“The ships have split up,” Jason said to himself. “Or Deetz is still on that smaller ship he escaped in and is communicating with them.”
“Plausible,” Kage agreed. “What do you think we should do?”
“Well, the problem is that this is obviously a trap,” Jason said as he climbed into the pilot’s seat.
“How can you know that?” Doc asked as he and Taryn drifted over to join in the conversation.
“Deetz has been manipulating this from the start. I’m beginning to believe he knew I wasn’t on Earth, but by drawing me back there he could better control the chain of events and engage us at times and places of his choosing. Otherwise, why leave that com drone in orbit over A’arcoon looking for a DL7 gunship?” Jason put his hands behind his head and leaned back as he thought out loud. “He also knew we’d trace the transmission back to this general location and he knows how fast the Phoenix is, or at least how fast she used to be, and now we conveniently have com traffic coming from a point of origin not far from here. He’s fully expecting us to go check it out, and now that he knows about the Phoenix’s improved armament he may have a nasty surprise for us.”
“Sound thinking, Captain,” Lucky said. “But the question remains, what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to spring the trap,” Jason said with a grin. “Deetz has no idea about our alliance with Crisstof. We’re going to mesh in just outside the system while the Diligent does the same at a different location. While they may be expecting us to rush, in they won’t be ready for us to have them in a pincer with a frigate-class warship.”
“That’s not nearly as stupid as most of our plans,” Twingo agreed. “I’ll get us ready to depart.”
“I’ll contact the Diligent and coordinate our arrivals. Kage, feed me the nav data when you get the course plotted,” Doc said as he sat down at the com station.
“Sure thing,” Kage replied as he climbed up into his seat. “We’ll be ready to mesh-out in five minutes, Captain. I’m giving you our heading now.”
As soon as Jason got the heading he began accelerating along it. The slip-drive didn’t need forward velocity to transition the ship, but Jason liked to have some momentum when he meshed-in so he could maneuver immediately.
It was more than ten minutes later when the Phoenix blasted her way into slip-space. The delay came from trying to convince Captain Colleren why she should willingly fly her ship into a suspected trap. In the end she agreed to let the Phoenix enter the system from above the ecliptic and bring the Diligent in from the opposite direction and inclination exactly fifteen minutes after. Jason didn’t blame her for the hesitation. There were a lot of lives on the Diligent, and while she felt for him she was under no obligation to risk her crew or her ship in the defense of Earth. For his own part, he was painfully aware of the blond woman on his bridge who was currently trying to explain to Twingo what a pizza was and why he should try one.
The Phoenix entered real-space with a flash and drifted through the outer boundary of the unnamed system. The K-class star was thoroughly uninteresting save for a host of small, rocky planets orbiting it. There was no life indigenous to any of them.
“Contact!” Doc exclaimed from his station. “We have emissions coming from the inner system. They’re consistent with the target ships’ com transmissions.”
“Can you pinpoint it?” Jason asked as he throttled the drive up.
“Negative. Not at this range.”
“Shit.” Jason didn’t like announcing their presence by using the active sensors, but there was no evidence to show that the enemy ships could even detect tachyon transmissions in the first place. He waffled for a second before giving the order. “Active sensors, short burst mode. I just want a rough picture of what’s out there.”
No sooner did Doc sweep the system with the active sensor array when the computer began populating the threat board, and a ship of the same configuration as one of the enemy ships appeared floating in space between the third and fourth planets. “Got your ass now!” Jason hissed as he slammed the throttle down, tracking inward towards the other ship. The Phoenix surged as she raced down the star’s gravity well towards their target. “Full tactical alert, all weapons online and full active sensors. I want that target painted, we’re going to end this fast.”
“Captain!” Kage said in alarm. “We should hold back until the Diligent arrives in-system at least.”
“No time,” Jason said sharply. “Get that ship bracketed and get me a plot to bring the main guns to bear.” Kage wisely did as he was told when he saw the look in his captain’s eyes. Even Taryn, strapped in next to Doc at one of the port stations, looked at Jason with apprehension.
“Plot laid in. This course will bring us down to the ecliptic plane and onto a pursuing course,” Kage said.
“Are they maneuvering?” Jason demanded.
“They’ve come about, but they’re making no move to escape,” Doc reported. “No changes in power readings either.” Jason smiled grimly in the dim red glow of the bridge lights. All his indicators were green; he was going to turn this ship to slag just like the last one.
“Keep an eye out for Deetz trying to make a run for it again,” Jason said as he made his final course correction. “If he flees in that smaller ship we’re going to break off and pursue.”
“We’ve got a power surge in the target, Captain,” Doc said with some alarm in his voice. “It appears to be some type of charge building on the hull; the computer can’t identify it.”
“No matter,” Jason said. “They can’t penetrate modern shields. We’re about to end this.”
The computer showed they were quickly coming into weapons range. At their rate of closure they would overfly the stationary vessel practically before they could see it, so Jason authorized the computer to actually fire the weapons. He began to squeeze the trigger on the stick to finalize that authorization as the number ticked down. Almost there …
The bright flash that hit them just before the Phoenix closed to within weapons range filled the entire bridge like a strobe and nearly blinded them. A split second later the pitch of the engines began to warble, sputter, and then died altogether. There was just enough time for alarms to begin flashing when power cut off completely and the bridge went pitch black. There was a loud crash beside Jason that made him jump and then he could feel himself go weightless in his seat restraints before he called out to Twingo, “What’s going on?”
“I have no idea, Jason,” Twingo said with a bit of fear in his voice. “This should be impossible; we have primary, secondary, and emergency power systems on this ship. None are working.”
“Jason, I can’t understand what he’s saying anymore,” Taryn called out in a fear-laced voice.
“Just stay in your seat for now until we can sort this out,” Jason called back. “Twingo, the emergency oxygen system isn’t coming on … you have got to get some power restored.”
“It may not matter, Captain,” Kage said matter-of-factly from his right. “We’re tumbling towards the primary star. Personally I’d rather be unconscious for that bit of fun.”
“Do we have anything onboard that wouldn’t have been affected by this … power drain?” Doc asked. “There has to be something you can do.”
“We do have an emergency fuel cell that might produce enough power to get the back-up fusion reactor online. The backup would get us life support, gravity, and limited maneuvering.”
“How limited?” Jason asked.
“Low power to the main engines and attitude thrusters only. No grav drive.”
“Is that enough to get us safely around the star?”
“Possibly, if we can get it going quickly,” Kage said. “We were carrying a lot of speed before the engines died. We can get into orbit around the star, but without shields we’ll probably fry anyway.”
“Thanks,” Jason said drily. “Twingo, get your ass moving. Get us something working if only life support and coms.”
“J
ason,” Taryn said again with hesitation, having only been able to understand one side of the conversation. “Is that ship still out there?”
“If it is we’ll never see them coming, so no point in worrying about it just yet,” Jason told her honestly. Twingo was feeling his way towards the exit when he let out a yelp.
“What the hell was that?!” he said as he floated out through the opening.
“So now what?” Crusher said from his seat on the starboard side of the bridge.
“Now we wait,” Jason said simply. “We don’t have any other choice. Everyone stay restrained for now, there’s an unlikely chance that Twingo may actually know what he’s doing.”
“You think the Diligent will find us?” Kage asked.
“We’re a powerless chunk of alloy flying through the system right now,” Doc answered. “I’d say even odds they find us in time.”
It was a tense fifteen minutes later when the hiss of the air handlers started up again and the emergency lighting came on along the floor. “That’s all I can give you for now. I need everything this cell can produce to try and start the fusion reactor.” Twingo’s voice sounded tinny over the bridge speakers as he continued to work. It was another fifty minutes before the normal bridge lighting came up and Jason was pulled back down into his seat as gravity was restored. There was also an enormous crashing sound out in the common area. These guys have got to start strapping shit down better before we fly into combat.
“Main computer is booting up. Subsystems are also coming online. I’ll let you know when we have maneuvering,” Kage said as he began entering commands into the basic interface that was displayed at all their stations. The more robust user interfaces they were accustomed to would come up when the main computer was back online.
“We see you have limited power, Captain,” Kellea Colleren’s voice came over the bridge speakers on the emergency short-range com channel. “How bad is it?”
“Honestly? Bad,” Jason admitted. “We had a complete system failure. Main reactor is offline and Twingo has just got the backup system started. We still have no maneuvering, however. Where are you?”
“Directly below you at a distance of five kilometers. We’ve been waiting to see if you could restore your primary flight systems before stepping in.”
“It’s not likely we’ll be able to,” Jason admitted. “What do you suggest?”
“Lower your landing gear and we’ll bring you in. Leave it to us, Captain, Diligent out.”
Jason lowered the landing gear and sat back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest and teeth clenched. It wasn’t long before the brilliant white hull of the Diligent could be seen through the canopy as she maneuvered up under them. There was a soft bump as the two ships made contact and the Phoenix was held fast to the Diligent’s landing platform via the mag-locks. He was positively fuming at his ship being drawn into the frigate in that condition: completely helpless and having utterly failed. He at least had enough power to taxi the ship under her own power off the platform and into their usual parking berth on the hangar deck. Sighing, he got up from his seat to face the inevitable.
“OK everybody—”
“CAPTAIN, GET DOWN HERE!” Twingo’s strident shout came from the common area and spurred Jason into instant action. He raced off the bridge and was unprepared for what he found at the bottom of the stairs. Crumpled as if tossed, and completely inert, was Lucky. Twingo was trying to roll the battlesynth over and couldn’t budge him as his limbs were splayed at unnatural angles. Jason rushed to help, heaving with all the strength he had to turn him over, also not having much luck.
“Crusher! Get your ass down here!” Jason shouted up the stairs even as the Galvetic warrior appeared at the edge of the command deck. When he saw the scene below he bounded down the flight in two steps and grabbed his friend. Lucky rolled over with a thud, staring up with lifeless eyes. “What’s happened to him?!” Jason was near panic. After all they’d been through, he’d come to think of the synthetic soldier as indestructible.
“The same thing that happened to the Phoenix,” Twingo said. “That ship somehow shut down every power source on this vessel, including his power unit.”
“Kage,” Jason said as he stood up, “go down and open the ramp. The Diligent’s crew may be getting a little anxious out there.”
“Oh God!” Taryn exclaimed from the stairs, her hands going to her cheeks.
“Doc, take Taryn and go with Kage,” Jason said, loudly enough so she could hear and understand him. “Get a new translator earpiece from one of the crew out there.” He then turned to her, “I guess we know why the one you’re wearing powered off.”
Jason looked over his fallen friend and for the first time in a long time he had no idea what to do. Crusher put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Take a deep breath, Captain. Flying into a panic won’t help him. Let’s get him off the ship and into one of the Diligent’s engineering bays and let Twingo and Doc see what they can do,” he said in a quiet, measured rumble. Jason just nodded, breathing slow and steady to try and tamp the emotions back down. He still had no real idea as to how Lucky functioned, so he tried to console himself with the fact that Twingo and Doc did. At least somewhat.
“OK,” Jason said when he trusted himself to speak. “Let’s go get a cart and take him out of here.” They walked off the ship and asked for a large hover-cart from one of the crewmembers milling about below. Jason nodded to Commander Bostco and saw that Taryn was hugging her parents. “We’ll be back in a minute,” Jason said simply as he and Crusher disappeared back into the ship with the cart.
Even with his enhanced muscles and Crusher’s prodigious strength, loading Lucky onto the cart was a challenge that left Jason’s back muscles twitching in spasms. They then carefully maneuvered him down through the armory and out the large blast doors into the cargo bay. As they made it to the ramp, he could see the crowd at the bottom had grown.
“Oh, no!” Kellea was the first to see Lucky’s still form being brought down by a solemn Jason and Crusher. Crisstof came over and rested a hand on the battlesynth’s chest before speaking.
“What do you need?”
“A sturdy table in an engineering bay or lab so Twingo and Doc can begin to see the extent of the damage,” Jason said.
He watched as Twingo and Doc pushed the cart bearing Lucky out through the aft hatch of the hangar deck. Once they had disappeared with a handful of Diligent’s technicians and engineers, Crisstof turned to Jason, “So what happened?”
Chapter 8
“That’s as much as we know,” Jason told the group assembled in one of the Diligent’s meeting rooms. “Hopefully we’ll learn more when the Phoenix is fully operational again and we can access the sensor logs.”
“So there was just a bright flash and then systems began to shut down?” Kellea asked.
“All systems shut down, even emergency systems that should be almost impossible to disable,” Jason corrected. “Anything with a power source, including Lucky. If we didn’t have a chemical fuel cell on board we wouldn’t have been able to get life support running again before you guys showed up.” He was still salty about being brought aboard her ship powerless as he answered the captain’s questions to the best of his recollection.
“So was this a weapon? Or a byproduct of their FTL technology?” Crisstof wondered aloud. “We know they don’t utilize the slip-drive technology nearly every other civilization in this part of the galaxy uses.”
“I’m inclined to believe it was a weapon. They baited us in before hitting us right outside our nominal weapons range,” Jason said.
“How could they know your armament’s range?” Kellea interjected.
“Deetz is very familiar with the ship and its systems, which is something I should have taken into account. I should have been more cautious.” Jason was frustrated at how easily they had been defeated, and he knew that had the Diligent not arrived when they did, it was likely they’d have been captured. Or worse.
<
br /> “So why did your implants stay on when my translator died?” Taryn spoke up for the first time during the meeting.
“Our neural implants operate on the body’s natural bio-generated current. It makes them nearly impervious to interference,” Kellea answered, addressing Taryn directly for the first time since she’d been pulled off Earth. “Speaking of that, would you prefer my medical staff provide you with a base level neural implant? It will be significantly more comfortable than wearing the earpiece.”
“I’m … I’m not sure,” Taryn answered with trepidation. “Is it painful?”
“You’re out for most of it,” Jason said with a reassuring smile. “You’ll just wake up with a bit of a headache and you’ll be able to understand everyone much more naturally than by listening to an overlaid voice.”
“OK, if you think it will help.”
“I’ll leave you here with Captain Colleren’s crew to get your implant,” Jason told her, squeezing her shoulders as he walked by. “I’m going to check on Lucky and then I’ll come see you in the infirmary.”
*****
Lucky was splayed out face down on a work table when Jason found the correct engineering shop. Twingo had cut a piece of his “skin” away to gain access to his power system. There were power transmission lines running to the battlesynth, and the engineer was closely monitoring the associated instruments.
“Anything?” Jason asked softly, not wanting to be a distraction. Twingo, who would normally bristle at the interruption, replied with just as much reverence.
“We’ve hooked directly into his power system. The good news is that he’s accepting the energy feed and his cells are recharging. The system is fairly robust since he’s able to absorb energy from a wide variety of sources, it’s just a delicate operation to try and charge the storage cells directly. We’ll know more soon. Once he reaches a certain power level, his low-level systems should begin to come online and he will start trying to wake up.”
Omega Force: Savage Homecoming Page 9