Chapter twenty-two:
Jason couldn’t believe it. After Jared left the room for a little bit he came back got dressed, wrapped him in a blanket, picked him up and carried him to his quarters. He was even more surprised when Jared put him in his bed and just covered him with another blanket and left. Jason was confused. What had just happened? He tried to figure it out while he waited for the drugs to finally wear off. Although he was relieved, he wondered what had been in the transmission Jared received. What could have been so important that it would stop Jared from finishing what he had started?
Whatever it was it had saved him, if only for now, from being raped by Jared. Though it hadn’t saved him from the initial foreplay Jared had put him through. Jason cringed at the memory of it. How could he face Celestia again? Now he understood why women were so hurt by being raped. He was pretty sure he loved Celestia. He was also pretty sure he had always cared for her; he just hadn’t said anything yet. Now he wished he had. If Jared had his way he would never be allowed to be with her. And he didn’t want anyone other than her to touch him in that way. Jason curled up on his side and cried himself to sleep.
Celestia couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept racing and she couldn’t stop from feeling a sense of dread. She had thought she had seen Jared looking rather smug, but she couldn’t be certain. She was afraid for Jason and yet she wondered if her feeling was connected to the fact that they had left Earth earlier that day. Celestia curled up on the sofa and sighed. She had known that they would finally leave Earth but some small part of her had hoped she would return home and now she was being taken away from Earth.
It hurt in a way she couldn’t describe. Celestia couldn’t stop the tears that escaped and ran down her cheeks. No, if she was honest with herself, what really hurt was being kept apart from Jason. She wondered if she has always felt more than just attraction to him. She had worked with him for over three years and for two of them she had done nothing about how she truly felt. Now she would never get the chance, Jared would see to that. Celestia had never felt so powerless before. She desperately wanted to somehow protect Jason but knew she could not.
It had taken almost two days but Jared had finally narrowed it down to three possibilities. They would be arriving in sector fourteen in just a few hours. His instinct told him it was Nathan but he couldn’t rule out the other two possibilities. Jared sent a request to an old friend located at High Command. One he had recruited to spy for him. He wanted Nathan’s background checked completely. If there was anything to be found he wanted to know about it. For now he had to continue to assume it could be any of the three suspects.
It was tempting to just pull them all in, but at the same time if they thought he suspected them the traitor would commit suicide before he could get to them. Members of the resistance always committed suicide given a chance. No he had to find out for sure and capture them before they could commit suicide. Nathan was supposed to be taking the shuttle out to start the scan. Somehow he couldn’t imagine him escaping and leaving Celestia and Jason behind. If he had only been planning on passing information along to the ship that had been destroyed, it would be the perfect opportunity as the new scanning could be used to cover additional transmissions. Jared smiled; he knew just what to do.
Nathan couldn’t stop his heart from pounding as he maneuvered the shuttlecraft from the hangar bay. Celestia and Jason didn’t have a clue as to what was going on and the hologram of them leaving the ship had worked. In just two minutes he would be in position to make a run for the ship that was suppose to be waiting for them. In all his years working as a member of the resistance never had he felt such fear. If it didn’t work he would have to shoot both Celestia and Jason before taking his own life. The next two minutes felt like an eternity as he went through the motions of having Celestia and Jason help him start scanning the system. He sent out the recognition signal for the ship that should be waiting for them. In just a few seconds he would have his answer.
Nathan never got to see if there was a reply to the transmission. Nor did he see the laser blast that caught him from behind and sent him sprawling to the floor half stunned. He could hear Celestia’s and Jason’s gasp of horror. And as he heard footsteps coming towards him, he knew who it was without even looking. He had failed. As Jared came into view he bit down on the poison capsule that he had attached to his back tooth earlier that day.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Celestia and Jason as darkness took over his vision.
Celestia couldn’t believe what was happening! Why did Jared shoot Nathan? Something inside her snapped. After all this time, being a prisoner, being tortured and hurt by Jared, seeing Jason’s terrified expression as Jared walked towards Nathan. She found she couldn’t hold it in. With a scream of rage she attacked Jared! She was still holding some of the instruments she had been using to monitor the scanning and she lashed out with them hitting Jared as hard as she could.
When Celestia attacked him, Jared was so surprised that she actually managed to hit him several times before he calmly backhanded her sending her flying across the room to slam into a wall before falling to the floor unconscious. He could feel blood running down the left side of his face. She had actually managed to cut the skin in his scalp when she had hit him with the scanner! He was further surprised when he was then shot by Jason with a laser gun! He must have gotten it from Nathan!
It was a good thing Jason didn’t understand how to use the laser gun. If he had realized that he was wearing a combat suit underneath his uniform he would have shot him in the head. Jared didn’t give Jason a second chance. He calmly shot him in the right arm causing the gun he was holding to go flying. Jared couldn’t believe it when Jason rushed him anyway. He fired again but other than to make him stagger the light stun setting had no effect!
Jared didn’t have a chance to fire again before Jason slammed into him knocking both of them to the floor. At that point Jared realized that Jason had gone berserk like Celestia had. He ignored the attempts by Jason to throttle him and reset the weapon to the highest stun setting. He then fired point blank at Jason’s chest. The blast threw Jason backwards off Jared to land on the shuttlecraft’s main control console before sliding to the floor unconscious. He got up and retrieved the laser gun and put it away.
He turned his attention back to Nathan even though he was sure Nathan had committed suicide, but he checked to make sure. A quick scan confirmed his suspicions. Jared sighed. All that work and the traitor had managed to escape being interrogated after all. He had been looking forward to prying information out of him. Since resistance members were known to poison themselves he had brought a broad-spectrum antidote but the sudden attack by both Celestia and Jason had prevented him from delivering the remedy in time. It was too late now. He went over to the ships console and contacted the Commander to deliver the news.
Daniel couldn’t believe it! Nathan was working for the resistance? He had poisoned himself to prevent capture? Of all the possible scenarios he had never imagined that Nathan had left his mother to join the resistance. Did his mother know? How could he even tell her that Nathan was dead? Daniel felt torn, he may not have liked Nathan but his mother had. It would break her heart all over again to hear he had died. Damn it all! Daniel threw the hand-held device with the report against the wall shattering it. He would have no choice but to tell her and he would have to inform Commander Sandra as well as it would implicate both him and his mother. Especially if they found out he knew they had known each other and he had said nothing.
Daniel got up and started pacing in his quarters before sighing and sitting back down again. He had worked so hard to become a commander, and now because of Nathan’s foolish actions he might actually lose his position. Daniel knew the rules; he would be subjected to interrogation. They would use drugs to make sure he was telling the truth. High Command would then decide if he was truly innocent or not.
Daniel called sub-commander Kim to surrender command to her. The sooner he got this show on the road the sooner he could return to work. He wanted to contact his mother, but he changed his mind, as he knew he could not. It would be seen as him warning her to escape. Regretfully he would have to leave that to someone else. They would interrogate her as well and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
