Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11)

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "The risk is minimal, and I need to see this firsthand," Mok said. "I'll not be remaining for the entire show, however. Once the shooting starts all the civilian traffic will scatter, which is when I will make my exit. If a single courier ship hung back in the thick of a battle between opposing fleets of capital ships, it would be a bit suspicious."

  "Understood," Jason said. "We'll be waiting for an update from you. Phoenix, out." The hologram of Mok wavered and disappeared.

  "The ship is locked in and secure," Twingo said. "Main drive is powered down and the reactor is at minimum. Kage, you'll have the telemetry stream from the Sarafin available on your right-side console as well as the comlink to the crew."

  “So, nothing left to do but wait," Crusher said.

  "More or less." Jason watched as Kage pulled up the Sarafin's telemetry and displayed it up on the canopy.

  The Phoenix was cradled inside the cavernous cargo hauler along with fifty smaller attack boats that would carry mercenary crews to retake the Eshquarian ships when they reached Miressa. The merc crews were aboard the Sarafin's living quarters and would load into the boats prior to the attack, but Jason had opted to remain on the Phoenix with his own crew, not wanting to intermingle with a bunch of hired guns that they may have crossed paths with at one time or another. Someone holding a grudge could make for a bad trip if the shooting started aboard the freighter.

  "Have any of you ever been to the Miressa System?" Twingo asked.

  "I have, once," Crusher said.

  "What's it like?"

  "Crowded," Crusher grunted. "I was there as part of a diplomatic envoy from Galvetor. I was young and had just ascended to Guardian Archon. To be honest, I was more interested in pursuing a good time back then than anything else. I do remember that the orbital paths above the planet were clogged to the point that they actually had to adjust the holding orbits so that the shade from all the ships was randomized over the daylight side. The really weird part is that as crowded as the orbital platforms are, the planet isn't. Huge tracts of pristine wilderness and cities that aren't overcrowded like you see on most planets. The Miressans employ pretty strict population control measures to keep their planet from becoming like Ver."

  "Can't say I blame them…my home world is an overcrowded hell," Kage said. "Main engines are up and the Sarafin is heading for our mesh-out point. Mok's courier ship is already gone."

  "Take the time to relax on the ride out, everybody," Jason said. "Even if we're successful and make a clean break from Miressa, I think we'll probably be looking over our shoulders for a long time to come after this."

  Captain Marcus Webb stared at the blank screen on his desk, letting his body come down from the adrenaline shock it had just suffered. He'd just received an unplanned slip-com communication from Jason Burke. When the node address had popped up on the incoming channel request, he'd immediately broken out into a flop sweat, certain that Burke was just giving him a courtesy heads-up that he was on his way to kill him. Webb wasn't a fearful man, but he also wasn't stupid. Even back when he'd been in his prime, he'd been no match for Burke. Now he was older and slower and the former Air Force puke looked like he hadn't aged a day.

  When Jason's face had resolved on the monitor, however, the conversation had nothing to do with the secret Webb had been keeping from him. Instead, the news his friend bore was so much worse. By the time Jason had finished his story, Webb almost wished that it had been as simple as the merc wanting to come and wring the life from him.

  The long and short of it was that Jason had learned Seeladas Dalton, the Premier of the Cridal Cooperative, of which Earth was a member nation, had been making a backdoor deal with the ConFed after she's watched the Eshquarians get wiped out. What concerned both men was that, while Earth had remained unnamed specifically, it was clear who the ConFed was referring to when they talked about a member nation building 'unusually advanced weapons for such a young species.'

  Once Jason had made it through the most immediate threat, he read Webb in on what was really happening within the ConFed. On the surface it sounded like Jason had either taken leave of his senses or had found a potent new recreational drug out near the Delphine Expanse, but once the files began coming in over the link, Webb had no choice but to take the matter seriously.

  "What do you expect us to do about all this?" Webb asked.

  "Nothing," Jason said firmly. "Stay the fuck out of this for as long as you can. Keep your heads down, stay off this thing's radar, and keep building up the Gen IV starships in secret as you have been."

  "How the hell do you know about— You know what? I don't even want to know. I can't guarantee how the policy makers will react when presented with this, and you know that I can't keep something like this a secret from our leadership."

  "Brief 707 on all this, ask for his input, and then take him along when you move it up the chain," Jason suggested, referring to the leader of the battlesynth refugees currently residing on Terranovus. "Earth will listen to him if he explains the risks of you popping your heads up too soon."

  "You don't think it's wise to approach Seeladas Dalton directly?"

  "She's a politician, and she's been compromised." Jason shrugged as if that explained everything. "If you go to her with this, she'll demand to see your source, which you won't be able to hide, and then you'll also have to admit that your weapons development is far more advanced than you're admitting. She'll sell you out to the Machine to save her own ass…it's in her DNA."

  "Alternative solutions?"

  "Keep a low profile, keep building the big stick. We're about to kick off an open insurrection, whether Mok knows it or not, and the real fight will begin to displace this threat. The ConFed fleet isn't the all-powerful juggernaut they try to present it as, but it is vast in numbers. Let them burn ships and resources fighting us and when—and only when—they come for Earth, give it to them with both barrels."

  "Any chance of you coming back into the fold? We could really use this type of direct intelligence and outside perspective, Jason," Webb said.

  "I'm more useful to you out here as an independent source, untainted by the politics of the chain of command," Jason said. "Besides, I'm not much of a joiner anymore."

  "You say that but you're the first to sign up for every hopeless cause you come across."

  "I said I wasn't a joiner, not that I was heartless. Any chance one of your Scout Fleet crews could make it to the Miressa System as a direct observer? What's Mosler doing right now?"

  "Ezra Mosler was killed in action," Webb said somberly. "Scout Team Obsidian is currently standing down while we…restructure it. I'll try to send someone out there to take a peek, though."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Jason said. "He seemed like a good guy."

  "He was the best."

  "This is a nasty business we're in, bud. Just be thankful you lived long enough to become the old man behind the desk."

  "Yeah…lucky me," Webb laughed. "I'll get to parsing this data and seeing how I want to feed it up the chain. Don't get yourself killed out there trying to take on the entire ConFed with your one little gunship."

  "That's not exactly Plan A, but things never seem to work out in my favor. I'll get a hold of you when it's all over. Take it easy, asshole."

  "Later, dickhead." Webb terminated the channel and unclenched his ass from where it had tried to chew through the seat when Jason brought up Scout Team Obsidian. He knew eventually he'd have to come clean and tell his friend he'd put his son in a forward recon unit, but he wanted to enjoy a few more years of living without a shattered pelvis before he did.

  "Bennett!" he shouted once the slip-com terminal had closed down completely.

  "Sir?" his aide asked, popping his head in the doorway.

  "Please send a messenger to the battlesynth settlement and ask 707 if he wouldn't mind advising me on a military matter of some urgency."

  "Right away, sir."

  "Admiral Didza, reporting as requested."

  "O
ne moment, Admiral," the synth on the monitor said. Didza's interest was piqued by the being's presence on Miressa Prime. Despite Khepri being a Pillar World and sharing a special relationship with Miressa, there weren't many synths on the capital world, and almost none actually working within government. Now it seemed that every time he turned around there was one of the artificial beings scurrying about on some official task.

  "Admiral Didza." The visage of High Admiral K'Tao appeared on the screen. K'Tao was a pure born Miressan, a member of the native species on this planet that call themselves the Akree. K'Tao was from one of the controlling families on Miressa whose bloodline went back hundreds of generations. He was extremely powerful on the capital planet, which made him a powerful figure within the entire ConFed.

  "High Admiral," Didza replied, bowing his head in respect.

  "Our intelligence service has been receiving rumors that there could be an attempted attack on Miressa Prime soon," K'Tao said. "We don't give these rumors too much credence, of course, but we need to be ready all the same. Recall all of the Home Defense Force ships back to the inner system and assemble your fleet into a defensive formation."

  "What of our tasking for monitoring traffic in the outer system, sir?"

  "We will have the Orbital Control Directorate pick up the slack for the time being. You have your orders."

  "I will obey at once, High Adm—" Didza stopped as the screen went blank. Apparently, the high admiral had more pressing things to do than wait for Didza to finish his sentence.

  "Captain! Issue orders to begin recalling Defense Force ships back to the inner system," he said. "We will rally into a single spread formation in orbit over Taus and await orders from High Command. This is not an exercise, so be quick about it."

  The fifth planet in the Miressa System, Taus, was a rocky giant with such high gravity it couldn't be terraformed into a habitable world. It also had a crust devoid of any sizable deposits of rare elements so there were only a few robotic mining stations and a handful of automated science outposts on its barren surface. One thing it was good for, however, was assembly point for large fleets of ships. Formations of ConFed military ships and commercial freighters congregated around the planet while waiting for permission to approach Miressa Prime or getting clearance to leave the system.

  Didza wasn't sure what to make of the high admiral's claim that a credible threat had been made against the capital world. K'Tao wasn't known to waste his time playing games with his subordinates and making them run readiness drills for the fun of it, but who in their right mind would attack the ConFed's seat of power after seeing how easily the fleet had dismantled the Eshquarian Empire?

  Regardless of the circumstances, he'd been given an order and had a job to do. Whether this was a real-world threat or just an exercise, he'd show the high admiralty that he was worthy of his family name and rank. Perhaps this was just the sort of opportunity he'd been waiting for; the chance to distinguish himself from the other legacy appointments and boost his family's standing into the echelons of mainline fleet.

  20

  "The HDF ships are all at full burn, heading back for the inner system, sir."

  "I can see that," Mok said. "That's not a normal move from them unless there's a planned demonstration for incoming dignitaries. This is the first solid evidence we've seen that Captain Burke may have been correct in his assumptions. Please send word to the Sarafin that they should be ready to jump into the system the moment we give the word."

  "Yes, sir."

  Mok's small courier ship had been loitering in the Miressa System for over five days waiting for something to happen. There had been no sign of the Eshquarian ships and, until very recently, no sign that the ConFed was planning anything major within the system. Now that the HDF ships were pulling back and regrouping, Mok thought they might be close to seeing something happen. It made sense that the Machine would at least get its ships moving in the right direction before bringing in an Eshquarian battlefleet to pit them against.

  "Another ship transponder has just popped up on the other side of the system, sir," Similan said from where he sat at the back of the cramped bridge. "It's the Cridal's flagship, Defiant."

  "The ship that Councilman Scleesz is aboard, currently," Mok mused. "This is going to happen soon, I think."

  "I must admit to thinking the young captain's theory was a bit…overwrought," Similan said. "Perhaps he knows our foe better than I've given him credit for."

  "I've learned not to underestimate or ignore Jason Burke over the years, my friend," Mok said. "Despite the jokes at his expense by his crew, he has a keen mind that is able to make intuitive leaps that make him appear almost precognizant. Of course, I've also witnessed him almost kill his entire crew when he accidentally crashed his ship into a building."

  "Are we sure we want to trust this operation to such a man?"

  "It was a long time ago." Mok waved him off. "On second thought, go ahead and have the Sarafin move into the system now and move into one of the holding patterns in the outer system. We might not have time to reposition ships once this all kicks off."

  "At once, master."

  "We're back in real-space," Kage said. "Sensors confirm we're in the Miressa System. Mok's forward observation ship is sending over all the intel it's gathered so far."

  "Doc, you go through all that," Jason said. "I need Kage focused on the sensor feed from the Sarafin."

  The Miressa System was one of the most congested Jason had ever seen. The situation display between the pilot and copilot stations was showing so many transponder signals that you couldn't pick out a single ship among the chaos. One ship that did stand out, however, because the Phoenix was instructed to highlight it whenever it was in the area was the Defiant. Scleesz has mentioned that he was aboard the Cridal ship, but he'd neglected to mention that she was also heading to the capital system. This complicated things slightly since he didn't know why Seeladas Dalton would have sent her flagship to Miressa, but the chance of it being a mere coincidence was slim. Had Scleesz flipped on them? Was Kellea there to provide reinforcements if things drift away from the plan?

  "What the hell is the Defiant doing here?" Kage asked.

  "I wish I knew," Jason said.

  Scleesz had warned him that Seeladas was playing both sides, hedging her bets to make sure she maintained her position even if the ConFed decided a sovereign Cooperative wasn't in their best interests. He'd passed on the information to his friends in Earth's new military and hoped that they'd take his advice and stay out of it as long as possible. The ships they were building from the engineering data he'd provided from the Archive were more than impressive, but there were so few of them that, in a standup fight against the bigger powers, Earth wouldn't last long.

  "Is Lucky still down servicing the XTX missiles?" Crusher asked.

  "Yeah, he's still in the aft bay right now," Kage said. "The Sarafin crew decided not to pump up the cargo hold with atmosphere until the attack boat crews are ready to load up, so it was either send Twingo out in a pressure suit or just let Lucky do it."

  "I'm going down to grab something to eat," Crusher said, making a show of stretching and yawning before walking off and stopping by the pilot's seat. "Care to join me?" Jason just rolled his eyes. Crusher was skilled at many things, dropping subtle hints wasn't one of them.

  "I suppose," he said. "Kage—"

  "Yeah, yeah…I'll watch everything while you're down there whispering to each other." Kage waved at him with his two left hands. "Don't be talking about me down there."

  "You're actually getting something to eat?" Jason said when he got down to the galley. "I thought that was just your ham-handed way of saying you need to talk in private."

  "It was both," Crusher said, already stuffing food in his mouth as he walked over with the tray from their new and improved food synthesizer. "Have you noticed something…off…about Lucky?"

  "He's been off since those two morons decided stuffing his brain into a new and
untested prototype body was a good idea," Jason replied, reaching across to grab one of the chips off Crusher's tray. He was rewarded for his trouble by a large fist slamming down on his hand. "Ow! Damn you!"

  "Get your own." Crusher didn't even slow his gorging. "I'm not talking about the little bugs and quirks we've been seeing. I'm talking about a whole shift in his personality. Maybe personality is the wrong. What's the word for your overall philosophy in life? Does that make sense?"

  "I swear to God, if you don't get to the point soon—"

  "When we hit that parts depot, I got curious about why Lucky had bothered mimicking a security guard." Crusher's demeanor was somber enough that Jason gave him a chance to explain himself. "When you exited the building, I worked my way up to where he grabbed the part. Apparently, there was an admin office up in that area that was still staffed." He paused, looking off into space for a moment. "There were at least fifty bodies strewn about, and it was obvious that Lucky had killed them all. A few were armed security personnel, but most looked like they might have just been clerical workers trying to get out of the area."

  "That's…quite a charge," Jason said slowly.

  "It's why I'm only bringing it up now," Crusher said. "I've been going through it in my head again and again and there's no reason I can come up with to explain why he would have butchered those Eshquarians so savagely. We specifically planned the mission to minimize the risk to the depot workers."

  "There's no moral or ethics subprocessor, Lucky's core values are a part of his primary processing matrix," Jason said. "Either you completely misinterpreted what you saw or Lucky did actually kill those people, but for good reason. We've been doing this job a long time together, so I'm not inclined to question your assessment of the situation, which means we're now left with a distinctly unpleasant possibility."