Homeworld (Odyssey One) (6 page)

CHAPTER ONE

THE N.A.C.S.
ODYSSEY
rested serenely in the Lagrange point, high over Earth below. Construction scaffolds almost hid large parts of the ship from sight. If one were to look closely, workers could be seen moving about the microgravity environment as refit work was being completed on the large vessel.

The combat-related damage from her last mission had long been repaired, but with the North American Confederation now shifting to a defense buildup state of affairs, the big ship was currently being refitted extensively. Large chunks of the iconic hull were covered with Mylar sheets and radiation traps.

Captain Eric Stanton Weston looked over the scene from the observation deck of the Confederation’s orbital station, already counting down the days to the completion of the refit.

“Captain.”

Eric glanced over his shoulder, recognizing the man approaching from behind. “Mr Gordon.”

Seamus Gordon, an intel weenie near as Eric could tell, had once been described by a friend of his as
trouble in a cheap suit
. To date, Eric hadn’t had the opportunity to verify his friend’s words, and he really wasn’t looking for one at the moment.

“I wanted to speak with you about your report,” Gordon said, eyes focused outward to where the
Odyssey
rested.

“So speak.”

Gordon glanced around briefly before sliding his hand into one pocket, and only then did he open his mouth again.

“The section concerning Central felt a little…light,” Gordon said quietly.

“That would be because I don’t think we have any words in the human language to properly describe just how damned creepy that thing is,” Eric replied in kind. “Mr. Gordon, you have no idea what it’s like to stand in the presence of something that can rifle through your mind like it’s picking through a sock drawer for its favorite pair.”

Gordon snorted. “No, though I’ve often wished I was able to do as much.”

“Pardon me if I’m not dancing in joy at that concept.”

The intel man smiled thinly. “Understandable. You reported that its range was planetary?”

“It
said
its range was planetary,” Eric corrected. “Cannot confirm, nor deny.”

“Fair enough. What do you think, though?”

Eric was quiet for a moment, considering. “Probably accurate. I don’t know much about planetary geology, but if it is even remotely what it says it is, it makes sense that it would be limited within the geo-magnetic field.”

“And if it weren’t?”

“We’d have detected it,” Eric said firmly. “We monitored every frequency, tachyon, and particle in that system. Nothing abnormal that we couldn’t account for.”

“Yesss….” Gordon hissed, turning slightly so he could look beyond the
Odyssey
to where the blue-and-white marble of Earth floated. “Nothing abnormal at all.”

Eric followed his gaze and grimaced, not having to read the other man’s mind.

If Central was telling the truth, the Priminae didn’t create it. Gestalt. The sum being greater than the parts. Would we have detected anything abnormal if, in fact, it was entirely normal after all?

“Well,” Gordon said finally, “we’ll deal with that question when we come to it. For now, Captain, I’d appreciate a briefing on some of the other elements of your last mission.”

“With all due respect, Mr, Gordon,” Eric said, sounding bored, “you’re a civilian, as best I can tell. You don’t debrief me.”

Gordon smiled thinly and handed him a card.

Eric grimaced even before he looked at it. Whatever it was, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like it. He flipped the card open and sighed after reading it.

“I’ll see you in the admiral’s office in an hour,” Seamus Gordon said, face beatific as he returned his gaze to the outside scene.

Eric scowled but said nothing as he pocketed the orders.

“It’s really quite a ship you have there,” Gordon said into the silence a short time later.

“None better,” Eric said after a moment, finally deciding that the comment was meant as it was stated.

“Senior Chief!”

Senior Chief Petty Officer Rachel Corrin looked over her shoulder, barely glancing at the approaching officer before she refocused on the job at hand.

“I’ll be with you in a moment, Commander.”

“Take your time, Chief,” Roberts said as he observed just what she was doing. “Apologies for distracting you.”

“If that was enough to distract me, I’d have fried my pretty little bum a long time ago, Commander,” Rachel said, grinning tightly as she linked in the high-voltage wires with which she was working.

The system was regrettably live at the moment, as it was part of the bus lines that connected to the
Odyssey’s
life support mains. It wouldn’t do to have them down. Ironically, it would be even worse than normal now while in a refit dock because they had untold numbers of civilian contractors running around the ship who didn’t know the
Odyssey’s
emergency protocols.

In a moment she was done, and had the panels sealed tight and put to rights. Rachel clapped her hands free of mostly imagined dust—the ship’s filters kept even its less-trafficked sections from building up much of that—and pushed herself down to the floor where her boots could lock into place.

“What did you need, Commander?”

“Updates on the new armaments,” Roberts said, looking very put upon. “I was told they’d be done today, but no new reports have been filed.”

“Probably because the contractors are running behind,” Rachel said with a roll of her eyes. “They had to chop up our flight deck to fit the new systems in beneath the habitat drums, which has got to be seriously pissing off the Cap. And now they’re having the devil of a time getting it airtight again.”

Roberts grimaced. “No wonder they haven’t filed any reports. How bad is it?”

“I can fix it an hour, but I ain’t getting paid half as much as they are,” Rachel snorted. “So until I get orders to expedite, they can futz around all they like.”

“Don’t let them chop up anything we need, Chief.”

“I’ve got eyes on them, no worries, Commander,” she promised. “You got my word.”

“That’s all I ever need,” Roberts nodded, turning around and leaving.

Rachel watched him go for a moment, and then shook her head and nodded over to one of her crew. “What’s next?”

“We’ve got reports of power down all through the forward spires, Chief.”

“Those idiots cut the mains when they chopped up the deck, didn’t they?”

The man shrugged helplessly. “Looks like it, Chief. Sorry. We thought they’d be able to read a schematic map.”

Rachel sighed. “Son, they’re civilian contractors. They couldn’t read a map if it was drawn in crayon. Why do you think people invented GPS?”

Her men chuckled, but she just sighed.

“Alright, let’s get those mains patched and then make sure I don’t break my word to the Commander. Come up, swabbies, we’ve got work to do.”

“The Chinese cracked FTL.”

“Yes, we’re aware of that, Admiral. What’s your point?”

Admiral Gracen looked over the gathered group, her gaze as steely as she could manage, which wasn’t anything to scoff at. She didn’t much enjoy dealing with civilian oversight. They rarely understood what they were dealing with and usually didn’t care to try. That would be fine if they were aware of their limitations, but that was something else she’d rarely encountered in a civilian politician.

She suppressed the urge to sigh. “We don’t know how they did it. Most likely it’s similar to the Priminae’s method of FTL, which seems to be a variant of the Alcubierre theory.”

“Our transition drive is far superior to either,” the civilian senator said confidently.

“You haven’t studied the Alcubierre theoreticals, have you?” Gracen asked dryly.

The man scowled openly at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“DARPA started funding warp drive tech over fifty years ago,” she said, “decades after Alcubierre developed his theory. Do you know why a government defense program started pumping money into a NASA project during the greatest recession of the twenty-first century?”

No one spoke, not that she had expected them to.

“No, of course you don’t, because none of you have done the
reading
,” Gracen told them all acidly. “DARPA started pouring funds into it because they were terrified that a Chinese space program might do it first and develop a weapon that made atomic bombs look like firecrackers.”

“We all know about the dangers of kinetic weapons, Admiral.”

“I’m not talking about kinetics,” she growled, slapping her hand down on the desk. “I’m talking about the resonance buildup and release of high-energy particles picked up by the drive while in motion. A working Alcubierre system without extensive safety systems in place could potentially annihilate
planets
upon arrival.”

She looked around the room, noting with no irony that
now
she had their full attention.

“So I say again, gentlemen,” Gracen said dryly, “the Chinese have developed FTL capability. We need to determine
if they’ve also created a weapon capable of scorching Mars to a cinder, or maybe baking North America to a crisp.”

Her words were followed by a profound silence as her meaning finally seeped through to her audience. Then they exploded in the predictable panicked babble. She let it go on for a moment before clearing her throat loudly enough to quiet a few of those closest to her. The rest continued to talk over each other until Gracen again slapped her hand down on the conference table with authority.

“Enough.”

Everyone fell silent, turning to look at the aristocratic visage of the admiral.

“Now that you have an idea of the severity of the situation, I’d like to point out that some of you were seated on this council when we scrapped funding to the Alcubierre project. Congratulations,” she said acidly. “We are, once again, playing catch up to the scientific progress of the Block. That said, while I expect that they’ll use any such weapon as leverage on us, it’s less likely than ever that the Block Alliance will initiate a new war. We have other priorities, both of us.”

“That doesn’t mean we can let them get ahead of us in an arms race.”