Omega Force 3: The Enemy Within (2 page)

Crusher
raised carefully and, still cradling Jason to his chest, moved across the charred floor of the hangar at a dead run just as the
Phoenix
drifted down into a low hover and lowered her rear ramp. Lucky was running equally fast backwards while covering their retreat with his raised weapons. Once Lucky’s feet hit the ramp it began to rise. The last thing the sole remaining thug saw (who happened to be smart enough to play dead) was a pair of glowing red eyes before the ramp fully closed and the big gunship roared away.

*****

“Get him to the infirmary, NOW!” Doc ordered as soon as he saw Jason. Crusher didn’t hesitate as he leapt up onto the mezzanine from the cargo bay deck in an incredible display of power and agility and hurried as quickly as he dared to place Jason gently on the bed in the ship’s infirmary. The human drifted in and out of consciousness while Doc tried to stabilize his condition. Despite the great care taken by the ground assault team, the moving and jostling had exacerbated his already serious injuries. “Crusher, go help Twingo! I’ve got him,” Doc practically shouted. He knew the big warrior would “hover” if he didn’t give him something else useful to do.

“
Who’s … Who’s driving if you’re … here?” Jason labored out as his good eye focused on Doc.

“
Twingo, currently,” Doc said, looking at Jason sharply and making adjustments to the equipment.

“
Oh … shit …”

“
Be still, Captain,” Doc said as he worked, allowing his machines to put Jason under so he could begin to repair the damage the days of torture had caused. When the human finally fell completely unconscious and his body began to relax, Doc was able to really go to work and see just how bad the situation was.

“How are you feeling?” Twingo asked, his ears drooping down a bit as he looked at his best friend still lying inert in the infirmary.

“
Not bad, all things considered,” Jason croaked through a dry throat. They were the first words he’d spoken in two days, as Doc had kept him heavily sedated while he administered care. If it had just been a normal thrashing Jason would have been in his own bed and good as new in no time, but the gang that had captured him had inflicted severe head trauma and Doc wanted to be absolutely certain everything was fine before he let loose a swarm of nanobots into his bloodstream to begin the repairs to the rest of his body.

“
Where are we?”

“
We’re running at a leisurely twenty percent slip velocity on our way to drop off our package. It’s giving both you, and him, time to heal. We had a tough time keeping Crusher from killing him over the last couple of days. He’s still extremely angry about what happened to you,” Twingo said as he pulled up one of the stools to sit next to the bed.

“
I’d imagine he’s angrier that I let myself get captured,” Jason said as he reached for the cup of water on the stand next to him.

“
There is that,” Twingo admitted. “I wouldn’t expect to go on any more solo missions for a while if I were you. Honestly, I’d consider it a favor if you didn’t … while we were looking for you, he was an absolute horror to be around.”

“
I’ll keep that in mind,” Jason said with a dry chuckle.

“
So what happened?”

“
It’s a little fuzzy thanks to the drugs they kept trying on me. Well, that and them constantly beating the shit out of me,” Jason began. “I remember following the scrawny one away from that auxiliary spaceport we identified. He took me right to Corenntal himself, which surprised me … apparently these guys are as amateurish as we were told.

“
Anyway, they milled around the warehouse district right outside the port before a bunch of freight haulers pulled up and looked like they were getting ready to stage up near one of the landing pads. I went to get a closer look and I was hit with some sort of stunner. When I woke up, I was chained to that chair and the festivities began.”

“
Amateur or not, they still captured you with relative ease,” Twingo said as he leaned back. “We’ve got to start being more careful and establish some hard operational rules before one of us gets killed.”

“
A week ago I would have laughed in your face,” Jason said as he laid back on the pillow. “But I have to admit, you may have a point.”

“
I’m glad to hear you say that,” Twingo said. “I was thinking—”

The soft snores from Jason indicated an end to the conversation. Twingo smiled slightly, tremendously relieved that the
captain was on the mend. He left quietly to go inform the others that Jason had woken up and appeared to have suffered no permanent damage to his brain.

*****

Another full day after he had come back around, Doc cleared Jason to leave the infirmary. He was unbelievably stiff at first and the unusually high concentration of medical nanobots in his body was causing some interesting side-effects, but it was good to be up and about. The first thing he did was tackle the climb up the stairs to get to the command deck so he could sit in the pilot’s seat of the
Phoenix
again and re-establish that bond, running his hands over the controls. It was a very human thing to do, and for once the others didn’t laugh at his expense. He saw that they were still a little over five days away from their destination and that the ship was purring along at peak efficiency. He was impressed that Twingo had managed not only to sit constantly by his side in the infirmary, but had also kept the engines tuned during the long flight. He’d never actually tell him that, of course.

“
So how’s our guest?” Jason said to no one in particular.

“
Still breathing, thanks to these guys,” Crusher rumbled, folding his arms over his massive chest. Seeing the warning signs, Jason held up a hand to cut him off.

“
I know you have some words for me,” he said quickly. “But can it wait until I’ve recovered a bit more? Or maybe we can just skip it altogether?”

“
It can wait,” Crusher said ominously. Jason shuddered inwardly before turning to the others.

“
So how did you guys end up finding me?”

“
They had put you in a shielded location that blanked out your tracker’s signal,” Kage said from where he lounged in the copilot’s seat. “But they didn’t know that your neural implant tries to keep tabs on the ship, even if it needs to access outside networks to do it. I was able to track your query signature through the public band and see which node you were pinging first. It was intermittent since it only happened when they opened the hangar door, but it gave us a general location.”

“
After that we circled the area with the ship until we found that hidden facility. Turns out it was a staging point for a lot of the arms they were running, so we waited until nightfall and picked a logical breaching point,” Doc finished.

“
Yeah, that was a lucky shot,” Jason said. “Any closer and it would have been a body recovery and not a rescue. Thanks for that, by the way. It was an interesting experience being on the other end of it.”

“
Don’t mention it,” Kage said distractedly.

“
Well, it seems you have things well in hand up here,” Jason said as he climbed stiffly out of his seat. “I’m going to go enjoy some solid food.”

*****

It was some time later, during the nightshift, when Jason walked through the dim corridor and out into the cargo bay. He walked silently down the steps from the mezzanine to the cargo bay deck and looked over at the large, modular prison cell that was secured to the deck. Padding up to it, he gazed in through the hardened, transparent alloy barrier.

“
I know you’re there,” Corenntal bubbled without opening his eyes. “You may be silent, but your stench can reach even through this box.”

“
Nice to see confinement hasn’t noticeably improved your personality,” Jason said. “Consistency is a virtue, even when it means you’re an asshole to the very end.”

“
Did you come here to gloat?” Corenntal asked as he seemed to ooze off the shelf that served as a bed before his limbs regained rigidity and he stood upright. His species’ unique system of support necessitated the specialized holding cell. It was a bizarre combination of segmented bone sections coupled with bladders he could fill or evacuate that would allow him to squeeze out between the widely spaced bars that were in the
Phoenix’s
brig.

Corenntal stood and his eyes seemed to extend up slightly on their stalks so he could look down on Jason. The human knew this was meant to be a sign of contempt and intimidate him, but the thick shielding negated that effect.

“That would imply I have some sort of emotional connection to your capture. Don’t flatter yourself … I could care less who you are. We were paid to snatch you and that’s that. It does help me sleep better to know that you’re an arms-smuggling sack of slime that deserves what’s coming to him,” Jason said calmly.

“
Oh, but I think you do,” Corenntal chortled, a singularly disgusting sound. “We both know it was just dumb luck your crew arrived when they did, and we also know that you were very close to dying at our hands.” There was another bout of wet noises that Jason couldn’t identify before the grotesque being continued. “Imagine my surprise when you weren’t a ConFed agent, but just some bottom-feeding bounty hunter. I don’t know exactly who is paying for my delivery, but you better hope I don’t find my way out of wherever they stick me. I’m still most unhappy about the animal on your crew killing my brother.”

“
You know … with all of the head trauma from our time together, you’d probably better just tell him yourself. It’s not likely I’ll remember and I’m sure he’d be fascinated by your point of view,” Jason said as he pushed himself off the transparent shield where he’d been leaning. “Be sure to use those exact words. Crusher prides himself on being completely reasonable when slimy pus-sacks make melodramatic threats and insults. Anyway … enjoy the rest of the flight.” Jason walked off and headed for the stairs without looking back. He wasn’t sure why he had come down to look in on his prisoner, but he had to admit Corenntal may have been more right than he’d realized. The capture and subsequent torture session had rattled his nerves pretty badly and it was just dumb luck that the crew had found him at all, much less in time. He shook his head to clear those unhelpful thoughts as he reached the crew hatch and made his way back to his quarters.

He sat on his rack, staring off into space for a moment before slipping his boots off and lying down.
“Computer, dim the lights and set a wake up for five hours from now,” Jason said. “Oh … and drop the ambient temperature of the cargo bay fifteen degrees.” With a humorless half-smile, he drifted off to sleep.

*****

Crusher was walking through the common area on his way to the galley when he heard loud cheering coming from the lounge. He looked over and saw Jason sitting alone with a cooler of beer watching some sort of contest between brightly colored opponents wearing some sort of armor. He drifted over and stood in front of the couch Jason lounged on and watched for a moment in silence.

“
What is this?” he asked finally.

“
It’s a sport from Earth,” Jason answered. “It’s called football. I’m catching up on the season so far.” Crusher stared at the screen for a moment as a tight end came underneath on a crossing route and was demolished by a free safety just before he could secure the ball. At the horrendous impact, a huge cheer went up from the crowd and Crusher sat instantly on the couch, his eyes never leaving the screen. Without a word he reached over to Jason’s cooler and plucked a cold bottle, thumbing off the cap.

“
Help yourself,” Jason said sourly.

“
Thank you,” Crusher said absently. “Who are the combatants?”

“
That’s not really the right term,” Jason corrected, “but this is the Jacksonville Jaguars against the Denver Broncos. Each team has an offense and a defense. The offense is trying to get the ball into the opposing end zone, the defense is trying to stop them. You’ll pick up the rest as it goes along.”

“
I take it Jacksonville and Denver are the locations from which these units are based?” Crusher asked as he leaned back. The shifting of the couch caused Jason to wince as his still-healing ribs were jostled.

“
Think teams and sport, not units and combat,” Jason corrected.

“
What’s the difference?”

“
No intentional bloodshed.”

“
Ah,” Crusher said as the game continued. They watched in silence for most of the third quarter before they were interrupted.

“
What’s this?” Twingo asked as he walked up from Engineering.

“
Football,” Crusher answered for Jason. “Currently the Broncos of Denver are about to defeat the Jaguars of Jacksonville. It’s good, grab a beer and sit for a while.” Twingo came around the couch, grabbed one of Jason’s dwindling supply of beers, and flopped down on the other side of Jason with gusto. The sudden movement elicited a sharp grunt from the injured human that the others ignored.

It wasn
’t long before the cheering, both from the display and the non-human spectators, caught the attention of others.

“
What’s this?” Kage asked as he grabbed the last beer and hopped backwards into the large, padded chair off to the side. He didn’t get an answer as Denver’s quarterback threw a long bomb into the end zone for a sixty-four yard touchdown strike. Crusher cheered loudly while Twingo slapped Jason’s chest good-naturedly during his own celebration of the game’s end. Jason doubled over in agony and missed the point-after kick while he was bent over. He did, however, get a good view of his now-empty beer cooler. Sighing in resignation, he painfully hoisted himself off the couch and slowly made his way back to the quarters. He could hear them selecting the next game in the series and yelling at Lucky to bring them more beer as his door slid closed and he lay down flat on his rack.