Homeworld (Odyssey One) (52 page)

Only in the most extreme cases, then, would a captain of a space-warping ship ever give the order to use all available power to the drives.

The
Demigod
went from a standstill to just over light-speed in the blink of an eye, then was forced to reverse just as quickly as it reached its destination. The Doppler shift of light at those
extreme accelerations was too much for even their advanced systems to handle, so for almost a second the ship was truly flying blind.

Deaf, however, they were not.

The emergency band was screaming, the
Immortal
’s transmitter pouring enough energy into it to completely blanket any attempt to send modulated signals to query the ship. They weren’t answering or even transmitting on any other frequencies. That left the scratching whine the only sound on the bridge for almost a second while everyone held their breath and waited to see what was going to come.

At first, as the screens cleared, nothing seemed to be wrong. Ivanth glared openly, eyes on the display as he felt himself growing angry, both at himself and the captain of the
Immortal
for the waste of time. It was then, however, that he spotted movement on the hull of the Imperial destroyer and felt a cold chill wash through him.

“Magnify!”

The screen jumped, increasing the size of the ship ahead of them over a hundredfold, and in the resulting silence of the bridge, a single person swore a vile oath that almost had Ivanth snarl a reprimand in reply until he realized he was the one who had spoken.

The hull of the
Immortal
was
crawling
with drone soldiers.

“Wide scan, all active systems!” Ivanth snapped out of his stupor. “Defensive weapons clear to fire! All crew to combat positions!”

The last order was probably superfluous, he admitted to himself, but he issued it anyway. By this time, if there was anyone not at their combat positions, he’d eat his uniform. The seriousness of the situation went far beyond a few drone soldiers assaulting a ship of the Empire. The way the alien things
were constructed, it was patently impossible for a few of them to go rogue.

The way one leaned, so leaned all of them.

When they went rogue on us in the unknown species system, something must have happened here as well.

He wasn’t surprised by that. What shocked him to the core was that it was a long way from attacking a targeted species without orders to actually assaulting an Imperial vessel.

“Commander! We’re surrounded!”

Ivanth’s mind blanked for a moment, a surge of irrational terror running through him, then his training took over.

“To my displays!”

The data flickered over to his screens and he glanced over it as quickly as he could manage, trying not to swallow his tongue or something equally humiliating and fatal. They were indeed surrounded, but it appeared that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. There were literally thousands of soldier drones floating about in the area, but they were not capable of warping space time or maneuvering in space.

We must have crushed dozens while decelerating into the area; otherwise they’d be on us as well.

“Pin point bursts, take out the drones on the
Immortal
!” he ordered. “Keep tracking everything around us, full active scans! I don’t care who sees us. I want to see
everything
.”

“Yes, commander!”

Pinpoint laser bursts began frying individual drone soldiers off the hull of the
Immortal
while the
Demigod
continued to track everything moving around their position. There were no signs of any drone ships, but that made little sense to Ivanth, and he couldn’t quite buy into what he was seeing.

There were thousands of combat capable ships, and literally millions of replicators. They can’t all be gone. Where would they go?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Liberty Station, Earth Orbit

CAPTAIN KIAN OF the
Posdan
paused when her comm tingled the skin just behind her ear. She took a step away from the group of Terrans she was with, excusing herself.

“Kian here,” she said into the open channel. “What is it?”

“Signal from Ranquil, Captain,” the voice of her second in command said, deadly serious in tone. “They’ve detected a trans-light signal in transit. Captain, it’s massive.”

Her blood chilled. “What do you mean, massive?”

“For us to match it would take over a thousand ships warping space-time at full strength.”

Kian closed her eyes.

That is massive.

“Toward what planet are they headed?”

“Captain, they’re headed here.”

Kian almost jumped in place, eyes widening. “Is Command sure?”

“Command doesn’t have a clue. I plotted the signals myself. We should detect the first signs of the trans-light effect within a few more hours.”

“I…I see.”

“We need orders, Captain.”

Kian considered for a moment, and then set her jaw. “I’ll contact you shortly. For now, I want the
Posdan
and the
Nept
surveyed from hull to core. Ensure that they are both prepared for action.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The channel closed and she glanced around the room, eyes falling on where Captain Weston was standing with some people she didn’t know. The little “get together” was some sort of Terran tradition, a way for comrades to recognize and learn one another’s habits, it had been explained to her. One nice effect of the gathering was that she didn’t have to ask herself who she should tell. Kian set her expression and crossed the room with a purpose.

Eric saw her coming, his expression going from bored to moderately pleased and then to intense seriousness as he took in her own expression.

“Captain,” he greeted her curtly as she arrived within a few feet of him. “Has something happened?”

Kian’s eyes flickered to the captain’s conversational companion and didn’t recognize the man. She looked questioningly to Weston.

He smiled at her. “Captain Kian, this is Jefferey Wolfe, commodore and commander of our Mars facilities.”

“Commodore,” she said, probably too sharply for courtesy, but she had other concerns for the moment. “Captain, there is a…problem.”

Eric nodded slowly. “Something we lowly captains can handle, or should we be talking higher?”

“Higher, Captain. Most assuredly, higher.”

The Terran captain and commodore exchanged brief glances, communication passing between them that clearly spoke volumes, and then both nodded.

“Right. I’ll get the admiral.” Wolfe bowed slightly. “Eric, why don’t you find us a quiet conference room?”

“Right you are, Commodore,” Eric said simply, putting an arm around Kian as he gently guided her out of the room. “This way, Captain.”

Admiral Gracen needed a place to sit down.

No, actually she needed alcohol. Lots of it.

Enough to give myself a permanent bed time,
she thought as she considered the words of the Priminae Captain.

The extent of the news wasn’t lost on either of her officers, who were currently sharing her state of shock and horror. Thousands of Drasin ships weren’t a nightmare. It was the end.

“We can’t hold off a force like that,” she said aloud, making it official. Words she didn’t want to say, words none of them wanted to hear, but they were out there now, and there was no taking them back.

“But you destroyed so many, so quickly!” Kian protested. “Surely you might be able….”

“We don’t have nearly enough munitions for something like this,” Eric said, his position slumped where he was sitting. “What do we have on hand, Admiral? A couple hundred shells left?”

“A bit more than that,” Gracen admitted. “Maybe three fifty. Might be able to scrounge another few dozen from the factory floors if they haven’t run into any production problems. Say, four hundred shells if we’re lucky.”

“We averaged between two and three shells per ship earlier,” Eric said tiredly. “So, let’s be optimistic and say we can
take out two hundred of them. That leaves, another what? Eighteen hundred left?”

Kian’s face fell, though she barely understood the conversation.
Shells? What do animal carapaces have to do with weaponry?

For all that, however, she got the general meanings. A few hundred Drasin ships, it was a monumental number. Her own people could just barely fight the things on even ground, and these people could destroy hundreds of them…but it wouldn’t be enough. There was something horrifyingly unfair about that, something so very wrong.

She shuddered, but nodded. “The
Posdan
and the
Nept
will take on anyone you wish to have removed from the system, Admiral.”

Gracen shot her a sharp look, but then nodded. “Thank you. I’ll let you know.”

Kian rose to her feet. “I should return to my ship and see to it that everything is in order. We will provide what help we can.”

“Captain Kian,” Gracen spoke up.

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Do not let your ships get pinned down,” Gracen said evenly. “There’s no point dying here for nothing.”

Kian nodded slowly. “It will be as you say, Admiral. Contact me when you can. I will provide what help I may.”

“Thank you.”

After the Priminae captain had left, Gracen turned back to the two others in the room, her expression partway between severe and lost.