Omega Force 5: Return of the Archon (3 page)

"We have something pressing to do tomorrow?" Kage asked, his feet propped up on the empty chair across from him.

"The
Phoenix
is due to make landfall midday tomorrow."

"Here they come," Kage said, pointing to the sleek shape of the DL7 gunship descending out of the traffic pattern and towards the designated landing pad where Jason, Doc, and Kage were waiting, their bags stacked neatly in a pile on the tarmac. The ship continued down in a lazy arc that would put it over the landing spot in a few minutes.

When it was still nearly a quarter mile away, the gunship jerked to a halt, her nose bobbing slightly as she settled into a hover. The
Phoenix
stayed there for nearly thirty seconds as the three crew members on the ground looked at each other in confusion. Jason was about to pull out his com unit when the ship began moving again, spinning around so it was facing the opposite way and reversing towards the landing pad on repulsors only. A moment later, the landing gear dropped with a few loud clunks as the ship continued its backwards march towards the pad.

Jason's eyes narrowed in suspicion as the ship stopped at a hover ten meters above the tarmac before gently lowering down and settling onto her landing gear with a few groans and pops. Now convinced that something was amiss, he waited for the drives to spool down and the main ramp to open so he could interrogate his crew.

"Captain!" Twingo shouted with a huge wave as he walked down the ramp. "You look great! How did it go?"

"What did you idiots do to my ship?" Jason asked bluntly. There it was. A quick shifting of eyes and a pause in his gait.

"What do you mean?" Twingo asked in a strained voice. "What did you hear?" That was all he needed. Jason marched off without another word and began inspecting the hull as he walked around the perimeter of the landing pad with Twingo jogging beside him to keep up. "I mean ... there was nothing other than the usual bumps and bruises. You know?"

"No, Twingo, I don't know," Jason said, his eyes never leaving the
Phoenix
as he walked. "All this ship was required to do was transport Crusher and Lucky to Telamar Station. Why would there be any bumps?"

"Well ... there are numerous navigational hazards one may encounter at any given time while moving a vessel through space. Interstellar travel is a dangerous game, as you've said so many times yourself," Twingo was talking very fast now that Jason had cleared the starboard flank and was walking around the pointed nose.

"What the hell is this?!" Jason's bellow echoed across the tarmac loudly enough that some of the ground crew working on the next pad over looked up. All along the
Phoenix’s
port flank were the unmistakable scorch marks of plasma cannon hits.

"What is what?" Twingo asked, making a show of looking up and down the hull. "Oh, that? That's nothing, Captain. Just some discoloration from high-energy discharges."

"Would these discharges have been in the form of plasma bolts fired at my ship?" Jason asked. Not waiting for an answer, he turned and bellowed across the tarmac again, "Lucky, Crusher ... get your asses up here!"

"Captain, there's no need—" Jason held up a finger to silence his friend as Lucky and Crusher came shuffling up from around the starboard engine nacelle.

"OK," Jason began in a calm voice. "I want to know who shot up the side of the ship. I want this information in a concise and factual manner. Who wants to go first?"

Twingo and Crusher looked at each other a moment before the latter decided it was every man for himself.

"This is the first time I've seen any of this, Captain," Crusher said, gesturing expansively to the scorched hull. "I must have missed it when he picked us up. What happened, Twingo?" The big warrior had strategically placed himself next to Jason during his performance to give the illusion he was on his side. Jason wasn't fooled in the least, and it wouldn't be the first time the pair had tried to play him. Twingo's mouth dropped open and he stared at Crusher in shock. Apparently this wasn't part of their prearranged plan.

"You son of a—"

"Somebody better speak up," Jason cut Twingo off, trying to keep control of the situation while simultaneously trying to maintain his anger. Or at least the appearance of it. He could now clearly see that the blast marks were little more than superficial and hadn't actually damaged the hard alloy of the hull. It meant they were more than likely goofing off and it had gone too far, but he still wanted to know what happened and who the ring leader had been. This was precisely why he hadn't wanted to turn the gunship over to them in the first place. "Do I have to do this the hard way?" Jason asked with a weary sigh.

"What way would that be?" Twingo said, taking a step back apprehensively.

"Lucky, what happened?" Jason asked the battlesynth. Lucky's shoulders drooped a bit. He clearly had hoped he wouldn't be dragged into the mess, but his captain had just asked him a direct question. He looked helplessly at Crusher and then Twingo, hoping they'd bail him out. When they didn't, he turned to Jason.

"The blast marks are from an outdated anti-aircraft battery that utilizes accelerated plasma discharges, but the ship was not engaged in combat operations when it happened." Jason stared the synth in the eyes, waiting for more. It was clear Lucky hoped he could get by with the barest amount of information.

"Keep going," Jason said flatly.

"We had concluded our mission and were preparing to leave when a group approached us at the spaceport with a business proposition," Lucky began. "They told us about an annual race the locals run within the system. It was mostly local ships but it was open to outside registration."

"I think I see where this is going," Jason said, rubbing at his scalp. "Twingo, would you like to redeem yourself and pick the story up since you left your crewmate flapping in the breeze here?"

"The prize money for first place was huge." Twingo picked up the story, dropping his act. "The course was across the system and had waypoints you had to cross, many of which were within the atmosphere of the various planets and moons.

"We checked the other ships in the race. There were about fifteen, and none looked like they could match the
Phoenix
in this type of flying. We figured it would be a sure thing."

"Two points," Jason said, stopping the tale. By now Kage and Doc had walked up and were staring at the scorch marks themselves. "One, you are a barely proficient pilot. Certainly not someone I would want flying my ship in a race. Two, did it ever occur to you that you were being hustled by the local crowd?"

"It did," Twingo said. "And I wasn't flying. Anyway, like you said ... this was a local hustle. We put up the entry fee and right away we could see the locals ganging up on the outsiders to put them out of the race early. So we didn't bother being creative and just ran the course at full power. There wasn't anybody even close when we crossed the final waypoint on the way to the finish, but they'd set up that ancient anti-aircraft battery. We took three glancing blows on the port side but were quickly out of range."

"So who was flying?" Kage asked.

"I flew the
Phoenix
during the race," Lucky admitted.

"You?" Jason asked, shocked. "I expect this sort of nonsense from these two, but I had hoped you would have been the voice of reason, Lucky, not helped them out. And when did you learn to pilot?"

"It was clear they were going to enter the ship in the race regardless of my protests," Lucky said in his quiet, dignified manner. "I surmised our best chance of a positive outcome, which meant returning with the ship intact, would be with me piloting. I have been utilizing the simulator mode on the bridge during my night watch in order to expand my skill set." Jason struggled to find fault in his friend's logic, but came up empty.

"So you got hit with an outdated gun they'd set up as a fail-safe," he said. "So you're out the entry fee and whatever it will cost to clean up the hull?"

"Well ... not exactly, Captain," Twingo said uncomfortably. "We actually won. The
Phoenix
outran the next closest ship by nearly six hours. They didn't want to pay up at first, but Lucky and Crusher were able to secure our winnings."

"How much?"

"Three hundred thousand credits, give or take a few thousand." Jason just stood and stared at Twingo, certain he had misheard the number. That was nearly twice as much as the contract they'd been filling was worth. After a moment he just shook his head.

"Did the payout for your actual mission cover operational costs and end up deposited in the treasury?" When he received a few affirmative nods, he continued. "So here's how this is going to work ... the cost of fixing my hull is coming out of your winnings. The remaining will be split evenly between the three of you."

"You're letting us keep it?" Crusher asked in shock.

"You earned it, you keep it," Jason shrugged. "But I don't expect anything like this to happen again. This was a foolish risk you took with the ship just for fun and games."

"Yes, Captain," came the chorus of relieved replies.

"Now get with the dockmaster and get to work," Jason said, pointing to the hull before walking off towards the ramp. He hadn't seen the ship in months and was almost afraid to see the state it was in on the inside.

The
Phoenix
lifted off from Aracoria nearly seven hours after she had landed, her port side sporting a splotchy, mismatched coating from the hasty repair. After negotiating the convoluted air traffic control system, then the orbital traffic control system, they were finally free navigating away from the planet at a brisk pace, all of them eager to leave such a heavy ConFed presence behind them.

Jason was letting the computer do the flying for now. Although he was much more in control of his reflexes and strength compared to when he first underwent the procedures, the muscle memory from hours and hours of stick time would now be out of whack. He had a four-day slip-space flight coming up, so there was plenty of time to log some significant simulator time and recalibrate himself. He was also looking forward to sparring with Crusher during the flight. Despite being asked repeatedly, Jason had shrugged off his enhancements as somewhat insignificant, wanting to give his friend a nasty surprise later. Whenever they had trained before, Crusher's vastly superior strength was almost impossible to overcome. While he held no delusions that he was now somehow equal to the Galvetic warrior, he did think he might be able to get the drop on him in the opening seconds of a match.

"So," Kage said from the copilot seat, "where to?"

"Set a course for the Colton Hub and we'll see what we can find going on there," Jason said.

"Oh boy," Kage muttered sarcastically. "When we're trying to avoid getting knifed in a back corridor, we can look forward to severe gastrointestinal distress from all the fine eateries there."

"It's not that bad anymore," Twingo said from the engineering station. "Since the cartel that was running it got wiped out by the ConFed last year, the new ownership seems to be making a real effort to make it suitable to sustain life. I heard they even replaced the atmospheric filters."

"We're not going there for a vacation," Jason reminded them. "We'll be staying as long as it takes to pick up a lead on another job or find out where the action is, and then we're out of there."

"Why do all of our shady dealings take place on rundown, decrepit space stations?" Kage complained loudly. "You'd think a nice beachfront resort would work just as well. Course laid in and ready for you, Captain."

"I personally like the decrepit old stations," Jason said as he engaged the slip-drive. "Harder for the authorities to sneak up on us and there's the excitement that goes along with being outside any official jurisdiction."

As per their usual habit, once the ship transitioned into slip-space, the crew began to disperse to find something to do other than stare at the darkened canopy. Soon he was left alone on the bridge with Lucky, who was standing near the hatch like he normally did.

"So other than the race, how did the job go?" Jason asked him.

"Quite well, Captain," Lucky said. "We were able to make the security force proficient in the concepts of protection detail, small unit fighting, and general infantry principles."

"You'd think they would have already been able to figure that part out," Jason mused. "Don't they have a military?"

"Their military is comprised entirely of autonomous drones. They are a somewhat pacifist species," Lucky explained. "Although they have not completely rejected war, they are unwilling to fight it themselves."

"Seems you would have some feelings about that."

"Unrelated, Captain," Lucky corrected. "The drones in use are not sentient."

"Gotcha," Jason said as he began setting his station up for a simulator session. "So why don't they just hire mercs or outside security? Why did they need to train a homegrown detail at all?"

"They are additionally fiercely xenophobic. They would never concede to their ruler being protected by another species. It was quite a contradiction, I will admit." Lucky said.

"Sounds like an exceedingly unpleasant species to be around," Jason said as the canopy cleared to show them flying over an unnamed mountain range on an unnamed planet. In truth, they were still in slip-space, but the computer was utilizing the canopy display and bridge grav-plating to create a flight simulator of unparalleled fidelity. "Let me guess ... along with these charming traits, they were also insufferably smug about their own superiority."

"An astute guess, Captain," Lucky confirmed. "Many felt themselves to be experts in hand-to-hand combat. It took Crusher almost twenty minutes to dispel that misconception. It was a trying mission, to say the least."

"So what made you interested in learning to pilot this bucket?" Jason asked, changing the subject.

"You are the only proficient combat pilot on the crew," Lucky said. "While Doc, Kage, and to a lesser extent, Twingo all have the ability to fly the ship, none are able to do so in a tactical situation."