by Francis, Ron
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As soon as he had excused himself from the strange trio, Captain Topanar alerted one of his covert agents to follow them and report back. He then put in a priority message to his uncle, Eliphaz Topanar, the Sub-Mayor of Kaldor City. Any change in the arrangement with the pirates was to be brought to his attention immediately. Added damage and added pirates meant added funds for the Sub-Mayor and his family. The Topanar’s had not been born to nobility like many of Kaldor’s other politicians had. They had to claw, scrape and cheat their way to respectability. If that meant having to make deals with the likes of Garrinoras, then so be it, the alternative was far less desirable.
Eliphaz Topanar was now Sub-Mayor of Kaldor City, which meant he was the third most powerful person in the most powerful of the planet’s three districts. The only people more powerful were the Governor and the Mayor. The planet Kaldor had an ideal political setup for him to take advantage of. Each district had a capital city and the surrounding cities and towns located on the main continent. There were also nine outposts for each district that supplied most of the essential natural resources located on one of three subcontinents.
The capitals of the other two districts were Ocean View City and the City of the Skies. Capital city was built on the precise coordinates on the continent where all three districts met, and it was from there the governors would govern. Every fifteen years, the people would elect a new Chairman from the three current governors. That meant Topanar had only eight more years to become a governor, if he wanted to be the planet’s next ruler. He would be mayor soon enough. That part of the plan was well under way, and may have even been completed. He had arranged for the Mayor and his wife to take a tour of Outpost Twenty-Three yesterday. By now, Garrinoras’ men should have done the rest. After that, the next election for governor was only about seven months away and he was sure he could carry the sympathy vote after his close friend and mentor had been killed in a tragic pirate attack.
As he answered his communication alert, Eliphaz Topanar was surprised to see his nephew’s face. “Hello, Joldas. It is good to see you.” He greeted.
“Thank you, Uncle Eliphaz. It is good to see you as well.” he responded. “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call, Uncle,” he continued. “I have just had a visit from three offworlders that were near Outpost Twenty-Three when Garrinoras' men attacked yesterday. I don’t know how they escaped the pirates, but they had the look about them of seasoned warriors. They had a lot of knowledge of the pirate’s patterns of attack on the outposts, and I think there was even more that they were not telling me. I have an undercover agent following them, hoping to gain more information on our visitors.”
“That is all very interesting information,” he replied with a shake of the head. “But it does not really seem like the sort of thing I should be worried about, or even informed about, Nephew.”
Joldas smile as he continued his briefing. “I have not yet gotten to the most important part, Uncle. The offworlders told me the pirates had been brutal, more so than usual. They were even sending out patrols to round up anyone they missed. They were taking people prisoner, and they have occupied the outpost. This seems to be in clear violation of our arrangement.”
Now he was interested. If the pirates deviated too far from the plan, it might come to light that the Mayor is there sooner than he would like. People might start digging into how it came to be that the Mayor was there and why his escort detail was not with him. He was not prepared for that, he needed time to cover those tracks, and these offworlders might prove a hindrance. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with his plan. It was he that convinced the Mayor to make the trip. It was he that convinced the Mayor to use a professional off world security team. And, it was he that tipped off Garrinoras to the fact that the Mayor of Kaldor city would be there, relatively unguarded. From there it had been child’s play to get Garrinoras to take the bait. The public execution of the Mayor of Kaldor City would cement his reputation as the most notorious pirate in the Lawless Sector.
“Joldas, find those three offworlders and detain them indefinitely,” he ordered. He needed them out of the picture. His nephew’s next question was predictable.
“On what charges, Uncle?”
“Hold them as suspected off world spies, or think up something even more creative if you’d like. Use your imagination. Just get them off the street. Do you understand? Call me when it’s done.” Before Joldas could reply, the connection had terminated.
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As Jesse stealthily moved from building to building, he came across two pirates having some fun at the expense of a young girl who looked to be maybe seven years old. He knew he risked capture, but he had no choice, he had to intervene. The poor child was terrified. She was a cute kid, but too thin and filthy. It looked like the girl hadn’t eaten or bathed in weeks. He would have been heartbroken to look at the child, even if she hadn’t been in the process of being tormented by pirates.
There were two pirates, one reminded him of a Jarlevian, but not as big and the other was Mannagore, a species he was already beginning to despise. They were tossing the helpless girl back and forth, purposely dropping her, kicking dirt in her face, and the more she cried, the more they laughed. He had to end this and get the child to safety before he could carry on trying to find his friends.
Jesse made his presence known by leveling his blaster at the Mannagore and calling out, “If you touch that child again, I will kill you where you stand.” The pirates almost jumped out of their skin when they saw him with his blaster aimed.
After they had composed themselves, the Mannagore was the first to reply. “Humanssss, not the smartest creaturessss, are they, Kal?”
The other pirate answered, “Apparently not. He just got himself captured for a little piece of street trash. Not a smart move.”
As Kal was speaking, the Mannagore looked at the child and smiled. It then raised its hand, extended its claws and fell backward after Jesse put a shot right between its eyes. Before the other pirate could even draw his blaster Jesse dropped him, too. He picked up the little girl, still sobbing, and began to run with her.
His blaster wasn’t loud, but if anyone was close by, they would have heard it. Even if they didn’t, they would be by to find the dead pirates soon enough. He knew he had to get some distance between them if he hoped to save the little girl. As he ran, he tried to comfort her, but he knew that would be a difficult task. She had been through a lot. “I’m Jesse,” he said in not quite a whisper. “What’s your name?” When no reply came, he continued. “I’m gonna try my best to make sure nothing bad happens to you, Little One, I promise. Let’s get to safety, shall we?” Although, from the looks of her, safety might not have been a concept she would understand.
As he was making a break for one of the pirate’s speeders, he heard a voice from behind call out, “Hold it right there, Human.” He half turned to see two alien pirates with blasters trained on him. He rolled to the side, protecting the little girl, and fired twice, dropping both pirates, but it was too late. Other pirates had seen him and there was no way he could fight his way past forty-five or more pirates alone while trying to keep a child safe.
He continued running for the speeder, but blaster fire began lighting up the air around him. He could smell the burning air as each shot flew by in a spectrum of intense heat and color. The little girl just buried her head in his chest and cried harder. He made it to the speeder, but there was a code required to start it, and he didn’t have time hack it. He looked at his new companion, and instructed her to keep her head down. She did as instructed, and he began to return fire. He had already taken three hits but his battle suit was fine. He fired back and saw another pirate go down, then another, then two more, and finally another.
The blaster fire stopped and he looked around. Maybe he would have time to hack the speeder after all. He thought he might be able to get away, until he heard the distinctive sound of a small missile launching. He threw hims
elf on top of the little girl and hoped his battle suit would live up to the billing.
______
They were making much better time than they had last night, Josiah thought as the speeder was about to pass Outpost Twenty-One. “Pull into the settlement and go closely past the second building. Slow down, but do not stop, I’m going to jump out, and then you continue on.” Kimiko had known for quite some time they were being followed, but could do nothing about it while they were out in the open.
“Why,” Josiah asked, “Is everything alright?”
“No, everything is not alright. We are being followed, and I do not wish for our pursuer to know the location of our ship.” she informed.
Josiah and Collin both looked back but could see no one. Collin, however, knew better than to question Kimi when it came to something like this. He made a left at the second building and slowed considerably. Kimi jumped out and he continued making a right down the next street. As the person tailing them came around the corner, she appeared out of the shadows in a flying sidekick that knocked the man from his speeder bike, dislodging his helmet. As he tried to rise, she knocked him out with an ax kick to the back of the skull. She hopped on his speeder bike and caught up with her teammates.
They continued out of the settlement and she dismounted the speeder bike and clipped the throttle down. She released the brake and sent it off in the wrong direction. They knew it would be monitored by whoever sent it and they couldn’t let them know the location of the ship. She jumped in the back of the speeder as Collin and Josiah pulled up alongside her and they began making their way back to the ship.
______
Suzy was under the engine compartment, laying flat on her back with her feet sticking out from under the console. She couldn’t believe she was actually fixing an engine on a spaceship. It was true that SAMMI was the brains behind this one, but she had done her share. She had just put the finishing touches on the power line when a thought occurred to her.
“Hey, SAMMI, does the ship’s cloak mask the sound of the engine in any way?” SAMMI’s voice still made her laugh every time she thought about it. She understood how Collin had gotten Jesse and Serge to use the voice of the beautiful receptionist that he was in love with, but she had never quite figured out how they had gotten Nina to agree to it.
“Negative, Doctor Baker, sound cannot be heard in space, and the cloaking technology is not designed to baffle those sensors. Should we start the engines planet side, the sound would be heard.” SAMMI replied in Stephanie the Receptionist’s feathery voice.
She was afraid of that. That would mean no test run to see if she had gotten it right. She slid out from under the engine. She tried to wipe some grease from her face, although she imagined she only smeared it more. Then she stood up to stretch her back.
“Looks like we are all done, SAMMI,” she called as she put the last engine plate back in place. “Do you think it’ll work?” She had her fingers crossed when SAMMI’s reply came.
“We have repaired the engines to standard specifications. They will most likely work, although we will not know for certain until we test them.”
Suzy absently began to clean up the area as she thought about her missing crewmates. Her thoughts were soon interrupted by the frightening bass filled barking of Shadow and Commando. She ran from the engine room to the landing bay to see what all the commotion was about, only to see the crew returning. Everyone except Jesse, of course. Could things possibly go any more wrong on this mission, she wondered?
“Thank God you guys are back,” she yelled as she ran over and hugged Josiah. “I was so worried. Did you see Jesse?” Josiah and Kimi exchanged a look that told her they hadn’t.
“He’s not here with you?” Josiah asked; concern etched on his face.
“Hey, who was messing with the engines?” Collin called out, seemingly unaware of the conversation going on in the landing bay.
“Jesse worked on them yesterday, and then I helped SAMMI finish up today after Jesse left this morning.” Suzy yelled back loud enough for Collin to hear in the other room.
“Do they work?” Collin asked.
SAMMI broke in with the same response she had just given Suzy. “We have repaired the engines to standard specifications. They will most likely work, although we will not know for certain until we test them.”
Collin came running out of the engine room. He took one look at Suzy’s grease stained face, broke into a big grin and picked her up in an even bigger bear hug. “Great job, Doc,” he started. “Although now that I know you can do this, you know you’re gonna have to help me all the time in the engine room, right?” Suzy smiled shyly, not used to receiving this sort of attention. She shook her head in agreement and he set her back on solid ground.
“This is great news. Well done, Suzy.” Josiah added. “Now we can go find the Colonel and deal with these pirates. Does anyone have an idea of how we can actually find Jesse?”
Suzy shyly raised her hand and they all looked at her. “Just full of surprises today, aren’t we, Doc?” Collin said smiling as he shook his head.
As they walked toward the bridge, she was explaining, “This was actually Jesse’s idea. He rigged up a transmitter. It’s not powerful enough for communication, but it is powerful enough for SAMMI to track, and he had me implant it in his arm. SAMMI, activate the Colonel’s tracking beacon.” They all watched the screen as the red dot came up in one of the buildings in the settlement. After a minute, they noticed that the dot wasn’t moving. Then Josiah articulated what they were all thinking. “He’s hurt, captured, or worse. We need to get moving now.”
“Here’s the plan,” he began. “Collin, you are going to fly the ship cloaked into the settlement. We’ll de-cloak, and you destroy any fighters or mounted weapons they have. Disable the gunships on the ground and take out their weapons, but leave them in tact so we can get a look at them after the battle. Also try and take out whatever they are using to jam communications, but that is a secondary objective. After that, Kimi and I will repel in with the four warriorbots. The bots will lay down cover fire while Kimi and I will go find Jesse. Collin, you put the ship down right next to the building and we get Jesse aboard. Any questions?”
There were none; everyone knew what they needed to do.
Josiah knew this was a long shot; they were alone in a hostile situation with no real knowledge of the enemy. They were up against an unknown number of enemies and they were attempting an infiltration designed to rescue a man they couldn’t even be sure was still alive.
The fact of the matter was Jesse Marcos would do the same for any of them, in fact he was only out there alone right now because he had been trying to rescue them.
Kimiko was very quiet, even for her. Josiah knew she was thinking about Jesse. He knew she loved him and wondered if they would ever actually give romance a try.
She had dated some guys over the last few years, but it never seemed to work out, and he suspected it was because she was always comparing them to Jesse. Jesse, on the other hand, had not even looked at another woman since Rebecca died and Josiah wasn’t sure he ever would. Although he hoped that Jesse would eventually give it a try with Kimi. He came over and put his arm around her and she let him. “He’s gonna be okay, Kimi, haven't you heard, Colonel Marcos can't be killed.” His attempt at humor did little to console her.
She just leaned on him and whispered; “He has to be, Josiah. He has to be.”
Chapter four
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Six years earlier……
Kimiko woke up to the sounds of an argument in the next room. She did have a headache as Jesse’s doctor friend had said she would. She failed to mention that the other side effect would be falling asleep, unless of course she fell asleep from her wounds, which she noticed had been well tended. Amazingly enough she didn’t even feel any pain. As she strained to hear what was being said, she noticed she was no longer bound. It would seem they believed her. She could make out the voices, but could
not distinguish who was speaking.
“But she tried to kill you.”
“That's true, but she didn’t have a choice, and she did try to get the hit called off.”
“There’s no way you can trust that woman. She’s an assassin, Jesse.” Kimiko thought that was the doctor’s voice.
“Suzy, listen, I have to do this.” He sounded like he had reached a decision.
“I just don’t want you going after these people, they're dangerous. You’ll get yourself killed, and you’ll probably get Josiah and the Rockets killed, too.” Kimiko could hear the plea in the doctor’s voice.
“We're not going after them, not at first.” He was resolute. “First, we save her family, and then we get her and her family safely out of the line of fire. Then I go after them. Do you think they're going to stop coming after me? The only way I can be safe and keep the people I love safe is to make sure they are no longer in a position to come after me.”
