Omega Rising (17 page)

              "I think we're a go on that. He's had his implants installed and has been recovering in his room. The engineer has been puttering around with the ship and the doctor seems to do whatever he can to avoid your men."

              "Excellent. Once you land, incapacitate the human have him put in stasis. I was going to have my men deal with the good doctor, but I think I want you to do it. Kill that arrogant, pretentious Ma'Fredich and I'll know you're my guy." Jason and Ma'Fredich looked at each other in alarm.

              "What about the engineer?"

              "Who cares? They're a dime a dozen, I'm sure someone in The Vault can find an interesting use for him. Who knows... it may even actually be as an engineer." Bondrass' coarse laugh afterwards paled Twingo's normally blue hue. The crime boss continued, "Once that's done, and you've given the cargo to the handlers, get your ass back here with that beautiful ship. Klegsh may have been unwilling to sell her, but I can see you're much more reasonable. Bring that gunship back and you'll have earned a spot on my staff."

              "That sounds excellent, sir. We're currently three days flight out from The Vault, I'll contact you when everything is in order." The display blanked and a text header showing the log file location, time stamp, and message duration was displayed in it's place. Nobody spoke for a long while.

              "Well, I guess that settles what the bastard was up to," Jason broke the silence. "This changes the plan. We're going to have to neutralize Deetz
before
we hit The Vault."

              "I can help with that," Ma'Fredich said. "I've got detailed files on the different types of synths, I'll work out a way to incapacitate him."

              "I'll help," Twingo said. "I never did trust that damn machine, I knew he had to be working another angle after Jason told me his story. You sure we shouldn't just kill him?"

              "Not yet," Jason said firmly. "This plan just became a lot more fluid, I may need him available still. If we blast him I won't have that option." Both nodded respectfully, indicating their assent. "Ok, so we know what we're doing in the short term. Doc, find a way to knock that backstabbing robot out. Twingo, I'll meet you in engineering later to see about fabricating some concealable hand held weapons. I'd search the armory, but we need to be discreet. Any questions? No? Great. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to try and get a couple more hours of sleep." The two others took the hint and walked to the door. Ma'Fredich paused in the entry way and turned back to Jason.

              "Jason, sometimes you call me 'Doc', is there some significance to this?

              "Ah," Jason said, smiling. "It's short for doctor. In my time in one of Earth's military branches my team always had a medic with us that looked after us. We all just called them 'Doc'. It's meant as a sign of respect, but if it bothers you I'll try to stop."

              "No, no. I think I quite like it," Ma'Fredich smiled as he walked out the door. "Doc," he repeated to himself before the hatch closed completely. Jason smiled and shook his head before laying back down and trying to get some more sleep with all the dangers that surrounded him swirling through his dreams.

Jason woke up only a few hours after his two friends had left his room. He felt refreshed and ready to get started nonetheless. Despite the seriousness and the danger involved with this latest mission, he felt completely exhilarated. After a shower and some breakfast he wondered down to engineering. He wasn't surprised to see Ma'Fredich and Twingo together, standing by a work bench going over some type of schematic. The two had become nearly inseparable on this flight despite their differences in social standing and vocational backgrounds. The two saw him and waved him over to the table. From what he could tell, they'd been working tirelessly on their plan to knock Deetz out of commission.

              "Fill me in, boys," Jason said, his usual chroot mug grasped firmly in his hand. They did. Although he didn't understand most of the technical aspects of the plan (or any of them, if he was honest) he took it on faith that the doctor and engineer could come up with a working plan. It was relatively simple on the surface, and in the end he had them fabricate three sets of the specialized equipment they would need to execute the plan, that way any one of them could get to the synth in case he acted before they did.

Next came the hand held weapons; they needed something like a hold-out pistol that couldn't be detected by the security scanners that may be in place in The Vault. Twingo had decided to go low-tech, in a way. "I took some inspiration from your weapon that was in the armory, Jason. Fairly archaic, but effective. While making an Earth-type projectile gun is plausible, the necessity for metals means it still may be detected." Twingo was showing an exploded view of what looked like a Buck Rogers version of an over-under Derringer pistol. "This baby is all synthetic and has no power source, that's the beauty of it. When you pull the trigger a chemical reaction instantaneously generates the power to fire a single shot. The shot will destroy the emitter and consume the chemicals so I'm including two shots per weapon. It isn't much, I'll admit."

              "No, it's perfect," Jason disagreed. "If it takes more than two shots with one of these we've already fucked up beyond repair. I love it. Build it." He nodded to the pair and left the engineering bay. He would have liked to have stayed to help out, but he would best serve their mission by wondering the ship and keeping Deetz and the guards distracted from what the other two were doing. With that in mind, he veered from his original course heading to the bridge and walked to the galley instead.

As Jason had hoped, one of Bondrass' security troops was seated at the table, as usual. He had no idea which one, the trio looked too similar and had the same apparent lack of anything that could remotely be considered a personality. He got another mug of chroot
and sat directly across from the guard, plastering a wide, ridiculous smile on his face. "Hi!"

              "What do you want?"

              "I just realized that we've never really had a chance to talk, just you and me." Jason kept up the same stupid smile while the alien had a look on his face that said he'd rather scrape Jason off the bottom of his boot than talk to him. Wordlessly, the guard stood, glared at him, and stalked out of the galley area. Jason got up and followed him to the lounge. "Ah! Good idea, the seats in there are
so
uncomfortable. This will be much nicer." This time the alien actually snarled in disgust and stormed off toward crew berthing. As soon as he was out of sight the smile disappeared from Jason's face and was replaced with a scowl.
That's two of those assholes out of the way for a while, and the third won't leave the cargo bay.
He eyed the stairs to the upper command deck speculatively. It would be useful to go up and keep Deetz distracted, but he was afraid he wouldn't be able to keep up the charade of the ignorant rube, or be able to keep his hostility in check. He decided that Deetz would probably be just as interested in avoiding them and would likely stay on the bridge for the rest of the flight, so instead he turned and walked back to his quarters to go through the technical data Doc had left him on his new implants.

              Nearly forty-eight hours later, Jason, Twingo, and Ma'Fredich had everything prepared that they would need to execute their plan. Since there was nothing to do but wait during the remainder of the flight, Jason took extra care to keep the nerves of his cohorts under control; they had never been in combat before, so they didn't know how to channel the stress and energy that came with a pending operation into something positive, or at least non-destructive. The easiest way he knew how to accomplish this was to make them do something genuinely useful, they were both too smart to be coddled. So instead of busy-work, he asked them to help him get his implants configured and tweaked to suit him. Afterwards, he was able to have pertinent information fed directly into his visual cortex, the displays appeared to float in his field of view in a way that seemed almost natural. Twingo even slaved the targeting system from his railgun to his neural interface, he could now engage targets without having to shoulder the weapon and sight directly through the optics. Jason's human brain seemed to adapt quickly and he soon developed an insatiable desire to see what other tricks his new wetware could do, but Doc cautioned him to take it easy and acclimate slowly. It was easy to become enamored with what the technology could offer to the point of becoming completely distracted and detached from reality, something they couldn't afford during the upcoming mission.

For his own part, Jason had to prepare himself for what was coming as well. He knew the likelihood of them pulling this off without any bloodshed was non-existant, and although he was technically the only member of the team with military training, he had rarely directly taken a life. His time in the Air Force had been spent as a Pararescue operator, or PJ. While highly trained members of the special operations community, very rarely were they called upon as a tactical asset, their job was to get in to impossible spots, rescue and render aid to others, and egress. He had performed joint ops with SEALs and Marine Force Recon units, so it wasn't that he was squeamish, but after years of fighting in the Global War on Terror, he was weary of the constant fighting. That was the main reason he had been hiding in his family cabin high in the mountains. This time he knew he had no choice though, the stakes were his very freedom and likely his life. So, in the end the choice was quite simple; fight for freedom or live and die a slave. Or worse. It wasn't the potential for violence that bothered him. It was the fact that if he hadn't heard Deetz offering to give him up, he wasn't sure he'd be as inclined to get involved, and he didn't like what that said about him.

              The big day had arrived. They would be making their final approach to The Vault within the next eight hours and Jason could tell his team was pumped up on stress and stimulants. Timing would be critical, so he did everything he could to keep them settled down and made sure they ate a large meal and had plenty of sleep. His years in the field had taught him you ate and slept whenever, whereever you could during operations; there was no guarantee when you'd get another opportunity. He sat pensively on the bridge with Deetz as the synth guided the ship towards their target after emerging from slip-space. So far as Jason could tell he suspected nothing.

They were almost on final approach before Jason could even tell which asteroid it was that they were heading for, and even then it was only because the ship highlighted it for him in his optical implants. The DL7 passed easily through a natural looking tunnel that could have accommodated a much larger ship and slowed to a stop before what appeared to be a dead end. Jason's pulse quickened at this unexpected turn of events. Deetz turned to him and smiled mirthlessly.
Shit, does he know?
As he was about to inquire as to what was going on Deetz cycled the landing gear down and a set of flood lights came on within the tunnel, illuminating a landing apron that had been hewn out of the tough iron ore of the asteroid. Beyond that were a set of massive blast doors that presumably led into the hander deck. "Getting into this place is a bit of a trick. It may be notorious, but it's still a closely guarded secret," Deetz said as the gunship settled onto the landing pad. “This is actually a secure backdoor, if you will. If I hadn’t transmitted the proper clearance codes we got from Bondrass we would have been incinerated while still in the tunnel before we even saw the hanger door. The main dock, and entrance, are on the adjacent face of the asteroid and have much more prominent security protocols.” Jason felt a small bit of elation at Deetz’s description of their entry method; Doc had said they would likely enter through a hanger that bypassed the major bulk of security on the station. The security was more focused on controlling those visiting for the entertainment, not so much those that were there on official business. 

After another series of com messages, a crack appeared in the blast doors and, slowly, they rolled apart. Jason could see another set of equally impressive doors that split and opened vertically behind that, creating a double-layered door that looked nearly impenetrable. It would be insanely difficult to enter The Vault through this port if you weren't invited. Once the doors were open the gunship taxied forward and followed the go-to directions on their displays that guided them to the docking berth they had been assigned. After the ship stopped and leveled itself on its landing gear Deetz began shutting down the primary flight systems, completely preoccupied. Jason rose and walked around to the pilot's seat. "We all set?"

              "It appears so, I guess we should go tell the..." Deetz never finished his sentence as Jason patted him on the shoulder, the seemingly friendly gesture eliciting an explosion of sparks. Deetz's voice scrambled and he stiffened in the seat. Trying to rise, he reminded of Jason of a stroke victim. The synth jerkily tried to come at Jason, who easily backed out of reach, a small device with two protruding electrodes in his right hand. A look of comprehension crossed Deetz's face before it froze completely and he collapsed in a heap.

              "Twingo, get in here!" Jason called out. The engineer, who had been waiting in the port-side meeting room that was just aft of the bridge, raced in with his hands full of tools. He quickly flipped Deetz over and began cutting an access opening into his skin. Once through, he fiddled around inside and then installed the device he'd been carrying into the synth. He flipped Deetz back over and looked up, breathing hard and with his hands on his knees.