Omega Force 6: Secret of the Phoenix (11 page)

Chapter 12

The rest of the flight to the Tallin System passed uneventfully. If Naleem had any indication that she knew the crew suspected her she didn’t outwardly show it. Nul was as unreadable as always as he moved like a ghost through the ship. Jason kept up the appearance of casual indifference to his passengers, but he routinely had the computer play back security footage whenever it alerted him that either of the pair was nearing a sensitive area.

“Dropping out of slip-space in thirty seconds,” Kage announced as the rest of the crew filtered onto the bridge and took their positions. Jason didn’t respond as he shifted around uncomfortably in his seat. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was flying into a trap.

The ship shuddered slightly as the slip-space fields collapsed and the
Phoenix
was spit back out into real-space. The canopy cleared and all the primary systems came back online to show Jason that they were sitting alone in space near the sixth planet.

“Local space is empty,” Doc said. “There are two heavy haulers flying a slow arc towards Tallin Prime and some light shuttle traffic in orbit. Beginning long-range scans now.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. “I don’t believe you’ll find anything though. If we were flying into an ambush they’d have to be somewhere close.”

“What made you think there would be a trap?” Naleem asked innocently.

“Simple deduction,” Jason said without looking at her. “We’ve been attacked at every juncture during this mission. Someone knew where we were flying from and likely had a good idea of where we’d be flying to. It wouldn’t have been that surprising to see someone set up a picket line on this side of the system.”

“I see,” she said. “Maybe our luck is changing.”

Not likely.

“We’re cleared all the way to the surface,” Kage said. “Course will be up on your nav display.”

“You sound surprised,” Jason remarked.

“I am a bit,” Kage admitted. “I’ve never had a controller clear us for landing when we weren’t even close to making orbit yet.”

“Did they clear us for a particular spaceport or did they respond to a request?”

“They made contact first and already had our destination and landing berth indicated,” Kage said.

“That is somewhat unusual,” Jason said, eyeing Naleem. “Let’s stay sharp on the way in.”

Jason kept the ship at a stately pace through the system so that it took nearly thirteen hours to traverse the gap to the planet. If there was something waiting on them, or Naleem was involved, the extended flight would give them all time to have frayed nerves or show their hand early. For her part, Naleem appeared more bored than anything and even left the bridge halfway through the trip to go down to the galley.

Tallin Prime was a fairly nondescript planet. It was covered on sixty-five percent of its surface by a single ocean that was broken up by one meandering, irregularly shaped landmass. The spaceport they were directed to was near the equator and seemed to be a smaller feeder port to support the overflow traffic from the main commercial hub. The complex looked like it had been carved out of the surrounding rainforest, the tarmac a gray scar against the green canopy.

“This looks like an older port,” Kage said as the gunship rumbled its way down into the atmosphere. “I’m seeing gantry towers and flame pits on the eastern end of the complex that don’t look like they’ve been used in a while.”

“Equatorial sites are the most efficient if you’re using raw thrust to lift the load,” Jason agreed. “This may have been one of their first launch facilities.”

They continued their decent, flying in a wide circle around the spaceport before being given confirmation to begin their final approach. Jason flared, pulling the nose up slightly, before deploying the landing gear and settling the ship onto the surface.

“So I assume you know where the other part is on this planet?” Jason asked Naleem.

“I have reached out to my contact,” she said vaguely, holding up her personal com unit for him to see. “He should be here within the hour.”

“I can’t wait,” Jason said. “Lucky, Crusher … let’s go get ready to meet our guest. Everybody else can muster in the cargo bay and we’ll wait on the ramp.” Jason kept the engines up and all the primary flight systems running, although he did lock the controls out before climbing out of his seat and following Lucky off the bridge.

****

“Is that really necessary, Captain?” Naleem said in a clipped tone.

“It is until I deem otherwise,” Jason answered, his amplified voice coming from his armor’s helmet harshly. “If you were a little more forthcoming with the details I might be more inclined to relax my guard.” She turned her head away and decided not to answer him. Jason, Lucky, and Crusher were fully armed and standing at the bottom of the ramp with Naleem and Nul. He’d also deployed the
Phoenix’s
rear guns from their recesses on either side of the ramp and had Kage and Doc on the bridge monitoring com traffic and the local airspace.

Naleem’s com unit beeped and she read the message before putting the unit back into her loose garment’s front pocket. “He will be here within ten minutes,” she said.

“Can’t wait,” Jason muttered.

Seven minutes later they felt the dull rumbling of an inbound ship that was approaching from their blind side directly over the
Phoenix
. The sound was oddly familiar.

“
Captain, we’ve got a ship getting ready to land near us
,” Kage said over the crew’s tactical com channel. “
There’s no way this is a coincidence
.”

Before Jason could ask Kage to clarify a familiar shape flew overhead before flaring to land. He could only look on in shock as another DL7 gunship bounced to a rough landing forty meters off of the tail of the
Phoenix
. The other ship had certainly seen better days and Jason could see that it appeared to be a first generation ship from the engine configuration, the direct predecessor to the
Phoenix
.

“Well, this is interesting,” Crusher rumbled, hefting his plasma rifle. Jason gripped his large railgun reflexively, taking comfort in the weapon’s weight and destructive potential.

“You could say that,” Jason said. The other ship sat motionless for the next five minutes before the ramp dropped down with a noisy crash and three bipedal aliens came strolling out of the hold, walking up to them as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Jason glanced at Naleem and saw that she had a warm smile on her face as she watched the approaching trio.

“That’s far enough,” Jason said loudly when the group was within ten meters.

“Oh?” the lead alien asked. Jason could see he was the same species as Naleem, but appeared to be heavily disfigured on his right side. “Is there some problem?” Jason was unnerved by the way the alien’s eyes roamed hungrily over the
Phoenix
.

“There might be,” Jason said. “But we don’t know you and I’d rather not let you get too close to my ship if you don’t mind.”

“
Your
ship?” the alien said. His companions seemed to think that the comment was incredibly funny.

“I didn’t catch your name,” Jason said, ignoring his still-laughing companions.

“My name is El,” the alien said. “Klegsh El.
Captain
Klegsh El, and as a point of fact, you’re standing in front of
my
ship.”

Chapter 13

“Klegsh,” Jason said, recovering quickly. “I always assumed you were dead.”

“Your friend Deetz wasn’t quite so thorough,” Klegsh said, taking another step forward.

“You may be overstating my relationship with Deetz,” Jason said. “And if you take one more step I’m going to let Lucky do to you what he did to that synth and separate your head from your body.” Klegsh looked over at Crusher and Lucky, apparently unsure which was which, but stopped where he was.

“Did you forget what I just said?” Klegsh said, smiling. “This is my ship.” He pulled a com unit out and spoke a coded message into it in a language Jason didn’t know. He looked up at the rear-facing cannons that were still tracking his men. Frowning, he spoke into the com unit again.

“Oh, I guess I should have told you that I’ve made some improvements since I took possession,” Jason said. “Any embedded coding you had in the main computer to reassert authority over the ship won’t do you any good. That computer core is sitting in a trash heap somewhere.” The smile slid from Klegsh’s face as he seemed to realize his dream of marching back up onto the bridge of the DL7 was dashed. Jason was about to open his mouth to provide another taunt when he felt a metallic
clang
against his armor.

Naleem walked from behind him, a remote with a flashing red light in her hand. “There is now a powerful explosive attached to your armor, Captain Burke,” she said, smiling. “I had actually brought it out for your battlesynth but you obligingly put on your ridiculous metal suit. Thank you for that.” She walked across the tarmac and stood next to Klegsh.

“Now,
Captain
Burke,” Klegsh said. “You will disable the rear guns on the
Katan
and allow my men to retrieve some items from the cargo bay. I’m not so foolish to think you’ll allow me to board without your remaining crew attacking me.”

“A fair assumption,” Jason ground out, furious at having been so easily outmaneuvered. “But why should I bother? You’re going to detonate this charge regardless.”

“Probably,” Klegsh admitted. “But wouldn’t you rather have the time it will take for us to board our ship and leave so that you can go through the futile motions of trying to disable the device?”

“Fair enough,” Jason said, forcing his voice to remain calm. He reached out with his implants and told the ship to retract the rear cannons.

“Impressive,” Klegsh said. “I see you’ve been busy since that back-stabbing synth left us to die on Oltrest.”

“Just get your gear and get out,” Jason said.

As Klegsh’s two crewmen scampered up into the cargo bay and grabbed a crate each, one of them the case holding the antenna, Nul procured a weapon and was now covering Crusher and Lucky, both of whom looked eager to kill him.

“Given the shared name, I’m guessing Naleem is your what? Daughter?” Jason asked.

“Yes,” Klegsh answered. “She was the one who began the quest for the key. When Deetz stole the
Katan
we assumed he and Bondrass had made a deal behind my back. But it seems he had his own plan at work. I assume you’ve never met Bondrass?”

“Oh yes, I’ve had the pleasure,” Jason said. He was trying not to appear distracted while he watched his armor run through a series of exploratory probes of the device affixed to his back. “He tried to have me sold at The Vault.”

“And yet here you are. I see he must have had a change of heart.”

“No,” Jason said. “Instead I stole this ship, his cargo ship full of treasure, and then had him killed.” The offhand manner in which Jason discussed dispatching such a feared figure from the underworld had the desired effect. Klegsh looked genuinely startled and a lot more cautious.

“This is everything,” Naleem announced as she led the crewman away after verifying the crate contents. “We’ll just be on our way. No hard feelings, Captain,”

“None at all,” Jason said with a cold smile. She waved the detonator at him as she walked away.

“Don’t try anything stupid,” she said over her shoulder. Klegsh followed the rest of them, walking backwards and keeping his weapon trained on the trio before he felt he was at a safe range. Nul, however, stood close by with his weapon loosely held in his hands.

“You’re gonna miss your ride,” Jason said to him.

“I am here to ensure their safe departure,” Nul said. “I will find my own way after they have left.” Jason redeployed his helmet so he could open a secure com channel to his crewmates.

“Lucky, I don’t think I can pop this bomb off without it detonating,” he said. “I can create a reverse polarity field to detach it, but it’ll probably just blow and kill me along with damaging the ship.”

“
What do you plan to do?
” Lucky asked over the com channel.

“I’m going to eject out of this thing,” Jason said. “The bomb will still be attached to the back plate when it jettisons. I need you to grab that piece of armor and throw it towards that other gun ship as hard as you can. Crusher, I need you to take out Nul.” Crusher just nodded his head to signal he understood. “Okay … on my signal.”

“Do not do anything foolish, Captain,” Nul warned, turning his weapon toward him. Jason held his railgun out and let it fall to the tarmac. He could see Naleem and her father were just then boarding the other ship so he’d have to move fast. Nul visibly relaxed when Jason disarmed himself, obviously feeling safe in the assumption that the others wouldn’t act with him still in such a compromising position.

Jason quickly initiated the ejection sequence for his armor. It beeped twice and then explosive charges sent the pieces of the unit flying away in all directions. Nul flinched and it was all the distraction Crusher needed to be on top of him. Jason had assumed Crusher would just shoot him, but he couldn’t worry about that as he spun about to see where the piece of armor with the bomb attached had landed.

Lucky had sprung into action a millisecond after Jason had jettisoned his armor. The battlesynth fired his repulsors and sailed across the tarmac to where Jason stood, grabbing the back plate as it fell back to the ground. He spun and flung it towards the other DL7 like a misshapen discus. It landed with a clatter and slid all the way up under the starboard wing of the other ship.

Jason nodded to Lucky and turned in time to see Crusher and Nul squared off, the latter cradling his left arm to his chest. The big warrior wasn’t going to make the same mistakes he had in their first encounter and kept the smaller, nimbler alien in front of him and only committed to strikes he knew he could land. After a few feints Crusher moved in and, with a roar, raked his claws down the front of Nul, ripping deep into the flesh. As Nul staggered back, Crusher finished him with an overhead blow that drove his head down, shattering his spine.

“Let’s get inside,” Jason said, kicking his sabatons off his feet, the only part of the armor he’d still been wearing, and ran up to the ramp. They turned and watched as the other DL7 rose into the air. It was probably fifty feet off the deck before Naleem grew impatient and pressed the button on the detonator. The bomb exploded with tremendous force and Jason knew if he’d still been wearing it the concussion would have at least seriously injured him, probably even killed him. But with the back plate resting freely on top of it all the bomb’s energy sent the piece of armor flying upward with enough velocity that it struck the DL7’s starboard engine emitter.

The ship began to list hard to starboard before the repulsors could cut in and level it back out. Jason watched as the grav-drive emitters along the trailing edges of the wing dimmed as the impact forced the drive into a safe mode. Klegsh was able to keep the ship airborne and started the Jepsen main engines in order to get them out of the area.

“Go! Get into the ship!” Jason yelled at his crewmates. “Kage, get the shields up!” He hoped his friend was able to respond in time as he was certain about what was going to happen next.

Sure enough, he heard the other DL7 throttle up and approach. A second later the
Phoenix
was rocked as Klegsh hit them with a particle cannon before racing out of the area. “At least he didn’t just camp overhead and blow the shit out of us,” Jason said.

“I think getting hit with their own bomb flustered them,” Crusher said as the three of them raced through the ship on the way to the bridge.

“Repulsors are coming online and the mains should be running in a second,” Kage said, already in the co-pilot seat when Jason rushed onto the bridge. “He depolarized the port grav emitter with that shot so we won’t have grav-drive or slip-drive for at least ten minutes. Why are you in your underwear?”

“Get all the tactical systems online,” Jason said, ignoring him. “Full combat mode. Doc, keep track of that ship.” He fed power to the ventral repulsors and lifted the
Phoenix
off the ramp. By the time he’d gotten one hundred feet of altitude the mains came online with their reassuring
boom
that could be felt through the hull.

“Give me a plot to the other gunship on my tactical display,” Jason ordered as he powered up and began integrating himself into the ship. He saw a highlighted reticle appear that indicated the fleeing ship was already over the horizon and running fast along the deck. He slammed the throttle down and the
Phoenix
thundered away from the spaceport, her Eshquarian engines giving them a much needed advantage in speed and acceleration.

“They’ve got a big lead on us,” Kage said. “Even with the new engines we probably can’t catch them before they break for orbit.”

“It doesn’t look like they’re trying to run for space though,” Jason said as he let the
Phoenix
climb up to twenty-five thousand feet. “They’re still hugging the ground.”

“He’s probably flogging his engineer to get their grav-drive back online,” Twingo said. “In open space without it they wouldn’t stand a chance against a long-range missile, not to mention they have no idea how long our grav-drive will take to reset. They may be trying to disappear into the ground clutter.”

“I guess he doesn’t know our new sensor suite isn’t so easily fooled,” Jason said.

“Maybe he does,” Kage said. “Incoming com channel request from that ship.”

“Put it through but keep a sharp eye on your sensors,” Jason said. “They’re probably trying for a distraction.”

“Captain,” Klegsh said with a wide smile, apparently sitting in the command seat of the DL7’s bridge. Jason had long ago removed that seat and opted to pilot the
Phoenix
himself. “This is a pointless pursuit. Your grav-drive is also out and I would think even someone as inexperienced as you knows that a ship cannot catch an identical ship, especially when we have such a large lead.”

“I can see you’re a little detached sitting on your little throne there,” Jason said. “Might want to check with your sensor operator.” Klegsh looked off-screen with a look of annoyance on his face. The look morphed into one of shock and concern as he received his answer.

“I guess the
Katan
has been modified beyond the computer,” Klegsh said.

“So what is your master plan?” Jason asked. “It seems a little short-sighted of you to run considering you left the parts to the key here on my ship.”

“You still only have the piece you’ve always had, Captain,” Naleem said, stepping into the frame. “We have the antenna and you will follow your predictable pattern and give chase.”

“Are you sure you have the antenna?” Jason asked. He was keeping them talking as long as he could as the
Phoenix
chewed up their lead. The only trick was that he had to also fly the ship while talking to Klegsh and the other gunship’s pilot could concentrate only on flying. The
Phoenix
did have one other advantage in that Jason had put her up in the smooth, fast air and was flying a direct line while the other ship wasted speed and momentum hugging the terrain.

“You mean this one?” Naleem said, holding up the case that had been inside the black transit crate they’d taken from the cargo hold. Jason gestured to Twingo to come forward.

“No, I mean this one,” he said as Twingo held up the golden, flattened ring of the antenna for her to see. The engineer smiled hugely and waved before walking back out of the frame. Naleem tore open the case and saw the small device inside that Twingo had rigged that mimicked the radiated emissions the ancient device had been putting out. There was even a mocked-up golden ring in there but it wouldn’t have passed a very close inspection. She let out a feral scream and threw the case across the bridge, apparently striking a crew member judging by the yelp of pain.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she snarled, her urbane, polished mannerisms gone. “We originally just wanted the device. Now we will make you suffer.”

“Well, since we’re not going to be friends anymore I guess I should be completely honest with you,” Jason said. “If your pilot is drifting onto a northeast course because you think you can circle around behind us and pick up Nul we have some bad news. Crusher sort of accidentally bashed his skull in.”

“Sorry!” Crusher called loudly from off-camera.

If she was angry before, Naleem went into an absolute frenzy when she heard of Nul’s death. She was howling something unintelligible when Klegsh had her collected and taken off the bridge.