Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (43 page)

Well past the orbit of the object formerly known as a planet, called Pluto, a now familiar effect took place just outside the reach of the gravity of Sol. Particles too small to be seen individually, yet in such numbers as to blot out the stars in the darkness, rushed into existence and began to solidify into seven distinct shapes.

The Heroics and the NACS
Enterprise
appeared nearly as one in a flying V formation, launching into a parallel curve to the gravity well. They began a long and slow orbit of the star that was still so far away as to be barely distinguishable against the backdrop of billions of other stars.

Onboard the ships, the scene was somewhat less majestic and peaceful.

She was going to hurl.

Gracen clenched her mouth shut, teeth grinding together as her lips pursed almost painfully, and simply
refused
to spatter the deck with the contents of her stomach. Even if she choked herself, she wasn’t going to hurl, though it felt that choking herself was not only likely as
she sat there, bent over double in the chair, but almost a certainty.

She heard moans from around her, and the sound of liquid hitting the deck, and had the slightly vindictive satisfaction that she wasn’t the only one in that position. At least she’d outlasted someone else. That wasn’t enough though, so even when her stomach heaved and she tasted acids and digested food, Gracen kept her mouth shut and swallowed hard.

It was disgusting, it
hurt,
but there was just no possible way she was going to humiliate herself on her first transition. She knew that everyone would be watching, and judging. She was used to that, just as she was used to showing them all exactly what she wanted them to see and not a damned thing else.

Another set of heaves hit her as the smell from someone else wafted across the deck, this time actually backing up and filling her sinuses before she got it under control.

“Someone clean that mess,” she rasped out, snorting back the chunks and swallowing. “Ventilate the deck, please.”

“Aye ma’am,” Susan said. “Ventilating.”

The air scrubbers rushed a little. Normally soundless, they now made a comforting background noise as she sat as straight as she could and rasped out a new set of orders.

“Status.”

“All systems green, Admiral,” her first officer, Commander Son Ching formerly of the Block starship
Wei Feng,
said more stiffly than usual. A glance in his direction showed that his skin was slightly green as well, which struck her as funny in the moment, but laughing was another thing she had no intention of doing.

The urge to laugh at something she didn’t know whether he would understand faded quickly as Son handed
her a handkerchief silently and gestured to his nose. She took it and quickly dabbed away the thin trickle of stomach acids that had begun to run down her lip. She nodded her thanks and handed it back, gratified as he tucked it discreetly away.

“We have telemetry reports from all other ships in the squadron,” he said. “All vessels show green as well.”

“Threat matrix.”

“Clear,” the instrumentation officer announced. “No sign of Drasin in our immediate vicinity. Still waiting on light-speed instrumentation for a good view of the system.”

“Go active,” she ordered.

“Ma’am?”

“We just splattered tachyons all over this system, Jake,” she told the young officer. “They know we’re here. Go active.”

“Aye ma’am.”

Jake Southerd was an example of both the squadron’s strengths and its weaknesses. They had only the men and women of the
Odyssey,
a handful from Liberty Station, and the personnel of the
Wei Feng
from which to draw crews for six huge starships, so a great many of their officers were inexperienced even if they were the brightest and best of their generation.

Granted, they’d filled the ranks with volunteers from the Priminae forces, but that made things almost worse in many ways. Her own weapons officer was actually the first Priminae the
Odyssey
had ever met, a young woman named Milla Chans. She was young, brilliant, and incredibly inexperienced in military procedures. Gracen firmly believed that her strengths would outweigh her weaknesses, but she was worried that the combined weaknesses of the squadron would lead to a disastrous error in the coming action.

There was little choice, however. They had to move with what they had and she knew well that it could have been
so
much worse.

“Aye ma’am, initiating tachyon ping. Single ping, wide angle.”

Strictly speaking, they could use their gear more like radar than sonar now, but that would give the enemy a real-time lock on their location, something she had no intention of doing even with their standoff capability. The bridge filled with the sound of the ping being sent, though it was just an announcement and notification sound than an actual result of the system being employed.

“Signal return, we’ve . . . four hundred Drasin ships and counting in NEO,” Jake said, his voice sounding more ill than Gracen felt. “They’re fully powered and just sitting there, ma’am.”

Gracen nodded. “What do we have on light-speed imagery for Earth?”

“Signals are almost seven hours old, but it’s still there,” Jake answered, sounding a bit better. “No sign of any gray goo.”

Gracen refrained from responding, though she understood the reference. The Drasin acted much like the nightmare scenario of nanotechnology, only at a macro scale.

“Transmit queued message to the President of the Confederation, and then send again on the channel provided by Captain Sun.”

“Aye ma’am,” Susan said. “Transmitting to Confederate and Block satellites.”

“Excellent. Then signal the squadron and tell them to go black,” Gracen ordered. “No more tachyon signals, no more wide-spectrum transmissions.”

“Aye aye, ma’am. Squadron going black.”

“Stand by to warp space,” she ordered. “We’re going home.”

“Mr. President, we have a situation.”

Conner blinked away the sleep in his eyes, blearily looking around. There was a time, he dimly recalled, when he could awake from sleep in an instant. That time was barely a memory now, it seemed, but intellectually he figured that it was probably just a couple of months ago.

“What is it?” he asked, throwing the covers back and getting out of the bed.

“Signal from past the heliopause, sir.”

That woke him up.

“Source?”

“The signal was tagged
Odysseus,
Mr. President. Admiral Gracen commanding.”

“Admiral?” Conner blinked, suddenly feeling that maybe he hadn’t completely woken up after all. “How did she get . . .? No, never mind. Get me the message.”

“Yes sir.”

Twenty minutes later he couldn’t decide if he was actually awake.

I knew they were working on a deal with the Priminae, but I didn’t think it would be ready this quickly
.

He grabbed his suit pants and glanced over to the agent standing just inside his bedroom.

“I want the DARPA people in conference in ten minutes,” he ordered.

“Yes sir.”

“And you’d better get Captain Weston up too,” Connor said after a moment’s thought. “I’ll need to speak with him.”

“Yes sir.”

“You can tell him that his people are back through. I expect he’ll be happy to know that.”

“Signal from the President, Cap’n.”