Omega Force 3: The Enemy Within (7 page)

“
You know what? I’ve changed my mind,” he said pleasantly. “My friends and I would like to rent a unit for the night; we’re quite tired.”

“
Captain, it’s just a machine … you don’t have to converse with it,” Crusher said in exasperation. “No offense,” he offered quickly to Lucky.

“
None taken. I have nothing in common with this automated hindrance,” Lucky answered.

“
Very good, sirs,” the machine said, ignoring the insults being tossed its way. “If you’ll verify your identity and payment, I will program your pass card.”

“
Do you take ConFed credits?”

“
There is an additional twenty percent upcharge for—”

“
That’s fine, just run it,” Jason said, holding out his credit chit that was attached to one of his false identifications. “We’d like to be on the seventh floor if possible.” It was another five minutes before the bot produced a flat, narrow card that held the key code to their room as well passage into the building itself. Crusher snatched it out of the bot’s hand, none too gently, and stalked around the counter towards the locked security door that looked like it had seen more than a few blaster bolts and projectiles shot into it.

Once in the passageway beyond
, they moved quickly to the nearest lift and rode it to the seventh floor. When they exited the lift, the stench that hit them almost bowled Jason over, and even Crusher scrunched up his muzzle in disgust. The corridor was lined with clutter, a few aliens in various states of intoxication, and a few open doors with loud, obnoxious music pumping out of them. After looking at each other in apprehension, they walked down the hallway towards unit seven twenty-seven. They were challenged at each open door by local toughs, but apparently their heart wasn’t in it as nobody actually came out to confront them.

—
knock knock—

Jason gave the door a couple of soft taps and waited. He could feel more than hear someone standing at the door
, so he backed up where he could be seen in the small closed-circuit camera pointing down from the top of the frame. After the rattle of locks, the door opened a crack and then swung open to reveal a dark room.

“
Enter, quickly,” a harsh voice whispered. With some trepidation, Jason led his team into the dark room and spun as the door slammed shut. The lights came up and Kellea Colleren, looking like she’d been through each of the nine circles of Hell, stood looking back at them with slightly wild eyes. She launched herself across the room and grabbed Jason in a fierce embrace. “You came for me,” she almost sobbed before her rigid self-control reimposed itself.

She straightened and nodded to Crusher and Lucky.
“Gentlemen,” she said, her voice still scratchy-sounding.

“
Captain,” Crusher nodded respectfully. “Where is Commander Bostco?”

“
I don’t know,” she admitted. “We were separated during the escape and have been unable to meet up. Honestly, it’s probably safer that we’re not together.”

“
We’ll get a full debrief from you later,” Jason said. “But right now I think we need to get back to the
Phoenix
as fast as we can.” She nodded and moved to the door, stopping to grab a rough-hewn shawl that she draped over herself like a poncho. The garment had a hood as well that she pulled far over her head to hide her face.

“
Let’s go,” Crusher said and opened the door to leave. The formed up around Kellea and marched back down the hall towards the lift they had come up on. Inevitably the egress couldn’t be as easy as the ingress.

“
Hey! I was talking to you earlier!” a burly, squat alien came out of one of the open rooms ahead. He had a thick, powerful torso that indicated he probably came from a heavy-gravity world and was probably used to being able to bully whomever he wanted.

“
What was it you wanted to say?” Crusher asked pleasantly even as he stepped in and delivered an open-palm strike to the alien’s chest that sent him flying backwards into the door frame. His head cracked hard against the metal of the frame and he slumped forward with his head rolling to the side. A group of shrill voices then began screeching in multiple languages as some malnourished and barely clothed females began hovering over the unconscious alien.

“
I suppose now we will never know what he wanted,” Lucky said. Jason chuckled as he keyed open the lift and held the door for his companions to enter. During the ride down in the lurching car, Jason’s nerves began to tingle. This was the most exciting part, but also the most dangerous. Now that Kellea was with them, a wanted fugitive the ConFed was actively hunting, they would be in a world of trouble if they got caught. This was what he lived for.

They slowly opened the door leading to the lobby of the seedy lodge and looked in. The service bot didn
’t bother to turn around to look at them as that wasn’t in its programming. But other than that, everything looked clear. Lucky led the way out followed by Jason, then Kellea and Crusher bringing up the rear. Kellea pulled her hood a little tighter around her head as they made for the main exit.

Out on the street things looked the same as they had when they entered, but the feel wasn
’t right. There was a tension in the air that had the three trained fighters on edge. Even Lucky was moving his head around trying to pinpoint his uneasy feeling. Then Jason noticed something that wasn’t the same.

“
Get back inside!” he hissed as he turned Kellea and pushed her towards the entrance. To their credit the other two members of his crew spun immediately and moved to the doorway as well.

“
I saw it too,” Crusher said. “Our hyper-vigilant bum is missing.” Jason just nodded as they made their way into the building.

“
It may be nothing, but it’s probably something,” he said as the brushed by the bot in the middle of its sales pitch and crashed through the security door. They rode the lift back up to the seventh floor and hustled out, bearing right to head towards the room that Jason had rented and in the opposite direction of the chaos they had created earlier. Thankfully the room was on the street side of the building.

“
Shit!” Jason exclaimed as he looked down onto the street. His instincts proved correct as a team of six armed ConFed troops, plus their missing drifter, converged on the entrance of the Sky View Lodge. “We need to get to Kellea’s room. Now.” They moved at a near run down the hallway towards the opposite end of the building. Apparently Crusher’s random act of violence had cowed the other tenants into keeping their doors shut and their heads down.

“
What’s going on?” Kellea asked calmly as they entered her room. She hadn’t seen the street view nor was she aware of the too-clean vagrant on the street.

“
We passed someone on the street that looked like the typical homeless junkie you see in places like this, but he was far too clean, healthy, and alert. He’s also now leading a six-man fire team into the building,” Jason said.

“
We can’t just hide here,” Crusher said. “The bot will give them our room number, and when we’re not there they’ll go door-to-door until someone tells them we came down here.”

“
Agreed,” Jason said, looking around the room. “We’re not armed for shit and we’re outmanned. Time for Plan B.”

“
Run away?” Lucky asked.

“
Run away,” Jason confirmed. He went to look out the window and saw they were four levels above another roof that looked like it belonged to the service section of the building. An identical tower to the one they were in butted up against that. “The drop to the next roof is only four stories. Can you make that jump?”

“
Not a chance,” Kellea said with a laugh. “I don’t have all the exotic upgrades that you do. The fall would kill me, or at least render me immobile.”

“
Lucky?”

“
I can carry Captain Colleren safely to the level below,” the battlesynth confirmed.

“
Uh …” Kellea hesitated.

“
Trust me, Captain,” Lucky said. “No harm will come to you.” Crusher looked out the window himself.

“
Oh this is going to hurt,” he said. He began to paw around the window coverings to see how the pane opened so they could make their escape.

“
Allow me,” Lucky said. He moved to the window and, using one of his lasers on low-output, cut two handholds into the thick synthetic sheet. Jason and Crusher moved forward to grab the pane by those cutouts as Lucky then began to cut the window out of the frame. As he completed his circuit the other two pulled the window loose with a pop and laid it quietly on the bed.

“
Clever,” Kellea said admiringly. “I half-expected you to just jump through it.”

“
Nah,” Crusher said with a wink as he took his place in the now-open window. “Too noisy.”

“
Everyone … doors open and out into the hallway! This is a ConFed Police Action!”
The amplified voice boomed up and down the hallway and guests could be heard coming out and grumbling.

“
Time’s up,” Crusher said and he hopped out. A split second later a heavy thud was heard from below.

“
You OK?” Jason whispered, knowing that Crusher could hear him even forty-seven feet up with his incredible hearing. The big warrior just gave a thumbs up and moved off to give Jason some room. “Here goes nothing,” the human said, butterflies in his stomach. He crouched into the window frame and then hopped out hard enough to give himself some forward momentum. He concentrated on keeping his knees bent and his body loose as the air streamed by. The second it took to traverse the distance felt like minutes before his boots impacted the rough surface of the roof.

He tightened his quadriceps to absorb the impact and rolled forward and to his right, coming up on his feet on the other side. Crusher caught him as he fell forward. He could feel his right ankle throbbing where it had hit first, but nothing appeared to be broken or seriously injured otherwise. He looked up to the window even as he could feel his medical nanobots going to work on the strained tendons.
They weren’t as efficient as the type Doc injected into him in the med bay, but for emergencies they did the trick.

He could see Kellea clinging to Lucky as the battlesynth hurled himself out of the window with incredible force. Jason held his breath as they plummeted towards the roof before Lucky fired the repulsors in his feet to slow them to a gentle touchdown that was barely a bump.

“I forgot he could do that,” Kellea said as she tried to slow her breathing. They all looked up as the sounds of hammering could clearly be heard through the missing window.

“
This way,” Jason said and took off at a run, ignoring the pain in his ankle. He led his team, and rescued captain, to the edge of the roof where there appeared to be a maintenance ladder.

Peering over the side
, he could see it was more of a fire-escape-style of stairs than an actual ladder. This was fortunate since it was another three levels to the street. The four of them wasted no time slipping over the edge and rushing down the steps. When they were twelve feet off the ground they had to pull a pin and a ladder slid down to clang loudly on the alley below.

“
We’re in between the buildings now,” Crusher said. “What do you want to do?”

“
Lucky,” Jason said, moving to a door that led into the building next door to the Sky View Lodge. “Force this open as quietly as you can without destroying the door. They’ll know we went out the window so it won’t be long before they figure out which way we fled.” Lucky walked up and anchored his feet, then pushed on the door opposite the hinge side. With a screech of metal and a final snap, the door swung open to slam against the wall. They all rushed in and then eased the door shut. Luck was with them and it fit back in its frame and stayed in place.

Looking around
, Jason realized they were in the rear area of a custom clothing store. Automated machines and bolts of different material littered the floor as well as racks of finished garments that looked like they’d fit a variety of species. Thankfully the shop didn’t run a night shift and the place was deserted.

“
We probably set some alarms off by breaking in,” Jason said. “Let’s get moving. We’ll take the back exit and try to make it a few blocks over. Let’s hope they haven’t had time to start putting up checkpoints.” He pawed through the racks on their way to the door to see if there might be anything to disguise some of their group, but none of it was an appropriate size and all of it was so garishly colored it would likely draw more attention than it would be worth.

The rear of the building had a wide alley that led directly out to one of the main roads. Splitting up into pairs
, Lucky and Kellea fell in behind Jason and Crusher so they weren’t so bunched up and obvious. As they walked out onto the street, a side street from the road the hotel was on, Jason could see more ConFed troops milling about and searching the area. They turned right and began walking away from the scene, feigning disinterest as some of the other residents of Kachamar City began to emerge and gawk at the spectacle.