Total Betrayal (Deep Space Endeavor) (7 page)

             
"I'm not worried about her physically, Kimi, I'm worried more about her state of mind, hers and Collin's. Here they are just starting a new life together and they're hit with far more obstacles than they should have to overcome."

             
"I have no doubt they will, Josiah."

             
"Just like you and Jesse will overcome yours."  Her expression turned soft and full of apprehension. "Kimi, finding out about Lana was a huge shock to all of us, but think about how Jesse must have felt. It's going to take some time for a new routine to be established."

             
"I know, I just hope I'm still part of that routine," she replied sadly.

             
"Are you kidding me? Kimi, I've never seen a man more in love than Jesse is with you. Trust me; you've got nothing to worry about. I know this will be hard for you to hear, but please, give it a little time. I know you waited a long time to finally be with him, but no one could have seen this coming, especially with how Lana was conceived."

             
"I know you are right, Josiah, and Lana is a great girl. I had just really hoped I was done with the waiting." She frowned ever so slightly as she lowered her head and left the bridge.

             
Josiah looked over to Xanu, Tanna and Maria and joked, "The doctor is in if any of you need to talk."

             
Maria laughed and replied, "I would have never joined up with you lot if I knew there were going to be so many issues."

             
"You only came along because no one else would have you," Josiah replied with a laugh. He looked a little more serious as he added, "You and your people are some of the best trained soldiers in the entire Coalition, we're happy you're here with us."

             
"Where else would I be? I owe Jesse more than I care to admit, and he's never asked for anything in return. Now I have the opportunity to give back and he doesn't have a choice."

             
"He's also in no position to turn you down." Josiah reminded her.

             
"That, too." She agreed. “I just really wonder what we're all gonna do. There's only so long we can hole up on Polisia before the entire Coalition and Enclave come to flush us out."

             
"I agree, but I think Jesse's gonna go back to the Kalephi Galaxy. He's almost got this contraption cooked up that will artificially open the conduit back to Kaldor. My bet would be that he's planning to eventually take all of his family and friends, along with anyone else that would like to go with us back to the Kalephi Galaxy."

             
"Really, are you sure?" Maria was suddenly very interested.

             
"King Dominus is building a city for us on a planet called Donara, so yeah, I'm sure."

             
"That would be incredible, and he'll bring anyone that wants to go?"

             
"And their families if they want. I know he's planning on bringing as many SSE ships as we still have left when this whole thing is said and done. He's also going to bring all of our cargo vessels. He might even buy a couple of those space liners to bring if he needs to. When I said everyone that wants to go, I meant everyone. You know Jesse won't leave anyone behind."

             
"What if no one wants to go?"

             
"I do," Josiah laughed. "Especially now that I've seen how quickly our own people have turned on us. You were there at the first Battle for Polisia against the Pack, we both bled for this Coalition. We watched a lot of our friends die for this Coalition. Then, four years later, Jesse gives up just about everything he owns fighting off the Jarlevians and he saves the entire Coalition. He should be treated like royalty, his family should never have another care in the world, but for the last year and a half it's been nothing but problems and assassination attempts, and the war with Jarlevia wasn't that long ago. They began to turn on him, on us within a couple years. I know Jesse, and I know he's gonna find that hard to accept. Twenty-eight planets that wouldn't even still be here if it wasn't for him voted to have him and everyone close to him brought before the Enclave and Coalition rulers as criminals. They turned on us without ever even receiving one bit of anything from our new allies. I'm with Jesse. I'm out of here and they deserve what they get."

             
"What about your family, Jo?"

             
"Maria, if they want to stay after everything they've seen these people do, they're welcome to, and they would deserve what they got, too." Just then, the alarm beeped, indicating they would be exiting light space in five minutes. A minute later, Collin and Kimi were back on the bridge and ready to proceed.

______

              Lana could barely contain her excitement. Her aunt had just commed her to let her know that her father was on his way to come pick her up. He had kept his word. In the middle of all of this craziness, he had kept his word and was taking her away for four whole days, just the two of them and Commando.

             
She looked to her best friend and said, "Raina, this is gonna be so great. I can't believe it's really happening."

             
"One thing I've always known about Jesse...um, your dad, is that he always does his best to keep his word. He's helped my brother out a couple times, and once, he came back to Earth from a secret mission to speak to my class because I had asked him to. He's great, and you're gonna have such a good time this week."

             
"Week, I wish, it's only four days, but I'll take it." Lana smiled and hugged Raina as she prepared to leave to go meet up with her brother. He was taking her to one of the refugee camps to give out food and clothing for a few days. She was excited because not only did she get to help people, but Dmitri would also be there. She didn't think anyone knew about her feelings, but she was wrong.

             
"Have fun with Dmitri this week." Lana called to her with a smirk and a wink. Raina frowned and jumped in her brother's speeder. Jason smiled and waved and then they were on their way.

             
Almost five minutes later, her dad was pulling up to Aunt Nina's house. Frost sensed him and immediately got excited. He greeted Lana with a hug that swept her off her feet. She smiled as she hugged him back and then he put her down and began to pet a clearly excited Frost.

             
"Sorry I'm late, Lana, our last two meetings went long."

             
"You're not late," she happily replied. "You still have a whole day before it's two weeks and you promised within two weeks."

             
"Well, in that case, I should go to one more meeting." He turned to leave and Lana grabbed his arm.

             
"I don't think so, dad," she began until she saw his smile and realized he was kidding. "Come make sure I packed everything we need." She led him by the hand to the living room and proudly presented the gear she had picked out for the trip.

             
After a quick check through everything, Jesse stood and gave her an approving smile. "This is everything we need, not bad for a first timer." He put his arm around her and continued. "Good job, Lana. Here's the plan, we'll take the speeder about a third of the way up the mountain and then hike the rest of the way. It was good thinking to pack light because when you're going up a mountain, it doesn't take much gear to make it really difficult." She smiled and said goodbye to Frost as Jesse picked up most of the gear to bring out to the speeder. "Remember, Lana, if you don't like camping, we can always leave early and go to the beach. You're stuck with me for four days." She smiled again as she pet Frost and picked up the rest of the gear. She set Nina's home security and they were on their way.

             
They arrived at their campsite after an hour hike and there was not much daylight left. Lana still could not lose her smile at her father's willingness to spend time with her. Jesse quickly began to set up the tent when he suddenly realized he had gone into project mode and that he should be teaching his daughter how to do this. Fortunately, he hadn't gotten far past laying everything out so he undid what he had set up.

             
"Hey, Lana, it might be a good idea if you learned how to do this, in case you ever want to go with your friends. What do you think?"

             
"I'd love to, dad." She smiled and stood right next to him so she could see what he was doing. She was surprised when he handed her one of the pieces. It was a long collapsible pole.

             
"This goes through these nylon rings all the way across, make sure you don't miss any." She smiled and began her task. A few moments later he handed her another one that was to go through another set of rings, crossing the first pole in the middle. He then handed her two shorter ones to go through rings on each side of the tent. There was a metal ring at each corner of the base of the tent and one end of both the longer pole and the shorter pole was to end up in each metal ring. The tent had gone up fairly quickly. "Now, we have to spike it down. He handed her a metal spike eight inches long and a hammer. He put the end of the spike through another metal ring and had her quickly hammer it in. They repeated the process three more times as he made sure the tent base was pulled taut and then they were done.

             
"Great job, Lana, let's go find some firewood." He handed her a small ax and he took a slightly larger one. "You cut off the smaller branches and I'll try and cut down some bigger ones." After nearly half an hour, they were both walking back to the tent with an armful of wood. Jesse showed his daughter the best way to arrange the wood with the kindling around it and then took out a lighter.

             
"Hey, that's cheating," she began, "What if I don't have a lighter next time?"

             
"You want to go really old fashioned? Alright, let's do it." He smiled and took out two pieces of flint. He began hitting one off the other until sparks were raining down on the kindling. "You can also rub sticks together, but I've never been good at that one," he explained as one of the sparks finally caught. Jesse put his hands around the small burn to keep the wind from blowing it out before it got going while Lana watched intensely. She was soaking up everything she could from this experience and he was proud of her for it. Finally, the fire had caught on enough that Jesse took one of the small kindling branches and began to use it to light up other parts of the kindling. After a few more minutes, the whole pile was ablaze and Lana smiled as she could feel its warmth. "Tomorrow, it's your turn," Jesse laughed.

             
"Awesome, I want to learn how to do it. I think I'm gonna like camping." Just then, she visibly jumped as she heard a loud wolf howl followed by Commando howling.

             
"Good boy, Commando, are those your friends?" He playfully wrestled his snow wolf while Lana laughed. Commando got up and licked Lana and Jesse laughed at her reaction.

             
"We're gonna have to talk about the amount of slobber you're allowed to put on my face, Commando," she said while continuing to pet him. "At least we know there are some snow wolves nearby. Right, dad?"

             
“Yes there are, so we have to be careful," he handed her a blaster. "We don't want to run into a pack." He holstered his own.

             
"Dad, I can't shoot a snow wolf." Lana informed her father.

             
"Don't worry, Lana, these blasters have powerful stun settings, and hopefully the warning blast will scare them away before we even have to stun any. It's good to be prepared." He smiled at her apprehension as he began to prepare a late meal.

             
Jesse awoke with the sun. He took a quick vid still of his daughter nestled in her sleeping bag and smiled. He didn't have any vid stills of his daughter and he was going to change that this week. He watched her sleep for a minute, badly wishing he could have been there for her long before now. He quietly exited the tent and stoked the fire back into a blaze. He went to the cooler for supplies and began cooking breakfast. By the time breakfast was ready, Lana had come out of the tent. She was all smiles when he handed her a plate of food and a cup of coffee.

             
"I just realized I don't know how you like your coffee, Lana." He smiled, but she could tell he regretted not knowing until now.

             
"It's alright, Dad, I usually take it black with two sugars." He handed her two sugar packets and she concentrated as she poured them into her coffee. They quickly ate breakfast and then they were off for a hike. She was learning that her father was a very much on-the-go kind of guy. She didn't mind, because the hike would afford them a lot of time to talk.

             
The next three days went by more quickly than she could have imagined. She learned so much about her father and he was learning everything he could about her. She didn't think she had ever had a better time as she sadly mused that she didn't want to leave the mountains tomorrow. The next morning came way too quickly and she sadly went about the business of helping her father pack up the campsite after breakfast. When everything was packed up, he smiled and put his arm around her. He kissed her forehead and said, "Don't worry, kiddo, we'll do it again, soon."