Omega Force: Savage Homecoming (21 page)

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.