Omega Force 6: Secret of the Phoenix (16 page)

“Of course,” De’Elefor said. “There are large hangars at the edge of the city by where the old aerodrome used to be, if that would be acceptable. There is power and lighting functional within the buildings.”

“That would be perfect, thank you,” Jason said.

****

“This is their idea of a hangar?” Twingo asked in awe.

“It would appear so,” Jason said, also impressed. Like all of the structures on A’arcoon, the hangar appeared to be hewn from a solid piece of rock. The building was immense and could have easily accommodated ten ships the size of the
Phoenix
. There was some loose debris on the ramp in front of the entrance, but the large wheels of the landing gear had no trouble as Jason taxied the ship into the well-lit building that looked part cavern, part cathedral.

Ornate reliefs decorated the walls that depicted the evolution from the A’arcooni ancestors who could naturally fly to the modern iteration of the species taking the step into spacecraft and leaving the planet. The ceiling arched high overhead and there were vents and lights spaced evenly along its length. Jason spun the ship around so the nose was facing the entrance and began powering down their systems.

“Like I said,” he told Twingo, “you can dig into the reactor once the
Defiant
makes orbit.”

“Sounds fair,” Twingo said. “I’ve got some rough drawings of what I want to accomplish if you want to look them over.”

“I trust you and besides, I wouldn’t really understand what I was looking at anyway,” Jason admitted. “Just don’t leave us stranded.”

“How long are we going to be here?” Crusher asked. “These people give me the creeps.”

“Understood,” Jason said. “But please keep comments like that within the hull. I’d rather not have an incident. Lucky and I meet with De’Elefor first thing in the morning. If all goes well I’ll get the location of this camp Naleem was referring to and then once the
Defiant
shows up we’ll head out there.”

“The sooner the better,” Crusher said, walking off the bridge. “I’m going to go check the perimeter.” Lucky wordlessly followed him out and the rest of the crew began to disperse. Jason was left alone on the bridge, suddenly feeling a little foolish flying so far out in the fringe to chase down a legend that may not even exist.

Chapter 18

The next morning Jason was standing at the entrance of the hangar watching the sunrise over a city that he now knew was called A’ara. He took a sip of his chroot and tried to frame the argument he would use on De’Elefor to convince him to both disclose and guide him to the tribe of A’arcooni that had remained behind.

“It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?” Twingo asked, walking up behind him similarly armed against the early morning with a mug of his own.

“How’s that?”

“When we dropped these guys off I fully expected them to either turn on each other, starve to death, or figure out a way to go back to their old ways,” Twingo said. “I’m glad to see I was wrong.”

“Yeah,” Jason said noncommittally. The
Defiant
was due in that day and he knew Twingo was getting anxious to start examining the main reactor on the
Phoenix
. He was about to comment further when a brilliant red energy bolt streaked out of the sky and impacted somewhere in A’ara. Six more in quick succession hit the city square. Smoke and dust were billowing up out of the impact zones.

“Could Kellea really be that pissed at you?” Twingo asked, staring dumbfounded at the city.

“That’s not the
Defiant
,” Jason said, tossing his mug. “Let’s go!” The pair sprinted back to the
Phoenix
, Twingo lagging far behind Jason. He hit the ramp and launched himself up onto the mezzanine from the cargo bay floor. He was already walking onto the bridge before Twingo had even gotten back to the ramp.

“What the hell is going on?” Jason demanded.

“I know as much as you do, Captain,” Kage said. “Whoever just made orbit and opened fire isn’t broadcasting a transponder code.”

“
Those were warning shots
,” the com came to life. “
You will turn over Naleem El and any personnel she has with her or we will continue to rain fire down upon your city. You have thirty minutes to have her in the city square
.”

“That was sent out on all channels, all frequencies,” Kage said. “I don’t think they’re familiar with the A’arcooni or they would have just used the standard frequency.”

“That’s little comfort,” Jason said. “Try to figure out who they are. Don’t send any messages just yet since it seems the stone hangar walls have kept us hidden.”

“Why do you say that?” Crusher asked, standing near the canopy and watching the smoke rise over the city in the distance.

“Because we’re the only ship on the surface,” Jason said. “If they detected us they would assume it was Naleem’s and either open fire on the aerodrome or land an assault force right in the entrance of the hangar.”

“True,” Crusher conceded.

“Message coming in from De’Elefor,” Kage said.

“Ignore it,” Jason said in a tight voice. “We’re their only defense right now and we won’t do them any good if someone brings this building down on top of us.”

After fifteen minutes a large craft descended through the clouds and took up position directly over the city. It was over three hundred and fifty meters long and was hovering at an altitude of one thousand meters.

“Arrogant bastards,” Doc said as he consulted the passive scans. “External hatches are open and they aren’t raising their shields. They seem to know the A’arcooni don’t possess any weapons that can reach them.”

“Bring the tactical systems online and get the engines fired up,” Jason said. “We’ll try and draw them away from the city.”

Five minutes later the
Phoenix
taxied slowly to the entrance of the hangar before Jason fed power to the drive and lifted them into the air. “Full combat mode,” he ordered calmly as he allowed his neural implant to fully integrate him to the ship.

“Shields up and all weapons are live,” Kage reported.

“They’re coming around,” Doc warned. “I’m not sure if they see us yet or if they’re turning this way for some other reason.”

“It won’t matter in a moment,” Jason said and smoothly advanced the throttle. The big gunship roared away from the aerodrome, leaving an enormous cloud of dust blowing in its wake. “I’m going to make a single high-speed pass down their port flank. I want the point defense turrets to randomly target any open hatches and engage.”

“Firing program set,” Kage said. “Just pull the trigger when we cross their nose.”

Jason flew low and fast, nearly to the target when it appeared that they’d been spotted. The ship swung ponderously in their direction and an alert tone sounded to let him know that tracking radar had locked on. He pulled the
Phoenix
to the right and squeezed the trigger as he flew just under the target’s left side. The point defense guns opened up and began chewing through the interior of the ship as dozens of shots passed unopposed through all the open hatches.

“We should have just hit them with a missile,” Kage said. “They didn’t even have shields up.”

“Except we would have sent it crashing down on top of the A’arcooni,” Jason said, banking left and pouring on the speed. “That’s why I want them to follow us.”

“Incoming channel request,” Kage said.

“Put it through.”

“
Unidentified warship, this is a private matter. Withdraw or you will be destroyed,
” a dispassionate voice said.

“That was a warning shot,” Jason said, mocking the earlier broadcast. “The next one won’t be. You will break off this illegal attack on the citizens of A’arcoon or you will become a permanent resident.”

“
As you wish
,” the voice said before the channel closed.

“That was easy,” Kage remarked. Jason never got to reply as the
Phoenix
was rocked by an incredibly powerful blast. Warnings lit up his displays like a casino slot machine and smoke began wafting in through the environmental ducts.

“Holy shit!” Jason exclaimed, struggling to keep the ship in the air. The blast had superheated the air above them and the rapid expansion shoved the gunship towards the ground with incredible force. “Twingo, report!”

“This is bad,” the engineer said. “Dorsal shielding is down to thirty percent. Main Bus B has dropped out and we’ve lost the ability to simultaneously fire both main plasma cannon banks. Engines are still up, but the slip-drive is now offline as are long range communications.”

“What hit us?” Jason asked, coaxing the gunship back into the air and turning back towards the engagement.

“It wasn’t that smaller ship,” Doc said. “There’s a destroyer-class warship in orbit directly above us. It looks like they hit us with a focused plasma burst.”

“I guess that ship over A’ara is just a troop lander,” Jason said, realizing his mistake too late. “We can’t stay down here with that destroyer overhead. Prime two nukes and one of the ship-busters; we’re going up top.”

“We’re really going head-to-head with a destroyer?” Twingo asked.

“We don’t have much of a choice at this point,” Jason said. “Even if I was inclined to let the A’arcooni fend for themselves we can’t run with a busted slip-drive.”

He looked up and let the computer pinpoint where the ship was in the sky. He then had the computer overlay a ring that was the ship’s assumed effective range of fire. Once he had those, he changed his course and pushed the engines to full power, trying to get into orbit before the destroyer could come around and bracket them while still in the upper atmosphere.

The destroyer captain wasn’t fooled by the move. Since he already knew the speedy gunship would be in orbit before they could get into range, he gave them one last parting shot. The plasma bolt split the sky with a thunderous
crack
and impacted the rear shields of the fleeing
Phoenix
.

“Minor damage,” Twingo reported. “The shot was too far out of range. Mostly a lot of noise and light but the shields absorbed it.”

“When we make orbit we’re going to accelerate away from them,” Jason said. “We’ll try to come around A’arcoon and engage them on our own terms instead of flying right into their teeth.”

“I’m so glad you’ve seemed to grasp what the word
strategy
means,” Crusher said, uncomfortably out of his element on the bridge during a ship-to-ship engagement.

“Yeah,” Kage agreed. “This beats our usual suicide charge any day.”

“When we come around to the night side I’m going to execute a pretty extreme orbit change,” Jason said. “I’d like to get up into a polar orbit. Can the engines handle it?”

Twingo consulted his displays before nodding. “Just,” he said. “Why do you want us over the northern polar region?”

“It makes it easier to look down and shoot,” Jason said. “If I have to use one of the XTX-4s I will, but I’d rather not engage them over the planet if I can get them to chase us.”

“Just try to put them down on the opposite continent than the one A’ara is on,” Twingo argued.

“I would if I could be guaranteed the entire reason we came here isn’t on that continent,” Jason said. “Besides, the XTX won’t arm at such a close range. We’re going to pop off a couple of nukes and then run. Hopefully they’ll think we’re running for a mesh-out point and give chase. We’ll launch the ship-buster then and come back to mop up the troop carrier.”

“I can’t see anything obviously wrong with the plan,” Kage said. “But won’t the other captain know you’re trying to bait them with a couple of weak tactical nukes?”

“Maybe,” Jason said. “I’m more or less hoping they’ll see it as a desperate move from a crew in an overmatched, damaged ship. It’s basically true so that won’t be too much of a stretch.”

“Polar orbital insertion vector coming up in ten seconds,” Kage said. Jason saw the red line of the proposed course change appear in front of him. He authorized the computer to execute the maneuver since it would require precision in both the course correction and drive output power that he wasn’t manually capable of doing.

“Here we go,” Jason said as he felt the ship throttle back and turn onto their new heading. A moment later the ship was vibrating harshly as the engines pushed right up to the safety limit to break the gunship out of its current orbit and onto the perpendicular course.

“Engines powering back,” Twingo said. “Maneuver was successful.”

“Full countermeasures,” Jason said. “Let’s see how long we can hide up here. Set course for station keeping once we’re over the north pole.” He got a chorus of confirmations as the ship slid to a stop relative to the planet.

“The destroyer is really picking up speed,” Doc said. “I think they suspect we ran when we were blocked by the planet.”

“If that’s true they’ll be scanning for a slip-space signature,” Jason said, watching the icon of the enemy ship on his display. “They might move to a higher orbit to cut down on the planet’s interference. That will give us a little wiggle room when firing the nukes. I’d rather not create an ecological disaster since we’re already about to shut down all their power.”

“You don’t think Crisstof sprung for an EMP-hardened power station?” Twingo asked.

“I doubt it,” Jason said, frowning as he was still staring at the tactical display.

“What’s it doing now?”

“Destroyer is breaking orbit and heading for the edge of the system,” Doc reported.

“What the hell?” Kage said as he also watched. “Could we get that lucky?”

“No,” Jason said. “Something else is going on and we don’t know what it is.”

“Slip-space signature detected near the edge of the system,” Doc said. “The computer just sorted it out from all the junk the passive array is picking up.”

“Reinforcements?” Crusher asked.

“Maybe,” Jason said doubtfully. “Doc, try to get some idea of who just popped in. I’m breaking orbit and following the target at a safe distance. Kage, keep our missiles locked on. They just gave us the opportunity to take them out without endangering the planet.”

They tracked the ship as it began to accelerate out towards the perimeter of the A’arcoon System. Not being able to use the active array or call the planet to inform them of what was happening was frustrating. The destroyer was pushing hard now, which made Jason doubt that the newcomer was a friendly. At first he thought it might be yet another faction interested in the Key, but he soon realized that he already knew who was expected.

“Bring up the active array,” Jason said. “Target the outboard engines with our two nukes and prep to fire.”

“That’s not going to do much,” Kage said.

“It will do enough,” Jason said. “That new ship is almost certainly the
Defiant
and we have no way to contact them and warn them of the inbound hostile. Our active array will get their attention and the nukes will let Kellea know she needs to be ready to fight.”

“Sensors going active,” Doc said. “Target is slowing slightly. Incoming ship is a battlecruiser that matches the
Defiant’s
configuration.”

“Missiles have target lock,” Kage said. “Bay door is open and you’re cleared to fire.”

Jason squeezed off both missiles and then turned hard to starboard, accelerating away from the destroyer as fast as he could.