by Francis, Ron
Kora looked around the common room. This was it: her chance had finally arrived. Fortuitously, they arrived back on Kaldor, making it very easy to meet up with Topanar. Jesse and Kimi had to go meet with the Mayor, something about a recent assassination plot. Josiah was still sleeping in the med-bay with Suzy dutifully watching over her friend. Everyone else was on the bridge, sharing humorous stories about their adventures. No one even questioned her when she said she was tired and left the bridge, presumably to go to her room. Now, here she was, alone with all of the artifacts and the key that Joldas so desperately wanted. She considered herself lucky that Josiah was hurt because he was always so protective of these pieces. She quickly swept them all into a large, synthetic bag as she made her way to the landing bay. While she was waiting for the hatch to open, Reece came into the bay. “What are you doing, Kora? I thought you were tired.”
Kora couldn’t believe her bad luck; the one person she really didn’t want to have to hurt had to be the one person to catch her. She put a hand on her blaster as she slowly turned around. “I just have an errand to run, lover. I’ll be back soon enough.” She lied.
“What’s in the bag, Kora?” He asked as he pointed to the bag.
She knew he was on to her, so she drew her blaster as she said, “Back off, Reece. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
“Why, Kora, why are you doing this? These people have accepted you as family. Jesse even risked his life to save you. Why would you betray us; why would you betray me?” He asked softly as his eyes grew sad.
“My reasons are my own, and I hate to break it to you, pretty boy, but I already have someone. You were never more than a plaything for me, and someone like you should have known that. Now, lay face first on the ground, or I will shoot you.”
He couldn’t believe his ears: she had someone else? That hurt more than watching his girlfriend point a blaster at him. “No, Kora. I’m not letting you throw your life away.” As he moved towards her, she fired right into his chest, and as he fell backwards, she ran out of the landing bay and jumped into a waiting aircar.
“Did you get it?” Joldas asked.
“All of it,” she smiled as she leaned over and kissed him. Then they took off. They were so pleased with their success they didn’t even notice a dark blue aircar slip into traffic behind them.
______
As Kora left the landing bay, an alert went up from SAMMI that a weapon had been discharged in the landing bay. Collin turned to Wennagal and asked, "Where's Reece?"
"He left shortly after Kora..." As the realization of what he said hit them, they broke into a run for the landing bay with Cassie right on their heels.
Suzy was first to reach the landing bay with Collin, Cassie and Wennagal not far behind. Reece was lying on the ground by the open landing bay hatch and he wasn’t moving. Suzy ran over to him, took one look at his chest and yelled to Collin and Wennagal to bring the gurney. Cassie locked up the landing bay while the others rushed Reece to the med-bay. As they were running through the ship, Suzy yelled out, “Someone needs to call this into Jesse.”
______
As Jesse reached Mayor Valinor's office, he could see the Mayor was in good spirits in spite of the events of recent weeks. Before they could even greet each other, Kiah came racing into the room and jumped into Jesse's arms.
"I missed you, Jesse," she said as she hugged her hero.
"I missed you too, Little One," He replied as he smiled and held her while shaking the Mayor's hand. "How is it having a mom and dad again?"
"Oh, I love it. I never have to steal food anymore because they give me as much as I want. I have new clothes and shoes. I can hug my new mom whenever I want and my new dad always tells me he loves me."
Kiah looked as if she could go on forever, but Jesse just smiled and said, "That's great, Kiah, I'm really happy for you."
"Jesse," Kiah began in her cutest voice and Jesse knew what was coming next. "I do not see Commando, did you bring him with you?"
He turned his head and let out a sharp whistle, then, much to Kiah's delight, Commando came bounding into the room. "Of course I did, you didn't think Commando would let me come visit his best friend without him, did you?"
"No," she laughed, as she and her canine friend left the room to go play while Jesse and the Mayor talked.
The conversation ranged from how they were doing with Kiah to how he had escaped the assassination attempt and then Jesse watched as the Mayor excitedly played the vid for him, and as it reached the best part, he just looked stunned and turned to the Mayor with a big smile. “You got him,” he beamed. “There’s no way he can recover from that. This is amazing, Mister Mayor.”
“Please, my friends call me Tarrick. After all you’ve done for me and for Kaldor, at least call me Tarrick.”
Jesse smiled, “Well, Tarrick, what’s next?”
“In a day or two, we will be leveling charges against the Sub-Mayor. After that, with all of the evidence we’ve dug up, it should be a pretty quick trial.” Mayor Valinor was thrilled; there was something else working in his mind, something he had yet to tell Jesse. He didn’t ask because he knew his friend would tell him when the time was right.
“All of this was made possible by you and your crew,” he exclaimed. “You saved my wife and me. You brought us Kiah and gave me the courage to begin changing our culture. You gave us the recovery pod technology and you gave me the information and the plan to take down Topanar. We cannot repay our debt to you.”
“There’s no need, Tarrick. We have only played a small part, you did the rest.” As he was speaking, a call came over his comm. He apologized for the interruption, but he knew it had to be important or they wouldn’t have disturbed his meeting with the Mayor. Upon hearing what happened to Reece, he had to excuse himself from the rest of the meeting.
“My apologies, Tarrick. One of Captain Topanar’s spies has just shot Reece. I have to go.” He called Commando back into the room as he stood.
“Reece?” The Mayor asked in shocked disbelief, “How bad is it?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse replied truthfully, “But they wouldn’t have called me if it wasn’t serious. I have to go. Good luck with Topanar.”
“Yes, yes, and please, let me know how Reece is doing when you find out.”
“I will, Tarrick,” With that, he picked up Kiah and gave her one last hug. Then, hurried out the door.
______
Kimiko and Sandstorm discretely followed Topanar’s aircar. She was getting angrier by the moment as she watched Topanar and Kora together. Sandstorm didn’t understand what was going on, and as he was about to ask, she looked at him and said. “I have just received word that Kora shot one of my crewmates as she was leaving. It is not yet known if he will survive. The man she shot is the same man she has been pretending to be in love with while on our ship. If he does survive, he’s going to be heartbroken. He didn't deserve this, I would very much like to kill this woman right now.”
He looked at her and replied, “I bet it wouldn’t take much effort on your part, either.”
She looked confused as she asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, I’ve been on the receiving end of what you’re capable of doing, and you weren’t even mad at me.” He smiled as he knew she did not yet understand. “I’m the one you ambushed at Outpost Twenty-One, Miss Tamanorra. You kicked me right off my bike, and your second kick knocked me out cold. You know," he added with a smile. "You didn’t have to destroy my bike. It was my favorite one.”
“That was you,” she felt herself tense as she reached for her blaster.
“Whoa, whoa, there’s no need for that. Captain Topanar was my boss at the time. Believe me, I am aware that he’s not a good guy, but he wasn’t asking me to do anything illegal. I had no cause to refuse a direct order. I’m on the Mayor’ personal task force now, trying to take down the Captain’s uncle, and the Mayor himself asked me to escort you tonight.”
She was stil
l trying to decide whether or not to trust him when Topanar’s aircar came to stop at a large warehouse.
“I promise, I’m telling the truth,” he added. “Trust me, I hate him, too.”
She thought Sandstorm reminded her a bit of Jesse. She noticed the Interrogator inside the warehouse as the door opened to let the aircar inside. There didn’t seem to be a lot of security.
“Where are the rest of his men?” She asked.
He replied, “He only actually has thirty or so men. The rest are hired guns that do not work for him when the Interrogator is docked because he’s too cheap to pay them the extra couple days.”
“So, as long as he is docked here on Kaldor, he only has thirty men.” She stated, a plan beginning to form in her mind.”
“Not even,” he continued. “He has to give them some down time, so they take shifts. At any given time, there are only approximately fifteen of his men guarding that warehouse. That’s why he hides the ship, because he doesn’t have the resources to protect it properly while docked here on Kaldor.”
“This is good news.” She responded, smiling for the first time since she had met him. When she smiled, it made her almost irresistible, and he made it a point to find out if she was with anyone.
“Don’t get too excited, Kimiko,” he started. “Corrupt or not, Topanar is still law enforcement on this planet, and breaking into his warehouse carries a big risk with it.”
She knew he was right. She had all the information she needed, so now she just wanted to get back to Endeavor and check on Reece. She did have one last question, though, “How do they get the ship inside the warehouse?”
He smiled as he told her that the roof of the warehouse retracts, and she looked up and she nodded her understanding while they made their way back to Endeavor.
______
Suzy and the two medbots were still in surgery trying to save Reece’s life, and Jesse knew better than to let anyone disturb her. She had even had Collin and Wennagal take Josiah to his room so that he wouldn’t distract her when he woke up. He just couldn’t understand how it happened. What was he thinking going after her? What was he thinking not wearing his battle suit?
Collin was voicing those same frustrations when Kimi came in.
“How is he?” She asked, genuine concern evident in her eyes.
“We’re not gonna know anything for awhile. All we do know is that his wounds were too severe for the recovery pod. Suzy is doing everything in her power to keep him alive at this point.” Jesse stated as he looked at the floor.
Cassie had the look of someone carrying a heavy burden as she spoke. “That was just so stupid.” she started, tears welling up in her eyes. “What was he thinking? If he had just stuck to the plan, he would be fine right now.”
Everyone knew Cassie was blaming herself. Kora was her friend, part of her crew, and she had brought her aboard Endeavor. But Jesse just looked at her, compassion in his eyes, and said. “It’s no one’s fault, Cassie. Reece was in love, and he tried to stop Kora because he loved her. Love makes people do crazy things.”
Cassie just nodded and walked away in tears. As Jesse went to follow, Wennagal put up his hand. “Leave her be for now. Let her work out her feelings and join her in a little while, Colonel.”
He nodded, trusting her friend knew her well enough to make the call. He looked at Wennagal and added. “No one blames you either, Wennagal. We all trust you and Cassie, and that won’t change.” Wennagal nodded his thanks, but Jesse could see a deep sense of appreciation and relief in his eyes. While they were standing there waiting, Kimi delivered the Intel she had gathered with Sandstorm. As she was speaking, SAMMI’s voice called out over the ship speaker. “Colonel Marcos, we have a visitor at the landing bay hatch.”
“Send the image to my portable screen, SAMMI.”
“Image sent, Colonel.” As Jesse received the image, he wasn’t sure who he was looking at, so he held the image up for the others to see.
“Sandstorm,” Kimi called out. “What’s he doing here?”
“Let’s go find out,” Jesse replied.
They walked to the landing bay and lowered the hatch. Sandstorm was wearing a black military uniform and he had a blaster strapped to his leg. As Jesse approached, Sandstorm slowly removed his blaster and handed it butt-end first to him. Jesse then placed it on a nearby shelving unit. The landing bay hatch began to close, and their visitor began to speak.
He was about the same height as Jesse, and they could see even with the uniform on that he was in good shape. He had close-cropped blonde hair and an easy going smile. Jesse could tell by the way Kimi looked at him that there that there was some apprehension there.
“I’m sorry for coming to your ship unannounced. I just came from the Mayor’s office to hand in my resignation.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jesse interrupted. “But I’m not sure why we care.”
“Please,” he smiled. “This is difficult for me, please allow me to finish and it will be clear soon enough.”
“My apologies. Please continue.” Jesse wasn’t sure where this was going, but Sandstorm had Valinor’s confidence, so he should at least hear the man out.
Sandstorm continued, “He didn’t accept it. He wants me to work more closely with you and your crew, but before I can do that I have to tell you what I told him." He took a deep breath and continued. "I used to work for Captain Topanar. More than just in Kaldor’s law enforcement. I made a big mistake when I was younger. It was my last semester of university and I had just been accepted to the law enforcement academy to become a special agent. I went to a party with a lady friend I had met that day to celebrate. While I was there, I drank too much and got into a fight with a few guys I didn't know. I lost the fight, but when I woke up, my lady friend was lying dead next to me. I know I didn’t kill her, and I’m pretty sure Topanar did. If he didn’t, he probably had someone do it, but I couldn’t prove it. I was about to go into the academy, and this scandal would have excluded me. But Topanar swept it under the rug, and in my youthful naivety, I allowed him to, hoping it would all just go away. I eventually figured out that the whole night was just one big set up for him to get his hooks into me. Finally, about six months ago, he began blackmailing me. He began making me do off-the-books assignments for him. He never had me do anything illegal, although I knew that time was fast approaching.” He looked both nervous and a little ashamed while he spoke.
"Everything he had me do was actually pretty good, the kind of stuff one might even be proud of. He had me plant the equipment that caught his uncle conspiring against the Mayor. He had me save the Mayor’s life when the aircars attacked, but I knew it was to his own ends and not for the greater good. I couldn’t take it anymore. After gathering intelligence on the man blackmailing me with Miss Tamanorra tonight, I decided I had had enough. I went directly to the Mayor and told him exactly what I just told you. He thanked me for my honesty, and to my surprise, begged me to stay. He told me that if I worked with you and your crew without Topanar’s knowledge, the time would soon come that I would be able to clear my name of any wrongdoing. If we caught Topanar, I would not have this weight hanging over me anymore. After the Mayor told me what had just happened here tonight, I couldn’t ask you to trust me unless you knew the truth.” As he finished, he looked around, wondering what this tight knit group that had just been betrayed would think about his confession.
As they stood there, not quite sure what to say, Wennagal was first to break the silence. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Sandstorm, you’ve got guts, coming in here and telling us all that on tonight of all nights. To be quite honest with you, I’m not sure how I feel about it.”
“If Valinor trusts him, I say we should, too,” Kimi jumped in. “Plus, we could use the extra pair of hands until Reece and Josiah recover."
“It’ll be easy enough to check his story with the Mayor. If it checks out, and the Mayor actually does still trust him, I’m okay with him helping us.” Collin added.
Jesse still hadn’t spoken, and tonight wasn’t the best night for a story like this to be taken in by him. But life didn’t give you choices of when you received information. You did, however, have the choice of how and when you acted on that information.
“When the Mayor said he wanted you to work more closely with my crew,” Jesse started. “What did he mean by that?”
“I’m not sure,” Sandstorm shrugged. “But it seems to be his intention for me to trip up the younger Topanar. He doesn’t own me anymore. Even if the information comes out, I will have a mayoral pardon, but Topanar doesn’t know that. The Mayor wants me to use that to my advantage.”
As his three crew members looked on in anticipation, Jesse extended his hand and replied. “Pending a conversation with Mayor Valinor, I accept your proposal to work together to take down Joldas Topanar. I do have one more question,” he added as Sandstorm, looking relieved, shook his hand. “What’s your first name?”
Agent Sandstorm looked at Kimi as if seeking her approval, and replied. “Ogen.”
“Welcome to the team, Ogen.” Jesse replied as the rest of the assembled crew greeted him as well.
______
After Sandstorm had left, Jesse went to find Cassie. He had given her some time alone, and he wanted to make sure she was alright. He found her sitting alone in the room the artifacts were stored in. She was sitting at one of the tables, and it was evident that she had been crying. As he entered the room, she looked up to see who it was and then looked away, shame evident in her eyes. He walked over and sat on the table she was facing and said, “You look like you could use some company.”
She looked up, “I’d rather be alone,” she replied, still not meeting his eyes. As he stood to leave, she changed her mind, “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind staying…” She stood up and sat on the table next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I really messed this one up, Jess. She was my responsibility. I was her captain.”