Homeworld (Odyssey One) (74 page)

“Waters, make the long guns ready.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Long guns, readying.”

“Get me the
Enterprise
.”

Captain Carrow of the
Enterprise
was not in what one might charitably call a good mood. He’d just received command of his new ship and what happens, literally within a few weeks?

Arma-freaking-geddon.

Now he was in a running battle with a force that, individually, was no match for anything he had in his command. The problem was that they had goddamn
thousands
of
everything
.
When there were more of the enemy than you had bullets, you knew that you were in a bad,
bad
place.

“Weston for you, sir. Command channel.”

Carrow strode over to the command station and linked in. “Carrow.”

He listened briefly, nodding. “Understood. Yes. Got it. Carrow out.”

“New course!”

“New course, aye.”

“Bring us about to niner-five-niner-mark-three.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Coming about to new heading, niner-five-niner-mark-three.”

“Stand by the long guns!”

“Long guns standing by!”

Carrow looked out over his command staff and wondered for a moment why they were bothering at all?

No humans would cheerfully take the kind of losses that had been inflicted for
no
significant return and keep coming as if nothing had happened. There wasn’t anything living in
existence
that would do that, not that he was aware of until just now. Whatever these things, these Drasin, were, they were so far from human that Carrow knew for certain that he had no chance of ever understanding what drove them.

He didn’t want to understand it.

Carrow just wanted them all
dead
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Space Station Liberty

“WELL, THAT’S IT then,” Admiral Gracen said, feeling an unnatural calm wash over her. “Here they come.”

It was clear that the
Odyssey
and the
Enterprise
would not be able to delay the inevitable any longer. The enemy had decided to stop playing cat and mouse and just open up the tiger cages. She wasn’t surprised. The only thing that she didn’t understand was why it took them so long.

“What’s the latest status on the defense grid?” she asked, walking across the war room to the automated defense control section.

“A new delivery of weaponized microsats was just put into place,” the technician answered. “We’re expecting the next delivery in twenty hours.”

“There won’t be another one,” Gracen said. “I want full diagnostics done on every weapon, bird, camera, ship, station, computer, and
person
within the umbrella of my command. I want them done
now,
and I don’t want to hear any crap about it from anyone.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She swept around, heading back to the scanner control stations. “ETA on the enemy fleet?”

“First wave, ma’am?” the ensign sitting there asked almost sarcastically, her voice sickened. “Eight hours, not one second more.”

“Tachyon pulse!
Odyssey
is the locus!” a call went out, attracting her attention.

She was walking over when a second pulse hit, this one tracking back to the
Enterprise
.

“Carrow and Weston just triangulated the precise position, speed, and trajectory of everything in this system bigger than a car,” she growled. “Use that data. Hammer them with the last of our one-meter shells.”

“Aye, ma’am, acquiring solutions for the one-meter cannons.”

“Fire at your discretion,” Gracen snarled, turning her back on the screen and walking out of the room.

“Mr. President.”

“Admiral, what’s the situation?”

Gracen looked at the screen, sitting heavily down in her own office chair, and sighed. “Worst case, sir.”

“I see,” the president of the Confederacy said, just as heavily in his place as she was in hers. “I’m authorizing an immediate shift to Defcon One.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Admiral, when they arrive in orbit….” President Merryweather hesitated.

“I know, sir. I’ll handle it.”

“Thank you for your service, Admiral.”

“It has been an honor, Mr. President,” Gracen said, reaching forward.

President Merryweather nodded at her as she turned off the display and cut the channel. Gracen sat in darkness and silence for a time, marveling at how calm she felt. The end of everything that ever mattered to her was upon them, the ultimate extinction level event, and she really didn’t feel much inside.

Finally she stood up and walked out into the outer office. “Madison?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Signal the evacuation, please,” she ordered. “All non-essential staff, civilians, you know the drill. I want a skeleton crew, not one man more.”

The secretary nodded, swallowing. “Yes, ma’am.”

Gracen made her way to the door, then paused. “Madison?”

“Ma’am?”

“Make it understood, volunteers only.”

Madison nodded firmly. “Yes, ma’am.”

In the distance, through metal and insulation, they heard the deep whine of the station’s capacitors as they were discharged into the weapons systems.

The tachyon cannons were firing.

PRIMINAE WARSHIP
POSDAN

“CAPTAIN, WE ARE detecting a series of trans-light pulses. They are a match for the Terran’s new weapon system.”