Deep Space Endeavor (11 page)

Reece continued. “My men and I killed fourteen of them. Grimm and his two deputies got three more.”

Now, Jesse was really impressed, and also a little surprised. “You’re the Constable, Grimm?” He asked trying not to sound surprised. Grim nodded yes as Jesse noticed that now, Kiah was leaning against his arm.

H
e continued. “Am I to assume your men didn’t make it, then?” Both men shook their head no, with the same look of sadness he had seen from any good officer that had ever lost men in battle. He knew that feeling all too well, as his mind flashed back to the Rocket Riders at the Battle of Polisia.

“I killed ni
ne before they caught Kiah and me, and there was one dead in the wilderness, half eaten by a giant snake of some sort.”

  “Well done, Borragg!” Grimm shouted a laugh.

“You killed nine?” Reece asked, a look of respect crossing his face.

“I could have killed more,” Jesse added. “But I was pr
otecting this little one.” He added as he looked down at Kiah. “So that leaves approximately forty-eight pirates,” he counted. “Could be worse, I guess.”

Seeja
stared at Jesse as if he had two heads. “What difference does it make?” she cried, “We’re all going to die anyway.” The Mayor was trying to comfort his wife, but she would take no comfort as she softly cried.

“
Not if I can help it, ma'am." Jesse said as he gently placed his hand on her shoulder. "Mayor Valinor,” Jesse added, “If I can get us some blasters, can you help us fight our way out?”

The Mayor looked like he were contemplating an answer, “I suppose, but how…”

“Leave that to me, Sir.” He interrupted as four pirates were walking his way, holding his gear.

“Human,” the first pirate called
while pointing at Jesse. He was dressed in the same black garb as the rest of the pirates, with a red sash and red beret. “Captain Janus would like you to answer a few questions.”

“Why doesn’t Mister Janus come and ask me himself?” Jesse answered, purposely t
rying to rile the pirates. He untangled his arm from Kiah’s arms and stood up so that if they did come in to hit him, they wouldn’t trample the girl.

“That’s Captain Janus to you, scum,” the second pirate added. “And watch your tongue, or I’ll cut it out.” he added.

He let out a snort he knew would anger the pirates. “Yeah, you’re really tough with all of your pirate buddies out there."

The first pirat
e was already fed up with his antics while Jesse was just warming up his act. Reece, Tania and the Valinors were looking at him in horror, while Grimm just sadly shook his head.

Three pirates came into the cell, two trained their blasters on the other prisoners and one grabbed Jesse and dragged him out of the cell. The other two exited the cell and locked the door behind them. Now Jesse was on the other side of the bars with four angry pirates; which is exactly what he wanted.

The pirates took turns hitting and kicking him in the gut, mostly, for a good two minutes. As the blows rained down on him, he had the wind knocked out of him. His battle suit was designed to take blaster damage and to stop blades or bullets, but those things did leave bruises. The battle suit was not, however, designed to protect from the kind of damage one might receive in a fist fight. It did lessen the impact a little, but not enough.

They stood him
back upright and the one who had threatened to cut out his tongue hit him hard across the face. “Are you ready to answer questions now, or do you need a little bit more motivation?”

Jesse couldn’t resist. “I proba
bly need more motivation.” He winked in the direction of the Mayor and his wife while he spoke. He was smiling until he was doubled over in pain by another pirate’s knee to the stomach.

After another minute
or so, everything was starting to hurt. He needed to make his move soon. They stood him up again, and a Mannagore, who must have joined in during the last beating, whipped him across the face with some kind of strap.

As b
lood started to roll down his face, the Mannagore held up his baton shaped MATU and shouted, “What isssss thisssss?”

H
e looked at the weapon, smiled, and replied, “That's Helga, she's a multiple application tactical unit, or MATU for short. Sometimes I like to name my weapons and this one just seemed like a Helga to me, don't you think?”

The Mannagore whipped him again, causing another stream of blood. “What
doessss it do?” Jesse honestly had no idea how to explain the weapon in a believable way to the thugs. Anything he said was likely to sound as if he were still mocking them.

As
the Mannagore waited for his reply, he just shrugged and said, “You hit people with it.”

One of the other pirates, the first one who had spoken to Jesse, felt his anger growing. He was tired of being mocked by this insolent human. He flew into a rage and screamed, “Let’s just kill him and be done with it already!”

Jesse laughed, “I can guarantee you won’t do that.”

The Mannagore puzzled him a look and answered, “And why not?”

“Garrinoras will want to do that himself.” He replied, spitting blood onto the boot of the nearest pirate.

Reece and the others were staring at him in amazement. They co
uldn’t believe the lengths this man would go to anger five violent pirates. He had just taken a severe beating for no good reason, and now he was trying to get himself killed.

“What is wrong with this man?” The mayor’s wife whispered quietly. The others had no answer.

“And just what makes you think that Garrinoras would want to trouble himself with an insignificant human like you?” One of the pirates sneered.

Jesse shrugged, smiled and said, “Because I’m the one who blew up your ship over Kaldor four nights ago.”

At this, the pirates were whipped into a frenzy, especially the Mannagore. “That wassss my brother up there.” He shouted as they all began to punch and kick Jesse. They had beaten him before, but this time it was different. The pirates went into a blind rage and the focus of their anger was Jesse.

All the children in the cell
including Kiah began to whimper and hide their faces. The adults all had sad, resigned looks like he had just thrown his life away. Tania was screaming something that he couldn’t make out.

Even though it didn't look like it,
Jesse had it all under control. He had planned for this exact moment. He saw the hand holding Helga coming down to strike his head and he side-stepped the blow. He then delivered a kick to the side of a pirate’s knee that sent him to the floor. He caught the hand holding the weapon and pulled it down over his shoulder, breaking the Mannagore’s arm at the joint. The Mannagore screamed in pain, and Helga came free. He now had his weapon, and the tide had turned.

Helga was Jesse's
favorite toy.
Endeavor
might have been his greatest accomplishment, but this was his favorite toy. The MATU, is made of Brinium, which is also known as memory metal, and very difficult to forge. Helga, as he named it can transform into several different weapons. When properly forged, Brinium is almost as hard as Gralium, but the major difference is you can insert tech into the Brinium during the forging process, and if the procedure is done properly, it will allow the finished metal to take different predetermined shapes. The MATU begins as an eighteen inch long baton and can become a five foot Bo staff. The end of the Bo staff can become a blade, while the other end of the staff can shoot out a grappling hook with a two hundred meter Brinium cable that will hold up to two tons. All of this, from one solid piece of metal. It also builds up a charge that can fire up to six shots through the end of the staff or blade. Even more impressively, it is genetically activated, which means only Jesse’s DNA and bio rhythms in combination can activate the weapon. It is another piece of technology that was just too expensive to mass produce, but a warrior like Jesse would never object to having a one of a kind weapon like Helga at his disposal.

One pirate had a broken leg and another had a broken arm, and now Jesse had
Helga back. As the pirates looked at him, he activated it and each end shot out to form the Bo Staff. He began expertly swinging the staff as pirates tried to charge him, scoring several hits and causing them to back away.

One of the pirates pulled two swords from red sheathes on his back and began swinging them around in a manner meant to intimidate. While he was half way though his intimidation tactic, Jesse switched the
weapon from staff to blade and made his move.

Everyone in the cell was now very interested, surprise
d by the sudden turn of events. One by one they had begun to understand that his plan all along had been to infuriate the pirates into making this kind of mistake. Whether he survived or not, at least he had tried something. It was a daring plan and he had their respect.

As Jesse charged the blade-wielding pirate, he side-stepped the pirate
's first sword while blocking the other sword and delivering a kick to the gut. He brought his blade around hard and fast, but the pirate had rolled out of the way and come up on the offensive.

One of the other pirates took out
his blaster and fired at his chest, but nothing seemed to happen. The battle suit took the hit and he kept coming. He discharged two plasma bolts from the blade, dropping one of the pirates. He stabbed the Mannagore through the chest with the blade while rolling away from an overhand slash from the blade-wielder.

As he was coming out of his roll, he cut the fourth pirate practically in two before he could
bring his blaster to bear. He finished off the pirate with the broken leg, with a plasma bolt courtesy of Helga.

As Jesse was finishing off the injured pirate, the blade-wield
er scored a direct hit at his mid section. The battle suit stopped the hit, but it still hurt quite a bit. He just used it. He held the arm of the blade that struck him in place. He head butted the pirate then came under the other blade’s defenses to plunge his blade right through the blade-wielder’s chest. The alien’s last breath came only moments later.

The whole fight lasted about n
inety seconds from the time he told them that he had destroyed their ship until the last pirate had been dropped. He quickly collected the pirates’ blasters and went to the cell. He cut through the lock with one swipe of his blade. He opened the door to looks of shocked disbelief and handed blasters to the three men and Tania. He picked his own blaster and backpack off the ground, thankful that the pirates had been so curious about them.

He took out his last ration bar and tossed it to Kiah with a smile and a wink. She opened it, broke off a piece, and offered th
e rest to the mayor’s wife. He smiled as he realized she was mimicking what he had done for her earlier. Surprisingly enough, Mistress Valinor accepted it from her with a smile and then held her close as they both ate.

Reece put a hand on his shoulder, and in an awestruck voice exclaimed, “I have never seen anything like that.”

Jesse smiled at the compliment as he replied. “Let's get ready, more pirates will be coming."

H
e heard a loud roar far away and smiled.
Endeavor
had just taken off, and he knew for the first time that they were going to survive this ordeal.  He pointed to Reece and Grimm and shouted, “You, barricade that door, Tania the Mayor and I will barricade this one.”

To the mayor’s wife he called, “Mistress Valinor, please try to keep the children calm and out of our way.” Then he turned to Kiah, took her little ha
nd, looked her right in the eyes and said with his best reassuring smile, “It is all going to be okay, Little One.”

After the barricades were in place, Jesse
, Tania and the Mayor took up position, ready to shoot anything that came through the door. Reece and Grimm were in similar stances at the other door.

Reece looked at Jesse and said, “I don’t think we’re going to be able
to hold them for long.”

Jesse replied with a knowing smile, “We won’t need to hold them for long,” as Grimm shot him a quizzical look
he added. “Did you hear that roar in the distance? That’s my ship,
Endeavor,
and my crew is coming to save us.”

______

Six years earlier
…..

Jesse hated when Josiah was right. As much as he wanted to, he could not be part of the team that went in to rescue Kimiko’s family. Neither could she. He was supposed to be unaware of the plot against him. That meant if he or the assassin sent to kill him were to suddenly arrive in Asia, it would look too suspicious. The Asian Dawn simply had too many eyes that could spot them and call it in. Jesse or Kimiko’s presence there would put her family at considerable risk.

It wasn’t that h
e didn’t have full confidence in Josiah and his team; he knew they were the best. It was that he was anxious to start tracking down the people that tried to have him killed. He was, however, still part of the plan. Sea Side Enterprises was throwing a very important gala to announce some new form of holographic technology that Friday night.