The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (2 page)

Whether that would happen, given his current status of “mixed” esteem within the military and political realities of the North American Confederation (NAC), he didn’t know. He and much of the
Odyssey
crew, unfortunately, were
currently what one might call “odd ducks.” They were too valuable, both politically and experience-wise, to be tossed away. However, there was a growing movement within the political and military communities that harbored ill will toward them for bringing the Earth, at least marginally, into a larger universe that appeared quite willing to kill them all. Not only did they now have to deal with non-Terran humans, the Colonials, but also voracious and warlike aliens. Well, he supposed that if you were going to explore the universe, then that was the chance you took.

“Captain!”

Eric paused, glancing back, and saw a young man, Lt. Walter Daniels, approaching from his six. He held his step until the young man had caught up to him, then nodded politely.

“Lieutenant.”

“Sir.” The lieutenant came to a halt and saluted. “Commander Roberts sends his regards and wanted me to give you this, sir.”

Eric returned the salute, then accepted the memory chip from the young man, wondering why Roberts had sent him on a gopher job. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Not a problem, sir,” Daniels responded. “I was heading to the station lounge, anyway.”

Eric smiled slightly, nodding. That explained why Daniels had been tapped for gopher duty—it gave the young man another excuse to visit with a certain young ensign assigned to the Liberty Communications Center. Eric supposed he didn’t blame him; he’d done more for less in his day, and he was sure that his own commanding officers had given him a little latitude more than once. “Very good, then. As you were, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Eric watched him leave for a moment, then pocketed the chip and turned and continued on his way. He still had an admiral to meet, after all.

Amanda Gracen looked up as Weston was shown into the office, nodding curtly to her secretary. As the naval attaché retreated from the room, she eyed him for a moment before gesturing to a chair across from her. “Take a seat, Captain.”

Eric stepped forward and slid into the comfortable chair that was situated across from the admiral. “Admiral.”

Gracen looked down at the files displayed beneath the hard plastic surface of her desk, idly flipping through them with economical flickers of her fingers. Weston wondered what she was waiting for, or if she just didn’t want him to feel comfortable. It was a tactic he’d used himself more than once when he wanted to stress a point with a subordinate, mostly because it was damnedably effective, even if you knew what was going on. After a moment, she looked up again, then leaned back in her high-backed chair. “Well, Captain, do you have a status report on your ship?”

Eric stiffened, just slightly, then nodded. “Aye, ma’am. The
Odyssey
is fully repaired, and her crew is fully integrated and as good a group of people as I’ve had the honor to serve with. We’re ready for orders, Admiral.”

A glint of something floated in the eyes of the admiral, but Eric couldn’t quite identify it. Amusement, perhaps, but he just couldn’t be sure. She nodded at his words, then flicked her finger along the display and opened another file. Eric
wished he could tell what she was looking at, but the display in the admiral’s desk was designed to be read from the admiral’s position only.

“Have you followed the developments with the ambassador’s dealings?” she asked after a moment.

The “ambassador,” Elder Corusc, had been charged by his people with negotiating a treaty with Earth in the aftermath of the fierce battle the
Odyssey
had waged in their home system against the “Drasin,” so named by the Colonials. The technology of the two human cultures had diverged heavily in direction, leaving the
Odyssey
with an advantage in weapons sophistication, though woefully underpowered in the area of pure brute force.

He had spent a great many nights since then imagining what the Earth technology base could do with all that pure energy. Many of the limitations the
Odyssey
suffered from were due largely to a lack of power, as opposed to a lack of technology.

Weston shook his head in response to the question, though; he hadn’t had time with the make-work projects the
Odyssey
had been forced to endure. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I’ve been a little busy.”

The narrow smile on the admiral’s face told Eric that she knew precisely what he had been busy doing, but that was another matter.

“Pity, you might have found it interesting,” was all she said on the subject.

“I’m sure that I would have,” Eric replied, keeping his tone neutral.

“Unfortunately,” she went on, “much of the technology won’t be of any use to us for several years at least…” She let her words drop off, then abruptly started speaking again. “Including, I’m afraid, their power systems.”

Eric stiffened almost at once. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. “Pardon me, ma’am?”

“The Colonials—sorry, the Priminae, as they apparently call themselves,” Gracen said, “use a power system entirely different from ours, and I’m afraid that we haven’t figured out a way to generate electricity with it just yet. Not with any real efficiency, at least.”

Eric grimaced. He should have thought of that, he supposed.

“We have some designers working on entirely new weapon and ship designs, but for the immediate future, we won’t be tapping that particular resource,” she told him.

Eric sighed and said, “Understood.”

“Still, that’s not to say that no good came of it.” The admiral half smiled. “The medical technology, while still not compatible with our own systems, doesn’t really have to be. We’ve already begun integrating a great many of the techniques into our own medical center here on
Liberty
, and so far, the results are promising.”

Eric nodded absently, still in the back of his mind mourning the loss of all that power. It was only then that something about the conversation made him frown.

“Pardon, Admiral,” he said after a moment’s thought, “but have we reached an agreement with the Colonials’ elder?”

Admiral Gracen smiled again, this time a little wider. “Yes, we have.”

Eric nodded again, his mind working hard now. He knew that the elder, Corusc, had been a little frustrated with the pace of Earth-born politics, but by the same token, the Colonials all seemed to be fatalists in one way or another—or rather, most of them were.

He’d met a couple that were the same sort of struggle-unto-the-death types that Eric generally associated with human beings, but those were both military, more or less. Corusc was certainly a great deal more patient than he would have been, taking over three months from their arrival in the Sol System to patiently bounce from one state dinner to another in the hopes of recruiting some help, practically any help, for his people against the Drasin.

Three months was a long time in any war, but even more so in the type of genocidal struggle that the Colonials faced. So Eric understood the elder’s frustrations quite easily.

He looked back at the admiral. “What kind of agreement?”

“We’ll supply advisors for their ground forces in the form of Green Beret detachments,” Gracen replied, “as well as providing them with the technical specifications on both our adaptive armor and laser systems. We won’t be giving them either the technical specifications on the transition drive system, nor will we give away the coordinates of the Sol System.”

Eric nodded, agreeing with both points.

The transition drive was certainly the ace in the hole for the Terran forces. It was a rather nerve-racking system that allowed effectively instantaneous travel across distances of up to thirty light-years. Even more if they could generate enough power to do it.

Likewise, the exact stellar location of the Sol System wasn’t something to be traded away at any price in the current situation. Eric wasn’t certain if the enemy had any way to learn it from the Colonials, but it was far, far better to remain under the radar, as it were. At least until a home fleet and systemwide defense system could be put into place.

However, in order to carry out even this agreement, it would mean sending the
Odyssey
on another mission. Eric’s
eyes narrowed as he considered that. Not that he was opposed to another mission, and he was reasonably confident that his crew would welcome it; however, at the moment, the
Odyssey
was the single-largest accumulation of firepower in the Sol System.

“When will we be returning to Ranquil, then?” he asked, as casually as he could.

“In two weeks,” she replied. “Your crew will have that time for leave.”

“Yes, ma’am, they’ll appreciate that,” Eric replied, but he was still thinking about local defenses. “Admiral…without the Odyssey stationed here, if the Drasin should arrive…”

“That’s unlikely to happen, unless they managed to backtrack your transition bursts,” Gracen replied. “But if it does, we should be adequately prepared.”

Eric didn’t say anything, not because he agreed, but because he wasn’t so sure.

Gracen went on. “The
Normandy
and the
Enterprise
are well under construction by our own crews, as you know, and they’ll be approaching minimal operational status in the next two weeks, though they’ll need another month to be completed. Additionally, the Soviet Alliance has begun construction on the
Gagarin
. She’s a light destroyer the Soviets had originally planned to use as a test bed for some new ideas of theirs, as well as a matter of showing their ‘flag’ in the new space race.”

The Soviet Alliance was still relatively weak, coming out of the Block War with a nasty pounding to their credit from the Chinese forces that invaded from the south. They’d done well enough, considering that their military had been badly outmatched by the newer and more modern Block forces during the war.

Ironically, though, it had done them a lot of good on the economic side of things. Since the end of the twentieth century, they’d been struggling to find their footing in a world that was jumping ahead by leaps and bounds and leaving them far behind. The war had forced the entire loose-knit agglomeration of nations to face a common enemy on even ground and to pour a lot of effort into a common goal.

Since the end of the Block War, the alliance had been making great strides in stepping back into the field of Premier powers on Earth, and the
Gagarin
would be an important prestige point to them.

“The Block, of course,” Gracen said with a mild twist to her lip, “has the
Mao Tse Tung
under construction in addition to their in-system freighters and armed shuttles. So I believe that we’re covered.”

Eric supposed that was true enough, even though the
Mao
wouldn’t have nearly the defenses it needed to withstand a strike from a Drasin laser. If they could outmaneuver it, though, they should have at least some measure of weapons parity, if you threw in the impact of existing orbital defenses. He didn’t have the slightest clue what the
Gagarin
would boast in terms of defensive and offensive power, however.

Even so, a small handful of ships just didn’t sit well with him as the main line of defense for the NAC and the planet as a whole. They needed fleets, and they needed energy systems to power them to parity with the Drasin, at least. A power parity, with the NAC’s sophistication advantage, would let him sleep a lot better at night.

Of course, some basic intel on the enemy wouldn’t hurt, either.

“Very well, Admiral,” Eric said aloud, “I’ll inform my crew and begin preparations.”

Gracen nodded. “I hope you’ll ensure that your own name appears on the leave list as well, Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eric replied, though he’d not really thought about it. Commanding his ship was something he rather enjoyed doing—when they weren’t floating in geosync orbit over Washington, at least.

“Good. Dismissed.”

TEMPORARY COLONIAL EMBASSY
Washington, DC North American Confederation