Omega Force: Savage Homecoming (10 page)

The
Phoenix
entered real-space with a flash and drifted through the outer boundary of the unnamed system. The K-class star was thoroughly uninteresting save for a host of small, rocky planets orbiting it. There was no life indigenous to any of them.

“Contact!”
Doc exclaimed from his station. “We have emissions coming from the inner system. They’re consistent with the target ships’ com transmissions.”

“Can you pinpoint it?” Jason asked as he throttled the drive up.

“Negative. Not at this range.”

“Shit.”
Jason didn’t like announcing their presence by using the active sensors, but there was no evidence to show that the enemy ships could even detect tachyon transmissions in the first place. He waffled for a second before giving the order. “Active sensors, short burst mode. I just want a rough picture of what’s out there.”

No sooner did Doc sweep the system with the active sensor array when the computer began populating the threat board,
and a ship of the same configuration as one of the enemy ships appeared floating in space between the third and fourth planets. “Got your ass now!” Jason hissed as he slammed the throttle down, tracking inward towards the other ship. The
Phoenix
surged as she raced down the star’s gravity well towards their target. “Full tactical alert, all weapons online and full active sensors. I want that target painted, we’re going to end this fast.”

“Captain!”
Kage said in alarm. “We should hold back until the
Diligent
arrives in-system at least.”

“No time,” Jason said sharply. “Get that ship bracketed and get me a plot to bring the main guns to bear.”
Kage wisely did as he was told when he saw the look in his captain’s eyes. Even Taryn, strapped in next to Doc at one of the port stations, looked at Jason with apprehension.

“Plot
laid in. This course will bring us down to the ecliptic plane and onto a pursuing course,” Kage said.

“Are they maneuvering?” Jason demanded.

“They’ve come about, but they’re making no move to escape,” Doc reported. “No changes in power readings either.” Jason smiled grimly in the dim red glow of the bridge lights. All his indicators were green; he was going to turn this ship to slag just like the last one.

“
Keep an eye out for Deetz trying to make a run for it again,” Jason said as he made his final course correction. “If he flees in that smaller ship we’re going to break off and pursue.”

“We’ve got a power surge in the target, Captain,” Doc said with some alarm in his voice. “It appears to be some type of charge building on the hull
; the computer can’t identify it.”

“No matter,” Jason said. “They can’t penetrate modern shields
. We’re about to end this.”

The computer showed they were quickly coming into weapons range. At their rate of closure they would overfly the stationary vessel practically before they could see it, so Jason authorized the computer to actually fire the weapon
s. He began to squeeze the trigger on the stick to finalize that authorization as the number ticked down.
Almost there …

The bright flash that hit them just before the
Phoenix
closed to within weapons range filled the entire bridge like a strobe and nearly blinded them. A split second later the pitch of the engines began to warble, sputter, and then died altogether. There was just enough time for alarms to begin flashing when power cut off completely and the bridge went pitch black. There was a loud crash beside Jason that made him jump and then he could feel himself go weightless in his seat restraints before he called out to Twingo, “What’s going on?”

“I have no idea, Jason,” Twingo said with a bit of fear in his voice. “This should be impossible; we have primary, secondary, and emergency power systems on this ship. None are working.”

“Jason, I can’t understand what he’s saying anymore,” Taryn called out in a fear-laced voice.

“Just stay in your seat for now until we can sort this out,” Jason called back. “Twingo, the emergency oxygen system isn’t coming on
… you have got to get some power restored.”

“It may not matter, Captain,” Kage said matter-of-factly from his right. “We’re tumbling towards the primary star. Personally I’d rather be unconscious for that bit of fun.”

“Do we have anything onboard that wouldn’t have been affected by this … power drain?” Doc asked. “There has to be something you can do.”

“We do have an emergency fuel cell that
might
produce enough power to get the back-up fusion reactor online. The backup would get us life support, gravity, and limited maneuvering.”

“How limited?”
Jason asked.

“Low power to the main engines and attitude thrusters only.
No grav drive.”

“Is that enough to get us safely around the star?”

“Possibly, if we can get it going quickly,” Kage said. “We were carrying a lot of speed before the engines died. We can get into orbit around the star, but without shields we’ll probably fry anyway.”

“Thanks,” Jason said drily. “Twingo,
get your ass moving. Get us something working if only life support and coms.”

“Jason,” Taryn said again with hesitation, having only been able to understand one side of the conversation. “Is that ship still out there?”

“If it is we’ll never see them coming, so no point in worrying about it just yet,” Jason told her honestly. Twingo was feeling his way towards the exit when he let out a yelp.

“What the hell was that?!”
he said as he floated out through the opening.

“So now what?”
Crusher said from his seat on the starboard side of the bridge.

“Now we wait,” Jason said simply. “We don’t have any other choice. Everyone stay restrained for now, there’s an
unlikely chance that Twingo may actually know what he’s doing.”

“You think the
Diligent
will find us?” Kage asked.

“We’re a powerless chunk of alloy flying through the system right now,” Doc answered. “I’d say even odds they find us in time.”

It was a tense fifteen minutes later when the hiss of the air handlers started up again and the emergency lighting came on along the floor. “
That’s all I can give you for now. I need everything this cell can produce to try and start the fusion reactor.”
Twingo’s voice sounded tinny over the bridge speakers as he continued to work. It was another fifty minutes before the normal bridge lighting came up and Jason was pulled back down into his seat as gravity was restored. There was also an enormous crashing sound out in the common area.
These guys have got to start strapping shit down better before we fly into combat.

“Main computer is booting up. Subsystems are also coming online
. I’ll let you know when we have maneuvering,” Kage said as he began entering commands into the basic interface that was displayed at all their stations. The more robust user interfaces they were accustomed to would come up when the main computer was back online.

“We see you have limited power, Captain,”
Kellea Colleren’s voice came over the bridge speakers on the emergency short-range com channel. “
How bad is it?”

“Honestly? Bad,” Jason admitted. “We had a complete system failure. Main reactor is offline and Twingo has just got the backup system started. We still have no maneuvering, however. Where are you?”

“Directly below you at a distance of five kilometers. We’ve been waiting to see if you could restore your primary flight systems before stepping in.”

“It’s not likely we’ll be able to,” Jason admitted. “What do you suggest?”

“Lower your landing gear and we’ll bring you in. Leave it to us, Captain, Diligent out.”

J
ason lowered the landing gear and sat back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest and teeth clenched. It wasn’t long before the brilliant white hull of the
Diligent
could be seen through the canopy as she maneuvered up under them. There was a soft bump as the two ships made contact and the
Phoenix
was held fast to the
Diligent’s
landing platform via the mag-locks. He was positively fuming at his ship being drawn into the frigate in that condition: completely helpless and having utterly failed. He at least had enough power to taxi the ship under her own power off the platform and into their usual parking berth on the hangar deck. Sighing, he got up from his seat to face the inevitable.

“
OK everybody—”

“CAPTAIN, GET DOWN HERE!” Twingo’s strident shout came from the common area and spurred Jason into instant action. He raced off the bridge and was unprepared for what he found at the bottom of the stairs. Crumpled as if tossed, and completely inert, was Lucky. Twingo was trying to roll the battlesynth over and couldn’t budge him as his limbs were splayed at unnatural angles. Jason rushed to help, heaving with all the strength he had to turn him over, also not having much luck.

“Crusher! Get your ass down here!” Jason shouted up the stairs even as the Galvetic warrior appeared at the edge of the command deck. When he saw the scene below he bounded down the flight in two steps and grabbed his friend. Lucky rolled over with a thud, staring up with lifeless eyes. “What’s happened to him?!” Jason was near panic. After all they’d been through, he’d come to think of the synthetic soldier as indestructible.

“The same thing that happened to the
Phoenix
,” Twingo said. “That ship somehow shut down every power source on this vessel, including his power unit.”

“Kage,” Jason said as he stood up, “go down and open the ramp. The
Diligent’s
crew may be getting a little anxious out there.”

“Oh God!”
Taryn exclaimed from the stairs, her hands going to her cheeks.

“Doc, take Taryn and go with Kage,” Jason said, loudly enough so she could hear and understand him. “Get a new translator earpiece from one of the crew out there.” He then turned to her, “I guess we know why the one you’re wearing powered off.”

Jason looked over his fallen friend and for the first time in a long time he had no idea what to do. Crusher put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Take a deep breath, Captain. Flying into a panic won’t help him. Let’s get him off the ship and into one of the
Diligent’s
engineering bays and let Twingo and Doc see what they can do,” he said in a quiet, measured rumble. Jason just nodded, breathing slow and steady to try and tamp the emotions back down. He still had no real idea as to how Lucky functioned, so he tried to console himself with the fact that Twingo and Doc did. At least somewhat.

“
OK,” Jason said when he trusted himself to speak. “Let’s go get a cart and take him out of here.” They walked off the ship and asked for a large hover-cart from one of the crewmembers milling about below. Jason nodded to Commander Bostco and saw that Taryn was hugging her parents. “We’ll be back in a minute,” Jason said simply as he and Crusher disappeared back into the ship with the cart.

Even with his enhanced muscles and Crusher’s prodigious strength, loading Lucky onto the cart was a challenge that left Jason’s back muscles twitching in spasms. They then carefully maneuvered him down through the armory and out the large blast doors into the cargo bay. As they made it to the ramp
, he could see the crowd at the bottom had grown.

“Oh, no!”
Kellea was the first to see Lucky’s still form being brought down by a solemn Jason and Crusher. Crisstof came over and rested a hand on the battlesynth’s chest before speaking.

“What do you need?”

“A sturdy table in an engineering bay or lab so Twingo and Doc can begin to see the extent of the damage,” Jason said.

He watched as Twingo and Doc pushed the cart bearing Lucky out through the aft hatch of the hang
ar deck. Once they had disappeared with a handful of
Diligent’s
technicians and engineers, Crisstof turned to Jason, “So what happened?”

“That’s as much as we know,” Jason told the group assembled in one of the
Diligent’s
meeting rooms. “Hopefully we’ll learn more when the
Phoenix
is fully operational again and we can access the sensor logs.”

“So there was just a bright flash and then systems began to shut down?” Kellea asked.

“
All
systems shut down, even emergency systems that should be almost impossible to disable,” Jason corrected. “Anything with a power source, including Lucky. If we didn’t have a chemical fuel cell on board we wouldn’t have been able to get life support running again before you guys showed up.” He was still salty about being brought aboard her ship powerless as he answered the captain’s questions to the best of his recollection.

“So was this a weapon?
Or a byproduct of their FTL technology?” Crisstof wondered aloud. “We know they don’t utilize the slip-drive technology nearly every other civilization in this part of the galaxy uses.”

“I’m inclined to believe it was a weapon. They baited us in before hitting us right outside our nominal weapons range,” Jason said.

“How could they know your armament’s range?” Kellea interjected.

“Deetz is very familiar with the ship and its systems, which is something I should have taken into account. I should have been more cautious.” Jason was frustrated at how easily they had been defeated, and he knew that had the
Diligent
not arrived when they did, it was likely they’d have been captured. Or worse.

“So why did your implants stay on when my translator died?” Taryn spoke up for the first time during the meeting.

“Our neural implants operate on the body’s natural bio-generated current. It makes them nearly impervious to interference,” Kellea answered, addressing Taryn directly for the first time since she’d been pulled off Earth. “Speaking of that, would you prefer my medical staff provide you with a base level neural implant? It will be significantly more comfortable than wearing the earpiece.”

“I’m … I’m not sure,” Taryn answered with trepidation. “Is it painful?”

“You’re out for most of it,” Jason said with a reassuring smile. “You’ll just wake up with a bit of a headache and you’ll be able to understand everyone much more naturally than by listening to an overlaid voice.”

“OK, if you think it will help.”

“I’ll leave you here with Captain Colleren’s crew to get your implant,” Jason told her, squeezing her shoulders as he walked by. “I’m going to check on Lucky and then I’ll come see you in the infirmary.”

*****

Lucky was splayed out face down on a work table when Jason found the correct engineering shop. Twingo had cut a piece of his “skin” away to gain access to his power system. There were power transmission lines running to the battlesynth, and the engineer was closely monitoring the associated instruments.

“Anything?”
Jason asked softly, not wanting to be a distraction. Twingo, who would normally bristle at the interruption, replied with just as much reverence.

“We’ve hooked directly into his power system. The good news is that he’s accepting the energy feed and his cells are recharging. The system is fairly robust since he’s able to absorb energy from a wide variety of sources, it’s just a delicate operation to try and charge the storage cells directly. We’ll know more soon. Once he reaches a certain power level, his low-level systems should begin to come online and he will start trying to wake up.”

“Do you want us to let you know when we have anything new?” Doc asked. Although a medical doctor, Doc had a good amount of knowledge of the synthetic race known widely as
synths
. He was holding a tablet computer displaying a schematic of Lucky’s power system, as well as a full readout of specs on the power requirements.

“I think I’ll just stay and sit with him for a bit,” Jason said. “I don’t have much else to do.”

The three sat in silence and watched the indicators on the instruments that were ensuring they didn’t damage Lucky’s power cells. Jason took the time to reflect back on the few years he had spent with the synth. When he had freed him, Lucky didn’t have a name, a home, or much trust in biological beings. He was almost shy and fearful around them, only coming out of his shell when he interacted with Crusher. The more time he spent as a member of Omega Force, the more he began to see the crew as his adopted family, a wholly foreign concept to him. With them he had been free to explore what it meant to be a free-thinking being, even developing a keen sense of humor along the way.

Jason knew his time could be better spent checking the
Phoenix
over, or making sure Kellea and Taryn weren’t in the same vicinity as each other, but Lucky had been by his side from the beginning with unflinching loyalty. The least he could do was show the same respect and be there during the delicate operation to bring him back online.

A foot twitched. Then a finger curled under. Soon, the skin around the opening began to ripple and undulate. “This is what I was waiting for,” Twingo said sharply. “Help me disconnect him, Doc.” The two worked in tandem to disengage the power transmission lines and probes from Lucky’s back even as the metallic skin began to close the hole and repair itself to seamless, burnished silver. “Let’s roll him over,” Twingo instructed the group. It seemed easier to move the battlesynth this time than it had been when he was collapsed on the floor in the
Phoenix
, probably because his actuators were no longer frozen up.

Once Lucky was on his back, they could see he still wasn’t awake. Other than a few involuntary twitches, he was still unresponsive. Twingo coupled up a power source to the battlesynth’s external inlet and cranked up the juice, allowing Lucky’s own internal power management subsystems to complete the recharging process.

“These are good signs,” Twingo explained to Jason. “His hard-wired subroutines are running; things like power management and skin integrity are active. But,” the engineer held a finger to emphasize his next point, “his brain is a largely unknown mechanism that could take a lot longer to reset, if it ever does.”

“Meaning what?” Jason asked, not wanting to hear it spoken aloud.

“He may never wake up from this. He was never meant to be completely powered down at any point in his life; the damage to his brain may be too severe for him to recover from. I’m holding out hope since as a battlesynth he has more redundancy built into his systems than someone like Deetz does.” Jason just stared at his friend without saying a word. He placed a hand on Lucky’s chest for a moment before turning and walking out of the shop area. Twingo watched him go before turning back to his borrowed work crew made up of
Diligent
crewmembers. “OK, we need to get started on the
Phoenix
now. There’s nothing more we can do for him at this point.”

Jason wandered the passageways of the
Diligent
before making his way down to the main infirmary to check on Taryn. He tried to imagine what captaining such a large ship would be like. The large open spaces, top-notch mess deck, and creature comforts would be tempting, but dealing with such a large crew would wear him down. Even though there were times the
Phoenix
almost couldn’t hold the six of them without nerves becoming frayed, he had trouble imagining himself living anyplace else.

That line of thought led him to something else he had been avoiding; he knew he could never return to Earth, but he didn’t know that Taryn would ever understand that. She might say something impulsive about wanting to stay with him, but having her aboard his ship was an unacceptable risk, and dropping her off at some other planet that he might never come back to seemed cruel beyond measure. In the end, he was going to have to convince her to go back to where she belonged. His throat tightened up and there was a pain in his chest as he realized that when he dropped her off he would never see her again.

When he arrived at the infirmary she had already undergone the procedure and was resting comfortably. The attendant let him in to the partitioned area she lay in and brought him a chair. He nodded his thanks and sat down to wait a bit and see if she awoke. Watching her features in repose, all the stress and fear erased, he knew he was making the right decision for them both. But a more primal, selfish part of him wanted to find a way to make it work no matter what.

He sat with her for the better part of an hour, with her giving no indication she would be waking up soon. He checked her monitors, gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, and left the infirmary to try and find something useful to do. He strode out towards the hangar deck to see what the status of his ship was. The setback they had suffered likely meant Deetz had slipped away again, and they were back where they started with no clues and no ideas.

The first thing he noticed when he opened the hatch to the hangar deck was that it was unusually busy. He also noticed that his ship was missing. The berth the
Phoenix
should have been occupying was being scrubbed clean by some maintenance bots. After staring dumbly for a moment, he spun and went back through the hatch, walking quickly through the maze of passageways and stairwells that would take him to the bridge.

The bridge of the
Diligent
was located at the top of the super-structure and overlooked the flight operations deck, which was on the upper hull. The classic design reminded Jason of a large ocean-going cargo ship from Earth. The entrance to the bridge was also guarded by two serious-looking beings with equally serious-looking sidearms. There had been more than a couple of altercations between the two crews from time to time, so the pair eyed Jason apprehensively when he approached.

“Permission to enter the bridge,” Jason stated, stopping before the pair.

“We have standing orders to allow you entry, Captain,” the guard on the right said. “Go on ahead.”

“Thanks.” He walked on and looked out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the forward bulkhead of the bridge. “I’m looking for a wayward gunship,” he announced to the officer of the watch. “You haven’t seen one, have you?” The officer smiled at him and pointed out the window before she turned and went about her duties. He approached the transparent material (he assumed it was some sort of alloy) and looked out over the flight deck. It was hard to miss his sleek ship as she was perched on the forward elevator. Looking at how small his ship was compared to the
Diligent
, he felt a little silly at wearing the title of
Captain
.

“Twingo and some of my engineers are ready to bring the engine core back online,” a voice said quietly behind him. “They thought it best to move it to the flight deck where we could better contain any … mishaps.” Kellea walked up to stand next to him and gaze out at the view. “That’s one tough little ship, Captain.”

“Little?” he said in a mock hurt tone. She gave him a half-smile before looking to see if any of her crew were watching. They seemed to be making a concerted effort to ignore them as they stood together. Rumors had been floating around for months, but they respected their captain enough to not simply stare.

“So … how is Taryn faring though all of this?” Kellea forced the name out through slightly clenched teeth, causing Jason to cringe inwardly. He and Captain Colleren had become close over the last year but each had a natural aloofness that had made it slow going.
So why do I feel like I got caught doing something wrong?

“She’s overwhelmed, much like I was when I first discovered all of this,” he said neutrally. “The attack on Earth along with finding out what I’ve been doing the last few years has been a bit of a shock to her system.”

“I can imagine,” Kellea answered noncommittally. “So what are her plans after all of this is over?”

“I couldn’t say, really. I assume she’ll return to Earth with her parents and try to rebuild some sort of life for herself,” Jason said. “The hell of it is, she didn’t ask for any of this. Deetz flashed her picture all over the airwaves back home and has made it impossible for her to return to her old life.” Kellea was quiet for a moment after that.

“That’s a difficult position to be in,” she said with genuine sympathy. They looked out the window and fell into a comfortable silence as the engines of the
Phoenix’s
grav-drive began to pulsate with a blue glow that increased in intensity.

“I guess Twingo got the core restarted,” Jason said with some relief. “It’ll probably take him another few hours to get everything aligned and calibrated. I’ll let you get back to work. Thanks for the talk.”

Kellea raised a hand as if to reach out and touch his arm and then stopped herself short. “Anytime,” she said as she spun and walked back to one of the stations that lined the aft bulkhead. Jason strode off the bridge, ignoring the looks her crew gave him, and made his way back to the infirmary to see if Taryn had stirred yet.

“Hi!” Taryn was disgustingly chipper after the implant procedure. Jason looked at her skeptically.

“How do you feel?”

“Honestly, great!
I’ve been chatting with the staff here, this thing is great.”

“So no headache or general shitty feeling?”