The figures were draped head-to-toe in some sort of loose, adaptive camouflage that must have been good enough to spoof the building's camera system since there were none of the odd covers on the imagers embedded in the mountain. Jason made a mental note to have Twingo upgrade the system to multispectral and moved further down the wing of the gunship to where the tip hung over the parking apron. Below him was a shag pile of large, unforgiving rocks that the mild surf of the bay lapped against to give him a bit of sound cover.
Gripping the trailing edge of the wing, Jason carefully slid his body over until he was hanging by his fingertips. He looked down and carefully judged his landing area before letting go, dropping nearly twelve meters and absorbing the impact with his legs. The two rocks he'd picked to land on were some of the few that weren't covered in algae from high tide, and the soft soles of his boots gripped and held. He checked the com again and found it was still being jammed. Damn… whoever these guys were, they weren't your run-of-the-mill criminals so that ruled out anybody he and Crusher may have pissed off on the frontier.
Before exposing himself, Jason pulled his com unit and scrolled through a few more functions to see if he could find anything that hadn't been jammed or otherwise defeated. The local networks were locked out on the device altogether, so he went back to pinging the Phoenix with his neural implants. Ah… there it was. While the ship's normal surveillance imagers were all blocked, all the targeting sensors were still retracted and unexposed. He worked through all the mental syntax commands, trying to find some combination that would allow him to deploy the targeting imagers when he finally gave up and told the ship to deploy weapons. The command would automatically activate all targeting and defensive sensors, but it would be noisy.
The clanks of the rear cannons deploying from near the ramp were Jason's cue to climb the hill and see who had been poking around his hangar. The first thing he saw was that the bastards had managed to open up a decent-sized hole in the door without making a sound. Impressive. They were looking at the now-active gunship and arraying themselves into a defensive position.
"In for a buck… or however the hell that saying goes," Jason muttered and brought the big plasma rifle up and sighted on the nearest target. He squeezed off a sustained burst that launched the bipedal being off its feet and sent it skidding across the tarmac. Jason's brain registered two facts even as the second target turned towards him: That plasma burst should have incinerated a biological being, not sent it flying. The second fact was the target made a distinctly metallic clatter as it skidded over to where the Camaro was parked. Even before the second assailant threw off its camo shroud, he knew what he was dealing with: battlesynths.
"Should've brought the damn railgun," he muttered, holding down the trigger and hammering the one still standing even as the other leapt to its feet and switched over to combat mode. Glowing red eyes stared straight through him as it came towards him at a dead run. With a mental command that he'd kept firmly in the front of his mind, the Phoenix tracked the synth with her rear cannons and opened up. The effect wasn't exactly what he had in mind.
The first shot seemed to blast the battlesynth sideways, but the four subsequent shots not only blasted a section of his hangar door to shreds, they blew both battlesynths inside the building.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Jason huffed, sprinting over the pad and approaching the door with reckless abandon. He'd barely cleared the gaping maw in the door when his plasma rifle was neatly plucked from his hands and an open palm slammed into his chest. The blow was vicious, but since he was still alive he had to assume it wasn't a full-strength hit. He landed hard and was trying to catch his breath while drawing his sidearms when both battlesynths walked back out of the opening and approached him.
"That's enough!" a voice boomed across the landing pad. "499, 302… stand down. Immediately!" Both battlesynths assumed a non-threatening posture and stood down from full combat mode. Jason watched as the eyes faded to their normal glossy onyx and their armament retracted back under their arm fairings.
"We'd hoped to do this clandestinely, Captain… but as usual you have made my job so much more difficult," the voice continued.
"That's sort of my thing," Jason groaned, rolling up into a sitting position and looking around. He couldn't see who had been speaking to him, but it sounded like it was coming from under the Phoenix.
"If you wouldn't mind telling your ship to stop aiming its cannons at my associates?"
Jason shrugged and sent the command to retract the weaponry and put the Phoenix in a passive surveillance mode. With Crusher not there, he had little hope of defeating two battlesynths now that he'd given up the element of surprise and had already been disarmed.
"That's better. My name is Alocur." Jason turned and saw a well-built pru walking out from around one of the Phoenix's main landing gear struts.
"I'm… oh hell, you already know who I am," Jason said, standing up slowly while keeping a wary eye on the two battlesynths who were staring at him impassively. "So, Alocur… do I really even need to guess what a pru is doing here with two battlesynths poking around my base?"
"I think you know why we're here," Alocur said. "If you'd be so kind as to invite me in, we can discuss this civilly and hopefully come to some sort of understanding."
"Just one question before that… who do you represent?"
"Kheprian Intelligence."
"Figures," Jason said, watching as a swarm of little black drones detached themselves from the Phoenix's sensors and flew off into the night.
Chapter 7
"Kheprian Intelligence, eh?" Twingo asked. Jason had roused the rest of the crew, tried unsuccessfully to call Crusher and wake him up, and then called Mok to let him know what was happening. The last one had been with some reluctance, but in the end Mok's perspective on what Alocur might say could be useful. As a concession, the Kheprian operative agreed to leave his battlesynth muscle outside the ravaged doors with instructions to let Mok through when he arrived.
"That's right," Alocur said. He sipped tentatively at the cup of coffee Twingo had put in front of him and then nodded at the engineer with a half-smile. "Not bad!"
Mok must not have been asleep because he arrived less than thirty minutes after Jason had made contact, rushing though the rip in the doors and wearing the same expensive suit he'd had on when they last saw him. When Alocur saw him, the shock and recognition on his face were easy for Jason to read now that he'd had some exposure to Pruvian body language.
"What are you doing here?" Mok blurted out when he saw the pru sitting at the table.
"I might ask you the same question, Saditava Mok." Alocur said the name mockingly and now Jason's interest was piqued.
"I'm helping my … associates … with a delicate matter," Mok said. "Are you here at the behest of the Kheprian government?"
"So he's really an intelligence operative?" Jason interrupted.
"He is," Mok confirmed. "Quite a high ranking one… far too high to be out here along the edge of the expanse chasing down petty matters that—"
"I'd hardly call the theft of a prototype battlesynth body to be petty, Mok," Alocur said. "Yes… I'm here representing Khepri, but not because they asked me to. It's… complicated."
"Un-complicate it," Jason said.
Alocur looked around the table and then gave the Pruvian equivalent of a shrug and motioned to Twingo for more coffee.
"Some years ago, my office was tasked with tracking down rumors that some faction within the Ministry of Martial Affairs was secretly trying to reactivate the battlesynth program," he began without preamble. "More specifically, we'd heard credible rumors that they were trying to produce an even more powerful, capable combat unit.
"I was given a surprising amount of freedom and resources to accomplish my task, including four battlesynths and a twelve-person technical staff that had been part of the original battlesynth project. We quietly poked around the edges of clandestine operations, trying to see who might be
brazen and foolish enough to violate interstellar treaties. It wasn't until your group rained chaos upon my planet, freed a group of untethered battlesynths, escaped with that group, and destroyed a military facility that we began to see movement from the key players. Apparently you disrupted their timetable and spooked them enough to make a few critical mistakes."
"You're welcome," Jason said modestly.
"Soon after, we began to get intel from our field units of a team that seemed to be doing recon on the same facilities we were." Alocur ignored Jason's comment. "The second time they showed up at a place we had under surveillance, I went personally to see who it could be. Imagine my surprise when it was none other than the merc unit that had wreaked havoc on Khepri and absconded with Lot 700 before the dust had even settled.
"We then began concentrating on you and started digging into your past exploits. Criminals though you all are, you do seem to hold to a certain pattern… whatever your interest was in the revamped battlesynth program, I was confident that you weren't trying to steal it for another government or for a criminal enterprise. We also noticed right away that not all of you were involved and that the group's leadership was missing."
"You knew that we had a battlesynth on our crew at one time, right?" Jason asked.
"Yes… Combat Unit 777, known as 'Lucky' once he began to work as a member of your crew," Alocur said. "There's a lot about that situation that doesn't make sense to me. Would it be possible for me to speak to Lucky?"
"He didn't make it through the Khepri operation," Twingo said while everyone else just looked uncomfortable. "At least not wholly intact."
Alocur narrowed his eyes for a moment, looked at Tauless and then back at Twingo, and his eyes widened in understanding.
"I had it all wrong. Remarkable," he whispered. "You weren't looking for a weapons program. You were looking for a way to save your friend." Before any of them could answer, he pressed ahead with his story. "For some reason it seemed your team had better intel than we'd been able to gather on potential lab sites, so we decided to simplify our procedures and began tracking you, letting your group do all the hard work."
"So when you jumped us in the lab and stole one of the bodies—" Twingo left the question dangling.
"Correct… we didn't attack you because we'd deemed you to not be a threat. We took one of the bodies to provide incontrovertible evidence to Ministry leadership along with a data dump from the servers, rigged the place to blow, and got off the planet before the local authorities could react. I take it you were successful in stealing one of the prototypes as well?"
"Yes," Jason said, not seeing any reason to lie when the evidence was sitting on the hangar floor below them. "I take it you're here to reclaim it?"
"This is where the story gets complicated, as I mentioned," Alocur said. "While it's not been widely known, there's been an internal shakeup on Khepri. On all the Pillar Worlds, actually."
"How big a shakeup?" Mok asked.
"You could almost call it a coup."
"What?!"
"You really don’t know, do you?" Alocur looked at Mok speculatively. "I'd suggest you verify what I'm telling you with your contacts within Imperial Intelligence, I'm sure they're tracking this closely. Apparently there's a new faction within the ConFed Council that has moved quickly to solidify power and is now restructuring the entire organization."
"The ConFed is all but dead," Jason scoffed.
"That's where you couldn't be more wrong," Alocur said. "They were wounded when the Central Banking System folded after our AI was destroyed, but they already have a new one ready to come online and the Fleet isn't any less powerful than it was a year ago. The decisions coming out of the Council right now might not make a lot of sense, but this new faction is able to get everyone moving in the same direction in a way that no other controlling party has been able to."
"What's this have to do with Khepri?" Tauless asked.
"Our home is a Pillar World. In the past, not much of an issue was made of the old treaties, but this new Council is reminding everyone just who is in charge. Khepri was able to act with autonomy thanks to being the world that controlled most of the ConFed's economic power, but that's no longer true. As you'd expect, our planet's leadership folded almost immediately from the slightest threat of force from the Council."
They all sat in silence a moment, considering the various implications of a power grab within the ConFed hierarchy. For as long as anyone could remember, the ConFed was little more than a scheme where star systems paid an exorbitant amount for the dubious protection of the Fleet while the core worlds enjoyed the spoils. The whole thing reminded Jason of how the mafia worked back on Earth. It was a crap system, but the alternatives were bleak. One could entreat some of the other major powers in the area, but without some significant resource the Saabror Protectorate wouldn't even entertain an offer, and the Eshquarian Empire was just a touch on the side of being xenophobic to the point they didn't like dealing with anyone outside the Concordian Cluster. The Cridal Cooperative was a promising upstart, but they were small and could offer little in the way of real protection. The reality for most small systems was that if they wanted to not be viewed as prey, they needed to accept the ConFed's terms.
From what Alocur was telling them, something had drastically changed in the wake of the recent economic upheaval. If the ConFed went from being basically a protection racket that paid lip service to the independence of its citizens to something truly sinister in its quest for power, they were all in for a bumpy ride. Under its current charter, the ConFed Starfleet was spread thin and used more for policing actions and projecting influence, but if new management decided it wanted to use the full might of its military to bring member systems to heel? Jason could only shake his head at the potentially horrific new scenario they were looking at.
"So why are you here?" Jason asked after a long moment.
"I can't trust anyone in my chain of command right now," Alocur said. "Given the political climate on Khepri, I'm afraid that if I were to hand over what we've found, all I would be doing was handing the ConFed a new weapon to abuse. With the old treaties now in question, it's not outside the realm of possibility to think that the production of these new battlesynths would not only be encouraged but funded by the Council itself. As for the exact reason I'm here? Since you also have one of the new prototypes, I had to determine what your intentions were."
"And?" Jason pressed.
"I'm convinced you're not working for the Council or any other factions to gain access to a weapon system, but there are still issues with letting you keep it," Alocur said carefully. "Perhaps we can discuss this further after you've all had time to process what I've told you."
"Jason, I'd like to return to my ship and get some independent confirmation on things from my sources." Mok made it sound like a request.
"I don't give a shit." Jason shrugged. "You're not a prisoner here. I wouldn't mind hearing what you find out, however."
"Of course," Mok said, rising. He looked out over the mezzanine's railing down to the hangar floor and frowned. "That's odd."
Jason stood and peered over the rail and saw that both battlesynths that had come with Alocur were kneeling in front of the stasis pod, not moving at all.
"What the hell?"
"Are the remains of Combat Unit—forgive me—are the remains of Lucky inside that stasis chamber?" Alocur asked.
"They are," Twingo said.
"Leave them be, please," Alocur said. "They're paying their respects. Lucky's exploits have circulated through the ranks of the remaining battlesynths. From what I understand, he's something of a folk hero to them."
"His own lot mates didn't see it that way," Jason muttered, drawing a curious look from the Kheprian spy. "They're welcome to stay as long as they wish. How the hell did they know he was in there?"
"They probably heard everything we said from the hole in the door," Twingo said. "You remember what it was like trying to sneak a word past Lu
cky. He could hear through bulkheads on a ship underway."
"Thank you, Captain," Alocur said. "I don't pretend to understand their culture or ways, but I've come to realize they're much more complicated than the Ministry would have the public believe."
"You have no idea." Kage laughed.
"What the hell happened here?"
"Why don't you check the thirty-six messages I left you," Jason snapped.
"Oh! I turned my com off so I could get some sleep," Crusher said, digging around in his pockets. "You only left nine messages. I feel like you're being overly dramatic. Perhaps if you—oh shit!"
"They're with us!" Jason shouted when he realized Crusher was reacting to the still kneeling battlesynths near the closed stasis pod.
"I feel like I missed a lot."
"Check your damn messages!"
"Captain, a word?" Alocur seemed to materialize from the shadows near the hole in the door. Jason motioned for the pru to follow him over to the smaller of two open-air lifts that ran from the floor up to the mezzanine level.
"What's on your mind?" Jason asked after handing a steaming mug of his own brand of coffee to the eager pru. He made a mental note to check and make sure Rocky Mountain Coffee was opening up to the Khepri market. Judging by Alocur's reaction, the stringent drink would be a hit.
"It seems to me that you don't have everything you need to try and attempt something as ambitious as transferring your friend into that new body."
"I assumed you were going to tell me we had to destroy the prototype." Jason was genuinely surprised that the pru spy hadn't opened with a strong offence to convince him it was the only smart move.
"Going back to what we discussed last night, there are enough concerns on Khepri and within the Ministry of Martial Affairs that leave me struggling to know who I can trust," Alocur said. "Nobody knows exactly what the new generation battlesynths look like, not exactly. Seeing one in person made me realize that unless one had intimate knowledge of the secret program, they almost certainly wouldn't make that leap since they don't look much like their predecessors."
Omega Force: Legends Never Die (OF10) Page 6
