The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (9 page)

NACS ODYSSEY
Outer Rim, Ranquil System

▸“REPORT!” WESTON CROAKED, trying to get his voice back after the last transition.

“Systems check coming back, sir,” Lamont said tiredly, sounding like her throat was constricting. She keyed into the damage-control net, calling for status reports. “All stations report. I say again, all stations report.”

“Helm?”

“We’re on target, Captain,” Daniels replied, keying up his screens. “We came in just above the elliptic, within forty thousand klicks of our target.”

“Outstanding, Lieutenant.” Eric smiled, nodding slightly toward the navigation officer.

“All stations report clear, Captain.” Ensign Lamont looked up. “We are showing a misalignment in the tachyon sensors, but they’re working on fixing it now.”

“Thank you, Ensign,” Eric replied, keying the ship-wide open. “This is the captain speaking. Welcome to the Ranquil System. I’d like to congratulate everyone on a masterful execution of a very difficult series of transitions. You have my admiration. Weston out.”

People watched with mixed expressions of disgust and amusement as Lieutenant Crowley’s guts hurled what few contents his stomach had left into the head, his body racked by the heaves. It was a common scene the veterans of the
Odyssey
’s first voyage remembered from the post-transition moments, but those who were new to the ship were all pulling as far away as they could, save those who were intent on joining the lieutenant on the floor.

“Damn, Lieutenant. You sound like you’re in pain,” Sergeant Greene said from the other side of the room, where those who weren’t afflicted by what had fondly become known as “transition sickness” had congregated.

The lieutenant wasn’t alone, either. He’d picked up three buddies in his moment of crisis, and they were all on their way to mutually stinking up the room with the pungent aroma of stomach acids.

“Christ, what the hell is going on in here?”

Greene glanced over to where Bermont was walking in. The former member of the Canadian Joint Task Force 2 Special Forces unit looked about as cocky as he did at any other time, walking with a half-swagger that summed up his personality just about perfectly. He was also one of the very few members of the
Odyssey
crew who actually enjoyed the moment of transition.

Most everyone else either hated his guts immediately before or after a transition, or envied him until they turned green and had to make a rush for the head.

“These boys just can’t take a little fifteen-light-year hop.” Greene grinned, trying to cover the sensation of his own stomach turning somersaults. They had Dr. Palin to help them
through it, but if he ever solved all the symptoms, they’d have to find something else to complain about. Where was the fun in that?

Bermont snorted. “Here, I thought we had some real men on this trip.”

On the bridge, Weston was getting the reports from his subordinates.

“Captain, I’m getting a thermal bloom from about thirty degrees around the elliptic,” Waters announced, frowning as he tapped in a command. “I’m reading out a ship, sir. It’s turning…I lost the bloom. Either they’ve cut their engines or they’re accelerating this way.”

“Any sign of Drasin presence?”

“Negative, Captain. Ranquil appears to be in one piece, and I’m not reading anything that looks like a Drasin cruiser.”

“Do we have a profile on the source of the bloom yet?”

“Negative. We’ll have to wait a few more minutes for the passives to pick up a good silhouette.”

Eric nodded. “Very well. Helm, give me a course to the planet. Tactical, prepare to paint the bogey.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” both stations replied just as Ensign Lamont half turned around.

“Captain,” she said, “you have a call from the ambassador.”

Eric thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Put him through.”

She nodded and opened a channel directly to the captain.

“Ambassador, what can I do for you?” Eric asked genially. He was in a good mood and figured that it probably wasn’t
a Drasin coming at them. Even if it were, they had plenty of time to react.

“Captain,” the ambassador’s thin voice returned, “I have just been contacted by the vessel
Vulk
. They will rendezvous with us and escort us to the planet.”

Eric blinked.

Since when does the ambassador have a commlink?

Aloud, he merely acknowledged the information. “Very well, Elder. We are laying in a course for the planet now. You should be home within half a day.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Eric shut the channel down and made a note to have the ambassador scanned—unobtrusively, of course—before he was disembarked. It would be interesting to know where and how he had hidden what had to be an FTL comm.

PRIMINAE VESSEL VULK
Outer Rim, Ranquil System

▸CAPT. JOHAN MARAN eyed the small ship on his screens as his pilot expertly brought the
Vulk
alongside it.

“So this is the infamous
Odyssey
,” he said, his voice cool.

“Yes, sir,” one of the young men manning the sensor stations replied.

Maran fixed him with a cold expression and he gulped, looking away.

The young fool should know when a comment is not a question and requires no answer
, he thought as he maintained his stiff stance.

The ship wasn’t impressive on the outside, that much was certain. It was smaller than the
Vulk
and its sister ships by probably four or five times at least. Maran had also been briefed on what the rotating drums were for, and he found it amusing that any space-faring people would resort to something so primitive when the basics of effective space travel were tied so tightly to field manipulations that could easily provide artificial gravity.

However, no matter what it looked like on the outside, this little vessel had a sting that perhaps even the
Vulk
could not match.

Maran would be very interested in learning how it managed that particular feat, especially with a power curve as apparently flat as was indicated on his scans. Still, he’d seen the records of the Battle of Ranquil, and as much as it pained him to admit it, he and his people owed a great deal to this single, small vessel.

“So this is the
Odyssey
,” he repeated, his voice pitched lower this time, as he mused upon its design.

No one said anything this time, if they heard him in the first place.

NACS ODYSSEY
Ranquil Planetary Orbit