"You buttering me up for something here?"
"What?" Alocur was completely confused by the idiom. "What I'm saying is that despite Mok's impressive equipment and Tauless's … enthusiasm … you won't be able to pull this off without my help."
"What are you offering and what are you asking for?" Jason was much more precise in his language this time. He'd been around enough spooks to know that the devil was in the details and often what they didn't say was what could come back and bite you in the ass.
"I have the technical team and the full data set from the lab's servers needed to try and awaken Lucky within the new body. Just so we're clear on this, without my help you will almost certainly fail and there can be no second tries. I consulted with one of my engineers after leaving here and she agrees that any mistakes made during this integration will result in the permanent loss of your friend… assuming he's still in there dormant. In return… I'd like to hire Omega Force." He said the last part with such obvious reluctance that Jason suspected it might be an act.
"You're walking around with Kheprian military hardware and two battlesynths… I can't imagine what you would need us for." Jason laughed.
"Not for your usual type of work," Alocur assured him. "There is a splinter faction within the intelligence community on Khepri that would very much like to get to the bottom of the sudden shift in the ConFed Council's posture and reorganization. Nothing we're seeing makes any sense unless there's a new player at the table, and we need to know who that is.
"Before you start protesting, we've already made some inroads by exploiting our contacts within ConFed Special Service and their intelligence apparatus. We've been able to determine that a Fleet battleship limped back home from an ultra-secret, deep-space mission that cost the task force damn near all their ships. From what we understand, whoever is working the levers behind the scenes appeared shortly after that ship made it back to its home port."
"And the mission?" Jason asked, his mouth now completely dry as the story sounded too familiar to be coincidence.
"We've been trying to locate the captain of that vessel," Alocur said. "We think he might have information crucial to identifying who this person or persons is if our information is right and they came from beyond ConFed space on his ship."
"What makes you think he's even still alive?
"Because ConFed Intelligence Section has been quietly looking for him too. We think it may be to silence him permanently."
"ConFed Intelligence Section isn't all that fond of us." Jason blew his breath out through pursed lips, thinking. "Having them scouring space looking for him could complicate things if we're recognized. But if you can successfully put Lucky's matrix into that new body and wake him up… I'll agree to look for your wayward captain. I'm assuming you want us because your splinter faction doesn't have the resources to infiltrate the disgusting places this captain may have fled to."
"That and you seem to have a knack for kicking up information that other people try very hard to keep hidden," Alocur said, now relaxed and leaning against the railing after Jason had agreed to his terms. "Something big is happening in the quadrant, Captain Burke, and I don't think it's anything good. It's just a hunch, but I'm rarely wrong about these things."
Jason watched the pru walk away and begin speaking into his com unit to coordinate with his people. He had little doubt that the ConFed ship Alocur was speaking of was the one Jason had saved during a mission where they'd destroyed an ancient construct that had actually been a weapon of horrific scope. It had the ability to obliterate entire stars from billions of lightyears away, but he'd managed to demolish it before the ConFed could get their hands on it. The last remnants of that culture existed in a carefully encrypted file stored statically in his neural implant.
The only thing Jason could think of was that the species he'd saved that battleship from had infiltrated the ship after they'd left or that the captain had bumbled into yet another species and brought them back. It seemed unlikely that whoever hitched a ride back would be able to start exerting their will over the ConFed's political system so soon, but Alocur seemed adamant that his sources were correct.
He'd have dismissed the task out of hand if it wasn't for the fact that Earth was now becoming known as a fledgling power in the quadrant. If the ConFed was looking to expand and was doing so by threat of force, the new upstart species with the oddly advanced starships might be a tempting target.
"Damnit," he swore softly, tossing the rest of his coffee down the drain. "I guess nothing can ever be easy."
Chapter 8
Alocur had been modest when he claimed he had access to a technical team. Once the pru had made the call, a swarm of high-level engineers had invaded their hangar and began efficiently inspecting and configuring all the machinery that Mok had procured. Tauless had tried his best to keep up and be useful, but it quickly became apparent that compared to the professionals he was little more than a hobbyist. Though he didn't show it, Jason thought it had to have been a crushing blow to the young pru's ego.
Strangely enough, all the engineers that came down to help all seemed to have some passing familiarity with Tauless, or had at least heard of his family, and seemed genuinely pleased to meet him. Jason watched the interactions closely to distract himself from the fact that a bunch of strangers were getting ready to desecrate his friend's corpse. He also wanted to get a better handle on the pru as a species. He'd heard of them, of course, as one of the ConFed founding members, but he'd never even seen one before Lucky had dragged him back to Khepri to help one of his creators he called a “Master.”
"So what's all that going to be eventually?" Jason asked Twingo, nodding towards where the technical team was assembling a room within the hangar.
"Hermetically sealed environment where the transfer will take place," Twingo said. "There will be two more identical to that one by the time they're done. They have to prep Lucky for removing his primary matrix and supporting components in the first one. They'll sterilize him and remove any of the extraneous hardware still attached while the machines keep him unconscious, for lack of a better term.
"The second room will be a cleanroom that's pumped full of inert gas; that's where they'll perform the procedure to de-integrate Lucky from his current body. During this time, the new body will be going through a similar prep and then, in the third room, the two will be joined."
"And after they stuff his matrix into the new body?"
"That's where the dangerous part comes in," Twingo said. "Lucky will then be moved into that chamber over near the far wall and power from the Phoenix's main reactor will be routed in. Massive amounts of current will be pumped through the new body until its onboard powerplant comes online and stabilizes. After that we let him cool down and then, hopefully, we'll be able to wake him."
"Where's Kage?" Crusher asked, butting into the conversation with his usual grace.
"Working with Alocur's people to decrypt the technical specifications they pulled off the lab servers," Jason said.
"Where's Doc?"
"He's… actually, where the hell is Doc?" Jason asked.
"I… oh, shit," Twingo said. "I forgot to send him a message and let him know we're back. He's going to be pissed about missing all of this."
"Where is he?" Jason asked.
"Tassan," Twingo said. "It's a small city on the other side of the planet that has a university where he's been teaching in exchange for lab space and funding for his own research. Glad you reminded me, Crusher."
"Why did you bring it up?" Jason asked suspiciously.
"He's a friend… I was just wondering where he was," Crusher said, far too defensively for it to be the truth.
"Bullshit," Jason said flatly.
"Before you guys left, Crusher signed almost all of his assets over to Doc," Twingo said absently, looking down at a tablet displaying some sort of schematic. "Pretty much the only things he had when you left were the clothes he was wearing and his weapons… Doc even techni
cally owns Crusher's house."
"You son of a bitch! I knew you were a lying sack of crap!" Jason exploded.
"I feel like I'm missing some—" Twingo's voice broke off as Crusher squeezed his throat shut, choking the engineer.
"I paid for everything because you said you made some bad investments and were broke," Jason fumed.
"Listen, who are you going to believe? Me—someone who followed you through hell and back after Lucky died—or this little shit weasel who is a known liar when it comes to this sort of thing?" Crusher asked. While Twingo gurgled and struggled against the iron grip around his throat, Jason did the math in his head.
"You owe me… damn near three hundred thousand credits!"
"That's absurd!"
"The Phoenix doesn't run on unicorn farts and good intentions, you cheap bastard! Fuel and munitions all cost money!"
"Technically that's your ship and thus your investment and responsibility," Crusher said loftily. "I'll pay you a third of that. It's more than fair since I really don't have that much and you're disgustingly wealthy thanks to your farming venture." Twingo was slapping at the arm holding him and waving his hand over his head.
"I think he wants to add something," Jason said. Crusher let go and Twingo fell to his hands and knees, gulping air and coughing.
"In the spirt of fairness, Crusher had just signed a deal with Galvetor that—"
"Shut UP!" Crusher thundered, glaring down at Twingo. Appearing completely unruffled, the engineer stood up and stepped back behind Jason.
"As I was saying, Crusher personally had enormous land holdings on Restaria and now that Galvetor wants to begin developing that planet our friend here has been selling parcels of land off at a premium. Crusher may likely be richer than you are despite your coffee being such a big hit in this part of the quadrant."
"Okay, okay," Crusher said, putting his hands up. "Two hundred?"
"You said Doc is holding all of his assets right now?" Jason asked with a predatory smile.
"Yep," Twingo said.
"I think I'll take a flight out to the campus and talk to my good buddy," Jason said. "It seems that he's the one I should be talking to about recouping my losses."
Crusher seemed to realize his tactical error and his head hung in defeat. "Damnit," he whispered.
"Don't worry… I won't charge too much interest." Jason laughed as he walked off, whistling to himself.
In reality, all the members of Omega Force were quite wealthy thanks to their own personal endeavors and the profit sharing from their better paying missions. The money meant little to them, it was just another way to keep score within the group. As they began to rake in more than enough cash to live how they pleased, the game then became how to try and get the other guy to part with his money. Kage and Crusher were utterly ruthless when it came to cheating their friends, and now it looked like Jason had been given a gift from the heavens… Doc was the least interested in their petty schemes and games and would hand over a wad of Crusher's money to Jason without a second thought.
While he walked out to prep the Phoenix for departure, thoughts of his friend became a bit less jovial. Doc was back in academia, teaching and doing his own research… would he even be happy to see Jason come roaring in with the gunship to pull him away from all that yet again? Doc had always been the elder statesmen among them, tempering the rashness of the younger members and giving their ragtag group a veneer of respectability. But how much longer would he want to fly around on an uncomfortable warship and put himself in constant danger? He was courageous, but he was no warrior, and more and more Jason could see he wasn't as comfortable in the life as the rest of them were.
"Maybe I should just leave well enough alone," he muttered.
"Leave what alone?" Kage asked from behind him.
"Nothing. What's up?"
"You have a minute to talk? We cracked the data Alocur's team pulled off the servers and there are some interesting things I've found that I think we should be aware of before proceeding."
"Want to take a flight?" Jason asked, nodding towards the waiting gunship. "I'm heading to Assan—No, Tassan?—to pick up Doc. Come to think of it, I'll probably need your help to find him."
"Let's go," Kage said, walking ahead towards the lowered ramp.
"We really don't get out to see much of this planet, do we?" Kage said. The Phoenix arced lazily over the inland city. Tassan was much different from the sleepy coastal town Omega Force had built their base near. Tall buildings that were blocky yet somehow still graceful reached for the sky, and the surrounding suburbs looked clean and orderly… at least from five hundred meters up.
Jason just grunted at his friend's comment, still digesting everything Kage had told him on the flight across the ocean to the far continent. Apparently the engineers that had come with Alocur had admitted to the code slicer that there was less than a twenty percent chance that the reintegration of a battlesynth matrix into a new body would be successful. They'd been prepared for that, but when they also found out that there was less than five percent of a chance that Lucky would retain his sanity, it gave Jason pause.
As if that wasn't enough, the next bombshell had been the specs on the new body. If it lived up to what its designers said it could do, this next generation of battlesynth would be markedly more powerful than its predecessors. So now Jason was stuck with the moral quandary of continuing on with the procedure or insisting they pull the plug on it before something irreversible was done. If Lucky beat the odds and awoke, but had gone insane and then escaped? It was a risk Jason wasn't sure he was willing to take. The bitch of it was that they wouldn't actually know if the worst had happened until well after the new body was powered up and he was moving around. It was questions like these that made him happy that he would be able to talk to Doc again soon.
They landed the Phoenix at a local aerodrome, the DL-7 looking massive and intimidating parked among the willowy planetary jumpers preferred on S'Tora. Jason himself felt no less conspicuous as he strode down the pristine halls of the university campus, his boots thudding on the polished stone floors. Students and faculty stopped and gawked as the rough-looking, openly armed merc followed the map on his com unit to a medium-sized lecture hall that had already let out. A few students milled around down by the lectern and Jason was struck by how similar the scene was to his brief stint at college while back on Earth. He'd gone right after getting out of the Air Force thinking it would give him some direction. Instead, after two incidents, it was agreed that if he left quietly no criminal charges would be pressed.
Jason spotted Doc standing in the middle of the group, smiling and joking as he talked to them. He looked so comfortable and natural in this environment that Jason almost turned and slunk away, but Doc turned his way, his eyes widening. He began waving furiously for Jason to come down so the choice to leave or stay was firmly ripped from his grasp.
"Look at you! Teaching and wearing regular clothes and everything," Jason said, pasting a forced smile on his face and embracing his friend.
"I'd not heard you were on your way back!" Doc seemed genuinely pleased to see him. "You don't look too bad… a few new scars that I might be able to get rid of if you'll hold still long enough. How's Crusher?"
"Same as always," Jason said. "Is there a place we can—"
"Yes, yes, of course," Doc said. "Everybody, if you'll excuse us. This is one of my dearest, oldest friends and we have much catching up to do. Please just message any questions about the lecture to me and I'll get to them in turn."
The group of young, fashionably dressed aliens looked bemused as their professor walked off with someone whom they'd have crossed the street to avoid under normal circumstances.
Doc led him down a corridor that required an access pass and into a well-appointed lab that hummed with machinery. Jason had never been in a genetics lab so he was mildly disappointed there weren't half-dissected specimens lying about and strange, mutant hybrids locked up in cages.
; "I hope this visit means you've put your demons to rest out there on the fringe and you're coming back home permanently," Doc said. "Otherwise I have to assume Crusher sent you here to collect his money and property."
"We'll get to that later," Jason said darkly. "But we're back."
"Did you find what you were looking for out there?"
"Do we ever?"
"No," Doc said simply, shuffling some equipment about on a bench. "But that never stops you two from trying."
"I assume you've heard what the other two were doing with Lucky?" Jason asked.
Doc nodded slowly and carefully, edging towards the door. "I did… there wasn't much my expertise could give to the project, so I sat this one out," he said.
"Well… they've managed to do the impossible and found a second generation body," Jason said. "They're back at the hangar with it and a team of Kheprian engineers getting ready to try the re-integration."
"And you're fine with this?"
"I've shifted my attitude about it slightly," Jason said. "I don't agree with it on principle, but Tauless has sold me on the theory that Lucky isn't dead, just grievously wounded."
"That's one way to look at it," Doc said, squinting as he worked through it in his own head.
"The help from the Kheprians didn't come free… we have a new mission, an actual Omega mission, in exchange for their help trying to shove Lucky's noodle into that new body," Jason said. He paused and looked around the lab and then down at himself, thinking again just how out of place he was and how Doc fit in perfectly. "Look, Doc… you've built a life here and have legitimacy and all the things you were forced to walk away from when Bondrass strong-armed you into servitude. I don't want to pull you away from—"
"Please don't leave me here!" Doc blurted out. "Yes, this is everything I thought I wanted for so long… and I've never been more bored in all my life. I never thought I'd actually be saying this, but I miss the old life. Sure, the ship’s uncomfortable and you are all disgusting, filthy creatures that if left to your own devices would stew in your own—"
Omega Force: Legends Never Die (OF10) Page 7
