by Francis, Ron
“I know. I regretted them as soon as I said them. That was a bad joke even for me,” he laughed, grateful for the reprieve. "There should be some kind of warning about attempting humor while under the effects of a concussion."
Suzy just laughed as she began, “I hate to do this to you, but I’m gonna have to call Shadow and Commando in here to make sure you don’t fall asleep with that concussion. They can take the first watch and then the rest of us will take turns.” As Suzy exited the med-bay, she smiled as she thought about the methods the wolves were likely to employ to keep him awake.
______
Six years earlier……
Kimiko was at a loss; she didn’t know what to do. After her third communication of the morning to her masters, she was now convinced that Jesse had done no wrong. It was they who were evil. Why had it taken so long for her to figure this out?
If Jesse Marcos is not dead by Friday, we will send the Dragon to kill him, and then we will send him to kill your family as well. Do I make myself clear?”
She had barely scratched out the words; “Yes, Master,” before the connection was terminated.
Now she had to choose; Jesse’s life or her family’s lives. What could she do? Maybe she should go to him, tell him the truth and ask for his help. He had always treated her with great kindness. She had to wonder if that would be the case after he knew this whole last month had been a lie with his death in mind. No, she was truly alone, and to be honest, she wasn’t sure she could handle the look of betrayal on his face. She only had one choice: for her family to live, she had to kill Jesse Marcos.
The only question now was how and when. She decided to get it over with quickly. She would do it that night. She would fake an injury and as he came to help her she would kill him. Nothing would ever be the same after this, because now she would be the bad guy. She would become the very thing she thought she had spent her life fighting against to save her family. She only hoped she could live with herself.
Jesse was pulling into the driveway. He had just finished testing the new Battle Suit SSE had developed. He wore it home to get a feel for how comfortable it would be to wear continually like regular clothing.
As he got out of his speeder, Kimiko noticed that he was wearing a black military style jacket, which was odd because it was warm out. “Hi, Kimi,” he smiled and waved as he hurried toward his house.
“Hi, Jesse,” she yelled back, as she was jogging by and pretended to trip and fall. In preparation for this plan, she had applied some heavy duty makeup to her ankle to make it look bruised. As she fell, she cried out in pain and grabbed her ankle.
He came running over to help, “Kimi, are you alright?” He asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied, as she winced through the nonexistent pain.
“Here, let me help you up,” he offered. As she tried to stand with his help she faked another fall. He caught her before she hit the ground, scooped her up in his strong arms and began to carry her towards the house.
Once he had gently placed her on the couch, he slowly and gently removed her running shoe. “Looks like a pretty bad bruise is already beginning to show up on your ankle; you probably have a sprain.” He was saying in between her fake sobs. “I‘m going to give Suzy a call, get her down here to patch you up." He smiled and gently touched her shoulder with genuine sympathy and added in a soothing voice, "Don’t worry; it’s going to be fine.”
“But I don’t have any money to pay a doctor,” she continued sobbing. She only needed him to come console her and then it would be quick and painless. As he finished leaving a message for Suzy, he came back to the couch and gently put his arm around her to comfort her. She held onto his arm with both hands as he told her it would be okay. She wouldn’t have to pay anything because Suzy was their friend, and all the rest of the usual things one might say to comfort a friend in need.
Her window was closing. She had to act fast, but why wasn’t she pulling the knife? She had been trained her whole life for this, and she had done this more times than she cared to remember. She struggled as she realized that maybe it was so hard this time, because for the first time, she would actually be killing a friend.
He scooped her up in his arms again. “I’m going to bring you into a spare bedroom, prop your leg up on some pillows, bring you some water and wait with you until Suzy gets here. Okay?” He gently carried her towards the spare room and Kimiko began crying for real. He looked down at her and smiled, and then his smile turned to shock as she plunged her knife into his back.
______
Present day…….
By all accounts, everything was going as well as could be expected. Endeavor had made planet fall and they had not run into anymore pirates. Collin and Josiah had begun making repairs to the ship. The twenty-four hour observation period was up and Jesse was about to go through the healing tube of the recovery pod. He was headed back towards health and looking forward to sleep. Suzy had taken out her frustration on him by putting the wolves in charge of making sure he stayed awake. Whether it was slobber in the face, a not so gentle tug of the pant leg or a paw to the gut, Shadow and Commando had done a great job of keeping both Jesse awake and Suzy entertained.
“Before I go into the pod and fall asleep,” he called wearily. “I just wanted to say well done to all of you. There is no way we would have survived if not for all of you…. Get some rest, fix the ship and Josiah’s in charge until I wake up.”
Josiah smiled; everyone knew he was first officer, but he liked that Jesse publicly showed him that respect. “Okay then. As acting captain; my first order is for everyone to get out and let the Colonel get his rest.”
As they began filing out, Josiah saw Jesse give him a thumbs up. Once everyone was back on the bridge, he approached Collin and asked “How are the sublight repairs going?”
The tired reply came almost as a delayed reaction. “Not bad, but it’ll be a couple more days at least. Everything else is fully operational though, except the shuttle.”
He thought about the update for a moment and then said, “Okay then, we have all been awake for over a day now. Collin, make sure the ship is cloaked and then let’s all get some sleep. No less than six hours.”
______
Jesse woke up a full two days later. As he sat up and flexed tired muscles, he noticed Commando lying in his usual position at the foot of the bed. He also noticed most of the pain was gone. A little pain remained in his ribs and the shoulder was stiff, but overall he couldn't complain. “SAMMI, how long have I been asleep?” He inquired.
“Forty nine hours and eighteen minutes, Colonel,” SAMMI confirmed.
He smiled at the pleasant sound of SAMMI’s voice. When he and Serge were developing the AI, Collin asked if they could make it sound like Stephanie, the young, beautiful and extremely enthusiastic receptionist employed at Sea Side Enterprises. Jesse and Serge agreed, mostly because it seemed so important to Collin, and at the time they didn’t really care. He had paid the receptionist very well for the use of her voice, and now every time SAMMI spoke, they were all reminded of Stephanie.
“Status update, SAMMI. Where is everyone?” He began to walk off the effects of his recovery pod induced slumber. The recovery pod was an amazing piece of medical technology. It was tube shaped and had a bed that would extend out for the patient to lie on. The top half of the tube would open and the bed would slide out. It would then retract to begin its healing magic. The recovery pod, given enough time, could heal most injuries, though he admitted he wasn’t sure how. The only limitation seemed to be massive trauma. Live surgeons accompanied by med-bots were still needed for that. The recovery pod also had no effect on illness or disease. The only side effect was that once finished, the body required an unusual amount of sleep. Even after sleeping for two days, Jesse would still need to sleep another twelve to fourteen hours later that day.
“Dr. Baker is on the bridge, no other crew members are currently on board Endeavor. Repairs to the sublight drive are p
roceeding according to Lieutenant Torrensede’s schedule, and no work has begun on the damaged shuttle. Would you like me to contact Dr. Baker for you, Colonel?”
“No thank you, SAMMI. I’m going to stretch my legs, grab a drink and head up to the bridge. I’ll talk to Suzy then.” As he was heading to the ships lift, he took a long swig of a tasty liquid energy supplement. After sleeping two straight days, he had woken up thirsty.
As he entered the bridge, the scenery beyond the viewport was the first thing he noticed. He practically ignored Suzy as he walked to the viewport to stare at the red planet they had landed on. Actually, it was more of a light maroon. The bad jokes about being stranded on a maroon planet swirled in his head, but he wisely kept them to himself.
“Desolate, isn’t it,” she remarked as she joined him next to the viewport. Desolate was the perfect word. Light maroon sand swirling around light maroon boulders, a pale pink sky and nothing else.
“Is this planet even inhabited?” He asked.
“Actually, it is,” she replied as she handed him a portable data unit. As he began scrolling though the data she continued; “While you were asleep, Josiah and Kimi have been exploring. Collin went with them this morning as well, leaving me here all alone to babysit you.” She smiled and jabbed him in the arm with her elbow, seemingly amused by her little joke.
“Josiah has gathered quite a bit of information about this planet in the last two days, although he calls it intel. I guess you can take the boy out of the military... Anyway, we made it to Kaldor.”
Kaldor, he thought, this place looks like a Kaldor. "So Dr. Hightower was right all those years ago, huh?"
“At least about Kaldor. We are approximately twelve kilometers south of a settlement called Outpost Twenty-Three.”
“Wow, creative bunch.” He interrupted, as he looked up from the data unit.
She smiled as she continued; “Outpost Twenty-Three is one of twenty-seven small settlements on three sub continents, surrounding one main continent. The main continent is broken up into three territories. Each territory has a large city at its center. Each outpost gathers natural resources and sends them to the main continent, much like the eleven resource planets of our sector in the Milky Way.”
He looked up from his data unit, “There's a lot of info here; where did this intel come from?”
She replied, not at all minding the interruption. She knew his mind needed to process information in a certain order; and knowing where that information came from was step one. “My apologies, I should have started there,” she replied. “Josiah hacked a data terminal in the small room that passes for the community library and downloaded its contents.”
“How has SAMMI translated all of this information so quickly?”
“The data terminal contained many vid files with the corresponding information scrolling along the bottom of the screen. Apparently they speak Common, or close to it as Dr. Hightower indicated they did. SAMMI was able to translate their written language by watching some of the vid files.”
“Sort of like subtitles? That was a lucky break for us.”
“I imagine so. No one in the settlement will even talk to us; they seem very frightened by outsiders. Maybe they are afraid because the outpost has seen battle recently.”
“Battle?” he broke in, suddenly very interested and all business. “How recent?” He asked, his military side taking over.
“Unknown; they use energy based firearms of a similar signature to ours, and it’s difficult to tell if the scorch marks are a week or a month old. There are also burns that appear to have been made by something significantly more powerful than small arms fire.” She replied. Jesse was troubled; perhaps their safe haven wasn’t as safe as he had hoped.
______
Six years earlier…..
Kimiko sobbed as she plunged the knife into Jesse’s back and then looked up in shocked disbelief as nothing happened. It didn’t pierce him; how was that possible? Her thought was interrupted by her body hitting the ground as he had dropped her after she stabbed him.
“Did you just try to stab me?” He asked his mind unable to process what had just happened. “Is this because I wouldn’t kiss you?” He asked, still not sure what was going on.
She took advantage of his confusion and launched into an attack swinging the blade towards his face. His training took over; he ducked the swing and swept her leg, sending her to the ground once again.
“Kimi, stop!” he yelled. “What’s going on?”
She rolled to her feet and back flipped to get some distance between her and her target. “I’m trying to kill you, Jesse. What does it look like?” she yelled angrily through the tears. She hated every second of this and she was beginning to hate him for prolonging her agony.
“Why?” He yelled as he turned sideways into a defensive position.
“Because I was sent to kill you. I have no choice.” She leapt at him, waiting until the last instant to tuck into a tight roll, slicing his thigh as she past him. Once again, she was confused. Why had her knife been able to pierce him this time, but not the first?
“I don’t want to hurt you, Kimi, but I will if I have to.” He called. “Please, let’s just stop and try to talk this through.”
“I’m sorry,” she yelled as she charged him again.
He still had no idea why his friend was trying to kill him. As she charged again, he decided he needed to end this quickly so he could find out what was going on. She swung her knife at his throat as she came at him. He ducked the attack and caught her under her knife arm. In one motion he lifted her high into the air and slammed her through the coffee table. When she hit the ground, she felt at least two of her ribs crack and as the air left her body, she realized she was not going to win this fight. He needed only one punch to take consciousness from her.
She awoke bound on the floor, with Suzy’s angry face looking down at her.
“The assassin is awake.” Her venom was palpable. “I really wish you would call the police already, Jesse.”
Now it was Kimiko who was confused. Why was she still alive? What was going to happen now? As questions filled her mind, she didn’t have to wait long for the answer.
“I need to get information from her, and I might have to use means the police might not agree with. When I get what I need, then I’ll involve the police.”
His first question was obvious, and he was quite angry. She had never seen this side of him. Even Suzy looked worried and Kimiko was fairly certain she was the one person in the galaxy Suzy might break her physician’s oath to kill.
“Who sent you to kill me?" He leaned in so close to her face she could feel the heat of his anger.
“I cannot tell you,” she replied. She looked away in shame as Suzy was tending to a wound on her head that she wasn’t even aware she had gotten.
"Were you or the people you work for responsible for Rebecca's death?"
"What?" Kimi was shocked that he thought she might have killed his fiancé. "No, of course not....."
“Stop playing games, Kimi. Tell me what you know.” He yelled as he grabbed her by the collar and hauled her onto the couch. His movement was so quick that it startled Suzy who had clearly also never seen him this angry before.
“Jesse, please!” Suzy put her hand gently on his arm, “There’s a better way,” she explained as she pulled a syringe from her medical kit. “This chemical will make her tell the truth. It has some negative side effects, but it’s better than more broken bones.” Kimiko wasn’t afraid of torture, but she knew there would be no need for it. She decided to tell Jesse everything. He was the one person that had ever been kind to her, even if he now appeared to hate her, and he deserved the truth.
“There will be no need for needles or threats; I will tell you everything I know from the beginning.” She recalled the details of her youth and how she had been raised and trained to believe that she was good.
Jesse interrupted by saying, “Get to the beginning of the part
I care about.”
She winced a little, hearing the one person she might have ever called friend telling her he didn’t care about her plight. “As you wish,” she patiently replied. “Four months ago, while you were on Polisia, the Asian Dawn sent an assassin named the Dragon to infiltrate your facility and steal your Viper technology. He was unable to complete his mission so my masters waited for you to leave the military and return home where I would then come into your life. I was to steal your technology and then assassinate you. As far as I know, the Asian Dawn did not have anything to do with Rebecca's death.”
She winced again as Suzy was still fussing with her wounds.
"I guess I was just stupid to think that you and I were becoming friends, Kimi. You're a really great actress." He replied with a tinge of bitterness in his eyes.
“No,” she replied defensively. “We were becoming friends. I even broke orders three times this morning to contact the Asian Dawn and beg them to lift the hit.”
“You begged them for my life?” He asked, not quite sure what to believe. “Why?”
“Because I care about you, and I knew you were innocent of wrongdoing. Haven’t you been listening? I thought they were good and just didn’t realize you were good, too. That’s why my tears seemed so real, because they were.”
This time it was Jesse who was surprised by a violent outburst. “You shut your filthy mouth, assassin.” Suzy screamed as she slapped Kimi hard across the face. “You don’t get to tell my best friend you care about him after you tried to stick a knife in his back.” She raised her hand again and Kimi flinched ever so slightly waiting for the inevitable slap, but it didn’t come.
Jesse caught her arm and gently whispered, “No more, Suzy. You don’t want to go down this road.” She began to cry and he embraced her. “I’m so sorry you had to see this side of me Suzy.” He said as he cradled her head against his chest. “I need to hear the rest of the story, but you don’t need to be here if you don’t want to be.”
