“Untie her, Crusher,” he said. “Let’s try to figure out the best way to unscrew this mess. So what’s your story, Nul? Why are you being toted around in a crate?”
“I serve Doctor El in any capacity she needs me to,” Nul said quietly. “I was to remain in stasis as insurance should any trouble befall her. To be honest, Captain, I am unsure as to why I was awakened.”
“That makes two of us,” Naleem said with a frown. “I know I reset the timer. The only way it would have tripped is if my equipment was tampered with or I keyed the emergency beacon, and as far as I know neither of those things occurred. I apologize, Captain Burke. There must have been some malfunction with the pod itself.”
“I’m sure that was it,” Jason said, making sure he cut Lucky off before he could casually mention they’d been prying on the stasis pod earlier in the night. “Go ahead and untie him too. We’ve got a lot to talk about and we may as well get comfortable.”
“You pack a hell of a wallop, little guy,” Crusher said as he began to untie Nul. “I’ve never been knocked out like that before.”
“Actually, it was not—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Jason said quickly, interrupting Nul. “We’re all sorry about the previous unpleasantness. Best thing for it is to move on and not dwell on it. It’s not healthy for our future working relationship.”
“As you see best, Captain,” Nul said, clearly confused. As Crusher continued to untie their captives Jason discovered that Lucky was still staring at him.
“You may say it once,” he told the battlesynth.
“What would you have me say?”
“You can say that you were right, and I was wrong,” Jason said.
“Which time would you be referring to, Captain,” Lucky said innocently. Naleem stifled a chuckle as Jason slowly walked away.
****
“Do you believe this story about an ancient super weapon hidden out beyond the fringe?” Twingo asked Jason. They were the only ones on the bridge and the rest of the crew had been briefed on their new passenger and the true nature of Naleem’s work.
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “I believe that she thinks it’s real. I also believe that her story conveniently explains some things that have happened to us I was otherwise unable to. Maybe it’s my obsession with tying up loose ends that is making me give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“I don’t see how anything can be hidden on the ship,” Twingo said stubbornly. “You don’t remember what the Eshquarians did to her during the rebuild since you were laid up in the hospital all that time. I supervised the entire thing and this ship was torn down to the bare hull and put back together, mostly with new parts. Where would it be tucked away at that I wouldn’t have noticed it?”
“Those are questions I’m asking myself,” Jason admitted. “But I guess for now we’ll just have to play along and see where this leads. Whether or not she’s actually right at this point isn’t important. Enough people think that there’s something on this ship and until that’s settled we’ll always be looking over our shoulders.”
“True enough, I guess,” Twingo said. “I suppose with the time left until we hit the Tallin System I can start searching the ship, but it’d be nice if I knew what I was looking for.”
Jason watched him go, enjoying the quiet hum of the engines for company while he could. Just six people on the ship could sometimes be cramped so carrying passengers was never that much fun. The gunship now had eight people on it and it seemed like he couldn’t turn around without bumping into someone.
“Oh, were you wanting to be alone?” Naleem asked as she walked onto the bridge.
“Not necessarily,” Jason said. “Was there something you needed?”
“Just trying to get a little space,” she said, crossing her arms as she moved and sat at one of the bridge stations. “Does your crew always bicker so much?”
“You tune it out after a while,” Jason said. “Which one is being the most annoying right now?”
“Kage is harassing Nul almost constantly,” Naleem said. “He seems to be trying to get a rise out of him.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a good idea,” Jason said, subconsciously rubbing his head where the smaller alien had struck him during the fight.
“He’s not a violent person,” Naleem said defensively. “He is actually one of the most serene beings I’ve ever been around. He is, however, trained to defend himself and others. Your friend is in no danger right now except possibly from Crusher, who seems to be caught in the middle.”
“So everything is more or less normal,” Jason said. “He’ll eventually get bored and leave Nul alone.”
“I wanted to thank you for not just ejecting us out of the airlock when Nul’s pod opened,” she said after a few minutes of silence. “And for taking it on faith that what I’m saying is true.”
“To be fair, we usually only threaten to space people,” Jason said. “We’re not complete barbarians. I’m also not taking anything on faith just yet. Your reason for why we’ve been dodging attacks for the last few years is as plausible as any I’ve heard and it loosely corroborates what Deetz said to Lucky before he died.”
“Deetz,” she said with genuine venom in her voice. “That conniving thief. Good riddance.” She stood up and moved to walk off the bridge. “I am going to go lay down for a while,” she said. “Thank you again.”
“No problem,” Jason said distractedly as he messed with one of his displays. After she was gone he stopped, his eyes widening. “Computer, have Twingo and Doc meet me in my quarters and ask Lucky to report to the bridge.”
“Acknowledged.”
****
Jason hustled down to his quarters after Lucky had relieved him on the bridge. He had to promise to come right back and tell the battlesynth what was going on since he had correctly gauged Jason’s demeanor to mean something had happened as soon as he stepped through the entry. When Jason got to the main deck he could see his friends filtering into the corridor that led to his quarters. He motioned for them to remain silent and ushered them in, closing the door behind him.
“Computer, monitor all movement of passengers Naleem and Nul and notify me if they leave starboard berthing,” Jason ordered. There was a double-chirp confirmation letting him know his order was being executed.
“What’s going on, Captain?” Doc asked.
“I think Naleem let something slip,” Jason said. “She knew who Deetz was.”
“So?” Twingo said. “Lots of people knew him.”
“I mean she knew him, as in had direct interactions with him,” Jason said. “I admit, this is just a hunch, but there’s no way she should be that familiar with him.”
“Let me ask you a question,” Twingo said. “How did you know about Benztral Mining owning this ship?”
“It was before we stopped on Breaker’s World for repairs and abducted you,” Jason said. “Deetz had been locking himself in the com room so I started asking the computer about the original crew and how old the ship was. It told me then that it had been owned by the mining company before being auctioned off.”
“It just occurred to me that we always assumed Bondrass wanted this ship just because of what it was, not what it might be carrying,” Doc said. “Could he have been part of that other faction that was after this key?”
“Then why let the ship leave Pinnacle Station?” Twingo asked. “He already had it sitting in his hangar and let it fly off.”
“But he didn’t have the access codes,” Jason said. “He needed Deetz to give them to him.”
“This is making a strange sort of sense,” Doc said. “So do we think that Naleem was working with Deetz the whole time and he double-crossed her? Hell, could she have been part of the original crew?”
“Impossible to tell,” Jason said with a frown. “That computer core is long gone … oh, holy shit.”
“Exactly,” Twingo said. “Nul wasn’t accidentally released. She let him out that night after she
figured out all her access codes were useless since the Phoenix has all new computers and avionics. I bet if we had searched him more carefully we’d have found a data card with an intrusion program that would have given her command access to the ship.”
“Maybe,” Jason said. “He may have been sneaking to my quarters to force them out of me. Nul doesn’t strike me as much of a code slicer.”
“While this is all just speculation, how do you want to handle it?” Doc asked.
“Like I told Twingo, we need to see this through to the end to get this monkey off our back,” Jason said, enjoying the looks of confusion on his friends at the idiom. “I’ll instruct the computer to keep the internal stunners locked onto them, although if Nul is in action they probably won’t be able to hit him. I’ll have to stun everyone in the room. We’ll keep on to Tallin, but we’ll have the advantage.”
“How is that?” Twingo asked.
“We’ll be expecting her to try something,” Jason said. “She’ll think we’re just going along with her in good faith. I’ll work out the exact plan for when we make landfall and brief the others separately over the next forty-eight hours, but until then don’t act any differently around the two.”
“Not a problem,” Doc said. “I’ve been avoiding them both anyway.”
“Twingo, hang back for a minute,” Jason said as Doc moved to leave. “I’ve got a special project I need you to get started on.”
“How special?” Twingo asked.
“Just a little insurance in case our suspicions prove to be correct,” Jason said with a humorless smile. Over the next hour the pair worked the details out of Jason’s plan until the engineer was confident he could pull it off without any problems.
Once Twingo had left Jason wished, not for the first time, that the Eshquarians had been able to salvage the data core of the DL7’s original computer and load it into the new one.
Chapter 12
The rest of the flight to the Tallin System passed uneventfully. If Naleem had any indication that she knew the crew suspected her she didn’t outwardly show it. Nul was as unreadable as always as he moved like a ghost through the ship. Jason kept up the appearance of casual indifference to his passengers, but he routinely had the computer play back security footage whenever it alerted him that either of the pair was nearing a sensitive area.
“Dropping out of slip-space in thirty seconds,” Kage announced as the rest of the crew filtered onto the bridge and took their positions. Jason didn’t respond as he shifted around uncomfortably in his seat. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was flying into a trap.
The ship shuddered slightly as the slip-space fields collapsed and the Phoenix was spit back out into real-space. The canopy cleared and all the primary systems came back online to show Jason that they were sitting alone in space near the sixth planet.
“Local space is empty,” Doc said. “There are two heavy haulers flying a slow arc towards Tallin Prime and some light shuttle traffic in orbit. Beginning long-range scans now.”
“Thanks,” Jason said. “I don’t believe you’ll find anything though. If we were flying into an ambush they’d have to be somewhere close.”
“What made you think there would be a trap?” Naleem asked innocently.
“Simple deduction,” Jason said without looking at her. “We’ve been attacked at every juncture during this mission. Someone knew where we were flying from and likely had a good idea of where we’d be flying to. It wouldn’t have been that surprising to see someone set up a picket line on this side of the system.”
“I see,” she said. “Maybe our luck is changing.”
Not likely.
“We’re cleared all the way to the surface,” Kage said. “Course will be up on your nav display.”
“You sound surprised,” Jason remarked.
“I am a bit,” Kage admitted. “I’ve never had a controller clear us for landing when we weren’t even close to making orbit yet.”
“Did they clear us for a particular spaceport or did they respond to a request?”
“They made contact first and already had our destination and landing berth indicated,” Kage said.
“That is somewhat unusual,” Jason said, eyeing Naleem. “Let’s stay sharp on the way in.”
Jason kept the ship at a stately pace through the system so that it took nearly thirteen hours to traverse the gap to the planet. If there was something waiting on them, or Naleem was involved, the extended flight would give them all time to have frayed nerves or show their hand early. For her part, Naleem appeared more bored than anything and even left the bridge halfway through the trip to go down to the galley.
Tallin Prime was a fairly nondescript planet. It was covered on sixty-five percent of its surface by a single ocean that was broken up by one meandering, irregularly shaped landmass. The spaceport they were directed to was near the equator and seemed to be a smaller feeder port to support the overflow traffic from the main commercial hub. The complex looked like it had been carved out of the surrounding rainforest, the tarmac a gray scar against the green canopy.
“This looks like an older port,” Kage said as the gunship rumbled its way down into the atmosphere. “I’m seeing gantry towers and flame pits on the eastern end of the complex that don’t look like they’ve been used in a while.”
“Equatorial sites are the most efficient if you’re using raw thrust to lift the load,” Jason agreed. “This may have been one of their first launch facilities.”
They continued their decent, flying in a wide circle around the spaceport before being given confirmation to begin their final approach. Jason flared, pulling the nose up slightly, before deploying the landing gear and settling the ship onto the surface.
“So I assume you know where the other part is on this planet?” Jason asked Naleem.
“I have reached out to my contact,” she said vaguely, holding up her personal com unit for him to see. “He should be here within the hour.”
“I can’t wait,” Jason said. “Lucky, Crusher … let’s go get ready to meet our guest. Everybody else can muster in the cargo bay and we’ll wait on the ramp.” Jason kept the engines up and all the primary flight systems running, although he did lock the controls out before climbing out of his seat and following Lucky off the bridge.
****
“Is that really necessary, Captain?” Naleem said in a clipped tone.
“It is until I deem otherwise,” Jason answered, his amplified voice coming from his armor’s helmet harshly. “If you were a little more forthcoming with the details I might be more inclined to relax my guard.” She turned her head away and decided not to answer him. Jason, Lucky, and Crusher were fully armed and standing at the bottom of the ramp with Naleem and Nul. He’d also deployed the Phoenix’s rear guns from their recesses on either side of the ramp and had Kage and Doc on the bridge monitoring com traffic and the local airspace.
Naleem’s com unit beeped and she read the message before putting the unit back into her loose garment’s front pocket. “He will be here within ten minutes,” she said.
“Can’t wait,” Jason muttered.
Seven minutes later they felt the dull rumbling of an inbound ship that was approaching from their blind side directly over the Phoenix. The sound was oddly familiar.
“Captain, we’ve got a ship getting ready to land near us,” Kage said over the crew’s tactical com channel. “There’s no way this is a coincidence.”
Before Jason could ask Kage to clarify a familiar shape flew overhead before flaring to land. He could only look on in shock as another DL7 gunship bounced to a rough landing forty meters off of the tail of the Phoenix. The other ship had certainly seen better days and Jason could see that it appeared to be a first generation ship from the engine configuration, the direct predecessor to the Phoenix.
“Well, this is interesting,” Crusher rumbled, hefting his plasma rifle. Jason gripped his large railgun reflexively, taking comfort in the weapon’s weight and des
tructive potential.
“You could say that,” Jason said. The other ship sat motionless for the next five minutes before the ramp dropped down with a noisy crash and three bipedal aliens came strolling out of the hold, walking up to them as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Jason glanced at Naleem and saw that she had a warm smile on her face as she watched the approaching trio.
“That’s far enough,” Jason said loudly when the group was within ten meters.
“Oh?” the lead alien asked. Jason could see he was the same species as Naleem, but appeared to be heavily disfigured on his right side. “Is there some problem?” Jason was unnerved by the way the alien’s eyes roamed hungrily over the Phoenix.
“There might be,” Jason said. “But we don’t know you and I’d rather not let you get too close to my ship if you don’t mind.”
“Your ship?” the alien said. His companions seemed to think that the comment was incredibly funny.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Jason said, ignoring his still-laughing companions.
“My name is El,” the alien said. “Klegsh El. Captain Klegsh El, and as a point of fact, you’re standing in front of my ship.”
Chapter 13
“Klegsh,” Jason said, recovering quickly. “I always assumed you were dead.”
“Your friend Deetz wasn’t quite so thorough,” Klegsh said, taking another step forward.
“You may be overstating my relationship with Deetz,” Jason said. “And if you take one more step I’m going to let Lucky do to you what he did to that synth and separate your head from your body.” Klegsh looked over at Crusher and Lucky, apparently unsure which was which, but stopped where he was.
“Did you forget what I just said?” Klegsh said, smiling. “This is my ship.” He pulled a com unit out and spoke a coded message into it in a language Jason didn’t know. He looked up at the rear-facing cannons that were still tracking his men. Frowning, he spoke into the com unit again.
Omega Force 6: Secret of the Phoenix Page 11
