Soldiers of Fortune

by Joshua Dalzelle

  The Phoenix flew back into real space with a flash and turned onto a course that would bring them on a leisurely approach to the ship that hung thousands of kilometers ahead of them. They were in the middle of nowhere, drifting in interstellar space. Even if an entire fleet was looking for them it would be nearly impossible to find them in the vast nothingness that existed between star systems. Crisstof's ship looked to be a fairly modern frigate-class vessel that gleamed a bright white under the flood lights that illuminated her hull. The Phoenix, by comparison, was a tiny patch of black on more black as she had no external floods to light up the exterior, just some small marker lights on the ends of the wings and stabilizers.

  The entrance to the hanger was on the top of the hull, directly in front of the bridge. A landing pad, complete with chasing marker lights, indicated where Jason should land. He cycled the landing gear, fought down a mild case of nerves, and edged the gunship over to match speed with the frigate. He then crabbed them directly over the landing pad and descended to a flawless touchdown. The crew of the frigate activated the grav plating on the pad, holding the gunship secure.

  "Gunship-class vessel, Phoenix. Secure systems from flight operations and we'll bring you in. Welcome aboard the Diligent," a voice said over the coms. Jason and Kage began shutting down the primary flight systems, starting with the engines. Once they, and the reactor, were secured and at minimal power, the platform they were on began to recess into the hull, taking them down into the hanger deck. When the lift stopped, a small hovering bot with strobing yellow lights appeared before the canopy and began to drift slowly away. It was obvious that Jason was supposed to follow it, so he nudged the taxi-motor controls and the Phoenix rolled slowly off the landing pad and into the interior of the ship.

  Once parked in a spacious service bay, the crew went about doing the final shutdown and headed off the bridge. "Nice landing, Captain," Kage said once the others had filtered out.

  "Thanks," Jason said. "I didn't think Crisstof would take to kindly to me dinging his ship. It looks pricey."

  "That it does," Kage agreed. "So who do you think this guy is? He's not with the Eshquarian government, and this ship has to be insanely expensive to operate."

  "Hopefully all will be revealed shortly," Jason said, standing up and stretching. "In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you would keep your instincts in check and not try to find the answers by breaking into their computers."

  "Sure thing, Captain," the excitable little alien said as they walked through the ship towards the cargo bay. When they arrived, the crew, and Crisstof, were standing around the rear pressure doors.

  "What's going on? Why is the ramp still up?" Jason asked.

  "That was my suggestion, Captain," Crisstof said. "I thought that you'd like to be the first one off the ship."

  "We don't really stand on ceremony or tradition all that much here, Crisstof," Jason said with a smile. "I have the job because I suspect nobody else wanted to put up with the hassle."

  "Nevertheless, my captain does stand on such ceremony," the older man continued with a smile. "I'd like for the two of you to get off on the right foot as equals, it may be important that you can work together and respect each other mutually as the rulers of your respective domains." Jason didn't see why that would be necessary, but it was a simple request so he didn't push the issue. He smacked the controls to open the doors and drop the ramp and was surprised to see a humanoid female (a stunningly attractive one, no less) with jet black hair and an impeccable uniform of some type standing at the bottom. There was also a retinue of officers standing at attention off to her right, also dressed to impress. He looked down at his own utilitarian clothes, and then over at the ragtag bunch that made up the rest of Omega Force. Shit.

  He walked down the ramp with the touch of swagger he had begun to adopt as they established themselves as “outlaws.” As usual, Lucky and Crusher flanked him to either side and slightly behind in an impressive display of potential violence. Remembering his customs and courtesies from his few times on U.S. Naval vessels, Jason paused at the foot of the ramp and straightened slightly, but not actually coming to attention. “Captain,” he addressed the woman standing in front of him. “Requesting permission to come aboard.” There was a barely-perceptible raise of a single eyebrow as she regarded the group standing in front of her.

  “Permission granted, Captain Burke,” she said in an emotionless, but not unfriendly voice. “Welcome aboard the Diligent.”

  “Thank you,” Jason said as he stepped onto the deck, followed by the rest of his crew. Crisstof moved up to stand with the two captains and nodded in respect to the woman.

  “Jason,” he said familiarly, “may I introduce Captain Kellea Colleren. Kellea, this is Captain Jason Burke of the Phoenix and commanding officer of Omega Force. They’ve agreed to help us out with our little problem.”

  “Hopefully they’ll have better luck than we’ve had,” she said in a tone that indicated she doubted they would. With that she turned and walked away towards a hatch in the far wall leaving the others rushing to keep up. Crisstof did a sort of jog/skip to fall in beside her. The two began having a hushed conversation, believing they were out of earshot of the rest of the group. Jason smiled to himself, there was no way they could get far enough away on the hanger deck to avoid Lucky's hearing.

  They all filed through the hatch and followed a series of non-descript passageways until they arrived in a utilitarian conference room, obviously built for ease of maintenance rather than comfort. At Captain Colleren's gesture they all seated themselves, with the exception of Lucky, who never sat in chairs. "This briefing is for the benefit of the newcomers," she began, "For the rest of you it will be more of a rehashing of things you should already know.

  "I'll just say for the record that I don't agree with this new approach. I don't feel that hiring a group of outside...contractors... is going to deliver any better results than our own efforts have." She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that Jason was a bit taken aback, normally when someone was openly insulting they tried to soften it with a pseudo-apology. Looks like it's going to be one of those... a pissing contest with some self-important officer who wasn't able to get the job done on her own. Although he carried the title "Captain,” Jason's prejudices were still very much in line with his former enlisted life in the USAF. Too often officers with no experience, or little intelligence, simply got in the way of themselves and the people who were trying to perform the mission. He decided to head things off now before a pointless territorial dispute started.

  "Hold up," Jason said, making certain it didn't sound like a request. "Just so we're clear, we were hired by Crisstof," he said, pointing to the man in question, "I don't know any of you, nor do I feel the need to answer, or explain myself, to you. We're more than happy, and capable, of doing the job at the rate we’ve agreed upon. However, if that becomes an issue, we'll happily be on our way." The cold stare coming from Captain Colleren gave Jason the creeps, he'd seen a similar look from a rattlesnake in a zoo on Earth.

  "Let's step back from this for a moment," Crisstof interjected. "Kellea, the Diligent has been out here for almost six months with almost nothing to show for it save for a large fuel bill. Jason, I hired Omega Force to try and shake things up, not replace my own people. The two of you will need to work with each other instead of against." Captain Colleren nodded respectfully to Crisstof in feigned acquiescence, but Jason could see that her eyes told a completely different story. But, a job was a job.

  "I apologize, Captain," he said. "We'll do what we've been hired to do, and to the best of our ability, and then we'll be on our way."

  "Of course, Captain," she replied. "Getting back to the matter at hand... as Crisstof said, we've made very little progress in trying to sniff out any type of central leadership behind the attacks on Eshquarian shipping lanes. Normally I would say this is because there simply isn't any, but the attacks are far too well planned to be coincidental." Over the course of the ne
xt two hours Captain Colleren and her staff deluged Jason and his crew with a compressed version of all the intel they'd been gathering. As the briefing droned on he once again was thankful he had upgraded his neural implants; the information flowed over him and the bio-machinery in his head categorized and filed away everything in a way that he'd be able to recall later at will.

  One of the more useful aspects of the briefing was the ship and crew profiles the Diligent crew had been able to compile, and he was beginning to see why they had been running into problems. "I may see an issue already," he said, trying to gently broach the subject.

  "Please," Captain Colleren said, indicating he should continue.

  "You've been using the Diligent to gather this intel and try to establish contacts?"

  "Of course," she answered. "Well, the Diligent and often the various shuttlecraft that you probably saw on the hanger deck when you arrived."

  "I suspected as much," Jason said slowly. "First off, I'd like to compliment you on running such an impeccable ship. I could see from a hundred kilometers away how clean and well maintained she was. In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d say the Diligent was a military vessel."

  "Thank you, I think," Colleren said confusedly. "I'm not sure I see where you're going with this, Captain."

  "Look again at the ships you've been tracking," Jason suggested. "Try and view them in comparison to the Diligent."

  "I'll be damned," she said after a brief moment. "That does make sense."

  "Am I missing something?" Twingo asked.

  "Probably," Jason smiled. "And you're not going to like what it means when you figure it out."

  Chapter 6

  "No! I will not be a party to this!" Twingo was almost in hysterics in the hanger bay where they all stood on the deck, looking the Phoenix over.

  "Be reasonable, Twingo," Doc said soothingly. "It's all just going to be cosmetic anyway, you can change her back when we're done."

  "Captain! I can't believe you're asking me to do this... you want me to deliberately damage my ship?" Twingo asked in a wheedling voice, changing tactics.

  "I'm not asking, Twingo," Jason said forcefully. "She's too clean. You saw those other ships, we'll never fit in landing a mint condition DL7 in the middle of that. If we can't fit in, we can't execute our mission. By this time tomorrow I want the hull dinged and damaged, some blast marks added, and corrosion evident in all the right places. None of this has to be real, it just needs to look real."

  "How do I fake a hull dent?" Twingo asked indignantly.

  "I don't know. I'm not an engineer," Jason shot back. "Just get it done." He turned to walk away, wanting to end the conversation and get his crew to work. "Oh, one more thing... it would help if she didn't run all that well. Try to arrange it so she smokes a little bit and sputters for effect when we start landing on these backwater worlds." With that he hurried up the ramp, leaving an apoplectic Twingo spluttering on the deck.

  "You know," Kage said from behind him, making him jump. "This isn't a bad idea, but we shouldn't just stop at the ship."

  "I'm listening," Jason said as he crossed the Phoenix's cargo bay.

  "We're all a tad too clean to really fit in with a bunch of pirates and smugglers. We should dirty ourselves up a bit, maybe some fake tattoos... Oh! I'm going to get one of a Galvetic skull on my chest," Kage said as he warmed up to his idea.

  "Probably want to check with Crusher first," Jason replied. "I'm not sure if he would find that offensive or not. It's not something you want to find out the hard way."

  "Good idea," Kage agreed fervently. Jason had to concentrate on keeping a straight face; skull tattoo or no, the diminutive little Veran wasn't likely to intimidate anybody.

  Twingo and a crew from the Diligent worked through the next twelve hours straight while Jason sat on the bridge and went over the data Crisstof's people had provided and tried to formulate some sort of plan that wouldn't leave them out there for months on end chasing ghosts. As he poured through the dossiers and after-action reports from previous attacks, a plan began to form in his mind. One of the main advantages Omega Force had was the fact it wasn't hampered by departmental or governmental regulations and rules. He felt the main approach taken so far was fundamentally flawed in that it would always be a group of outsiders looking in and the criminals they were after had made a career of sniffing out and dodging their kind. So acting as an "investigative unit" simply wouldn't work, they'd burn a ton of fuel and putter around out in the Concordian Cluster until Crisstof finally became bored and dismissed them.

  Or...

  "Diligent, this is Captain Burke on board the Phoenix," he said into his personal com unit.

  "Go ahead, Captain," a cheery female voice said back.

  "I'd like to set a meeting with Captain Colleren and her staff prior to our departure. I'm making some changes to our plans and she'll need to know about them," he said as he scrolled through the intel images on the terminal screen.

  "I'll inform the Captain of your request and let you know when, and if, she's available," the disembodied voice said.

  "Of course. Thank you, Phoenix out." Jason terminated the link and walked off the bridge, heading for the galley.

  He was in the middle of eating when word came back that Captain Colleren would see him in an hour. He had time to go get cleaned up and grab Doc before heading out. He decided to let the others finish up their preparations; he'd brief his own crew once they were off the Diligent. Now that the mission was taking shape, the excitement began to settle into Jason's gut and, as he always was, he was anxious to get to it.

  Fifty minutes after he had spoken with the Diligent's com officer Jason and Doc were seated in the same, nondescript conference room they had been in before. They only had to wait another four minutes before Captain Colleren, her first officer, and Crisstof walked in and also sat down. “Ok, Captain Burke,” Colleren began, “you mentioned something about wanting to change the plan?”

  “Yes,” Jason began. “Our original plan of poking around on some of the smuggler’s moons and remote spaceports simply won’t work.”

  “Oh?”

  “Think about it… these types of people already live in a society in which they don’t even trust each other. A group of outsiders showing up asking questions will only cause them to batten down the hatches, so to speak. We’re going to have to present ourselves as the real deal, and that means actually hiring ourselves out to these people,” Jason said. The idea of undercover work wasn’t exactly farfetched, but in this case it meant taking an active role in attacking commercial and private shipping vessels. This was where he was going to have to talk very fast to sell the idea.

  “You’re talking about taking an active part in these raids,” Crisstof said. “I’m not sure that’s something we can get behind. The risk of collateral damage is too great and I’m certain the Eshquarians would not approve.”

  “True, but you’ve already tried it your way. Sitting around in seedy taverns will not get you the information you want. I’m convinced we’re going to have to go all in to crack this nut, and that means we have to be available to make runs if we’re approached.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Captain Colleren asked.

  “We’re going to need seed money,” Jason said. When he saw the confused stares looking back at him he went on, “I’m going to need some ‘stolen’ cargo to try and sell when we find someplace promising in order to gain a level of credibility. Something from a verifiable theft would be preferable.”

  “So you want to commit a crime before you even start?” Crisstof asked incredulously.

  “No, I just want it to look like I did. There’s got to be something of value on this ship that you can report as stolen. By the time we get someplace to try and sell it, it should disseminate through most local law enforcement databases. It has to look real though, these guys are smart,” Jason finished.

  “If they’re so savvy what makes you think they won’t see through your deception
?” Crisstof insisted.

  “They’re smart, but they’re also greedy. That’s why they’re in that line of work,” Doc spoke up for the first time.

  “The more I think about it, the more I like it,” Colleren admitted. I bet that killed her to say that out loud… "But I want to be clear that I won't be turning over anything that could be used to further these attacks on civilian vessels."

  “So we’re all onboard with this?” Jason pressed, wanting to seal the deal. The lone holdout, Crisstof, looked around the table helplessly.

  “It would appear so,” he said. “Captain, do we have anything on board that would suit our purposes?”

  “I’m sure we can come up with something,” she said. “My First Officer, Commander Bostco, will assist you with that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something else I must attend to.” Jason noticed an effort on Bostco’s part not to smile as she left the room. The Commander was a taller being than an average human and sported an impressive shock of distractingly bright orange hair, a wide, flat, almost simian face. He also had an easy smile, at least when his Captain wasn't around, and Jason had taken a liking to him immediately when they had met.