Homeworld (Odyssey One) (28 page)

It was a terrifyingly devastating weapon system.

“Six enemy ships have slipped past us in FTL, Captain,” Winger announced. “They’re still on a pursuit course for the
Weifang.
”

“Understood. Thank you. Daniels, give me an intercept point to take those ships out,” Eric ordered. “Waters, fire at will.”

“Aye, aye!”

The
Odyssey
was coming about under full stealth, locking in her t-cannons on any target of opportunity in her range. The long guns pivoted on large servos mounted over the
flight deck and below her habitat drums, tracking enemy ships light-minutes away and firing with nothing more than a puff of radiant tachyon energy.

Straight and focused as a laser, the majority of the energy was undetectable except to the target, and by the time they locked in on the signal it was far too late. A dozen more rounds fired as the
Odyssey
finished coming about, turning eight more Drasin ships into expanding gasses without giving away more than the slightest of hints of the attacking vessel’s location.

“A small fleet of ships equipped with the transition cannon system could hold off almost anything,” Roberts whispered to Eric, his voice as low as possible while still being heard.

“You might be right,” Eric conceded, “but we don’t have a small fleet. Only the
Odyssey
has a fully equipped system. Even Liberty station only has a couple guns because they want to hide the tech from the Block so badly. I hear that the
Enterprise
is due to be refit with them next, but you know as well as I do how long it’ll take.”

Roberts nodded grimly.

“Besides, let’s not get too in love with these things. Any weapon seems like a super weapon the first time it sees use,” Eric said. “Now we get to see how long it takes the enemy to figure out a counter tactic.”

“Hard to counter a sniper that can pot your ships from eight light-minutes away, sir.”

“Yeah, and that just scares me, to be honest.”

“Sir?” Roberts asked, confused.

“I don’t like it when I can’t think up a counter tactic, because I know I’m not the smartest guy around. If I can’t think it up, then I can’t predict what the enemy is going to do, and that’s never a good situation in which to be.”

“I think you’re worrying too much, sir,” Roberts said as the
Odyssey
came fully about and began to steam powerfully away from the enemy at an oblique angle so they were hiding their thrust gasses. “Some weapons are just
force majeure
.”

“Yeah, but they have several million ships by our count, and they don’t mind suicide missions,” Eric said tersely. “Don’t get comfortable, Commander. We need to delay their finding Earth by as long as we possibly can.”

Roberts grimaced, but nodded as he conceded the point.

The t-cannons were impressive but, frankly, they didn’t have enough ammunition on Earth to take on the Drasin fleet’s full strength.

“Course plotted, Captain!”

“Transition when ready.”

IMPERIAL DESTROYER
DEMIGOD

A THIRD OF his fleet of drones, gone in an instant.

Ivanth had frozen in place, and he knew that he had, but he couldn’t make himself move again. Not fast enough, not remotely fast enough. He’d never seen anything like it, never heard of anything like it.

Not even in the whispers of new weapons development had anything been bandied about that fit the description of what just happened to his ships. Granted, they were only drones and of small loss to be sure, but…what had happened to them?

“Commander, we just registered a trans-light pulse.”

His mouth dry, Ivanth licked his lips to very little purpose. “How many did we lose this time?”

“None, Commander. It was…different.”

Ivanth turned his head, the shock finally breaking perhaps. “Different how?”

“It was several deci-lights away from our ships, for one. The signal was also more powerful and less focused. I ran it for a match, Commander. We found one.”

“Show me.”

The display at the scanner station was showing the unknown pulse on one side of a split-screen image, along with a known signal on the other half. Ivanth recognized the second without even thinking about it.

“The unknown ship that’s been plaguing us,” he said, pensive. “It fits, somewhat. That ship is one of very few things that could hide from us out here without a gravimetric trap to locate it. The weapons, however, they’re like nothing we’ve ever seen. They don’t fit.”

“Active seeking mines, Commander?”

“Perhaps. Trans-light projectiles, maybe?” Ivanth scowled.

Trans-light weapons were far from unknown, but they were generally strategic weapons. You used them to crack particularly difficult system defenses surrounding worlds you didn’t much care to keep intact. Put a trans-light drive onto a projectile platform, accelerate it to five hundred lights, and then slam it into your target.

If the resulting kinetic crash wasn’t enough to blow whatever world you were aiming at apart, the energy release from the drive warp would turn it to a cinder. For obvious reasons, it wasn’t a particularly politic weapon to employ under most circumstances, and generally just resided as a threat in the Empire’s arsenal. The drones were far better when you wanted to employ that level of destruction and terror, if only because they were largely deniable assets. Should things get too out of hand, it would be easy to rile up most worlds’ populaces with a little fear of the Drasin legends and turn the whole thing into even more control over the Imperial systems.

Such weapons were imprecise and generally very crude, however. Whatever just blew his fleet of drones apart was something else again.

“Proceed into the field with caution,” he ordered. “Drones are to take the vanguard position. It looks like our unknown assailant has departed, but they may be running games on us. Clear this sector before we proceed to rejoin the pursuit.”

“Yes, Commander.”

CHAPTER TEN

Priminae Warship
Posdan

“UNUSUAL TRANS-LIGHT signals ahead, Captain.”

Kian stood up and walked over to the scanner station, eyes drifting to the displays. “Anything you can match?”

“One signal seems to match the
Odyssey
, Captain, leaving the area I believe.”

“And the rest?”

“Multiple bowshock readings, and what looks like several catastrophic failures of trans-light drive warp fields.”

Kian whistled. Whatever had caused that was a nasty piece of work. Particle emissions from drive failures while at speed were nothing to joke about.

“Most of the drive signatures read roughly in line with our records of Drasin, Captain, but there are two here that….”

The officer hesitated, drawing her attention back to the fore.

“What is it?”

“They read almost Priminae, Captain.”

Kian’s eyes narrowed as she leaned forward, eyes focusing on the readings as she read through them quickly.

She’d been briefed on the
Odyssey
’s discovery, of course, but like many in the fleet she wasn’t sure how to take it. The
idea that the enemy they were all terrified of was just a pawn in the game of someone greater…well, that was bad enough. The fact that the greater
someone
might be using schematics lifted directly from Central? That was unthinkable.