Soldiers of Fortune

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “Looks good,” Jason replied. “Standby for jump.” He hit the flashing green button on his lower right console and felt his ship build power and mesh smoothly out of the Solic System. “Stay sharp everyone. This is a short jump, we’ll be meshing in soon and from there we go dark. I’ll be in the armory getting ready.” He stood up and nodded to Doc as he walked off the bridge. He snuck through engineering as quietly as possible, smacking Twingo in the back of the head as the engineer was bent over inspecting something. He shuffled out of the area, laughing, as the short alien blistered the air with implausible threats to his anatomy. He must be in a good mood, he didn’t throw anything that time.

  As they always were directly before an operation, Crusher and Lucky were already in the armory getting ready and discussing the pros and cons of different types of weapons. Jason greeted them both and then went to his own full-length wall locker and opened it up. Inside, hanging on a rack, was the improved armor he had designed and built with the help of his crew. His original protective gear had been designed by Deetz, the treacherous synth that had wanted to sell Jason into bondage when they had first met. It had been serviceable, but the more he learned about what worked and didn’t he began to make improvements on his own. This armor, while still lightweight and providing excellent range of motion, had more coverage and had powered shields. The energy shields only covered the hard plates of the armor, and weren’t especially powerful, but they did nicely when deflecting energy weapon fire.

  Crusher wore a similar setup, but only a chest protector; no pauldrons or arm guards. For some reason the enormous alien had a huge aversion to sleeves or gloves. Jason knew there was a good joke in there somewhere, but his own fierce self-preservation instinct kept him from saying it aloud. Even a good-natured, glancing hit from the warrior was enough to cause serious damage.

  Lucky, of course, was ready for combat at all times. He was just there for the company. Jason put on his base layer pressure suit, the black, active over suit, and finally his armor, sans helmet. When he looked up he saw that Crusher was regarding him with a raised eyebrow. “You know, Captain, we could maybe have Twingo build you a miniature tank to roll around in during ground ops.”

  “Kiss. My. Ass,” Jason said as he finished his preparations. “The first time you take a shot to the arm I don’t want to hear any crying--”

  “Crying?”

  “--about how much it hurts. I don’t have millennia of selective breeding and genetic manipulation to make me invincible. It’s actually the exact opposite; evolution has been a cruel mistress when it comes to humans and our natural weapons. My body isn't up to the punishment.”

  “I think your body is fine, Captain,” Lucky spoke up helpfully. Both Crusher and Jason just looked at him for a long, uncomfortable moment and then turned quickly back to sorting gear. “What?”

  “I’ll be on the bridge,” Jason said as he headed for the door. “It’ll only be a couple more hours before it’s show time.”

  Once back on the bridge, he had little to do to occupy his mind but watch the timer count down to zero. But, he was the Captain, so he would set a good example by staying at his post and not roaming about the ship because he was bored. Kage was busy setting up his scripts and intrusion routines he would use to bypass their target’s security and Doc was scouring through research documents he had downloaded on Solic-2 regarding the item they were supposed to steal. So Jason sat quietly and mentally prepared himself for the upcoming op and let the drone of the Phoenix's engines relax him.

  The Phoenix meshed into the Careechi System just inside of the heliopause, well short of their suggested jump point. She ghosted into the system, going dark immediately and listening intently with her passive sensor array to anything that might be out there. Jason had no doubt that his client, or clients, really wanted the item they had been commissioned to steal, but he also didn’t trust them any further than he could throw Crusher, which was not at all. The star system was along the outer boundary of the nebula the Concordian Cluster was nestled against. The surrounding space was full of both incredibly beautiful views and deadly traps of radiation and gravitational anomalies. The effects of these unpredictable conditions had created a unique wonder among the planets in the Careechi System, which was void of habitable worlds. Of the four gas giants orbiting the primary star, two had orbits that would occasionally bring them quite close to each other (close being a relative term when dealing with planets the size of protostars). The result was the smaller of the two passing behind the larger and having its atmosphere interact with the charged particles trailing its bigger sibling. The visual effect of this interaction was breathtakingly beautiful, and a much sought after vista.

  Their target, a large, luxurious, slip-capable yacht, would be arriving to enjoy the view within the next four hours if their intel was to be believed. She was the pride and joy of a wealthy shipping magnate, although Doc’s research had turned up some unscrupulous dealings he had initiated that led to his vast fortune. It was thin, but Jason needed to cling to something so he could tell himself he wasn’t actually robbing an innocent person. While the yacht was fast and graceful, it was built for looks more than defense. This was something Omega Force hoped to exploit.

  The yacht arrived almost a full hour after it was scheduled to, but it was there. More importantly, it was alone. The intel they had been given indicated that it would be since Careechi was an utterly useless system for anything other than the view and the mark foolishly felt extra security would be unnecessary. He was known to bring lady friends out to Careechi-3 for dinner and drinks when the orbits would properly intersect, and his mate was out of the area on business. Powerful men are the same the galaxy over. Wonder what sort of prenup you’d need when you owned a private star fleet.

  Jason guided the Phoenix to intercept the yacht’s course well behind it; he would mask his approach by hiding in the gravity vortex of the other ship’s engines and employing their own countermeasures. They were several thousand kilometers behind the ship, which appeared as a slightly brighter dot against the stars, when he throttled up ever so gently and began to slowly close on it. He would get close enough to hide in the small sensor blind spot created where the engine fields overlapped, and then he would pace the yacht around Careechi-3 until the party on board had run its course and night hours started. He hoped the booze was flowing; passed out passengers wouldn’t notice an armed boarding party rifling through their prized possessions.

  “We’re on,” Jason said, interrupting the tense silence on the bridge. “They should all be asleep by now. Kage, mask our approach as best you can until you can get into the computer and shut the external sensors down.”

  “Copy,” Kage replied nervously. Jason didn’t think anything of it; the jittery little Veran was always a bundle of nerves during a mission and he always came through. He pushed the throttle up smoothly and quickly closed the remaining gap between them and the yacht. When they were within visual range, he rolled the ship over a full one-eighty and synced his optical implants to the external sensors so he could see through the hull. He slowed to match speed with the other ship and began gradually closing the interval until they were underneath and inverted in relation to the yacht’s orientation. He let the computer guide him as he lined their ventral hatch up with an auxiliary airlock on the other ship’s belly.

  “Extend the cofferdam,” Jason ordered. “As soon as you have connectivity you’re clear to start. If we have to boogey, call it out.”

  “Gangway extending,” Kage said absently. “Contact. Beginning entry…” A glazed look came over the Veran’s face as he tied his neural implants into the Phoenix and attempted to override the security measures on the yacht’s airlock. The DL7 gunship had an extendable, pressurized apparatus that could be deployed from the drop-hatch in the cargo bay and allowed them to mate up to almost any size airlock. Most standard airlocks had an inductive, low bandwidth connection that allowed for minimal data transfer without needing a hard
connection, Kage planned to use this to gain access to the ship’s main computer and shut down the security subsystems as well as open the airlock. They’d done it before, and it was much preferable to blowing the hatch with explosives for a variety of reasons, the fact that massive, hull-breaching explosions tended to alert the crew not among the least of them.

  It was nearly two full minutes before Kage spoke again, “I can open the outer airlock hatch without activating an alarm. You’ll have to get me a remote connection for me to handle the ship’s internal security measures.”

  “We can do that,” Jason said, moving to walk off the bridge. “Open the drop hatch and shut off the gravity in the cargo bay.”

  “Copy.”

  The ventral “drop hatch” was a design consideration meant to make it easy to ferry ground troops into a hot landing zone without risking the ship by opening up the main cargo hatch. It was a small, circular, iris-type hatch that had been fitted with a pressurized cofferdam to allow ship-to-ship transfers. Since the hatch was on the Phoenix's belly, and they were entering the yacht from its ventral side, Jason had opted to kill the artificial gravity in the cargo bay to avoid the disorienting shifts. He wasn’t all that savvy at zero-G operations yet, but just maneuvering around in his own cargo bay shouldn't be an issue. Besides, Lucky had a full set of maneuvering repulsors and ionic jets built into him, if it got too bad he could always just grab a hold and hang on for the ride.

  He went back into the armory to collect his two crewmates that would be joining him and grab his helmet and weaponry. He opted for a simple plasma carbine with a formidable stun setting as well as an electrostatic stun sidearm, all contingency items; Jason wanted to slip in and out without being detected if at all possible. His helmet had originally been a dull, black affair with no visor; the sensors built into the helmet fed directly into his neural implant and provided him a full field of view in multiple spectrums while eliminating the weak point of a transparent visor. In the tradition of his spec ops background, he’d had Kage paint a stylized skull’s face on the front, complete with improbable fangs and an evil glare.

  “Time to make some money,” he said with a smile as he opened the blast door that led out into the cargo bay. Jason made a grandiose “after you” gesture to his friends, who had no idea the gravity had been turned off. Crusher stepped through forcefully and ended up launching himself end-over-end into the hold.

  “You little shit!” He exclaimed. He flipped himself over and hit the far wall in a crouch before pushing back off towards the floor in an impressive display of acrobatics. Jason activated the relatively weak mag-locks on his boots and strode carefully out into the bay, laughing out loud. Lucky, always unflappable, walked calmly out to the middle of the cargo bay without so much as a stumble. Jason turned the remote link box over in his hand and made sure it was actively connected to the ship’s computer. Satisfied with the winking green light, he called up to the bridge, still laughing to himself inside his helmet.

  “Kage,” he said, “we’re ready for you to open the hatch whenever you want.” Almost immediately a large, circular section of the deck began to rotate and recess into the floor. After it sank about five inches, it sectioned itself into four curved quadrants and disappeared into the ship, leaving a gaping hole that led to the yacht they were flying in formation with. Jason peered over the edge and saw that the other ship’s hatch was hanging open and the inside of the airlock was dark, all good signs. He slid over the edge and entered the flexible tunnel head first, wanting to be properly oriented when he was within the artificial gravity of the yacht.

  Once he was in the other airlock, he looked around for the access terminal to interface with the remote link he carried. It took only a moment to locate it since it was the only control panel in the small chamber. He was standing in an auxiliary lock that was meant more for maintenance than anything else, but it would serve their purpose just fine. He stuck the box against the edge of the panel like he’d been told and watched, fascinated, as tendrils composed of nanobots threaded out and disappeared into the panel, creating hard circuit paths within the guts of the control panel itself. It would then allow Kage to work his magic via the wireless link between the box and the Phoenix's computer. It was all very much over Jason’s head, but he’d seen it work enough times before to trust the process.

  After planting the remote link, he turned and hopped back through the still-open outer hatch, drifting down towards his own ship until Lucky grabbed him and pulled him through, back into the cargo hold. They would wait there until Kage was able to break into the other ship’s computer; if he was unable to, or was caught in the process, Jason wanted them all inside the Phoenix so they could make a run for it the instant they were detected. The process sometimes took as long as thirty minutes, so the three members of the boarding party kept a loose grip on the edge of the hatch opening and floated in place, watching for any sign that someone on the other side of the airlock’s inner hatch was trying to come through.

  Nearly ten minutes ticked off the mission clock before Kage called to the team. “Intrusion successful. You can open the inner hatch from the control panel in the airlock. I’ve also taken control of the security and internal sensor subsystems, they’ll give no warming to the bridge crew and I’ll also be able to put up the security personnel positions on your HUDs. Happy stealing,” the little Veran said as he signed off. Jason drifted back into the yacht’s airlock and, after verifying on his floating heads-up display that there were no security guards roaming in the area, popped open the inner hatch and pulled himself through. He scanned in all directions, in a combination of thermal and light amplification, to clear the area of potential hostiles. He trusted Kage implicitly, but he always cleared any room he entered. He leaned over the open hatch and waved the other two through. Lucky was the first to pull himself silently up through the open hatch, then Crusher.

  They found themselves standing in what appeared to be a general maintenance area in one of the engineering bays. Having planned the mission out already, no signal was given as Crusher moved to the exit and covered the austere maintenance passageway beyond with his stun rifle and Lucky moved to cover another, smaller entrance to a series of crawlways that led to the engine emitters. Jason closed the inner airlock hatch as quietly as he could and locked it. He could have Kage pop it open when they needed it again and leaving it open would be an obvious sign of intrusion were someone to stumble upon it… not to mention it led straight into his own ship. A thrown explosive device into the Phoenix's cargo bay would cause some serious problems.

  Leap-frogging forward, the three ghosted up the passageway, covering every hatch and branch as they made their way forward. Most of the aft part of the yacht was made up of engineering, crew quarters, and storage. The luxurious forward and upper decks, well away from the hum of the engines and reactor, housed the owner’s stateroom and the entertainment areas. The service passageway they were in spanned the entire length of the ship, conveniently providing access for the crew and as well as a trio of would-be thieves.

  Crusher, being the one currently in the lead of the column, held up a closed fist to indicate a stop; they were at the set of stairs they would take to the upper decks, this was where it became interesting. The big warrior turned around and smiled broadly, obviously enjoying himself immensely. Despite the potential danger, Jason found himself smiling back in his helmet. After slogging around on barely-developed worlds and playing the role of a glorified delivery service, this was the most fun they’d had in weeks. Crusher waved Jason up to take the lead. “You’re the one with the display showing the location of the guards,” he whispered. Jason didn’t respond, he simply went to the hatch and pressed the pad to open it. The door slid silently away revealing a curved stairway leading to the deck above. Leading with his sidearm, he began to ascend the steps, followed by the other two.

  They emerged into a well-appointed room that seemed to be just a sitting room as all there was were sets of curved couc
hes surrounding a circular table. Jason switched back to thermal mode on his display and called up a false-color overlay since the ship was on night-hours and the lighting was dimmed down to almost nothing. The view was disconcerting at first because it didn’t include the shadows of objects and tended to throw his depth perception off just a bit. He led them out of the room and deeper into the living quarters of the yacht. Their ultimate target was the main salon that was amidships and one deck above them, but to access it they would need to go forward into the galley, then up, and back aft again. He just hoped Kage was able to keep the internal sensors tied up until they could grab the loot and backtrack the convoluted path back to the airlock.

  They were in the galley when, all of the sudden, the overhead lights came on and they heard a sharp, startled gasp. Turning quickly, Jason took aim and fired, his sidearm coughing once as it fired an electrostatic charge at the target. A woman with pale green skin and long black hair, wearing nothing but a night shirt, went down without a sound. The pistol delivered a stunning charge of electrical energy that overloaded the nervous system and put the average-sized being out for at least a few hours. The person then woke up with little recollection of what happened and a near-debilitating headache.