Chapter 1

“Captain, we must hurry!”

“What do you think I’m trying to do, Crusher? I’m bumping up against the airspeed limit at this altitude as it is,” Jason shot back. He was becoming increasingly irritated at the Galvetic warrior’s pacing and griping about how slow they were flying. Time was critical, but the planet they were flying over, Fournier Prime, had some strict air traffic regulations and the authorities wouldn’t hesitate to revoke their landing permit.

The Phoenix, the Jepsen Aero DL7 gunship that Omega Force crewed, was loafing behind a pair of larger transports as they lumbered across the northern sky. Jason Burke, the captain of the ship and crew, debated trying to zip past them but didn’t want their “clean” transponder codes getting a rash of air traffic violations attached to them. Chaffing at the slow speed, but resigned to the inevitable, Captain Burke ground his teeth and flew silently as Crusher continued to pace back and forth in front of the main canopy, annoying everyone on the bridge.

“Captain, I’ve got a high-speed transit lane coming up that we may be able to squeeze into. It’s thrusters only, no grav drives, but it allows for hypersonic transit almost all the way to the coastline,” Kage said quietly from the right-hand seat. Jason weighed his options as he tried to do the math in his head. If they took the faster flight path at the lower altitude they would run into heavier traffic once they began their final approach, but crawling along their current course behind the heavy cargo haulers was costing them significant time as well.

“Plot it,” he said, making his decision. “I’m bringing the mains online now. Get ready to cut out the grav drive when we begin our course change.” He reached over and flipped a series of switches on the engine management panel and was instantly rewarded with the deep rumble of the Phoenix’s four main engines starting up. The new main engines the Eshquarian government had gifted to them the previous year had the delightful habit of starting quickly every time, something the original Jepsen engines had trouble with, a quirk that had almost gotten them killed more than once.

“Five seconds to the veer-off. You’re going to have to get on it hard, Captain; we’ll be passing directly over the new flight path and there will be three fast movers bearing down on us,” Kage said as he sent the navigational data over to Jason’s console. When the countdown reached “one” Jason slammed the throttle down and pushed the nose over.

BOOM!

The shock of the mains fully engaging jarred everyone in their seats as millions of pounds of thrust shot the Phoenix off her current course and sent them rocketing down into the lower atmosphere, trying to get ahead of the three fast movers. Crusher let out a howl of delight as the ship transitioned to hypersonic flight, now peering eagerly out through the forward canopy. I bet if I could roll the window down he’d stick his head out with his tongue slapping the side of his face.

They easily beat the other three ships and raced along towards their destination: Hellikick Spaceport, a sprawling industrial port of call that was close to Fournier City. The city was their ultimate goal, but thanks to several unforeseen issues they were running well behind schedule. Jason took another look at Crusher and shuddered as he thought of the consequences of being late.

The rest of the flight was uneventful as he piloted the Phoenix into the holding pattern over the spaceport and eventually brought them in for a touchdown on one of the more remote landing pads. This unfortunately meant they had a long taxi to their parking berth, another delay that was fraying nerves.

“I am not certain we will make it in time, Captain,” Lucky said as he walked onto the bridge.

“Don’t even say that,” Crusher said, pointing an accusing finger at his synth friend. “You’re just going to jinx us.”

“If you say so,” Lucky replied. “Doc and Twingo are ready in the cargo bay.”

“I was wondering where everyone went,” Jason mused as he spun the ship around to comply with the alignment marks on the parking pad and began shutting down the primary flight systems. “It looks like we’re in time to catch the maglev into the city if we hurry.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than Crusher ran by him in a blur and off the bridge. They could hear the stairs leading off the command deck groan, and then a loud thud as the hulking warrior must have jumped from the top step to the lower main deck. Jason just shook his head and rolled his eyes as he climbed out of his seat and hustled off the bridge after the rest of the crew.

The main cargo ramp was already coming down as he ran into the bay and looked over his crew. Omega Force was dressed in their best casual clothing that was meant to blend in with the rest of the crowd. On a progressive world like Fournier Prime, only Lucky would stand out among them. “Everybody remember what they’re supposed to do?” Jason asked as he approached.

“We’re locked and loaded, Captain. Let’s get to it!” Twingo, the ship’s engineer and Jason’s best friend, was even more spun up than Crusher.

“Alright, boys, double time! We’ve gotta hit that train or we’ll be buying a shuttle ride,” Jason told them as he punched in the instructions that would lock and secure the ship once they disembarked. They didn’t have to be told twice as they ran down the ramp and crossed the tarmac to the terminal at a pace that forced Jason to sprint to catch up.

Once in the terminal complex, they quickly found which maglev train would be going into the city and boarded. As the train smoothly pulled out from under the platform, the team was buzzing with anticipation. The maglev trains were ubiquitous on most developed worlds and were such an old, reliable technology that some lines were hundreds of years old. Since the train never touched the track they almost never wore out, and they were so inexpensive to operate that they were almost always chosen for mass transit over the more exotic technologies available.

The train raced along at nearly one hundred kilometers per hour, and was a direct shot into the heart of Fournier City. They would then have to hustle on foot to hit their target on time. Jason knew Lucky and Crusher could do it easily, he and Doc could manage, but Twingo and Kage gave him pause. The shorter two would be hard pressed to keep up with their bigger crewmates. He sat back in the hard plastic seat that seemed designed for a different species and tried to relax. Either they would make it or they wouldn’t.

“Substation A17, this is the last stop for Fournier City …”

The voice of the automated message repeated four more times in as many languages, but the crew was moving before the first iteration had finished coming over the speakers. Jason led them at a hurried pace off the platform and onto one of the main walkways, checking the local time on his com unit as he did so. They had enough time that they shouldn’t need to run and thus attract undue attention. As it was, people were already pointing at Lucky and chattering amongst themselves.

They kept up their brisk pace until they could see their target: the enormous domed structure just on the outskirts of the metropolitan area. Unable to help himself, Jason switched to a broken half jog now that he was so close. This served as an unvoiced command to the rest of his crew and they went flying by him at almost a full run.

“Damnit! Wait up!” Once again he had to nearly sprint at full speed to catch his crewmates. It wasn’t long before Twingo and Kage began to flag and stumble. Without hesitation Crusher grabbed Kage and Lucky grabbed a protesting Twingo, and each carried them the remaining few hundred meters on their shoulders. Despite the indignation, Twingo made no overt move to get down as he grabbed onto Lucky’s head in a desperate attempt to not topple off.

“Stop covering my eyes, please,” Lucky said pleasantly even as he began to outdistance his friends.

The six rushed up to, and quickly through, the security checkpoint and into the mammoth building. Jason was elated; he had allotted extra time for Lucky to clear the building’s security. That proved to be unneeded. The biological members of the crew, with the exception of Crusher, were sucking in huge gulps of air after the two kilometer run even as they made their way up the stairs and merged with the throng of other beings going the same direction.

“Lucky, break off now and meet us there!” Jason shouted to the battlesynth as they reached a large promenade level. Without hesitation, the synth dropped Twingo on the ground in a heap and bounded off through the crowd with incredible dexterity.

“Hey!” Twingo shouted as he tried to get up without being trampled by the surging crowd. Jason grabbed and lifted him by the collar to head off any further complaining and hustled him along the walkway.

“This is us,” he said to his friends, pointing at the numeric designator on one of the structural support columns. The five of them wormed their way down the narrow stairs until they came to the correct landing and then began sliding past the crowd as they made their way left.

“Excuse us … Pardon me … Sorry about that …”

Any grumbles of protest were squelched by the civilians as they caught a glimpse of Crusher, who was directly behind Jason. They came to a row of oversized seats and finally were able to look out over the interior of the dome. It was breathtaking. Hundreds of square meters of open surface was artfully littered with debris and other random objects.

“I can’t believe we made it!” Kage exclaimed as Crusher put him down. The little Veran looked mildly disappointed, obviously enjoying the view atop the over two-meter-tall warrior. “Will Lucky get back in time?”

“I will indeed,” Lucky said as he stepped over his seat from the row behind him. The rest of Omega Force cheered since Lucky was carrying two trays loaded with frosty acrylic mugs of the local beer-like drink. They all grabbed two and stood waiting with everyone else as the announcer boomed over the public address system in Jenovian Standard, the accepted universal spoken language for most systems within the ConFed’s reach.

“WELCOME ALL TO THE FINAL ELIMINATION ROUND OF THE NORSTARAN COMBAT LEAGUE!!” The voice paused while the crowd let out a deafening cheer before continuing, “ALL COMBATANTS ARE PILOTED AND THIS IS A LAST-WARRIOR-STANDING MATCH. REMEMBER … MATCHES WILL NOT BE STOPPED FOR SPECTATORS ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.” Another cheer went up and Crusher let loose with a bellowing roar of approval. Although the crew was somewhat used to this, the spectators in the surrounding seats looked to be quite distressed. Jason flashed them his winningest smile to reassure them that nobody would be devoured or maimed just then.

The crew had been pushing pretty hard over the last year and the strain was showing. During their last resupply from the frigate-class vessel named the Diligent, Crisstof Dalton, their benefactor and frequent employer, insisted that they take some down time. He had discovered that the crew were fans of the “Armor Combat League”, a spectator sport in which pilots fought each other in oversized mechanized warriors, and procured tickets for the semi-finals being held on Fournier Prime.

Jason had thought it quite silly at first, reminding him of the spectacle of professional wrestling from his own world, but he quickly came around. The mood of the crowd was like that of a National Football League playoff game on Earth and he was glad for the distraction and the reprieve. He drank the overly-sweet brew and settled back with his crew, his family, to watch a bunch of oversized machines beat the living hell out of each other.

It was nearly four hours later when the last of the mechanized combatants was cleared off of the arena floor and the winner was declared, an enormous black bipedal machine that had wicked-looking spikes running up each forearm. The pilot, a wiry little Veran, had climbed out of the protected cockpit and stood on the machine’s shoulder, waving his four hands at the crowd. Kage went wild when he saw that one of his own had been declared the champion, seeming to share in the victory himself despite being hundreds of feet away and too inebriated to stand straight, much less pilot anything.

They shuffled out with the rest of the crowd and paused outside of the arena on the large concourse. Some of the night’s combatants, including the winner, had been loaded up onto cradles and brought out so the fans could collect images and get up close to their favorite fighters. Not having anything pressing going on, they drifted over to take a look for themselves.

“Do you think Lucky could kick this one’s ass?” Kage asked loudly as he gestured at one of the smaller machines that had been used in the preliminary rounds.

“Without a doubt,” Crusher declared confidently, despite the fact that the machine was nearly fifteen meters tall. “Right?”

“It is difficult to say,” Lucky said patiently. As the only sober member of Omega Force for the last few hours, he’d endured it all with as much grace as he could. “Since there is no pilot at the moment, I would say my odds are excellent.” For some reason, Twingo found that hysterical and began laughing uncontrollably while leaning against Crusher; he then began to hiccup. Doc looked at him with concern. As the only one among them who seemed to understand the word “moderation” he was still steady on his feet and articulate.

“I assume we’re not just going to head back to the ship?” he asked with resignation.

“Are you crazy?” Crusher demanded. “We’re in a big city with nothing but excess time and money. No … we’re not just going back to the ship to sit around and stare at each other.”

“Seems you’re out-voted, Doc,” Jason said with a shrug.

“As always,” Doc answered with a sigh. “Just remember, gentlemen, the legal system on this planet isn’t as forgiving as those on most of the backward colonial worlds we’re usually on.”

*****

Jason woke up with no shoes, one sock, and a hat he didn’t remember owning. He was also slumped over in the pilot’s seat of the Phoenix. At least I made it home. He stood and stretched out painfully, wincing as his spine realigned itself. He shuffled off the bridge and walked down the stairs to the main deck to see how everyone else had fared.

As he expected, the common area was a wreck, Kage was asleep on the shorter couch, Twingo was passed out on the galley table with his pants pulled down, and Crusher was lying face down on the floor. It appeared that he had at least been making an attempt to head to his quarters. Knowing where Doc would be (as well as relief from his headache), he left them for the moment and walked into the infirmary.

“How do you feel?” Doc asked without looking up from the display he was studying.

“Great!” Jason said with feigned cheer.

“So you’re not here for something to take care of the aftereffects of last night?”

“Well … if you’re offering,” Jason said. Doc suppressed a smile, reached into a chiller under the counter and pulled out a small plastic bottle filled with a purplish liquid. He tossed it to Jason and went back to his display.

“Drink all of that and then follow that with a couple of large servings of water. You’ll feel as good as new in a few minutes,” Doc said distractedly.

“What is it?” Jason shook the bottle distrustfully. It had a viscous consistency that caused it to stick to the sides of the bottle. He doubted he could even choke the sludge down since he seemed to be unable to create any saliva at the moment.

“When I heard we were taking some time off and coming to one of the most populated ConFed worlds, I made those up ahead of time. I have a few bottles for each of your physiologies; yours is purple. Mostly electrolytes, vitamin compounds, and a smattering of uppers and pain suppressers. Was there anything else?” Doc’s huffy demeanor mildly offended Jason.

“I guess not. Thanks,” he said over his shoulder as he headed for the galley. Kage was stirring as he walked through the common area, holding his head with all four of his small hands. “Doc has something made up for you already. Just don’t try and chat him up.”

“Oh, that’s good news,” Kage mumbled with relief before stumbling towards the infirmary. Avoiding the disturbing sight of Twingo, Jason chugged down the vile-tasting concoction (for some reason the purple color had him expecting grape flavor) and greedily slurped down three tall tumblers of water before heading over to the couch to let the stuff work its magic. A minute later he saw Kage’s head go bobbing by and heard him repeating the process, pausing to giggle at the still-inert Twingo.

“So … what’s the story with him?” Jason asked the Veran when he had reclaimed his seat in the lounge. He had to wait for the fit of giggles to subside before he got an answer.

“He passed out early so Crusher and I were going to tie him up naked to the gantry crane in the cargo bay,” Kage said, unable to keep a straight face.

“You guys really have to stop doing that to him,” Jason admonished while trying to bite back his own laughter. “You know he controls all of the systems on this ship, don’t you? That includes where the sewage is routed to, how much breathable air your quarters have, what chemicals end up in your drinking water … You keep messing with him, don’t come crying to me when the inevitable happens.”

“Noted.”

“I’m going to go get cleaned up. I want to be off-world in a couple of hours,” Jason said as he stood up, feeling an order of magnitude better than he had when he had awoken. “Rouse these guys up and … Where’s Lucky?”

“He said something earlier when I woke up the first time about going for a walk in the spaceport terminal.”

“You’re shitting me,” Jason said incredulously. “Why?”

“I dunno. Something about facing your fears or some such nonsense.”

“He needs to tell me if he’s leaving the ship like that,” Jason said to nobody in particular, as he was already walking back towards his quarters. Over the last two years, Lucky had made tremendous strides when it came to being in large groups of beings. Despite being one of the most powerful soldiers Jason had ever seen, the details of his life up to that point had left him distrustful of the motivations of others and he preferred to avoid large public gatherings.

Once in his quarters, he stripped off his clothes, wincing at the smell that the previous night had imparted, and tossed them into the corner for the cleaning bot to grab. He had no idea where he got the hat he was wearing, but he did see it was too large for his head and seemed to have holes in the top that had likely accommodated a pair of large ears at one time. He tossed it on his desk and decided he probably didn’t want to know the details. Before walking into his private head to shower, he saw a blinking red light on his console. That usually meant the computer had identified an Earth broadcast he might be interested in or, on rare occasions, it meant a direct communication from an email address he had set up. There was only one person who knew that address, and the possibility set his heart pounding in his chest as he stepped into the misting jets of the shower.

He had left a small, discreet payload in high orbit above Earth a few years ago that continuously monitored and collected radio, television, and some internet traffic, and forwarded those to the ship via a burst slip-transmitter. He had put the small satellite there at Twingo’s advice and he was exceedingly glad he had listened. While he never regretted his decision to leave Earth and work out on the fringe of civilization as a mercenary, he did suffer from a bought of homesickness from time to time.

After drying off and dressing, and feeling much better in the process, he sat at the terminal and logged into the transmission packet, a sense of anticipation tingling in his gut. He was completely unprepared for what he found. There were indeed several emails from Taryn, but there were also several emergency news broadcasts on a global scale. With trembling hands he started with the first one from a UK news organization and watched.

“It’s unclear as to what the aliens want; so far the government has been tight-lipped on whether there has been any direct communication. All we can report is what you likely already know: three large spacecraft entered Earth’s atmosphere yesterday and have taken up position over three major cities in the United States, including Washington, D.C.”

Jason tuned out the talking head as he stared at the high-definition video of an enormous ship braking to a stop over the Potomac River. It looked like it might have been a cargo hauler at one time, but Jason had never seen that particular make of ship. His blood pounding in his ears, he selected the next one.

“… has shot down three helicopters that have approached the ship. This is day two since the visitors have arrived, and the actions this morning have officials wondering as to their intent. We’d like to remind our viewers to please, please remain calm and to take no action until advised …”

And then the next one.

“On this third day since what some are dubbing ‘The Arrival’ we have now learned that the ships appear to be accessing our communications networks and have been downloading—”

The picture pixilated and wavered and then was replaced by a black screen before a new voice came over the broadcast. It was a voice that sounded quite familiar to Jason even after all the time that had passed.

“—People of the planet Earth. I’d like to say we come in peace, but that will be entirely up to you.” The picture scrambled into another fit of static before resolving into the face of the speaker who had hijacked the broadcast. Jason’s blood turned to ice when he saw it and realized who it was.

Deetz.

“DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!!!” Jason raged and slammed his fist into the screen as hard as he could, his augmented strength sending his arm through the display in a shower of sparks. He slumped back in his seat, blood trickling down his arm onto the floor.

“CAPTAIN?!”

Jason’s vision was tunneling and his ears were ringing; in his state of shock he didn’t hear Lucky override his door and rush in, weapons charged. Doc rushed in right behind him and took in the scene. He looked over Jason’s shoulder and saw Deetz’s smirking visage frozen on the remains of the display. In spite of the cracks and the hole punched through it, he could still recognize who it was.

“Oh, shit.”

Chapter 2

After calming Jason down as much as they could, the crew met in the small conference room on the command deck and began watching all the news feeds the relay satellite had forwarded. From what they could tell, a formation of three starships had entered Earth’s atmosphere and spread out to cover the continental United States. After three days of communication silence and a few attacks on U.S. military aircraft, they broke com silence and broadcast on all media channels simultaneously as Deetz issued his ultimatum.

“We have no desire to destroy you, or your way of life. We’re here for one man; if we get him … we’ll leave with no further hostilities. The man I’m looking for is an American named Jason Burke. He would have returned to Earth nearly three of your years ago in a small but powerful ship, and likely returned to seclusion in the Rocky Mountain region of North America …”

Deetz was droning on, obviously relishing not only being the center of attention but also being in such a superior position to everyone else on the planet. His broadcast was interrupted with various still shots of Jason that appeared to have been taken onboard the Phoenix when he had first boarded her. Jason observed it all through a haze as his crew, somewhat separated from the situation, prattled on about what the synth wanted or whom he had allied with. He listened to them until he could take no more.

“ENOUGH!!” he roared, slamming his fist down onto the table with enough force that his crew’s conversation stuttered to a jerky stop. They all stared at him in stunned silence. “This conversation is getting me nowhere. Here’s what is going to happen; this ship is wheels-up in less than ten minutes. Earth is my home, none of you have any stake there so you have those ten minutes to decide if you’re going to stay or leave. If you leave you can pull money from the treasury to buy passage wherever you want and if I make it back I’ll come pick you up again.” He stood up meaningfully and went to the door. “That’s all I have to say on this subject until this ship is in slip-space.”

He stomped onto the bridge and began stabbing forcefully at the controls, waking the Phoenix and beginning the pre-start on her primary flight systems. The ship hummed and vibrated as power coursed through her and displays began blinking on throughout the bridge giving him status. He had no idea what he planned to do, but he knew he was a solid six-day flight from Earth and he could try and come up with something along the way.

As he slid into the pilot’s seat and tried to find comfort in the routine task of prepping his ship for flight, the other members of the crew walked onto the bridge and silently moved to their usual stations. Jason looked at them all a moment before speaking. “This may be a one-way ticket, boys. We have no idea who those ships belong to, and if we have to ditch you have to understand that Earth may not be a safe harbor for you.”

“Just get us in the air and on our way, Jason,” Twingo said gently. “Your people need us.” Five grim, determined alien faces looked back at Jason and he was nearly overcome with emotion for a moment.

“Thank you all,” he said simply. “Kage, get us cleared to leave. Twingo, make sure she’s ready for this flight; it’s going to be brutal.”

Twenty seconds later, Kage began to feed him navigational data and Jason taxied off the pad onto the active ramp. They were third in line and lifted off smoothly after a private courier ship had cleared the area, climbing up into the pattern and holding for clearance to burn for orbit. Another fifteen nerve-grating minutes crawled by before Kage forwarded him the course and speed to get them up out of Fournier Prime’s atmosphere. Jason wanted nothing more than to simply stand the Phoenix on her tail and blast away from the planet, but the air traffic was so dense he knew he had an equal chance of plowing into another ship as he did of making it off-world.

“We’re at departure altitude, one more half-orbit and Fournier Control will release us. Course change coming up on your display now,” Kage said, snapping Jason out of his reverie. He was dangerously distracted right now and he knew it, so he did something that was utterly out of character for him: he accepted Kage’s navigational inputs and engaged the autopilot. Twingo and Doc exchanged a meaningful look as the Phoenix’s computer took over flying duties to get them to their mesh-out point.

“How long until we can engage the slip-drive?” Jason asked.

“Four minutes,” Kage answered as the computer veered them away from the planet and accelerated them into open space. After a few more moments, Jason got the indication they were cleared for slip-space transition and hit the control on his right. There was a hum that climbed in pitch and intensity before the canopy darkened and the Phoenix smoothly meshed out of the system on its way to Earth. They slowly ramped the drive up to full power until there was a perceptible, constant vibration as the ship strained for all she was worth to shave time off the trip. Twingo closely monitored his displays for any sign the drive or the powerplant wasn’t able to handle the abuse.

“I’m going to call Crisstof,” Jason said as he walked off the bridge. “He’ll need to know we’re off the grid for a while.” He walked back along the command deck until he came to the com room, a small nook crammed with communications gear, stand-alone computer cores, and a tabletop-style touch panel display. He sat in one of the console seats and began the process for establishing a secure link with the Diligent, one of Crisstof’s ships. Even if he wasn’t aboard, it was likely they could patch him through. It only took a moment for the Diligent to decode and accept his com request.

“Hello, Captain Burke.” Kellea Colleren’s face appeared on the display. The slip-link was excellent and there was hardly any distortion or lag. “I thought you and your crew were taking some down-time. I hope this isn’t a call requesting we intercede on your behalf with local law enforcement.”

“I’m afraid not, Captain,” Jason said, not in the mood to be prodded or teased. “There’s been a situation and I’m calling to let you, and Crisstof, know that we’ll be out of touch for a bit. I can’t say how long, exactly.” Captain Colleren actually managed to look mildly concerned as she sat up a little straighter, no mean feat given her usual ramrod-like posture.

“Maybe you’d better give me a little more detail,” she said. Sighing, Jason began his explanation.

“My home planet was attacked recently by an unknown force. Three starships and one soon-to-be-dead synth arrived at Earth and are demanding that I be turned over.”

“Three ships against an entire planet?” She seemed skeptical, but she had no idea how comparatively primitive Earth was.

“That’s more than enough … believe me,” Jason said. “If I wanted to I could rule Earth with just the Phoenix. We’re not even a space-faring culture; I’m the only one out here as far as I know.”

“So what do they want with you?”

“I don’t think it’s a ‘they’ as much as a ‘he’. The synth and I have a history, and it appears he wants some sort of revenge, but I would have never believed he’d go through this sort of trouble. We’re heading there now at maximum slip velocity, but we’re still days away.”

“Crisstof will be back aboard within a day, I’ll inform him of the situation. Good luck, Jason … I hope you’re not biting off more than you can chew.” Jason smiled at the Earth colloquialism she had picked up from him, probably without realizing it.

“I don’t really have a choice now, do I?” he asked sadly.

“No, I guess you don’t. Happy hunting. Diligent out.”

When the screen blanked he just sat there and stared into it. The reflection on the black surface unnerved him a bit. His body was jam-packed with alien wetware and genetic manipulation, and his mannerisms and outlook had changed drastically by living with other species for so long … how human was he, really, at this point? More importantly, how did he reconcile the fact that his decision to let Deetz go had likely cost untold lives on his own planet? He had been insufferably smug about his superior morality when he had let the synth go; now it appeared he had grossly underestimated the being and humanity was paying the price for his hubris.

“How are you holding up?” Jason jumped slightly at the interruption and turned to see Doc standing in the doorway.

“As well as I can. Gonna be a long flight, though, that’s for sure,” Jason said with a sigh.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Pacing for six days is not going to do anything but leave you exhausted and drive us insane. I’d like to help you get some rest and keep you on a normal sleep cycle,” Doc said tentatively, fearing a blowup he felt sure was coming.

“That may not be a bad idea,” Jason agreed, much to his shock. “Won’t my implants just filter out any sleep agent though?”

“You can command them not to. Come to the infirmary and I’ll show you the proper syntax. May as well get some sleep now. Lucky, Crusher, and Kage are poring through the news broadcasts you downloaded from Earth, and will start trying to get an identification on those ships. It’d be best if you let them work without interruption or bias.”

“That’s blunt enough,” Jason said huffily. “Fine, let’s get started.”

Forty minutes later and Jason was sound asleep in his quarters as the Phoenix plowed on.

Chapter 3

Jason awoke in a full flop sweat panic as he had no idea how long he’d been asleep. It was an unusual sensation for him, since his implants kept him aware of the time down to the second. After a moment he remembered he had disabled some of the functions so he could rest. His quarters were dark and he could still feel the slip-drive thrumming at high-output, so they were still in transit to Earth. It’s not like he thought his crew would actually let him sleep through the upcoming festivities, but those first few moments after waking up were quite disorienting. After going through the process to reinitialize most of his implants’ functionality he felt much better.

He slipped his legs over the edge of the bed and grabbed his boots, bloused his grey cargo pants into the tops out of habit, and walked out to see where they were. According to ship’s time he’d been asleep a little over ten hours and, though he hated to admit it, he did feel more focused and ready to face whatever was hovering over his planet. He jogged up the stairs to the command deck and heard voices coming from the conference room, including one from someone who wasn’t actually on the ship.

“Hello, Crisstof,” he said by way of greeting as he entered the room, nodding to the members of his crew that were already there and seated.

“Captain Burke, you have my most sincere sympathies at this moment,” the always urbane Crisstof said. “In fact, we were just discussing how I might be able to help. Doc sent us your news footage and I must admit, we’re a little stumped as to who is attacking your planet.”

“You didn’t recognize the ships?” Jason asked.

“Nope,” Twingo volunteered before Crisstof could answer. “They don’t match up to any known manufacturer that is common in this region. Not only that, but they look like antiques. The visible drive signatures on the video are consistent with a type of plasma drive that hasn’t been used for a few centuries.”

“That still puts them centuries ahead of anything Earth has,” Jason said sourly. “Could Deetz have found them somewhere and automated them? Is he just sitting in one of them and controlling the other two remotely?”

“It’s possible,” Twingo conceded, stressing the second word. “But improbable. Those ships are just too old, and the older a ship the less automation it will have. If he was going to go through that sort of trouble, and he knew he was attacking Earth, why not just get a couple of modern freighters with some light armament?”

“Captain,” Crisstof interjected, “you know how this Deetz thinks, why do you think he’s coming after you now after all this time?”

“I wish I could tell you,” Jason said. “To say I know how he thinks is giving me too much credit. He had me fooled up until it was almost too late the first go-round. I do know he’s entirely self-serving and a coward. I still have trouble believing this is really just about me.”

“We’ll keep trying to identify whom the ships belong to,” Crisstof said. “In the meantime, I’d like to position the Diligent closer to your location. Could you send Captain Colleren the location for the Solar System? We’ll head towards you in case we’re needed.” Jason’s hesitation didn’t go unnoticed.

“Jason,” Twingo whispered, “the secret of Earth’s location is out. We may need them before this is all over.” Jason nodded before addressing Crisstof again.

“That sounds good. I’ll have Kage forward the coordinates to you,” he said. “It’s pretty far out of the way, further down the spiral arm than even Breaker’s World.” Crisstof looked surprised at this.

“We’d better get underway then,” he said. “We’ll move the instant we have the coordinates.” He nodded to them once more before signing off. Jason looked at Doc and Twingo after the screen went blank.

“I hope I didn’t just make a mistake,” he said. “If these ships are really so antiquated, the Phoenix should be able to make short work of them.”

“I said they looked like antiques,” Twingo corrected. “That doesn’t guarantee what we’ll face when we get there. Look at the Phoenix … the Eshquarians have rebuilt her far past the specs of the original Jepsen build. We’ll need an active scan before we can be certain.”

“So Earth has no weapons that they could use to defend themselves?” Doc asked.

“Just one,” Jason said, “and I hope they haven’t used it. Otherwise the aliens won’t need to fire a shot to kill a ton of humans. All we have that could possible bust through an energy shield are nuclear fusion missiles that aren’t made to target something as small as a ship. The collateral damage would be unimaginable.”

*****

The Phoenix was less than an hour from meshing into Earth’s Solar System. They were approaching from above the ecliptic to try and avoid most of the navigational hazards and pop into real-space as close as possible to minimize their detection time. The mood on the bridge was tense as everyone was preparing for an inevitable confrontation. Jason was in full armor, but not the off-the-shelf unit he had worn during the fight on Shorret-3. This unit was custom fitted, tied directly into his neural implant, and shockingly expensive.

Crusher was also dressed for the occasion, and Lucky was his usual impassive self as he watched the action on the bridge. The others were still wearing their standard shipboard garb as they wouldn’t be disembarking for any reason on this trip. While Jason watched the timer, he thought back to the four emails that were in his inbox from Taryn. One was simply an inquiry into how he was doing and if he would be coming to Earth anytime soon. She hadn’t fully believed him when he’d explained what had happened to him, but she played along anyway. He assumed she thought he was making a joke out of having to deploy overseas again.

The last three, however, were full of terror and pleading as the three ships arrived over America. She had seen his picture broadcast everywhere, but more importantly she knew that there would certainly be someone who would recognize him and an equally likely chance they would know he had been connected to her. The knot of fear in his stomach as he thought of someone using her to get to him felt like a burning coal. He forced himself to stay calm as the clock counted down the last few minutes.

“OK, boys … Get me a scan first thing, full active, and put us in full tactical mode,” Jason said as the crew began buckling into their seats. “Twingo, give me as much forward bias on the shields as you can until we make our first pass. Kage, when I tell you, have the computer do a search for this cell phone number.”

“You got it, Captain,” Twingo said as he prepared to reconfigure the ship after it emerged from slip-space.

“Cell phone number? What the hell is that?” Kage asked, bewildered, as the digits appeared on his display.

“It’ll make sense when the computer begins to access Earth’s communication grid. Just get me a location on it as soon as you can.” Kage just shrugged and moved the number to an out-of-the-way location on his touch panel.

“Ten seconds, everybody!” Kage called out a minute later as his hands flew over his control panels. Ten seconds later the ship shuddered as it popped into real-space and began to coast in-system towards Earth. Within a few more seconds the main drive was online and the shields and weapons were up as well, as the tactical displays began populating detected threats.

The three alien ships were still there, and from the scans it appeared that the damage to the surrounding areas was minimal. Jason jammed the throttle down hard and pointed the ship at his home. Soon the computer began squawking alerts about his speed and entry vector as they neared the planet.

“Captain!” Twingo cautioned. “Captain! DAMNIT JASON!!” Jason ignored him as the ship traversed the thermosphere and slammed into the mesosphere while still under full power, the coronal discharge of plasma breaking around the shields almost blinding them. The Phoenix shrieked and bucked in protest, but Jason didn’t let up as the gunship fought its way toward the surface. The heat and buffeting let up as the shields did their job, and the ship tore through the stratosphere at hypersonic speed.

“Ah … Jason, there you are,” Deetz’s voice came over the emergency channel on the short-range coms. “I had feared maybe you had lost your nerve, but as it turns out you never even came back, did you? So what do you plan to do with that single tiny ship—” His voice was cut off as Kage killed the internal com feed.

“Thanks,” Jason said simply. They had made entry over the Pacific Ocean, but Jason knew that Deetz was most likely on the ship that was currently over Washington, D.C. and he intended to hit that one before it could try and break for orbit. “Tactical analysis of the ship we just overflew,” he demanded.

“I’m getting low power readings and no indication of any advanced weaponry, Jason,” Doc said from one of the sensor stations. “It appears Twingo’s assessment may have been correct; they look to be seriously outdated.”

“Stay sharp anyway,” Jason said. “We’ll be coming up on the D.C. target in a second.” At the speed they were streaking over North America, they would be within targeting range of the other ship in less than a minute. Jason angled the nose down further and dropped them into the lower atmosphere. The sonic boom of the hypersonic ship was exacerbating the problem of an already terrified citizenry as they descended through thirty thousand feet, but it was an unavoidable consequence.

Flying over his home planet should have been a joyous occasion for Jason, but he was entirely focused on the targeting reticle that had just appeared in his field of view indicating where the enemy ship was. He angled the nose down further and reduced their power a bit. He wanted his first pass to be at high speed, but not so high that he couldn’t bring his weapons to bear while within the atmosphere.

“We’re being pinged by the target,” Kage reported. “Some sort of laser ranging device.”

When the indicator in his ocular implant told him he was ten kilometers away from the target, Jason slammed the throttle back against the stop and flipped the thumb switch up for the field-reverse control. The Phoenix’s gravimetric drive reversed its fields to slow the ship dramatically, so much so that if the deck plating and inertial compensators had failed they’d have been splattered against the canopy.

“Visual range in three seconds,” Jason said as he angled around to approach the enemy ship head-on. They crested a small rise and he got his first look at the ship that had invaded Earth. It had certainly seen better days, and had a bulbous, almost organic quality to it. At over three hundred and fifty meters in length, it dwarfed the gunship that was bearing down on it.

“Their shielding is minimal, no sign of—,” Kage started. “They’re firing! Particle beams tracking along our forward edges … no damage.”

“My turn,” Jason whispered as the Phoenix thundered into range over the city. The ship was floating over the river, so he spared nothing. When he squeezed the trigger the powerful plasma cannons that were housed in the leading edges of the wings blasted out a torrent of high-energy death. The first bolt punched clean through the shield and impacted the nose, causing a chain reaction of secondary explosions within the hull. Those were partially contained by the ship’s own limited combat shields. The remainder of the bolts blasted down the length of the hull, creating a devastating amount of damage as the Phoenix shot by and was soon out over the Atlantic. “Report!”

“All shots were hits and caused significant damage,” Doc said. “She’s listing badly and losing altitude. Sensors are showing the reactor is failing and there are secondary explosions throughout.”

“Is the city in any danger?” Jason asked as he wrapped the Phoenix into a tight, knife-edge turn to attempt a second pass.

“No, they appear to have a limited amount of fissionable material stored outside of the—”

“Captain, I have a fix on that … cell phone number? … the computer is tracking the location now,” Kage interrupted.

“Call it,” Jason ordered. “Put it through here on the bridge.” He angled them back around and saw that the target was burning brightly and slowly sinking towards the water. He brought them to a hover over the Annandale area of D.C. and watched the ship crash into the river as Kage tried to make his very first phone call. “What are the other ships doing?”

“It looks like they’re breaking for orbit,” Doc said in confusion. “All tracks are leading away from us as well, it looks like there’s been a general withdrawal ordered.”

“Shit! Track both of them and we’ll try to—”

“Jason?! Is that you?”

“Taryn?” Jason breathed a sigh of relief while simultaneously glaring at Kage. The Veran shrugged helplessly.

“Jason what is going on? That … alien … was putting your picture up on the television and saying we had to hand you over. It even had a picture of me, but it didn’t know my name.” Taryn sounded to be near panic. Jason could hardly blame her.

“Where are you? Are you safe?”

“Look!” Kage yelled, pointing out the canopy as a small craft shot out of the wreckage of the downed ship; this one was quite modern and pushing hard for orbit. It was already out of range and Jason had no doubt who was on it. He grabbed the controls to pursue when he was yanked up short.

“Jason, some of the people in town have figured out we’re here! A neighbor just called and said a group of armed men are coming!”

“Where are you?” he asked again.

“Your old cabin! They can’t be far away by now.” She choked out a sob, and he could hear her parents in the background. He was unconsciously pushing and pulling slightly on the stick, causing the nose to dip and rise while the engines whined and surged.

“Captain, that ship is nearly out of range,” Doc said softly. “We’d be able to catch it, but just.” Jason growled in frustration as he yanked the stick over and kicked the left pedal, causing the nose to snap over sharply to the west. He crammed the throttle down and sent them streaking out of the area towards the Rocky Mountains.

“Give me a plot to that signal,” he said in a deceptively calm voice. “I’ve never tried to navigate to my house from the air.” Kage complied quickly even as he began to look more and more agitated. “What?” Jason snapped.

“Uh, Captain,” Twingo said, answering for them all, “this is a populated area.”

“Shit,” Jason swore again as he brought the nose up and put them into a climb. He had been skimming the terrain while pushing into high-supersonic speeds. God knows how much damage I just did back there. He set the ship onto a parabolic arc that would allow them to gain some speed and put them at his old cabin in just a few minutes.

“There’s nowhere to land by the cabin itself,” Jason explained to his team. “Doc, you’ll take the controls when I put us in a hover above the main street. Lucky and I will drop down through the belly hatch and go collect the three people in the cabin. I want you to take the ship and go distract the group of people coming up the road, make all the noise you want, scare the shit out of them … but do NOT fire on them.”

“I’m not a fool, Captain,” Doc said indignantly.

“Captain—” Crusher began.

“I need you up here in the cargo bay,” he explained to the big warrior. “Grab one of your big guns and stand by.”

“Very well,” Crusher said, clearly not happy with the assignment.

Jason pulled the ship down and around into a low hover just above the main road that was the last bit of pavement before the dirt/gravel lane that led up to his old cabin. He hopped out of the seat, motioning for Lucky to follow him as he grabbed his trusty railgun out of the rack near the entrance to the bridge. He was already on the steps leading to the main deck by the time Doc had climbed into the pilot’s seat.

The pair quickly traversed the ship and stopped as they entered the cargo bay. “Go ahead and open us up and activate the transit beam,” Jason called over the intercom before activating the helmet to his armor. The segmented pieces all aligned themselves to form the helm, while active nanobots sealed the edges into one continuous piece.

A circular section of floor in the cargo bay dropped away and quickly irised open to let in the cool afternoon air. Seconds later, a bluish haze covered the opening and extended in a column all the way to the ground. Jason stepped out over the opening and was gently deposited on the street, where he stepped from the haze and waited for Lucky. He absolutely hated the transit beam, but it was a quick way in and out of the ship during ground ops when landing wasn’t an option. If he wasn’t wearing armor it reminded him of thousands of fingers tickling him as they moved him up or down. For some reason it always made him feel like he was being digested.

As soon as Lucky emerged from the beam, the ship closed back up and accelerated down the road. The mob was probably less than a few miles away, so Jason turned and led the way quickly up the lane. His cabin was much as he remembered it, save for the shotgun barrel pointed at him through the upstairs window. “That’s close enough … whatever you are!”

Jason recognized the voice as Taryn’s father, Ed. The fact that he was still there and attempting to protect his family sent a wave of relief washing over him.

“Ed! It’s me, Jason! I’m going to take my helmet off … don’t shoot,” he called out.

“Captain, I do not think it is wise—” Jason waved Lucky silent as he commanded his helmet to retract. No sooner had the helmet segmented itself and pulled away than a blond woman shot out of the house and came towards him at a full sprint. She flung herself onto him and began crying against his neck.

“Jason, I’m so scared!” Taryn sobbed. “What is happening?”

“It’s a long story,” Jason said softly, resisting the urge to stroke her hair while he was still wearing a powered gauntlet. As he put her down gently, both Ed and her mother, Jess, walked out of the cabin and up to him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get you out of here for a while. Earth won’t be safe for you right now, if ever.”

“You aren’t with … them? Are you?” Jess looked like she was holding up a bit better than her daughter, but the fear was evident in her voice.

“No,” Jason assured her, “I’m with someone else. But thanks to them the people around here won’t leave you be.” As if to accentuate his point a thunderous roar shook the mountain.

“Those were the main engines of the Phoenix engaging,” Lucky said to Jason in perfect English for the benefit of the other humans. “Doc is getting desperate to ward off the potential attackers.” Taryn looked at Lucky in horror as he spoke.

“Guys, this is Lucky, he’s a friend of mine,” Jason said. “I’ll explain all this later, but we need to get down to the street so we can be picked up and on our way.”

“Captain, I couldn’t turn them. I think they figured out I wouldn’t fire on them and they kept pushing. They’re at the turn off to your home now,” Doc said over the com. “We’re going to create an opening forty meters in front of the cabin and deploy the transit beam. Stand by.”

“We all need to get into the house for a moment,” Jason said, reaching out to urge them up the steps even as the ground began to shake as the Phoenix settled in over them, obscured by the trees. They had just gotten inside the door when three brilliant flashes of plasma fire from one of the gunship’s belly turrets vaporized three trees with the sound of a thunderclap. Shortly after, the haze of the transit beam descended into the still-smoking crater. “Let’s go. Quickly,” Jason urged the now catatonic family towards the beam.

Jason turned in time to see a few locals armed with hunting rifles and shotguns coming up the lane at a run. Wasting no time, he grabbed Taryn and set her forcefully into the transit beam, not waiting for her to get all the way into the ship before repeating the process with her parents. He activated his helmet in time for the first shots to ring out and kick up a spray by his feet.

“Hey! YOU!”

“All of you listen,” Jason’s amplified voice boomed out of the armor’s speakers. “Take your well-intentioned but misguided asses and go back down the hill.”

His words seemed to only intensify their aggression, and they were soon pointing their guns at him and Lucky. He rolled his eyes in his helmet and turned to tell Lucky to transit up when a shot rang out; he saw the flash of sparks come from the battlesynth’s face. Lucky simply turned and looked at the culprit and wagged his finger in a ‘no-no’ gesture before stepping into the beam. The man who fired the shot looked beyond terrified, so Jason let him be and took his turn riding up the beam. He ascended straight into utter chaos.

The first thing he noticed was the blood-curdling screams coming from Taryn as Crusher towered over her, attempting to make placating gestures and waving his clawed hands in her face.

[Please! Calm yourself, I’m just trying to help you out of the cargo bay to safety.] Crusher’s barking, guttural language, along with his appearance, was terrifying her beyond measure. “Captain,” he appealed to Jason, “what is wrong with her?”

“Crusher, you’re scaring the shit out of her!” Jason yelled as his helmet retracted. “She can’t understand you.”

Upon hearing his voice, Taryn quit screaming and moved over towards him, never taking her eyes off Crusher. Ed and Jess were huddled on the floor near the now-closing floor hatch, eyes bulging from their heads. Things had just begun to calm slightly when someone else decided to ‘help.’

[Ah! So this is your lady friend, Captain! Pleased to meet you, miss!] Kage’s undulating language floated down from the mezzanine of the cargo bay exit. Taryn looked up to see the Veran smiling his best at her … and waving happily with all four of his hands. She took in a deep breath, held it a second, and let loose with another strident scream, this time in Jason’s ear.

“Everybody! Shut up!” Jason shouted. He had meant his crew, but it had the desired effect on everybody in the hold. “Kage, get back to your post … what the hell are you doing back here right now anyway? Crusher, stop smiling … or at least stop showing your teeth. Lucky, since you speak English, would you please escort the Brown family up to the bridge and strap them in?”

“How can you understand them?” Taryn asked, calming down to just a slight tremble.

“Long story,” Jason deflected her. “But right now we have to move.”

He led the way up through the ship, trying to keep the gawking at a minimum, and up to the bridge. As they walked in, Twingo caught sight of Taryn; his ears perked up and he broke out into a huge smile.

“Shut up,” Jason pointed at him, cutting him off from possibly triggering another screaming fit. Twingo scrunched up his face and glared at him, but turned back to his console all the same. He and Lucky helped the Browns into their seats and showed them how to operate the restraints before Jason relieved Doc in the pilot’s seat.

“Report.”

“Fairly quiet, Captain,” Doc said (there were some widening eyes at yet another alien, but mercifully no screaming). “Your friends down there have fired a total of seventy-six projectiles at the ship. Either they’ve run out of ammunition or gotten bored, but there’s no sign of the other two hostiles or the small ship that escaped.”

“Captain, the computer has flagged some com traffic that is being transmitted on an RF carrier wave, 121.5 MHz,” Kage reported from his right.

“Huh,” Jason grunted noncommittally. “That’s the Guard Frequency. It’s used for aerial emergencies only. Put it on.”

“—your intentions. Repeat, unidentified spacecraft, this is the United States Air Force. Please state your intentions.”

Jason didn’t really think they expected a response. It was probably some procedural bullshit made up back in the fifties that someone at Air Combat Command had dusted off. He nodded for Kage to open the channel.

“United States Air Force … this is the gunship-class vessel, Phoenix. Our intentions are to leave momentarily. You’ll have no doubt noticed we’ve cleared your skies for you.” He laughed to himself when the channel closed, as he imagined the looks on the faces of the top brass as U.S. dialect English came back over the radio. It was a few minutes before the voice replied.

“Would you be willing to meet with our leadership? We have much to discuss.”

“I’m afraid not. We’re not in a position at this time to offer your leadership any more than we’ve already provided,” Jason answered, rolling his eyes.

“Captain, we have three fast-moving aircraft inbound to our position,” Doc said.

Jason looked down at his sensor feed and saw the aircraft resolve as they got closer. F-16’s … most likely from Hill AFB.

“Looks like we’ve overstayed our welcome. Kage, break off radio contact and employ countermeasures,” Jason said as he nudged the Phoenix up out of the trees and throttled up the main drive. Looking at his sensor feed again, he was startled to see just how close the aircraft were and slid the throttle forward smoothly as he pulled the nose up, sending the gunship streaking into the darkening sky and quickly outdistancing his pursuers.

He climbed out of sight almost instantly and was soon invisible to their radars, so the fighter jets loitered in the area until they were nearly out of fuel and then returned to base. By this time the Phoenix was in a stationary orbit over the site of the ship they had attacked in D.C., and were scanning it with their entire sensor suite.

“It looks like your people are crawling all over that ship already, Captain,” Twingo said. “Seems to be little risk of radiation though, it looks like their powerplant wasn’t damaged too badly and no fissionable material or waste is leaking.”

“I’m still not thrilled about leaving it down there, but there’s little we can do at this point,” Jason said. “Keep running scans and see what you can find out. Could we track the exit vectors the other ships used?”

“No, that’s the strange thing,” the engineer explained. “I can detect a fading slip-drive signature that matched up with the smaller ship Deetz probably flew out on, but I can’t find a trace of the other two ships. It’s like they just disappeared.”

“Unlikely. Keep looking.”

“Jason,” Taryn said timidly from her seat, still in the restraints. “What about us?”

“Oh, damnit,” Jason said, abashed. “Let’s take care of this language barrier while we appear to have some down time.” He walked over and released their seat restraints and motioned for them to follow him. “Doc,” he said as he walked by. Doc also stood and walked off the bridge.

“OK, this is going to be painless. I promise,” Jason said with a smile once they were all in the infirmary. “Doc here is going to fit a device into one of your ears– whichever you would prefer–and code it so that you’ll be able to understand the rest of the crew. They can already understand you since their implants can decipher English from their time with me.”

[Just try to relax, this won’t feel like anything,] Doc said in his melodic dialect and tenor voice. Jason had gotten so used to understanding what he was saying he’d forgotten how soothing his native language was. Doc pulled three devices that looked like miniature hearing aids from a cabinet. He walked up to Ed first and pointed to one of his ears, then the other, questioningly.

“Oh,” Ed said as he understood. “This one.” He indicated his left ear and sat still, cringing slightly as Doc gently inserted the device and let it fit itself to the human’s ear. He repeated the process with the two women and then stood back, punching some commands into a tablet computer.

“Can you understand me?” he asked them.

“Oh … my … God …” Taryn was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. “That is so strange.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Doc chuckled. “Now for the unpleasant part, unfortunately; I’m going to need to scan each of you and synthesize an inoculation. The human immune system is fairly robust, but there are microbes on this ship that you simply have no defense against.”

“Alien germs?” Jess said in alarm.

“Essentially, yes. But don’t worry, this room is sterilized continuously,” Doc assured her. “This will go quickly since I have so much data on human reactions, thanks to the Captain.” At the title ‘Captain’ the Brown family turned to him and stared.

“I’ll leave you here in Doc’s capable hands for the moment,” Jason told them. “I’m going to go shuck myself out of this suit and then we can sit down and figure out what our next move is.” He ducked out of the infirmary before any of them could protest, and made his way to the armory to get out of his combat gear.

Twenty minutes later, he returned to the infirmary to see the Brown family in various stages of distress as Doc’s cocktail of antibodies and nanobots churned through their systems. “You’ll feel like crap for a few days,” he said sympathetically. “But it beats the alternative.”

“I’ll take your word on that,” Taryn said with a weak smile. “I feel like such an ass! You’d even told me about all this and I stood there screaming like a ten-year-old when I first got sucked up in that … thing.”

“You should have seen Jason when he first met Crusher,” Doc laughed as he checked their readouts. “It was all he could do to not wet himself, and that was even with Crusher chained up inside a box.”

“Oh yeah … and where were you?” Jason shot back. “As I recall, you and Twingo wouldn’t go within ten feet of him.”

“This is all so much to take in,” Ed admitted as he leaned against the examination table. “I can’t believe this is the life you’ve carved out for yourself, Jason. I don’t suppose you’d care to talk about it?”

“Soon, Ed,” Jason assured him. “I’ll sit down with you all and explain everything.” He had begun to gravitate towards Taryn, but he stopped himself short of reaching out for her. It had been a few years since he had seen her last, and it had been a couple more years before that time. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, she felt for him past friendship, if even that anymore. “Are they ready?” he asked Doc.

“Looks like it,” Doc said with a nod. “They adapted quite rapidly thanks to all the trial and error with you.”

“Don’t remind me. If you guys will follow me we’ll get you something to eat and drink, and you can meet the others now that you can understand them.”

“You have beer?” Ed asked hopefully.

“We do indeed,” Jason assured him before activating the intercom. “If the situation is still green we’re having a family meeting in the galley.” He walked out of the infirmary and into the common area in time to see the crew congregating around one of the high top tables in the galley area. He led the Browns out and stood near the head of the table.

“Gentlemen–and you too, Twingo–this is the Brown family. They’re personal friends of mine; this is Taryn, her father Ed, and her mother Jess,” he said, introducing them each in turn. Then he gestured to the crew, “This is my crew. The blue one is Twingo, the ship’s engineer; the lighter blue one is Doc, ship’s medic; the four-armed one is Kage, our resident hacker—”

“—slicer—”

“Whatever. The big guy with the waving dreadlocks and the huge biceps is Crusher, and the metallic one is Lucky. They’re our ground assault team,” Jason rounded out the introductions. The crew all waved back politely as their name was called. Taryn had been turning a brighter shade of red as they were introduced.

“I’m so embarrassed!” she said as she put her hands to her face. “I’m so sorry I reacted as badly as I did.”

“Think nothing of it, my dear,” Twingo said, hopping out of his seat to approach her. He took her hands in his and led her around to an open seat. “Grab a seat, all of you. What would you like to eat?” At that the family turned again to Jason.

“I’ll grab it,” he said, making his way to the food processor. Remembering how he had felt after he had been inoculated, he picked a light fare for his guests and set the trays before each of them. Once everyone had grabbed their own food, the conversation tapered off as they ate. Sitting next to Taryn, Jason couldn’t help but reflect on the bizarre twist his life had taken the last few days.

Chapter 4

“The Diligent is slipping into orbit over Saturn,” Kage reported. “They said to meet them whenever we complete our intel gathering here.” Jason snorted at that.

“What intel?” he asked rhetorically as he watched the International Space Station go streaking by below them at over seventeen thousand miles per hour. The Phoenix was using her grav drive to park in a low, stationary orbit over the eastern coast of the United States, something the primitive station couldn’t do. “Tell them we’ll be there shortly.”

They had stayed in orbit for the last two days (ship’s time) and tried to glean as much as they could from the wreckage below. Despite their best efforts, they were no closer to ascertaining who it was that had attacked Earth than they were when they first saw the news broadcasts. The fact that Deetz appeared to be leading them only heightened the mystery.

While monitoring the media coming from the surface, Jason had begun to fear the environment was too hostile for the Browns to go back home. He convinced them to stay on board, and he planned to deposit them on the Diligent as Omega Force hunted down Deetz and these unknown ships. They had reluctantly agreed, and Jason left it alone at that. What he didn’t tell them was that they might never be able to return to Earth. The public in general was a panicky, fickle beast that would care nothing for the nuances of the situation. All they knew was that Taryn was somehow tied to the alien attack, and that was as far as their reasoning would go.

The damage on the surface had been shockingly light. Deetz had blasted a few tracts of land with particle beam fire, and there had been some casualties, but there were fewer deaths than one would expect from a severe hurricane. Only one oddity stood out from the whole incident, and it was one they almost missed: all of Earth’s nuclear reactors had been rendered inert. Powerplants, ships, weapons … all shut down somehow. The only reason they caught it was because of the massive brownouts in some regions due to reactors being shut down. Besides being impressed at how Deetz had accomplished this from orbit, Jason was certain this was an important clue, he just didn’t know why.

“All hands, prepare the Phoenix to break orbit,” Jason said over the intercom as he started to change the gunship’s configuration from silent reconnaissance to intrasystem flight. He thought for a moment before keying the intercom again, and doing his best airline pilot impression, said, “If all new passengers would like to come to the flight deck, we will begin our tour of the inner planets on our way to the crown jewel of the Solar System: Saturn.”

Taryn, who was adapting to the situation surprisingly well, came bounding up on the bridge a moment later. She was dressed in the standard gray utilitarian uniform they all wore while shipboard. She fills it out a lot better than Twingo. Or Crusher. Her parents were close behind, along with the rest of the crew. Everyone took their seats except for Taryn, who leaned against the pilot’s seat and put her arm over the headrest, sending Jason’s pulse up. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“I want to watch you fly the ship,” she said with an impish grin, tugging on his right ear as she leaned in closer. He looked up and saw his crew watching him with a disturbing degree of interest. Twingo elbowed Doc and even Crusher was nodding his approval. Sighing and deliberately ignoring them for the time being, he turned the Phoenix to point away from Earth.

“Are we clear?” he asked Kage.

“Hang on, Captain,” the Veran answered. “There’s an unbelievable amount of debris in orbit I’m trying to track. So your species does realize that your little dumping ground is going to be problematic if you ever decide to explore beyond your planet, right?”

“Eh … we’re a little shortsighted at times,” Jason admitted. “Just tell me when we can push out of here; I’m sure Crisstof is getting impatient.” While running in a low-observability mode they couldn’t use the navigational or combat shields, so the fast-moving debris in their low orbit could potentially damage the ship.

“There’s a carcass of a chemical booster engine coming by in two seconds that’s got a bunch of small stuff trailing after it, and then you’re clear.”

Once the debris cleared, Jason throttled up and the Phoenix smoothly climbed up out of Earth’s gravity well. He had already programmed in his nav points so he hammered down for a quick flyby of Mars before heading to Saturn to rendezvous with the Diligent. The nostalgia of the situation wasn’t lost on him; it had been his first time in the gunship, with Deetz in command, that he first saw the other planets in his own star system.

He indulged his passengers with not only a flyby of Mars, but a quick burn through the thin atmosphere and a nerve-tingling flight at low level up Olympus Mons before pushing back out into space and towards the outer planets. Ed and Jess gritted their teeth and endured the flight, but Taryn was simply wide-eyed and thrilled at the close encounter.

“That was incredible!” she cried in delight.

“Wait until you see what’s next,” Jason told her with a grin. He felt a certain amount of guilt at enjoying himself so much after the Earth had just been attacked and the implications of that, but being around humans again, around her again, was intoxicating.

“Navigational shields up,” Kage reported. “Saturn is putting off some nasty radiation. Orbital insertion in five minutes, we’ll catch the Diligent in … eight minutes.”

As they approached the gas giant, a few people on the bridge sucked in their breath at the sight, not all of them human. Saturn was stunning as her roiling atmosphere became visible to the naked eye.

“Phoenix, we have you on sensors. Fly the approach as directed and prepare to board the hangar deck via platform alpha. Welcome back, Omega Force,” the call from the Diligent’s com officer came over the intercom as Jason swung around and chased the much larger frigate, dipping low along the rings as he did.

“Who’s Omega Force?” Taryn asked.

“We are,” Crusher answered with pride from where he stood near the canopy.

“I’ll explain later,” Jason said quietly.

“You keep saying that,” she whispered back. “It seems you have a lot of explaining to do.”

The Phoenix touched down gently on the Diligent’s aft landing pad and was lowered into the hangar bay. After parking the ship and shutting down the primary flight systems, Jason led his crew and passengers out through the cargo bay and down the main ramp onto the frigate’s hangar deck.

“Captain Burke,” Kellea Colleren started as soon as he stepped off the ramp. “I’m sorry to hear about the attack on your—Oh! And who is this?” Captain Colleren was clearly not referring to Ed or Jess; she was looking right at Taryn, who had walked up to stand close enough to him to be touching.

“Uh … Kellea, I mean … Captain Colleren,” Jason stammered. “This is my … this is Taryn. She’s from Earth.”

“I figured that part out. Thank you, Captain,” Kellea said with a little frost in her voice before she turned to face the rest of the crew. “Welcome back everyone. You know your way around, so let’s just say we’ll meet up in the port-side conference room in two hours.” With that she turned and marched away from the group.

Jason’s relationship with Kellea was complicated. When they had first met, she’d looked at him like something she would like to scrape off the bottom of her shoe, but after his crew’s successful thwarting of an attack on a heavily-populated mining settlement that had nearly killed them, she had warmed up to him. Over the last year the beautiful captain and the human mercenary seemed to be more than just business associates at times, but she would just as often turn a cold shoulder to him.

“It seems you have a lot of explaining to do, Captain,” Taryn practically hissed into his ear before marching away herself to catch up to her parents. Jason just gritted his teeth and followed along, but not before he could hear Twingo, Kage, and Crusher giggling behind him.

The dining facilities aboard the Diligent were a thing of wonder to a mercenary crew that lived aboard a small gunship with only a single food processor and few stores onboard. Large buffet lines stretched along either wall of the mess deck, and everything appeared to be quite fresh. Crusher sighed lustily at the sight and made his way towards the omnivore line (vegetarian was along the opposite wall). The rest of Omega Force knew to crowd in behind the Galvetic warrior as nobody in their right mind dallied in line when in front of him.

Taryn, having recovered from her earlier peevishness, watched in awe/horror as the crew fell upon their heaping trays of food in a wordless assault. Even the normally proper Doc was making odd groaning sounds as he shoveled food into his mouth. Once they had gorged themselves, they sat back and drowsily reflected on their current situation.

“So I assume we’re now declaring war on Deetz,” Doc said, cutting to the core of the matter.

“Do we all agree it’s in our best interest to neutralize him?” Jason asked, seeing nodding heads all around. “Lucky? You’ve been quiet about all of this so far.”

“I have been conflicted about my emotions on this matter, Captain. I feel a certain amount of responsibility for Deetz being able to perpetrate such an attack on a helpless population, as I advised you to let him go.” The battlesynth was sitting in a chair at their table, a rare sight as he normally preferred to stand.

“The decision was mine,” Jason asserted, “the blame, and the guilt, stops with me.”

“Not entirely,” Lucky disagreed. “I understood what you were asking me that day and I tailored my response so as not to have to destroy another synth. Had I been less of an idealist, I would have told you to destroy him while he was restrained.”

“We were all idealists back then, bud,” Jason said, slapping him on the shoulder. “That’s not the point. The question is: what do we do now?”

“Kill him,” Crusher said simply.

“Kill him,” Lucky agreed. “He’s proven too dangerous to be left alive.”

“Okay,” Jason nodded. “Now for the easy part; how the hell do we find him? Despite being a conniving, evil bastard, he is still frighteningly intelligent and resourceful.”

“I suppose we should wait to see if Crisstof dug anything up on the attackers,” Kage said as he picked at the remains of his meal. “That should hopefully give us a starting point.”

*****

“What we have is very thin,” Crisstof Dalton began, standing at the head of the long table in one of the Diligent’s conference rooms. “We downloaded the sensor logs from the Phoenix and we concur with Twingo; these ships appear to be at least four or five hundred years old. They also seem to employ some other method of FTL travel than the slip-drive; there were no slip radiation trails leading out of this system when we arrived, save for the small ship that escaped your initial counter-attack.”

“This much we know already,” Jason said. “Were you able to cross-reference the ships to any particular builder?”

“None of the known yards in this part of the galaxy built those ships,” Crisstof continued. “But, we may have found something. There were markings along the hull that we weren’t able to identify as any known language within travelling distance, so we expanded the search parameters to include stylized symbols, links to splinter societies, and anything else it could find. The results were a massive data dump but one hit looks promising, though I’m hesitant to bring it up.”

“Why?” Doc asked.

“Because, frankly, it’s absurd; the writing is a close match to the written language of a species we know as the A’arcooni. The problem is that the species was cataloged centuries ago and was in a post-industrial revolution stage, much like your own species. There was no indication they were working on ships of that level of sophistication then, and given the age of the ships they would had to have been building them during the survey missions.” Crisstof splayed his hands wide. “While interesting, I don’t see how it helps.”

“So the A’arcooni government isn’t a member of the ConFed? Let’s suspend disbelief for the moment and assume that somehow they built these ships without being noticed,” Jason said, mostly thinking out loud. “Why wouldn’t they have modern ships if they were already building this type way back then? And why would Deetz be associated with these people? There have to be any number of mercenary outfits that would agree to attack Earth if only for a chance at a hold full of precious metals.”

“You might be surprised,” Kellea spoke up for the first time. “While the ConFed may be corrupt on many levels, they do not tolerate attacks upon primitive species, no offense intended. Any outfit with enough muscle to move in on an entire planet wouldn’t likely be foolish enough to risk bringing the ConFed fleet down on its own head.”

“Not only that, I doubt Deetz has that sort of money right now,” Doc said. “This has the feel of a desperate move.”

“Which brings us back to the A’arcoon,” Jason said. “Send the coordinates for their world to the Phoenix and we’ll check that out first, at least as a starting point.”

“It’s a long flight, but I can think of no other logical starting point,” Crisstof conceded. “When do you leave?”

“As soon as our bird is fueled and Twingo has a chance to make sure we didn’t strain anything when I slammed her into the atmosphere.”

“What about me? Us?” Taryn asked from one of the seats lining the wall. During the course of the meeting she, and her parents, had sat in wide-eyed wonder at the conversation as the breadth of their galactic neighborhood became clear.

“You will be staying here on the Diligent,” Jason said.

“Not likely!” Taryn retorted hotly. “I’m going with you guys.”

“This is non-negotiable,” Jason said firmly. “We have no idea what we’ll be running into along the way on this mission, and I am not putting you at that kind of risk.” She sucked in a breath, making it clear she was going to argue the point, and he cut her off. “My ship, my rules, my choice,” he said sharply. “Under no circumstances will I allow you to be onboard when we’re likely to see ship-to-ship fighting and God knows what else.” She glared at him a moment and then stood, turned, and walked out of the conference room. Nobody made any attempt to stop her; the entire port side of the deck they were on was a hospitality area so there was little she could do other than go sulk and stare out a window.

“That could have gone better,” Jason said, regretting his tone.

“Not really,” Ed spoke up with a lopsided grin. “You know her as well as anybody. She wouldn’t have let it drop.”

“Since there appears to be nothing else,” Kellea said as she stood. “If the Browns will follow me, I’ll take you to the steward who will be assigned to you during your stay, I’m sure the Omega Force crew has a lot of work to accomplish in a short time before they depart.”

In reality, only three members of the crew had anything useful to do. As per Omega Force’s standard operating procedure for ship’s maintenance and repair, Twingo and Lucky did most of the work, with the assistance of Kage. Jason hovered around and annoyed them with his lack of understanding of the Phoenix’s systems and the principles under which they operated, while Crusher snuggled in between the wheels of the main landing gear, using them as a sort of hammock, and was soon snoring loud enough to be heard over the noise of the hangar deck.

After Twingo’s inspection, he cleared the Phoenix for flight and supervised the fueling crew as they topped her off. The rest of Omega Force began shuffling things around, including a few crates of fresh commissary items they had liberated from the Diligent’s mess deck, and strapping everything in place. Three hours after their meeting with Crisstof and they were ready to launch. Jason stood at the bottom of the ramp, looking at the hangar deck exit contemplatively.

“Are you going to go say goodbye?” Doc asked.

“I think it may be best if we just launch and be on our way,” Jason said. “I suck at goodbyes, and she has a talent for getting what she wants out of me no matter how bad an idea I think it is.”

“Seems females are the same the galaxy over,” Doc chuckled. “We’re ready when you are.” He turned and left Jason at the bottom of the ramp as he walked back up into the ship. After a moment longer Jason turned and followed him up, stopping to close and lock the ship.

“We’re already cleared, Captain,” Kage said as he walked onto the bridge. “You can taxi at your leisure, we’re launching off the forward platform.” Jason gave his displays a once-over as he hopped into the pilot’s seat and then flipped on his external indicator lights, a sign to the ground crews in the hangar that the ship was preparing to move. After a moment, while observing the rear video feed, he slowly backed the Phoenix out of her parking berth using the jog control down on his left. The gunship backed out at slower than a walking pace before taxiing ahead to the forward elevator to be lifted up to the launch deck.

Once the elevator stopped and locked, the Diligent’s com officer sent them their launch clearance. “Gunship-class vessel Phoenix; you are clear to start primary flight systems and launch at your discretion. Please bear to starboard after you lift off. Happy hunting. Diligent out.”

“Bring the main drive online and align the navigation system,” Jason ordered unnecessarily.

“Main drive is online and available, Captain,” Twingo reported. “You’re clear to lift.”

“Lifting off,” Jason said. “Retract the landing gear and let’s get this hunt started!” His last statement was met with cheers from the bridge as he gently accelerated the gunship to drift ahead and to starboard in relation to the Diligent before throttling up and accelerating towards their mesh-out point. The longer they served together the more these small rituals seemed to manifest as they went about the day-to-day task of their chosen profession. Being a military man, Jason knew it served to stave off complacency and instill a sense of purpose and cohesiveness. For him, they were a comforting and familiar way to either start or end a mission.

“Course plotted and entered, Captain,” Kage reported. “You’re clear to engage the slip-drive.” Jason looked down at the large blinking green button to his right. The old, boring control had been replaced with an animated switch face that enthusiastically said “Burn Baby Burn!” in dancing characters. He slapped it; instantly the canopy darkened and there was a whine and shudder as the ship transitioned into slip-space. Now came the hardest part of the job; even travelling at well over a thousand times the speed of light, the distances were just unfathomably huge, so the crew was used to flight times lasting often more than a week. This one would be ten days. Sighing inwardly at the inevitable, Jason decided he could use some sleep and headed off to his quarters after waving to the crew.

Sitting on his bed as he pulled his boots off, Jason contemplated on whether or not he had just made another fatal mistake with Taryn by not going and saying goodbye before he left. He knew she would try to convince him to take her along, but he wasn’t sure that was because she wanted to be close to him, wanted to be there when they got revenge on Deetz, or simply didn’t want to sit on an alien spaceship with her parents. As he lay on his bed he thought back to all of the mistakes he had made, all the time he had wasted, and how things had been going along just fine for him out here before she was thrust back into his life. With troubled thoughts flitting around in his head, he finally drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 5

“Anything to report?” Jason asked as he walked onto the bridge to begin his watch shift. Kage was sitting in the pilot’s seat but had the main display scrolling a data stream at a dizzying rate. Since the new computer core had been installed in the ship, the Veran code slicer spent a lot of his free time running simulated scenarios in which he would have to defeat the computer’s security measures.

“Nope, all quiet here,” he said distractedly. “Twingo and Crusher are sleeping and Doc is messing around in the com room. Oh … there were some message fragments from the Diligent, but we’re running so hard right now that the slip-transceiver is having trouble compiling the data.”

“That’s a thing?” Jason asked, surprised.

“Only when we’ve got her really cranked up,” Kage answered as he hopped down from the seat. To Jason’s annoyance he didn’t bother to return the displays to their previous settings. “It’s the interference from the fields when the engines are nearing maximum output. When we slow down for our first maintenance check they should come through … if the Diligent keeps transmitting them.”

“Should we slow down now? It could be important.”

“The message header had it marked as normal priority,” Kage said. “I decided to leave it up to you rather than command a velocity change without asking first.”

“Okay. Go ahead and get out of here, I’ll call you if I need you,” Jason said as he climbed into the seat to reconfigure his displays. Once Kage had left, he turned to the other member of the crew that had been silently standing on the bridge. “What do you think, Lucky? Slow down and have the Diligent resend the message, or press on?”

“Since the message was not sent with high priority, I would say the risk is equal either way,” Lucky said from his station by the door.

“True,” Jason mused. “We’re not scheduled for our first throttle back for another twenty-seven hours. I don’t want to lose any more time on this trip than necessary; we’ll wait until then and have Captain Colleren resend the message.” When travelling long distances at such a high speed, Jason regularly called for a reduction in velocity so Twingo could inspect the engines and the reactor to make sure they weren’t about to break something and leave them stranded. He assumed the Diligent had some more intel to feed them so he didn’t risk slowing down for it. They would still get it well before they reached their destination.

*****

Crusher shuffled across the deck towards the galley at a careful pace. He had strained something while working out in the cargo bay and he was taking it easy for the moment, letting it heal up before they arrived over the A’arcooni homeworld. The long-burn flights were excruciating for the big warrior, someone who wasn’t a huge fan of space travel to begin with. He stepped up to the food processor and began punching in commands to get a post-workout meal so he could head to his rack.

A small shuffle caught his attention behind him and he spun quickly, expecting to see one of his crew trying to sneak up on him, but saw nothing. He tested the air with his nose and caught a faint hint of something that didn’t belong. He stepped away from the processor, breathing in long breaths through his nose, testing the air and blowing it out the side of his blunted muzzle. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

He heard it again, something soft scraping along the deck, and it seemed to be coming from the hatch the service bots were stored in. “Rodents?” he asked himself softly, leaning down to peer into the dark tunnel that was behind the galley counter. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a pair of brown eyes that were too large for any normal shipboard pest. So what was it?

“Hey,” it said.

*****

“Did you hear that?” Jason asked Lucky. Both were on the bridge. “It sounded like someone just kicked a dog or something.”

“I did in fact hear—”

“CAPTAIN, COME DOWN HERE!” Crusher’s bellow echoed up from the main deck without the need for the ship’s intercom. Jason leapt from his seat and raced off the bridge after Lucky. They ran down the stairs and saw a flustered Crusher standing over an equally flustered person who simply couldn’t, shouldn’t be there.

Taryn.

“You’ve got to be kidding me …” Jason’s sentence trailed off as Taryn gave him a slightly guilty smile and tried a half-hearted wave. She was disheveled and smudged with dirt, a testament to the locations of some of her hiding spots.

“Hi, Jason,” she said. “I know you’re probably mad at—”

“KAGE!” Jason shouted, cutting her off. The Veran came stumbling out of his quarters at the bellowing of his name. Before he could even take in the scene, or ask any questions, Jason pointed to the command deck. “Get up there and bring the ship back to forty percent slip and contact the Diligent. NOW!” To Kage’s credit, he raced out of the common area and up to the bridge as fast as his legs would carry him. A moment later the pitch and volume of the engines changed and the muted vibrations through the deck faded.

“Now,” Jason continued calmly, “what are you doing on board, Taryn?”

“I knew no matter how many times I asked, you’d still say no to me coming along,” she started. “So I simplified things and made sure you didn’t leave without me.”

“What … why … how …” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, collected his thoughts, and tried again. “There’s a very good reason you shouldn’t be here. Why is it that you think being on a warship that is flying to an unknown, possibly hostile planet is a good idea?”

“Look, Earth is my home too, probably more so than it is for you at this point.” Taryn came out swinging. Her experience told her that a full frontal assault would work best against Jason, so she’d take the initiative before he had the chance to build a logical argument. “Why don’t I have the right to be here?”

Jason spluttered indignantly for a moment, trying to articulate multiple points simultaneously.

“This is MY ship! For starters, you’re trespassing.” He knew he was on weak footing, but she had knocked him off balance by just being there in the first place. “I don’t have to explain my reasoning to you.”

“You’re the one who pulled me off my home,” Taryn countered. “Doesn’t that make you responsible for my well-being? How is dumping me off with a bunch of aliens–no offense, guys–not shirking out of your duty to keep me safe?”

Jason opened his mouth three times, but no words came out as the angry red in his neck began to streak up into his face. The rest of the crew, who had gathered at the commotion, was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed, their heads moving back and forth between the participants like spectators at a tennis match. Thankfully, Jason was saved from having to answer.

“The Diligent is on the coms, Captain,” Kage said over the intercom.

“Follow me,” Jason said to Taryn simply as he turned and stomped angrily up the steps to the command deck. Taryn cringed, but followed at a short distance. The rest of the crew bunched up and followed her at an even shorter distance.

“Ah, I see you’ve had our missing human this whole time, Captain,” Kellea said in a clipped voice. Jason recognized the tone and winced inwardly.

“If you mean my stowaway here, then yes,” he answered. “I take it there has been some concern aboard the Diligent?”

“If by concern you mean the near dismantling of my ship over the course of the last four days to try and track down Taryn Brown, then yes, there was a level of concern,” she answered.

“I’m sorry about this, Captain. We just found her, actually, and contacted you right afterwards. Could you inform her parents she’s fine?”

“Of course,” she said. “But how is it your internal sensors didn’t warn you there was an unauthorized passenger before you departed?”

Twingo, who had thus far been thoroughly enjoying the show, was now aware of a number of angry stares aimed his way.

“How the hell was I supposed to know someone would sneak on board?” he protested loudly. “I deactivate the system when we’re on the Diligent to keep the annoying false alarms down.” Jason looked like he wanted to smack his friend, but instead turned back to the display on the canopy where Captain Colleren was standing with her arms crossed. Commander Bostco, her first officer, was standing behind her and waving with a big smile. Jason almost laughed but knew he’d just get his orange-haired friend in trouble.

“So now that we’ve solved the mystery, what are we going to do about it?” he asked.

“We meshed out shortly after you did, but not on your vector. We’ve actually been moving further away this whole time,” Captain Colleren said. “Your ship is quite a bit faster than mine, so I have no way to reach you to collect your stowaway.”

Taryn wisely kept silent while her fate was discussed. Jason rubbed at his hair and growled in frustration.

“We can’t backtrack, we’re almost at the halfway point and I can’t afford to waste this much time.”

“If it’s any consolation, you’re not likely to find much there,” Bostco spoke up for the first time. “The ships that attacked your planet wouldn’t have made it back there by now, if that’s even their point of origin.”

“We don’t know that,” Jason said. “From what we can tell they don’t utilize slip-drive technology, but I agree; the power signatures we scanned mean we probably won’t find them in orbit when we arrive.” He looked over and gave Taryn a hard look before continuing. “We’ll keep her on the Phoenix for now. I don’t like it, but we don’t have a lot of choice in the matter at this point.”

“Agreed,” Colleren said, her expression unreadable. “I’ll inform her parents. Let us know what you find and we’ll formulate a plan from there., Diligent out.” Once the display had disappeared and only the opaque canopy remained Jason spun on his crew.

“You,” he said, jabbing a finger towards Twingo. “Get your ass down to your dungeon and check the engines, I want to be back at maximum slip within an hour. And turn the damn anti-intrusion sensors on after you’ve added Taryn to the manifest as a passenger.” Twingo looked around for allies, found none, and backed off the bridge slowly before heading down to engineering.

“Doc,” Jason continued, “please set Taryn up in starboard berthing so she can get cleaned up, and then see that she grabs something to eat. I’ll be down a bit later. Kage, you go help Twingo. I don’t want to loaf along any longer than I have to.” Kage tuned and left immediately, while Doc took Taryn by the elbow and guided her off the bridge. She tried to hide the hurt look on her face as Jason barked orders at his crew and talked about her as if she wasn’t there. Once they were gone, Jason flopped heavily into the pilot’s seat with a loud groan, squeezing his hands to his temples and rubbing. She’s been around for less than a week and everything has already gone completely sideways. Unbelievable.

“We heard your squeal of fear all the way up here on the bridge,” Lucky said to Crusher matter-of-factly. “Did the young woman really frighten you so?”

“What?! Squeal of fear?” Crusher nearly snarled at his friend. “That was a war cry that is meant to startle and disorient one’s opponent.”

“I see,” Lucky said with aplomb. “In that case, I am certain the young, small human female was suitably terrified.”

“Shut up.”

*****

In order to avoid any unpleasant confrontations after his mini-meltdown at discovering Taryn had smuggled herself aboard his ship, Jason stayed on the bridge until the computer let him know she had returned to berthing and was going to sleep. He stretched and climbed out of his seat. “You good with overwatch for a while?”

“You always ask me that and I always tell you, I am fine with watching the bridge while you sleep,” Lucky said. “I will alert you if something happens that requires your attention.”

“Just being polite,” Jason said as he walked towards the exit. “Everyone deserves a little common courtesy. Well, everyone but Twingo. See you in a while.”

“Sleep well, Captain.

Jason had no sooner laid down to try and get a few hours of sleep when there was a soft knock at his door. “Open,” he said conversationally to the computer, a command which caused the door to whisk into the bulkhead. Squinting against the light in the passageway, he could just make out a silhouette that definitely didn’t belong to anyone on his crew.

“Can I come in?” Taryn asked, almost shyly.

“Of course,” Jason answered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and keying the lights up one notch to just a dim glow. Taryn stepped into the room and stood with her arms crossed, seeming uncomfortable.

“Please, sit.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and he leaned on the desk across from her.

“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 were 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.

Chapter 6

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 food?” 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 planets 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.”

“It is an assumption this species had a central seat of power,” Lucky said. “Not all societies require governance.”

“Please … Let’s not get into another wide-ranging discussion on xenopsychology,” Jason begged. “Let’s just assume, and hope, that they’re like ninety percent of all the other species I’ve met so far, and that their big, clunky, bureaucratic government left us some clues lying about.” Crusher snorted but said nothing as they began to ascend the steps into the building.

The doors were a large metal affair that looked to be incredibly heavy, but when Jason pushed experimentally against them they swung open easily. The three stepped tentatively inside, looking about in multiple spectrums as they did. Jason could see that the door was actually a honeycombed, hollow construct that only looked like a solid slab of alloy. While the outside had faded a bit, the inside was still burnished to a shine.

They found themselves in an enormous, arched hall that seemed to extend all the way to the back of the building. There were alcoves that extended off the main hall, but it was clear that whatever the purpose of the building had been, it had revolved around that central room. They split up and poked around for a bit but could find nothing of value in the place. It was more than barren; it seemed to have been sterilized as there were large scrapes and scuffs along some walls that could have been from something being removed.

“This is interesting enough, but is it likely to have what we’re looking for?” Crusher asked. “Whatever that is,” he grumbled under his breath.

“I’m not certain,” Jason admitted. “We had thought this may have been an administrative or government building, but the layout doesn’t make too much sense for that.”

“It almost looks like a place of worship,” Lucky commented. Jason looked around again at all the equally spaced and sized alcoves as well as the large common area they surrounded.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But it actually looks more like a market place or bazaar from back home.”

“Yes,” Crusher agreed, kicking over a metal chair that had a strange split-back design. “We have something similar on my world. Either way, I don’t think this is what we’re looking for.”

“Agreed,” Jason said. “Let’s get hustling to the next building on the list.”

There was something undeniably eerie about walking through a seemingly abandoned city. For Jason, the fact it was an alien city amplified that effect. Even Crusher was becoming agitated the further they traveled.

The next two buildings were the same as the first; interesting, but not informative. So far they had yet to even find any signs that the beings that had lived in the city were related to those who built the ships that attacked Earth. As they walked down the middle of a large street, the Phoenix rumbled overhead in a slow flyby. Frustrated with the lack of progress over the previous few hours, Jason just waved his ship on without bothering to make contact over the com, certain he was being viewed on the sensors.

His hunch proved correct as the whining rumble became a roaring crescendo as the gunship accelerated up and away from the city, heading on a northerly route. They were making their way towards the last building they had marked to search when the silence became unbearable to Jason.

“Have you noticed that everything is either stone or metal? There’s no wood or cloth or anything like that,” he said.

“Have you noticed we’ve been walking aimlessly for five hours with nothing to show for it?” Crusher shot back at him.

“It may be a cultural peculiarity,” Lucky said smoothly, ignoring his friend. “The lack of organic building material could mean a few things. The stone construction of this city is quite unique.”

They fell into silence again as they approached the last building; the sun was beginning to set over the buildings, throwing long shadows and making the empty city even more uninviting. The building they were heading towards looked impregnable from the outside. It looked as if it were made from an enormous slab of stone, and angled upward with the sides tilting inward at fifteen degrees. The truncated pyramid had a flat roof and a large, arching entrance. The three members of the ground team simply looked at each other before stepping into the gloomy building.

Once inside, they could tell there was something different about this building. The entrance had chicanes and barricades that appeared to be part of the original construction. All the other buildings had open floor plans, while this one looked like it had built-in security measures. There was also heavy scoring along the walls that was consistent with energy weapon fire.

“Which way?” Crusher asked.

“Down,” Jason said. “We try to find a way into the lower levels. This looks like a secured location and most bunkers or vaults are built underground.”

“You mean humans build most bunkers and vaults underground,” Crusher insisted.

“Who in the hell would build a bunker suspended above ground level?” Jason asked, tiring of the warrior’s disagreeable attitude during the operation.

“Who would build a city out of one piece of rock?”

“Just find a way down,” Jason ground out. “I’m not wanting to stand around and debate this.” Crusher just shrugged and began looking through doorways to try and find a way down to the lower levels his captain assumed existed. Lucky took a different approach and was using his impressive sensor suite to try and penetrate the interior walls.

“This way, Captain,” he said, after spinning around in four complete revolutions. He led them down a short passageway to the left of the security posts and stopped in front of a wall that appeared the same as the others. He pressed against it and pushed to no effect. Leaning into it, the powerful battlesynth pushed so hard a discernible whine could be heard from his actuators, yet still the wall held.

“There are easier ways to tunnel into solid rock,” Crusher said as he leaned against the far wall with his arms crossed, not volunteering to add his considerable strength to the task. Without responding, Lucky placed his back against the spot of wall, jumped enough to get his feet out in front of him, and fired the repulsors in the bottom of his treads. The repulsors over-pressured the passageway, nearly knocking Jason down, and the section of wall disappeared in a screech of tortured metal. Lucky also disappeared through the sudden gap and could be heard crashing down the passageway beyond.

By the time Jason and Crusher rushed to the opening, Lucky was already on his feet and moving back up towards them. Beyond the hidden door there was a ramp that led down steeply and curved to the right as it spiraled downward. Looking at the beveled edge of the wall, Crusher let out a low whistle.

“That’s impressive,” he admitted. “I could see no gap between the door and the wall when it was closed.”

“It was held in place with considerable pressure,” Lucky said as he joined them, “but it is obviously part of the same, solid piece of rock that makes up the wall. This is a departure from the other construction methods we have seen so far. I would surmise this passageway leads someplace that was meant to remain hidden.”

“Fair assumption,” Jason agreed. “Shall we?”

The spiraling ramp seemed to stretch on forever before ending in some sort of control room. Jason drew in a sharp breath when he walked in; for the first time since getting boots on the ground there was proof of the previous tenants’ technology. Large monitors adorned the walls, and control panels littered benches all around the room.

“Interesting,” he said as he walked carefully through the room. “So the fifty million credit question is this: why is this the only room we’ve seen with any kind of tech?”

“There is also organic construction material used here,” Lucky said as he knocked experimentally on the fibrous material of the desks. “The room must have been hermetically sealed when the door closed, as these show very little sign of decomposition.”

“You can say that again,” Crusher said, spinning one of the chairs around to show a shockingly well-preserved, but quite dead, alien body.

“Damnit! Warn me next time,” Jason griped. Crusher just smiled at him as he looked over the alien body.

“I have no record of this species,” Lucky said, inspecting the body himself. “But I was not built for this type of task.” The alien was slight of build–although that may have been because of the dehydration that went along with its mummification–and had thin, willowy limbs. There was a tall crest that ran down the back of its head, and its large eyelids were closed. Jason could also see what appeared to be the remains of some sort of feathers on its head running down either side of the crest.

“While interesting, we need to see what else we can find,” Jason said, averting his eyes from the dried husk of a being that had likely starved to death in that room. As he looked around, he noticed another alloy door inset into the far wall. Leaving his friends to poke around the control room, he strode over and grabbed what he assumed to be the handle. It was hemispherical, about two feet in diameter, and set dead center in the door. Giving it a test jiggle he could see it move ever so slightly, so he commanded his armor up to full strength, grabbed the handle and cranked it to the left, hoping to force the mechanism open through brute force. All he accomplished, however, was shearing the handle off the mechanism and leaving a sharp spike sticking out of the door where it had been mounted. “Shit.”

“That was probably not the best way to gain entry, Captain,” Lucky said from across the room. Jason just stared flatly at him for a moment.

“Thanks, Lucky, but I figured that out myself.”

“It would’ve helped if you had figured it out before ripping the handle off the door,” Crusher chimed in as he pawed through stack of documents he’d found.

“If you’re both done being helpful,” Jason said calmly, “maybe one of you, probably the one with lasers in his arms, could come over and cut this door down.” Unperturbed, Lucky walked over and deployed one of the powerful laser projectors that was in each of his forearms. With a brilliant shower of sparks and billowing smoke, he began to cut through the right edge of the door, adjusting the power and focus of the beam as he did so to avoid destroying what lay beyond.

Ten minutes later, after some cutting and wrenching, the door hung open on its hinges and Jason was stepping inside, ignoring the hiss of the still-glowing metal as it brushed against his armor. Inside was just a tiny alcove that held a single desk and chair. Seated in the chair was another mummified A’arcooni, this one slumped forward with its face planted onto the desk. He looked away and saw a multi-lensed device mounted on the wall. He smiled as he recognized it for what it was, despite its alien construction: a camera. This one had four lenses arrayed equidistant from each other, so Jason assumed it to be a three-dimensional or holographic camera. He lifted it gingerly off the wall and turned it over. It appeared to be self-contained, with no external storage device or power supply. Looking again at the alien behind the desk, he got the impression this was someone of some importance judging by the intricacy of the clothes it wore.

“I think this is what we were looking for,” he said to his companions. “It looks like this fella might have recorded a last message; it might be on the camera still.” Crusher looked dubious but said nothing. Lucky moved to inspect the unit, but also remained silent.

“Let’s get topside and call the ship for a pickup,” Jason told them. “We’ve been here for a while and this is probably as good as we’re going to find.”

“What about them?” Crusher asked, nodding towards the bodies. Jason frowned as he contemplated that.

“I guess we have no choice but to leave them,” Jason said. “I have no idea what funeral rites, if any, they prefer. Anything we might do could be wildly disrespectful.” Crusher seemed to think this over before nodding his agreement.

They walked up the spiraling ramp in silence, pausing while Lucky moved the door back into place as best he could, and exited the building into the night.

Twenty minutes later the Phoenix dropped to a low hover and lowered the rear ramp so they could board. Jason didn’t want to risk taking the camera he cradled up through the transit beam and having it disintegrate in the fields. He met Twingo in the common area and handed him the unit.

“Be very careful with this,” he told his friend. “Find out how to power it up and have Kage help you get whatever might be on it, off.” He clopped up onto the bridge and retracted his helmet. “Anything?”

“Nothing crucial, but there were some things of interest,” Doc reported from the pilot’s seat.

“You can tell me about it in a bit,” Jason said, turning away to leave. “I’m getting out of this thing and changing into a clean uniform. Get us up into high geosync and we’ll figure out what to do next.”

As Jason walked off towards the armory, he could hear the engines throttle back up as Doc sent them rocketing up out of the atmosphere and into a geosynchronous orbit. Once he was cleaned up and his gear was stowed, he joined the rest of the crew, and Taryn, for a late meal and some reflection on the day’s events.

“I’m still going through the data from the feed on Jason’s armor,” Twingo was saying, “but I just can’t believe that these buildings were constructed from a solid piece of rock.”

“That’s not even the strangest thing we saw down there, but I have my doubts as well,” Jason said as he ate, feeling decidedly mellow after their long trek across the alien city.

“Let’s try to stay focused on the matter at hand,” Doc said. “Tomorrow we’ll attack this fresh and try to see what may be left on that device Jason brought back. And with that in mind, I bid you all goodnight.” He got up from the table and ambled off to his quarters without further comment.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Jason conceded. “We’re all beat after the flight out and the day we’ve had. I’m going up to the bridge to put the Phoenix to bed and then I’m hitting the rack for at least six hours.”

“I will be up to stand watch momentarily, Captain,” Lucky said as Jason stood to leave.

Jason walked around the bridge stations putting various systems in standby and priming others to alert the crew at any sign of danger. Finally done, he flopped into the pilot’s seat. The planet below was exquisitely beautiful without the telltale signs of an industrialized civilization spoiling it. He activated the orbital maneuvering system, spun the ship to port, and then dipped the nose down so the Phoenix was flying sideways around the planet and offering an unfettered view of the globe through the main canopy.

—BEEP BEEP—

He looked at his display as the computer automatically brought up a com control panel, complete with a blinking indicator that he had an incoming com request. Assuming it was the Diligent, he moved to activate the link, but his hand stopped when he saw the link origin; it was only a few thousand kilometers away, also in orbit around the planet.

Jason swallowed hard as he considered the implications. The sensors claimed the system was clear of any ships, but something was transmitting from a trailing orbit off their starboard side. Could those ships have some sort of advanced stealth ability?

—BEEP BEEP—

Hands clammy with a sudden sweat, he reached over and activated the link.

“I see your manners haven’t improved much since last we spoke, Jason Burke.” Deetz’s face filled the display projected on the main canopy.

“Having my home planet attacked by a psychotic, lying, piece of shit synth doesn’t help,” Jason said evenly as he rose from his seat and walked around to face the display, but not before making sure the transmission was being recorded and a trace from the signal’s origin was being run.

“Oh my, you are mad, aren’t you?” Deetz laughed. “Imagine my surprise when I got to that backwater world and discovered the DL7 had never returned and you were nowhere to be found. I had expected you would have fled home, had the ship confiscated, and likely been incarcerated by your government.”

“Thought I’d do some sightseeing first,” Jason replied lightly, trying to prolong the conversation so the computer could provide a better trace. “So what is this all about, Deetz?”

“It’s not obvious? I went from being an up-and-comer in Bondrass’s organization to being without a ship and hunted by two different cartels. I want revenge.”

“Oh please. This is a little elaborate for a simple revenge plot isn’t it? You’re up to something and I want to know what it is,” Jason said as he stood in the middle of the bridge with his hands on his hips.

“I could care less what you want,” Deetz said, suddenly dropping the pretense of joviality. “You’ve cost me dearly and you’re going to pay for that.”

“You might want to get some better friends before that. The one ship that tried to stay and fight didn’t fare so well.”

“Ah yes … I’d noticed the gunship has been highly modified from its original configuration. In fact, I wasn’t sure it was you until I had my probe in that system get a visual confirmation before transmitting the com request.”

“Let’s stop dancing around, Deetz,” Jason said sharply. “I’m coming for you and I won’t stop until I’ve got you. No mercy and no walking away. Not this time.” Deetz simply winked at him with a smile and terminated the transmission. Jason stared at the blank screen for a moment before raising his voice. “So what do you think?”

“He was very confident,” Lucky said as he emerged from the passageway that led off the bridge. Jason had seen the light glint off his skin as he was pacing the bridge, and was both thankful and impressed at the battlesynth’s instinct to let the charade between him and Deetz play out.

“He was,” Jason agreed. “He also wasn’t surprised to see us here. In fact, he left a probe here for when we arrived. He planned this somehow.”

“The probe was possibly left for anyone who stumbled upon this planet and his secret. But it does confirm we are in the right place.”

The computer beeped again to let Jason know it had traced the signal from the probe as best it could. It was woefully incomplete as were most traces of slip-space signals, but it directed them to a general area that was a four-day flight from their current location.

“Twingo, is the ship slip-capable?” he called over the intercom.

“Yes. Why?”

Jason ignored the answer as he plotted their course from the pilot’s seat, something Kage normally did, and fed power to the main drive to break orbit and get them to the mesh-out point the computer had provided.

“Yes. WHY?” Twingo said forcefully as he walked onto the bridge, but pulled himself up short at the look Jason gave him.

“We’re leaving. Now,” he said simply, not wanting to get into a protracted debate about the conversation with Deetz just then. “I’m jumping us at a moderate speed and we’ll still talk it through after everyone has rested. I may have a general location on Deetz and we need to start making our way back towards ConFed space anyway.”

“Hmm,” Twingo hummed, obviously suspicious. “I’m sure you’ll tell me everything tomorrow.” The Phoenix shuddered slightly as the slip-drive meshed them out of the A’arcooni’s home system.

“Tomorrow,” Jason confirmed. When Twingo had exited the bridge, he looked at Lucky. “You’ve got watch, big guy. You know the drill, call if the ship blows up.”

“Of course, Captain. Sleep well.”

Jason trudged to his quarters, now truly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to sleep for at least a few hours before trying to process all the new information that was bombarding him. Someone, however, had other ideas.

“Hey,” Taryn said softly from his bed, propped up on some pillows. Her hair was artfully disheveled and she had obviously been waiting for him. She straightened in alarm when she saw the look on his face, however. “What’s happened?” she asked with dread.

“Deetz just called the ship. While I was on the bridge,” Jason said, not even considering lying to her. She had been through too much already for him to insult her by trying to coddle her. “I traced the signal as best I could and we’re flying that way now, but who knows …”

“But that’s it? No new attacks on Earth?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Come here,” she said gently but firmly, holding both her hands out towards him. He spun around and slid into the bed next to her and allowed her to cradle his head while she pushed her cheek against his.

“What have I done, Taryn? I thought I was doing the right thing by letting him go. And then I doubled down on stupid by not coming home, I selfishly stayed out here stirring up trouble, and practically dared anyone to find Earth and attack.” Jason stared at the far bulkhead, the guilt of the attacks on his homeworld weighing heavily on him.

“You couldn’t have known,” Taryn said softly. “Nothing changes the past, Jason. I’ve heard what you’ve been doing out here and I would hardly call it selfish. Now, you can either wallow in your own guilt and feel sorry for yourself, or you can correct a mistake you made years ago.”

“Jesus … don’t sugar coat it,” Jason said.

“You know bullshit when you hear it. Right now you need to hear it like it is, and you need to get your head right for this. Earth is depending on you to do the right thing here, even if they don’t know it.” She released his head and turned his face to hers. She kissed him shortly and then pulled away. “You need your sleep,” she said as she rolled over and turned her back to him. He stared at the back of her head for a minute in disbelief before rolling over and killing the lights. Grumbling with obvious disappointment about the conclusion of his night, he punched his pillow a couple of times until it was to his liking, unable to see the half-smile on the face of the woman beside him.

Chapter 7

“So that’s it,” Jason said. “And then the signal trace led to this general area of space and that’s the best I’ve got.” He was addressing both his crew in their small meeting room as well as Crisstof and Kellea aboard the Diligent via a slip-space com link.

“That region has a few developed systems in it, but nowhere to hide the remaining two ships,” Kellea mused. “We can also begin moving into the area so we can cover more ground once you arrive.”

“Be very delicate with that device, Captain, as well as the data you gathered from the A’arcooni homeworld,” Crisstof said. “It’s the only link we have to what may have happened to an entire sentient, industrialized species.”

“We’ll do our best,” Jason assured him, “but that is second priority to finding and stopping the other two ships. Rest assured we won’t wantonly destroy the camera, if that’s what it even is.”

“I suppose it’s the best I can ask for from you,” Crisstof muttered. Jason ignored the pointed comment and addressed Kellea.

“We can crank up our speed and get onstation within two days, Captain. How far out are you?”

“A little over three days,” she answered. Jason mulled that information over a moment.

“We’ll maintain course and speed for now. Deetz seemed overly confident during our talk, and I’d rather not blunder into a trap of his without any backup.”

“You’re beginning to learn, Captain,” Kellea said with an arched eyebrow and a half-smile. “We’ll see you in a few days. Diligent out.” When the display went blank Jason turned to his crew, careful to ignore Taryn’s icy stare after his interaction with Captain Colleren.

“Anybody have anything to add? No? Then get back to whatever it was you’re supposed to be doing,” he said to them. “Twingo, Kage … I want the data off that device before we arrive.”

“We’ll do our best, Captain,” Kage said enthusiastically. Twingo just stared at the Veran in disgust, but said nothing. Everyone began to file out of the small room and go about their business, but Taryn remained seated.

“You’re not going to just dump me back off on Kellea’s ship when we arrive, are you?” Jason just blinked, as it wasn’t the question he had expected.

“This ship isn’t a safe place in the best of times,” he began, but at the look that crossed her face he quickly changed tactics. “But we can talk about it when we get there.” She said nothing as she moved past him out the door, but her eyes said plainly that she had no intention of disembarking when they met up with the Diligent.

Muttering to himself, Jason made his way back up to the bridge. He really didn’t have much to do but wait for his crew to report back to him on anything they found.

“How is life with your … mate? … on board?” Doc asked as he sat in his seat.

“Probably not the proper term right now, but it’s a pain in my ass,” Jason said moodily. “I catch myself making decisions I never would have now that her life is at risk too.”

“Such as?”

“Would we have ever slowed down to make sure we had backup when we arrived?” Jason asked.

“Point taken. So what are you going to do?”

“I have no idea,” Jason answered miserably. “Having her here is both a dream come true and a nightmare at the same time.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence as Lucky walked in and took up his normal post by the entrance to the bridge, and Jason was left to reflect on how his already-complicated life had taken another wild turn.

*****

“Three minutes until we mesh in,” Kage reported. Omega Force, plus one human female, were all on the bridge and were anxious for the tedious slip-space flight to be over. Taryn had begun to get twinges of what Twingo had dubbed “space madness” as the walls of the Phoenix seemed to close in on her after days of nothing but the drone of the engines and the back and forth of the alien crew. That, coupled with her body fighting off all the alien bugs that Doc’s medical treatment didn’t fully suppress, and Jason was dealing with one seriously unhappy woman.

They were about to drop back into real-space in the middle of nowhere; interstellar space that was roughly equidistant from each of the three systems that contained habitable worlds. Jason wasn’t sure if Deetz was using a ship’s transmitter or if they would simply find another repeater in the area. Or, would they simply find nothing but empty space? The more the enormity of the task ahead of him became clear, the more frustrated he became. Chasing Deetz across the galaxy could take years, depending on how long the synth wanted to string him along. But he did seem to be interested in finding me. This may not take as long as I think.

“Standby for mesh-in,” Kage announced to nobody in particular. There was the familiar shudder as the Phoenix transitioned back into real-space and the canopy cleared.

“Clear the area,” Jason ordered.

“We’re alone,” Doc confirmed. “Active sensor sweep shows nothing in our area.”

“Kage, start using the com array to scan for the frequency Deetz used and see if we can get at least a bearing on it,” Jason told his right-seater. “I know it’s a long shot.”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Twingo volunteered from the engineering station, earning himself a long, unfriendly stare from Jason.

“Isn’t there anything useful you could be doing?”

“Not really.”

“Contact the Diligent and inform them we’ve arrived at our first jump point,” Jason said to Doc, ignoring Twingo altogether.

They spent the next few hours scanning through various frequencies with the slip-space com array to no avail. Jason ground his teeth together and fought down the urge to lash out, as he was sure Deetz was somewhere aboard one of the remaining two ships having a great laugh at his expense. His crew was working tirelessly to find a solution to something that was essentially his problem, so he bit his tongue and busied himself with running focused scans with the active sensor array.

Once he could take no more, he excused himself from the bridge and walked off the command deck. Having no particular destination in mind, he found himself walking though engineering and looking at the disassembled A’arcooni device on one of Twingo’s workbenches before moving on into the armory. He ran his hands over the deadly armament that lined one of the walls on hooks before walking over to the rack that held his powered armor.

He touched the panel on the rack and began to run diagnostic routines on the complex piece of equipment. It was an unfathomably expensive unit, but with it on and using his neural implants to control it, he was almost unstoppable. I could have captured Baghdad by myself wearing this thing. Hell, I could be the Emperor of Earth with the Phoenix and a few days’ time.

“Penny for your thoughts?” a voice floated from the doorway. People actually say that? When Jason didn’t reply right away, Taryn went on, “Jason, you’ve got to snap out of this.”

“Out of what?”

“You know what. You’ve been moping around like it’s your fault Earth has been attacked,” she said as she walked in, pausing at the wall of handheld weaponry. “What the hell?” she whispered.

“Most of those are Crusher’s. I’m not moping and I’m not necessarily blaming myself, Taryn. But there are some real dangers here: the genie is out of the bottle. People know where Earth is so that’s not likely to stay a secret for long, and now humans know of the existence of advanced alien cultures out here,” he replied.

“We’ve always sorta known—”

“No. Now they know. No tinfoil hat conspiracies, real proof. And once humans know for certain there might be something interesting on the other side of a hill, there’s almost no way to stop them from finding a way to take a look for themselves.” He slid the armor rack back into its alcove and closed the door.

“I don’t like the way you keep referring to we humans as them. It’s like you don’t feel a part of us anymore,” she said softly, approaching him.

“Look at me Taryn,” he said just as softly. “I’m loaded up with alien wetware, Doc has manipulated my genetic structure extensively, and my best friend is an annoying blue alien. For the most part I would be a stranger among you. I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to come home and resume living freely.”

“So where does that leave us?” she said, her eyes glistening. “You’re never coming home, are you?” Jason didn’t answer her; instead, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her in close, careful not to hurt her with his augmented strength. After a moment she looked up at him and pulled his head down to hers for a gentle kiss on the lips. It wasn’t long before things became decidedly more heated, so much so that they almost missed the snort of disgust from the doorway.

“I put up with you eating and drinking in here,” Crusher began in a deadly quiet voice. “I grudgingly gave ground on you not cleaning your equipment right away. I’ve even overlooked your repeated violation of standing policy by leaving your sweaty clothes all around. But I will NOT abide you mating in the armory!” The warrior’s voice had been rising in volume as he went on, and he was nearly in full voice by the end.

Taryn then did something that shocked Jason and Crusher both. She laughed lightly as she disengaged herself from his arms and walked over like she was going to slip by and leave. The petite blond then suddenly stood on her tiptoes and grabbed Crusher’s cheek in her right hand and gave it a jiggle like she might do to a favorite, eccentric uncle. With another short laugh she slipped out of the armory and was gone. Crusher’s eyes were wide as he watched her leave, and then looked back to Jason, making huffing noises that indicated he was less than amused. Jason just shrugged helplessly as he fought to control his own laughter.

*****

When Jason walked back onto the bridge he saw Twingo and Kage in an animated argument. “What?” he asked.

“You won’t believe this, Captain, but I think we may have found the transmission source,” Kage said hurriedly before Twingo could answer.

“I take it you disagree?” Jason asked his friend.

“It’s not that I disagree that the carrier frequency and the modulation properties are similar, but the signal is actually two signals. Look,” Twingo motioned Jason over to the display he was looking at. “This strong signal is coming from an unpopulated star system fairly close to here. But there’s a second, weaker signal that’s detected right after that and it can’t be pinpointed.”

“The ships have split up,” Jason said to himself. “Or Deetz is still on that smaller ship he escaped in and is communicating with them.”

“Plausible,” Kage agreed. “What do you think we should do?”

“Well, the problem is that this is obviously a trap,” Jason said as he climbed into the pilot’s seat.

“How can you know that?” Doc asked as he and Taryn drifted over to join in the conversation.

“Deetz has been manipulating this from the start. I’m beginning to believe he knew I wasn’t on Earth, but by drawing me back there he could better control the chain of events and engage us at times and places of his choosing. Otherwise, why leave that com drone in orbit over A’arcoon looking for a DL7 gunship?” Jason put his hands behind his head and leaned back as he thought out loud. “He also knew we’d trace the transmission back to this general location and he knows how fast the Phoenix is, or at least how fast she used to be, and now we conveniently have com traffic coming from a point of origin not far from here. He’s fully expecting us to go check it out, and now that he knows about the Phoenix’s improved armament he may have a nasty surprise for us.”

“Sound thinking, Captain,” Lucky said. “But the question remains, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to spring the trap,” Jason said with a grin. “Deetz has no idea about our alliance with Crisstof. We’re going to mesh in just outside the system while the Diligent does the same at a different location. While they may be expecting us to rush, in they won’t be ready for us to have them in a pincer with a frigate-class warship.”

“That’s not nearly as stupid as most of our plans,” Twingo agreed. “I’ll get us ready to depart.”

“I’ll contact the Diligent and coordinate our arrivals. Kage, feed me the nav data when you get the course plotted,” Doc said as he sat down at the com station.

“Sure thing,” Kage replied as he climbed up into his seat. “We’ll be ready to mesh-out in five minutes, Captain. I’m giving you our heading now.”

As soon as Jason got the heading he began accelerating along it. The slip-drive didn’t need forward velocity to transition the ship, but Jason liked to have some momentum when he meshed-in so he could maneuver immediately.

It was more than ten minutes later when the Phoenix blasted her way into slip-space. The delay came from trying to convince Captain Colleren why she should willingly fly her ship into a suspected trap. In the end she agreed to let the Phoenix enter the system from above the ecliptic and bring the Diligent in from the opposite direction and inclination exactly fifteen minutes after. Jason didn’t blame her for the hesitation. There were a lot of lives on the Diligent, and while she felt for him she was under no obligation to risk her crew or her ship in the defense of Earth. For his own part, he was painfully aware of the blond woman on his bridge who was currently trying to explain to Twingo what a pizza was and why he should try one.

The Phoenix entered real-space with a flash and drifted through the outer boundary of the unnamed system. The K-class star was thoroughly uninteresting save for a host of small, rocky planets orbiting it. There was no life indigenous to any of them.

“Contact!” Doc exclaimed from his station. “We have emissions coming from the inner system. They’re consistent with the target ships’ com transmissions.”

“Can you pinpoint it?” Jason asked as he throttled the drive up.

“Negative. Not at this range.”

“Shit.” Jason didn’t like announcing their presence by using the active sensors, but there was no evidence to show that the enemy ships could even detect tachyon transmissions in the first place. He waffled for a second before giving the order. “Active sensors, short burst mode. I just want a rough picture of what’s out there.”

No sooner did Doc sweep the system with the active sensor array when the computer began populating the threat board, and a ship of the same configuration as one of the enemy ships appeared floating in space between the third and fourth planets. “Got your ass now!” Jason hissed as he slammed the throttle down, tracking inward towards the other ship. The Phoenix surged as she raced down the star’s gravity well towards their target. “Full tactical alert, all weapons online and full active sensors. I want that target painted, we’re going to end this fast.”

“Captain!” Kage said in alarm. “We should hold back until the Diligent arrives in-system at least.”

“No time,” Jason said sharply. “Get that ship bracketed and get me a plot to bring the main guns to bear.” Kage wisely did as he was told when he saw the look in his captain’s eyes. Even Taryn, strapped in next to Doc at one of the port stations, looked at Jason with apprehension.

“Plot laid in. This course will bring us down to the ecliptic plane and onto a pursuing course,” Kage said.

“Are they maneuvering?” Jason demanded.

“They’ve come about, but they’re making no move to escape,” Doc reported. “No changes in power readings either.” Jason smiled grimly in the dim red glow of the bridge lights. All his indicators were green; he was going to turn this ship to slag just like the last one.

“Keep an eye out for Deetz trying to make a run for it again,” Jason said as he made his final course correction. “If he flees in that smaller ship we’re going to break off and pursue.”

“We’ve got a power surge in the target, Captain,” Doc said with some alarm in his voice. “It appears to be some type of charge building on the hull; the computer can’t identify it.”

“No matter,” Jason said. “They can’t penetrate modern shields. We’re about to end this.”

The computer showed they were quickly coming into weapons range. At their rate of closure they would overfly the stationary vessel practically before they could see it, so Jason authorized the computer to actually fire the weapons. He began to squeeze the trigger on the stick to finalize that authorization as the number ticked down. Almost there …

The bright flash that hit them just before the Phoenix closed to within weapons range filled the entire bridge like a strobe and nearly blinded them. A split second later the pitch of the engines began to warble, sputter, and then died altogether. There was just enough time for alarms to begin flashing when power cut off completely and the bridge went pitch black. There was a loud crash beside Jason that made him jump and then he could feel himself go weightless in his seat restraints before he called out to Twingo, “What’s going on?”

“I have no idea, Jason,” Twingo said with a bit of fear in his voice. “This should be impossible; we have primary, secondary, and emergency power systems on this ship. None are working.”

“Jason, I can’t understand what he’s saying anymore,” Taryn called out in a fear-laced voice.

“Just stay in your seat for now until we can sort this out,” Jason called back. “Twingo, the emergency oxygen system isn’t coming on … you have got to get some power restored.”

“It may not matter, Captain,” Kage said matter-of-factly from his right. “We’re tumbling towards the primary star. Personally I’d rather be unconscious for that bit of fun.”

“Do we have anything onboard that wouldn’t have been affected by this … power drain?” Doc asked. “There has to be something you can do.”

“We do have an emergency fuel cell that might produce enough power to get the back-up fusion reactor online. The backup would get us life support, gravity, and limited maneuvering.”

“How limited?” Jason asked.

“Low power to the main engines and attitude thrusters only. No grav drive.”

“Is that enough to get us safely around the star?”

“Possibly, if we can get it going quickly,” Kage said. “We were carrying a lot of speed before the engines died. We can get into orbit around the star, but without shields we’ll probably fry anyway.”

“Thanks,” Jason said drily. “Twingo, get your ass moving. Get us something working if only life support and coms.”

“Jason,” Taryn said again with hesitation, having only been able to understand one side of the conversation. “Is that ship still out there?”

“If it is we’ll never see them coming, so no point in worrying about it just yet,” Jason told her honestly. Twingo was feeling his way towards the exit when he let out a yelp.

“What the hell was that?!” he said as he floated out through the opening.

“So now what?” Crusher said from his seat on the starboard side of the bridge.

“Now we wait,” Jason said simply. “We don’t have any other choice. Everyone stay restrained for now, there’s an unlikely chance that Twingo may actually know what he’s doing.”

“You think the Diligent will find us?” Kage asked.

“We’re a powerless chunk of alloy flying through the system right now,” Doc answered. “I’d say even odds they find us in time.”

It was a tense fifteen minutes later when the hiss of the air handlers started up again and the emergency lighting came on along the floor. “That’s all I can give you for now. I need everything this cell can produce to try and start the fusion reactor.” Twingo’s voice sounded tinny over the bridge speakers as he continued to work. It was another fifty minutes before the normal bridge lighting came up and Jason was pulled back down into his seat as gravity was restored. There was also an enormous crashing sound out in the common area. These guys have got to start strapping shit down better before we fly into combat.

“Main computer is booting up. Subsystems are also coming online. I’ll let you know when we have maneuvering,” Kage said as he began entering commands into the basic interface that was displayed at all their stations. The more robust user interfaces they were accustomed to would come up when the main computer was back online.

“We see you have limited power, Captain,” Kellea Colleren’s voice came over the bridge speakers on the emergency short-range com channel. “How bad is it?”

“Honestly? Bad,” Jason admitted. “We had a complete system failure. Main reactor is offline and Twingo has just got the backup system started. We still have no maneuvering, however. Where are you?”

“Directly below you at a distance of five kilometers. We’ve been waiting to see if you could restore your primary flight systems before stepping in.”

“It’s not likely we’ll be able to,” Jason admitted. “What do you suggest?”

“Lower your landing gear and we’ll bring you in. Leave it to us, Captain, Diligent out.”

Jason lowered the landing gear and sat back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest and teeth clenched. It wasn’t long before the brilliant white hull of the Diligent could be seen through the canopy as she maneuvered up under them. There was a soft bump as the two ships made contact and the Phoenix was held fast to the Diligent’s landing platform via the mag-locks. He was positively fuming at his ship being drawn into the frigate in that condition: completely helpless and having utterly failed. He at least had enough power to taxi the ship under her own power off the platform and into their usual parking berth on the hangar deck. Sighing, he got up from his seat to face the inevitable.

“OK everybody—”

“CAPTAIN, GET DOWN HERE!” Twingo’s strident shout came from the common area and spurred Jason into instant action. He raced off the bridge and was unprepared for what he found at the bottom of the stairs. Crumpled as if tossed, and completely inert, was Lucky. Twingo was trying to roll the battlesynth over and couldn’t budge him as his limbs were splayed at unnatural angles. Jason rushed to help, heaving with all the strength he had to turn him over, also not having much luck.

“Crusher! Get your ass down here!” Jason shouted up the stairs even as the Galvetic warrior appeared at the edge of the command deck. When he saw the scene below he bounded down the flight in two steps and grabbed his friend. Lucky rolled over with a thud, staring up with lifeless eyes. “What’s happened to him?!” Jason was near panic. After all they’d been through, he’d come to think of the synthetic soldier as indestructible.

“The same thing that happened to the Phoenix,” Twingo said. “That ship somehow shut down every power source on this vessel, including his power unit.”

“Kage,” Jason said as he stood up, “go down and open the ramp. The Diligent’s crew may be getting a little anxious out there.”

“Oh God!” Taryn exclaimed from the stairs, her hands going to her cheeks.

“Doc, take Taryn and go with Kage,” Jason said, loudly enough so she could hear and understand him. “Get a new translator earpiece from one of the crew out there.” He then turned to her, “I guess we know why the one you’re wearing powered off.”

Jason looked over his fallen friend and for the first time in a long time he had no idea what to do. Crusher put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Take a deep breath, Captain. Flying into a panic won’t help him. Let’s get him off the ship and into one of the Diligent’s engineering bays and let Twingo and Doc see what they can do,” he said in a quiet, measured rumble. Jason just nodded, breathing slow and steady to try and tamp the emotions back down. He still had no real idea as to how Lucky functioned, so he tried to console himself with the fact that Twingo and Doc did. At least somewhat.

“OK,” Jason said when he trusted himself to speak. “Let’s go get a cart and take him out of here.” They walked off the ship and asked for a large hover-cart from one of the crewmembers milling about below. Jason nodded to Commander Bostco and saw that Taryn was hugging her parents. “We’ll be back in a minute,” Jason said simply as he and Crusher disappeared back into the ship with the cart.

Even with his enhanced muscles and Crusher’s prodigious strength, loading Lucky onto the cart was a challenge that left Jason’s back muscles twitching in spasms. They then carefully maneuvered him down through the armory and out the large blast doors into the cargo bay. As they made it to the ramp, he could see the crowd at the bottom had grown.

“Oh, no!” Kellea was the first to see Lucky’s still form being brought down by a solemn Jason and Crusher. Crisstof came over and rested a hand on the battlesynth’s chest before speaking.

“What do you need?”

“A sturdy table in an engineering bay or lab so Twingo and Doc can begin to see the extent of the damage,” Jason said.

He watched as Twingo and Doc pushed the cart bearing Lucky out through the aft hatch of the hangar deck. Once they had disappeared with a handful of Diligent’s technicians and engineers, Crisstof turned to Jason, “So what happened?”

Chapter 8

“That’s as much as we know,” Jason told the group assembled in one of the Diligent’s meeting rooms. “Hopefully we’ll learn more when the Phoenix is fully operational again and we can access the sensor logs.”

“So there was just a bright flash and then systems began to shut down?” Kellea asked.

“All systems shut down, even emergency systems that should be almost impossible to disable,” Jason corrected. “Anything with a power source, including Lucky. If we didn’t have a chemical fuel cell on board we wouldn’t have been able to get life support running again before you guys showed up.” He was still salty about being brought aboard her ship powerless as he answered the captain’s questions to the best of his recollection.

“So was this a weapon? Or a byproduct of their FTL technology?” Crisstof wondered aloud. “We know they don’t utilize the slip-drive technology nearly every other civilization in this part of the galaxy uses.”

“I’m inclined to believe it was a weapon. They baited us in before hitting us right outside our nominal weapons range,” Jason said.

“How could they know your armament’s range?” Kellea interjected.

“Deetz is very familiar with the ship and its systems, which is something I should have taken into account. I should have been more cautious.” Jason was frustrated at how easily they had been defeated, and he knew that had the Diligent not arrived when they did, it was likely they’d have been captured. Or worse.

“So why did your implants stay on when my translator died?” Taryn spoke up for the first time during the meeting.

“Our neural implants operate on the body’s natural bio-generated current. It makes them nearly impervious to interference,” Kellea answered, addressing Taryn directly for the first time since she’d been pulled off Earth. “Speaking of that, would you prefer my medical staff provide you with a base level neural implant? It will be significantly more comfortable than wearing the earpiece.”

“I’m … I’m not sure,” Taryn answered with trepidation. “Is it painful?”

“You’re out for most of it,” Jason said with a reassuring smile. “You’ll just wake up with a bit of a headache and you’ll be able to understand everyone much more naturally than by listening to an overlaid voice.”

“OK, if you think it will help.”

“I’ll leave you here with Captain Colleren’s crew to get your implant,” Jason told her, squeezing her shoulders as he walked by. “I’m going to check on Lucky and then I’ll come see you in the infirmary.”

*****

Lucky was splayed out face down on a work table when Jason found the correct engineering shop. Twingo had cut a piece of his “skin” away to gain access to his power system. There were power transmission lines running to the battlesynth, and the engineer was closely monitoring the associated instruments.

“Anything?” Jason asked softly, not wanting to be a distraction. Twingo, who would normally bristle at the interruption, replied with just as much reverence.

“We’ve hooked directly into his power system. The good news is that he’s accepting the energy feed and his cells are recharging. The system is fairly robust since he’s able to absorb energy from a wide variety of sources, it’s just a delicate operation to try and charge the storage cells directly. We’ll know more soon. Once he reaches a certain power level, his low-level systems should begin to come online and he will start trying to wake up.”

“Do you want us to let you know when we have anything new?” Doc asked. Although a medical doctor, Doc had a good amount of knowledge of the synthetic race known widely as synths. He was holding a tablet computer displaying a schematic of Lucky’s power system, as well as a full readout of specs on the power requirements.

“I think I’ll just stay and sit with him for a bit,” Jason said. “I don’t have much else to do.”

The three sat in silence and watched the indicators on the instruments that were ensuring they didn’t damage Lucky’s power cells. Jason took the time to reflect back on the few years he had spent with the synth. When he had freed him, Lucky didn’t have a name, a home, or much trust in biological beings. He was almost shy and fearful around them, only coming out of his shell when he interacted with Crusher. The more time he spent as a member of Omega Force, the more he began to see the crew as his adopted family, a wholly foreign concept to him. With them he had been free to explore what it meant to be a free-thinking being, even developing a keen sense of humor along the way.

Jason knew his time could be better spent checking the Phoenix over, or making sure Kellea and Taryn weren’t in the same vicinity as each other, but Lucky had been by his side from the beginning with unflinching loyalty. The least he could do was show the same respect and be there during the delicate operation to bring him back online.

A foot twitched. Then a finger curled under. Soon, the skin around the opening began to ripple and undulate. “This is what I was waiting for,” Twingo said sharply. “Help me disconnect him, Doc.” The two worked in tandem to disengage the power transmission lines and probes from Lucky’s back even as the metallic skin began to close the hole and repair itself to seamless, burnished silver. “Let’s roll him over,” Twingo instructed the group. It seemed easier to move the battlesynth this time than it had been when he was collapsed on the floor in the Phoenix, probably because his actuators were no longer frozen up.

Once Lucky was on his back, they could see he still wasn’t awake. Other than a few involuntary twitches, he was still unresponsive. Twingo coupled up a power source to the battlesynth’s external inlet and cranked up the juice, allowing Lucky’s own internal power management subsystems to complete the recharging process.

“These are good signs,” Twingo explained to Jason. “His hard-wired subroutines are running; things like power management and skin integrity are active. But,” the engineer held a finger to emphasize his next point, “his brain is a largely unknown mechanism that could take a lot longer to reset, if it ever does.”

“Meaning what?” Jason asked, not wanting to hear it spoken aloud.

“He may never wake up from this. He was never meant to be completely powered down at any point in his life; the damage to his brain may be too severe for him to recover from. I’m holding out hope since as a battlesynth he has more redundancy built into his systems than someone like Deetz does.” Jason just stared at his friend without saying a word. He placed a hand on Lucky’s chest for a moment before turning and walking out of the shop area. Twingo watched him go before turning back to his borrowed work crew made up of Diligent crewmembers. “OK, we need to get started on the Phoenix now. There’s nothing more we can do for him at this point.”

Jason wandered the passageways of the Diligent before making his way down to the main infirmary to check on Taryn. He tried to imagine what captaining such a large ship would be like. The large open spaces, top-notch mess deck, and creature comforts would be tempting, but dealing with such a large crew would wear him down. Even though there were times the Phoenix almost couldn’t hold the six of them without nerves becoming frayed, he had trouble imagining himself living anyplace else.

That line of thought led him to something else he had been avoiding; he knew he could never return to Earth, but he didn’t know that Taryn would ever understand that. She might say something impulsive about wanting to stay with him, but having her aboard his ship was an unacceptable risk, and dropping her off at some other planet that he might never come back to seemed cruel beyond measure. In the end, he was going to have to convince her to go back to where she belonged. His throat tightened up and there was a pain in his chest as he realized that when he dropped her off he would never see her again.

When he arrived at the infirmary she had already undergone the procedure and was resting comfortably. The attendant let him in to the partitioned area she lay in and brought him a chair. He nodded his thanks and sat down to wait a bit and see if she awoke. Watching her features in repose, all the stress and fear erased, he knew he was making the right decision for them both. But a more primal, selfish part of him wanted to find a way to make it work no matter what.

He sat with her for the better part of an hour, with her giving no indication she would be waking up soon. He checked her monitors, gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, and left the infirmary to try and find something useful to do. He strode out towards the hangar deck to see what the status of his ship was. The setback they had suffered likely meant Deetz had slipped away again, and they were back where they started with no clues and no ideas.

The first thing he noticed when he opened the hatch to the hangar deck was that it was unusually busy. He also noticed that his ship was missing. The berth the Phoenix should have been occupying was being scrubbed clean by some maintenance bots. After staring dumbly for a moment, he spun and went back through the hatch, walking quickly through the maze of passageways and stairwells that would take him to the bridge.

The bridge of the Diligent was located at the top of the super-structure and overlooked the flight operations deck, which was on the upper hull. The classic design reminded Jason of a large ocean-going cargo ship from Earth. The entrance to the bridge was also guarded by two serious-looking beings with equally serious-looking sidearms. There had been more than a couple of altercations between the two crews from time to time, so the pair eyed Jason apprehensively when he approached.

“Permission to enter the bridge,” Jason stated, stopping before the pair.

“We have standing orders to allow you entry, Captain,” the guard on the right said. “Go on ahead.”

“Thanks.” He walked on and looked out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the forward bulkhead of the bridge. “I’m looking for a wayward gunship,” he announced to the officer of the watch. “You haven’t seen one, have you?” The officer smiled at him and pointed out the window before she turned and went about her duties. He approached the transparent material (he assumed it was some sort of alloy) and looked out over the flight deck. It was hard to miss his sleek ship as she was perched on the forward elevator. Looking at how small his ship was compared to the Diligent, he felt a little silly at wearing the title of Captain.

“Twingo and some of my engineers are ready to bring the engine core back online,” a voice said quietly behind him. “They thought it best to move it to the flight deck where we could better contain any … mishaps.” Kellea walked up to stand next to him and gaze out at the view. “That’s one tough little ship, Captain.”

“Little?” he said in a mock hurt tone. She gave him a half-smile before looking to see if any of her crew were watching. They seemed to be making a concerted effort to ignore them as they stood together. Rumors had been floating around for months, but they respected their captain enough to not simply stare.

“So … how is Taryn faring though all of this?” Kellea forced the name out through slightly clenched teeth, causing Jason to cringe inwardly. He and Captain Colleren had become close over the last year but each had a natural aloofness that had made it slow going. So why do I feel like I got caught doing something wrong?

“She’s overwhelmed, much like I was when I first discovered all of this,” he said neutrally. “The attack on Earth along with finding out what I’ve been doing the last few years has been a bit of a shock to her system.”

“I can imagine,” Kellea answered noncommittally. “So what are her plans after all of this is over?”

“I couldn’t say, really. I assume she’ll return to Earth with her parents and try to rebuild some sort of life for herself,” Jason said. “The hell of it is, she didn’t ask for any of this. Deetz flashed her picture all over the airwaves back home and has made it impossible for her to return to her old life.” Kellea was quiet for a moment after that.

“That’s a difficult position to be in,” she said with genuine sympathy. They looked out the window and fell into a comfortable silence as the engines of the Phoenix’s grav-drive began to pulsate with a blue glow that increased in intensity.

“I guess Twingo got the core restarted,” Jason said with some relief. “It’ll probably take him another few hours to get everything aligned and calibrated. I’ll let you get back to work. Thanks for the talk.”

Kellea raised a hand as if to reach out and touch his arm and then stopped herself short. “Anytime,” she said as she spun and walked back to one of the stations that lined the aft bulkhead. Jason strode off the bridge, ignoring the looks her crew gave him, and made his way back to the infirmary to see if Taryn had stirred yet.

“Hi!” Taryn was disgustingly chipper after the implant procedure. Jason looked at her skeptically.

“How do you feel?”

“Honestly, great! I’ve been chatting with the staff here, this thing is great.”

“So no headache or general shitty feeling?”

“Nope.”

“So was she an especially easy install or something?” Jason asked the med tech as she walked in to begin unhooking Taryn from the monitoring machines.

“Not especially so, why do you ask, Captain?” The tech seemed genuinely confused.

“I thought everyone felt horrible after getting the primary neural implant put in,” he said, a suspicion growing within him.

“I’d not heard that. It’s usually a pleasant experience if the proper drugs are administered. Will there be anything else?”

“No,” Jason said with a forced smile. “Thank you.”

“What was that all about?” Taryn asked.

“Oh nothing,” Jason said, recalling his own horrific experience of getting his implants installed. “I just need to remember to beat the shit out of Doc when I see him again.”

They went straight to the mess deck and grabbed something to eat before heading back to the engineering shop to check on Lucky. Doc was still there fiddling with some instruments and passive probes he had attached to Lucky’s head, but other than that there was no change in the battlesynth’s condition. His eyes seemed to flit about randomly, but that might have been due to Doc’s sensors.

“Twingo almost has the main drive back up,” Jason informed Doc. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Doc asked, gesturing towards Lucky.

“We’re taking him. We’re basically just waiting to see if he’ll wake up on his own. He can do that on the Phoenix just as well,” Jason said. Doc only nodded.

“Where’s Crusher been?” Taryn asked, looking around.

“This ship has extensive training facilities,” Jason said. “He’s been burning off some frustration there. I just hope there haven’t been any incidents.”

With the help of some passersby, they managed to transfer Lucky onto another hover cart and strap him down for his trip back to the Phoenix. Just as Jason was about to suggest they go round up the rest of the crew, the intercom came to life. “Crew of the gunship-class vessel, Phoenix, please report to the hangar deck. Again, Phoenix crew members to the hangar deck.”

“I guess that’s our cue,” Jason said. “Let’s go ahead and bring him with us.” Together the three moved the prostrate synth out of the workshop and down the wide service corridors towards the hangar deck.

They were out of the hatch and milling about when a loud klaxon sounded three sharp blasts and the forward elevator began to lower the Phoenix back into the ship. Jason smiled as his ship looked alive again, hissing in the sudden temperature change with her marker lights blinking slowly. Once the elevator stopped, the ship taxied backwards off the platform and stopped in the middle of the deck, lowering the ramp to the cargo bay. Jason nudged his team into action and they began to push the cart towards the gunship as half a dozen of the Diligent’s engineering crew piled out of the ship, dragging pieces of equipment with them.

“New record on a core restart,” Twingo boasted from the top of the ramp. “It’s mostly those new engines you extorted out of the Eshquarians though, they charge three times as fast as the Jepsen emitters. How is he?”

“No change,” Doc said. “We’re going to strap him down in Engineering and continue to monitor him.” Twingo just nodded and led the way back into the ship. They were in the middle of transferring Lucky off the cart when a sweaty Crusher made his appearance and lent his strength to move his friend.

“Kage,” Jason said. “Go pull our sensor logs from the last encounter with the A’arcooni ship and give it to the Diligent’s operations officer. I want them to start analyzing it. Everybody else; let’s get this thing ready to fly. I want to be back on track within a couple of hours.”

“On it,” the small Veran said, being no real help in man-handling the heavy synth off the cart. They got Lucky up and strapped down on one of the benches in the engineering bay and continued the power feed. After a moment of quiet reflection they began to filter out of the bay, leaving Twingo to finish up the details. Crusher headed to berthing to get cleaned up, and the rest went back through the cargo bay to meet the growing contingent at the bottom of the ramp. Crisstof and Kellea were there, as were Taryn’s parents.

“We’re about ready to depart,” Jason told them. “Kage is sending you our sensor logs; hopefully you’ll be able to find something useful in them.”

“Where are you heading next?” Crisstof asked.

“The source of the second signal we were tracking before we were knocked out. It’s a populated world so there may be some reason Deetz was there,” Jason told him.

“You’re certain it was Deetz on the other side of the transmission?” Kellea asked. “It may have just been the other ship.”

“True, but it’s all I have and I don’t think Deetz will be too far out of the area. That ship was waiting for us, and if you hadn’t been there the Phoenix would likely have been destroyed, or on its way back to him this very moment.”

“I think it’s time we talk about something,” Taryn interjected suddenly. Jason got a panicked look in his eyes for a moment before realizing she wasn’t talking about Kellea. “I’m not staying here.”

“You most certainly are. You stowed away the first—”

“This is not a debate,” Taryn said with iron in her voice as she reiterated her original argument. “I’m just as vested in this as you are and I have a right to be here.”

“What right do you have to be aboard my ship—”

Jason was cut off as Taryn simply walked by him and went up the ramp, making it obvious that the only way she was coming back off the Phoenix was by physical coercion. He could feel his crew holding in their laughter even as Crisstof pretended to be fascinated by the marker light on the starboard wing. Even Kellea seemed to be trying very hard to hide the smirk on her face.

“So … we’ll be leaving now I guess,” he said helplessly. He gathered up the tattered remains of his dignity and turned to walk back up the ramp. Once up on the bridge, he busied himself preparing for departure and fighting down the urge to call Taryn’s bluff, grab her, and deposit her in restraints back on the Diligent’s hangar deck. He keyed the intercom. “Prepare the Phoenix for departure; everyone to your post.” It wasn’t long before Kage and Doc walked onto the bridge followed by Taryn and Crusher. Twingo remained in Engineering to monitor the core as well as keep an eye on Lucky. The fact that the battlesynth remained catatonic was a great weight on Jason’s heart, but he put it aside and focused on the task of tracking Deetz down and eliminating him before he could cause any more trouble.

“We’re cleared to depart,” Kage said, looking up from his display. “Taxi onto the forward elevator.”

Jason thumbed the taxi-control forward to creep the big gunship back onto the platform. He set the brakes and waited as, with a lurch, they began to rise up to the flight deck. He always loved the moment they emerged from the larger ship and the universe was spread out before him, inviting him.

“Phoenix, you are clear to engage primary flight systems and depart at your discretion. Happy hunting.” Instead of the Diligent’s operations officer sending them off, it was Captain Colleren herself. Jason just shook his head as the main drive came online with a throbbing hum that increased in pitch until it evened out, and Twingo called up informing him they were clear to fly.

Jason inched the throttle up a smidge before disengaging the mag-locks in the landing gear, giving the Phoenix a little forward bias in relation to the flight path of the Diligent. He thrusted up gently and began to drift off lazily to starboard. After retracting the landing gear, he shoved the throttle forward and shot away from the frigate along the course Kage had provided.

“Slip-drive is available, engage at will, Captain,” Kage said from the right seat. Jason didn’t look down as he slapped the control, sending power surging though the slip-engines and causing a localized space-time distortion that allowed the Phoenix to transition into the ether of slip-space.

“Doc, tell me about the planet we’re heading towards,” Jason said as the canopy darkened.

*****

Torestellia was not a planet that was part of the Confederated Planets, nor did it wish to be. It reluctantly allowed contact with the outside world, but the population was mildly xenophobic and there was a general distrust of off-worlders. Many thought this was because Torestellia was a somewhat unique world in ConFed controlled space: its population was indigenous to the planet and was not the result of settlement or colonization. The dominant species, called twarlans, had evolved, and largely preferred to stay, on the planet.

Unfortunately for the twarlans, large deposits of rare earth elements meant that they could either benefit from trading with outside species or risk a hostile action and have those resources taken by force. For a comparatively underdeveloped species, there wasn’t really much of a choice, and many twarlans had begun to realize how badly they were being taken advantage of. In order to keep the peace between the touchy species and the technology firms clamoring for their mineral exports, the ConFed fleet had a near constant presence in the area. This was not good news for Omega Force.

The flight was a leisurely three days from their last position. Jason didn’t want to needlessly push the engines hard and, if he were being honest, he was more than a little apprehensive about coming up against that weapon again. Twingo and Doc were running simulations based on the sensor data of their last encounter, but so far all they knew was the obvious: the A’arcooni vessel could shut down every power source on their ship and they were helpless to stop them.

Taryn was quiet for the most part, seeming to have realized she had far overstepped her bounds by forcing her way onto the Phoenix. Jason let her squirm for a bit as he was still not especially thrilled with her bullying him to get her way, especially in front of his crew. But they were still sharing the bed in his stateroom, and he had to admit he could get used to having her there.

Lucky was still nonresponsive. His eyes would flit back and forth, but Twingo couldn’t be sure if it was some unknown stimulus or just stray sparks in his processors. Crusher moped around the ship, sometimes sitting silently with his friend and other times poking around in the armory aimlessly.

“You know, Captain,” Twingo was saying. “We may need to start thinking about what we’re going to do with him. From what I understand of his species, he may never wake up from this. Or worse, he might.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jason asked.

“Let’s say he does reboot and comes back online, but his mind is wiped clean from the shutdown. We could be looking at a potentially dangerous situation. I have no idea what sort of failsafe programming he may have. He could wake up and tear this ship apart.”

“We don’t have any other options right now,” Jason said hotly. “I’m not shoving him out the airlock. We’ll wait and see happens, it’s too soon for me just to give up on him.”

“I’m not saying give up,” Twingo said with his hands up. “I’m just saying we need to prepare ourselves for the fact we may be a crewmember down soon.”

Jason left Engineering in a foul mood and made his way back up to the bridge. When Doc saw his mood he just raised a single eyebrow questioningly.

“Is there any way to get in touch with Lucky’s creators?”

“I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no,” Doc said sympathetically. “They’ve made an agreement not to render aid to battlesynths who have been injured.”

“What the hell? Why?” Jason exclaimed.

“There was some controversy with the decision, but Lucky’s species is quite dangerous under certain circumstances, and the ConFed Council decided it would be in everyone’s best interest if they couldn’t be repaired or rebuilt and let attrition handle the problem,” Doc explained. “When they were first emancipated, the normal synths scattered and tried to make a life for themselves the best they could; those like Deetz. But … well, you remember Lucky when we first found him. He didn’t even have a proper name.

“The battlesynths milled about for a while with no mission and no commander, so naturally someone took advantage of the situation. They were used as shock troopers in some bloody campaigns that left a lot of citizens terrified of them and demanding action. I’ll be honest, the fact he’s been able to move about so freely these last few years has surprised me.”

“You almost sound like you agree with this,” Jason accused.

“I’m giving you the facts of the situation,” Doc said coldly. “You can throw it back in my teeth if you want but that’s my friend down there on that slab as well.”

“Shit,” Jason said, turning away. “I’m sorry. Again. I’m going to go and get some sleep.” Jason trudged off the bridge, emotionally exhausted. He went back to his quarters and showered before slipping into bed. He was so tired he almost didn’t feel the mattress shift as Taryn slid in next to him and wrapped her arm around him.

“Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I’ve been in the com room,” she said. “Now that I can read as well as understand languages I’ve been reading up on the history of the ConFed and some other stuff.” She paused for a moment.

“Jason … I know that you don’t want me here, and I’m sorry I forced your hand the way I did. I’m just scared right now that every time I see this ship fly off and I’m not on it, that will have been the last time I’ll ever see you.” Jason rolled over so he could look her in the eyes.

“Don’t ever think I don’t want you here with me,” he said gently. “I just don’t want you in harm’s way. Having you onboard makes me second-guess decisions about taking this ship into danger.

“I’ve never forgotten about you, and I’m sorry I was so screwed up the last time I came back that I didn’t see us falling apart until it was too late.” He could see her tears sliding down her cheek, even in the dark room.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” she said in a choked whisper. Unable to think of anything else to say to that, he just drew her in close and let her cry silently against him.

It was some time later and they were both still awake.

“If we were still together and living in your cabin, would you have still gotten on this ship?” she asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“I would have gone and checked it out and I don’t know that I can say I wouldn’t have come onboard,” he said. “I can say for certain that I wouldn’t have agreed to fly off with Deetz though. Does that answer your question?”

“It’ll have to do.”

*****

The rest of the flight continued uneventfully, which was unfortunate in the case of Lucky, and they meshed into the system just inside the orbit of the outermost planet.

“Active system scan, please,” Jason said as he throttled up the main drive.

“No enemy contacts in orbit over Torestellia,” Doc reported. “No sign of the A’arcooni ships anywhere in the system.”

Jason couldn’t decide if he was relieved or not by that news. He hoped to have some answers on that weapon before they tangled with the remaining two ships in Deetz’s armada.

“We do have two ConFed destroyers in high orbit, however.”

“That’s fine,” Jason said, “we’re running clean codes. Plot a standard approach to Torestellia and we’ll begin taking active scans from orbit and see if we can pick up either the smaller ship or at least the com signature.”

In order to not draw unwanted attention, they flew an approach a typical micro-freighter would, but it meant a thirteen-hour flight across the system. Jason was almost bored to tears by the time they slid into a low orbit and began circling the planet.

“We’re probably going to have to make landfall at some point, Captain,” Kage said. “Otherwise the twarlans are going to start getting pushy about why we’re here.”

“Can anything be simple on this damn mission?” Jason asked rhetorically. “Fine, I’m putting us into a decaying orbit. Tell Landing Control that we’re repairing a drive malfunction before attempting entry.”

They made ten complete orbits before Torestellia Orbital Control began sending borderline threatening messages, all via text. Jason got his clearance and dipped the nose to enter the atmosphere, leaving a fiery trail to mark their passage.

Torestellia was a beautiful planet. The vegetation was lush and dark blue, which contrasted nicely with the light green oceans. The only thing that marred the effect was the nasty gashes left by new strip mines that were visible from high altitude. The twarlans were not like humans in that they didn’t spread out over the entire available landmass. In fact, they were concentrated within just five megacities on the eastern continent, with only small communities in place to service mining operations. From what Doc had told Jason, the mineral mines had become the sole source of income for the world and everyone worked, either directly or indirectly, to support that.

After some more back and forth between Landing Control and Kage, they were cleared to land at the outskirts of a city that looked to be about the size of New York City on Earth, complete with massive skyscrapers. The spaceport was not the slick, high-tech affair they had become accustomed to on ConFed worlds. To Jason it looked like nothing more than a patch of tarmac and a building housing an officious twarlan who would rather you not be there in the first place.

“Well,” Jason said after they had touched down. “We’re here damnit … might as well go poke around a bit.” He chafed at the delay, but had to admit he had no idea where they would go from there anyway. The all filed off the bridge and went down into the cargo bay to disembark. Taryn was trembling with excitement, as this would be her first time setting foot on an alien planet. Her eyes were wide and she looked like she was trying to avoid blinking so as to not risk missing anything. Jason smiled to himself as he lowered the ramp and opened the pressure doors.

Jason was pleasantly surprised to find this world didn’t have a strong stink to it. Almost every other alien planet had its own distinct odor, and they were almost universally unpleasant. Torestellia had a mild sweet smell of vibrant foliage tinged with a hint of machinery from the spaceport itself. Taryn stood on the edge of the ramp and jumped off, landing on the Torestellia surface with both feet. She turned and smiled largely at Jason and he laughed out loud despite everything that had been going wrong. Crusher also laughed softly and ruffled her hair with his massive hand.

“So now what?” Kage asked, unimpressed as he looked around.

“How about you and Doc, Twingo, and Taryn go grab some real food someplace close by. Crusher and I are going to reconnoiter the rest of the spaceport,” Jason said.

“I’m staying with the ship in case Lucky wakes up,” Twingo said, already walking back up the ramp.

“The bastard took my excuse,” Kage said.

“Oh, come on!” Taryn complained to him. “You don’t want to show me around on my first alien planet?”

“Ugh, fine,” the Veran said with resignation. “Let’s go.” The three made their way towards the terminal building to see what was close by that was compatible with their systems, Taryn almost skipping along with excitement.

“Trying to get rid of her already?” Crusher asked.

“No, but I don’t want to give the impression I’m hovering over her. This is safe enough, and she’ll get a bit more of an adventure by herself with those two,” Jason said. “Besides … you tend to attract random violence.”

“Me?” Crusher protested in a hurt voice.

After being cramped up on the ship for so long, the pair set off at a brisk pace to check out anything that might be interesting at the spaceport. Crusher’s absurdly long gait forced Jason to half jog, half run to keep up. There were the ubiquitous cargo haulers, private spacecraft, and government shuttles parked randomly along the tarmac. Some had access panels opened up with technicians crawling around in them, while others looked like they had been parked years ago and abandoned.

They were moving along at a nice clip, around a large, ovoid cargo ship about a mile from the Phoenix, when Jason stopped so short Crusher ran into him and sent him sprawling face first onto the hard surface. Hardly noticing the blood dripping off his chin, Jason stood and pointed. On the other side of the cargo ship, tucked up tightly against a service building, was the sleek ship Deetz had escaped from Earth in. Crusher knew what he was thinking without him having to voice it.

“How can you be certain it’s the same ship?”

“I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I’m pretty damn close to it.”

“So how do you want to play it?” Crusher asked, not even breathing hard from their run.

“Well, we’re not going to just waltz up there and knock,” Jason said after a moment of contemplation. “Deetz will have anti-intrusion protocols in place. I also suspect he doesn’t know we’ve arrived on this world or he’d have hit us while we were milling about at the bottom of the ramp.” A cold lump formed in his stomach as he realized Taryn was out and about with only Doc and Kage to protect her, and he had no idea where Deetz could be. If he grabbed her as a hostage they’d have a real problem. He grabbed his com unit as he and Crusher walked casually by the sleek-looking vessel, the latter discreetly taking a video of it with his own com unit.

“Doc, you there?”

“Yes. Is everything ok?”

“I’m not sure, but I think Deetz may be on this planet. Get everyone back to the ship without attracting too much attention,” Jason said as calmly as he could. “Crusher and I are going to try and confirm this.”

“Understood. We’re just letting Taryn browse around in some shops right now; we’ll head back to the Phoenix.”

Jason rolled his eyes at hearing Taryn had somehow gotten the two of them to take her shopping. Of course.

“Captain,” Crusher broke him out of his reverie, “we should grab a vehicle and head into the city to nose around.”

“Right,” Jason agreed, heading towards a low building up against the perimeter of the landing area that would likely have rental vehicles available. As they walked in ,an elderly twarlan eyed Jason with distrust and then gaped at Crusher when the big warrior shouldered through the door as well.

“May I help you, sirs?” The being’s demeanor changing from surly to servile in an instant.

“You might at that,” Jason said in a friendly voice. “I, and my overgrown friend here, would like to rent a vehicle to go down into the city. Could you perhaps help us with that?”

“I most certainly can,” he said, watching with some distress as Crusher poked at some scale models of spacecraft on a shelf with a clawed forefinger. “Is open cabin design acceptable?”

“I don’t see why not, it’s a beautiful day out.”

“It is indeed,” the twarlan agreed. “What brings you to our fair planet?”

“We’re supposed to meet up with a business connection, but we seem to have arrived late. Perhaps you can help me,” Jason said smoothly. “I’m looking for a synth. He would have likely been in a foul mood.”

“Oh! That lot,” the clerk said with obvious distaste. “One of the rudest beings I have ever encountered, even after I told him we welcome the synthetic species here with open arms.”

“That sounds like him,” Jason agreed, attempting to contain his excitement. “He’s unsavory, but his money spends the same. Did he give any indication of where he might be heading? There was nobody at his ship when we arrived.”

“He wasn’t much for talking to me as he was busy arguing with two others of a species I’ve never come across before. He did mention something about having to go to a meeting with news that would be unwelcome. It was something about being unable to secure a purchase from one of the mines.”

“Interesting. Where would a meeting between off-worlders typically happen?” Jason asked, now trying very hard to sound casually disinterested.

“Gallacin Square is a popular place for off-worlders,” the twarlan said. “A lot of non-Torestellia cuisine options.” He slid a data pad across to Jason so he could sign for the vehicle.

“Thanks, I’ll have to check that out,” he said as he signed and transferred the appropriate amount of credits from his chit.

“He didn’t seem the sort to be much of a businessman. I’d be careful if I were you.”

“That’s why I’m bringing my head of security,” Jason smiled blandly. Crusher turned his head slowly at the mention of security and affixed his intense yellow eyes on the clerk, holding the stare until the alien looked away, swallowing hard.

A moment later the pair was walking out the rear exit of the building to wait for their rented vehicle to be delivered. The clerk had said it was automated and was being directed from an off-site yard. True to his word, an unmanned vehicle rolled up a few minutes later.

“How quaint,” Crusher grumbled at the wheeled ground car.

“Not everything with wheels is a piece of shit, Crusher,” Jason said to him.

“So you keep telling me.”

“I’m going to take you for a ride in a 1966 Pontiac GTO one day, and I promise you’ll change your mind.” Crusher just eyed him skeptically as he climbed into the squat, ugly vehicle. “Gallacin Square,” Jason said to the vehicle as he climbed in the opposite side. As soon as he put on his safety restraint the vehicle hummed quietly away towards their destination.

Gallacin Square was a bustling hub of activity that looked like it had been transplanted off any ConFed world and deposited on Torestellia. The vehicle dropped them off and rolled away, blending in with the rest of the traffic. Jason looked around in dismay as he realized that finding a single synth in such a large area, if he was even there, was an unlikely proposition. He and Crusher walked through the crowd casually, taking in everything as the bustling throng of aliens went about their day.

One could infer which worlds were the largest customers of the Torestellian mines by how many establishments there were that catered to that species. The pair gawked a bit at the spires of buildings in the distance that rose hundreds and hundreds of stories into the sky from the heart of the megacity that housed millions of twarlans.

“This is a fool’s errand,” Crusher rumbled. “We should have just staked out his ship.”

“Where the hell were you with these brilliant suggestions an hour ago?” Jason shot back. In truth he was a little embarrassed he hadn’t thought of it himself. Once they’d confirmed the ship belonged to Deetz from the clerk at the desk, they should have just repositioned the Phoenix to cover his return.

“I’m Operations. You’re supposed to be Tactics,” Crusher shrugged as he continually scanned the crowd. Jason glared at his friend before resuming his own reconnaissance. With nothing better to do, they roamed the perimeter of the square looking for a synth, and/or a pair of A’arcooni—how they actually appeared when alive.

The better part of an hour had passed before Jason began to feel like the entire exercise had been nothing but a monumental waste of time. He then heard a strange, trilling voice that his implant couldn’t translate, which in itself was odd. He snapped his head around and looked for the source, only to see a lithe, gray-skinned alien with a crested skull walk by, chattering angrily at those it passed and pointing all around. The agitated being also had rows of colorful feathers lining either side of the crest. It took him a moment to process, but Jason was certain he was staring at an A’arcooni.

He elbowed Crusher hard in the side to get his attention, who then turned in irritation and promptly smacked Jason hard enough to send him to the ground for the second time that day. The human bounced up, nonplussed, and pointed emphatically at the alien who was still jabbering away, looking for all the world like a street preacher condemning all those it passed. The fact that nobody seemed to be able to understand it was a source of humor for those carousing on the square, most of whom openly mocked it.

The two members of Omega Force discreetly slipped in behind to follow the A’arcooni, as it appeared to have a definite destination in mind. Discreet was a relative term when accompanied by a Galvetic warrior, but it did help part the crowd. They hung back a bit so as not to spook the jabbering alien, following it as it ducked off the main square and down a raucous side street that was lined with taverns along either side. They lost sight of the quarry and ended up standing in the middle of the street, looking around in confusion.

“Damnit!” Jason shouted, startling a couple of partiers as they walked by. Just then his eyes were drawn to the end of the street where it terminated in another crossing that signified an end to the entertainment district. He stared for a moment as the crowd seemed to part at just the right moment to reveal a burnished metallic face twisted into a sardonic smirk. Deetz was staring right at him, smiling knowingly.

Jason’s instincts overrode his desire to give chase and he threw his body into Crusher. “Down!” The trained warrior didn’t hesitate and he threw himself on the ground as a powerful weapon blast blew a chunk out of the building behind them. That blast was followed by a handful more, each impacting the building behind them, and a panicked throng began surging around them.

Jason looked up and could see three A’arcooni firing some type of handheld weapons that were curved around like horseshoes. The points would glow and then an energy discharge would fire outward. It seemed the weapons weren’t very powerful, however, as all they did was blow shallow divots out of the building faces. Crusher climbed to his feet and in one fluid motion dove to his right and behind a decorative stone wall that concealed a flight of steps leading off the main street. Jason was right behind him as more shots pinged against the wall and a few screams from innocent bystanders could be heard.

“We’re trapped down here,” Jason said, pulling his holdout weapon from his boot. It was a small, chemically powered blaster that was only good for two shots before it was expended. It had been designed by Twingo when they had been forced to deal with Deetz the first time.

“Three targets, two shots … great thinking,” Crusher grumbled in disapproval at the weapon.

“Phoenix, this is Jason. Be advised we’ve come under fire,” Jason said into his com unit. “I want the ship prepped for immediate departure.” He moved up to the edge of the wall and peeked around for a split second to get his bearings on the enemy. He looked at Crusher and winked before extending his left arm around and squeezing off a single shot that took one of their assailants center mass and dropped him immediately, the alien’s weapon clanging to the ground. Jason squeezed back behind the wall as more shots hit around them. He could tell the other two were attempting to close on them from different directions and keep them pinned down with sustained fire.

“How are you not armed?”

“I brought this,” Crusher said as he slid a wicked, curved nanoblade out from under his vest. Jason just stared at him.

“You brought a knife,” Jason deadpanned. “That’s real fucking useful isn’t it?” Crusher only growled in response.

Jason crept up, ready to fire his last shot when a much more powerful weapons blast blew a huge chunk of the wall down on top of them. Both froze in shock.

“I think that’s quite enough, Jason,” Deetz’s voice carried to them. “Come out, toss that small blaster away and no more innocents will be killed or hurt. That is one of your main goals, isn’t it, Omega Force?” Jason ground his teeth at the mocking tone and looked at Crusher who simply shrugged helplessly.

“We’re coming out,” Jason shouted as he tossed his weapon over the wall. He stood slowly, not bothering to raise his hands, and walked out onto the street. Crusher sheathed his blade and followed him a moment later. The remaining two A’arcooni were standing to one side with their weapons trained on them while Deetz, casually shouldering a powerful plasma rifle, stood somewhat apart from them. “I see you’ve found some new friends.”

“You are a serious hindrance, do you know that?” Deetz asked, ignoring Jason’s statement. “I’d love nothing more than to kill you right here but I need the command codes to the DL7.”

“Well that’s not happening,” Jason said, folding his arms over his chest. He was stalling for time, as he was sure there would have to be some sort of law enforcement response to the gun play.

“Oh, but it is,” Deetz said. “While I can’t kill you … yet … I certainly have no use for the annoying little engineer, or your lady friend from your homeworld. You’re going to give me exactly what I want or they will all die while you watch. Just to prove I’m serious, your big warrior friend is going to be first.”

Deetz leveled the ugly weapon at Crusher, smiling smugly. Crusher raised himself to his full height and stared the synth down, refusing to blink or cower. There was an awful moment when Jason was certain he was about to watch his friend die, before a shadow on the ground caught his attention. The shadow appeared a split second before a horrendous impact on the pavement behind them. It was heavy enough to launch debris stingingly into their backs. Jason turned to his left to see what the hell had almost hit them.

Standing amid the dust he’d kicked up, eyes blazing red, was Lucky. The battlesynth had leapt from the roof of the building behind them to enter the fray. He said nothing as he strode forward and fired his forearm-mounted blasters at the remaining A’arcooni before turning his attention to Deetz. The latter, for his part, looked stunned and confused at the turn of events. In keeping with his nature, he fled. Deetz may have been a coward, but he was fast.

Lucky and Crusher pursued without hesitation. Jason tried, but was hopelessly outclassed in speed by the more powerful species as they ran at breakneck speed through the city. He pulled himself up short as he watched Deetz climb into an aircar and pull away, followed by his friends in another car they had apparently just stolen. Shit, shit, SHIT! He turned and sprinted back the way he had come, keeping an eye out for an available source of transportation as he did.

*****

“Are you back?” Crusher shouted as the wind whipped his words away in the open-cockpit vehicle.

“Obviously,” Lucky replied, able to amplify his voice without sounding like he was shouting. “Now is hardly the time to discuss it, however. Are you able to fly this vehicle?”

“I’m not very good at it,” Crusher admitted. Lucky didn’t answer as he remained at the controls and pushed the aircar to its limits to try and keep up with Deetz, who had apparently had his vehicle already waiting. It was, unfortunately, a fairly powerful model and was quickly leaving them behind. Lucky risked a couple of shots at it with his arm-mounted cannon before concentrating only on flying.

He skillfully shaved distance off of Deetz’s lead by cutting corners closer and taking riskier maneuvers through the other traffic. They were now moving into the heart of the megacity, and the buildings towered above them as irate twarlans gaped at them. The flight, along with carrying two heavy beings and running at full power the entire time, was taking its toll on the aircar. A whining fluctuation could be heard in the engine and they were losing speed in the turns.

“I do not believe this vehicle will last much longer,” Lucky informed Crusher. “We may need to break off pursuit and land before the engine cuts out.” Crusher glared and roared at the fleeing aircar in impotent rage before nodding his assent. As Lucky began to throttle back, a new sound became apparent. This was a dull, roaring throb that was building in intensity and seemed to shake the aircar. As they descended a bit more out of the traffic lane, their view of Deetz was suddenly cut off as the Phoenix roared out between two enormous towers just ahead of them, her bulk dwarfing everything else. The gunship pulled hard to make the turn and had to climb up and over another building as the drives struggled to keep her from plowing into it.

“He’s insane!” Crusher shouted as the Phoenix thundered between the buildings in renewed pursuit of Deetz. Lucky could only agree as the wash from the main engines shoved their tiny aircar about.

*****

“Range!” Jason barked.

“Two hundred meters and closing fast,” Kage reported in a strained voice.

Jason shoved the throttle forward again and the Phoenix leapt towards the fleeing aircar. Everyone onboard was holding on to something in terror as Jason threaded the big gunship down through the depths of the city. He was relying on the grav-drive and his neural implant to keep them from hitting any obstacles as the main engines pushed them along. The deep space combat ship was not built for this sort of maneuvering and the computers were constantly flashing warnings as they came close more than once to grazing a building.

“We’re in weapons range,” Kage said through clenched teeth.

“We can’t shoot while he’s down here near the buildings,” Jason said as he began to pull the nose up level with and beside the aircar. He could actually see Deetz look over and sneer in anger at him through the canopy before trying to dive away, but not before Jason gave him a love tap with the side of the ship. The hit sent the aircar spiraling down into the depths so fast that Jason couldn’t slow his velocity quickly enough to follow. Instead, he yanked the ship into a steep climb to circle around and try to reacquire him.

“We lost him—”

“Jason, we have serious problems,” Doc interrupted Kage with genuine fear in his voice. “Both ConFed destroyers that are in orbit are moving to intercept. They’ll be over the city in minutes, and are demanding we put down before they open fire.”

“They won’t fire into the city,” Jason scoffed.

“They most certainly will,” Doc insisted. “We need to get out of here, now!”

“Tell Lucky and Crusher we’ll meet them at the northern edge of the city,” Jason said. “Lucky should be able to home in on us and just pull the aircar into the cargo bay. Kage, you keep an eye out for Deetz.”

Jason brought them about again and pushed for the northern boundary that marked the edge of the megacity. He risked a short burst of supersonic flight to get them out of the area, not wanting to put the twarlan population at risk of ConFed fire or local law enforcement, the latter of which was just now mounting a response. At the edge of the city the sky-reaching towers gave way to shorter, more pragmatic buildings that mostly housed the support equipment needed to sustain a city of millions.

“Lucky is saying they’re being pursued by local law enforcement,” Kage said. “They’re also at ground level near the end of the warehouse district to our left. Apparently the engine in their vehicle is no longer able to sustain flight.”

“Plot me a course,” Jason said as he veered in the general direction indicated by Kage.

*****

Lucky had swapped places with Crusher and was now firing low power, wide focus beams at the oncoming vehicles. While Crusher was an abhorrent pilot in three dimensions, when the vehicle was at ground level he was competent enough. Besides, Lucky was the only one armed at the moment.

“I can’t get much more speed out of it,” Crusher shouted over the rushing air.

“It does not matter. Help is on the way,” Lucky replied, firing three more rapid bursts. They had limped the car back to ground level and were racing along the abandoned streets north of the city. The streets in this area were traversed almost exclusively by autonomous delivery bots as they scurried from the warehouse staging areas back into the city to deliver the goods the populace required. This kept the skies above free for the more exotic air travel, a novelty much preferred by the twarlans.

Crusher risked a look back over his shoulder and saw the police aircars were overcoming their timidity of flying so close to the ground and were now closing the gap. He had begun to contemplate ditching the vehicle and making a run for it on foot when a familiar, ground-shaking rumble was felt in his chest. Sure enough, the Phoenix overflew them, the downwash from the lifting body and repulsors shoving the aircars of their pursuers around enough to make them hesitate.

Crusher saw the gunship settle slightly just above the street, still flying along at a good clip, while lowering the rear cargo ramp. Without hesitation he mashed the accelerator and aimed for the opening.

“Crusher!” Lucky warned. “Our closure speed is too great!”

*****

“They’re aboard. Closing us back up,” Kage said from the right seat.

“What are those destroyers doing?” Jason asked as he slammed the throttle back down and climbed a bit to clear the buildings, sending the Phoenix racing along on a northerly course.

“They’re descending quickly out of high orbit to try and box us in,” Doc said. “They’ll be in weapons range within five minutes.”

Even a ship as powerful as a ConFed destroyer couldn’t simply fire through the atmosphere at a ground target at any angle or range it wanted to. The atmosphere itself would diffuse the shot enough that it would have little effect on a heavily shielded vessel like a DL7 gunship. The preferred tactic was to bring the ship into low orbit and directly overhead of the target to minimize the distance the shot would have to travel. Unfortunately, all the destroyer-class vessels in the ConFed fleet also carried orbit-to-surface missiles that had no such limitations. Jason fervently hoped they weren’t willing to light one of those off with the Phoenix running so close to the ground over a populated area.

The ship shuddered and pulled to the right before the computers could compensate as a shot from the nearest destroyer splashed against their shields. I guess they’re not above a few warning shots. In response to the warning blast, Jason advanced the throttle all the way to the stop. The Phoenix roared as her four main engines came to full power and hurtled them out of weapons range within a few seconds, still pushing north. He allowed the ship to gain some altitude to get out of the denser atmosphere at ground level.

“I think they’ve guessed your plan, Captain,” Doc said. “Their drives are flaring and both ships are trying to adjust for a polar orbit.”

“They won’t make it in time,” Jason said confidently. “Prep the slip-drive; get us out of here as soon as we’ve cleared the atmosphere.” One of his favorite tricks was to bait the more powerful capital ships into a lower orbit in order to use their energy weapons and then he’d race for one of the poles to make his escape out of the atmosphere. By the time they realized what he intended, the larger ships had little chance of pulling back up to a higher altitude and changing orbits in time to intercept him.

The Phoenix was now travelling hypersonic as he brought the nose up sharply. The gunship clawed her way up out of the atmosphere, the two pursuing destroyers hopelessly out of range. He just hoped the twarlans didn’t have any nasty surprises waiting for him.

“You’re clear, Captain. Slip-drive ready when you are,” Kage said just as the drive control lit up to let him know it was ready.

“Burn, baby, burn!” Jason yelled, his adrenaline still surging as he slapped the control to engage the slip-drive. With a whine and shudder the Phoenix meshed out of the system and away from their tormenters. Unfortunately, it was also taking them away from Deetz. “Rotate transponder codes and contact the Diligent to let them know our status.”

“We’re down to our last set of clean codes,” Doc said to him from his station.

“That’s unfortunate. Those aren’t cheap,” Jason said as he climbed out of his seat. He then looked at Taryn with concern. She looked like she still had a death-grip on her seat and was trembling slightly. “You OK?”

“No, I’m not OK!” His question seemed to have snapped her out of her trance. “How can you be so casual about all of this?!” Jason just shrugged helplessly.

“You get used to it, I suppose,” he said. “Let’s go grab a drink and check on Lucky and Crusher.” She hesitantly released her harness and took his hand, allowing herself to be led off the bridge. “Let me know when you raise the Diligent,” he said over his shoulder.

He tried to calm Taryn as best he could, but she was having none of it. She had been having a pleasant conversation with Doc and Twingo after her first alien planet adventure when he had called saying they were under attack. A bit later he had burst onto the bridge and began an emergency engine start with no explanation. He had offered little more as he pushed the Phoenix down into the city after Deetz, giving her a front row seat to the horror of trying to maneuver the big gunship at unsafe speeds in cramped quarters. Even with some of the danger she’d been in up to that point, the chase through the city had frayed her last nerve.

When Jason opened the hatch to the cargo bay, an acrid smell of smoke overwhelmed him. Coughing slightly, he stepped through and out onto the mezzanine. The entire cargo bay was engulfed in smoke, and the sparking remains of an open cockpit aircar were smashed against the blast door that led to the armory under Jason’s feet. He could also make out huge rents cut into the deck.

“Anybody alive in here?” he called.

“We are fine, Captain,” Lucky called out from below. “But I fear Twingo will not be happy when he sees what Crusher has done in here.”

“What the hell? Why am I taking all the blame?”

“You were piloting the vehicle at the time of the impact.”

Jason made his way carefully down the steps and saw Crusher sitting on the deck next to the crashed vehicle, legs splayed out in front of him, and Lucky kneeling beside him. “You OK?”

“I’m good, Captain,” Crusher said. “Just catching my breath.” He hauled himself to his feet with a grunt. Jason took the time to look Lucky over as the air handlers began to clear the smoke out of the hold.

“You gave us quite a hell of a scare, big guy,” he told his friend.

“I was scared myself,” Lucky admitted. “I will tell you about it later.” Jason nodded and slapped Crusher on the shoulder as Taryn walked up and hugged the battlesynth.

“Well, the bastard got away again, but so did we. Seems like a clean break,” Jason said.

“Captain, the Diligent is on the com. They say we were identified while leaving Torestellia,” Kage called over the intercom. The others just looked at him.

“I said it seemed like a clean break,” Jason said with a shrug before heading up the stairs to take his lumps. When he walked into the com room he could see Crisstof’s face, and he was not happy.

“I must necessarily make this communiqué brief, Captain. You’ve stirred up quite a mess. Please rendezvous with the Diligent at the provided stellar coordinates for debrief,” Crisstof said. He then terminated the link before Jason could answer him and actually shut off the transponder node he had been using. This is a tad unusual.

He walked up onto the bridge and flopped down into the pilot’s seat, the others staring at him expectantly.

“Did the Diligent provide coordinates?”

“Yes, Captain. I’ve already loaded them into the nav system,” Kage informed him. “We can change course at any time.” Jason stared at the blacked-out canopy for a long few seconds, considering blowing Crisstof off and trying to pick up Deetz’s trail again while it was hot.

“If I may, Captain?” Doc said, clearing his throat. “I can see you’re considering ignoring Crisstof. I suggest we don’t do that. He seemed agitated for some reason, even fearful. This may be something we need to take seriously.” Again, Jason said nothing as he weighed his options. He had been working with Crisstof and Kellea for a couple of years and he knew they weren’t normally prone to this sort of huffiness at their methods.

“Change course, Kage,” Jason said, making his decision. “Take us to the Diligent, best possible speed.” Doc looked mildly relieved as the Phoenix came to a new course and increased velocity. Jason stood back up and checked the countdown timer projected on the canopy before heading back to his quarters to get cleaned up and talk with Lucky for a bit.

Chapter 9

“It was an interesting experience,” Lucky admitted. “I was fully aware of what was going on around me, but my motor control and vocalization subsystems were having trouble coming back online.

“I could hear your concern, all of you, as you stood around me. It was heartening to know you cared so much, so I redoubled my efforts to reboot the affected systems.”

“So your cognitive functions came back as soon as I applied power?” Twingo asked speculatively. “I scanned with every instrument I could think of and I wasn’t getting an up or down on if your brain was booting back up.”

“Each of our … brains … is uniquely different,” Lucky explained. “You would have to know exactly what to scan for to detect it.”

“I’m just glad you’re back,” Taryn said, both hands wrapped tightly around a hot mug of chroot. She’d never gotten used to the cool temperature the crew preferred to keep the ship at. “We were scared.”

“I would never leave you alone to fend for yourself with these cretins, my dear,” Lucky said with his uniquely dry delivery.

“Cretins? Not all of us,” Twingo protested. “Mostly just Jason and Crusher actually.”

Before Jason could retort, Kage came over the intercom, “We’re ten minutes from the Diligent. Flight crew to the bridge. Immediately.”

“He knows he’s not actually in command just because he’s the only one sitting on the bridge, doesn’t he?” Twingo grumbled as they made their way up to the command deck.

They landed without incident on the Diligent’s flight deck and were pulled into the hangar. After taxiing to their usual spot, they disembarked and were met by a grim-faced Commander Bostco as well as Taryn’s parents, both of whom rushed to hug her.

“How bad is it?” Jason asked him, ignoring the glare from Taryn’s mother.

“Pretty bad,” Bostco confirmed. “They’re waiting for you in the usual place.” Jason just grunted and led the way to the port side conference room they usually met in. Once they all filed in and found a seat, Crisstof began.

“Lucky, I am overjoyed to see you have recovered,” he said, nodding to the battlesynth, who only nodded back. “Now then … since our partnership began, I’ve overlooked certain operational details of this outfit with the knowledge that sometimes it was worth it for the greater good. But, you’ve far overstepped your bounds this time, I’m afraid.

“I have been on the com with a representative of ConFed Fleet Command concerning a series of attacks on Torestellia. As you know, that planet’s status is tenuous, at best, and closely protected by the ConFed Council.”

“You mean rich guys like you like to make sure the twarlans stay happy rubes so you can continue to harvest minerals,” Jason said, in no mood to be preached at like he was an errant schoolboy. “What attacks? We were fired on by Deetz in a market square and gave chase. This isn’t exactly the most dramatic thing we’ve ever done.”

“Flying your warship down a crowded traffic lane of a city is quite dramatic, I assure you,” Crisstof said, raising his voice. “I may be able to smooth this over with the ConFed fleet, but either way I am suspending Omega Force operations for the time being.”

“You listen to me, old man,” Jason snarled, coming out of his seat so violently it flipped back against the wall. Everyone, even Crusher, jumped at the sudden display of ferocity. “It was MY planet that was attacked and I will take whatever steps necessary to make sure that bastard synth can’t take another crack at it. You don’t have the authority to stop Omega operations. You tried that once before and it didn’t end well. Don’t try it again.” Jason gave the chair one final kick to get it out of his way and stormed out of the conference room, leaving a stunned Crisstof standing at the head of the table gaping like a fish out of water.

“Captain.” Jason heard the voice, but kept walking. “Captain!” Still not turning around, he continued on. “Jason!” He stopped and looked back to see Kellea walking towards him.

“Yes … Captain,” he said in an icy voice.

“I had nothing to do with this,” she said in a slightly hurt voice. “This is his ship; I only have so much authority. Please come back in and talk this over.”

“There is nothing to talk over. He’s made it clear he sees humanity as a second-rate species, not worthy of even half the effort I’ve given in the past year for half a dozen other worlds at his request,” Jason bit out. “As far as I’m concerned, my partnership with Crisstof Dalton has run its course.” He turned to walk off again but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll be aboard the Phoenix,” Jason said, turning to look at her. She dropped her hand.

“I mean … if you’re ending your arrangement with Crisstof, what does this mean about you and me?” she asked so quietly that he could barely hear her. Jason was taken aback for a second. She had never openly admitted there even was anything between the two of them. So he did the one thing that came naturally to him when dealing with women: he made matters exponentially worse.

“Tell my crew we’ll be departing the Diligent in one hour,” he said flatly as he turned his back on her and walked away. He caught enough of a glimpse at her face as he left to know his words had stung, but he didn’t turn around to take them back. He had come to Crisstof in good faith to solve a serious threat to his world, his species, with the expectation it would be handled with as much enthusiasm as he himself had displayed when protecting alien worlds he’d never even heard of. Now he felt that Crisstof had just been going through the motions, and for some reason that hurt quite a bit.

His clarity and focus returned as he crossed the hangar deck towards his waiting ship. He didn’t need Crisstof, the Diligent, or even Kellea to solve this problem. He’d handle it himself, as he always should have. He went up the ramp and made his way directly to the com room on the command deck. He began going over all the information he’d been gathering since he first saw Deetz’s visage on the broadcast from Earth.

After about half an hour he slammed his hands down onto the console in frustration. He had scant little to go on. Without a doubt he knew the synth had been drawing him out, picking the locations and circumstances of their engagements. What he didn’t know was why, or what he would try next. Is it me, or is it the ship? Could it really just be revenge? He made a mental note to ask Lucky if synths could go insane. Sitting back in the seat, he pondered whether Deetz was actually after the Phoenix, then quickly discarded the idea. While the DL7 was somewhat unique, it was hardly worth this much trouble. Besides, he’d been commanding an entire fleet up to that point.

He became aware of voices on the bridge and wondered how he hadn’t noticed anybody walk by the com room. When he strode onto the bridge, he saw Kellea talking to Doc and Kage animatedly.

“There you are,” she said. “There’s been an attack. One of Deetz’s ships hit a colony a little over twelve lightyears from here.” Jason simply crossed his arms and looked at her.

“So were you going to do something about it?”

“You’re actually going to be like this?” she asked in exasperation. “We’re already flying enroute to that planet now. We could drop back to real-space to let the Phoenix launch, or you could swallow your pride for once and help us when we get there.” Jason gave her a hard look before responding.

“This doesn’t mean we’re back on the team,” he said. “Let me know when we get within thirty minutes. I’d like to launch when you drop out of slip-space. I don’t want to be stuck onboard if you get hit with that weapon.”

“Fair enough.” She brushed by him and exited the bridge. The two members of his own crew stood there, just looking at him.

“What?”

“You’re serious about breaking ties with Crisstof?” Doc asked. “Do you remember how difficult life was before the Eshquarian mission? It would have been nearly impossible to help all those that we have so far if we didn’t have his logistical support, not to mention the Diligent has saved us more than once.”

“What do you expect me to do, Doc?” Jason said with an exaggerated palms-up shrug. “The safety of Earth is not a priority to him. One little bump in the road on that planet and he overreacts and overreaches his authority over us. If this was a ConFed world or a planet like Eshquaria, would our methods be questioned over the results? We’re not exactly causing mass casualties out there.

“But, since Earth is an uninitiated planet with little to offer, the vibe I’m getting is that it’s just not worth it. Damnit, Deetz still has two powerful ships at his disposal! My species only exists on one planet. One! If he sterilizes Earth, humanity dies right then and there. I’m not willing to make compromises with Crisstof Dalton with that hanging over my head.”

“I don’t disagree with you, Jason,” Doc said placatingly. “All I’m saying is that once tempers have cooled, maybe the two of you can readdress the issue.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.” Jason then turned and bellowed down to the main deck, “Twingo! Get your ass up here and get the ship ready. We’re flying into a firefight.”

“We are?” Kage asked. As usual he had stayed out of the contentious argument.

“Probably not,” Jason admitted. “This colony was hit to get us moving again. The game is still on, and Deetz isn’t out of moves. We’ll either find nothing or we’ll find another trap.”

*****

The Phoenix charged out in front of the Diligent as they entered the star system, simply known by its navigational designation of D755, making a direct course for the first planet. It was a small, rocky world with a domed colony on it, as the atmosphere was too thin to support life. Jason wasn’t actually clear as to why anyone would build it in the first place. There were no unique mineral deposits on the planet or any other discernible reason to build such a large habitation on such an inhospitable world.

His first instinct proved to be correct after the first active scan: there were no enemy ships in the vicinity. He reduced his velocity and ordered Doc to begin full spectrum active sweeps of the area. Since the enemy didn’t use slip-drives, there was no point in trying to determine an escape vector from the leaked radiation left behind. He also had Kage trying to raise the colony, so far to no avail. He feared the worse for the inhabitants.

“Nothing?”

“Not anything interesting, Captain,” Doc said. “I’m not even getting any power readings from the few satellites they had in orbit.”

“I was afraid of that. We need to hurry,” Jason said, pushing their speed back up.

“Afraid of what?” Kage asked, still working the com panel.

“No power signatures anywhere? They used that weapon of theirs on the colony, which means the life support systems will also have been deactivated.”

Jason slid the Phoenix into a low equatorial orbit and made a complete pass around the planet so the Phoenix’s optical sensors could put eyes on the target. The results weren’t promising. The colony looked completely dark and the thermal signatures of the support buildings were nearing ambient temperature, meaning they had been shut down for some time. He now had little hope of finding anyone alive inside the large structure.

“Plot me an entry vector,” he told Kage. “We’re already out here, let’s see what Deetz has left for us. We’ll land two klicks to the south on that hard pack, and Lucky and I will walk from there.”

“I’m to stay here again?” Crusher said with disappointment.

“Yes. You may need to come rescue us,” Jason said without humor. “A hit and run on a random colony for the fun of it? No, there are some surprises waiting for me in there.”

He touched the ship down lightly on the planet’s surface and contacted the Diligent. Not surprisingly, Taryn had somehow managed to work her way to the bridge as the video link was established.

“We’re going down to the habitat, but we don’t expect much,” Jason said to Kellea.

“We’ll be scanning the system while you’re doing that, and will meet you in orbit over the planet. Diligent out.” Once the screen blanked, Jason climbed out of his seat and indicated with his head that Lucky should follow.

“When we’re on our way, go ahead and take the Phoenix and search the surrounding area. I don’t want the ship sitting on the ground with all the unknowns right now,” he told Doc before he exited the bridge.

It took him only just over ten minutes to climb into his armor and boot its systems up. After a quick operational checkout, he tried to open the door to the cargo bay but it jammed after cracking only a few inches. He looked at Lucky, who couldn’t see his face behind the opaque visor.

“You guys really did a number with that aircar crash. We’ll have to go out through the crew entry hatch,” he said, pointing above his head. They exited the armory and backtracked through the common area to the smaller hatch above the armory. “We’re heading out now; keep your ears on,” Jason said into the com as he lowered the rear ramp.

“Don’t worry, Captain. We won’t be far,” Doc answered.

Jason and Lucky wasted no time crossing the few kilometers of dry, baked clay to reach the habitat. It was a typical, cost-efficient dome with several support structures attached at various places along its base. He knew the main living areas would be underground, and he hoped they had an emergency shelter that didn’t require power to lock.

The airlock door had to be manually overridden, which simply meant Lucky grabbed it and ripped it from the frame. The inner door was a bit more cooperative and could be slid back into its recess without too much damage to the mechanism. When they opened the inner door and darted in, there was an alarming lack of rushing atmosphere to greet them. Jason jammed the inner door closed anyway and turned to look into the structure they’d just entered.

No emergency lights had come on, so Jason switched through spectrums, settling on viewing the interior through mid-wave infrared with a false-color overlay. He walked cautiously into the gloomy dome with Lucky close behind. Inside had apparently been a self-contained eco system, complete with odd-looking trees stretching to the top of the structure. Then he saw the bodies.

Aliens of a species he had never encountered were strewn around, their faces contorted in the agony of their final moments. There were a few dozen within sight of where he stood. The beings only had one multi-pupilled eye and odd, lipless mouths, but it seemed the contortions a body went through during a violent death were universal.

“Just shutting off the power wouldn’t do this,” Jason said to Lucky. “Deetz did something to let the air out afterwards.”

“I concur, Captain,” Lucky agreed. “These beings look to have suffered from sudden decompression of their habitat.”

They walked through the rest of the dome in silence as Jason became increasingly angry at the carnage around him. He was so distracted that he almost missed the blinking light near the entrance to one of the service tunnels that led underneath the structure. He walked over cautiously and saw that it was a display unit that still had power. There was also a note, etched into the metal of the table the monitor was resting on. It said, “Hello Jason. Press here,” with a line leading up to a single button on the bezel of the display. It was written in English.

“Lucky! Get over here,” he called over the coms. When the battlesynth approached, he took in the scene for a moment before commenting.

“Interesting,” he said. “How do you wish to proceed?” Instead of answering, Jason simply pressed the button. The setup was too elaborate for it to simply be a bomb. The display flickered on and, not surprisingly, Deetz’s face appeared.

“Hello Jason, as I’m certain it’s you who has found this,” Deetz began, his voice being broadcast over open com channels from the unit. “I’m sure you have many questions and are probably quite angry. Who were these people? What does it mean? Why them?

“The short answer is: I have no idea. This research settlement was a target of opportunity. It allowed me to show you just how far I’m willing to go to get what I want. It also allowed me to get further away for the time being while you stomp around and throw a temper tantrum at seeing all the innocent beings. Yes … I know all about your ridiculous idealistic crusade to help people. You steal a powerful ship like that and then you live like a pauper? For what? You think anything you’ve done wasn’t undone the moment you left? Guess again.

“There are no heroes, Jason, only fools who don’t know any better. I hope the scene around you lets the futility of your life penetrate that primitive brain of yours. But if not, here’s a little something to speed the process.” The video cut to a recorded scene of the atmosphere venting from the dome and the aliens within writhing in agony as they gasped, trying to catch their breath. It was over in less than a minute.

“So what will it be, Jason?” Deetz was now back in the picture and continuing his speech. “Shall you continue to chase me across this section of the galaxy, letting me do this over and over? Or will you come to your senses? My terms, you ask?

“I. Want. That. Ship. Nothing more complicated than that. I want the DL7 back, or whatever you’re calling it now. I went through a lot of trouble to get my hands on it before I met you, and I won’t let you just keep it.” He paused for a moment, looking around from wherever he was recording the message. “I’ll be in touch.”

The message ended and the monitor powered itself off. A second later, smoke streamed out from around the edges as its internal workings were fried. Apparently Deetz was still a little paranoid, despite the murders and the false bravado. Lucky turned and looked at Jason, but said nothing.

“We’re not learning anything else here,” Jason said. “We’ll have Crisstof try and find out who these scientists were and contact their people. Let’s head back to the ship.”

The pair hustled to make it back to the pickup point on time, but the Phoenix wasn’t there yet. So they stood silently, looking out over the barren landscape as they waited.

*****

“Is it possible for a synth to go insane?” Twingo was asking. They were in the Phoenix’s meeting room having a conference with Crisstof and Kellea. Both ships were in orbit over the planet, but Jason was hesitant to take the gunship back aboard the frigate. The only reason he didn’t just mesh out was the three humans on the other ship.

“I can assure you it is,” Lucky said. “However, Deetz is not displaying the usual signs of dementia for my kind. He is sadistic and self-serving, but very much aware of what he is doing and very calculating.”

“I’ll say,” Jason said. “He’s been leading us around by the nose this entire time.”

“We’ve identified who this outpost belonged to,” Crisstof said over the link. “We’re sending a message to inform their government of what has happened. So what will be your next course of action, Captain Burke?”

“Honestly I have no idea, Crisstof,” Jason was forced to admit. “As lengthy as that message was, he didn’t really give us any clue as to where he was or where he would be going.”

“Would you permit a small contingent to come over to your vessel via shuttle? We have some information from our analysis of your sensor logs that will be useful for your tactical planning,” Crisstof said, trying overly hard not to overstep his bounds. For some reason that irritated Jason more than his trying to order them around.

“That’s fine. We’ll be expecting you at our port airlock,” Jason said with a sigh.

It was an hour later when a small shuttlecraft nudged up to the Phoenix’s port airlock and the hatches were opened. Jason met them alone and unarmed, too mentally exhausted to care if their plan was to try and shut them down again. He was surprised to see that in addition to Kellea and Bostco, whom he expected, Taryn and Crisstof himself were also crammed into the tiny runabout. Jason nodded to them, hugged Taryn, and led the way back out to the common area. With his own crew and the additional people from the Diligent, their small meeting room would not comfortably hold everybody.

Bostco walked to the lounge and used his tablet computer to link up to the main display that was usually used for entertainment. The others filed in and took their seats in the assortment of couches and large, stuffed chairs. If not for the somber faces, they looked like a group of friends about to enjoy a movie night.

“We analyzed your sensor logs prior to the attack,” Bostco began as the monitor now displayed an overview of the system they had been in, with a green dot representing the Phoenix and a red dot representing the enemy ship. There were dotted track lines that showed the projected flights of each. “As you can see, they didn’t react to your presence until you were well within a million kilometers. This tells us they don’t likely have real-time sensor capability.

“Now, here, when they do spot you, they immediately move to attack. No hesitation. It would seem you’re correct in assuming they were waiting for you, but the fact they’re moving to intercept indicates an important fact about the weapon they used.”

“It’s range limited,” Jason said. “We already assumed that.”

“Yes, but we think we know what that range is,” Bostco continued. “Your attack speed was so high that we almost missed it, but the other vessel applies a high level of retro thrust right … here, and then your sensors registered a large energy build up on the hull of the enemy vessel right before you were hit.

“We’ve postulated that not only is the weapon range limited, but it’s not actually fired in the traditional sense. It seems the energy builds up like a static electric charge and then is attracted to nearby power sources. Your reactor drew the shot right into the ship.”

“OK,” Jason said after a pause. “Plausible. But what is it?”

“That we don’t know,” Kellea said after Bostco froze up. “We’re operating under the assumption that the energy charge is a carrier for some type of particle we’ve never encountered that can interrupt and shut down certain types of power sources, particularly atomic and anti-matter reactions.”

“Those two types of energy aren’t that closely related,” Twingo objected. “Putting aside the fact you’re assuming a hell of a lot, what sort of particle can render reactors inert within the span of seconds? There was also the failure of chemical and static charge power sources.”

“Again, we don’t know,” Crisstof said. “We’re sharing what we do know, which is very little. What happened to the Phoenix may not be typical, but may have been a result of your proximity. This latest attack, along with the attack on Earth, seems to indicate that this is a planetary assault weapon. Hitting the gunship could have simply overloaded everything, including Lucky’s power cells.”

“I’m hearing a lot of could haves and might haves. Do you have anything concrete other than the range numbers from when they fired?” Jason asked, thinking their trip over was a waste of time.

“We can give you the ranging data we’ve been able to determine from the shot,” Kellea said with a shrug.

“So why are you really here?” Jason said, leveling a steady glare at Crisstof.

“I understand that you’re going to press ahead with this mission, with or without my blessing,” Crisstof said, crossing one leg over the other and rumpling his expensive suit. “I’m here to ask that you remember what it is that makes you, all of you, unique.”

“I’m going to say this again,” Jason said wearily. “I have no idea why you’re so up in arms about the Torestellia incident. We’ve done far more damage on a night off just having fun.”

“I hardly call seventeen dead twarlans at a mine a fun night off,” Crisstof nearly shouted.

“What dead twarlans? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You didn’t fire on a mineral mine in the outlands near the city you were in?”

“Dalton, we didn’t fire on anything, including Deetz. We couldn’t open fire with the Phoenix’s guns because we were in the city the entire time,” Jason ground out, tired of the circular conversation. “I fired one shot out of a holdout blaster that hit an A’arcooni gunman. Beyond that, we never even flew near a mine.”

“Did Deetz have a ship on the surface?” Crisstof pressed.

“Yes, we told you that already,” Doc said, also sounding irritated. “He had the smaller, modern vessel he escaped Earth with parked on the tarmac at the same spaceport we were at.”

“I’d say the safe bet is that Deetz fired on the mine, but why?” Taryn asked, speaking up for the first time. “Since even I know it wasn’t this ship that fired. I was on the bridge the entire time.”

“What do they mine there?” Jason asked.

“Samarskite,” Bostco said after consulting his computer. Jason simply shrugged helplessly.

“It’s a radioactive ore,” Twingo said thoughtfully. “It can be refined into a few useful compounds. It’s rare, but not rare enough to attack a mine for its raw form.”

“It’s used in some reactor construction,” Bostco said, still reading. “But like Twingo said, it’s widely available for purchase.”

“We’re assuming it was Deetz that attacked the mine,” Jason said, holding up a hand. “We’re also assuming he attacked it for a logical reason. I think the scene on the planet below us underscores the fact we’re not dealing with a rational being.”

“I disagree, Captain,” Lucky said, standing near the front of the lounge area where he could cover everyone’s movements. “He has shown thus far that everything has been a calculation. We must assume that the attack on the mine, and on the surface of this world, fit into that plan somehow.”

“I’m forced to agree with him,” Twingo said moodily, “though I don’t like the implications of that. We’re being led around with some goal in mind and I doubt it’s a surprise party.”

“So now what?” Kellea asked. Jason was glad to see that every time the other captain opened her mouth it wasn’t met with a hostile look from Taryn.

“I have no idea,” he admitted for the second time in as many hours. “We’ll go back through the message again and see if we can pick anything out of it and try to go from there.”

“We will do the same,” Crisstof declared, standing up. “We received the message on our ship as well.”

Jason led the three members of the Diligent’s crew to the airlock. Taryn made it clear she intended to stay on the Phoenix, which caused an arched eyebrow from Kellea. Jason knew the polished captain well enough at this point to recognize that as a particularly significant outward display of emotion. He suddenly felt guilty about how he’d treated her in the passageway on her ship.

“We’ll be in orbit for a while,” she said to him as she brushed by. “Let’s continue to share information … at least until this is over.”

“We will,” Jason promised her.

Chapter 10

The Diligent and Phoenix continued to orbit the unnamed planet as their crews struggled to make sense of Deetz’s actions. On the surface it looked like a series of random attacks, but Jason refused to believe they weren’t somehow connected. Taryn had been quiet since coming back aboard the gunship. The violence of the past few encounters had erased some of the wonder she had first felt when she realized that all the stories Jason had been telling were real. Now the danger was real for her as well.

Jason wasn’t sure what to say to her about it, so he said nothing and decided that she’d come to him if she needed to talk. Lucky and Crusher were doing what they usually did when the crew was in the planning stages of something: they trained in the cargo bay or hid out in the armory. Kage, with Doc’s help, was busy trying to glean any clues he could out of the video Deetz had provided, so that left Jason to roam about aimlessly since Twingo had chased him out of Engineering.

It was times like these when he keenly felt his lack of understanding of the universe around him. While he was catching on fast, everyone else had been born into a world where starships traveled between exotic worlds and miraculous technology was commonplace. So instead of getting in their way, he sat in the galley and played cards with Taryn, trying to take her mind off things, and often sneaking off to his quarters together. The crew had enough couth to pretend they didn’t notice, save for Kage’s creepy smile every time they emerged disheveled.

The first break came when Twingo randomly had the computer search for practical uses for samarskite, the mineral they were assuming Deetz had stolen from the mining site on Torestellia.

“When Crisstof heard back from his ConFed contact about how much refined samarskite was missing, I began digging a little deeper,” he was explaining as the crew ate. “That much would be a bit excessive for a reactor build, not to mention there are better powerplants readily available for purchase. Matter/anti-matter reactors have really come down in price over the last—”

“Twingo, for the love of God … get to the damn point,” Jason snapped. His friend’s tendency to get sidetracked during his own explanations sometimes grated on his nerves, this being one of those times.

“What the hell is your problem? Anyway,” Twingo continued, unfazed, “it’s used heavily in the construction of masers.”

“Huh,” Crusher grunted.

“Indeed,” Lucky agreed. Jason looked around the table suspiciously. He had no idea what a maser was, nor was he even certain it was a real thing. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d set him up to look stupid.

“Twingo, don’t be rude,” he said, trying a new tactic. “Taryn doesn’t know what a maser is … at least describe it for her while you’re rambling on.” Twingo narrowed his eyes at him and crossed his arms.

“Go ahead, Captain. I wouldn’t presume to know better than you how to explain it to her.” Damn that little blue bastard.

“Alright, damnit! What the hell is a maser?” Jason asked, holding up a finger for silence. “But … same rules as always. Lucky explains it to me and none of the rest of you talk until I leave the room. Then you can make fun of me like you usually do.”

“We do not!” Kage protested.

“Intercom, Kage,” Jason said. “You don’t always remember to turn it off. Anyway, Lucky?”

“A maser is similar in operation to a laser,” Lucky began. “However, instead of emitting a coherent beam of light, a maser will emit a coherent beam of electromagnetic energy.”

“That doesn’t sound that exotic,” Jason said.

“It’s not. The technology is positively ancient,” Twingo said. “In fact, since the development of energy shields, I don’t think anybody is even making them anymore.”

“This sort of explains why he’s stealing component material, but not why he would build a maser at all,” Jason replied. “If they’re useless in modern warfare, what’s the point?”

“Remember, we’re assuming the alien weapon Deetz is using is fired by the same principles of a static discharge,” Twingo explained. “What if he was able to fire it in a coherent beam?”

“Ah,” Jason said, finally getting it. “That would be bad. What sort of range are we talking about?”

“It’ll depend on his power source, but much more than he has now,” Twingo shrugged.

“Doc, send this new information to the Diligent. Unfortunately, this doesn’t put us any closer to finding out where he may be hiding, so keep at it guys.” Jason got up from the table and made his way back to the bridge. When he saw that Taryn had stayed with the crew he ducked quickly into the com room and shut the door.

Once he was sure she hadn’t followed him up, he sat down at the console and began entering commands. Despite the attack on Earth, his little stealthy satellite was still in orbit and still performing its store-and-forward task. It took a little over a minute to download the latest package, and then he was able to begin parsing it up and viewing the news media broadcasts from home. The news was disheartening, to say the least.

A common trend was that he was being branded as an alien conspirator and blamed for bringing the attack upon them. It seemed the general public had no idea that he had been on the Phoenix. There was also a vicious debate about what role his ship played in the drama over DC. Despite the clear video evidence that the gunship had downed one of the attacking ships, there were still hysterical proclamations about its involvement in the attack on the planet.

Most disappointing to him was the collapse of social order in some areas of the globe after the revelation of advanced alien species. He had always held out the fantasy that when the presence of a galaxy teeming with life was revealed, humanity would take the next step and set aside its petty differences and become a unified species. It seemed the opposite had happened. Most first world powers were accusing the United States of not cooperating with other nations in the investigation of the downed ship in the Potomac River. Third world countries had erupted into riots and chaos as a primal panic gripped the populations of those areas and the reality of an alien invasion sunk in.

Jason sat back in his seat and sighed. What he had seen so far seemed to seal his fate: he would never be able to return to his home. He would forever be branded a traitor to humanity, no matter the truth of it. He leaned forward and began entering more search strings into the computer, waiting while it compiled the information. Once the results were spit back at him, he took some solace in the good news it provided. Taryn and her family had faded from the headlines and were never actually named anyway. With a little work it would be possible for them to go home.

He sat back again as he thought about leaving Taryn behind for what would undoubtedly be the last time. His chest tightened up at the idea of it. Part of him wanted to ask her to stay out here with him, but the realist in him knew that it was an impossibility. She couldn’t stay on the Phoenix, that much was certain. It was simply too dangerous, and a threat to crew cohesiveness to have her aboard permanently. He could ask Crisstof if she could serve on the Diligent, but she would have no real function for some time, and would be the only human on board a ship with hundreds of aliens. What kind of life was that for a woman in her twenties? Not to mention they went months and months without ever being in the same sector as the other ship. No, the right thing to do was to get her back to Earth as soon as practically possible and let her get on with her life.

The tightness still in his chest, he shut off the terminal and exited the com room.

By the time he got to the bridge, everyone was already there. Kage looked like he had been told some very bad news.

“What is it?” Jason asked apprehensively.

“The data has been recovered off the A’arcooni device you brought back from the planet, and the computer has completed the translation,” Kage said. “It isn’t good.”

“You watched it?”

“Enough to know that things are a little more complex than they appeared,” the Veran said.

“Let’s see it,” Jason replied as he sat down. The rest of the crew perked up and watched as the canopy darkened and began to play the video data Twingo and Kage had recovered off the alien device. The scene resolved into a shot of the room Jason had found the device in; sitting center frame was a dignified looking A’arcooni. The translation matrix wasn’t perfect, so the computer also provided Jenovian Standard subtitles along the bottom of the projection.

“Hello. Due to events taking place on my planet even as I speak, my comments may be cut short, so I will get to the point.

“My name is De’Tarioas Mal. I am the Vice Chancellor of Economic Affairs, and as far as I know I am the last remaining vestiges of the government of the planet A’arcoon. We are currently under attack by no less than ten ships in orbit that we have no ability to repel, but worse than that … the ships are crewed by our fellow A’arcooni.

“These ships have the capability to shut down power sources completely, and on a planetary scale. So even if we did have weapons that could reach them, they would already be rendered inert at this point. The ships arrived eight years ago and we were contacted by the beings who flew them. They would only tell us that they were travelers who had come from across the galaxy, rendering aid to those who needed it most along the way. They were benign and immediately set about helping us take steps to clean our industrial processes, waste management, and power production.

“These aliens were trying to help underdeveloped species avoid the mistakes that had destroyed their own home, now so choked with pollution it could no longer sustain them. For the first few years it seemed these wondrous people would transform A’arcoon into a utopia, as our skies cleared and our oceans recovered from even our most destructive habits.

“When it became clear that the aliens intended to continue on their journey, a vocal subsect of the population implored them to stay and claimed that they hadn’t yet gone far enough in changing how we lived our lives. While initially ignored as a zealot and an opportunist, their leader, De’Astor Ka, continued to gain followers until the movement reached cult-like status … and then it transformed into something far more sinister. The group militarized and had every intention of forcing us to their will through a series of planned attacks on our remaining infrastructure in order to, as he put it, return us to balance with nature.

“Unfortunately, when they heard about the unrest, our alien benefactors landed one of their ships near De’Astor Ka’s stronghold in order to make him see reason. The travelers are without guile and were unprepared for how far this group was willing to go. Their ship was boarded and seized before anyone knew what was happening, and the cult was then able to execute their attack. They numbered a little over five hundred individuals and were able to capture a total of six ships before the remaining travelers broke orbit and escaped.

“De’Astor Ka then transmitted a list of demands, but before we could respond or negotiate, he began the attack in earnest. Major governmental centers were hit first by particle beams, and our remaining technology was taken out by the unique weapon their ships carry.”

De’Tarioas Mal paused in his narration to bow his head as the screen flickered and other A’arcooni voices could be heard shouting in the background. When he looked back up, the expression on his alien visage could only be described as utterly devastated.

“My hope is that this transmission finds similar civilizations before this cult does, for make no mistake: these are crazed fanatics. Their religion is to return planets to what they deem to be the natural order, which they will accomplish by wiping out the dominant species and its technology. At the end of this transmission will be a data package that contains all the knowledge of my people that we were able to save. It is our only legacy, as I am certain no A’arcooni will survive on the surface.”

With nothing more to say, De’Tarioas Mal pressed a button on the desk and the screen faded out. When the canopy cleared, the crew of the Phoenix sat in stunned silence.

“That … was not what I was expecting,” Doc said quietly.

“Contact the Diligent,” Jason said slowly. “They’ll need this information. Ask Crisstof if that helps him identify who made those ships, since we now know they aren’t A’arcooni in design.”

“This explains how Deetz got them to help,” Taryn said from her seat in the front of the bridge. When Twingo made a motion for her to continue she went on, “He offered Earth up as a target. We’re highly industrialized, with a ballooning population and a significant pollution problem. For a group of religious zealots bent on stamping out harmful civilizations, humanity would make a tempting target.”

“That does make sense,” Lucky agreed. “I had been pondering how Deetz was able to convince the A’arcooni to help. He told them of Earth and then bribed them with the promise of a more powerful weapon with which to continue their crusade.”

“The maser-based disruptor,” Jason agreed. “That would be a hell of a score for them. De’Tarioas Mal told us they had captured six ships, but we only saw three, and took one of those out already. It’s safe to say they’ve been meeting some resistance along the way and have been looking for something to even the odds with.

“Twingo, Doc … go through the data package that was included and see if there’s anything useful in there.”

Chapter 11

Another full day passed and both ships were still in orbit over the planet, both crews poring over the data that had been on the A’arcooni device. While Crisstof was delighted with the cultural treasure trove, there was little of any real use to Jason and the problem he now faced. How do I find Deetz before he leads me into another of his traps?

“Com request coming in from the Diligent, Captain,” Kage said, not looking up from his console.

“Got it,” Jason replied as he punched the control to accept the channel request. Kellea’s face appeared on his main display.

“Hello, Captain,” she said somewhat stiffly. “The Diligent will be breaking orbit and leaving this system within the hour. We have other engagements we’ve ignored for as long as we can. We will respond to any emergency requests you make, however.” It was clear from her demeanor that she was still upset with Jason and assumed he would raise hell about her ship leaving the hunt.

“I understand, Kellea,” he said, surprising her. “You’ve done all you can, and we don’t even have a firm plan of action right now. We’ll let you know if we come up with anything.” She opened her mouth to say something, but instead simply reached over and closed the channel.

“You’ve got some serious damage control to do with that one, Captain,” Kage said, not even the least bit embarrassed he’d obviously been eavesdropping.

“How would you know anything about that?” Jason asked innocently.

“I …” Kage floundered and realized he’d screwed up. There was no way he should know exactly how far his relationship with Captain Colleren might have gone.

“Stop hacking into my com channels or I’m going to shut down the wireless network on the ship,” Jason said in as calm a voice as he could manage.

“Yes, sir.” Kage’s unique wetware kept his Veran brain in constant contact with the ship’s main computer. Jason sometimes used cutting him off from it as punishment. It was petty, but there was little else he could threaten the little alien with that he would even notice.

“Listen up,” Jason said over the intercom, still glaring at Kage. “Family meeting in the galley in twenty minutes.” He climbed out of his seat and walked off the bridge.

He quickly made his way to his quarters with the intent of getting cleaned up and changing his uniform out for one that wasn’t quite so fragrant. The six members of Omega Force were all of different species, and each came with their own unique funk. While in close quarters aboard the Phoenix, all of them had entered into a gentleman’s agreement to make sure laundry and cleaning regimens were strictly adhered to.

Quickly stripping off his uniform, he climbed into his private shower and activated the jets. As often happened, the steam jets were almost hypnotic, and he found himself dozing off while standing in the stall. In just such a state, he was completely unprepared when a set of small arms wrapped around his waist and squeezed. He yelped and lunged away into the far wall of the shower, eliciting peals of delighted laughter from behind him.

“Who did you think it was?” Taryn asked. Jason turned and raised an eyebrow at the sight that greeted him. She was leaning against the edge of the shower, wearing nothing but a small grin.

“Well … I was praying to God it wasn’t Crusher,” he said as he pulled her into the shower stall. She squealed as the jets hit her, then leaned into him. He kissed her gently for a moment before things become quite a bit more serious. Whoever designed this ship with a private shower in the captain’s quarters was a genius.

*****

“You said twenty minutes,” Twingo complained loudly when he walked into the galley. “We’ve been sitting here for almost an hour.”

“Stop whining,” Jason told him. “It’s not like you had anything else going on. Besides, I see the wait didn’t stop you from stuffing your face again.”

“Where is Taryn?” Crusher asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“I don’t know,” Jason said unconvincingly. “I don’t keep track of every person on this ship.”

“She is currently in the shower in your quarters, Captain,” Lucky offered. “According to internal sensors she has been in there for fifty minutes.”

“Thank you, Lucky.”

“You are welcome, Captain.”

“OK,” Jason said, facing a group of now-unfriendly faces. “Do we think we know anything that can be actionable?”

“No,” Doc said simply. “We’ve gone through the data with a fine sifter and nothing is standing out. It doesn’t look like Deetz has left any obvious clues this time. That may not be a good sign.”

“Yeah,” Twingo agreed. “If he’s not leading us around anymore, that may mean he doesn’t need us. He could give us the slip at this point and we’d never find him.”

They batted around ideas for the better part of an hour and at the end they still had nothing to act on. The frustration was palpable. They couldn’t just orbit a dead planet waiting for something to happen lightyears away, but rushing off in the wrong direction would be just as unproductive.

“Hi, guys,” Taryn said brightly as she joined the group. “Did I miss anything? I was just working out in the cargo bay.”

“Oh, shut up,” Crusher snapped. The fact that Jason had a female of his own species aboard, while initially a source of amusement to the others, was now only highlighting the fact that they didn’t.

“What is your problem—” Taryn’s wide-eyed response to Crusher was interrupted by a strident alarm sounding throughout the ship. The crew didn’t waste even a split second by staring at each other or asking questions. In a rush, they ran up the stairs to the command deck. Doc dove into the seat at his station and began manipulating the controls.

“We have an enemy ship pushing up out of the atmosphere!”

“What?! Where?” Jason was shocked by the news. He’d thought the planet was clear from the scans they’d taken when they arrived.

“Coming up over the northern pole,” Doc reported. “No indication that they’ve seen us or that they’re moving to intercept.”

“Full countermeasures, NOW! Get a track plot on the main display and overlay the ranging data of their weapon that we got from the Diligent.” Jason’s orders caused a flurry of activity for a moment as Kage activated the Phoenix’s extensive countermeasures suite, effectively hiding the ship from sensors if they kept enough distance. He watched the sensor plot of the other ship on his display. It was lumbering out of the atmosphere at a relative crawl. “Why is it climbing out so slowly?”

“It looks like their propulsion is laughably outdated,” Twingo said, also studying the incoming data. “They’re not using a gravimetric drive, at least not in the way we do. It looks like they’re using something that produces the same effect as our grav platting, but with a much higher output. That, coupled with thrusters, is it. Highly inefficient, really.” They all sat transfixed as the ship finally pushed up into lower orbit and began to increase velocity. It looked like it was accelerating in order to transfer to a high geosynchronous orbit, which was where the Phoenix currently was.

“Let’s stay on passive sensors,” Jason said. “I want to gather as much data as we can. Kage, plot me a course that will keep us above and behind them. Keep us at least twenty thousand kilometers away.”

“Plotting,” Kage answered. “You’re clear to engage on your new course. Thrusters only. We don’t know if they can detect grav-drive emissions.”

The Phoenix fired her maneuvering thrusters to accelerate them to a higher orbit and bring them in behind where the computer projected the enemy ship would be. It was an arduous process if one was accustomed to having a powerful grav-drive to reposition the ship, but it was an almost guaranteed way to ensure they wouldn’t be detected.

The computer had predicted the enemy ship’s course nearly perfectly as they came around the planet and fired the braking thrusters to ease them in behind and above it. The ship then simply flew around the planet for three full orbits with seemingly no intention of doing anything else.

“Do you think they’re waiting on the other ship? Or Deetz?” Jason asked.

“I think it’s likely they’re making repairs,” Twingo said from where he looked over Doc’s shoulder at the sensor station. “We’re reading some pretty nasty radiation spikes coming from their aft drive section. That ship has been through a lot; the optical sensors are showing a lot of hull damage and older haphazard repairs.”

“So … are we going to attack them?” Kage asked. The high-strung alien didn’t fare well in tense situations like the one they were in.

“That seems like a wasted opportunity to learn more about both them and this weapon,” Jason explained. “It would take them a bit to charge it up even if they spotted us, so it looks like we’re safe for now. If they move to break orbit, we’ll take action.”

“I think we’re safe anyway, Captain,” Twingo said. “It looks like their sensor technology is no more advanced than their propulsion. Seems like it’s radar and lidar only. There’s also a large hull breach on her port flank that makes me think they wouldn’t be able to activate their weapon anyway, at least not according to what we think we know about it.”

“Can we get an idea of crew size?”

“Not with the passive sensors, Captain,” Doc answered. Jason stared at the ship floating in his display for a moment, torn as to what his next action should be.

“Captain,” Lucky began. Jason braced himself as he knew what the battlesynth was about to say, but had no way to stop him. “The most effective method for us to gather information and neutralize that ship is to board it. The Phoenix is capable of putting us on the hull.” Jason betrayed his fears by glancing quickly at Taryn as Lucky finished. A look of understanding came over her and she walked up to the pilot’s seat and leaned in.

“Do what you need to do, Jason,” she whispered. “You can’t take the safe way out just because I’m here. Too much is at stake.” He just nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak. As she stepped back, he cleared his throat to give the order.

“Crusher, Lucky … let’s go get prepped for EVA, full kit. Doc, you’re in the hot seat. Kage, plot a course that will close in slowly and put us just forward of where we think Engineering is on the dorsal hull plating.” Lucky turned to leave and Crusher let out a whooping cry, jumping up with his fist in the air, startling half the remaining crew. Jason just shook his head as the warrior swaggered off the bridge to go and arm himself.

“Do you think that he’ll end up killing us all one day?” Kage asked.

“Hmm,” Jason grunted. “Probably.”

Taryn ran up and gave Jason a firm kiss on the lips before he could get off the bridge himself. Ignoring the laughs and calls from his crew, he made his way down through the ship and to the armory. When he arrived, Lucky had already pulled his armor from its alcove and was running self-test routines on it.

“Thanks, bud,” he said as he began to strip his uniform off to don the form-fitting second skin he wore under the armor.

“My pleasure, Captain,” Lucky said. “I know you are overly fond of your railgun, but might I suggest something a little more appropriate for a boarding party?”

“Afraid I’ll shoot through the hull?” Jason asked with a grin.

“I was more concerned with something like a breach of the reactor shell,” Lucky stated matter-of-factly.

“No worries. We’ll all be taking blasters with stun capability,” Jason said, looking pointedly at Crusher, who was hefting a mainline infantry weapon. With a scowl of disgust, he put it back on the rack and grabbed two shorter plasma carbines. “We’re going in full force, but we need at least a couple of prisoners, preferably bridge crew.”

It took another ten minutes for them to fully kit up. Waiting for the still-damaged armory doors to open so they could get into the cargo bay, Jason called up to the bridge over his armor’s com. “Go ahead and bring the Phoenix to full tactical alert, Doc. I want you to target engines only if it looks like they’re accelerating to break orbit. We’ll be riding the transit beam down so we don’t damage the gangway when we’re cutting through.”

“Copy, Captain. Weapons and shields coming online, and reactor at seventy percent power and climbing.”

He could feel the power thrumming though his ship as the tactical systems came online. Walking over to a set of cabinets set against the forward bulkhead, he grabbed an unwieldy, high-powered laser that was built specifically to cut through hardened hull plating. It had started life as a shipyard tool but Twingo had modified it to be used as a breaching tool. It was fairly subtle if they picked their entry location carefully. More than once they had been on a ship for minutes before the crew realized they’d been boarded. Jason was hoping to use that element of surprise in this case. If he let Kage try to slice into an airlock control system they might be detected, and they had no idea what sort of anti-intrusion protocols might be in place.

As he walked back to his friends, he watched with a bemused expression hidden behind his own visor as Lucky tried to help Crusher cram his helmet on. The warrior had about as much protective gear on as he was ever willing to wear: a full pressure layer with a flexible protective outer layer. Attached to that were individual plates of shielding, but not the head-to-toe armor like the type Jason wore. On his back was a simple life support unit with a redundant backup.

“Captain, we’ll be in position in ten minutes. I’m opening the belly hatch now.”

A second after Doc had spoken, the lights in the cargo bay dimmed to a muted red and the circular hatch in the floor sunk and irised open to reveal the dark planet below. They were making their final approach while they were on the night-side, but the speed they were carrying in orbit would put them into daylight within minutes. The three of them stood at the perimeter of the opening and watched, transfixed, as the dull, battered hull of the traveler ship came into view. Doc was being careful and they closed the interval at a stately ten meters per second.

“I’m activating the transit beam. You’re a go, Assault Team. I’ll back off to three hundred meters aft to support you.”

“Copy that, Bridge. We’ll call when we need a lift,” Jason said as he nodded to Lucky. The battlesynth stepped off the edge into the transit beam and was gently deposited on the hull of the other ship. He walked around for a moment to see if any action would be taken against him.

“Landing site secured, Captain. You may come down.”

Jason, followed by Crusher, also floated down the beam and onto the enemy ship. Activating the mag-locks in his boots, he stepped around gingerly, expecting an anti-personnel weapon to hit him at any time. He looked up just in time to barely make out the Phoenix as she backed off. In the shadow of the planet, the ship was soon hidden from sight, even at such a relatively close range.

“I think I found a hatch, Captain,” Crusher’s voice came over the com. He was kneeling beside an irregularly shaped part of the hull, concentrating hard not to look around him. For all his ferocity, EVA operations in the hard vacuum of space terrified him, though he would never admit it. Nor would he falter in his duties either, so Jason never brought it up. He walked over to look down and had to agree that it looked like a service hatch of some sort.

Swinging the cutting tool around, he knelt down and placed the device against the hull. It reminded Jason of an oversized wood router like the kind he had used in high school shop class. He lined up the projector with the seam and activated the beam. There was enough particulate matter and wisps of atmosphere floating around the hull that the red beam was partially visible as he worked his way around the perimeter. The cutter also had an indicator to let him know how deep he was cutting and whether or not he had made it all the way through the hull.

Within a couple of minutes Jason had completed his circuit of the hatch and set the tool aside, letting it cling to the hull with its own tiny mag-lock. Small puffs of vapor continued to spurt out of the cut; the atmospheric pressure within the ship had finally pushed it up enough that he could get a grip on it with his gauntlets. Utilizing the enhanced strength provided by his armor, he slowly pulled the hatch up until it was loose enough that, in a burst of explosive decompression, it flew up and behind them into space. Shit. I hope that doesn’t hit my ship. Although the action had been completely silent to him in the vacuum of space, he had no doubt the cutting and wrenching of metal had been quite loud inside.

Motioning with one hand, he sent Lucky in first. A moment later there was another blast of atmosphere out of the open hatch. “I appear to be in a maintenance bay, Captain. There is an airlock entrance that is still functional, although barely so. You and Crusher will have to cycle through it one at a time and I will try to contain as much of the atmosphere as possible.”

Jason didn’t answer as he motioned Crusher through the hatch second. Normally the warrior wanted to be either first or last, but he gladly took the opportunity to get inside the ship, even if it meant leaving his captain clinging to the hull alone. After another blast of frozen air had passed, Jason slipped down through the hole and banged his fist against the door. It opened at once and he was unprepared for Crusher grabbing him and yanking him inside. The hatch slammed shut, which he heard this time, and he looked around the dingy room. It was filthy. Grease coated most surfaces and a random smattering of debris clung to the oily film that seemed omnipresent. He walked up and ran a hand over the airlock hatch door.

“Good ‘ol hinges,” he said. “And no active safety locks or alarms. Interesting.”

“Indeed, Captain,” Lucky agreed. “If they did not detect the drop in pressure, it is likely they don’t know we are aboard.”

“This place is disgusting,” Crusher grumbled as he poked around some of the work benches. “Who keeps a starship in this condition?”

“We’re about to find out,” Jason said as he unslung his weapon, fully away of how ridiculous that had sounded. “Time to get it on.” Lucky charged his weapons and went to full combat mode, eyes glowing red, as Crusher pulled both his carbines and held them muzzles up in a loose port arms.

They swung open the door leading into the ship and burst through, weapons ready, to be greeted by nobody but a barrage of warnings from their sensors. Radiation levels were at unsafe conditions in the area they were in, and the atmosphere was also toxic. They were safe in their protective gear, for the moment, but they would need to be decontaminated before they could reboard the Phoenix.

“Captain, with the environment so toxic it is unlikely we will find anyone down here,” Lucky said.

“Agreed,” Jason said. “Let’s begin pushing forward. The whole ship can’t be contaminated.” They moved quickly through the corridors of what seemed to be the engineering areas. The conditions were deplorable. Corrosion covered most surfaces, exposed conductors sparked and sputtered, and barely any of the displays were functional. It was just as well, as they didn’t have a good translation matrix for written A’arcooni yet, if that was even the language that was being displayed. But it also meant navigating through the ship would be a bit more difficult.

The further they trudged, still not encountering any crew, the more Jason found it hard to believe that the ship was actually still spaceworthy. Eventually they came to a large, shielded hatch emblazoned with bright white script and symbols. “Probably warnings about not contaminating the rest of the ship,” Jason said. “Let’s go ahead inside.”

Lucky walked up and overpowered the hatch to gain access to the rest of the ship. This did set off alarms. White lights strobed in the passageway and a recorded voice began blaring a repeating message, but it wasn’t in A’arcooni so they had no idea what it was saying. With no idea if the alarm was for an intruder alert or a radiation alert, the team leveled their weapons and began moving forward again. At the end of the short passage they were hit from all sides by high-pressure misting jets with a chemical that their sensors said was non-toxic. Probably the decon station before going into the rest of the ship. Those jets look added as an afterthought.

After clearing the last hatch the radiation alerts went away, although the ship still appeared to have unsafe levels throughout for anyone not wearing protective gear. They paused a minute and looked at the three passages that branched out in front of them.

“Which way do we go?” Crusher asked.

“How the hell would I know,” Jason said irritably. “I’ve never been here before.”

“I was just asking—”

Crusher was cut off by the arrival of three A’arcooni technicians, decked out in hazmat suits, rushing at them from the corridor to their right. The trio stopped short and stared in open-mouthed disbelief at the assault team before turning and running the way they had come, screaming the entire way.

“Shit!” Jason didn’t hesitate as he brought up his weapon and fired three stun shots after them. The range was already too great, however, so he gritted his teeth, flipped the selector, and loosed another salvo of bolts before the three, ungainly in their protective gear, could get around the corner and sound a warning to the rest of the ship. They were dead before they hit the floor. “If they’d sounded an alarm we could be swamped,” he explained.

“No complaints here,” Crusher said. “So we go that way?”

“It’s as good a direction as any,” Jason agreed. “Let’s go.”

They wasted no time traversing the distance to the first junction. On a hunch, Jason turned left and continued to push in the direction he thought was towards the front of the ship. It was soon after that they encountered their first armed A’arcooni. The small security detail opened fire with handheld lasers of such low power they caused no damage to Lucky or Jason’s armor. Crusher tucked up behind the other two since he was the most exposed. Lucky fired twice, dropping two of the five, while Crusher tagged one more. The last two, seeing they could do nothing to stop the advancing intruders, did something Jason could never have anticipated. They turned the lasers on themselves and committed suicide.

“What the shit?!” Jason exclaimed as he rushed to the fallen aliens. He examined one closely, seeing the neat burn hole through its head, and then noticed that it was wearing a com headset. “I’d say it’s a safe bet they know we’re here now. Let’s move.”

The further they pressed into the ship, the more shocking the living conditions became. Trash was piled up in some rooms, leaving them uninhabitable, and the assault team was kicking debris around with every step. Lighting was hit or miss, and there were signs of serious structural damage along some of the corridors.

They encountered two more security teams, the last of which was armed with nothing more than projectile weapons that were comparable to Earth firearms. As with the first team, the survivors committed suicide as soon as they realized they couldn’t stop the intruders.

Even in their shock at the Kamikaze-style attacks, Jason and his teammates couldn’t help but notice the ship was surprisingly empty. They were never set upon by any significant force, which was fortunate. Even with the underpowered lasers, a concerted effort by three or four of them in the same spot could heat Jason’s armor to the point of failure. It would punch right though Crusher’s comparatively flimsy garment. The defenders never seemed to adopt any type of strategy, however, and just rushed out of side corridors or rooms, firing wildly.

“We’ve got to get to the bridge before the whole damn crew suicides,” Jason said, breaking into a jog. “Lucky, you’ll need to talk to them since we can’t actually speak A’arcooni, and it’s unlikely they have implants.”

“Of course, Captain.”

It wasn’t until they were amidships that things went from bizarre to truly horrifying. In a glassed-in room they could just make out rows of short glass cylinders laying on their sides, and racks of gear that gave off the unmistakable impression that it was medical equipment. Jason called for a halt and entered the room, moving slowly along the rows of cylinders. Within most of them was an A’arcooni infant. None of them looked healthy. He could see from his sensors that radiation levels were still dangerously high. For such delicate lives it was proving to simply be too much, and most seemed to be just barely hanging on.

As he was contemplating these innocent lives, a laser shot pierced the room and hit him in the shoulder, but caused no damage. He turned to see a panicked A’arcooni dive for a pressurized gas bottle and begin opening the valve. From the tank, flexible lines snaked out across the room to distribution manifolds and then on to each of the incubators. The realization of what he was trying to do shocked Jason to his core, but he couldn’t fire without hitting the pressurized tank and blowing it up.

“STOP HIM!!” he shouted to the others. Lucky and Crusher had already been moving to intercept the crew member when he entered, intent on capturing him while he was distracted with Jason, but now Crusher lunged with incredible speed and clamped his hand down on top of the smaller being’s own as it tried to turn the valve. With a sickening crunch of bone, Crusher pulled the A’arcooni off and tossed him across the room, smashing the glass window. He quickly re-closed the valve and looked at Jason questioningly.

“He was going to kill all the young,” Jason explained. “It’s the only reason he’d have risked his life to open that valve. Whatever is in that tank would either poison or suffocate them.”

“What is with these people?” Crusher wondered aloud, walking back towards the one he had tossed. He was too late, as the injured A’arcooni grabbed a sharp medical instrument and stabbed himself in the chest multiple times before collapsing again, dark, bluish blood streaming out of the largest wound for a moment before the alien died. Jason idly noticed that it didn’t spurt, but actually flowed out in a continuous stream.

“Doc can’t handle this many,” Jason said to them as he looked back to the helpless infants. “Lucky, make your way back to the airlock and establish contact with the Phoenix. Tell them to issue an emergency recall of the Diligent and alert them of the situation. Crusher, we’re going to the bridge to grab someone to question before he can suicide on us.” He was thankful that Lucky rushed out of the room without so much as an objection about not being there to protect him.

After ensuring the young A’arcooni had survived the attempt on their lives, and tearing the gas lines loose from the tank, Crusher and Jason pressed ahead at a fast run, hoping to gain the element of surprise. They continued to follow the corridors that seemed to be the most traveled, at least as evidenced by the foot traffic in the grime that caked the decks, hoping they led them to the command center of the ship.

For once, they were rewarded with some luck. As they rounded a curving passageway, they arrived just in time to see two A’arcooni trying to swing a massive blast door shut. Jason broke into a full sprint, his armored feet leaving dents in the deck plating, while Crusher fired on the two trying to close the door. Jason exploded onto the bridge but was unable to stop himself before crashing headlong into a console, destroying the controls and displays in a shower of sparks. By the time he got up, Crusher had downed another three and was advancing on the last two. One of them was still firing sporadically to try and distract them from the fact the other was frantically working the controls at his console. Jason didn’t doubt he was either trying to crash the ship into the planet or simply blow it up in orbit. He took careful aim and shot him with a stun bolt. The A’arcooni flopped against the console and crashed onto the floor. The last remaining crewmember seemed torn as he obviously wanted to end his own life but wasn’t sure if he should finish off the other first. Crusher decided for him with a well-placed shot to the chest.

“Check that the other one is still alive and then restrain him,” Jason said, still trying to yank his leg out of the demolished console. “Don’t forget to search him.”

“I think I can handle it,” Crusher said sarcastically, “but thanks, Captain.”

“Damn, you’re getting oversensitive,” Jason muttered as he looked about the bridge, trying to make sense of the controls and displays he was looking at. “I wish I could access internal sensors to see if there are any more crew members hiding onboard.”

“You think they’d actually work?”

“Good point.”

Lucky strode into the command room a few moments later. “The Diligent is on its way back at maximum velocity. I see you captured one. Very good, Captain.”

“Yeah … I think this one is the captain,” Jason said as he pointed to a dead A’arcooni with an especially elaborate uniform on. “So I’m guessing our friend here might be the first officer, or whatever their equivalent is. The others were trying to protect him until he could sabotage the ship when we came in.” The A’arcooni in question stirred slightly, so Jason shot him again with a stunner. Crusher looked up at him, his eyebrow raised beneath his clear helmet visor.

“I don’t know if they have some suicide device planted in them. I figure it’s best if Doc scans him first.”

“If they had those, don’t you think they’d have used them instead of shooting and stabbing themselves to death?” Crusher asked.

“Where were you with that brilliant insight five minutes ago?”

“If you two are done, the Phoenix will be docking on the starboard airlock within the next few minutes,” Lucky said. “We should move our captive and secure him in the brig while he is still unconscious.”

“I think he needs to see the infirmary first and let Doc deal with the radiation he’s been soaking up,” Jason said as he lifted the smaller being up to put him over his shoulder. “Let’s move. You know where the starboard airlock is at?”

“The right side of the ship, I believe,” Lucky answered as he exited the bridge. Jason turned to Crusher with an incredulous expression.

“Was that a joke? From him?” Crusher just shrugged and walked past him. Jason followed closely after, grumbling about being sick of smart ass synths.

The ship was laid out unlike other vessels Jason had been on, in that the command center was buried deep within the ship instead of near the bow or in a flying bridge atop the stern. It actually made far more sense to have it protected, but most species seemed to like large windows on their command decks to look out, despite the fact that in interstellar space there wasn’t much to see. In fact, he couldn’t remember seeing a single window on any of the ships they’d encountered so far. Being near the center of the ship meant they didn’t have an overly long walk to the starboard airlock. After only three wrong turns they made it, even as the Phoenix was linking up.

“Nobody comes on board this thing,” Jason warned over the com once the outer hatch was opened and he could get a signal out. “It’s contaminated to hell and back. We need to go through cleanup once we come aboard.”

“Copy that, Captain,” Kage’s voice came back. “We’re clearing the port airlock now and initiating cleanup protocols.”

It was another few minutes before Crusher cranked open the inner hatch so they could traverse the short gangway into the Phoenix. The decontamination system on the DL7 was far more advanced than the sprayers they had gone through before. As each person entered, a series of overlapping scrubber fields swept over them until the internal sensors deemed them clean. It took nearly fifteen minutes to cycle everyone into the gunship, an indicator of how bad it really was on the enemy ship.

Jason carried his prisoner directly to the infirmary and strapped him down securely to the bed. Doc was there to begin scans, and administered a sedative once he had verified dosage and reactivity. He looked to have things well in hand, so after activating the security protocols the others filed out and milled about in the common area.

“Lucky, go back aboard the other ship and guard that nursery until the Diligent arrives and we can start transferring them off,” Jason ordered. “We’ll stay linked up until they arrive in case you need anything.”

“Of course, Captain,” Lucky said, turning at once to leave.

“So how bad was it?” Twingo asked as Jason popped the seals on his armor and retracted the helmet.

“You wouldn’t believe how bad,” Jason told him seriously. “I don’t know how that ship is even able to still fly. It looks like decades of no maintenance and shoddy emergency repairs. Containment on the main reactor and the drive conduits is nearing critical, so the entire aft section is sealed off, but the whole ship is already contaminated.”

“Were there any other species aboard or only A’arcooni?” Taryn asked.

“We only ran into A’arcooni, and not that many of them,” Crusher answered. “It explains why they weren’t able to repair the ships properly.”

“Perhaps,” Jason said. “I think there’s more to the story than just a general lack of technical knowhow. Between that and the suicides, it’ll be an interesting conversation when our friend wakes up.”

“I’ll give you two to one odds that he doesn’t say anything useful,” Crusher said to Twingo.

“You’ve already been around them, so I don’t trust you making odds. Ten to one.”

“Five to one.”

“Deal,” Twingo exclaimed and stuck his hand out, wincing as Crusher squeezed it with his armored glove. Jason just stared flatly at the two of them.

“I take it this isn’t the first wager regarding my success or failure at … things?”

“It’s the first time about something important,” Twingo said. “You want to know what the others were about and who won?”

“No, I really don’t.”

Chapter 12

The Diligent meshed back into the system nearly twelve full hours after she had received the call from the Phoenix regarding the enemy ship. Kellea wasted no time, or fuel, traversing the system and slipping the big frigate into orbit off the Phoenix’s starboard side. Jason spent some time explaining the nursery they’d found on board and the critical condition they were in. After a short technical meeting, it was agreed that the Phoenix would detach from the airlock and allow one of the Diligent’s heavy cargo shuttles to move in so medical crews and engineers could see to the infants.

Lucky had found three more A’arcooni in hiding, but each committed suicide wordlessly before he could reach them. Their prisoner was still under heavy sedation while Doc treated him for a host of issues, not least of which was the near fatal dosage of radiation he’d absorbed. Despite Jason’s pestering, Doc insisted that the patient wouldn’t be available for questioning for some time. With nothing else to really do, Jason clomped up to the bridge, still in his armor. It wasn’t especially comfortable to sit while in the contraption, so he walked up to the edge of the canopy and looked out over the enemy ship as the cargo shuttle made its final approach. He turned to his right and saw the gleaming white Diligent keeping pace, keenly aware that Kellea was likely looking down on the Phoenix that moment.

“I’m surprised you’re taking this delay so well,” Taryn said from the pilot’s seat. Jason flushed guiltily as he heard her voice while thinking of another.

“My hands are tied until I can get to Doc’s … patient … so I can’t do anything but wait,” he answered as he turned towards her.

“You have changed.” It wasn’t a question. “The Jason I knew would have already been tearing across space just to do something.”

“I guess I’m mellowing out in my old age,” he smiled. She smiled back and then became serious again.

“This is a good thing you’re doing … saving these infants.”

“That’s what we do, try and protect the innocent,” Jason said self-deprecatingly. “There are hardly any that are more innocent than the young ones in those tubes.” They fell into an easy silence as she continued her inspection of the pilot’s station while he watched the operation below.

He stood around on the bridge for another thirty minutes before heading back down to the armory to strip out of his gear. He left it open and hanging on the rack so he could come down later and clean it. As he was getting ready to leave, Crusher walked in to deposit his own gear.

“Captain,” he nodded respectfully. “Good work down there realizing that crazy bastard was going to try and kill those children. You were right; the tank was full of an inert gas that would have suffocated them within minutes.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Lucky called to give us a sitrep,” Crusher answered while pulling off his own protective gear. “He said there were thirty-eight infants still alive, and that the transfer was going slower than he thought since each incubator must be decontaminated before being taken aboard the Diligent.”

“So I’ve got time to go get cleaned up,” Jason said cheerfully. “I’m sure our dear friend Crisstof will want to talk this to death once the transfer is complete.”

“I’m certain of it.”

*****

Dressed and refreshed, Jason walked up onto the command deck to see how things were going. It had been twenty minutes since he had left Crusher in the armory. He was just in time to see Crisstof’s face come up on the main display as a com channel was opened.

“Ah, Captain,” Crisstof said. “I was told I might have to wait for you. Anyway, would you care to come aboard the Diligent for a quick face-to-face meeting on recent developments?”

“I’d been sort of expecting this call,” Jason said with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “We’ll dock at your starboard airlock so we’re not interfering with the cargo shuttle’s access to the flight deck.”

“That was just what Captain Colleren had suggested. Thank you, Captain. I’ll meet you there within the hour.” The com channel closed and Jason sank into the pilot’s seat with a weary sigh. He was exhausted, and another lecture by Crisstof Dalton wasn’t high on his list of things he wanted at the moment.

“Twingo, I’m bringing the main drive online. We’re docking with the Diligent in a few minutes,” Jason said over the intercom.

“Knock yourself out,” came the disinterested reply. Jason clenched his jaw in irritation while Taryn hid her smile behind her hand. After letting a breath out, he reached over and flipped the drive to active mode and waited until all his indicators went green.

He dipped the ship’s nose down and slid the gunship under the frigate at a slow relative speed while he stayed out of the flight path of the cargo shuttle. When he came up on the ship’s starboard side, he let the computer take over for the delicate docking maneuver. A few minutes later he felt a slight bump as the Phoenix pressed into the Diligent’s extended gangway. Once the mooring clamps were activated, he switched the drive back to standby mode and climbed out of his seat.

“Kage, Twingo, Taryn, you’re with me,” he said over the intercom. “Doc and Crusher, you stay here with our guest. We’ll try to be back shortly.”

*****

The members of the Phoenix’s crew had been sitting in the well-appointed conference room for nearly thirty minutes when Crisstof, Kellea, and Commander Bostco rushed in.

“My apologies, Captain,” Crisstof said. He looked positively harried. “You’ve given us a situation that has stretched our resources to the limit.”

“Now you can see why I called you back,” Jason said, not bothering to remove his boots from the table. While Crisstof didn’t seem to notice, the look he was getting from Captain Colleren let him know she was less than amused.

“And rightly so,” Crisstof agreed hurriedly. “Out of the thirty-eight infants you rescued, it seems all have a good chance of surviving, but it was close. The amount of cellular damage from exposure on the other ship is significant.”

“We understand you have another survivor,” Kellea said with her arms crossed. It wasn’t a question.

“We currently have whom we believe to be their first officer in our own infirmary, and Doc is treating him for the same exposure and dehydration,” Jason confirmed, meeting her stare. “Before you ask, we won’t be handing him over to you. Not yet.”

“Now, Captain—” Jason cut Crisstof’s bluster off by simply raising his hand.

“Relax. He will not be mistreated in any way. We don’t abuse prisoners no matter what your opinion of us may be,” Jason said. Crisstof actually managed to look slightly embarrassed; apparently that was exactly what he had thought. “We also don’t have time for you to torture him with kindness until he submits. He will be treated, questioned, and then turned over to you, as I have no interest in letting him live in my brig rent free.”

“You’re just going to turn him over?” Bostco asked skeptically.

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s no longer a combatant so it would be in poor taste to just toss him out the airlock,” Jason replied with an edge to his voice.

“I think the conversation is going astray. This isn’t what I’d asked you over to discuss,” Crisstof said as he sensed the growing hostility from Jason. “I simply wanted to express my gratitude at the work you’ve done. The recovery of both the last recorded message from the A’arcooni government as well as safely securing so many young … a lot of questions will be answered, but it raises others. The A’arcooni in your infirmary cannot be from the same group that turned on their own planet so many years ago.”

“I’d assumed that already,” Jason said. “Doc tells me they don’t live much longer than any of us, so he’d be third or fourth generation. It’s obvious the original crews that captured those ships didn’t know much about their operation, and the condition they’re in shows they never bothered to learn.”

“It seems they turned the ships into generation-ships despite the fact they couldn’t maintain them and the vessels were never designed to be in service that long without major overhauls at a proper shipyard,” Crisstof agreed. “That is why we’d like to talk to the adult when we can, as he can shed some light on their culture and lifestyle.”

“I’ll let you know when he wakes up and after we talk to him,” Jason said, rising from his seat. “We’ll stay docked with you for now. I’m not certain how long this may take but we’ll keep you apprised.” He walked out of the room without waiting for a response, followed closely by his own crew and Taryn. She ran to catch up with him as he moved quickly down the corridor.

“I’m going to go check on my parents,” she said as she fell in beside him.

“OK,” he said simply. “Tell them I said hello.” She kissed him on the cheek and moved off down a side-corridor that led to the berthing suites typically reserved for dignitaries. Jason knew how luxurious that part of the Diligent was Her parents were likely having quite a relaxing time, all things considered.

Once back on his own ship, Jason was happy to see the patient was responding positively to treatment and would be ready to regain consciousness within a few hours. He took the time to grab something to eat and a power nap since Taryn was over on the Diligent. He didn’t bother taking his boots off as he crashed backwards into his rack and was asleep in minutes.

“Captain,” Lucky’s voice penetrated the fog as Jason struggled to wake up fully. “The prisoner is awake. Doc asked me to come inform you.”

“Thanks,” Jason said, “but why didn’t you just use the intercom?”

“We tried. You didn’t answer.”

“Damn, I must have been out of it. OK, tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

After splashing some water on his face and shocking himself fully awake, Jason headed to the infirmary. He walked in with what he hoped was an air of authority and confidence. “He have a translator in?”

“Yes, Captain,” Doc said. Jason was thankful he’d decided to forego the lecture about the patient being weak and needing rest.

“You can understand me?” Jason demanded of the being still strapped on the table. “Prop him up.” At his order, the bed contorted itself so that the A’arcooni was in a sitting position while still being strapped down.

“I’m going to ask you again—”

“I understand your words,” the A’arcooni prisoner said simply.

“Good. I’m going to ask you a few questions. It will be in your best interest to answer them honestly and quickly. Where is the last ship in your armada? Where is the being called Deetz?” Jason could see a flash of recognition at Deetz’s name, but little else.

“You will have to kill me before I give you any answers,” the prisoner spat out.

“Oh, no … I know that’s what you want anyway,” Jason said lightly, walking around behind the bed. “The little suicide stunt on your ship was creative, but I still got you, and one is all I need.”

“Really?” The alien was trying to crane his head around to see Jason, who stood just out of sight.

“Really. Now, I could go through all the trouble of hooking you up to a mind probe, but to be honest it’ll be a lot quicker for both of us if you just start talking. Less painful too … at least for you.” At the mention of a mind probe Doc and Lucky looked at each other in confusion, and Jason wanted to slap the hell out of both of them.

“Do to me what you will.” Damnit. Didn’t think it was going to be that easy.

“Tell you what … since you’re so talkative anyway, let’s talk about something you’re interested in. Why are you flying around attacking defenseless planets?”

“You have no idea how true your words are,” the A’arcooni’s eyes lit up with a zealot’s fervor that was truly frightening. “The planets are defenseless. They cannot defend themselves from your industry, your pollution, your overpopulation … We are restoring the universe to harmony one corrupt planet at a time.”

“I notice you don’t pick on anybody that can hit back,” Jason said drily. “So you’re a fanatic, I understand that, but why are you saddled up with bottom-feeding scum like Deetz? What did he promise you?” The alien’s eyes clouded at the mention of the synth and he looked less sure of himself.

“The mechanical man helped us repair our flagship and then told us he knew of many planets that needed saving. He said he would join us in our quest.”

“Let me guess … you’ve been running around hitting targets that he dictates and only those targets. I’m betting you were getting tired of that. I’ll bet there was even some talk about tossing him out on his shiny ass, but then he pulled out his last trick. He made you an offer you couldn’t refuse: a new weapon that would allow you to take your crusade to more advanced planets. Am I getting close?” During Jason’s narration the A’arcooni was becoming more agitated and began thrashing around in his restraints, making unintelligible noises all the while.

“We can come back to that,” Jason said almost gently. He was afraid he was dealing with an unstable, fragile mind and needed to proceed carefully. He had no sympathy for this being that had caused so much death and destruction, but leaving him a raving lunatic would get him no closer to his goals. “Don’t you find it odd that you all live only on these ships? Don’t you want to see your own world again?” At the mention of his own planet, the alien froze and stared at Jason in open-mouthed horror.

“We do not speak of it,” he said vehemently.

“Well now, that is interesting. Why not? Just remember, I’m an outsider, it may be okay to break your taboo in order to set me straight,” Jason said, trying an obvious tact.

“The Betrayal sealed the fate of the treacherous A’arcooni,” he alien said, his eyes darting about as if he would be caught speaking about it.

“So you’re no longer A’arcooni?”

“I was born a Deliverer! A son of the Travelers! I share nothing with that despicable race!” His mouth was flecked with foam and his eyes bulged from his head as he screamed the words. Jason stepped back and motioned to Doc as Lucky moved to restrain the alien if it proved necessary.

“Is there anything that might make him less … crazy?” Jason asked in a whisper.

“I can give him a mild sedative,” Doc said doubtfully. “But that might make him less coherent.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” Jason said with a frown at the still-writhing A’arcooni.

The questioning went on for another fifteen minutes before Jason gave up. After the initial outburst, his prisoner had never calmed down enough to provide anything useful. He asked Doc to give him something to help him sleep and decided to give it a couple of hours and see if they could reset the conversation. After the patient was out, the three Omega Force members walked out to the galley, the two biological members trudging in exhaustion.

“Holy shit, that’s one crazy alien,” Jason said as he slumped down into a seat after grabbing a mug of chroot for both him and Doc.

“Delusional, yes. I’m not so sure he’s crazy, however,” Doc said as he grabbed his mug with both hands. “He’s been brainwashed over three generations to the point he doesn’t even relate to his own species anymore. Someone could spend years studying this case.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t have years,” Jason grumbled. “The only bitch about it is that he’s not afraid of death or pain. Otherwise I’d just send in Crusher to get what I needed out of him. The way it stands now, we’re going to have to draw him out of this illusion before he’ll give us anything useful. And that’s if we can keep him from going off the deep end every five minutes.”

“Why not show him the video from his own planet?” Lucky asked.

“I’m not sure what good that would do,” Jason admitted. “What are you thinking?”

“It seems that his religious devotion to his cause must be based on a lie. I do not think the fact their cult attacked their own people is widely known.”

“You may have something there, Lucky,” Jason said thoughtfully, “and it gives me an idea.”

*****

“So tell me about this De’Astor Ka fella,” Jason said casually as he motored the bed back up to a sitting position. It was two hours after their previous attempt and their prisoner was calm, if a bit glassy-eyed. The rest of the crew had taken the opportunity to raid the Diligent’s mess deck so it was just Lucky, Doc, and Jason in the infirmary with the A’arcooni.

“You’re not fit to speak his name,” the alien slurred slightly. Jason looked sidelong at Doc, who just shrugged.

“Fair enough. I’ll just listen.” Jason could see the struggle on the prisoner’s face. It was obvious this was a subject that warmed his heart, but discussing it with a trio of interlopers seemed to be giving him pause.

“He is the visionary who gave us purpose.”

“Can you give me a little bit more than that? We know he was the first leader of your … group. We even have a little bit of inside information on how that started,” Jason offered. “Our information comes from the A’arcooni perspective though.”

“A race of liars! They no doubt fed you falsehoods from behind their clouds of poison as they destroy their own planet,” the prisoner hissed. Jason just stared at him for a long moment.

“They’re dead. All of them. The planet A’arcoon has been uninhabited for hundreds of years. You, the young we pulled off your ship and whoever is on the other ship are the only living members of your species left. You’re on the brink of extinction.” Jason wasn’t sure how his words would be taken. The alien looked him in the eye for a pregnant moment before thrashing about uncontrollably, nearly coming out of the restraints.

“You lie! You lie! You lie! You—”

“DOC!” Jason pointed and Doc administered a fast-acting tranquilizer to bring his patient back under control. The A’arcooni calmed instantly, but was still shaking his head from side to side and chanting. Eventually this stopped and he only stared at the ceiling, catatonic and unresponsive to the others in the room. “Good job, Doc… I just wanted him calmed down a little bit.”

“I didn’t give him enough to knock him out,” Doc said defensively. “He’s still awake. I think he’s in shock.” Jason motioned for them all to clear out for a moment. They stood in the corridor looking in through the glass at the A’arcooni, strapped down and staring unseeing at the wall. Despite what had been done to Earth, Jason couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the misguided being.

“How did they not know they had killed their own planet?” Doc asked.

“That’s a trademark of a cult. Control information and only let them see what you want them to see,” Jason shrugged. “If De’Astor Ka had told the next generation what he’d done, it’s not likely they’d see themselves as saviors.”

“So what do we do now?” Lucky asked. “This could go on for quite some time.”

“Let me try something,” Jason said, re-entering the infirmary. “You. A’arcooni,” he snapped his fingers in front of the alien’s face. “I’m going to show you something and then I’m going to leave you here to think about it for a bit.” There was a barely discernible flicker in the other’s eyes as Jason spoke to him. Cranking the bed up enough so that the alien could see the far monitor, Jason began to play back the message from the device they’d pulled off of A’arcoon.

The A’arcooni showed no emotion, no response of any kind as the video played. When it was over he simply stared at the monitor. Wordlessly, Jason lowered the bed back down and left the room.

“We’ll give him a few hours to absorb that,” Jason said to his crew.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Doc asked.

“Do whatever the hell you want,” Jason said. “I’m leaving Lucky in command and hitting the mess deck on the Diligent while we’re still docked.”

Chapter 13

Lucky stood watch over the prisoner from inside the infirmary. He could monitor the ship’s internal sensor network through his com node, but he wouldn’t risk betraying his captain’s trust in him by being out of the room and letting the A’arcooni prisoner harm himself while the crew was on the other ship. The small alien had stirred some while Lucky stood there, so he turned the lighting up a bit for his comfort. He stared at Lucky for a while before speaking.

“Mechanical man,” he said. “Are you like the creature, Deetz?”

“I am a variety of synth, or synthetic being. I assume you mean mechanical man as a pejorative term, which I can only take to mean your association with Deetz has been not to your liking.” The A’arcooni turned away before continuing.

“I do not know why we have entered a partnership with Deetz,” he admitted. “But I cannot be so arrogant as to pretend to understand the will of the elders.”

“Perhaps not the elders,” Lucky said, “but would it help you to know the motivation of Deetz himself?” When the other only nodded, Lucky continued.

“The human who has been talking to you, Jason Burke, was once an associate of Deetz. It ended badly, as Deetz betrayed him and tried to sell him into bondage to people that would have almost certainly killed him. Jason found this out and kicked Deetz off of this ship. He could have killed him or disabled him, but he let him go.

“I, too, was to be sold as property when Jason found and freed me. Deetz has enlisted your help in order to gain revenge on Jason for insulting him and ruining that deal. He may have promised you weapons and targets, but when your usefulness to him is done, the best you can hope for is that he simply leaves.”

“Why does this Jason Burke hunt us down so doggedly?”

“You attacked his homeworld at the direction of Deetz. He did this because he knew it would bring Jason to him so he could use your weapon against this ship. It almost worked.”

“Yes. We had to flee when the other, larger ship appeared while our weapon was recharging. We were told that Jason Burke was an industrialist who made his fortune using underdeveloped worlds to perform tasks that resulted in toxic byproducts and massive amounts of pollution.” He paused for a moment. “What is your name?”

“Lucky.”

“Lucky, is the video that Jason Burke showed me real? Is A’arcoon really a dead planet?”

“It is an uninhabited planet, but it is far from dead. It is true that there are no advanced life forms left on the surface, however,” Lucky told him.

“Our history tells us that De’Astor Ka only wanted to save our people from themselves. He begged the government to see reason as our ecosystem died, and in return they tried to have him assassinated. We’re told he, and his followers, were attacked by the A’arcooni military and that the travelers stepped in at the last minute to rescue them. Many have held out the hope that one day A’arcoon would see the error of its ways and we would be allowed to go home, to rejoin our people.”

“I am truly sorry,” Lucky said simply. “That will never happen.”

“Are the hatchlings safe?”

“Yes. They are aboard the other ship and being treated for radiation poisoning from the contamination aboard your vessel.”

“That is something, I suppose.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I think I’d like to be alone for now, Lucky.”

“I will be just outside,” Lucky said. He turned to leave and then paused. “What is your name?”

“I am De’Elefor Ka, First Sub-Commander of the warship Penance.”

“Rest easy, De’Elefor Ka. I know you must have a lot to think about.”

*****

“How the hell did you drag a name out of him?” Jason was incredulous. He’d gone over and enjoyed a relaxing meal on the Diligent and by the time he’d gotten back, Lucky had wheedled more information out of the A’arcooni than Jason had been able to in hours of interrogation.

“I asked him,” Lucky said. Jason glared at him, expecting him to elaborate a bit more, but Lucky just stared calmly back at him.

“Fine. Start from the beginning,” Jason said with resignation. Over the next hour Lucky gave Jason a complete report of what De’Elefor Ka had told him.

Afterwards, Jason spoke with the A’arcooni again, and showed him the footage of their adventure on the surface of A’arcoon itself. He did this not to be cruel, but to show that Lucky was being completely honest when he said the planet was uninhabited.

“So you’ve got a choice,” Jason was saying to him. “I can transfer you over to the Diligent and you can figure out what happens to you with Crisstof Dalton, or you can help me out and start to put an end to this madness. No matter how noble your intentions, you simply cannot be permitted to continue attacking helpless planets. Not that it matters … with the condition your ships are in, you’d all be dead within a year. But in the meantime I want Deetz.”

“I will help you find Deetz if you promise not to destroy my people’s last ship. I also would like to see the hatchlings before we depart,” De’Elefor Ka said quietly.

“I can promise that I’ll only defend myself,” Jason said firmly. “But I’m not letting your last ship hit me with that weapon again.” The A’arcooni considered it for a moment.

“Very well. I will try to convince them to listen to you,” he agreed. “While I am still skeptical of what I’ve seen here, it is as you say: we have less than a year if we do nothing.” Jason stared at him for a moment, also considering things in his own mind.

“I can’t leave you strapped to the table for the duration of this mission,” he said. “If I put you in a regular cell, do you promise not to kill yourself?”

“I do.”

“What in the hell was that all about anyway?” Jason asked with a bit of exasperation.

“Our standing directive since long before I was born was to never allow ourselves, or a ship, to be captured. We’re unsure as to why, exactly, but it is ingrained in us from the time we first imprint on our elders. I personally think it was so the weapon didn’t fall into evil hands.” Jason decided not to comment on who could be considered “evil” in that scenario. He had secured the captive’s help and he would let it stand at that. Besides, it wasn’t the first time he had dealt with a species that was overly willing to kill itself to uphold some absurd honor principle.

“Lucky and Crusher will escort you over to see your young before we depart,” Jason said. “Just know this … I’m doing this as part of our agreement, not because I particularly like you. I still haven’t forgotten you were standing on the bridge of a ship that attacked my homeworld.” De’Elefor Ka only nodded and allowed himself to be removed from the medical table and shackled by Lucky.

Once they had left, Jason went to the bridge to contact Crisstof to inform him of the deal he had just made. Inwardly, he expected yet another lecture when he called over to the other ship. Instead, he was shocked to see that Crisstof agreed with everything he had done.

“I know this is hard for you, Jason, and I don’t pretend to know what you’re going through,” Crisstof was saying. “You have proven yourself again and I’m somewhat ashamed in my recent lack of faith in your intentions. You saved the A’arcooni hatchlings when you didn’t have to, and you were able to get information out of De’Elefor Ka without harming him. I apologize.”

“Let’s not read too much into it,” Jason said. “If the answers were written on the inside of that A’arcooni’s ribcage I’d have split him open and slept like a baby that night. I am focused on one thing and one thing only: finding Deetz and eliminating that threat from my homeworld.”

“Nevertheless, my rush to judgment has damaged our relationship, I fear. I hope that when this is over we can rectify that,” Crisstof said.

“I’ll tell you what,” Jason replied. “If I survive this we can talk about it.”

“Of course, Captain,” Crisstof said with a smile. “I have no doubt as to the outcome. We will be staying here for the time being and making the Traveler ship safe to study. If we discover anything about the weapon you need to know we will, of course, contact you. Diligent out.”

*****

Three hours after Crusher and Lucky escorted their guest back and the rest of the crew had boarded the Phoenix, Jason ordered the airlock closed and locked before detaching from the Diligent. He powered up the main drive and gently accelerated away from the frigate. It would be staying behind as engineering teams from the ship went through the A’arcooni vessel to secure the leaking reactor and decontaminate it. He hoped they would find something useful about the weapon before Omega Force tangled with the last ship. Deetz was almost certainly aboard that one, and he would likely force the issue to the point of fire being exchanged.

“Lucky, bring the prisoner up to the bridge,” Jason said over the intercom as he accelerated towards the outer edges of the star system. He sat back as Kage was messing around with his station and Doc was preoccupied with something on his own displays. A moment later he could hear Lucky’s heavy footfalls as he escorted De’Elefor Ka to the bridge.

The lithe alien had his hands bound in front of him and was still short-shackled at the ankles. “I think we can lose the ankle chains,” Jason said. “It’s not like he can run away at this point.” He waited until Lucky had removed the restraints before continuing. “Well, De’Elefor Ka … it’s time to start building bridges. Get me in position to grab Deetz and I’ll allow you to try and save the other A’arcooni on that last ship. But just know this: if my sensors detect that weapon charging, I’ll shove an anti-matter warhead right up the tailpipe and be done with it.” De’Elefor Ka tilted his head to the side in confusion as the small translator bug in his ear tried to chew through all of Jason’s colloquialisms with its limited understanding of A’arcooni.

“Ah, yes, Captain,” he said, finally giving up. “I can give you the location to where we were supposed to meet them once we had finished up on this planet. I’m not sure how your ship’s speed compares to the Penance, so I can’t promise they’ll be there. We could arrive early or too late.”

“I know your ship employs a method of faster-than-light that is different than ours,” Jason said. “We’ll just have to take a stab at it and hope we get lucky. I’m certain you have all the contingency fallback positions memorized as well.”

It took a little while for Kage and De’Elefor Ka to work out where, exactly, they were going, since the latter couldn’t read the displays and the former had no frame of reference for what he was being told. As they were struggling through it, Taryn walked onto the bridge. Jason gave her a look that plainly said, “I’d hoped you would stay on the Diligent.” She just gave a small smile and a shrug before taking a seat at one of the port bridge stations. He just shook his head and went back to flying the ship.

“It looks like we have a destination, Captain,” Kage said with an utter lack of confidence in his voice. “It’s an uninhabited system about four days’ flying time at seventy percent slip velocity. If I understand him correctly, that should put us there about a day before the other ship is scheduled to arrive.”

“Plot it,” Jason said simply. “Lucky, please take our … guest … down to the brig by way of the galley. Make sure he gets something to eat.” He then looked directly at De’Elefor Ka. “Remember your promise. If I go down to your cell and find a corpse, it is highly unlikely that I will try to negotiate a ceasefire with the other ship.”

“You have nothing to fear, Captain,” the A’arcooni said quietly. “I will keep my word.” Jason just nodded and Lucky escorted the prisoner off the bridge.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on him at this point?” Taryn asked once they had left. Jason fixed an icy stare on her that made her squirm before answering.

“I have not forgotten what they did to Earth, and countless other planets before that. The fact Deetz has manipulated them in this instance is irrelevant to me. They’re still a predatory species that is randomly picking weaker species to attack,” Jason said in a steely voice. “He’ll get no sympathy from me.”

“It hasn’t been just Deetz, Captain,” Doc spoke up. “They’ve been tricked for generations.”

“While I’d love to get into a lengthy debate about nature or nurture as it applies to morality,” Jason began in a tone that said he’d rather do anything but, “I’ve got an op to run and a planet full of humans to protect. I don’t have that luxury at the moment.” Doc opened his mouth to speak again but Taryn nudged his arm with her elbow and shook her head almost imperceptibly. He wisely turned to his console without another word. She might have not been around Jason for a few years, but she could still recognize the warning signs. It was something Doc had never learned, as he still managed to push Jason’s buttons until it sometimes escalated to a physical altercation that the rest of the crew would have to break up.

“We’re ready to rock and roll, Captain. Course laid in and you’re clear to engage,” Kage said from the right seat. As Jason hit the control to engage the slip-drive, Taryn was laughing out loud.

“Did he just say rock and roll?”

Chapter 14

Two days into their flight, Jason relented and let De’Elefor Ka out of the brig cell for longer and longer periods of time. He was still supervised by either Lucky or Crusher, but the captain even let the A’arcooni prisoner out of his wrist restraints and into the galley to take his evening meal with the crew. For his part, the prisoner remained respectful but aloof. He kept his eyes downcast and would only speak when spoken to, which suited Jason just fine. If he were to remain objective when the time came that he might have to blow that last ship out of the sky, feelings of sympathy would only cloud his judgment. Taryn had no such qualms.

“If things work out, would you want to take your people and go back to A’arcoon? It’s quite beautiful, you know,” she said to him at mealtime.

“I do not know if that would even be possible,” he answered. “I think it would be difficult, knowing what I know now. I would like to see it at least one time, though.”

“Did we ever find out how they built entire cities out of a single slab of rock?” Jason asked, wanting to change the subject.

“It actually wasn’t a single piece like we thought,” Twingo spoke around a mouth full of food. “That data package that was after the message had some pretty unique ideas. They built their cities using geopolymers. If it’s done correctly, it’s nearly indistinguishable from natural rock. It seems to be something about their racial character to want their entire cities to be uniform in appearance.”

“Geopolymers? You mean like concrete?” Jason asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“Nothing that crude,” Twingo replied. “The chemical reactions are a little more involved than just mixing water with a calcium silicate. It’s essentially … you don’t actually care about this, do you?”

“Um, not especially,” Jason said.

“Which could be translated to mean he has no idea what you’re talking about,” Crusher laughed, ignoring the glare from Jason.

“It is a way to ensure your structures are going to be around for a very, very long time,” Twingo said after he was done laughing and high-fiving Crusher. During the conversation about the construction of A’arcooni cities, De’Elefor Ka had sat in rapt attention, hanging on every word with a hungry look in his eyes that elicited a pang of sympathy in Jason when he saw it. Groaning inwardly, he stood up to go back to the bridge and finish his watch shift.

“Lucky, when De’Elefor Ka is finished with his meal, go ahead and set him up in berthing in a real bunk. Ensure the room is secure and then post watch,” he said before leaving, avoiding Taryn’s eyes as he did.

“Of course, Captain,” Lucky said. De’Elefor Ka simply nodded so low that it actually looked like a bow, but said nothing. Jason nodded back and went up to the bridge.

Almost on cue, Taryn walked onto the bridge less than five minutes later and slid into his lap, putting her arms around his neck. “What?” he asked.

“You’re such a softie,” she laughed, putting her head on his shoulder.

“Whatever.”

“I’m serious, Jason,” she said in an earnest tone. “I’ve been worrying about you since all this started. I know you’ve been out here for a while, doing everything you can to help others, but I know what happened to you after your time in the Air Force. I don’t want to see that happen again. But there’s nowhere to escape to out here, and I can’t stand the thought of you losing touch with your humanity.” He wrapped his arm around her and drew her close.

“I’m not that same person who drove you away,” he said after a moment. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t think the crew would let me become that cold and distant again.”

“You really love them, don’t you?”

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds I know it will come back to bite me in the ass at a later time,” he said without cracking a smile. She playfully slapped his chest and then went still.

“Have you seen my—” Twingo stopped as he walked onto the bridge and saw them both in the pilot’s chair. “Were you guys about to … do something?”

“Not now,” Jason said sourly.

“You should probably wait until your shift is over and you can go to your quarters,” Twingo said. “Crusher said he caught you guys in the armory … that doesn’t even seem safe.”

“Are you about done?” Jason asked acidly.

“Are you?” Twingo asked. Jason moved to push Taryn off his lap so he could grab him, but she pushed him back while laughing hysterically.

“Come on, Twingo,” she said, standing up and still laughing. “I’ll play you at gin rummy before I go to sleep.”

“What’s that?” the engineer asked as they walked off the bridge.

*****

“Moment of truth,” Jason said to De’Elefor Ka. “I hope they show up.” The Phoenix was ten minutes away from meshing in just outside the designated star system, and the crew were all alert and at their stations. They had been working on a communication package to transmit to the enemy ship to see if they could at least open a line of dialogue and stave off any attacks. “I want to be fully armed up when we mesh in,” Jason told his crew. “I’m all for trying to talk to them, but I do not want to be caught flatfooted.”

The ship shuddered and burst into real-space without incident. Now that they knew their sensors couldn’t be detected by the enemy, Jason ordered full active scans to ensure the system was clear. It wasn’t.

“Contact,” Doc said calmly. “Traveler ship is sitting motionless between the orbits of the third and fourth planet. It doesn’t appear they’ve sustained any damage.”

“Must be waiting on the other ship,” Jason mused. “And they’re early. Let’s move in slow, we’ll start transmitting once we cross their sensor threshold. They should be running active radar.”

Jason guided the ship into the system at a high-subluminal speed that would put them within range of the other ship in just under two hours. He noticed that their prisoner was sitting quietly but openly gawking at the capabilities of the comparatively small gunship. The time passed in tense silence that was almost becoming uncomfortable as they bore down on the unsuspecting ship.

“We’re within range,” Kage said. “Transmitting package.” He then frowned at his panel.

“What?”

“They’re jamming the transmission, Captain. They’re blanketing all the frequencies they can receive on with random noise,” Kage reported. “I can’t get over top of it without blowing up their receivers.”

“The commander does not want the message received by anyone else on the ship,” De’Elefor Ka said quietly.

“They’re powering up their drive, Captain,” Doc reported. “Ship is moving to intercept us now that we’re within radar range. I’m also detecting a charge on the hull that is consistent with their primary weapon.”

“Let me know when we’re ten thousand kilometers outside the projected effective range of the weapon,” Jason said, still not trusting their A’arcooni captive’s information completely.

“Mark!”

Jason went a split second longer and slammed the main drive into full reverse. The bridge lights dimmed a bit while the grav-drive screeched in protest as it reversed the fields to haul the gunship to a standstill in less than a second. Just when their relative direction of flight changed and they began to move backwards, he chopped the drive altogether.

“They’ve fired!” Doc exclaimed. “It looks like the charge diffused enough to cause no damage.”

“I’d say so since the lights are still on,” Twingo said from the engineering station.

“They will need fifteen minutes to recharge the weapon to fire again,” De’Elefor Ka said.

“Full power to the forward shields,” Jason ordered. “Sixty/forty bias until we make our first pass and then equalize.” By decreasing the power going to the aft shielding, they were able to overpower the forward shields for a brief time. It was a useful trick in head on attacks.

As they approached the enemy ship at speed, the expected particle beams lanced out and impacted harmlessly against the combat shields. Jason had intended to fly by well within their weapons range to show that they couldn’t be damaged in an effort to coax them into communicating. What he didn’t expect was a missile to blast out of a forward launch tube and accelerate towards them faster than it had any right to, given the Traveler’s level of technology.

“Missile launch! Counter measures active!”

There was no time for evasive maneuvering since the gap was so narrow and the closure speed so high. The missile ignored the active countermeasures and slammed into the shields near the wing root on the port side. The impact rocked the gunship violently and a stream of warnings came scrolling across the displays. There was no serious damage, but it was only dumb luck the missile had hit at an overlap point for three shield emitters.

“That was a modern missile, Captain!” Doc called from his station. “Anti-matter warhead, minimal yield.”

“They’re trying to wear the shields down,” Jason said as he regained control of the ship and came about to starboard to put some distance between them and the enemy ship.

“Four more launches! Five! We have five missiles inbound, same type,” Doc’s calm demeanor was showing some cracks. Jason didn’t respond as he slammed the throttle forward and sent the gunship streaking away from the engagement.

“Missile defense and point defense, please,” he said calmly as he maneuvered.

“Missile interceptors away,” Kage reported. “Point defense active but those birds are coming fast.” The Phoenix, despite her size, was much faster than the missiles. Weapons of that type relied on a head-to-head engagement so they could simply zip into the flight path of their target. Unfortunately, the modern missiles were also smart. Once the gunship pulled away from them they stopped and waited to see if the ship would come back around, essentially becoming five tiny suicide fighters taking station between the Phoenix and the enemy ship.

“I’ve lost track of three missiles, Captain,” Doc reported. “They may have active countermeasures.”

“That type of hardware isn’t cheap,” Jason groused. “Deetz has been upgrading them. Keep active scans going, I’ve got an idea.” He came to port and started a lazy loop around the enemy ship who, so far, was content to sit stationary and rely on the smart missiles lying in wait. “Kage, short slip jump when we clear the stern. I want to be three light minutes on the other side of that ship. Do it. Fast.”

“Course plotted, Captain. You’re clear to engage.” Jason accelerated and continued following his loop around until his nose was nearly on the other ship when he activated the slip-drive. When the canopy cleared they were three light minutes on the other side of the ship and its defending missiles. Not only that, but with only radar for long-range detection it would be three to six minutes before the A’arcooni on the ship knew what he had done.

Wasting no time, he brought the ship about and accelerated hard towards the aft quadrant of the ship. “Target the drive section with the main guns. I want enough damage to leave them dead in the water and enough hull breach to render their main weapon inoperable.”

“Target locked. Fly to the indicator and fire at will,” Kage said. Now that they were closing the gap quickly, they would be detected soon. Jason just hoped they didn’t have any missile launchers on their starboard side. He lined up the nose and let the computer make fine corrections before opening fire. After a five-shot salvo from the main plasma cannons, the starboard aft quadrant of the ship erupted in a brilliant explosion and the drives went dark. Secondary explosions rippled under the hull all through the aft section, and Jason hoped they were unoccupied as the previous ship had been. Within a second they were clearing around the aft of the burning ship and into open space again.

“Get a lock on those missiles, Doc,” Jason ordered. “Kage, you’re cleared to launch interceptors when we have them.”

“Locked onto four of them.”

“Interceptors away, full spread.” Fifteen small missile interceptors flew out of the forward launchers and ran down their assigned targets. Helped along by the forward velocity of the Phoenix, the four targets had no chance as they re-fired their engines and tried to evade.

“Last missile has fired its engine,” Doc said. “Three seconds until impact.” Jason involuntarily clenched up until a mild shudder buffeted the ship.

“Point defense took it out,” Kage said. “We have a clear sky.”

“Good work everyone,” Jason said as he pulled hard to starboard and looped back around towards the crippled ship.

“The damage to the Traveler ship is not as bad as it looked when we initially flew by,” Doc said as he manipulated the optical sensors. “It’s no longer venting atmosphere, but it’s still dead in space.”

“Target their particle cannons with the heavy beams,” Jason said. “We’re going to stand off a bit and cook off the rest of their armament. I don’t want any more surprises.”

A few seconds later the Phoenix came to a full stop relative to the other ship. They were well out of range of the main plasma cannons so Kage set up a targeting package for the heavy beams to take out. When Jason squeezed the trigger, immensely powerful lasers went to work pulling the rest of the teeth out of the Traveler vessel.

Jason was always wildly disappointed when they used laser weapons in space. In the vacuum of space they were completely invisible to the naked eye. The muted whine that was audible on the bridge was the only palpable indication they’d even fired. The effect on the target, however, was a different story. The hull lit up in a swirl of green and orange as photons were reflected back towards the gunship and the hull turned to slag from the energy being poured into it. After a scant four minutes of firing, the ship sat in space with no drive and no weapons.

Unsure if they still had sensor capability, Jason swung up and over the much larger vessel and put the gunship nose-to-nose and sat, hoping they’d eventually see reason. They didn’t have to wait long.

“We have a com request coming in, Captain,” Kage said after a few minutes. “Audio only.”

“Put it on.”

“What are your intentions?” That was it. No introductions, demands, or threats. They knew they were beat and went straight to the point. In a way, Jason respected that.

“That will depend entirely on you,” Jason answered, mimicking Deetz’s ultimatum to Earth. “We have no intention of needlessly destroying your ship, but we will need to come to terms.”

“What are your terms?”

“My terms are simple. I want Deetz. Tell me where he is and we have a platform to negotiate from,” Jason answered. “Also, there are some things you need to be made aware of, things you won’t want to hear. I’m going to let one of your own, Sub-Commander De’Elefor Ka, explain that part to you.”

“The mechanical creature, Deetz, is now in custody on our ship. We took him captive during the course of the battle. We will be willing to negotiate his release to you for assurances we won’t be destroyed.” Jason was elated at the news that Deetz was actually on the ship in front of him. For a split second he almost caressed the trigger one more time to end the entire thing once and for all. But he stayed himself and sat back in his seat.

“That’s very good news. Stand by to hear from your sub-commander and receive a data package that includes video.” Jason made a chopping motion to let Kage know to close the channel. “Doc, you and Lucky take De’Elefor Ka to the com room so he can talk to the other ship’s captain and see if he can talk some sense into them.”

As the three began to file off the bridge, the A’arcooni stopped. “Thank you for sparing my people, Captain.”

“Let’s hope I don’t regret it. Now go, you’ve got some work to do.” When they were gone, Jason began to relax a bit and began rubbing the back of his neck where the muscles always tensed up during combat. “Let’s switch to passive sensors. We just need to know if there are any energy spikes that say we missed a weapons emplacement.”

“Copy that,” Kage said. Jason took control of the optical sensors from his station and played them over the hull of the other ship. Like those he’d faced before it, the hull was pitted and charred with countless impact marks and energy blasts. He reflected on what he was actually going to do with the A’arcooni. There was no doubt they had perpetrated an incredibly long string of capital crimes in the centuries they’d been cruising around in hijacked ships. It likely wouldn’t be up to him what happened, as there might be a line of species wanting justice for what they’d done.

He continued to relax further as the minutes dragged on without incident. Kage let him know that they had established two-way video communication with the other ship and their prisoner was doing his part. Out of curiosity, Jason punched up a feed of the conversation on one of his monitors and set it to display subtitles of what was said. He didn’t want to become too distracted by the drama of the situation and forget his duties while in the command seat.

As he expected, the captain of the other ship was highly skeptical of the claims De’Elefor Ka was making. He watched the video presentation with some consternation, as the recovered footage was mixed in with video of what A’arcoon looked like currently. There was a moment when De’Elefor Ka muttered a phrase that couldn’t be translated by the computer and the captain’s eyes went wide. After that he became a bit more tractable, and asked to speak to Jason.

“Captain, we need you back here,” Doc’s voice came over the intercom.

“You come up here and trade me seats,” Jason answered back. As soon as Doc came onto the bridge, Jason offered up the pilot’s seat and jogged back to the com room, which was aft of the bridge and along the starboard side.

“My commander wishes to speak with you, Captain,” De’Elefor Ka said as he entered. Lucky was standing unobtrusively in the corner, or at least as unobtrusive as a two-meter tall war machine can manage in a room the size of a closet.

“Hello again, Commander. I’m Captain Jason Burke,” Jason said as he sat in the chair next to the A’arcooni, placing himself in the video feed. The main computer was handling translator duties, so there was an odd disconnect between the movements of the alien’s mouth and the sounds that came out of the speaker.

“I know who you are, Captain,” the commander said expressionlessly. “Deetz had given us detailed information on you, none of which was true, apparently. I am Supreme Commander Ta’Arlek Ka and I am ready to negotiate our surrender.”

“Before we start, is Deetz secured onboard your ship?” Jason asked, needing to get that detail out of the way even as he brought one of the slip-space transceivers online.

“He is. We have put him under armed guard in our detention area,” Ta’Arlek Ka said. “He will not be able to escape even with his considerable strength.”

“Very good,” Jason said as he punched in the com codes that would open a channel to the Diligent. “I’m bringing a third party into this negotiation, Commander Ta’Arlek Ka, someone much more versed in what needs to happen to integrate you into the intergalactic community in this region.” When the Diligent’s com officer came on the screen Jason requested to speak to Crisstof and told her what it was regarding. It didn’t take long for the white-haired being to appear. He looked slightly winded, and Jason figured he’d had to run to get to the com station.

“Hello, Captain. How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m bringing you into the com channel I have open with Commander Ta’Arlek Ka, the Supreme Commander of the remaining Traveler ship,” Jason explained. “He wished to negotiate his terms of surrender and I figured you’d rather not have me doing that.”

“Ah, yes … that was probably prudent of you,” Crisstof agreed with a slight smile. “Very well, I am ready.”

Jason manipulated the controls and brought the slip-com feed onto the line he had open with the ship right off their bow. Just like three-way calling.

The negotiations lasted the better part of an hour, and Jason was more or less an observer fairly early in the process. Crisstof agreed that some sort of restitution needed to be made by the A’arcooni, but their status as a species on the brink of extinction would likely gain them some favor. Both parties agreed that, if possible, the A’arcooni would eventually be relocated back to their homeworld.

Another issue that had already been suspected was that the health of the ninety-four A’arcooni on the remaining ship wasn’t good. Both the lack of proper maintenance and battle damage had exposed them to hazards that were causing genetic mutations and sickness. Crisstof would arrange to bring a medical ship to the area to begin treatment of the crew as soon as possible, as the Diligent was still busy with the Penance.

“I think that settles the most pressing issues. I thank you for your cooperation and patience, Supreme Commander Ta’Arlek Ka. We will be in touch shortly,” Crisstof was saying. “Captain Burke, I will need to speak to you further.” After dismissing the A’arcooni commander and having Lucky escort De’Elefor Ka out of the com room, Jason and Crisstof were able to talk freely.

“Very well done, Captain! I am quite impressed.”

“You mean you’re impressed I didn’t just hit them with an anti-matter warhead?” Jason smirked. “Don’t give me too much credit. I still needed the location of Deetz. They’re just lucky he was onboard.”

“I don’t think you’re quite the hard case that you’d have me believe, but no matter. A job well done is a job well done. Now, I have some information on the main weapon the Traveler ships employ. I’m sending it as a data file that you can give to Twingo so you’re not mired in the technical details. It will tell him how to adjust your shielding to block it,” Crisstof said. Ignoring the implied insult, Jason didn’t see the point and said as much.

“Why do we care now? The last weapon has been disabled.”

“But we don’t know for sure that these three ships were the only ones left or that the Travelers aren’t out there with a third generation version of that weapon,” Crisstof said. “In my experience, once you’ve encountered something new you almost always see it again.”

“Fine,” Jason agreed, more to end the lecture than anything else. “So how does it work in layman’s terms?”

“It’s a type of synthetic subatomic particle that is attracted to active energy sources including something as basic as a chemical electric battery. It’s able to pass through most forms of matter, even reactor casings, and bond to molecules at the point of the reaction to inhibit the release of energy,” Crisstof said. “It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. There is a unique dichotomy to these ships. They’re both quite primitive and yet far more advanced than our own technology at the same time.”

“Interesting. If Deetz had been able to get a maser-based version of that working, I doubt our shield technology would be able to stop such a concentrated particle stream,” Jason mused.

“So what are your immediate plans?” Crisstof asked.

“We’ll stay here for now and offer aid as needed until your med ship arrives. I’d also like to go over and secure Deetz sooner rather than later,” Jason said after a moment’s thought. “After that I guess we’ll need to rendezvous so I can collect Taryn’s parents and get them back home.”

“Be careful transferring Deetz. I don’t need to tell you how tricky he is.”

“I’m taking no chances,” Jason agreed. “I’ll be sending Lucky in full combat mode.”

“Since you have everything well in hand I suppose I’ll let—”

“Captain! Get up here!” The call over the intercom coincided with a short klaxon burst, warning Jason that the ship had just been placed in full tactical alert. He raced out of the com room and up onto the bridge in time to see an explosion billow out of the port side of the Traveler ship. He could make out little detail visually at their current range, but it looked like something had flown out of the explosion.

“Talk to me!”

“Active sensor sweep shows a small ship flying away from the Traveler ship. Standby for resolution,” Twingo said. Jason already knew what it was before he answered, however. “It’s the same profile as the ship Deetz has been flying; sending the course plot to the nav system.”

Doc practically dove out of the pilot’s seat to make room for Jason. Once he was back in the hot seat, Jason began bringing the drive back online to pursue Deetz.

“Keep giving me active track updates,” he told Twingo. “This may actually work out. I don’t think Crisstof was going to let me just kill him anyway,” he muttered to himself.

“Tracking him moving out of the system, it looks like he’s accelerating to mesh out,” Twingo said from the sensor station. “Shit!”

“What?!”

“He dropped a tachyon bomb right before he jumped,” Twingo said, slamming his hands down on the console. “I don’t have a vector, not that it matters. He’s completely blinded the sensors for a second.” Jason stared out the canopy for a moment, everyone on the bridge watching him tensely. Resisting the urge to rip the console from the deck and throw it through a bulkhead, he slowly let out his breath and sat back.

“Contact Commander Ta’Arlek Ka and get a sitrep,” he said finally. “Keep the weapons in standby and the shields up, he may be coming back around to attack after he threw sand in our eyes.”

“Commander Ta’Arlek Ka is on the com,” Kage reported.

“Put it on here.”

“Captain Burke, I offer my sincerest apologies, but Deetz has escaped our custody,” Ta’Arlek Ka said, staring down at the deck of his ship as he did.

“I saw. So how did it happen?” Jason asked.

“He had two powerful beings on his ship acting as security. They broke him out of our detention area and he cut his way out from there.”

“Deetz had mercs on board his ship?” Jason looked in confusion at the rest of his crew. He then addressed Ta’Arlek Ka again. “Do you know anything about these mercenaries?”

“Only that he called them Korkarans. I assumed that to be their species.”

“Korkarans?!” Crusher leapt to his feet, suddenly very alert. “You’re sure he said Korkarans?”

“Very certain,” Ta’Arlek Ka answered.

“What does that mean to you?” Jason asked Crusher.

“Korkarans are very dangerous warriors for hire,” he answered. “They’re a subsect of a reptilian-like species. They’re strong, fast, and ruthless.” Jason just stared at his friend for a moment, certain he was holding something back.

“We’ll deal with that later,” he said. “Commander, is your ship stable? The damage looked pretty bad.”

“We’re fine for now, Captain,” Ta’Arlek Ka said. “The hull over the hangar bay wasn’t a structural piece. We will alert you if that changes.”

Once they had disconnected with the commander, Jason turned to his crew and the two non-Omega Force beings on the bridge.

“We’re back to square one,” Jason said with disgust. “Any idea where he’ll run?”

*****

After some back and forth with De’Elefor Ka and Ta’Arlek Ka, they were able to begin piecing together the locations Deetz had been operating out of. One particular planet kept coming up as a supply hub that all three of the A’arcooni ships had visited at least once.

“Breaker’s World, huh?” Twingo grunted. “This will be like old times.”

“Are we even allowed back there?” Doc asked. “That last time—”

“I’m sure that’s all been smoothed over or forgotten,” Jason ran over the top of him as Taryn arched one eyebrow questioningly. “It makes sense in a loopy sort of way. He could come and go as he pleased on that planet and nobody would ask too many questions as long as he paid the right people.”

“I take it this Breaker’s World is less than reputable?” Taryn asked.

“You could say that,” Crusher laughed.

“Isn’t that the first planet besides Earth you went to, Jason?” Taryn asked as she remembered the name from one of his letters.

“Technically, no … I walked around on Mars for a little bit while Deetz was repairing the Phoenix, only she didn’t even have a name back then,” Jason said distractedly, missing her gaping at him. Even while she was in the middle of it, living the adventure, she still had a hard time coming to terms with the direction his life had taken.

“So set course for Breaker’s World?” Kage asked as he lounged in the right seat.

“Screw it. Let’s get flying, we’re accomplishing nothing sitting here,” Jason said after letting out an explosive sigh of disgust. “Contact Ta’Arlek Ka and alert him we’ll be departing before the medical ship gets here. You’d better tell Crisstof too.”

“I’m on it,” Kage said as all four of his hands flew over the control panels.

“We’re getting ready to leave,” Jason said to De’Elefor Ka. “Do you want to transfer to your other ship or stay here?”

“If I could be allowed to stay I would be very grateful, Captain,” the A’arcooni said with another of those subservient bows. “I would see this through to the end.”

“Very well. Strap in,” Jason turned to Twingo. “Is the ship ready?”

“You have no confidence in me, do you?”

“No. And you didn’t answer the question.”

“Drives and tactical systems are at one hundred percent, Captain,” Twingo spat. “I don’t know why I put up with this,” he muttered.

“Oh come on, you love it,” Jason teased as he brought the main drive fully online. Damn, I think I actually got to him with that one.

“Your course is laid in. Engage at will,” Kage reported. “Crisstof and the A’arcooni vessel have been advised that we are departing the area.”

Chapter 15

Sleep was elusive for Jason, and he stared at the ceiling in his quarters trying to will himself to relax enough so he could get some rest. The A’arcooni threat was neutralized, but he wasn’t sure how relieved he was about that. At least that was a known threat; with them out of the picture, Deetz was an unpredictable quantity in the equation and he didn’t like that one bit.

In an effort to occupy his mind, he began to go through all the interactions he’d had with the synth, going all the way back to when he’d first stormed the bridge of the gunship when it had made an emergency landing on Earth. There was little consistency in Deetz’s actions, unless taken in context of the synth only acting in his own self-interest. He had been willing to do anything to anybody to get what he wanted. Not only had he been utterly self-serving, but his actions since attacking Earth showed that he had a wide cruel streak and wouldn’t think twice about using horrific levels of violence just to prove a point.

Jason sat upright in bed with the sudden, sickening realization of what Deetz’s next move would be. He rolled out of his bunk and practically ran out of his quarters. When he ran onto the bridge, dressed in only a t-shirt and pair of basketball shorts, Lucky could only stare at him. The ship was in the middle of “night hours” and the battlesynth was the only one on the bridge standing watch. The canopy was dark, as they were in slip-space and the lights were dimmed. Jason knew he must have looked like a lunatic running onto the bridge half-dressed and wild-eyed.

“I know where Deetz is going,” he said to Lucky as he climbed into the pilot’s seat. “We need to change course.”

“Have you received new intelligence?” Lucky asked as he moved over to see what Jason was doing.

“Call it a hunch,” Jason answered as he began scrolling through saved destinations on his navigation panel..

“A hunch? Is it wise to alter our course based on something so undefined?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Jason said with a confidence he didn’t fully feel.

“Where do you think he is going?” Lucky was tactfully trying to extract information out of his captain without coming right out and saying he thought the human was insane.

“Earth. He’s going back to Earth and it won’t be to just posture or threaten,” Jason said quietly as he pulled up the navigational data for the Solar System.

“How can you be so sure?”

“We’ve pulled the rug out from under him. He was leading us around and making us dance to his tune, but I don’t think he expected us to be able to take away his A’arcooni fleet the way we did. He’s going for straight, good ‘ol revenge this time,” Jason answered as he slowly increased the slip-drive output to maximum. The ship began to vibrate and groan as she came up to her maximum slip velocity. Jason waited for a moment for what he knew was coming next.

“What the hell is going on up here?!” A disheveled Twingo ran onto the bridge and looked around. “Who commanded a speed increase?”

“I did,” Jason said with his hands up in a placating gesture. “Calm down, we think we know where Deetz is heading and we need to make up some time.”

“We?” Lucky asked.

“You need to at least ask me before you just flip the switch like that,” Twingo grumbled as he hunched over the engineering station and checked his readings. “So where are we going?”

“Back to Earth,” Jason said. “If we can get there just after him, that would be preferable.”

“Fine, let me go grab some chroot and then I’ll be in Engineering making sure we can keep this speed up. No promises on such a long flight though.” Twingo walked off the bridge to get himself cleaned up and awake enough to get to work.

“I guess I’ll do the same,” Jason said to Lucky. “I doubt I’d be able to go back to sleep now anyway.” He walked off the bridge, leaving a bemused battlesynth staring after him.

“It feels like we’re in a hurry,” Crusher said from the galley table where he was reading from a tablet computer.

“What are you doing up?” Jason asked as he moved over to the food processor panel.

“Keeping watch over our guest while Lucky has bridge duty,” the warrior said without looking up. “I don’t think he’s inclined to do anything, but I’d rather not find out the hard way.”

“Too true,” Jason agreed. “That whole group is a big mess of crazy right now. So what are you reading?”

“That data package we pulled off the A’arcooni recording device had a complete collection of their literature and media. Kage ran a few through a translation routine and I’ve been browsing the news reports from when the Travelers first arrived at A’arcoon.”

“Huh,” Jason only grunted. The duality of Crusher still caught him off guard at times. He was also a little embarrassed that as the commander of the unit he hadn’t bothered to do the same thing himself. “Anything interesting?” He knew how stupid the question sounded even as it left his mouth. Crusher just stared at him blankly, but decided to answer anyway.

“As you’d imagine, quite a bit is interesting,” he rumbled, still looking at the display on his computer. “It does follow a certain pattern. This cult was ignored and ridiculed as fringe until they had enough members and influence to begin causing real trouble. There were a few high-profile terrorist attacks that led to some arrests, but thanks to the cult having members entrenched in the government itself they were never able to fully break them. By the time they realized just how dangerous they’d become, it was too late.”

“Sounds familiar,” Jason said scornfully. Many of the jobs his crew had taken happened to be putting out the fires from just such scenarios. They’d put down violent insurrections, hunted down terrorists and rogue military units, and tracked escaped criminals across dozens of star systems. It never ceased to amaze him how inept some governments were at handling the most basic of functions of keeping their citizenry safe.

“So you really think Deetz is heading for your homeworld? Is he the type to go out in one last blaze of glory for revenge?” Crusher turned off his computer and looked at Jason squarely. How could he have heard that from all the way down here?

“It feels right. I can’t point to anything specific, but at this point in the game he knows his moves are limited. Just running back to Breaker’s World to lick his wounds isn’t his style.”

“You spent far more time around him than I did,” Crusher admitted. “I was locked in a stasis pod for most of that trip.”

“Damn, that was a wild ride,” Jason laughed as he recalled their first mission together, a bumbling, desperate escape from an asteroid base called The Vault. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”

“I was surprised myself,” Crusher chuckled slightly. “I’d say that plan would fail nine times out of ten when tried. Luckily we got that one chance on the first try.”

“Yeah, all’s well that ends well I guess,” Jason said as he went back to the food processor.

“You’re still hungry?”

“No. I’m grabbing something for Twingo to try to mend some fences,” Jason said as he gathered the things for his best friend’s favorite breakfast. “He was less than thrilled with my course change and speed increase. He’s down monitoring the core and engines on only a few hours of sleep.”

*****

The flight to Earth was a long one. The blue planet was well out of the shadow of the ConFed’s influence and didn’t attract a lot of attention. Nobody would burn so much fuel to get to such an underdeveloped planet without good reason. Jason knew his ship was faster than the small runabout Deetz was traveling in, but he didn’t know if they’d changed courses in time to catch up. The militaries of Earth would be no match for even an underpowered ship such as that one.

Twingo convinced him to throttle the drive back to ninety-five percent to ensure they even made it there. Running at full power for days at a time was a risk that Jason wasn’t willing to take, after the engineer had given him the odds on whether or not the engines would take the abuse. He could do nothing while they were in transit, and the feeling of helplessness made him pace around the ship like a caged animal.

“If you don’t get some rest you’re going to be useless when we get there,” Taryn finally said on the third day of the flight.

“I’m not sure I can,” Jason admitted as he made his fourth lap from the armory up onto the bridge where she and Doc sat.

“Well, would you mind pacing in the cargo bay or something? You’re putting everyone else on edge,” Doc said from the terminal he’d been working at. Jason just glared at him and walked back off the bridge without another word.

The rest of the crew seemed equally on edge as he walked around and checked in on everybody. Their prisoner/guest seemed to be having second thoughts about coming along, as Twingo and Kage filled him in on some of their previous missions. Crusher seemed especially agitated the closer they got to Earth. After he snapped at Kage for practically nothing one evening, Jason remembered what he’d wanted to talk to the big warrior about.

“So … what are Korkarans?”

“I already told you,” Crusher practically growled at him.

“You told me as much as you wanted me to know. Now I’m asking you for the rest of it,” Jason insisted. Crusher glowered at him for a moment before relenting.

“The Korkarans have a long history with the warrior caste of my people,” he said. “It isn’t a pleasant history. They’ve attacked our world multiple times for nothing more than a challenge. When that didn’t work, they attacked our neighbors and allies to draw warriors off Galvetor to challenge them in combat.”

“So it’s an honor thing?” Jason asked.

“They seem to think so. But they’ve killed many innocent civilians in the course of issuing their challenges. In recent times they’ve hired themselves out as mercenaries. They’re utterly ruthless. Believe me when I tell you that even two of these things on your planet are going to cause serious carnage.” Jason swallowed hard at that. Anything that Crusher thought was a danger was probably more akin to a natural disaster.

“Are they beatable?”

“Oh, yeah. They just don’t go down easy, but they’re still as mortal as any of us,” Crusher said. That didn’t make Jason feel any better, as he left his friend to try to get a few hours of sleep. They were closing in to within a day of the Solar System and he wanted to be ready for anything.

Chapter 16

The entire crew, except Lucky, was a collective bundle of nerves as the Phoenix entered the last stretch before their mesh-in point. Jason chose to come in just inside the orbit of Uranus so they could do a thorough sensor sweep on the way in. They could always do a short intrasystem jump if they detected Deetz’s ship already near Earth.

When they were down to the last two hours of slip-space flight time, Jason and Crusher went down to the armory to gear up. They hoped to take the synth down in ship-to-ship combat, but they’d learned to be ready for anything. Twenty minutes after they’d walked off the bridge, the pair came thumping back up onto the command deck, Jason in full armor and Crusher in his usual sleeveless attire with a hardened battle vest. The third and most powerful member of the ground team, Lucky, stood stoically on the bridge, just waiting for the time he might need to be called into action. Jason knew the battlesynth had a full range of emotions, but he supposed being purpose-built for combat gave him some level of control over his fear and anxiety. Lucky used to become far more agitated in a large crowd of civilians than in battle where he was outnumbered twenty to one.

Jason had brought De’Elefor Ka onto the bridge and strapped him into one of the seats there. It wasn’t necessarily to keep an eye on him, it was more in case they needed to abandon ship. It would be easy to forget about him in the rush. The thin A’arcooni sat with an anxious expression, continuously flexing his hands and smoothing the feathers on his scalp, but otherwise didn’t distract the crew.

As before, Jason was not happy about Taryn being onboard when the ship was about to go into battle, but he seemed to have little say in the matter. She’d kept to herself during waking hours during the flight, not wanting to distract Jason from what he needed to do. While scared out of her wits, she accepted that the lives of everyone on her homeworld outweighed her own, and made sure that his mind was on that, rather than trying to protect her.

“Twenty minutes to mesh-in, boys and girls,” Kage said from the right seat. Jason climbed into the pilot’s seat and let it adjust to his expanded bulk, and Crusher strapped himself into his usual seat. Both of them had their weaponry secured to racks at the rear of the bridge.

The Phoenix shuddered as she entered real-space, now in the Solar System. Without being ordered, Kage brought the shields and weapons fully online the moment they meshed-in, and Doc began a full active sensor sweep of the system.

“Nothing,” he reported tensely. “All I’m picking up are the human probes scattered throughout the system and the satellites orbiting Earth.”

“Keep at it,” Jason said as he engaged the main drive. “Deetz is smart enough to hide from us at this range.”

He eased up the throttle and began to fly into the system at a relatively slow velocity. Since Earth wasn’t under attack, that meant Deetz was either in the outer system or not there at all. In the back of Jason’s mind there was a nagging doubt that he’d made a mistake and the synth hadn’t even come at all. If that were true, he would have wasted a lot of time and the trail would be completely cold.

“Contact!” Kage called. “Passive array is picking up dispersing slip-drive radiation dead ahead. Looks to be about four hours old, give or take an hour.”

“It just got real, everybody,” Jason said unnecessarily. “Let’s tighten it up and flush this bastard out. Kage, I want two anti-matter missiles prepped, medium yield.”

“Copy that,” Kage said as his hands flew over the armament panel.

The decaying slip-drive signature proved Deetz was in the system, somewhere. Since Earth had no slip-space capability, the presence of any leaked drive radiation was a giveaway. Of course, the trail could be faked and they could be flying into another trap.

“Try to get focused scans of Saturn and Jupiter,” Jason told Doc. “They’re the two gas giants we’ll be passing and he could be using their radiation to hide his ship’s signature. That dinky runabout will be tough to spot under the best of conditions.”

“Already on it,” Doc answered, steering the active sensor’s tachyon beam in the vicinity of Saturn as they cruised by it close enough to make out the ring structure.

“I feel like we’re in for another nasty surprise,” Twingo said.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Kage agreed.

“Keep the chatter down,” Jason chided them. “Pay attention to what you’re supposed to be doing.” They flew across Saturn’s orbit without incident and Jason became even more certain they were being observed. He thought it through as they pressed on into the system. Deetz had demonstrated more than once that he could be at least two steps ahead of them. Despite that, however, they’d managed to surprise him and even pull his advantage. But, in true Omega Force style, a lot of that had been sheer luck rather than smart tactical planning. On a whim he yanked the throttle back and commanded a full stop. The drive responded instantly and the Phoenix jerked to a halt, now motionless relative to the primary star.

“Interesting tactic,” Doc murmured sarcastically.

“Let’s just wait. I’m tired of playing his game,” Jason explained patiently. “We know he’s here and we know he’s waiting for us. The next move will have to be his. Keep the sensors full active.”

They waited for a tense thirty minutes in between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter. Jason smiled to himself as he pictured Deetz staring at his displays trying to figure out what in the hell they were doing.

“I might have something,” Kage whispered. Jason just stared at him.

“He can’t hear you,” he said.

“I know that,” Kage answered in a normal voice before hurrying on. “In the asteroid belt, twenty degrees to starboard … there’s an object that has begun to move. It was barely perceptible at first but it’s starting to accelerate.”

“He has to know that we’d be able to track that,” Doc said dubiously.

“No,” Jason said as the realization struck him, “he doesn’t. He has no idea how extensive the modifications to the Phoenix really are. The old Jepson sensor package probably wouldn’t have flagged that movement. Hell, it may not have even detected it. I’m not seeing any energy signatures coming off of it.”

“You’re right, Captain,” Kage confirmed. “No grav signature or heat bloom. He must be on reactive thrusters only.”

“Sneaky,” Jason mused, “but where’s he going? Just repositioning in the asteroid belt won’t do anything for him while we’re stopped.”

“It looks like he may be heading for that especially large asteroid nearby. Well, nearby relatively speaking,” Twingo said as he brought up the sensor feed at his own station. “He may try to use it to mask his drive signature and accelerate away. He’s literally crawling right now, so unless he thinks we’re going to be stopped for the next twenty-three years, give or take, he’s not going to be coming directly at us.”

“Let me know when he gets right behind it,” Jason said. Even with the constant acceleration it took hours for the tiny ship to make it to the large asteroid they assumed was the destination. Sure enough, the ship stopped on the far side.

“He’s stopped there,” Kage reported.

“Kill the active sensors and brace for emergency acceleration,” Jason snapped. He gave the crew less than a second to comply before jamming the throttle down and thumbing the red button that overrode the throttle schedule for the main drive, essentially slamming it from fully stopped to full power nearly instantaneously.

The lights dimmed and fluttered a bit as unimaginable amounts of power surged into the engines and the gunship tore away at over six hundred gravities of acceleration. The force was so violent that the crew could actually feel it despite the compensators and artificial gravity. The Phoenix was quickly closing the distance and was less than five minutes away when Jason commanded the active sensors back on. The array was able to see on the other side of the enormous asteroid without issue, but Deetz’s ship would undoubtedly be able to detect the tachyon bursts.

“You’ve flushed him out,” Kage said. “He’s going full active. We’re being acquired by his targeting sensors.”

“Bias the power to the forward shields,” Jason ordered. “Lock up the missiles on him, we’ll fire when he has less time to maneuver.”

Deetz surprised them all by powering up his own drive and accelerating hard towards the Phoenix. The move caught Jason so completely flatfooted that he barely had time to alter his course. Even then it was too late; the other ship closed in to such a short distance that the missiles wouldn’t be able to arm in time. He came sharply to starboard, intent on letting the other ship fly past at close range and then loop back around to open the gap up.

He never got the chance. He saw something interact with the forward shields off to the port side of the bridge at the exact same moment the engines lost power. He glanced at his indicators and saw the reactor was also down to less than twenty percent output and dropping. He realized Deetz must have installed one of his maser-based disruptors he was developing for the A’arcooni on the small ship.

This time they were ready, however, as Twingo had already implemented the shield modifications to protect them from the unique subatomic particle that the weapon utilized. It wasn’t completely effective, unfortunately, and they were still in a bad way. The engines had completely shut down and the computer was struggling to bring the reactor power back up.

“He’s coming back around,” Kage said. “Shields are down.”

“I’m bringing the nose around, get ready to fire those missiles!” Jason used the emergency reactive maneuvering thrusters to reorient the nose of the Phoenix so it was pointing at the incoming ship. They were now flying backwards since they had no propulsion to slow their flight.

“Missiles are locked! Fire!” Kage exclaimed as soon as the active sensors in the weapons confirmed they had the target locked up. Jason squeezed the trigger twice, releasing both of the missiles they had queued up. Thankfully there was enough power still for the weapons bay to open and let the missiles come out of their launchers. They streaked away and were soon out of sight as they homed in on Deetz’s small runabout.

“Missiles tracking,” Doc said from his station. “He’s launching countermeasures. He stopped one … the other is through! Impact on his ventral shields!”

“He’s turning away,” Twingo said. “It looks like he’s venting coolant, but he’s still under power.”

“Is he coming back at us?”

“No. I don’t think he expected us to still have teeth,” Twingo answered. “He’s putting a lot of distance between us now.”

“Shit! Let me guess where he’s going,” Jason swore.

“No need to guess, Captain,” Doc said. “He’s turned on course for Earth.”

“Twingo …”

“I’m already on it,” the engineer said as he ran off the bridge towards the engineering bay. The main reactor was still running, barely, and it showed no indication that it was going to recover on its own.

Jason’s agitation grew as a minute turned into ten, and then an hour, with no indication that the power was going to come back up. He was about to get out of his seat and go check on his friend when all the bridge lights went out, winked on and off again, and then stayed on. He was still half out of his seat, waiting to see what would happen next, when he felt the low pitched hum of power surging through the ship. He turned to look at his displays and saw that all the red indicators were staring to blink green as power levels were already climbing back up over sixty percent.

“That should do it,” Twingo said as he came back up on the bridge. “Sorry it took so long, we’ll be ready to move in a minute.”

“Good work, Twingo,” Jason said as he could now see the main drive coming back online. As soon as the computer let him, Jason eased the throttle up and steered onto a course that would take him to his homeworld. Soon the Phoenix was tearing across the Solar System as her individual subsystems continued to come back online.

“Start monitoring Earth’s news outlets,” he told Kage. The Veran didn’t answer as he began scanning through the known broadcast frequencies.

“It’s not good, Captain,” he said after a moment. “Deetz is in the atmosphere attacking civilian targets on a global scale, including some of your nuclear fission reactors. Your militaries appear to be powerless to stop him.” Jason ground his teeth in frustration as he guided the gunship onto a course that would intercept the upper atmosphere at an angle the shields could handle given the speed they were carrying.

“Locate his ship and put an intercept track on my display,” Jason ordered as Earth quickly resolved from just a slightly brighter white dot to a fuzzy blue marble.

“You’ve got it on your main display,” Kage told him. “He’s currently over Asia, China specifically, according to your news reports.” At the last possible moment Jason reversed the drive while reducing the power and slowed the ship dramatically before it slammed into the mesosphere. Their entry could be heard across the continental United States as Jason continued the dive and streaked over the Pacific Ocean at nearly twenty-five times the speed of sound.

“We’ll be coming into weapons range within forty seconds,” Doc said tensely. Jason tried to relax and clear his mind a bit as he interfaced his neural implant with the Phoenix’s computer. There was a moment of vertigo as the sensor feed was linked into his visual cortex, allowing him to have a full sphere of visual range around him. This little trick was useless in space combat, as there wasn’t anything to see, but in a planet’s atmosphere the interface allowed him to become a part of the gunship in a way he would have thought impossible before he upgraded his wetware.

The computer superimposed a floating reticle in his field of view that let him know where Deetz was currently located. It looked like he was circling an area over mainland China, and so far seemed unaware that they’d entered the atmosphere on the far side of the planet. Hopefully he hasn’t thought to monitor news reports too. I’m sure our entry didn’t go unreported.

“Stand by,” Jason told his crew. “I’m going to try to get in underneath him and light him up with the main guns.” He nosed over and let the computer know he wanted to maintain three hundred feet of altitude as they streaked over the continent. The gunship had slowed considerably during the descent and was now flying at a paltry twenty-five hundred feet per second, the speed of a bullet leaving a rifle barrel. The reticle the computer provided began to blink red, indicating they were nearly within range. He could see huge plumes of smoke rising in the distance and could only imagine the devastation being wreaked by the small ship and its advanced weaponry.

As soon as the reticle turned green he commanded the ship to put the main guns on target and squeezed the trigger. The salvo of ten plasma bolts left the leading edges of both wings in a crimson blaze as they streaked towards the target. At this extreme range, Jason had little hope of destroying Deetz’s ship; he only wanted to get him off the civilian targets.

“Two impacts on his shields, both shots diffused to the point there was little damage,” Kage reported. “All other shots missed. He is turning away and heading north.”

“I can see that,” Jason said as he climbed and turned in on Deetz to try and shorten the distance. He didn’t want to run in too close since he wasn’t completely sure the synth still didn’t have his disruptor available. “It looks like he’s heading for Russia.”

The Phoenix roared over China as Deetz fled north at a much higher altitude. Jason kept a close watch for any course corrections that would indicate the enemy ship was trying to come around and bring his weapons to bear on them. Once they crossed into Kazakhstan, Deetz began opening fire again. Powerful plasma bolts began impacting settlements all along the flight path of the smaller ship. Jason growled in frustration and goosed the drive to put them into effective weapons range again. He let loose with two high-power laser beams that lanced brilliant green through the atmosphere and impacted the other ship’s drive section. The sustained beams overwhelmed the aft shields and turned the outer hull to slag near the drive exhaust.

“Nice shot!” Kage exclaimed. Battle damage assessments began to come in as the computer scanned the impact zones. Deetz corkscrewed away from the beams and dove for the ground, forcing Jason to break contact and bank hard to starboard to keep from overrunning him.

Deetz fired a few more shots into the countryside before rolling over and letting loose a missile from an internal weapons bay in the ship’s belly. The piece of ordnance arced high and away from the ship, continuing north while Deetz pulled hard over to the east.

“Track that missile!” Jason shouted as he pulled the Phoenix up into a high climb to get some perspective on both Deetz and the missile he’d just fired.

“It’s tracking for another nuclear reactor. The unit appears to be shut down but breaching the case will still release radioactive material,” Doc said.

“Lock onto it,” Jason said as he wrapped the Phoenix into a tight turn to follow the missile. He had to down it quickly and get back onto Deetz before he could resume hitting civilian targets.

“We’re locked,” Kage said calmly. “Just get me a little closer, it’s already apexed and is starting to dive.” Jason shoved the throttle up again and urged the gunship into the high supersonic range as it screamed over southern Russia. He could only imagine the terror the humans on the ground were feeling as the two spaceships slugged it out in their skies.

When they were close enough Jason squeezed his trigger and held it to give Kage the command authorization to fire the ship’s weapons. A high-intensity laser lanced out from an articulated turret under the nose and hit the missile on the warhead. The super-hard casing of the weapon held for a moment as the laser poured gigawatts of power into it. Finally, with a blinding explosion, the warhead casing failed and the anti-matter explosive created a shockwave that flattened trees for five miles in every direction. The Phoenix barely bucked as Jason yanked the nose up and to port to reacquire Deetz.

“Where’s he at?” Jason barked.

“He’s over the Gulf of … Bothnia,” Doc struggled with the unfamiliar names. “He just ran through Finland. But it looks like he attacked Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Helsinki while we were chasing that missile.” Jason was fairly knowledgeable about Earth’s geography and he knew that Stockholm and Oslo were along that flight path. He climbed up to twenty thousand feet and poured on the power, trying to set a course that cut him off. The Phoenix thundered over Eastern Europe as she chased down the weaker, but still speedy, runabout.

“He sees us,” Doc reported. “He’s changed course and is accelerating over the North Sea. He’s causing a lot of damage, Jason … you’re going to have to end this now.”

“I’m trying to but I can’t shoot down a ship loaded with munitions over a populated area,” Jason said as he nudged his speed up a little further. Deetz was now only taking pot shots at cities as be overflew them with the gunship so close on his tail. He would be over the Atlantic in a few seconds and Jason would be able to finish him off.

As they passed over Leeds, England, however, he was forced to sharply alter his course. The British had decided they weren’t going to take this lying down and were fighting back. The RAF had thrown two squadrons worth of Eurofighters right in his way. The only place to go was straight up to avoid plowing into the formations, which were now firing missiles at him. Cursing loudly, he yanked the stick back and sent the Phoenix rocketing up out of the fighters’ range as three missiles got through and impacted the shields harmlessly.

He admired the RAF pilots’ courage, and they had no idea he was on their side, but the delay had let Deetz slip out of range again and he was now closing in on the northeastern coast of the United States. Leveling out his flight, he turned onto a direct intercept course and ramped the engines up to full power. The Phoenix shuddered as she went hypersonic in the heavy lower atmosphere and Jason could see the hull temperature start to climb despite the shields deflecting the majority of the airflow. Plasma stringers began to form as the air burned from the ship’s passing and he could only imagine what it sounded like from the ground. He had only run his ship so hard on two other occasions, and he knew the abuse would take its toll eventually.

“Here we go,” Twingo said as the first warning indicators popped up. “We’re still good, Captain. Keep after him.” The ship crossed over the eastern coast at Mach 25 plus so they were unable to clearly assess the damage to New York City and Pittsburgh as they chased Deetz. The sonic footprint of the gunship was devastating. A near-delta winged craft the size of an office building at those speeds was almost as damaging as the other ship’s weapons fire. But Jason had no time to try and climb to a safer altitude and then dive down onto his target. He had to end this as soon as he could.

They traversed the continental United States in just under three minutes. Jason pulled the power back and allowed the ship to aero brake as they approached the west coast. The sensors showed that Deetz was over San Francisco and looping over the city, striking random targets. Jason had no idea why he’d decided to stop running, but he took the opportunity to close the gap again.

“Full countermeasures,” Jason said as he nosed over to bring the ship down to hug the terrain. He set his altitude hold at two hundred and fifty feet and continued his approach, trying to gain some element of surprise on the synth.

“He’s over the bay now,” Doc said as the gunship streaked over Berkeley and out over the water.

“I’ve got his ass,” Jason hissed as the Phoenix highlighted the runabout with a flashing green reticle through his neural implant. Time seemed to slow down as the other shipped arced over and showed its belly, pulling to the left to make another attack run. Jason brought the nose of the gunship up and rolled over to the right in order to put the left wing right onto the drive section and aerodynamic stabilizers of the enemy. The fraction of a second it took for the two ships to close seem to take minutes as the runabout grew larger in the canopy. The crew of the gunship gasped as they realized what he intended to do.

The impact was horrific as the Phoenix’s left wing slammed into the runabout. Jason was slammed against his harness as the ship yawed violently, and the air was filled with shrill warnings and alarms. He was barely able to keep his bearings as he let the computers stabilize their flight. Through the alarms he could see that even though some systems were squawking in protest to his actions, the ship seemed to be more or less intact.

“What the hell was that?!” Twingo yelled as he shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “This thing has guns, you know.”

“Couldn’t risk shooting the main guns across the bay,” Jason said, not wanting to admit he had been surprised by the closure rate and hadn’t had time to select the plasma cannons. “Where is he?”

“He’s crashed near a small island,” Doc said in a shaky voice. “It looks like … Alcatraz Island? Is that how you say that?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jason muttered as he swung around and backtracked his flight path to the infamous lump of rock that jutted up out of the bay. “Start feeding me system statuses, Twingo.”

“The shields held, amazingly,” the engineer said as he started prioritizing damage control systems. “There’s almost no structural damage. Engines and powerplant are one hundred percent. Port shielding power couplers were overloaded but are resetting. Primary weapons are offline, all we have are point defense and expendables.”

“Target the ship with a thermobaric warhead,” Jason said as he halted to a hover one mile out and five hundred feet over the water. “Fire when ready.”

“It looks like Deetz is already out of the ship, Captain,” Doc said. “Optical sensors caught a biped running from the crash and into a building on the island.”

“He’s like a damn cockroach! Fire anyway,” Jason ordered, “we can’t leave that ship just lying there intact.” Kage configured the appropriate missile in the weapons bay and fired it at the ship that was partially submerged and crunched up against a boat dock. The resulting explosion flung pieces of wreckage far into the bay and over the island into the Pacific Ocean. Jason knew that humans would recover a lot of the wreckage, but he was determined to leave them little more than some new material technology that they probably were decades from being able to replicate anyway. He admitted to himself that it might be a bit hypocritical considering what he’d been doing in recent years, but he felt humanity wasn’t ready for the galactic stage.

“Whoa! That got it,” Kage said with a huge smile.

“OK, listen up,” Jason said, making sure to keep them all focused. “The Phoenix is now the only ship capable of leaving this planet. Deetz will be desperate to get on board, so we’re going to deny him that opportunity.”

“Are we just going to blow up the entire island?” Twingo asked.

“Honestly, I considered it,” Jason admitted. “But then we’d never know if we actually got him. Nope … we’re going to have to go down and do this the hard way. Crusher, Lucky … get ready, we’re going to go in and dig this rat out. Doc, I want you to take the Phoenix and stand-off at least ten miles out and fly a combat air patrol. I don’t want the military or law enforcement approaching the island until we’re done.”

Jason swung the Phoenix around into a low hover over the parade ground, the only open area large enough to get the ship close enough to disembark. After he let Doc jump into the pilot’s seat and made sure everyone understood their orders, he grabbed his railgun and followed Crusher and Lucky off the bridge, both seeming eager to start ground operations. He almost didn’t notice Taryn following him out.

“Jason!” she called. He stopped and turned to face her.

“Yes?” She stepped up to him and reached out, but paused before touching his bulky armor. She instead reached both hands up to hold his face in her hands.

“Please be careful,” she said with tears in her eyes. He squatted down so his face was level with hers.

“I’ll be back in a little bit,” he said, not able to think of anything else to say. She nodded and leaned in, kissing him aggressively before turning her back on him and walking quickly back to the bridge. Jason refused to dwell on her as he had a job to do. He walked to the cargo bay, knowing that Deetz wasn’t going to be an easy target and the bastard probably had more than one surprise up his sleeve.

“About time,” Crusher said in exasperation when he entered the hold. “You know we’re in the middle of a damn op, right?”

“Just open the ramp and let’s get to it,” Jason said brusquely. Crusher reached over and opened the pressure doors to the cargo bay as the ramp was lowering. Lucky had advised against using the transit beam because it worked both ways. It was possible, however unlikely, that Deetz could use it to infiltrate the ship as they were transiting to the surface. Instead, the Phoenix hovered thirty feet above the parade ground and Crusher and Lucky would jump to the surface while Jason and the Phoenix’s rear guns guarded the ramp. Then Jason would jump down as they covered the LZ. Once they were all on the ground, the Phoenix would pull away and stay clear of any attempt Deetz could likely make to board or damage the vessel.

“We’re clear, Doc. Closer her up and get out of here,” Jason called over the com as he landed on the pavement with a heavy thud, his armor easily absorbing the impact. He didn’t look up as he heard his ship power up and climb away from Alcatraz Island. The three of them scanned in every direction, waiting for an attack that didn’t come.

“Do you know your way around this place?” Crusher asked Jason.

“Um … not really. I took a tour when I was ten and I’ve seen a couple of movies about it,” Jason admitted.

“We’re screwed,” Crusher grunted as he hefted his plasma rifle. Soon an eerie silence descended over the island as the Phoenix flew out of hearing distance. Jason could just make out the dull rumble of jet engines from what he assumed would be U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft.

“Let’s head towards the boat dock and see if we can pick up his trail from there,” Jason suggested, pointing off towards his right at the column of smoke still rising from the shoreline. The trio began a cautious walk towards the dock, Jason on point while Crusher and Lucky flanked him and covered to the left and right. Lucky’s sensors would let them know if something was sneaking up on them.

“Holy shit,” Jason said when they were halfway across the parade grounds. “What the hell is that smell?” Crusher was already drawing in deep breaths of air through his nose and huffing them out through his mouth. He seemed to be fixated on something to their left. Jason halted and waited while his friend tensed up, still staring hard to where there was a rubble pile of a long gone building.

Before long, a scrabbling sound could be heard on the rocks coming from the shoreline to the left. A moment after that a green head appeared, then another. Crusher sucked in a deep breath and let out a bellowing roar that made Jason nearly jump out of his armor. He’d never heard anything like it before, and suddenly he felt like a spectator as the Galvetic warrior stomped towards the newcomers.

The pair quickly emerged. Jason could see they were quite large and looked reptilian. The Korkaran mercenaries had finally made an appearance. Their skin looked like a crocodiles, but smoother and with a glossy sheen. Heavily muscled and agile, the pair of biped crocs approached Crusher, tails swishing. Still thoroughly confused as to why his friend didn’t just shoot them, Jason followed behind with his railgun raised halfway while Lucky scanned in all directions behind them. The mercs also had weapons, but carried them in a manner that indicated they had no intention of using them.

Once the two groups were within ten yards of each other, Crusher and the Korkarans stopped. One of the mercs said something to Crusher in a language Jason’s implant couldn’t translate, and then they both bowed low. When they straightened, Crusher simply nodded once. Lucky managed to look surprised (no mean feat) and Jason was only more confused, but he got the distinct impression the two new arrivals knew Crusher personally. Or at least knew of him.

“Captain,” Crusher said, “you and Lucky go find Deetz. I will deal with this.”

“You can’t be—”

“I was not asking!” he roared back. Jason rocked back on his heals a bit at that.

“Okay,” he said without further argument. “Let’s go, Lucky.” The battlesynth didn’t argue, further confirming in Jason’s mind that something significant had just happened on the parade ground that he wasn’t privy to. I’ll deal with it later. Assuming Crusher survives.

*****

“We had thought you dead, Great One,” the lead Korkaran said in his sibilant language. “It will be an honor to do combat with you.”

“You may not think so when I’m done,” Crusher rumbled, staring at the pair with unadulterated hatred.

“It will be an honor no matter the outcome,” the Korkaran insisted. “May we pay homage to the old ways?”

“If you insist,” Crusher said. “It will only prolong the inevitable.” Without another word, both Korkarans tossed their larger weapons aside and then pulled out two sidearms apiece and tossed those as well. Crusher watched coldly as he also flung his plasma rifle away, along with the large projectile pistol he had in a thigh holster.

As soon as his pistol hit the pavement, both mercenaries split and tried to surround him, crouching down into a fighting stance as they did. Crusher looked at them with contempt and didn’t budge. Once the pair thought him surrounded to the point that he couldn’t track them both, the Galvetic warrior lunged to his right with frightening speed. With a powerful overhand blow, Crusher managed to surprise the merc for just the fraction of a second he needed to rake his claws down the other’s face, then followed up with a left-handed uppercut that sent the Korkaran flying backwards. Only his tail kept him from rolling all the way over, and when he came back up he was down to one good eye, the other hanging uselessly out of the socket.

The other Korkaran hadn’t stood idle during the attack, however, and before Crusher could turn to face him he felt talons rip down across the back of his armor and into his left shoulder.

*****

Jason paused as he heard another roar echo across the island, audible even over the sound of the waves breaking against the rock. “I hope he knows what he’s doing,” he muttered.

“Crusher knows exactly what he is doing. Do not worry, Captain,” Lucky reassured him as they scanned the area around what remained of the boat dock. Jason only grunted, not wanting to get distracted by a conversation in which he would demand that Lucky divulge what he knew.

“Can you see anything?”

“I am detecting trace amounts of a lubricant that is almost exclusive to synths, or more specifically our gross motor actuators,” Lucky said as he strode confidently away from the shore.

“How are you detecting it?”

“It looks like that,” Lucky said, pointing to a blue gel-like substance that was clearly visible on the pavement. Jason just rolled his eyes and gestured up the walkway.

“After you,” he said, falling in behind the battlesynth as he followed the “blood” trail left by Deetz after he had pried himself out of the wreckage. “We can assume he’s setting up an ambush for us, so let’s head to the main cellblock since that’s one of the more obvious destinations.” Lucky stopped and looked at him.

“After you,” he gestured, mimicking Jason.

“I really need better friends,” Jason grumbled as he walked by to take point on the way up to the cellblock building. While he was making his way towards the dominating structure, he was also glancing down every so often to see if he could see another spatter of actuator lubricant.

They made it up past the residential apartments, or what was left of them after the thermobaric missile detonation, and walked slowly up the path towards the main cellblock. The old prison was forbidding as they stopped near the base and scanned left and right.

“Let’s work our way around to the left and see if we can find anyplace obvious he may have gotten in,” Jason said. Lucky just nodded and switched his operational mode to combat. His eyes took on a muted red glow, and a barely perceptible whine could be heard as all his weapons began charging.

The pair crept around the base of the building until they came to a ragged hole in the side. The jagged edges and discoloration around the area indicated that this was a new addition to the cellblock. Jason made a move to step closer and try to clear the area when Lucky reached out and stopped him. When he looked over, the battlesynth just shook his head and pointed further down with his free hand. Jason nodded once and followed Lucky as they continued on. That was obviously Deetz’s point of entry, but the synth was no fool. He would know the ragged hole would be noticed and had likely booby trapped the opening with whatever he was able to grab when he left his ship.

They moved quickly around to the side of the cellblock that faced the lighthouse and paused by the locked main entrance. Jason wished he had paid more attention during his tour of the island nearly twenty years before, at least enough to know what was on each floor of the building they were now facing. As quietly as he could manage, he grabbed the double doors and pulled until he could hear metal snapping and the doors popped loose out of the frame. He laid them on the ground and nodded to Lucky as he hefted his railgun and disengaged the safety.

Lucky raised his arms to point the now-exposed plasma cannons outward and rolled into the main entrance, covering the right side. A millisecond after he had cleared the doorway, Jason entered and raised his weapon, covering the left and Lucky’s back. Once they cleared the large, open area, Jason adjusted the spectrum input from his armor’s sensors. He picked his favorite for gloomy, low light situations: mid-wave infrared. The computer would do its best to determine coloration of objects and overlay that onto the image that Jason was “seeing.”

“Let’s move straight ahead through that security checkpoint,” Jason said, pointing to the sally port directly ahead of them. Once through the sally port and main gate they would be standing in front of B-Block, the middle of the three main cell blocks.

Since the prison was now a tourist attraction, they were able to make it through the security gates with ease. Once through and standing on the main floor of the building, they silently made their way to the right and began moving towards where Deetz had breached the wall to come in.

Jason switched back to simple light amplification since the midday sunlight was still streaming through the large windows of the structure and providing quite a bit of natural light to see by. They made it to Michigan Avenue, the corridor that ran between A-Block and B-Block, and peered up along the walkways, looking for some evidence the synth had been through there. Lucky took a step forward and froze as something seemed to move at the far end of the wide corridor. A second later there was a bright flash and Jason grunted as something impacted his hip. He spun and fell on his back, craning his head to see where the shots were coming from.

As soon as Jason was hit Lucky advanced, firing his arm-mounted plasma cannons towards the source of the incoming fire to keep Deetz’s head down while he closed the distance. He didn’t make it far. When he was about one-third of the way down the aisle, an explosive device detonated on his right with enough force to throw him clear through the bars of the cell to his left. Jason had managed to roll over on his stomach, but couldn’t get to his feet yet. He switched to long-wave infrared so he could see through the smoke and saw Deetz approaching at a slow walk, almost a swagger. He thought he could just make out the smug expression on the metallic face. Not wanting to give away his position by using the active sensors, he sighted manually through the optics of his railgun and squeezed the trigger. A hypersonic round screamed down Michigan Avenue, creating a vortex through the smoke and dust as it passed.

Although not as accurate as he would have liked, he still smiled with satisfaction as Deetz was flipped over backwards by the impact of the round and flung down the aisle. When the synth stood back up, he was missing his right arm from just above the elbow. Not looking nearly so smug, Deetz scrambled back down the corridor in an uncoordinated, jerky run and ran around the corner to the right with the stump of his ruined right appendage sparking the whole way. Jason sent six more railgun rounds after him but didn’t see any other impacts save for the large holes torn through the rear wall of the cellblock.

A couple of seconds after Deetz had fled, Jason heard a soft beep in his helmet indicating that his armor had reset and repaired the hip-joint. He slowly climbed to his feet, making sure to cover behind him in case Deetz was trying to do an end-around, and gingerly put weight on his left leg. While the armor may have been able to repair itself, he could tell his squishy flesh that was underneath hadn’t fared so well. His hip and upper thigh were incredibly sore, but he could tell he had no broken bones and there were no sharp pains, so he ignored it.

Just as he was about to go and see if Lucky was OK, he saw his friend come around the corner at the far end of Michigan Avenue, near where Deetz had been waiting for them. “How did you get up there?” Jason asked as he approached.

“I was blown through the back wall of that cell so I removed the bars and came back around to try and catch Deetz by surprise,” Lucky said as he pointed in the direction of C-Block, which was off to their left. “I heard your railgun go off. I assume since I only saw an arm that we are still on the hunt for the rest of him.”

“You assume correctly,” Jason said. “He ran around over that way,” he indicated to his right, “so let’s keep moving around like we were originally. He may be expecting us to follow him.”

*****

Crusher was panting hard as he rolled to his left and flipped back up onto his feet. The two Korkarans were pressing him and he was feeling the strain. Not only that, but months and months of being cramped up in the Phoenix had done little for his conditioning and training. He was rusty and winded and the two mercenaries were starting to catch on to that.

They had given up on frontal assaults on the more powerful Galvetic and were now lunging in and out with alternating feints and attacks, forcing Crusher to expend energy to either defend or press the attack himself. The Korkarans weren’t able to do this with impunity, however. In addition to having lost his eye in the first moments of the brutal fight, one of the mercenaries was bleeding out of several deep gashes, a couple down to the bone in places, courtesy of Crusher’s steel-hard claws. His right arm also dangled uselessly, having been broken in three places when he tried to lunge in and catch the Galvetic warrior by surprise.

The other Korkaran hadn’t done much better in staying out of the raging warrior’s grasp. His abdomen had a set of slashes in it so deep that he was losing mobility, and the left side of his face was deformed, rendering his jaws useless. He’d lost most of his teeth in an attempted biting attack to Crusher’s shoulder, but had instead ended up being flipped around and having his face smashed into the pavement repeatedly.

But still they came. In proving why their kind was so feared, they got up from every injury and still tried to press the dark-skinned warrior into making that one fatal mistake. For his part, Crusher was bleeding profusely from several nasty cuts and bites. Korkaran saliva was mildly venomous, so he knew he didn’t have much time before he would need medical attention, and his right knee wouldn’t fully support his weight thanks to a tail-whip that had caught him unawares.

The Korkarans hissed and lunged at Crusher, trying to get him to push off with his injured knee so they could try and pounce on him. The experienced fighter wouldn’t take the bait and he waited. He had gotten their timing down and he had learned the tells quickly that would signal if they were actually committing to an attack or if it was another fake.

The more injured of the two came in for another feint, but slipped in one of the many pools of congealing blood that dotted the battlefield. As he slipped, his one good eye widened in surprise and Crusher knew he had a chance. With a tremendous roar he launched off with his good leg and brought his right hand over and around to grasp the end of the reptilian alien’s muzzle while grabbing him around the back of the neck with his left. With all of his strength, he pulled in with his left arm and up with his right to bend the merc’s head back and up as far as it would go. Shifting his weight to spin his adversary slightly so he was pressed up against his side, he now had the leverage he was looking for. With a snarl, he yanked his hands apart and with a sickening wet crunch the spinal column of the Korkaran gave. Crusher dropped his twitching body and turned just in time for the other mercenary to plunge a blade into the upper thigh of his left leg, signaling an end to honoring the old ways. He roared in pain and rage, spinning and smashing his open palm into the chest of his adversary with enough force that the blow would have killed most species. As it was, the Korkaran was sent flying and landed in a heap, climbing slowly to his feet. Crusher pulled the blade out and tossed it aside, thankful that it hadn’t hit any major blood vessels. It still hurt like hell though and had effectively hobbled him; between the injuries to his right knee and left thigh, he would be unable to pursue the Korkaran very far.

“I knew your cowardly kind couldn’t go long without dishonoring yourselves,” Crusher snarled. The Korkaran hissed back at him, but wouldn’t take the bait. The pair circled each other slowly, both looking for an opportunity to end the fight.

*****

“You think he went down there?” Jason asked quietly. They were standing in the far corridor by A-Block, named Sunrise Alley, and were peering into the gloom of a flight of stairs that led into the basement.

“I believe he did,” Lucky answered. “But to what end I could not guess. He seems to have trapped himself.”

“Maybe,” Jason said doubtfully. So far Deetz had been able to control their encounters, but maybe wounding him so seriously had altered his ability to make rational decisions. “But we’re getting nothing done by hanging out up here.” He stepped cautiously down into the stairwell and switched his optical input to infrared.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked down the long corridor but could see nothing. He moved forward a step to make room for Lucky as he also descended the stairs. They began to move forward, both scanning left and right as they navigated the narrow passageway. The cells lining the walls looked like they’d been used for solitary confinement or punishment for the prisoners who were once housed there. It would have gave Jason the creeps had he not been so focused on making sure Deetz wasn’t about to spring another trap on them.

After rounding a corner to the left, the pair continued down another passageway. A soft scraping sound stopped them in their tracks as they both listened for it to repeat. It didn’t. They began moving forward again until, without warning, Lucky grabbed Jason and shoved him into an open cell. He stumbled and hit the floor in a heap, turning around just in time to see a massive plasma discharge hit Lucky square in the chest.

“Lucky!” he shouted as he struggled to his feet. The battlesynth had been thrown a good ten meters back down the way they came and was moving very slowly, his chest armor smoking and hissing. Jason spun and saw Deetz standing in the passageway with a panicked look on his face. That one massive shot, meant to kill him, had depleted the power source on his plasma rifle. With only one hand, he was having issues trying to swap the spent power cell out with one he’d likely had in the small satchel that was slung over his shoulder. After fumbling and dropping the rifle in a clatter, Deetz chose the only option left to him: he ran.

He took off down the corridor, running disjointedly away from his pursuers, not trying to evade in any way. Jason took his time, lined up his shot, and caressed the trigger on his railgun.

The hypersonic round was deafening in the narrow passageway as it found its mark and blew Deetz’s left leg completely off at the hip. With a warbling cry the synth went down and stayed down. As Jason approached him slowly, he was pathetically trying to crawl away using his only good arm, his other intact leg dragging uselessly. All the impotent rage over the last few weeks of chasing Deetz around came boiling to the surface and Jason swung a savage kick into the synth’s side, rolling him over twice until he slammed up against the wall. He propped himself up and stared at the business end of Jason’s railgun which was aimed right at his face.

Switching the weapon to low-velocity, still enough to blow apart the synth’s head at that range, Jason retracted his helmet so he could look at his enemy in the sputtering light of the few bulbs that had survived the railgun projectile’s passage.

“Why? Why do this?” Jason demanded. “I let you go even after you tried to sell us all like cattle and this is my thanks?”

“You arrogant simpleton,” Deetz labored to get the words out, his voice cracking and modulating. “Did you ever wonder why I brought you along at all when you climbed up into my ship? Did you ever ask yourself why I would need a talking primate who could barely comprehend his own existence?”

“I may have at one time,” Jason admitted. “But now I don’t care. The Phoenix is mine. You forfeited your claim on that ship when we tossed you out on your ass.” Jason paused as Lucky, now recovered from the heavy jolt he received, walked up beside him and stared down at his brethren. His chest armor was scorched, but intact.

“So that’s the real question, isn’t it, Jason,” Deetz said with a metallic laugh. “Did I come back for you, or the ship?”

“We have no time for this, Captain,” Lucky said as he advanced on Deetz.

“Wait, wait, wait!! It was the ship! I came back for the DL7, don’t you want to know why? Don’t you want to know what that ship is carrying?” Deetz’s voice was shrill, and he was struggling to formulate the words. Before Jason could answer, Lucky took matters into his own hands.

“No more games. No more tricks. No more LIES!!” Lucky lunged at the helpless Deetz and clamped his right hand up under the smaller synth’s neck while slamming his left hand down on the other’s shoulder. Deetz’s eyes opened wide in horror as, with a slight whine of strained servos and actuators, Lucky ripped his head off in a shower of sparks and screeching metal.

“It … was … no … tri—”

The life faded in Deetz’s eyes as the last capacitor in his severed head discharged and his processors shut down for the last time. Holding the head in his massive hand, Lucky stared down at it. Jason, still shaken up from the unusual display of emotion from his friend, just stood there for a moment.

“Are you okay, buddy?”

“I am fine, Captain,” Lucky said, turning to him. “There are so few of us left, it is a difficult thing to kill one. But it had to be done. Deetz would never stop being who he was. The innocent lives he would destroy for his own personal gain were not an acceptable price to allow him to continue to live.”

“We probably need to go check on Crusher,” Jason said. “What should we do with him?”

“I can heat his body to the point that not much will be gained in its study. Is that what you are worried about?”

“Yes. So much alien tech has been rained down on Earth lately it’s sure to affect the natural course of things. Let’s not add to it needlessly.” Jason activated his helmet as Lucky placed Deetz’s head gingerly in his body’s lap and stepped back. He extended both arms, and brilliant green cutting beams lanced out and impacted the dead synth. Lucky moved the beams in fast, concentric circles so they heated and melted the material of Deetz’s body rather than just cutting through it as they would if he’d left them focused on one spot for too long. Within minutes the shape of the synth’s body began to deform and sag in places as the alloys melted. After Lucky shut his cutting beams off, Deetz was nothing but a misshapen pile of slag.

Jason had recorded the entire event with his armor’s sensors. It was not to take a trophy, something he found repugnant, but to show the A’arcooni should the need arise to prove that Deetz was gone forever. He reached out and touched Lucky’s shoulder through the heavy smoke and pointed back the way they’d come. His friend only nodded and turned to follow him. Jason began to run as fast as he could manage, now worried about what he would find when he reached Crusher.

*****

“It’s over,” Crusher growled. “This can’t go on any longer.”

“I will go until I can no longer draw breath, Galvetic slime,” the Korkaran hissed as he dragged himself away to try to put space between the two of them. His foot was at an impossible angle and the bones of his lower leg were showing through his tough skin. The break was especially bad since his species’ bones were fibrous, and the break resulted in dozens of needlelike protrusions ripping though his calf muscle on the way out. The pain must have been unbearable, but he wouldn’t quit.

Crusher had lost a lot of blood, and the Korkaran’s venom was beginning to make his vision blur and become unfocused. The tendons in his right elbow were likely torn so he had lost the use of that arm as an effective weapon. He knew he should just walk over and pick up one of the rifles and blow the lizard’s head off, but he’d be damned if he was the one who broke the rules they’d set at the beginning of combat.

Sighing, Crusher hobbled towards his crippled opponent and planted a boot into his chest, sending him sprawling on his back. When the Korkaran tried to lunge up, his previously ravaged abdomen wouldn’t support him and he fell back to the pavement in agony, his head tilting up as he did so. Crusher didn’t waste the opportunity and slashed hard with his left hand, ripping his claws through the comparatively tender skin of the alien’s throat. He jumped back as the Korkaran started thrashing and grabbed at his throat, trying futilely to staunch the blood that streamed out of the wound.

“I see you remain undefeated,” Jason said as he and Lucky climbed down to the parade ground from the lighthouse. Crusher looked over and took the pair in, raising an eyebrow at the scorching marks all over Lucky’s armor plates.

“Deetz?”

“Dead,” Lucky said simply. Crusher just nodded at that.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jason said. “Doc, come pick us up at the same place you dropped us off. Use the transit beam this time.”

“Not a moment too soon,” Doc’s voice came back over the com. “Your military is getting increasingly aggressive and it’s hard to keep that many aircraft from approaching your position.” Jason didn’t answer as he stood there looking out over the bay with his friends. He could see two Apache attack helicopters standing off out over the water, no doubt observing them with their long-range optics.

Within moments, the Phoenix flew over Alcatraz Island in a tight circle, coming to a hover over the parade ground and activating the transit beam. Jason let his friends go first and took one last look around at the carnage before stepping into the beam himself and riding it into the cargo bay.

“We’re in, Doc,” Jason called over the intercom. “Incinerate the Korkaran bodies on the pavement below and then get us into orbit as fast as you can. Don’t run into anything, there’s a lot of junk up there.”

After razing the ground below with a pair of powerful lasers, the Phoenix swung her nose towards the sky and shot up into the darkening sky. Minutes later the U.S. military flooded the island with troops who fast-roped out of Blackhawk helicopters and began canvassing the entire island.

Chapter 17

“You’re too close! Go further down, that’s why I can’t catch anything,” Crusher yelled at Twingo.

“That has nothing to do with it! What the hell do you know anyway?” came the indignant reply. Taryn stood on the porch and laughed to herself, the visual being almost too much for her to bear. She was leaning against the railing of the remote cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, watching two aliens try their hand at fly fishing in the stream that ran in front of it.

“Do you think it’s the fishing, or the arguing that they enjoy?” Kellea asked her as she approached from behind with a steaming mug in her hand.

“It’s impossible to say,” Taryn laughed. The two women stood in silence and watched a bit longer before turning to sit in a pair of the hand-crafted chairs that littered the porch.

After the incident at Alcatraz Island and the global destruction wrought by Deetz, and to a lesser degree Omega Force during the pursuit, the crew of the Phoenix had retreated to the space between Jupiter and Saturn and waited for the Diligent to arrive.

Crusher had been rushed into the infirmary where Doc began to treat him for a host of injuries, all the while remarking that he didn’t understand how the Galvetic warrior was still alive, much less standing. Twingo had taken Lucky to Engineering and was able to clean him up enough to see that all the damage he’d sustained had been mostly superficial.

Jason allowed the nanobots in his bloodstream to work their magic and heal up his hip so he didn’t distract Doc from working on Crusher. More than anything, though, in the days they waited for the Diligent to arrive, they watched the news from Earth with a growing sense of dismay. After having yet another alien attack so soon after Deetz’s original invasion, the populace flew into a near panic and were demanding answers from their governments, the very people who were uniquely unqualified to help.

Footage of the Phoenix ramming Deetz’s runabout was played over and over, as was the missile shot that destroyed the ship and the boat dock on Alcatraz. Speculation ran wild as to who was flying the gunship, but the footage of Crusher standing next to an armored Jason and Lucky put to bed any rumors that it was a secret government craft. A vocal subsect of the population had now become convinced that the Phoenix was sent to protect them and had even taken to calling Jason the “Armored Angel,” a title that caused a derisive reaction out of him every time someone uttered it.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government knew the truth about the ship, or at least who was flying it. It didn’t take them long to put the pieces together when Deetz showed up broadcasting his name and picture. They also knew about Taryn and her family. Her parents were unwilling to relocate to a strange planet, and Kellea didn’t blame them, so steps were being taken to reintegrate them into Earth’s population in a way that would make them impossible to recognize. Taryn had also undergone some mild cosmetic changes. Thanks to Doc, she was now a natural brunette and had different fingerprints. Since she was still young, the changes didn’t need to be drastic to be effective.

The changes to her parents would be more significant, and they were still aboard the Diligent in the medical bay while Doc monitored their progress. With the Phoenix resting in the hangar bay, Jason had the idea to go on a fishing trip. It took some fast talking to convince Crisstof to let him take one of the small, undetectable shuttles the frigate carried, but the idea caught on like wildfire and soon Crusher, Twingo, Taryn, Kellea, and even Lucky were crammed into the tiny shuttle and heading to a remote fishing cabin in the wilds of Alaska. The cabin they were “borrowing” could only be reached by aircraft and then a long canoe trip, so it was unlikely anyone would be stumbling upon them. The shuttle was small enough to camouflage among the surrounding trees.

“Do you think we have a chance?” Taryn asked Kellea. The beautiful captain stiffened slightly, misunderstanding the question. “I mean humanity,” Taryn corrected. “Will things get better or are we destined to destroy ourselves?”

“You’re at a tipping point,” Kellea admitted. “It could go either way, but you’re still a long stretch away from eradicating yourselves.”

“I suppose,” Taryn said without much conviction. She had noticed Kellea’s first reaction and knew she had thought Taryn was asking about her and Jason. It proved that it was something that was very much on the captain’s mind. Although it felt like a knife twisting in her guts, she knew that she had to let Jason go. Again. He couldn’t stay on Earth, and she couldn’t run around with him in the stars. The Phoenix was no place for a civilian, and staying somewhere else, waiting on him, the only human for thousands of lightyears in any direction wouldn’t work either. It wasn’t fair. She felt like she had just gotten a second chance to make things right and it was being ripped away from her.

She blinked back the tears quickly and took a drink of her own coffee. Kellea pretended not to notice.

“It’s time to go,” Jason said quietly as he walked out onto the porch, his com unit in his hand. “Your parents are ready and the Diligent needs to get moving.” The sadness etched on his face broke her heart, but Taryn knew that ultimately it was for the best. Jason went down to collect the rest of his crew out of the stream while Taryn and Kellea tried to make it look like they’d never been there.

Thirty minutes later the small shuttle was cruising up towards the Arctic Circle; then Jason pitched the nose up and escaped the Earth’s atmosphere.

*****

Under the cover of darkness the Phoenix ghosted to a quiet landing in a field in the Pacific Northwest. Taryn, Ed, and Jess were all standing expectantly near the pressure doors when Jason made his way to the cargo bay. Inside the bay was a mid-sized SUV that seemed to be ubiquitous on American roads. Jason walked over and opened the ship up, watching as Twingo started the vehicle and drove it down the ramp and onto the dirt service road that ran through the field.

Ed and Jess stood, holding hands and smiling. They looked twenty years younger after Doc’s treatments and seemed to be looking forward to the new lease on life. Kage approached them with all four of his hands full of papers.

“Okay,” he began, “here’s your back stories that I was able to insert into all the applicable databases. Here are your new IDs, birth certificates, and other documents that may come in handy.” As he spoke he was shuffling papers and packages into their hands without waiting to see if they understood what they were for. “This is a lottery ticket that will win a modest jackpot in three weeks’ time,” he went on, handing them a slip of paper.

“How modest?” Ed asked.

“One hundred and ninety million dollars.” Kage pressed ahead as Jess made choking sounds. “The vehicle is registered to you, but I’d ditch it soon anyway. Other than that, it looks like you’re all set to start your new lives. Any questions for me? No? Okay then, it was nice to meet you.” Kage stepped back as Jason walked over to the pair.

“Jason, I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done. Not just for us, but for everybody,” Ed said as he held his hand out. “I know we’ve had our differences, but I want you to know how proud I am of you and what you’re doing.”

“Thanks Ed, I appreciate that,” Jason said as he shook the proffered hand. Jess wasn’t as dignified as she burst into barely controlled sobs and grabbed Jason by the neck, pulling him into a crushing embrace. After a moment she’d calmed enough to let him go, but still wasn’t able to speak. Jason just nodded his head that he understood. After they’d given Twingo back their translator devices, they walked off the ship and went to wait in the car.

Taryn, who had been standing off to the side during the exchange, walked up to the crew at that point. She hugged Kage, Lucky, and Doc, saying something to each of them in turn. When she got to Twingo, however, her self-control failed her and she broke down. Sobbing, she reached down and hugged the blue-skinned alien as he patted her on the back and tried to hold his own tears in even as his ears laid flat against his head, a sign he was in serious distress.

She tried to compose herself as she moved on and stood in front of Crusher, who only stared down at her with his arms crossed over his chest. She crooked one finger at him, looking up demandingly. He grudgingly uncrossed his arms and bent down. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him firmly on the cheek.

“Please keep him safe,” she whispered into his ear. Crusher straightened and nodded gravely to her, not trusting himself to speak.

“I’ll walk you out,” Jason said in a thick voice. Once at the bottom of the ramp, standing in the cool Oregon night, it was all Jason could do to not just jump into the car with them and leave it all behind. Deep down, he knew this was the last time he’d ever see her.

“You’ll write me once in a while, won’t you, spaceman?” she asked as the tears streamed steadily down her cheeks. He nodded and bent down to kiss her softly on the lips.

“I never stopped loving you, Taryn,” he said. “If you remember anything about me, remember that.” She nodded, but couldn’t speak. With one last squeeze of his hands she turned quickly and walked as fast as she could to the waiting car. Jason turned just as quickly and stomped up the ramp, not waiting to see if she looked back. He smacked the control that would close the ship back up with far more force than was necessary and turned to face the waiting group.

“I want this bird in the air in five minutes,” he said as he walked by his crew.

“You’ve got it, Captain,” Twingo said quietly.

The crew sat silently on the bridge, the hum and rumble of the Phoenix as she pushed up out of Earth’s atmosphere the only sound. They snuck glances at Jason from time to time, but his face was an unreadable mask as he stared blankly out the canopy.

Inside his heart, Jason knew he was making the only choice that was available to him, so in that sense it was the right choice. Had Deetz not crash-landed on his mountain years ago, had he not written Taryn that letter to explain why he was leaving, and had Deetz not come back and attacked Earth, he probably would have lived out his days never having reached out to her. She would have always been his one regret.

As his ship hauled herself up out of Earth’s gravity well, it seemed that the leaden weight on Jason’s heart also lifted. The siren call of that next adventure was enticing him as the sky turned black around the canopy. Knowing Taryn was safe and where she belonged left him free once more to do what he’d been called to do. He looked around at his crew. His family. Maybe he would come back one day and she would be there, maybe she wouldn’t. Hell … maybe he’d be killed on their very next mission and he would never see Earth again. Either way, it didn’t matter. What mattered was finishing what they had started. He laughed out loud, startling his crew.

“Well, boys,” he said with a grin, “I hope you enjoyed the vacation. We’re back on the job.”

Epilogue

“You sure this is a good idea?” Crusher asked Jason as Lucky walked up to join them in the cargo bay. “You saw they have a lot of weaponry hidden out of sight.”

“I did,” Jason said. “But I don’t think they’d be so dumb to try and use it.” Crusher looked unconvinced as Jason lowered the ramp and opened the pressure doors. The acrid desert air assaulted them as the trio strode down the ramp and onto the hard-packed dirt. The rear guns on each side of the cargo bay opening deployed as they moved out and away from the ship. The Phoenix hadn’t extended her landing gear and instead was hovering fifteen feet in the air, using the grav-drive.

Jason stopped and waited as a pair of humans climbed out of a tan Humvee and approached them.

“I see you got our message,” an Air Force colonel with the name “Jackson” on his name tag said as he approached.

“And I see you got our answer,” Jason said, “since here you are in the beautiful Mohave desert. So what can I do for you, Colonel?”

“The President thought it might be good for us to have a face-to-face, to get a dialogue started, as it were,” Colonel Jackson began. His first lieutenant stood silently behind him. “We’d like to come to terms.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Jason said. “Terms for what?”

“Terms for you relinquishing control of this vessel to the United States government, Sergeant Burke.”

“Oh, I thought this was a serious meeting,” Jason laughed in the colonel’s face. “And it’s Captain Burke, by the way.”

“I wasn’t aware you’d gotten a commission,” the lieutenant spoke up.

“Field commission,” Jason said blandly. “CIA? NSA? You sure as hell aren’t a lieutenant, speaking out of turn in front of a full bird. Let me make this easy for you gentlemen … you’re not getting my ship. After this waste of time I’m climbing back into it and we’re flying out of here, and chances are I’ll never return.”

“Son, you seriously think you have the right to just leave with a piece of hardware like that? What about your country? Would you really turn your back on the millions of Americans that ship could protect?” the colonel asked, trying a different tactic.

“I’m not your son, Jackson,” Jason said, dropping all pretenses at humoring the officer. “By what right do you think you can take it from me? What would you do with it, Colonel? Strip her down to her base components and use the technology to usher in a utopia for all the world? Or would you use it as a bludgeon to keep all the other nations in line while not sharing any of her secrets? I’ll be perfectly clear about this: you are never getting your hands on this ship. Got it?”

“You think we can’t take it by force?” the lieutenant” asked. Jason laughed while Crusher snarled, making both officers jump back a step.

“Are you seriously so stupid?” Jason asked, still laughing. “After all you’ve seen the last few months, you think a few up-armored Humvees and a buried M1 Abrams are enough to capture this ship? Yes … we know about all your toys you hid in the dirt out there. Well, this has been about as useful as I thought it would be. Tell the President I said good luck reverse-engineering the ship I left him in the Potomac.” With that, he turned and walked back up into the ship with the crew in tow. Once the ramp closed, the Phoenix lifted into the air and accelerated into the night sky.

“That was a spectacular waste of time,” Colonel Jackson said sourly.

“It’s what we expected from Burke,” the “lieutenant” answered. “He’s never been a team player, according to his enlisted performance reports, and waving the flag in his face or threatening him wasn’t going to do anything but piss him off.”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to wave as he flies off into the distance doing God knows what?”

“It’s above your pay grade, Colonel. But don’t worry, we may be able to lure the sergeant back soon enough.”

Thank you for reading Omega Force: Savage Homecoming.

If you enjoyed the story Captain Burke and the guys will be back in:

Omega Force: The Enemy Within

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue