Omega Force 7: Redemption (11 page)

"That makes it all the more exciting," Jason said, looking at the rear video feed again as the ground vehicles easily kept pace with them, still firing the occasional warning shot.

BOOM ... BOOM-BOOM

The mains ignited, but not simultaneously and the asymmetric thrust pushed the ship around wildly on the runway for a moment before Jason could reassert control. He let go of the taxi handle and grabbed the flight controls, smoothly advancing the throttle to about fifty percent. The engines roared and the ship squatted, the main landing gear struts completely collapsing. The ground speed indicator quickly went into the hundreds and the two remaining vehicles that hadn't been blown end over end from the engine thrust were quickly left behind.

"You'll need to get eight-hundred and twenty KPH before the wings will get enough bite to haul us into the air," Twingo said in a tight voice.

"Shit," Jason muttered, pushing the throttle up even more and ignoring the tortured scream that seemed to be coming from the nose gear. The
Phoenix
had a sleek, lifting body design, but the wings were short and raked back at a steep angle so he had to get a lot of speed before even attempting to bring the nose up. He hoped the wheels stayed on the landing gear trucks, and if they did he hoped they didn't seize up and send them careening across the desert out of control.

Despite the ear splitting shriek from the landing gear Jason watched his indicated ground speed nudge up just past his target speed and pulled back on the stick experimentally. The nose bounced a bit before lifting enough to change the wings' angle of attack and letting the air compress under the hull. It was a tense millisecond before he could feel the weight of the
Phoenix
settle onto the wings and the landing gear noise ceased. Now airborne, he shoved the throttle all the way forward and let the ship race along the ground, nearing supersonic before he angled up a few more degrees and climbed up and away from the spaceport.

"Holy shit!" he said, letting out an explosive breath.

"We're not in the clear yet, you lunatic," Twingo said. "Get us up into some cooler air and keep the landing gear deployed for a bit longer. I want to cool down the drive motors so we don't have a fire in the gear bays."

"How long for repulsors?" Jason asked, concentrating on his flight profile since he was fully dependent on the ship's aerodynamics to keep them in the air.

"They'll be up soon along with the grav-drive," Twingo said.

"I'm heading out over the desert where we won't be taunting our friends back there by circling over the spaceport," Jason said, dipping the right wing down and accelerating away.

"I think they may have just been sent to slow us down," Doc said. "Sensors just came up and we have three inbound contacts."

"Coming for us?" Jason asked.

"They corrected course to stay on us when you angled away from the port, so I'd have to assume so," Doc said.

"Why can't anything ever be easy?" Jason said through clenched teeth. "Any idea what we're dealing with?"

"No," Doc said, shaking his head. "The sensor processing subsystem is still booting. All I know is a rough course and speed."

"Good enough for now I guess," Jason said. "Retract the gear. Let's try to stay ahead of them until we can break for orbit." He continued his long, sweeping bank until he was heading out into the desert and advanced the throttle a bit more, watching the transonic shockwaves play across the canopy and the
Phoenix
outran the thundering sound of her main engines.

"Enemy contacts are still closing the distance," Doc said. "Tactical computer is up and running, we should have a positive identification in a few seconds."

"Repulsors are online," Twingo said even as Jason saw the status change on his own display. "Grav emitters are almost charged and it will be another five minutes or so after that for them to self-calibrate and engage."

"Targets are three De'daron Type-4 starfighters," Doc said as the computer completed its analysis. "Engine profile suggests they're no more than five years old."

"They'll be able to keep up with us within this atmosphere until the engines are at full output," Jason said.

"That will be a bit, they've been cold for a couple years. I also wouldn't head for space until the grav-drive is fully operational," Twingo said, "with only the mains you'd be giving them a serious advantage."

"Noted," Jason said, watching his tactical display populate with the new threats. They were small and speedy, but no match for the big gunship under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, getting the ship back up to fully mission capable after such an extended time in storage wasn't as simple as flipping a switch. He was still without most of his tactical systems including weapons and shields.

"Shield emitters are charging as are the energy weapons," Twingo said as if reading his mind. "You have expendable munitions available now that the tactical computers is running."

"Thanks," Jason said, checking on what missiles were sitting in the weapons bays that were in the belly of the ship. While they were carrying an impressive arsenal, none of it was appropriate for something the size and speed of the small fighters. He made a mental note to address that in the future and looked for a terrain feature to use while his other weapons charged up.

He saw that the desert was giving way to the rocky foothills of an impressive mountain range off to the south. The ground mapping radar showed a few deep ravines with some tight twists and turns that would prevent the pursuing fighters from getting a clean shot on the unprotected gunship. There were problems with the plan that Jason was painfully aware of even as he banked left and dipped the nose to take them back closer to the ground. Without the grav-drive running up a canyon was a tricky proposition at best. There was also the fact that the maneuver would only work if the enemy pilots could be convinced to try and follow. If they didn't take the bait and simply climbed up and over to try and pick the gunship out of the ground clutter they might get a free shot on the dorsal surface.

"That gap off our starboard side looks like it will work," Kage said, highlighting it on the navigation display. Jason just smiled ... they'd all been apart for over two years and already they seemed to be sliding back into old habits and working with a bit of a "group mind."

"Got it," he said. "We'll be hitting the split at speed so I'll need you standing by to manually control the repulsors. Without the grav-drive some of these turns will be a bitch."

"Bringing up the interface now," Kage said.

The
Phoenix
descended down to a scant three-hundred meters from the desert floor, kicking up an enormous plume of dust and sand as she raced for the mountain range ahead. Jason hoped all the debris they were stirring up, along with the low altitude, would help prevent the enemy fighters from locking on for an easy shot. He rolled the ship to the right and shot through the gap, pulling back almost instantly to follow the natural cut in the landscape. The path they were following wasn't small, spanning several kilometers across at even its narrowest point, but at the speeds they were traveling it seemed to Jason like he was trying to thread the eye of a needle while sitting on a bucking bronco.

"Grav-drive is ready," Twingo said, eyeing the view outside the canopy anxiously.

"Hold off on that for a second," Jason said tightly. "I don't want to risk switching over while we're down here. Let me know when we have shields."

It was another few minutes of tight turns and dodging obstacles, all while bleeding off more speed than Jason could have liked and allowing the pursuing fighters to get closer, before he saw the tactical board light up with a green status on the combat shields.

"Shields up," he said to Kage before Twingo could open his mouth to let him know the change in status.

"Shields up," Kage repeated. Jason felt the ship buck a little as the shields disrupted the airflow over the lifting surfaces and the repulsors kicked in to keep them stable. He leveled the wings and snatched the stick back into his lap, sending the
Phoenix
roaring up out of the chasm.

"Standby to switch over to the main drive," he said as he continued to pull the gunship into a pure vertical climb. Two quick blasts of weapons fire peppered the aft shields and let Jason know the fighters were much closer than he had anticipated. "Switch over," he said as he kicked the right rudder pedal and chopped the throttle, pulling the
Phoenix
into a lazy hammerhead turn. Twingo efficiently switched from main engines and repulsors to the grav-drive so that when Jason pushed the throttle back up to pull out of the dive he had the awesome power of the gunship's main drive on tap.

Once the ship bottomed out in the dive and was flying level Jason pushed the power all the way up and sent them streaking away from the engagement at an incredible rate of acceleration the smaller fighters simply couldn't match although they still doggedly pursued. He debated coming back around and keeping the fight down close to the ground, but with the grav-drive now pushing them along he had a definite advantage once they were in space.

"Plot me a course up top," he said, making his decision. "We're sure these are just a group of pirates looking for a target of opportunity?"

"Fairly sure," Doc said. "Those fighters are new, but seem poorly maintained and the fact they haven't fired any missiles at us makes me think they don't have any. Someone looking to force us down because of Kalette would almost certainly have deeper pockets and better equipment."

"Makes sense to me," Jason said. "Once we reach orbit plot me a course to the outer part of this system. We need to figure out a destination while the slip-drive is charging."

"We'll have weapons online in a few minutes," Kage said.

"I'm not interested in shooting down a bunch of small time criminals," Jason said. "We can escape without incurring any damage and they'll be fortunate enough to live and steal another day."

"Actually, they will likely go back and dismantle our cargo ship and sell it for parts after they realize they cannot catch the
Phoenix
," Lucky said. Jason just stared at him in horror as he realized they'd left their other ship parked on the tarmac with the cargo ramp still lowered.

"Son of a
bitch
."

****

"So now that we have a faster ship, we have to figure out what our plan of attack is," Jason said. "We can't just fly to the edge of Avarian space and begin broadcasting that we have one of the hostages."

"We need to find the netjere," Kalette insisted.

"That's not exactly practical," Jason said gently. "We've not even been able to determine who abducted her, much less where they would have taken her."

"So that's where we start," Twingo said. "We need intel more than anything else at this point."

"I still do not understand why you can't simply take me back to Avarian space and allow the Sovereign's intelligence service to take over," Kalette said.

"A few reasons," Jason said. "For one, I'm not sure I want to invite foreign agents into ConFed space to operate freely. I've got no love for them, but I also don't want to be partially responsible for people getting hurt when this inevitably turns bad and the shooting starts.

"The big reason, however, is that I'm completely certain your abduction was an inside job, and your boss's intelligence agency would be at the top of a short list of suspects. If we fly you back you'll be squeezed until they get everything of use out of you and then they'll dispose of you. We would mourn your death if we could, of course, but we'll have been dead long before that as there is no way they'd let us leave Avarian space after being in contact with you for so long."

"I see," Kalette said, paling noticeably and placing her hands flat on the table to steady them.

"And now we're back to where we started," Kage said. "Who do we know that would have access to any sort of intelligence service that might have heard something?"

"The Eshquarians?" Doc asked.

"No," Jason shook his head. "They've had two full election cycles since we last helped them. Nobody there is going to talk to us."

"Crisstof is out," Twingo said.

"Oh yeah," Jason laughed. "That's not happening. Besides, if he knew anything he'd have already acted on it instead of chasing Kalette down at the behest of ConFed Intel."

"There is someone we could ask for help," Twingo said hesitantly.

"Who?"

"Galvetic Marine and regular Legion infantry units have been deploying across the quadrant since Mazer's successful pilot program on Crisstof's ship," Twingo said, talking fast before Jason could cut him off. "Crusher is back in command of the legions and is in charge of all the deployed units. Those warriors are likely feeding intel back to him continuously as they go about their assignments." Jason maintained a neutral face, forcing himself to consider the option before dismissing it out of hand.

"It won't work," he said finally. "Even if the deployed warriors had given him something related to this situation I don't think Crusher would just give it to us."

"I think you might be letting your own feelings get in the way," Doc said. "Crusher left on his own terms, but I don't think he harbors any lasting animosity towards us."