Deep Space Endeavor (15 page)

Before Topanar could respond, the transmission was cut. He was so angry that he yelled out loud
in frustration. He was alone in a little used office, so he knew no one could hear him. Now, to add to his frustration, he had to go to meet the Mayor upon his triumphant return.

______

The spaceport was buzzing with excitement. While his wife was asleep from her time in the recovery pod, the Mayor had chosen to stay on the ship. He had been in port almost a day before addressing the public. He did have a young man from his office deliver some fresh clothes for him and his wife to change into and a clean outfit for Kiah. He was really beginning to like young Kiah, Seeja had told him how much she liked her as well. In light of their conversation with Jesse and Reece, they were actually thinking about asking Jesse if they could take her off his hands and care for her. They would be an ideal couple to begin to change the culture concerning orphans on Kaldor. Especially now.

A sizable contingent of Kaldor’s honor guard awaited his exit from the ship. There was a large throng of media; anxiously awaiting what they hoped would be a good story. A large gathering
of the rich and powerful, the social elite and even many of Kaldor’s entertainment stars had turned up at the spaceport to welcome Mayor Valinor home. This had turned into Kaldor City’s impromptu social event of the season. The Mayor was beloved, which is why Topanar had tried to have him killed. He knew he could never hope to beat Valinor in an election. Even the Chairman, the elected ruler of all of Kaldor, and his beautiful wife were there to greet Mayor Valinor.

Endeavor
’s landing bay hatch was about to lower, and the event was about to begin. Jesse was wearing his dress blues. He was adorned with all of his medals at the Mayor’s request. He had elected to forego spending more time in the recovery pod. His wounds looked worse than they were. Suzy wrapped his bruised ribs, and tended all of the cuts and bruises he had received during his time “playing with the pirates,” as she had so eloquently phrased it. He did still have a sizeable gash above his right eye and an accompanying bruise circling his eye. It was a nice reminder of the butt of the pirate’s weapon that had hit him while he was carrying Kiah through the smoke.

Collin, Josiah, Kimi and Kiah were to stay in the ship as part of the Mayor’s plan. The three adults could not been seen in public becaus
e young Topanar had already met them. Kiah could not come out, either, because of Kaldor’s prejudice towards orphans. Jesse found her fascination with both SAMMI and Commando to be adorable, and he also found her many questions to be exhausting, although he was sure the rest of the crew enjoyed watching her ask them.

Before
the landing bay opened, a vid began to play on the wall of the spaceport to everyone’s rear. All eyes that were focused on the ship awaiting the Mayor turned to see what was being played out on the back wall.
Endeavor
’s shipboard cameras had caught much of the battle, including the Mayor and his wife heroically ushering children to safety. The cameras caught Seeja being shot and the Mayor dropping a pirate with his blaster as he made his way over to his injured love. The clip showed the children being returned to their loved ones. The vid ended with Reece and the Mayor carrying Constable Grimm’s body to the elders and letting them know he died a hero.

Collin, thankful that the Mayor wasn't corrupt as he had originally thought during his first visit to Kaldor City, had an
idea to use the footage to show just how heroic Mayor Valinor and his wife Seeja had been during the ordeal. This would probably cement his popularity for life with the people of Kaldor City. The crowd stood in stunned silence, awed by what they had just seen. Then, in theatrical fashion, the landing bay hatch began to descend.

Mayor Valinor and his wife Seeja began slowly walking
hand in hand down the Gralium-plated ramp of the landing bay to a thunderous ovation. The crowd, still moved by what they had seen, was in full celebration at the sight of their beloved, heroic Mayor. Even the honor guard was clapping and cheering, which was unusual for a unit with their discipline. The applause continued for several minutes as Mayor Valinor and Seeja greeted the Chairman and his wife. They moved to greet other people of importance, and even reserved a warm greeting for Topanar himself. When Mayor Valinor had made his way to the podium, he motioned the crowd to silence and began to speak.

“To the good people of Kaldor City, and the good people all over Kaldor,” he began. “As many of you know I took a trip with my wife to Outpost Twenty-Three to personally survey the damage of a recent pirate attack. This is part of an initiative my great friend and colleague Sub-Mayor Topanar came up with to help those in need around the planet.”

Jesse smiled at the Mayor;
he certainly was a great actor
. Topanar was beaming at the mention of his name, and seemed to have no clue that Mayor Valinor was on to him. He listened as the Mayor continued.

“We had the bad fortune of being attacked by the very same pirates
while we were at the settlement,” he added. “We would not be here if not for these brave men and woman,” he motioned to them to come out.

Jesse descended the ramp with Reece on his left and Suzy, also in dress blues, on his right. They were flanked on either side by Shadow and Command
o, the sight of which caused many ohh's and ahh's to arise from the crowd. He realized that none of them had ever seen canines this big before. At the top of the ramp stood the two remaining warriorbots, turned off for safety, but imposing nonetheless. Jesse and his companions stood to the right of the Mayor and his wife as he continued.

“These two men rescued and protected my wife and me at great physical cost to themselves and their men. Several good men died protecting people they didn’t even know.
" The Mayor's face grew contemplative as he continued. "No loss was felt more than the loss of the beloved constable of Outpost Twenty-Three, Constable Grimm.” The Mayor looked over at Suzy as he continued, “The woman there with them is as talented a doctor as I have ever seen, and she saved my wife’s life. To these men and woman we owe a great debt of gratitude.” The crowd once again broke into thunderous applause.

Jesse looked over at his friend Suzy. She really w
as as talented doctor as any he had ever seen, and she was almost never recognized for it. She was practically glowing, and he smiled, happy that for once she could receive the accolades due her. While he was still lost in thought, the crowd broke out into another round of applause, and the speech was over. The Chairman approached to shake the three heroes’ hands, and he wished Josiah, Collin, and Kimi could be part of this adulation, too, although he was certain it would have made Kimi uncomfortable.

______

…… Just outside Polisia, aboard their shuttle, Nina and Serge Romanov continued scanning the debris from the battle. This was Nina’s best chance of figuring out what happened to her brother. The military had been stonewalling her, no doubt under orders from Fleet Admiral Natora. As Captain Ambrose feared, he had received a reprimand for trying to go around Natora to Admiral Bliney. He called to send his apologies and to let her know he was no longer in a position to be of service. Dealing with Natora was infuriating. The man, if she could even call him that, hated Jesse with a passion, and she didn’t understand why. Jesse had never done anything to the man that would have earned this level of hatred.

When Jesse deployed his fleet and weapons around Earth, he had saved the planet and
the entire Coalition from certain destruction by dealing the Jarlevian a crushing defeat. He thought there was an information leak at Naval Command, so the only man he told about his plans to save Earth, if Earth needed saving, was Admiral Bliney. He had begun building the SSE fleet while Earth was still at war with the Pack. When the war came to an abrupt end due to the decisive victory at Polisia, he kept the ships a secret, and had the company continue to build them, just in case.

______

Two years earlier…….

The
Leviathan
Battle Carriers were the biggest warships in the fleet; they could carry twenty full squadrons of fighters and forty assault shuttles. Each
Leviathan
was accompanied by three
War Hawk
Frigates. Bristling with weaponry and loaded with assault shuttles and fighters, the four ship battle groups were near unstoppable. Jesse had built eleven battle groups by the time the Jarlevian attacked.

Earth had only twenty-four ships in orbit and one moon-based anti-ship laser turret when the
Jarlevian arrived in a fleet one hundred and fifty capital ships strong. As Jesse had suspected, there had been an information leak, and the Jarlevian went right for the weak spots. But that’s when his defensive technology went into effect. He had deployed magnetic-smart space mines that would reverse polarity and move away from ships while inactive. When activated, they would send a coordinated command so they would each attack different enemy vessels. Admiral Bliney had secretly installed three of Jesse’s anti-ship plasma beam weapons in various locations around the moon.

When all the
Jarlevian ships were in place, they immediately took out the one laser turret they thought Earth's moon contained and began to attack Earth’s fleet. Jesse activated the mines, and almost half of the Jarlevian fleet instantly went up in atoms. The three plasma cannons started pumping out death, and in the confusion, he brought his fleet in and struck. By the time the battle was over, Earth had lost sixteen of its twenty-four ships, the Jarlevian had lost one hundred and forty-three ships, and Jesse had lost only one ship.

After the battle,
he immediately turned over forty of his forty-three ships to Admiral Bliney, who came up with the strategies that won the war in under a year. He loaned Earth his ships and even supplied them with the new ones that were built during that year. Jesse was hailed as the man that saved Earth. Bliney was hailed as the man that won the war, and Natora was outraged at having been left out of the loop. Natora was incredibly jealous of their success, and that bitterness and jealousy soon turned into an intense hatred of Jesse Marcos.

Admiral Natora spared no expense at trying to take
him down. He tried to paint him as a would-be tyrant, with secret plans to conquer Earth. He tried to confiscate the plans to the SSE ships and tried to have him arrested for treason, none of which worked. Admiral Bliney deflected all criticism with proof that he was aware of Jesse’s actions every step of the way. The fact that he let Naval Command use his ships, worth hundreds of billions of Earth standard dollars, didn’t hurt. It also increased his popularity among the military and the politicians.

In the end, Sea Side Enterprises received a military contract to continue producing the vessels for Earth. Jesse negotiated the righ
t to retain twelve ships for defense of the production facilities, two
Leviathan
and ten
War Hawk
s which form Vee Fleet and the Olympians. Jesse put Vee Fleet under the command of his cousin Ariel after the war and he put one of his former Special Forces soldiers Manny Hernandez in charge of the Olympians. He also received an updated commission in Earth's Space Marines as a Colonel, conscripted to Admiral Bliney for the remainder of the war.

The war ended
a year ago, and all he had been able to think about since then was getting
Endeavor
out into the Kalephi galaxy. He was itching to see if Dr. Hightower's account of the Kalephi galaxy was accurate. The Coalition gave the mission a go, and moved Admiral Bliney to the outskirts of known space as a first line of defense against future alien threats. In his absence; the bitter and jealous Natora became the highest ranking Fleet Admiral. Technically, Natora and Bliney have equal rank, but in peace time, the Admiral stationed in the core makes the decisions. Natora hadn’t been able to stop
Endeavor
’s mission, but he was doing everything in his power to obstruct their search for an answer as to whether or not
Endeavor
made it through the matter conduit.

______

Present day
…..

“We have all the data we are going to collect, Nina,” Serge commented, frustration in his voice. “The military wants us out now, sweetheart,” he continued.

“Natora is a moron,”
she yelled, not caring who heard. “We’ll go when we’re ready, not before.” She was resolute. The military would have to fire on them to get her to leave before she was ready to go.

“Nina, we are ready,”
he replied, trying to muster his patience. “You only wish to stay to cause more friction between you and the Admiral, and that is not helpful.”

She knew h
e was right, and they did have what they needed, so she consented. “Okay, back to Polisia to analyze the data, then.”

As they were heading back to Polisia, Ensign Parson called out, “Receiving a hail from the
Vanguard
for Nina Romanov.”

“
On screen, Ensign, thank you,” she responded.