Odyssey One 5: Warrior King (8 page)

“Still on an eccentric orbit, Captain. No change.”

Aymes scowled. He almost wished there had been. At least then he’d have an idea what to do, but at the moment he was left with a bit of a quandary.

“What do we have on visible scanners?” he asked.

“Not much,” the chief said, shaking his head. “It’s even farther out than the gas giant, Captain. Not enough light reflecting to get much resolution with ship scanners.”

He
could
go active, of course, but that would reveal his location and give any enemy a good idea of what they were up against. In exchange, he might not get much of a return signal at the current range. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t on an intercept course with the
Cohn
, which could mean it hadn’t spotted them yet or that it was playing dead and hoping to be missed.

That
wasn’t going to happen. He’d have to check it out closely before he left the system, but he’d rather not put the
Cohn
in a targeting reticule in the process.

We do not always get the things that we wish for.

“Take us to combat standing,” he ordered. “Stand by to separate parasite craft, charge real-time scanners.”

“Yes Captain. Systems standing by for orders. Parasite craft are being manned.”

Aymes nodded slowly. “Once they’re manned . . . launch the parasites and bring the light to this whole damned system.”

CHAPTER 8

Shuttle
Eagle One
, Entering Orbit

► “I see it, Commander.”

Steph leaned forward. “Where?”

Milla pointed. In the distance, a bright star moved fast against the background.

“Got it,” Steph confirmed. “Get the passives on it. Try and work out its location and course through parallax.”

“As you say, Stephan,” she answered. “Without active systems, I am having to track manually.”

“Whoa.”

Milla looked up. “What is it?”

“Something just happened. Check it out,” Steph said, tipping his chin toward the viewport.

She followed his gaze and spotted what he was talking about instantly. The contact she’d been following had split up. There were now at least eight or nine different spots, spreading out but moving along a similar course.

“Parasites.” She whispered the word, in Priminae.

“What was that?” Steph asked, confused. “I didn’t catch that.”

“It is . . . an old system—parasite ships attached to a larger vessel,” she answered. “We ceased using that design.”

“Why?” Steph asked, trying to judge the size of the parasite craft.

They were bigger than Double A fighters, as there was no way an Archangel would be visible at this range.

“No need for them,” Milla answered. “A single vessel has more than sufficient power. Parasites add very little.”

“They add mobility,” Steph corrected. “Options. Options are good if you’re fighting a war.”

Milla was about to respond, but before she could say anything, something on her screens caught her eye. She scowled for a brief moment before suddenly blurting out something that sounded
incredibly
vile to Steph, despite him not understanding a word of it.

“What? What is it?” he demanded, knowing profanity when he heard it.

“One of the parasites has altered course,” Milla answered. “It is coming for us.”

►►►

AEV
Odysseus

► The tachyon pulse set everything on its ear.

“Isolate and locate the source of that!” Miram ordered, surging to her feet.

Eric remained silent. He already knew the source. There really was only one possible place the pulse could have come from.

“Belay that,” he said finally, standing up and stepping around his console. “Even armor, warp space on my command.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Kinder confirmed. “Course?”

“Intercept, Bogey One.”

“Intercept, aye.”

Eric glanced over to Commander Heath. “Take us from general quarters to battle stations, Commander.”

“Aye aye, sir.” She stepped forward. “Battle stations! All decks report in. Secure all stations for combat operations!”

Eric watched silently as his ship rigged for war, knowing that out across the black, his counterpart was doing precisely the same thing.

►►►

IBC
Piar Cohn

► “Parasites launching, Captain.”

“Bring light to the darkness, Chief,” Aymes ordered from his station.

“Yes Captain.”

The ship’s FTL scanners lit off, pulsing a wide swath of the system with tachyon particles. The response hits started pouring back instantly, and the computers processed the information.

“Initial signal matches Oather designs,” the chief said. “Very similar to Imperial cruiser specifications, Captain.”

“Understood. Give me the overlay with our previous scans,” Aymes said, looking at the screens.

“Yes sir.”

The image of the unknown ship was indeed very similar to Imperial designs. Almost identical, in fact, to the
Piar Cohn
itself. There were some oddities he couldn’t identify, and that bothered Aymes. Whatever was tacked on to the ship’s superstructure was an unknown element.

The visual was overlaid with visible and nonvisible light data from previous and ongoing scans. Aymes frowned at the image, picking up a portable system and comparing the data from analysis of Oather ships.

“Something is off,” he said a moment later. “Chief, what is this frequency spike?”

The chief walked over, checking the signal that the captain was pointing out. Finally he shook his head. “I don’t know, Captain. The rest is expected materials science from an Oather design, but that spike is new.”

“New?” Aymes frowned. “There are only so many materials in existence. Imperial and Oather materials science peaked long ago. When was the last time we saw an improvement in that area?”

The chief shrugged.

“Never, Chief,” Aymes growled. “The Oathers took the best materials science ever developed with them when they split. That’s a metal frequency spike. There isn’t a metallic armor in existence that can match Oather ceramics. Lord knows, the Empire has tried. So why is an Oather ship showing a metallic frequency spike?”

“I don’t know, Captain.”

“Neither do I, and do
not
like things I do not know showing up in a potential combat situation.”

“Uh . . . yes sir.”

Aymes glared at the chief briefly, then waved him back to his station. He was turning away when another alarm went off.

“What is it?”

“New contact, Captain!” the chief cried. “Close. Very close.”

“On screen! Track it!”

“Difficult, Captain. There’s no visible spectrum read!”

“Instant scanners say something is out there.
Find it!
” Aymes ordered. “We may be far too close to the unknown vessel for our safety!”

“Unlikely, Captain,” his alternate commander said. “The contact is too small by far. It barely registered on instant scans, and it’s entering the orbit of the gas giant as we speak.”

Aymes blinked, surprised. That was
close
. Far closer than anything should have been able to get to his ship without being noticed.

“Dispatch parasite
Five
to investigate the contact,” he ordered. “If they resist . . . destroy them.”

“Yes Captain.”

►►►

Shuttle
Eagle One

► “Alright, that’s it,” Steph decided. “Sorry, Milla, my bird.”

She nodded, pale with a bead of sweat on her brow. “Your bird, Commander.”

Steph hit the sequence that shifted primary command to his seat, then began powering CM generators. “We’re going to have to make a run for it. Talk to me—what do you know about these parasite craft?”

“Very little. I am sorry.” She shook her head. “They were listed only in the history portion of my training.”

“I’ll take history,” he told her as he worked. “Anything you remember. How fast can they warp space?”

“They do not. The point of parasite vessels is that they do not require the same power core as a full ship. They can be brought into an operational space by a starship but are much cheaper, yes?”

“Okay, no space warp.” Steph flipped a bank of switches. “Good. I can work with that. Reaction drive?”

“Not like yours,” she said, “but similar, yes.”

“Range?”

“I am not sure.” She shook her head again. “Not beyond the star system, obviously.”

“I was hoping for a smaller area of operations,” Steph admitted as he punched in a new course. “Alright, get ready to hang on. I’m probably going to be pushing the limit of our CM field, so we’re going to be tossed around a bit. Tighten those straps.”

While she was working to do that, Steph finalized the new course and brought the ship’s dual reactors fully online.

“Here we go . . . ,” he said as he twisted the stick and shoved the throttle all the way forward.

►►►

IBC
Piar Cohn

► “They’re evading,” the scanning chief announced.

“How can you tell?”

“I can see them when they eclipse objects behind them,” the chief said. “They’re diving into the gas giant. We should see them more clearly . . . now.”

Aymes looked up at the screen just in time to see a black silhouette as it appeared in front of the planet. The vessel was very small, smaller by far than even one of the
Piar Cohn
’s parasite vessels. That was good news and bad news.

At least they wouldn’t be in danger of combat with the unknown vessel that had plagued the initial Drasin incursion into the Oather territory. But he could tell at a glance that the target’s acceleration curve was extremely high, perhaps even higher than a parasite craft’s, which would make catching the ship difficult.

“Dispatch parasites
Three
and
Eight
to fence that ship in,” Aymes said. “I want
Five
to continue pursuit while
Three
and
Eight
take a counter orbit and catch the craft on the other side of the planet.”

“Yes Captain. Orders issued.”

“Good. Keep the rest in formation,” Aymes said. “We’re going after their home vessel.”

“On your orders, Captain.”

“On my orders indeed.”

►►►

Shuttle
Eagle One

► “Stephan, I believe they have sent others after us,” Milla said, swiveling in her seat to look out to the side. “Two . . . no, wait, they are not on an intercept with us. They are going away.”

“Away? Away where?” Steph asked, hitting a bank of overhead switches to shunt full military power to the reactors.

“I am not sure. However, they are moving away from us now.”

“Are they closing on the planet still?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Damn. Clever bastards,” Steph grumbled, a dark smile on his face. “They’re gonna try a pincer.”

“What is a . . . pincer?”

“One chases; the other cuts around and gets in front of the prey,” Steph explained. “They’re going to cut us off by countering our orbit of the planet. This is going to get tricky.”

“Oh, of course. What can we do?” Milla asked, wishing suddenly that she’d spent a little more time on navigation and piloting and less on her own specialties.

Suddenly, being an expert in starship weaponry didn’t feel so useful.

“I’m going to have to fly this one by ear,” Steph said, “but they’re clearly tracking us now . . .”

“We are dark, yes?”

“Yes, but the planet is behind us now. They can see our silhouette,” he answered. “Even if we go to adaptive camo, there’s no way to match the infrared output of the planet . . . not from up here anyway.”

Milla shifted nervously in her seat as Stephen glowered suddenly, leaning forward as much as his straps would allow. She didn’t think she liked that look, not when she was sitting across from him in a small shuttle at least.

“I am not going to enjoy this, am I?” she asked weakly.

“Depends.” Steph chuckled. “Do you like carnival rides?”

“No,” she answered. “I do not know
what
carnival rides are. However, I am quite sure I do not like them.”

“Pity. Don’t throw up,” Steph said as he pushed the stick forward and dropped the shuttle into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant.

►►►

IBC
Piar Cohn

► “The target craft has dropped into the atmosphere. We’re losing contact in the upper atmospheric clouds.”

“Smart.” Aymes shook his head. “Very smart. Hand off tactical command of the pursuit to the commander of parasite
Five
. Inform him I want that craft intact if possible, in pieces if not.”

“Yes Captain.”

Aymes shifted to look at the distant contact. “In the meantime, we have more important things to deal with.”

He calculated the distance in his head, working out the numbers. Aymes figured they had another couple full cycles before the visible scanners picked up the reaction of the contact to their instant scan. However, the space dimension scanners should be showing changes very quickly.

“Alter course, plot best time intercept for the primary target,” he ordered.

“Yes Captain. We have three such courses prepared. Do we assume they hold their current course, move to intercept, or average the two?” the helmsman asked.

“Average the two,” Aymes said, “but lean in the direction of an intercept.”