Omega Force 7: Redemption (25 page)

"Thank you, Jason," she said. "You have given me clarity in this issue."

"First time for everything," Jason shrugged, standing to leave. She reached across the table and grabbed both his hands.

"Stay for a while longer, please," she said. Jason wordlessly slid back down into the seat.

"Remember when this used to be a combat vessel?" Crusher remarked as he and Lucky walked by.

"This plan sounds like it carries great risk, Captain," Annada said. Jason had begun to notice she used his first name and rank interchangeably depending on how irritated she was with him at that particular moment.

"Minimal risk," he corrected. "She'll simply be sending a message, but it has to be her, and it has to be believable."

"I am willing to do this," Kalette said quietly. "Please, netjere ... this is something I have to do." Annada remained quiet, but still didn't look happy about the idea.

"Essentially, we need to find out how connected all the players are," Kage continued the briefing. "If you contact Vulem, our hope is that he will reach out to Crisstof Dalton. His actions will help us determine where the ConFed stands in all of this. Dalton will either react directly, reach out to his ConFed contacts, or both."

"Only once we have more of a firm grasp on the situation on Avaris will I be comfortable taking the netjere back home," Jason said. "Otherwise we may well be delivering her to her executioners."

"And what of her family?" Annada asked.

"We take out Vulem, we save her family," Crusher said, looking at Jason meaningfully. They both knew that Vulem was smart enough to have a failsafe that they were likely going to be unable to stop. The odds were great that Kalette's family was going to be killed no matter what they did, or didn't do. It was tragic and a decision that Jason wasn't happy about making, but it made no sense to put three people above the safety and stability of an entire empire or the millions that would die if the Empire and ConFed went to war.

"When do we start?" Kalette asked.

"Kage and Doc are going to work with you to craft the message, and then we'll figure out the best way to contact Vulem," Jason said. "The sooner we get started the better. If we can push Vulem into making a move we should see it quickly through our downlink from the
Defiant
."

"Would Crisstof Dalton actually bring an unaffiliated, privately owned warship into Avarian space?" Annada asked after the three had left for the bridge to work on the message.

"The
Defiant
was built from the ground up for his purposes," Jason said. "As such, she can look as innocent as a well-equipped trade ship when he wants it to even though she's a full-fledged battlecruiser."

"Did it ever occur to you to question the motives of a man who owns ships like that?" she asked. "Especially when you work for him?" He didn't answer as she climbed out of her seat and went to the bridge herself, likely to make sure Kalette wasn't being talked into something that would put her or her family in even more danger.

Had he been completely blind to Crisstof's obvious ambition all these years? Looking back all the way to when the older man had first hired him Jason had to admit that he’d still been a fresh, naive Earthling that had been impressed with his clout and sense of purpose. The fact that Crisstof had generously paid (and overpaid) for their services and covered their operating expenses hadn't hurt either. The uncomfortable truth was that Omega Force may have been acting as Crisstof Dalton's attack dog for all this time, giving him plausible deniability while still accomplishing his goals.

Jason wanted to believe this wasn't the case, and he knew that they'd helped countless people on their own when they weren't working directly for Crisstof, but the evidence was mounting that there was much more to the old man's actions than simple altruism and charity. The sad thing was the evidence has been in front of his face the entire time. How does a man amass and maintain such a vast fortune if the only thing he's doing is flying from system to system righting wrongs? Omega Force had tried that on a nano-scale by themselves when they'd first acquired the gunship and they'd gone broke within the space of two months. He also began looking back at the fact Crisstof seemed to have very well-placed connections within a lot of governments, enough so that he was able to put considerable pressure on them, and all the while Jason had never really gotten a peek behind the curtain at the man's shadowy organization.

****

"I don't have much time," Kalette said. "It is night hours on their ship, but they have someone on the bridge at all times."

"And where are you now?" Chancellor Vulem asked.

"I snuck into what looks like a dedicated com room," she whispered. "They've been giving us more free access to the ship over the last few days."

"What is it they want?"

"I do not know," Kalette said, her voice taking on a convincing desperate edge. "I don't even know who they are."

"Why would you risk contacting me?" Vulem hissed.

"You're the only person I know to contact," she cried. "Please ... my family—”

"Is alive for the moment," Vulem said. "Now where are they going? Do you at least know that much?"

"They said something about knowing who to sell us back to," Kalette said. "I couldn't make it all out, but it sounds like they intend to hold the netjere for ransom and try to make contact with the Sovereign."

"That is not what I asked," Vulem said. "Answer quickly or I will terminate this channel and then do the same to your younger sibling."

"No!" she whispered sharply. "All I know is that one of them mentioned having an associate on a planet that was almost completely covered in rainforest that could hide them."

"They said that specifically?" Vulem pressed, leaning forward. "Mostly rainforest?"

"Yes," Kalette said. "I heard that for certain." For effect she leaned back in her seat and looked around frantically.

"Keep the netjere alive," Vulem said, making it sound like a threat. He killed the channel on his end and the display went blank.

"Not bad!" Jason said enthusiastically. "I bought it." The others were all crowded around the entrance to the com room and nodding their approval as well.

"Thank you," Kalette said. "Let us hope that he did as well."

"Have you ever been to Kekisha?" Twingo asked.

"No," she admitted. "But it is quite famous for its rainforest and it is the only planet like it within a few hundred lightyears."

"I think he'll figure it out," Jason said. "Now we sit back while and wait for him to reach out to Crisstof ... if he does."

"And if he doesn't?" Doc asked.

"We've got bigger problems," Jason said. "We'll burn that bridge down when we get to it. Set a new course for Kekisha. We wouldn't want to be late for the party." The
Phoenix
came onto a new course, still in slip-space, and began the short flight to the Kekisha System and hopefully some answers.

They didn't have to wait long. Crisstof's personal com node was getting an incoming channel request within the hour from an address that seemed to be coming from within Imperial space, though the method for determining that was a bit imprecise.

"Here it goes," Kage said. "We'll see how well my tap on his system works. The video won't be the greatest since I'm trying to keep the bandwidth to a minimum."

"Shh," Jason hissed as the monitor resolved to show the grainy images of both Crisstof and Vulem in split screen.

"Chancellor Vulem," Crisstof said with a nod. "Am I to understand you've found your wayward princess?"

"Not quite, Mr. Dalton," Velum said. "Your former employees have led us on quite the chase since pulling her away from that group of mercenaries. They have still made no contact with you?"

"They do not work for me anymore," Crisstof said. "I was unable to convince them to help me with this, so for right now they're an unpredictable element."

"I have received information that they intend to hide on a planet called Kekisha, a planet well within our borders," Vulem said. "It appears they are trying to ransom the netjere back to the Sovereign, but it will be difficult for them to make contact with anyone in the Capital without help. We still have time."

"Your source of information is reliable?" Crisstof said. "Please be aware that this team has a talent for not only escaping trouble but turning up when they are least expected or wanted."

"My source is reliable," Vulem said. "She was compromised long before the netjere was abducted. But I cannot divert any significant forces to the area without alerting someone in the Defense Ministry. Everyone is at a heightened state of alert since the incident."

"I understand," Crisstof said. "I'll order the
Defiant
to alter course once you send me the planetary coordinates."

"What about this group that has the netjere currently?" Vulem said. "They know far too much to be allowed to escape even if we recover her."

"Agreed," Crisstof sighed, seeming to be in physical discomfort. "I will admit that it pains me greatly, but they may have finally got themselves involved in something they can't be allowed to walk away from."

"Thanks, dick," Jason said.

"Shhh!" Twingo said from behind him.

"Do not waver in this, Mr. Dalton," Vulem warned. "We are both inextricably tied to this thing. It will either succeed or it will sink us both."

"I will take care of my end," Crisstof said. "You make sure all lines of communication to the Sovereign are controlled."

"I am sending you the coordinates now," Vulem said. "I am including a route around the frontier listening post. Your ConFed ships should have no problems getting into Avarian space."

"Very good," Crisstof said, nodding. "I will send my captain the new course and be there as quickly as possible. Do not risk contacting me again unless it's an emergency." Both of them terminated their channels and the monitor went black.

"Good to know where we stand with him," Crusher said. "I'm somehow not surprised he wouldn't help you find me after seeing that."

"Crisstof would shit if he knew we'd used a backdoor to bypass all his carefully placed encryption and security protocols and have him on video colluding with Vulem," Jason laughed. "What is this guy a Chancellor of, by the way?"

"A cluster of planets that was absorbed into the Empire nearly a century ago," Annada said. "It's an honorary title when it comes to any actual power, but the planets were strategically important and the gesture has made their transition into the fold smoother. I would imagine after Vulem dies he will not be replaced."

"So he has no actual authority," Jason mused, tapping his chin. "He can't command your military, I would assume?"

"No."

"Does he have his own honor guard?" Jason asked. "A small group of ships from his homeworld that are mostly ceremonial that are in orbit over Avaris?"

"Yes," Annada nodded. "There are four cruisers, not very modern, that ferry him from Avaris to his homeworld."

"And if he redeployed them all to Kekisha someone would notice," Twingo said. "Your father's intelligence service would at the very least follow him."

"This is true," she confirmed. "He normally only leaves on one of the ships."

"So we'll be staring down the barrel of an outdated cruiser, two ConFed ships, and a modern battlecruiser with the captain's vengeful ex-girlfriend in command," Kage said, drawing a sharp look from Jason who was in turn drawing an equally unfriendly look from Annada.

"She's not all that vengeful," Jason said lamely. "I can almost guarantee she probably won't shoot us out of the sky ... most likely."

"That's okay, Captain," Kage said with a smile. "I've got a little surprise for her."

"How far out from Kekisha are we?" Doc asked.

"Another two days at our current speed," Kage said. "We're just now crossing into Avarian space."

"And where is the
Defiant
?" Jason asked.

"Six days behind us," Kage said.

"They're making good time," Jason said. "But we'll still have quite a while to get set up and wait for them."

"Do we know exactly what we're going to do when they show up?" Crusher asked.

"More or less," Jason said. "But we've got a few days to figure all that out."

****

The Kekisha System was mostly devoid of spacecraft traffic or artificial constructs. It was one of the main reasons they'd fed the location to Vulem: it was a plausible hideout while also being remote enough that he would feel the risk was low for a military interdiction. The
Phoenix's
countermeasures suite was more than adequate to keep them hidden from the system's few traffic control and identification systems.

"Begin a passive scan of surrounding space," Jason said. "I want to find a good hiding place to sit and watch the fireworks."

"There are five moons orbiting the planet," Doc said. "One looks like it suffered a serious meteor impact."

"Correct," Kalette said. "The second largest moon was struck so hard nearly one third of its mass was sheared away. The debris now follows along behind it in a long trail. It's a noted navigational hazard when approaching Kekisha."

"Damn, that is a hard hit," Jason whistled. "What's that moon's composition? It shouldn't have even survived a hit like that at all."

"Spectrometer shows it to be mostly iron ore," Kage said. "That's confirmed by the moon's orbital velocity and distance from the planet."