16
"How is he?"
"He'll be good as new in twelve hours or so," Twingo answered. He'd been pushing Jason off for the last two hours after their dramatic exit from Zeta Vandor-6. "His internal damage control systems are capable of correcting the issues without any help, but I've provided an external power source and some raw alloys from the fabricators. He's shut down his higher cognitive functions for now so there's no point in you trying to go in and talk to him."
"How bad was it?" Jason asked, yet another variation on the same question he'd already asked a dozen times before.
"Massive thermal damage to the primary upper torso armor to start with," Twingo said. "That's what the metal is for. That plasma shot he took was enough that it didn't simply distort the armor, it sublimated a significant portion of the alloy away. The unique nanobots he carries can break down the raw material and reform the armor pieces right on him; they even align the molecules properly to achieve the desired hardness level. Amazingly, that was the only significant weapon's fire damage he sustained save for a few minor proximity burns. His actual skin was fully intact.
"Most of the other damage was to his secondary and booster actuators. Wrestling and trading blows with something as strong as he is put a hell of a strain on those as well as his power and cooling systems … but he can correct that quickly on his own with no interference from me."
"We're going to need to come up with a better strategy if this mission includes close quarters combat with multiple battlesynths," Jason said. "Crusher and I were spectators most of the time, and I think the pair we faced might have come in underestimating us. We can't count on that in the future, and Lucky can't be expected to continually fight off multiple targets at once."
"Was that a request?"
"It was." Jason nodded and turned to leave. "When he wakes up I want you two working together to come up with better tactics and weapons. Be sure to take my heavy armor's capabilities into account since I'll damn sure be wearing it the next time."
"There's going to be a next time?" Twingo asked, his ears twitching.
"Since I don't think these two battlesynths had taken up mugging people in deserted shipping yards I have to assume they were monitoring Tauless, tracking us, or both," Jason said. "Any one of those points to another confrontation in the near future and likely with worse odds."
"Sounds like this is shaping up to be another fun one," Twingo sighed. "I'll see what I can come up with."
Jason left his friend and went to the infirmary to check on Crusher one more time. The big warrior had taken dozens of small wounds when the first battlesynth had been blasting at the power station he'd taken cover behind; shrapnel and bits of molten metal had peppered his tough skin enough that Doc had insisted on a workup. Crusher had then shocked everyone by agreeing without argument.
"You about ready to get off your lazy ass and help out around here?" Jason asked when the transparent door slid open.
"Oh aren't you just so funny," Crusher snarled. "Let me douse you with liquefied metal and see how you look."
When the Phoenix had been getting her latest upgrades Doc had lobbied for extensive improvements to the infirmary, and though it had ballooned the budget, Jason was glad he'd agreed. Crusher was floating twenty centimeters over the new bed Doc had ordered, one that was capable of gently levitating a patient via gravity manipulation that worked in conjunction with the ship's artificial gravity system. Since the burns covered the front and the back of the Galvetic warrior's torso, it allowed him to be treated while he wasn't lying on half the wounds, making them worse.
"No thanks," Jason said. "I was smart enough to get out of the way and not be pinned down."
"Any chance of getting one of these beds in my quarters?" Crusher asked. "I imagine they'd be a hell of a time … you know, recreationally."
"With that face I don't think you should worry too much about female companionship," Jason said.
"Doc said the burns will heal without a scar," Crusher shot back.
"Sure … why not?" Jason said. "Let's pretend I was talking about the burns."
"Hey!"
"If you just came in to harass my patient you can show yourself out, Captain," Doc said without looking up from the terminal in the corner.
"How's Lucky doing?" Crusher asked.
"Twingo says he'll be good to go physically in about twelve hours," Jason said. "He's asleep right now, for lack of a better term, so we'll see if he's ready for duty once he wakes up."
"Good," Crusher said. "Now, like Doc said, stop harassing me. I want to get back to sleep."
Jason left and went to the galley where their new passenger was eating some generic something from the food synthesizer with that thousand-yard stare that seemed to transcend species. He hadn't decided if Tauless was a friend, enemy, or hapless bystander yet, but for the immediate future he wasn't going to trust him blindly given what his crew had just gone through while trying to extract the little bastard.
"I'm sorry about your lawyer," he began, grabbing a bottle of water and sitting across from the pru. Upon further scrutiny Jason could see he probably wasn't nearly as young as he'd previously thought, which made sense given that Noyut Vulban was his father.
"Nace wasn't my lawyer," Tauless said, seeming to notice Jason for the first time. "She was a dear and loyal family friend that gave up everything to protect us."
"So let's start there," Jason said. "Why did you family need protecting? And do you mean to say that there are more of you left on that moon?"
"I don't know you, Captain," Tauless said. "Forgive me if I don't divulge all of my family's secrets just because you've managed to track down my father's final resting place. You could very well be working for the same people we've been hiding from."
"If that were the case I wouldn't need to know about what you're hiding from, would I?" Jason asked. "Look … I'm doing all this for my friend: the battlesynth lying unconscious in my engineering berth healing from the damage he took protecting you. I have no particular care for Krunt Teludal, Noyut Vulban, or the rest of it past tracking down some answers for his sake."
"Teludal?" Tauless asked. "You know of him?"
"Met him," Jason said. "We were attacked on Khepri when we went to see him. He was apparently being held prisoner in his own home and was near death, might be dead now, and he gave us your father's name. Some simple investigative work led us to Pinnacle Station where we found your father's remains resting in a communal crypt in the lower levels of the station."
"I'd hoped to eventually take him back to Khepri and lay him to rest in my family's shorka," Tauless sighed. Jason assumed the work his implant couldn't translate must have been equivalent to mausoleum. "But I suppose that's not going to be possible now. If you tracked me through his movements, others will as well."
"We're carrying your father's remains on this ship," Jason said. "Once we'd breached the crypt I didn't feel right about leaving them there. The vessel is sitting in a padded case in our armory right now."
The wash of emotions that flowed over Tauless's face told Jason his instincts had been correct in grabbing the sealed urn.
"We will of course take you to Khepri with him once we're sure it's safe."
"I … you have not done an insignificant thing here, Captain," Tauless said once he'd composed himself. "I realize that the respect paid to the corporeal remains of our ancestors may seem silly and superstitious among other advanced species, but it’s something we hold dear nonetheless."
"You'll get no judgment from me," Jason said. "And your father's remains are yours with no strings attached, but I'm still hoping you'll help us by providing enough answers to at least get us moving in the right direction again."
"I will try to help as much as I can," Tauless said. "It may not be much … I've been isolated on Zeta Vandor-6 for many five-cycles."
"Anything is better than where we're at now," Jason assured him. "Go ahead and get some rest and we'll talk later."
&n
bsp; Jason felt marginally better after the conversation, but still set the Phoenix's internal sensors to closely monitor their passenger, authorizing the computer to stun him if it decided he was poking around in things that he shouldn't.
"COLONEL, do you have a team operating parallel to the intel gathering efforts you've previously informed me of?" Sorlotta Arx demanded. The Eshquarian Minister stomped into Mok's office without invitation, something that lesser people would be seriously punished for.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Arx," Mok said, refusing to use the proper title for someone he so despised.
"You had agreed to gather intelligence for me on a certain, specific matter. I have received word that a rogue mercenary team that you're known to have ties to has just abducted a person of interest," Arx nearly shouted. "The amount of destruction they caused during their assault has alerted certain parties to the situation that we'd have preferred remained in the dark. Were these animals acting on your orders?"
"You'll have to be far more specific, General," Mok said.
"It's Minister. And I think you know exactly what I'm talking about."
"Sorry," Mok said with a helpless shrug. "I have one of my best teams in the field scouring for intel regarding a Khepri military buildup. Anything else I would need specific details before I would want to comment either way. I can tell you the team that works for me has made no assaults or abductions."
"I came to you in good faith, Colonel," Arx said. "If you're using another crew as a way to get me rattled or pursue your own agenda, you'd best rethink your tactics. We can agree to loathe each other, but even you must realize that being on the winning side when the dust settles is worth putting aside vendettas for." Arx didn't wait for a reply and stomped to the door, still just as agitated as when he'd come in.
"A word of caution, Arx," Mok called, his voice carrying a brittle edge. "Remember where you are and who I am. If you ever come in here and speak to me in such a manner again I will personally remove your head from your body and ship it back to your pretty young mate. After that I will provide evidence to the Eshquarian government of Third General Maasch's involvement in illegal arms manufacturing and the genetic proof they'll need to make sure your family line lives in disgrace for a thousand years. Am I clear?"
Arx stiffened, trembling, but refused to turn around. He yanked the ornate door open and made a hasty retreat before Mok could continue.
As soon as the door closed and locked, Mok activated the holographic display built into his desk and began combing through the reports Syodo had been sending. He knew that his team wasn't actually the one out there abducting people, but he hoped that maybe they'd stumbled upon something that would explain Burke's actions. Unsurprisingly, they had not. In fact, they seemed to be chasing their own tail. He sighed and pulled up another window, making a note to himself to track down someone that had been a former investigator or intelligence operative to augment his team. He had to admit to himself that the mistake was his own. He hired a bunch of hard case ex-operator types from different services and then expected them to be able to handle situations none of them were trained for.
Once he'd verified his own people were only flying around wasting fuel he pulled up his private secure slip-com node and punched in the address he had for Burke's ship. He flagged it as high-priority, hoping that Burke wouldn't pull his normal routine of ignoring him until he felt like responding.
"Mok, how are things?" Burke said, answering the channel request after a shockingly short amount of time.
That alone made Mok suspicious. "As well as can be expected," he said carefully. "I must admit I didn't actually expect you to answer in real time."
"I was already in the com room working on something," Burke answered. "Contrary to belief I don't actually ignore you out of principle. I get to things as time allows. Anyway, to what do I owe the dubious pleasure of seeing your smiling face?"
"Have you been drinking?"
"Some," Burke admitted. "Not relevant though. I assume you're calling about the incident on Zeta Vandor-6?"
Mok paused, typing in the world's name into his terminal to see what a Nexus search dragged up. The first thing he saw from Zeta Vandor's local media outlets was that someone had practically destroyed a shipping company’s logistics yard.
"Of course," Mok lied smoothly. "I assume there was a reason for you shooting up some poor bastard's shipping yard?"
Burke's eyes narrowed a bit. "You didn't get that from any of your sources, did you?" he asked. "You're fishing."
"Please just tell me what happened," Mok sighed. "I thought you were tracking down leads regarding the Khepri mobilization."
"We are. One of those leads took us to Zeta Vandor-6 … the son of one of the people involved with the battlesynth program before it was shut down was hiding out there," Burke said. "Now this is where it gets interesting: When we were at the initial meeting with him we were attacked … by a pair of battlesynths."
"You're joking," Mok scoffed.
"Wish I was. We were damn lucky that we didn't lose anyone. Lucky took some minor damage, but one of the battlesynths escaped. Whoever sent them has to know that we're sniffing around something they want to keep hidden; the problem is that we have no idea what that might be. Once our passenger wakes up we'll begin debriefing him and see what we can find out."
"If someone has battlesynths at their disposal to use on something as soft as a civilian target I think it's safe to say we're not chasing specters. There has to be something significant to the rumors we're hearing," Mok mused.
"I think it's worse than that," Burke said. "What if it was because someone had so many battlesynths at their disposal that they could afford to deploy a pair just to keep an eye on the kid and wait to see who showed up?"
"That means someone in the Kheprian government," Mok said. He realized with great annoyance that Syodo likely wouldn't have been able to make that connection. "So whomever you're carrying right now knows something about what they might be up to."
"Likely he doesn't," Burke said. "He probably knows something that he doesn't realize is of significance to the current situation, but it's enough that they wanted to make sure he didn't talk to anyone. His tangential attachment to the battlesynth program can't be unrelated."
"Agreed," Mok said. "So you'll contact me when you have something solid?"
"I will," Burke nodded. "No games either. We'll agree to work together on this until it's over or we need to pull the plug on our end. It seems like it might be too big for my little crew to handle by ourselves."
"I appreciate—" Mok stopped talking once he realized Burke had terminated the channel on his end after he'd stopped talking. He leaned back, taking Burke's habitual rudeness in stride, and considered what this new information could mean.
Not just anyone could order battlesynths onto missions. They were fully sentient, didn't like operating in a command structure outside their own small units, and had an ingrained distrust of outsiders. Lucky was an anomaly and Mok was certain it was only his fierce loyalty to Jason Burke that kept him from leaving Omega Force to seek out his own lot-mates and rejoin them.
He also knew that even after they matured most synths regarded their pru creators as demigods, still referring to them as “Masters.” The battlesynths particularly seemed to want to be in close proximity to Khepri as much as possible, so for the incident Burke described he could only agree that someone within the Kheprian military hierarchy must have deployed the pair that attacked them.
"This just became a lot more complicated," Mok grumbled as he pressed a button to summon the assistant that was sitting right outside the expansive office.
"Sir?"
"Recall Syodo's team and begin calling in all the Twelve Points," Mok said.
"I obey," the assistant said with a half-bow before leaving. It had taken Mok a bit to realize the expression was a cultural peculiarity; his assistant wasn't actually groveling. He was extremely good at what he did, so Mok lear
ned to live with his initial discomfort. Despite his reputation to the contrary he was not at all interested in being fawned over or even feared; he much preferred the results that came from a team not afraid to contradict their boss or deliver him news that would anger him.
When he'd first seized the opportunity to take over Bondrass's sizeable empire he had to move quickly to keep it from splintering off on its own or having his competitors take bites from around the edges. It was simply too much for a single person, so he brought in people he trusted, twelve from the same shadowy branch of Eshquarian Intelligence that he came from, and put them in charge of most aspects of his operation. They were the “points” of the star that was the symbol of Mok's organization, its stylized likeness emblazoned on his ships as a warning to any who might think one of his freighters looked like a target of opportunity.
What almost nobody but those close to him realized was that he wasn't operating Bondrass's holdings with the goal of simply enriching himself or amassing power for power's sake itself. While an active member of Eshquarian Intelligence he'd always cultivated contacts within the underworld to get information, and he came to the realization that they knew about things happening long before he ever would depending solely on traditional sources.
Information was power, and the bosses of the quadrant’s criminal element realized that long ago. Bondrass's intelligence apparatus was as impressive as it was expansive. Once he'd gotten a handle on just how capable it was, Mok had wasted no time in expanding it. It was now his number one export and it had made him so much money that he'd been able to begin withdrawing himself from the distasteful narcotics and trafficking trades. He was by no means a saint and had to maintain a presence in these industries to keep his channels of communication open, but bringing Bondrass's expansive slave trade to a close had helped assuage his conscience.
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