by Francis, Ron
As they approached the guards, one of the guards nudged his partner and motioned towards the young ladies. A big smile crossed his face. “Ladies,” the guard began with a predatory smile, “How may we be of service today?”
The Qualoosh woman looked at him and giggled, “You’re cute, I want this one,” she said as she looked at her friend.
“Fine with me,” her friend replied, “The other one is more to my liking anyway. When do you boys get off work?” she asked in her most flirtatious tone. The human woman was a shapely brunette with a shy smile and beautiful eyes.
“Can you take off right now?” the Qualoosh began, “We’d love to go party with you.” As she spoke, she leaned on her friend, presumably for balance.
The two guards were eating this up. The first guard was trying hard and failing to suck in his gut. The second guard was looking at his communicator, as if he were thinking about calling his superior and taking the rest of the night off. They were both all smiles until Jesse and Sandstorm came up behind them and knocked them unconscious. Kimi had blinded the cameras, and within nine seconds, the guards were out. They had been dragged into the bushes, and Collin and Sandstorm had taken their place. Jesse, Kimi and Cassie were now safely inside the warehouse. To the guards in the operations center, what would have looked like a momentary glitch had just cleared up. The girls stayed in the same position the whole time, only now it was Collin and Sandstorm they were flirting with.
“You are a lot cuter than the other two guys,” the human woman was saying to Collin, and he couldn’t be sure she was entirely sober. “Do you want to come out with us when your secret mission is over?” They both laughed at the mention of the words secret mission, seeming to enjoy the possibilities of danger that it represented.
Collin just smiled and said, “Maybe another time, ladies. Though I’m sure you will find someone to have some fun with before the night is over.”
They both smiled at Collin in a way that almost made him want to abandon the mission, but Sandstorm just laughed and said. “Thank you, Teha, thank you, Sibbie. Come by my office tomorrow around lunch time. Colonel Marcos has thrown in a rather large bonus for you for a job well done.” The young ladies just laughed, turned around, and walked away. They left, happy that their evening had been both fun and financially rewarding.
Jesse looked at Kimi as she tapped into the ship’s vid feed. “Which way to our artifacts?” he asked while keeping an eye out for any guards on patrol within the Interrogator. He counted four inside the warehouse that were patrolling the outside of the ship. There were two in the operations center, and the two they had knocked out. This, according to Kimi’s report, left at least seven guards unaccounted for.
“All right, I’ve found our bag,” Kimi began. “Topanar’s artifact and his map look to be with it. You and Cassie go procure the objective. I will plant some charges around the ship to make sure she will no longer be a problem for us.”
As they split up, Jesse whispered, “Stay on comm, Kimi, let me know immediately if you run into any trouble.” As they navigated the corridors of the Interrogator it took Jesse and Cassie no time at all to find the room with the artifacts. Topanar hadn’t even taken them out of the bag yet. He had opened the synthetic bag, and it looked like he had inspected some of the artifacts. But then he had put them back in the bag, and had even added his artifact to the contents. Right next to the bag on the table were all of the map fragments and clues that looked like they had been studied and pored over for days. Topanar was no doubt trying to be first to the treasure. He swept all of the information into his bag. Then he saw it, the map to the treasure. Once the planet could be deduced, this map would guide them the rest of the way. He definitely wouldn’t be leaving that behind.
“Kimi, we got it, and are on our way out,” he excitedly reported, as Cassie and he exited the room.
“Copy that, on my way.” Kimi’s replies were always crisp and short when she was on comms.
This was going to be a death blow to Topanar. Jesse couldn’t wait to see the smug look disappear from his face as he figured out he wouldn’t be getting anywhere near that treasure.
Jesse and Cassie were only meters from the stairway that would take them to the Interrogator’s exit, when they heard a familiar voice call out, “Going somewhere?”
They turned to see Kora, with four armed guards behind her and a big smile on her face. “Look who it is,” he taunted. “Little Miss Traitor. This is the thanks I get for saving your life? I wonder what I would have gotten if I feel in love with you? Oh wait, I already know that, too.” He could tell that last comment had stung Kora as he had intended it to.
“I was supposed to try and seduce you,” Kora began. “But you only had eyes for her. I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to happen.” She pointed at Cassie as she spoke. “So I had to go to plan B, which, quite honestly, wound up being more fun. Thank you for saving my life, by the way. Joldas would have been so sad if Garrinoras’ men had killed me.”
She laughed and then she looked at them and coldly shouted, “Take them.” As the guards aimed their rifles, Jesse and Cassie took cover. Being this close to weapons that strong meant the shots were going to hurt. They would hurt a lot, even through the battle suit. Jesse just had to make sure they didn’t get hit much. He dropped the bag behind him, and in one move had Helga in his hand. As the first shot grazed his shoulder he fired twice and the energy beams took out two of the guards. Kora was firing on Cassie, and Cassie was using a support column for cover. She had already been hit in the leg, and was limping slightly as she returned fire, hitting Kora square in the chest of her stolen battle suit jacket. Jesse hit the button, and Helga morphed into a blade. He threw it, impaling the closest guard as he took out his blaster, and dropped the fourth guard.
As he retrieved his MATU, he noticed eight more guards coming their way. If two had stayed in the operations center, this was likely the entire remaining contingent. Kimi had put the cameras on a recorded loop, so none of this battle would be captured on vid. That was a good plan, because they were still technically committing a crime by trespassing. These men were not Kaldor Law Enforcement, but hired guns. Jesse felt no pity, as they would have known what they were signing up for. Still, he didn’t like to kill if he didn’t have to.
“We need to go!” He yelled over to Cassie, not using her name in case anyone was listening.
“We have to take her out first,” she angrily replied as she hit Kora in the chest again with another shot.
“I don’t think I can take all these guys. Vengeance can wait.” He yelled.
She either didn’t hear him or didn’t care as she was now fully focused on Kora.
With eight heavily armed guards bearing down on them, he knew they were in for a world of hurt. He had already been hit twice now by the heavy blaster fire. He opened up with both Helga and his blaster, the MATU took down the first guard, but the blaster didn’t slow the second at all.
“These guys have better armor,” he called out. "We need to withdraw." But Cassie was now engaged in hand to hand combat with Kora, and he knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Helga had only three shots left and there were seven heavily armored men bearing down on him. He put the blaster back in its holster and fired two shots as he charged the guards. Two guards dropped as he fired, and then he was in the middle of five guards. He swept his leg, sending the first guard onto his back. He caught him with a blow to the throat on the way down that would keep him out of the fight for a while. He pirouetted into a spinning roundhouse kick to the second guard’s head. The blow knocked the guard off balance, but wasn’t hard enough to dislodge his helmet. He then turned his weapon back to blade, and blocked an overhand strike one of the guards was attempting with his rifle. He grabbed the guard’s arm and used his momentum to flip the guard over his back and onto the floor. He fired his last shot into another guard that was charging, dropping him. Jesse now had no shots left, and four very angry guards were still trying
to kill him.
Cassie, meanwhile, was fighting Kora. “Why, Kora? Why would you do this to me? We were friends, I trusted you,” She was yelling while blocking a kick from Kora.
“Trusting me was your first mistake. The Catamaran was nothing but a job for me, and when a better offer came along, I jumped at it.” Kora replied with pure hatred in her voice. “We were never friends,” she continued. “You were just a convenient alliance. We did have some good times, but once I fell in love with Joldas, my time with you was over. I only stayed as long as I did because Joldas thought you could be useful in the treasure hunt.”
Cassie kicked her in the face, knocking her to the ground. But before she could press her advantage, she took a shot to the shoulder from one of the guards. The heavy weapons they were using sure did hurt, even with the battle suit.
“Love,” she taunted. “Topanar doesn’t love you. Topanar is not capable of love. He’s playing you like you played Reece, and I’m glad, because you deserve it. He won’t even shed a tear after I kill you.” She had vengeance in her heart as Kora charged, her knives drawn. Jesse tossed his blade to Cassie; she wouldn’t be able to morph it into any of its other functions, but hopefully, all she needed was the blade.
Now, Jesse was unarmed as the four guards surrounded him. He charged the first guard, grabbing his rifle and putting the butt through the visor of his helmet, knocking him unconscious. He took two shots in the back and one in the leg as he turned and fired the weapon, staggering, but not dropping another guard. He charged towards the staggered guard, kicking him in the chest and sending him over the rail. The guard dropped three decks onto the landing bay floor.
As he turned to face his two remaining opponents, he caught the butt end of a rifle right above his left eye, opening up a gash by his eyebrow and knocking him to the floor. Both remaining guards began stomping him and kicking him as he was trying to get up. He knew he had several broken bones, and he no longer had the strength to stand. He lashed out with a kick right into the side of the knee of one of the guards, dropping him. While still on the ground, he grabbed the guard around the back and snapped his neck in one motion. But that was all he had left. As the last guard brought his rifle down on his shoulder, he heard a loud crack and knew his collar bone was broken. The guard lifted the rifle again to take the kill shot, and he knew this would be his last mission. As his life began to flash before his eyes, he saw a sword appear through the guard’s chest. As the guard dropped, the sword went back into its sheath, and Kimi was reaching down to help him up with a look of deep concern in her eyes.
Kora and Cassie were going hard at each other. Cassie could never remember actually wanting to kill someone before, but she was not leaving this ship if Kora was still alive. Kora was coming at her with overhand slashes from her long knives, and she was parrying as she backed up. She was on the defensive, but she had a plan. As Kora pressed her advantage, she left an opening, and Cassie kicked her hard in the stomach. The blow doubled Kora over and Cassie kicked her in the back, sending her head-first into one of the support beams. As Kora stood dazed, Cassie kicked her in the face and she went tumbling over the railing. Kora fell to the grating three decks below, and Cassie yelled out; “That’s for Reece.”
Kimi had already helped Jesse to the landing bay, and she was carrying the bag. As Cassie turned to go to the stairs, she picked up Jesse’s MATU. She noticed at least a dozen heavily armored men lying dead or injured and she ran down the stairs. She couldn't remember when they had all gotten to the fight and thought, maybe that's what Jesse was yelling about. As she reached the bottom, she saw that Jesse was a mess. He had taken quite a beating “Get the Jacket,” he gasped. “I don’t want Topanar to have it.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but Kimi impatiently pointed to the battle suit Jacket Kora had stolen before she left Endeavor. She took the jacket off Kora’s dead body and the three of them left the ship. They were helping Jesse through the warehouse as quickly as possible with all of his injuries, when several more guards had shown up. Before they could engage, Kimi pressed her detonator and explosions began erupting all over the Interrogator. The door to the warehouse burst open, and Collin and Sandstorm began laying down cover fire with heavy anti-personnel weaponry. Between that and the explosions, the remaining guards were scrambling for cover.
Collin had to carry Jesse to the aircar. “What happened?” he yelled over the revving of the engines.
Sandstorm took off in a hurry. He knew he could not go straight to Endeavor, but he knew he needed to get Jesse there pretty fast. Sandstorm was performing several skillful evasive maneuvers to be sure they weren’t being followed.
Kimi looked at Collin and said, “We encountered heavier resistance than we had planned for.”
Collin knew it was more than that as Kimi glared at Cassie, but he decided not to pursue it while both women were so obviously upset.
Jesse was lying in the back seat with his head in Cassie’s lap. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, and he called out Kimi’s name.
“I am here, Jesse, what do you need?” She replied.
“Did everyone make it out?” He asked as delirium was taking consciousness from him.
“Yes, we all made it Jesse.” She answered in her best soothing voice.
As he finished speaking, his eyes closed. Cassie just rubbed his head, worry in her eyes.
“We need to get him to Suzy now, Ogen,” Kimiko called from the back.
“We’re on our way. I just had to make sure we weren’t being followed,” He answered as he hit the thrusters to get Jesse back to the ship.
______
Captain Joldas Topanar was in his glory. Here he was, a free man, about to find the treasure of the ages, while his uncle, the man who consistently told him how stupid he was, the man that constantly berated him, was on the other side of those bars, incarcerated for his crimes. If only I had something really biting to say, he thought. It doesn’t matter, the truth will do. He heard the heavy doors to the prison cell block open. As he saw the guards bringing his uncle bound before him, he could barely contain his excitement.
As Eliphaz Topanar sat before his nephew, he noticed that Joldas almost looked pleased. “It’s good of you to visit, Nephew. To what do I owe this honor?” He asked, not at all liking the expression on his nephew’s face.
“I had to see it for myself.” Joldas began, “The mighty Sub-Mayor, Eliphaz Topanar, in prison. What happened, Uncle, did you get too creative for your own good?”
“You’re enjoying this?” He exclaimed. “Do you think you will escape prosecution when they finish with me? I know you are dim, but you cannot possibly be that that dim.”
Joldas laughed a cruel, scornful laugh. “You were always so much smarter than me, weren’t you, Uncle? You were always so superior to me. You could never let me forget how much smarter you were than me. But, apparently, not that smart now, are we? You constantly humiliate me in front of my peers. But then you go and turn your back on me. I ask you, Uncle, how can you deem to trust the man you constantly humiliate?”
A light of understanding appeared in Eliphaz eyes. “It was you? You are responsible for this? How could you?” He asked in theatrical fashion.
“Simple, really,” he laughed. “I grew tired of being your pet. I grew tired of your constant humiliation and I grew tired of your scraps, so I acted. The fact that all you own passes to me now is just an added bonus. It was I that bugged your secret transmission room. It was I that led Agent Sandstorm to the recording, and it was I that tipped off Agent Sandstorm to your assassination attempt. In case you’re wondering, I own Sandstorm. No, I don’t think they’ll prosecute me, because I gave them you. I have tricked Jesse Marcos into letting his guard down. My spy retrieved all of his artifacts and the key. Now, the treasure will be mine as well.”
Eliphaz started clapping, slowly, deliberately, and mockingly. He carried on for almost a minute before speaking. “Well done, Joldas, it appears you h
ave learned everything I have to teach you. There’s just one thing, I figured out it was you that betrayed me, right before the Mayor had me arrested. Therefore, with what little time I had left, I made arrangements.”
“What arrangements?” Joldas asked, a seed of worry beginning to grow within him.
“I called Garrinoras and I told him of your map and of your artifact. I even told him the most likely location of your ship, since you refuse to rotate landing sites as a precaution. In return, when he has the treasure, and conquers all of Kaldor, I will have a place of authority once again on this world. He won’t stop with Kaldor, either. He has a viable plan to conquer the entire Lawless Sector, but he will need the treasure to finance it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has your maps and artifacts already. A small strike team should be enough, unless you doubled your guard like I suggested.” He spoke in a mocking tone.
“You, old fool,” Joldas yelled. “Do you realize what you have done? Garrinoras hates humans, he will slay us all.
“No, he will likely enslave us all, but I would rather be a lord over slaves than die in a prison. It amuses me to think that you fell victim to the exact mistake I did. You disclosed too much information to the man who would betray you. Now, I never would have betrayed you if I did not need to save myself from your betrayal. That, of course, is another argument for another day.”
Before Joldas could answer, his communicator hummed. He looked at his uncle, and his uncle smiled. “You’d better get that,” he laughed. “I will wait.”