Total Betrayal (Deep Space Endeavor) (8 page)

             
Her eyes lit up and she looked up at her father, "You promise?"

             
"Yes, I promise. Don't forget, we still have another hike to go on before we leave. We'll leave the stuff here and pick it up on the way back down." They started out up the mountain. She knew they really needed to get back, but it would seem her dad didn't want to leave yet either, and that made her happy.

             
"Don't you have to get back, dad?"

             
"I've recently been reminded a number of times that I have a great team and I should let them do the work sometimes. I think I'm gonna take them up on that today." He smiled and as they were about to begin their hike, they heard some blasterfire followed by some inhuman cries of pain. Commando was off into the trees before Jesse could stop him and Lana moved to follow. "Hold on, Lana, we should call this in, it's too dangerous to just go off in the direction of blasterfire."

             
"Dad, Commando has already gone, and we're wearing battle suits. I will even deploy my hood. I know you'd already be over there if I wasn't with you, but I've been training for almost eight months now and I can take care of myself."

             
He looked at her, eager for an adventure with her father, and he did need to find Commando sooner rather than later. His internal debate raged when finally he decided, "Okay, but you do exactly as I say and stay right behind me. Do you understand?"

             
"Yes, Dad, let's go." She happily ran in the direction Commando had gone. He smiled at her enthusiasm and worried for her safety at the same time as he ran ahead of her. He was following Commando's tracks in the snow when suddenly, he heard some growling and laughing. He motioned Lana silent as they stealthily made their way behind the laughter. These were no doubt hunters. Hunting snow wolves was illegal and carried heavy penalties, so Jesse knew these men would not hesitate to kill them. He noticed they had Commando cornered and he made sure his visor's HUD was recording.

             
There were three men, armed with fairly heavy blasters and Jesse could see a dead snow wolf lying on the ground a few meters in front of them. Commando was growling defiantly at them and wasn't going to let them anywhere near the dead wolf. The hunters had just about had enough as one of them spoke. "Looks like we just got a two for one deal, Pete."

             
"No, the hair is too many different colors; this one won't be worth much. Still, we need to kill it if we want the pups; they're worth a fortune to the fight trainers."

             
He raised his blaster and Jesse stepped out from behind them with his own blaster raised. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Pete." He began while Lana hid behind a tree, blaster in hand. "It's illegal to hunt snow wolves, and it's immoral to take the pups and turn them into fighting dogs. You boys are in a lot of trouble."

             
"I don't see no badge, and it's three to one, what's to keep us from killing you and the mutt?" One of the other hunters asked as he began to draw his weapon.

             
Jesse fired without warning, taking the man off his feet and calmly looked at the other two. "Looks like it's even now, right boy?" Commando barked an affirmative and the two hunters looked beaten. Suddenly, a blaster bolt hit Jesse from behind. It didn't go through the battle suit, but it hurt. They did have some heavy weaponry.

             
"Colonel Jesse Marcos, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong will get you killed. Thank you for saving our planet by the way," The unseen man added sarcastically. The two men behind him laughed until Lana took one off his feet with her blaster. The other turned and fired, but Lana rolled out of the way. Jesse spun and fired, taking the second man down, but by this time, the other two had their blasters in hand. One of them fired and hit Lana square in the chest, taking her off her feet. Her suit took the brunt of it, but she would have a good bruise later. Jesse spun and fired again, taking down one of the remaining men, while Commando jumped the other from behind and pinned him to the ground. Jesse walked over to him looked down and smiled. He fired and then ran quickly over to check on Lana.
That was so stupid, I should have never let her come. She's just a kid. What kind of father am I?
He looked down at his daughter, thankful the suit had stopped the blaster. Still, concern was etched on his face as he asked, "Are you okay, Lana?"

             
She grimaced and replied. "I think so, that really hurt. I wish I had one of these when I got shot on Telos," she added.

             
"Me, too, sweetie." He helped her up and then they went over to where the hunters lay in the snow. "Come on, let's get these guys tied up so that they won't follow us down the mountain."

             
"You didn't kill them, dad?"

             
"Of course not, sweetie, I had both blasters set to a powerful stun setting, they'll be out for a while, but they'll make a full recovery. I only kill when there's no alternative, and this wasn't one of those times." He smiled as he began tying up the unconscious hunters. When he was finished, he called in their coordinates to the authorities with vid evidence of what happened. He then went over to the spot that Commando had been protecting so fiercely and lying there in the cold snow were three tiny snow wolf pups. They were really young, maybe only a couple weeks old. It looked like the mother was shot while she was nursing, which made Jesse very angry.

             
"Aww, look, dad, they're so cute." Lana began and he remembered their conversation about snow wolves a couple weeks earlier.

             
"We have to help them, Lana. They're too young, they won't survive up here on their own. They need their mother's warmth to shield them from the elements. Looks like you're gonna have some new friends."

             
"Can we train them together, dad?"

             
"I'd like that," he replied as he gently picked up two pups. Jesse looked at his daughter and smiled as she was picking up the third pup. It was such an adorable moment that he quickly took a vid still with his visor's HUD of his smiling daughter holding the tiny pup.

             
"We have to train them for four months before we can give any away. I should easily be finished my galaxy drive by then. I know a princess that is gonna be really happy when we get back to the Kalephi Galaxy."

             
"So, we still have an extra then, Dad."

             
"Don't worry, someone will want one, believe me."

             
"Did you see me get one of the poachers, dad?" She excitedly asked. "I hit him dead on and then rolled out of the way."

             
"I'm so proud of you, Lana, but we're gonna have to get you some basic training before I let you do anything like that again." He tried to sound stern, but she could see the relief in his eyes.

             
As they continued back to get their gear on the way to their speeder, Lana's pup whimpered ever so softly, and then nuzzled it's nose in her neck. It tickled a little and she smiled. "Look, dad, how cute is this?" He smiled at her and loved how happy she was. It was a near perfect moment. "He has little patchy fur, just like Commando. I want this one and I'm gonna call him Soldier."

             
"Really? Soldier? I thought you'd want something more traditional."

             
"Nope, I recently found out that my dad is a soldier and that's a perfect name for this little guy." She smiled at him and he knew she had chosen the name to honor him. He almost felt himself tear up right there, but it was too cold. He really loved being a father. When they reached the speeder, Lana arranged some of the gear in the back seat in just the right way to give the pups a closed in space they could safely lay down in. She sat back there with them and put the rest of the gear up front with Commando and her father. He didn't think he had ever seen anyone as happy as his daughter was at that moment. He winked at her in the mirror and then smiled to himself as he took off for home.

______

              Ariel, Jason, Raina, Suzy and Reece pulled up to one of the refugee camps from Triton in a large speeder truck, pulling an even larger hover container. The container opened up almost into a restaurant, if a restaurant was an assembly line. There were three serving lines and people would enter from one of the doors, get their food and leave through a door on the other side. They could serve almost five thousand hot meals an hour. With almost twenty thousand refugees in the camp, that meant they were serving breakfast for four hours and dinner for four hours while other establishments on Polisia took care of lunch.  They thanked Ariel for bringing their set up and immediately got to work preparing for the evening meal.

             
Ariel was meeting a team of volunteers here and they were going to move through the camp, handing out clothes, telling people about the hot meals and making lists of things the people needed.

             
She was meeting Tara and Sun Tamanorra along with Dmitri, Manny, Zoe, Bessa, Sarah Torrensede and Josiah's brother Mathias. There were thirteen of them in all, and they broke up into two groups of four and one group of five to begin their work. Two groups would be handing out clothes and the other group would be assessing needs. They would all be telling people about the hot meals, although Ariel was fairly certain everyone in the camp pretty much knew about them already. Bessa, Sarah, Dmitri and Mathias were giving out clothing on one side of the camp while Jason, Raina, Tara and Sun were handing out clothes on the other side. Manny and Zoe were assessing needs while Suzy and Reece were trying to take care of medical issues and organize anyone with medical training into a group that could hopefully oversee the needs of the camp. They just needed to find the right people with the right experience and they could begin to funnel medical supplies into the camp. Reece didn't want Suzy to be alone, so he stayed with her, even though he knew nothing about medicine. Suzy had prepared a list of questions for him to ask each person claiming to have medical training and she would evaluate the answers later. Ariel was orchestrating all of it. She was checking in on each team while also making sure the people doing the meals had everything they needed, supplies, water, power generation, etc....

             
Things were moving along very well, when suddenly, a clamor arose on one side of the camp. Six men with blasters had disabled the camp security guards and were quickly making their way over to where the clothes were being given out. Suddenly they were firing and Sun and Raina began to scream. Raina grabbed Sun by the hand and began to run as Jason dropped one of the attackers. He got back up and Jason realized they were wearing battle suits. He knew his group all had suits as well, but Raina and Sun would be in serious trouble if any of these men caught up to them. Jason put away his blaster as he took a shot in the shoulder. He charged into the middle of the six men and began to fight. He wanted Raina and Sun to have time to escape and he didn't know where Tara had gone. Two of the men ran past his distraction and continued after the girls, but were met head on by Tara.

             
While Jason tried to hold off four men, Tara stood in front of the last two while they slowly circled her. She became a blur of motion as she ducked the first swing and put the man on his back with a leg sweep. She spun into a roundhouse right and hit the second man in the jaw. She back flipped out of his reach as he swung wildly and back kicked into the midsection of the first man as he got back to his feet. She spun and followed with a knee to his face that put him back on the ground. She dodged another punch from the second man as she kicked him in the groin and then hit him with a gralium-knuckled uppercut. He was out before he hit the ground and she took consciousness from the second man as he tried to rise with a kick to the face. She ushered Sun and Raina into the crowd and kept them moving towards Ariel's truck, hoping more help would be on the way. She could see Ariel engaged in combat with two black-clad men near the truck and decided that might not be the safest location.

             
Jason meanwhile, was having a little trouble. The four men he was facing were all well trained, and every time he would land a shot on one of them, he would get hit by another, He was beginning to wear out when suddenly, Reece entered the fray. Reece took the first man out from behind, snapping his neck before he knew what hit him. He then squared off against two more while Jason finished off the last one. He jumped on one of the remaining assassins while Reece pummeled the last one. As Reece's opponent hit the ground, he grabbed Suzy's hand and looked at Jason. "Are you okay, Jason?" He asked.

             
"I'm fine, I have to find my sister; I think she was trying to get Sun to safety."

             
"I think Tara caught up to them after she took out her two," Suzy informed as she was looking worriedly over to Ariel. "Reece, we have to help her."

             
"Go," Jason yelled, "I'll find the girls. Ariel may need your help." He ran off towards where he had last seen them while Reece and Suzy ran towards Ariel just in time to see a third man attack her. One of the men hit Ariel hard in the stomach and she hit the ground in a heap. The three of them began kicking her as she took out a knife and put it through the foot of one of them. She blocked the next two kicks with her arms as Reece arrived with a crushing right hand to the face of one of her attackers. He went down and Reece kicked him hard in the face while the other man landed a hard left to Reece's eye. The second man hit him in the eye again, causing a large cut to appear as Reece kicked the man in the stomach. As the man began to double over, Reece kneed him in the face, sending him to the ground while Ariel was finishing off the man with the knife in his foot. Suzy was by her side instantly, seeing if she was alright, but Ariel waved her off as she said, "We have to get the kids out of here, I saw Raina and Sun with Tara, where's Dmitri?"