Total Betrayal (Deep Space Endeavor) (2 page)

             
"Great distraction, Colonel. Man, it's good to have you back." Manny happily called over comms. "Jess, you guys are getting a little too close to the Syndicate ships, pull back a bit."

             
"Negative, Captain Hernandez, we've got a plan. You're gonna want to see this, Manny."

             
Manny watched as Jesse's fleet fought its way into what looked like a cluster of fairly powerful battleships then suddenly, they opened their ranks.
What is he doing? They'll be slaughtered!
His thoughts were interrupted when he saw the alien vessels turning to bring their most powerful weapons to bear and suddenly, twelve broad, flat ships accelerated faster than any ship he had ever seen and broadsided the alien vessels. Twelve ships destroyed, just like that. He couldn't believe Jesse would have ships resort to suicide runs. He was even more surprised when he saw twelve broad, flat ships emerge unscathed from the wreckage. He had never seen anything like it. "Wow, please tell me you have some more tricks up your sleeve."

             
"Nothing really new, hey, Serge," he began as Thansar's fleet launched a huge wave of fighters, hoping to penetrate the shield so he could start taking out those guns. "Please tell me some of our ships are equipped with a special surprise for enemy fighters?" He was referring to the laser net
Endeavor
had, hoping Serge had gotten around to installing a larger version on some of the ships.

             
"Of course, Jesse." Serge happily called back.

             
"Watch this, Admiral," Jesse added, knowing he had never seen the laser net in action. Just then, the
Vanguard
and
Olympus
surged ahead of the rest of the fleet with their ten
War Hawks
in tow. They spread out and opened fire. A laser net almost a hundred kilometers wide and almost eighty kilometers high shot out from the twelve ships and engulfed almost half of the enemy fighters. This was immediately followed by all of the Coalition fighters launching into the disorganized retreat of the remaining alien fighters. The dogfights from that point were one-sided as hundreds of retreating fighters were destroyed by eager
Vipers
before they could even turn around. Polisia's fleet had taken up position opposite Jesse's fleet to keep the alien armada busy in a crossfire while Serge's cannons continued pumping out destruction. By this point, Thansar had lost over half of his alien vessels and was trying to organize a strategic withdrawal.

             
Jesse happily looked at his crew and said, "Good job, guys."

             
Suddenly, Nina's voice could be heard throughout the fleet, loud and angry. "There's no way we're letting them go after they annihilated three worlds. Do not let them retreat, take as many as you can. It'll only be less we have to face later. We are giving them no quarter! I repeat, we are giving them no quarter!"

             
Jesse knew she was right, but was surprised she was the one who had suggested it.
What could have happened in the last fourteen months that would turn Nina into the kind of person that would suggest destroying a retreating fleet?
"You heard her, everyone. Keep the pressure up. Take as many as you can. Let's see how they like it." Ships were blowing up all around them as the plasma cannons continued to fire. The
Leviathans
and
War Hawks
were dominating the Jarlevian battleships. The Melee Cruisers had just finished their fourth successful ramming run and now, there were less than a third of the alien ships remaining.

             
Thansar's face appeared on
Endeavor's
screen, once again the disdain evident in his eyes. "You have no honor! You shall pay dearly for continuing to attack retreating ships, Marcos." He spit out Jesse's name as if it were a curse.

             
"Yeah, I might feel bad about that if you hadn't just killed sixteen million helpless people. You never should have bombed the defeated planets. Now, anytime I see any ships from any of the Syndicate races, I kill first. I hope you understand what that means."
Endeavor
destroyed another fleeing vessel as if to punctuate Jesse's point. "You don't destroy our planets and just get to walk away once you're losing," he forcefully added. Moments later, Thansar's ship made it to light space with forty-two other vessels. "Status report, SAMMI," Jesse queried.

             
"The fleet lost one Battle Hammer, one Kaldorian Frigate and three Hyperian Gunships. The fleet defending Polisia lost nine Frigates, seventeen Gunships and three Battle Cruisers. The planetary defenses lost six plasma cannons and shields remain in place, holding at seventy-three percent. We destroyed approximately two hundred sixty enemy vessels. They were never able to compensate for our shielded plasma cannons and the distraction at the beginning of the battle put them on the defensive even though they possessed superior numbers."

             
"Thank you, SAMMI. Now, I want to see my family; let's go home."

______

              After a respectful greeting for the Polisian ruling council, Jesse couldn't get to his sister and cousin fast enough. Suzy was right by his side as they were her only family as well. Josiah had left to go find his family while Collin and Kimi did the same. Their guests from the Kalephi Galaxy would need to give them a few minutes before Jesse would introduce them. Jesse was ushered into the command center and broke into a huge smile as he ran over to his sister. He picked her up in a big embrace and swung her around. Even in her foul mood, Nina had to smile. He put her down with a kiss on the cheek and moved to shake Serge's hand, which also turned into a hug. Suzy meanwhile was hugging Nina as if she thought she'd never see her again and Nina had to wonder what had they been through this past year. Serge was all smiles as he felt for the first time in months that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Jesse looked at his brother-in-law and smiled, "So, Serge, how many more plasma cannons do you have ready to roll that no one else knows about?"

             
Serge chuckled and replied, "We only used half."

             
"I knew it. I knew you were holding back. Good call. We may need that advantage again soon if anyone else is dumb enough to try and attack Polisia." He patted his brother-in-law on the back as he took Nina's hand. "Nina, so much has happened and I have so much to tell you about, but right now, can someone please tell me what the heck is going on around here? Ariel said a lot has happened and almost none of it good. I didn't see any Coalition reinforcements helping you guys out, what's the deal?" Even in the midst of his relief at finally seeing his family, the heat he felt from the battle had not yet dissipated.

             
"We've been betrayed, Jess." Nina wearily began. "Let's go somewhere private and I'll tell you all about the last fourteen months here in the Coalition. We're in some serious trouble and there may be nowhere for us to hide." She turned and began to head towards an unoccupied conference room.

             
Jesse looked to his brother-in-law, "Serge, I'm nearly positive I can recreate the conduit. I wasn't sure til it opened up for us to come back. I needed clean readings because on the way in, an explosion skewed the data." He looked at the serious and angry expression on Nina's face and his excitement was cut short. "But something tells me you know a lot more about that explosion than I do," he paused and looked at the anger in their eyes. "We may need to finish the device more quickly than I intended. Let's get to the conference room so you can update me on what's happened."

             
"Not until I get my hug," Ariel yelled as she ran across the command center floor. She didn't care if it was undignified for a Captain, she missed her cousin so much and everyone knew it. She reached Jesse and jumped into his arms and held the embrace for a long time. Finally, Nina indicated that they had a lot to discuss and she let him go with a smile and moved to embrace Suzy.

             
"I missed you, too, Ariel, but I'm back now." He replied as he looked into her still haggard eyes.

             
"So much has happened, Jess, you're gonna need to sit down." The five of them went into a vacant conference room and turned on a jamming field. Lana watched, knowing that it wouldn't be too long now before she finally met her father. Raina came along side her and squeezed her hand for reassurance.

             
"He's gonna love you so much, Lana."

             
"How can you be so sure? He doesn't even know me."

             
"But I know him, and I know you. Trust me." She leaned her head on her friend's shoulder and they waited, knowing a lot of difficult things had to be discussed before he found out about her. Her dad was coming home to a different Coalition than he had left, and everyone seemed to think he was walking into a firestorm.

             
Jesse felt like a volcano ready to erupt as he listened to Nina tell him about all of the attempts on their lives. Suzy was trying to calm him down but it wasn't working. The destruction of three planets was hard enough for him the hear about, and he almost snapped when he heard of Ariel's injuries. "I'm gonna kill Natora myself," he exclaimed in a rage.

             
"It's too late, Bliney killed him after he assassinated President Sandoval," Serge calmly interjected, hoping to ease some of Jesse's anger.

             
"Sandoval is dead?" He couldn't keep the shock from his face. "Who else? Who else did they get?" He added as Suzy stared at the wall in disbelief. After a long awkward moment, Nina continued.

             
"Rodriguez, Tally, Jordan, Liam and all of their families. Manny is devastated over losing Liam; he had been training that kid for almost six years."

             
Jesse's fist pounded the table so hard, Ariel and Suzy jumped a little in their seats. "Where has Admiral Bliney been during all of this?" Jesse shouted, with fire in his eyes. "He's our friend, he should have been watching out for you guys." The disappointment on his face was evident as he moved to pound the table again but held it at the last second as Ariel gently rubbed his back.

             
"He was in deep space for most of it, Jess, and when he returned is when everything started happening. He feels the Coalition needs him now more than ever so he doesn't want to been seen disagreeing with their new leader even if he is an Enclave stooge, which I'm not sure he even believes." Ariel angrily replied.

             
"I'm having trouble believing all of this happened in just over a year, and this, Enclave, they're called, they are responsible?" Suzy asked.

             
"Yes, they are. President Rhodes was the last member of their sleeper group and he has all but given Supreme Commander Lucien the keys to the kingdom. That's not all, they also got Ladyhawk. I'm really sorry, Jess, I know you two were close."

             
"What, how? How did they even know about Ladyhawk?" Jesse's mind was reeling. Several people – friends – had been taken out by the Coalition's supposed allies. Planets were destroyed, friends were dead, the Coalition had done nothing about it and his family was now wanted criminals. What else could have possibly gone wrong?"

             
"Jess, there's more." Nina began, unsure of how to proceed, knowing each new tidbit of information was pushing her brother closer to the edge. "They raided all of our facilities and I hit the self destruct. The SSE is no more." Nina almost cried as she saw the look that crossed her brother's face.

             
Jesse slumped in his chair, his mind was spinning; what had he come home to? He looked over to see a similar expression of hurt in Serge's eyes. The company they had worked so hard to build, destroyed by power hungry warmongers. "Why?" He asked in little more than a whisper as Suzy took his hand. He noticed that she was now actively fighting back tears and he placed his hand over hers for reassurance without looking up from the floor.

             
"Because, they want our ships, the Enclave wants our tech," Ariel responded with an anger in her eternally joyful countenance that Jesse had never seen there before. The look in his cousin's eyes along with all of this news was almost too much to bear.

             
"They've already tried to take some of our ships back to Enclave Prime to reverse engineer, but the aliens prevented them from reaching their homeworld. Apparently, the aliens wish them to have the tech even less than we do." Serge gave Jesse a slight nod as he spoke and Jesse understood that it was Serge who had helped them not reach their homeworld. Only the two of them knew about the tracking system for the Leviathans and War Hawks. The system did more than track; it allowed them to remotely take control of the ships they had built. Serge hadn't wanted to install the system at first, but Jesse's mistrust of Admiral Natora had run too deep, and it turned out he was right.

             
"We had many difficulties in the Kalephi Galaxy, but nothing like this. We've been betrayed by our own government. Are we all criminals now?"