Omega Force 5: Return of the Archon

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “Close her up,” Jason ordered, reaching over and switching the main engines to “active.” There was a short whine followed by the always comforting boom of the mains igniting. He grabbed the throttle and advanced it, sending them climbing up into the brightening sky of morning. “Lucky, begin taking sensor sweeps of the surrounding area and arm two thermobaric missiles, maximum yield,” he ordered.

  “Scans of surrounding space show no threats,” Lucky reported. “Missiles are armed. What is our target?”

  “We’re going to give our friends back there a little parting gift for all the hospitality they showed our crew,” Jason said as he accelerated along the ridge line and swing them around into a tight turn to face back the way they’d come.

  “Missiles set to traverse the tunnel and detonate in the center of the cavern, staggered trigger,” Lucky reported. Jason looked and saw the two weapons pop up on his tactical panel as available. He selected them both and opened the forward weapons bay doors as they flew back towards the mouth of the tunnel entrance.

  When he was within two hundred meters, he braked to a halt and allowed the ship to settle into a hover. He could see a group of workers desperately trying to repair the barrier as the sun continued its inexorable march into the sky. They looked up at the hovering gunship, seemingly undecided if they should retreat, continue working on the barrier, or open fire with their pitifully inadequate weaponry.

  He watched the combat shuttle lift and clear the area and decided to make their choice for them. He squeezed the trigger and held it as two missiles were ejected off the racks and streaked away from the ship, going supersonic as they entered the tunnel.

  The results were more energetic than Jason had predicted. First, a blast of debris, including the barrier repair crew, was ejected from the tunnel at tremendous speed. Then the mountain itself began to sag along the southern face and, ever so slowly, the peak began to sink as the entire mountain seemed to collapse in on itself. With a look of grim satisfaction, Jason swung the nose of the Phoenix away and began to climb up out of the atmosphere, her main engines roaring over a now truly deserted planet.

  They made orbit quickly and were joined in formation by the Eshquarian combat shuttle piloted by Kade. He said he would be happy to stay until the Phoenix was capable of slip-space flight, so Jason had Lucky and Mazer prepare a sealed transit box of provisions to send over to the shuttle since he knew they’d eaten everything on board during the trip out. Once they were gone, he told the computer to maintain a high level of alertness and inform him if the sensors picked up anything entering the system. The stealth ship near Colton Hub was still firmly in his mind as he walked off the bridge and towards the infirmary.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” Jason remarked as he walked in. “How do you feel?”

  “Since my injuries were fairly light compared to his, I’m doing quite well,” Doc said. His arm was still in the sling, but Jason could see that the bone had already been knitted by the medical nanobots and the swelling in the limb was reducing significantly.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Jason said. “And Twingo?”

  “I’m not going to lie; he’s still in a lot of danger,” Doc said. “But I believe he’s out of the most critical stage. He couldn’t have handled the shock of a full nanotech treatment despite the computer trying to inject them behind my back every ten minutes. I’ve been doing targeted treatments over the last couple of hours using nanobots with strict programming. I’ve been able to repair the worst of the damage to his circulatory system and have been supplementing his oxygen supply to make sure his brain isn’t in danger.”

  “I’m going to have to try and get the slip-drive powered up and active without him,” Jason remarked, “so we won’t be pushing it on the way back to Restaria. I’ll try to keep the flight as smooth as possible so you can keep at it.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Doc said. “But what I could really use is a more completely equipped facility. Unfortunately there isn’t one to be found on Galvetor or Restaria that doesn’t cater mostly to geltens.”

  “Then you’ll like this next bit of news,” Jason said. “The Defiant will likely reach the Galvetor System about the same time we do.”

  “That is good news,” Doc agreed. “Their sick bay rivals some planetside hospitals I’ve been at.”

  Jason nodded and turned to leave. “Good work saving his life,” he said. “Keep me updated and I’ll leave you alone to your work.”

  “Thanks for coming after us, Captain,” Doc said seriously before Jason reached the door.

  “It’s good to have you guys back,” Jason said quickly before leaving, not wanting to become overly emotional in front of Doc. He went down to Engineering and checked on all the systems before pulling up another terminal. Thankfully, Twingo had insisted on training up others on the crew about certain aspects of the ship in case they were ever in a situation exactly like the one they found themselves in.

  He began by performing a full diagnostic of the hardware and then powered up all the control and safety systems. Twingo had also written a few scripts that could be executed to perform batch commands and bring up certain parts of the system in the correct order without him having to remember each little step. Once everything looked good and the computer agreed that the system was fully prepped, he initiated the charging sequence for the emitter coils. After a flurry of activity, during which there were bangs, whines, hisses, along with chatter from the control panel, he could feel the slight tug of the gravity shifting in the aft part of the ship as the emitters charged and began to form small gravitational eddies. It would all normalize once the drive was fully charged and stabilized, so he left Engineering and made his way back to the bridge to wait.

  Like most of the major systems on the DL7, the slip-drive emitters were new and state of the art, so the charging time would be a fraction of what it had been when they’d been flying the original Jepsen equipment. But the delay still rankled him now that he had his ship back. He wanted to get Twingo to a proper medical facility, grab Kage, figure out what Crusher was doing, and then blast out of the Galvetor System as fast as the Phoenix could carry them.

  *****

  Kage and Morakar were walking slowly along the halls near the Archon’s offices in the now-abandoned Legion Center. They couldn’t figure out why it seemed everyone had left, and had sent Meluuk to the other tower to see if the story was the same over there.

  “Even the normal sentries aren’t at their post,” Morakar said quietly. “This is quite strange.” They moved along the halls for a while longer, having not met anyone other than a single cleaning bot and a young female gelten administrative assistant who had forgotten something in her office. She was unaware of anything out of the ordinary, so they let her go on her way.

  Morakar was also unable to raise Fordix, the Praetores, or even the Caretaker on their com units. He knew Lord Felex had gone to confront the Praetores about what was happening within the city of Ker, and the fact they could no longer raise any of them was of great concern to him. He and Kage had been steadily working their way up the tower, looking for any signs of life as they went.

  “This is just getting plain creepy,” Kage said after they’d cleared another floor and were walking up the outer stairwell to the top floor. Morakar halted so fast that Kage walked into the back of him. “What is it?” The Galvetic warrior was sniffing the air, drawing in deep breaths slowly and blowing them out through the side of his mouth.

  “Blood,” he said simply. “gelten blood. Come on.” They raced up the stairs, following Morakar’s sense of smell, and ended up in front of the ornate door of the actual office the Guardian Archon used to execute his duties. Rearing back, Morakar kicked it near the handle and sent it flying inward.

  “I don’t think it was locked,” Kage remarked as he squeezed in past the big warrior and looked around inside the office. “Oh shit!” Morakar turned to see what Kage was looking at. Still propped up in the chair was Crusher, his ey
es closed and an enormous blade sticking out of his midsection.

  Kage moved over to his friend and checked for vitals. “He’s still alive, but it looks like he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “The blade looks like it just missed his heart,” Morakar said. “Beyond that I can’t tell.” Kage reached out for the knife handle, but Morakar grabbed his hand firmly. “Don’t. That may be all that’s keeping him from bleeding out right now. Who could have fought the Lord Archon and won with such a decisive blow?”

  “Nobody,” Kage said, turning Crusher’s head to the left to expose the small disc still affixed to his neck. “This is interesting indeed. These are only used by Eshquarian Intelligence as far as I know and aren’t available for general sale.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a neural disruptor,” Kage said, taking a close look at the device. “It can be programmed per species and then can inhibit any signals you want. It looks like someone paralyzed Crusher and then stabbed him through the chest.”

  “So we’re looking for someone he would have trusted,” Morakar said.

  “Right now I’m looking for a way to disable it,” Kage corrected. “These are almost always rigged to either explode or kill the victim if tampered with. See if you can find the deployment tool … it will look like a long silver baton.” As Morakar searched the room, Kage leaned in and extended his hand. Thin tendrils of nanobots extended from his fingers and began probing around the base of the device. He explored the inner workings of the inhibitor using his neural implants and the connection provided by his specialized nanobots and was able to conclude that the device was indeed set to kill Crusher if anyone tampered with it.

  “Is this it?” Morakar asked, walking over with a silver-handled device he’d picked up off of the desk in the center of the room.

  “Yep,” Kage confirmed, “bring it here.” He slowly inspected the device before releasing his nanobots once again to infiltrate the device and explore around. While the neural inhibitor was rigged, the remote used to deploy it was not. Kage was able to gain access to the relatively primitive logic inside the wand and command it to disable the inhibitor on Crusher’s neck. As soon as he did, his friend pulled in a long, ragged breath and arched his back, moaning loudly.

  “Easy, big guy,” Kage said, placing a hand on Crusher’s chest. “You’ve got about a meter of sword sticking out of you so let’s not make any sudden moves.” Crusher had already lapsed back into unconsciousness and didn’t answer him.

  “I don’t understand how he hasn’t bled out yet,” Morakar remarked, inspecting the wound up close.

  “It’s the nanobots in his blood. He’s carrying a load of general medical bots that will automatically detect trauma and do what they can to stabilize him. The whole crew is, actually,” Kage said. “I’d guess whoever stabbed him wasn’t aware of our unit’s standard operating procedures or they’d have never left him alive like this.”

  “I have a very bad feeling about who may be responsible for this,” Morakar said. “What should we do now? I’m not sure who in the city we can trust, but he obviously can’t be left like this.”

  “Let me get to the com node here and I’ll try to get in touch with the captain,” Kage said, standing up and looking around the room.

  “What com node?” Morakar asked. Kage was making a beeline for what appeared to be just another bit of paneling not unlike the rest that covered the walls. He messed about for a bit, digging at the edge, before the panel rose up into the ceiling and a fully equipped slip-space com node slid out from an alcove.

  “This one,” he said with a smile. “I could feel it in here the moment we walked in,” he said, tapping a finger against his oversized cranium and winking at Morakar. He went about configuring the unit, a surprisingly modern piece of equipment by Restarian standards, and allowed the transceiver’s slip-space field to form around the antenna, which was located somewhere else in the building.

  Once the field had stabilized and the com node indicated it was ready, Kage began to input the destination address and the encryption standards he knew from memory. It took a few minutes before the other com node negotiated with the unit he was using and opened a channel.

  “Kage?” Jason’s voice came from the speaker. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Crusher’s office,” Kage said. “I was playing a hunch … I’m assuming you’re sitting on the bridge of the Phoenix right now?”

  “Correct,” Jason said. “We’ve reclaimed the ship intact and are currently in slip-space heading back to you. Twingo was very badly wounded, Doc was beat up but looks like he’s recovering quickly. I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”

  “Crusher’s been stabbed through the chest with what looks like a ceremonial short sword,” Kage said grimly. “He was propped up in a chair in his office when Morakar and I found him. His nanobots are keeping most of the blood flow staunched, but he’s going to need serious medical care soon and we don’t think there’s anyone here in Ker we can trust.” He could hear Jason blow out an exasperated sigh.

  “I started the core myself, so I’m a little leery of pushing the engines too hard,” Jason said. “I can risk seventy-five percent slip … that puts us there in under five hours.”

  “If we can keep him calm that long it should be enough,” Kage said as Morakar shrugged with uncertainty. “By the way, prior to being stabbed he was paralyzed with one of those tricky neural disruptors that Eshquarian Intelligence likes to use.”

  “That’s an interesting development,” Jason said. “I plan on putting down right in the square in front of Legion Center. What sort of reception can I expect?”

  “Probably none,” Kage said. “The city is more or less abandoned. I’ll explain more when you get here. I’m killing this connection to see if I can raise the Defiant … they may be closer than you guys.”

  “Copy that,” Jason said. “We’ll see you soon.”

  The channel cut off and Kage began to reset the node for another connection. He began punching in the connect codes that would open a channel to the Defiant’s unsecured node since he didn’t have the encryption codes for a private channel to the ship’s captain.

  The com station began its automated cycle to open a connection over such vast distances. The Defiant was also in slip-space, so that made it all the more challenging. Kage set the unit to alert him if it was able to make a connection and went back to check on his friend. He hoped Crusher was as strong as he seemed and was able to hold out until help arrived.

  Chapter 25

  Jason leapt out of the pilot’s seat and ran down to the infirmary, stopping just before the door so that he didn’t burst in like a wild man and startle either of his wounded crewmates.

  “Doc, we have another problem,” he said as he walked into the room.

  “That seems to be something we don’t have a shortage of,” Doc said blandly. “What’s happened?”

  “Kage just made contact. Crusher’s been stabbed through and through with some kind of sword. He said the nanobots you put into all of us are keeping the bleeding to a minimum, but he and Morakar are unable to get proper medical help,” Jason said, raising his hands in a helpless gesture.

  “How far out are we?” Doc asked.

  “I just cranked our speed up,” Jason said. “That makes it just under three hours until we hit Restaria’s atmosphere.”

  “If anybody can hold out, it’s him,” Doc said, getting up out of his seat. “I’ll get a kit together. It it’s just an impalement, an emergency infusion should be able to not only stabilize him but repair the damage on the spot depending on what was pierced along the way.”

  “I’ll keep you updated on our ETA if I decide I want to risk coaxing more speed out of the engines,” Jason said. “Right now everything looks nice and stable and the computer is reporting everything well within limits.”

  “Thanks,” Doc said distractedly as he moved about the small infirmary. “By the way, Twingo woke up for a few secon
ds. He knows he’s on the Phoenix right now. As soon as I told him that he fell into a deep, natural sleep. That’s the best thing for him right now.”

  “That’s a good sign,” Jason said. “I’ll be up on the bridge.” He quickly made his way back to the pilot’s seat and looked over the instruments. Even though it had been a risk, he’d pushed the engines up to eighty percent after talking with Kage. Looking over his indicators, he was reluctant to push them any harder without an actual engineer looking things over. They’d be no good to anyone if a variance between the two engine emitters tore the ship to atoms. Crusher would just have to hang on a little longer.

  Instead of fretting over things he couldn’t control at the moment, he busied himself making sure the rest of his ship’s systems were ready for whatever might meet them when they emerged in the Galvetor System. Even though he wasn’t fully confident in his engine configuration, the main reactor was now at full output and the defensive and offensive systems were at full readiness.

  *****

  “You’ll want to look at this,” Kage said tightly. Morakar and Meluuk, who had joined them after searching the other tower, left Crusher’s side and joined him at the computer terminal that was next to the com station, the latter of which was still trying to contact the Defiant.

  “It’s the capital,” Morakar said with quiet awe. “That’s why the landers didn’t need to have a carrier ship, they were only flying across the system to invade Galvetor.”

  “What does this mean?” Meluuk asked as he also stared at the monitor.

  “It means the warrior class has once again betrayed its people,” Morakar said in a pained voice. “We’ve overthrown the rightfully elected government on the homeworld and I can’t imagine that it was for a legitimate reason.” The news feed on the monitor showed the capital city on Galvetor in complete chaos. Fires burned brightly, citizens were running in panic, and armored warriors patrolled the streets, sometimes opening fire on sporadic resistance by the city’s law enforcement.