Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 33
"I am fine, thank you again. Please tell them I am on my way."
"I will. If you're feeling up to it later, we're having an eckle tournament in the tech common area this evening."
"Perhaps. But work first…you know how it is."
"Sure do. Hope it's something simple and not another rejection."
The interaction gave him more needed context to begin adjusting his presentation of his subject. Other than experimenting idly while in Mok's engineering lab, this was the first time Lucky had tried to implement his new body's mimic function to actually portray another being. Despite having gotten the coloration slightly wrong—something he adjusted once out of sight—he had to consider his first field trial a success. With a new feeling of confidence, Lucky/Nikain strode down the corridor towards the lifts that would take him to the forward weapons magazine.
10
"Assuming it didn't fall off, we should get a location fix on the sled once it drops out of slip-space," Twingo was explaining.
"Why can't it operate while in slip-space?" Jason asked. "We have trackers that can do that."
"At the time I was hastily assembling that contraption, I put the tracker on as a last-minute addition. I assumed the sled might get abandoned and thought it would be interesting to see where the ship might fly off to, assuming it ever left that spot. It was a hypothetical I didn't think was worth risking one of the few very expensive continuous slip-space trackers for." Jason tried his best to find holes in his friend's logic so he could blame the mess on him, but Twingo was right. It was an unlikely scenario a tracker would even be needed, so why throw away one of the most expensive pieces of tech the carried?
"Yeah, I see your point," he said. "Would've been nice but impossible to plan for. We'll take the location the tracker you did think to on there once it's back in real-space and broadcasting." Twingo seemed taken aback at having won an argument so quickly.
"Uh, yeah…we'll do that."
"We just received word that Mok's ship is two hours out, Captain!" Doc shouted down from the command deck.
"Full stop!" Jason called back. "Let them make the final approach…don't need you banging into the damn hangar walls."
"That was only two times, and I apologized," Doc shouted.
"He actually hit the walls?" Twingo asked.
"Twice back home on S'Tora," Jason said. "He'd get so paranoid about dropping the starboard landing gear off the pad and into the water that he'd cheat to the left and clip the wing on the hangar door."
"And we let him fly as backup pilot why, exactly?"
"Because despite the fact he hits buildings that are carved into mountains that haven't moved in millions of years, his reflexes and situational awareness are still better than yours by a factor of twenty. Now…will the tracker that's on the sled automatically try and ping us when it drops back into real-space?"
"Yes," Twingo said. "It can detect slip-space fields so it'll know it's been moved. Once they mesh-in, it will take a star fix and send us its location."
"That fleet was made up of all the newest capital ships Eshquaria had left," Jason sighed. "They're fast and can stay in slip-space for extended durations. Lucky could be halfway to the Delphine Expanse before we get a location, too late and too far away to do anything about it."
"It's the best we have unless Mok's people can squeeze an answer out of our double agent," Twingo said.
Within a few hours, Mok's ship made the final approach, and then parked close enough to them that the extendable gangway could be deployed to the Phoenix's port airlock. The ship was a sleek, sexy, civilian yacht that, while impressively large, didn't have a hangar big enough for a DL7 heavy gunship. The gleaming hull and designs that glittered brilliantly with blue backlighting contrasted sharply with the Phoenix's matte hull and her most recent battle wounds still visible as scorch marks that peppered the port flank.
"We should buy one of those," Crusher said, standing on the bridge and watching the yacht anchor onto the Phoenix with mooring beams.
"Why bother?" Jason asked. "Anything you assholes live in for more than a week looks and smells like an enclosure at a zoo."
"Yeah, but pleasure yachts come with cleaning crews," Crusher said, not taking the bait.
They went down to the main deck and then back forward, down a shallow flight of stairs, and into the antechamber for the portside airlock. After verifying the identity of the person on the other side of the hatch, Jason powered down the defensive systems and opened the ship up.
"Similan," Jason nodded to Mok's servant, for lack of a more accurate term. "Welcome aboard."
"Thank you, Captain," Similan said, bowing politely. "The prisoner?"
"Chained to a chair in berthing," Jason said. "We had to keep her sedated, too."
"A wise precaution given her level of training. If it is fine with you, I would retrieve her and take her to my master's ship. An extraction chamber has already been prepared."
"I like this guy," Crusher said. "You're such a wuss you call it an interrogation. These guys aren't fucking around…they're doing an extraction."
"Please assist our guest with the prisoner, Crusher," Jason said, rolling his eyes. "I assume Mok is aboard the yacht?"
"He is expecting you," Similan bowed again and walked off towards the rear of the ship with Crusher in tow.
"That's odd," Doc said. "He was almost…nice."
"I've been testing some theories," Jason said. "Similan seems to react to how he's greeted. If you are polite first, he'll reciprocate. If you're rude, same thing. But, this time, I also think there's an underlying layer of embarrassment. Mok and his organization basically vetted Fendra before putting her on our ship where she could have killed everyone but Lucky. Mok doesn't like looking like a fool…she's in for a bad time I think."
"You summoned me, Premier?"
"Admiral Colleran, please come in and sit," Seeladas Dalton didn't rise from her desk, nor even look up when Kellea Colleran