Homeworld (Odyssey One) (34 page)

There was a big military theory that basically read that it was better to fight the enemy on their turf than to do it at home. Mostly it was bullshit theory used to excuse wars against people who literally
couldn’t
get their ass across a sizeable puddle, let alone an ocean, but this was one of the real world cases in which the theory was sound.

You didn’t ever want to fight a battle of parity, or worse, a war, against superior foes anywhere near your home turf. You were going to tear shit all to hell even if you won, and if you started losing you had nowhere to fall back.

You can ask the Germans or the Japanese about that, I suppose.

Unfortunately, you didn’t always get to pick your fights, and that meant that sometimes the enemy got to pick the battlefield.

“Bring our squadrons in from the cold,” Carrow ordered. “I want them refueled and our pilots rested as best as possible before the next ships show up. They’re not going to be as friendly as the Block.”

“Aye, sir. Issuing orders for recall now.”

The Vorpal Class strike fighters were the latest pieces of hardware to come out of the Northropp Grumman factories, faster and more heavily armed than the previous top-level fighter and almost as responsive in deep space. The Angels platform they were replacing, which also served the Archangel squadrons albeit with substantial modifications, were fundamentally air superiority systems. They just didn’t have the pure space maneuverability of the Vorpals, nor the top end allowed by the new-generation CM technology.

He somewhat wished that he had a flight deck full of NICS-equipped Vorpals and pilots to man them, however.

If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets.

“Do we have anything new from Command on the likely entry point of the pursuing ships?” he asked, walking across the bridge to his comms man.

“No, sir,” Lieutenant Sam Berenger said with a shake of his head. “We haven’t even detected them yet.”

“They’re hanging back then, waiting,” Carrow said grimly. “Looking to see what we’ll do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, too bad for them, we don’t even know what we’re going to do,” Carrow said dryly, shaking his head as he walked away from the station.

IMPERIAL DESTROYER
DEMIGOD

“SO, THIS IS the system,” Ivanth said as he looked at the readings coming from the star to which they’d tracked the unknown ship back.

For the most part they were relying on passive gravity lens imaging, so the scenes they were seeing were several lights old, but that wouldn’t matter much for strategic purposes. It was clearly a developed system, with signs of inhabitation on at least two planets and four moons, plus signals from what appeared to be an asteroid belt as well as a cometary cloud well outside the system proper.

Mining facilities, most likely. Fairly heavy industry, but antiquated as best we can tell. No significant system defenses are apparent, and I don’t see anything that looks remotely like a credible shipyard.

It was an annoyance.

This could be the system he was looking for, or it could be an outlier of a larger empire. Without any sign of major shipyards, he was almost tempted to write it off as a minor colony world, but he
knew
that there had to be a major shipyard present at the Priminae world of Ranquil and yet none of his forces had been able to find it.

It was one of many reasons they hadn’t moved en masse against that system, as the Imperial priorities included the capture of Priminae shipyard facilities intact if possible. It was particularly difficult to manage that when you couldn’t even find the blasted thing.

Still, this isn’t a Priminae system. That is certain,
Ivanth grimaced as he looked over the ever increasing data pile they were accumulating from the star system.
No Priminae system would have chowdered their primary world to such a degree. I’ve seen Imperial worlds cleaner than the third planet, and few dirtier.

Whoever was running the system certainly didn’t believe in the Priminae philosophy of minimal impact, not on their system and certainly not on their planet. The spectral analysis of the world’s atmosphere showed clearly dangerous levels of several heat-trapping gasses, enough to send the world into a tail spin of overheating if it weren’t for what he believed were orbital reflectors cutting back on radiated energy reaching the surface.

In many ways it almost looked like home.

Granted, a backward and backwater version of home, but such was the way of things he supposed.

“Commander! We have something new!”

Ivanth shook himself from his distraction and looked back to the screen. “What is it?”

“Ship arriving in system.”

“A ship?” Ivanth scowled. “It can’t be our target. They won’t be showing up on a gravity lens for quite some time yet.”

“No. Configuration analyzed and sent to your screens, Commander.”

Ivanth stepped back and walked over to his command station, eyes falling on the screens for about a second before widening in shock.

“It’s
them
,” he hissed, recognizing the configuration of the new ship instantly.

Awkward, ungainly. Ugly even, by Imperial standards. But instantly recognizable. The unknown ship from the Hive, and the same ship that had been wreaking havoc on their drones for quite some time now in the Ranquil system.

“Package and send to the Hive,” he ordered quietly. “All data concerning this system, particularly the arrival of that ship. We need specific orders.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Ivanth licked his lips lightly as he took a seat at the station, one hand reaching out to manipulate the image on the screen. He twisted it around, getting a close look at the ship every Imperial vessel in the galactic arm had clear orders to locate and destroy, if possible.

So, we may well have been tracking the right bird all along, then?

He knew better than to underestimate the unknown ship. It had already torn through many times its weight of metal in drone ships and even outfought and outran several Imperial destroyers.

That said, he had more than enough drones remaining that the ship should prove to be little more than fodder if he could trap it against a world it had to defend.

The big question, of course, remained.

Do you have to defend this little world? I suppose that is what we must find out.

“Which is our weakest drone squadron?”

“The ninth, Commander. They’re down to two-thirds operating power.”

Ivanth nodded. “Four drone ships, then. Full compliments?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“That’ll do. Send them in, slowly. I want them in place to move when we hear back from the Hive.”

“As you order.”

N.A.C.S.
ENTERPRISE

CARROW CHECKED THE clock one last time before turning the shift over to the second watch. The
Enterprise
had drawn back into the system and was now trailing Neptune as the planet orbited the sun. The problem with space was that even in a relatively small area with a single star’s sphere of influence, you had one hell of a lot of area to cover.