Into the Black: Odyssey One (53 page)

“Move your butts, ladies!” The engineering chief snapped as he swung himself through the compartment, catching a grip on the wall, to arrest his flight, as he landed near the control for the Tokamak, “the Captain’s gonna need this puppy online in a hurry, Jenks.”

“Working on it, Chief,” the young man growled, not looking up. “We’ll jump start it cold, just as soon as I clear the tubes.”

“Just get it done.”

“Go bother someone else, you do NOT want me missing something here,” the man replied, his head stuck down, inside part of the system.

Normally the Chief would have torn his head off for a comment like that, but it was true. The last thing they needed, were stray matter particles in the Tokamak stream.

*****

Commander Roberts’ face was ashen as he watched the plot, but his voice was steady and calm, while snapping out orders.

“Contact point defence and make sure that they’re on the ball, Lieutenant,” he said, taking up his primary duties of handling the secondary systems, so the Captain could focus on the situation on hand.

“Aye Commander,” the Lieutenant nodded, turning to her controls and opening the appropriate channels.

“PD, this is X-Com. What is your status?” She demanded tersely.

A few seconds later she nodded, turning back. “Point defence reports ready to fight, Sir.”

Roberts nodded eyes still on the plot. The Odyssey had leapt forward, hurtling itself out of the snare that the enemy had prepared for it, but in doing so, they were flying into the teeth of the tiger.

*****

“Enemy ships are adjusting their courses. They’re going to try to intercept.”

“Of course they are,” Eric said, still watching the clock.

Ten seconds.

“Sideslip, Lieutenant. All thrusters to port,” he ordered. “Ten second burn.”

“All thrusters to port, Aye Captain,” Daniels said, activating the commands. “Ten seconds.”

The ship rumbled and complained, but followed the command as its starboard thrusters burned hot and shoved the ship off to port.

Ten seconds later, the rumble died out a little, though the big engines pushing them along still filled up the background with its incessant roar.

“Energy flare!” Waters snapped suddenly, “They shot at us, Sir!”

“Of course they did,” Weston smiled. “Analyse and adapt our forward plates to deflect. Helm, random course alterations along our current path, if you please.”

“Aye-Aye, Sir,” both men answered as one.

*****

Rael Tanner’s mood was growing grimmer and grimmer as the waiting game wore thin, and then vanished into nothing, but one nerve grating against the other. If only he had a ship, even one of the old converted freighters, anything at all to…

“Admiral!”

Tanner spun around, “what is it, Ithan!?”

“Look, Sir,” the young woman pointed.

Tanner looked up, blanching white as he saw the board lit up with four blazing icons, bright as a noonday sun.

The Odyssey’s green flash was blazing brightly now, they had obviously dropped any pretence at hiding and he could easily see why. Three hostile red icons surrounded it on the plot and his stomach twisted, as he easily read the trap, in the image.

“The Odyssey is accelerating, Admiral,” the Ithan said calmly, eyeing the threat board as well as her own instruments. “We are reading all four on the actual time sensors now… Weapons fire from the Drasin ship!”

The screen lit up a bit more, as a blast from the Drasin ship was traced across the stars, obviously in response to the Odyssey’s sudden appearance. Tanner grimaced as it closed on the Odyssey, perfectly aligned with its target.

Someone groaned, Tanner didn’t know who and he didn’t care. It was all he could do not to groan himself.

And then, less than ten seconds before it struck, the Odyssey calmly slid aside.

Tanner stared, eyes widening, as people gasped at the clean miss the board showed.
How did Captain Weston know?
The Admiral grimaced as he understood. Weston didn’t know that the enemy had fired. What he knew was the time it would take, to the second, for a shot to reach his position from the Drasin’s lasers.

Would I have thought of that?

Somehow, Tanner doubted it.

*****

While the Odyssey bucked and wove its way along the course it had charted across the sky, Captain Eric Weston waited impatiently for news from Engineering on the Tokamak status. They’d need its power contribution in order to bring the full power of the ship to bear. Now that hide and seek game was over and done with, Eric wanted as much punch as he could get when he ‘tagged’ the bad guys.

“The chase ships are gaining on our acceleration advantage,” Waters told him, calmer now.

“And the bandit ahead?”

“We’re waiting for the return from the targeting Laser, Captain,” he replied. “If we managed to paint her, we’ll have a firm lock.”

“Very well,” Weston nodded, saying nothing more.

The seconds ticked by, seeming to pass like hours as they waited for the return bounce from the laser. Finally the moment passed and Waters muffled a curse.

“Sorry Captain,” he shook his head. “They’ve begun evasive maneuvering.”

Weston nodded, eyeing the closing rates.

At less than fifty light-seconds now, the evasive actions on either side would begin to have limited usefulness in about two minutes. However, until the range closed enough, to achieve a good laser lock, the only weapon that Weston had for useful engagement was the Pulse Torpedoes and he’d rather save them for the chasers.

“Understood,” he said out loud. “Keep an eye out for fighters, Mr. Waters.”

“Aye-Aye Captain.”

Weston reached down and thumbed a switch, “Archangels, proceed to ready one launch stations. I say again, Archangel Flight is to proceed to ready one positions.”

*****

“Whoop,” Paladin grinned as the voice boomed around them, tossing his cards into a bag at his side. “Duty calls.”

“Saved by the bell,” ‘Cardsharp’ Samuels smirked as she kicked back and grabbed the edge of her cockpit.

Paladin just smirked as he executed a perfect back flip in the zero gravity, hooking his hands around the lip of the cockpit and slid right into his seat. “That’s how the chips fall!”

“Right,” Samuels grinned, pulling her restraints down, as one of the flight crew floated into place and handed her, her helmet.

She accepted it, as the man took a hold of the restraints and yanked them tight. The pressure seals locked with a twist and she felt the rush of cool air hit her face, then flashed a ‘thumbs up’ to the crewman.

“Good hunting, Ma’am,” he grinned at her, finished checking her restraints, and pushed back off the plane, while he waved the loader in.

Jennifer nodded curtly, not answering as the plane shuddered from the loader’s kiss and thumbed the cockpit sealing command.

The clamshell, front and back of the armored shield slid down over her, locking solidly into place and engulfed her in a darkness that was lit only by the soft glow of her backlit controls. Jennifer ignored the dark, thumbing her systems online, one by one, until the full surround HUD lit the cockpit back up, making it appear that she was sitting in a glass bubble with a near-perfect view of all angles.

“Archangel Thirteen…,” her lips twisted at the number, wondering if it was going to haunt her, or make her haunt someone else. “Online, all systems check.”

*****

The Odyssey and its prey were locked in a deadly dance across his screens, and suddenly Tanner found that the waiting hadn’t been so bad, after all.

His sensation of helplessness was a hundred fold now that he was watching men and women with no allegiance to him or his, preparing to fight and die for them all.

If he could only send them the details that he could see from here. Let them know what their enemies were doing…

Tanner grimaced, suddenly wanting to slit his own throat.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid! You could have sent a transceiver to them. It would have been a matter of a few seconds work to set it up for them;
he berated himself, cursing his stupidity.

“Admiral…”

Tanner ignored the voice. There was nothing they could do from here, anyway. It was all pointless.

“Admiral.”

All he had to do was think! Dammit. Wasn’t that what he was entrusted to do?

“Admiral!”

“What?” Tanner snapped furiously, turning on the voice.

The young woman flinched back, paling, but managed to keep her voice, “Sir. It’s the Forge. They say that it’s ready.”

*****

Someone once said that war was an interminably long stretch of boredom, punctuated by seconds of pure terror. In this battle, at least, that statement had been stretched and distorted beyond all recognition, as the hours of boredom gave way to an almost equal stretch of terror.

The Odyssey bucked and wove, spinning along the axis of its course, while it registered energy leakage from the immensely powerful lasers that were flashing around it. Each punctuating moment, brought its own thrill of terror, adding to the general chaos of the battlefield.

The sheer distance involved only served to heighten both the boredom of the hunt and lengthen the time of terror, as the battle raged across distances unprecedented in the history of the Odyssey’s crew.

Oddly enough, in the very midst of the terror time, Eric found his mind wandering dangerously and he forced himself back into the moment, with sheer force of will.

“We painted her, Captain!” Waters yelled out eagerly.

“Refraction data?” Eric demanded tersely.

“Aye Sir. We’ve got it!”

“Send the word to the Laser crews! Make her ready for war, Mr. Waters.”

“Aye-Aye Captain.”

As Waters sent out the command, with the information from the laser return appended, Weston tapped out a few calculations of his own. “Mr. Daniels. Prepare to steady our course for a controlled fire.”

“Aye Captain,” Daniels responded, shifting the evasive program over to automatic, while he prepared the new course corrections.

The chase ships were still over fifty-five light-seconds behind the Odyssey, Weston noted, which meant that even if they had a real time lock of the Odyssey’s position, it would take more than fifty-five seconds for any weapon’s fire to reach her position from the rear, not counting the Odyssey’s own current acceleration, away from them.

That coupled with the fact that they had a clear reading on the waste energy from the forward ship’s lasers, led Weston to his next move.

“Forward Laser Array has been adjusted, Captain,” Waters reported.

“Thank you. Helm,” Weston said softly.

“Yes Sir?”

“Prepare to abandon evasive maneuvers and initiate an attack run.”

“Aye-Aye Captain.”

*****

“Captain Tianne,” Admiral Tanner glared at the screen. “You are late.”

“My apologies, Admiral,” the tall woman looked embarrassed and more than a little frustrated. “The Forge only just completed the basic systems on the Cerekus.”

“We have allies in system, currently doing battle with three Drasin warships,” Tanner said grimly. “They have eliminated five others already and are being hard pressed. I would appreciate it, if you could arrange that they survive this battle.”

The woman gaped at him for a moment, not that Tanner blamed her, in the slightest. There was no ‘ally’ in known space that could stand up to the Drasin, one on one, let alone eliminate five of the warships and fight a three to one duel, with even the remotest chance of survival.

“Allies, Admiral?”

“I will explain as you move, Captain,” Tanner cut her off. “My staff is sending you the pertinent data, as we speak.”

The woman glanced to one side and nodded, “received. We are laying in our course, now.”

“Excellent.”

“Admiral…,” Captain Tianne frowned. “Our sensors have the battle in actual time as we speak. Who are these people?”

“That, Captain, is a question that I too, wish to have answered,” Tanner said with a grim half smile. “But for the moment, they are the saviors of our planet. I would prefer that they do not become its martyrs.”

“As you say, Admiral,” Tianne stiffened to attention and saluted.

Tanner nodded with some satisfaction, as the Captain of the newly-commissioned, Cerekus battleship turned to her duties. One ship did not a fleet make, but it wasn’t just any ship, either. The Cerekus was the first in a new class, or it might be said, a very old one, a class of warships that the central computer had ordered, spitting out designs for, when the Drasin first appeared.

Only the Forge could have built one so fast, the shipyard facility was one of the most advanced in all of the Colonies. And the one most perfectly hidden, Tanner permitted himself a slight smile. Even should all the colonies fall, Maker forbid, the Forge would never be discovered.

And from that one port, a fleet would arise, like none Rael Tanner had ever imagined, in his worst nightmares.

*****

Eric Weston held his order as the clock counted down the range, watching until the numbers dropped to under twenty light seconds between the two onrushing ships.

“Now, Mr. Daniels,” he ordered. “Initiate our attack run.”

“Aye-Aye, Sir,” Daniels ordered, snapping the Odyssey out of the evasive roll and steadying her into a headlong rush, at their enemy.

“Paint that ship, Mr. Waters,” Eric said as the Odyssey’s course stabilized.

Waters didn’t respond right away, his shoulders already bent to the task as his fingers sent out a dozen low powered targeting lasers, all seeking the enemy ship, as they closed on it at a madman’s pace.

Twenty seconds out, eighteen back and the Tactical Officer’s face flushed with pleasure. “I’ve got him, Captain.”

“Hold him,” Weston ordered. “HVM banks, prepare to fire.”

“HVM’s are ready.”

“Flush the banks. Pattern Trafalgar Twelve!”

“Aye Captain. Trafalgar Twelve away!”

The Odyssey shuddered as the forward High Velocity Missile banks were flushed, the Cee Emm powered death dealers, leaping from the ship and into space, accelerating to their maximum speed of .789c in the nearly thirty seconds it took them to cross the gap between the Odyssey and her foe.