"I like this officer," the other hologram spoke again with a strange, mechanical laugh. She saw that Seeladas looked away uncomfortably at her words. "It's truly refreshing to see such a skilled subordinate that knows her place, a part within the greater machine. Councilman Scleesz…since you seem so intent on stepping in when you're not asked, you will accompany Admiral Colleran back to her ship and provide the necessary instructions she will need to accomplish her mission. Is this acceptable, Seeladas Dalton?"
"It is, sir," Seeladas said. Kellea couldn't hide her reaction at her own head of state's submissive tone. Sir? Something was going on here, something far above her head, and she was certain that it wasn't something that would benefit the greater good for the Cridal citizenry.
"Then it is decided. Get to work, Scleesz." The hologram of the person giving the orders flickered and disappeared as did Seeladas's, the latter not bothering to give her own officer any words of encouragement.
"Admiral, I can have a shuttle deliver me to your vessel at any time you wish," Scleesz said.
"If you're ready to go now, Councilman, you can just ride back with me, assuming you're not taking your entire staff with you."
"It will only be me," Scleesz said. "I'm traveling light these days, and I'm sure I will be quite secure aboard your ship."
"I can assure you that you will," Kellea said. "I will await you in the hangar bay."
Kellea couldn't escape the conference room fast enough. She'd already begun having concerns about what was happening in the Cooperative when the Defiant was pulled off normal patrols and sent out to Eshquaria. Now, she was genuinely afraid. Having a ConFed Councilmember aboard calling the shots with the blessing of her commander in chief was not something she was expecting nor ready to plan for.
At least the corpulent little Scleesz was coming alone. She would have him discreetly searched and activities closely monitored, something that would have been far more difficult if he'd insisted on bringing his own staff or a squad of armed troopers with him. In the back of her mind, she was also aware that the connection to Jason Burke that Scleesz represented couldn't be just a bizarre coincidence. The Councilman's presence confirmed, at least in her mind, that Omega Force was already involved in this mess somehow.
Despite having fantasized about it on more than a few occasions, she hoped she wouldn't be forced to blow the Phoenix out of the sky with the Defiant's cannons before this was all over.
17
"This is actually looking easier than I expected."
"Why would you even say that?" Kage asked, tossing all four arms up in exasperation.
"Look," Jason said, pointing to the holographic representation being projected onto the tabletop of the terrain surrounding the depot. "There's no real security to speak of, most of the patrol flights are concerned about people smuggling things out of the big cities along the equator, and the lower latitudes aren't even covered by the ships in orbit. If we can make it down there undetected, we can be in and out before they could redirect forces to intercept us."
"We think that the boxes are being stored here," Crusher said, jabbing a claw into the hologram of the main building. "The northwest wing is said to control all sensitive communications and telemetry link equipment. It's the category that most closely matches our objective. There are no external entrance points into this wing and, due to the sensitive nature of the device, I wouldn't recommend breaching an outer wall. I think we'll need to move in through this auxiliary entrance"—he pointed to another spot on the hologram—"and move through an assumed security checkpoint to access it. Once we have the box, we can go ahead and blow a hole through the wall to egress."
Kage gaped at Crusher in slack-jawed amazement while Jason was able to hide his own reaction better. The big warrior was often dismissed as a musclebound idiot, a reputation he lived up to more often than not, but Jason had decided to try a different tact to see if he could get the big dummy to be a little more useful. Crusher, whose real name was Felex Tezakar, was the Guardian Archon of Galvetor and commander of the Galvetic Legions. He'd been trained from childhood in all manner of small-unit combat, discreet interdictions, large-scale battle planning, and advanced hand-to-hand combat training. In other words, this was a well-trained, intelligent, and capable operator who had been taking the lazy way out for far too long. Jason felt it was past time for him to pull his weight.
Still, he hadn't expected Crusher to actually do what was asked of him. There was still the same amount of complaining, shifting of blame, and a half-dozen other tactics to get out of any actual work. The difference now was that he actually would get around to doing what was requested of him…eventually.
"How do you want to take the auxiliary entrance?" Jason asked.
"Let the Phoenix do it." Crusher shrugged. "No point in lugging two breaching charges or a weapon so heavy that only Lucky can carry it. Besides…one hit on the building from the main cannons and there will be all the shock and confusion we need to sneak in."
"I think I can work that detail out a little bit to strengthen our advantage," Jason said. "Climate is still mild with predictable winds?"
"Yes," Kage said. "Here's what the box looks like you'll be going after." A standard looking avionics box replaced the building hologram with a scale marker down by the bottom. The box was big, but Lucky should have no trouble with it. "It's pretty rugged so don't worry about anything breaking inside, but don't throw it from the top of the building or anything like that. From what I've been able to tell from some contacts I still have on the surface here, the parts will be stored in locked cages, but nothing that should slow you down."
"How long until we're ready to break out of this traffic pattern, Doc?" Jason asked, leaning out of the conference room so he could be heard on the bridge.
"We'll be dropping out of detection range for our requested landing zone in nineteen minutes," Doc said. "After that it's an eleven-hour flight along the eastern coastline before turning inland."
"I’m going to adjust our flight profile for the final approach," Jason said. "Stand by for your new instructions. Don't worry…this will actually make things easier for you."
"Why do I have a feeling I'll not like this change?" Crusher complained.
"Because you don't like anything," Jason said. "But you only have yourself to blame. If you hadn't suggested using the main guns on the Phoenix to make entry, I'd have likely never thought of this. Lucky! Let's start getting prepped."
"Words cannot express how much I despise you. The very sight of you sickens me right now."
"For being one of the most feared warriors in the known galaxy, you sure whine like a little bitch when you don't get your way," Jason said over the team link. "Now cut the chatter when we're outside. I don't want to be picked up by some autocannon emplacement Kage failed to warn us about. Follow me out. Lucky, you're tail end Charlie."
The ramp was partially lowered and the gunship was loafing along an established aircraft flightpath at an altitude of six-thousand meters. The trio that comprised the ground assault team were decked out in harnesses that had deployable ram-air wings that would open and let them glide over great distances. The wings were made of a nanobot-infused material that could change shape and density based on need. They were adapted from a sporting rig that Jason had found on a vacation where tourists would wear them and jump from high peaks on a low-gravity moon, soaring in the updrafts and around the mountains for hours. Once he'd adapted the system for tactical use, he's made sure that everyone on his crew was fitted for one, but thus far few had bothered to train on them. Thankfully, they were mostly automated since this would be their first live operation using them.
Jason moved over to the edge of the ramp and looked down at the heavy cloud cover, his armor peering through it with mid-wave infrared optics at the coastline below. This far south on Eshquaria was sparsely populated so the risk of being seen was low, but he was still worried about the security and detection grids at the actual target.
&n
bsp; "Omega One, out the door," he said, hopping off the edge and tucking his arms and legs in tight as the slipstream slammed into him like a freight train. They hadn't been able to slow down too much without arousing suspicion, so they'd just had to accept that the first part of the op was going to be very, very painful.
He tumbled out of control for the first few seconds before he splayed his arms and legs out into a skydiver's arch and waited for his body position to stabilize. Once he was in a belly-down fall, and decelerating after being thrown out of a ship doing a thousand kilometers an hour, he deployed the wing and waited as the fabric scoop channeled the air and pressurized the bladders to get the shape it wanted before the nanobots fibers would lock into place.
"Omega Two is out and under wing," Crusher's voice came over the short-range team link.
"Omega Three, out and scouting ahead."
"Damnit! Lucky, that's not the plan!"
They watched as the battlesynth streaked by, still in freefall. Instead of deploying the wing, Lucky fired his primary flight repulsors and shot away from their formation, disappearing into the clouds. Jason was seething, but could do little but watch his friend disregard their carefully laid plan and go roaring into a potentially hot LZ with piss poor intel and no backup.
"He's been doing that a lot lately," Crusher said. Jason looked over and saw that his friend had maneuvered himself down and to the left, looking completely comfortable under the inflatable wing.
He tamped down his anger and focused on what he was doing. By the time they broke through the lower cloud layer they could see the complex they were heading towards, but no sign of Lucky. His armor's HUD helpfully started identifying the structures they knew for certain along with fly-to indicators to guide him into the primary LZ. Secondary and tertiary LZ's were also highlighted in a muted yellow. He was buffeted about in the air as the wing changed configurations, morphing from a slow, long-distance glider to a fast, swept wing that would get them down with minimal time to be spotted. Even knowing how it worked, it was still disconcerting to be accelerating towards the ground and putting all his trust in the harness that would, in theory, not allow him to slam into the ground at a lethal velocity.
Just as he was about to abort his approach and jettison the harness so he could land on his own repulsors, the wing reconfigured again to form a wide, scooped out parachute that decelerated him rapidly. He rotated his body and absorbed the impact with his feet, letting himself go into a roll. The fabric of the wing had retracted and stowed so quickly that, by the time his back hit the ground, it was already secure in the harness. He climbed to his feet in time to see Crusher slam into the ground and mimic the same roll maneuver he'd done to absorb and dissipate the energy from the impact.
"That was actually sort of fun," Crusher said, yanking on the release and letting the harness fall to the ground. "I can see why you enjoyed that so much on your trip."
"Where the hell is Lucky?" Jason asked, looking around as he broke out his weapons. Crusher, never one to wear actual armor, pulled the helmet and pressure suit off before pulling his own party favors out.
"I am just beyond the ridge to your southeast," Lucky's voice came over the com. "One hundred and seventy meters away." Jason turned that direction before feeling a hand clamp down onto his shoulder.
"Talk to him about it later," Crusher said, not transmitting over the channel. "Job first, lectures later."
"I don't lecture," Jason said, stomping away towards where Lucky had indicated.
"Sure you don't," Crusher mumbled before setting off after him,
The position Lucky had taken up was above their target and about two kilometers away. The approach would be over smooth ground and, save for a flimsy looking security wall, there appeared to be no active security beyond the checkpoints at the building itself. He let his armor's adaptive coating blend in with the surrounding loose dirt and scrubby vegetation, noticing that Lucky did the same. Crusher just grunted, but made no special effort to camouflage himself.
They quickly made their way down the slope, using as much of the natural cover as there was, and hunkered down again just outside the slatted security wall. There were no outward signs from the complex that they'd been spotted. Now that they were apparently all back on the same page, Jason waited while Lucky scanned the area with his more advanced sensor suite, while he and Crusher knelt down in the small drainage ditch that paralleled the wall.
"No active scans of any kind, only one detected passive sensor system mounted on the mast on top of the main building," Lucky said. "No detectable security patrols, either."
"Let's get this party started," Jason said, keying in a burst transmission to the gunship that should just now be cutting across the southern tip of the continent.
He was rarely on the ground near a position that was hit with weapons meant for space combat. It was never a pleasant experience, and it drove home just how fragile he really was compared the metal behemoths that did battle in the void. The Phoenix's main guns were plasma cannons that, while subluminal, did travel significantly faster than the speed of sound. They never got any warning of what was coming until the first brilliant red streaks split the clouds and hit the building with a force that shook the entire area.
More shots rained down from above as the Phoenix hammered the side of the building with two full bursts from her main guns. When the last of the second salvo ended, Lucky ripped a section of the security wall away from its framing and they all filed in, sprinting across the remaining distance, and waiting to be fired upon by some unknown position they'd missed during recon.
"Doc really overdid it," Crusher said as they cleared around the corner and saw that their ingress into the building was now a massive smoldering crater. Jason could just begin to make out the alarms blaring inside the building as they skirted around the damaged area and climbed over the rubble to get into the building.
"This way," Jason said. His armor could see through the dense smoke without trouble, and he saw the junction up ahead that would take them down into the wing they assumed the objective was stored in.
"Security personnel are responding," Lucky said. "A general order to lock down all areas has gone out."
"How the hell do you know that?" Jason asked before being taken off his feet by a concussive blast. He looked up and saw Crusher returning fire at the two security guards posted up on a catwalk that ran above the entire warehouse complex.
"Stupid," he admonished himself before lining up his railgun near the catwalk's closest junction and opened fire. Two hypersonic slugs turned the alloy to liquid and blasted the anchor points free from the structure, sending the catwalk veering wildly and the two guards tumbling to the ground. "They, at least, have a fighting chance of surviving. We need to hurry."
"Are we not killing this time?" Crusher shouted over the confusion.
"I'd rather not," Jason yelled back. "These are just people doing a job." Crusher grumbled something he couldn't hear, but adjusted his fire from kill to suppress as they made their way into the wing that held all the communications equipment.
If they hadn't been in a hurry and fleeing from an increasing number of security guards, Jason would have loved to take tour of the massive facility. There were major components from every class of starship the Eshquarians had built going back decades. All the stuff that the Empire didn't sell to outsiders or want to risk being in the hands of salvagers was all there. Thankfully, centuries of relative peace had made them lax on security.
"Lucky will you recognize this thing if you spot it?" Jason shouted.
"Yes."
"Then scout ahead, Crusher and I will hold them here at the security check point."
Lucky ran ahead and ripped the gate from the portcullis as a terrified badge-checker stumbled away from the desk and sprinted in the opposite direction of the fray. Jason and Crusher moved quickly back into the chokepoint, the former's railgun doing an admirable job of keeping everyone's head down and the returned fire to a minimum
. Wherever the hypersonic rounds hit, there was an explosion of debris and shrapnel consistent with a large frag grenade. The local guards, mostly looking like retired military, wanted no part of that as they half-heartedly fired back with the pitifully weak sidearms they carried. Jason didn't even bother seeking cover as the few lucky hits that they scored did nothing more than leave a scorch mark on his armor. The heavily armed assault team coupled with being hit from the air by some sort of large plasma weapon had the desired effect of confusing and scattering what security there was.
"They're bound to have an armory in this place that will have the big boy toys," Crusher said.
"And?"
"And maybe standing there with your chest puffed out letting them shoot at you isn't the greatest tactic you've ever devised," Crusher said. "Although I guess it's really not the worst, either."
Jason fired three shots in quick succession that tore the staircase leading to the catwalks above them free and crashing to the floor. Now there weren't any more guards above them and they should only have to worry about those trying to at them from the sides. The wall exploding above his head dispelled that theory as the pair began taking fire from behind them. Jason wheeled and saw that guards were streaming in through a door on the left side of the wide hallway they were in.
"Shit! We're pinned down!" Crusher shouted.
"Take the ones behind us, I'll hold this door! Go!"
Crusher turned and opened fire, his heavy plasma rifle barking as the brilliant blue bolts of superheated gas vaporized whatever they touched. The light armor the guards wore had an ablative coating to protect against energy weapons, but not the kind that the hulking warrior preferred to carry. The powerful bolts of energy slammed into guards, melting weapons, and cooking through body armor like paper. Some went down without so much as a whimper, others screamed as an appendage was flash burned from their body leaving nothing but a smoking, cauterized stump.
Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11) Page 17