The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (82 page)

By the time the proximity and collision alarms were silenced, the
Odyssey
was already almost a full astronomical unit away from the inner swarm.

“God
damn
it, Lieutenant!” Eric swore. “How close was that?”

Daniels was sporting an ear-to-ear grin that seemed half adrenaline response and half rigor mortis. “No idea, sir.”

“Winger?”

Eric looked over to where Michelle Winger was clutching at her console, pale as death itself, and suddenly wondered if he really wanted to know.

“I don’t know.”

Her whispered voice barely carried, but Eric heard her and was surprised.

“You don’t know?” he asked. “How is that possible?”

“At that relative speed, my gear only has a resolution of one hundred meters square,” she admitted, shaking. “All my instruments say that we
collided
with the plate, Captain.”

Eric cringed, knowing that meant they had been well within the error margin of the sensing gear.

“Lieutenant Daniels,” he said softly.

“Yes, sir?” Daniels hunched a little, ducking his head.

“I swear to god, son, you scratch the paint and it’s coming out of your salary.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eric took a breath, glared at the back of his helmsman’s head for a moment, and then returned to work.

“Stand by to flip the ship,” he ordered.

Daniels stiffened in surprise, looking back in shock. “Sir? We don’t have much maneuvering room. Less than one minute to the outer swarm.”

“I know, let’s clear some of our pursuers from our trail, though. Can you do it without crashing us, Lieutenant?”

“Aye, sir.” He nodded seriously.

“Then stand by to do it,” Eric repeated. “Waters, status on the pulse toropedoes?”

“Armed and standing by, Captain.”

“Kill forward thrust,” Eric ordered. “Bring our bow about.”

“Aye, sir! Coming about!” Daniels echoed.

The
Odyssey
’s forward thrusters burned hard, bringing her bow around as she flashed through the space between the Dyson swarms. Eric kept one eye on the plot while calculating the targeting solution for the torpedoes. He finished it quickly and shot it over to where Waters was waiting.

“Fire as we bear, all tubes, full spread,” Eric ordered.

“Aye, sir, all tubes, full spread. Firing as we bear,” Waters called back.

The
Odyssey
swept about, her pulse tubes discharging in rapid-fire as they swept past the target vector, then continued around in a flat spin until they retrothrusted. The
Odyssey
swerved in the plot as its main engines roared back to life, then continued hell-bent for open space.

Behind the retreating ship, the antimatter-based pulse torpedoes flew cleanly away, their formation spreading as the charged-particle weapons repelled one another in flight. As the captain of the
Odyssey
had been known to say on occasion, timing was everything. The salvo of torpedoes roared into the target zone just as the lead element of the pursuing ships broke through the gap, none of them cutting the corner quite so close as the
Odyssey
, and slammed explosively into their formation.

The
Odyssey
was already accelerating away, however, and less than twenty seconds from the outer swarm.

“Ships dead ahead!” Winger called out. “They just came out of the shadow of the swarm, Captain! They were waiting for us!”

“Calmly, Lieutenant,” Eric said, his face tense.

Michelle took a deep breath. “Sorry, sir.”

“Intercept in ten seconds.”

“Well,” Eric muttered, “at least we know that they’re only going to get one shot at us. Lock onto the ships with the HVM banks!”

“Targets locked!”

“Weapons free!” Eric called as they bore down on the small squadron, almost as fast as their HVMs were capable of traveling.
Either our missiles hit them or we do, but no matter what, it’s going to be one hell of a show.
“Fire! Rapid-fire, all banks!”

“Fire! Fire! Rapid-fire on all banks!” Waters repeated as the orders went out.

The
Odyssey
trembled as the HVMs erupted from the launchers, racing on ahead of the big ship while alarms began to blare.

“Sound collision!” Eric called, even though he knew that if they hit anything at that relative closing speed, they were all dead. “Seal all blast doors!”

Alarms were drowning out the sound of other alarms. The bridge felt like the center of a tornado as the HVMs slammed into the first element ahead of them. The first three ships were split like rotted fruit by the impact, but the
Odyssey
blew past them before the explosions even began to show.

“Laser bloom!” Winger called, too late to actually warn them, of course, as the
Odyssey
bucked and twisted in space.

The lights dimmed, half their panels dropping offline before backups brought everything back. Lieutenant Daniels was hunched over his controls, swearing in what Eric thought was a language he was unfamiliar with, but the entire scene
had taken on a dreamlike quality, and he supposed that he just wasn’t hearing right at the time.

“Transition room!” Eric yelled over the alarms. “Stand by for emergency engagement of transition drive! Daniels! Daniels! Plot course for Ranquil!”

The lieutenant didn’t even looked up as the
Odyssey
wove through the narrow gap between the plates, somehow avoiding the exploding ships that were currently populating the area. As they blasted clear into the black of deep space, he didn’t even want to know what kind of odds they’d just beaten, and the navigator started to calm down enough to hear his captain yelling at him.

“Daniels!” Eric Weston pulled himself out of his command station, staggering over to the helm and put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Ranquil! Send the coordinates to the transition control room!”

Daniels shook himself, nodding hurriedly. “Yes, sir.”

Eric stumbled back to his station as the ship twisted underfoot; he could hear Winger screaming about a laser strike but didn’t have time to worry about it. They weren’t dead yet, and he really wanted to keep it that way.

“Transition drive!” he called. “Engage!”

PLANET RANQUIL

▸
CLEAN UP ON this is going to be a bitch. Glad it’s not my job.

Maj. Wilhelm Brinks was looking down at the glassy crater they’d blown in a large section of the outskirts of Mons Systema. Between the damage done by the Drasin and then the strike and follow-up hits by both Earth and Priminae military, he figured it would be a long damned time before anyone was building in that spot again.

The plus side of it all was that they were reasonably sure they had accounted for every last drone sent against the planet. Brinks was just happy that most of them had been intercepted in space or the atmosphere by the orbital defenses and the Archangels. The few that had reached the surface turned into major pains in the ass in short order, with the one landing in Mons Systema being by far the worst.

That had to be intentional.

“Major.”

“Lieutenant.” He nodded as Savoy stepped up beside him. “Just admiring your handiwork.”

“Oh, hell, sir, I just made the hole a bit bigger. The nice glassy sections are from the Primmies’ orbital bombardment.”

“Quiet,” Brinks said dryly before he sighed. “You see the reports?”

Savoy nodded. “Yes, sir. Casualties were pretty stiff.”

“Compared to what?” Brinks shrugged fatalistically.

“Point.” Savoy nodded. “Still, this was one hell of a firefight.”

“No question about that,” Brinks agreed. “Looks like even the big-ass mech suit did OK.”

“Yeah? I haven’t had time to check the telemetry.”

“Yeah, Crowley kicked ass in that thing. Rough terrain, too,” Brinks said. “I expect that they’ll OK the suit for general use.”

Savoy snorted. “Captain and the Angels are going to be a little pissed over that, I’ll bet.”

“I look like a sucker to you?” Brinks snorted. “Anyway, different pool of recruits, to be honest. Hell, I may even get myself tested out on NICS.”

“I’ll deal with my standard-issue armor, sir.”

Brinks expected that Savoy wouldn’t be the only person to think that, but he’d been honestly impressed with the way Crowley’s unit held up under heavy fire. If it was typical of what they could expect, he figured that they were seeing the future of ground combat. Big enough to pack some serious weapons, but small enough to negotiate pretty tight terrain.

He was about to say more when his comm chimed.

“Brinks, here.”

“This is Reed. Figured I’d let you know. Long-range detection just picked up the
Odyssey
heading in-system.”

Brinks sighed. “Thank god.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll be a while before she’s in orbit, I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

“Ship looks beat to hell, is moving almost point-seven of light, and apparently they’re out of fuel,” Reed said. “Priminae ships are moving to intercept and tow her in.”

“Damn. There’s got to be a story there.”

“I’ll wait for the movie,” Reed replied sourly. “I’m up to my ears in training plans and raw recruits. Just figured I’d let you know that the ambassador is looking for you.”

“Roger. I’ll head back in. See you soon.”

It took several days to get the
Odyssey
parked in Ranquil orbit, and by then, her own crews were swarming over the hull and making repairs. Even to an untrained eye, it was clear at a glance that the big ship had taken one hell of beating in their last encounter with the Drasin, but many of the crew was unprepared for the extent of the damage that greeted them when they reboarded the vessel.

Admiral Tanner of the Priminae Navy was aboard at the captain’s invitation, along with the ambassador and a few others, to see just what the
Odyssey
had learned in exchange for the damage she’d taken.

For most of them, the sight of the swarm construct was staggering enough, but the evidence that showed how short a time it had evidently been built in was worse. Even then, however, it was an almost unreal bit of knowledge, and most couldn’t really wrap their minds around the reality and what it meant.

The combat records were something else, however, and Eric Weston had spent days poring over the details he hadn’t had time to see during the battle itself. Now he had some hard questions for Tanner and the Priminae.

“As you can see, during both torpedo engagements”—Eric pointed to the screens that showed a replay of the events in split screens—“when we fired on the enemy squadron, Drasin cruisers
intentionally
shielded the unknown contacts. Whoever they are, they’re calling the shots.”

He stared evenly at Tanner for a few seconds. “What bothers me, Admiral, is that these unknown contacts…
match
Priminae combat vessel configurations almost perfectly.”

Rael Tanner shifted uncomfortably as everyone turned to stare at him as well.

“In fact, the only thing that marks them as unusual by your standards, Admiral,” Eric said, “is that their ships are composed of metallic alloys, while you use ceramic. Other than that, it looks like they copped your design. I don’t suppose you have any ideas about that?”