"I found something. It looks like we might have both been right."
"Assuming I had any idea what the hell you're talking about, this couldn't wait until I woke up and relieved you?" Jason asked.
"I don't think we have that sort of time, Captain. If you want to beat ConFed Intelligence to the Eshquarian fleet, you might want to shake it off and get up to the bridge."
"On my way!" Jason leapt out of the rack and grabbed his shirt and boots on the way out of the hatch.
Kage was already back on the bridge when he arrived, the lights in the ship dimmed for night hours. Jason could see the Veran had been working at one of the auxiliary terminals and had at least six incoming data streams from what he could see. The Phoenix had nine slip-com nodes, three times as many as most ships her size, and Kage had four of them tied up just to feed whatever search algorithm he was running. He looked at the mess coming across the displays and sighed.
"Okay, in a way that is both understandable and not insulting to my intelligence, tell me what you've got."
"I can do one or the other, not both. The problem with your intelligence is that there isn't—"
"You think you could do your job missing those two smaller arms?" Jason asked, taking a step closer.
"Wow you are touchy about how stupid you are." Kage narrowed his eyes. "One would think, having been this limited your entire life, you'd have more or less come to terms with it. Or was there a traumatic brain injury in the past I don't know about?"
"There's about to be another one right now," Jason growled. "Tell me what you have, or I swear to whatever deity the creepy, garbage eating little shits on your planet pray to that you'll be riding the rest of the way to Mok's in the water reclamation bilge."
Kage blinked slowly and just stared at him, probably trying to test just how serious Jason's threat was. The gray water bilge was a tank where all the moisture the environmental system pulled out of the air was dumped before being processed back into clean water. The system also grabbed all the germs, spores, dust, and whatever else clung to the water particles and dumped it in there so the tank was always utterly disgusting no matter how many cleaning cycles it went through. It was a mostly idle threat, but Jason was beginning to think that a more draconian punishment system aboard his ship might improve some of the attitudes.
"I used the connection we had to Noryant's com units to install some trackers that allow me to monitor all his communications, as well as his location. There was a spat of activity regarding the cartels after you and Crusher roughed him up, then things were relatively quiet, and I was about to write this off as a dead end," Kage said. "Six hours ago, he received an encrypted message through the commercial com system to one of the units. I wasn't able to decrypt it right away, but I was able to trace it back to the origin. It came from a terminal on a planet called V'pal Prime."
"I've heard of that place. Isn't that the planet that just had some sort of bloody coup attempt that the Eshquarians had to step in and squash…just before the ConFed squashed them?" Jason asked.
"Right you are," Kage said. "V'pal was a vassal world to the empire. The Eshquarians had a lot of nasty, heavy industry they'd moved there and, in return, the V'palians enjoyed the protection of the Imperial battlefleet…when their fleet wasn't too busy posturing along the border they shared with the Protectorate."
"One of the nasty little secrets of this galaxy." Jason shook his head. "For every pristine ConFed or Imperial world you land on, there are two more with acid clouds and dead seas that are doing all the dirty work for them."
"I didn't realize you were such an idealist."
"Realist, not idealist."
"What's the difference?"
"An idealist would give a shit enough to try and change it."
"Anyway…the origin of the message was on V'pal. Once I was able to decrypt the message header, I saw that it came from a com address belonging to one Qazvi Ba. That name shows up in the database Mok gave us access to as an alias for a high-level Imperial Intelligence operative. Her last known assignment was as an advance scout for Zeta Fleet, one of the mainline battlegroups that fled Eshquaria when the ConFed dropped the hammer." During his explanation, Kage brought up the pertinent data on the displays so Jason could follow along.
"Once I had Ba's com unit identifier, I was able to back-search other places it had been through the public Nexus links. Not only had she been to visit Noryant in person twice before that tanker arrived to pick up the fuel load, she's also been to three other worlds known to take in large numbers of refugees with no questions asked."
"What the hell planet does that?" Jason asked.
"New colonization where they need to boost up the numbers quickly. A planet has to have a certain population before it can apply for ConFed membership if the colony wasn't already approved through the council. The three planets that Ba visited are specifically looking for anybody with technical ability who could work in industry."
"The crew of an Imperial warship would nicely fit the bill for that," Jason said. "Spread the crews out over three planets, just dribble them in with the others moving through, and hope ConFed Intelligence isn't looking too hard at non-member worlds."
"It was a false hope, unfortunately." Kage brought up another screen with iconography on it that Jason didn't recognize. "Ba's cover is blown. There are certain telltale signs you learn to look for when you're in my business—er, former business—and I can say that ConFed Intelligence has already broken into her com unit and is tracking her just like I am."
"You're sure?"
"Quite," Kage said. "They've even begun suppressing outgoing messages she sends, trapping them in the public system. They're trying to isolate her, which means they're ready to make a move."
"How close are we to V'pal?" Jason asked.
"It's not as easy as that, Captain," Kage said. "We're only two days out, but the planet is in the process of being absorbed by the ConFed. They're still allowing normal traffic on and off the planet, but they have a lot of firepower sitting in orbit as they run down any Eshquarian stragglers who might cause them trouble later."
"Why would this Qazvi Ba pick a place like that to operate out of?"
"Hiding in plain sight, as well as access to resources and personnel the Empire would have already had there," Kage said. "Either way, they're closing in. She'll be hard to pin down, but I'm sure they already have agents on the ground hunting for her."
"So, what are our chances of finding her first?" Jason asked.
"They'd be better if you change course now and run the power up."
"Screw it, let's do it," Jason said, moving to the pilot's seat. "It's not like I was really looking forward to seeing Mok in the first place."
V'pal was as bad as Jason expected it to be from Kage's description. The scars on the land from deep step mines were visible from orbit when they could peek through the dingy brown clouds of trapped the particulates belched from stacks of the myriad industrial districts. The sprawling urban centers had the ubiquitous atmospheric processing towers that were repurposed after the terraforming process to scrub the air, but those remnants from the colonization of the planet were woefully inadequate to pull all of the pollutants out of the air. Most planets installed purpose-built machines able to pull the garbage from the atmosphere and pump out clean air, but V'pal hadn't bothered.
"What a shit hole," Crusher grunted.
"It's not good," Doc agreed, reading what the sensors were telling him about the planet. "But it's nothing we have to worry about for short term exposure. I wouldn't bother with any rebreathers or filtration masks."
"Good, because I wasn't going to," Crusher said. "In fact, do I even have to get off the ship?"
"Yes," Jason said forcefully. "Kage, we have a better location than just a planet yet?"
"I've narrowed it down," Kage said. "Remember that she's a high-level intelligence operative, so it's not going to be as easy as requesting a location trace off the Nexus hubs. She's still usin
g standard Eshquarian equipment and tactics, however, so I've been able to cut a lot of the false leads out."
"Any idea if the ConFed has been able to do the same?" Jason asked, eyeing the armada of warships on his sensor display. So far, the ConFed ships were sitting in high orbit and taking no action to interfere with normal traffic to and from the planet, but that could change quickly. He didn't relish the idea of being trapped on the surface when they decided to set up a blockade to try and trap the Eshquarian spy they knew was there.
"Nothing I've been able to confirm. Normally, when we come to one of these third-tier worlds, I can tap into the underground right away and at least get pointed in the right direction if I spread enough credits around," Kage said. "This place is locked down tight now, and the ships above us are making everyone nervous. Nobody is talking to a newcomer. That alone tells me that ConFed Intelligence has probably already been trying to dig into black market slicers for information."
"You think this is a fake out?" Twingo asked. "Everyone converging on this one planet trying to find a single intel spook?"
"It's not as implausible as it seems," Kage said. "She's not likely able to tell us where the Eshquarian fleets are hiding, but she'll be a stepping stone into finding someone who can tell us, and the ConFed will know that, too. Their own intel service is at least as competent as the Empire's, and they have the luxury of not having just been invaded."
"That brings up a good point," Doc said. "Should we even land until we track her down? Once we're dirtside, we could end up trapped."
"I'll need to be on the ground," Kage said. "I've done all I can from up here."
"Call for a landing clearance," Jason said. "Get us as close as you can, preferably avoiding any of the major spaceports where the ConFed will be monitoring immigration control. The ground team will be me, Crusher…and Kage." As he said this, he couldn't help but look away from Lucky. The battlesynth was in his normal spot just behind and to the left of the pilot's seat, so he pretended to be fascinated by something on the right multi-function display so he wouldn't have to see his friend's reaction.
The truth was that he'd prefer to have Lucky with him over the impulsive and unpredictable Crusher…the old Lucky. It shamed him to even think it, but since being stuffed into the new body, his friend had become a liability on operations and a distraction they couldn't afford.
"It is probably wise that you leave me behind," Lucky said quietly. The others looked uncomfortable and pretended to not be listening. Jason sighed, not wanting to debate the issue with him at that particular time.
"It's nothing personal, but you've had four episodes in the last six weeks where you've locked up without warning and stayed that way for days. I can't be worried about you and also be able to keep an eye out for ConFed agents. Until our team back at Mok's base figures out what the issue is, I'm afraid you're going to be sidelined for the time being. It's like when Crusher rejoined the crew a couple years ago, but he was fat and slow and generally useless—"
"Hey!"
"—until he was able to get back in some sort of shape. This isn't permanent, buddy, but it's for our safety as much as it is yours."
"I understand," Lucky said. His voice was flat and he made no further comment. Twingo just looked at Jason and winced.
That could have gone better.
Jason wanted to tell the unwanted guest in his head to shut up, but he had to speak aloud to do so. Instead he just concentrated on flying the ship along the path Kage had sent over to the pilot station for their entry vector. Unsurprisingly, the Phoenix's clean codes were quickly accepted by the automated orbital control system and the ship, now classified as a high-speed courier vessel, was immediately given clearance to deorbit and fly directly to a medium sized spaceport that was outside the city Kage had pinpointed.
"Crusher, Kage…go get ready," he said. "Once I land, I don't want to waste any time finding our target and getting the hell out of here."
"I will prepare your gear, Captain," Lucky said, following Crusher off the bridge. Doc slipped into the copilot's seat and assumed Kage's duties as the Phoenix slid down through the thermosphere and into the denser air below.
"What do you want us doing while you're away?" Doc asked.
"The usual," Jason said. "Be ready for dust-off, give Kage any support he needs, and keep an eye on the ConFed ships flying above us. If you see all the rats beginning to scatter from this smaller spaceport, you can bet they caught word that the blockade was beginning."
"Let's hope this is a quick grab and dash," Twingo said.
"If someone wanted to smuggle a bunch of people out of Eshquarian space, this is the place to do it," Kage said. The trio walked across the tarmac to catch the automated tram that ran on a circuit around the outer landing pads so they could get to the terminal. Along the way, they spotted at least a dozen ships that had all the telltale signs of being configured for smuggling, and they'd actually spotted two outfits they knew firsthand that specialized in trafficking beings across borders.
"You still think Imperial Intelligence hired a bunch of traffickers to shuttle their crews around?" Crusher asked. He hadn't been onboard with the theory since Kage had floated it out there.
"The more I think about it, the more sense it makes," Kage said. "The Eshquarian fleet masters are likely hidden in some deep, dark hole right now, trying to figure out what they're going to do. They could try and organize a counterattack, but they've completely lost the initiative, and just reclaiming the space around the capital world won't reverse what's taken place. Their other option is to disburse and hide, but eventually ConFed Intel will catch up with someone of high enough rank that will spill their guts in interrogation. Right now, I think the only safe play they see is to stash the crew among some backwater colony worlds for the time being just to give themselves some breathing room."
"If we could find this hypothetical meeting of fleet masters, we could feasibly make a case to them for the entire fleet," Jason said.
"No offense, Captain, but that was a stupid idea the first time you said it, and it isn't getting appreciably smarter the more you say it," Kage said. "What? I said no offense."
"He's right, Captain," Crusher said. "I may be just a dumb warrior at heart, but I played the politics game enough in my capacity as Archon to know that the top echelon admirals won't be willing to risk their lives or their ships for your cause. They're politicians at heart, not fighters or even idealists. Right now, they're paralyzed by fear, and when the clock runs out, they'll probably cut a deal with the ConFed to turn over their fleet in exchange for a cushy retirement on Aracoria."
"That's depressing," Jason said.
"Nobody is going to be willing to bleed in a war they don't even know they're in," Crusher said. "Right now, everyone is still reeling from the attack on Eshquaria, but even so, they're now trying to rationalize it in their minds to make it seem like it isn't really as bad as it looks. The longer this goes on, the more comfortable they'll be, and they'll even start to blame the Empire for its own demise. You know I'm right. Until this shit storm comes right over top of their homes, most people won't want to be involved."
"That brings up an interesting point," Jason said. "The Machine is a piece of software, virtually immortal as long as it has a compatible system to reside on. It could be playing a long game, and we'll all be long dead by the time it decides to make its next move."
"I doubt it after how brutal the attack on Eshquaria was. I'd also be careful about tossing that name around in that context when we're within earshot of local public surveillance," Kage warned. "I'm sure it has ears listening for references to itself. At this stage, it's absolutely crucial that its existence and nature remains a secret."
Jason nodded but didn't reply. He felt foolish for not having considered that himself. Even as technologically advanced as ConFed space was, each planet was run autonomously enough that they never really worried about being picked up on public safety cameras or scanners. It was simply impract
ical for a single authority to monitor thousands of worlds. But the Machine could have an entirely different method for pulling out keywords spoken aloud or watching for certain scanner signatures to pop up. They'd have to be more cognizant of that going forward.
Getting through immigration control was as brief and corrupt as most other planets Jason had visited. The right amount on an untraceable credit chit and they were waved through without so much as a body scan to make sure they weren't bringing in biological agents or weaponry over and above the type used for personal protection. In the case of the Omega Force team, they were packing enough discreet firepower to take on half a platoon of regular troops with even odds of being victorious. Jason packed the latest and greatest in Galvetic railgun tech, a type of weapon the Legions had adopted after seeing him use one so effectively. The new model they'd provided him with had a short, twenty-centimeter barrel with high-efficiency coils. Although not as powerful as the full-size carbine he normally carried, it still accelerated the projectile well into the hypersonic range.
Crusher carried a pair of heavy plasma pistols that were so big that Jason's hands didn’t even fit around the grips. They were a custom job that one of Saditava Mok's weapon suppliers hooked the big warrior up with as payment for a little side job that Crusher had been oddly tightlipped about. Kage, who had really come into his own as an operational asset lately, had the type of weaponry you'd expect of someone so slippery. He had little drones with explosive payloads, non-lethal weapons built into his clothes, and a slim flechette carbine he had strapped across his back. It was an impressive arsenal split between three individuals, each of them having at least one capability the others lacked.
"I'll need to make contact before we can start tracking this Qazvi Ba with any sort of accuracy," Kage said. "I'll need you two to wait around in this area and try not to look like you're watching where I'm going. These people are information brokers, not fighters, and if it looks like I'm bringing a pair of neck-breakers with me, they'll scatter."
Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11) Page 3