Into the Black: Odyssey One (11 page)

*****

“Report.”

“Nothing out there, Sir,” Winger replied as Commander Roberts appeared behind her. She’d barely jumped this time and was feeling fairly proud of herself.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing like a ship, Sir. I’ve compared everything we got to the readings from yesterday,” She shrugged. “We’ve got a debris field around the fourth planet that looks artificial… Alloys, atomic decay, and some configurations match… but they’re dead as doornails, Sir.”

“I’ll inform the Captain that we have nothing to fear from the ‘doornails’,” Roberts replied with a tinge of sarcasm. “Stay with the facts.”

“Uh… Yes sir,” Winger nodded, flushing slightly. “Sorry Sir.”

“Don’t apologize. Just don’t do it again.”

“Yes sir.”

Roberts nodded once, then left Winger’s station and headed back to the Captain. “It looks clear, Sir. There is some debris in system that is in keeping with the debris we found at the battle scene, however.”

“Nothing active?” Weston looked up.

“Nothing that we can see.”

The Captain nodded then spoke up for the benefit of the bridge crew. “Ensign Waters… Take us into the system bring us into orbit of the fourth planet.”

“Orbit. Aye Sir.”

The big ship shook slightly as its massive drives rumbled into action, vibrations reverberating through the entire vessel as it began to move through the depths of interstellar space and cross the invisible line that separated it from the star system. As it crossed the heliopause, the gravity of the yellow star began to act on the ship, pulling it deeper into the system with that inexorable grip of its gravity.

The speed built slowly at first as the Odyssey’s huge engines and integral Counter-Mass fields worked in conjunction to chip away at the inertia of the big ship, increasing quickly as the two were joined by the increasing grip of the star’s gravity. Soon the ship was powering down the well, falling toward the star fast enough that Lieutenant Daniels powered down both the thrusters and the C-M fields until the Odyssey was in an effective free fall.

Lieutenant Daniels watched his trajectories carefully less worried about the path of the Odyssey as he was about the paths of anything the Odyssey might run into. Even with the powerful navigation shields shouldering aside anything in their path, he still kept an almost obsessive eye on the screens. Attention to detail was the bread and butter of his job, especially since certain electrically and magnetically neutral composites could penetrate the navigation fields with little difficulty.

Such things didn’t exist commonly in nature, however as the debris ring around the fourth planet would testify, this system wasn’t precisely pure as the driven snow.

*****

An hour into the ‘drop’, Weston excused himself from the bridge and headed down to the mess deck for something to eat. The course Daniels had plotted to the fourth planet would take them about twenty-four hours, including acceleration and deceleration.

Eric Weston had to admit, an average of fifty percent the speed of light was pretty impressive, even for an Archangel.

“Captain.”

“Crewman,” He nodded back to the young man who had stood aside for him as he passed, then took a right into the Mess.

The Mess was busy, as he’d expected it to be, a large portion of the crew had taken advantage of the projected course to ‘refuel’.

And,
Weston smiled as he spotted a group talking idly around a table in the corner,
some of them, of course, are just here because they have nothing better to do.

He walked over, wiping the smile from his face as he arrived at the head of the table. “So, I see we’ve got a bunch of laze abouts, huh?”

Everyone at the table jumped, save one.

“Gee Cap,” Stephen ‘Stephanus’ Michaels smiled lazily up at him from where he was seated in the corner, “why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”

Weston resisted the urge to laugh or roll his eyes, since both reactions would have been too much really, and besides he knew that the Archangels would be able to read him without anything that overt. Instead he just sat down, nodding around the table, “so, how do you all enjoy being passengers on this cruise?”

The fighter jocks laughed, relaxing as they recognized their old Flight Leader in the Captain that was sitting with them, and slowly they began to joke back with him.

Weston relaxed back in his seat, ordered some food, and let himself remember the days of glory past for a short while.

*****

The waking world came back slowly to Milla, her mind lost in the sleep for a few brief moments as she forgot where she was or what had transpired.

The transition from that moment of blissful ignorance to the painful reality of her situation was like a physical blow to her chest, and for a moment the petit woman curled up on the stiff hospital bed and didn’t move. It didn’t last though, because as much as she wanted to just lie there and die, she knew that she couldn’t.

Out there, beyond the walls of this unknown vessel lay the Drasin, and they were killing her people. She couldn’t die so far from where she knew that all hands were desperately needed.

So she moved, finally, sliding off the firm bed and onto the floor. She noted curiously, that the floor was cold on her feet. She danced around for a moment until her feet cooled down enough that the difference wasn’t noticeable, and frowned down at the offending material.

Milla knelt down and ran her fingers along the cool surface, feeling it suck the heat from her flesh.

Metal floors. No one builds a starship with metal… it’s just… not done!
She sighed to herself and looked around, not caring to think of how much insulation the walls must have to make up for the intolerable properties of construction.

It wasn’t just the metal, though. The entire place was completely off. The lighting was too bright, the spectrum shift was harsh, and now that she thought about it, she felt slightly heavier than normal. It was like a bad copy of a Starship, instead of the real deal.

And what IS that sensation of constant falling anyway??
She shook her head, giving up the tangle for one second before her mind stubbornly grabbed at it again. She knew that the ship had to have certain technologies.

Dimensional shifting was a given, she figured. Otherwise, where had they come from to pick her up? However, what she couldn’t understand was how in the Oath they managed that and still used metal to construct the ship in the first place. The entire situation was like an impossible conundrum to her.

So, finally, she sighed and gave in to the pit in her stomach and walked over to the computer terminal and called it up. It took an annoyingly long time to load for some reason, but finally she was in to the catering services.

After staring at the incomprehensible script for some time, Milla sighed and punched in a few items at random.

*****

The call came just as he was taking the first sip from the steaming cup of tea he’d ordered, and Eric sighed as chuckles rounded the table.

“A Captain’s job…,” he shrugged, reaching for his induction set.

Steph snorted lightly, “They’re probably calling to make sure you haven’t drowned in your sink. Everyone knows that Captains have to be watched
all
the time.”

Another light round of chuckles sounded among the flyers, though the comment had garnered a shocked look from the yeoman who had dropped off the tea. Weston ignored both as he affixed the induction set to his jawline and waited for the squirming sensation to fade as the unit moulded itself to him.

“Weston here,” he said finally.

“Captain,” Doctor Rame’s voice came crisply over the unit, “you wished to be informed when our patient awoke?”

“Yes Doctor, is she well?”

“She’s well enough to request food,” Rame replied, “though I don’t believe that she
quite
understands the menu.”

Weston frowned, drawing curious looks from the fighter jocks he was sitting with, “why’s that?”

“Because, frankly, I don’t believe that any sentient being would ever order ice cream with oil packed tuna on purpose,” Rame shuddered.

Weston started chuckling, low at first, but rising until he was genuinely laughing at the comment. Around the table everyone looked at him with puzzlement, but he didn’t bother to enlighten them. Stephanus in particular looked like he was just itching to ask what was so funny.

Tough,
Weston smiled widely, and then got up. “I’m afraid I have to go. I’ll see you all, later.”

To a man their faces dropped as they realized that their former CAG had zero intention of sharing, and Eric took exquisite pleasure in the distinct look of painful disappointment on Stephen’s face.

“Doctor, Contact Palin and have him meet me in the medical lab.” Weston ordered over the induction unit, smirking just slightly as he again glanced back at his old squad and their disappointed expression.

Some days it was good to be the Captain.

*****

Eric met Rame and Palin in the medical lab a short while later, walking in on the two men as they snapped at each other while trying to settle on the protocols they would follow while talking with the survivor.

“Doctor Rame, what was her reaction to the hazard suits?” Weston finally stepped in, shutting them both up.
It’s amazing how two grown men, two well-educated grown men at that, are capable of this sort of childishness.

“That was strange, at first she was tense but after both of us entered the room and she got a good look at us she relaxed visibly and remained remarkably calm considering the situation she’s found herself in.”

Weston snorted with no small amount of satisfaction. “Good, I think we can dispense with the suits then. That is assuming she isn’t a medical danger?”

Doctor Rame looked at him strangely, “well she has a whole cornucopia of new antibodies, but with the blood samples I’ve taken we can easily develop cures and vaccines for anything she might pass on. But what made you change your mind about the hazard suits?”

“Simple Doctor, if her attackers had been human, or even humanoid, she would have been a lot more concerned about the suits. I’d say we’re looking at an even more interesting story than we thought.” Eric shrugged, “I just wanted to see her reaction.”

Doctor Rame shut up and looked thoughtful for a moment while Palin spoke up, “you realize, Captain, that isn’t the only possible interpretation of her reactions.”

Weston smiled, “Of course I do Doctor, but it is the best I have to go on right now.”

Weston broke from the discussion and walked over to the transparency, “All right Dr. Palin let’s go in.”

*****

Milla was laying back listening to a musical composition the computer had called ’ride of the Valkyries, despite the strict limits the computer had placed on her entertainment selections she had managed to find several pieces that she enjoyed immensely.

“Milla?”

Milla jumped up, opening her eyes wide, she had apparently missed the sound of the airlock cycling because of the music. Her eyes went even wider when she saw the two men step into the room without their rather comically bulky suits.
Are these the same two men?

“I suppose I should reintroduce myself, I’m Dr. Palin. This is the Captain of the Odyssey, Eric Weston.”

The Captain, this will be a more serious session than the previous one. Hopefully we can settle the Captain’s concerns so I can get back to my duty.
She thought to herself as she looked to the Captain, appraising him as best she could.

He was tall, that was the first thing she noticed. Taller than most people she knew, though not quite the tallest man she’d ever seen. She’d met the Commandant of the Colonial Ground Forces once, and he would actually tower over this Captain Weston. Milla put that aside after a moment and turned her focus on the Captain again, taking in his appearance. His close trimmed black hair hugged to his head, his face was severe, and so she realized that he was, in turn, appraising her. The thought discomforted her for a moment, but she quickly regained her poise.

“Captain Weston,” her head nodded respectfully in greeting.

“Ithan Chans.” Weston imitated her slight nod exactly, returning the greeting.

“I’m honored by your use of my title, Captain. Dr. Palin here never seems to refer to me in any way except as ‘dear’. Which the computer informs me is a quadruped of some type,” Milla smiled with a slightly confused air about her.

Palin stammered a moment, trying to explain himself before Weston stepped in, smiling slightly in return. “Actually the word has several different meanings which are differentiated by spelling in this case it is a term of affection often used by elder people in reference to those younger than themselves.”

“I see. Interesting,” Milla threw a look at Palin, enjoying the red tinge his face had abruptly assumed.

“Milla, could you please tell us what happened to the ship you were traveling on?”

She looked at the Captain, trying to gage him, but found her unable to pierce his outward demeanour. Finally she decided to go with the simple truth.

“I wasn’t ‘traveling’. I was serving aboard the space vessel ‘Carlache’. And we were attacked.”

Weston smiled dryly, “We had gathered that much. If you would be so kind as to tell us by whom and why they decided to reduce a fleet of your vessels to scrap?”

Milla winced at that, she had known that it was unlikely any had survived the massacre but it pained her to think of her comrades floating dead in the inhospitable depths of this radiation seared system.

“They are called ‘Drasin’ and they attack us because it is their way. They are born to kill, they were created to kill, and they do it very well indeed.”

Dr. Palin glanced over at the hard shell that had formed across the Captains face he knew that Weston was contemplating the implications Milla’s story had, if it were true. Palin himself shuddered at the thought a race of born killers stalking the galaxy was the nightmare of a thousand horror stories, since the birth of science fiction. The idea that it may be true would cause havoc at home.