Omega Force 3: The Enemy Within (20 page)

“I was appalled and tried to leave, but she warned Bondrass before I could disappear. I was grabbed and taken to him and she continued on with her work. Bondrass promised her that he wouldn’t simply toss me out an airlock, so he made me a source of entertainment as he tried to get me to enhance his fighters, extend his life, and a litany of other insults. He kept me on a loose leash because, in addition to him being able to easily track me down, he told me what he’d do to Jevara if I tried to escape. That pretty much takes us up to when I met you two.”

“So what changed?” Jason asked. “If I remember correctly, it was you who initially approached Twingo about hijacking the gunship and stealing that cargo ship.”

“Jevara came to see me on Pinnacle Station the day before I was to ship out with Deetz on this ship,” Doc continued. “She told me that while she could probably spare my life, she wasn’t going to. It was actually the first I learned that I wasn’t meant to survive my time at The Vault. She’d become a believer, even a zealot, and was convinced that total subjugation of the quadrant by the ConFed was the most logical course of action to bring everyone peace and prosperity. I was too great a risk to that to be left alive. When you met me, I was a shattered man. My only family had signed off on my death sentence at the hands of a sadistic thug with no more emotion than if she’d stepped on a bug.”

“This is all fascinating background, Doc,” Jason said, trying to maintain the anger he’d had when he first barged into the infirmary. “But you
knew
what that thing was when we found it on Solamea. You could have come to me then and explained everything.”

“I could have,” Doc agreed. “But what would you have wanted to do? You’re intelligent and brave, Jason, but you’re far too rash. I was delaying explaining things to you because if I could find a way to nullify these drones there would be no need for you to go in, guns blazing, into yet another hopeless situation. This will not be solved with plasma cannons and missiles.”

“Humor me,” Jason said. “What was your master plan? And for the record, I’m the captain ... you don’t get to save me from myself or withhold information from me for my own good. You tell me everything you know and advise me on the best course of action. You’ve put us all at risk with your dishonesty. Had you told me everything we could have probably avoided the mission to the
Diligent
. If you can’t handle that, well ... I’ve always said you’re free to leave any time you want.”

“That was a mistake on my part,” Doc admitted, bowing his head slightly. “As for my plan ... I knew there was no way these drones would be turned loose without some way to deactivate them. An emergency kill-switch, if you will. I surmised that it was likely hardwired into the brain, and I was correct. It’s a small, almost microscopic receiver that shuts down the autonomic nervous system when the correct code is transmitted by the handlers. It also destroys itself after the host body dies, leaving no evidence behind.”

“So how does that thing in your med bay still have one?” Twingo asked.

“It was never fully formed,” Doc said. “It never came online, so the receiver is still dormant. I’m not sure why it was even dropped onto Solamea with the others.”

“We can thank ConFed incompetence for that, most likely,” Kellea said.

“So tell us about the ship,” Twingo said.

“What ship?

“Yea, what ship?” Jason said, parroting Doc.

“Crisstof had files on hand regarding that enormous ship we saw on the
Diligent
op. The profiles match exactly, it’s definitely the same vessel,” Twingo said.

“I’m not aware of any ship, much less why it was in orbit around that planet,” Doc said. Twingo eyed him skeptically. “I’m serious, Twingo. I’ve been with you for the last few years! Even when I was involved, I barely knew anything, how would I know about a single, specific ship?”

“He has a point,” Jason said. “Just tell us what the ship is.”

“The short answer?
It’s a factory,” Twingo said. “It’s a complete production facility for the drones.”

“Fascinating,” Doc said. “I wonder if our attack on the research facility, along with getting the members of the syndicate to turn on each other, had anything to do with the decision to build it.”

“While I’d love to think so, the idea makes sense on a lot of levels,” Jason said. “There’s hardly anything more secure for illicit activity than a ship with a slip-drive.”

“There’s the wrinkle, Captain,” Twingo said. “It’s either one, or the other. It can’t produce clones and operate its slip-drive simultaneously. The energy requirement for the process must be simply enormous. They must do a run, move the ship, do another run, and so on. It explains why it didn’t even attempt to mesh-out when we attacked that detection grid.”

“It’s still quite a strategic advantage to be able to move your production facilities,” Jason said. “Hell, the thing will likely start churning out soldiers if the ConFed pulls off this plan. Once they’re in charge they’d have an endless supply of ground troops to keep the individual planets in line. Couple that with the psychological impact of those soldiers being the same species as the subjugated population on each world ... potent.”

“I had never even considered that possibility,” Doc said quietly after a moment.

“That certainly puts this into perspective,” Kellea said. “Before this was more about getting Crisstof, and in extension myself, cleared of these charges.”

“It also highlights another problem,” Jason said. “When it was
just
rescuing Kellea we were fine, and when it was
just
finding the evidence to help Crisstof we were fine, but we’re looking at a ConFed operation to basically take over the entire galaxy.”

“What do you mean?” Twingo asked.

“I mean that we may be a little unqualified to save the quadrant, to say nothing of being massively outgunned,” Jason said.

“It may be time to approach Steader Dalton now that we have something a lot more solid to go on,” Kellea said. “He has the full resources of Crisstof’s empire at his disposal and he has political contacts that may be useful.”

“Possibly,” Jason said, “but what he may also have is perspective. My first instinct is to simply expose this plan to all the independent systems that would be affected, but that could backfire. The ConFed Fleet is still the most powerful military force in the quadrant. If some of the more touchy species decided to go to war over this, things could get bloody on a massive scale, and quickly.”

“That is a salient point, Captain,” Doc said. “The worst thing we could do right now is to make things even more volatile.”

“This isn’t over between us,” Jason said, pointing a finger at Doc as he got out of his seat. “But we don’t have the luxury of time to deal with it and I can’t afford to be a man down. Get back to work on that thing in there and learn everything you can. The destruct code for the biodrones would be helpful.”

“I’ll return to work immediately,” Doc said, practically running out of the galley.

“Biodrones?” Twingo said. “Wow! They should ask you to write the sales brochure!”

“Bite me,” Jason said. “Kellea, keep going through the data we grabbed from the safe and then determine a good way to contact Steader Dalton. I still don’t want to use the
Phoenix’s
com node. When we go to meet him I’d rather not have a company of ConFed soldiers also waiting for us.”

“I’ll work with Kage to figure something out,” she said.

“Let’s keep the thing with Doc between us for the time being,” Jason told the two of them. “I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to handle it, and I’d rather not have the others involved or have an unneeded distraction at the moment. When this all settles down, assuming we survive, I’ll deal with it one way or another.”

“That sounds ominous,” Twingo said. “You do have to admit there were certain justifications for his actions.”

“This is the exact conversation I’m wanting to avoid with the other three,” Jason said. “Although Lucky probably heard every damn word since he’s just up on the bridge, I don’t want Crusher and Kage coming to me and pleading on Doc’s behalf. Let’s just get this job done and we’ll see what happens after that.”

“I’ve got the list you wanted,” Kellea said as she walked onto the bridge. “Here,” she leaned over Jason at the pilot’s station and tapped some commands on his left display to bring up the file. “These are the worlds based on Crisstof’s information that are most likely to have biodrone attacks within the next few weeks. Or months. It’s impossible to pinpoint it with any real degree of accuracy since a lot of his data was based on supposition. So what did you need this for?”

“It was just a hunch,” Jason said. “I was looking for patterns in the attacks, but we have too few incidents to really get a good view. If I add in the systems we think are likely to be attacked soon, the computer may be able to determine where the next hit will be with a greater degree of accuracy.”

“Do you think that will actually work?” she asked.

“Nope.
Not even a little bit,” he admitted. “But I’m one of the few here not really doing anything useful so this kills some time, and who knows, it may even dig up something.”

“Good luck with that,” she said, and walked back off the bridge.

“Kellea!” he called after her.

“Yes?” she said, poking her head back through the entryway.

“Did you figure out the best way to contact Crisstof’s son?”

“More or less,” she said, stepping fully back onto the bridge. “The exact planet doesn’t matter, but we’ll just pick a well-populated world and put a call in for a pickup.”

“A pickup?” Jason asked with concern. “Is that wise to actually expose yourself like that?”

“This is one of the few people we can trust, so—” she spread her hands wide as she trailed off. “I can’t hide out on your ship forever, Jason.”

“Just be careful,” he said. “If anything, this has taught us to be cautious of who we trust.” She just nodded and walked back off the bridge. Jason stared at the spot where she had been for a heartbeat longer and then turned back to tackle his expanded list.

*****

“This is actually quite good, Captain,” Kage said as he looked over the probability graph Jason had constructed hours before. The Veran had found it while sifting through the data dump Twingo had provided; it had stuck out due to the timestamp on the file.

“Don’t condescend to me, Kage, I’m in no mood,” Jason said.

“I’m not. You’ve gone beyond simple mathematic probability and have addressed a lot of the intangibles such as species temperament, system of government, and polling of public opinion on policy issues.” Jason decided to take Kage’s compliment at face value and explained his methodology.

“I assigned each intangible a variable in my equation,
then I used a scale of one through ten to give them values when the computer ran the simulation. Then I averaged the results and then tweaked those based on what I thought the computer was missing,” Jason explained.

“What was the distribution on those variables between simulations?”

“It depends, but usually not more than plus or minus two,” Jason said.

“Do you mind if I mess with this? I’d like to run it through a few other
sims that just popped into my head while I was looking at it,” Kage asked.

“Knock
yourself out,” Jason told him. “If you can narrow it down with any degree of confidence, that will do nothing but help. Speaking of helping ... how are we coming on getting Kellea in contact with Dalton’s First Son? She was underwhelming with the details when I asked.”

“Nothing much to say,” Kage answered, now becoming fully engrossed in his new task. “We need to find someplace where we can send a message from a public node to him and then have enough cover to hide in case ConFed Intel sends agents to comb the area. It’d also be preferable to be able to stand off and observe this guy landing. She seems to trust him completely, but I have my doubts.”

“Based on what?”

“He’s a politician from what I saw of his press statements,” Kage said. “While he may not be ready to turn on his First Father, at least not until he has the keys to the kingdom, I doubt that sense of loyalty extends to Crisstof’s employees.”

“I’m sure she’d be thrilled at being considered just one of Crisstof’s employees,” Jason chuckled.

“You know what I mean,” Kage said. “She was his right hand ...
you
know that, and
I
know that, but an outsider probably won’t make that distinction.”

“True enough,” Jason answered. “Just keep me up on what she’s planning.”

Jason hopped out of his seat and walked off the bridge, leaving only Kage to watch over things. He made his way to the main deck and towards the infirmary, now fully visible from the corridor. “Any progress?” he asked as the doors slid aside to let him in.

“No, Captain,” Doc answered. “I’ve isolated the carrier frequency the device is using, but trying to determine what it actually needs to receive on that frequency is a bit more challenging.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you the best person to be trying to figure that out?”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Doc asked coldly.

“Let me rephrase that,” Jason said. “Are you the most qualified to be trying to figure that out? This seems to be Kage’s area of expertise.” Doc let out a breath and put down the tablet computer he’d been holding.

“Probably,” he admitted. “But Kage has been tied up helping Kellea and Twingo. I was just trying to do as you asked.”

“I asked you to get the job done,” Jason corrected. “That means pulling in whatever resources you need. You’re still on the team right now, Doc. If that means you need Kage’s time, go ask him. Or come ask me to reprioritize him. If you think there’s a possibility this can work, we need to do everything we can to make it happen. If things go nowhere with Steader Dalton I’d like to have this as a backup option.”

“I understand,” Doc said. “While I have you here, I’d like to—”

“Let me stop you, Doc,” Jason said, holding his hand up. “We’ll talk about this later. I believe your explanation as to why you acted as you did, but I don’t know that I agree with it. You know how we live ... there’s no room for distrust or doubt. But then again, you’re a doctor, and this is all new to you.” Jason took a breath and looked around the infirmary at empty chroot mugs and trays from the galley. “I know you’re working hard at this ... let’s just focus on one thing at a time.”

He left Doc to continue hammering away at the problem and went to see what Crusher and Lucky were up to. Oddly enough, he found them deep in conversation with Kellea, educating her on the finer points of infantry tactics, something the starship captain was woefully ignorant about. Not wanting to get drawn into the lecture, he slid by and made his way to Engineering.

“Twingo! How are things?” he called.

“What?!”

“I said—” Jason looked and saw only a pair of boots sticking out of an access panel. He walked up to it and stuck his head inside. “I said, how are things?”

“Good, good,”
came the distracted answer. “Just doing the in-flight checks on the anti-matter generator and the containment cells.”

“Make sure you’re getting enough sleep,” Jason said to him. “You and Kellea pulled some long hours on that data dump. I want you getting some rack time before we’re back into the shit.”

“Will do, Captain.”

Jason left his engineer to his work and did a quick inspection of both the armory and the cargo bay before coming back up onto the main deck and heading for a few hours of rack time himself. He’d been an NCO in the military back on Earth, he’d led men in both wartime and during relative peace, and each had its own challenges. Commanding Omega Force was something he was immensely proud of, but in a lot of ways one of the easier things he’d ever done. Oh, the missions were unbelievably difficult and dangerous, but the members of his team didn’t need to be “managed”. They did what they needed to do to accomplish the mission each and every time.

Even Doc, if he were honest with himself, had been doing what he thought was best to deliver a successful outcome. It had been misguided, but Jason had to remind himself that Jorvren Ma’Fredich was a doctor and had never been through even the most basic military training. Putting himself in Doc’s shoes, he was actually surprised the man hadn’t completely fallen apart before now. Couple that with being pulled out of a cushy existence and stuck on a small military vessel for months on end ... Jason did have a lot to consider before making a final decision on where Doc’s future in Omega Force stood.