"I'm a realist, Colonel," the being said, his clipped, precise accent giving away his upbringing. "Your reputation for brutality is well-earned. I saw no point in needlessly wasting lives, nor am I suicidal, so no, I'm not here to bring you in."
"This is merely a social call then?"
"Of course not. I was hoping that we might work together. I understand why you left, but you have to see that you've set yourself up in this new life with the use of stolen government funds and resources. That doesn't sit well with your former superiors."
"Call it a lump sum withdraw on retirement owed, Arx," Mok said. "And all you see around you was not built with the paltry sum I escaped with."
"Of course," Arx said. "While we've not uncovered everything, we're aware that you slid into a spot vacated by a former crime boss … what was his name?"
"Bondrass," Mok provided. "And it wasn't just his place that I took, but that's not important right now. What is it you think I can help you with? Just so you know, I'm not adverse to helping out as an independent contractor."
"We were hoping we could appeal to your sense of patriotism," Arx said, causing Mok to laugh humorlessly.
"You've wasted your time, I'm afraid, Minister," Mok said. "When you were in charge of the intelligence service your underlings hung me out to dry to save their own political futures. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you had nothing to do with it … it's why you're still breathing. But any loyalty I had to the Eshquarian Empire withered and died in the years following your people burning me. Years where I had to run from both my own people and those you outed me to."
"I understand your bitterness," Arx said, now looking nervous. "But this isn't about the Empire directly, and it will have profound effects on your own ventures: The ConFed is on the brink of collapse."
"That's it?" Mok scoffed. "That's why you came all this way? Arx, the ConFed is always on the brink of collapse. It has been since before either of us was born."
"This is different," Arx insisted, sliding a data card across the desk and standing. "Please look at that. You know how to get a hold of me."
Mok sat in surprised silence as Arx quickly left the office without a look back. He'd fully expected that he would be the one to force the meeting to a close. There was zero trust between the two, but Mok didn't think his former associate would do something so foolish as to try to have him killed with a poisoned data card or some other unconventional ploy. Mok knew where all the skeletons were buried, and he was sure Arx was aware of the few times he'd used those as leverage to get what he needed. If Mok died there were things already in place that would ensure nearly half the Eshquarian elected government would resign in disgrace.
"So what are you all about?" he asked himself, palming the data card and standing up. He had an isolated terminal in a faraday cage in a room two floors down. The room also had instrumentation to pick up anything sneaky like weak slip-space fields or anything else an intelligence service with a huge budget might dream up. He was certain it was more of the same when it came to rumors of the ConFed's imminent demise, but he didn't stay on top by being sloppy and dismissive.
4
"I'm still not speaking to you," Kage said as he walked by.
"It's strange he thinks that's some sort of punishment," Jason remarked to Twingo as the pair continued through the Phoenix. Each held a tablet computer with identical checklists, the redundancy of them both doing the final inspection ensuring something wasn't missed or glossed over.
When Jason had left them all stranded on the slow runabout a few weeks prior, apparently it had sparked off some real conflict once they all figured out they would be stuck with each other in the cramped ship for at least another nine hours. Since he meant it as a harmless joke Jason was surprised at the venom directed his way once the ship made its way back to the starport and they flew back in his air shuttle.
"I think not living together on this ship fulltime is having some unintended consequences," Twingo grunted as he stretched around a main brace in one of the starboard mechanical servicing bays. He was trying to reach and ensure a series of quick-turn valves used only in depot level maintenance were closed and safety wired so they couldn't be inadvertently opened.
"I'm listening," Jason said as he held a light over Twingo's head so his friend could use both arms to position himself.
"We're all starting to get a bit more territorial now that we're used to so much personal space," Twingo went on. "I know this overhaul has been long overdue, but we also haven't had a real mission now for over a year. Back in the old days sitting in that cramped shuttle for only half a day wouldn't have even caused a ripple. Now, they all want to kill each other."
"So what's the solution?" Jason frowned as he considered what his friend was saying and what it meant for his team's dynamic.
"Barring moving back onto the Phoenix and living like nomads again?" Twingo huffed as he slid out of the access hatch and onto the floor. "Just accept that things change over time."
"As long as it doesn't affect our ability to do the job, I guess there isn't much I can do about it," Jason said.
The rest of the inspections went quickly and soon Jason and Twingo were standing at the foot of the ramp and looking over each other's notes. After a bit more arguing, they cleared the Phoenix as fully mission capable. Since they fell under no overarching authority as private owner/operators of an interstellar starship, Jason and Twingo took the task of maintaining the aging gunship very seriously. Everything was documented, triple-checked, and tracked. On a machine as complex as the Phoenix, there was no shortage of ways to die due to shoddy maintenance practices.
Jason let his friend get back to his other pursuits and spent the rest of the day supervising his array of service bots as they scrubbed and polished the DL7. Now that the ship was ready to go, he had to see about kicking up a job. The itch to get back at it was especially powerful since there was nothing holding him up. He'd check once more on his coffee crop with Ertz and then he could load the Phoenix up and see if they couldn't find a little trouble to get into.
"WHAT'VE you been keeping yourself busy with?" Jason asked as he walked into his home.
"I have been monitoring current political situations developing throughout the quadrant in anticipation of the Phoenix being ready for service soon," Lucky said from the nook near the kitchen that was crammed with communication equipment. The shelf the terminal sat on had been raised to accommodate the battlesynth's preference of standing whenever possible.
"Anything interesting?" Jason walked into the kitchen to grab one of the local beer-like drinks. It was an interesting concoction of fermented sugars infused with tea and then carbonated.
"I am getting the sense that something significant is about to happen," Lucky said. "But I cannot point to a single incident as proof of that. Four of the major powers, three which have seats on the ConFed Council of Primes, are recalling their militaries and pulling back to their core systems. The Saabror Protectorate has even pulled away from their most recently added member worlds."
"And you think they know something we don't?" Jason leaned against the door frame and looked in at what his friend was doing.
"It stands to reason. In addition to being isolated here on S'Tora, our access to high-level intelligence had been severely curtailed with the restructuring of Crisstof Dalton's military arm."
"I do feel a little more blind than usual," Jason agreed. "Maybe we can reach out to Carolyn and Abiyah and see what they've heard."
"I have already taken the liberty," Lucky said, shutting down the terminal and looking at Jason. "We do not have a direct line to them, however, so it may be some time before they check the address of the blind-drop messaging service they provided."
"Untrusting bunch," Jason griped and pushed off the wall. He walked out onto the deck and looked out over the ocean as the gentle swells broke up on the pink sand. "I'll start checking all of our usual sources tomorrow and see what there is out there for us. Hopef
ully everything you're seeing is simply a chain reaction of responses kicked off by someone's unrelated fleet movements."
"Do you really believe that?" Lucky asked.
"Not for a second," Jason said after taking a long drink.
"YOU'VE REVIEWED the raw data?"
"I have," a subdued Saditava Mok said with a slow nod. "I will agree that the situation is … precarious … but your analysts have yet to foresee what the keystone is. For this scenario to play out as you have predicted, a very specific set of events will have to be put into motion."
"We believe we have, but that's information that we'll keep to ourselves for the time being, Colonel. Your currency is information and I've given you quite a lot already while asking for nothing save a few moments of your time."
"Prudent," Mok agreed. "However, a lot of this is a tad too convenient, almost orchestrated. Is the Empire moving the pieces around on the board to get what they want? It's no secret that a quadrant free of ConFed influence would greatly benefit the Eshquarian government and its main export of starships and weapon systems."
"You can't seriously think I would answer that?" Arx asked with a dry laugh. "Right now we're simply speculating about what might happen given a certain set of conditions."
"Let me rephrase that," Mok said. "Will you, or have you already actively tried to tip the scales while an overtaxed ConFed Starfleet tries to keep a lid on all these disassociated situations?"
The circular conversation was beginning to wear on Mok's patience. The Eshquarian Minister, formerly a high-ranking military officer that had been second in command of the Empire's intelligence service, had been staying at his compound for the last four days and he was quickly becoming an unwelcome guest.
He'd yet to come out and directly ask Mok for assistance or threaten him to coerce his cooperation, but that was likely just a matter of time. He went by Minister Sorlotta Arx, but Mok still knew him as Third General Mossat Maasch. While Arx was a well-respected member of the Eshquarian Assembly, Maasch was a suspected war criminal who had been forced to assume a new identity after investigations had begun to dig up some uncomfortable connections to an incident on a mining colony world in which terrorists tried to drop a massive orbital platform onto the surface settlement.
The planet had been a little known world named Shorret-3, and its official status was that of a mining colony. What few knew, Mok being one of them, was that the planet had another function that the mining operation conveniently covered up. In automated factories buried beneath the city, large-scale weapons production was being carried out at the direction of a rogue faction within the intelligence community. During lulls in ore production, the weapons were loaded into tether cars and ferried up to the massive orbital platform where cargo ships flying civilian registrations would pick them up and take them somewhere else for storage.
The Shorret Operation had two goals: The first was to be a source of funding for the conspirators that wouldn't show up in even the most rigorous audit. Second, to provide a source of uncontrolled munitions in great enough quantity to cause a destabilizing effect in the region. The problems started when the faction splintered and military-grade weapons began ending up in the hands of common thugs who had no problem turning them on civilians. The Empire began to question why the hell the pirates and gangsters in the Cluster suddenly had sensor-evading, ship-busting missiles and orbit-to-surface tactical weapons.
Once the heat was really turned up, the decision was made to end the Shorret Operation and regroup. Since underground factories were not easily dismantled now that a city had popped up over them, someone made the decision to stage an accident that would eliminate all evidence … as well as the entire population on the surface, all of whom lived within the city. Mok was convinced it was Maasch who had ordered that the city be destroyed to cover up his little gun-running scheme.
Thanks to a then-unknown group of mercenaries, he didn't get away with it. The authorities found the five massive production facilities easily, and Maasch had been forced to fake his own death and assume a new identity, an escape plan he'd had in place for a long time. It had been the first time the name Omega Force had come to Mok's attention. When he had someone dig a little deeper into these new players, he was stunned to find it was the same group that had taken out his predecessor, Bondrass, and allowed him to accelerate his own plans. He'd kept careful tabs on the group ever since.
"Someone in your position is well-aware of how precarious the ConFed's hold is on its own member worlds right now," Arx said. "This is going to happen, one way or another. Wouldn't you like to be involved so that you're in a position to benefit from the chaos, not be swallowed up by it?"
"And yet you've still not told me what you actually need from me," Mok said.
"Just your word that when I come to you again, you'll at least hear me out," Arx said, standing with a slight grunt. "I'm well-aware of what you must think of me, Colonel … I'm hoping your better sense as a businessman will prevail and you'll see the benefit—the necessity—of what I'll propose."
"I'll listen," Mok said. "But that's all I'll promise for now."
Arx nodded and walked towards the door at the far end of the cavernous office before Mok called out to him again. "And General, when you come back to talk … you come alone."
Arx stiffened and stopped but didn't turn or reply before he yanked the door open and walked through.
"Is there anything else you'll need, sir?" said one of his assistants, who came in immediately after Arx left.
"Tell Captain Chojal that I will be departing as soon as possible and to prep my ship," Mok said as he stood. "No escort and I want to run clean, generic codes."
"Your destination, sir?"
"S'Tora Prime."
5
"Captain, we have visitors," Lucky's voice came over the Phoenix's intercom. Jason was in the ship finishing up some last minor details and checking out their shiny new galley that, most importantly, dispensed edible food. It was the latest and greatest in food synthesis technology and, he hoped, as reliable as the salesperson said it was. Like in any other military or paramilitary unit he'd ever been in, a lack of decent food was one of the top three morale killers in Omega Force. The last unit had almost caused a mutiny until they'd finally tossed it off the back ramp over a planet Jason wasn't particularly fond of.
There had been some argument about installing a full kitchen-style galley and letting Lucky cook their meals, but Jason had to exercise his veto power on that one once he'd been outnumbered. He and Twingo seemed unable to make the others understand that cooking on a small interstellar vessel wasn't the smartest thing to do. The environmental system would have to scrub all the aerosolized oils and moisture out of the air quickly, no mean feat for a closed system, and the process itself lent to more mess than Jason was willing to deal with. He'd finally convinced Crusher to switch sides when he mentioned that during combat operations Lucky was essential personnel and wouldn’t have time to cook for him.
"I'm on my way," he shouted up to the ceiling, assuming the computer would forward it to Lucky's com unit. He wiped his hands off on a rag that he found on one of the galley tables and jogged back to the main hatchway that led out to the cargo bay. Once he was down the steps and to the edge of the ramp, he saw a powerfully built bipedal alien talking to Lucky and knew who it was instantly. He was also not at all pleased that this individual had shown up unannounced to his home.
Maybe Carolyn was right … putting down roots may have been a foolish move.
"SADITAVA MOK," Jason called as he walked down the ramp, adjusting the plasma pistol that sat in the inside-the-waistband holster he had in the small of his back. "To what do I owe this unexpected and dubious pleasure? Thanks for not bringing your Korkaran muscle, by the way."
"Out of respect for the Lord Archon's sensibilities," Mok said, bowing slightly and ignoring Jason's brusque tone. "I apologize for invading your sanctum, Captain Burke, but a situation has come up that I think we migh
t want to combine our efforts in addressing."
"You're alone?" Jason asked in surprise.
"My shuttle dropped me off at the starport," Mok said. "I walked the rest of the way and yes, I came alone."
Jason had to remind himself again that Saditava Mok was no pencil pusher who just happened to dabble in less-than-legal enterprises. He no doubt had multiple contracts out for his head and yet he walked alone without fear through an unknown town on a strange planet just to talk. Whatever his previous profession had been, Jason had no doubt that it had honed him into something dangerous. He wasn't to be underestimated.
"We can go inside," Jason gestured over his shoulder. "I'm assuming that whatever you want to talk about is sensitive in nature."
He turned his back on Mok and led the way into the hangar to the open-air cargo lift that would take them up to the mezzanine nearly fifteen meters above the floor. As he expected, he heard Lucky's footfalls as the battlesynth followed close to Mok, keeping an eye on him for any threatening gestures. Jason walked through the open area of the mezzanine and led the small group into a large office that also served as a secure conference room. It was shielded against all manner of remote listening devices for times when the massive hangar doors were wide open.
"So what's so important you had to come all the way out here yourself?" Jason asked. "Is encrypted slip-com not secure enough for you?"
"That question has multiple answers." Mok smiled. "You never actually answer your com node when I try to contact you, so no, I don't think the com buffers are secure enough to risk leaving you an extended message. Not only that, but you routinely ignore my messages until you are either very drunk or very bored."
"Usually both," Jason said. "But go on."
"I also wanted to get away for a bit," Mok finished. "No matter how luxurious you make it, a hardened facility is still a prison if you're unable to come and go as you please."
Omega Force 09: Revolution Page 3
