Odyssey One 5: Warrior King (21 page)

The Third Reconnaissance squadron was under power a short time later, warping space and time as they left the scene of the
Piar Cohn
’s defeat. As they cleared the influence of the local star, the ships seemed to twist and stretch briefly before they vanished away into the great black ether.

►►►

Odysseus
Task Force, Kepler 571

► “Nothing.”

Eric grimaced. He was running out of leads that made sense.

Oh, they had an entire database filled with what appeared to be ancient installations, thereby giving him a near endless string of “leads,” but he needed one that made sense with the last known vector of the Imperial ship. He and his crew
needed
to have some concept of what Imperial territory included, but at the moment they had no real ideas at all.

Worse, Kepler 571 didn’t appear to have any sort of precursor facility.
That
was a problem of a very different sort, and one that didn’t bode well for Captain Passer’s mission. If this lead was false, or if someone else had raided the site to the bedrock, so to speak, that might mean the others would be in a similar state.

Which would make Passer’s mission a game of Whac-a-Mole without the decency of actually having a visible target.

Well, that wasn’t his headache for the moment, and for that, at least, Eric thought he should be grateful.

“There should be
some
sign,” Eric said as he pored over the data that was still being funneled to the
Odysseus
from the combined scanners of the entire task force. “The data crystal clearly indicated something was here.”

“Yes sir, but there was no date stamp, so to speak, associated with those files . . . and we know that the heliobeam facility was mobile.”

That
was a point he hadn’t thought too hard about, and it put a new, enormously complex spin on the information they had.

“Alright, so the facilities may or may not be mobile.” Eric considered. “Can we track them?”

“Sir?”

“There were no date stamps, as such, but the system recorded data linearly, I assume? We just grabbed the latest information available and chose to work from that, right? Can we check older data on the crystal?”

“One moment,” Miram said, accessing the data they’d acquired from the
Autolycus
.

She looked up again after a few minutes. “We’ve got something, Captain. Maybe.”

“Don’t sound so certain, Commander,” Eric said dryly.

“Sorry, but we
are
dealing with an ancient data-storage system that we don’t really understand beyond the basic physical methodology. We can read it, yes, but we don’t really know
why
they stored data in the manner they did. It’s like trying to decode a newspaper if you know the language, but aren’t familiar with formatting.”

“I’ll take your word on it, Commander. What do you have?”

“The facility listed as part of this system
did
have a mobile vector,” she said. “I’m putting the telemetry listed on the display, but sir . . . we don’t have the time-stamp data we’d need to plot an actual course.”

Eric nodded thoughtfully, looking at the information.

“Understood, Commander. I don’t think we’ll need it. Steph, stand by to warp space.”

“Aye Skipper, standing by.”

“Not transition, sir?” Miram asked.

“Not this time. Let’s follow this plot and see where it takes us.”

►►►

► Ships warping space and time actually caused a detectable deformation in the very fabric of the universe, using reflected energies to set up and reinforce standing waves in gravity around their hulls. That created an effect similar to surfing a tsunami on an otherwise still ocean, where a ship in question didn’t actually move so much as have the universe move around it.

The metaphor worked only to a certain extent, of course, because of the nature of space and space-time. An ocean, no matter how still, had friction, and although a wave transferred through that medium at speeds very nearly impossible under normal circumstances, a surfer trying to remain in position on the wave had to fight multiple forces, including friction from water and air.

For a wave-riding ship, however, space nicely reduced those variables to a far more manageable level, which was very good because the results of missing your cue while wave riding on a starship were spectacular in ways few humans could comprehend.

So the ships of the
Odysseus
Task Force spread out, avoiding mutual interference with their warps, and sped through space while standing still.

Each of them had limited scanner capability while using a full-powered warp. The nature of the gravity deformation ahead of them actually trapped most spectrums of light and electromagnetic energy in the same manner as a black hole, despite the event not having anywhere near the same amount of gravitational force. Instead, the path of light was distorted as it entered the gravity sink ahead of the ships. Much of it was twisted from its original path and slung outward at another angle, completely missing the ship’s scanners.

While traveling at a rate many times the speed of light, having degraded scanners was a very bad thing.

Space was incalculably large, and mostly empty by human standards, thankfully. Otherwise, space travel would effectively be impossible due to a near 100 percent fatality rate, mostly because running into anything large enough to survive the gravity sink ahead of the ship was a sure way to ruin your day.

►►►

► “We’ve got a contact ahead, Skipper,” Steph spoke up first. “Approaching fast.”

“Got it,” Ensign Sams said from the scanner stations. “Large volume, limited reflectivity. It’s barely showing on scanners. How did you see that?”

“Corner of my eye,” Steph said. “We’re coming up fast, Cap.”

“Drop from warp,” Eric ordered. “Let’s see what we’ve located.”

“Aye aye, sir. Dropping from warp.”

The
Odysseus
dropped first, then the other ships of the squadron appeared around them in a slightly haphazard fashion that Eric took note of.

Haven’t had much need to practice formation flying at high warp,
he noted critically.
Going to have to change that. Our bad guys might like to fight while at warp, and that would be a hassle if we couldn’t match them.

Actually, he was well aware that it would be
far
more than a hassle. Fighting at warp had the potential to be a force majeure capability, at least if the other side didn’t have
some
capacity for the same. Hitting a ship before it could even see you coming, then being gone before you knew you were hit? That was some major bad mojo to be on the wrong side of, Eric decided.

Even if they don’t know how to fight at warp, we still need that capability in our quiver.

“Very little on visible wavelength passives, Captain. Not much on infrared either . . . ,” Sams grumbled.

“Go active,” Eric ordered.

“Sir?” Sams blinked, surprised. SOP on this mission had been to avoid active scanners like they were the Antichrist.

“Minimal risk in this case, Ensign,” Eric said. “I don’t think this is an Imperial installation.”

“Yes sir, apologies,” Sams said. “Active scanner return in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

The installation lit up ahead, quieting the crew. Or, rather, a part of the installation lit up. A
very
small part.

“Whoa,” Steph muttered. “It’s . . . too big to be a planet.”

“Yet too small to be a star . . . system,” Miram said dryly. “Frankly, Captain, I believe that I’m becoming . . . terrified of the galaxy.”

“You’re not alone, Commander.”

The active scanners were still trying to map the surface area of the installation they were looking at, which was already registering over a light-minute across, and their computers were still being flooded with data.

“What the hell does this one do?” Eric wondered aloud.

►►►

IBC
Shion Thon
, Flagship, Third Reconnaissance Squadron, Outer Limits, Priminae System, Por-Que

► The ships of Third Recon slowed from FTL as the gravity of the system primary began to exert enough force to make navigation a little less certain.

“Passive scanners only,” Misrem said, standing as the displays began to light up as their warp drives lessened enough to allow more electromagnetic radiation through. “Look for any sign of Captain Aymes’ troublemakers.”

The system was a relatively small one by Imperial standards, but as previous reconnaissance indicated, there was enough of an industrial framework around the inhabited world. Several other heavily industrialized spots in the system were located around the three asteroid fields and the third gas giant, all of which she assumed were part of the Oathers’ industrial infrastructure.

“One ship in orbit, My Lady Navarch,” her senior scanner tech announced. “Initial analysis indicates a very close match to the contact made by the
Piar Cohn
.”

Misrem smiled, satisfied.

One ship that fit the profile. She’d apparently lucked out. Still, they did have to confirm as best they could the vessel’s identity before any action could be taken.

“Try to match their armor signature against the profile,” she said. “That should give us our answer.”

“Working. However, we’re still quite far out, and the warp fields are lessening the efficiency of our scanners.”

“All stop, squadron wide,” Misrem ordered. “We’ll coast in while we analyze the data.”

“As you command, Navarch. All stop.”

The ships of Third Recon continued forward on momentum as they killed the space warping that was scrambling their scanners. Then, using time and improved scanner quality, they were better able to observe the system and potential target.

►►►

PW (Priminae Warship)
Heral’c
, Por-Que Orbit

► “Captain, we’re detecting an anomalous gravity fluctuation from the outer system.”

Captain Kierna Senthe rose from his station and walked across the command deck of the
Heral’c
. His ship had nearly been destroyed in the war with the Drasin, but it and his crew—most of them—had survived and received extensive refits. Now they were part of the colonial patrols, running through the outer systems that didn’t have enough population to mount a full Heroic Class ship but still needed some significant protection.

“Inbound vessel?” he asked, leaning over the scanner station.

“That is what it appeared to be. Several in fact,” his scanner tech, Ithan Kin Yorava, told him. “However, before we could confirm, the signal vanished.”

That
was
odd, Senthe noted. There were few intermittent gravity sources in the universe, and almost every one of them was a constructed one. The only natural types that might qualify wouldn’t have gotten within a thousand light-years of Priminae space without him knowing about it.

“Secure the
Heral’c
for maneuvering,” he said thoughtfully. “Bring back any of our people on the planet.”

“Yes Captain.”

It was probably nothing, he supposed, maybe a scanner error or a freighter playing games. It did happen from time to time, usually when some intrepid transport captain spotted a comet or bit of space debris with valuable metals or chemical compounds.

He returned to his own station and checked the schedules. The only problem with that idea was that there weren’t any arrivals scheduled, and freighters were on fairly strict run times. One might be late, but it was quite rare that any would be early, and there hadn’t been any arrivals scheduled for several days before or after.

Quietly, just to be certain, Senthe ran the signals against the war database but came up with no match. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief, since his worst nightmare was another encounter with the Breaker-damned Drasin.

“Crew are reporting back, but it’ll take time to get them up from the surface,” his second, Commander Corva, told him, approaching quietly.

“Not a problem,” Senthe told the young man. “We have time.”

“Is it . . . ?”

“No, no match to Drasin profile,” Senthe said with a humorless smile. “I checked.”

“Of course, Captain,” Corva said, trying very much to hide his relief.

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t trouble,” Senthe said, thinking about the
Heral’c
’s last mission before the refit and the end of the Drasin war.

The Terran vessel, the
Odyssey
, had discovered and reported someone else flying with the Drasin. No Priminae ship had seen them, but Priminae vessels had mostly encountered the Drasin within Priminae systems, not far out in unclaimed territory. Senthe remembered the report, and recalled thinking it was ludicrous at the time, but the Terrans had proved worthy of at least some trust. If they were right, there was more to fear out there than the Drasin.

He would therefore treat this situation with some care.

“Adjust our armor, combat settings,” he said. “And stand by to warp space as soon as everyone has returned.”

“Yes Captain.”

If nothing else, since the refit, they were better equipped to deal with threats than ever before.

CHAPTER 20

IBC
Shion Thon
, Flagship, Third Reconnaissance Squadron, Outer System, Por-Que

► “There, Navarch, did you see that change?” Captain Aymes said, highlighting a piece of data that had streamed across the squadron feeds.

Misrem nodded thoughtfully, tilting her head to one side as she examined the intel.

“Most curious,” she admitted. “Did that vessel just alter the composition of its
hull
?”

Aymes gestured uncertainly. “I do not know, Navarch, but that is what the unknown contact did, and that modification made it nearly impervious to our primary lasers.”

She idly rubbed her cheek, smiling at the screen. “Well now, this
is
getting interesting. Are you satisfied that this is your anomaly, Captain?”

Aymes frowned. “It appears to be. However, it is difficult to be certain at this resolution.”

“Best guess, Captain,” Misrem demanded.

“Most likely yes, Navarch.”

“Excellent. Then we may begin,” Misrem said, eyeing her own command staff. “Stand by all ships to warp space once more. We will proceed into the system and engage the target ship. It is the only one in the area, so we should have little issue, even given the potential Captain Aymes fears it may have. Even so, all vessels are to take the utmost care. I will
not
tolerate the loss of a ship due to incompetence or simple overconfidence.”

“As you command, Navarch.”

“Very well. Power the drives; take us down into the system.”

►►►

► The powerful drives of the squadron lit off nearly in unison as they began to warp space to guide their fall toward the star. Fifteen drives going to full power in close proximity were a potential risk, particularly when they were using singularity drives to create the standing waves needed to impel the ships forward. The interacting gravity waves were not always nice enough to remain where one wanted them to, and the same interactions that created drive power for one ship could easily disrupt or, far worse, enforce drive strength on another.

Having your drive accidentally enforced beyond the level your ship could take was roughly the same as accidentally having a grenade’s power increased tenfold.

Very bad news for anyone in the immediate proximity.

So Imperial squadrons drilled incessantly to prevent such interactions while remaining in as close a formation as practical. Third Recon was a very well-trained squadron, and so when their drive signatures reached the
Heral’c
deep in the star system, the signal looked more like a single drive than a grouping.

►►►

PW
Heral’c
, Por-Que Orbit

► Captain Senthe swore, eyes wide as he watched the plot. “I want Central Command on the network,
now
!”

“Yes Captain!”

Now
was a relative term in space travel, as linking to Ranquil Central Command actually took a few minutes.

“Captain Senthe,” Admiral Tanner addressed him from the screens, “what is happening?”

“I believe that we are about to come under assault, Admiral,” Senthe said, looking over from the telemetry plot.

Tanner stiffened, leaning into the display. “Drasin?”

“I do not believe so,” Senthe told him. “The signature of the drives is too tightly focused. They almost appear as one immense vessel. That is disciplined navigation, Admiral.”

Tanner tipped his chin curtly. “And the Drasin are anything but disciplined. That would also rule out freighters, Captain. I will check. Perhaps the Terran’s new task force is making a stop in your area.”

“I believe that Captain Weston would be polite enough to call ahead by this point,” Senthe said doubtfully.

“I agree. Confirm the identity of the vessels, but do not risk your ship unnecessarily, Captain. I will see what can be done to secure backup for you. However, we have no free Heroics at this time . . . and normal cruisers . . .”

Senthe nodded. He didn’t need to be told.

Unlike the new Heroic Class of starship, normal cruisers were both underpowered and, far more importantly, too slow to be of help.

“Do you have imagery yet?” Tanner asked.

“No. We’re still some time out before their light reaches us,” Senthe said.

Tanner stared through the screen. “And they already see you. I am familiar with the peculiarities of faster-than-light tactics. Very well, Captain. You have your—”

The image of the admiral suddenly broke up into scrambled patterns as the computer tried to reconstitute the signal but failed.

“What happened?” yelled Senthe, looking around. “Get the admiral back!”

“System-wide scrambling, below the atomic level, Captain. We can no longer connect to the relay network!”

Senthe cursed. He didn’t even know that it was possible to scramble the relay network, as the link was buried deep below the atomic level. There wasn’t technically even a signal to scramble! The relays were linked subatomically, directly from one particle to another.

Scrambling the link to the relay, that was possible, but there was no sign of that, and the unknown ships were still too far out for such a maneuver.

“Break through the signal scrambling. I don’t care how you do it,” he said.

►►►

IBC
Shion Thon
, Flagship, Third Reconnaissance Squadron, Outer System, Por-Que

► “Local system has been scrambled, Navarch.”

“Excellent,” Misrem said. “That takes care of their relays. The rest is too slow to matter.”

“I believe that they did get a signal out, Navarch.”

She nodded to her sub-captain. “Yes, but we know from intelligence that there are no Oather vessels within response range. We have all the time we need to deal with Captain Aymes’ little anomaly.”

“Yes Navarch.”

She turned her attention to the imagery on her strategic displays, set up against the gravity telemetry feeds they were also watching.

“Now to deal with you, little anomaly,” she said firmly. “I wonder how much trouble one ship can possibly cause?”

►►►

Ranquil System Command, Priminae Capital, Ranquil

► “Get them back!”

“The entire system is off the grid, Admiral. We can’t.”

Tanner scowled. “How close are the nearest ships?”

“Days away, Admiral.”

“Heroics then,” he insisted. “They can transition into the system.”

“We only have one in contact, and it is assigned to Ranquil system coverage,” his aide responded.

Tanner winced.

Even if the council would sign off on leaving Ranquil uncovered, the ship in question was held in reserve in the Forge. It would take at least a day for the vessel to enter space, climb out of the system, and transition to Por-Que, assuming that whatever the new contact was remained in the outer system. If it didn’t, adding the time needed to drop into the system . . .

Far too much time would lapse between the
Heral’c
’s call and the arrival of the Heroic.

“Connect me to Terran Command.”

“Yes Admiral.”

►►►

Sol Command, Space Station Unity One

► “Admiral, contact from the Priminae. Admiral Tanner on the secure comm.”

Gracen glanced over, curiosity piqued.

“I’ll be there momentarily,” she said.

She’d just gotten back from her little side trip to Ranquil and hadn’t gotten as much time to connect with the people there as she might have hoped. Unfortunately, she doubted that this was a personal call, so she hurried to the secure room and took a seat, finding the admiral already on the display.

“Admiral,” Tanner said.

“Admiral,” she repeated with a smile. “I believe we spoke of this?”

“Amanda, then,” he conceded, “though this is a professional issue, I’m afraid.”

Gracen nodded. “I assumed as much. How serious?”

“Not Drasin. Beyond that . . . I’m not sure,” Tanner admitted. “We have an incursion into one of our systems. Admiral, do you have any forces available?”

Gracen froze, thinking hard. “We just dispatched every available Heroic and most of our free Rogues with the
Odysseus
Task Force. They’re out of contact, Admiral.”

Tanner took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I am very sorry to hear that.”

“We have two Heroics and a small force of Rogues covering Sol,” she said, “but there’s no way I can shake them loose in less than a few days. The political fight alone . . .”

“I know,” he assured her, “believe me, Admiral, I am aware. I suppose I must hope that the situation is not as dire as I fear it to be.”

“Why are you so concerned?”

Tanner grimaced. “We’ve lost contact with the relay network in the system.”

Gracen blinked. “I . . . didn’t know that was possible?”

“It is not,” he said simply, “not without having the relay be destroyed, which I am quite certain did not happen.”

“Then how . . . ?”

Tanner lifted his hands helplessly. “And now, Amanda, you know why I am concerned.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “I suppose I do at that. I . . . I wish I could help.”

“I understand. We can get a cruiser task group there within two or three of your days, and that appears to be the fastest response time we can manage.” He sighed. “It will have to do.”

►►►

PW
Heral’c

► “We’ve compiled visuals on the intrusion force, Captain!”

Senthe turned. “Show me.”

The light-speed signals took time to reach deep into the system since the unknown ships had arrived only a few hours earlier. That meant, of course, that the enemy ships had been compiling imagery on his vessel from the moment they arrived. His
Heral’c
had been there for days, so light was streaming out for the viewing.

He blinked as the imagery appeared on the screen, his eyes widening.

“Those are Priminae cruisers, are they not, Captain?” his second asked, confused.

“We don’t have that many cruisers, Corva,” Senthe corrected, shaking his head. “Did you read the Terran reports from the Drasin encounters? The one with the stellar construct?”

“I did, Captain.”

“Remember the unknown ship?”

Corva frowned. “Yes, but there was no description.”

“Yes, there was,” Senthe said. “Call for a full alert. Bring our weapons to full power now.”

“Yes Captain . . .” His second sounded bewildered, but the orders were dispatched and the
Heral’c
wound up from high alert to combat alert.

“Give me a signal back to Por-Que,” Senthe said. “Have all planetary defenses marshaled. They are
not
to permit those ships to close.”

“As you say, Captain. I still don’t understand . . . ?”

“Those ships match the configuration of the suspects
behind
the Drasin,” Senthe informed him. “I do not know why they are here, but I do not believe it is for a friendly visit.”

►►►

IBC
Piar Cohn

► Aymes found himself staring at the display as they completed their imagery refinement of the target ship. The gravity scans were a match, but the range of error on scans conducted that far away were too large for him to be sure.

When the images had first been compiled, his fears had lessened. The configuration of the ship and its armor seemed to be a match.

Even so, there was something nagging at him.

Aymes supposed that it didn’t matter much at this point, as the Third Recon was committed to an engagement. The navarch had made her decision, and honestly, he didn’t fault it. Either way, the system was a target of opportunity that was too good not to take, especially considering only a single ship lay in defense.

The anomaly’s armor was fascinating, he had to admit, presumably an example of some sort of molecular-level transformation able to perfectly mirror laser energy. It had a flaw, however, if he was reading the situation correctly. The transformation took time, a measurably short period that was still significant. That, combined with the fact that lasers had different frequencies, meant that in a fight, two or more ships could overload the armor. One on one, the armor was impervious, but against a group—that was a very different story.