Deep Space Endeavor 3 Death Match (47 page)

______

Polisia’s governing council received word of what was happening, and what was heading their way. They immediately called Nina, Serge and Ariel in to help them plan a defense. Serge hadn’t told them he had upgraded their defenses, and didn’t intend to. This was one secret no one would know about until they needed to. The Polisian Defense Force had thirty-six ships. Serge had also refurbished an additional eleven for planetary defense. Sea Side Enterprises had their original twelve, and the twelve they had liberated from Earth. That gave them a total of seventy-one ships plus their defenses. They prayed it would be enough. When they had decided on the best course of action, they began making plans for the refugees. Early estimates put the total at just over four hundred thousand. Each of the three planets had contained millions. Nina was frustrated that Earth refused to send help. She knew it was because the ship building facility was way behind schedule. She was going to have a conversation with this new president that he would not enjoy, if they lived through this.

______

Jesse was beginning to buy Suzy’s theories about the diminishing returns of the recovery pod. He had only needed twenty-one minutes in the recovery pod from the attack, but he had slept almost a day instead of ten or eleven hours. When he woke up, his arm was still really sore and his head hurt. Suzy carefully tested him and took down all of the results. She had actually adjusted her theory. The recovery pod would work for life for the average person who might only need it once every year or two, but for someone in it as much as Jesse, that was when the diminishing returns occurred. She theorized he shouldn’t use it again for a couple years and he hoped more than anything he wouldn’t need to. Here it was almost a week later, and his arm still hurt.

The fleets from Hyperia and Ginderbar were due any day now, and Jesse decided to take
Endeavor
to mine some of the minerals he believed were the key to opening the conduit. This was to be
Endeavor’s
last official mission of their trip. Then, it was a week of downtime followed by waiting in space for however long it took for the Conduit to open. The journey was almost over and the whole crew was excited about going home. Jesse planned to spend at least a day or two of that downtime alone with Kimi. With each moment he spent with her, he fell more and more in love with her. He loved every second of their relationship. He once again found himself anxious to get home and let everyone know about his relationship.
Nina and Ariel are going to be so excited about this,
he thought. Josiah had been as good as his word and found out the attack had come from men in Challa’s pirate group. He had learned that Challa was the first officer on Garrinoras’ ship and inherited it, so to speak, when his boss had died. They also found out the pirate fleet had broken up into four groups, but they didn’t know why.

Josiah and Reece were outside the ship, using Kaldorian mining equipment to get Jesse his precious mineral when the attack came. The
Retribution
arrived, flanked by two Frigates and two Gunships. There wasn’t going to be enough time to get his men back on board, so Jesse deployed Xanu in the Hyperian Shuttle. They had finally integrated the cloak from their destroyed
Eagle
into the shuttle so once Xanu had them, they could disappear. Collin began evasive maneuvers, and Kimi was ready at weapons. Tanna had the shields and Bessa took sensors. This was going to be a close one. He couldn’t run with his men still out there, but he didn’t know if
Endeavor
could take this many ships alone.

“Incoming Transmission,” SAMMI announced.

“Onscreen,” Jesse replied. He didn’t want to talk to these pirates, but he knew from experience that they liked to talk, and every second they talked was a second closer to safety Josiah and Reece would be. He only needed to stall for a minute.

Challa’s face lit up the bridge. He was young and short for a Jar-Kargen. His gravelly voice and heavy accent made him difficult to understand. “
Endeavor
, we have you surrounded. There is no escape. Power down your weapons or we will destroy you.”

“Challa, I was hoping I would never have to meet you. You are trespassing in Kaldorian Space. I’m gonna guess they won’t look too kindly upon that.” SAMMI was alerting the Kaldorians to the situation while Jesse was attempting to stall. “Why don’t you turn around and go back to your fleet while you still can.”

“Your arrogance amazes me, Colonel. We have you surrounded with five ships and yet you still make threats. I now understand why Garrinoras hated you so much.”

Jesse motioned for Kimi to target the closest frigate with both the plasma beams and torpedoes one after another. He looked to Challa and replied. “Garrinoras hated me because he was a sore loser, or just a loser.”

“You shall pay for that, human. Last chance, power down your weapons or face five ships.”

Jesse gave Kimi the signal. The plasma beam quickly burned through the Frigate’s shield and the torpedoes ripped it apart. “You mean four ships,” he mocked as he ended the transmission.

Collin immediately broke into evasive maneuvers while Kimi concentrated fire on the second Frigate. They were unlikely to sit still long enough to be quickly destroyed, but they wouldn’t last long. The
Retribution’s
main weapons hit
Endeavor’s
shield’s, followed by SAMMI’s announcement.

“Shields are holding at eighty-nine percent.”

Kimi finished off the second Frigate and turned her attention to the
Retribution
. Both Gunships began scoring hits on
Endeavor
as Kimi tried to keep them at bay with the AF lasers. They rocked the
Retribution
with their next salvo while they were keeping the pirates away from Josiah and Reece. Xanu had them aboard and swooped in to damage one of the Gunships. Another shot rocked
Endeavor
.

“Shields holding at seventy-one percent.” SAMMI called melodiously into the chaos.

Endeavor’s
next torpedo punched through the left side of the
Retribution’s
shields and damaged the ship’s port side main weapons bank.
Endeavor
tried to stay on the
Retribution’s
left while Kimi destroyed the Gunship Xanu had damaged.
Endeavor
took more fire from the remaining Gunship and the
Retribution’s
secondary weapons.

“Shields holding at fifty-seven percent,”

Xanu strafed the remaining Gunship, damaging the main weapons. Jesse looked to Collin and asked, “What does Xanu got in that thing?”

Collin just smiled as he juked, causing the
Retribution’s
next barrage to miss. “We upgraded the weapons with some of
Endeavor’s
tech.”

Collin flew directly at the port side of the
Retribution
while Xanu dished out some more punishment on the remaining gunship.
Endeavor
was hit hard as the
Retribution
had managed to bring its functioning weapons to bear.

“Shields holding at forty-three percent.”

The remaining Gunship set a collision course with
Endeavor
as they punched through
Retribution’s
shields again, destroying the maneuvering thrusts. All Challa could really do now was jump to light space and try to repair his ship. Kimi’s next shot destroyed the damaged gunship as two blasts hit
Endeavor
.

“Shield’s holding at twenty-six percent.” SAMMI dutifully chimed.

Endeavor
hit
Retribution’s
last remaining weaponry and disabled their sublight engines. Jesse was about to call for their surrender when Challa finally made the jump to light space.
He’ll be stinging from this one for a while
, Jesse thought with a smile.

Xanu brought the Hyperian shuttle into the landing bay. “That was some fine flying, Xanu. Well done.” Jesse congratulated.

“Thank you, Colonel,” he began. “I think you’ll be pleased to know Reece and Josiah were successfully able to mine almost six hundred pounds of the mineral. Do you think that will be enough?”

“I believe it will, Xanu, good job guys. Good job all of you. SAMMI, let the Kaldorians know they no longer need to send ships, the pirates are destroyed.”

“Kaldor has been alerted, Colonel.”

“Thank you, SAMMI, now, let’s go relax for a few days.”

______

Admiral Collingsworth made it to Polisia with only forty-one of the ninety-four vessels that had attempted to defend Triton. The refugee total had swelled to almost six hundred thousand. The total population of those three planets was seventeen million. Polisia had given Manny command of the fleet, which he would lead from
Olympus
. Ariel had Vee-Fleet, Captain Snyder had one of the new four ship groups. Jason had another group, and Lieutenant Sanjay Devareaux had the last. Admiral Collingsworth still had his four-ship SSE group intact, which gave them six
Leviathans
and twenty-two
War Hawks
. These ships would form the core of their defense. They had a total of one hundred twelve ships along with a planetary shield, a minefield and six anti-ship plasma cannons mounted within a heavily shielded facility on the moon.

Manny commed the
Churchill
as they waited. “Admiral, why don’t you take control of the fleet,” he began. “We could use someone with your knowledge and experience leading us.”

“That is most gracious of you to say, Captain Hernandez, but I must decline; my career is already over. Besides, I’ve already lost twice to these guys; it may be time for some new ideas.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Polisia is our home and everyone we love is here, we’re not letting these monsters through.” Manny ended the transmission and waited. He had been in battle many times over the course of a stellar Special Forces career, but the waiting before was always the worst. They were as ready as they could be; all that was left now was the waiting. Just over three hundred enemy ships were headed their way. If they didn’t stop them, Polisia would be lost. It was that simple and yet that complicated. To save their home they had to stop bloodthirsty monsters at three to one odds.

Nina couldn’t believe he actually went through with it. President Rhodes was all over the Vid news this morning declaring the Marcos family and the Romanov family to be enemies of the state. He went on to name several of the people close to them as well. He urged the ships at Polisia to turn on them and warned that anyone who stood with them would be punished for treason against the Coalition. He spent the next hour chronicling everything they had done wrong. Most of it was invented and could never be proven. It was all just a ploy to turn the people against them. Even if they saved Polisia, at this point, they were looking at being criminals. She called Jason down to hack the vid-news network so she could get her side out before everyone hated them.

She broke into one of the President’s nonsensical rants with the words, “Hello citizens of the Coalition, I am Nina Romanov, the woman our distinguished leader has spent the last several hours trying to get you to hate. I am unsure of where the President has gotten his information, but what he has said about my family and myself is categorically untrue. In fact, the only law I have broken is hacking this vid-feed to defend myself. President Rhodes does not have one shred of evidence to back up anything he has said, nor does he have a shred of dignity. He said I stole ships? They were my ships. He claims I am under contract to give those ships to the Coalition. Those ships were always slated for the defense of Polisia. If he wants them, I will give them to him as soon as they pay for the seventy plus ships they have purchased and not paid for. He forgot to mention that bit. Almost half of the ships the government has taken possession of from us are still unpaid for. Does he think us to be a charity that exists simply to give him what he wants? He is the worst kind of client. Until I have the money he owes us for the ships he has already purchased, he will get nothing, and I challenge him to come up with a law that is being broken in regards to our ships. In accordance with Coalition law, I am well within my rights to begin repossessing our ships if they cannot pay. From now on, I will need the money in advance for any ships the Coalition Government purchases because I am unsure of our client’s ability to pay.

“President Rhodes wishes me to look like a monster, but he is the one that will not send help to our outer planets. He and his new allies sit idly by while Coalition citizens are slaughtered by the millions. I know he has kept this information from you, but Triton, Stamdall and Geshern have all suffered orbital bombardment, and at this time, over sixteen million are unaccounted for. Yet, I am the bad guy for not wanting the same to happen to Polisia, my home. I have stolen nothing and done no wrong, yet three times assassins sent by the Enclave have tried to kill me. Three times they tried to kill my cousin. They tried to kill my friends, they did kill four of my top executives and close friends, and they tried to kill my seventeen-year-old nephew and sixteen-year-old niece. While avoiding all of those threats, our construction fell behind, and for that, I am branded a traitor. President Rhodes is an Enclave stooge. He was sent here long ago as part of a sleeper cell and he has risen to power. He is about to hand that power over to those who would use us and leave us defenseless. The reason they will send no help is because they wish the Enclave to have all of our ships to fight their enemy for them. In fact, the aliens are only attacking us now because of our alliance with the Enclave. I hope you will all see the truth.” Her speech was over and the political pundits immediately began talking about the implications of what she had said. None of them had known about the outer planets and they began seeking proof to Nina’s claims. She sent many of the communiqués that were being sent from private citizens to Polisia chronicling what had happened. The entire Coalition was abuzz with this news when the President came back on, this time with Lucien.