“Of course I was up,” he lied. “That’s why the alarm startled me so badly.”
“Fine,” Jason said. “Then I’m sure you noticed we’re still hooked up to ground power. I’ll go pop off the umbilicals. Get the reactor prepped.”
Once Twingo stumbled back into the ship, Jason motioned to Lucky to come closer. “Grab that case containing the transceiver and take it directly to Kellea’s quarters,” he said quietly. “Don’t tell anyone what’s in it and don’t let them redirect you.”
“At once, Captain,” Lucky said and walked over to unstrap the unmarked case. Jason went back down the ramp and waved over one of the hangar deck’s ground crew.
“Yes, Captain,” the crewman said as he approached.
“We’re disconnecting,” Jason said, gesturing to the service panel underneath the starboard nacelle. “Go ahead and close the valves on your side.” The crewman hurried off and Jason walked up to the panel, dragging the maintenance stand over so he could climb up and reach the connections. He shut all the servicing valves and waited until he got the signal from the deck crewman.
Besides power, the ship also had a fuel vent line connected to prevent the Phoenix from flooding the hangar with explosive hydrogen gas. There was also a water service line that wasn’t necessary but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to flush their tanks and top off with clean water.
He got the wave from the busy crewman and went about popping off the servicing lines. The water line dripped all over him, as it always did, and he was grateful they weren’t doing a flush of the sewage treatment system. He’d leave that job for Twingo later. After he got the lines stowed up against the bulkhead, he pushed the stand back over to the wire cage where the crew stored them when not in use. The crew of the Defiant, most of them also from the Diligent, had helped them out countless times in the past, so the least he could do was leave the parking bay clean when he left.
The service access panel was closed when he walked back to the ship so he knew Twingo was at least doing something to get them on the move and hadn’t just gone back to his bunk. Jason milled around by the end of the ramp and waited for Lucky to get back. He wanted to confirm that the package had been delivered and he’d learned through experience it was good to be the last one on and make sure he had accounted for his crew before actually taking off.
There’d been a really awkward incident where everyone assumed Kage was in his quarters and didn’t feel well. Two days later and they realized they’d left him on a planet with no money and no identification. The Veran was highly insulted by the whole thing and refused to call them for a pickup out of pride. He was so pissed off that he wouldn’t speak once he was back onboard for almost a full week. It was possible he’d still be giving them the silent treatment except that Jason disabled all the manual controls in the galley. Kage was forced to either speak or starve. Once the dam burst and he was talking again he was back to his old self in a couple of days. Jason still wondered if he’d made the right choice.
“How soon?” he asked as he and Lucky walked by the starboard engineering bay.
“Three minutes to start the reactor, another ten to charge the emitters,” Twingo called back.
“You can start them on the run, we’ll leave on thrusters,” Jason said. As a point of pride he didn’t want his ship sitting powerless on the Defiant for too long with everyone, including the deck boss, watching and snickering as a gunship that looked like it had seen better days took an extended amount of time to take off.
For as much as he loved to give Twingo a hard time, he had to admit that the more time he spent out in space the more he came to appreciate how good the engineer really was. He was going to cold start an anti-matter reactor in five minutes and most likely do it without killing them all or bombarding them with neutron radiation. While they were tied into the battlecruiser’s power he had kept the fuel system and the anti-matter isolators powered up so all he had to do was initialize fuel flow and coax the reactor up to full operating power.
“Thanks for deafening me, asshole,” Crusher said when Jason walked onto the bridge. The human curse word was quickly becoming his favorite once he’d really thought through what it meant. The implants they all had tended to find the best substitute for known idioms so one night he, Jason, and Kage had sat around, bored out of their minds, and decided to break down all their respective cultures’ curse words in order to see who belonged to the most foul-mouthed species. Kage won hands down, so much so that Crusher became physically ill at a few of the Veran terms.
“Sorry,” Jason said. “I must have misspoken when I talked to the computer. I was trying to turn the lights on in the cargo bay.”
“The deck boss has cleared us for movement,” Kage said. “The area is clear behind the ship.” Jason brought up the rear video feed and released the brakes. He backed the Phoenix out of her parking berth and swung the nose around until they were facing the forward elevator. Kage held up a hand, stopping him. He read his display for a moment before turning to Jason.
“We’re being directed to the port tactical launch port,” he said, clearly confused. “He says there’s an issue with the elevator to the flight deck.”
“Bullshit,” Jason said. “He’s screwing with us. Ask again.” Even as Kage got on the com for actual voice communication, Jason could see the heavy doors opening up for the launch tube. The tubes were enormous and on both sides of the ship, able to easily accommodate the Phoenix. They led outboard and forward so that ships could be launched out of the hangar without compromising the hull or wasting time by using the elevator. Ships were kept centered in the tube by overlapping forcefields while powerful blast shields allowed them to keep the doors open and cycle ships through quickly.
“Confirmed,” Kage said, pointing at the arrows on the deck now leading them to the launch tube entrance. “What is going on?”
“The containment fields play hell with grav-drives,” Jason explained. Once we’re in the tube he thinks we’re going to have to sit there sputtering while the computer sorts out how to adjust the drive emitters. We can’t use maneuvering thrusters because they aren’t strong enough to overcome the fields holding us in the tube.”
“This is bizarre,” Kage said as the Phoenix slid through the atmospheric barrier and onto the launch platform.
“Twingo! I need the plasma ducts hot as soon as you get the reactor up!” Jason called over the intercom.
“What?! Why?”
“I’ll explain later,” Jason said. “Actually, you’ll probably figure it out. Just do it.” Jason reached over and pre-configured his engine management panel so that his settings would be initialized as soon as the reactor was up.
“Forcefields are in place over the door,” Kage reported. “Gravity will be shut off in the tube in three minutes and the containment fields will kick in soon after.”
“As soon as we’re captured by the containment fields and they’re stable, retract the landing gear,” Jason said. “How strong do you think that forcefield is behind us?”
“Theoretically it should protect against a tactical nuke fired down the tube,” Kage shrugged.
“Good to know,” Jason said, leaning back.
He felt the ship rock and sway as it was picked up off the deck and suspended between the containment fields. Kage looked at him skeptically, but retraced the landing gear without question. Twingo almost set a new personal best for hungover reactor starting when six minutes later Jason saw the backup power drop out on his power management panel and the reactor take over. When it spooled up to sixty percent the ship began to rumble and vibrate.
“Captain! The mains are in emergency pre-start!” Twingo’s frantic call came over the intercom.
“I know,” Jason called back. He watched his indicators until the muffled boom of the mains switching from startup to operational mode rocked the ship within the fields. Jason took a deep cleansing breath, knowing the ass-chewing he was in for, and slammed the throttle down.
The
Phoenix roared as her main engines came to full power and filled the confined tunnel with millions of pounds of pressure. The gunship rocketed down the length of the launch tube and shot out of the Defiant’s port bow like a cannonball from a naval gun. Warnings were sounding through the bridge, but Jason ignored them as he cranked the ship over to port and kept the engines at full power. He wasn’t completely confident Kellea wouldn’t shoot at him so he wanted to get some distance.
“Ah … we’ve got a com request coming in from the Defiant,” a shell-shocked Kage said. “It seems pretty insistent.”
“Put it through,” Jason said calmly. Kellea’s red face popped up on his com panel; her mouth opened and closed a few times but no sounds came out.
“What. Was. That?” she ground out finally.
“Hey!” Jason said pleasantly. “We were just departing in the most expeditious way we could. With the flight deck elevators being down we didn’t want to hold you up by trying to start a grav-drive inside of a tactical launch tube.”
“What are you talking about?” she said, not calming down but needing to maintain some level of professionalism while on her bridge.
“You mean the elevators aren’t broken?” Jason asked in mock surprise. “So your deck boss lied to us?”
“No, the elevators are not down as far as I know,” Kellea said, her nostrils flaring. “Your little stunt overloaded the launch tube field emitters and the shock wave from those ridiculous engines overpressured the hangar and sent anything not bolted down on the port side flying.”
“My apologies,” Jason said. “I was just trying to do as I was told.”
“We will speak of this later,” she said ominously.
“If we must,” Jason agreed. “But please tell your deck boss if he jerks me around again I’ll make sure he’s inside the launch tube before starting the engines.”
Kellea didn’t answer, instead just nodding to her com officer to kill the signal. The bridge of the Phoenix descended into a shocked silence. Jason stared off contemplatively for a moment. “Still worth it,” he finally decided. He pulled the throttle back and then shut the engines down.
“She is going to kill you,” Kage whispered in awe.
“No, but she will make me regret that,” Jason said.
“The captain’s insane actions aside, have you noticed how a few of the senior officers on the Defiant have started treating us like shit?” Crusher said.
“It’s not surprising,” Doc said. “They serve with the beautiful Captain Colleren all day, every day. Then here comes our roguish mercenary, Captain Burke, and before anyone knows it, he’s bedding her.” Everyone turned and looked at him for a moment.
“You know,” Jason said, “somehow when you try to say it in a delicate manner it sounds even dirtier than when Kage says it.”
“Wait,” Crusher said. “So we’re getting jerked around over petty jealousy?”
“Probably not anymore,” Kage laughed. “I imagine since she can’t get her hands on Jason the deck boss is going to suffer her wrath.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Jason admitted. “I’ve seen that look. She’s probably going to demote him. If he’s lucky.”
“The grav-drive is up, you maniac,” Twingo said as he walked onto the bridge. “Slip-drive will be ready in another ten minutes or so.”
“Excellent,” Jason said expansively. “Kage, set a course for A’arcoon, best possible speed. Coordinate with Twingo and let him determine how hard we’ll push the engines and when he wants to drop into real-space for inspection and maintenance.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go grab something to drink and contemplate my future, however short it may be,” Jason said.
Chapter 17
Three days into the nine day slip-space flight and the numb, autonomous routine the crew always settled into was in full swing. Twingo and Jason sat in the galley eating, but neither talking to each other. There was no animosity or discomfort, there just wasn’t really anything to talk about.
“Jason, what are we missing?” Twingo asked suddenly, making Jason jump. “Where on this ship haven’t we looked?” When they were alone Twingo almost never called him “Captain.”
“The encryption module?” Jason asked. When Twingo nodded, he continued, “I defer to you when it comes to anything regarding the inner workings of this ship. Part of me is afraid that the Eshquarians melted it down with the rest of the old equipment they pulled off her. It was sent to a recycling plant without anyone realizing what, or where, it was.”
“Whoever hid it on this ship would have had to put it someplace where they could be assured it would never be taken out, even during heavy repairs,” Twingo said, talking mostly to himself. His eyes widened and he turned to Jason. “What’s the one component that is never replaced on a starship of this size? The one thing that when it’s damaged beyond repair usually means a scrapped or destroyed vessel?”
“The main reactor?” Jason said, frowning. “Wasn’t that swapped out too?”
“No,” Twingo said, getting excited. “Well, not really. The DL series has a reactor that is really too big for a ship of its size, mostly in order to provide plasma to the mains while still being able to fully power the converters. The Eshquarians replaced the injector assemblies and the main intermix chamber, but the reactor housing is vintage Jepsen.”
“Wait,” Jason said, holding his hand up. “There’s no way the encryption module can be inside the reaction chamber. It would be destroyed and your instruments would detect a foreign object inside.”
“I think that it is,” Twingo insisted. “It’s in there somewhere. They’ve found some way to keep it safe.”
“Well, I’m not shutting down my main reactor in interstellar space, weeks away from any potential rescue,” Jason said. “Get a proposal together and bring it to me. We’ll go over it and then once the Defiant gets to A’arcoon you can satisfy your curiosity.”
“Thanks, Jason,” Twingo said and hopped down out of his seat. He rushed off to the engineering spaces, leaving most of his meal untouched. Jason smiled and shook his head as his friend raced off. He mechanically shoveled food into his mouth, thinking about Twingo’s theory. He had to admit, if he wanted to hide something small it would make sense to put it in something that would almost never be taken off the ship. The anti-matter reactor’s main chamber was an amazingly simple machine, so it was unlikely anybody would ever really climb into it during the life of the ship. He shook his head, as if disagreeing with himself. The forces at play inside the reactor when it was operating were beyond his comprehension. He just couldn’t imagine a delicate piece like the encryption module surviving.
****
The planet A’arcoon was much how they’d left it when they’d ferried the remaining A’arcooni back after they’d tracked down Deetz and Lucky tore his head off. Jason stared down at the lush, vibrant planet and reflected on how he felt about the unfortunate species.
He felt he should harbor a deep anger and distrust for a species that had attacked his homeworld without provocation. He dug down deep and tried to pull up the old resentments just to see if they were still as potent as they’d been when he’d stepped off Earth’s surface for the last time. But there was nothing there, not even pity. Oddly enough, he found he looked forward to landing and seeing what sort of life the aliens had put together. It was strange to think that this population, spanning only a few generations, was a group of refugees on their own planet of birth.
“Everything looks like it did when we left,” Doc reported. “Energy signature from the reactor Crisstof donated is unchanged, no signs of industrialization and no weapons.”
“It’s about what I expected,” Jason said. “I didn’t think they’d take their second chance and trash their planet all over again.”
“We’re getting a message from the surface,” Kage said, making a weird face. “They’re asking to speak to us.”
“Put it through,” Jason sh
rugged.
“Greetings, Omega Force,” an ornately dressed A’arcooni said with a deep bow. “You honor us with your presence. We humbly welcome you. If you would be so good as to proceed to the provided coordinates we will join with you there.”
“Uh, thanks,” Jason said. “I guess we’ll see you when we get down there.”
“Of course, noble Captain Jason Burke,” the A’arcooni bowed again and the transmission terminated.
“There were coordinates embedded in that signal,” Kage said. “It’s in that city center you guys walked through the first time we came here.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that isn’t their normal spaceport,” Jason said.
“Noble, huh?” Crusher said. “Wait until I show them some of the pictures I have of you. The Noble Captain Burke, puking in the gutter on Aracoria.”
“Plot me an entry vector,” Jason said to Kage, ignoring Crusher.
“I know you hear me,” Crusher said, spinning back so he could look out the canopy.
****
The Phoenix thundered over the city and wrapped into a tight turn so Jason could try and drop her down into the square that was now packed with cheering A’arcooni. He dropped the landing gear and tried to find a spot where he thought the ship would fit. Finally giving up, he just began a slow descent and trusted that the crowd would be smart enough to move.
The ship touched down with a soft bump and since there was no outcry from the crowd outside Jason assumed he hadn’t squished any locals. “Okay guys,” he said. “I’m not sure what the hell is going on here, but let’s not have an incident. Sidearms only. Except for Lucky, of course.”
“Can I stay in here?” Crusher asked.
“No,” Jason said. “Let’s go and get this over with. We need information so don’t provoke them.”
They made their way back to the cargo bay, none of them completely sure what they were walking into. When they had dropped the A’arcooni off it had been at the tail end of an utterly exhausting mission, both physically and emotionally. So far as they could recall they had dumped them back on the surface with little ceremony and blasted off as fast as the Phoenix could carry them, leaving all the logistical details to Crisstof and the Diligent.
Omega Force 6: Secret of the Phoenix Page 16
