Into the Black: Odyssey One (29 page)

“So what else is new?” Paladin’s wry grin carried well over the radio frequency, eliciting a laugh from those of the squad who remembered skirmishing with the Block’s air force in days past.

The Archangels had never relied on numbers to win a fight.

The ‘Angels spread themselves out, keeping pace with the Odyssey and providing a flying wedge between their mother ship and the enemy. The small sensor displays in front of each pilot echoed the current displays on the Odyssey’s bridge, a countdown to the impact of the pulse torpedo barrage. The tac-net was silent, as they watched the slowly diverging path of the torpedoes.

The silent displays showed the paths of the torpedoes widen further, as they approached their targets, the similar charges inherent in the weapons repelling them away from each other, in a lazy fashion, until the enemy vessels entered into their sphere of influence.

In that indefinable moment, the displays changed dramatically as the gently arcing trails of the torpedoes suddenly twisted and turned into an untraceable corkscrew that colored the entire screen. Sixty-five light seconds from the Odyssey, the Drasin vessels were treated to an awesome lightshow, as a dozen brilliant globes descended upon them, literally from the heavens. For many of them, this lightshow was the last thing they ever marvelled at.

The first torpedo struck a tightly packed formation of Drasin fighters, utterly annihilating one in the first blast and destroying the rest with secondary explosions. The next eight torpedoes had much the same effect, wreaking havoc on the fighter wing, the Drasin mother-ship had launched. The last four, however, breached the barrier that had been constructed by the fighters and struck heavily into the Drasin mother-ship. Four blazing plumes of fire rose from the stricken vessel as its hull was vaporized by the effects of the torpedoes.

On the Odyssey’s bridge they had to wait an additional sixty-two seconds for the results of their efforts, but it was well worth it.

Captain Weston took a deep breath, nodding slightly to the tactical controls, and the man who had handled them. “My compliments, Mr. Waters. Time to recharge?”

“Tubes are recharging now Captain, but it’s going to take a while. Firing a dozen of those things has drained the reserve capacitors. We’ll need to recharge them from the reactor.”

Weston nodded slightly and turned to Roberts for a report, “damage?”

“The first enemy ship is turning from its intercept course. They’re limping off.” Even through his rigid demeanor, Weston could hear the satisfaction in Roberts’s voice.

Weston wasn’t quite so satisfied, though. Four direct hits from Pulse Torpedoes shouldn’t have left much alive, to limp off.

Tough bastards,
Weston thought, but didn’t let it color his voice as he nodded to the Commander. “Let them go, continue tracking the other two.”

“Aye Sir.”

The Odyssey, with its flying wing of escorts, continued to roar toward the next intercept point. It wasn’t until they passed the debris caused by their long range fire that they realized the situation had again changed. The further Drasin vessel had turned back to the planet, the energy from its charging weapons lighting up their sensors like a beacon, in the black.

*****

This time no one cursed.

The shock was complete in the large command and control room, based in Mons Systema and it could have possible to heard the proverbial pin strike the floor.

“Identify that ship!” The Admiral snapped, breaking the shocked silence and jerking everyone back to work.

“There’s still no transponder ID!” Someone yelled, “It’s a Spirit, Sir…”

“I do not believe in Spirits!” He growled back, “Especially not ones that can cripple a Drasin cruiser with one attack. Find me that ship’s identification. I do not care if you have to go outside with a telescope and read the name off its hull!”

“Yes Sir…”

“Sir… One of the Drasin is looping back! They’re coming here!”

The silence once again descended as they watched the Cruiser circle back around and make for the planet under its best thrust.

“Alert the orbital defences. Prepare to engage landers,” Tanner replied, half turning to see the action in another section of the bunker.

A huge hulk of a man, just in sight, nodded to him and Tanner sighed, turning back, assured that his counterpart was already on the job.

For all the good it was going to do.

Tanner left that job and worry, in the hands of the one most able to accomplish it. He turned his focus back to the mystery ship that had managed to cripple one of the ‘invincible’ Drasin cruisers.

Who are you?
He asked in his mind as he glared at the purple dot on his threat board.

*****

Weston watched the tactical display, the cool blue and red dots dancing across the screen like the display of some warped video game. It would be more than an hour before the capacitors for the torpedo tubes could be recharged and the laser array was nearly worthless at this range. Weston found himself debating two bad options, looking for the lesser evil. Intercepting the closer enemy vessel would be the safest route for the Odyssey, with the support of the Archangels and the formidable close range firepower, of the Odyssey, the single enemy vessel could be dispatched of, relatively quickly. However the second enemy vessel would have thirty, perhaps forty minutes or longer in orbit of the planet, an eternity to those on the surface. Even so, Weston hesitated to attempt an intercept of the second ship. Moving thus, would place the Odyssey in the cross fire of both enemy vessels.

With seconds ticking down to conflict with the nearer enemy vessel, Weston reached a hard decision. “Helm, re-plot our course. Put the Odyssey between the second vessel and the planet. All available thrust.”

As the big ship began to rumble off its flight path into a tighter trajectory, Weston linked into the Archangel’s tac-net. “Stephanus, I’m ordering the Odyssey to intercept the second ship. We have to cut them off before they can begin planetary bombardment. We’re going to need you and the Archangels to stay on course to harass and delay the first ship, so we can get into planetary defence position.”

*****

Stephanus replied with a simple acknowledgment, belying the concern he felt about the mission at hand. Their earlier encounter with the enemy had nearly turned disastrous, and had only been successful after the combined strengths of both the Odyssey and the Archangel Flight were pitted against their adversary. In spite this he knew that Weston could no more allow the bombardment of a relatively helpless planet. He could have allowed a civilian town to be bombed back during the war.

“All right ‘Angels, form up and kick in the burners, time for a little hit ’n run!” Snorts and chuckles echoed over the tacnet as the ’Angels checked in and joined up with Stephanus on an intercept course with their targets fighter wing.

“Just like the old days, Steph!” Racer said with a grin.

Stephanus groaned, “Don’t remind me Racer, The Yangtana wasn’t exactly a bright point in my career. And this monster packs a slightly bigger wallop.”

Snorts, catcalls, and cries of ‘not likely’ echoed through the net as Stephanus thought back to the last time they tried this maneuver. The Yangtana was the Eastern Block’s penultimate warship, a combat carrier capable laying waste to a thousand square kilometer area from up to five thousand kilometers away. The Archangels had volunteered to prevent the Yangtana from reaching its launch zone, a point five hundred miles off the west coast of California, from which it would launch a crippling attack on the New York and Delaware regions of the North American Confederacy.

The Angels had lived in their planes, literally, for three and a half weeks, all the while running harassing attacks on the Yangtana and its fighter cohort. The Yangtana was the prototype for its class, the latest in a long line of ships, deemed to be unsinkable. Surprisingly enough, Stephanus mused, in the Yangtana’s case that turned out to be a literal truth. Fifty-eight miles from the launch point, the Archangels reformed for one last attack, their numbers having been depleted by over sixty percent, during the last three weeks.

The massive Chinese warship had taken everything they could throw at her and a good deal more from the surface ships that had joined the attack. In the end, the NAC forces had won the day, but the Yangtana herself, survived the attack. In fact, she was still sitting there, where the ’Angels attack had driven her, beached on a shallow reef that had become her final resting place.

That last battle had weighed heavily on Stephanus for months afterward. Of fourteen planes that went in, only eight had come out. A rate of attrition that Stephanus hadn’t believed possible, a month earlier. That was the first time he had realized that the Archangels weren’t, in fact, Angels, but only human after all.

Stephanus shook his head clear, noting that he was less than a minute away from intercept range.
And this monster does indeed pack a more lethal punch than even the Yangtana’s big gun batteries. Not to mention that this bugger isn’t limited to one plane of motion.

The tight formation of fighters blazed in, on their alien counterparts, taking almost continuous fire from the alien fighters, almost from the moment they first entered within range. Every cockpit filled with warning alarms as the onboard computers struggled to adapt the cam-plates, to deflect the incoming laser fire. From the outside, the sleek fighters shimmered with iridescent colors, as the modifications occasionally altered the visible color of the fighter’s armor.

The Archangels ignored their alien counterparts, trusting their over beleaguered combat computers to defend them from the other fighter’s laser fire. Stephanus and his team instead, focused their weapons on the Drasin carrier ship, directing Havoc missiles, eighty millimeter cannon rounds, and thirty gigawatt laser fire at the big ship, as they skirted along the very edge of their firing range. Due to the speed they were traveling and the shallow angle of their attack, Stephanus and his team had only engaged the enemy carrier for a few seconds before they were peeling off from the battle group and soaring back into open space.

“Great fun!”

“Yeah Yeah, quiet down, Racer. All right, peel back and initiate assault plan twelve. Racer, you and Reaper start waxing those fighters as we slip past, if they get smart, they’ll start nailing us with coordinated strikes. And you know what happens then…”

Stephanus’ warning was unnecessary, since every pilot in the ‘Angels knew the limits of their fighter’s laser dispersion technology. Coordinated bursts from multiple frequency lasers would overload the system and crash the onboard software that handled the cam-plate reflection modifications. The resulting twenty second reboot time often translated into eternity. Literally.

The fighters wheeled back into line with the big Drasin ship, ’Angels five and eight flanking their brethren, as their computers were focused on the approaching line on enemy fighter craft. As they did, they saw the line of enemy fighters form up into a wall of defence between them and the enemy capital ship.

“Looks like we have to handle the fighters first, ’Angels.”

The Archangel group acknowledged Stephanus’ message, understanding it to be an order as much as a comment. The fighter group split up into a group of two-fighter teams and increased speed toward the waiting line of fire.

*****

The huge threat board that made up the main focus of the command and the control center was lit up from one side to the other, with lights. Furious battles were raging all through their system now, it seemed, and the key players were still closing in, on the planet.

The Drasin had the lead, but the unknown ship was closing fast, on a course that would swing it around the planet and bring it in between the Drasin cruiser and its objective.

The computers were unable to predict exactly who would win the race, all they could say at this point, was that it was going to be close.

Too close.

*****

The Odyssey accelerated into the plane of the nearby planet, hooking her powerful gravity field and swooping around, just as the Drasin ship reached orbit, immediately aligning to bring its forward guns to bear on the target. It was quickly obvious to everyone on the Bridge of the Terran ship, that the enemy cruiser had taken early notice of their intentions.

“Sensors to full sweep!” Weston ordered as the Drasin vessel slowly brought its own forward weapons to bear on the Terran vessel.

“Aye, Sir.”

The Odyssey’s formidable forward sensor array went active, painting the Drasin ship with an inescapable web of electronic and tachyonic signals. The Drasin ship accelerated, as it detected the increase in local energy signals, vectoring to intercept the Odyssey’s position, as it did.

“Ping them,” Eric said, his voice cold.

The Odyssey released a single focused burst of tachyons and captured the reflected signals, the barest slice of an instant later, locking the Drasin’s course changes into the targeting computer.

“They’re closing, Captain.” Roberts reported from where he was examining the combat display. “No sign of a weapons lock, or firing as of yet.”

Weston nodded curtly, accepting the report.
They want to play a game of chicken,
“Report on the second ship and the status of the Archangel group.”

Roberts looked down, flicking the display aside for a second, “the Drasin ship is moving to bypass the Archangels, while its fighter support keeps the squadron busy, Captain. They’ll be here shortly, if they aren’t stopped.”

“Keep tabs on him.”

“Aye, Captain.”

*****

“Yang-boy is making a break for it, Steph!”

Stephanus looked up from his HUD display for a second, glancing over his shoulder, through the canopy of his fighter, to where the big alien capital ship was slowly pulling away. Stephanus cursed quietly, “All right, Wings four through eight, break off and start harassing maneuvers. One through four, provide cover!”