Soldiers of Fortune Read online

  When he arrived on-scene, he had found his surveillance team stunned and one injured quite badly by a blow to the head. The muddy tire tracks leading to the property from the west, and leaving as well, left little doubt as to which way the guilty party had fled. A quick check had verified what he had feared; the Vongaard family was missing.

  "Slow down... what's that?" Caalum asked the agent driving the vehicle. Ahead of them, illuminated by the vehicle's running lights, was an unrecognizable heap in the road.

  "Looks like our missing assault team, sir," the driver said quietly, eyes scanning all around his field of view. When they pulled closer Caalum could clearly make out the van, sitting on its side and showing no signs of activity.

  "Stop here. Squad two, move forward and look it over." At Agent Caalum's command, the troops in the trailing vehicle disembarked and moved forward slowly, weapons ready, to investigate the wreckage. It didn't take long to get an answer.

  "Sir, it's assault team Alpha. It looks like they've got some injuries and are trapped inside, but no fatalities. They're telling me they were in pursuit of another CIS surveillance vehicle that had been fleeing the scene." The report came in over the com as squad two began to help the injured in the disabled vehicle.

  "Why didn't they call this in?" Caalum snapped irritably. A fake CIS vehicle? This was starting to reek of a professional job, which usually came with professional soldiers. He would have to proceed much more cautiously.

  "They said the vehicle's com repeater was knocked out and the hand-held units didn't have the range to reach dispatch."

  Agent Caalum signaled his driver forward, leaving the second vehicle behind. The tracks from their quarry had faded away, so they were just proceeding along in the hopes they could intercept the vehicle. There were no side streets off of this stretch of road, but Caalum didn't want his vehicle to end up like that of Team Alpha's, so he ordered it slow and steady so they didn't rush headlong into a trap.

  It was another couple of kilometers when he ordered a stop again. Something had caught his eye, but he couldn't readily identify it. The team sat in silence for a few more seconds before he ordered everyone out of the vehicle, "Spread out and search both sides of the road. Something doesn't look right, keep an eye out for anything that may have been discarded or anything else that looks out of the ordinary."

  After a few minutes of searching, Caalum found what he was looking for: tracks that clearly led off of the road and into the woods. The overgrown path had been trampled down recently by something large passing through and led steeply down into a low-lying set of fields that were completely obscured by fog. He knew this must have been where they went, but he hesitated.

  "Are we continuing pursuit, sir?" Caalum looked over to the young agent that had asked the question. He didn't want to appear to be a coward in front of his subordinates, but he really didn't want to walk down that path into whatever may be lying in wait either. At least not with only a four man fire-team. Before he could open his mouth to speak, the quiet of the night was shattered by a deep, violent rumbling that he could feel in his chest and seemed to shake the very ground.

  "Look!"

  He directed his gaze to where one of his men was pointing and froze; rising slowly out of the fog was a ship, a warship by the looks of it. The mist slid off its hull, clinging to the wings and fuselage as it rose up on its repulsors. It must have been sitting in the valley, hidden in the fog. Senior Agent Caalum was convinced this was the end for him, there was no way he and his men could withstand an assault from such a craft. But he'd be damned if he went out without a fight. "Listen up! Form up in a skirmish line, single file! Fire at will!" To their credit, his men let out an enthusiastic war cry and engaged the hovering ship with their small infantry-style weapons.

  * * * * *

  "We're being engaged by small arms fire, Captain," Kage said as Jason was getting his bearings and setting up his nav waypoints.

  "What the fuck?" he asked, looking up as energy bolts splashed harmlessly against the ablative coating of the hull. He had to admire their courage, however misguided. "Put the shields up and jam their com transmissions. We're out of here," he said as he grabbed the throttle. He had absolutely no intention of firing on a group of law enforcement officers who only thought they were doing their jobs. However, he wasn't above scaring the living hell out of them. Smiling, he slammed the throttle forward, eliciting an explosive roar from the main engines. The Phoenix eagerly lunged ahead towards the street and the still-firing CIS agents. Jason dipped the nose towards them and brought the gunship roaring over their heads before climbing away into the night. Fortunately, the mains were still in low-output mode with the exhaust nozzles choked down, so the ringing in their ears would fade in a few hours. Instead of never.

  The Phoenix ghosted over the trees, her captain intent on making it back to the river and out to the Western Sea. The original plan was to try and sneak up and under the next scheduled freighter that would be trying to make orbit and ride out with it, but that plan had been dependent on them not being detected. Now things were in a state of flux. Eh... I didn't think that plan would actually work anyway.

  "Recall the twins, they can't do anymore out there and I don't want to leave them behind if we have to shoot our way out of here," he said quietly to Kage. He was trying to exude confidence for the sake of his passengers, but inside he had grave misgivings about their chances on making it out of the system. The picket ships were powerful, plentiful, and itching for a chance like this. We may have bitten off more than we can chew on this one...

  "The twins are inbound," Kage said. "Slip-reactor is prepped and the emitters are ready for emergency charge. Our range might be limited depending on how quickly you try to engage the slip-drive."

  "Understood." Jason weighed his options carefully, trying to push ahead with their original exfiltration plan would require them to fly dangerously close to Corran City and its extensive sensor network. It would also mean flying in blind since their own sensors would pinpoint their location instantly. Trying to simply fly up out of the atmosphere on a random vector also would end badly; the planet was still heavily contested and low orbit positively seethed with powerful military vessels. Jason believed one of the tenants of being a good leader was knowing when he didn't have the answer, so he asked, "I don't like our planned exfil. Options?"

  "I've been working on that, Captain," Doc spoke up from one of the sensor stations. He had been monitoring the passive sensors and intercepting com traffic. "Corran's EM field is particularly strong and, like most planets, destabilizes near the poles. We could fly up through the charged particle influx and it may mask us long enough to get clear and mesh out of the system." Jason looked at him skeptically, he was certain there would be a picket ship sitting in polar orbit just waiting for them.

  "I concur, Captain," Twingo's voice came over the intercom. As per Omega Force's standard operating procedure during a mission, everyone was on an open com channel. "It's not perfect, but it's better than trying to hang around Corran City until a ship heads back up to orbit. For all we know the spaceport is on lockdown after we were reported."

  "Plot me a course that avoids major population centers," Jason said, not dithering between options while the clock was ticking down. "We're going to have to climb up out of the ground clutter; we can't fly terrain-following all the way to the pole. Keep monitoring com traffic and let me know if we've been detected."

  "Of course," Kage said, his four nimble hands flying over his controls. Jason pulled the nose up and began to swing around onto a northerly course. He was in a gentle climb that would take them up to the beginnings of Corran's stratosphere, allowing them to push up to supersonic speeds without leaving such a large sonic footprint as they crossed over the continent. Thankfully, the northern regions were sparsely populated; Corran's axis tilt ensured the winters there were especially brutal. "The twins are on final approach, lowering the shields to let them in," Kage told Jason without looking up fro
m his console. The two intelligent probes zipped in close to the Phoenix and then eased down onto their respective landing hooks. Once they were pulled back inside and the hatches were closed Kage reactivated the dorsal shielding. Like the engines, the shield emitters were operating in a low-power mode to keep the chances of detection to a minimum without leaving them completely vulnerable.

  "We're climbing up through flight level zero-three-zero, everyone stay sharp," Jason said. Zero-three-zero represented their altitude, in this case thirty-thousand feet. As an American expatriate, Jason frequently shifted between metric and English units of measure naturally, but for his crew (especially Twingo), who were relying on their translations being accurate, this idiosyncrasy drove them almost insane. Kage looked over at him in annoyance, but said nothing. The ship was now flying at the altitude most commercial flights would be found at, but due to her size and configuration, Jason didn't hold out much hope of the Phoenix fooling even the most inattentive sensor operator. They were still quite a distance from the pole when their luck ran out.

  "Contact! Two destroyer class ships transferring to a lower orbit and moving to shadow us. We can assume they'll be launching fighters when they're within range." Doc's voice was calm and measured, but the Vongaard family looked fearfully between him and Jason.

  "So much for sneaking out of here," Jason said tightly, flipping the engine mode to full output. "Let's hit it!" As soon as his engine indicators greened up he slammed the throttle against the stops. The Phoenix roared as her main engines came to full power and millions of pounds of thrust blasted them through the Corranian atmosphere. He intended to see just how good the picket ships really were. The DL7 was designed especially for this scenario: outrun much larger and more powerful ships within a planet’s atmosphere or low orbit. He glanced down at his indicators to make sure there were no issues with cooling to the engines or hull temperature on the leading edges, all were well within norms, so he kept the hammer down and let the Phoenix race to hypersonic velocities as she tore a hole through the clear northern sky. Despite the imminent danger, the chance to let his powerful ship off her leash sent an electric thrill up Jason's spine.

  "Weapons and shields coming up," Kage said without being prompted.

  "Reactor output is coming up to one-hundred percent, grav-emitters are in emergency charge mode; we'll have limited slip-drive in two minutes," Twingo said over the intercom.

  "Very good," Jason said. "Senator Vongaard, would you and your family please activate your seat restraints, the ride might not stay so smooth." He watched the civilians scramble to get the seat harnesses activated and took some small pleasure in the abject terror on the face of the oldest daughter. Not quite so sullen now, are you?

  "The heat signatures on the destroyers are spiking. They're pushing their engines hard to try and keep up," Doc said from the sensor station. "We also have a cruiser descending into the upper atmosphere over the pole. I think they realize what we're trying to do."

  "Can we slip between them and stay out of weapons range of both formations? There's no point in trying to sneak up the polar axis at this point," Jason said as he pulled the power back on the engines to maintain their current speed.

  "If we can get to orbit within the next forty-five seconds we'll clear both groups before they can maneuver back up out of their current orbits. There are ships still patrolling in high-synchronous orbit, though, and they're moving to cover us as well."

  "Shit. Hold on!" Jason pulled the stick smoothly back and stood the Phoenix on her tail. The ship clawed up out of the atmosphere in a vertical climb that would put them right in the middle of the waiting hornets' nest above in mere seconds. "Kage, plot a jump directly away from Corran, seven light seconds."

  "Plotting... It's going to be close, Captain. We've just barely got enough charge in the emitters to pull it off. If they use an interdiction field we're screwed," Kage said as he set up their short slip-space hop.

  "I'll chance it," Jason said as the sky blackened around them. He saw a green pop-up indicator on his main display letting him know that the jump was programmed and ready, all he had to do was engage the drive. He waited a few more seconds as the Phoenix shot up between the two groups of ships that had descended to pin them down and aimed for the smaller gap in the ships that were waiting above them. The instant they were at the extreme outer range for most interdiction field generators, Jason smacked the "engage" button that was blinking on his right. There was a high-pitched whine, the canopy darkened, and then a split second later they were sitting in open space. "Report!"

  "Jump successful," Kage said. "We're seven light seconds away from Corran."

  "Go dark," Jason said. "Shut down all potential emission sources. Plot me a course into the interior asteroid belt, five second burn on the main engines. Twingo: after the engine burn I'm killing the mains, I need the slip-drive to full power as fast as you can manage it."

  "You got it, Captain," Twingo's disembodied voice came across the bridge. "It'll be a bit; that short hop almost discharged the emitter coils completely."

  "Understood, just do your best," Jason answered. He swung the ship onto the indicated course that Kage had provided and nudged the engines up to fifty percent power for five seconds before chopping the throttle and then shutting the engines down altogether. He was hoping the heat bloom from the short burn wouldn't be detected. Now they were just an inert piece of space junk floating towards the closer of the two asteroid belts in the Corran System. With any luck, the ships involved in the blockade would think their slip-space jump was completely out of the system and not come ranging out looking for them. It was a gamble, but once in open space the advantage would have shifted to the larger warships as the smaller Phoenix would have been hard pressed to keep their big guns at bay.

  "Captain?" The shaky voice had emanated from the forward part of the bridge.

  "Yes, Senator?"

  "Would it be possible for me to take my family and sit down someplace comfortable? They've been through a lot and it seems everything up here is well in hand," Senator Vongaard asked respectfully, seeming overwhelmed by the events of the previous few hours.

  "Of course. Doc?"

  "Sir, if you'd please follow me I'll show you and your family to our galley and lounge area. It isn't much, but you can get something to drink and sit in a comfortable chair," Doc said as he rose from his seat, indicating towards the bridge exit with a flourish. The four Corranians filed out and Doc turned to follow, giving Jason a sideways smile as he did. Jason smiled as well; it was a rush to cheat certain death yet again. The crew is really coming together.

  He got up out of the pilot's seat and made his way over to the sensor station Doc had only recently vacated to scan the surrounding space. While the passive sensors weren't great, it was better than nothing at all.

  "I'm going to get something to eat," Crusher announced and stood to leave the bridge.

  "Put your toys away first," Jason said, referring to the weaponry still hanging from various locations on the hulking warrior. Crusher gave him an unfriendly glare before clomping off the bridge towards the armory.

  "You love pushing his buttons," Kage said, shaking his head with a smile.

  "It's good for him," Jason replied. "With other people on board he'll eat in the armory anyway. He's still a little self-conscious about that." Crusher's diet tended to be rather bland; a simple lean protein and some sort of fiber or leafy green vegetable, often the same thing every day for weeks on end. But the shape of his blunted muzzle, coupled with his oversized teeth, made for some interesting noises and the occasional food projectile. He had grown comfortable around the rest of Omega Force, but when others were on board he either ate in his room or in the armory. While it was mildly amusing to see such a ferocious person be shy about something as mundane as eating, it also reminded him that the big guy was actually fairly sensitive under that terrifying exterior. "So... what do we think?"

  "About the mission?" Kage asked.

&n
bsp; "Yep."

  "It went pretty well once we were on the ground. We seem to have gotten away clean. Well... so far at least," the smaller alien said. "Lucky?"

  "It could have gone better, in my opinion," the battlesynth said, still standing by the bridge entrance.

  "Care to elaborate?" Jason asked.

  "It was unnecessarily complicated. The ruse with the CIS vehicle and you dressing as an agent... we could have simply snuck through the forest, infiltrated through the back wall, and been out before the Senator was noticed missing," Lucky said. The longer he spent around his friends, the more comfortable he was offering an opinion the others may not like. It was something that Jason encouraged at every opportunity.

  "Fair enough..." Jason began.

  "We didn't know the back would be unguarded," Kage interrupted. The van had been his idea so he felt compelled to defend it. "Our intel stated there were regular patrols of the property and surrounding area."

  "True," Lucky conceded, "but as Captain Burke is fond of saying: 'No plan survives first contact.' We should have sent the twins to scout the area first and then adjusted our strategy accordingly. The confrontation with the CIS agents at the house led to our detection and pursuit."