“How do you forget—” Kellea began. “Never mind. So that’s all he wrote? This doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I know,” Jason said. “Finding the remains of the Diligent isn’t likely a useful or practical course of action.”
“For those of us who can’t read Earthling gibberish, what does this say?” Kage asked.
“It says Find, Diligent, Safe,” Lucky answered, leaning in to look at the sheet. “Interesting. It is not written as a single sentence, but appears to be three separate words. Are you certain the message means to find the Diligent intact, Captain?”
“No,” Kellea said before Jason could answer. “It doesn’t. He means find the Diligent and his safe.”
“Come again?” Twingo asked.
“Crisstof has a hidden safe in his quarters,” she explained. “Only he and I know where it is or how to open it. It’s a type that won’t show up on a scan, so it’s probably still intact. He’s telling us there is information in there that we need to find.”
“While that’s far more plausible,” Jason said, “it doesn’t exactly solve our original problem of trying to find the Diligent. It was hauled away from Camderan-2 and for all we know it could have been sectioned and scrapped by now.”
“During an open investigation they’ll have moved her to a holding facility,” Kellea ground out in an angry tone. “The ship will be in much the same shape she was in immediately after the attack.” Jason realized too late that the captain was still very upset about losing her starship. Cavalier comments about it being chopped up were likely not appreciated. He opened his mouth to apologize and then thought better of it. It would only make things worse.
“OK,” he said. “We’ll operate under the premise the Diligent is still intact. So again ... how do we find it. Kage? This is more your area.”
“Not this time, Captain,” Kage said. “During some of my ... previous employments ... I tried to track down impounded ships to recover hidden cargo after the crew got pinched. You wouldn’t believe how much effort the ConFed takes to make sure that can’t happen. Those were just small smugglers’ scows. A capital ship like the Diligent is not only going to be hidden, but also under heavy guard. The information simply doesn’t exist on networked computers.”
“Could I get you in close enough to make a hard connection?”
“Sure, in theory,” the Veran said. “But finding that exact machine, and getting to it, is probably harder than finding the ship itself.”
“I hate this part!” Crusher said, standing suddenly. “Tell me when it’s time to actually do something.” He turned and clomped off towards the armory without a look back.
“While I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Kellea said, “this problem won’t be solved by shooting your way in someplace and then destroying it to find what you want.”
“What do you suggest, Captain Colleren?” Lucky asked.
“It’s just Kellea now,” she said evenly. “I can hardly be a captain without a ship. But to answer your question—” she turned to look at Jason with an evil grin “—how much money does the Phoenix have in her treasury?”
*****
“I’d like it on record that I’m less than enthusiastic about this plan,” Jason said.
“Not nearly as much as me,” Crusher practically snarled.
“Quiet! Both of you!” Kellea snapped. Though they glared at her, the pair did shut their mouths. Jason looked around again, trying to look casual as he did so, and took in the public area they were in. They’d landed on TiDaala, a planet named for an electronics manufacturer, over eleven hours prior and had been waiting for Kellea’s political contact since. They had pulled nearly two hundred and fifty thousand credits out of the Phoenix’s treasury to bribe the official that she’d insisted was reliable and discreet when well paid. She also insisted on such a high amount because it had to be at least two and half times more than the bounty that was still out for her capture.
TiDaala was enjoying a resurgence the past few centuries as its namesake corporation became strapped for revenue and opened some of their more desirable locations for colonization. During its heyday, TiDaala provided electronic components and sub-assemblies to half the sector. But recently, automated orbital facilities began providing the same parts for a fraction of the cost, and the expense of trying to operate a planet-side factory and employ a host of biological workers pushed the company to find other sources of income. Now the tech company was in the business of regional governance on a handful of planets it used to operate strictly as production and logistical hubs.
“Here he comes,” Kellea said. Jason looked over and saw what looked like a dark blue/green octopus, except with only five appendages. Pentapus? He watched, fascinated, as the being used three legs for locomotion while keeping the other two tucked up near what he assumed was the head. It had no discernible sensory organs, but unerringly made its way directly to where they sat. This was one of the few aliens Jason had met that had a truly exotic appearance. Most of the species that could share each other’s environments while also feeling compelled to interact with each other seemed to be predominately bipedal vertebrates with bilateral symmetry.
“You’ve managed to cause quite a lot of trouble,” the alien said in a strange, buzzing voice that made Jason’s teeth itch.
“The sooner we get this done, the quicker we’ll be off-world,” Kellea said coldly. Apparently she had a low opinion of the info-merc despite her insistence that they use him. “Were you able to get the information I need?”
“Yes,” he said. “It wasn’t easy. Or safe. The package is being held under tight security, so I’m not sure of what use it will be to you.”
“That’s hardly any of your concern,” she told him. “Give me the information to verify.”
“Not this time,” he said. “We exchange payment for info and then I’m gone. I can’t wait around for you to verify something that’s impossible to prove.” She wordlessly held out a stack of five credit chips, each with fifty thousand credits loaded on them. He reached out and snatched them while depositing a generic-looking memory chip in the same hand with his other tentacle. “It’s been—”
“Now, Crusher,” Kellea said conversationally. At the order, the Galvetic warrior lunged at the alien with frightening speed and squeezed him tight. Shocked, the alien began to struggle mightily as Kellea pulled an evil-looking apparatus out from under her jacket and deployed a large-bore needle from its tip.
“What is the meaning of this?!” the creature wheezed.
“Just a little insurance,” she assured him. “I wouldn’t want you to have a change of heart, or whatever you have, and call the authorities after we leave. This—” she plunged the needle into the bulbous lump behind his head “—is a tracker with a neurotoxin capsule attached. If you’re good, in ten days’ time the toxin becomes inert and the capsule dissolves harmlessly. It’s also tamperproof ... that ache you’re feeling is the device implanting sensory barbs.”
“This is outrageous!” the alien screamed as Crusher dropped him in a heap. The big warrior looked down at the fine sheen of whatever the alien had secreted all over his clothes and arms. He glared at Jason, thoroughly disgusted.
“I can’t take any chances,” Kellea was explaining. “Now, you’re making quite the scene. I’d move along if I were you.” The alien lurched up and raced off down the footpath, all five tentacles slapping the hard surface as he strained to put distance between him and them.
“Fucking gross,” Crusher was saying as he tried to scrape the mucus off his skin. Unfortunately for him, as it began to dry it became even more sticky and gelatinous. Jason noticed it was also accompanied by a horrific smell. He shuddered.
“Look at the bright side—” That was all he got out as Crusher lunged and caught him in a giant bear hug, ensuring maximum contact as he shifted him around. Jason could hear the foul substance squishing between them and he felt the bile rise in his throat.
“You were saying?” C
rusher rumbled into his ear.
“You sick bastard.”
“If you two are done,” Kellea said, “we’d better made ourselves scarce. I’m not sure how long that ruse will keep him fooled.”
“We should have actually put a neurotoxin in him,” Crusher said as they set back off towards the public transport that would take them directly to the spaceport.
“Short notice,” she said. “This will work just as well. He’s a great source of intel, but he’s also an unbelievable coward. I don’t even know his real name, he doesn’t even use aliases, just a numbered message account.”
“Prudent, but then he stupidly meets us in public,” Jason said, forcing himself to ignore whatever now coated his chest and arms. It was completely drying out and he could feel it cracking as he walked. He shuddered once more before continuing. “How do we even know that wasn’t just some lackey?”
“It was him,” Kellea assured him. “Crisstof verified his true identity before we ever used him. It wasn’t important for me to know who he really was at the time, but I got the impression he was a chief adjunct to an under-councilman on the Fleet committee.”
“That’s a pretty specific impression,” Jason laughed. “Let’s pick up the pace. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can have Kage analyze that and get cleaned up.”
*****
“What in the hell happened to you two?” Twingo asked, scrunching up his nose in disgust as the trio walked up from the cargo bay.
“I wouldn’t push the issue with the big guy,” Jason warned. “Kage! Get your ass down here!”
“You bellowed?” Kage asked as he came down the stairs from the command deck towards the common area.
“Here,” Kellea told him, handing him the data chip. “Get to work on that. It should have the current location of the Diligent on it.”
“On it,” Kage said before bounding back up the steps. Jason looked longingly towards his own quarters, but instead settled for stripping off his overshirt before walking up towards the bridge himself.
“We’re airborne in ten, Twingo,” he called over his shoulder. “Get her prepped.”
“She’s already been through pre-flight, Captain. We’re ready to fly,” the engineer yelled back. “Your flight and engine management panels have already been prepped as well.”
“Good man. Thanks.”
Exactly ten and half minutes later the Phoenix was retracting her landing gear and pushing up out of the atmosphere of TiDaala. Jason would feel much safer once they meshed out of the system. The doubt of what they were attempting to do gnawed at his guts as he tried to justify losing a quarter million credits for nothing if this didn’t pan out. Kellea’s shifty contact was almost certain to go underground and, unfortunately, they hadn’t actually injected him with a tracker. It was, in fact, just a sterilized bit of polyceramic that Doc had rigged up into an injection gun. They had embedded it less than an inch into the fatty tissue that made up the hump Kellea stuck the needle into. If the info he was peddling had been bogus, he probably would have spoken up in order to have the device removed.
When the computer confirmed their speed and position, he engaged the slip-drive and watched as the canopy darkened. After monitoring the flight systems for a few more minutes, he gingerly climbed out of his seat. “I’m going to go get cleaned up,” he told Kage. “I want a report on that in thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be ready,” Kage said distractedly as data from the device scrolled across his displays.
*****
“RU933,” Kage said. “That’s the star we’re heading to.”
“What’s there?” Jason asked.
“Nothing. No habitable planets or moons, no interesting mineral deposits, nothing of any scientific value. There would be no reason anybody would ever deliberately go to this system.”
“Unless you were trying to hide something,” Crusher said.
“Exactly,” Kellea said, manipulating the display. She had already read through Kage’s brief before the crew had crowded into the small briefing room on the command deck. “This is officially designated as a scrap yard by the ConFed if someone were to actually bother to look it up, just one of hundreds. But, if our intel is accurate, it’s actually a high-security impound where ConFed Fleet Command buries its skeletons.”
“Such as?” Jason asked, his interest piqued.
“Mostly what you would expect,” she said. “The remnants of little known and likely illegal military action along with a handful of confiscated civilian vessels.”
“So we’re flying into one of the ConFed’s dirty little secrets,” Jason mused. “So we can expect heavy resistance.”
“If we do this right, there should be no resistance,” Kellea disagreed. “While I know you guys like the battering ram approach, the amount of fleet presence there would be too much. Even as fast as this ship is, we wouldn’t be able to get close enough to the formation the Diligent is parked in to get onboard and retrieve the safe contents, to say nothing about trying to get back out.”
“I’m listening,” Jason said with a growing sense of apprehension.
“Our intel source indicates that the Diligent is here,” Kage said, highlighting a portion of the map with a pulsing red circle. “There are seven large formations of ships and other objects stabilized into extremely high orbits over the largest planet, a Class 4 gas giant. It was probably selected for the enormous gravity well it produces as well as an inexplicably low radiation level.”
“Would we be able to mesh-in outside the system and dead-drift the Phoenix towards the formation?” Jason asked.
“There’s also this,” Kage said, and brought up another set of highlighted areas on the display. “Passive detection grid. It’ll detect magnetic anomalies as well as shielded power sources. We might be able to ghost in through the gaps here, but the main reactor would have to be completely cold.”
“That’s not an option,” Twingo said. “To run the powerplant completely cold means we won’t be able to get it started in time if we need the engines, weapons, or the ability not to slam full speed into the Diligent when we arrive.”
“Agreed,” Jason said. “There’s got to be a better way to do this. I’m assuming our countermeasure systems would be useless against this?”
“Quite useless,” Twingo said. “A passive grid this enormous isn’t easy to circumvent. Running active jammers might hide our exact position, but the very presence of the jamming will alert them that someone is there.”
“How long of a flight is it to RU933?”
“Seven days and some odd hours, Captain,” Kage said.
“OK, we don’t necessarily have to commit to a bad idea right now,” Jason said. “Let’s give it a couple days and see if we can come up with something that won’t get all of us killed. Or incarcerated, and then killed. Kage, go send the new course data to the nav system and command the speed increase.”
Chapter 15
Jason was on the bridge alone during “night hours” while the rest of the crew slept, sitting at one of the side stations and puzzling over a way to defeat the ConFed detection apparatus they’d erected around RU933. He’d come at the problem a few different ways, but the result was always the same: the Phoenix wouldn’t be able to get close enough to the Diligent to make the extraction without the defending ships being alerted and engaging them. If the intel was accurate, the defense force around the planet was light, but would still cause major problems for a single gunship trying to sneak in.
He toyed with the idea of trying to mesh-in beyond the boundary of the detection network, but a few computer simulations later he abandoned the idea. Attempting to come out of slip-space so close to such a large gravity well was borderline suicidal. The results could be anything as mundane as popping out near the planet’s core to the more exotic, like being extruded back into the universe in a stream of disassociated molecules. At least either would be painless, but not especially helpful.
“I see you have not made signi
ficant progress on the problem, Captain.” Jason didn’t jump, but his muscles clenched up in surprise at the voice.
“How the hell did you sneak up on me, Lucky?”
“It was not difficult. You are completely distracted by your simulations,” Lucky said. Jason looked up and the battlesynth was standing stock still, had no discernible facial expressions, yet he looked like he had more to say. The fact that he could now read the synth’s body language spoke to how far he, and Lucky himself, had come in recent years.
“There was more?” he asked.
“I may have a solution to the problem, but it is neither easy nor safe,” Lucky said after a moment of hesitation.
“Go on.”
“Your idea of drifting the ship through the grid is the right approach, but the wrong execution,” Lucky said. “The Phoenix will always end up being caught because it simply has too much mass. But, I don’t. And neither do you when you’re encased in your armor.” Jason swallowed hard at the implications, but pressed ahead.
“The fact you’re approaching me about this tells me you’ve already thought this out to the last, tiny detail,” Jason said. “You’ve done this before?”
“Many times,” Lucky affirmed. “I was once in a cadre of other battlesynths who took part in specialized raids. We would drift through open space for weeks at a time in order to execute an unexpected attack against orbital facilities or even other ships.”
“There were a group of you that did this?” Jason shuddered at the thought of being boarded by a group of soldiers like Lucky. There’d be no stopping them short of scuttling the ship.
“Yes. Ten individuals including myself.”
“How old are you, Lucky?”
“Eighty-four years. Is that relevant in some way?” Lucky asked.
“Just a passing curiosity,” Jason said. “We’re all still carrying around a lot of baggage from our previous lives. Anyway, go on.”
Omega Force 3: The Enemy Within Page 13