Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 26
"Agreed," Fendra said. They quickly moved out of the small room and moved forward again.
Jason waved her into the lead as she was the person with the most familiarity with that class of ship. She had them take a narrow corridor off the main passageway they'd been following until they came to a security access point that was powered up and locked.
"I'd hoped this hatch would be unlocked," she said. "It leads up to the Auxiliary Tactical Control Center that's just below the main bridge. If the terminals there are powered up, we should be able to see everything they can on the bridge without risking a direct confrontation."
"What's this secondary center for?" Jason asked as Lucky nudged past him and looked at the access panel on the bulkhead.
"This ship is designed to either operate alone or as the anchor point for a larger taskforce. When it's in a formation, the secondary tactical center would be used to relay commands out to the other ships."
"I believe I can defeat this lock without alerting the bridge," Lucky said and placed his right palm over the biometric reader. Jason watched with fascination as the appendage seemed to change shape, color, and even its texture as it became the hand of another being. It was a few seconds later when there was a soft double-beep, and the hatch lock released with a metallic clang.
"I didn't know you could do that," Jason said.
"It is one of the more fascinating features of the Mk.2 body," Lucky said. "We are fortunate the technician whose hand I mimicked was put on the access list for this hatch."
"I had heard your outfit operates on dumb luck rather than careful planning and skill most of the time," Fendra said.
"We like to stick with what works," Jason said.
They moved quickly up to the auxiliary tactical center, passing a few other alcoves that looked like they were specialized com suites along the way. Their luck held out and not only was the center empty, but most of the terminals were powered up and operational. They split up and began scrolling through the different functions, looking for anything out of place that might indicate what the ConFed had planned.
"One of the ships in this fleet is operating under full power," Lucky said. "Its engines are cold so it is still difficult to detect, but the power signatures are unmistakable this close."
"What ship?" Jason asked, moving over to see.
"It is the other Luex-class battleship," Lucky said. "There is a discernible thermal plume from the main exhaust ports."
“So, reactors are up, but no engines," Jason said. "Why would they need main power available if they're not underway and with a skeleton crew?"
"Managing a formation this big is still going to be labor intensive, even with most of the ships in a deep storage mode," Fendra said. "Since they're not in orbit over a planet or moon, they'll tend to drift apart and will need have their positions maintained. Rather than fire them up to use the directional thrusters, they may be just running a fleet of tenders out of the second Luex."
"Maybe," Jason said, unconvinced. "It looks like we landed on the wrong damn ship. How much time before the Phoenix comes back around and we need to be on the sled and moving away?"
"We have another forty-seven hours," Lucky said. "I do have a proposal that would allow us to explore the second ship in that time."
"No," Jason said. "I already know what you're going to say and I'm not agreeing to this."
"What?" Fendra asked, confused.
"He's going to suggest he goes over alone," Jason said. "He can get there and back much quicker than we can because he can accelerate at rates that would kill us."
"That makes sense," Fendra said. "What's the problem."
"This isn't a debate, and you don't get a vote," Jason said. "My answer is no. We'll get the information we need here."
"Very well," Lucky said and turned back to the terminal. "Using the credential stored on the technician’s device, I have accessed this ship's logs."
"And?"
"There are entries that the ship makes automatically that are helpful here," Lucky said. "I have a complete crew manifest as well as detailed entries as to when they were removed from the ship. In addition to modifying the com systems, the technicians aboard have been updating the software in all the ship-to-ship missiles in the launchers and magazines. There has also been an extensive software update of the flight control and navigation systems."
"This makes less and less sense the more we dig into it," Jason said. "Okay, download all the logs and we'll let Kage dig into them once we're back aboard the Phoenix."
They worked in silence for a time, each digging into the unsecured terminals to see if anything jumped out as strange. So far, all it looked like was that the ConFed had gone through a lot of trouble to recover an enemy fleet intact and was now in the process of upgrading all the systems. The most plausible answer Jason could come up with was that the ConFed fleet wasn't as powerful and vast as they'd all been led to believe, and they intended to absorb these ships into their own command once all the updates had been completed. The only thing that punched holes in that was it didn't make a lot of sense to park them in interstellar space, shut them down, and then have a skeleton crew running around with tablets doing all the work.
He shook his head to clear out the extraneous garbage flitting around in his mind and concentrated on what he was looking at on the monitor. The station he was at handled internal security, and he was scanning through the different views of all the cameras still active aboard the ship to see if he could get an idea of who else was there with them. When he got