Omega Force 6: Secret of the Phoenix (7 page)

Chapter 7

Jason landed hard on his back, stunning him and sending blood flying from the pressure cut on his cheek. He rolled quickly to his right to avoid the huge boot that slammed down where his head had just been and rolled backwards to spring up onto his feet. He instantly went into a modified fighting stance and brought his guard up.

“You will never beat him if you do not press the attack!” Lucky shouted. “If you remain defensive you only allow your stronger opponent the opportunity to attack at will!” The battlesynth was walking around the periphery of the combat area, watching the pair closely.

Jason sighed and braced himself for the inevitable. He pushed off with his right foot and feinted an elbow to the head before dropping his body, pivoting hard at the hips, and driving his left fist into Crusher’s midsection. The clumsy gambit worked and the smile the warrior had been wearing was immediately replaced with a gasp of pain. Jason tried to continue his momentum and roll to Crusher’s left to get on his blind side, but the skilled warrior was too quick and grabbed Jason’s left forearm before he could even recoil from the blow he’d delivered.

Keeping a firm grip, Crusher pulled Jason in close and brought his right elbow up, intent on driving it into the crown of the human’s skull. Being off balance and having little other choice, Jason broke the rules and headbutted Crusher square in the mouth, driving his lips onto his razor-sharp teeth. The warrior howled and let go, but not before delivering a kick that sent Jason flipping away and landing flat on his face.

“So now we just ignore the rules?” Crusher snarled. “You’ll regret that.”

“You bit me earlier, fucker!” Jason said between breaths as he leapt to his feet, his entire body hurting. “Now we’re even.”

“Not yet we aren’t,” Crusher said and lunged at Jason with a roar. Years ago this would have caused Jason to likely piss himself with fear, but now that he was stronger and faster than he’d ever been, not to mention accustomed to the racket the big warrior raised, he was able to stand his ground and keep his wits about him.

He knew Crusher was about to fully commit to the charge and leave his feet, so his timing would have to be perfect. Sure enough, he saw Crusher push off and launch himself through the air, intent on hitting Jason with enough kinetic force to end the fight. As soon as he launched himself, Jason dropped and rolled onto his back, tucking his knees up to his chest as he did. Crusher sailed over Jason, grasping at him with his hands as he realized his mistake. Jason let his roll plant him up onto his shoulder blades and then thrust his feet up with all the strength he could muster. The results were dramatic.

He hit Crusher slightly off center and could feel his right ankle roll and the tendons scream in pain, but the force of both feet was enough to send the three hundred and twenty pound warrior up and over with enough velocity that he slammed into the armory door with a tremendous thud and collapsed onto the floor in a heap.

“Match!” Lucky said loudly. “Winner by knockout—”

“I’m up!” Crusher shouted, climbing unsteadily to his feet and swaying dangerously. “I’m up!”

“Very well then,” Lucky corrected himself. “Match is a draw.”

“A draw!?”

“What the hell, Lucky!?”

“Neither of you was able to disable his opponent in the allotted time,” the battlesynth said calmly, “so there is no winner. Crusher, you inflicted the most damage, but your theatrics and games let the captain get the better of you on more than one occasion. Captain, you are still not fully aware of the strength and speed you now possess. You let Crusher take the offensive on almost every interaction and tried to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike, but in the meantime your stronger opponent was able to inflict multiple injuries.”

“Fair enough,” Jason panted, blood and sweat dripping onto the cargo bay floor.

“Whatever,” Crusher said with a wave. He looked ready to walk back into the ship when he paused and turned to Jason. “Pay attention to what he tells you, Captain. That was a good fight and I think you’re a match for many of Captain Reddix’s Marines. Imagine what you could do if you started to trust in your own abilities more.” Jason didn’t respond as Crusher opened the armory door and exited the cargo hold.

“He’s too strong, too fast, and he has eyes in the back of his head,” he said once Crusher was gone.

“Would you like my advice, Captain?” Lucky said.

“Always.”

“It may be unfair to use sparring sessions with Crusher to judge your own progress. He is by far the most skilled fighter I’ve ever encountered and he is from a race of born warriors. He is also competitive to the point that he will do everything short of maiming or killing you just so he can win, even against his commanding officer and even in a training match.

“There is a dichotomy to you that I am still trying to figure out,” Lucky continued. “When you are flying this ship in combat you are aggressive, routinely engaging superior forces. The weaker your position, the more aggressive you become. But when you spar with Crusher, your opening move is often a defensive stance and you never recover from that. It’s obvious you are not afraid or adverse to pain, so I feel like it must be something else.” Jason was genuinely surprised at Lucky’s psychoanalysis of him, both that he had given it that much thought and that he seemed to be fairly accurate in his assessment.

“I wish I had a simple answer for you, buddy,” Jason said, walking towards the open armory door. “I’ll do better next time. Thanks for the coaching.”

“Of course, Captain,” Lucky said with pride. “I have been very pleased with your progress since we started.”

****

“So there it is,” Kage said. “Beautiful planet DC915. I can’t believe we haven’t come here before for vacation.”

“Funny,” Jason said. “How about getting me a scan of the surface and surrounding space whenever you get the chance.”

“I’ve already got it coming up,” Kage said. “You know, Captain … I’m beginning to think you don’t appreciate the unique contributions I make to this team, multitasking being the least among them.” Jason glanced over at his diminutive friend, but decided not to respond.

“How about you multitask a verbal report for those of us not looking at a terminal?” Crusher asked from the front of the bridge.

“There’s a multifunction terminal right behind you,” Kage said.

“So?”

“It’s dry and hot down there,” Kage said, deciding not to push back too hard on Crusher. He wasn’t sure what had been going on in the cargo bay, but Jason and Crusher both looked like they’d tried to ride on the wing of the ship during atmospheric entry. “Completely void of any life or signs of civilization, but I am seeing what looks like Naleem’s old excavation site. It’s the only concentration of refined metals on the surface. No energy signatures anywhere in the system other than us.”

“None?” Naleem asked, seeming concerned.

“Nope,” Kage answered.

“Expecting someone?” Jason asked.

“I was expecting my camp to still have equipment powered up, Captain,” she answered. “The generator must have gone offline while I was gone.”

“We’ll soon find out. Plot me an entry vector,” Jason said. “Nothing too aggressive. Put us over the site so we can get some visual scans from high altitude and then we’ll double back and set down.”

“Coming up,” Kage said as he input the parameters into his navigation panel.

They had to complete four orbits of the planet before the computer took control of the helm and slowed the ship for the entry sequence. Jason didn’t mind the negligible delay since it gave them that much more time to scan the surface and surrounding space before committing to a landing.

Once the canopy cleared and Jason got his first real look at the planet, he was taken aback by how truly forbidding the terrain was. Miles of sand dunes peppered with a few rock outcroppings for variety. Deep space was such an abstract concept to the human brain that he just accepted it at face value. Planets like this, however, made him realize how far away from rescue they really were if something went wrong. If the
Phoenix
lost power or had a major system breakdown that affected life support there was no way they’d survive on planet DC915 for more than a few days at best. If anyone ever happened by all they would find was a sandblasted DL7, six skeletons from six different species, and one extremely bored battlesynth.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection off his multifunction display as he overflew the site so Kage could get some detailed visual scans. He still looked like he’d been beaten by a gang of hoodlums wielding sections of pipe, but he was greatly impressed at how fast he was able to heal thanks to Doc’s genetic tweaks coupled with the nanobots coursing through his bloodstream. The only downside was that he was constantly hungry while healing. No matter how much he ate, he would be back in the galley a couple hours later stuffing his face with a tray full of high-energy, high-protein food.

As bad as he looked, he didn’t really feel that banged up other than the really big bruises. The process that had reinforced his skeleton kept his joints from aching, which was always the part he hated most about vigorous training. He figured in another two or three days he’d be ready to go at it again. He took particular pleasure in watching Crusher gingerly lower himself into his seat and try to hide the slight limp he still had.

“Site is completely clear, Captain,” Kage said, shaking him out of his thoughts. “I’d suggest landing up on the north side of the camp. Radar suggests that there’s solid rock less than half a meter under the sand. Otherwise we’ll need to get creative to keep the ship from sinking.”

“The north side was actually our landing pad,” Naleem spoke up. “It was clear the last time I was here, a testament to how fast the sand will swallow things left unattended on this world.”

“We don’t have any excavation equipment onboard,” Jason said. “How do you plan to clear all this sand away from your site?”

“If you can restore power to my camp I have the equipment to remove the sand,” she said confidently.

“If it can be fixed, Twingo will get it running,” Jason said as he cycled the landing gear and swung the nose around so that the ramp would be facing the half-buried dig site.

“Speaking of which,” Twingo said, rising from his seat and walking over to Jason’s seat. “Let me show you how to set the navigational shields up so we can keep the sand off the ship. If we spend any length of time here it could cause me some real headaches later.” The engineer went about entering a series of specialized commands that would allow the dorsal shield arrays to provide coverage from the nose to the tail, leaving only the ramp exposed, while the ship still had weight-on-wheels. Normally the nav shields could only be deployed once out of an atmosphere and certainly not when the ship was sitting on the surface. The combat shields could, but the power drain, not to mention wear and tear on the emitters, wasn’t worth it just to keep the sand from blowing on them.

“Captain,” Lucky said from behind him, “if it is all the same to you, I would rather stay on the ship for this phase of the mission. The dirt of Yeema-3 was difficult enough to clean out of my joints, I can only imagine what this would be like.”

“No worries,” Jason said. “Crusher! Suit up, we’re going outside.” Crusher walked out without a word but fixed a hate-filled glare on Lucky as he passed by. Jason was certain if the battlesynth had a mouth one corner would be upturned in a self-satisfied smirk.

Jason followed Crusher off the bridge and down to the armory. There was no way in hell he was going to walk out into the fine, blowing grit of DC915 with just his uniform and a dust mask. While he knew he’d regret it when he had to spend hours cleaning the unit later, he would be enjoying the arid, dirty environment from the comfortable confines of his powered armor.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Crusher said as he watched Jason lift himself up into the rack and slide into the armor, “but I wish I had one of those.”

“It comes in handy from time to time,” Jason said, his voice becoming muffled as the armor closed around him. There was a twitch and then the ensconced human stepped off the maintenance rack and onto the deck with a
boom
. “I am worried about the extra weight though.”

“You probably still don’t weigh as much as I do even in that,” Crusher argued.

“Considerably more, actually,” Jason said. “Doc’s treatments have increased my muscle density so that I’m tipping the scales at two-seventy. Not only that, I have smaller feet.”

“My heart will bleed for you as I’m sneezing out fine sand for the next few days,” Crusher said before walking out of the room. Jason went to follow him and stopped at the wall rack full of personal weaponry. He shrugged and grabbed a pistol and a plasma rifle before retracting his helmet and walking out into the cargo bay to check on the rest of the team.

When he arrived he saw Crusher slipping on a full coverall that came with its own helmet, rebreather, and climate control unit. Apparently Twingo had been busy since they made orbit and learned of the planet’s atmosphere, making full environmental suits for everyone that would be disembarking. The suits were not nearly as cumbersome as an EVA suit used in space, but they would still offer full protection from the hostile environment outside.