Omega Force 7: Redemption by Joshua Dalzelle

isn't from there."
    "Ah," Jason said, falling silent for a moment. "So I have another question ... and this is going to sound bad, so I'd like it answered with no judgments and minimal insults mixed in."
    "This should be good," Doc said to nobody in particular.
    "Um ... what species is Twingo, exactly?" Jason asked, bracing for what he knew was coming. Lucky and Doc both wasted no time berating him.
    "Are you serious? You don't know what species your best friend is?"
    "You do not actually know?"
    "See, that's why I didn't want to ask," Jason retorted with some heat. "I knew it would get blown out of proportion and then you'd all pile on. He was the first biological alien I'd met and by the time I thought about asking what his species was called we'd already been working together for a couple of years."
    "He's a daemimm," Doc said. "You could have just asked the computer aboard the Phoenix . It had his complete medical history including species."
    "Well, that seemed like an invasion of his privacy," Jason said lamely.
    "Wait! Do you even know what species I am?" Doc asked. Jason just looked at him helplessly, refusing to answer. "Unbelievable!" Doc got out of his seat and stalked off the bridge.
    "Lucky?" Jason asked once Doc had left.
    "Doc is a nubhu," Lucky said. Just as Jason was about to raise his voice to call back into the ship, Doc cut him off.
    "Don't even bother," he said loudly from the galley. "I heard the whole thing."
    "Are you always such a ... spirited ... group?" Kalette asked.
    "It has been a while since we have seen each other," Lucky said as if that explained everything.
    ****
    "So there it is, huh? Woakx," Jason said as the ship slipped into orbit over the average-looking planet. "Are you able to access the local com network from here?"
    "I am attempting to do so now," Lucky said.
    "I'll hang out in orbit for a bit until you know for sure," Jason said. "I don't want to land on the wrong side of the planet by accident."
    It was another two hours of sitting in high orbit over Woakx Prime when the com panel chirped and Lucky pulled up the incoming message.
    "Twingo has provided landing coordinates for a small spaceport outside of the settlement he lives in that will accommodate the ship," he said. "He will meet us on the landing pad."
    "Alright!" Jason said, excited to see his friend. "Let's get our deorbit clearance and get on down there."
    Woakx Orbital Control promptly granted their clearance and gave them a direct flight path down to the city that Twingo had indicated. When they had first started operating the small cargo ship Jason had been amazed at how quickly they always seemed to get landing permits until Twingo explained that most worlds were always reluctant to let heavily armed gunships like the Phoenix land where they pleased.
    The ride down through the atmosphere was smooth and Jason could see that the planet wasn't heavily industrialized or over-settled, which indicated that it was a colonized world and not one with an indigenous space-faring species. He banked gently to take them down over one of the southern continents and put them in a shallow dive that would put them at just twenty-five hundred meters altitude when they reached the city's outer limits.
    "Cycle the landing gear," he said to Lucky as he turned onto their final approach and fully engaged the repulsors. "Go ahead and secure the engines and the slip-drive from flight mode; I'll bring us the rest of the way in on thrusters."
    "Shutting down engines and slip-drive now," Lucky confirmed. "Landing gear deployed and locked."
    Jason lined them up over the indicated landing pad and began reducing power to the repulsors, allowing the unwieldy cargo ship to settle closer to the ground until they felt a few jolts as the landing gear impacted the ground. He pulled the power back the rest of the way and the ship groaned and creaked as its weight was transferred from the repulsors to the landing gear struts.
    "Secure all the primary flight