Homeworld (Odyssey One) (50 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Station Liberty

“REPORTS ON YOUR desk, Admiral.”

Gracen nodded, waving her thanks to the aide as she walked across to her desk. The smoked glass surface was clean as always, waiting for her presence. She took a seat and waved her hand over the desktop, causing it to blink to life.

The notification list, including the reports she was waiting for, lit up on the screen. She quickly brought it up and went straight to the manufacturing reports for the new one-hundred-centimeter thermal nuclear shells.

Not as bad as I might have hoped, but at least the production has started and we’ll receive shipments within a week. I just hope it’ll be enough.

She turned in her chair, eyes falling on the wall display that showed the N.A.C.S.
Enterprise
where the big ship was already undergoing a pressing refit. They didn’t know how long they had, but while there was time, it was the Confederacy’s goal to arm all of their mobile units with the transition-based weaponry.

For all current intents and purposes, that really only meant the
Enterprise
,
Odyssey
, and of course Liberty Station.
The
Valley Forge
was still little more than a space frame in construction, and similarly they had yet to lay keels for the next three ships planned.

The Confederacy just didn’t have the yards to build starships in significant numbers. It hadn’t been in the budget until the
Odyssey
brought back the news it had, and had still been debated for some time after. She rather suspected that the funding was about to be increased significantly.

Let’s just hope that it isn’t too little, too late.

Space yards were big business, however, and while government slips were the only ones large enough to build true starships, there were smaller commercial facilities available. They’d begun the process of appropriating those, converting them over to military production. It was a stopgap move, one that she wasn’t certain was worth diverting available resources.

The new Marauder class ships were capable enough, she supposed, for tin cans limited to the solar system. They certainly packed enough offensive armament to make them a threat even to ships the like of the
Odyssey
or the
Enterprise
, but their defensive capacity worried her. Even with the third-generation CamPlate modifications, their armor was dangerously thin.

The lasers used by the Drasin were powerful enough that even a fraction of their heat could vaporize thin sections of armor, leaving a ship in dire straits if they didn’t have some thickness there to lean on. The
Odyssey
and the
Enterprise
had armor forged in space, feet thick in places and nano-molecular bonded all the way through with the CamPlate modifications. They could literally lose a foot of armor and shrug it off like nothing had happened. The new Marauders couldn’t hope to match that.

There was currently a debate about putting automated controls in them to use the class as a form of shock troops, their own answer to the Drasin, she supposed. It was hotly debated, but aside from the legal implications of releasing armed drones in the Sol System and the international nightmare that would cause, there were some practical limitations that made it unlikely to happen in her eyes.

The speed of light was the biggest hurdle. In combat, even a second’s delay in receiving sensor data, or a command, could be fatal. While the ships might be automated, they’d still be in damned short supply. They wouldn’t be able to afford to waste even those smaller platforms if worse came to worst. Every pound of metal they had in space would have to count.

No, they would have to man the smaller ships, and with sizeable crews apiece. She didn’t know if they would give nearly enough offensive punch to counter the risk they’d be asking those crews to assume.

Hopefully Weston’s little display will set our enemies back on their heels for a bit, and we’ll have time to build a real fleet now that the political winds are blowing our way.

She knew that the Block had also tripled their efforts in orbit, installing new slips in their own yard, and they actually had four keels laid and two superstructures almost finished. Their ships might not have the speed of the
Odyssey
or its new ability to reach out and touch their enemies, but the intelligence said that the
Weifang
and its sister ships were more than capable in their own right.

Time. All we need is time.

THE HIVE

Imperial Destroyer
Demigod

“COMMANDER, WE’VE LOCATED…refuse.”

Ivanth opened his eyes, turning to look in the direction of the speaker. He frowned slowly as he stood. “Refuse?”

“You should look at this, Commander.”

Ivanth scowled, but walked over to the screens and took a look.

Refuse was indeed the term, he decided as he looked it over. Scrap metal mostly, nothing that looked familiar. The analysis showed metallic fragments and high quantities of silicates along with other materials that didn’t match any signature he’d ever seen.

Best be certain,
he supposed.

“Are there any matches in the central systems?”

“No, Commander. I checked multiple times. No one uses materials that match the analysis here. The Priminae don’t use metals in their ships. Our ships use very different metallurgy, and the Drasin are silicon-based organics. Not even the minor cultures across the galaxy use anything that matches this.”

“What about the unknown species?”

“No. We have scanner recordings of them and they use simple metallurgy, easy to match. This does not.”

Ivanth grimaced. He didn’t like this at all. The Hive was apparently empty, no signs of the
thousands
of drones that should be there. The Prohuer’s task force, likewise gone. Those two things alone should be patently impossible. The logistics of organizing the departure of that many drone ships alone….

He shook his head. None of it made any sense.

“The Prohuer must have abandoned the facility, but…why?”

There was no answer to that, unfortunately, and the only person who could tell him was no longer in the star system. He had to locate the task force and get new instructions. With only two ships at his command, he was in grave danger should either the Priminae or the unknown species chance upon him.

OK, that was unlikely as such things went. But given how far away they were from Imperial support, it was still a very real concern.

Ivanth made a decision. “The
Immortal
is closer to slip five. Dispatch them to investigate there while we go to the primary slip.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The
Demigod
turned slowly as it began warping space, accelerating smoothly on its new course. They made quick time, pushing their drives to both accelerate and decelerate, and arrived shortly at their destination. It was the makeshift slip used by the Imperial ships when they needed to transfer cargo and personnel, do maintenance, and so forth.

The Hive was a very alien construct, built by the drones and their varying generations of sub-drones. It wasn’t intended for
occupation by any living species, if Ivanth were honest about it. The drones were a disgusting abomination, born and bred in some abyssal part of the universe that Ivanth hoped never to see, and they had no interest whatsoever in providing facilities for the use of mere humans or any other life form the Empire had on record.

Still, the Imperial engineers had been able to patch together a slip where they could get work done that was extremely difficult or impossible to do in open space. If there were a message or evidence of any kind connected to what had happened, that was where he may be able to find it.