Total Betrayal (Deep Space Endeavor) (14 page)

             
"Will do, Josiah out." He looked to his team and relayed the new orders as the lake water steadily dripped from his wet suit, forming a small puddle on the shuttle floor. “Looks like we're sticking around for a while, Collin, take us back in. Manny, search for this signal near these coordinates." He relayed the coordinated Nina had sent up to Manny on
Endeavor
's bridge. "It will be the Admiral's family."

             
"Got it, Jo."

______

             
Kimi approached Jesse with a wary look on her face. She and Sun were doing much better. They still mourned, but they were in the beginning stages of moving on. "Jesse, I wish you would let me come along with you," she began as she put her arms around the man she loved. "I hate the thought of you doing this alone."

             
"I know, and I hate to do it alone, but I have to. We all trust Admiral Bliney, and the Banner of Peace has never been broken, I'll be fine."

             
"Then let me come with you."

             
"Sun's not ready to be alone yet, your place is here. It's only for a couple days." He leaned in and kissed her passionately. "I'll be back before you know it, and hopefully all of this tension can finally be over."

             
She hated that he was right; Sun did need her. "I will hold you to that, Jesse Marcos. Do not make me come looking for you." She gently kissed him and then walked with him to the shuttle. "There's more where that came from when you return." She smiled and then abruptly spun on her heel and walked away. Jesse stood in the open hatch of the shuttle with a smile on his face and watched her all the way across the hangar. He was so in love with her, and the memory of that last kiss would be with him all the way to Earth. He then happily entered his ship and ran it through all of the pre-flight routines. When everything checked out, he took off for Earth.

______

              ... On Hyperia, King Dominus was getting ready to address his subjects. The war with the Conglomerate was officially over, and a celebration was about to get underway.

             
"People of Hyperia and citizens of the Monarchy," he began in a regal tone. "The war is over; our enemy has been defeated and Hyperia has emerged stronger than ever. The criminals, Admiral Greyside and Balinaz Superior, sit in a Hyperian prison for their crimes and planets are leaving the Conglomerate by the hundreds." A loud cheer erupted from the assembled crowd as King Dominus paused for effect. "The men that perpetrated the attack on your Queen and the abduction of your Princess are now in chains, where they belong. Colonel Marcos and the crew of
Endeavor
are not here, but they deserve recognition once again for saving the Queen and saving the Princess. Without them, I may have been forced to give in to the criminal's demands, and this may have been a long and costly conflict. Hopefully, our friends are safe and happy wherever they are, and hopefully they will return to Hyperia one day soon."

             
Another cheer went up from the crowd as the Queen took the King's hand. She knew he missed Colonel Marcos, and she wished her daughter had been nicer to him.
He may have stayed for Rayelle, even with his feelings for Kimi,
she mused as her husband continued speaking.

             
"Hyperia has gained almost two hundred worlds desperate to leave the corruption of the Conglomerate, while the Federation has gained almost a hundred. Close to seventy-five worlds have even rushed to experience the Lawless Sector, leaving the Conglomerate with just over thirteen hundred inhabited worlds. We will be instituting new leadership on Zenith and will be keeping a close eye on them from now on. Never again will Hyperia be held hostage to the whims of criminals." The crowd began to cheer continuously as the King finished. "Today, we hold a celebration to thank all of our honorable soldiers who fought to defend the Monarchy against these aggressors. Please, enjoy the celebration." He stepped down and took his wife's hand. Rayelle followed closely behind with her friend, Collette.

             
Wassan and his team took up positions around the Royal Family as Wassan looked at the King and said, "Well done, Your Majesty." He smiled and nodded as his team escorted the royal family to their seats of honor at the royal celebration.

Chapter four

______

              Jesse had just landed on Earth when Serge picked up on something very distressing. Twenty-eight SSE ships were heading into Enclave territory. They were trying again to steal the technology. He had no doubt that if those ships arrived at Enclave Prime, they would figure out a way to reverse engineer them, and then that monster Lucien would use his and Jesse's legacy to enslave the galaxy. He quickly remotely disabled the ships, once again thankful for Jesse's foresight, and then he sent a transmission to
Endeavor
on Earth.
Endeavor's
crew was picking up Admiral Collingsworth's family after they had finally come out of hiding. They were also still searching for Carmine, who no one had heard from or seen since before the Syndicate attacked Polisia. Josiah picked up the transmission.

             
"What's up, Serge?" Josiah asked with a smile.

             
"I have distressing news; the Enclave is trying to take twenty-eight of our ships back to Enclave Prime for study. I have disabled them, but I am going to need you to slave them to
Endeavor
and bring them back here."

             
"How did you disable them?"

             
"It is a long story, best told to you by Jesse."

             
"Fine, how am I going to slave them?"

             
"Jason has written a program, and he and Manny have already implemented the program once to get our new ships here before Rhodes could claim them."

             
"Jason is busy on Earth, but Manny is still aboard."

             
"Good, he can show you what to do. How many do you have aboard?"

             
“I have a command crew of six and twenty-four soldiers. Jason and Xanu are on Earth with two of our three shuttles and six men each. Why?"

             
"Because I will need you to move quickly. I am shutting the air down to knock out the crews, but if they regain consciousness, given enough time, they could retake the ship. They are only three hours from your current position. I will vent the air every fifteen minutes to keep them unconscious, but I do not wish to kill them."

             
"I understand. I'm relaying our departure to Jason and Xanu. They are going to stay on Earth to accomplish our original objective."

             
Three hours later,
Endeavor
was docking with one of the drifting
Leviathans
. Their last shuttle was docking with another one. Josiah was taking no chances, sending teams of three with eight warriorbots each. As soon as the bots confirmed the Enclave crew was out cold, they began bringing all Enclave personnel to the brig. Fortunately, each ship was carrying only a skeleton crew: twenty each on the
War
Hawks
and fifty each on the
Leviathans
. The bots were quickly able to get all of the unconscious Enclave soldiers into the detention cells while Jason's program was uploaded into the ship's computer. Four hours later, all twenty-eight vessels were slaved to
Endeavor
and heading back to the Polisian system. This was going to be a big win for Polisia because it doubled the amount of SSE ships they had without letting the Coalition know they were the ones that took the ships.

             
When the ships were safely in SSE hands at Polisia, the unconscious prisoners were all transferred to an old cargo ship which was sent into light space with Enclave Prime as its destination. The controls were frozen until the ship came out of light space and it would take the ship almost a week to get there. Serge had left provisions and a communication system that would not come online until the ship was in orbit around the planet. When they woke up, they wouldn't be able to tell anyone what had happened for a whole week. Jesse should be back from Earth by then, and if everything was settled, they could always give the ships back to the Coalition.

             
Jason, meanwhile, had found the Admiral's family and had sent them off to Polisia with six of the soldiers on one of the shuttles. He had kept Xanu and the other shuttle on Earth to continue looking for Carmine. Over the years, he had become friends with the burly Italian and he owed him for saving his sister and Lana back on Telos. He would not be leaving until he checked every last location he could think of to find his big friend. While he was looking for Carmine, he thought it might be a good idea to hack the feed to the conference room of the Presidential Palace in Prague. He just felt better knowing he had eyes on Jesse.

______

              Admiral Bliney had been true to his word. He brought Jesse right in to the conference room of the Presidential Palace in Prague to meet with President Rhodes. Jesse had flown in under the Banner of Peace and was being treated as Polisia's official diplomat to end the tensions between Polisia and the rest of the Coalition. Jesse shook the President's hand as he entered the room and was relieved to see that Lucien was not with him.

             
The conference room, like the rest of the palace, was a throwback to ancient architecture. The room was trimmed in white, painted crown molding and baseboards, with corner trim stretching from floor to ceiling. The room contained French doors, white framed with two dozen small panes of glass on each door. The doors opened up into a beautiful garden with a sitting area for several people, and Jesse could almost smell the renowned white roses of the garden. He could see how beautiful the day was as no clouds at all could be found in the blue sky. There were two white-bladed ceiling fans overhead and the walls were painted a medium shade of tan. Three of the walls contained a picture depicting a famous battle in Earth's history, while the French doors dominated the fourth. The only furniture in the room was the oversized stained oak conference table surrounded by twenty comfortable brown leather chairs along with one old, wooden chair in the corner. The room could have fit an even bigger table, but Jesse wasn't sure if they even made any bigger tables. The room seemed like overkill for a meeting of three or four, but this was where tradition said the meeting was to be held.

             
"Surely the battle suit was not necessary, Colonel," The President remarked with a quick smirk.

             
Jesse caught the smirk and the intent, but chose to ignore it. "Unfortunately, it is. Maybe not for this meeting, but for the travel to and from; my family and I have been targeted quite frequently."

             
"I understand; please, be seated." They sat down and the talks began. "Looks like there was some trouble out by your old property several hours ago," Rhodes began and Jesse knew he was fishing.

             
"My sub-basement held several billion in gold, art and bearer bonds. I liked to have some of my assets liquid in case of an emergency. When my home was destroyed, that money was never recovered." He knew Nina had saved it all, but didn't care to let Rhodes know that. "Perhaps some treasure hunters were hoping to get lucky."

             
"Perhaps," Rhodes reluctantly agreed as they got down to business. Two hours later, Jesse actually felt like they were making some good headway. Then, without warning, Lucien burst through the doors of the conference room, and he was angry.

______

              Jason watched the situation develop on his shuttle's view screen and he immediately sent a transmission to Polisia. "Captain Marcos, come in. Ariel, this is urgent." Ariel's face lit up the screen

             
"What's up Jason?"

             
"I've hacked in to the conference room feed where Jesse is talking with the President. Lucien just busted into the meeting, and he looks angry. You might want to send
Endeavor
back to Earth with a rescue team aboard, best possible speed."

             
"Oh, no," she cried. "Hold on a minute, Jason." She disappeared from view and came back a minute later. "
Endeavor's
on its way. Do you know what Lucien is so mad about?"

             
"I'm not sure, Lucien keeps saying something like 'where are they?'"

             
"Where's what?" Ariel asked, not understanding.