Omega Rising (10 page)

As with his new weapon, he should have known that any armor that had been produced by the ship's miraculous fabricators would have next to nothing in common with the clunky plate armor of his recent past. When the door to the locker slid back into the wall he was looking at what closely resembled the lightweight chest protector a motocross racer might wear, albeit with a little more coverage. It also looked to be made of some sort of composite material and reflected the light oddly as he viewed it from different angles. Jason stood patiently and waited for Deetz to explain the apparatus to him.

              “It’ll protect against moderate impacts and also has an ablative layer that should protect against most energy weapon blasts that you’d expect to encounter on this planet,” Deetz was saying.
Should? Not sure I like the sound of that.
Jason kept his misgivings to himself as the synth helped him into the armor. He was quite pleased at not only the diminutive weight but the full range of motion it allowed. The outfit included not only the chest protector and pauldrons but a set of hard-shell gloves, forearm, and thigh protectors that strapped on. He looked at himself in the full length mirror that was in the armory and was immensely happy with the overall effect. The dark grey of his new “uniform” went well with the shimmering darker grey/black of the armor. While he was a firm believer in form over function, every warrior still liked to look like a badass. “If you’re happy with the fit, there’s one more thing we need to take care of,” Deetz continued, walking over to another touchpanel terminal that looked like it had been added to the bulkhead as an afterthought.

“This terminal, for lack of a better term, is the ship’s vault. I’ll need to add you to the access list in order for you to be able to authorize payment for our cargo delivery and secure its release, this is the main reason you’re here.” Deetz had activated the terminal and then spoke aloud to the ship’s computer, “Computer, please add Jason Burke to the crew manifest and grant access to the treasury terminal.”

              “Jason Burke, human.” After a moment the computer asked, “What rank will be assigned to Crewman Burke?” At this Deetz paused and looked at Jason speculatively.

              “First Officer.”

              “Confirmed. Commander Burke has been added to the crew manifest and has been given the appropriate levels of clearance to the armory, engineering, and treasury.” As the computer called him Commander Burke a thrill went up Jason’s spine and all of the sudden he was eight years old again; Jason Burke, Space Commander. He smiled to himself as he enjoyed a moment of pure, adolescent joy.

              “There. That should grant you enough privilege to perform your task.” Deetz had a knack for ruining a moment.

              “Thanks,” Jason said drily, slinging his weapon over his right shoulder.

              Commander Burke followed Deetz to a door other than the one they had walked in through, this one was quite a bit larger and much more formidable in its construction. Once it was keyed open Jason immediately recognized the ship’s cargo bay; this was the lower door he had seen earlier that he couldn’t open during his subsequent trips into the hold. That made sense now, it was direct access to the armory from the cargo bay and rear loading ramp.

After the pressure was normalized to outside ambient (slightly lower than what it had been during the flight) and the ramp began to lower Jason’s excitement was dampened by the wash of smell that assailed him from the open cargo bay door. It had a sickly sweet tang to it that was quite strong. Deetz looked over and explained, “Every planet has its own unique smell, some more pleasant than others. You get used to it after a of couple hours.” The pair walked down the ramp and onto the tarmac. Looking around the space port, Jason couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity between it and any modern airport you would see on Earth, complete with an elevated control tower. He wondered if he should be armed or not, but Deetz had made no move to stop him as he walked out of the armory with the new rail gun.

              “I need to go and secure delivery of our cargo. It would be expected that I would be the one to go and handle the details,” Deetz explained. “I’ll be back well before it arrives and will talk you through what you need to do to both accept it and make the payment. I’ve also scheduled engineering services to come out and complete the repairs on the drive emitters and slip reactor. Again, I'm sure I’ll beat them back. For now, just stay here at the foot of the ramp or inside the cargo bay and try to look like you belong here.” The synth then turned and walked towards an approaching vehicle that looked oddly similar to an oversized golf cart. Once the vehicle drove off and was out of sight Jason walked the perimeter of the ship, both as a security sweep and to get a complete 36
0˚
view of the area.

              He was beginning to get bored of walking around the cargo bay when a loud yell from the bottom of the ramp nearly made him jump out of his skin. He turned and saw a strange little being staring at him with large, black eyes and hesitantly waving at him with a six-fingered hand. Despite having been on the ship for awhile, and talking to Deetz for hours about alien cultures, seeing his first biological alien in the flesh set his heart to pounding. Trying to appear like this was old hat to him, he gave a friendly wave and walked over to the little guy.
Gal?
“Hello there, can I help you?” The being’s oversized, pointed ears fluttered like bird wings and it cocked its head to one side. It then answered in a language that Jason had not a prayer of trying to decipher.
Oh boy…

             
Now that he was closer, Jason could see that though it was short, the alien was solidly built and had a bluish, mottled skin. It had a small mouth and a nose that was not nearly as prominent on its face as Jason’s own. Despite the exotic color and appendages, it didn’t look
that
alien, bipedal, bilateral symmetry, and sporting a set of black coveralls that looked like they belonged on any mechanic.
Mechanic… shit, the engineering service.
The being eyed Jason’s rifle nervously and repeated the noise it had made before. When the human shook his head helplessly it tapped at its own ear and then pointed to Jason’s ear. Not understanding the meaning, Jason dumbly shook his head again, wondering if the universal head shake for “negative” was really all that universal. The alien approached and peeked around both sides of his head before emitting another bizarre sound and walking back down the ramp and out of the ship.

Following it outside, Jason saw it had arrived in what looked to be a work vehicle. It pressed a couple buttons and the side began to fold up and over revealing a work bench and rows of tools. After fishing around in one of the open top bins for a second it walked back towards Jason with something in its hand, the whole time still jabbering away in its own language, punctuating certain words with a flutter of its ears. He handed the device to Jason and then pointed at his ear again. Understanding what he wanted, Jason held the device up to his ear. As soon as it made contact he could feel it begin to meld around his ear shape until it was securely in place. After this, the alien waved for Jason to follow him back into the ship.

Marching up to the terminal by the door, it pressed a spot on the screen and talked up into the air. Almost immediately the computer responded, but to Jason. “Commander Burke, stand by while the interpreter unit is uploaded with the human-English language translation matrix.” The device in his ear beeped softly.

              “Better?” The voice in the earpiece was imposed over the alien’s actual vocalizations, the effect was a bit disconcerting.

              “I can understand you, if that’s what you mean,” Jason answered, realizing for the first time how completely unprepared he was for this moment. Deetz had given him no instructions regarding etiquette or what could be considered as an insult.

              “Ah! That’s better! My name is Twingo, I’m the engineer that’s been dispatched to take a look at your grav emitters and slip reactor.” Now that the translation was coming through, Jason sensed a prominent gregariousness to Twingo’s personality. He was still talking a mile a minute as he looked around the cargo bay. “Haven’t seen anything like this around here in a while, not too much call for gunships anymore this far out in the spiral arm. Looks like she’s taken a bit of a beating. Ha! So what’s the other guy look like?” Jason noticed that the ear flutters seemed to emphasize certain points he was trying to make.
Still seems like a he anyway.
Twingo walked up to the terminal without waiting for an answer to his questions and began plugging away at it. Unlike when Jason first touched it that night and it locked him out, it responded immediately and began displaying menus that the engineer could navigate through. He consulted with the terminal in the cargo bay as well as a tablet computer he held in his right hand, harrumphing to himself occasionally as he poured through the scrolling displays.

It was a good five minutes later when Twingo switched off his own tablet and looked at Jason. “No problem! Need to realign the emitters and then calibrate the fuel flow to the reactor. Your output was so low because the matter-antimatter ratio is off, that will kick the reactor into an emergency safe mode that can’t be overridden until a full calibration is performed.” Jason wasn’t aware the reactor output was low. Or how it worked. Or where it was. So, he just nodded and smiled knowingly.

“So it’s something you see a lot?” He asked the question more to feel a part of the process than any real curiosity about Twingo’s workload. The engineer, however, took the question very seriously and in an eerily familiar way looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his chin while he thought it through. Jason saw that the six-fingered hand actually had two opposable thumbs, one on each side of the four other digits.

“Not on something like this. We get our fair share of clunkers and scows that the prospectors in the area try to keep in flying order, but most people with a warship this expensive already have an engineer as part of the crew.” Jason pointedly ignored the unasked question so Twingo continued on, “I didn’t get your name anyway… it looks like you’re not from around here, what manner of creature are you?” Jason could tell the question was intended with good humor, so he took no offense at the word “creature”.

“My name is Jason Burke. I’m a human, although I doubt you’ve seen any of my kind before.” He didn’t elaborate on much more than that. He keenly felt his responsibility to keep Earth a closely guarded secret.

“Human, eh? Can’t say that I have. Two names as well? Interesting. Anyway, from your lack of implants I assume you’re new to the space game?” Twingo didn’t press him more about his origins as the unlikely pair walked back down the ramp towards the engineer’s vehicle.

“Implants?”

“Yeah, you know… computer interface implants, translator implants, memory implants. All manner of gizmos you can have installed into yourself nowadays. I myself just had my eyes done so I can see in an expanded spectrum, great for my line of work although I had a week of terrible headaches afterwards.” Jason was fascinated by the idea, although he was now wondering why Deetz had neglected to give him a translation device before he left. The ship certainly had to have a couple onboard. Hell, the one he currently wore was rattling around in someone’s toolbox a short while ago.

The two passed the time with idle chatter as they waited for the specialized equipment and personnel Twingo needed to affect repairs to the gunship.
Soon, another vehicle hummed to a stop next to the ship, this one about the size of a tractor trailer from America. Two beings jumped out of the front dressed similarly to Twingo, one was obviously the same species while the other was something different. All its exposed skin was covered with a sleek looking grayish fur so it was difficult for Jason to make out any real detail. Both nodded respectfully to Jason and then went directly to Twingo for instructions. Out of habit Jason was resting his right hand on the grip of the weapon slung around his shoulder, he realized that this may be taken as a threatening posture so he removed his hand and adjusted the sling so the railgun now hung down and slightly behind him. His instincts proved correct as both of the newcomers visibly relaxed and went back to talking to Twingo and looking at technical schematics on the tablet.

The work was well under way when Deetz finally made an appearance. Even with a metallic face and no clothes, the synth looked frazzled and worried. This in turn tightened Jason's stomach up. "Problems?"

"Huh? Oh, no... no problems," Deetz seemed even more evasive than usual. He looked at the progress being made by the technical team. They currently had
transmission lines of some sort running from the larger ground vehicle to each of the long slip-drive emitters that made up the trailing edge of the gunship's wings. In turn, the emitters were glowing bright blue and a pulsating hum could be felt. Every so often the crew would run the power up a bit and loose debris on the tarmac would lift into the air and levitate until the power came back down. Twingo, for his part, had a few large access hatches open in the ship's belly and was utilizing some sort of hovering lift to maneuver himself and his equipment around and up into the openings. The previously boisterous alien was grunting and cursing as he worked to get the reactor back in shape. "So did they say how long they'd be?"

"How, exactly, would I ask them?" Jason had given Deetz a pass on many things, but leaving him standing alone on an alien planet with no means with which to communicate with them rubbed him the wrong way. Deetz looked over at him and his eyes traveled up to the earpiece Jason was wearing.