Deep Space Endeavor (33 page)

“I don’t think I can take all these guys. Vengeance can wait.”
He yelled.

Sh
e either didn’t hear him or didn’t care as she was now fully focused on Kora.

With eight heavily armed guards bearing down on them,
he knew they were in for a world of hurt. He had already been hit twice now by the heavy blaster fire. He opened up with both Helga and his blaster, the MATU took down the first guard, but the blaster didn’t slow the second at all.

“These guys have better armor,”
he called out.  "We need to withdraw." But Cassie was now engaged in hand to hand combat with Kora, and he knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Helga had only three shots left and there were seven heavily armored men bearing down on him. He put the blaster back in its holster and fired two shots as he charged the guards. Two guards dropped as he fired, and then he was in the middle of five guards. He swept his leg, sending the first guard onto his back. He caught him with a blow to the throat on the way down that would keep him out of the fight for a while. He pirouetted into a spinning roundhouse kick to the second guard’s head. The blow knocked the guard off balance, but wasn’t hard enough to dislodge his helmet. He then turned his weapon back to blade, and blocked an overhand strike one of the guards was attempting with his rifle. He grabbed the guard’s arm and used his momentum to flip the guard over his back and onto the floor. He fired his last shot into another guard that was charging, dropping him. Jesse now had no shots left, and four very angry guards were still trying to kill him.

Cassie, meanwhile, was fighting Kora. “Why, Kora? Why would you do this to me? We were friends, I trusted you,”
She was yelling while blocking a kick from Kora.

“Trusting me was your first mistake. The
Catamaran
was nothing but a job for me, and when a better offer came along, I jumped at it.” Kora replied with pure hatred in her voice. “We were never friends,” she continued. “You were just a convenient alliance. We did have some good times, but once I fell in love with Joldas, my time with you was over. I only stayed as long as I did because Joldas thought you could be useful in the treasure hunt.”

Cassie kicked her in the face, knocking her to the ground. But before she could press her advantage, she took a shot to the shoulder from one of the guards. The heavy weapons they were using sure did hurt, even with the battle suit.

“Love,” she taunted. “Topanar doesn’t love you. Topanar is not capable of love. He’s playing you like you played Reece, and I’m glad, because you deserve it. He won’t even shed a tear after I kill you.” She had vengeance in her heart as Kora charged, her knives drawn. Jesse tossed his blade to Cassie; she wouldn’t be able to morph it into any of its other functions, but hopefully, all she needed was the blade.

Now, Jesse was unarmed as the four guards surrounded him. He charged the first
guard, grabbing his rifle and putting the butt through the visor of his helmet, knocking him unconscious. He took two shots in the back and one in the leg as he turned and fired the weapon, staggering, but not dropping another guard. He charged towards the staggered guard, kicking him in the chest and sending him over the rail. The guard dropped three decks onto the landing bay floor.

As
he turned to face his two remaining opponents, he caught the butt end of a rifle right above his left eye, opening up a gash by his eyebrow and knocking him to the floor. Both remaining guards began stomping him and kicking him as he was trying to get up. He knew he had several broken bones, and he no longer had the strength to stand. He lashed out with a kick right into the side of the knee of one of the guards, dropping him. While still on the ground, he grabbed the guard around the back and snapped his neck in one motion. But that was all he had left. As the last guard brought his rifle down on his shoulder, he heard a loud crack and knew his collar bone was broken. The guard lifted the rifle again to take the kill shot, and he knew this would be his last mission. As his life began to flash before his eyes, he saw a sword appear through the guard’s chest. As the guard dropped, the sword went back into its sheath, and Kimi was reaching down to help him up with a look of deep concern in her eyes.

Kora and Cassie were going hard at each other. Cassie could never remember actually wanting to kill someone before, but she was not leaving this ship if Kora was still alive. Kora was coming at her with overhand sla
shes from her long knives, and she was parrying as she backed up. She was on the defensive, but she had a plan. As Kora pressed her advantage, she left an opening, and Cassie kicked her hard in the stomach. The blow doubled Kora over and Cassie kicked her in the back, sending her head-first into one of the support beams. As Kora stood dazed, Cassie kicked her in the face and she went tumbling over the railing. Kora fell to the grating three decks below, and Cassie yelled out; “That’s for Reece.”

Kimi had already helped Je
sse to the landing bay, and she was carrying the bag. As Cassie turned to go to the stairs, she picked up Jesse’s MATU. She noticed at least a dozen heavily armored men lying dead or injured and she ran down the stairs. She couldn't remember when they had all gotten to the fight and thought,
maybe that's what Jesse was yelling about.
As she reached the bottom, she saw that Jesse was a mess. He had taken quite a beating “Get the Jacket,” he gasped. “I don’t want Topanar to have it.”

Sh
e had no idea what he was talking about, but Kimi impatiently pointed to the battle suit Jacket Kora had stolen before she left
Endeavor
. She took the jacket off Kora’s dead body and the three of them left the ship. They were helping Jesse through the warehouse as quickly as possible with all of his injuries, when several more guards had shown up. Before they could engage, Kimi pressed her detonator and explosions began erupting all over the
Interrogator
. The door to the warehouse burst open, and Collin and Sandstorm began laying down cover fire with heavy anti-personnel weaponry. Between that and the explosions, the remaining guards were scrambling for cover.

Collin
had to carry Jesse to the aircar. “What happened?” he yelled over the revving of the engines.

Sandstorm took off in a hurry. He knew he could not go straight to
Endeavor
, but he knew he needed to get Jesse there pretty fast. Sandstorm was performing several skillful evasive maneuvers to be sure they weren’t being followed.

Kimi looked at Collin and said, “We encountered heavier resistance than we had planned for.”

Collin knew it was more than that as Kimi glared at Cassie, but he decided not to pursue it while both women were so obviously upset.

Jesse was lying in the back seat with his head in Cassie’s lap. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, and he called out Kimi’s name.

“I am here, Jesse, what do you need?” She replied.

“Did
everyone make it out?” He asked as delirium was taking consciousness from him.

“Y
es, we all made it Jesse.” She answered in her best soothing voice.

As
he finished speaking, his eyes closed. Cassie just rubbed his head, worry in her eyes.

“We need to get him to Suzy now, Ogen,” Kimiko called from the back.

“We’re on our way. I just had to make sure we weren’t being followed,” He answered as he hit the thrusters to get Jesse back to the ship.

______

Captain Joldas Topanar was in his glory. Here he was, a free man, about to find the treasure of the ages, while his uncle, the man who consistently told him how stupid he was, the man that constantly berated him, was on the other side of those bars, incarcerated for his crimes.
If only I had something really biting to say,
he thought.
It doesn’t matter, the truth will do.
He heard the heavy doors to the prison cell block open. As he saw the guards bringing his uncle bound before him, he could barely contain his excitement.

As Eliphaz Topanar sat before his nephew, he noticed that Joldas almost looked
pleased
. “It’s good of you to visit, Nephew. To what do I owe this honor?” He asked, not at all liking the expression on his nephew’s face.

“I had to see it for myself.” Joldas began, “The mighty Sub-Mayor, Eliphaz Topa
nar, in prison. What happened, Uncle, did you get too creative for your own good?”

“You’re enjoying this?”
He exclaimed. “Do you think you will escape prosecution when they finish with me? I know you are dim, but you cannot possibly be that that dim.”

Joldas laughed a cruel, scornful laugh. “You were always so much
smarter than me, weren’t you, Uncle? You were always so superior to me. You could never let me forget how much smarter you were than me. But, apparently, not that smart now, are we? You constantly humiliate me in front of my peers. But then you go and turn your back on me. I ask you, Uncle, how can you deem to trust the man you constantly humiliate?”

A light of understanding appeared in Eliphaz eyes. “It was you? You are responsible for this? How could you?”
He asked in theatrical fashion.

“Simple, really,”
he laughed. “I grew tired of being your pet. I grew tired of your constant humiliation and I grew tired of your scraps, so I acted. The fact that all you own passes to me now is just an added bonus. It was I that bugged your secret transmission room. It was I that led Agent Sandstorm to the recording, and it was I that tipped off Agent Sandstorm to your assassination attempt. In case you’re wondering, I own Sandstorm. No, I don’t think they’ll prosecute me, because I gave them you. I have tricked Jesse Marcos into letting his guard down. My spy retrieved all of his artifacts and the key. Now, the treasure will be mine as well.”

Eliphaz started clapping, slowly, deliberately, and mockingly. He carried on for almost a minute before speaking. “Well done, Joldas, it appears you have learned everything I have to teach you. There’s just one thing, I figured out it was you that betrayed me, right before the Mayor had me arrested. Therefore, with what little time I had left, I made arrangements.”

“What arrangements?” Joldas asked, a seed of worry beginning to grow within him.

“I called Garrinoras and I told him of your map and of your artifact. I even told him the most likely location of your ship, since you refuse to rotate landing sites as a precaution. In return, when he has the treasure, and conquers all of Kaldor, I will have a place of authority once again on this world. He won’t stop with Kaldor, either. He has a viable plan to conquer the entire Lawless Sector, but
he will need the treasure to finance it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has your maps and artifacts already. A small strike team should be enough, unless you doubled your guard like I suggested.” He spoke in a mocking tone.

“You
, old fool,” Joldas yelled. “Do you realize what you have done? Garrinoras hates humans, he will slay us all.

“No, he will likely enslave us
all, but I would rather be a lord over slaves than die in a prison. It amuses me to think that you fell victim to the exact mistake I did. You disclosed too much information to the man who would betray you. Now, I never would have betrayed you if I did not need to save myself from your betrayal. That, of course, is another argument for another day.”

Before Joldas could answer, his communicator hummed. He looked at his uncle, and his uncle smiled. “You’d better get that,”
he laughed. “I will wait.”

Joldas answered the communicator to the sound of a frantic voice. “You better get down
here, Sir. A small strike team broke into the warehouse. They killed most of the guards and sabotaged the
Interrogator
. She’s not quite destroyed, but it’s doubtful she’ll ever fly again.”

“Did they get our clues and maps?” Joldas asked, hoping against hope that he still had something left.

“Yes, Sir, they took everything, and they killed Kora, too,” the voice answered.

“I care nothing of that
alien trash, were they human or Zinnebailan?” He asked in desperation. He was hoping they were human so he could go find Jesse Marcos and get his property back.

“Unknown, S
ir, no one that managed a look at them is still alive and the cameras in the warehouse had been disabled. It’s possible some of the soldiers survived the initial fight, but any survivors were killed in one of the subsequent explosions.”

Joldas ended the communication by throwing his communicator against the wall in anger. As the pieces of the communicator fell to the ground, he looked at his uncle in pure hatred and said, “I hope you’re happy.”

Eliphaz replied with a smile, “It would appear we have nothing left to take from one another. Guard, I wish to return to my cell.” As he stood at the door, waiting to go back to his cell, he turned one last time to his nephew and added. “This is the last you will ever see of me.” The door closed, and Joldas was left wondering where it all went wrong.

______

As Collin and Sandstorm carried Jesse though
Endeavor’s
corridors, Collin had SAMMI call Suzy to the med-bay. They burst into the room with Jesse’s battered and unconscious body as Suzy was putting on her gloves and getting out her portable diagnostic unit. “What happened out there, Collin? This was supposed to be an easy smash and grab.”