Omega Force 09: Revolution

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "We're back to the only thing Khepri provides to the ConFed that's indispensable for its very existence: the banking AI," Doc said.

  "Explain," Mok demanded.

  Doc quickly laid out the basics of why the Kheprian AI that controlled transactions across the ConFed in real-time, including taxation, was critical to the operation and survival of the ConFed.

  "It isn't just the fact that without it the ConFed wouldn't be able to realistically collect revenue across the quadrant," Doc said. "It's that member worlds outside the core would have no reason to feel compelled to honor their agreements. The Fleet is spread so thin as it is they can barely keep the more powerful members from skirmishing with each other, and without the threat of violence or economic penalty you'd see their influence virtually disappear."

  "And the powerful would see this as an opportunity," Mok said, leaning heavily against the table. "The ConFed, or what would be left of it, would have no choice but to pull its entire fleet in tight to make sure some member world, or worlds, didn't decide it was an opportune time to fill the power void."

  "Or maybe not a member state," Jason said. "The Eshquarian Empire has stayed independent and would benefit greatly from a deflated ConFed. Member worlds too weak to fend for themselves would grant almost any concession for Imperial protection."

  "I can't believe the Empire would—"

  "No, but a faction within the government might," Jason interrupted. "We have a Minister sitting in a cell down in the basement that just happens to have been a high ranking covert operative … the sort of person that has undoubtedly arranged for coups and revolutions during the course of his career. This risk tolerance for this sort of thing is likely high enough that he'd be willing to roll the dice."

  "That's a lot to process." Mok sank back into his seat. "I know this man. If he's involved, even acting in the interests of the Empire, he will have insulated himself so that if it fails he can't—"

  "What?" Crusher asked as Mok trailed off, his eyes unfocused.

  "He made a comment about needing my network and resources," he went on. "I didn't get it at the time, but he mentioned specifically he was looking for deniability. That's what this assault was about; when he couldn't get me to simply hand over operational control of certain assets, he decided to take it by force once the Twelve Points arrive."

  This makes sense," Crusher nodded. "But where does he fit in? Is this his scheme, or is he an opportunist?"

  "I could probably find out," Kage said.

  "How?"

  "This com unit, while not hooked into any slip-com node buffer, does link to Arx's neural implant," Kage said. "It was still connected, in fact. I shut off the unit's ability to collect images and sound without tipping him off. Anyway, I learned this trick that allows me to use this tether connection to get into his neural implant. Anything he's wanting to hide, it's probably there."

  "But?" Jason prompted.

  "There are decent odds that something goes wrong," Kage admitted. "And by wrong I mean the subject won't likely survive."

  "Would it be a painful death?" Mok asked.

  "Excruciating and lengthy," Kage said.

  "Please … proceed."

  "Be careful, Kage," Jason warned. "I don't want you going too deep and putting yourself at risk."

  "What's our next move?" Doc asked. "We can't exactly call up the Kheprian government and warn them that we think there might be a plot to attack their most secure facility … but we have no idea by who, or when, or why."

  "That wouldn't be my first suggestion, no," Jason said.

  "Let me reach out to some people," Mok said, standing to indicate the meeting was over. "With Arx's failure to secure access to my syndicate's resources we may have already hampered their ability to pull this off, assuming you're correct about the target. I'll let you know if I find anything."

  "Weird," Jason said as Mok practically ran from the room with Similan in tow.

  "Captain, I found some things that we need to discuss." Tauless spoke up for the first time since they'd entered the building. "I'd rather do it somewhere more discreet."

  "Let's head back to the Phoenix and wait to see what Mok kicks up," Jason said. "Lucky, can you do me a solid and wait here with Kage? He looks a tad preoccupied."

  "Of course, Captain," Lucky said and moved over to where Kage sat. The code slicer was completely oblivious to their presence as he brought his impressive mental abilities to bear in breaking into Arx's neural implant.

  "MAYBE IT'S BETTER that Lucky isn't here for this," Tauless said. "What I've found may cloud his judgment."

  "You have my complete attention," Jason said, now very interested.

  "I found out where Lot 700 is," Tauless began without preamble. "Unbelievably, they're in stasis and stored somewhere on Krunt Teludal's property on Khepri."

  "Shit," Jason muttered. "The authorities were all over that place after the attack."

  "I don't think they'd have so carelessly hidden them that the authorities could find them without knowing they were there," Tauless disagreed. "Unfortunately that means we won't likely have any better luck; the exact location wasn't specified."

  "That's unfortunate, maybe," Jason said. "We're sure that your father said all of Lot 700 had the unique dummy inhibitors installed?"

  "Yes," Tauless said. "I also found something else … my father had found evidence that a new, secret production facility had been built."

  "Do I even want to know what this facility will be producing?" Jason moaned.

  "A new generation of battlesynths. Upgraded from the original design," Tauless said.

  "And in direct violation of half a dozen treaties the Kheprian government signed to halt all battlesynth research, repair, and production," Jason sighed. "Of course."

  "I don't understand," Tauless said.

  "This isn't coincidental," Jason explained. "If someone destabilizes the ConFed and Khepri was suddenly on its own, what would they need quickly?"

  "Ah!" Tauless said. "A standing army."

  "Exactly. A new generation of battlesynths would fit the bill nicely. All they'd need after that is a partner with a fleet powerful enough to protect the system," Jason said. "I can't think of anyone more capable, or which stands to gain more, than the Eshquarian Empire. Hopefully Kage finds a trail that gives us the specifics. Did you happen to find out if this new facility is online?"

  "It's not," Tauless said. "They've made a handful of test runs according to my father's best information, but the processing matrixes are still only able to be made at the original facility."

  "How old is this new factory?" Jason asked, frowning.

  "More than fifty years old, at least," Tauless said. "Why?"

  "That means if these are connected someone has been playing a very long game." Jason said. "Eshquarians and Kheprians don't live that long, so we're either looking at a multigenerational conspiracy or we've missed something important."

  "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, Captain," Tauless said.

  "You couldn't be more wrong." Jason forced a smile and patted him on the shoulder, something he hoped his species interpreted as friendly and not threatening. "Thank you for coming to me with this first. Do me a favor and consolidate this information and send it to Doc and Kage as well. I think we'll leave Lucky out of the loop for the time being. I need him at full capacity and not distracted with family issues."

  "Of course." Tauless bobbed his head up and down vertically in what Jason had learned was the pru version of a head nod.

  Jason remained seated in the galley, trying to work through what he'd learned before talking to Doc and Kage about it. He felt that the secret battlesynth production facility might not to be connected to any effort to break up the ConFed. It did mean some faction on Khepri was almost certainly involved. But why bother risking so much to prop up a facility to produce something that was outlawed for centuries in the first place?

  He shuddered at the thought of a whole new, upgraded generation of batt
lesynths rolling off a production line. Not because he was fearful of the species, but because he knew that anybody willing to violate so many treaties to make them certainly wouldn't let them out without firm measures of control. They wouldn't be the free-thinking beings like Lucky and his cohorts, they'd be something much more dangerous.

  "I'm going to need to drag some more people in on this," he said to himself, standing and slapping both hands on the galley table.

  22

  "Five days to Khepri at current slip velocity," Twingo reported from the bridge engineering station. "The new grav-drive is mostly performing as expected."

  "Mostly?" Jason asked.

  "The computer is having to update the calibration tables a lot more often than I would like in order to keep the left and right emitter banks in sync," Twingo said. "It could be a number of things, or it could be the normal break-in behavior of the new system. I wouldn't worry about it."

  "Where have we heard that before?" Crusher snorted.

  "Look, I keep the Phoenix flying … that's it!" Twingo said hotly. "Then whenever you idiots fly her into something, through something, allow her to get shot up, or any of the other insane stunts I've seen I'm the one who gets blamed for giving you an unreliable ship. Well I've had—"

  "Twingo! Nobody is blaming you for anything," Jason said. "But you do have to admit that it's mostly your fault when something breaks." He said it without a hint of a smile and watched as Twingo went from his normal blue to an unhealthy shade of violet. The engineer got up slowly from his seat and walked off the bridge without a word to any of them.

  "Oh wow … you really got him with that last one," Crusher said quietly once Twingo was out of earshot.

  "I owed him," Jason said. "Kage, how long do you think it will take you to run through all the data on that side project?"

  "The computer is doing it now," Kage said. "There's no advantage in having me sit there and parse through every bit of it. I expect it to start spitting out results within the next few hours."

  The plant that might be building new battlesynth bodies concerned Jason, but it wasn't an immediate threat. He did, however, want to at least find out the likely location of Lot 700. Teludal's property wasn't that big, so he gave Kage all the data they had from when he and Lucky visited combined with any public Nexus records and the limited information Tauless had to see if the exact spot could be pinpointed. Barring that, Jason would settle for a short list of most likely places. He had to assume they were buried, so randomly digging the place up and hoping to strike gold wasn't really practical.

  He hoped that the dormant soldiers had been resting in a condition that would allow them to come online quickly. If Lucky could communicate to them the threat and get them to sign on it would help tremendously. As it was they were hopelessly outmatched on the ground assuming that there were a couple hundred battlesynths that might turn out to be hostile. If that was the case he had no delusions about holding their own … they'd all be dead in seconds.

  "I've also got it doing the preliminary skim of the information we took from Arx's com unit and neural implant," Kage went on. "I'll dig into that personally once the computer gets rid of the extraneous garbage for me."

  "Wasn't that encrypted?" Jason asked.

  "I went in behind the encryption with the method I used," Kage said. "I'm surprised someone as savvy as an Eshquarian Intelligence officer would be so foolish as to be linked to their com unit in the first place, much less once captured and having the unit confiscated."

  "Maybe he was hoping to use it to send out a distress message if the unit was able to link up to an outside network," Jason said.

  "Plausible, but still risky," Kage said. "Assuming we find Lucky's brothers, what are we hoping to accomplish on Khepri?"

  "Strangely enough, I'm hoping to be able to discreetly find someone that can raise an alarm, thus saving the ConFed," Jason said.

  "This is a weird side of the fight to be on, all things considered," Crusher remarked. "Wouldn't the ConFed withdrawing its tentacles be considered a good thing for us?"

  "Yes, but not for everybody," Jason said carefully. His own thinking was still rapidly evolving on the issue so he was unsure how to articulate it to the others. "At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, taking down a system without having something ready to step in and take its place can be just as damaging as leaving the flawed system be."

  "That is hypocritical," Crusher accused. "We've routinely sided with freedom fighters and revolutionaries against uncaring and abusive governments."

  "I knew you'd look at it that way," Jason sighed. "I'm not arguing that the ConFed should stay as it is, but nor do I think that letting someone plunge the quadrant into chaos in a grab for power is a better solution. We've sided with revolutionaries on a small scale and only as a matter of last resort. A lot of people bitch about the ConFed's taxes and interference … not too many are taking consensus votes to begin withdrawal proceedings."

  "That's a technicality and you know it," Kage scoffed. "They don't leave because it means standing out in the cold alone. They'd be easy prey and the ConFed would take special delight in watching them fall after voting to leave."

  "I don't disagree with either of you," Jason said. "But can you really tell me that if the ConFed's power gets swept away in the span of a day that all those boundary planets and weaker enclaves will get to go on self-governing? It will be chaotic, bloody, and a long time before anyone is able to step in and help."

  They all fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts and staring at the stars streaking by on the canopy projection. Jason felt like he didn't really get his point across, and the disgusted look Crusher gave him before turning away made his cheeks burn. If he'd learned one thing since he'd been working as a running gun—and had seen a whole spectrum of suffering during that time—was that there was no universal truth. Sure, ideally everyone should live free and under a benevolent government that provided much while requiring little and never fear that someone outside their little bubble might want to come and take what they have.

  In reality, not every world was suited to being cut loose. The galaxy was a scary place full of predators. Without a balancing force like the ConFed Starfleet hanging over the area like a vengeful cloud, even if only protecting their own interests, he feared many worlds would find themselves in an even worse position. The ConFed at least made a half-assed attempt at ensuring things like genocide and slavery were stamped out. There were others that would not.

  The more he thought about it, the more his fear began to grow at what might happen to the quadrant without some umbrella organization at least keeping an eye on things. What about Earth? They were now flying advanced starships proudly waving the flag, and the Cridal Cooperative wasn't so powerful that they had nothing to fear. Maybe once they had more hulls in service and a mature force spun up, but right now they were vulnerable and no longer safely hidden down the Orion Arm.

  "Take watch," he said to Kage and slid out of the pilot's seat. "Let me know the minute your two searches dig up anything."

  "YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, General," Mok said. "None of your men escaped, all of your ships were destroyed … nobody is coming to look for you here. In fact, you don't even know where here is."

  "You're so very impressed with your own cleverness, aren't you, Colonel?" Arx stirred in his cell. "Yes, I'm well-aware that we've left your ruined home. From the faint subsonic vibration I'm feeling I'm assuming you have me on one of your pirate ships flying through slip-space … untraceable and untouchable."

  "So why not spill it?" Mok pressed. "You failed utterly to get your hands on my syndicate and I think you're smart enough to realize I can never let you leave this cell alive. Why not dazzle me with your brilliant plan to conquer the galaxy?"

  "Just kill me now and get it over with, Colonel," Arx moaned. "At least it will spare me from your clumsy attempts at appealing to my ego. Who do you think you're talking to? You worked for me … do you think I don't have
at least two more contingencies ready to activate if one part of a plan stumbles?

  "Your little organization would have made things easier, but this changes nothing. My people know what to do without me having to be there to tell them. Either let me sit here until I die, or put a blaster bolt through my head, it doesn't matter at this point."

  Mok made some pretense of trying to stare down his old boss before moving over one cell and looking in on its occupant.

  "How about you, stupid? You ready to say something useful?" he asked.

  "I told you I don't know anything," Syodo said. He was heavily bandaged and his face was lumpy and deformed from the swelling caused by the massive concussive wave hit him.

  "You don't ever want out of here?"

  "I took payment from Minister Arx to plug a device he gave me into a data port on one of the computers that control your security," Syodo said. "To do that I didn't have to know what he was up to. I even told him I'd rather not know.

  "But yeah … I want to get out of here. I want the chance to beat Burke until he's almost dead, pay to have him completely healed, and then go at it again. I'd spend every single credit I've saved doing it over and over again until I finally felt like letting him die."

  "Part of me almost wants to let you go so you can try," Mok laughed. "I don't think Burke will treat you as kindly as he has the next time around."

  Syodo hissed and kicked his waste pan at the door where its foul contents hit the security barrier and sizzled. Mok was as grateful to his security chief for installing the new barriers as he was to the engineers who had thoughtfully designed it to block fluids and smells.

  "I'll let you think about it some more. Just shout to the guard if you remember something. I'm sure you're still a little fuzzy after having all those grenades go off around your head like that. How did Burke so easily capture you, anyway?"