Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 40

"We can help with that…hopefully," Jason said. "Fendra ended up being a double agent and tried to shoot me in the back, literally. We got some useful stuff out of her that might be even more useful depending on what you pulled off that ship."

"I will download the data to the Phoenix's main computer so Kage and I can begin the analysis," Lucky said and walked up the steps to the mezzanine that led to the main deck.

"You took that amazingly well," Crusher said. "You drunk?"

"A little," Jason admitted. "But I also realize that if he's going to be a full member of this crew again, I have to give him the freedom to do his job. This is a dangerous job, there's no guarantee I can keep you all safe…although to be fair, in Kage's case, I’m not sure I'd even want to."

It was some hours later and the Phoenix was back in slip-space, streaking towards the Concordian Cluster. Mok was operating out of that area for the next few weeks, checking in on various parts of his own business, and Jason figured it was as good a place as any to begin the next phase of the operations, whatever that might be. While Kage and Lucky pored over the downloads and began matching up data points with what Fendra has supplied them, the others grabbed some much-needed sleep.

"I'll just start off by saying there is no conclusive data that shows what they have planned for the Eshquarian fleet," Kage said. "I don't want any insults or bullshit about getting to the point from anyone."

"That's no way to start a briefing," Crusher said. "It's rude."

"Let's just get started," Jason said, walking in with two large carafes of coffee. They were in the cramped conference room on the main deck, which was still a conference room because nobody could agree on what else to do with it, and the close proximity tended to escalate tensions quickly.

"I'll start off with the weird part first," Kage said, keying up a series of graphics onto the wall monitors. "Oh, damn…hang on. I promised Mok we'd tie him into this through a slip-com channel."

"Great," Jason said, rolling his eyes while Kage made the connection. He refilled his mug and waited while Similan routed the channel request to Mok's opulent office aboard his yacht.

"Thank you for granting my request, gentlemen," he said. "Please proceed and pretend I'm not even here."

"If only," Jason muttered. He was starting to see that Mok did have some admirable qualities, but he was also an insufferable windbag at times. He loved the sound of his own voice almost as much as he loved using it to prove other people wrong. "Go ahead, Kage."

"What was I talking about? Oh, yeah…the weird part first," Kage said. "Mok you getting these graphics through the link?"

"Yes, thank you."

"One of the odd things Lucky discovered during his mission was that tech crews aboard the battleship were uploading software patches into all the ship-to-ship missiles. He was able to download the patches themselves and bring them back so I could look at them. In addition to replacing all the encryption routines, the new software added a whole new command syntax to accompany a series of inhibitor commands. These commands shut down parts of the targeting prioritization system, the data link to other missiles, command and control links to the ship, and the counter-countermeasure suite.

"This didn't make a lot of sense at first…why add all these layers of complication when you could just replace the entire weapon operating system if you were trying to dumb the missile down?"

"What's your theory on this, Kage?" Mok asked. Jason just ground his teeth and took another sip of coffee.

"There's a reason Eshquarian weapons are the standard in this part of the galaxy," Kage said. "Just replacing the operating system with a software upload is impossible. Instead, they had to work within the framework already there to get them to act how they wanted. Essentially, they force the missile into a test mode so that it'll accept the new commands, and then keep it there while another patch allows it to be armed and fired. It's a really clunky way of doing this, but I think they were under the gun on time and had limited resources. Fendra told us that this was an off-the-books mission by a faction with ConFed Intelligence. I'm guessing they didn't have access to the engineers necessary to make the proper modifications."

"Okay, so why are they doing this?" Jason asked.

"Unclear," Kage said. "The best guess I have is that they're going to fire these missiles at a target they would normally reject. They're quite sophisticated, and these idiots have gone through a lot of trouble to bypass all the built-in safeties."

"This makes no sense," Crusher said. "The only reason to do this is to set someone up to take the fall for an attack they didn't commit. But the Eshquarians are already defeated. Even if all those missiles were used in terrorist attacks, they can't point back to a government that no longer exists. At best they could claim they were rogue fleet elements."

"Which could explain why they're taking the ships too," Jason said. "But using them to attack targets within the Protectorate, for example, only works if the orders are coming from Eshquaria. Yeah…I don't get it either."

Stop thinking like a military man. The Machine doesn't. It needs to solidify its own power before too many people begin questioning who actually authorized an attack on a neighboring sovereign power.

Cas's voice in his head was disconcerting among the other conversations. He withdrew from the debate and tried to put the pieces together as Mok, true to his nature, asserted control over the briefing and began ordering Kage to put up different graphics for them to argue over.

Instead of participating, Jason pulled one of the tablets off the table and accessed the Phoenix's database on known active ships and did a