Omega Force 6: Secret of the Phoenix (21 page)

“Captain Burke!” a familiar voice called out from the hangar entrance. He looked over and saw one of his close friends walking towards the ship. “Captain Mazer Reddix, Galvetic Marine Detachment Alpha reporting for duty, sir!” There were four hard-looking warriors arrayed out behind Mazer.

“You really want to come along on this crazy ride?” Jason asked him, a lopsided grin on his face.

“We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, sir,” Mazer said. “We are on detached duty from the
Defiant
to the
Phoenix
for so long as we’re needed.”

“Crusher, see that our new crewmen have someplace to sleep,” Jason said.

“Yes, Captain,” Crusher said, forgoing the usual sarcastic comment. “Marines, grab your gear and follow me.”

“At once, Lord Archon,” Mazer said in the customary, albeit violent, Galvetic salute. Jason watched them go, shaking his head. Apparently Kellea felt he needed just a little bit more protecting and had sent a few of her Marines to reinforce Lucky and Crusher. They would be a great asset in a fight, but he had some doubts about them on such a long, dangerous flight. They wouldn’t even have the cargo bay to burn off energy in once Twingo was finished.

He stepped up on the ramp and looked over the preparations. Pallets of raw materials and consumables sat secured under cargo nets on the right side of the hold. Hissing cryogenic tanks loaded with precious liquid hydrogen sat on the left. The tanks were being topped off before they were piped into the manifold Twingo had fabricated that would allow them to supplement the gunship’s fuel load. In front of the cryo tanks were pallets loaded down with spares that the engineer deemed to be high priority that their own fabricators weren’t able to produce. Jason opened up a note in his personal file via his neural link reminding him to try and con Crisstof out of some new fabricators for his ship.

“You’re all just thick as thieves now, aren’t you?” Twingo asked, using the new expression he’d picked up from Earth’s detective noir films he’d just discovered in Jason’s personal stash on the computer.

“Excuse me?” Jason asked.

“The Galvetic warriors,” Twingo said, nodding at the stairway. “They’re treating you differently after that business in the city. You and Lucky are both in the club now.”

“I’ll admit, I have noticed a difference,” Jason said. “To be honest it bothers me a bit because it means they probably didn’t think that much of me before.”

“Eh,” Twingo scoffed. “You know how warriors are. Strange fellows. Anyway, we’re loaded up and ready to fly. She’s patched up and fully mission capable, but we could use a nice long stay at a well-appointed shipyard once we get through this mission.”

“Consider it done,” Jason said. “Let’s pick someplace that has nice beaches.”

“Absolutely.”

“
Captain
,” Lucky’s voice came over the intercom in the cargo bay. “
The Defiant has just sent a priority message. Two ConFed battleships have just entered the system with their support ships, twelve ships in total
.”

“Two full battleship groups?” Twingo gaped. “They are not messing about with this, are they?”

“Lucky, tell the
Defiant
that I said get out of here,” Jason said as he closed up the ramp and the pressure doors. “We’ll be departing in a few minutes and do not need any sort of distraction.” He and Twingo raced up the steps and made their way to the bridge as fast as they could. By the time he got there it was a bit of a crowd as all the Omega Force crew was there plus two Galvetic Marines.

“Prep the ship for launch,” Jason ordered. “Are the two battleships talking?”

“Yes,” Kage said. “They’ve been broadcasting vague demands that we return a stolen artifact or some such nonsense. They won’t come out and say that they’re looking for the Key.”

“So it’s likely only a few people on that armada have any idea what they’re actually going after,” Jason surmised. “Ignore all communications. Twingo, how long?”

“Grav-drive will be up in less than a minute,” the engineer reported. “You can go ahead and taxi out of the hangar.” Jason checked all the external hatches one more time on his display and then began backing the ship out of the hangar, trying to keep to the same path Doc had used on the way in so he didn’t get hung up on some of the larger chunks of debris that littered the area.

“Let the
Defiant
know we’re lifting off now,” Jason said as he fed power to the drive and launched the
Phoenix
into the air. “Tell De’Elefor to stay inside while you’re at it. Where is the ConFed fleet?”

“They’re just now crossing the orbit of the seventh planet,” Doc said. “They’re at a fairly leisurely pace. Two corvettes have peeled off and are chasing the
Defiant
but Kellea is too far away. They’ll mesh out long before the ConFed can get close.”

“Kage, get us a departure vector,” Jason said as he guided the gunship out of the atmosphere of A’arcoon. “Give me a course that isn’t a direct line to the Machine. Even though they probably know where it is I’d rather not make it too easy for them. Prep a tachyon bomb for good measure.”

They meshed out of the system without incident, dropping a sensor-blinding tachyon charge on their way out. Jason executed a series of four dummy jumps, risking the fuel burn for the sake of operational security. Once he was satisfied the ConFed wasn’t going to jump two battleships all over the sector trying to intercept them he turned onto their final course and activated the slip-drive for the first burn of a very long voyage.

Chapter 21

It was a full week before Twingo called for their first drop from slip-space so he could inspect the engines along with the rest of the ship. This was fairly standard procedure for long flights, but for the expanded crew it was the most exciting thing that had happened since they’d departed the A’arcoon System.

“This will go much faster if all of you would clear the area and let me work,” Twingo said, struggling to control his temper.

“Sorry,” Jason said, stepping out of the way.

“So where are we at?” Crusher asked as they walked back to the galley.

“We’re well beyond the fringe,” Jason said. “We’re not exactly in unexplored space, but nothing we’ve been flying by for the last three days has a name other than a survey designator.”

“I’m not all that fond of long space flights,” Crusher stated.

“I’ve never noticed,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “Just try not to think about the distance.”

“We always measure distance in flight time, so do I even want to know just how far away from any known planet we really are?”

“Probably not,” Jason said. “It’s an abstract number anyway. It’s not like it actually means anything. A lot of the problems are the same we always have. A hull breach or anti-matter containment failure in low orbit will kill us just as quickly as it will in interstellar space.”

“Are you actually trying to make me feel better about this?” Crusher asked.

“Not really,” Jason admitted. “So how are the Marines settling in? I haven’t seen much of them.”

“Mazer asked Doc to heavily sedate them for the first half of the flight,” Crusher said. “They’re sleeping most of the day and only taking one meal. Once we cross the halfway point they’ll get back on regular cycles and make sure they’re ready when we reach the Machine.”

“He volunteered for this?” Jason asked.

“Yes. He said if they were asleep they would use less oxygen, less food, and would be out of everyone’s way,” Crusher shrugged. “I just think they don’t want to be awake for a full six-week flight. I’m starting to think about joining them.”

“Don’t you dare,” Jason warned. “We’re out in unknown space with unknown dangers. If we run into some unfriendly aliens I don’t want you in a coma.”

“It was just an idea.”

“We’re ready to go,” Twingo said, walking back out of the engineering spaces. “Fuel burn is a little more than I expected but still well within the limits. Keep us at sixty percent power for twelve hours and then I’ll see if we’re clear to run up to eighty-five.”

“Will do,” Jason said, walking back up to the bridge to engage the slip-drive.

****

“
Captain Burke, report to the bridge.
” Kage’s voice woke Jason up from an extremely pleasant dream that involved endless white beaches, fruity drinks, and a certain starship captain.

“On my way,” he said after clearing his throat. He slid his boots back on and jogged up to the bridge to see that they were still in the middle of night watch. Kage and Lucky weren’t the only ones on the bridge, however. Somehow Cas had activated the hologram on his own and was standing near the canopy, looking at the canopy’s simulated star field.

“What’s up?”

“Cas says we need to change course,” Kage said.

“Care to explain, Cas?” Jason asked.

“After we left the A’arcoon System I was able to analyze our course more carefully from the information in my database,” Cas said. “One potential hazard flagged along your current flight path. My latest analysis indicates that an exceedingly aggressive species may have developed sufficient technology by now to intercept your vessel.”

“How old is your information?” Jason asked.

“The last survey I have record of dates back over two thousand years,” Cas said. “By that time they had already begun to put small satellites into orbit.”

“So it’s possible they’re already extinct or had a few societal collapses in that time,” Jason said. “Especially if they’re as aggressive as you say.”

“You misunderstand, Captain,” Cas said. “They were not aggressive amongst themselves. Of the two intelligent species on their homeworld they were the most ruthless, the most savage. The probability is extremely high that they have eliminated the other species by now and continued to develop more powerful weapons as they discovered the nature of a universe inhabited by other species.”

“Great,” Jason sighed heavily. “Why didn’t you mention something about this before?”

“The database I pull knowledge from is immense,” Cas said. “I do not have the processing power to be aware of it in its entirety. Once the projected flight path of this ship was determined, I was able to refine my search and extrapolate probabilities based on known data, some of which is admittedly quite out of date.”

“If they can intercept us that means their sphere of influence is probably enormous by now,” Kage said. “How far will we have to deviate to avoid them? Can we even do it at all?”

“The data I have on the species indicates that they are not prone to blind exploration,” Cas said. “There is a ninety-six percent probability that they have not ranged more than twenty lightyears beyond their own planet.”

“Why twenty lightyears?” Jason asked.

“That was the closest sentient species to them at the time of the survey,” Cas said. “It is likely that they would have viewed them as a threat and taken steps to eliminate them.”

“Calculate the course correction,” Jason said in a disgusted tone. “Give us a little bit of a cushion and leave a message in Twingo’s inbox to recheck his fuel burn rates. We should have enough to get back, but we can’t afford any more surprises.”

“I do not foresee any other needed course corrections,” Cas said.

“You didn’t foresee this one when it would have done the most good,” Jason pointed out. “By the way, I thought you weren’t able to turn yourself on and off.”

“I never indicated either way,” Cas said. “I cannot anticipate any assumptions you might make about my operation.”

Jason gave the non-sentient program a glare before walking off the bridge.

“So what exactly is that thing?” Crusher asked when Jason walked into the galley muttering to himself.

“Think of it as an interactive user manual for the Machine,” Jason said. “I can’t shake the feeling that despite its claims otherwise it has its own agenda.”

“Like what?”

“Hell if I know,” Jason said. “It just asked for a course correction to fly around a hostile species that it claims it just remembered.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Crusher said, turning back to his meal.

“That makes two of us,” Jason said over his shoulder as he went back to his quarters.

****

The next unscheduled stop they had to make was due to a phase variance in the slip-drive that had Twingo concerned. After four hours outside the ship during an EVA he determined that there was nothing actually wrong with the drive and he needed to replace the feedback transducer that was providing the computer with faulty data.

Jason told him to stay out on the wing and he’d bring the part out. He suited up in an EVA suit that was woefully inadequate compared to the heavy armor he’d become so accustomed to, but it did offer quite a bit more mobility. After slipping into the pressure suit, Crusher helped him don the outer layer along with the rebreather apparatus and helmet.

After a final pressure check of his gear, Jason grabbed the part and squeezed into the dorsal airlock chamber located in the port engineering bay. It was the only thing in the bay besides the fabricators and the backup fusion reactor, but it was still only large enough to allow one person in at a time. As the DL7 was a warship the designers had tried to limit the number of potential entries for enemy boarders.

Once the airlock had pumped down, and he had triple-checked his suit, the dorsal hatch popped and swung up and out of the way. He climbed the ladder and energized the mag-locks in his boots before climbing out onto the hull. Twingo had the service spotlights on the tips of the vertical stabilizers aimed onto the starboard wing where he was working so the area where Jason was standing was still so dark he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He walked slowly over to where the engineer was impatiently waiting by an open access panel.

“Could you have possibly taken any longer?” the engineer snapped. “I could have made the trip three times by now.”

Jason couldn’t think of a valid argument, so he simply handed the part over to his friend. Twingo snatched it and inspected the part before grunting and climbing back down into the open hatch.

“This isn’t too bad,” he said after a moment. “This is on the output control loop and not the plasma feed so we don’t have to shut the drive down.”

“That’s good,” Jason said absently. He was looking out at the vast blackness of space and trying to wrap his head around how far away they were from anything remotely resembling a rescue. His gaze left the stars and he looked over the dorsal surface of the
Phoenix
. She looked so incredibly small, a tiny little bubble into which eleven beings had stuffed themselves and were now attempting a journey of a distance so vast he couldn’t even comprehend it.

“Here,” Twingo said, handing up a D-ring attached to a piece of synthetic line. “Hook up your safety line. I’m going to have Kage throttle up the drive and make sure the new transducer is working before I bother closing all this back up.”

Even though there wasn’t any sensation of accelerating while they were anchored to the wing, Jason knew that on the off chance he fell off the ship would be an incredible distance away before they could get turned around and come back to look for him. He had an emergency beacon on his EVA suit, but he’d rather not find out the hard way if that didn’t work.

“Everything checks out,” Twingo said after talking with Kage over the com for a few minutes. “If you want you can go ahead and take these bad parts back in and I’ll get everything closed back up here.” Jason could tell when he was being dismissed so he reached down and collected the parts from Twingo, unhooked his safety line, and slowly made his way back to the open airlock hatch.

****

They were only a couple of days away from their destination when a strident alarm sounded through the ship during the early hours of first watch. Jason ran for the pilot’s seat just as the
Phoenix
shuddered and dropped out of slip-space. He looked at his multi-function display and saw the warnings telling him the fuel pressure was dropping in the manifold that fed the anti-matter generators. When he looked closer he saw that they were losing pressure on the main fuel feed, not just on the anti-matter side. He went to his engine management panel and performed an emergency shutdown on the drive just as Twingo came over the intercom.

“
Good call, Captain
,” he said, sounding harried. “
I was about request a drive stop. I’m shutting all the valves in the fuel system so you’re going to get a few more warnings. Have everyone stay out of the cargo bay and engineering areas
.”

“Make sure you’re wearing an O2 mask,” Jason said. “I’m sending Lucky to help you.” He killed the channel and then activated the intercom. “Lucky, report to Engineering to assist Twingo; everyone else report to the bridge.”

The lights flickered and dimmed as the ship switched over to backup power after Twingo killed the fuel feed to the reactor. Jason kept monitoring his instruments as the rest of the crew, including the five Marines, filtered onto the bridge, each wearing a concerned look. It was nearly thirty minutes of tense silence before Twingo called up to the bridge.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” he asked.

“Let’s go with the good news,” Jason said.

“I was able to save thirty percent of our auxiliary fuel supply.”

“And the bad news?” Jason asked, already dreading what he thought Twingo would say.

“We don’t have enough to get back to A’arcoon,” Twingo said. “If we press on we can make it to the Machine and then get about halfway back before we’re dead in space.”

“Have you corrected the problem?” Jason asked, rubbing his temples.

“Not fully. I still need to purge the atmosphere from the cargo bay without blowing the back half of the ship off and replace the coupling that failed between the cryo tanks and our primary fuel system,” Twingo said. “I’ll decontaminate the hold and then restart the reactor to get us off backup power. It will take me an hour or so after that to repair the auxiliary system and then reengage the feed.”

“Just do what you have to do,” Jason said. “Once you can break away, meet me in the common area. We’ve got some deciding to do.”

“This mission seems like it’s had a curse on it the entire time,” Kage said quietly.

“We’re flying under the shadow of something,” Jason agreed. “Everyone can go back down to the main deck. Once Twingo is finished we’ll meet in the lounge and figure out what we do from here.”

They all filtered out silently, leaving Jason and Kage alone on the bridge.

“Start calculating our best possible distance back towards known space if we started now,” Jason told him. “Make sure you’re running the numbers for best possible fuel conservation and not necessarily best speed.”