Deep Space Endeavor 3 Death Match (28 page)

“Captain Marcos,” she began sadly.

“Miss Evans, please follow me to the conference room where we can speak more privately.” She hated to be so formal with Jesse’s daughter, but she had to continue the ruse for as long as possible, hopefully until Jesse returned in six months. When they were alone, Ariel flashed her niece a big smile and said, “Sorry about that, Lana, I’m sorry about this whole charade.” As she gave her niece a gentle hug, her side still hurt when she moved her arm too quickly or extended it too far.

“It’s all right, Aunt Ariel,” Lana replied and they both smiled. Both of them knew that they were second cousins, but Jesse would insist that Ariel was Lana’s aunt because he had always treated Ariel like his little sister. Manny, Serge and Nina had already started calling her Aunt Ariel.

“What can I do for you, sweetie?”

“I’m terribly bored. Is there any way I can get off the ship, at least for a little while. Aunt Nina always says it’s too dangerous, but no one knows that my father is Jesse Marcos, so how is it dangerous?”

“You’ve got a point there, kiddo. Aunt Nina can be overprotective sometimes.” She sent her a sympathetic look as she thought about the necessity of it.

“Raina says that the defensive improvements to her house and everyone else’s houses will be done in a couple days, and then I won’t even be able to train with her and Dmitri anymore. Is there anything you can do?”

Ariel knew all of the people close to them were getting ready to go back to their lives. They couldn’t stay on the
Vanguard
forever. She also knew Nina had spared no expense to make them as safe as possible; home defense systems, shielded vehicles and discreet personal protection. Once that was all in place, their guests would be gone. She knew that the ship would become even lonelier for Lana when that happened. “I’ll see what I can do. I would love to take you to my favorite restaurant, but the assassins blew it up when they first tried to kill your Aunt Nina and me. Maybe we can get Jason to take you and Raina somewhere fun.” Lana lit up with excitement and hugged Ariel. “Hey, kiddo, I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try. How are you doing with everything else?”

“It’s all so hard to fathom. It’s always just been me and my mom against the world. She never told me anything about who my dad was until about a week before she contacted Aunt Nina. I went from never knowing to finding out that my dad was one of the richest, most famous men in the Coalition. When she first told me, I was so angry at him, I hated him. I thought, how could he have all this time to save the world over and over but never have time for me? I thought if he could just see me, he would love me.”

Ariel’s heart was breaking as she heard Lana’s story. “He will, it will be love at first sight, trust me. I know your dad better than anyone, and if he even thought there was a possibility he had a kid, he would have moved heaven and earth to find you.”

“I know, my mom saw how upset I was and then told me the whole story. I knew what she had done was wrong, but I still loved her for it. I knew it wasn’t Jesse’s fault, but I was still mad about it. I just guess I’m gonna have all of these conflicting feelings until I finally meet him.”

“Yes, you will, in the meantime, I’m going to go talk to Nina and Jason right away and see about getting you off this ship for a little while.” She smiled and hugged her niece. She was going to like having Lana around.

______

Serge had been in his lab for days. He and Nina had been arguing about production of the fleet the President had requested, again. Why could she not understand that all he wanted was to protect the Coalition? He had been honest and would continue to be honest about what they could and could not do. He felt they were out of danger from Natora.
Even that fool can see we would not win against either threat without the ships from Sea Side Enterprises.
Yet Nina still continued to argue. They almost never argued in the past. When they did, Jesse would always be around to ease the tension. He always seemed to know the right thing to say to calm Nina down when she disagreed with them. He could stop her tirades cold in the way that only a little brother can. He was not here; however, he was in another galaxy for almost six more months. That estimate did not take into account how long it would take them to return home if something went wrong with the conduit.

Still, the development of the Polisian production facility was going slower than expected. He had no desire to speed it up either.
What if Nina is right? What if our leaders have less than noble intentions for our ships? If that happens, I will be responsible for the damage they cause. I have no desire for that kind of guilt
. He had secretly, with Jason and Irina’s help, been increasing Polisia’s planetary defenses. It wouldn’t be too long before Polisia’s defenses were more powerful than any in the Coalition. He could at least do that in good conscience.

While he was thinking about this whole situation, his mind drifted back to the explosion that had rocked
Endeavor
on her way into the conduit. In light of the attempts on his wife and Ariel’s lives, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the accident was something more than just unexploded ordinance. He had spent the last couple days going through the data when a thought occurred to him.
Winter’s Edge
was the closest ship to the accident, but Natora had never let them get a look at the footage. Now, however,
Winter’s Edge
was one of the decommissioned ships Serge was overseeing the upgrades to. He was surprised he hadn’t thought of it sooner, but his recent fighting with his wife had shaken his confidence. He seemed to be second-guessing himself a lot.
If only Jesse were here, he’s always so calm in these situations and it gives me confidence. However, we are now in the worst situation we have ever been in and he is stuck in another galaxy for six months.
He strode onto the bridge of the ship while techs were all buzzing about, rushing to complete assignments. He logged in to the database to see if anything remained of the records from that battle. As he searched the database, he knew that the actual battle footage would have been removed. He hoped that whoever Natora had tasked with completing the assignment was sloppy enough not to realize the accident had occurred over sixteen hours later. Serge was rewarded when he found the footage. The battle had been wiped clean. Five hours before until five hours after were missing. The explosion, however, was still in the data banks. He downloaded the information and took it back to his lab for further study. As he walked, he held his data pad right as if it were a treasure. What he was doing was technically illegal and he walked like guilty man, hoping he didn’t run into anyone that knew him well enough to see it.

Serge eagerly went through the data and what he saw shocked him. The explosion was caused by one of SSE’s space mines. The mine would have had to be activated after the battle to attack
Endeavor
. Not only that, but the energy signature marked it as one of the mines dedicated to the Earth’s planetary defense system.
Someone has used our own mines against us
, he thought as he grew angry. The only possibility is that it had come on one of the reinforcements or rescue ships that came after the battle. This was no accident; someone had tried to kill Jesse. Emboldened by his find, his confidence began to return as his anger grew. He immediately sent word to his wife to call a meeting.

Nina noticed a message flashing when she arrived in her office. “Nina, we need to speak. It is urgent. Gather up Manny, Ariel and Jason immediately.” Serge’s message certainly had Nina’s attention. What could it be that was so important? She knew he had been holed up in his lab, and she knew it was her fault. She would apologize soon enough, but she wanted him to cool down first. Now he wanted everyone together for an urgent meeting. It must be important, because Serge had never scheduled a meeting like this before.

When Serge arrived, he was thankful that Nina had done what he had asked. He seated himself next to his wife and looked around at his coworker’s expectant eyes.

“You are probably wondering what is so urgent. I know we are all busy, but I felt this could not wait. I have just found out that the plot against us began long before the attempts on Nina, Ariel and Manny.” They all had his attention as he took a deep breath steadying breath to continue. He couldn’t let his anger gain control, yet. “We are currently readying several decommissioned ships for war. One of which is the
Winter’s Edge
. On a hunch, I looked through the ship’s database, hoping for more clues as to what caused the explosion at the conduit. Footage from the battle had been erased up to five hours after the incident.”

Nina knew she wasn’t going to like what was coming as she asked, “What did you find, Serge?”

He smiled as he continued. “Natora’s men were sloppy, because the footage I needed happened sixteen hours after the incident. The explosion that hit
Endeavor
was from one of OUR mines, specifically one from Earth’s planetary defense system!” The look of shock that crossed his wife’s face was mirrored all around the table as the realization of what he had said hit them. “Admiral Natora was the only one with the authority to release one of those mines to be used elsewhere. His first assassination attempt was against Jesse, not any of us.”

“No wonder he so adamantly kept us from the footage of the explosion.” Manny mused while Ariel nodded her head in agreement.

“Serge, we need to bring this to the President immediately, at least to Admiral Bliney.” Nina was livid. They had taken a shot at her brother and she could not let it stand.

“We can’t, Nina, Serge obtained the footage illegally.” Ariel sadly replied.

“No he didn’t, those ships were voluntarily put into our possession by the military. We wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we were not spot checking databases.”

“Do you think they are going to believe that we just happened to spot check the one piece of information we tried so hard to get our hands on eight months ago? Jason asked with a laugh.

“It doesn’t matter what they believe, it only matters what they can prove. Trying to prove we didn’t spot check it will only make them look guilty when we go public with the information.” Manny informed. He was noticeably angry that high-ranking officials of the government he had served for so long could just callously try to eliminate one of its biggest heroes and brightest lights. “Make a second copy, Serge, because the moment they hassle us, the information goes public. We will demand Natora’s arrest or the people will.”

“We have to be more diplomatic than that,” Ariel pleaded. “I know this info makes us all very angry. Trust me, Jesse is my favorite person in the galaxy, but we cannot trample on the good people with the bad. Then we become just another bully with an ax to grind.”

“I understand what you are saying, Ariel. I really do, but if our allies focus on how we got the information rather than what’s in the information, maybe they are not as “good” as we thought.” Nina was also visibly upset, but she had a point.

“I don’t trust any of them, anyway, so I’m with Manny and Nina on this one.” Jason added with a smirk. As thoughts of
Endeavor
‘s crew filled his mind, he realized he might not wait for any of the others to act.
Jesse is the one man that had believed in me when no one else would. He took a blaster bolt meant for Carmine to save my life. He got me a presidential pardon and gave me a great job when my prior life as a hacker was exposed and I almost lost everything, and he’s always been very kind to Raina. I’m not letting Natora get away with this.

“This isn’t a vote, Jason, not yet at least. We are simply exploring all of the options. We will not make any decisions until we have all had a chance to cool down.” Serge intoned. If they came at this while they were all so visibly angry, it could spiral out of control very quickly.

“Serge’s right,” Manny conceded. “We can’t decide what to do with this while we are all so angry about it. We should sit on it for a couple days and then revisit it.”

“I agree,” Ariel concurred.
My cousin had better be all right, or I’ll dismantle Earth’s power structure myself, bully or not,
she thought as she sadly shook her head.

“Fine,” Nina replied, still unhappy. “Let’s meet back in two days and let cooler heads prevail. In the meantime, watch your back. We all may be targets at this point.” She knew it was a good point, but she wanted retribution now. She was now really looking forward to her upcoming meeting with Ladyhawk.

______

Supreme Commander Lucien was in the process of deciding which alien planet the Enclave would invade next when he received the transmission that he had been waiting for. His face lit up as he greeted his top spy. “Hello, my friend, I hope you bring me good news.”

“I bring you great news, Lucien; Earth will be drastically increasing their military production. Both the Secretary of Defense and the Romanovs are planning increases to their production facilities that will more than double their output. I know that Earth’s ships are not as powerful as the Enclave ships, but with the SSE enhancements, they will make fine fodder for the aliens in our coming war. The real prize, of course, is the SSE ships, which are far more powerful than anything we or the aliens have. I know these are the ships you truly seek.”