Omega Force 7: Redemption (9 page)

"Fine," Jason said in disgust. "Do you have a slip-com terminal I can use? I need to make a call and I don't want to take the chance Crisstof intercepts it."

"Sure," Twingo said. "We've got one in the shop."

They locked the ship back up and walked across the tarmac to the row of repair hangars and warehouses that seemed ubiquitous on every spaceport no matter which planet you traveled to. Twingo led them into the on-site facility his company used and pointed to a back office off the main hangar floor. "Back there."

"I'll just be a minute," Jason said. He walked in and closed the door before powering up the terminal and waiting for the slip-space field to stabilize around the antenna. Instead of making a video or voice call he punched in a data address that he had stored in his neural implant and retrieved a specific coded message to transmit. After he was done he wiped the memory on the com node and sat looking around the office for a bit. Once he felt enough time had passed to make it seem like he'd had a two-way conversation he turned the terminal off and walked out of the office.

"I have a line on a ship," he said. "An old favor I called in. It's about a three-day flight from here ... can our ship make it that far?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," Twingo said. "Which system are you heading to?"

"Evvesk-3," Jason said, watching their reaction.

"Uh, who did you call in a favor from? And do I even want to know?" Twingo asked at the mention of the notorious planet.

"Just someone who happens to have interests there," Jason said evasively. "It's all handled and the deal is with me, so don't worry about anything."

"I'm not exactly worried, but there isn't a patch of dirt on that planet that isn't controlled by very dangerous people," Twingo said.

"I know," Jason said. "But desperate times and all that. We'll head out this evening and get out of your way."

"So soon? A day is hardly enough time to catch up," Twingo said.

"Yeah, but Kalette is on a tight schedule," Jason said. "We'll be back around once this is all over."

"Twingo seemed to think this planet we are going to is dangerous," Kalette said as Jason slid into the pilot's seat and began pre-heating the engines.

"It can be," Jason said. "But we're heading to a near-abandoned spaceport that doesn't get a lot of activity. We'll be fine."

"Reactor is at fifty percent," Lucky said. "You are clear for engine start."

"Hold up!" Doc called out from one of the rear jump seats. "Look." Jason turned his gaze to where Doc was pointing and saw two figures standing in front of the ship, one waving enthusiastically.

"Keep prepping the drive," he told Lucky. "I'll go see what they want." When he got down to the cargo bay and dropped the rear hatch he saw that they hadn't come empty-handed. "What's all this?"

"We're coming along," Twingo said, tossing his bag onto the pile already in the cargo bay.

"What about your job?" Jason asked Twingo before turning to Kage. "And your pyramid scam?"

"The people on this planet are cautious investors," Kage shrugged. "Time to move on to more fertile grounds."

"And I took a leave of absence," Twingo said. "We were talking and it didn't feel right letting you three fly off into a dangerous situation without us."

"Well, don't expect me to try and talk you out of it," Jason said. "I'll need both of you before this is all over I'm sure. Hop aboard."

Just shy of two hours later the cramped cargo ship meshed out of the system.

****

"I really, really hope this new ship you lined up is bigger," Kage complained loudly as the ship shuddered violently as it came out of slip-space and into the Evvesk System.

"What's wrong, buddy? Is the cargo bay cold?" Jason asked.

"Just tell me the new ship has actual crew quarters for everyone," Kage said.

"It does," Jason said. "Not going to guarantee how comfortable or clean they are, but they're there."

Evvesk-3 didn't have an official landing control system, so Jason just picked an open patch of sky near their destination and flew towards it. They were heading to a spaceport that was near a city that had been reduced in population by sixty percent over the last ten years alone due to crime, pollution, and a short but destructive war for control of the northern hemisphere.

The result was one of the most depressing-looking sights Jason could recall seeing since leaving Earth. The buildings were just starting to get that rundown look that seemed to proceed modern ruins, and the reddish hue that air always seemed to overlay the entire place with a "rusty" look.

"This place doesn't have a whole lot going for it," Twingo remarked.

"No, but it's a good place to hide something if you don't want a lot of people poking around it," Jason said as he guided the ship over the city and towards the spaceport.

"You're sure your friend has a ship stashed out here that's in better shape than this one?" Kage asked.

"It would almost have to be in better shape since this one is barely safe to fly," Twingo said.

"He's not a friend," Jason clarified, ignoring Twingo. "Just someone who owes me a favor."

"I find this all very odd that someone owes you such an expensive favor and somehow we don't know about it," Doc said.

"It's your right to feel however you want," Jason said, still refusing to divulge any details. He called the spaceport's landing control and requested to land near the row of large hangars and not on an actual landing pad. The response was something akin to, 'Do whatever the hell you want and leave us alone.'

Once the ship had settled on its landing gear Jason turned to his crew. "Lucky, I need you on overwatch," he said. "Someone may have seen this ship come in and decided that it carried something they might want to take. Twingo, I need you with me. Doc, you and Kage keep an eye on Kalette and the ship. There are weapons in the cargo bay, and nobody wander off."

"Just like old times," Kage said enthusiastically as he left the flight deck.

After Lucky had fired his repulsors and took position on the roof of the enormous hangar, Jason strapped on the belt with his sidearm and motioned Twingo to follow him. He walked up to the side of the hangar and opened a nondescript electrical box like the dozens of others that dotted the sides of the rusting buildings. This one, however, had a state of the art biometric scanner and keypad. Jason let it scan his thumb, retina, and even take a blood sample before he punched in the key code.

A few seconds later the whine of a hydraulic pump could be heard and then the harsh, grating rumble of the main hangar doors opening. Jason winked at Twingo and led him back around so they could see what was inside.

"I don't know, Jason," Twingo said. "That might be a little cramped."

"Funny," Jason said. "Just help me move it." In the middle of the cavernous building was a tiny, two-seat open cockpit aircraft that was popular with vacationers who wanted an aerial view of wherever they were at. "In fact, we need to get everything out of here."

"Ah, I see why you needed me," Twingo grumbled. "Manual labor."

Despite all the complaining it only took them twenty minutes to empty the hangar out and get the lights and other support equipment powered on.

"So what the hell are we doing? Are we storing your ship in here and the other one is being delivered?" Twingo asked.

"Would you
please
just be patient," Jason said, his own patience with his friend beginning to wane. He walked over to the same control panel on the outside wall and punched in a second code. "You might want to
not
be standing inside."

Twingo jumped back out of the building just as more pumps could be heard kicking on somewhere else in the hangar. Jason held his hand up just as Twingo opened his mouth to ask yet another question and a second before the floor inside the hangar moved. They both watched as the seemingly solid concrete slab split down the middle along one of the expansion joints and retracted into either side, leaving a grid of support trusses underneath. Once the floor had completely retracted the trusses themselves also pulled away, every other truss retracting to the right and the rest going to the left.

"Smart," Twingo said, trying to peer down into the black abyss that used to be the floor. "Those trusses made sure the hangar floor could still support heavy loads and nobody would be the wiser."

"That's the idea," Jason said as a louder, deeper groaning could be heard and the ground began to shake. As they watched, the tips of a pair of vertical stabilizers came into view, each canted out at forty-five degrees. Twingo's mouth began to drop open at the same rate as the lift was coming up from the depths and the top of a ship became visible.

After thirty more seconds the wings and four enormous plasma-thrust engines came into view. The lift finally slammed into the stops, the hydraulics whining slightly to lock it into place, and they were looking at the unmistakable tail end of an extensively modified DL7 heavy gunship.

"No!" Twingo said, wiping his eyes.

"Yes," Jason said, enjoying his friend's reaction and feeling equally emotional.

"You said you sold her!" Twingo accused.

"No, I said I got rid of her," Jason corrected. "A technicality I know ... I did mislead all of you, but at the time it seemed like a good idea to stash her in a place only I knew about." Jason saw Kage and Doc walking up, equally shocked and speechless.

"What ship is this?" Kalette asked, staring at the sleek warship.

"
This
is the
Phoenix
," Jason said. "This is what we'll be taking to get you back to the Avarian Empire."

"So do I even want to know what condition she's in?" Twingo asked.

"I kept power applied from an external source, damage control bots were programmed to keep her clean and parasite free, and I emptied the fuel tanks," Jason said, struggling to remember what steps he'd taken over two years prior. "The computer cores were put in long-term storage mode and a handful of other things."

"That's better than I could have hoped for," Twingo said, rubbing his chin. "If you go ahead and call for fuel I'll start prepping the reactor for restart."

"Okay," Jason said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get to work, everybody."

****

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Jason said. After he'd keyed open the
Phoenix's
rear ramp so Twingo and Kage could get to work, he'd pulled Lucky aside to try and explain to his friend why he'd kept such a big secret from him.

"I am sure you had your reasons," Lucky said. "But I will admit to feeling ... hurt ... by the exclusion."

"It wasn't necessarily an exclusion," Jason said, struggling for a way to explain why he’d hidden the ship. "At least not with you. I didn't tell the others because I didn't feel like going through what would amount to a custody dispute. The gunship is an extremely valuable piece of equipment and there were a lot of hard feelings when we all went our separate ways ... some of that about the division of money, or lack thereof. I could see at least four of the six of us arguing about who should get the ship, or arguing that we sell her outright and split the money. Despite everything I couldn't bear the thought of letting her go."

"Understood. But you are well aware that I am not motivated by money," Lucky said. "So I can only assume there is another reason."

"I didn't want to get you involved with the person I made a deal with to store the
Phoenix
," Jason said. "I figured if you weren't involved it would be plausible deniability if it all went bad."

"Saditava Mok," Lucky said. "You made a deal with the gangster that purchased Crusher's release."

"Yes," Jason sighed. "Only I didn't make a deal. This was another 'gift.' What he will want in return is beyond me."

"You should not have taken on this burden alone," Lucky admonished him. "We are partners and should share everything equally: risk, reward, and consequences."

"That sentiment is exactly why I didn't tell you," Jason said with a shake of his head. "Sometimes I wish you had a little more self-preservation instinct, my friend."

"I could say the same for you."

"There are billions of humans," Jason shrugged. "There are only a few of you left and you can't create more."

Lucky fell silent after that and watched as three fuel trucks, their cryogenic tanks hissing and steaming, pulled up to the hangar and prepared to fill the
Phoenix's
tanks with liquid hydrogen.

"What do you think Saditava really wants from you?" Lucky asked after a moment.

"I wish I knew," Jason admitted. "He doesn't seem like your average low-life crime boss ... but I have no way to tell for sure. Without Crisstof's intel resources I'm flying blind."

After the ship was fueled Twingo was able to really dig in and start bringing it out of long-term storage mode and readying it for flight. Despite the massive amount of work involved Jason couldn't remember a time when he'd seen the engineer so happy. They caught him more than a few times running his hands lovingly over different parts of the ship.

"We're making anti-hydrogen and the injector manifold isolators are stable," Twingo said, walking onto the bridge and fiddling with something else at one of the terminals. "Main reactor is up and settling in nicely. We'll be generating power shortly and then we can start getting the grav-drive online."

"Take your time," Jason said from one of the sensor stations. "After the ship is flight ready we're going to have to make some choices."

"Such as?" Twingo asked. "We're just racing to the edge of Avarian space and broadcasting a message, right?"

"It's not that simple," Jason said. "I haven't brought it up until now, but if we take Kalette back she'll be dead within a week and nothing will change to stop the Avarians from attacking."

"Can we ever have a conversation where you don't drop some horrible bombshell in the middle of it?" Twingo complained. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Think about it," Jason said. "You've been involved in all the same situations I have. There's no way this was a plan that didn't originate within the Avarian Empire. They likely had a lot of help from interested parties here in ConFed space, but this is internal politics. I'd bet all my money on it."

"Given that you just spent the last of your money on the fuel we just took on that would be a safe bet either way," Twingo said. "I will admit it does make more sense than the ConFed just up and deciding that it's going to go and abduct a young girl from a neighboring superpower that could likely wipe them out."

"Shit," Jason said, frowning. "You've just made me reconsider this. What if this is ConFed Intel? They're routinely playing games autonomously or at the request of one councilmember or another."

"Could be a combination of both," Twingo said. "Stand by, we're switching to internal power." There were some thumps and whines as load contactors were engaged and the main busses were switched over to drawing power from the main reactor instead of the external power umbilical. Displays all over the bridge blinked on and half a dozen other systems began booting up with the availability of main power, and Jason's station lit up like a Christmas tree with warnings and errors.