"True enough," Crusher said, draining his bottle. "Another?"
"Can't," Jason said. "We're lifting off in two hours. I want to be in slip-space as soon as possible. The ship is prepped and we might as well get some distance during the night while most of us are asleep."
"So? Your metabolism burns it off fast enough."
"I know," Jason said. "There's just something about drinking right before piloting an interstellar combat vessel that makes me nervous."
Just over two hours after he left Crusher in the galley the Phoenix lifted smoothly from the surface and climbed away into the night sky. Jason wasted no time getting them out of Wy's orbital traffic and to their mesh-out point. Fifty-five minutes after lifting off the gunship disappeared from the Wy System in a flash of wasted slip-energies.
Chapter 18
The escape from ConFed space was so anticlimactic that Jason began to feel that the mission was turning into a milk run. Dangerous thinking, but he couldn't imagine that it would be too difficult to find loyal security forces rather quickly once they were within the Avarian Empire, turn over the two young ladies, and collect that big fat reward (and maybe even pay Crusher back.)
"You are nervous because things are going so smoothly," Annada said, her voice thick with sleep. It hadn't taken long before she had developed a routine of coming to his quarters later in the night watch. Jason just couldn't figure out why she bothered making a show of going into the starboard berthing bay in the first place, it wasn't like everyone aboard didn't know what was going on.
"Are you sure you can't read my mind?" Jason teased. "But no, I'm not exactly nervous ... but you are right that things are going oddly smooth."
"It will be over soon," she mumbled. "Then we can find some quiet island on Avaris to relax for a few weeks."
"You're certain about the place we're heading to?" he asked. She sighed in mild annoyance and propped herself up onto an elbow.
"Is this a cultural or occupational trait that you wish to repeat conversations over and over?" she asked.
"Maybe a bit of both," Jason said, letting it drop and enjoying her proximity for a few minutes while he tried to let his mind switch off. It didn't work. "Tell me about when you were taken," he said after a moment. "Whose idea was it to take your sightseeing trip in the first place?"
"You are simply determined that I will not get any sleep tonight?" she asked.
"A little bit," Jason said.
"If you want to hear this story again you will need to go out to the galley and get a bottle of that wine you bought on Wy," she said, climbing out of the rack and walking into the head, not bothering to cover up. Jason shrugged and also got up, throwing on the basketball shorts and t-shirt he usually wore while sleeping. He padded silently out through the main deck and into the galley, digging around in the lower cupboard he had hid the wine in.
"How's it going in there?"
"Damnit!" Jason almost shouted, clenching up so hard his calf cramped. "Kage! What the hell are you doing out here?"
"I often sit up during the night watch," Kage said, staring at Jason with an intensity that was bothersome. "It's peaceful."
"That's great," Jason said, grabbing a pair of cups and the bottle he'd nearly dropped.
"It is," Kage agreed, smiling in the dark. "I bet it's also great to keep running into so many compatible species of females. Not much chance of that out here for me."
"Maybe we can figure out a vacation spot near Ver later on," Jason said, wanting nothing more than to escape.
"That would be great," Kage agreed. "Enjoy your evening, Captain." The Veran was still smiling at him as he walked out of the galley and escaped back to his quarters.
"Creepy little bastard," he said under his breath as he approached his door. "I guess some things never change."
"What things?" Annada said as he walked in and quickly keyed the door shut and locked it.
"Just thinking aloud," Jason said, reaching out with his neural implant to ensure the room's security feed was still disabled as he worked to open the bottle. After pouring two cups of the potent wine he dimmed the lights and climbed back into the bunk that was laughably small for two people.
"Now ... what is it you wish to know about my abduction?" Annada asked. "As I told you, I was rendered unconscious almost immediately."
"I know," Jason said. "I was more interested in the events leading up to it, like who organized your trip and who suggested it in the first place."
She frowned as she considered the question. “It is a bit hard to remember," she admitted. "But I know it was kept very secret. All the details were handled by my personal security captain, but he was killed during the abduction so I find it hard to believe he was involved. The idea for the trip came from Kalette. I had been complaining about how bored I was in the Capital and she suggested we make a holiday of disguising ourselves and going out to the other planets in the Empire to get a firsthand feel for things."
"Not much there to go on," Jason agreed.
"No there isn't," she said. "But I'm sure my father's intelligence service will have it all sorted out by the time we get there."
Jason humored her with a smile even though he had serious doubts on that. The rest of his night was blissfully free of worrying about who kidnapped whom and why.
****
"Captain, I have something to show you," Kage said from the com room as Jason walked by on his way to the bridge.
"What's up?" Jason asked, coming in and grabbing the other seat.
"Remember when I said I was messing with our connection to the Defiant?" Kage asked. When Jason just nodded he continued, "I was able to set up some simple routines that rode on top of the existing command structure for their main computer—I'll get into that later—and while I was there I came across the com node buffer for Crisstof's personal system."
"The node in his office?" Jason asked, his eyebrows shooting up. "Even Kellea doesn't have access to that one. Hell, I don't even have the address. How were you able to break into it?"
"I wasn't," Kage corrected. "I was able to access the memory overrun where message headers are dumped after he clears them out of his inbox. The message contents are still tightly encrypted and there's no way I can risk cracking them while they're still on the host system."
"What good does this do us?" Jason asked. "Other than future blackmail material?"
"The headers include the origin and destination addresses for each message," Kage said. "There are a lot of messages to this com node that originated within the Avarian Empire, which is odd enough on its own given how isolationist they are, but the bulk of these messages start about two weeks before the netjere and Kalette were kidnapped."
"There's no way in hell that's a coincidence," Jason said, suddenly very interested. "We've got to see what's in those message files."
"That's why I called you in here," Kage said, pressing a key and highlighting about two dozen of the headers in the list he had on one of the monitors. "I've flagged these as being the most promising based on size, date, and origin address. I can try and copy the files to my terminal here on the Phoenix without tripping any security protocols on the Defiant. The fact I'm in behind the digital barrier helps, but there's still a risk I could be discovered."
"So the question is are those messages worth the risk of losing our telemetry uplink with the Defiant?" Jason asked, leaning back. Kage only stared at him expectantly. "No, I was actually asking you."
"Oh ... well yes, I think it is worth the risk," Kage said. "We already know where the Defiant is, and she's far out of position, and these messages could be the thing that helps us get our passengers back safely."
"Okay then," Jason said, standing up. "Do it. Let me know the minute you have something."
"Sure thing, Captain!" Kage said, eagerly turning back to what was the first real challenge he'd had in a couple of years. Jason walked out of the com room with a knot forming in his stomach. He had first assumed Crisstof Dalton had been involv
ed only as an intermediary or maybe even trying to open up his own personal lines of communication into the Avarian Empire, but the existence of those messages introduced a whole new probability that he was somehow involved in Annada's abduction. Could the old man have crossed the line this time and tried to manipulate the internal governmental workings of a neighboring superpower?
The bridge was mercifully deserted save for Lucky sitting quietly in the co-pilot's seat, monitoring the Phoenix's main systems. He nodded to his friend and climbed into the pilot's seat, pulling up the record of their encounters with the Defiant during this mission and trying to see if there was something obvious he'd missed. The com logs from the encounters were brief since he'd declined to speak to them, something he was regretting now. He always been able to get under Crisstof's skin and make him divulge more than he normally would.
He had to include the fact that Crisstof showed up at his home on S'tora before he had even known Kalette has snuck aboard his ship ... how did that figure in? With a snort of disgust he shut off the display and leaned back in the seat, stretching out his back. There was a significant piece to the puzzle he was missing, he was certain of it. But why was he even looking? He certainly knew better than to think his dalliance with Annada was anything that would last longer than the moment her royal feet touched Avarian soil, so it wasn't as if he owed her anything more than what he had agreed to. Was it because Crisstof, and by extension Kellea, might be involved?
His internal musings were interrupted by an alert on his tactical panel telling him that the Defiant had changed course. Actually it looked like the battlecruiser had come to a full stop well short of the Eshquarian Empire's border. Either they had technical trouble or they had figured out that the Phoenix wasn't headed there in the first place. Regular updates were still coming through the downlink, so Kage hadn't tripped any security measures yet.
Completely enthralled by the fact that he could observe the ship's critical systems and status from so far away, he watched as the shields were brought online and the forward weapons banks charged. There was a short burst from the engines and then, twenty minutes after the apparent hostilities started, the combat shields dropped and the weapons went offline. Wonder what the hell that was all about ...
As he watched, the Defiant swung around onto a new course and jumped into slip-space, quickly running up her reactors to full power and pushing to her maximum velocity. There was no doubt where they were headed.
"Kage, the Defiant just changed course," he said over the intercom. "She's steaming full bore for Avarian space. I don't think it's anything you did; something else is going on."
"I saw that," Kage said. "I was able to pull those messages through our link. I'm decrypting them now ... give me another thirty minutes."
"Will do," Jason said and closed the channel. He sat there for a while longer, watching as the battlecruiser was pushed right up against the safety limit. Whatever had caused them to change course had Crisstof spooked and now he was flogging his ship for all it was worth to try and get to the same place Jason was going. Another coincidence? Not likely.
****
"You'll want to close the door," Kage said when Jason walked back into the com room. Obliging his friend, Jason hit the button by the entryway before taking a seat. "Here, I've queued up the messages in order. I want you to read through them without me interfering and see if you reach the same conclusions I have."
His interest now piqued, Jason adjusted himself in the seat and began reading through the messages. Due to the decryption method it wasn't as easy as simply reading a text file, but he was able to fill in the blanks and take in the bulk of what it said. Once he'd read all twenty-three messages he went back and started through them all again. It was obvious Crisstof was talking to a high-ranking Avarian official, but both were smart enough to never mention the other specifically by name. One person, however, was mentioned by name. An asset they had in place that was to kick off the entire operation.
"What the fuck?" Jason blurted out finally. "Things make even less sense now than they did an hour ago!"
"Maybe," Kage said. "But I think we know what we need to do next."
"True," Jason said, rubbing at his scalp furiously. He reached over and keyed on the shipwide intercom. "All crew and passengers ... please meet in the galley. We've had some developments and we'll need to make some tough decisions."
"Now what?" Crusher demanded as he walked into the galley from the cargo bay, drenched in sweat.
"Just to catch you up on where we're at," Jason began, ignoring Crusher completely, "Kage has discovered a way to track the Defiant in real-time and the ship has just turned onto an intercept course and increased well past her maximum safe, sustainable speed."
"So?" Twingo asked. "There's no way they could possibly catch us with the lead we have."
"You're missing the point," Jason said. "How did they figure out we're not actually going to the Eshquarians?"
"Oh," Twingo said. "I see the problem. Were we spotted on Wy?"
"We're not entirely certain if we were or not. But there is one thing we are sure of," Jason said. "Lucky ... grab Kalette and restrain her, please." He said it so calmly that everyone thought it was either a joke or that he misspoke. Everyone except Lucky, that is. The battlesynth reacted immediately, grabbing Kalette's hands and twisting them around her back, securing them in his own iron grip.
The reaction from everyone was more or less what Jason had expected. Kalette and Annada both screamed in fear while the rest of his crew just looked at Lucky as if he'd lost his mind despite the fact they'd heard Jason give the order. He let the chaos go on for a few more moments.
"Shut up!!" he bellowed. All noise stopped at once save for Kalette's pathetic whimpers even though he knew Lucky wasn't squeezing hard enough to actually cause her any pain. "All will be explained in due time. Doc, come here for a moment." When Doc approached he leaned down and whispered instructions into his friend's ear. Doc nodded twice and then walked off to the infirmary.
"Now, I'd rather not do this with an audience," Jason said. "But I needed you all in here to give the illusion that things were normal. I need Crusher to go get restraints for Kalette and then the only people I want in the room are her, me, Annada, and Doc once he gets back. The rest of you go to the bridge."
They were all still so stunned they filed out without complaint, save for the wink Kage gave him to let him know he understood that Jason wanted them watching from the bridge, just not sitting in the room looming over a scared young woman. He looked up and caught the glare from Annada, full of venom and unbridled fury. For a moment he considered having her restrained as well since once the truth came out it was possible that rage would be redirected. In the end he dismissed the idea since even though as captain he was the ultimate authority on a ship underway he figured it probably wasn't smart to chain the heir to an empire with such a powerful military to her seat.
"Captain, I demand to know what this nonsense is about," Annada said once she'd calmed down marginally, at least enough to find her voice.
"That is why you're here, Annada," Jason said. "This will be quick, I promise."
"Do not worry, Kalette," she said to her panic-stricken friend as Crusher latched the manacles around her petite wrists and walked off towards the bridge without a word. Doc came out a moment later with three syringes, each loaded with a clear liquid.
“Let’s get started,” Jason said, sitting down and nodding for Doc to take the seat next to the prisoner. “Kalette, you heard me tell everyone about how we were able to track Crisstof Dalton’s ship?”
“Yes,” Kalette said quietly, her eyes never leaving the needles.
“Kage accomplished this by breaking into the ship’s main computer through an unsecured com-node,” Jason said. “With this we were also able to access Dalton’s personal com system. Would you like to know what messages he exchanged with a certain high-ranking Avarian official? Messages which led us to where we are now, with y
ou chained to a galley chair?" At this Kalette's eyes widened and she began to tremble, but she held her silence.
"Admirable," Jason said when she clamped her mouth shut, "but ultimately pointless. While I'd hoped you'd talk on your own, we have other methods. Doc, if you please." Without so much as a warning Doc picked up one of the syringes and plunged it into Kalette's arm, quickly depressing the plunger.
"What is this!" Annada said sharply.
"This is a form of the drug that Crusher's intelligence service uses to get their prisoners to talk," Jason said. "Unfortunately for someone as small as Kalette there is a fine balance between dosing enough for compliance and a tad too much and causing a brain hemorrhage and, unfortunately, quite painful death. That's why Doc is standing by with another injector with a fast-acting antidote in addition to the three doses of the drug. Now, Kalette ... please tell me about your role in getting Annada out of the Imperial compound on Avaris." Kalette looked at him with abject fear etched on her face and tears streaming down her face, but kept silent. "Doc." Once gain Doc grabbed a syringe and plunged it into her arm.
"Please stop!" Kalette said.
"That's more than we gave the ConFed agent that led us to Vyrt where they were keeping Annada," Jason said. "You'd better begin talking if you want that antidote."
"They will kill my parents and sister!" Kalette said, sobbing.
Annada started at this admission. "Kalette? Is there any truth to these claims?"
"I am so sorry, my netjere!" Kalette cried. "I had no choice!"
"Please start from the beginning," Jason said quietly. "They have no way to know what you say here on this ship."
"Chancellor Vulem approached me three years ago, right after I had been moved to First Attendant," Kalette began, talking fast. "He said it was vital that we get the netjere away from the Capital. I asked why, but he would tell me nothing, so I refused.
"Once I refused him I think he became afraid I would tell someone about his request, so the next time he came to see me he had a video of my family being held hostage and told me they would be safe as long as I kept my silence. It wasn't long afterwards that he approached me again and said it was critical that the netjere be removed from the city. He said it was for her own safety and that I would be helping to protect her."
Omega Force 7: Redemption Page 21