with
me, in here,” he said, laying his hand across his heart.

With that the screen went blank, the message delivered.

Many times Sofia played and replayed the message, over and
over again. The years they were apart seemed to vanish with each playback.
Eventually Sofia looked up from the screen, looking around at the richly
furnished apartment. Her robes of state, freshly cleaned and folded, waiting
for her next official engagement. The next meeting, the next vote, the next
bill
—
all for what? She had spent the past five years
fighting to try and make a difference, to make her idea, her dream, a reality.
Looking back she came to realise that, instead, she had become like her father,
just what she was most trying to avoid. So caught up in the day-to-day politics
of an empire, she lost sight of what was most important to her. Her family.
Jon.

Determined to put things right while she still had time, she
wiped away her tears and slapped her palm down on the call option on the
console. Perhaps she could still reach him in time before he embarked on
whatever foolish mission he was about to launch? For while Jon knew her, she
had also become adept at reading him and although he did not say anything in
the message, she could read it in his eyes
.
He did not
think he would be coming back alive.

After the third attempt, Sofia had to admit defeat. Either
Jon had already departed the station or he was in the process of doing so.
Therefore Sofia tried calling anybody else, on the assumption that somebody
would be there and could call him back. However, to her increasing frustration and
disbelief, she could not reach anyone. Not Jon, Paul or even Neil. Nobody
answered. Finally in desperation she called the command centre, using a code
Paul had given her, but only to be used for emergencies.

Miraculously somebody answered this call and as she stared
into the astonished face of Lieutenant Chris Patterson. Sofia vaguely
recognised his face, as being one of the station’s more junior shift
commanders. Patterson could only gape at Sofia, speechless, before a bright red
flush spread across his cheeks and he quickly averted his eyes.

“Princess, Sofia, uh, Madam President,” Chris mumbled, still
desperately trying to avert his eyes.

Sofia wondered what had embarrassed the young officer so
much. While obviously a call from an ex-Princess and Senate President was
unusual, the officer’s reaction seemed extreme. It was only when she glanced
down that Sofia realised that she had not dressed after rolling out of bed,
only planning on reviewing her messages. Hence she was still dressed in her
underwear, not having the energy to get changed the night before. Blushing
Sofia reached behind her, snatching up her dress and hugging it closely to
protect her modesty.