Into the Black: Odyssey One (17 page)

The ship’s mess hall was relatively crowded, as many of the ships officers and researchers had decided to take the last hour in this system to refuel themselves before they would return to their instruments and stations, for the next system they had to map. Most of the crew had gathered in small groups and were engaged in some fervent conversation, Milla did notice a few who were sitting on their own however. In one corner, the pilot identified as Stephanus sat drinking something and staring at something playing on a large view screen.

“What is he doing over there?”

Weston followed her eyes to where the pilot sat “Steph likes his moments of solitude he’s probably trying to watch the video.”

“Oh,”
strange, I wouldn’t have seen him as the sort to be alone.

Milla eyed the young pilot for a moment but shook it off as Captain Weston led her into the room.

The two toured the room, drawing stares and hushed murmurs from the crew as some of them recognized Milla and pointed her out. Milla’s eyes roamed the room, taking in the facilities, as well as the crew, stopping at the viewer she had noticed Stephanus watching. On the screen a man was firing some type of weapon at several assailants, managing to hit his targets, in spite some of the most ludicrous distractions.

Weston followed his guest’s eyes and was barely able to suppress a snort or disgust at the video now showing, “I wouldn’t put much stock in that if I were you it’s just entertainment. None of it’s real.”

“Entertainment?” Milla looked at the video again with new eyes,
watching death was entertainment?

Weston snorted again, “just barely. This is strictly LCD stuff, lowest common denominator, designed to hold the interest of the largest portion of the population it can. Even people like you who obviously dislike violence, have a hard time to pull their attention away.”

She had to admit to herself that he had a point it was difficult to turn away from the continual action of the characters on the screen. Looking around the room, she also noted that for the most part no one was really watching the screen, with the exception for Stephanus and something about his face belied his apparent interest in the ‘entertainment’.

“This must be a rather large vessel Captain, most ships I’ve seen don’t provide as well for the after duty time of their crews.”

Weston’s eyebrows arched “This is only a small section of the Odyssey’s recreational facilities Ithan, about a third of this deck is dedicated to the recreation section We have two full gyms, a small theater, a half a dozen simulators, and a small library room.”

It was Milla’s turn to do a double take, “that much? This must be a huge vessel to warrant that level of luxury for the crew.”

“That depends, we do build larger vessels, but they are primarily cargo vessels. The Odyssey is a carrier class ship, designed with a rather large flight deck for the shuttles and the Archangels, as well as extensive research labs. Since we found it necessary to design with a crew of about three hundred in mind, we included several amenities.”

Three hundred? We run crews of twice that size with less than a quarter the facilities this crew are afforded.
Milla simply nodded, “Would you mind if we sat down while we talked?”

“Not at all Ithan” Weston slipped down into one of the seats across the table from where Milla sat.

“Capitaine, may I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Why is it that you always address me by my rank, where the others I have met, seem to prefer my name?”

Weston looked at her, he hadn’t actually noticed that, and had to consider his answer for a moment. “My position as Captain instils certain habits into a person. The only people on board that I refer to without using rank is Stephanus and the other Archangels, and I don’t use their names either, I use their Call signs because I used to be their Wing Commander.”

He flew one of those ‘fighters’?
“You were a pilot, Capitaine?”

“Yes, I flew with the Angels from the beginning. I met Stephanus when he was fifteen years old and only dreamed of flying a jet.” Weston smiled at the memory “At fifteen he managed to break into the research facilities that were designing the Archangel Class fighter, and he did it over five times before we finally gave in and gave him a job there. Might have been more, those are just the times we caught him, he still won’t tell me the real number.”

Good thing we weren’t working for the military back then,
Weston didn’t add aloud, but smiled at the thought,
or he’d have probably spent the next fifty years buried in the deepest dungeon the MPs could find.

Milla smiled, “I too have known a few people like that, and they have much to endear themselves don’t they?”

Weston chuckled, “definitely.”

Weston saw Milla’s eyes focus behind him, her face reddening slightly, “he’s standing behind me, isn’t he?”

Not waiting for her to respond, Weston turned and looked up at the glint in Stephanus’s eyes, “telling stories about me already, Captain?”

“Sit down,” Weston growled, a grin struggling to be seen beneath the air of command he had immediately effected.

Stephanus grinned openly, “I do believe I will, at least to better defend my honor against the torrent of lies you’re undoubtedly telling our dear guest here.”

“Lies? You mean, like the time you convinced an entire bar full of drunks that I was covering their tabs for the night?” Eric asked archly.

Stephanus coughed slightly, “Well it was like this…,”

“Or maybe the time you had three different women drop in on Steffer announcing that he was the father of their child… on his wedding night?”

“Hey! He had that coming,” The pilot defended himself.

Weston looked back to Milla, “It took us two weeks to convince Steffer’s wife, not to have the marriage annulled.”

Milla snickered, as much at Stephanus obviously feeble protests of innocence as at the stories, Weston was relating to her. The casual interchange between Weston and Stephanus was a relief from the stiff formality that was normally observed onboard any fleet vessel. This type of joking about was normally limited to the junior officers and crewmen, though. It was odd to watch two senior officers banter about in public.

“It seems to me that you’ve pulled a few practical jokes yourself, Cap,” Weston could see Stephanus’ eyes light up as he began to formulate his next sentence.

Weston just smiled serenely and calmly interrupted his friend, “Does the word ‘Grounded’ mean anything to you?”

Milla looked between them in confusion, “grounded?”
What ground? We are on a space vessel.

Stephanus looked at her with an expression of mock pain on his face, “the Captain doesn’t play by the rules. ‘Grounded’ is an expression that means ‘removed from active flight duty. ’”

Milla looked across at Weston, noting the laughter in his eyes, “One of the ‘perks’…, of command?”

“Just so Ithan. Just so.”

The three of them broke out laughing, drawing stares from dozens of people who wondered what the Captain and the space lady found so funny.

Weston was about to say something more when a call from the bridge interrupted them, “Captain, we’ll be breaking Orbit shortly. The transition vectors have already been calculated.”

Weston tapped the switch in the side of the induction mic. “Good. I’ll be up shortly.”

He turned to Milla, “I’m afraid that I have duties to attend, Ithan. If you’d like to stay here for a while, Stephanus can show you to your room when you wish. I’ll send for you prior to Transition, if you wish?”

Milla looked across at Stephanus, who nodded, “All right Captain. I’ll stay out of your way until we… Transition.”

Weston smiled slightly at her words, although he did wonder about the way she seemed to almost taste the word ‘transition’.
She’s in for a nasty shock if she’s planning on a smooth ride.

Weston strode out of the room, heading for the lift that would take him back to the bridge. Stephanus watched him leave before turning back to Milla.

“You interested in seeing some more of the sights?”

Milla looked around her for a moment, “certainly, Stephanus, I would be most delighted.”

Stephanus stood up and motioned her out of the room toward the closest lift, “we’ll catch one of the lifts running along the axis of the rotating habitats, there’s something in the stern of the ship, I think you’d like to see.”

“Really? And what would that be?” Milla looked at Stephanus out of the corner of her eyes, trying to guess his intentions.

Stephanus, apparently oblivious to her scrutiny, just stood there smiling. “It wouldn’t be much of a surprise, if I told you that now would it?”

*****

They had boarded a lift, which sped along the central axis of the big ship until it reached the stern of the ship, slowly reducing its rotation until it was stopped and they were floating free. Stephanus slipped a pair of magnetic boots across the lift to Milla and they stepped out of the lift onto the Odyssey’s observation deck.

They slowly approached the enormous transparent steel windows that looked over both rotation drums of the Odyssey, as they spun, counter to each other. There were long lines of cable tracing paths through the stars as they interconnected different portions of the ship, providing guidelines for the currently collapsed sensory arrays, and just off to one side the blue-green world hung suspended amongst the stars.

Milla’s breath caught at the panoramic view afforded by the wall size windows that arced across her view. “It’s beautiful,” she simply said.

“Yeah,” Steph nodded. “I like this place. Normally you get quite a few people up here, but lately we’ve been a tad busy.”

Stephanus led her through the room, sidestepping tables and such that were bolted to the floor as they approached the glass. “The tables and chairs are remnants from the early design stage, there were plans to incorporate an artificial gravity system into the Odyssey. They even built the main bridge about two decks up before they realized that the artificial gravity systems drew more power than the all rest of the ship’s systems combined.”

Milla looked out at the starry expanse through the huge windows, “so you do have artificial gravity technology.”

“Well no, not really.” Steph frowned, “I don’t get it all myself, you understand, but the technology they were going to use in here is based on the antigravity tech that we use in the Archangel’s. It’s not true gravity, but a way to simulate it, roughly. The system was only activated during construction from what I hear; the workers used this level as recreation area.”

“I can easily understand why, it’s a lovely place to be. But why was it used even then, if the power drain was so bad?”

Stephanus shrugged, “Probably because the reactor was online and none of the other systems, except limited life support were drawing power. The Odyssey’s reactor outputs a constant amount of power so if it isn’t used, it’s basically lost. The work crew wouldn’t have had any trouble securing permission for the expenditure.”

“I see. Lucky for them, I suppose,” Milla said absently as she continued to take in the view.

“Definitely,” Stephanus nodded simply. “This was the only orbital place they had, at the time, with a gravity field. The construction was based out of the old International Space Station at the same time as the new orbital platforms were being built.”

Milla smiled, “that would provide the workers with a sense of home, I would imagine. It has been a long time since our ships were forced to travel without gravity. Even our small ‘fighter’ craft have gravity fields.”

Stephanus looked at her sharply, “Really? I would think that gravity fields would hamper the response times in a Fighter. We expand the field that provides us with antigravity to eliminate our own mass along with the fighters. No mass equals no inertia. Gravity is inconsequential once inertia is dealt with.”

Milla shrugged, ship design wasn’t really her specialty.

Steph sensed that she didn’t have anything more to say, so he just turned to look out over the rotating drums of the main habitats as they turned slowly below them.

*****

Sometime later, the conversation having started and stopped several times since they arrived at the observation deck, they were startled by the sudden blaring of the ship’s local PA system.

“Ithan Chans, if you wish to be present on the bridge during the transition you should make your way to the bridge now,” an unfamiliar voice said over the channel.

Stephanus, nodded reflexively and looked up at nothing as he replied, “All right, Commander Roberts, we’ll be heading straight there.”

“Very Good Lieutenant. The Captain is waiting.”

Stephanus grinned as he closed the connection, “translation…, get our backsides up there…, now.”

Milla smiled in response and the two of them headed back toward the lift, the clanking of their boots echoing through the room.

Chapter 11

Milla and Stephanus stepped onto the bridge while Weston was ordering for long range scans of the target system.

“Tachyon scanners powered up Captain. We should have preliminary telemetry in a few seconds.”

“Excellent Ensign. Send the data to helm, as it comes in.”

“Aye Sir.”

Weston turned and looked back at the two recent arrivals on the bridge, “ah, welcome back Milla. We’ll be transitioning out of this system in a few minutes. Ah, Stephanus, we should have just enough time for you to get to the hanger bay. I’ve scrambled the rest of the Angels.”

Stephanus stiffened to attention, quickly acknowledge the Captain, and pivoted on his heel and strode off the bridge quickly.

Milla looked after Stephanus and back to Weston curiously, “You are preparing your fighters for launch? Why?”

“Ithan Chans, whatever hit your people out here was remarkably efficient. We still haven’t determined why you survived, or even what they did to the rest of your ships out there. I won’t take unnecessary chances with my crew.”

Milla nodded quietly, she would be hard pressed to find fault in his position even if she had a say in the outcome.