One of his sidearms and the portable slip-com unit were affixed to his side, resting safely underneath the projected girth of the alien he was mimicking. He thought about reaching out to Jason to let them know he was okay but decided against the risk for the time being. With the ship's slip-drive running, even a low-power com field might cause enough of a disruption to flag an alert and send security looking for what caused the interference. For right now, he was still on-mission and doing the job he'd set out to do of collecting intel.
"I'll have to hold you up here, Nikain," one of the security troops said, blocking his path down one of the major arteries that spanned the length of the ship. "We're rotating prisoners through to get fed and have two groups crossing through now."
"Understood," Lucky said. He pretended to be engrossed in his own computer while his sensors recorded a procession of Eshquarians that were being led out from the starboard enlisted mess and back down the corridor that led to the main cargo bay. It didn't take long to figure out that these were who the cages were meant for.
"It's going to be tough to manage once we get the rest of them aboard," the troopers said once the last of the sullen Eshquarians had walked by.
"Any idea when that will be?" Lucky asked.
"They don't tell me anything. We're supposed to meet up with the other supply ships and take on prisoners, and then swap out command crews. After that, who knows? You can go on ahead."
"Thanks," Lucky said. "Try to enjoy the calm before the storm."
"Not likely," the trooper laughed and waved him on. Lucky had been careful to skirt out of range in case the other had wanted to try and give him a friendly pat. He'd not wanted to risk a field test of the force fields by having someone heavily armed discover he was an imposter.
Lucky moved quickly down to the aft magazine where he saw a tech team huddled around an open missile, arguing over the display on the computer they had hooked into it. He walked up and waited, wanting to overhear as much of the conversation as he could before they noticed him. Apparently, the ship carried a previous generation missile that they hadn't accounted for and the software patch they had wouldn't properly install.
"How many of these older missiles are aboard?" he finally asked, interrupting the group.
"Nineteen in total. Two are actually loaded into the launcher so once the full crew comes aboard, they'll need to be pulled back out so we can service them."
"And is the problem that the software change won't upload at all, or it won't integrate properly?"
"It uploads fine," another tech said. "Once it begins the parameter rewrite, it times out."
"Leave this one hooked up, and I'll take a look at it," Lucky said. "I don't want this problem holding the rest of you up. Move ahead with the others, and I'll let you know what I find."
"Suit yourself," the first tech said, walking off. The others gave him a little bit of turnover on what they'd tried before moving on to complete their own tasks. Once they were gone, and he was unobserved, Lucky interfaced directly with the computer via his nanochains and began downloading the contents to his onboard storage while simultaneously analyzing what the program was designed to do once it was uploaded.
The program was ridiculously simple and the issues they were having with it were also not especially difficult to figure out. Either they were bargain shopping for contractors on this project or these weren't actually qualified technicians. From what he could see, the patch would override the missile's sophisticated target prioritization and its counter-countermeasures, the latter being what it would employ to try and sneak in past a target's point defense and jammers. All the override did was apply a simple suppress command that was already part of the missile's operating system, but used only in test and troubleshooting.
The other part of the package being uploaded was for the command and control interface. It changed the encryption routines and syntax for any commands sent to the weapon after it had been launched. Lucky made sure both the encrypt/decrypt data was saved as well as the new command syntax. He then made the necessary change to the program so that the older missile would accept the change before exiting out of the computers and withdrawing his nanochains.
"I've fixed your problem," he said as he walked by, gesturing back to the still-open missile. "You can just use that computer to update the others."
"Thanks, Nikain."
Lucky started working his way back forward, recalculating his probabilities now that he'd been given new data points. The presence of Eshquarian prisoners made it unlikely these ships were being prepped for sale by a rogue intelligence agency. The changes to the missiles also indicated that there was a more specialized purpose these ships were being moved for, but nothing in the computer dump he'd just taken indicated what that might be.
"You about off-shift, Nikain?"
Lucky turned and saw that it was the same security trooper that had stopped him in the passageway before. He quickly sized him up and saw that the trooper was a little shorter than optimal but still within the acceptable margin of error for his mimic function to work. He'd exhausted what he could do as a tech supervisor. He needed to talk to someone inside those cages and to do that, he needed to be with the security team.
"Almost," Lucky answered. "I'm looking forward to getting something to eat and hitting the rack."
"You and me both. I've been walking for nearly—" that was all the trooper got out before Lucky closed the distance quickly and crushed his throat closed with a vice-like right hand. The trooper's eyes lit up in fear and confusion as he was lifted off the deck and carried down a side passage.
Lucky found that he was in an administrative section and the rooms off the passageway were unused offices. He picked one at random and dragged the guard inside, locking the hatch behind him. With a seemingly negligent hit from his left hand, he rendered the trooper unconscious, and then repeated the procedure he'd used on Nikain, his image morphing into the other person. The shoulders swelled out, the midsection pulled in, and the face changed to reflect the target while his nanochains penetrated the skull and stole everything of value from the neural implant.
There was no convenient place to stash the body, so after killing the trooper Lucky dragged him into the adjoining office and hid it behind an oddly shaped sofa. He then welded the hatch shut to that office to try and keep the smell to a minimum. He collected the trooper’s weapons and other belongings while his mimic subroutines finalized the vocalization tables.
"My name is Pirend," he said, walking out of the office and closing the hatch behind him.
"We’ve disabled all of the implants that Imperial Intelligence put in her to make her resistant to interrogation," Mok said. "That includes the two that would have killed her if we began pressing too hard."
"You get anything useful yet?" Jason asked.
"They haven't been at it too long. A couple hours at most," Mok said. "You can observe on the monitor there…I'd advise against it. Anyone trained and operating as Qazvi Ba will be a tough one to break even without her implants helping."
"I'm surprised you came out here yourself for this," Jason said. "The criminal empire that easy to run you can drop everything and play spy versus spy?"
"You'd be shocked to learn how little there is to actually do in my position," Mok said in a rarely candid moment. He moved back from the bar and handed Jason the drink he'd been preparing. "The Twelve Points operate more or less autonomously, passing along reports to me through intermediaries as well as their tribute. If the amount is sufficient, I pretend not to know they're holding back and skimming off the top, and they pretend to not be plotting my demise so they can move into my position."
"Sounds tedious."
"You have no idea. Most of what being a crime lord entails is simply the ability to accept a level of risk that would turn most suicidal. Having a good eye for business and a keen intuition for when something doesn't seem right doesn't hurt."
"You make it sound so easy," Jason said, nodding at
the expensive whiskey Mok had handed him, reminding him he needed to check in on another of his side ventures to see how it was progressing now that the coffee business was self-sustaining. "I'd imagine being a high-level Imperial Intelligence officer probably would give you the requisite skill set and tolerances. Hypothetically speaking."
"Hypothetically, you'd be correct," Mok said with none of his usual evasiveness about his past. "Despite the fact there is no longer an empire, I'd appreciate a certain level of discretion regarding certain assumptions you've made about my past."
"I won't tell a soul," Jason promised. "Not even my crew."
"Actually, they're the ones I'm most worried about, so thank you."
They sat in the lounge in silence as the smooth instrumental notes of a musical style Jason couldn't identify drifted through the air. Given how expensive the yacht had appeared on the inside when he'd come aboard, Jason sent his crew back over to the Phoenix, not wanting to turn them loose and have them break something. The whiskey helped dull the edge of the knife that had been twisting in his guts since Lucky had gotten separated, but the constant worry had manifested itself into a migraine headache that wouldn't abate. It was the fact he was stuck doing nothing that made the time pass so excruciatingly slow.
"Master, Captain, she is asking for you both," Similan said, having appeared in the lounge like a wisp of smoke.
"That was quick," Mok said, standing and straightening his expensive suit.
They walked down off the main deck down to the more utilitarian deck below. Jason recognized some of the larger components they passed along the way and realized that Mok's yacht had some serious teeth. In hindsight, he shouldn't have expected anything less. In addition to the yacht's armament, the Phoenix had been able to detect two frigate-class ships patrolling the area as well. The irony of all Mok's wealth and power was that it had made him a prisoner, no matter how opulent the jail.
"You didn't even last five hours, Fendra," Mok said when they walked into a stifling hot, humid room with bare alloy walls. "That's incredibly disappointing."
"I'm not an intelligence officer anymore, Mok," Fendra said. "I did what I did for money. I'm not getting paid to let your clumsy goons work me over." She didn't look too worse for wear considering she'd just spent the last few hours undergoing intense interrogations. "I'll tell you what I know in exchange for being turned loose."
"That seems fair…if the information is good."
"You'd actually just let me go?" Fendra asked.
"There's no money in keeping you," Mok said. "I’m a businessman now. This is good business. I might hang on to you for a short time afterwards, of course, but you'll be put in very comfortable surroundings. I can't have you deciding to warn your employers that we flipped you."
"A reasonable precaution," Fendra agreed. "I will have to warn you that I know less than you'll probably want to hear."
"Give us the broad strokes, and then my associates will work with you to lock down the details," Mok said. Jason just leaned against the bulkhead, trying to appear indifferent as this wasn't his area of expertise.
"What about him?" Fendra asked, gesturing towards Jason. "He's notorious for taking these sorts of things personally. Is he going to splatter my brains all over the walls once I'm done talking?"
"I have no interest in harming you," Jason said. "If your plan had worked, I might be singing a different tune. For now, I'll just be happy with whatever information you have."
"Before I was given the Qazvi Ba designation, I was attached to the navy as an intelligence asset," Fendra began, reaching across and grabbing the water Mok had placed there. "When the ConFed attack came out of nowhere—and I mean nowhere—the decision came down from the top pretty quick to run and hide. The thought was to stash the fleet, live to fight another day.
"Once the remaining ships were carefully hidden in the Cluster, I was contacted by Fleet Master Doorn about helping handle logistics. They wanted the crews moved off and hidden on some of our second-tier colony worlds and they needed to arrange shipments of consumables to the fleet in a way that would be difficult to trace. We managed to hide the crews without too much trouble, and Doorn was given the manifest where each of them was residing so that when the time came to recall them, they'd be easy to find."
"That's all you did? Hide crew members and run for fuel?" Jason asked.
"At first," she continued after a long drink of water. Jason noticed that the air was getting cooler and dryer. Now that she was talking, Mok's people were no longer trying to make her uncomfortable. "Then the remaining Fleet Masters got themselves captured by ConFed Intelligence. I was contacted through the normal channels and told to procure a full fuel loadout for fifty-six capital ships and given the coordinates within the Cluster to have it delivered. As usual, I went along with one of the tanker ships, and when I was captured was about the time that I realized the fleet leadership had been compromised.
"The ConFed had two light cruisers there that oversaw the refuel, then destroyed all twelve tankers. I was taken in and given a choice: help recall the crews or be tortured and killed. It didn't make a lot of sense to me since they already had the ships, the ConFed was in firm control of Eshquarian space, and had the crew manifest with their locations was already in the procession of Fleet Master Doorn. I found out that in addition to helping get the crews back to the transports, I was also supposed to keep an eye out for anyone that might come snooping around for the lost fleet. I knew that last fuel procurement was too big to go unnoticed, so I set up my surveillance there. When Captain Burke and the Guardian Archon of Galvetor showed up, it wasn't difficult to figure out why they were there."
"You're becoming too recognizable, Burke," Mok said lightly. "Too much notoriety makes you useless for covert work."
"Your ship stands out quite a bit as well, Captain," Fendra added. "That DL7 is semi-famous in certain circles.
"I was also warned specifically to look for meddling from the Saabror and Cridal intel outfits and for Scout Fleet units from Earth that might come poking around. I lost track of Omega Force after you roughed up my fuel supplier, but when Kage popped up it was a simple matter of allowing myself to be captured to see how close you were to the truth. I was able to exploit a past association with Mok and then ride out with you to the fleet where, I assumed, it would have been a simple matter of alerting the security contractors once we were aboard. What tipped you off, by the way?"
"You made it too easy to find you." Jason shrugged. "I don't believe in those sorts of coincidences. We played along to see where it might lead, but we had you under constant surveillance and then I had Twingo put enough shockers in your pressure suit to knock out a battlesynth."
"It seems most intel briefs on you are a bit inaccurate. You're described more as a blunt instrument, but not a real threat to covert operations," she said. "Thanks for the shockers, by the way…you attenuated my nerves so badly that Mok's torturers would have had a hard time making any progress. The damage is likely permanent."
"You're still breathing, which is more than most can say when they double cross me," Jason said flatly. “So, you have no idea where the fleet is being taken or why they wanted the crew back aboard?"
"None," Fendra said. "The only thing I know is that ConFed intel seemed to be running an unsanctioned op and they were using contractors exclusively, and the people they hired weren't amateurs. They made sure I knew only enough to do my job."
"Fair enough," Mok said. "When did you find out about the detention cells they built into the ships?" Fendra seemed to sense she was treading on dangerous ground now and took her time before answering.
"Once we boarded the Luex," she said finally. "They didn't allow me free rein of the fleet and the only time I was ever in the Cluster, I was aboard one of their cruisers."
"I'm sure even you can figure out what they're likely for."
"It makes sense now why they wanted the crew recall rosters," she said slowly.
"But you never won
dered why rogue ConFed cell would be asking for the recall information on thousands of crewmembers before that?" Mok asked, giving his fellow Eshquarian a flat, unfriendly stare. "You can relax. I will keep my word and honor the deal we've made for the information you've provided, but know that I would love nothing more than to find a loophole in the arrangement that would allow me to kill you. I may have done some unsavory things to get to where I'm at, but I never betrayed the Empire, and I never sold out my people to save my own skin." Mok stood up and glared down at her. "The detailed information you give my associates better be worth their lives."
Fendra returned the stare but wisely kept her mouth shut. Jason pushed off the wall and widened his stance, ready to intercept Mok if he lunged for her. He didn't care whether he killed her or not, but he'd prefer it be done after she'd divulged all she knew.
"Master," Similan said, opening the hatch just enough to speak. "We have a situation that requires Captain Burke." Jason followed Mok out into the passageway and waited until the hatch was shut and locked.
"What's up?"
"Lucky has made contact, Captain. Kage came over and said it was a short message stating he was safe and the precise coordinates for his pickup."
"Please inform him to have the Phoenix ready to depart as soon as I'm back aboard," Jason said, the relief flooding over him in a cool wave.
"I will keep you informed of what further information we get," Mok said, sticking his hand out in a custom he'd picked up from his time around humans. Jason looked at it, somewhat shocked. Saditava Mok was not someone you put your hands on without permission. He accepted the hand as the gesture of friendship he hoped it was.
"I'll do the same once we go pick Lucky up," he said. "Three days aboard that battleship means he either has their complete operation mapped out, or he was just hiding in a closet the entire time."
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"That's basically all I know. We were picked up using the proper authentication codes to recall all essential personnel, and then when the transports arrived, we were put in restraints and dumped in these cages."
Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11) Page 12
