Omega Force 7: Redemption (14 page)

"Creepy," he said.

"The drug is quite potent," Crusher agreed. "You recognize that name, right?"

"Vyrt? Yeah, but he can't mean the same thing we're thinking of," Jason said. "That doesn't make any sense."

"It's an Auk'irt word for 'dirt' or 'soil' so it could either mean the planet we're thinking of or it could mean
any
planet an Auk'irt was referring to and that's what the translation came out to," Crusher said. "But it's still a place to start."

"Maybe," Jason said doubtfully. "But why would an Auk'irt be involved? That makes even less sense than taking the netjere to Vyrt. They're literally an endangered species from what I understand."

"Do you have any better leads?" Crusher asked.

"Fine, I guess we're going to ... Wait! Ask him what sort of tracker he put on that ship's hull," Jason said excitedly.

"Ah!" Crusher said, nodding his agreement before leaning back down to his captive. "What type of tracker did you place on the ship?"

"DST-501," the agent said. "It is capable of transmitting a signal while the ship is in slip-space and utilizing the ship's own engines to get a signal out."

"Impressive," Jason muttered.

"You will provide us with the access codes for the tracker's transmissions," Crusher said, waving the orderly back in and miming that he needed something to write on. The orderly pulled a generic tablet of his cart and passed it to Jason so he could hand it to Crusher.

The agent grabbed the tablet and punched in a seventeen digit numeric sequence before handing it back. "The code will do you no good without the listening station decryption routines," he said. "We are not provided those." Crusher looked at Jason questioningly and Jason nodded back to him that he had everything they needed.

"You have been very helpful," Crusher said to the agent. "You may now go to sleep."

"Thank you," the agent said before simply falling over onto the bunk. He appeared to be sound asleep even though his neck was bent at an odd angle.

"See to him," Crusher said to the orderly.

"Yes, my lord," the orderly said quickly, giving away where his political loyalties lie. Jason quickly memorized the code with the help of his implant and then wiped the tablets memory before tossing it back on the cart. He and Crusher remained silent until they were outside and walking towards the car.

"Will Kage be able to break that encryption?" Crusher asked.

"It's a ConFed Intel code, but fairly low level I would assume since it's only broadcasting a position of non-ConFed assets," Jason said. "I don't think he'll have any trouble."

"So where to first? Find the ship or Vyrt?

"I think finding the ship should be the first priority," Jason said. "I can't afford a wild goose chase to a place like Vyrt without something a little more concrete."

"That makes sense," Crusher said. "The landing gear on the
Phoenix
should be fixed by now. It would probably be best to get out of here before Crisstof finds out you have a solid lead."

"Kicking us off the planet so soon?" Jason joked.

"No," Crusher said seriously. "I'm going with you. I'll meet you at the hangar in one hour." Jason stared at Crusher's departing back for a moment, slack jawed.

"Well, I guess the band is back together," he said to himself as he walked to the waiting car that would deposit him back at his room.

****

"Dinner was delightful," Crisstof said idly as he walked out onto the veranda. "It's amazing how cosmopolitan Galvetor has become in such a short time."

"I suppose," Kellea said without much interest.

"You could always just go to the boarding hall they're staying in," Crisstof said, her indifference very obvious even to someone as preoccupied as him.

"I mean no offense when I say this, but I have no intentions of discussing my personal life with my employer," she said respectfully. "Even one as close as you."

"Understood," Crisstof said, sipping from his glass. He seemed oddly unconcerned given the events of the day, and that automatically made Kellea suspicious. Before she could question him further a familiar rumble reached her ears and seemed to be coming from the auxiliary spaceport that was just outside the capital limits.

Her instincts proved correct when an explosive
BOOM
rolled across the quiet night and the telltale sight of four plasma engines spewing fire rose into the night sky. As she watched, the
Phoenix
wheeled over and came back across the city, giving a little shimmy as her engines slammed to full power. The big gunship thundered over the quiet capital before pulling up sharply and climbing into the night sky, still shaking the windows and rattling their teeth even after Kellea and Crisstof had lost sight of her. When she looked over at the older a man she saw a slight smile playing over his lips.

"Always the exhibitionist," Crisstof said. "I suppose that was meant to impress you or insult me."

"You planned this," Kellea said flatly.

"Not precisely, but Captain Burke operates along some fairly set probability lines," Crisstof said.

"Explain."

"When Burke wouldn't hand over the First Attendant to us on S'tora we predicted that he would come here and try to get Felex's help," Crisstof said. "When he refused to hand her over even here it eliminated all but one possibility: he was going after the netjere himself."

"How could you possibly predict that so accurately?" she asked.

"Because despite everything they've been through and the hardships they've suffered ... they're heroes and they can't help the things they do," Crisstof said without a trace of irony. "They were always going to try and save the day ... all they needed was a nudge. Goodnight, Captain." Kellea watched her boss depart, not sure if she should be impressed or revolted at how easily he'd manipulated the situation.

"So Omega Force is back," she said quietly to the night sky. "May the Gods have mercy on whoever is holding that Avarian princess."

"Subtle," Kage said as the
Phoenix
clawed her way up out of Galvetor's gravity well. "Did you want to fire a tactical nuke at Restaria to make sure they know we're leaving as well?"

"Just having a little fun. When did you turn into such a stick in the mud?" Jason asked.

"Stick in the mud," Kage said, frowning. "Is that yet another human expression that has something to do with your excrement?"

"What? No," Jason said. "Literally mud. But other than that, I'm not sure how to explain it. It means stop acting like such an old woman."

"Ah," Kage said, going back to the decryption he was already working on. "Have you noticed that as a species you have an unwholesome fascination with your own—"

"How's the code slicing coming?" Jason asked, cutting off the line of conversation.

"Seems fairly straight forward," Kage said. "Picking up the slip-space signal from the tracker was easy enough ... the first six digits were the unique address. The other eleven are part of a standard handshake encryption. I think the agent was being honest; this looks pretty low level."

"He had no choice but to be honest with Crusher's zombie drug," Jason said. "That was creepy watching someone spill their guts without really being aware of it."

"It could be fun to get a couple vials of that stuff for parties," Kage said.

"No thanks," Jason said. "There are things that have happened on this ship, and likely to me, that I don't ever want to know about."

"You have no idea," Kage said with a disturbing laugh. "Remember when you thought that—"

"What did I just say?" Jason snapped. "I have no desire to know what you degenerates did to me in my sleep or put in my food."

"Good guesses," Kage nodded.

Jason just sighed and switched over to the grav-drive for the flight to the edge of the Galvetor System, all manner of disgusting possibilities running though his mind, each more horrific than the last until his skin crawled.

"I'm going to go take a shower," he said suddenly. "And brush my teeth. The computer can fly the ship to the mesh-out point."

Kage just stared at him like he'd lost his mind as he fled the bridge and made a direct line for his quarters.

****

"It looks like we're heading to Vyrt after all," Jason said as he gathered everyone in the lounge area. It was still strange how pristinely the damage control bots had maintained the ship; even after two and a half years it felt (and unfortunately smelled) like the day he'd left it in that smuggler's hangar.

"Kage was able to capture three complete burst transmissions from the ConFed agent's tracker and put together a fairly complete picture of where the ship had been travelling. There were six short-duration stops at Vyrt, likely resupply drops."

"Am I to understand Vyrt is not a desirable place to be?" Kalette asked after the chorus of groans at the mention of the planet.

"It's about as bad as you can get," Crusher said. "The planet's indigenous population was practically wiped out in a biological attack some three hundred years ago. That left a mostly abandoned world that came complete with hundreds of cities and an existing infrastructure."

"Sounds like a colonist’s dream," Jason said, "but what ended up happening was a series of bloody wars for control of the planet. The sad irony is that in addition to the loss of life the wars to obtain Vyrt completely destroyed the world. It's now nothing but a collection of ruins and fortified enclaves populated by pirates, thieves, and killers. ConFed troops leave it alone and even hardened mercenaries think twice about taking jobs there."

"So of course, we're now flying towards it as fast as we can," Crusher finished.

"You think the netjere could be at this awful place?" Kalette asked in obvious distress.

"The evidence suggests she is, and it does make a lot of sense," Doc said. "It's going to be difficult to find her on an entire planet."

"Not necessarily," Kage said, smiling at Kalette. "Would you like to tell them, or should I?"

"I do not know what you mean," Kalette said.

"Of course," Kage snorted.

"Kage," Jason said in a warning tone. "Spit it out."

"Did you ever stop and think why everyone was burning so much energy trying to find the First Attendant when it would be just as useful to directly look for the netjere?" Kage asked. The Veran had an irritating habit of "lecturing" when he'd figured out something the others hadn't or had information he knew they desperately wanted.

"Because she'd seen the abductors," Jason said impatiently.

"So? Getting eyes on some paid thugs doesn't accomplish much," Kage said.

"You will either tell us what you know, or I will pull your lower arms off," Crusher said calmly.

"Nice to have you back," Kage said sourly, hurrying on when Crusher started to get out of his seat. "Okay! I started detecting some strange pings far up the EM band, just into the terahertz radiation portion. At first I assumed my implants were malfunctioning, but a full diagnostic came back with nothing. So I started trying to pinpoint the source and found that it was our new friend here. She has a very specialized organic implant that is sending out pulses, probably waiting for some sort of reply."

"Kalette?" Jason asked.

"It is true," she admitted. "I have a device under the skin, near my spine that can act as both a homing beacon and a distress call. The range is quite limited, however."

"That's what threw me off," Kage nodded. "This is operating in a part of the band that isn't normally utilized for communications. Most short-range radio is in the thirty gigahertz range and anything long-haul is over optical cable or slip-com node if it's leaving the planet."

"So they put it in a portion of the band that nobody would likely scan for, even in the event of an abduction," Jason said.

"Right," Kage confirmed. "If we can get her over the planet I can have the
Phoenix's
sensors listening for the specific reply frequency. It should narrow it down to a couple square kilometers."

"Not great on a planet like that, but much better than searching the entire surface for months," Twingo said. "I assume you have the precise frequency and modulation for the netjere's implant?"

"Yes," Kalette said. "I can provide you with that information when the time comes."

"That settles it then," Jason said, standing up. "Twingo, continue getting the ship back up to one hundred percent. Lucky, you and Crusher prep the gear for a surface excursion."

"Are we packing for stealth or firepower?" Crusher asked as he stood up.

"Use your own judgment," Jason said. "While I don't intend to go down there and start a fight, we have to be able to defend ourselves and secure the release of the netjere."

"Will only six of you be able to get her back safely?" Kalette asked.

"Three of us, actually," Jason said. "And we won't know until we get some eyes on her and whoever is holding her. I will promise you that we won't do anything that puts her in further danger."

"That will have to do, I suppose," she said doubtfully as she eyed the mismatched crew. As everyone began to drift off to start on their individual tasks Kalette stayed behind and Jason could tell she had something else she wanted to say.

"I apologize for withholding information about the tracking implants," she said. "That is a highly guarded secret and I couldn't risk letting the information out early."

"Understood," Jason said. "I would have done the same thing in your place. I'm not going to interrogate your or pry for information; we're doing this for your benefit as well as to try and stop any potential military action from the Empire, but I hope you'll make sure we know everything you do when the time comes."

"Of course," she said with a slight bow.

Jason patted her on the shoulder without thinking as he walked off towards the bridge, leaving her standing in the lounge a bit wide-eyed at the casual contact.

For the next four days the crew stayed extremely busy as they prepared the ship, and themselves, for action. Jason marveled at how quickly Crusher was able to whip himself back into shape with just some rudimentary equipment Twingo built for him in the cargo bay and by hours of what looked like the most violent style of yoga in the galaxy. Each day, for most of the day, he would punish himself with increasingly brutal regimens of physical training and sparring with a tireless Lucky. There was also the added benefit of their respective activities keeping them apart for most of the flight. Despite having settled things on Galvetor there was still a noticeable tension in the air when they were around each other.

As Crusher quickly morphed back into his more familiar and imposing form, Jason took the time to refamiliarize himself with the contents of the armory. His previous job had been boring, but it did have the benefit of markedly less violence directed at him or his ship. From what he'd been able to learn about Vyrt, he wasn't fully comfortable going down without armor, or at least a more complete protective system than the simple hard shell body armor he'd been wearing recently.

His advanced (and very expensive) powered armor that he'd most recently purchased had been jettisoned in dozens of pieces during the mission to recover the Machine, an ancient weapon of almost limitless power, and he hadn't replaced it since the crew had split up shortly after that trip. After a few moments of thought he opened up one of the rarely used storage lockers and pulled out a long, low crate that was so heavy he was grunting and sweating trying to maneuver it over by the bench. He popped open the lid and looked down on a suit of powered armor that, while a bit outdated, still offered excellent protection.

The armor was a direct replacement for the unit he’d lost while doing a job for the Eshquarian Empire. It was actually a bit better since it was customized for his frame size, whereas the other one was too big to just enough of a degree that it would rub his joints raw. He gave an involuntary shudder upon recalling the mission in which they’d stopped a group of lunatics from dropping an orbital platform onto a populated planet and flicked on the display on the inside of the lid to check the armor's status.

Everything appeared to be more or less intact, but the power levels were surprisingly low for something that had been sitting dormant for so many years. There had to be a minute draw somewhere that had been bleeding the power unit down. He spun the handle at the end of the case to turn the armor over onto its face so that he could open the access panel on the back and pull the depleted powerpack and take it to the starboard engineering bay for recharging. After verifying that the secondary backup cell was fully charged, he ran a power cable from the case to the work bench and had the suit enter a full diagnostic and calibration cycle.

As he was about to leave the armory he felt the telltale shudder of the
Phoenix
dropping out of slip-space, but it wasn't accompanied by any alarmed or panicked screams from his crew. He set the powerpack down and walked out into the port engineering bay in time to see Twingo cursing up a storm and pulling an EVA suit out of a locker.

"Trouble?" Jason asked.

"Probably," Twingo said. "I've been detecting a slight anomaly in our slip-space signature ever since departing Galvetor that I can't account for. After hearing about the tracker the agent that you and Crusher questioned used and how it worked it occurred to me that we could be carrying a similar device."

"How could someone plant a tracker on the hull with the security measures active?" Jason asked.

"They weren't active while that gelten crew was helping me repair the landing gear," Twingo said. "They had a good five hours of unfettered access to the aft end of the ship."

"Damn," Jason muttered. "How long until you can clear the ship?"

"Not long," Twingo said, waving Jason over to help him into the EVA suit. "I'll take Lucky with me and we'll each cover half the ship."

"Try to bring it back intact if that's possible," Jason said, handing Twingo the helmet and the scanner he'd had on the bench next to it. "Kage might be able to dig into it and find out who it belongs to."

"How will that help?"

"It will determine what our response will be," Jason said. "If it's ConFed or Galvetic in origin we'll just toss it into the recycler. If it came from the
Defiant
we're going to have ourselves a little fun first."

"I'll try to bring it back in one piece, but if it looks booby trapped I'm just going to let Lucky blast it off the hull," Twingo said, slamming his helmet down into place and locking it. Jason followed him out to the cargo bay where Lucky already had the rear ramp lowered and was waiting. Crusher walked up beside him, drenched in sweat, as the pair walked through the shimmering atmospheric barrier and out into the black of interstellar space. Jason had done a few spacewalks while they were floating between the stars and it was never something he was completely comfortable with.

"There will be hell to pay if there is a tracker on the ship and it turns out to have come from our intel service," Crusher said.

"It's possible one of your guys did it out of habit," Jason said, "but I think we both know who this belongs to. Crisstof likely hired someone on that work crew to slap it onto the hull."