Jason spluttered indignantly for a moment, trying to articulate multiple points simultaneously.
“This is MY ship! For starters, you’re trespassing.” He knew he was on weak footing, but she had knocked him off balance by just being there in the first place. “I don’t have to explain my reasoning to you.”
“You’re the one who pulled me off my home,” Taryn countered. “Doesn’t that make you responsible for my well-being? How is dumping me off with a bunch of aliens–no offense, guys–not shirking out of your duty to keep me safe?”
Jason opened his mouth three times, but no words came out as the angry red in his neck began to streak up into his face. The rest of the crew, who had gathered at the commotion, was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed, their heads moving back and forth between the participants like spectators at a tennis match. Thankfully, Jason was saved from having to answer.
“The Diligent is on the coms, Captain,” Kage said over the intercom.
“Follow me,” Jason said to Taryn simply as he turned and stomped angrily up the steps to the command deck. Taryn cringed, but followed at a short distance. The rest of the crew bunched up and followed her at an even shorter distance.
“Ah, I see you’ve had our missing human this whole time, Captain,” Kellea said in a clipped voice. Jason recognized the tone and winced inwardly.
“If you mean my stowaway here, then yes,” he answered. “I take it there has been some concern aboard the Diligent?”
“If by concern you mean the near dismantling of my ship over the course of the last four days to try and track down Taryn Brown, then yes, there was a level of concern,” she answered.
“I’m sorry about this, Captain. We just found her, actually, and contacted you right afterwards. Could you inform her parents she’s fine?”
“Of course,” she said. “But how is it your internal sensors didn’t warn you there was an unauthorized passenger before you departed?”
Twingo, who had thus far been thoroughly enjoying the show, was now aware of a number of angry stares aimed his way.
“How the hell was I supposed to know someone would sneak on board?” he protested loudly. “I deactivate the system when we’re on the Diligent to keep the annoying false alarms down.” Jason looked like he wanted to smack his friend, but instead turned back to the display on the canopy where Captain Colleren was standing with her arms crossed. Commander Bostco, her first officer, was standing behind her and waving with a big smile. Jason almost laughed but knew he’d just get his orange-haired friend in trouble.
“So now that we’ve solved the mystery, what are we going to do about it?” he asked.
“We meshed out shortly after you did, but not on your vector. We’ve actually been moving further away this whole time,” Captain Colleren said. “Your ship is quite a bit faster than mine, so I have no way to reach you to collect your stowaway.”
Taryn wisely kept silent while her fate was discussed. Jason rubbed at his hair and growled in frustration.
“We can’t backtrack, we’re almost at the halfway point and I can’t afford to waste this much time.”
“If it’s any consolation, you’re not likely to find much there,” Bostco spoke up for the first time. “The ships that attacked your planet wouldn’t have made it back there by now, if that’s even their point of origin.”
“We don’t know that,” Jason said. “From what we can tell they don’t utilize slip-drive technology, but I agree; the power signatures we scanned mean we probably won’t find them in orbit when we arrive.” He looked over and gave Taryn a hard look before continuing. “We’ll keep her on the Phoenix for now. I don’t like it, but we don’t have a lot of choice in the matter at this point.”
“Agreed,” Colleren said, her expression unreadable. “I’ll inform her parents. Let us know what you find and we’ll formulate a plan from there., Diligent out.” Once the display had disappeared and only the opaque canopy remained Jason spun on his crew.
“You,” he said, jabbing a finger towards Twingo. “Get your ass down to your dungeon and check the engines, I want to be back at maximum slip within an hour. And turn the damn anti-intrusion sensors on after you’ve added Taryn to the manifest as a passenger.” Twingo looked around for allies, found none, and backed off the bridge slowly before heading down to engineering.
“Doc,” Jason continued, “please set Taryn up in starboard berthing so she can get cleaned up, and then see that she grabs something to eat. I’ll be down a bit later. Kage, you go help Twingo. I don’t want to loaf along any longer than I have to.” Kage tuned and left immediately, while Doc took Taryn by the elbow and guided her off the bridge. She tried to hide the hurt look on her face as Jason barked orders at his crew and talked about her as if she wasn’t there. Once they were gone, Jason flopped heavily into the pilot’s seat with a loud groan, squeezing his hands to his temples and rubbing. She’s been around for less than a week and everything has already gone completely sideways. Unbelievable.
“We heard your squeal of fear all the way up here on the bridge,” Lucky said to Crusher matter-of-factly. “Did the young woman really frighten you so?”
“What?! Squeal of fear?” Crusher nearly snarled at his friend. “That was a war cry that is meant to startle and disorient one’s opponent.”
“I see,” Lucky said with aplomb. “In that case, I am certain the young, small human female was suitably terrified.”
“Shut up.”
*****
In order to avoid any unpleasant confrontations after his mini-meltdown at discovering Taryn had smuggled herself aboard his ship, Jason stayed on the bridge until the computer let him know she had returned to berthing and was going to sleep. He stretched and climbed out of his seat. “You good with overwatch for a while?”
“You always ask me that and I always tell you, I am fine with watching the bridge while you sleep,” Lucky said. “I will alert you if something happens that requires your attention.”
“Just being polite,” Jason said as he walked towards the exit. “Everyone deserves a little common courtesy. Well, everyone but Twingo. See you in a while.”
“Sleep well, Captain.
Jason had no sooner laid down to try and get a few hours of sleep when there was a soft knock at his door. “Open,” he said conversationally to the computer, a command which caused the door to whisk into the bulkhead. Squinting against the light in the passageway, he could just make out a silhouette that definitely didn’t belong to anyone on his crew.
“Can I come in?” Taryn asked, almost shyly.
“Of course,” Jason answered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and keying the lights up one notch to just a dim glow. Taryn stepped into the room and stood with her arms crossed, seeming uncomfortable.
“Please, sit.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and he leaned on the desk across from her.
“I’m sorry—” they said in unison. Laughing nervously, Jason waved for her to go first.
“I’m sorry I snuck onto your ship,” she started. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I just had this vision of you blasting off and leaving me again. I was afraid you’d just have the other ship take us back to Earth and I’d never see you again.”
“And I’m sorry for acting like an ass when Crusher found you,” Jason said, most of the fight taken out of him at her words. “I’m just afraid, Taryn. I know how these missions usually go, and I’m terrified about having you on board. I’m also afraid that it will make me hesitate at a crucial moment.”
“You know, that last time you came back to Earth and gave me all your stuff … I still didn’t believe any of this was real,” she said. “I really thought you had been convinced to rejoin the military and were shipping out again to some God-forsaken place and you couldn’t tell me. I figured this wild tale of spaceships and aliens was just your own bizarre way of telling me goodbye without really saying it.”
“If only that were true,” Jason laughed. �
��It’s all very much real, some of it so wondrous I don’t have the words to describe it. But some of it is equally horrific, too. I had wondered why you seemed to take it all so well when I described everything to you.”
“So … you’re really going to make me stay in the guest room?” she asked with a little smile.
“Well, I didn’t want to seem too presumptuous,” he said with a shrug. “You can sleep on the couch in the common area if you want.” She made a face of mock indignation while drawing back to slap him on the arm. Instead, she stood quickly and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him softly before he had a chance to pull back or stop her.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” she asked, pulling him towards the bed.
“Which parts?”
“All of it,” she said with another kiss.
They talked long into the “night” while the Phoenix continued her relentless pace towards the planet A’arcoon. Laying there with her tore down nearly all of his defenses, and he told her things that he would normally have protected her from. The joys of helping people who had lost all hope, the horrors of the mission that almost cost them their lives and nearly the Phoenix herself, and above it all the trust he had in his crew and his pride in serving with them.
Chapter 6
The next morning, or at least morning according to ship’s time, Taryn left a still-sleeping Jason and padded out of his stateroom for the galley. She paused momentarily at the entrance to the common area when she caught sight of a solitary Crusher sitting at one of the tables. She saw one of his ears twitch and knew that the fearsome being likely knew she was there.
Striding towards the galley with a confidence she didn’t feel, she went to the processor and asked for a mug of chroot, the closest thing to coffee the Phoenix could make, and walked over to sit across from the hulking warrior.
“Excuse me,” his bass voice rumbled as he got up to leave her in peace, painfully aware of how uncomfortable she was around him.
“Please stay,” she said quickly, actually reaching out her right hand to cover his massive, clawed left one. He sank back into the seat and looked across the table at her. The fierce intelligence that blazed in those yellow eyes sent an involuntary shiver up her spine. “I owe you an apology, Crusher.”
“You owe me nothing of the sort,” he said.
“I do,” she insisted. “I behaved badly when I first met you. I was frightened by everything that was happening, but I shouldn’t have kept quaking in fear every time you came near me. I’m sorry. The funny thing is that I recognized who you were immediately, but I couldn’t believe you were real.”
“You’ve lost me, I’m afraid,” Crusher said, relaxing a bit now in his chair.
“Jason has sent me written messages describing each of you along with some somewhat vague descriptions of your missions,” she said. “I had thought he was just playing a game with me, trying to alleviate the fear I always felt when he would go away when he was in the military on our world.” She paused to take a sip of the bitter drink and chuckled to herself a moment before continuing.
“When Earth was attacked, I began to realize that all his adventures were real. And if they were real, all of you were real as well. He’s told me how many times you’ve saved his life, so on top of an apology I owe you a heartfelt thank you.”
“He may have exaggerated my role a bit,” Crusher said, uncomfortable with the direct praise. “We all do make a formidable team though.” She smiled at him and laughed lightly at how someone so strong could squirm from something as small as a compliment.
“So your name is not really Crusher is it?” Crusher seemed genuinely taken aback by the question.
“Well … no, it’s not. But it fits me. My true name, and identity, could be problematic for a number of reasons, so for now Crusher works,” he said. “I’d appreciate a certain amount of discretion with that information,” he added quickly.
“Your secret is safe with me,” she said with a wink, causing Crusher to laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” an irritable Twingo grumbled as he walked into the galley.
“Nothing,” Crusher said. “Why are you so moody?”
“I can’t sleep well in my quarters when the engines are wound up so high,” he said as he grabbed his breakfast and sat down to Taryn’s left. “The leakage from the field emitters messes with my implants and I keep getting vertigo. I woke up thinking I was falling out of my rack earlier.”
“Haven’t you ever thought about just grabbing a bunk in berthing?” Crusher asked him. The blank look on the engineer’s face plainly showed that he’d never thought of it. The quarters for the chief engineer aboard a DL7 were located back directly off of one of the engineering bays, near the high-energy plasma conduits that fed into the gravimetric emitters that were along the trailing edges of the wings. Normally it wasn’t an issue, but when they were pushing the ship so hard there were some interesting side-effects.
“Good morning everybody,” Jason said as he walked from his quarters, fully dressed and cleaned up. “You eat already?” he asked Taryn.
“I was waiting for you,” she smiled sweetly at him.
“Awww,” Twingo said as he looked up from his meal. “How cute.”
“You want to eat that tray along with your food?” Jason asked him pointedly while grabbing a seat across from Taryn and next to Crusher.
“Why would you say something so mean to him?” Taryn admonished Jason before Twingo could defend himself, patting the alien’s hand. Twingo assumed a disingenuous hurt expression and laid his ears flat against his head.
“Sometimes he beats me.”
“JASON!”
“That little blue-skinned bastard is a liar!” Jason nearly shouted as he pointed at Twingo. “I’ve never struck him.”
“That’s not technically true, Captain,” Kage said as he ambled through the area on his way to take his turn at the processor. “Remember when—”
“I’ve never hit him out of anger,” Jason amended quickly, glaring at Kage as he did. Crusher just chuckled and stood up to leave.
“I’ll go prep our gear, Captain,” he said. “Set us up for the worst?”
“Yeah, you’d better go ahead and do that,” Jason said seriously. “No telling what we’ll see when we mesh in. I’m staying on the bridge, but I want you and Lucky in the cargo bay ready to rock and roll.”
“Will do.”
“Set up for the worst?” Taryn asked.
“The information on this planet was almost non-existent,” Twingo explained. “The ground team will arm up for a full-out assault so we’re ready for anything when we drop out of slip-space.” As he was explaining this he was giving Jason an odd look. He had never known him to opt out of a possible ground operation to the point of not even getting into his armor before they meshed in.
Jason could see the gears turning in his friend’s head, and if he was honest with himself he’d have to agree with him; he was making uncharacteristic decisions based on Taryn being onboard. This could end up biting me in the ass later.
*****
“Five seconds until we mesh-in,” Kage reported from the left seat. Everyone except Lucky and Crusher were on the bridge. Those two were fully armed up and strapped down in the cargo bay as a contingency.
“Everybody stay sharp,” Jason said unnecessarily, as he always did before they dropped into a potential hot zone. He saw the weapons and defensive systems were primed to go active as soon as the ship dropped back into real-space.
3 … 2 … 1 …
The Phoenix shuddered slightly as the slip fields collapsed and the universe spit her back into real-space. Jason scanned his displays, but the threat board was empty. “Call them out,” he said.
“Clear,” Kage said.
“Clear,” Doc repeated.
“All systems are full op, Captain,” Twingo reported. “We’re running hot and clean.”
“So there’s nothing here? At all?” Jason asked with
a frown. There should have at least been a civilian presence in the system. They had jumped in just inside the debris field that was made up of the leftover material after the formation of the star system; this was called the Kuiper Belt in the Solar System.
“Nothing on passives, Captain,” Kage confirmed.
“Go active,” Jason ordered. “Short bursts.” The active tachyon-burst scanners were able to detect objects at a long range, in great detail, and in real-time despite the distances. It also let everyone who used tachyon-based technology know you were in the area.
“I’ve got some artificial constructs orbiting the first, fourth, and sixth planets of this system,” Kage said as the computer compiled the returns almost instantaneously. “Nothing with any significant power signature however, certainly not the other two ships we’re after.”
“Shit,” Jason said softly. Despite Taryn being on board, his first engagement with the ship in Earth’s atmosphere had left him confident he could take out the other two without much trouble. “Which planet is A’arcoon?”
“First.”
“Plot me an intrasystem jump; I’m not plodding across this entire system if there’s nothing here,” Jason said. A moment later, the plot data scrolled across his display and let him know he was ready to engage the slip-drive. The trip took less than five minutes with a low-power jump.
They had meshed in on the dark side of the planet, and Jason got a sinking feeling as soon as he saw it: completely dark. No industrialized planet looked this dark from space. The sensors began resolving the objects in orbit around the planet and he could see that they were powerless hulks, derelicts that were in a stable enough orbit to not simply fall back to the planet.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Twingo said as he looked out the canopy.
“It does if we’re in the wrong place,” Jason said sourly. “There was never any guarantee that this was the planet of origin of those ships. But … we’re here, so let’s try to be smart about this. I’m moving us into a low geocentric orbit; I want full scans of the entire surface. We’ll get fifteen or twenty passes so have the computer compile the data as it’s collected.”
Omega Force: Savage Homecoming Page 6