Homeworld (Odyssey One) (26 page)

“Local area clear. Deploying sails and tachyon traps.”

Winger was on the ball for certain, he noted, glancing over to where the instrument specialist was working almost feverishly over her console. The
Odyssey
’s large sensor sails would take a few moments to deploy, and until they were fully in place, the ship was relying on close-range, light-speed limited detection.

Which is effectively the same as being blind in our current situation.

Once the sails were out, Winger immediately turned her focus to the tachyon traps as she looked for either any sign of bowshock or signals from the Priminae vessels.

“Faint bowshock, Captain,” she announced a short while later. “We’ve gotten ahead of them, sir.”

Eric nodded, mostly to himself. There hadn’t been much doubt that they would; the transition system was simply that fast. There was nothing known that could outrace them in FTL, and that was the way he liked things. He had been a little concerned that they’d change course on him, however, and that could seriously delay any attempt to intercept.

“Are they still on their previous course?”

“Yes, sir,” Winger’s voice was grim. “Sir, we may already be too late.”

Eric grimaced, but couldn’t deny that point.

The
Weifang
was on an arcing course that would eventually take them close enough to Sol to make a quick dart to one side
to get home. If the enemy was remotely curious, they would probably send ships ahead to check the few star systems that lay close to the ship’s course, just as a matter of being thorough.

I would.

That said, he’d have to burn that bridge when he got to it.

“Helm, get us on an intercept course. Tactical, power all weapons.”

“Aye, sir!”

First, he had to deter the
Weifang
from her course, one way or the other.

The
Odyssey
rumbled into motion, fine-tuning the placement of the ship to give them a shot at the
Weifang
as it passed.

“Give me a comm channel, in the open please,” Eric said as the ship glided into place.

“Channel open, sir.”

“Block vessel
Weifang
, this is the N.A.C.S.
Odyssey
,” he said grimly, almost certain that the other ship would never hear what he was transmitting. “You are being pursued. Heave to and stand by for safe coordinates to take your ship and crew. I say again, you are being pursued. The
Odyssey
will not permit you to lead your pursuers back to Earth. Heave to and stand by for safe coordinates.”

He sighed. “Close comm.”

“Comm closed.”

“How long until we have to fire?”

“Three minutes, sir,” Waters answered.

“Alright. Translate my last to Mandarin and send it on a loop for three minutes.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Eric looked at the display, already calculating the time it would take for the onrushing ship to intercept the message beaming out from the
Odyssey
.

Hear my words. I don’t want to have to open fire.

Seconds ticked by as he watched the tachyon bowshock closing on the
Odyssey
’s position, and Eric could feel the tension climbing. Maybe it was just him, but he didn’t think so. The others in his line of sight looked a little worse for wear with each passing moment.

He couldn’t blame them. What was about to happen was effectively declaring war on the Block, assuming the
Weifang
didn’t respond to their signals.

“One minute, sir.”

They’ve passed through our signal by now. Goddamn it, slow down!

“Give fire control over to the computer,” Eric ordered. “Green light the program.”

Waters swallowed visibly, but didn’t object as he entered the command.

“Aye, aye, sir. Weapons now locked on computer control.”

The Block starship didn’t give any sign that they’d picked up the signal, and Eric hated himself for giving the order, but he didn’t know of any other way to stop the ship. It couldn’t be permitted to lead the Drasin to Earth.

Not with what we know of the species. They have more assets in theatre than anyone ever imagined until we saw the interior of the Dyson Construct. Multiplied by their ability to, well, multiply themselves, we’ll never be able to hold them off if they decide to come at us with their full power.

For some reason, Eric was well aware that the Drasin were holding back their true strength, or being held back seemed more likely. The colonies, while suffering tremendous losses, had been assaulted by literally the minimum force possible to accomplish each task. Whomever was holding the puppet’s strings was being rather tight with how he spent his or her assets.

Without knowing just why that was, Eric couldn’t predict what would happen if Earth was discovered. Maybe whatever was keeping the Priminae from being swarmed wouldn’t apply to Earth.

“They’re in range. Firing…now,” Waters announced as the computer let loose with the main laser array and a barrage of HVMs from the forward launchers.

He could practically feel the cumulated breaths taken by his officers drop the pressure in the room, every eye pinned to the display as they watched the ship and weapon plots barrel toward one another.

It was unusual for weapons to move so much slower than their target, but in this case the ship the
Odyssey
was firing on was easily moving hundreds of times faster than the weapons themselves. Even getting a shot at the
Weifang
had been more a matter of laying a trap than anything resembling actual combat.

“Intercept in ten seconds,” Waters announced, largely unnecessarily as everyone was well aware of the numbers.

The two lines on the screen drew closer and closer until finally they connected and then…

Nothing.

Well, in fairness Eric hadn’t really expected a whole lot to happen. The display was just a mathematical model of the battlefield and certainly not a real-time view. He looked over to where Winger was working. “What do you have, Michelle?”

She hesitated, then looked over at him and shook her head. “No apparent effect, Captain.”

Eric grimaced. He’d been afraid of that.

“Nothing? They didn’t even change course?”

“No, sir.”

“Damn.”

The
Weifang
apparently used the Alcubierre warp solution to achieve FTL, a system that had its flaws but also its strengths. By everyone’s best guess, and Eric was all too aware that they
were
guesses, a ship inside an Alcubierre warp wouldn’t be able to see well due to the interference generated by the system. As compensation, however, the gravity warp that propelled the ship also created a very strong defense.

Almost unbelievably strong. I half-expected the hyper-velocity missiles to be ineffective, but they were able to warp space enough to redirect
laser
fire? Amazing.

“Daniels, plot us a course to a new attack position. All hands, stand by to transition.”

“Aye, Captain!”

“All hands!” Roberts called out over the ship-wide comm. “Stand by to transition.”

Alarms were sounding in the background as Eric leaned over in Roberts’s direction.

“Opinions, Commander?”

“Pulse torpedoes might have an effect, given that they’re based on anti-deuterium pellets, but they’re more susceptible to gravity fields than lasers,” Roberts answered. “Same for the t-cannons, sir. We may not be able to hit them while they’re warping space-time at this level.”

Eric nodded. The commander’s thoughts echoed his own. The
Odyssey
had never tried engaging a target at high warp; it wasn’t really a situation they’d considered, to be honest. Most of the
Odyssey
’s engagements were by nature held deep inside the gravity well of a star, a place where high-level warping of space-time was
inadvisable
.

“Lasers and HVMs would have shaken them up, but probably not destroyed the ship,” he said. “If we hit them with pulse torpedoes, they’re dead, Commander.”

“Them or Earth, Captain.”

Eric gritted his teeth, flopping back in his chair and running his hand through his hair in frustrations.

“Damn it! Look at the plot, Commander. Earth’s already exposed.”

“Potentially,” Roberts conceded. “Not certainly.”

Eric shot him an annoyed look. “Any tactical officer a quarter of Waters’s worth would send ships to investigate those stars and you know it. Kill them or not, it wouldn’t matter. It’d just confirm that something was out there.”

“Captain, we have to do something. Otherwise it’s like just inviting them home for lunch.”

Eric nodded slowly. “You’re not wrong there.”

He turned his eyes to the display, the bowshock of other ships showing on the screen. “But if we must destroy our targets, let’s pick ones we’re already at war with. Lieutenant Waters?”

“Sir.”

“Have the pulse torpedoes charged,” Eric ordered. “We’re drawing a line in the sand.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

The oncoming bowshocks of the pursuing vessels were closing on the
Odyssey
’s position quickly, and it would take precious minutes to charge the launchers, making the time crunch a little more urgent than Eric was used to dealing with while engaged in battle. It was more often a waiting game than a race, but this time they were most certainly in a sprint to the finish.

“Have the firing solution ready as soon as the torpedo room reports,” he ordered Waters. “I want to have a spread on target ASAP.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Roberts scowled at his display, tapping in orders before looking back to Eric. “We don’t know if the anti-matter in the torpedoes will have any effect through a warp bubble. This might be a waste of time.”

“If it has no effect, we’ll transition straight back to Earth and raise the alarm,” Eric said. “No point blowing away the Chinese if we’re getting visitors anyway. Hell, maybe we’ll catch some luck and cause some kind of critical failure in their systems. Even blowing out their warp bubble would probably be fatal at the speeds they’re moving.”

Roberts nodded, conceding the point. Without the warp bubble twisting space in front of the ship, any tiny piece of debris would strike the
Weifan
g like an atom bomb at its current velocity. The problem was that a warping of space-time wasn’t something that reacted with either matter or anti-matter, so there was just no way to tell if the pulse torpedoes would have an effect.

“If I remember my FTL theory,” Eric said after a moment, “an Alcubierre drive should be picking up particulate as it moves, ranging from low- to high-energy particles across the spectrum. If that’s true, our torpedoes should interact with the particles trapped in the warp bubble and explode.”

“Agreed,” Roberts said simply. “What I’m not sure about is whether the energy released will have any effect, or if it’ll just be warped into the field with everything else.”

“Captain, torpedoes are charged.”

Eric looked over to his XO. “Let’s find out.”

“As you say, Captain,” Roberts said. “Permission to engage the automated firing controls?”

“Granted.”

“Tactical,” Roberts called. “Fire as they bear.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Automated program loaded, control is on the computer. Firing as they bear.”

A warp drive utilizes properties of space-time to change the shape of the local universe, creating warps ahead and behind a ship. A “depth” is formed ahead of the ship, causing the vessel to begin to slide down the virtual hill, while at the same time a peak is formed to the aft to balance the force of the drive and increase effectiveness.

To the universe at large, the ship contained within the bubble of warped space-time moves at incredible rates, but to the ship itself, everything is standing still. No acceleration effects are felt to tear the ship and crew apart. No relativistic effects warp the perception of time, and the speeds that can be achieved are limited largely by the technical capacity to manipulate the local Higgs field surrounding the ship.

Perfect, the system is not, however.

Within the bubble, local space heats up, potentially eclipsing the hottest natural locations in the universe. Insulating, redirecting, and dissipating that heat is the first challenge to building a manned spacecraft drive by warp-field manipulation. The next is dealing with the undesired particle buildup in the drive’s warping of space-time, accumulated as the ship hurtles across the universe at speeds that are naturally impossible to achieve.

If those particles aren’t dealt with before the ship drops the warping fields, they’ll be released along the path the ship was travelling. Moving at incredible speeds and with the energy of a pulsar, those particles would annihilate anything in their path.

When the
Odyssey
’s pulse torpedoes intersected with the lead element of drones, the anti-deuterium pellets that made up the core of their hellish weapons found no lack of particles with which to interact. The pellets were sucked into the warped field around the drones’ ships, sinking into a near singularity directly at the bow of one particular vessel. The pellets intersected with an enormous concentration of matter particles that had been gathering for light-years.