Soldiers of Fortune (26 page)

              “Distract yourself from what?” Lucky asked, now focusing all his attention on Jason.

              “What could happen if we fail,” he admitted. “Before, it was just an abstract fact that ships were getting attacked. Now, we’re in the thick of it, and a misstep on my part means a lot of people will die for no other reason than some sick bastard wants to prove a point.”

              “But we cannot let the fear of failure stop us from trying. We have made our plans as best we could under the circumstances, and we will try our best when we arrive. Fear and guilt will not save a single life, Captain. Having the courage to try, and even fail, is what makes a difference,” Lucky turned to look at Crusher’s sleeping form before continuing. “Since I have been a member of Omega Force I have saved untold lives, helped those who had given up all hope, and made friends like I never dared to hope for in my previous life. So, yes, I am still happy I am here in the place you have made for us.”

              “I didn’t make anything, Lucky,” Jason told the synth. “We were all broken in some way or another when we were forced together.” The pair fell silent as they each thought about what the other had said. “Well, that’s enough introspection. I’m going to go fuck with Twingo.”

              “I hope that you are able to come to terms with the consequences of when we fail one day, Captain, as we inevitably must,” Lucky said as Jason stood up. He paused, but didn’t reply as he left the armory and headed for the engineering bay. Every time he engaged Lucky in any sort of meaningful conversation he was forced to again reevaluate how he viewed the synth. At each turn, the artificial man was forcing Jason to come to terms with what his humanity really meant to him out among the stars.

              The last couple of hours before they hit their objective seemed to crawl by at an ever-slowing pace. Everyone was rested, prepped, and at their station as the
Phoenix
hurtled through the ether of slip-space towards the unsuspecting colonist fleet. They had brought all the weapons and defensive systems online already and were ready for anything when they meshed in. The plan had them breaking into real-space quite close to the target so as to not give them any time to escape. They were to catch them at their last rally point before they would make their final slip-space hop to their ultimate destination. Larger civil fleets tended to make long journeys in a series of jumps so they would know if a ship was having trouble keeping up and to not get too spread out. Jason just hoped their navigators were of the precise sort since they were planning on meshing in relatively close to their intended position.

              “It’s almost show time,” Jason said over the open intra-ship com channel. “Everybody give me one more check-in and then get ready for anything.” One by one his crew checked in with an affirmative status, so then it was down to a tense fifteen minute countdown until they arrived.

5… 4… 3… 2... 1…

              “…
break off and retreat! I repeat, break off the attack, they were waiting for us!
” The voice that broke over the secure com channel sounded stressed, but not panicked. Jason watched as the sensors began populating his tactical display and noticed there were seven more ships than they were expecting, one of which was familiar: the
Diligent
. He knew his own ship would be recognized by Captain Colleren’s crew, but the remaining six looked like Eshquarian light-cruisers who would have no idea the
Phoenix
was on their side. He also saw that two of the raider ships were drifting dead in space, their momentum taking them away from the battle as they tumbled powerlessly.

              “It looks like everyone’s making a break for it,” Kage said as he watched the sensor feed. “Should we follow?” Jason didn’t answer immediately as he watched the remaining raiders turn and accelerate away from the defending fleet, a few winking off the display as they meshed out of the system. Even though they had jumped in close, he had begun decelerating as soon as he heard the com traffic so they were just now coming into the outer effective range for the cruisers’ weaponry, he was assuming Colleren wouldn’t fire on him with her frigate’s larger main guns.

              “One raider is losing power,” Doc said before Jason could respond to Kage. “They took a nasty shot from one of the cruisers and are no longer accelerating.”

              “I see them,” Jason confirmed as the ship in question rotated around to bring its forward weapons and shields to bear as it shot away along its original heading. “It looks like they’ve lost their engines, but not main power.”

              “That’s the ship the commands were being broadcast from,” Kage said. “Uh, oh… looks like Captain Colleren is going hunting.” On his display Jason could see the
Diligent
break formation and begin accelerating towards the stricken ship. It looked like they would close into weapons range within minutes. Playing a hunch, Jason swung onto a course that would bring him up behind the
Diligent
and accelerated away from the colonist fleet. He happily saw that the Eshquarian ships had no intention of pursuing him.

              “Dial the forward plasma cannons back to ten percent power,” he said.

              “Ten percent?” Kage asked. “That will just make a big flash against their shields.”

              “Just do it. I don’t have time to explain,” Jason said while he lined them up directly behind the
Diligent
and accelerated hard.
I really hope she understands what I’m doing.
When he was within range, and the larger
Diligent
was directly between the
Phoenix
and the stricken raider, he opened fire with the forward plasma cannons. With the power being so low, the bolts hit the frigate’s aft shields and flared in a spectacular coronal discharge, but caused no damage. He continued to accelerate past the
Diligent
at an incredible velocity and bore down on the still-drifting raider. It was a tense few seconds before he got confirmation that Captain Colleren had understood his ploy.

              “The
Diligent
is breaking off,” Kage reported. “She’s decelerating and turning to rejoin the fleet.”

              “Good,” Jason breathed out, relieved. “Lucky, Crusher, get to the cargo bay and get ready to bring that other crew aboard. This is a rescue, but don’t trust them.”

             
“Copy.”

              “Whoever the point man for this operation was is on that ship,” he explained to his somewhat bewildered crew. “We’re more likely to make a large gain by rescuing him than letting the
Diligent
capture him and turn him over to the Eshquarians.” With the aid of the computer, Jason began the delicate dance of matching speed and orientation to the other ship and slowly closed the gap until Kage could extend the ventral gangway and link up to their airlock. “You know the drill,” he said as he hopped out of his seat. “If that ship makes a suspicious move… blast it.”

             
Jason jogged through the ship and arrived in the cargo bay just as the drop-hatch in the floor was irising open. Immediately the acrid smell of burning composites and wire assaulted them through the opening. Lucky reached into the opening and grabbed a coughing and injured man who looked like he had some serious burns on the right side of his body. When Lucky laid him on the cargo bay floor Jason could see who it was, and he was quite honestly shocked: Dowarty.
Why is this little weasel out here on an op?

              “Is there anybody else alive in there?” Jason asked him loudly. The small man only shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. “You’re sure?” Only a nod in response. “Kage, cut us loose and move us away…” Dowarty’s left hand reached up and grabbed his wrist.

              “Destroy my ship, Captain,” he whispered before passing out.

              “
Better get up here, Captain. One of the Eshquarian cruisers has started to head this way.
”

              “Get him to the infirmary,” Jason told Lucky. “I’ll send Doc down there in a minute.” He ran back up to the bridge and saw that the cruiser wasn’t accelerating too quickly, so they had some time before there was a risk. Once he confirmed they were floating free from the damaged ship, he moved them away to a safe distance and brought the nose back around.

             
“Target the aft drive section and the reactor core,” Jason told Kage.

              “Target locked.”

              Jason squeezed the trigger on the stick and let loose a salvo of high-energy plasma bolts into the unprotected vessel’s main drive and reactor. A brief, explosive flash and all that was left was a cloud of high-density metal particles drifting outward. Satisfied, he turned them about and accelerated away from the closing cruiser while Kage entered a jump point into the nav system. Once they had meshed out of the system, Jason hopped up and went to check on Dowarty in the infirmary. 

Chapter 11

             
“He looks bad,” Jason observed.

              “He isn’t great,” Doc confirmed. “He has significant burns over much of his body, but the immediate danger is the caustic fumes he was breathing in on his ship. I’ve stabilized him and the nanobots are beginning to map out the damage to his lungs, in the meantime I’ll be oxygenating his blood artificially. It could have been worse though, his hearts are beating strong and his brain scans show normal activity.”

             
This little wisp has more than one heart? They must be the size of walnuts.

             
“We’re heading back to the Oorch system,” Jason said as he looked down on the small facilitator. “We’ll hang out just inside the heliopause until he regains consciousness and…” He broke off as he saw Dowarty’s personal effects laid out on the far table, much like his own were when he was first brought into the infirmary by Deetz. Among the various decorative pieces of jewelry was an only slightly singed miniature tablet computer. “Kage! Get down here,” he called over the intercom.

              “What’s up?” Kage asked as he rushed into the infirmary a moment later.

              “Can you do anything with this?”

              “Hmm,” was all the Veran said as he grasped the computer in the smaller of his four hands. Silver threads of nanobots seemed to spin from his hands like a spider’s web as they glided over the surface of the computer, searching for a way to make a hard circuit path that would enable Kage, with his highly specialized neural implants, to try and access the unit. His eyes glazed over for a moment and Jason realized how well secured the small device must have been; he’d seen Kage slice through supposedly locked-down systems within seconds.

             
“The encryption is top-notch,” he finally said. “I can’t break it without dismantling the unit, and even then there may be safeties in place to let him know I’ve been there.”

              “So it’s useless to us?” Jason asked, trying to not let his disappointment show.

              “Maybe not,” Kage said, again seeming to drift off. After a much shorter pause he was back; “There is a flaw in the device’s security.”

              “I was hoping you’d find at least one,” Jason smiled.

              “It’s not a guarantee, but I can copy the entire contents off the storage medium. It’s sort of like cloning a computer core; it will exist on a section of our computer and the software on the device will never know it was tampered with since no attempt at forcible entry was made. Then I can try and slice into the copy stored on our computer.”

              “That seems like a glaring security flaw,” Doc said. “You sure it’s not a trap?”

              “It’s designed to protect against direct slicing attempts,” Kage explained. “There’s no external connectors, so it’s not likely someone could attempt this without permanently damaging the unit. The outer case cracked during the fight, however, and I can just fit four pairs of nanite tendrils into the gap.”