Homeworld (Odyssey One) (22 page)

THE SHIP HAD cleared transition and immediately extended the sensor sails to their maximum deployment, gathering light-speed data within minutes of reintegration. Weston looked over the information they had from the three light-minute bubble around the ship, marginally reassured by the lack of anything dangerous.

It was a false reassurance, though, and he knew it. Just an instant beyond their bubble there could be literally anything hiding, assuming it had arrived in FTL. He and the crew of the
Odyssey
were really depending on their tachyon detection traps, and those were of very limited range.

“Anything at all?” he asked, leaning over Winger’s shoulder.

“We’ve got stray hits on the traps, Captain. Nothing coherent, and certainly nothing modulated yet,” she said. “You’re sure that the Primmies are out here?”

“That’s what I was told,” he said. “What’s that?”

She looked to where his eyes were looking, a small hint of paint on the screen against the black of dead pixels.

“Not sure. Let me see if I can’t clean it up,” she said, tapping some commands to isolate that part of space and focus a few more of their tachyon traps on it.

A moment later, they got a better hit on the sector, showing a rolling pattern. Winger quickly brought up a file from the ship’s archives and overlaid it.

“I think it’s bowshock, Captain.”

Weston nodded, straightening up. “Bring us to general quarters, Commander.”

“Aye, sir, general quarters!” Roberts called out, leaning over Daniels’s shoulder to examine a repeater display of what Eric was looking at. “What do we have, Captain?”

“Incoming bowshock,” Eric said, walking back to his own station and taking a seat. “Probably one of the Priminae ships, but let’s not be overconfident.”

“Understood,” Roberts said, nodding to where Waters was standing at his station.

The tactical officer didn’t need to be told in words. He began bringing their weapons to standby mode and issued preliminary charge orders to the pulse torpedoes. He also directed power to the capacitors that charged the real-time sensor array.

“I have a full charge,” Winger announced a moment later. “Ping the target, sir?”

Eric considered for a moment, then nodded. “Go ahead.”

“One narrow band ping in three seconds…two…one….”

The screen flashed white for a moment, and Eric imagined that he actually noticed the lights dim as power was pulled from the capacitors and sent to the tachyon pulse generator. It was just his imagination, though only barely. If they hadn’t used capacitors to store the power, the drain from
those systems might actually have been enough to cause a noticeable draw on ship’s systems.

“Ping delivered. Data is being analyzed now,” Winger announced, eyes darting back and forth as she glanced between screens. “Got it. Matches Primmie ship designs.”

“That just means that they’re not Drasin, Captain. Remember the unknowns.”

Eric nodded, knowing that Roberts had a point. The unknown species they’d encountered in the Dyson object had obviously borrowed the key to the Priminae databanks, as their ships were near perfect matches for Prime models.

Only one difference really gave them away.

“Material analysis?” he asked, looking over to where Winger was still working.

“Working on it. Does not look metallic, Captain. We’d have a weaker return if the ship was metal.”

High-energy tachyon particles bounced more easily off of the ceramic composites used in Prim design than off metal shells, the metal acting to “ground” the particles more quickly so that they decomposed rather than bouncing. It was a good sign for the
Odyssey
, a sign that they weren’t heading into a fight, but just a sign. Eric didn’t even really have to make a decision on the matter. His next course was pretty clear.

“Stay at general quarters until we confirm the composition of the ship,” Eric said. “It seems that they’re who we were expecting, but no point getting sloppy.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“ETA to contact?” Eric asked.

“Hard to judge velocity, but from the red shift I’m seeing in particle bounce, they’ll be here in ten minutes or less,” Winger said.

“How far out are they?”

“Three light-days, maybe four.”

“Damn,” a quiet voice from the side of the deck said, softly whistling.

Eric didn’t say it aloud, but he wasn’t exactly disagreeing. Transition was faster, much faster, but you didn’t exactly get to sightsee along the way. In many ways it was like folding space, in practice if not in theory. You stopped being where you were and began being where you were going. Aside from the relative eternity of sheer terror that accompanied a transition, it was pretty dull really.

The alien ship was moving at least five hundred times light-speed from what Winger was seeing, and that was booting it no matter how you cut things. He knew from discussions with Milla and Rael during the Odyssey’s first and second voyages that, while in FTL, a Priminae ship could see the universe pass them by just as easily as he could look through his scopes right then. To see stars actually move as you travelled, rather than just…
change
…it had to be a heady thing.

He wondered if sometimes they got to see a group of stars stretch out into eternity as they accelerated past?

It would be a truly awesome sight to see for real, Eric decided.

Maybe someday.

With the pulse expended, and the capacitors needing to be recharged, there was nothing to do but wait for the incoming ship to arrive. It finally entered into visual range just over ten minutes later. It struck Eric as amusing that the ship was actually closer than the best sensors in the Confederacy could detect since it was moving faster than the photons they were picking up.

Objects on screen are closer than they appear.

“Open a comm, standard Priminae protocol.”

“Aye, Captain. Comm open.”

Without FTL communications, the
Odyssey
relied on an agreed-upon standard of modulation that could be used on most of their normal equipment. In this case, radio transmissions would do the job.

He longed for one of the Priminae FTL transmitters. Even a short range one would be a massive improvement, but the power compatibility of the two systems was an issue. Even with stored power, the FTL gear would just last long enough to be truly useful.

“Priminae vessel, this is Captain Eric Weston of the N.A.C.S.
Odyssey
. We are in this sector to investigate the possible location of another Terran vessel,” he said, keeping his voice slow and clear for the translators.

The algorithms that managed such things were consistently improving based on Palin’s original research and adjusted with every conversation, but they were still far from trustworthy. It was best to speak slow and clear.

“Greetings, Captain,” a woman’s voice came back, distorted by the computer’s work. “I am Kian of the
Posdan
. We were notified of your impending arrival. I must report that we have detected no other trans-light signatures similar to your own, however. I doubt that your people’s ship is still active in this area.”

“That is possible, Captain,” Eric answered. “However the other ship does not use our transition drive. So it would have a very different signature.”

There was a pause before Captain Kian responded, and when she did Eric thought that she sounded almost irritated.

“I see. Very well, Captain. I will encode information we have been gathering on local trans-light signals in this sector. Perhaps you might locate your missing ship by this.”

“We’d be much obliged. Thank you, Captain Kian.”

“It is of no trouble, Captain. Please prepare to receive encoded information.”

Eric glanced over and quickly got a nod back from the officer at the communications station. “
Odyssey
standing by to receive data.”

“Transmitting,” Kian said a moment later.

“We’re getting it in the clear, Captain. I’m copying to signal to Michelle’s station as it comes in.”

“Michelle?” Eric looked over.

“I’ve got it, Sir,” Winger said. “Whoa.”

“Whoa, what?” Eric asked sharply.

“Can’t confirm one hundred percent, sir,” she answered, “but I think I’m looking at a Block evasion pattern here.”

“Are you certain? No, scratch that. Of course you aren’t.” Eric scowled. “Alright. Worst case scenario then, the
Weifang
is out here, and if she’s evading then she’s being pursued. Try to predict the next move on their evasive actions, Winger.”

“Aye, sir.”

“
Posdan
, are you still on the line?”

“Yes, Captain. We are still connected. We believe we understand the situation. Can you anticipate the next course change of your ship?”

“Working on that. Evasive patterns aren’t easy to predict,” Eric said, sighing. “That’s the point of them. If they’re using an old pattern from the war, we might be able to figure something out. If not, well, it gets a lot harder.”

“Understood. If they are evading, then they are evading someone or something, I believe, yes?” Kian asked.

“That would be my guess, yes, Captain,” Eric said. “And if they’re not running from us, and they’re not running from you, that only leaves one more group.”

“Yes. Well, we had reports of Drasin signals in this area, so it is no big surprise. I will inform the
Nept
of the new information.
Posdan
clear.”

“Understood, and thank you for the information.
Odyssey
out.”

Eric turned back to Winger. “Can you identify their next move?”

“We may have a problem, Captain,” Michelle responded, speaking slowly as she continued to work on the information displayed in front of her.

“We have a lot of problems. What’s the latest?”

“If I’m reading this right, it looks like an older war-era evasive pattern, modified for use in FTL of course,” she said slowly. “They’ve pulled three reverses and a half dozen crazy ivans. I think that they think they’ve cleared their baffles, sir.”

“And they haven’t, I presume?”

She shook her head. “No way. They’ve got a small fleet tailing them from
way
back. And unless they’ve got Primmie-level FTL sensor tech, there’s no way for them to tell that they’re being tailed, sir. We couldn’t detect these ships, not without about a one in a billion tachyon ping. They have no clue they’re being followed.”

Winger turned to look him in the eyes. “And if they follow Block wartime SOP, they’re about to head for a safe port.”

Weston grimaced.

That wasn’t good because there was only one safe port on the
Weifang’s
list.

Earth.

CHAPTER EIGHT

P.L.A.S.F.
Weifang

SUN WAS WRYLY amused by his officers and himself, as odd as that seemed at the moment. The
Weifang
had been merrily bolting around the galaxy—well a small corner of it, at least—for days now. Days upon days, even. At each stop everyone would fall silent, even him, barely breathing and whispering to talk.