Odyssey One 5: Warrior King (2 page)

The Priminae were, in so many ways, a truly bizarre people. They had access to technology that made Earth’s tech base look decidedly
quaint
, yet seemed to have very little understanding of the potential within their systems. Once human coders got ahold of Priminae computers, well, the systems really started to purr.

Of course, they had to learn Priminae code first, which meant that even now there were odd bugs in the ship’s core. But most of those were getting hammered out.

The end results, though, were breathtaking. Especially for a NICS pilot like himself. The
Odysseus
computer had the bandwidth to actually overwhelm the human nervous system, something his fighter computer couldn’t have done in a thousand years. That meant that when he plugged into the
Odysseus
, Steph practically
became
the ship. The experience was heady, almost addictive.

That worried him sometimes, but he figured that as long as he was concerned about it, then he was probably in a decent mental space.

Steph hung a left, passing through the giant open blast doors that separated the
Odysseus
’ large open gym from the rest of the ship, and paused to see who was in residence at the moment. He recognized a few of the faces instantly but had to think about many more.

The
Odysseus
wasn’t quite as lucky as the
Odyssey
, taking into account a certain definition of luck. Since the official commissioning of the ship into the Confederation ranks, there had been a large influx of new faces. Certainly none of them were hopeless, but they weren’t the cream of the crop that the
Odyssey
had enjoyed.

Too many Marines for that, for one.
Steph smirked to himself at the thought.

He and his ofttimes mentor, Eric, had a long-standing exchange on that subject. Being a former Marine himself, Eric wasn’t amused with the jarhead and leatherneck jokes Steph was likely to toss his way with regularity. Steph hadn’t actually been a member of any particular military branch, having fallen between the cracks as things got desperate during the latter half of the Block War. The war had reached a point at which the hastily-tossed-together Confederation between the United States, Canada, and Mexico really didn’t care about what uniform you wore, or even if you wore one, as long as you were willing to step up for the cause.

When the war ended, as a member of the Archangels, Steph had actually managed to avoid any official enlistment in any of the various military branches, because none of them wanted to let another claim the Archangel squadron.

And now here I am, wearing a Black Navy uniform. How the mighty have fallen.
Steph’s lips twitched at that thought.

The Black Navy uniforms were nice enough, dress whites for special occasions and space black with gold and silver trim for the rest. No hats, thank the gods. Steph had followed those proposals intently and seriously considered sending death threats to the morons who wanted them to have caps, hats, berets, or some other apparel idiocy.

We live and work in sealed habitats. Why the hell would we ever wear a hat?

He pulled off his black tunic and tossed it over a bench near a press machine. For once, some level of sanity had won out in the bureaucratic nightmare that was the chain of command. Hopefully, that would be an ongoing trend.

He doubted it though.

“Stephan?”

The light contralto voice and distinctive accent mangling his name brought Steph out of his reverie as he settled into the exercise machine. The source was approaching from over his left shoulder, but he didn’t need to look around to recognize her.

“Milla,” Steph said warmly as he gripped the padded arms of the press and started pushing. “Didn’t know you were in here today.”

“Regulations,” she said as she came around in front of him, smiling slightly. “We did not have so many in the Colonies Navy.”

Steph nodded, trying not to pay too much attention to the thin sheen of sweat that was making Milla’s workout clothes cling to her as she moved. The Priminae
ithan
, or lieutenant, was an almost elfin-looking young lady, not much more than five feet tall, yet she’d been through a lot and come out the other side in good enough shape that he wouldn’t care to underestimate her.

“Welcome to the Navy,” he said a little sourly as he began a set of butterfly presses. “Travel the universe, meet new and interesting people—”

“And kill them, yes?” Milla asked, her expression a funny mix of amusement and distaste. “I have heard that joke now. Do Terrans really find such things funny?”

“Not as such,” Steph said. “It’s more dark humor than something you’re supposed to laugh at. A commentary on the nature of things, for most people.”

“Only most?”

“Some laugh; some even think it’s honestly hilarious,” Steph said, “but most of those are people who’ve lived it, and they . . . they’re laughing at themselves, I find. The captain used to find it hilarious, but he was a Marine. Marines all need their heads checked. If they’d been put together right in the first place, they’d have joined the Navy or the Air Force.”

Milla eyed him quizzically, recognizing that he was at least partially joking, but uncertain where exactly the humor in that statement was located. She sighed, and Stephen could see the cultural conflicts playing across her face. The Priminae were a very strange people, he reflected again. Even those who most fit in with Terran thinking were cemented so deeply in a countering cultural identity that they just didn’t get Earth communication very well.

With those who were farther from the Terran mind-set, it was almost impossible to communicate at all, even when you had all the translation algorithms backing you up. You’d use the same words but never have a hope in hell of divining the meaning, and vice versa.

Just too alien.

Or maybe that was an exaggeration, Steph supposed. He’d only tried communication with a few Priminae, and the conversation had really dead-ended just a few words in. Still, none of those he had spoken to were part of their Navy.

He realized that sometimes he just got strange feelings when speaking with his alien counterparts.

Milla finally resolved whatever internal confusion she was dealing with (probably by electing to ignore it, Stephen decided) and cast a glance out of the gym. “Do you suppose we will have a mission assigned soon?”

Steph tilted his head uncertainly as he worked out. “Don’t know, probably. The Heroics are good system defense, but they’d be more useful out there tracking down the remaining Drasin and whoever set them on us. I understand that there’s a new class of ship coming online now too: the Rogues.”

“Yes, I have seen their specifications,” Milla said, crinkling her nose. “Small ships, smaller even than the
Odyssey
.”

“Yeah, but with better reactors and built to fight,” Steph said. “I like these floating cities we’re on here, Milla, don’t get me wrong . . . but you can’t hide one of them from a blind man. Remember the
Odyssey
. There’s power in stealth.”

Milla nodded. “Truth. Still, they seem so small.”

Steph couldn’t help but agree. The Rogue Class destroyers would be better served as escorts than as the scout status they were likely to be relegated to. Unfortunately, for the moment there just weren’t enough hulls or people to go around, and personnel were doing more jobs than they should and not always the jobs they were best at.

“Anyway, the captain will be back on board today,” Steph said. “I checked the schedule. That means we’re either set for more tests, or we’ve got a mission.”

“I rather hope we have a mission,” Milla admitted.

“Don’t say that too loud,” Steph muttered and chuckled. “Something will hear you.”

She rolled her eyes. “What could possibly hear us? We are in space, Stephan.”

►►►

► The
Odysseus
had a heart.

Buried deep below the ceramic white armor that plated the outside, under the twisting composites that framed the hull, the heart of the ship didn’t beat so much as hum with an intense power. The spherical core that held the heart was lined with elements that didn’t occur naturally outside a high-gravity star, and even there only miniscule amounts existed.

The heart floated in the center of the chamber, always, never deviating by even a nanometer. A hundred meters across, the core was impressive in its own right, but looks can be very deceiving.

It was a very big heart.

Bigger than the physical presence it held, bigger than the ship that held it. At rest, the core massed 1.35 planetary masses, Earth standard.

Fueling the core was easy. Just dump whatever you wanted into the singularity. It wasn’t picky. Rock was fine; stellar mass was more efficient, but really anything at all would do. The core would swallow up pretty much anything one cared to toss in: it was the ultimate trash compactor.

Kept just on the edge of stability, the singularity converted mass into radiation. The humans called it Hawking radiation, while the Priminae word was effectively unpronounceable by humans. But in the final analysis, the core simply consisted of high-intensity radiation.

Power aplenty to run a warship or a significantly populous planet through whatever it may have to do. That energy was raw by design, bearing no particular pattern or frequency, to increase the efficiency of the power-accumulation system.

The designers would have been shocked—and possibly disturbed—to find that was no longer
entirely
 true.

Deep in the heart, so very deep in the heart of the
Odysseus
, a flower bloomed.

CHAPTER 2

AEV
Odysseus
, Earth Orbit

► “Captain on deck!”

“As you were,” Eric said as he shifted uncomfortably in his new uniform, not having yet had the opportunity to break it in. “Ship status?”

The bridge still felt odd to him, despite his having been on it a dozen or more times since the invasion. He paused by the captain’s station, let his hand drop to rest on the controls arrayed around the seat, and again noted that he rather missed the more enclosed space of the
Odyssey
. Eric felt like everything before the invasion was perhaps colored by a rosy tint, and he was now having a hard time fully trusting his judgment.

“All systems nominal, Captain,” a tall blonde woman said, turning in his direction. “We’re green across the board.”

“Thank you, Commander Heath.”

Miram Heath was his new executive officer, or XO, replacing Jason Roberts, who had been given command of the
Bellerophon
. Miram was almost six feet tall with Nordic looks, and she was a little stiffer than he’d prefer, though Roberts hadn’t exactly been a smooth operator himself.

“Stand by the board for new course,” Eric said.

“Aye Captain. Standing by the board,” the helm duty officer replied from her position.

Miram approached Eric. “Do we have new orders, Captain?”

“We do,” Eric confirmed, standing at his station and dropping an NFC, or near field communications, chip onto the surface, where it instantly connected to the ship’s computer. The smooth black material lit up, showing the contents of the chip. A flick of his fingers sent the appropriate file to the helm.

“Course received. Stage one ascent to the heliopause, stage two jump to Priminae space, stage three descent to Ranquil, stage four . . .” Lieutenant Kinder frowned. “Classified and locked out. Sir?”

“I’ll unlock those once we clear the heliopause, Lieutenant,” Eric said. “Enter the open courses.”

“Aye sir, courses accepted. All lanes report clear, and we have authorization from Unity.”

“Then take us out of orbit. Port speed.”

“Aye Captain. Thrusters to three-quarters . . . and we are moving,” she said. “Current altitude, forty miles above sea level and climbing. Escape velocity from Earth orbit in three minutes, Captain.”

“Very good. Lieutenant, have Commander Michaels report to the bridge, and let me know when we’re clear to engage wave drive.”

“Aye Captain.”

Eric looked back to where Miram was waiting. “We’re to report to the Priminae. Just a standard meet and greet—make them feel good about us being in the area.”

“And the classified portions?”

“You’ll find out shortly, Commander,” Eric assured her before smiling. “Don’t worry, I think you’ll like it.”

►►►

► Steph was still arranging his uniform tunic as he crossed the threshold and stepped onto the bridge. The
Odysseus
didn’t vibrate like the
Odyssey
had. The
Odysseus
’ powerful wave drive had the effect of accelerating every atom within its area of influence in precisely the same direction at precisely the same moment, unlike the old chemical propellants used by the
Odyssey
. Even so, there was a very slight sense of motion that Steph
swore
he could feel.

The engineers had told him over and over that there was no way he could feel anything, as the drive system simply didn’t have any movement to feel in the classic sense. Acceleration happened in unison, with every object, every particle on the ship moving toward the forward gravity sink as one. Steph had shut the engineers up after winning enough drinks in various wagers on the subject to kill a platoon of Marines. The second they put power to the system, he knew it from wherever he was on the ship. No one had yet figured out how, not that he cared all that much.

So Steph knew as he stepped onto the bridge that the
Odysseus
was in motion. He didn’t even glance at the captain’s station, but instead headed straight for the helm.

“Commander,” Lieutenant Kinder said as she stepped back from the secondary controls.

“I have the helm, Lieutenant,” he said as he took her place.

“You have the helm, aye.”

Steph stood at his station at the secondary controls, forgoing the padded and bolstered seat that housed the primaries, because it was highly unlikely that he’d need to do any precision maneuvering and he was fine standing for the moment. The course was laid in and executing by the numbers, leaving Steph with little to do but run the normal checks he always made when he took over and then scan the log to see just where they were going.

Ranquil. No surprise there.

He figured the visit was a bit overdue, though he doubted anyone on the Priminae capital planet was complaining much. Given the shake-up following the apparent end of the Drasin threat, they were probably at least as distracted as Earth’s governments were, and with arguably greater reason.

While Ranquil itself hadn’t been significantly touched by the Drasin, despite coming under assault at least twice, the planet was the command and control hub for over a dozen colony worlds, several of which had been entirely destroyed during the early thrust of the war. As far as he was aware, no one from Earth had a lot of contact with the civilian side of things in the Priminae worlds, but if they were anything even remotely like Earth governments . . . well, things were likely a mess there at the moment and probably would remain so for some time.

“Good check, Lieutenant,” he said aloud, nodding to where she was waiting. “Dismissed.”

“Aye sir.”

Steph half turned, glancing back to where the captain was standing, talking quietly with the new XO. He hadn’t interacted much with Miram since she’d come on board, but the scuttlebutt was that she was a bit of a hard-ass. He didn’t want to know how she could be any more of one than Roberts had been. The former Army ranger hadn’t
quite
had OCD, but Roberts had taken attention to detail to levels Steph had matched only while checking his Archangel.

Eric caught his eye, so Steph lifted his chin in response before turning back to his job. He’d check in with his friend later, when they both had some time.

►►►

IBC (Imperial Battle Cruiser)
Piar Cohn
, Imperial Space

► Captain Aymes looked over the dark metal burnish that glinted from the floors of his command and nodded, satisfied.

The
Piar Cohn
was ready for service, and Aymes already had mission orders direct from Imperial Command.

Nothing could be better.

“Helm, you may bring us clear of the docks.”

“Permission received, engines powering, Captain,” the helmsman confirmed firmly. “Locks clear. Breaking clear of dock controls.”

The big ship didn’t rumble. Any vibration down to those on the nanoscale would be absorbed by the core of the
Cohn
, but Aymes felt a distant sense of movement just the same. Not everyone could, but he was one of the few who tested high enough to have a real spatial sense of movement even aboard one of the larger ships of the Imperial Fleet.

Out beyond the armored metal of the
Cohn
’s hull, the massive structure of the docks appeared to move away as the ship’s engines began the laboriously slow task of launching into near space.

A few minutes later, the helmsman confirmed their launch. “Docks cleared, my captain.”

“Very good. You have permission to begin ascent from the stellar well. Course to follow,” Aymes said, tapping a few commands into the computer control to unlock his orders and send the course over to the navigation and helm sector.

“Permission received,” the helmsman said before glancing down. “Courses received. Permission to power main drive?”

“Denied. Remain on secondaries until we clear planetary space.”

Honestly, Aymes would have liked to have skipped the long, never-ending climb out of the control of the local world, but they were in the Imperial Dockyards, not some backward planet under Imperial
management
. Aymes did not want some pampered prince gunning for his head because the gravity drives dislodged a relay responsible for the socialite’s favorite entertainment.

“Denied, yes, Captain. ETA to the open space . . . thirty tenth cycles.”

“Very well. Go to main drives as soon as we clear planetary space.”

“Permission received, only when clear of planetary space. Yes Captain.”

“First,” Aymes said, “you have temporary command.”

►►►

► Aymes made his way to his private office and quarters, sealed the rooms against intrusions short of emergencies from the command deck, and took a seat behind the desk that dominated the first room. His orders were straightforward enough. The
Cohn
was being dispatched as a combat scout into territory the Empire was considering for expansion.

The mission’s qualifiers made the situation both confusing and more than a little disturbing. According to his orders, the area had recently repelled Imperial forays intended to pacify the region, but Aymes couldn’t remember the fleet losing any ships in the recent past. Certainly not to fighting of any significant length. Now such data were rarely released to the citizenry of the Empire, of course, but generally the fleet got a heads-up somehow—even if just through rumor.

There wasn’t even a hint that the Empire had been involved in fighting recently, to say nothing of having been
repelled
.

Aymes had to look up the last time the Empire had been beaten back from a region it had marked for expansion. That particular incident had occurred almost three centennials prior and involved the loss of eighty-nine heavy cruisers and over two hundred destroyers along with various support vessels.

He didn’t know what was going on along this particular spiral arm of the galaxy, but it was quite clear that he wasn’t being told everything.

Not that he should expect anything else, of course.

Aymes and his fellows served at the pleasure of the Imperial family and, ultimately, the empress herself. If they decreed that the information he be given be censored, it was certainly not for him to object.

Best run the crew through a few drills on the way though. They’re all the best at what they do, but a little practice will save them from sucking vacuum.

►►►

AEV
Odysseus
, Sol Space, Passing the Former Orbit of Mars

► “Number-three gun to port,” Eric ordered. “Fifteen degrees up, load for effect.”

“Loaded for effect, fifteen degrees up, aye.”

Eric accessed the ship-wide intercom. “All hands, all hands . . . we are currently passing the orbit of Mars. I’m asking for a moment of silence and respect for what we lost here, and what we nearly lost on Earth. The
Odysseus
will fire a single salute as we pass. If you have prayers to say for the lost, now would be the time.”

He keyed off the ship-wide and gestured to where Milla Chans was standing at her tactical station post. “You may fire as we pass, Lieutenant.”

“Aye Capitaine,” she said in her quiet voice. “Firing one in twenty seconds.”

The command deck of the big ship was quiet as they passed the orbit of the former red planet, now a crumbling mass of Drasin soldier drones, most crushed by the sheer weight of their fellows. In a few million years, the Sol System would have a second asteroid belt, but for the foreseeable future, Eric supposed, Earth and its inhabitants would have to make do with a monument to the dangers of the universe and the evils that could come from the deep black.

“Salvo away,” Milla reported as the number-three gun fired.

The tachyon transition cannon was the
Odysseus
’ main weapon, a nuclear device capable of dispatching high megaton and gigaton explosives to any target within several light-minutes instantaneously. On the screen, just over the uneven curve that still marked the red planet’s horizon, the small explosive detonated.