Deep Space Endeavor (37 page)

“Of course I was
. You should listen to yourself more often by the way. You knew they were targeting you and you said you weren't going to leave the ship." He joked, clearly relieved that she was back.

"I left the ship because I couldn't find you and wanted to check your condition. I was worried that explosion may have hurt you, I didn't think you were ready for action."

"It did, and I wasn't. You were right about that, too. I was in engineering making sure the ship didn't sustain any damage, we must have missed each other."

"We must have," she replied as she put her head on his shoulder.

Everyone left the landing bay to go to the common room for dinner. Suzy checked Enso’s progress on her way up. He had needed forty-one minutes in the recovery pod to heal what the pirates had done to him. He would be sleeping off the effects of the pod for approximately twenty hours. He had already been asleep about four, which meant he would wake up sometime around ten the next morning. Still, she diligently checked on him and she checked Reece as well. She was going to be releasing him from the medically induced coma in the morning, and was really hoping he was going to wake up.

______

Suzy arrived at dinner and was greeted by everyone standing behind their chairs waiting for her to be the first to be seated. She appreciated the gesture as she sat down, thankful for such a loyal crew. Jesse looked around the table and smiled at his crew thankful that they had all made it through this trying day in one piece.

After dinner, Agent Sandstorm stood to leave, and Kimi offered to walk him out. Jesse wondered if she was starting to like Ogen, and he also wondered why it bothered him so much. He couldn’t understand why. Agent Sandstorm was an outstanding man. Jesse liked him, as did everyone else. Surely he couldn’t be jealous, could he? He had a budding relationship going with the beautiful Cassyanna Reed,
although, something did seem off. He just couldn't place it. He should be happy for Kimi and Sandstorm if they were getting together, but he wasn’t and he wondered why.

Kimiko smiled as she and Ogen walked towards the landing bay. While they were saying their good
byes, she looked at him and said, “You did really well today. Jesse will never forget what you did today and neither will I. Thank you, Ogen."

______

Six years earlier
………

It had been four weeks since Jesse had threatened Asian Dawn. He had immediately sent the proof of their crimes Nina's virus had downloaded to each planet's law enforcement and most of the organization had been arrested. There had been several bloody battles as military units were sent in to back up the local law enforcement on many of the takedowns. He had put two full teams of former Marine commandos on twenty-four hour protection for Nina and Serge. They protested, but he couldn’t take a chance. He also had two teams protecting Suzy. Jason had played a key role in tracking the likely locations of their targets, so Jesse had decided to leave a detail with him as well. Elsewhere, Josiah, Collin, Manny, Ariel and Kimi were with him searching for Kimi's former master. He wasn’t going to stop until the man that ordered the hit on him was dead or in prison. This man of course was Kimi's former master. He knew none of them would ever be safe until he was out of the picture. Prison might not even be enough, he could still order hits from there, but he wouldn't kill a man in cold blood. He could only hope the Master went down fighting.

“Jesse,” Ariel
reminded, “You can still let this drop, let the government handle it. They have already taken down seventy-five percent of the organization."

“Ariel, I
wish I could," he replied. “But none of us will be safe until that man is out of the picture.”

“
We can take care of ourselves buddy, don't worry about us." Josiah added.

“
I know my family and I will not be safe anywhere on Earth or the rest of the Coalition until my former master is dead. He has already sent assassins after Sun, twice.” Kimiko added.

Manny came up to Kimiko and put his arm around her. “I’ll keep your family safe, you and
me, we'd be unstoppable together.” She just smiled and moved away from Manny. He stood there with a puzzled look. Women almost never walked away from him, and the fact that Kimiko always did only made him want her more.

“Sorry, buddy, she only has eyes for Jesse,” Josiah consoled as he whispered to Manny. “She’s stuck on him, my friend. Don’t take it personally.”

Collin spoke so suddenly and excitedly that it startled most of the group. “I have a lead on Kimi’s former Master!” Collin exclaimed. “He was spotted in San Francisco an hour ago. We can be there in less than two hours.”

“He has a safe house there,” Kimiko added. “He doesn’t know I know about it. It will be heavily guarded, but he will likely be there.”

“Let’s move,” Jesse said as he ran for the shuttle. He knew they could move quickly and stealthily with a
s
huttle in stealth mode. As they boarded, he thought about how much better it would be to have cloaking technology that would make the craft invisible to both sensors and people. He would have to give that some more thought when the Asian Dawn organization was out of the picture. He knew this was a dangerous mission for his friends. But he also knew it wasn’t safe to take down that much of a criminal organization and not finish them off. If he left them with any power, they would only use it to strike back at him and those he loved. But if they could get the Master, they could end this quickly.

His strike team was about a mile away from the Master's safe house doing some recon before they made their move. Hopeful
ly, this would be the day the Master paid for his crimes. Anyone left free in the Asian Dawn organization after this was wanted on every planet, probably in hiding and lacked the power to come after them. He knew that the police would be hunting them down, too. With the information he had provided them, they viewed this as an excellent opportunity to use the downfall of the Asian Dawn to send a message to any other criminal organizations that might try to take their place.

The safe house was anything but non-descript. In fact, it was a mansion. A large white three story house with a big open field leading up to the front and surrounded on three sides by trees. The house looked to be a few hundred years old and was adorned with red trim around the windows and doors. It looked as though the master had grown tired of life on the run and wanted to return to more comfortable and luxurious surroundings.

Preparations for the assault were under way as each of them went through their own personal pre-battle rituals. Josiah approached Kimiko while she was making her preparations, he noticed she was staring over at Jesse and said, “He’s not ready, you know.”

She looked at Josiah with a quizzical expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Jesse, he’s still hurting from Rebecca's death and he's not ready to be with another woman yet. I only mention it because it’s obvious to me that you like him.”

She was shocked that her attraction to Jesse had been noticed by anyone. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she lied.

He just smiled. “It will be a little while before he is ready to be in a relationship again. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. When he is ready, I really do hope it’s you.”

She surprised both herself and Josiah by saying, “I’m willing to wait.”

He squeezed her arm and nodded. “We better get back to our preparations.”

______

Collin and Ariel came back to the shuttle at a jog. “They have thirty-five men outside the house. Sensors are picking up another fifteen inside. Kimi was right, this place is heavily guarded.” Collin said as he checked his information.

“There also seems to be a heavily fortified room in the sub-basement,” Ariel added.

“They have two heavy anti-personnel weapons we will have to disable before we can go in,” Collin spoke as he picked up a water bottle.

“He will no doubt have a considerable amount of backup close by as well,” Kimiko interjected while looking at Collin’s infor
mation. “This may be too much for us.”

Jesse just smiled, “We can take out the weapons and half the guards outside from the shuttle
.
After we land, we can deploy our four, brand new, SSE warriorbots to form a perimeter to hold off any reinforcements they may send.”

“I thought they were still trying to work the bugs out of those things,” Manny said while keeping his eyes focused on the safe house.

“I don’t think we can safely use them yet, Jess,” Josiah added, concern evident in his voice.

“We won’t need to,” Ariel interjected. “Nina and Serge are in a shuttle five minutes out with their detail.”

“What? Why?” Jesse stammered. He didn’t want his family anywhere near this. This was likely to be a blood bath. He and his team had even procured bounty hunting licenses so they could legally go after the Master. “Get Nina back on the line,” he added, anger creeping into his voice.

“They’re ignoring us,” Ariel smiled. She knew Nina was as stubborn as Jesse, and if she wanted to be here, he couldn’t stop her.

A few minutes later, Nina’s shuttle landed and she stepped out, flanked by armed commandoes. “What are you doing here, Nina? This is going to get ugly.” Jesse asked, confrontation in his voice.

“This has to end, Jesse,” she shot back.

“It will end as soon as the man in that safe house is captured or dead. And please don’t even waste your breath trying to talk me out of it.”

“Talk you out of it?” She laughed. “You think I’m here to talk you out of it?” she continued as Jesse and his strike team looked confused. “I’m here to help. Twelve assassins just attacked SSE headquarters. They killed seventeen men and women while trying to work their way to Serge and me. The men you assigned to protect us…”

“The ones you didn’t want,” he interrupted, not wanting to miss an opportunity to rub in the fact he was right.

“The men you assigned to protect us,” she continued, not taking the bait. “Were able to kill all of them, but not before they made me have to put a multi-billion dollar deal on hold. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not about the money. It’s the disruption to our lives that this is causing. We need this to end, so we are here to help you end this now. Facial recognition software confirms that all of the men outside the house and several of the men inside the house are wanted members of the Asian Dawn organization. If you take these men out and their likely backups, there will be no one left in the organization powerful enough or with enough money to come after us again for quite some time.”

“Alright, then,” Jesse said with a smile. “Let’s end this. Did we lose any commandoes to the assassins?” He asked.

“Four!” Serge responded, speaking for the first time since they had arrived.

“Here’s the plan,” Jesse began. “Nina and Thompson will be in shuttle one, Serge and Tate will be in shuttle two. One will fly to the back of the complex and open fire. Two flies to the front of the complex and opens fire. Tate, make sure you take out the two anti-personnel weapons. After the shuttles have sufficiently strafed the safe house, I will lead my strike team with Jones and five of his men from the west. Cartwright, you lead the rest of the men from the east. After the perimeter is secured, my group will enter the house while Cartwright’s group sets up a perimeter defense against any reinforcements. Cartwright, don’t forget to factor the shuttles
into your defense, any questions?” When there were none, he added, “Let’s do this, people. Stick to the plan, and let’s all go home together.”

______

Present day
………..

Jesse was eating breakfast with Cassie and thoroughly enjoying his morning when Suzy’s voice came over the ship speaker letting Cassie know Enso was awake. Her smile grew really bright and she stood quickly. “I’ll catch up with you in a little while?” She asked more than said.

“Of course,” he smiled. “Go be with your cousin. Take as much time as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

She leaned in and kissed him passionately before turning back around and going to see her cousin in med-bay. He just sat there taking in the moment.

Jesse’s moment was killed by the sound of SAMMI alerting them to an incoming transmission. “On screen,” he said as he was walking onto the bridge.

Garrinoras’ face flared to life, and Jesse thought,
what now
?

“Human,” Garrinoras
' voice boomed in its usual manner. “I am calling to congratulate you.” Jesse’s interest was piqued. “No one has ever beaten me in an exchange. You are the first. Every hostage I have ever taken in return for something I needed from an enemy has ended up dead. Enso Reed is the first to survive. I am impressed. You have earned my respect as an adversary. I think you will be pleased to know that you are the first human that has ever earned my respect.”

“Thank you for your kind words. Now, what is it you would like to discuss?” Jesse hadn’t expected this sort of conversation, so he had his guard up, waiting for the other shoe to drop.