Soldiers of Fortune (28 page)

              “Meshing out now,” Jason announced unnecessarily as he slapped the control to send the
Phoenix
streaking towards their destination; an open patch of space within a gaseous protuberance of the nebula that spawned the Cluster. It was probably a nightmare of gravitational anomalies and interstellar particles, but he assumed Dowarty had shown them a safe route given he was on the same ship they were. 

             
They rode in silence for the most part, limiting their chatter to terse status updates with an interloper sitting amongst them. Kage had found a new way to communicate, however, and gave it a try as they all pretended to be fascinated by the displays in front of them:

              “
I THINK WE MAY HAVE A PROBLEM.”
The text appeared to float in Jason's field of vision and he realized that it was being projected by his ocular implants. He blinked and looked around, trying to decipher the source.
“THIS IS KAGE, BY THE WAY.”
Jason rolled his eyes, he should have realized who would be able to hack into his neural implant. Since he had no idea how to reply he made a rolling gesture with his right hand to indicate to Kage that he should continue. “
I CAN’T BE CERTAIN, BUT I THINK DOWARTY IS TRYING TO ACCESS OUR COMPUTER THROUGH HIS HANDHELD.”
Jason tried to think of a way to reply, but came up with a blank. Now it was Kage’s turn to roll his eyes. “
THAT’S WHY I’M ACCSSING YOUR IMPLANT DIRECTLY, I DON’T WANT TO RISK HIM INTERCEPTING A MESSAGE TO YOUR CONSOLE. I’M GETTING SOME SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY PIGGYBACKING ROUTINE DATA PACKETS. SHOULD I LOCK HIM OUT, OR BEGIN ISOLATING ALL OUR SENSITIVE DATA THAT’S IN THE COM CENTER?”

             
Jason held up his right hand with his first two fingers raised, indicating he wanted the second option. He didn’t want Dowarty knowing they were on to him, if he was indeed trying to break into his ship’s main computer. Fortunately, due to the nature of the DL7’s original purpose, the com center that was located in a small room on the command deck had isolated computers that stored sensitive com traffic and intel data. Those cores could be disconnected, and even remotely destroyed, in the event any attempt was made to break into the main computer. As a warship that was often tasked for reconnaissance, Jepsen Aero had had the forethought to make safeguarding their sensitive information as easy as sending a command with the proper coding.

             
After some more seemingly innocent plinking at his computer, Dowarty put it back into his pocket and leaned back in his chair, staring off into space for a moment before his eyes slowly closed. Since he couldn’t do much more, Jason pulled up all information their computer had on the region of space they were flying towards and settled in for some dry, boring facts on astral navigation and interstellar phenomena.
As the captain of an interstellar space ship I should probably be more interested in this shit.

             
The
Phoenix
dropped back into real-space right at the edge of the nebula, but with the distances and dimensions involved, there really wasn’t much to see. There was also no ship or space station on the sensors. “You put in the coordinates correctly?” Jason asked Kage.

              “I’m sure he did, Captain,” Dowarty said before Kage could answer. He had gotten up again and walked over to Kage with his computer display active. “Please send out this repeating message on the indicated frequency from your slip-transceiver. We won’t have long to wait after that.” Kage looked to Jason, who nodded his ascent, and then began to program the sequence into their primary com node. It wasn’t even encrypted, but it included their current position. Apparently whoever was to receive the message would be able to contact them for further directions. “Forgive the secrecy, but we can’t be too careful,” Dowarty said to Jason.

              “No sweat off my brow,” he shrugged with an exaggerated indifference. “I’m being paid to drop you off, however you want that accomplished is between you and your credit chit.” Dowarty simply smiled indulgently and made his way back to the seat he had occupied during the flight out.

             
Another ninety minutes elapsed before they had any confirmation their message was received. A small, autonomous, slip-drive equipped drone flashed into real-space near their position, transmitted a coded burst, and then meshed back out just as quickly as it had appeared. Jason looked at Dowarty expectantly. Instead of answering, he again pulled out his abused tablet computer and accessed it.

              “Could you scroll that message in a loop on one of these displays, please?” He asked.

              “Sure,” Kage answered and complied with the request. On the terminal in front of Dowarty a raw, encrypted data stream began to scrawl across. He simply held the tablet up so it could “see” the screen and waited for a moment before a double beep from his device told him the process was complete. When he turned it around it had a new set of coordinates clearly displayed. He smiled as he showed Kage the new destination as well as the new transponder code they would need to squawk when they arrived. “Simple, but elegant,” Kage said admiringly at Dowarty’s sign-countersign encryption scheme. His tablet had held the key and the slip-drone had given him the data to decode to provide them with the exact location of the base. “We’re ready, Captain. It’s only another forty minutes away,” Kage informed him.

              “Here goes nothing,” Jason said as he re-engaged the slip-drive. Once the canopy darkened and the engines were humming out their hypnotic song, he pondered the nature of their destination. It couldn’t be a fixed base on a planet or moon, otherwise there wouldn’t be the need for such an elaborate method of gaining access. It could be a station, but those weren’t very mobile. Even the big commercial harvesters were broken down and flown separately to the work site. He also didn’t think it was a ship, not to support the size and scope of an operation that was attacking shipping lanes up and down the entire Cluster. He resisted the urge to ask Dowarty directly as it would break character with the hired gun mentality he was trying to project.
I guess I’ll just have to wait and see like everyone else.

              “Everyone look sharp, we’re five minutes out,” Jason announced to his crew as he prepared the ship to re-enter real-space. Kage started transmitting their passcode a few seconds before they meshed in, it wouldn’t be received, but there wouldn’t be a delay from their appearance to their code confirmation. Sometimes those precious few seconds were the difference between one arriving safely or being blasted to one’s assorted molecules.

             
The gunship shuddered slightly as she flashed back into real-space. Immediately upon their arrival, their defensive systems began blaring alerts and putting a threat assessment on their displays. There were a
lot
of ships sitting in that region of space with their weapons charged. Jason didn’t hesitate as he abruptly brought the
Phoenix
to a virtual standstill, the gravimetric drive killing their forward momentum so they didn’t drift into weapons range before they could confirm that they belonged there. It was a tense few seconds before they had their answer.

              “
Unidentified vessel, we have confirmed your passcode. You’re clear to approach The Complex.
”

              “Don’t worry, Captain,” Dowarty said with a smile. “They wouldn’t have opened fire until they verified friend or foe.”

              “You’ll forgive me if I don’t want to bet my ship, or my life, on that,” Jason retorted as he throttled up the drive and steered on course for the largest sensor contact, assuming it to be The Complex. Whatever that was.

             
One of the things Jason had found difficult to adjust to was his instinct to look out the canopy to view objects that were “close.” This may have been from watching too many science fiction movies, or just a lack of comprehension about the vast distances involved, but either way after a little over two years in space he still looked up expecting to see The Complex looming large in front of him. Instead, he saw a small speck of light moving slightly faster than the other specks of light against the backdrop of space. This region was a little more interesting thanks to the copious amounts of interstellar gas they were flying through, but that was mostly due to it reacting with their anti-collision shields.

             
At their rate of closure, Jason didn’t have long to wait before he did get his first eyes-on view of The Complex, and what he saw concerned him tremendously. The Complex looked to be six large cargo haulers that had been highly modified so that they could be docked to each other and form a sort of space station. The advantages were immediately apparent: the station could be broken down into its base components (the ships themselves) and slip-spaced out of any location, and on different vectors, only to meet up again and reform the base later. He was sure each ship provided a unique function and that it was all very well engineered and constructed… and that’s what concerned him the most. This type of thing was
not
employed by a gang of pirates and smugglers no matter how well organized they were. This type of operation positively reeked of military, and it gave Jason grave misgivings about who may be responsible for the attacks on civilians within the Concordian Cluster.  

              “Impressive, isn’t it?” Dowarty’s question broke him out of his musings.

              “That’s one word for it,” Jason said. “I’ll admit, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit while in this line of work… but nothing like a bunch of pirates building a mobile space station.”

              “Oh, we’re more than just pirates,” Dowarty said drily. “We also smuggle, kill, overthrow governments… we’re equal opportunity entrepreneurs.”

              “Whatever pays the bills,” Jason replied just as deadpan. “You getting docking instructions?” His question was directed at Kage.

              “Coming in now, I’ll give you fly-to indicators in a moment and tell the computer which docking arm we’re supposed to head for,” Kage replied. Jason was silently elated they were heading to a docking berth instead of a hanger. Hangers were quite a bit more challenging to escape from when, invariably, the mission went belly up on them. A docking arm was usually a flimsy structure that wasn’t even remotely capable of holding them in place if they really wanted to leave.

             
The closer they got, the more detail of the docking complex he could make out; a spider’s web-like network of airlock gangways that had a smattering of ships linked to it, looking like so many flies in the aforementioned web. They were being directed to a tall spire that, when docked, would give them a decent view over the entire Complex
. All things being equal, Jason couldn't complain about their position if they were forced to make a quick getaway. He relinquished his grip of the controls as the computer used the thrusters to gently nudge the gunship against the docking collar and allowed it to lock onto the hull.

              "We're all locked up," Jason said. "Dowarty, I assume you'd like me to accompany you to arrange for our payment?"

              "I could have your money brought up, or you could come with me. Whichever you prefer, Captain," Dowarty said with a humorless smile.

              "I could stand to stretch my legs a bit," Jason replied blandly, making it clear that he didn't trust the smaller man to return with their payment.

              "As you see best," Dowarty agreed, already making his way slowly off the bridge and towards the airlock.

              "Crusher, you and Doc are with me," Jason said as he eyed the retreating back of their injured passenger. He held up a hand to stop Lucky's protest before it started; "I need you on the ship. We're in the belly of the beast right now and I can't leave the
Phoenix
unprotected by taking all our fighters with me."

              "So what do you want us to do?" Twingo asked.

              "Keep her ready to rock and roll, that includes keeping the weapons ready. I want the quick-start capacitors fully charges, but keep the emitters and projectors cold; I don't want a causal scan to reveal we’re armed up for war while docked."

              "You can count on us," Kage said absently as he turned back to his computer console, already focusing all his considerable mental power on his pet project of Dowarty's computer download.

             
Jason, Doc, and Crusher jogged to meet Dowarty at the airlock. Thanks to the other man's injuries, it wasn't too difficult.

              "What's the procedure for coming aboard?" Jason asked.

              "Just open the door, Captain," Dowarty smiled. "If you weren't authorized to be here this ship would have been destroyed well before docking." That was good enough for Jason, who shrugged and cycled the outer hatch. The gangway that led down and away from the ship was empty, Jason half expected some sort of armed escort or at least a guard.
There must really be honor among thieves here.

             
They followed Dowarty at a snail's pace down the curving passageway until they came to a bank of lift doors within a larger room. The space also had a half-dozen other passageways branching out in all directions to other docking points. As they approached one of the lifts, the doors slid open and revealed what Jason had been expecting all along: armed guards. In addition to the guards, who looked to be pros, there was an alien of a species Jason couldn't place who looked like
she?
was probably a doctor and was pushing a type of wheelchair. The guards nodded respectfully at Dowarty, but kept their eyes on Jason and his crewmates.

              "Sir, we must get you to medical at once, there's no telling what some hack of a pirate medic has done to you," the doctor said in a distinctly feminine voice. As Dowarty sat in the chair Doc cleared his throat loudly.

              "
I
stabilized his condition by injecting class two medical nanites into his bloodstream to begin repairing the damage to his lungs due to the inhalation of caustic fumes, applied synthetic skin layers to the more severely burned areas of his epidermis, and kept him relaxed and asleep with a mild universal sedative so his body could begin to recuperate naturally. I can transmit his treatment record from my ship if you'd like." Doc's speech had that insufferable tone of superiority to it that Jason thought had been burned out of him by now. The other doctor simply stared at Doc and harrumphed before wheeling Dowarty back into the lift.

              "Please show our guests to the crew rest area while I'm being worked on," Dowarty ordered his armed escort as the doors slid shut to the lift. Jason looked to the hired goons expectantly.

              "This way," one said simply as he led the way to the far set of lift doors. They all climbed in, Crusher ducking a bit as he did so, and rode the lift tube into the heart of the ship they were docked to. Jason quickly gave up trying to keep track of where they were in the ship, the twists and turns were simply too convoluted. There was evidence everywhere of the heavy, and hasty, modifications the ship had gone through to be part of the linked space station that it helped comprise. But even within the chaos of the construction Jason could see a definite purpose, this was no haphazard idea that evolved slowly over time. The nature of The Complex distressed him greatly, there was no way in hell this sprang up just as a convenient dock for pirates and smugglers.

             
"You'll be staying in this area until called for," the same guard spoke to Jason as they approached a large set of heavy doors that were flanked by another pair of guards. "Do not try to escape, do not try and tamper with the ship's functions, and try not to kill any of your fellow low-life friends."

              "Escape?" Jason asked innocently. "That would imply we are prisoners. I'm just here for my just rewards for the safe return of your leader." The guard just stared at him with thinly veiled contempt and keyed the door open.

              "Get in, or you can go back to your ship and leave when you're given clearance." Jason shrugged and led the way in.
He didn't flinch or try to correct me when I mentioned Dowarty was in charge around here.
As soon as the door slid shut a familiar, and wholly unwelcome, ambiance assaulted his senses. It was the same miasma that clung to the walls of every seedy tavern or gamers hall they'd been in during their time on the job. It was an obnoxious combination of poor hygiene that manifested itself differently across a dozen different species as well as the spilled drinks, spilled bodily fluids, and whatever disgusting off-world muck was treaded in on boots.