"You'd have done the exact same thing in my shoes." Jason decided to go on the offensive. "It's not my fault you drank yourself into a coma before we were done with this job and while we were still deep in enemy territory."
"And what would you have done if the goons at the door had shot or stabbed my 'body' in to be sure while those morons were carrying me?"
"I, ah… yeah, I didn't really think of that," Jason admitted. "Look, admittedly there were some flaws but—"
"And it's not like you were sober. I watched you come bumbling in and get the place shot up. This wasn't exactly a surgical strike."
"Hey! We got the job done and it all seemed to work out okay," Jason said. "A simple thank you would be nice."
This was exactly the wrong thing to say. Crusher lunged without warning, his three hundred and twenty pounds slamming into Jason and snapping the anchors that held the chair down with a sharp twang. Jason, having let his guard down during the conversation, barely had time to get his left forearm up to block Crusher's first hit but was able to smash the bottle he still held in his right hand into the side of his friend's head. He'd been aiming for the hardened crest, but he was off balance and the bottle broke against Crusher's ear, cutting into the skin.
"Oh, shit!" he managed to get out, realizing what he'd done. "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!"
Crusher put his hand to his head and when he pulled it back it was covered with his own blood. He looked at Jason incredulously for a moment before slamming his fist down into the human's face. The last thing Jason remembered was Crusher climbing off him and swearing as his vision quickly greyed out and he lost consciousness.
Chapter 2
"You, I like well enough… him? I honestly can't stand the little bastard."
"Nobody likes him! That's part of his charm!"
"That makes no sense," the Viper said, leaning back in her seat. "Explain to me again why I should help you?"
"Quid pro quo… it means—"
"I know what it means, you idiot. The expression came from Earth… and you're pronouncing it wrong. What I meant to say is why am I being asked to help at all? Don't you already have one hard case, badass human that leads your merry band of degenerates?"
"We… haven't seen Jason for some time now," Twingo admitted uncomfortably.
"That explains that junk ship you arrived in… and the rumors I've been hearing out along the frontier worlds near the Eletixx Expanse," the Viper said. "The Phoenix has been sighted a few times out there, but I couldn't figure out why your crew would be working that area."
Carolyn Whitney, known as the Viper in some circles, was a human woman. Technically. Her cybernetic modifications were so extreme that there wasn't much of her original body left. She'd not given her augmentations a second thought until she'd recently been thrust back into contact with other humans thanks to one Jason Burke. Now one of his lackeys had somehow tracked her down and was trying to sweet talk her into something that she assumed would land her in a border world prison, kill her, or some combination of both.
Since the mess on Khepri a year or so ago when a terrorist attack had taken out much of the central banking infrastructure, the entire region had begun to shake itself apart. Carolyn wasn't sure how much of the official story she believed, but the fallout seemed to speak for itself: The ConFed was losing its iron-grip on its member worlds and splinter factions were popping up and declaring independence with increasing regularity. She had nothing but a simmering hatred for the quadrant’s overarching governing body, but she had to admit that their sudden waning power was becoming a serious pain in the ass.
"We're not really working as a crew right now either," Twingo said uncomfortably. "Not since—" He trailed off into an unintelligible mumble that not even her bionic hearing could work out.
"So the rumors about that were true as well?" she asked in a hushed whisper. "Lucky is really…?" Carolyn left the question hanging. The look on the short engineer's face was all the confirmation she needed.
She sat back, stunned. Within the far-ranging yet surprisingly closed society of mercenaries, pirates, and smugglers, the Omega Force boys were semi-famous. It was known that despite being hardly better than criminals themselves it was usually smarter to avoid getting on their radar if one wanted to remain among the living. For months Carolyn had heard whispers in dingy bars that the self-righteous Burke had lost his battlesynth bodyguard and that Lucky had died on Khepri during the recent unrest. Many had drunkenly bragged that they would be all too happy to run into the human and teach him some humility now that his backup muscle was gone.
She'd listened to these claims with a certain bemusement as the idiots making them seemed to forget that Lucky wasn't the only certified badass that ran with Burke. Nobody in their right mind wanted to tangle with Crusher. The hulking brute was dangerous and, unlike Lucky, seemed to lack even a shred of empathy. She'd known of two individuals that had survived a run-in with the Guardian Archon of Galvetor… both still woke up screaming from the nightmares.
This, of course, assumed that Jason himself wouldn't get a hold of you. While she'd taken advantage of the technology available to form her body into a weapon, Jason had gone an entirely different route. His genetic structure had been reworked and his non-biological enhancements were much more subtle, such as the reinforcement of his skeleton, tendons, and ligaments. As a result of all the tinkering, he had come close to maxing out the potential that existed within the human form while stopping short of having his organs or muscles replaced with machines.
"I… I'm truly sorry." And she was. The emotional punch to the gut was as surprising as it was painful. "But I'm still not certain why we're having this meeting. How did you even find me?"
"Huh? You came here at our request… we sent the message over slip-coms about a week ago." Twingo looked so genuinely confused that Carolyn knew he had to be telling the truth.
"Abiyah," she hissed. Her partner must have gotten the message and then manipulated things so that they would be here at an arranged time. She'd thought they were coming to this planet to fill a cushy protection detail gig. She should have known the pay sounded a bit too good, and he had been a bit too eager for a job he'd normally turn down on principle. "So what's the job?"
"We need something moved off this planet… discreetly," Twingo said. "It's fairly bulky and our ship is being watched. If we tried to load the cargo and take it ourselves we'd be swarmed under before we could even close the hatch."
"I'm intrigued, but not sold," Carolyn said. "What's the cargo?"
"I can't say out in the open," Twingo said. He looked over to where Kage sat and the Veran gave him a short wave to indicate he couldn't detect any remote surveillance. "In fact, it's probably better if I leave right now so we're not spotted together. I'll send you a location and time through the usual channels."
"I'll be waiting," Carolyn sighed. Her instincts were screaming at her to climb back in her ship, smack Abiyah around for lying to her, and put some distance between her and whatever the hell these morons had gotten mixed up in this time. But for some reason she relented. Maybe it was that morose look in Twingo's eyes, maybe it was the fact Jason and Crusher were safely lightyears away. Whatever the reason, she felt like she needed to be honest with Twingo upfront about her motivations.
"I expect to be generously compensated for this."
Carolyn and Abiyah converged on the nondescript block building that sat among hundreds like it on the western outskirts of the city. After they'd received the location from Twingo through one of their dead-drop slip-com nodes that was on another planet, the pair had split up and taken separate, random routes to the old building. They crossed each other's paths at three different points in a move they called “dragging” to see if one or both of them had picked up a tail.
Jason Burke was a blunt instrument and about as subtle as a hand grenade in a library, but Carolyn had survived for decades by herself in the wilds of the galactic quadrant by remaining invisible. She'd watch
ed him from afar when he'd first appeared on the scene and had been both horrified and fascinated by his direct, violent approach to problem solving. She assumed he'd be dead within weeks, but years later she was forced to revise her assessment though she found the man no less confusing than she had originally. It was with great relief that her partner, an Israeli ex-special forces operator, saw the wisdom in her methods and didn't go crashing into every situation like his counterpart seemed to prefer.
"Clear," Abiyah whispered as he ghosted up beside her.
"All clear," Carolyn confirmed. Before she could ask aloud how they were supposed to find Twingo and Kage, her com unit chirped. It was the one of the “clean” units she carried that couldn't be traced back to her, but that appeared to be no major hurdle for Kage. The display lit up with a map of the building and was directing them to a service entrance at the northeast corner. She showed it to Abiyah before nodding towards the direction they needed to go.
"They're really not too bad at this," Abiyah said softly.
"You sound surprised."
"I am. From what I understood, these two are support personnel."
"Twingo may be a bit… naïve, at least at times. Kage, however, is a master code slicer and an accomplished criminal whose talents are likely wasted with what he provides to this crew," Carolyn said. "The little bastard could be very, very wealthy if he struck out on his own."
Abiyah only grunted, a response that she'd learned could mean anything from “I agree with you” to “I've lost interest in this conversation.” The former Mista’avrim operator wasn't one for idle conversation, which made them an almost perfect match. Carolyn had gone so long without human interaction that the early days of their relationship were awkward and uncomfortable, but his tendency towards stoicism helped ease them over that hurdle and now she couldn't imagine her life without him.
They were within ten meters of the door when it popped open a fraction and she could see a blue hand with two thumbs slide out and wave at them. Twingo was hesitant to show his face, so Carolyn had to assume he knew the area was under surveillance. She wasn't a fearful person by nature, but she was honest about her own limitations. Without the Omega Force wrecking crew along with them she was cautious about getting into a situation for these two that she couldn't quickly and cleanly extricate herself from.
"I appreciate the help," Twingo said. "We're really in a bit of—"
"I've not yet agreed to help," Carolyn corrected him as the door slid shut and locked. "You tell me what you've gotten into that has you so spooked, what you need from me, and then maybe we agree to stick our necks out. Got it?"
"Sure." Twingo gave her an exaggerated shrug. "This way." The three of them made their way through a maze of partitioned storage areas, a few light manufacturing spaces, and pieces of spaceships that looked long abandoned. They finally walked into a dimly lit workspace where Kage was hovering over an open crate and jabbering excitedly to himself. Without waiting for Twingo to offer, she walked up and peered inside the crate, her mouth dropping open as she looked over what lay inside.
"Is… is this…?"
"No," Twingo said. "At least, not yet… maybe not ever. It's also the reason we can't really reach out for Jason's help right now. If he learned about what we're doing his reaction might be a bit… unpredictable."
"I think you'd better start at the beginning and tell me everything," Carolyn said. "I can't imagine the people you took this from are the sort to just shrug it off and go about their business."
Kage and Twingo exchanged a cryptic look before the code slicer nodded and went back to whatever he was doing in the crate.
"It started a few weeks after we learned that Lucky hadn't been completely destroyed on Khepri." Twingo raised his hands as his guests both opened their mouths to speak at the same time. "I'll get to that. For now let me just explain why we have this … thing … and why we don't have a lot of time to get it out of here."
Chapter 3
Four weeks earlier…
"My forces are in place. We have three strike teams that have been spread out across the metropolitan area in ones and twos. That should help them escape notice."
"And we're sure this is the place? We've come up empty four times already," Kage said.
"My information is verified this time." Tauless looked away. The pru was becoming increasingly defensive the longer the search went on for a secret production facility that might not even exist. "It was also confirmed by Mok's people, isn't that right?"
"My informant gave details that make it highly likely this location is the correct one," Saditava Mok said carefully. "But she was quite clear that at no time during her employ there did she actually see a battlesynth body being built."
"This is the right place," Tauless insisted. "The raw material shipments alone indicate that this isn't just a support plant building subassemblies."
"I agree with Tauless, Twingo," Mok said after an uncomfortable moment. "This facility also seems to adhere to the Kheprian Covert Service's doctrine of hiding in plain sight. The building sits in an industrial park and has a power cooperative agreement with four others near it. Kage was able to find out that this company is the one that paid for all the permitting and installed the reactor without any help from the other four."
"Which means they're off the grid and have the perfect cover for why such a large fusion generator was opted for," Twingo finished. "And as we all know, building synths takes a tremendous amount of power when they're brought online."
"So we think this facility was going to be where they did the final integration for the new battlesynths?" Kage asked.
"They couldn't do it on Khepri," Tauless said. "The legal ramifications for awakening a new battlesynth would be profound. Nobody would be willing to risk that, not even the Covert Service."
Twingo remained skeptical but silent. More and more his negativity wasn't appreciated in the small group, but the earlier failures and daunting task ahead of them should they succeed here had eroded away the excitement and hope he'd felt when first gazing upon Lucky's mangled remains. He remembered when Mok had called them to his compound to show them the battlesynth's intact head and partial upper torso and that hot blossom of hope that welled up in his chest when Tauless told them their friend's redundant safety systems seemed to be intact. But now? Now he had sobered up from that initial rush and seemed to be the only one in the group willing to face the reality of the situation.
If they even managed to liberate a completed battlesynth body, which was looking unlikely, none of them had ever attempted the type of integration needed to install Lucky's primary processor matrix into it. Even if they managed that, there was no guarantee that Lucky's mind hadn't been so damaged that an awakening was even possible. Couple that with the fact they were stealing an illegal, secret weapon from a powerful ConFed Pillar World's shadowy military apparatus and it was more and more looking like a fool's errand. Perhaps they should admit to Jason what they were doing, call it quits, and lay Lucky to rest with the honor he deserved.
The other issue that had been tickling the back of his mind was that Tauless had mentioned the rumored bodies in short-run production were different from the other battlesynths already in existence. On the slim chance Lucky reemerged and was able to command the new, more powerful body, it wasn't exactly something they'd be able to keep hidden for long. After the disaster on Khepri, more worlds were barring entry to battlesynths, some to all synths in an even more extreme measure. What the hell would port authorities do when an obviously upgraded model came clomping down the ramp of a spaceship?
"Twingo!?"
"Yes? What?"
"Pay attention, damnit… I don't want to go through this twice," Kage snapped. "As I was saying: Do you want to be with Team Two? That leaves me with Team One, and Team Three will be on standby to hit the reactor once I've disabled the alarms. The odds are better that at least one of us will get to the objective, identify it properly, and get it out of the building befor
e any hidden assets they might have in the area react."
"Sounds good," Twingo lied.
"This is it then," Mok said. "Our best chance of capturing one of the new prototype bodies before Kheprian Covert Service catches up to what we're after and the program gets moved or sanitized. One more thing before we begin… don't take any unnecessary risks. The tactical teams I've provided are sterile and can't be traced back to any of us. If one of you is captured and made to talk, the fallout could be quite bad. This program is highly illegal and I have no doubt that whoever is in charge will implement a scorched earth policy on any breach that might lead to it being discovered."
"Understood," Twingo said.
"Understood," Kage repeated. "Good luck, everyone."
"I think we have a problem. I've got a first floor breach, edges still smoking hot."
"Say again, Kage? Did someone go early?"
"Negative, someone got here before us," Kage said. The diminutive Veran was decked out in tactical gear, a rarity for the code slicer. He still had no intention of engaging an armed enemy, but with Jason and Crusher absent he felt especially vulnerable and exposed. It seemed foolish to place his trust blindly in Mok's contractors.
Kage slid the small plasma carbine around to his back and pulled out a small scanner, running the device around the edges and over the mangled remains of the entry control panel. "The security has already been disabled… both systems. Entry security and the secondary monitors have been bypassed by someone who knows what they're doing. What do you want to do, Twingo?"
"We go," Twingo said over the com a moment later. "We don't have a choice… if someone else is here, it's now or never. Be ready for anything."
Kage sighed and motioned his own team in through the rough-cut opening where a heavy security door used to be. His senses were on high-alert and he refused to believe that someone else had decided to break into the facility on the same night as they by coincidence. He also wasn't naïve enough to think that they weren't after the same thing.
Omega Force: Legends Never Die (OF10) Page 2
