Deep Space Endeavor (5 page)

“I …. don’t …
. really know. All I know for sure is that when my unit won the battle of Polisia, I was hailed as one of the heroes of Earth. But I was dealing with the loss of six members of my unit. Then I was told of Rebecca's accident and I realized I was coming back to an Earth I no longer wanted to be a part of. I may have the title, but I definitely don't feel like a hero..."

Kimiko could see that t
alking about this really seemed to be painful and he didn’t owe her anything. After all, she had been the one that tried to kiss him. As she was thinking of everything that had gone so wrong with this plan, she noticed that he was still talking to her.

“Maybe I’m a little lonely
or maybe because my grandpa always used to say, ‘Jesse, if you can help someone, you should. I really don't know why.”

She
thought it over, the conversation had grown too somber for her comfort so she decided to end the conversation and take her leave. " I have to get going; don’t want to be late for my class. I’ll talk to you later. I know this must have been difficult for you to share, and I want to apologize again, I…. really didn’t know. Can we talk some more later on?” He nodded, and waved goodbye as she gracefully slid past him with a smile.

She
left the property with no intention of going to school. She hadn’t actually been to class at all since school started. The only time she even set foot on campus was when she would arrange before hand to have Jesse pick her up. Like the time she “accidentally” lost her speeder keys; or the time she ran out of power. She only needed him to see her on campus a couple times to continue the ruse and further gain his trust. Wearing clothes emblazoned with the school logo and having a legitimate school parking pass affixed to her speeder sold the bit completely. He never even questioned why she was around a little more then she should be, or why she never seemed to be studying.

That was about to end
, though. She knew this whole thing had to be a mistake. He didn’t need to die. If her masters knew he was an honest man, they would have to change their minds. Maybe an arrangement could be reached. She needed to find a place to speak with them privately.

______

“Just do your job, Tamanorra, and don’t call me again, I'm busy.” the voice on the other end of the phone yelled, furious that she would dare question his orders. “Just do your job and do it quickly; we need the plans to the SSE
Vipers
.” She could not believe what her ears were hearing. She had laid out in great detail how Jesse had done nothing wrong. She talked about how he didn’t deserve to die. Yet with each word her master had grown more and more angry, and now his anger was threatening to turn to rage.

Kimiko had been taken from her mother when she was three years old by her master, and her training had begun.
She never went to school, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. A school with other children, playing and studying was not her education. Instead, she was trained with knives and swords and trained in the martial arts. She had learned culture, and how to look, dress, and act like a woman of means and breeding. She was taught how to seduce a man, although with her looks, she never seemed to have to try very hard. The key had always been in letting them think she was their conquest.

She had always been allowed t
o see her mother and sister, and her master had always seemed to be kind to her. For as long as she could remember, she was told she was being trained to fight great evil. She was told by her master that the Asian Dawn was the only thing that stood between Earth and an onslaught of evil. She had always believed she was good. Every time the Asian Dawn had her kill someone, she believed they were evil and deserved to die.

Lately, however,
she was starting to have reservations; the last man she killed didn’t seem evil. He was happy to take advantage of what she was offering, but that didn’t make him evil; that just made him a normal man. She killed him, but for the first time she didn’t feel good about it. She didn’t feel like she was saving the world. She talked to her master, and told him her feelings and he seemed to understand. He gave her a full two weeks off to spend with her mother and sister. Sun was only four years old. Kimi's mom had only been fifteen when she had Kimi. Then, twenty-three years later, Sun came along. Kimi loved Sun. She looked at her little sister as her chance for redemption. By the time she had gone back to work, she was convinced the last job had been an aberration, and that her master and the Asian Dawn were on the side of good.

Now her master was chastising her, and as angry a
s she had ever heard him, simply because she had merely questioned why Jesse had to die.

“Do not fall into this trap
, Kimiko; it is suicide for an assassin to fall in love with her target. Jesse Marcos must be dead by Friday night.” With that, the connection terminated, but the matter was far from settled in her mind.
And what did her master mean by fall in love?
She wasn’t falling in love with Jesse, was she?

______

Present day
……

As the door slid open, Kimiko was greeted by two giant snow wolves. They were both gorgeous specimens, beautiful and deadly. They were a lot like her in that way. As the canines danced around the room happy to have some human company, she smiled through her worry for Jesse and said in her most positive voice; “Hey, Shadow, hey, Commando,” as she leaned over to pet them.

As the
wolves vied for position to be the first one she pet, Kimiko went over to Shadow and began to pet her soft smooth fur. She looked over at Commando and she grinned as she said, “Sorry, Commando; just sit and you'll get your turn.” Commando did as instructed and sat. He tried to look patient, but he didn't hide his excitement very well. She smiled as she looked at him and continued to pet Shadow. Shadow was the bigger of the two wolves; the female snow wolves usually were bigger. Kimiko was a tall woman at five foot seven and Shadow, with all four paws on the ground, was only a few inches shorter than her. Commando just about came up to her shoulder. If they got it in their minds, these wolves could have her for lunch. She knew she needn’t worry because a trained snow wolf would never turn on a good master or his friends.

While she
was thinking about the wolves, she moved to begin petting Commando. As was his custom, he immediately lay down on his back presenting his stomach. She rubbed his belly careful to hide her concern. Snow wolves were very intelligent and could usually sense when something was wrong, but she was well trained in hiding her emotions. After she finished Commando’s belly rub, she brought them both a fresh bowl of water. While she was putting the water down, she heard her name called over the ship speaker.

“
Officer Tamanorra, your presence is requested in med-bay,” came the sing-song voice of the ship’s AI.

“On my way
,” she responded as she left the wolves behind and quickly made her way to the med-bay.
What’s happening,
she wondered,
is Jesse alright?
Worry was tossing all these questions into her mind when she knew she ought to just remain calm and wait for Suzy to let her know what was happening.

Her
brisk walk ended at the med-bay door. She composed herself and entered the room. “I’m here,” she called, “Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine
,” Suzy’s voice breezed from the other room. “Jesse has some significant injuries, but he’ll live to make bad jokes another day.”

“Ha ha
,” Jesse grunted painfully.

Kimiko was glad to see that Jesse was going to be al
right, and she knew the med-bay’s recovery pod would have him back on his feet pretty quickly. Knowing this, she thought now would be as good a time as any to launch into her worried tirade about him almost getting himself killed. “What were you thinking, Jesse? You are a terrible pilot......"

Jesse interrupted, “Look, I know I’m not the ideal guy to fly that mission, and if the space mine had worked it would have been fine. But when the detonation failed
, I had to do something, and I was the only one who could. One more shot would have destroyed
Endeavor
and all of you with it, Kimi.” She knew he was right, but she didn’t have to like it.

As Suzy was listing off his injuries,
he couldn’t help but add, “Don’t worry, Doc, I’ve had worse.”

“Jesse, you have
a compound skull fracture, and a severe concussion. We can’t even begin letting the recovery pod heal your other injuries until you have been awake for twenty-four hours. You dislocated your left shoulder, fractured two ribs, bruised a lung, and sprained your left knee. Even after the recover pod does its work, you will have to be in bed a minimum of two to three days. Please take this seriously.”

Suzy had the question hanging in her mind but didn’t know how to ask it. She knew
he had taken a great risk to save them, but she wasn’t sure that was the only reason for his recklessness.

Hi
s voice broke into her thoughts, “Ask your question, Suzy.”

S
ometimes she hated that he knew her so well. She tried to word her question carefully, but what actually came out was; “Why did you have to get so close to the pirates before you fired? Even you are not that bad of a pilot.”

Jesse knew his answer would anger
them, but he also knew that they would know if he were lying.

“I flew to
o close on purpose,” He began to explain.

“You what
?” the angry reply came in stereo as both women looked down waiting for him to finish his explanation.

“Look, I may be a lousy pilot, but under normal circumstances I’m a great shot, but these weren’t normal circumstances. All of your lives were on the line and I wasn’t one hundred percent.”

“That doesn’t really explain it.”

The ice in Suzy’s voice made him shiver as he continued. “I wasn’t one hundred percent because of the skull fracture I already had over my right eye. I was feeling pretty dizzy and I knew I was only going to get one shot.”

Kimiko did not think she had ever been this angry with Jesse. “You knew you had a concussion and you still went out there? I could have gone, or Josiah could have gone. Even Suzy could have done it. Why did it have to be you?” Her voice was rising as she continued. “Why does it always have to be you?”

H
e defended himself, “Suzy doesn’t kill, you were the only one that could take out those fighters and Josiah was already working on the portable shield generator when I thought up the plan. After setting up the generator, he had to trigger the mine. My head was pretty clear when I started the flight…”

“But Josiah didn’t trigger the mine
,” Kimiko jumped in, knowing that didn’t make sense even as she said it. He was right, the plan was good, and it’s not his fault the mine malfunctioned. She stormed out of the med-bay in frustration, knowing she had no right to be this angry with the man that had saved her so many times and in so many ways. She just couldn’t help it. They all took great risks for one another, it just seemed like he took more.

“I’m glad I didn’t die out there
,” he chuckled. “Then I would have missed all of this.”

“Oh great, more j
okes, Colonel?”

He thought she
must have been really angry to address him as Colonel in that icy tone, but he didn't mention it.

“Look
, Suzy, I know you think I’m anxious to go out in a blaze of glory and join Rebecca in the afterlife. I promise that’s not the case; at least not anymore. You were right to be worried six years ago, I missed her so badly, not to mention the Rockets. I’m past that now. Do you really think I would purposely check out with my closest friends stranded for fourteen months in another galaxy? We were all in danger and I really was the only one available to do it. I didn’t expect it to be half as dangerous as it wound up being, but I swear to you my mind was in the right place.”

Hi
s words actually did comfort her a little. It was good to hear him acknowledge that he wasn’t always in a good place, and she believed him that he didn’t think this risk was extreme. Maybe he wasn't anxious to join his fiancé or his unit in the afterlife, but she knew that he usually took the most dangerous risks because he didn't want to lose any more people close to him.

She decided she needed to lighten the mood a little and cut him some slack. He did just save their lives. “Those would have been the dumbest last words in history.” She laughed.

“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.