Omega Force: Legends Never Die (OF10)

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "That's what I was afraid of," Doc said. "That ship isn't here to contain the system or they wouldn't have needed to bring in five other cruisers. It's likely here as a failsafe: If the strike teams fail, that ship will burn the city to the ground."

  "They wouldn't dare—"

  "Twingo, the ConFed Council just authorized the invasion of a neighboring sovereign power that they were trading partners with! You think they'll suddenly get squeamish about leveling a single city on some unimportant planet with no military of its own?"

  "So if the captain succeeds, that means everyone dies?" Twingo asked rhetorically. "I'll make the call. They'll need to—"

  "Did you just cycle the rear ramp?"

  "What? No! What the hell?" Twingo looked around to where the battlesynth had been standing near the bridge entrance. It was now gone. "Uh, oh… you don't think—" He left the question dangling.

  "If he did, there's nothing we can do about it now," Doc said grimly. "We're orbiting five hundred kilometers out from shore over an ocean. Close the ramp back up and let the captain know the situation … I'd probably omit the fact Lucky may have jumped from a ship ten thousand meters in the air for the time being."

  Chapter 23

  "—battleship that's moved into orbit is specialized for surface bombardment! If that strike team fails, it looks like the Fleet is going to take out the whole city to make sure Venda doesn't escape."

  "So what are we supposed to do?" Jason asked. "Just let them take his family? It's likely that ship has orders to sanitize the planet no matter what happens here."

  "I'm just making sure you have all the information available," Twingo said. "I'm not suggesting anything."

  "Fine… thanks," Jason said. "Start working your way towards us. We'll need an extraction from this location no matter what since these assholes blew up our truck."

  "We still a go?" Crusher asked.

  They'd made it up to the third floor, east wing where the family lived. Kage confirmed that four beings were still in there by slicing into the building's security system, but now they weren't sure what to do. Venda was likely barricaded inside and now they'd effectively trapped themselves inside the building. They'd set traps and fortifications as best they could, but they still had to get inside the residence.

  "Yes," Jason said firmly. "Leaving this family to the jackals won't help matters, and I'm not convinced that ship won't fire on this city no matter what happens."

  "That's a big risk to take, Captain," Kage said. "If they were just going to glass the surface, why send the teams down at all?"

  "Confirmation of the target," Crusher said. "Once Venda is confirmed to be on-site, the ship likely has orders to open fire. You don't move a piece of ordnance like that into position as a backup plan… you put it there because you plan to use it."

  "You don't think there's a chance they want this guy alive?" Jason asked, now hesitant.

  "No," Crusher said firmly. "You don't send this sort of force for an extraction. They're here to overwhelm any security he may have in place. They also probably don't know that as soon as they confirm the package that battlewagon is going to open up and kill them too. They're completely expendable."

  "Let's try to get inside and then go over the finer points of this," Kage said, looking at the feed from the micro-drones he'd put aloft outside to watch the approaches. "They're getting closer."

  "Let's just keep this simple," Jason said. He removed his helmet and jogged down the short corridor to the residence's main entrance. He held down the call button and looked up into the camera over the door. "Venda Seh, my name is—"

  "I recognize you," a voice came over the speaker. "You're really the one it sent after me?"

  "I… don't know what you're referring to," Jason said. "I'm here to try and get you and your family to safety. There's a ConFed strike team, two of them actually, and they're converging on this building."

  There was a pause and then the door slid open. Jason shrugged to his friends and then walked in, greeted by an alien he, too, recognized even as distracted as he was by the large-bore plasma pistol that had been shoved in his face.

  "Talk!"

  "You're the captain from that ConFed battleship," Jason said. "The one that gave us fuel after chasing us to that ancient relic."

  "Why are you here?" The pistol lowered fractionally.

  "Like I said—"

  "Why are you really here? Who sent you?" Venda became more agitated as Kage and Crusher slunk into the room and closed the door.

  "A Kheprian intelligence operative named Alocur has been tracking you," Jason said slowly. "He thinks you may have some clue as to who or what is behind the takeover of the ConFed Council. He wants to bring you in and debrief you."

  "Oh, I know what's behind it," Venda laughed humorlessly. "Kheprian, huh? Makes sense. They're in this up to their—" An explosion sent a hard jolt through the building and set off a whole slew of automated alarms.

  "That was the mine I planted at the rear entrance," Kage said. "The breaching teams are to the building."

  "I paid a private security firm to extract us," Venda said. "I sent the signal over an hour ago when I received word we'd been compromised. Where are they?"

  "I didn't see anybody," Jason said. "Crusher?"

  "Nope… nobody."

  "Damn amateurs," Venda snarled before looking back at Jason. "It would appear that I am at your mercy given who is on their way up. Can you actually get my family out of here safely?"

  "The odds are long, but we can do it," Jason said. "How secure is this place?"

  "I had it customized when it was being built," Venda said. "The walls are armored as are the ingress points. There's only one door and the windows are hardened."

  "That's both good and bad," Crusher said. "One way in gives us a natural chokepoint, but there's also only one way out."

  "We have a hatch to get on the roof that doesn't appear in any of the structural records," Venda said. "But there's no way down from there."

  "Understood," Jason said. "Kage?"

  "That first blast has made them regroup," Kage said. "They've split into three teams and are covering all the exits. It looks like they're going to carefully check the rest of the doors before trying to make entry."

  "Start harassing them with your little drone bombs," Jason said. "Crusher and I will go out and try to engage them individually while you stay here and monitor things. Get a hold of Doc and tell him to get his ass here now. We won't have time to try to reposition and wait for pickup."

  Once back out in the corridor, Jason stuffed his helmet back down on his head and activated the armor. There was a shimmering effect as it came up to full power and then the effect dissipated.

  "Is that what I think it is?" Crusher asked.

  "If you think it's active shielding based on the same principle that our ship's shields work on, then yes… it is," Jason said.

  Crusher pulled a blade and jabbed at it experimentally, watching as the shields flared and resisted the knife. "That has potential," he said. "So… what's the plan?"

  "Let's go down a floor and try to get into one of the units facing the main street," Jason said. "We can pick a few off from the window and then reposition. Let's just stick and move and keep them guessing while waiting for the Phoenix."

  They made it to the second floor just as another jolt shook the building. People could be heard screaming and running from their homes. The building housed nine individual residences over three floors and three wings, so the odds of civilian casualties had increased now that some of them appeared to be trying to escape.

  The unit that Jason wanted to get into was hanging wide open as the residents had left in such a hurry they hadn't bothered to lock up after themselves. The pair wasted no time in getting to the front-facing window in time to see the team by the entrance roughing up everyone leaving, restraining them and tossing them into the yellow and green vegetation that covered the ground. He motioned for Crusher to carve a couple of
gun ports into the transparent composite material that the windows were made of. The blade sunk in with a hiss and Crusher was able to make two oval ports without the troops on the ground seeing him.

  "I'll watch the door," the big warrior said quietly. "Your weapon is more suited to this type of work." Jason nodded and switched back to low-velocity mode so he didn’t frag the civilians that were restrained nearby. He was pleasantly surprised the strike team wasn't just killing them as they exited given some of their other handiwork he'd witnessed over the years.

  He lined up a shot on the soldier nearest the door, waited until a non-combatant cleared out of the way, and squeezed the trigger. The body hadn’t even hit the ground when he quickly moved and dropped two more before they were able to see where the incoming originated from and return fire. Jason dove backwards as a dozen plasma bolts ripped through the window and into the residence.

  "Heads up!" Jason called, crawling back to the door. "They'll be sending someone up." Crusher just nodded and tossed a stun grenade down the stairwell before moving back away, following Jason further down the corridor. "Doc, what's your ETA?"

  "Fourteen minutes."

  "You have to do better," Jason said.

  Whump! The stunner went off and Jason could hear three distinct voices cry out in pain. They rushed the stairwell and opened fire on the three that had been coming up to dig them out of the second floor unit, killing them quickly. Before they could get back out of the well, a second fire-team came up behind the first, likely reacting to the grenade, and opened fire.

  Jason's armor flared brilliantly as plasma bolts splashed across the active shielding. The suit did an admirable job keeping the plasma shots from impacting his suit, but the heat buildup was intense, far worse than anything Jason had experienced in his older powered armor. He opened fire with a long, sustained burst, shooting blind while the shielding was still flared and trying to dissipate the plasma shots. The result was immediate and dramatic. The incoming plasma bolts ceased as Jason's hardened projectiles tore into the three soldiers jammed up at the bottom of the stairs. The ConFed team wore armor designed to be used against energy weapons and it did next to nothing to stop the rounds from the railgun.

  "You okay?" Crusher asked, pulling Jason to his feet. "Ow, damn! Your suit is still smoking."

  "Getting pinned down in a narrow stairwell wasn't the best thing for it," Jason admitted as the warnings scrolled across the inside of the visor. The power system had been taxed and the thermal overload had taken its toll on the shield emitters, lowering their efficiency to forty percent. "Kage, what're they doing?"

  "Moving to cover the exits and bringing up heavy weaponeers," Kage said. "Stand by, I'm going to start hitting them with my drone bombs and keep them distracted. From what I can hear, they're assuming there's a lot more of us inside than there really are and they're hesitant to commit to one single charge."

  "That's not going to last long," Jason said. "They'll come in force shortly, and when they do, we're well and truly screwed. Doc, where the hell are you?"

  "Inbound," Doc's voice broke over the channel. "We have two more assault shuttles that are loitering in the area that will probably try to stop us."

  "I don't need the details, I need you over the roof. Get it done," Jason said. "Kage, we're going to reposition on the opposite side of—"

  "Captain… you, uh, might want to look out the front," Kage said in an odd tone.

  Jason frowned and moved to where he could see out one of the narrow windows that lined the ends of the corridors.

  "No fucking way."

  Standing in the middle of the street, facing the building, was the battlesynth. It calmly surveyed the scene before its eyes flashed into brilliant crimson and the whine of charging weapons could be heard even inside the building. The troops around the building were quick to redeploy, but it was obvious they were confused as to what the hell this newcomer was and what its intentions were. They were screaming unintelligible commands at it while it stood rooted to the spot.

  "Did it fall out of the ship?" Crusher asked, peering out through the other window.

  "Doc, are you currently over the target?" Jason keyed his com.

  "No… we're nearly there," Doc said.

  "So you didn't come in and put the battlesynth on the street in front of this building?"

  "What?! No… it's there?!"

  "What the hell is going on, Doc?" Jason snapped.

  "It … left … while we were in a holding pattern over the ocean," Doc said. "We didn't want to distract you with the news, and we had no way to try and recover it if it sank. Apparently it was on its way to you the whole time."

  "Meaning that this model also has sustained flight modes," Jason said. "Now the million-credit question is what is it going to—holy shit!!" When two ConFed troops approached it the battlesynth leveled its four arm cannons, two per arm, and opened fire. The plasma bolts vaporized the enemy troops, leaving the smoking stumps of their lower legs as markers to where they fell.

  "Is he on our side, or just killing anything that comes close?" Kage asked over the com.

  "Either way, let's use it," Jason said. "Get the family up on the roof… we're on our way." He made it halfway up the steps before stopping. "Crusher, get up there and help Kage."

  "Where are you going?" Crusher demanded.

  "I… I have to know," Jason said, the sounds of battle becoming more pronounced outside.

  Crusher sighed and nodded. "Trade me weapons and I'll try to cover you from the roof the best I can," he said. Jason tossed him the railgun and caught the heavy plasma rifle with two extra power cells in the sling. "Go get him. Don't get dead!"

  "Don't let Venda die!" Jason called over his shoulder. "I don't want this all to be for nothing."

  Jason raced down to the first level and saw that the door was no longer being covered, but the civilians that hadn't been captured on the way out were still cowering in the dubious cover of the lobby. "GO! Get out through the back and get away from this place!" Jason shouted at them. When he emerged from the building, he could see that the ConFed troops had rallied their remaining numbers, sought cover, and were now laying down withering fire to bring the battlesynth down.

  He absently noted that the battlesynth was protected by active shields before throwing a grenade at the troops clumped up behind what was left of the contractors' aircar. When it blew it killed two of them, forcing Jason to finish the third off with his rifle. The remaining troops that were coming at the battlesynth from opposing angles and overlapping their fire weren't like the others. There were six of them and the helmets were tall and narrow: a full Syatee brood, all six brothers.

  Jason had thought he'd spotted the telltale head of one earlier but couldn't be sure. Syatee were fearsome fighters, but what made their family units so dangerous was that broods had a sort of telepathy with each other that allowed them to coordinate and attack as a single entity.

  The one second from the right in that first group appears to be the brood leader.

  "Where the hell have you been?" Jason demanded. "I could have used the help earlier."

  There have been some issues. If you survive this encounter, we'll need to discuss them for both our sakes.

  "Wonderful," Jason ground out as he opened up on the Syatee that Cas had indicated was the leader. His attack immediately drew the attention of the others, indicating that Cas was likely correct in its analysis, but now he had the problem of six broodmates coming at him at once. Their counterattack flared his shields and ruptured his weapon's plasma chamber. He barely had time to throw it away before it blew, but they still wouldn't let up.

  Now free from the overlapping fields of fire, the battlesynth rocketed into the air and came down right in the midst of the second group. Jason saw that some sort of energy blades burst from its gauntlets, and it quickly went to work hacking through the three Syatee trying to swarm him. Jason turned back to his own fight, pulling his sidearm and rushing into the midst of the se
cond group of three. They saw him coming and opened fire, the intensity of it causing his shields to flare, falter, and then fail altogether. Two power junctions blew out on the suit and he felt an icy sensation on his left leg where it burned him.

  He slammed a boot into the chest of the first Syatee before firing at the leader, grazing his neck and causing him to dive for the ground, howling in pain. Jason went for a finishing shot but the third broodmate tackled him from the side, the force of the hit taking them both to the ground. Still he held on, though, trying to wrestle Jason's pistol away while the other two regained their feet. Jason released the pistol, surprising the Syatee and causing him to jerk off balance. While he tried to maintain control of the pistol and himself, Jason pulled a knife from a sheath on his thigh and plunged it into the Syatee's neck. He felt a prickling sensation in his side that blossomed into unimaginable pain, but he ignored it and concentrated on the Syatee he was engaged with.

  While the alien gurgled and thrashed with the blade in his neck, Jason recovered his pistol and shot him in the head at close range. He looked up just in time to see that the other two still had their weapons trained on him while their dead broodmate's body had him pinned, one of them holding a needler. The nasty little weapon fired small, thin darts at high velocity that could penetrate most body armor. His dead shields and soft pressure suit had offered no resistance and he could feel the small projectiles tearing up his insides every time he moved.

  "Any last—" The leader's head simply disappeared and Jason knew immediately that Crusher had made good on his promise of cover.

  Too bad he couldn't do that before you were perforated by twenty-one needles.

  The last Syatee seemed to waffle for a moment, undecided, when a single plasma bolt hit him in the chest and sent him flying. Jason craned his neck to see the battlesynth walking over. It grabbed the dead Syatee on top of him and tossed it off before offering its hand to help him up. Jason grabbed it hesitantly at first, but when he did the machine gently and smoothly pulled him back to his feet.