2
Planet S’Tora
286 Years Later
"MR. JASON! How are you?"
"Hello, Ertz." Jason Burke waved back to the squat little S'Toran that was gesticulating with both hands in an enthusiastic greeting. "How are things today?"
"Very good! This is the fourth generation of the crop that Mr. Doc has brought us and, as you can see, it is growing quite cheerfully," Ertz said. "The berries are now of the same size and consistency as the original sample of plants you brought to us."
"That last batch wasn't bad." Jason knelt down to inspect his latest business venture. "We sold out locally within the first three months and that was only a test batch. We should be ready for full export by the end of the year."
"Yes," Ertz nodded. "I will admit to being skeptical when you approached us about producing this caw-fee … it seemed too bitter and astringent, but if growth keeps steady I think we'll be clearing some of the tea fields to make room for your Arabicas."
"You'll thank me when we're rich." Jason smiled. "So what did you need to see me about?"
"The machinery Mr. Twingo provided us is simply inadequate for the volume we're talking about for this next harvest," Ertz said. "While the coffee is more profitable than tea, it's also much more labor intensive to get from harvest to sellable product. If I have to have my people run many small batches, it will not only increase costs but likely result in a lot of waste from the berries that rot before we can get to them."
"I'LL HANDLE IT," Jason assured him, though he wasn't completely certain how he would pull it off. Twingo, Omega Force's only engineer, was completely tied up with the extensive upgrades being done to his ship: the Phoenix. Jason couldn't afford to pull him off to begin work on a whole new set of processing equipment for his side venture.
"Was there anything else?"
"We have our first test batch from these fourth generation plants we wanted to give you," Ertz said, waving for Jason to follow him into the cavernous, utilitarian building. “I would have delivered it, but I think I've made my feelings known on having to come to your home. How you can live right by the water is a subject of much discussion around here."
"There are S'Torans who live on the water as well," Jason argued.
"And we view them as equally insane."
There was something deeply ingrained in the S'Toran psyche that made them almost irrationally fearful of bodies of water you couldn't see completely across. Lakes and rivers were fine, but the ocean was something that terrified them. There were some brave and enterprising S'Torans who forced themselves out onto the open water in order to harvest the bounty the ocean offered. While few, the hardy souls that lived by the sea were all quite wealthy. With each subsequent generation that lived by the water, a little more of that instinctual fear was lost. Doc had explained the phenomena to Jason before, but he'd quickly bored with the conversation and tuned him out.
After being held captive by Ertz while he explained all of the unique challenges Jason had brought to them, he was finally able to escape with a small package of what he hoped was Arabica coffee that was nearly indistinguishable from that found on Earth. He suspected Ertz was playing up the difficulties as a precursor to asking that his percentage be increased. S'Torans might seem simple and folksy, but they were shrewd and cutthroat business people.
Before he could be wrangled into any further debate, he slid behind the wheel of his '67 Camaro convertible, a parting gift for saving Earth once again, and fired up the 327 small block V8. Since S'Tora didn't have service stations on every corner, Twingo had modified the intake and fuel delivery so that it ran on a type of liquefied gas used in agriculture that was plentiful enough on the planet to be practical and still maintain the visceral feel of the antique muscle car's engine.
He let the clutch out and smashed the gas, letting the tires spin and smoke a bit before rolling off the throttle so they could bite. He roared down the narrow access road that led to Ertz's plantation. The car would have been utterly ridiculous on nearly any other planet in the quadrant, but somehow on the still mostly rural S'Tora, it made perfect sense.
Once he was on the main road that would take him back to the aerodrome where he had landed their cargo shuttle, a recent acquisition to help support his burgeoning new career as interstellar coffee trader, he reflected on how he'd stumbled into such a lucrative and completely legal enterprise. After years of suffering through mugs of vile chroot, he'd finally been able to return to Earth and get enough real coffee to last him for years. He'd also asked for mature plants, completely unaware of how coffee was actually made from the cherries of the plants, with the naïve dream of having his own little coffee garden that would supply his own needs.
As Doc began the arduous work of modifying the plants' genome for compatibility with S'Tora's ecosystem, Jason began to realize the potential windfall he was sitting on: He could be the first to introduce coffee to the rest of the galaxy. In fact, with Earth well on its way to being an established power, he needed to hurry and become the de facto supplier before his home planet realized that aliens loved it as much as normal, sane human beings. From there it was easy to find a partner as S'Tora had no shortage of farms and farmers looking to maximize profitability on the land they owned.
He pulled out his com unit and keyed in the code to open the shuttle as he turned off the road and went through the aerodrome's vacant security checkpoint. Without stopping, he drove the Camaro up the ramp and into the cargo bay, letting the automated systems secure the car once it rolled to a complete stop. Before he'd even secured his harness straps and settled into the pilot's seat, the computer was letting him know that the small aircraft was ready to fly.
The shuttle was strictly an atmospheric cargo hauler that had a maximum ceiling of just over ten thousand meters. It was also so new and modern that flying it was actually quite a bit simpler than driving his Camaro. He deftly launched the shuttle into the air and had it zipping along at low altitude for the forty-minute flight back to the coast.
"WE’RE ABOUT FINISHED, Jason," Twingo said as he wiped his hands on his filthy coveralls. "At least finished with this part."
"This is all structurally buttoned up?" Jason asked as he poked around the Phoenix's belly, rolling on an extendable maintenance stand so he could elevate himself up high enough to see where the crews had been working.
"Isn't that implied with the word finished?"
"You said about finished," Jason corrected. "With you that could mean completely done or you've put one bolt in and the wing could fall off if I stared at it too hard."
The Phoenix was undergoing her most extensive refit since the overhaul performed by the Eshquarian Empire after he'd crashed her through a factory. It was one of Omega Force's first missions and, looking back, Jason was surprised they hadn't been killed. They had been tossed in way over their heads and hadn't been experienced enough to know when to call it quits.
To keep up with the modern ships coming out of the commercial shipyards he'd had two choices: buy a new ship or shell out the money for a massive upgrade program for his Jepsen Aero DL7. The choice had been easy although not economically sound. For the last two years Twingo had been overseeing contracted engineering and manufacturing firms as they worked to develop replacement systems that were actually ahead of what the new norms were.
The gravimetric main drive had been one of the more exhausting propositions as the newest generation of standard-size grav emitters was physically incompatible with the location on the DL7 wings’ trailing edges. Since there was nowhere else on the ship they could be installed, the Phoenix had to have her wings replaced altogether, not an especially easy task. Doubly so since Twingo had insisted on doing the work in their own hangar, using local crews for the needed manual labor rather than taking the ship to Aracoria and having the professionals tear her down and get it done quickly.
Jason had given ground on this when Lucky pointed out that the gunship was starting to become notorious enough
that there was a potential security risk leaving her unattended at a commercial facility for an extended period. It wasn't that he had even a shadow of a doubt that Twingo would get it done and likely do a better job than the techs and engineers at the Aracoria Shipyards, but he knew when his friend said weeks that it could very well mean months. Many months. Twingo became easily distracted when they were planetside and for the last five mornings straight every time Jason walked into the cavernous hangar he caught him puttering around with some pet project instead of working on the ship.
He'd tried cajoling, bribing, begging … now he was down to threatening. A strict deadline had to be imposed or it was possible the Phoenix would never be fit to fly again. Omega Force had been stuck on S'Tora for nearly nine months now waiting on the ship to be finished, and it was making two-thirds of them extremely restless. Jason, Crusher, Kage, and Lucky wanted back into space as soon as possible.
"The wings are now completely attached," Twingo said after he'd stopped spluttering and his color had returned to its normal hue of blue. "We've run the command and control lines all the way into port and starboard engineering and tomorrow we'll complete the plasma couplings. That's a tricky job and I'd rather do both sides myself when I'm fresh. We'll hold off on the wing root fillet panels until we've had a chance to pull her out and energize the drive and see what happens."
"Have we been able to test the other systems with umbilical power?" Jason asked as he lowered the stand and drove it back to the side of the hangar.
"We? Who the hell is we?" Twingo asked. "Yes … while you've been out playing with your shrubs WE have powered up the new tactical computer, point defense sensors, and power management subsystem."
"A little touchy about it, aren't you?" Jason asked. "I offered to help and—"
"Yes, I appreciated the offer from you and Crusher," Twingo deadpanned. "If I need something smashed with a rock and then lit on fire I'll call one of you. Otherwise I need Kage and Lucky here to help with the more detail-oriented work. No offense."
"Now why would I be offended by that?" Jason slapped his friend on the back of the head. "I have some of the latest batch from Ertz if you want to brew up a pot and continue insulting my intelligence."
"Sounds good to me," Twingo said. "How's this side venture progressing?"
"By leaps and bounds," Jason said. "In fact, we need more processing equipment up at his plantation. Any chance you wrote down what you did so we could go out of house to get two more complete sets built?"
"The drawings are on my terminal," Twingo said. "I'll put them on a card for you."
The rest of the evening passed quietly as night fell on the sleepy costal town. Afraid of being put to work, the rest of the crew was avoiding the hangar until the wings had been fully seated and installed, so Twingo and Jason were able to enjoy a rare moment alone as they sat in the mezzanine, sipping coffee and looking out over the back of the Phoenix. It wasn't until the overhead lights flicked on that Jason said goodnight to his friend and drove back to his house on the beach. He'd given Twingo a hard time, but it looked like they were really close to being able to start flight testing the ship. Then … back to work.
3
"It's cramped in here!"
"Nobody asked you to come along, you fat bastard, now move over!"
"Everybody shut up!"
Flight testing on the Phoenix's main drive had gone quickly and smoothly, and it had come to the moment when they would need to test the slip-drive. Although they had stuck to using industry standard components as much as they could, the implementation in the gunship was unique and untested. As such, nobody had volunteered to make the first flight. After much arguing and cheating at drawing straws, Twingo and Kage had come up with an acceptable alternative: the Phoenix would fly the test program unmanned.
Jason had procured a small intrasystem runabout and, after flying the Phoenix out past the second asteroid belt, he had disembarked and flown the smaller ship off until the gunship was just barely visible. For some unknown reason the entire crew had decided they wanted to come along, and the ship Jason had borrowed wasn't quite big enough for them to all fit comfortably.
"I warned you idiots this ship was small," he shouted over his shoulder from the pilot's seat. "We're going to be here awhile so figure it out. Or don't. Either way … shut the hell up or I'm turning around and taking you back home!"
"Good!"
There was some further muted grumbling and the sounds of slapping while he and Twingo brought all the test gear they'd installed on the Phoenix online. At Doc's insistence, they had instrumentation throughout the entire ship that would ensure that the drive wasn't malfunctioning and doing something like flooding the interior of the ship with neutron radiation. Actually, the gunship was wired up with enough auxiliary sensor equipment that they would be able to detect even the most minute vibration, emission, or noise that didn't belong.
"We're ready here," Twingo said, his face mirroring Jason's own apprehension.
"I can't believe we're doing this," he said. "Send her out."
"Sending test start command," Twingo said. They all watched without breathing as the Phoenix accelerated away on her own and disappeared a moment later with a muted flash of dissipating slip energies.
"If it doesn't come back we should get one of those new Eshquarian gunboats," Crusher said. "The ones with the heavy armor and a working galley that doesn't smell like week-old garbage."
"The galley was replaced, Crusher," Jason said, not taking the bait.
"Her slip-com node is active," Twingo said. "Everything looks normal so far. This is a good sign … if something catastrophic was going to happen it would have most likely happened during mesh-out."
"That makes me feel marginally better about sending my ship off on her own," Jason griped. "Now I only have to worry whether Kage's programming is correct and she'll show back up when and where she's supposed to."
Mercifully, Kage was too busy harassing Crusher to notice the thinly veiled insult and respond. Jason watched the status coming through the slip-com connection, tracking the Phoenix's speed and position. Theoretically, if the ship dropped out of slip-space they could try and find her from the last known position. Realistically, space was so incomprehensibly big and the ship so utterly tiny by comparison that if the slip-drive and the com node both failed the Phoenix would be lost forever. It was a fact that had Jason's heart in his throat as his ship began her first course change.
"She's dropped out of slip-space exactly on schedule," Twingo mumbled. "There's a two-minute lull while the instrumentation collects data and then she'll be on her way back."
Jason didn't reply; he just watched the display as the timer counted back. Right on schedule, he saw the status change as his ship meshed back into slip-space and came back towards them. He breathed a sigh of relief that the Phoenix seemed to be performing without issue. If it had somehow gotten stranded from either technical or programming issues they would have had to fly back to S'Tora, wrangle up a slip-capable ship, and go try to retrieve her. When the big shipyards did these tests they had semi-autonomous robots aboard and ships at both ends of the test course in case of mishaps. When a customer dropped a quarter-trillion ConFed credits on a new battlecruiser they usually weren't the type of people who thought "sorry, we lost it" was a valid excuse.
Right on schedule there was a flash off the starboard side of the runabout and the Phoenix's real-space transponder came through loud and clear. The gunship swung about gracefully and moved perfectly into formation right off their flank, stopping relative to their position in space.
"The computer flies better than the captain," Crusher said through a yawn.
"Thank you," Kage said.
"Why should you—"
"I programmed it," Kage insisted. "Technically, I'm flying the ship right now."
"Let's go ahead and dock and I'll go across and check things out," Jason said, initiating the automated sequence and extending the airlock cofferdam.
Jason made some show of making sure everyone stayed seated, insisting he'd just be a minute. After the airlock had pressurized and he'd convinced the Phoenix's computer he was who he claimed to be, the hatch to the gunship popped and swung inward. He walked over and resealed the hatch on the runabout before boarding his ship and sealing that hatch as well.
He stepped around all the data cables for the instrumentation that was strung haphazardly throughout the ship and made his way up to the bridge. Using his command authorization he disengaged all of Kage's programs and slid into the pilot's seat.
"I can't take another minute in that sweatbox with those assholes," he said to himself as he reached over to the copilot's station and keyed in the sequence to disengage the cofferdam. He took hold of the flight controls, checked that the main drive was still up and running, and slammed the throttle to the stop. The Phoenix surged with enough force that he was pressed back into the seat and he heard things crashing about on the main deck. He pulled around hard, keeping the power up, and aiming back for S'Tora.
"Phoenix, open a channel to the small runabout that was sitting off the port side."
"Channel open."
"I'll see you guys back at the hangar," Jason said with feigned cheerfulness. "Just wanted to check something out." He cut the channel right as Twingo started to speak. The sounds of the others arguing in the background could clearly be heard. Smiling to himself, he allowed the Phoenix to stretch her legs as she raced back to S'Tora. He'd be there many hours ahead of his friends even if they came about now and flogged the runabout for all it was worth.
SADITAVA MOK SAT PENSIVELY in his overstuffed chair, staring out over the mountains that were visible from the floor to ceiling window behind his desk. He'd been waiting for this day since he'd faked his own death and disappeared. His activities weren't going to stay hidden forever, and eventually someone was going to figure out who he really was, just as they had.
"Since you've come alone I assume that you have no intention of trying to take me in," Mok said, slowly spinning his chair back to face his unwelcome guest.
Omega Force 09: Revolution Page 2
