by Evan Currie
Eric turned away from the rail over the command deck and refocused his attention on the computer display that held his research. Everything he could find, from legends and myths to the hypotheses of the most brilliant minds in quantum physics—none of it was much use to him.
The new assignment was honestly a relief.
A straightforward combat patrol, while more dangerous, was going to be downright tranquil compared to the growing tension he’d felt sitting this close to Earth’s magnetic field, knowing what was waiting within.
Eric closed all the files and saved the research to the Odysseus’ computers under his personal authority, then turned back to look down at the command deck below as his officers went about the business of getting the ship ready to depart Sol space.
The room available on a Priminae-designed vessel was practically obscene compared to any terrestrial example he could imagine, save perhaps the old Orion designs of the midtwentieth century, and even those were smaller than the Odysseus by a couple of orders of magnitude.
Outmassing any four supercarriers combined, the Odysseus could be crewed by thousands fewer than the aforementioned Blue Navy ships. Much of the internal space was dedicated to singularity containment, of course, but that still left a luxurious amount of open space for the men and women stationed aboard the ship. And unlike most Navies, the Priminae saw no reason not to provide extreme comforts for the crew.
Some of them were . . . odd comforts, of course. The Priminae didn’t have showers or baths in the strictest sense of the words, and neither of those were good ideas on a starship even if you had reliable artificial gravity. The sheer mess possible if you lost gravity for any reason boggled Eric’s mind. Still, the Priminae replacement did the job efficiently (though Eric honestly wasn’t sure how) and managed to be nearly as relaxing as a hot soak or as energizing as a morning shower, if that was what you needed.
Similar oddities abounded on the Forge-built vessel, and while Eric insisted on military discipline, he was more than willing to extend some leeway to his crew so long as they didn’t slack off. And if they did? Cutting access to those luxuries was one more stick to hold.
All that extra space had other effects, however, and one was the sheer size of some areas. The command deck was three or four times larger than the Confederate Op Center at Cheyenne Mountain, if his memories were correct, and his private office overlooking the deck was easily five times the size of the Odyssey’s entire bridge.
Getting used to that opulent space had taken time, but certainly hadn’t been unpleasant. During his first tour on the Odysseus, however, Eric had spent almost all his time on the command deck proper. He’d still be there, in fact, except he needed the office to properly deal with the new responsibilities that came with his promotion to commodore.
Not quite an admiral but more than a captain, and with very nearly the same responsibilities as the former, Eric had been all but buried in desk work since he’d returned. His squadron was small, three Heroics: the Odysseus, the Bellerophon, and the Boudicca, with two Rogues apiece for a total of six. They’d also been assigned another half dozen logistics vessels, mostly carrying munitions that were to remain safely in Sol space until called for. Thank God for the transition drive.
Fifteen ships built up a frankly stupid degree of desk work even while they were sitting still—hell, especially while sitting still. Eric just wanted to be back out in the deep black as soon as possible.
Careful what you wish for, I suppose.
He reached out and lightly touched a comm link, buzzing down to Commander Heath’s station.
“Skipper?”
“Has everyone reported on board, Commander?” Eric asked.
“Yes sir. All ships report crews accounted for. Commander Michaels was the last on board the Odysseus.”
That surprised Eric. “Really? Did he say why?”
Heath laughed lightly. “I don’t believe he did, sir, but I expect that his mode of arrival had something to do with it.”
Eric frowned, puzzled. Mode of arrival? “I’m sorry, Commander, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“The commander arrived in one of the new fighters, sir,” Heath told him. “I believe that he managed to secure a familiarizing flight, and knowing the commander . . .”
“He didn’t want to end it any more quickly than he had to.” Eric rolled his eyes, honestly jealous of his friend for a moment. “Understood. Are we on schedule, Commander?”
“Yes sir. The squadron will be departing Sol space at zero nine hundred hours, precisely on schedule.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Commander.”
“You are welcome, Skipper,” Heath said in her slightly prim voice just before the connection closed.
Eric looked over the command deck and large observation dome with satisfaction.
It was odd, really. He’d only been a . . . a spacer? Was that the word he wanted? Eric wasn’t sure. Some of the nomenclature just hadn’t been set yet. Whatever word they eventually settled on, Eric hadn’t been in the space service for long, but he was beginning to feel like he’d been born to spend his time in the black between the stars.
Earth was a battlefield to him, just one big battlefield, as much as he loved it. Too many memories in every blood-soaked corner. The black, for everything that had happened to him there, for everything he’d seen in the short time he’d been plying his trade between the stars, was somehow clean. Comfortable.
It was time. Time for the simple perfection of the abyss, time for the Odysseus—and her captain—to be back where they belonged.
It was time to go home.
► Lieutenant Milla Chans, on an extended detached assignment from the Priminae Colonial Fleet to the Confederate Black Navy, looked confused when Steph happened upon her as he was making his way to his quarters. He shifted his grip on the flight helmet under his arm and cocked his head to one side.
“Are you alright?” he asked, watching as she looked up the empty corridor, seemingly completely absorbed in what she was doing.
“What?” she asked, her accent soft as she continued staring.
Steph walked up behind her, looking over the shorter woman’s head in the same direction. “What are we looking at?”
Milla shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought I heard something. Maybe the power conduits are out of alignment.”
“Sounds like a job for system maintenance, not the ship’s tactical officer.”
Milla scowled. “I know. I made a report. It just—what is the word I want?—frustrates me.”
Steph was unsurprised. From what he’d seen, in the Colonial Fleet, the jobs tended to be much more hands-on, particularly for someone in Milla’s position. From some of her stories, he could tell that as a ship’s weapons officer, Milla hadn’t always trusted her subordinates to properly maintain the systems.
Weapons were, even now, unpopular with a large portion of the Priminae people. Even those who willingly picked them up considered them a necessary evil more than anything else.
From what Steph had heard from the trainers they’d dropped off on Ranquil, this reluctance made the trainees extremely safe with their weapons, but their shoot/no shoot instincts were heavy on the no shoot side of the equation, and training had to be adjusted accordingly.
It wasn’t a bad thing, in general. Just different from how the trainers were used to teaching.
“Well, unless it’s critical,” Steph said with a guiding hand on her back to turn her away from the empty corridor, “leave it to maintenance. Have you eaten yet?”
The slightly guilty look on the young Priminae’s face was enough to tell him the answer to that question. Steph sighed. “Damn it, Milla. We’ve talked about this.”
Chans was something of a workaholic. No problem. So was he, if he were honest about it. As was the captain, the commander, and most of the people he could think of on board. Steph was sure that the Odysseus had its share of slackers, but the Odyssey certainly had not. Such dedicatio
n had a lot of good aspects, no question, but there had to be a line somewhere, and that line was certainly somewhere before starving yourself.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll drop my kit off in my quarters, then go grab some food. You can tell me about your leave time. Did you visit Paris this time?”
She nodded, smiling widely. “I did, oui. It was both strange and . . . familiar.”
That didn’t surprise him in the slightest, given how similar the Priminae language sounded to French and other so-called Romance languages.
“Well, tell me all about it,” he said as they headed for the lifts.
Station Unity One
► With all on board and readying themselves for a new mission, the Odysseus signalled Unity One for permission to depart and was given both clearance and a flight vector. The big ship moved with a grace and speed that seemed in pure defiance of its bulk, pivoting in place without the telltale puffs of maneuvering rockets and then accelerating out of Cislunar space at speeds that would have hard pressed even full counter-mass vessels.
Flying in close formation, the rest of the Odysseus Task Force followed suit.
On Unity Station, many eyes watched the big ships as they broke orbit and headed back out into the deep black. One set of eyes watched, alone in her office, pondering the current state of affairs. Most people hadn’t gotten it fully into their heads just how precarious Earth’s position in the galaxy was at the moment.
Civilians mostly believed that the immediate danger had passed, but Admiral Gracen knew better. The real danger was looming on the horizon. She could almost see it from where she stood.
For the moment, they were riding the righteous fury that the Drasin invasion had generated. Politicians were jumping all over it, getting as much as eighty percent approval ratings for more and more expanded spending in space. That was great while it lasted, but she had absolutely no illusions that it would last.
The first rumblings about wasted money were already forming and, what was worse, they weren’t wrong.
She’d been stomping on people left and right over just that, both within her command chain and in the civilian companies that supplied them. The supplying corporations figured it was government money, so who cared if they stuck the taxpayer for a few extra percentage points to add to their bottom line, and procurement agents in the military and government figured it wasn’t their money, so what did they care?
Bribes were subtly thrown back and forth, which was par for the course and something that Gracen had mostly come to ignore as long as they got the job done.
When they didn’t, she had to break out her steel-capped boots and leave people bloody in her wake.
Those idiots don’t realize how close to treason they’re really walking, she thought as the Odysseus Task Force vanished into the black.
She wanted to literally start shooting some of the idiots involved, because they were undermining the defense of her world in a very real way. It wasn’t about the money, though that was bad enough. Losing a trillion dollars that could have gone to real defense instead of some rich bastard’s bank account was a bad deal all around, but the world could suck that up and soldier on. They’d all fought through worse in the past and would again in the future.
No, the problem was that they were destroying confidence in the government and military among the people.
That was going to bite them on the ass if she didn’t figure something out.
So far, she had a three-pronged plan, the best she could manage, given her limitations. The Swarm was her first ace in the hole while she did what she could to stem the bleeding of money and confidence, but it all hinged on the small group of ships that had just left Cislunar space and the man commanding them.
Buy us as much time as you can, Commodore, Gracen thought grimly.
The Empire was coming and, even if they weren’t, the Drasin were not as gone as people wanted to believe. There was no way they’d accounted for all of them, and those beasts were a threat to every world in the galaxy as far as she was concerned.
It was a big, dangerous universe.
One world didn’t stand a chance, especially if it was a world divided.
If only they could see what I’ve seen, she thought as she turned away from the stars that beamed seemingly just beyond her office. Maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to cheat our future for a few ill-gotten dollars.
A nice thought, but Gracen supposed that they would do it anyway.
There was no such thing as a perfect system—she knew that too well—and in any imperfect system, the people who got ahead with the most consistency were the ones willing to twist the imperfections to their advantage.
A slightly more jaded individual might wonder why they were even trying to preserve such people, but Gracen wasn’t that far gone. She smiled slightly, looking at photos resting on her desk. Most people in any organization were good people. Some forgot that it wasn’t only the cream that rose to the top but rather, far too often, garbage gyres did also. But she would not forget.
She had her war, and the commodore had his.
Despite his war being the more dangerous by far, Gracen really couldn’t help but envy Weston. At least he could shoot his enemies.
CHAPTER 3
AEV Odysseus
► Eric stood on the admiralty deck of the Odysseus, overlooking the command deck where Commander Heath was overseeing ship’s operations.
Behind him were the holographic displays that linked him in real time to the other vessels of the task group as well as the primary communications suites intended to coordinate them. He missed the hands-on control of handling a single ship, though he supposed that he still got a fair share of that in reality.
Eric turned his back on the command deck and nodded to Captain Roberts, who was looking back at him through the holographic display while sitting at his command station on the Bellerophon.
“Our systems check out completely, Commodore,” Roberts said. “All systems are perfectly within operational parameters.”
“Same here, Commodore,” Captain Hyatt of the Boudicca said. “No variations beyond the normal.”
Eric nodded. “That’s good news. The Odysseus has been experiencing spikes in various control systems that we’re still tracking down. Nothing dangerous, but keep an eye on your systems in case they show up there as well. There could be an issue with the interface applications that’s just showing up here first.”
The two captains nodded, both promising to stay on top of it.
Eric gestured, opening the circuit to the Rogue Class captains of the task force. The display shifted, the projected figures changing in scale as more people were added.
“I’ll assume you’ve all read our brief,” Eric said, not bothering to wait for confirmation. The idea that any of them hadn’t read it was ridiculous. “Officially, this is a standard deep-space patrol, but I don’t think anyone really expects it to play out that way. We’re hunting Imperials this time, and we have to assume that they’re hunting us right back. For the moment, we have the Priminae worlds between them and us, and the goal is to keep it that way. That means blunting any advances they’ve made in any way possible. If I can pull that off by talking them to death, that’s just what I’ll do.”
He paused to let the chuckles die out, smiling a bit himself.
“Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll be that lucky.” Eric took a breath. “The Priminae have expanded their patrols significantly, so we’re going to let them take that weight. After a quick stop at Ranquil, hopefully we can hook up with the Autolycus to see if they’ve got anything new for us. We’re going to be operating as a fast-response group. That’s going to mean a lot of loitering, waiting for someone to scream for help. It will happen, but the timing is, as always, on the enemy’s schedule.”
That was an unpopular statement, not that he didn’t understand the reason. Leaving initiative to the enemy was a dangerous way to conduct a war, but they just didn’t have the resources or strong en
ough intelligence to take a more active stance.
Prisoners taken from the Imperial ships were reasonably talkative, but their access to information was limited compared to the Priminae or humans. The few officers saved from crippled and doomed ships were considerably less inclined to chatting, and what little they did say currently had to be treated with extreme skepticism.
“So keep your crews alert, but don’t wear them out,” Eric told his captains. “This could easily turn into a long, difficult slog. You all know the drill. Weeks of boredom, minutes of terror.”
They all nodded, some with rueful grins as they remembered how often reality fit that mold.
“Okay, then I’ll leave you to it,” he finished up. “We’ll transition to Ranquil by”—he glanced at their course and speed—“zero nine hundred, ship’s time. I’ll see you all on the other side.”
Imperial Task Group
► Navarch Misrem looked over her command center with something akin to satisfaction. From this location, she could control and command every ship in her battle group, from the largest down to the very smallest. All was as it should be.
The group was moving at maximum cruise toward the Oather territories, a bittersweet thought. The defeat she had suffered—and it was a defeat, though she knew that the enemy had taken significant damage as well—plagued her constantly. She knew that some of the captains believed she was concerned about her position in Imperial politics, and to a degree that was true.
If she had wanted to be deeply involved in such things, however, she would long since have given up her ship and moved to the capital. Even now, she had more than enough leverage to make that happen, and the Imperials owed her a few quiet favors that she could confidently be assured they would repay without question.
But she loved what she did. For all the trials of the deep void, it was the best place in the universe for someone like her.
Rules, laws—they were hers to shape when she entered a system with her battle group.
The Imperials only had the power gifted to them by people like her, and Misrem reveled in that knowledge.
