Homeworld (Odyssey One) (84 page)

“Ambassador LaFontaine and Admiral Tanner to see you, ma’am.”

Gracen took a breath and nodded, standing up and straightening out her appearance. “Alright, I’ll see them.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The child looked far too happy that she was seeing anyone, Gracen reflected, but it wasn’t like she had a
choice. An ambassador and the fleet admiral of an ally? Oh yes, she knew who Tanner was. There was no choice but to see him.

The two entered the suite that she had been provided on the
Posdan
. She had elected not to stay on the
Enterprise
for various reasons, mostly personal ones. Here no one bothered her, and she didn’t want to be bothered.

Now, however, that hideaway was taken from her.

Graven unconsciously straightened.
Maybe it’s time to be an admiral again.

“Admiral,” LaFontaine said and nodded. “This is Rael Tanner, Fleet Admiral of the Priminae people.”

“Admiral,” she shook his hand, then nodded to LaFontaine. “Ambassador. What brings you here?”

“We’d be having this meeting soon enough,” the ambassador said. “However Admiral Tanner requested a fast meeting.”

Gracen turned her focus to the small man. “Oh?”

“I have been authorized to discuss a…deeper alliance,” he said softly. “We want your technology, Admiral.”

She snorted. Of course they did. What world wouldn’t?

“Even with it, you can’t build enough ships to make a difference,” she said. “It’s taken everything you could muster just to meet their scouting groups. What we saw at Earth was….”

She swallowed, looking away.

“Yes, I’ve seen the records,” he said quietly, “including the loss of the
Odyssey
. Ranquil will be declaring a week of mourning for the loss.”

“Thank you, but my point remains.”

“I thought you may need convincing, Admiral,” he said, gesturing to the door. “Come with me, if you please?”

Gracen hesitated, but then decided she had nothing left to lose anyway. She probably would give them what they wanted.
She just didn’t want to throw it all down the same hole she saw at Earth.

Captain Eric Weston felt a familiar sensation, one that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

This was odd because he’d been under the impression that he was, at best, going to be quite dead and that wasn’t something he’d ever felt. Worst case he’d have been burned alive, which was also pretty unknown, so any familiar sensation was an improvement, he supposed.

He wasn’t in pain, which was patently impossible.

I did just crash my ship into a dozen enemy ships and then into the planet Earth, right?

“You did.”

His eyes snapped open, and instantly he noted that he was on the broken bridge of the
Odyssey
, but nothing seemed quite real. Like it was greyed out and only he was in color….

Well, he and one other.

He looked at her numbly for a long moment. “What happened? And who are you?”

“What happened,” she said with a smile, “was that you have not yet finished your war, Captain.”

This is a dream. It’s got to be. Maybe I survived the crash? It’s possible. The
Odyssey’s
CM was still working….

“Yes, it was,” the woman told him simply. “Not that it would have mattered. I can be quite compelling when I need to be, and I need very much not to be killed, so I decided that you are going to save me.”

“Excuse me? Who are you?” he stammered. Then a realization hit him. “You’re like
him
.”

“I’ve had many names, Captain Weston. More than you, even,” she said with a mild laugh. Her expression then turned feral, her smile nasty as she leaned in and extended a hand to him. “Take my hand, Captain, and we will show these invaders that they should never anger the loving mother, lest they awaken the vengeful bitch. Our enemies will know me only as terror, but you, Captain, you may call me Gaia.”

Gracen stood frozen, unbelieving.

“This is impossible.”

The screens on the bridge of the big ship looked out on the roiling red plasma of the system’s star. That was all that was visible in
every
direction. It just couldn’t be…they couldn’t be
inside
a star.

Not quite every direction, part of her mind was quick to point out.

No, there was one place that wasn’t the boiling plasma of the star, but that spot made even less sense than the ship still existing as it did. They were in orbit of a
planet
. It was such an incongruous planet too, with blue-green seas, white clouds, and what appeared to be tropical island chains dotting the ocean.

It just couldn’t exist; her mind wouldn’t allow her to believe it existed. Not while she was looking past it to the roiling plasma of a
star
that literally covered every other place she looked.

“I assure you that it is not,” Tanner said calmly. “Ranquil is not our home world, and our star was not always a red giant. Once our star was very much like your own, and then it began to change in a very short time in stellar terms. Luckily it was
a very long time for humans, and we prepared. This is the result.”

He gestured to the screen and the planet with the massive infrastructure floating in orbit. “Welcome to the Forge, Admiral, and as you can see we are now quite prepared to build a great many ships for our defense. This is time for which your people may have died to buy us, and for that I am incredibly sorry…but you can help us avenge them, if nothing else. We need your technology.”

He took a breath. “In the spirit of a true alliance, we will build you ships as well. You may even have the first ship of our combined technology, Admiral. We…we could call it
Odyssey
, perhaps?”

Gracen had to force the shock down. She didn’t know any other way to do it though save to drag back up the admiral part of her she’d almost buried through the trauma of what had happened. She straightened in place, eyes flicking to the impossible scene on the screens that showed what lay beyond the ship.

“No, Admiral,” she said with a dry mouth. “I…we don’t need the voyage of destiny anymore…. We need the warrior king.”

She looked out on the planet beyond, thinking of all the destruction she’d just fled, and found that maybe hope wasn’t entirely dead.

“Call her…
Odysseus
.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Evan Currie is the bestselling author of the Odyssey One series, the Warrior’s Wings series, and more. Although his post-secondary education was in computer sciences, and he has worked in the local lobster industry steadily over the last decade, writing has always been his true passion. Currie himself says it best: “It’s what I do for fun and to relax. There’s not much I can imagine better than being a storyteller.”