Odyssey One 5: Warrior King (7 page)

Milla nodded slowly. “I see.”

She was about to say something more, but the comm crackled before she could.

“
Eagle One
,
Odysseus
Control.”

“Roger Control,
Eagle One
speaking.”

“Launch is cleared at your discretion.”

Milla swallowed. “Roger. Understood.”

She grabbed a stick on her left side, flicking a safety switch up to clear a thumb switch. “
Eagle One
, we are go for launch.”

“Roger,
Eagle One
, launch.”

“Launch, launch, launch,” she said as she jammed her thumb down on the button.

The deck of the
Odysseus
blurred as the shuttle was slung forward and out, the gray white of the walls replaced almost instantly by the deep black.

►►►

► “
Eagle One
is away, Captain.”

Eric nodded, eyes on the augmented imagery of the shuttle as it lanced out from the
Odysseus
and curved slightly starward.

“Keep an eye on them,” he ordered, “but focus on our system scans. We have another couple days here before it’s time to move on, and the research teams are going to want to make the most of it.”

“Yes sir.”

While their mission was now primarily military, unlike the mission of the
Odyssey
, the
Odysseus
actually had several times the lab space and civilian crew they’d carried on the previous vessel. The
Odysseus
was far more automated than the
Odyssey
and thus required fewer crew members per ton, so to speak, so they had a lot of extra room for labs and researchers. At the moment, with any information being worth more than gold, the Alliance fully intended to capitalize on that.

Every particle in the system was something the research teams were clamoring to record from as many angles as possible. In fact, Eric had shut down three requests from scientists who wanted to accompany Steph and Milla and take a closer look at the gas giant the two were going to sling around.

Under other circumstances, Eric would have likely granted the requests, but Milla wouldn’t have qualified for her certification if there had been anyone else aboard besides the examiner. Academics, being what they were, didn’t care about details like that. They just wanted to get as much time as they could with their instruments focused on the subject of their obsessions.

And they get touchy when you tell them they can’t have what they’re asking for.

He made a mental note to make it up to the researchers, if he had a chance. Normally Eric wouldn’t be overly concerned about what lab rats thought about him, but he’d learned just how badly one annoying academic could disrupt his ship.

►►►

Shuttle
Eagle One

► “How am I doing?” Milla asked, a nervous tremor in her voice.

Steph smiled slightly, shaking his head. “You know I can’t tell you that, Lieutenant. This is a flight exam.”

He held up his hand, then idly tapped his finger on the microphone that was monitoring them. “But off the record, you’re doing fine. Just keep on going.”

Milla nodded. “Thank you.”

Steph stopped tapping. “Watch our trajectory. If you waste too much Delta-V slowing on approach, we’ll have to call in the
Odysseus
to pick us up. That would be a fail, by the way.”

“Of course,” Milla said, triple-checking the numbers. “Telemetry indicates we are on schedule for turnover in nine hours. The gravity of the large planet will do the rest for us.”

Steph absently glanced over the numbers himself and was reasonably impressed. They could be a little more elegant, but he’d always been known for his theatrical flair. In terms of fuel and Delta-V, Milla’s telemetry was completely serviceable. Slightly above the required numbers as prescribed by the book, in fact.

“Alright,” he said. “Then we’re in for a long drop.”

Milla leaned forward, flipping a bank of switches to bring the autopilot fully online, then she sat back. “Automatic systems engaged. We are now on automated approach, and hands free, yes?”

“Yes, we are. Alright, now we wait.” Steph pulled his belt off and let it slip back behind his seat.

He drifted loose from the seat, stretching as he floated free and turned around slightly so he could see Milla as she undid the clasps on her own belt.

“It is odd,” she admitted as she floated off the seat. “Even the smallest of our vessels have gravity.”

“I suppose we will soon enough as well,” Steph answered, “but I’ll probably miss zero g when it comes.”

“I can understand,” Milla admitted. “However, it is not good for the human form to be in free fall for too long. Bone density . . .”

“Yeah, we know. That’s why I work out as much as I do—why we all do,” Steph responded. “But even with the heaviest regime, I’d have been off space duty within two more years. Your gravity systems change that, so that’s one I owe your people. The captain too. We both love our jobs too much to give them up easily.”

“I wish I could take the credit, yes?” She smiled. “However, I believe that was the council’s call, not my own.”

“Either way, your tech is going to change a lot of lives.”

“Helping us cost a lot of lives, did it not?” Milla asked softly.

Steph didn’t know what to say to that at first. He was taken aback by the question but more so by the hint of guilt he could hear in her voice.

“You don’t know that,” he said finally. “The Drasin were sweeping in our direction. If they finished with you, we could have been next.”

“You don’t know that.” She repeated his words with a weak smile.

“The Drasin were . . . a plague. They would have continued to spread until someone stopped them. Better it was us, now, than someone else much later,” Steph said, taking a deep breath. “There’s no point buying trouble anyway. We can’t change the past.”

“No, I suppose that we cannot,” Milla admitted. “However much we wish we could.”

“Anyway, enough of that,” Steph said, trying to change the mood as he produced a deck of cards from his pocket. “Shall we see if you’ve improved your game?”

CHAPTER 7

IBC
Piar Cohn
, System Entry

► A soft but insistent alarm was sounding as Aymes stepped onto the forward command deck of the
Cohn
and noted with satisfaction that all the stations aside from his own were already filled.

“Report,” he ordered simply, standing at his station.

“Now entering system of interest, Three Alep Nine One Du, Captain,” his helm officer said. “Beginning analysis of spatial distortions, comparing to expected readings. Initial response is as expected.”

“Good,” Aymes said. “Time to system penetration?”

“A tenth and three,” the ship’s alternate commander offered from where he was working. “We’re on a fast approach, no turnover.”

Aymes absently checked the telemetry chart for himself. The
Cohn
was on a high-velocity approach . . . Unusual, but he remembered authorizing it for this system because there was a single gas giant exceptionally far out from the system primary that they could use as a redirect to save reactor mass.

“Very well. Any unusual signals in the band we’re looking at?” he asked.

“No Captain. No active Drasin contact.”

“Another wasted system,” he muttered. “How deep did those abominations penetrate this arm?”

His alternate commander shrugged. “Last reported location was a rim system, thirty cycles deeper into the arm. We have extremely limited information, unfortunately.”

“I know, I read the file. What little there was of it,” Aymes growled. “The squadron commander who left them there should be shot.”

“He likely was.”

Aymes nodded wearily, knowing that was probably true enough. Abandoning assets like that would end careers at the very best. Doing so when the assets were potential threats to the Empire . . . well, he’d be surprised if any of the command crew were still to be found. Possibly some were still breathing, but he expected they’d likely been reassigned to either high-risk sectors or some other place where warm bodies mattered more than competence.

“Alright, let’s get this system clear—”

A buzzer cut him off, and Aymes twisted to where the scanner chief was now working feverishly at his station.

“What is it?” the captain demanded.

“Dimensional anomaly,” the chief answered instantly. “Possibly an unscanned planetoid, something from far out in the system.”

“How far?” Aymes asked.

“Very far. In order to not be on our scans, it would have to be something with an extremely eccentric orbit, Captain. Thousand-cycle orbit, at least.”

Aymes frowned, considering that.

It wasn’t impossible. There were certainly stranger star systems in the galaxy than one with a single—or even a few—eccentric-orbit planetoids. However, this was one of the few systems the Empire had mapped out prior to launching the infiltration and assault of this arm of the galaxy.

“Could it be an enemy ship?” he asked softly, walking over to the station.

“Possibly,” the chief replied. “It
is
a known Oather system, Captain.”

“Well, if it’s an Oather ship,” the alternate commander offered, “we can easily handle them.”

Aymes nodded. “True. I’m more concerned about the unknown, however.”

“The anomaly wouldn’t show up on dimensional warp scans,” the alternate agreed.

“No, but that’s the problem,” Aymes said and sighed. “This anomaly is too difficult to locate for my taste.”

He stared for a moment. “Continue as plotted, but lock down that anomaly.”

“Yes Captain.”

►►►

AEV
Odysseus

► “Report.”

Eric strode onto the command deck, eyes swiveling to lock on the long-range scanner station.

“We have a gravity anomaly, Captain,” the duty officer, Lieutenant Sierra, answered.

“Drasin?” Eric asked, standing at his station.

“No match, sir. Not on any of our databases.”

“What about Priminae databases?” he asked.

“Ran those too, sir. Possible match, but too vague to be certain. We could be looking at a long-orbit planetoid, coming in from the local version of the Oort Cloud,” Sierra said.

“Do the Priminae have any planetoids with that sort of orbit listed for this system?” Eric asked.

Sierra turned to look at him, eyes widening.

“It
is
one of their colony systems, Lieutenant.”

“Yes sir! Sorry, sir, checking now,” Sierra blurted, looking back to her console.

It took only a few seconds, then she shook her head. “No eccentric-orbit planetoids, sir.”

“Sound general quarters,” Eric ordered, dropping into his chair. “How far out is the anomaly?”

The general-quarters alarm sounded in the background but was muted swiftly on the bridge as systems shifted to alert status.

“Working on an orbit now, sir.”

Commander Heath strode onto the bridge, pausing next to Eric as she examined the activity. “Sir?”

“Unknown contact,” Eric said. “Possible enemy ship.”

Miram nodded, dropping into her own seat at her station. “I see it. Not a planetoid?”

“Not according to Priminae charts,” Eric answered.

“Right, of course. It’s one of their former systems. They would have it properly mapped.” Miram nodded again. “Still . . . it doesn’t appear to be under power. I’m not seeing a change in course telemetry.”

“Can you tell what course it’s on?” Eric asked.

“Not quite. Just a general trajectory with a very wide margin of error,” she admitted. “However, it is not slowing down. It appears to be on a ballistic course, Captain.”

That
was
odd, Eric would willingly admit. A ship on system approach would have to be decelerating hard if they didn’t want to shoot right through, and if they were doing that, why take the risk of entering the gravity well of the local star? Sure, there wasn’t
much
more debris inside the well, but it was still a risk if you were moving at the speeds of a relativistic vessel.

If the ship was warping space, there would be no risk, but this contact wasn’t warping. It was ballistic, and that made no sense.

“We’re narrowing it down,” Miram said. “They’re aiming for a slingshot maneuver. In a little less than two hours, they’re going to sling around the outer gas giant.”

Eric stiffened. “Are you sure?”

“Yes sir,” Miram answered, looking perplexed as she noticed his apprehension.

“Goddamn it!” Eric swore, mind racing as he started to say something, then stopped.

“What is it?” Miram asked.

“I gave Steph and Milla clearance to do a qual flight,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re slinging around that same damn planet.”

“We can go to power and pick them up,” Miram said.

“If we warp space,” Eric said grimly, motioning toward the telemetry readings, “they’ll
see
us.”

“Sir, they must see us already. The
Odysseus
isn’t like the
Odyssey
. We can’t hide from their scanners,” Miram said. “We mass as much as a small planet.”

“Yes, but they’re not Priminae, Commander,” Eric said. “I’m betting they don’t have full system records. Right now, at the range they’re coming in from, we’re just a dip in space-time. If we warp space, then they’ll
know
we’re not some random rock.”

He stood up, walking over to the comm station.

“Get me a link to the shuttle.”

►►►

IBC
Piar Cohn

► “Sir, we’ve calculated the anomaly’s orbit.”

Aymes looked over to his scanner chief, nodding. “And?”

“It’s odd,” he said. “The orbit isn’t as eccentric as I would have believed.”

“Oh?” Aymes took more of an interest. “How so?”

“Just that I would have expected our combat survey to have included this one,” the chief said. “It’s an eccentric orbit, but the opening to miss it would have been quite small.”

“Hmm,” Aymes grunted, turning around. “Alert status. All decks.”

The alarms sounded, and people began rushing around as Aymes sat in the middle of the whirlwind of activity, glaring at the screens surrounding him.

He was probably being overly cautious, but there was no sense in following the fate of his predecessor.

He rather liked breathing.

►►►

Shuttle
Eagle One

► Cards were a boring way to pass the time with only two people, but Steph had always been one for tradition. After a couple rounds, however, they’d put away the game and pulled out a couple readers. Milla was working her way through some classic science fiction from Earth, while he had a soft spot for old pulp books.

They were a third of the way past turnover when the comm station chirped and the pair looked up from their books.

“Message from the
Odysseus
,” Milla said, floating down to the pilot’s seat and pulling the straps over her shoulders.

“Play it,” Steph said, gliding over and grabbing the back of the seat to steady himself.

Milla nodded and tapped the command.

“
Eagle One
,
Odysseus
Command. Stand by for a message from
Odysseus
Actual.”

Steph smirked. “Boss must want to offer some encouragement.”

“Stephanos . . .” Eric Weston’s voice was serious. The second Steph heard his call sign, he flexed his arms and flipped over the seat, dropping into place as the message continued. “We’ve picked up a gravity anomaly on course for the gas giant. Looks like you and it are planning on using the planet for the same maneuver. Great minds, I suppose. The
Odysseus
can’t get to you first, even if we light off. Worst case, if it’s unfriendly, you’d be caught in the cross fire.”

Steph punched in a command, calling up the shuttle’s scanners and overlaying them with the data packet the
Odysseus
had sent.

“We’ve got nothing on our scanners,” he said, “but we wouldn’t at this range.”

“Should I change course?” Milla asked.

“Negative. We don’t have the Delta-V to reverse course, and this is still our best shot at a clean return to the
Odysseus
,” Steph answered. “Space—even planetary space—is a massive area. We go deep, take the plates to black hole settings.”

“Roger that,” Milla answered, typing in a series of commands. “Done.”

“Secure scanners, comms, and all transmissions,” Steph ordered. “Take us dark.”

“Done.
Eagle One
is dark.”

“Good work,” Steph said. “Boss is going to take the
Odysseus
around and try to flank the bad guys, but that’ll put us intersecting their course long before that.”

“What do we do?” she asked, eyes focusing on Steph. “This is . . . above my grade, yes?”

“Reality often is, Lieutenant,” Steph answered. “Don’t sweat it. You’ll do fine.”

“This should be your bird, yes, Commander?”

Steph tilted his head, considering. “If I take it, your qual flight is over.”

“It seems more important that we live through this, I believe?”

Steph waved his hand casually. “Your bird, Lieutenant. I’ll take it if I need to.”

“Yes sir.”

►►►

►
Eagle One
faded to near pitch black as the cam-plate armor began absorbing all frequencies of visible light and beyond. Running lights flicked off, transmissions ended. The systems on a shuttle were hardly up to the full specs of the
Odysseus
, but the small vessel didn’t need to be nearly as efficient in order to hide in hundreds of millions of cubic kilometers of space.

Ahead, the gas giant loomed in the distance. To the naked eye, the world was a dim one, not having much light to reflect from the system’s primary star due to distance. In fact, the local sun barely looked larger than some of the other bright stars in the black around them.

In near infrared, however, the gas giant was a beacon in the night.

►►►

IBC
Piar Cohn

► “Status of the unknown contact,” Aymes asked as he returned to the bridge, just glancing at the screen where the gas giant was growing visibly larger.