Into the Black: Odyssey One (33 page)

The resulting firefight sprawled across the three buildings and through the intervening spaces, with what the Terran teams took to be military vehicles engaged the Drones as they hopped from place to place with apparent impunity.

The flashes of laser light and the odd sizzling sound of the invader’s energy weapons were easily seen and heard by the nine members of the NAC Odyssey’s Special Operations Teams.

Lieutenant Sean Bermont looked down at the scene from where he was kneeling by the edge of the rooftop and shook his head. The combined computer network had tallied all the tangos, the nine of them had spotted and the numbers weren’t looking good.

“I read at least fifty of them,” Corporal Givens said from behind him.

Sean didn’t bother to remind the Corporal that they had a shared data network, and whatever the Corporal was seeing was what they were all seeing. It wouldn’t change the numbers, nor would it make the defenders actions any more effective.

Whatever the drones were packing in the way of armor, it was clearly effective against laser weapons.

Sean looked away from the battle zone, looking around the garden of sky scrapers that they stood upon. Finally, he tagged three buildings with his HUD, knowing that the tags would be transferred to the others.

“Rogers, you and Givens take the building to our right. Establish a presence and prepare to snipe at the enemy. Adams, Benoit… The middle. Jenkins, Carter. Take the left,” Bermont said. “Samms and Curtis, you’re with me.”

A quick chorus of acknowledgment was heard and Sean nodded once.

“Move out.”

The six men he’d assigned to sniper duty nodded once, then quickly turned and took a running leap from the building, their assisted muscles driving them straight up, over forty meters and out into the dizzying heights, with deceptive ease.

*****

Gunnery Sergeant Rogers and Corporal Givens landed easily on their assigned rooftop, legs flexing as the nano-fibres in their armor absorbed the impact, of the three hundred meter, pack-assisted jump, and quickly got to work.

Rogers was a Marine Force Recon sniper specialist from way back and had been a career soldier all his adult life.

He quickly dropped to one knee as Givens lay out prone near the edge of the roof. His rifle was the long rifle variant of the MX-112, given to all the branches of the NAC military and its allies, and he’d spent many long hours learning every nuance of his particular rifle.

He casually flipped down the bi-pod and then flipped up the two reticule lenses of the rifle’s integrated long range sight.

Only then did he lay out beside his spotter, and turn his HUD over, to openly accept the targeting information that Givens had been gathering, while he prepared.

“What have we got?”

“Three tangos, pinning down survivors from a crash. Looks like some military, but they aren’t doing all that well against the tangos, Sarge.” Givens said, lighting up the HUD icons.

Rogers grunted, noting the display and checking the scene.

“Looks like they got one,” he said, noting a downed Tango.

“Sure did, Sarge…, but I think they hit it when they crashed the… Whatever the hell that thing is,” Givens replied.

“Probably,” Rogers grunted, lining up his first target.

The tango he’d chosen was making a real ass of itself, chewing through the cover that the survivors had fled to. In short order, it would probably open up the path, then those people would die.

Maybe in your next life, asshole,
Rogers thought to himself as the reticule in his sights flashed red and he squeezed the trigger with the same cool, calm, deliberation as he used on the range.

The long rifle bucked once against his shoulder, and it spat its heavy round out with the combined whine of its electronics and crack of the sonic boom.

The round left the barrel at three thousand meters per second; tearing through the atmosphere like the proverbial, bat out of hell. Fifty meters from the rifle, the onboard rocket booster kicked in and it quickly accelerated on target as a set of fins snapped out, stabilizing the round in flight.

It roared into the Drasin drone at over twenty thousand meters per second and still accelerating, the kinetic impact holing the hard shell of the drone just before its payload went off.

The Drasin stopped in mid-motion, staggered to one side, and collapsed.

But by then, Rogers had already picked his next target and fired.

*****

Sean Bermont glanced back at the two soldiers he’d selected for his team.

Russell Samms and Jaime Curtis were both drawn from the old US Army Ranger’s Corps, while Sean himself was a former member of Joint Task Force Two from back before the Confederation.

“All right, we drew shit duty,” Sean told the other two with a wry smile that they could hear, even if they couldn’t see it. “We’re going to get in close, while the other groups cover us, and make contact with the locals.”

“What for?” Jaime asked, sounding mildly disgusted. “It doesn’t look like they’re doing much good for themselves…”

“That’s what for,” Sean snapped. “We’re going to pull them out if we have to… Then we’ll hit these bastard’s with thermobarics, if all else fails.”

“On top of a skyscraper??” Russell objected, “No offence, Sean, but are you nuts?”

Jaime snickered, but Sean just rolled his eyes. “Have you checked this thing out?”

He tapped his armored boot on the rooftop.

“It’s like obsidian or something…,” Sean shook his head, “A thermobaric pressure wave won’t do fuck all to this… But I’ll bet it knocks those bustards’ off their feet.”

“If it doesn’t, I wanna go home,” Russell whined mildly, then nodded with a chuckle. “All right. Let’s do this.”

“Hang on a second!” Jaime muttered, “Are you sure!? I don’t want to start collapsing the entire city here.”

“Trust me, Curtis,” Sean said calmly. “Me and Savoy are already running the numbers, but it’s looking like this city could take a multi-megaton nuke and come out in decent shape.”

The slim trooper shook her head, “It’s the boss’ call…”

“Yep, so don’t worry about it,” Bermont said, looking around. “All right, we’ve got to get moving. Ready?”

“Ready!”

“On the bounce,” Sean grinned, using an old phrase long embraced by troopers in powered armor, though no one really seemed to remember why. A few people insisted it had to do with some old sci-fi novel. Sean doubted it, but he’d seen stupider reasons for traditions.

For whatever reason, it fitted the situation as the three soldiers judged their position and then leapt from the rooftop toward the carefully marked landing zones on their HUDs.

Chapter 21

Commander Roberts swung himself over the threshold, in the null-gravity of the Auxiliary Bridge, letting his momentum propel him into the lavishly sized room.

Compared to the main bridge, this room was at least twice the size and just as well equipped, mostly because it was the primary control center of the Odyssey, in the original plans. When the artificial gravity generators fell by the wayside, due to their enormous power requirements, the Bridge had been moved to the second cylindrical habitat, and this room had been turned into its backup.

“Commander,” a Lieutenant didn’t bother to come to attention or even salute as he approached, entirely for practical purposes since standing at attention in zero gee was about as effective as equipping firefighters with flamethrowers.

Instead the young man reached up as Roberts sailed past and hooked his hand, swinging the Commander down into the command chair.

“Much obliged, Lieutenant,” Roberts said calmly as he looked around.

The Bridge was built into the top of the Odyssey’s ‘Control Tower’, which was more of egotism than anything else, but it provided a magnificent view on three sides, through the clear transparent armor around them.

However, in battle, having transparent sections in your wall was contraindicated.

“Take us to battle stations, Lieutenant,” Roberts commanded. “And bring us completely online.”

“Aye Sir,” the lieutenant replied, tapping in a command code. “Sealing the Bridge now.”

The incredible view offered by the transparent battle steel vanished, as the armor shifted to block all wavelengths.

“Activating screens.”

Rolls of transparent plastic slid down from the recessed ports in the ceiling, the thin film covering the walls with a milky coating for a moment, before they flickered and the external view once again returned, in an ultra-high definition display that had been filtered through the computers and overlain with an electronic Heads up Display.

Roberts finished clipping in his restraints just as the ship rumbled, the screens lighting up with the red on red of a direct fire warning.

“Status!”

*****

The Bridge of the Odyssey shuddered and rolled slightly, as the crew gripped tightly to their seats and consoles.

“Damage reports coming in!” Lamont yelled over the screeching of tearing metal that could be heard right through to their teeth.

Weston grabbed for the console and slid it over as he punched up the damage control code, bringing the reports up on his own screens.

Not good. We’re venting atmosphere from the forward weapon’s stations.
He grounded his teeth, “get damage control crews down there!”

“Aye Captain!” Ensign Lamont said instantly, hands already keying into the emergency channel, as she spoke quickly and calmly over the emergency frequencies.

“Incoming!” Waters yelled a warning.

“Take us up! All power to vertical thrusters!” Weston ordered, leaning forward in the command chair. “Pitch us forward! Bring the Primary array and the forward HVM banks to bear!”

“Aye Captain!”

The NAC Odyssey clawed for vertical altitude, relative to her opponent, climbing above the lethal beam that scorched vacuum, just shy of their position. As they did so, Ensign Waters stood on the proverbial stick, as he pitched the nose down, while the ship climbed.

Slowly the Odyssey’s forward Laser Array came back into targeting range of the enemy, just as her forward HVM banks slid open.

As she climbed and twisted in space, the cutting beam of the Drasin laser followed suit, tracking its wayward target through space.

The forward bow of the Odyssey erupted, as her Laser Array flashed to life, just as her Hyper Velocity Missile (HVM) banks were flushed. The gleam of the charging banks cast an eerie glow on the plasma exhaust of the HVM launch, as both weapons tore out of the Odyssey and sought out their target.

Then the Drasin Laser scorched the lower keel of the Odyssey, vaporizing metal and venting atmosphere, as it blew out her lower flight deck.

Inside the big ship, the deck rocked as a five-man team tried to make their way down the zero gee corridor in hard suits.

“Shit!”

“Belay that chatter!” Chief Petty Officer Corrin growled, her harsh voice echoing over the suit comms of each man. “Move it, you pansies!”

The team kept moving, occasionally bouncing off the walls, as the ship rocked around them, but finally got to their positions.

“We’re here, Petty Officer,” the lead man said, glancing back from the sealed door. “We’ve got hard vac on the other side.”

“All right,” Corrin muttered, slapping a sealing switch beside her and dropping the heavy lock door behind them. “Break the seal and let’s get to work.”

The man nodded, turning back to the door as the corridor pitched and rolled around him. “On it, Chief.”

As the men moved quickly about their job, the information concerning the battle continued to feed from their suit computers and from computers all over the ship, into the main Bridge systems.

Once there the entire networked computing grid of the NAC Odyssey was sliced into bite-sized pieces, prioritized according to report priorities and a specialized computer algorithm, and then it was fed straight to the screens of Ensign Susan Lamont.

“We’re bleeding air from the flight deck!” Lamont snapped over her shoulder, her fingers already cutting off the deck from the rest of the ship, as she called up a list of the personnel still on the lower decks.

“Send rescue teams!” Weston growled. “Daniels, did we hit anything!?”

*****

The Drasin cruiser pitched upward as it tracked its quarry, trying to keep a solid beam on the human ship as the vessel performed the most… unexpected actions.

As it reconnected the beam to its target, the controller had a moment of satisfaction before warning alarms went off all through its systems.

That moment was its last.

*****

Hyper Velocity Missiles (HVM) could accelerate to nearly .8c in the few seconds they took to cross their normal effective range. The ones that launched from the Odyssey were targeted at an enemy ship within half that radius.

Even so, they managed to accelerate to .63c before impacting on the Drasin cruiser, delivering their kinetic payload on target, less than four seconds after they had launched.

By that time, the ship was already bubbling under the hellish heat of the Odyssey’s primary laser array.

*****

“We got him!” Daniels yelled throwing his arms up as the cruiser vanished from his screens.

The bridge erupted into cheers, but Captain Weston didn’t join in.

“Lamont… Damage control?”

Ensign Susan Lamont swallowed and nodded, turning back to her station as the brief exultation passed and she began to coordinate the crews, moving through the bowels of the ship.

*****

“They did it, Admiral.”

Admiral Tanner nodded a little dumbly as the central computer painted the death of the Drasin cruiser, on the threat board in brilliant detail.

Whoever that ship belonged to, it was a formidable force in and of itself.

However, since it had entered Orbit, they had tried contacting the crew on every frequency used by the colonies, to little avail. It either wasn’t answering, or it didn’t hear them.

In either case, it wasn’t exactly comforting.