Into the Black: Odyssey One (54 page)

The spread pattern they used, Trafalgar Twelve, was a statistically-based pattern designed to engage opponents at extreme range and had never been used in combat before. The think tank that had come up with it were mostly just shooting blind, as they tried to figure out how to engage threats against the Jovian research platform or, more likely, Earth-based satellites and the Demos repair station that overlooked the site of the Martian Colony Project.

They certainly hadn’t envisioned it being used against an alien attacker in a different star system, over a hundred light years from Earth.

So when the impact plumes went up across the enemy ship on their screens, almost seventeen seconds after the impact had occurred the Bridge Crew of the NAC Odyssey felt a surge of elation run through them.

“Got him!” Someone shouted, but was generally ignored.

“Status, Mr. Waters,” Weston said over the general buzz of relief.

Waters too, was quiet, watching the numbers carefully. Each of the HVM strikes would have carried the equivalent kinetic energy of a nuke strike, when their full mass returned after the destruction of the Cee Emm generator on impact. In theory, the solid core missiles could deliver considerably more energy than any nuke ever devised.

In reality, Waters was no longer certain of that.

“Enemy vessel stabilizing, Captain. She’s still coming,” he reported a moment later.

A dark silence fell over the Bridge, but Eric just nodded calmly. “Prepare a firing solution for the main Laser Array.”

“Aye-Aye,” Waters responded instantly.

Eric was busy watching the numbers as they fell. Thirteen seconds, now, was all that lay between them and the ship ahead. Behind, the chasers had managed to gain another fifteen light seconds on the Odyssey and it was clear that she’d lost her brief acceleration advantage. She would shortly be facing those two behind, assuming she survived the deadly duel, she was already engaged in.

“Laser strike!” Waters snapped. “Solid hit on the forward armor!”

“Status?”

“Holding, Captain.”

“Hold course.”

“Captain?” Daniels blurted in shock, half turning.

“If they’re firing at us, Mr. Daniels, they aren’t trying to dodge. Mr. Waters, open fire with the main Laser array.”

“Aye-Aye Sir.”

*****

Captain Tianne of the Warship, Cerekus watched the duel as it played out on her screens, not quite able to believe the one-sided reports that had been sent to her from the ground. If they were to be believed, this ‘ally’ of Admiral Tanner’s was a giant. On the battlefield at least.

However, on her sensors, it looked more like a gnat.

Its power curve was practically flat; the generation levels she was reading were so low that she had seen freighters that could out power it. Its weapons were barely detectable on the Cerekus’ energy traps, at least the ones it had used since her arrival.

It has to be some kind of trick,
she thought in confusion.
Stealth systems perhaps, masking their energy signatures… Something…

Her own ship was now hurtling toward the battle at best speed, which was impressive enough, but the war was being fought over eight rotations away, which was going to take some time to cross, even with the Cerekus’ drive.

This meant that the Admiral’s ‘allies’ were simply going to have survive on their own for a while longer.

*****

The heterodyne-generated Laser from the Odyssey’s main array, adjusted and fine-tuned by its operating crews to the best absorption frequency of the enemy’s armor characteristics, took a little less than ten seconds to cross the gap when the order to fire, was given.

It found, upon arrival, a target that was still busy pouring radiation several hundred times its own meager amount back along its own course toward the Odyssey, and bathed it in fire as it returned the favor.

A few seconds of exchange later, the alien warship began to bubble as nearly one hundred percent of the Odyssey’s energy was absorbed into its hull material and turned it to magma.

Within ten seconds, the ship suddenly folded in on itself, as the energy carved out a hole along its beam, striking the power core and turning its own reactor into a nuke.

*****

“Got him!” Waters grinned darkly, as the enemy went critical on his screens and at almost the same moment the warning lights went dead.

“Status of our forward armor?”

“Badly ablated, Sir,” Waters said after checking it. “We’re intact, but I wouldn’t want to take too much more, not on those plates.”

“Understood,” Weston replied. “Prepare to bring us bout, Mr. Daniels. We have to bring our Pulse Tubes to bear on the Chasers.”

“Aye Sir,” Daniels nodded. “On your order.”

“Captain!” Susan Lamont’s head snapped up, “Report from the Electronic Warfare Station, we have fighters inbound!”

“She must have launched, as a precaution,” Weston growled. “I would have.”

He considered it, nodded and thumbed open a channel. “Archangels… Scramble.”

*****

Tianne stared at her screens in disbelief, unwilling or unable to quite grasp what she had seen. The Drasin ship had the advantage, all of the advantages. It had the more powerful weapons, armor that could defeat lasers that were intensely more powerful than those of the unknown vessel. It was faster, with a greater acceleration curve. It had been the superior vessel, the more powerful warship.

So why was it dead, while the oddly configured ship still lived?

Chapter 36

What should have been a deafening roar was nothing but a brilliant flash of light and a sudden rush of motion, as two more fighter craft hurtled themselves off the flight deck and out into the black beyond. Jennifer Samuels waited her turn, the purr of the fighter charging her as the deck crews moved about, clearing the ground, in front of her.

She checked her system status one more time, as the last checks cycled and looked up when a light caught her eye.

The deck crew didn’t talk to her directly, they didn’t have to. The figure ahead of her, his bright white and yellow Vac Suit identifying him as one of the Handling Officers waved the okay to her and signalled the all clear.

She gave him a ‘thumb up’ back, keyed in the final release on the twin reactors she was riding on and waited for the final okay.

The handler dropped to a crouch, waving his hand in a sharp arc and pointed for the black.

Jennifer slid the throttle forward all the way, feeling the sudden lurch that slammed her back into the seat, despite the Cee Emm field that was already surrounding her and the flight deck around her just became a blur, as she was catapulted out into space.

“Archangels,” Stephanus’ voice came through clearly just then. “Form up on me… Give me a tight wedge, while we gather some intel on the opposition.”

The fighters automatically came together, the bulk of the Odyssey dropping back away from them, as they turned on all of their advanced sensor systems and activated the full suite of Electronic Warfare devices, in preparation for the battle to come.

Behind them, just as the last of them cleared the spires and moved completely out of range, the Odyssey’s front control thrusters burned solidly, lifting her nose up and flipping the big ship end for end, until she was on a ballistic course, her nose pointed back, toward the enemy.

“All planes, engage the interface,” Stephanus ordered a moment later.

Jennifer’s hand reached forward, hesitating for just a moment in painful memory while she flipped up the safety catch and pushed the switch forward.

The sharp bite of the needles digging into her neck caused her to hiss in irritation, then it was gone and she forced herself to relax. With the needles in, she felt herself shifting the plane almost by thought alone as she fine-tuned her place in formation and smiled.

This was what she trained for.

*****

“Do we have Tokamak power yet?” Weston growled, watching the star-field change radically, as the Odyssey completed its end for end flip.

Computer magnification brought the enemy ships into focus as they hurtled on, their faces lit by the light of the star that was now at the Odyssey’s back. Two of them, glinting darkly in the reflected light, at forty light seconds now and closing fast.

“Spinning up now, Captain.”

“Good,” Eric said with some satisfaction, though he knew that the power wasn’t yet there.

The Tokamak should have taken a great deal longer to bring fully online, but once again what the chief promised, was delivered. For now, he’d do what he could, with what he had.

“Pulse Torpedoes,” he ordered calmly. “How many are in our banks?”

“Ten, Captain,” Waters answered.

“Prime them all. Standard spread, fire on my mark.”

“Aye Sir. Priming tubes one through ten.” Waters reached out and toggled a series of commands.

“Fire.”

*****

Now those weapons registered on the traps.

Captain Tianne stared at the data, the computer was providing for the sudden barrage of energy the small ship had flung at the Drasin. Whatever those were, they weren’t the product of a ‘flat’ power curve, which meant that there was something exceedingly deceptive about that ship.

“Track those shots,” she ordered calmly. “I want a full profile of that weapon.”

“Yes Captain,” a young man at the weapons station said seriously.

“What is our arrival time?” She asked, glancing over at the helm controls.

“Ten rotations.” Came the answer back.

She nodded, watching the screen and the estimations for enemy contact with the ship designated ‘Odyssey’. They would have to survive at least four rotations of direct contact with the enemy, before the Cerekus arrived.

*****

The spread of torpedoes had left the Odyssey almost a full minute earlier and the sensors were tracking their terminal flight, when the enemy ships began spewing fighter craft, like angry bees from a hive. The screens became a mash of conflicting signals, just as the first pulse torpedo struck home.

The spherical white blooms of energy lit up the sky, unleashing devastating energy all across the enemy formation, dying out slowly as the burning of secondary fires continued to blot out information on the sensors.

A low whistle was heard on the Bridge, but Eric couldn’t tell who did it. He didn’t look too hard either, though, as he was leaning forward and willing the screens to clear up.

Then the screens darkened, the energy dying off as the last of the secondary explosions died away and a curse died on his lips, as he saw the two enemy warships still coming.

“Their fighter wing absorbed the damage, Captain,” Waters reported, though Eric had already guessed that.

“I can see that,” Weston replied, his voice grim. “Get a count of their remaining fighters.”

“Aye Sir.”

In the meantime, Eric pulled a display to him and grimly shook his head.

It was going to be bad, that was certain. The problem was that he didn’t see a way to make it any better.

*****

“Team two. Break formation and engage the lead elements.”

Jennifer Samuels watched as the four fighter group, broke away from the man group at Stephanus’ order, accelerating out and away, forming up into a tight, staggered diamond formation as they did.

The alien bandits were coming in from the sun and it was lousing up all their sensors, as they tried to get an accurate count of the opposition.

Coming out of the sun was one of the oldest tricks in aviation, largely because it worked. Even in the latter days of flying, when radar and LIDAR turned even that most venerable of maneuvers, into a trickier proposition, there were still times when the slight edge it gave a pilot was all that they needed.

And that was in the atmosphere of Earth, where the worst of the solar radiation had been filtered out by the layers of protection that made the planet habitable.

Out here in space, there was nothing to protect the fighter’s sensors from the charged solar wind and the intense radiation and it showed. The best Jennifer was getting was an intermittent group of bandits that were fading in and out, seemingly at will.

“’Angel Lead, this is Racer,” Gabrielle’s voice echoed over the tac-net, “Fox Three.”

And the battle was joined

*****

“How many HVM’s do we have left in stores, Ensign?” Weston glanced over to Susan Lamont.

She had to check quickly, but she had put the munitions list on one of her quick call commands before the battle and had the data quickly. “We’ve expended about eighty percent of our standard load, Sir.”

Weston nodded, noting with some amusement, despite the gravity of the situation, that her voice was almost apologetic. “Thank you, Ensign.”

It wasn’t her fault, of course. There was no way for anyone to know that they’d be in a situation that was anything even remotely like this. Had they planned going into an actual war zone, the load would probably have been ten times that, what she had taken aboard.

This meant that they had about half of a full salvo left, totally discharged Pulse Tubes, and their Laser array left to fend off two of the enemy warships.

It could always be worse,
Eric smiled grimly,
the Block could have succeeded in getting Miss Lynn assigned as an observer.

He briefly considered the order he had given the Commander Roberts. The order to recall the Archangels and make a run for it, but he knew that would be pointless, now. The acceleration curves on the alien ships were superior to the Odyssey’s, though not by as much as first thought and that would permit them to run her down long before she reached the heliopause.

So, as instinct and nature did so command, when flight was no longer an option, the human animal had one more option remaining.

Fight it was.

*****

“I… I think we got a hit!” Racer’s voice called over the net. “It’s hard to tell… There was a thermal bloom, but it was masked by the sun!”