“Lucky! Get over here,” he called over the coms. When the battlesynth approached, he took in the scene for a moment before commenting.
“Interesting,” he said. “How do you wish to proceed?” Instead of answering, Jason simply pressed the button. The setup was too elaborate for it to simply be a bomb. The display flickered on and, not surprisingly, Deetz’s face appeared.
“Hello Jason, as I’m certain it’s you who has found this,” Deetz began, his voice being broadcast over open com channels from the unit. “I’m sure you have many questions and are probably quite angry. Who were these people? What does it mean? Why them?
“The short answer is: I have no idea. This research settlement was a target of opportunity. It allowed me to show you just how far I’m willing to go to get what I want. It also allowed me to get further away for the time being while you stomp around and throw a temper tantrum at seeing all the innocent beings. Yes … I know all about your ridiculous idealistic crusade to help people. You steal a powerful ship like that and then you live like a pauper? For what? You think anything you’ve done wasn’t undone the moment you left? Guess again.
“There are no heroes, Jason, only fools who don’t know any better. I hope the scene around you lets the futility of your life penetrate that primitive brain of yours. But if not, here’s a little something to speed the process.” The video cut to a recorded scene of the atmosphere venting from the dome and the aliens within writhing in agony as they gasped, trying to catch their breath. It was over in less than a minute.
“So what will it be, Jason?” Deetz was now back in the picture and continuing his speech. “Shall you continue to chase me across this section of the galaxy, letting me do this over and over? Or will you come to your senses? My terms, you ask?
“I. Want. That. Ship. Nothing more complicated than that. I want the DL7 back, or whatever you’re calling it now. I went through a lot of trouble to get my hands on it before I met you, and I won’t let you just keep it.” He paused for a moment, looking around from wherever he was recording the message. “I’ll be in touch.”
The message ended and the monitor powered itself off. A second later, smoke streamed out from around the edges as its internal workings were fried. Apparently Deetz was still a little paranoid, despite the murders and the false bravado. Lucky turned and looked at Jason, but said nothing.
“We’re not learning anything else here,” Jason said. “We’ll have Crisstof try and find out who these scientists were and contact their people. Let’s head back to the ship.”
The pair hustled to make it back to the pickup point on time, but the Phoenix wasn’t there yet. So they stood silently, looking out over the barren landscape as they waited.
*****
“Is it possible for a synth to go insane?” Twingo was asking. They were in the Phoenix’s meeting room having a conference with Crisstof and Kellea. Both ships were in orbit over the planet, but Jason was hesitant to take the gunship back aboard the frigate. The only reason he didn’t just mesh out was the three humans on the other ship.
“I can assure you it is,” Lucky said. “However, Deetz is not displaying the usual signs of dementia for my kind. He is sadistic and self-serving, but very much aware of what he is doing and very calculating.”
“I’ll say,” Jason said. “He’s been leading us around by the nose this entire time.”
“We’ve identified who this outpost belonged to,” Crisstof said over the link. “We’re sending a message to inform their government of what has happened. So what will be your next course of action, Captain Burke?”
“Honestly I have no idea, Crisstof,” Jason was forced to admit. “As lengthy as that message was, he didn’t really give us any clue as to where he was or where he would be going.”
“Would you permit a small contingent to come over to your vessel via shuttle? We have some information from our analysis of your sensor logs that will be useful for your tactical planning,” Crisstof said, trying overly hard not to overstep his bounds. For some reason that irritated Jason more than his trying to order them around.
“That’s fine. We’ll be expecting you at our port airlock,” Jason said with a sigh.
It was an hour later when a small shuttlecraft nudged up to the Phoenix’s port airlock and the hatches were opened. Jason met them alone and unarmed, too mentally exhausted to care if their plan was to try and shut them down again. He was surprised to see that in addition to Kellea and Bostco, whom he expected, Taryn and Crisstof himself were also crammed into the tiny runabout. Jason nodded to them, hugged Taryn, and led the way back out to the common area. With his own crew and the additional people from the Diligent, their small meeting room would not comfortably hold everybody.
Bostco walked to the lounge and used his tablet computer to link up to the main display that was usually used for entertainment. The others filed in and took their seats in the assortment of couches and large, stuffed chairs. If not for the somber faces, they looked like a group of friends about to enjoy a movie night.
“We analyzed your sensor logs prior to the attack,” Bostco began as the monitor now displayed an overview of the system they had been in, with a green dot representing the Phoenix and a red dot representing the enemy ship. There were dotted track lines that showed the projected flights of each. “As you can see, they didn’t react to your presence until you were well within a million kilometers. This tells us they don’t likely have real-time sensor capability.
“Now, here, when they do spot you, they immediately move to attack. No hesitation. It would seem you’re correct in assuming they were waiting for you, but the fact they’re moving to intercept indicates an important fact about the weapon they used.”
“It’s range limited,” Jason said. “We already assumed that.”
“Yes, but we think we know what that range is,” Bostco continued. “Your attack speed was so high that we almost missed it, but the other vessel applies a high level of retro thrust right … here, and then your sensors registered a large energy build up on the hull of the enemy vessel right before you were hit.
“We’ve postulated that not only is the weapon range limited, but it’s not actually fired in the traditional sense. It seems the energy builds up like a static electric charge and then is attracted to nearby power sources. Your reactor drew the shot right into the ship.”
“OK,” Jason said after a pause. “Plausible. But what is it?”
“That we don’t know,” Kellea said after Bostco froze up. “We’re operating under the assumption that the energy charge is a carrier for some type of particle we’ve never encountered that can interrupt and shut down certain types of power sources, particularly atomic and anti-matter reactions.”
“Those two types of energy aren’t that closely related,” Twingo objected. “Putting aside the fact you’re assuming a hell of a lot, what sort of particle can render reactors inert within the span of seconds? There was also the failure of chemical and static charge power sources.”
“Again, we don’t know,” Crisstof said. “We’re sharing what we do know, which is very little. What happened to the Phoenix may not be typical, but may have been a result of your proximity. This latest attack, along with the attack on Earth, seems to indicate that this is a planetary assault weapon. Hitting the gunship could have simply overloaded everything, including Lucky’s power cells.”
“I’m hearing a lot of could haves and might haves. Do you have anything concrete other than the range numbers from when they fired?” Jason asked, thinking their trip over was a waste of time.
“We can give you the ranging data we’ve been able to determine from the shot,” Kellea said with a shrug.
“So why are you really here?” Jason said, leveling a steady glare at Crisstof.
“I understand that you’re going to press ahead with this mission, with or without my blessing,” Crisstof said, crossing one leg over the other and rumpling his expensive suit. “I’m here to ask that you reme
mber what it is that makes you, all of you, unique.”
“I’m going to say this again,” Jason said wearily. “I have no idea why you’re so up in arms about the Torestellia incident. We’ve done far more damage on a night off just having fun.”
“I hardly call seventeen dead twarlans at a mine a fun night off,” Crisstof nearly shouted.
“What dead twarlans? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You didn’t fire on a mineral mine in the outlands near the city you were in?”
“Dalton, we didn’t fire on anything, including Deetz. We couldn’t open fire with the Phoenix’s guns because we were in the city the entire time,” Jason ground out, tired of the circular conversation. “I fired one shot out of a holdout blaster that hit an A’arcooni gunman. Beyond that, we never even flew near a mine.”
“Did Deetz have a ship on the surface?” Crisstof pressed.
“Yes, we told you that already,” Doc said, also sounding irritated. “He had the smaller, modern vessel he escaped Earth with parked on the tarmac at the same spaceport we were at.”
“I’d say the safe bet is that Deetz fired on the mine, but why?” Taryn asked, speaking up for the first time. “Since even I know it wasn’t this ship that fired. I was on the bridge the entire time.”
“What do they mine there?” Jason asked.
“Samarskite,” Bostco said after consulting his computer. Jason simply shrugged helplessly.
“It’s a radioactive ore,” Twingo said thoughtfully. “It can be refined into a few useful compounds. It’s rare, but not rare enough to attack a mine for its raw form.”
“It’s used in some reactor construction,” Bostco said, still reading. “But like Twingo said, it’s widely available for purchase.”
“We’re assuming it was Deetz that attacked the mine,” Jason said, holding up a hand. “We’re also assuming he attacked it for a logical reason. I think the scene on the planet below us underscores the fact we’re not dealing with a rational being.”
“I disagree, Captain,” Lucky said, standing near the front of the lounge area where he could cover everyone’s movements. “He has shown thus far that everything has been a calculation. We must assume that the attack on the mine, and on the surface of this world, fit into that plan somehow.”
“I’m forced to agree with him,” Twingo said moodily, “though I don’t like the implications of that. We’re being led around with some goal in mind and I doubt it’s a surprise party.”
“So now what?” Kellea asked. Jason was glad to see that every time the other captain opened her mouth it wasn’t met with a hostile look from Taryn.
“I have no idea,” he admitted for the second time in as many hours. “We’ll go back through the message again and see if we can pick anything out of it and try to go from there.”
“We will do the same,” Crisstof declared, standing up. “We received the message on our ship as well.”
Jason led the three members of the Diligent’s crew to the airlock. Taryn made it clear she intended to stay on the Phoenix, which caused an arched eyebrow from Kellea. Jason knew the polished captain well enough at this point to recognize that as a particularly significant outward display of emotion. He suddenly felt guilty about how he’d treated her in the passageway on her ship.
“We’ll be in orbit for a while,” she said to him as she brushed by. “Let’s continue to share information … at least until this is over.”
“We will,” Jason promised her.
Chapter 10
The Diligent and Phoenix continued to orbit the unnamed planet as their crews struggled to make sense of Deetz’s actions. On the surface it looked like a series of random attacks, but Jason refused to believe they weren’t somehow connected. Taryn had been quiet since coming back aboard the gunship. The violence of the past few encounters had erased some of the wonder she had first felt when she realized that all the stories Jason had been telling were real. Now the danger was real for her as well.
Jason wasn’t sure what to say to her about it, so he said nothing and decided that she’d come to him if she needed to talk. Lucky and Crusher were doing what they usually did when the crew was in the planning stages of something: they trained in the cargo bay or hid out in the armory. Kage, with Doc’s help, was busy trying to glean any clues he could out of the video Deetz had provided, so that left Jason to roam about aimlessly since Twingo had chased him out of Engineering.
It was times like these when he keenly felt his lack of understanding of the universe around him. While he was catching on fast, everyone else had been born into a world where starships traveled between exotic worlds and miraculous technology was commonplace. So instead of getting in their way, he sat in the galley and played cards with Taryn, trying to take her mind off things, and often sneaking off to his quarters together. The crew had enough couth to pretend they didn’t notice, save for Kage’s creepy smile every time they emerged disheveled.
The first break came when Twingo randomly had the computer search for practical uses for samarskite, the mineral they were assuming Deetz had stolen from the mining site on Torestellia.
“When Crisstof heard back from his ConFed contact about how much refined samarskite was missing, I began digging a little deeper,” he was explaining as the crew ate. “That much would be a bit excessive for a reactor build, not to mention there are better powerplants readily available for purchase. Matter/anti-matter reactors have really come down in price over the last—”
“Twingo, for the love of God … get to the damn point,” Jason snapped. His friend’s tendency to get sidetracked during his own explanations sometimes grated on his nerves, this being one of those times.
“What the hell is your problem? Anyway,” Twingo continued, unfazed, “it’s used heavily in the construction of masers.”
“Huh,” Crusher grunted.
“Indeed,” Lucky agreed. Jason looked around the table suspiciously. He had no idea what a maser was, nor was he even certain it was a real thing. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d set him up to look stupid.
“Twingo, don’t be rude,” he said, trying a new tactic. “Taryn doesn’t know what a maser is … at least describe it for her while you’re rambling on.” Twingo narrowed his eyes at him and crossed his arms.
“Go ahead, Captain. I wouldn’t presume to know better than you how to explain it to her.” Damn that little blue bastard.
“Alright, damnit! What the hell is a maser?” Jason asked, holding up a finger for silence. “But … same rules as always. Lucky explains it to me and none of the rest of you talk until I leave the room. Then you can make fun of me like you usually do.”
“We do not!” Kage protested.
“Intercom, Kage,” Jason said. “You don’t always remember to turn it off. Anyway, Lucky?”
“A maser is similar in operation to a laser,” Lucky began. “However, instead of emitting a coherent beam of light, a maser will emit a coherent beam of electromagnetic energy.”
“That doesn’t sound that exotic,” Jason said.
“It’s not. The technology is positively ancient,” Twingo said. “In fact, since the development of energy shields, I don’t think anybody is even making them anymore.”
“This sort of explains why he’s stealing component material, but not why he would build a maser at all,” Jason replied. “If they’re useless in modern warfare, what’s the point?”
“Remember, we’re assuming the alien weapon Deetz is using is fired by the same principles of a static discharge,” Twingo explained. “What if he was able to fire it in a coherent beam?”
“Ah,” Jason said, finally getting it. “That would be bad. What sort of range are we talking about?”
“It’ll depend on his power source, but much more than he has now,” Twingo shrugged.
“Doc, send this new information to the Diligent. Unfortunately, this doesn’t put us any closer to finding out where he may be hiding, so keep at it guys.” Jason g
ot up from the table and made his way back to the bridge. When he saw that Taryn had stayed with the crew he ducked quickly into the com room and shut the door.
Once he was sure she hadn’t followed him up, he sat down at the console and began entering commands. Despite the attack on Earth, his little stealthy satellite was still in orbit and still performing its store-and-forward task. It took a little over a minute to download the latest package, and then he was able to begin parsing it up and viewing the news media broadcasts from home. The news was disheartening, to say the least.
A common trend was that he was being branded as an alien conspirator and blamed for bringing the attack upon them. It seemed the general public had no idea that he had been on the Phoenix. There was also a vicious debate about what role his ship played in the drama over DC. Despite the clear video evidence that the gunship had downed one of the attacking ships, there were still hysterical proclamations about its involvement in the attack on the planet.
Most disappointing to him was the collapse of social order in some areas of the globe after the revelation of advanced alien species. He had always held out the fantasy that when the presence of a galaxy teeming with life was revealed, humanity would take the next step and set aside its petty differences and become a unified species. It seemed the opposite had happened. Most first world powers were accusing the United States of not cooperating with other nations in the investigation of the downed ship in the Potomac River. Third world countries had erupted into riots and chaos as a primal panic gripped the populations of those areas and the reality of an alien invasion sunk in.
Jason sat back in his seat and sighed. What he had seen so far seemed to seal his fate: he would never be able to return to his home. He would forever be branded a traitor to humanity, no matter the truth of it. He leaned forward and began entering more search strings into the computer, waiting while it compiled the information. Once the results were spit back at him, he took some solace in the good news it provided. Taryn and her family had faded from the headlines and were never actually named anyway. With a little work it would be possible for them to go home.
Omega Force: Savage Homecoming Page 14