Omega Force: Savage Homecoming (7 page)

“I’m sorry—
” they said in unison. Laughing nervously, Jason waved for her to go first.

“I’m sorry I snuck onto your ship,” she started. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I just had this vision of you blasting off and leaving me again. I was afraid you’d just have the other ship take us back to Earth and I’d never see you again.”

“And I’m sorry for acting like an ass when Crusher found you,” Jason said, most of the fight taken out of him at her words. “I’m just afraid, Taryn. I know how these missions usually go, and I’m terrified about having you on board. I’m also afraid that it will make me hesitate at a crucial moment.”

“You know, that last time you came back to Earth and gave me all your stuff
… I still didn’t believe any of this was real,” she said. “I really thought you had been convinced to rejoin the military and were shipping out again to some God-forsaken place and you couldn’t tell me. I figured this wild tale of spaceships and aliens was just your own bizarre way of telling me goodbye without really saying it.”

“If only that we
re true,” Jason laughed. “It’s all very much real, some of it so wondrous I don’t have the words to describe it. But some of it is equally horrific, too. I had wondered why you seemed to take it all so well when I described everything to you.”

“So
… you’re really going to make me stay in the guest room?” she asked with a little smile.

“Well, I didn’t want to seem too presumptuous,” he said with a shrug. “You can sleep on the couch in the common area if you want.” She made a face of mock indignation while drawing back to slap him on the arm. Instead
, she stood quickly and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him softly before he had a chance to pull back or stop her.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
she asked, pulling him towards the bed.

“Which parts?”

“All of it,” she said with another kiss.

They talked long into the
“night” while the
Phoenix
continued her relentless pace towards the planet A’arcoon. Laying there with her tore down nearly all of his defenses, and he told her things that he would normally have protected her from. The joys of helping people who had lost all hope, the horrors of the mission that almost cost them their lives and nearly the
Phoenix
herself, and above it all the trust he had in his crew and his pride in serving with them.

The next morning, or at least morning according to ship’s time, Taryn left a still-sleeping Jason and padded out of his stateroom for the galley. She paused momentarily at the entrance to the common area when she caught sight of a solitary Crusher sitting at one of the tables. She saw one of his ears twitch and knew that the fearsome being likely knew she was there.

Striding towards the galley with a confidence she didn’t feel
, she went to the processor and asked for a mug of chroot, the closest thing to coffee the
Phoenix
could make, and walked over to sit across from the hulking warrior.

“Excuse me,” his bass voice rumbled as he got up to leave her in peace, painfully aware of how uncomfortable she was around him.

“Please stay,” she said quickly, actually reaching out her right hand to cover his massive, clawed left one. He sank back into the seat and looked across the table at her. The fierce intelligence that blazed in those yellow eyes sent an involuntary shiver up her spine. “I owe you an apology, Crusher.”

“You owe me nothing of the sort,” he said.

“I do,” she insisted. “I behaved badly when I first met you. I was frightened by everything that was happening, but I shouldn’t have kept quaking in fear every time you came near me. I’m sorry. The funny thing is that I recognized who you were immediately, but I couldn’t believe you were real.”

“You’ve lost me
, I’m afraid,” Crusher said, relaxing a bit now in his chair.

“Jason
has sent me written messages describing each of you along with some somewhat vague descriptions of your missions,” she said. “I had thought he was just playing a game with me, trying to alleviate the fear I always felt when he would go away when he was in the military on our world.” She paused to take a sip of the bitter drink and chuckled to herself a moment before continuing.

“When Earth was attacked
, I began to realize that all his adventures were real. And if they were real, all of you were real as well. He’s told me how many times you’ve saved his life, so on top of an apology I owe you a heartfelt thank you.”

“He may have exaggerated my role a bit,” Crusher said, uncomfortable with the direct praise. “We all do make a formidable team though.” She smiled at him and
laughed lightly at how someone so strong could squirm from something as small as a compliment.

“So your name is not
really
Crusher is it?” Crusher seemed genuinely taken aback by the question.

“Well
… no, it’s not. But it fits me. My true name, and identity, could be problematic for a number of reasons, so for now Crusher works,” he said. “I’d appreciate a certain amount of discretion with that information,” he added quickly.

“Your secret is safe with me,” she said with a wink, causing Crusher to laugh out loud.

“What’s so funny?” an irritable Twingo grumbled as he walked into the galley.

“Nothing,” Crusher said. “Why are you so moody?”

“I can’t sleep well in my quarters when the engines are wound up so high,” he said as he grabbed his breakfast and sat down to Taryn’s left. “The leakage from the field emitters messes with my implants and I keep getting vertigo. I woke up thinking I was falling out of my rack earlier.”

“Haven’t you ever thought about just grabbing a bunk in berthing?” Crusher asked him. The blank look on the engineer’s face plainly showed that he’d never thought of it.
The quarters for the chief engineer aboard a DL7 were located back directly off of one of the engineering bays, near the high-energy plasma conduits that fed into the gravimetric emitters that were along the trailing edges of the wings. Normally it wasn’t an issue, but when they were pushing the ship so hard there were some interesting side-effects.

“Good morning everybody,” Jason said as he walked from his quarters, fully dressed and cleaned up. “You eat already?”
he asked Taryn.

“I was waiting for you,” she smiled sweetly at him.

“Awww,” Twingo said as he looked up from his meal. “How cute.”

“You want to eat that tray along with your f
ood?” Jason asked him pointedly while grabbing a seat across from Taryn and next to Crusher.

“Why would you say something so mean to him?” Taryn admonished Jason before Twingo could defend himself, patting the alien’s hand.
Twingo assumed a disingenuous hurt expression and laid his ears flat against his head.

“Sometimes he beats me.”

“JASON!”

“That little blue-skinned bastard is a liar!” Jason nearly shouted
as he pointed at Twingo. “I’ve never struck him.”

“That’s not technically true, Captain,” Kage said as he ambled through the area on his way to take his turn at the processor. “Remember when—
”

“I’ve never hit him out of anger,” Jason amended quickly, glaring at Kage as he did.
Crusher just chuckled and stood up to leave.

“I’ll go prep our gear, Captain,” he said. “Set us up for the worst?”

“Yeah, you’d better go ahead and do that,” Jason said seriously. “No telling what we’ll see when we mesh in. I’m staying on the bridge, but I want you and Lucky in the cargo bay ready to rock and roll.”

“Will do.”

“Set up for the worst?” Taryn asked.

“The information on this planet was almost non-existent,” Twingo explained. “The ground team will arm up
for a full-out assault so we’re ready for anything when we drop out of slip-space.” As he was explaining this he was giving Jason an odd look. He had never known him to opt out of a possible ground operation to the point of not even getting into his armor before they meshed in.

Jason could see the gears turning in his friend’s head
, and if he was honest with himself he’d have to agree with him; he was making uncharacteristic decisions based on Taryn being onboard.
This could end up biting me in the ass later.

*****

“Five seconds until we mesh-in,” Kage reported from the left seat. Everyone except Lucky and Crusher were on the bridge. Those two were fully armed up and strapped down in the cargo bay as a contingency.

“Everybody
stay sharp,” Jason said unnecessarily, as he always did before they dropped into a potential hot zone. He saw the weapons and defensive systems were primed to go active as soon as the ship dropped back into real-space.

3
… 2 … 1 …

The
Phoenix
shuddered slightly as the slip fields collapsed and the universe spit her back into real-space. Jason scanned his displays, but the threat board was empty. “Call them out,” he said.

“Clear,” Kage said.

“Clear,” Doc repeated.

“All systems are full op, Captain,” Twingo reported. “We’re running hot and clean.”

“So there’s nothing here? At all?” Jason asked with a frown. There should have at least been a civilian presence in the system. They had jumped in just inside the debris field that was made up of the leftover material after the formation of the star system; this was called the Kuiper Belt in the Solar System.

“Nothing on passives, Captain,” Kage confirmed.

“Go active,” Jason ordered. “Short bursts.” The active tachyon-burst scanners were able to detect objects at a long range, in great detail, and in real-time despite the distances. It also let everyone who used tachyon-based technology know you were in the area.

“I’ve got some artificial constructs orbiting the first, fourth, and sixth planet
s of this system,” Kage said as the computer compiled the returns almost instantaneously. “Nothing with any significant power signature however, certainly not the other two ships we’re after.”

“Shit,” Jason said softly. Despite Taryn being on board
, his first engagement with the ship in Earth’s atmosphere had left him confident he could take out the other two without much trouble. “Which planet is A’arcoon?”

“First.”

“Plot me an intrasystem jump; I’m not plodding across this entire system if there’s nothing here,” Jason said. A moment later, the plot data scrolled across his display and let him know he was ready to engage the slip-drive. The trip took less than five minutes with a low-power jump.

They had
meshed in on the dark side of the planet, and Jason got a sinking feeling as soon as he saw it: completely dark. No industrialized planet looked this dark from space. The sensors began resolving the objects in orbit around the planet and he could see that they were powerless hulks, derelicts that were in a stable enough orbit to not simply fall back to the planet.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Twingo said as he looked out the canopy.

“It does if we’re in the wrong place,” Jason said sourly. “There was never any guarantee that this was the planet of origin of those ships. But … we’re here, so let’s try to be smart about this. I’m moving us into a low geocentric orbit; I want full scans of the entire surface. We’ll get fifteen or twenty passes so have the computer compile the data as it’s collected.”

It was some hours later when a clearer picture of the surface
began to emerge. There were great cities and signs of high-technology on the planet, but it was completely abandoned and falling into ruin. There weren’t even any signs of primitive settlements which would have suggested some sort of cataclysmic event that destroyed modern society and then a subsequent rebuilding period. It was as if every A’arcooni had been teleported off the planet and nature was reclaiming it. Not only that, but it looked like this may have happened hundreds of years ago.

“Stand down from
the tactical alert. Let’s all go sit down and talk about this. We need some answers and I don’t think that’s going to happen while we’re in orbit,” Jason said as he engaged the autopilot and climbed out of his seat. “We’re going to have to get boots on the ground so let’s figure out which site is most promising.”

*****

The
Phoenix
soared over the great A’arcooni city, turning in a tight spiral and descending sharply. Jason angled them to come to a steady hover fifty feet over what appeared to be an area of congregation for the former residents. Dressed in full armor, he stood and motioned for Doc to take the pilot’s seat. “We’ll look around in the buildings we marked from orbit,” he said. “Take the ship and do some passes and launch the twins to parallel you north and south. If you don’t see anything interesting, climb out and loiter around this city. Stay within the atmosphere in case we need a quick dust off.”

“Will do, Captain,” Doc said as he hopped into the seat. While he would never admit it, he did love to fly the ship and secretly was glad when Jason left with the other two on ground missions. Jason was almost to the stairs when he heard someone call his name.

“Jason, wait up,” Taryn called as she jogged down the short passageway of the command deck. She grabbed him on either side of his head and planted a firm kiss on his lips. “Be careful out there,” she said seriously. Jason saw the look on her face and bit down the laugh that was coming up. He didn’t see much danger in poking around, but he wouldn’t insult her by scoffing at her concern.

“I will,” he said with a wink
, and activated the helmet to his armor. He clomped down the stairs, through the common area, and out the main crew entrance into the cargo bay. He hopped over the railing and landed on the deck with an enormous thud as Crusher and Lucky moved into position near the drop hatch. Once the hatch opened and the transit beam activated, Lucky hopped into the opening, followed by the other two.

“We’re on the ground, Doc,” Jason said over the com. “Get to it.”

“Copy, Captain. We’ll see you in a bit.” As soon as the drop hatch closed, Jason could feel the throb in his bones as the
Phoenix
throttled up and accelerated away, climbing up steeply to avoid the buildings that were a short distance away.

The three began a slow walk towards their first destination: an ornate, squat building right off the square they were standing in. Jason looked around and noticed that the construction of the city seemed to be monolithic. In fact, he could discern no breaks in the material used, which appeared to be a natural stone, and wondered if the city could actually be carved from a single block. He looked up at the tall towers
that jutted up into the sky and figured there had to be another explanation.

The construction style did lend itself to an unusually well
-preserved city given the length of time it seemed to have been abandoned. On Earth, trees would have already been growing up through the streets, buildings and bridges would begin to crumble as corrosion took its toll, but here it simply looked unoccupied. The effect was unnerving as they walked across the large common area, relying on Lucky’s sensors to warn them of any potential danger.

“So
do you really think this building holds some sort of cultural significance?” Crusher asked.

“I’m groping around in the dark
, to be honest,” Jason admitted. “But this building is different than the others in the city. Not only that, but this city appears to have been the capital, either of government or commerce, so we’ll start here.”