"This part of the show is all you," Jason said, nodding towards an outdoor café. "We'll be over there."
Predictably, Crusher took the opportunity to stuff his face again while Jason tried to discreetly watch where Kage slinked off to. Once they'd parted ways the Veran had taken some time to walk up and down the store-lined walkway just outside the spaceport until he was approached by a pair of aliens. Jason recognized the species but couldn't recall the name other than they were one of those species that took offense when you screwed it up.
"Wonder when he'll be back," Crusher said.
"Don't worry…I'm sure you'll have time to finish your fourth course," Jason said, giving him a disgusted look.
"I'm in the middle of intense training." Crusher shrugged, reaching for another meat filled pastry that had come with some sort of hummus-like sauce. Jason continued scanning the crowd, ignoring the sounds coming from across the table. Crusher did have a point. Since he'd decided to get serious again about his fitness regimen, he'd quickly regained much of the former glory Jason remembered from when he'd first met the brute. Back then, Crusher had been more of a force of nature, a gifted fighter so powerful that even Lucky hadn't been able to overwhelm him with sheer strength.
Recently, for reasons Jason hadn't quite understood, Crusher had been torturing himself every day in the cargo bay with a training routine that would have killed a lesser being. One of the side effects of all this, aside from a surly attitude, was that his friend's caloric intake had skyrocketed. Crusher assured them that this was all quite normal, but Jason was skeptical. How the hell could Galvetor hope to field an entire legion of these guys if they also had to also bring an entire cargo fleet of food with them?
Kage followed the pair of runners away from the bazaar and down a ramp into the sublevels below the street. He'd put out feelers as soon as they'd landed and was dangling some enticing bait he knew someone was bound to bite on. As an off-worlder, he'd have to trade something that was at least twice the value of the information he wanted while also being careful not to get screwed over by some local con artist at the same time.
"Meeleos wants to know what you bring in offer," the smaller of the runners said.
"I only talk to someone who has what I want," Kage said. "No intermediaries and no games or I walk and go find one of your boss's competitors to deal with. Just take me to Meeleos."
They were both mizule, a species that was the lower-caste from a planet with two intelligent, dominant races. From the looks of them, they were from the same clutch, although the one talking seemed to definitely be the runt. He knew all the usual tactics, and from a smalltime peddler like this, and he wouldn't be surprised if one of these two actually was Meeleos, pretending to be a hired runner to make it look like his operation was bigger than it was. Kage used to do the exact thing when he was a youth of ill-repute on his home world of Ver.
"This way," the shorter one said, waving towards a sealed maintenance door. Once the mizule popped the lock, and it swung open Kage could see that it was actually a routing juncture for the local Nexus. It gave enterprising young slicers plenty of access and bandwidth for their fun and games, but it was also an area that was checked often by security.
As he suspected, the little gang was tapping directly into the network switchers, their cobbled together interfaces standing in stark contrast to the sterile equipment of the public utility. Public Nexus junctions like the one he was now in weren't considered high security risks because the entire network was public access to begin with. What the slicer gang was trying to do was camouflage the fact they were chewing through prodigious amounts of data by hiding their activity in the traffic going through the switching node.
"You're not worried about V'pal Security finding your little hideout here?" Kage asked. "This is a little too easy to find and impossible to escape from if you pick up a tracker."
"You have a better idea?" the smaller mizule asked, posturing aggressively. And just like that, Kage knew what he could offer the group in return for their help.
"I do, Meeleos," he smiled, reaching out and patting both mizule on the back as he walked around the small space. "What if I gave you a way to not only mask your identity and location but make it look like you were actually somewhere else regardless of how much bandwidth you're pulling."
"I'd say you're wasting my time," Meeleos said.
"Not on the main slip-com trunk leaving the planet, of course," Kage went on, ignoring the comment. He reached out and touched the equipment around the room seemingly at random, peering at things thoughtfully. "ConFed Data Control Authority has the interplanetary links locked down tight, but the local Nexus? Easy. Especially on a world like V'pal."
"You saying our planet is garbage?" the larger mizule asked, bristling.
"You're saying it's not?" Kage was genuinely surprised. "I-I sort of thought everyone knew that. No offense, but most planets don't have air that tastes like metal."
"You arrogant little Verans are all alike," Meeleos said. "You come here and talk down to us as if we don't have any idea who—"
"What other Verans have been here?" Kage asked. "Again, meaning no offense, but this is well outside the normal circles Veran code slicers operate in. Most are all in the larger syndicates or running solo on tier-one worlds."
"I'm not being paid enough to put up with these insults!" Meeleos pulled a weapon and aimed it at Kage. "She didn't say you had to be conscious when we bring you—" The mizule didn't get another word out as Kage touched a spot on the inside of one of his left sleeves. The stunner patches he'd put on both aliens sent multiple high-voltage charges into them, overriding their nervous systems, and dropping them to the floor, where they lie motionless.
"Well…that was just rude, Kage." The voice came from the dark corner of the room Kage assumed was just a storage area. Instead, an Eshquarian woman walked out, and she appeared to be unarmed. "Be a dear and please disarm those charges you put on poor Meeleos's gear."
"Qazvi Ba, I presume," Kage said, tossing her the remote for the discreet charges he'd placed on all the critical components. "You're good."
"And you're dead if you can't give me a good reason why you've been trying to track me down."
4
"I'm not the only one looking for you," Kage said, still keeping his hands where she could see them. Just because she wasn't visibly armed didn't mean she was vulnerable. She was too relaxed for her not to have some advantage over him at the moment.
"That's not answering the question."
"It's ConFed Intelligence. They're here trying to track down the Eshquarian fleet units that escaped, the same as I am."
"I knew they'd been landing assets in the various cities, but I wasn't aware I was the target," she said. "How did you know this?"
"We tracked you through a gray market fuel trader in the Nabia System," Kage said. "As it turns out, we weren't the only ones who thought of tracking a missing fleet by trying to pick up the logistics trail."
"You next words better be explaining why you are looking for me. I'll deal with the ConFed easily enough."
"Not likely. They're going to enforce a blockade soon and tighten the net around you. The reason we're looking for you is that we'd like to talk to the Eshquarian fleet masters about…well…it's probably better if I let someone else explain it to you."
"I think I get the picture, and I can already tell you what they'll say," she said wearily. "An open rebellion even with every ship the Empire has left is likely to be short-lived. The ConFed fleet is immense, and they now appear to have the will to use it."
"Like I said, I'm not the person to talk to about this, I'm just the messenger," Kage said. "What have you got to lose? You'll at least be able to get off the planet."
"Not likely," she laughed. "If ConFed Intelligence is working with a fleet blockade to run me down, it won't be long before they get me. You'd have to have a ship with a captain who's either suicidal or stupid."
Kage just smiled widely at
that. "Why not both?"
"Qazvi doesn't sound like an Eshquarian name," Crusher said suspiciously.
"And Crusher doesn't sound like a Galvetic name. It's part of my cover, genius. Is this the stupid one you were talking about?"
"Actually, he is." Kage pointed at Jason. "Crusher isn't in charge, he's just the—" A massive hand clamped down on the Veran's throat and squeezed.
"Consider your next words very carefully," Crusher growled. He opened his hand, and Kage fell to the ground, gasping for air.
"Oh, I can tell this is going to be fun already," Qazvi said.
"We should probably get moving now that you've managed to get everyone staring at us," Jason said. "Split up and meet outside the tea shop at the next junction. Move, now!"
Qazvi was the first to stand and leave, moving smoothly through the crowd and disappearing into the bustle of the wide outdoor concourse. Jason stood, gave Kage a sharp kick for the last insult, and walked out before the coughing Veran could get to his feet. In a seedy part of town outside a small spaceport like this one, a little mild violence didn't keep people's interest for long. Jason hadn't even made it off the café's patio before he was back to being completely ignored.
He heard Crusher make some stir as he came clomping out into the crowd but didn't turn to look. His mind was on the unlikely coincidence that their target just happened to find Kage in the first place he started looking, ambushing him easily. Jason knew his code slicer was one in ten million when it came to covering his tracks, infiltrating networks without being seen, and generally being a sneaky little bastard. Either his guy had been uncharacteristically clumsy coming in or this was a setup they were all about to walk into. He touched his right ear lobe to activate the ear piece embedded there, opening a two-way channel to the Phoenix.
"Doc, get with Mok's people and see if they have an image or description of an intelligence operative that when under the name Qazvi Ba. I need it ASAP."
"This will tip off Mok that we've taken a little side detour," Doc said.
"Can't be helped. Get on it, you're wasting time talking."
By the time he took a circuitous route to the rally point, he saw that Crusher and Qazvi were already there, standing near each other but not interacting or even acknowledging the other. Jason walked over to lean against a railing on the opposite side of the walkway and waited for Kage to show up. It was nearly ten minutes later when an angry little Veran, still rubbing his throat and lower back, walked through without looking at any of them.
Jason stood up and followed behind at a discreet distance, not looking behind him but assuming Crusher would take up position behind their new friend to make sure she didn't try anything. He saw a subtle shift in the foot traffic around him and sensed that something was wrong. Nobody was looking at them, and from the direction they seemed to be going, and the furtive looks being cast behind them, there was something up ahead that had people spooked. Unfortunately, that happened to be the direction Jason needed to go to get back to his ship.
"Captain, Mok's consigliere, that weird guy named Similan, he sent an image of the only match in their database for the name you gave us," Kage's voice broke in over the open channel. "Sending it to your com unit."
Jason pulled out the device and looked at the grainy picture of a being about the same proportions as the Eshquarian woman behind him. Unfortunately, the image had been captured in infrared so it was difficult for him to make out the details for a direct comparison.
"Cas, want to give me a hand with this?" he asked.
Given the poor quality of the image, I can only match it to the person behind us to a probability of seventy-four percent. However, the image was taken while the subject was in midstride, and after observing Qazvi walk, it looks like they could have the same gait.
"Thanks, that'll have to do," Jason said and touched the earpiece again. "Doc, we're coming in plus one. She's not technically a prisoner but make sure the Phoenix is ready for a passenger who needs to be watched constantly."
"Copy, Captain," Doc said. "Just so you know, a ConFed shuttle landed near the terminal a little bit ago and dropped off troops. We didn't see which way they went."
Just as Doc was telling him this, he rounded the last corner to get back to the main drag that led to the starport. Standing in the road, apparently waiting for someone, were twelve ConFed shock troops in crowd control armor and carrying plasma rifles. When they saw him come around the corner, he could see they weren't waiting specifically for him but, instead, were checking everyone trying to get back into the terminal.
"Shit," he muttered. "I found them."
The ConFed troops were in a loose formation, blocking the concourse entrance to the spaceport terminal while local law enforcement seemed to be randomly stopping citizens and questioning them. Jason noticed right away that all of those stopped were Eshquarian females. The locals would pull them aside, ask a couple questions, and then send them along. So, they knew they were looking for an Eshquarian female, not at all a rarity on V'pal given their previous status as an Imperial vassal world, but they didn't have an exact description of what Qazvi Ba looked like.
"You! Let's go, move along," one of the ConFed troops pointed to Jason and motioned for him to pass the security line. He was hustled back behind the shock troopers after a brief ident scan. The credentials he gave told the scanner he was the pilot of a small, privately owned freighter called the Sparrow, the same name the Phoenix was currently flying under.
Jason walked through, and then slipped into a small gap between the spaceport's security wall and the beginning of the concourse buildings. He waited as Kage also was waved through the line and Qazvi was stopped. He watched as she argued with the local agent, drawing the attention of the ConFed troops and causing them to ignore the small Veran negligently tossing a handful of something that scattered when it hit the ground, most of it making its way to where a trooper stood before Jason lost track of them.
Qazvi seemed to be making some headway in pleading her case, but then one of the troopers saw Crusher coming right towards them and all hell broke loose. In Crusher's defense, he had been trying to angle away from the conflict without being noticed, but his species was relatively rare in that part of the quadrant, and he was hard to miss at nearly seven feet tall and well over three hundred pounds. Once the first trooper shouted in alarm, the rest seemed to react on instinct.
The whole team moved forward, bringing weapons to bear, and giving conflicting orders. Crusher maintained his composure and stopped, raising his arms up and placing his hands on his head in as non-threatening a gesture as he could manage. Jason knew that if these clowns were following standard procedure, there would be saturation patrols throughout the bazaar to make sure nobody slipped around the security line, and they could soon be swarmed under and outgunned.
"Damnit, I hate when things go wrong," he grumbled, shaking his weapon loose from its sling and flicking the selector to mid-velocity. There were two troopers standing in a line relative to his position, so he lined up on them first. After checking that there were no civilians behind them, he squeezed off a single round.
The crack of the projectile going supersonic froze everyone…everyone except the two ConFed troops the round tore through. Their armor slowed it down to the point that it tumbled coming out of the second target and winged one of the local cops, dropping the alien as it screamed and held its arm. The rest of the troops reacted instantly and swung about to face Jason's direction, weapons up. That's when Kage detonated the bug mines he'd dropped on his way out. It was an invention the Veran was especially proud of. They weren't powerful enough to kill an armored trooper, but a maimed one was just as good as dead in this case.
"Crusher! Grab her and let's get the fuck out of here!" Jason shouted, waving towards Qazvi as she struggled to get free of the two law enforcement types who had a hold of her. Crusher let out a bellowing roar and charged the two hapless locals, who watched the charging warrior coming at them, but made no
move to get out of the way. As Crusher hit the two cops like a freight train, Jason came out of concealment and began scanning the area for signs of more troops coming to back up the ones he and Kage had put down.
He didn't have long to wait.
The first pair came running straight up the concourse, weapons up and scanning for targets. They saw Crusher first and began angling towards him, never seeing the lone human that took them both out with two well-placed shots from the storefront to their left. With Crusher carrying a struggling Qazvi Ba, and Kage running ahead of them, Jason turned and sprinted away from the area, doing his best to blend in with the panicked and stampeding crowd, a lot of whom were fleeing into the spaceport terminal and back to their ships. Leaving V'pal was as easy as walking through the door and out to the active ramp thanks to the herd of escaping aliens trampling the emigration officials at the checkpoint.
"Why did you park so far away!" Crusher shouted as they ran towards the Phoenix.
"I didn't think we'd be running for our lives," Jason shot back.
"I feel like it's just a good idea to always assume that," Kage huffed. The automated tram had been stopped when the general alert went out from the incident in the bazaar, and now everyone had to run a few kilometers to get to their ships. A few were already lifting off, while the roar of engines starting up drowned out any further conversation. That was when things went from bad to really bad.
There was a brilliant flash and an explosion that sent them tumbling across the tarmac. Jason was blinded by whatever that had been, and all he could hear was a constant ringing. What the hell happened?
That was incoming fire from a ConFed ship in orbit, Cas informed him. They're targeting any outbound vessel. It's likely there are a lot more troops inbound.
"Up!" Jason urged his crew. "Up, up, up! Come on, let's go!"
Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11) Page 4