Omega Force 09: Revolution

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "Going back downstairs," he said as the Phoenix completed the turn. "Deploy the chin turret and lay down some fire. Where are the two shuttles?"

  "Angling back over to the compound," Doc said.

  Jason came back up on the power and soon the Phoenix was roaring back into the denser atmosphere on a direct course to the tracking missiles, which were closer than he expected. He watched as the chin turret spat red bolts of energy in a circular dispersion pattern controlled by the computer, taking out one of the missiles with a lucky shot.

  The second missile made it through and as soon as he had a visual Jason twitched the stick back slightly. The nose juked up a touch, but it was enough that the Phoenix angled away quicker than the missile could track given the closure speed. It passed underneath and, once its onboard processor knew that it had missed an impacting shot, detonated the warhead. The deck of the gunship bucked and the tail began to overtake the nose as she tumbled from the pressure wave hitting the ventral shields at close range.

  "Damnit! Hang on!" Jason said as he fought with the controls.

  "Stop saying that!" Crusher shouted from where he had his eyes tightly shut and was gripping the armrests hard enough to tear the padding with his claws.

  Jason decided to trust the Phoenix's new flight control avionics and let go of the stick. True to Twingo's claim, the computers recognized the loss of pilot input and went to work bringing the gunship back to controlled flight. Within the span of two seconds, the avionics had used the grav-drive and reaction thrusters to get the nose pointed back in the right direction. Jason grabbed the controls and angled them back to Mok's compound where the two shuttles were still firing on the few ground emplacements left.

  "Target the second shuttle, four Pixies," he said. "Let's see him dodge that."

  "Pixies locked and ready to fire," Kage said.

  "Firing!" Jason squeezed and held the trigger. Four of their tiny homebrewed "Pixie" missiles streaked away towards the target. The weapon had been designed by Twingo and Kage so they'd have something small, cheap, and effective instead of blowing through their arsenal of ship-buster missiles for targets like small shuttles.

  "All four are green and tracking," Kage said. "Bracketing the other shuttle for you."

  The Phoenix leveled out a few hundred kilometers over the ocean and came racing back inland at low-level. The shuttles were not only the newest model from the Eshquarian yards, but they were packing an impressive arsenal. Someone really wanted to get at Mok and Jason doubted it was a group of ragtag criminals fielding weaponry that advanced.

  "Turning over fine course correction to the computer," Jason said. "Let's try to take this guy out on the first pass."

  "Main cannons are ready," Kage said. "Give me a trigger squeeze to authorize the fire control computer to take over."

  "Here we go," Jason said as the coastline came rushing at them.

  19

  "Something is wrong with the lockouts," Similan said.

  "Syodo must have disabled them before his team deployed last," Mok said with a certain resignation. "He must have been working for Arx for some time."

  When the ship Mok had provided for Syodo and his team landed they had watched not only the crew debark looking alive and well but accompanied by Sorlotta Arx. The latter was wearing the newest protective armor from Eshquarian weapons development.

  Once Mok saw his tactical team lead Arx over to one of the hidden entrances to the bunker complex he knew he'd been betrayed. Syodo not only knew the compound intimately but had apparently been laying the ground work to circumvent much of its security protocols.

  "We don't have long before they're able to breach this chamber," he said. "How many troops did those shuttles deploy?"

  "Twenty-four, sir," an operator called out from one of the wall stations.

  "And how many guards do we have in the complex?"

  "Unknown," Similan said. "They were able to take down the internal com system, and with the shuttles hitting most of the defensive emplacements I can't say how many might be left, sir."

  "They're going to get in," Mok announced. "Syodo was far too effective at bypassing our security and we were too lax in making sure something like this couldn't happen. Arx is going through the trouble of breaching the bunker to get to me which means he likely needs me alive. I don't want any unnecessary heroics. Just sit quietly and let this play out. If it—What the hell was that?!"

  "Another shuttle has been destroyed and the wreckage fell on top of us," Similan said. "We have limited sensor coverage, but it appears that both remaining shuttles have been destroyed." Another explosion on the surface shook the walls of the bunker.

  "And Syodo's ship has been destroyed where it had landed."

  "Burke must be thoroughly enjoying himself up there," Mok spat out. Before he could go on, alarms started blaring by the heavy armored door and Mok could clearly see that the system was being overridden from the other side. The computer that controlled the door was putting up a valiant effort, but it appeared to be only a matter of time before Syodo would be able to release the clamps and open it. Mok watched as the lock was finally overwhelmed by whatever measures Syodo was employing. With a soft, anticlimactic clank the locks let go and the bolts retracted with a soft whirring sound before the door swung ponderously open.

  "Colonel," Arx said with a nod as he walked in. Syodo and his team fanned out and quickly searched the staff Mok had with him, relieving them of any weapons or communications equipment they might be carrying and herding them over into a corner.

  "So what's the game, Arx?" Mok asked. "You wouldn't go through all this trouble to take this chamber intact if you didn't need something from me."

  "Of course," Arx said. "Since you've been so recalcitrant to my offer of getting in at the beginning of something grand, I will have to secure your assets by force."

  "I'm afraid whatever assets you think I have would pale in comparison to what you have access to from the Empire's own military and intelligence community," Mok said.

  "Undoubtedly, but yours are not traceable back to the Empire," Arx said. "I would have preferred to deal with you one on one, as former colleagues and concerned denizens of the quadrant, but you've made it clear that you do not intend to offer your support. So now we'll wait until the Twelve Points arrive and I will submit my proposal to them. I think once they hear me out they will waste little time replacing you."

  "Based on your vague hints at what the Empire might or might not be up to?" Mok scoffed. "You can't possibly think I've secured my position here by being so reckless."

  Syodo walked up to Arx and whispered something in his ear before turning back to the prisoners, giving Mok a flat, indifferent stare as he did.

  "Who do you have up there right now?" Arx asked.

  "I don't know what—"

  "There is a vessel above us this very minute that is actively defending your property," Arx said hotly. "They've damaged or destroyed my combat shuttles. I want you to get on the com and call them off. Actually, better yet, have them land since it appears I will need a ship thanks to them."

  "They don't work for me." Mok smiled. "At least not directly. You should know that."

  "Why would I know the particulars of whichever bottom-feeding thugs and mercs you have on the payroll?"

  "You're slipping in your old age," Mok said. "That ship is the same one that caused Third General Maasch all that trouble on Shorret-3 … the one that forced you to surgically alter your appearance and slink away from the service."

  Arx's eyes narrowed and his cheeks puffed out, a sign he was barely containing his temper.

  "How interesting," he finally got out once his skin color returned to normal. "And why are they here, attacking my ships?"

  "They're probably trying to get to me," Mok said. "I owe them money for a job, a lot of money, and they don't take kindly to delays."

  As if to punctuate Mok's words, another set of shuddering explosions could be heard and felt followed by what
could only have been part of the upper structure collapsing upon itself.

  JASON AND CRUSHER were giggling as the Phoenix made a third pass, her main cannons blasting another building on Mok's compound to rubble. They'd cleared the area and tried to reach their host on the com, but nobody was answering and they couldn't see any of the ground forces they knew must have been deployed. Kage was able to slice into a local Nexus point and backtrack his way until he found a whole secondary security system which, based on the location, had to mean Mok had extensive underground shelters throughout the estate.

  "Are you about done?" Doc asked.

  "One more," Jason said and wheeled the gunship around in a long, lazy arc.

  "Get that one with the transparent roof." Crusher was pointing out the canopy to a building that looked like it might have been an enclosed arboretum.

  "Captain, while I understand wantonly destroying Saditava Mok's property must be very entertaining for you, we have a bit of a time crunch," Doc said. "Those shuttles may have deployed from a capital ship we didn't detect."

  "Killjoy," Jason muttered and flared the Phoenix into a hover over the smoking ruins of what had been a beautiful courtyard. "What do we think? Land or just dump us out and keep flying overwatch?"

  "I would suggest we keep the Phoenix on active overwatch," Lucky said.

  "Agreed." Jason climbed out of the seat and motioned for Doc to hurry up and take his place. "I don't like leaving her as a sitting target and the three of us should be able to handle anything down there."

  "Hopefully there aren't any more of your brothers down there," Crusher said to Lucky as he passed.

  "I think that is unlikely," Lucky said. "While I cannot make direct contact with other battlesynths, I am aware when one is nearby."

  "Alright." Jason loaded his weapons onto the mounting points of his armor and deployed his helmet. "Give us a minute and then deploy the transit beam," his modulated voice boomed from the helmet's speakers. "Then fly east and take up a loose pattern a few hundred klicks away so you're not easily associated with this disaster if someone shows up."

  "Got it," Doc said as the seat and controls adjusted to his much smaller stature.

  The ride down the blue, wavering transit beam was quick, and even as Jason was bringing his weapon around to cover his friends, he could feel the Phoenix throttle up and move off to the east. Inside his helmet the rough map of the complex Kage had found came up along with directional arrows varying in color based on the probability they led to where he wanted to go.

  "This—" Ping! Jason's head snapped back and he rolled over backwards from the force of the shot.

  "Captain!"

  "I'm fine, I'm fine," Jason said, rolling over to his stomach and scanning the nooks within the courtyard. "Lucky?"

  "The shot came from the third archway from the left, dead ahead," Lucky said from where he and Crusher had taken cover behind a towering water fountain. The armor's diagnostic system quickly assessed the damage and let Jason know that other than a slight scorching, the shot did no damage. Glancing blow.

  "I can't see anything," he said.

  "They are wearing a type of multi-spectral camouflage," Lucky said. "They are not showing up in thermal wavelengths."

  "Got 'em," Jason said as he switched to a combination of radar and low-light amplification. "Hang on." He set the railgun to its highest velocity and aimed right in the middle of the amorphous cluster that were his assailants.

  The hypersonic rounds screamed across the courtyard, the first two causing rock, dust, and gore to spray out from the archway. The third shot triggered an explosion that pelted them with rock chunks and collapsed the archway entirely.

  "I guess one of them was carrying grenades." Crusher snorted. "By the way … since I'm not wearing armor I'd appreciate it if you would quit causing jagged shards of rock to rain down on me."

  "No promises," Jason said. "Let's go."

  The trio climbed over the debris of the collapsed archway and came up to a gaping hole that the indeterminate number of soldiers appeared to be guarding. Jason ran his gauntlet along the rough edges and could tell that the hole had been cut very recently.

  "They breached here for some reason," he said. "And they were guarding it. I guess this is as good a place as any to make entry."

  Crusher looked like he wanted to argue the point but eventually shrugged and hefted the big-bore plasma gun he was fond of for close-quarters work. He also had one of the larger-gripped Galvetic railguns strapped to his back along with his usual complement of blades and sidearms.

  Jason peeked his helmet into the jagged opening and allowed the armor's sensors to take a reading of the area beyond. It showed nothing more exciting than some suspended dust motes and a discarded explosive breaching tool the enemy troops must have used to blow the rock wall down.

  "I've got a reinforced alloy hatch," he said to his friends. "It doesn't look like it was forced open."

  "There are also explosive charges mounted on the interior side of the wall that look like they have been there for some time." Lucky pointed to the wide semicircle of conical-shaped charges. "There is also no other point of access to this hatchway."

  "This is an escape route, not an entry point," Crusher said. "Whoever attacked this place had detailed knowledge of Mok's security measures … that's an inside job."

  "Probably that group of losers he cobbed together when we wouldn't work directly for him," Jason said. "He hired that dipshit Syodo to head up a crew when we turned him down. Remember that idiot?"

  "Wasn't he the one that accidentally killed the person that hired him instead of the actual assassination target?" Crusher asked.

  "No, that was the other guy … Soran," Jason said. "He was the one that kept trying to get people to call him Soran the Destroyer. Seriously, who tries to make up their own nickname?"

  "They called him Soran the Unemployable after that incident," Lucky said. "Syodo was the one that was hired to kidnap a family for ransom but was caught by authorities."

  "Yeah, he landed without bothering to change the registration from his last botched job." Jason laughed. "The locals impounded his ship and were crawling all over it when he came sneaking back in with some politician’s family bound and gagged in the back of that ground car. He drove right up and threatened them with a weapon because he didn't recognize them as law enforcement. I never did hear how he avoided imprisonment for that."

  "Well … I guess we can ask once we find him," Crusher said. "We want to do this the usual way?"

  "I suppose … blind chance and impulsiveness always seems to work better than careful planning anyway." Jason stepped fully into the chamber and moved to the armored door that was hanging open. Crusher pulled a small, flat box from a pouch on his belt as Jason pulled the door all the way open and indicated all-clear. He found that the locking mechanism on the inside wall was still powered and active so he stuck the box to it and waited as thin tendrils of nanobots snaked out and flowed into the device. The box gave a single, green flash to let them know it had made connection.

  "Kage, you're in," Crusher said on the open channel. "We'll add repeaters as we need to going in."

  "I've got the signal strong and clear," Kage's voice came back. "Beginning my entry now."

  Once they moved through the small antechamber for the external door, Jason was relieved to see a set of stairs descending down from ground level. They'd burn more calories, but they wouldn't be trapped in a lift car nor would they tip their hand on the off-chance the enemy didn't know which way they were coming from.

  It galled Jason that they had to take such a heavy risk to save Mok from his own stupidity, but without him their own mission came to a grinding halt. He knew Syodo's team was no real threat, but he didn't know who the other players were. Somebody had showed up with four of the Eshquarian Empire’s newest combat shuttles. That was either someone with a lot of money, heavy connections within the Empire, or both. What it told him was that they likely used Syodo to
subvert Mok's security, but they were the brains behind the assault and wouldn't be some bumbling fool. Jason made sure to keep that firmly in mind as they carefully began their entry.

  "ENTRY TEAM HASN'T REPORTED in," Syodo said to Arx.

  "Why are you pestering me with such things?" Arx snapped. "Your lack of initiative is most trying. Do not bother me with trivial details until you have something to report."

  "Sorry," Syodo said. "I just thought—"

  "I find that highly unlikely," Arx said. "Go find out why the coms are down or if your men simply wandered off. Interface with my detachment's officer and leave me to my own task."

  Syodo looked like he was going to say something further, thought better of it, and then walked off towards the exit.

  "He's not the brightest," Mok said. "Nor the most loyal, apparently."

  "He's stupid on a level that's genuinely frightening," Arx said without turning away from the terminal he was working at. "But smart people don't betray their employers on the promise of money. He was pathetically easy to turn, Colonel … I'm disappointed you have such a creature in your employ, much less trusted him with the details of your security."

  "I wasn't aware of how familiar he'd made himself with my internal security protocols," Mok admitted, rolling his chair a few inches closer to the console nearest him. "Perhaps he's not as stupid as we're assuming."

  "If you roll once more towards that console I will cut off your hands," Arx said conversationally, never looking over.

  "What's this really all about, General?" Mok asked. "Why do you need control of my network?"

  "Deniability," Arx said. "The last time I ran an operation personally … well, I don't have to tell you how that turned out. I had to surgically alter my own appearance and become someone else."

  "That's worked out fairly well," Mok pointed out. "A full Minister no less. But you really didn't answer my question."