Omega Force 3: The Enemy Within (10 page)

The members of Omega Force all stood on the bridge, some more patiently than others, as Kellea scrolled through the list of planets the
Diligent
had visited over the course of the last few months. Kage had also cross-referenced those with any unusual domestic disturbances that coincided with their visit either before or after.

“
None of these stick out as unusual,” she said with frustration. “We went to all of these places and each stop was as uneventful as the last.” She was about to push herself away from the station when she stopped and stared at one of the names scrolling up the display. “Solamea?” she asked in confusion. “There was a violent civil uprising on Solamea?”

“
Yeah,” Kage said from the copilot’s seat. “Why? There were demonstrations in a lot of places ... why is that one special?”

“
That would be the first time there has ever been any organized violence on that planet,” she answered, now skimming the associated file. “The indigenous species is completely pacifist. They have no concept of using violence to secure political objectives.”

“
I’d say that makes them stand out as unique,” Jason said. He was anxious to get underway and start doing something useful instead of burning fuel hiding in slip-space. “How far away is it?”

“
A little over six days’ flight,” Kage answered.

“
Plot it. Let’s get moving,” Jason said as he swung up into the pilot’s seat. “What is the indigenous species called?”

“
They’re called kelpens,” Kellea provided. “There are some peculiarities that you’ll need to be made aware of.”

“
Such as?” Crusher asked.

“
I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” she said with a half-smile.

*****

The anti-collision alarm was sounding loudly as Jason cursed and pushed the nose of the
Phoenix
over to dive under a fast transport that had flown in front of them with no warning. The increased angle of attack to their entry vector caused the shields to flare brighter as the gunship pushed her way down into Solamea’s atmosphere.

“
What the hell!? I’ve landed on smuggler’s moons more organized than this,” Jason nearly shouted as he had to again adjust course to avoid a ship that was blindly climbing up from the surface on chemical rocket boosters.

“
I told you,” Kellea said tensely, “there are no traffic control systems for orbit or approach. It’s a free-for-all and you just hope you get lucky on the way down. Good job missing that rocket booster, that was a kelpen ship; they’d have flown right into us.

“
This is insane,” Jason muttered as he yanked the
Phoenix
hard to starboard and throttled up to send them streaking out of the high traffic area and into the less-populated airspace of the northern hemisphere. “So no spaceports either?”

“
Nope,” Kage answered as he looked at his display. “The only launch facilities are equatorial sites for those kelpen rocket stacks like the one you just dodged. To be honest, it looks like we’ll be landing in a clear patch of dirt if we can find one.”

“
Do you have our coordinates?”

“
Coming up,” Kage answered. “There’s no centralized network so it took me a minute. I’m sending you the nav data now. This is the actual site of the reported incident, it’ll be up to you to find a place to put her down.” Jason just shook his head again and settled in for the two hour flight to their destination.

He
swung them in a wide, sweeping turn around the settlement (it was so small it almost couldn’t be called a town), dipping the left wing down so everyone could get a good view. He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing as he cycled the landing gear and made for an open patch of ground just off the main drag that looked like it was solid enough to support the
Phoenix
’s weight.

He touched down smoothly and began to incrementally pull power back from the grav-drive, watching a video feed from the belly of the ship as he did to see how far the landing gear was going to sink into the ground before she settled. After compressing the soil a mere eleven inches
, the ship groaned slightly as her weight fully transferred from the drive field to the landing gear struts. After leveling them out, Jason placed the primary flight systems into standby and stood up to stretch out his back. The harrowing flight to the surface had tensed his shoulder muscles up and left his neck sore.

“
This is your show,” he said to Kellea. “How do you want to do this?”

“
This is a simple trip to look around and ask questions,” she said. “Who do you think is best suited for the ground team?”

“
Crusher, Twingo, and Doc ... you’re coming with us,” Jason said after a second’s thought. “Kage and Lucky, keep in com contact and keep the ship ready to fly.”

Once they were all kitted up with concealed weaponry and casual, civilian-style clothing
, Jason led them through the cargo bay and down the ramp onto the surface of Solamea. As they emerged from the ship a few kelpens looked at them disinterestedly before going back to whatever they were doing. The kelpens were typical bipedal primes with skin that was a beautiful shade of sea foam green and a wide, rugged build that looked suited to the manual labor tasks Jason observed going on around him.

The town, such as it was, looked like it could have been out of eighteenth century Earth rather than a planet that was home to a space-faring culture. As they walked along the main street he could see little bits of mismatched technology here and there, but mostly he saw kelpens moving busily about doing tasks by hand that were done by machine in every other culture Jason had observed.

“
OK,” Crusher said as they walked, “this is getting strange. Is the whole planet like this?”

“
Yes,” Kellea said with a smile. “There’s something about the kelpen nature that they have an almost aggressive indifference to technological advancement. All these machines you see around you were likely traded to them by people like us, and when it breaks they’ll toss it aside and go back to doing the task the old fashioned way.”

“
So are they less advanced or is it a cultural peculiarity?” Doc asked.

“
Studies have shown them to have an equal aptitude to learning and using technology as most other species, they just have no interest in it. They don’t explore, they don’t research; they are perfectly content to live as they always have. Many mistake these traits for lower intelligence, but they’re shrewd traders and they’ve profited handsomely from their mineral mining rights,” Kellea explained as they walked slowly into what appeared to be the town square.

“
What makes them all the more unique is that they don’t actually shun advancement, they just don’t pursue it.”

“
That’s bizarre,” Twingo said as he looked around at the squat, rustic buildings.

“
Perhaps,” Jason agreed, “but it does make it all the more unusual that these people would have taken up arms. There doesn’t even seem to be a central government to rebel against.”

They walked in silence for a bit longer before coming to a short, elderly
kelpen who was struggling to put bags of seed into an open-air wheeled vehicle. The bags looked like they outweighed the little alien by at least two to one.

“
Let me help you,” Crusher said in stilted Jenovian Standard and walked over to take the bag from him. The kelpen went from startled at the voice to nearly panicked as Crusher bore down on him. He flinched away as the big warrior reached out his clawed hands and easily lifted the bag up and set it into the back of the vehicle.

When he saw this
, the kelpen smiled widely (at least it looked like a smile) and gestured at the other twelve bags laying on the ground. Nodding, Crusher moved over and tossed the seed bags like they weighed nothing until all thirteen were neatly stacked. The elderly kelpen put his right hand over his chest and bowed his head to Crusher in an apparent sign of gratitude before moving to get into the vehicle. Doc reached out and stopped him, pointing at the alien’s ear questioningly.

After a short game of one-sided charades
, a look of understanding crossed the kelpen’s face and he fished around in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a translator earpiece that looked to be at least three generations behind the type they had on the
Phoenix
. He fiddled with it for another minute or so before slipping it over his ear and looking over at Doc.

“
Can you understand me?” Doc asked in flawless Jenovian Standard. He doubted his native language would be loaded on the older device.

“
Of course,” the kelpen said pleasantly. “Why didn’t you just say you wanted to talk?” Crusher just rolled his eyes.

“
We’re looking into an incident that happened not far from here,” Doc continued. “There was a sudden and inexplicable violent protest and we’re trying to find out what may have sparked it.” As Doc spoke, the kelpen’s expression became steadily more stony until he was looking at the four of them with open hostility.

“
Who are you with?” he demanded. “There’s been all manner of you outsiders coming here since then, and none of it has led to anything but more trouble.”

“
We’re not with any government and we’re not with the ones who may have started the violence, if that’s what you’re asking,” Doc said placatingly. “We were hired by a private party to investigate and to try to prevent a repeat.”

“
There’s going to be more?” The alien now looked alarmed, almost panicked. “Oh, no—”

Well ... er, I don
’t know that there is going to be—”

“
When?!” the kelpen demanded in a desperate voice. “When will they come again?”

“
Please, try and calm yourself,” Kellea said, shooting Doc an annoyed glare as she did. “As far as we know it isn’t going to happen again on Solamea. But we don’t want it to happen on anybody else’s planet either. So can you help us?” The alien calmed somewhat and then assumed a speculative expression, rubbing the top of his head while he did so.

“
Well, I do have some recollection of that day. But it’s getting late and I need to get this seed into the germinators so I can plant in the coming days,” he said. “If I had some strong help I could probably free up some time to discuss it with you.” He was looking pointedly at Crusher as he finished.
The little bastard’s a regular mercenary.

“
We can help with that,” Doc assured him. They all piled onto top of the open-air vehicle and bounced along down the gravel-strewn roadway until it gave way to a heavily-rutted dirt lane.

It was some hours of manual labor later when they gathered in a low-ceilinged room within the kelpen’s home. They’d learned his name was i’iteren, and he had lost his family during the recent uprising. While he seemed to have a simple turn of mind, Jason was forced to constantly revisit his opinion of the short alien as the conversation progressed. Towards the end Jason concluded that it wasn’t a lack of intelligence that made i’iteren seem simple, but his utter lack of curiosity about anything and everything going on around him outside of his immediate concerns. From what Kellea had told him this was a trait shared by his entire species.

“
So you didn’t know any of the kelpens that were involved in the attack?” Kellea asked.

“
I didn’t,” i’iteren answered.

“
Did they seem like they could have been from a different part of Solamea?” she pressed. Another peculiarity of the kelpens was that they didn’t volunteer any more information than was required to answer the question. They weren’t being intentionally evasive, but it was infuriating when trying to get information out of them. So much so that Crusher had stomped out of the house almost immediately and took to ranging out and exploring the property. Jason soon wished he had followed him.

“
Since they weren’t from here, I’d have to say that is a possibility,” the kelpen answered with a straight face. If he had been a member of the crew, Jason would have long ago strangled him.

“
Do you know where they came from?” Jason asked. “Or at least from which direction they traveled?”

“
They came from everywhere,” i’iteren said. “They just kept coming and coming from out of the forest. When my mate and child went to ask who they were, they turned violent and beat them to death before moving on. I was so scared I didn’t come out of the house until they’d left. They moved down through town and on to the larger city to the south.” Jason sat up a little straighter as this was the only bit of information that came freely from their host.

“
And they never made any demands? Never made a declaration of intent?”

“
None,” i’iteren said quietly. “They were silent until they reached town and then went crazy ransacking the place. Finally a ConFed ship heard about what was going on and opened fire on the city from orbit. Nearly everyone in the immediate area was killed.” Jason and Kellea exchanged a meaningful look as Twingo inhaled sharply.

“
They just opened fire on a civilian target indiscriminately? I’m sure that’s not in any ConFed procedural manual,” he said in disgust.

“
i’iteren,” Jason said, “we’d like to explore out beyond your farm in the forest where these kelpens came from. It’s getting dark so we’ll start in the morning. Would it be okay with you if we parked our ship in one of your fields? We’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”

“
It’s not one of the big thrust ships like the ones they use down south is it?” i’iteren asked suspiciously. “One of those would destroy my field.”

“
It is not,” Jason said with a smile. “She’s a gravity-drive-type ship. You won’t even be able to tell she was there once we leave.”

“
I suppose there’s no issue then,” the kelpen said, suddenly disinterested. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll be going to sleep now so I can get an early start tomorrow.” He stood and moved to go down into the basement of the dwelling without so much as a second glance at the four aliens he had left in his living room.

“
Odd little guy,” Twingo murmured.

“
Indeed,” Kellea agreed. “Why are you repositioning the
Phoenix
?”

“
I’m not sleeping on the floor here,” Jason explained, ticking off reasons on his fingers as he did. “I don’t feel like walking all the way back into town, and I’d rather have her close by since we have no idea what we’re dealing with here on the surface and, apparently, in orbit.”

“
Good points,” she said. “Now that I think about it, I’m not too crazy about staying the night here either.”

“
Kage,” Jason was already saying into his com as he exited the home, “you and Lucky get the ship into the air and home in on my beacon. Land in the field to the north of the house you’ll see on your approach.”

“
Copy, Captain
.”

“
Can he fly the ship?” Kellea asked as she walked up behind him, hugging her arms to her side to ward off the evening chill.

“
Eh,” Jason said noncommittally. “He can fly it well enough to move it a few kilometers and land it in a wide open space.”

*****

The next morning, Jason, Crusher, Lucky, and Doc were standing at the bottom of the
Phoenix
’s ramp, their breath fogging in the cool morning air as they began to formulate a plan of attack.

“
We’ll head up the south face of that hill,” Jason was pointing to a rise in the distance, “and see if there’s any sign of a group as large as i’iteren claims moved through there. Given the density of the underbrush I would think it’d be fairly obvious.”

“
While that’s true,” Crusher said, “it also means it will hide things just as well. We could walk right by their trail and not even see it.”

“
I realize that, but I’d rather take the high ground and move down from there than try a grid search with a handful of people,” Jason said, wanting to head off the impending argument with Crusher. “Besides, we do have a bit of help.” With that, he keyed his com unit. “Kage, launch the Twins.”

“
Launching. I told them the first search sequence ... hopefully they don’t get confused as to who has which quadrants
.” There was a whirring sound from the top of the
Phoenix
and then two
bangs
as both of the Twins were launched out of their docking cradles. The pair of semi-intelligent, autonomous drones circled around the ship once, both putting “eyes” on the ground team before veering off and zipping in different directions to begin their multi-spectral scan of the surrounding land. Crusher rolled his eyes.

“
Those two idiots are going to be more of a hindrance than a help,” he grumbled.

“
I’ve tried to explain to you that they aren’t sentient,” Jason retorted. “You can’t just give them some vague instructions and wave your hand and expect them to understand what you mean. Garbage in, garbage out.”

“
What the hell does that even mean?”

“
It’s a programming term,” Jason said, refusing to explain further. In truth, he didn’t have any more luck giving instruction to the pair than Crusher did. Kage and, unsurprisingly, Lucky were the only two who could manage them without the aid of the
Phoenix
’s main computer. “Anyway ... let’s get to it.” The lightly-armed group set off at a brisk walk towards the treeline that was sixty meters off the nose of the ship.

It didn
’t take long before they had to kick and hack their way through the dense forest. Jason fervently hoped there was nothing poisonous that slithered, scampered, or crawled lurking in the foliage. He’d had Doc do an extensive search of the local databases on indigenous wildlife, but the fragmented nature of Solamea’s public network didn’t leave him filled with confidence. Every once in a while they would hear one of the Twins zip by overhead as it repositioned to the next part of its search grid.

It was nearly an hour later when Jason
’s com beeped twice indicating an incoming message. He pulled it out and keyed on the display.

POSSIBLE BIOLOGICAL ENTITY.
UNKNOWN SPECIES. 3.521 KILOMETERS FROM CURRENT POSITION. BEARING 38° FROM CURRENT HEADING. PROBABILITY OF OBJECTIVE: UNKNOWN. STATUS OF ENTITY: UNKNOWN.

“
Number One may have found something,” he said, raising a hand to indicate a halt.

“
What did it find?” Crusher asked.

“
How should I know?”

“
Ask it to send an image, Captain,” Lucky said. The tireless battlesynth was in front of Jason and acting as a trailbreaker. Jason made a face as he keyed his com.
What are the chances it will actually give me what I want?

“
Number One,” he said. “Provide a high-res image of the objective, visible wavelength only.” There was a double-chirp from the com and then nothing.

“
Ha!” Crusher let out a sharp, barking laugh as he took a long pull on his water bottle. Just as Jason was about to put his com unit back in his pocket it chirped again and the screen lit up with an aerial photo of a clearing up ahead of them. On the ground was what looked like a bipedal being with its limbs splayed out at unnatural angles.

“
Is that a kelpen?” Doc asked as Jason zoomed the image in.

“
I don’t think so,” he answered. “It’s blue and bipedal, but the shade is too dark. It looks darker than even Twingo.”

“
That could be what happens to them when they die,” Doc said. “Even you turned a little blue when Crusher was playing the breathing game with you.”

“
You mean when he was strangling me while you all sat and laughed? Oddly enough, I don’t remember much of that,” Jason shot back. “Either way, it’s close. Let’s go take a look. Lucky, bear left thirty-eight degrees and let’s pick up the pace while we still have favorable light.”

Forty-five minutes later the group was standing around the object the drone had found.
“Well,” Jason said, “it sort of looks like a kelpen.”

“
Yeah,” Crusher snorted, “if that kelpen was made of soft plastic and then put in a thermal chamber.” The body in question did indeed look like a member of Solamea’s dominant species. But not only was the hue of the skin wrong, it also seemed malformed. The limbs had a blocky appearance to them and the appendages terminated in digitless hands and feet. “What do you think, Doc? A deformity?”

“
Doc?” Jason pressed when the doctor didn’t answer. In fact, he seemed oblivious to the others’ presence as he stared hard at the body in front of him. “Doc!” Jason repeated.

“
What? Oh, yes,” Doc said, straightening up and smoothing his clothes with the palms of his hands. Jason knew this was a nervous tick.
What the hell has him so spooked?
“I can’t say with any certainty yet what it is we’re looking at,” Doc said, avoiding eye contact. “We should get it to the ship where I can run a proper series of tests on it.”

“
I am
not
carrying that thing back,” Crusher said and crossed his arms.

“
Nobody is going to carry it all that way,” Jason said, cutting off Lucky from volunteering for yet another disgusting detail that no one else wanted. Instead, he pulled out his com unit and keyed open the appropriate channel. “Number One, relocate to my position and hover ten meters overhead.” After a double-chirp he thumbed off his com unit and waited.

“
There is it,” Crusher said as he pointed down in the valley below them. Sure enough, one of the Twins was zipping along at treetop level on its way to their position. As it approached, its two engines rotated downward on their pylons and the drone slipped into a smooth, nearly silent hover directly overhead. Jason waved both his hands over his head to get its attention. Once he was sure he had been spotted and recognized, he pointed his index finger straight down and made a slow, clockwise circle to let it know he wanted it to descend slowly towards him.

To his surprise, the machine began to throttle back even more and sink towards him until it was six feet off the ground.
“Stop!” Jason ordered now that it was close enough to hear his voice. “Deploy docking hook.” After a second a door opened up on the drone’s belly, and the hook it used to capture the docking cradle on the
Phoenix
lowered and locked.

“
OK,” he said to Lucky. “Lift up the ... body ... so I can secure it to the hook.” Once Lucky lifted it into position Jason removed his belt, which was impregnated with smart-metal, and lashed the small body to the landing hook. The belt automatically cinched tight and held. Viewing the body up close, he could see that there was no sign of decomposition or scavenger feeding he would normally associate with a corpse lying in the forest. He walked around to the nose of the drone so it would pick him up on its optical sensors.

“
Return to the ship at a speed no greater than ten kilometers per hour,” he instructed. “Lower to a hover of two meters altitude twenty meters behind the tail of the
Phoenix
and await further instruction. Execute.” At his last command the drone emitted another cheerful double-chirp and lifted in a smooth, controlled climb before heading back the way they had come.

“
Do you seriously think that is going to work?” Crusher asked as they all watched the drone fly off.

“
Sure,” Jason said confidently. “Why wouldn’t it?”