Omega Force 3: The Enemy Within (28 page)

“No, we don’t,” Jason agreed.
“Kage? Can you override the blast doors leading to the command deck?”

“
Negative, Captain
,” Kage replied after a moment. “
They’re on an isolated circuit. The main computer doesn’t control them and cutting power to the system will only ensure they remain closed
.”

“What do you think?” Jason asked whichever of his teammates wanted to answer first.

“Standard procedure would be to breach the hull, move along the outside of the ship, and make entry to the bridge from the outside,” Lucky offered.

“Effective, but I’d rather not kill Kellea in the process of making entry,” Jason said. “You?” he asked Crusher.

“I’ve got nothing,” Crusher grunted as he aimed his weapon back down the way they’d come and hit a trooper who had been trying to sneak up on them square in the chest. Jason thought at the problem for a moment longer.

“We really don’t care about capturing the ship, do we?” he asked.

“I don’t follow,” Crusher admitted.

“The
Phoenix
is sitting down by the engines,” Jason explained. “If she were to open up with the main guns this ship would fall out of orbit. We can tell them if we are allowed to leave with Kellea we’ll just fly off ... otherwise we’re all going down.”

“What the hell is it with you and sudden-death standoffs?” Crusher asked in disgust. “Once in a while I’d like a plan that doesn’t involve threatening to kill everyone, including us.”

“It’s effective,” Jason argued, taking a few shots of his own down the corridor. “Whatever we do, it’s got to be fast. Even if we can secure her, the security personnel are starting to regroup and she’s not wearing any protection. We’ll be running her down a shooting gallery.”

“We could try to see if there’s an access—” Whatever else Crusher was about to say was cut off as the ship rocked violently and klaxons began sounding throughout the ship, accompanied by strobing red and yellow flashers.

“Report!” Jason barked over the com.

“
Captain, a huge piece of the factory ship broke away and just collided with the prow of the Stalwart on the port side. Multiple hull breaches and a loss of stability control for the forward half of the ship
,” Kage informed him. “
It also ripped one of the port engines right off the pylon.
”

“How bad is it?” Jason asked.

“
We’re going down, Captain
,” Kage said. “
Our orbit is already destabilizing and the nose is dipping. I think the engine hit also damaged the core. You’d better begin making your way back to the ship soon, and quickly
.”

“Why didn’t these morons shift orbits to avoid navigational hazards?” Jason asked nobody in particular. He had no way of knowing that the actual captain of the ship had been escorted off the bridge and the ship was in the hands of amateurs. “OK, we need to get past these doors.
As in right now.” An unhealthy rumble began to make its presence known through the deck plates as the ship continued to disintegrate.

Without warning, the blast doors opened up and a surprised assault team was looking straight at an equally surprised Steader Dalton, Agent Alux, and Kellea Colleren, who had a weapon pointed at her head by Dalton. They’d planned to make a dash for the other hangar and escape in one of the combat shuttles parked there since the escape pods would be suicide boxes this close to such a powerful gravity source.

“Get back!” Steader shouted, moving the weapon away from Kellea and pointing it at Lucky. It was all the opening Jason needed. He raised his railgun and fired a single slug into Steader’s arm right below the shoulder. Even the low-velocity round spun him around and nearly blew the appendage completely off. As he lay on the ground screaming, and bleeding, Alux moved to make a grab for Kellea, who was still in restraints, and took a vicious blow to the chest as Crusher literally kicked him back down the corridor the way he’d come.

“Lucky,” Jason nodded to Kellea. Lucky moved over and cleanly sliced through the restraints so at least she’d have use of her arms. Jason moved over and peered down at Steader. He was bleeding heavily from the wound and was going into shock.

“He won’t make it another five minutes, Captain,” Crusher urged. “Leave him. We need to move.” As if to punctuate his point, the deck bucked up under them and the sounds of multiple explosions elsewhere in the ship reached their ears.

“
Captain
,” Kage called over the com, “
we’ve descended into the planet’s atmosphere. The shields are holding over the hangar bay opening but I don’t know how much longer you have
.”

“We’re on our way,” Jason said, looking down the corridor to where the agent had landed. He was no longer there. “Let’s go,” he said, handing Kellea his sidearm as they moved out at her top speed.

Though she was nowhere near as fast as the other three, her familiarity with the ship made up for it as they took a series of side corridors and access walkways to avoid any other ConFed troops still onboard while getting back to the hangar. Once they burst through the squat service hatch, Jason was unprepared for the sight ahead of him.

The
Phoenix
still sat, hovering in the middle of the bay, but the view outside was a roiling yellow/orange gas as the carrier sank deeper into the planet’s atmosphere. The reality of just how precarious their situation was sunk in as they rushed to the ship.

“
Phoenix
, we’re in the hangar,” he said over the com. “Lower the rear ramp.” Without acknowledging his command, the gunship lowered her ramp and settled a little closer to the deck so they could get aboard. Just as the pressure doors closed and sealed, while the ramp was still rising, the shields protecting the hangar failed and he could see the noxious ammonia gas streaming into the bay as the ramp raised and locked.

Jason wasted no time getting up to the bridge in time to see Doc move out of the pilot’s seat. He slipped in behind him, adjusted the controls, and spun the nose to face towards the open door and throttled up gently, not wanting to slam the ship into the carrier’s hull by trying too violent of a maneuver. There was an issue, however, as the carrier flew faster and faster within an increasingly dense atmosphere. There was now air resistance and a slipstream to overcome so they didn’t hit either the aft edge of the door or the starboard engine pylons (assuming they were still there).

“Hang on,” he said and tried to slide the ship out at an angle in much the same way he had entered the bay. The right wing bit into the slipstream, causing drag, and yawed the nose out of the hangar before he was ready. The ship slid backwards even as he throttled up to get the left wing out and push away from the doomed carrier.

He was a split second too late as the left wing’s trailing edge slammed into the aft edge of the hangar door, crushing a section of the port grav emitter. This caused a surge in the entire system and the grav-drive began an emergency shutdown to save the core from damage. The
Phoenix
spun to the right and tumbled free of the carrier, now fully immersed and falling in the gas giant’s atmosphere with no drive. Having been half expecting the grav-drive to need help, he’d already had his fingers near the switches to start the mains and bring the repulsors online.

“We’re ninety meters deep,” Kage reported. “We’ll hit an ammonia ice layer soon that could cause problems.”

BOOM!

The mains engaged with a violent jolt and Jason shoved the throttle all the way to the stop. The engines strained, blasting out millions of pounds of thrust as he used the repulsors to try and bring the nose up. Without the grav-drive available the
Phoenix
didn’t have the power to simply climb straight up out of the atmosphere. “I need to get some speed,” he said even as they descended a bit further. “Give me a plot for escape velocity and also when I can begin to pull up out of here.”

“Sending it to your nav panel now,” Kage said tensely. In fact, everyone that wasn’t flying the ship simply stared out at the obscuring and disorienting haze, silently urging Jason to fly them out of there. Soon the
Phoenix
had enough speed to actually use her airfoils and began a slow climb out of the haze, the main engines still thundering at full power to escape the powerful gravity of the planet.

“The mains are heating up too quickly, Captain,” Twingo warned.

“Throttling back a bit,” Jason said. “We’re almost out of the atmosphere at least, but we’ll need a few orbits to reach escape velocity.” He gingerly pulled the throttle back, not wanting to doom them to a horrific death by damaging any of the engines by running them too hot.

“We’re out,” Doc said. “And we’re not alone.”

“Say again?” Jason asked as he pulled the power back to seventy-five percent to allow the ship a less stressful climb away from the planet.

“One ConFed battleship and two heavy cruisers,” Kage said. Jason’s stomach dropped. With the grav-drive down it meant they had no slip-space capability. On just the main engines alone, the gunship would have zero chance against such powerful capital ships.

“A battleship?” Kellea said in surprise. “They don’t bring those out very often, and never this far.”

“I guess we’re special,” Jason said, slumping back in his seat. “I wonder if they’ll try to capture us or just shoot us out of the sky from long range.”

“Incoming com request,” Kage said. “It’s from the battleship, video and audio.”

“Ah,” Jason said. “So
it’s toy with us, bore us, and then kill us. Very well ... open the channel.” The forward canopy was replaced with the face of an elderly thropin, a species that held quite a few core worlds.

“Captain Burke,” the
thropin began. “I am Councilman Scleesz. We are detecting that your ship has suffered a failure of your main drive. May we be of assistance?”

“I’m afraid this wasn’t what I was expecting when you sent the channel request, Councilman,” Jason said in confusion.

“Ah, yes,” Scleesz said, glancing off-camera for a moment. “It seems we have a lot to discuss. If you’re able, break orbit and we’ll pick you up.”

“Are you telling me this wasn’t something sanctioned by the Council?” Jason asked, not quite believing what he was being told. He and Kellea were sitting in a well-appointed lounge aboard the ConFed battleship talking to Councilman Scleesz over after-dinner drinks. Despite how cordial he’d been, Jason couldn’t help but feel like he was fraternizing with the enemy.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Scleesz said. “We’d heard of the outbreaks of violence, of course, but it still didn’t seem like anything to be overly worried about. It wasn’t until we learned that a sizable number of these planets would be petitioning for full membership that we became concerned.”

“Wait,” Kellea interrupted, “isn’t that what your goal is? To expand the Confederation’s sphere of influence?”

“Influence, yes,” Scleesz said, “
but we do not want the hassle and administrative nightmare of actually governing these worlds. The current arrangement is mutually beneficial as it stands; we receive favorable trade agreements and tithing in exchange for protection from the Fleet. Not only that, but when things go wrong on those worlds the populations are far more likely to be angry with their regional governments.”

“But someone didn’t agree with that?” Jason asked, hiding his distaste at the councilman’s blunt characterization of the ConFed relationship with the rest of the quadrant.

“Multiple someones,” Scleesz confirmed. “There were four council members who held some lofty delusions about the Confederation’s place in the galaxy. They had visions of empire. With themselves in control, of course.”

“So how did you figure it out?” Jason pressed.

“This plot was so grand and took so long to come to fruition ... it was simply impossible to keep it a secret forever. Our intelligence service began looking into it as rumors about factory ships and cloned soldiers began swirling about,” Scleesz said as he poured himself a second drink. “It was the arrest of Crisstof Dalton that allowed us to put the rest of the pieces together. The charges against him were utterly absurd to anyone who knew him, so I really had the intel guys digging on this one. After tracking the son’s movements, it was just a matter of time before we caught them in the act.”

“So what happens now?” Kellea asked.

“Now? We all go back to our lives,” Scleesz said. “We’re in the process of securing Crisstof Dalton’s release, you destroyed practically all of the evidence, and the Confederation Council has a special interest in seeing this stay discreet. In other words, don’t expect to see any arrests with council members being marched out under armed guard. This will be dealt with in a way that won’t damage the Council’s standing.

“
Which leads me to my next point. While difficult to dig up, the information we have on your outfit, Captain Burke, is troubling. Your relationship with Dalton is a bit hazy and you seem to skirt just on the edge of the law. Is that about right?”

“It’s more nuanced than that, but essentially, yes,” Jason said. “That doesn’t make us that much different than a number of other groups operating on the frontier.”

“True,” Scleesz admitted. “And of course there’s this little matter which you’ve neatly bundled up for us. So in return, certain recent events will be swept under the rug. Dead agents and the like.” Jason winced as he knew the councilman must be talking about the agent he’d flung out of the ship twenty-five thousand feet over the surface of a planet.

“I do have one other request, Councilman,” Jason said.

“Oh?”

“I’d like the intel on my unit purged,” Jason stated. “The agent involved with Steader Dalton knew exactly who we were, which leads me to believe there is a growing file on us somewhere.”

“It is the nature of bureaucracies,” Scleesz agreed. “So what’s in it for me if I agree to have the intel division purge all record of your existence?”

“I won’t throw any more intel agents to their death,” Jason said, drawing a sharp look from Kellea and a low, humorless chuckle from Scleesz.

“No, I’m afraid I’m going to need something a bit more substantial,” he said, leaning forward. As he leaned forward Jason leaned back.
This can’t be good.