Into the Black: Odyssey One (18 page)

Preparations on the bridge continued at a feverish pace as the tachyon telemetry came streaming back. Milla was shown to a seat that folded out of the rear wall of the room and was strapped tightly into it while the commotion on the bridge slowly wound down. Finally, with all the preparations finished, the Captain sat back and waited.

“Stephanus to the bridge.”

Weston leaned forward involuntarily when his friend’s voice came over the com, “yes Steph?”

“The Angels are ready to fly Captain, give the word and we’ll burn out of here.”

“Understood, stand-by Archangels.”

It was only at this moment that Milla realized what was bothering her.
They act as if we’ll be in the Fuielles system within a few minutes. That system is days away, these people couldn’t possibly have that kind of ability?

Dimly she heard the Captain give the order to Engage and she forced her mind back onto the action on the bridge.

“Captain, forward spires have transitioned. The effect will overtake the bridge in thirty-two seconds.”

Effect? What effect?
Thirty seconds later she found out. Milla just stared in horror as the bridge view screen vaporized, the particles spinning away into the emptiness of space.

This is madness!
It wasn’t until the effect had overtaken the junior officers, spinning their atoms away into space that Milla came unfrozen. Her hands clawed at the restraints keeping her pinned securely to the chair as she tried in vain to loosen them, her panic mounting with each passing instant. Then almost the same second she had started clawing at her restraints she saw something that caused her to stop.

Captain Eric Weston was sitting in his chair, simply staring at the approaching maelstrom, and expression of slight distaste decorating his features but nothing more. She looked at him and was instantly calmed by his relaxed form.

There was something intangible about the man, as he sat there at the edge of the maelstrom, staring into the void.

She might not have been so calmed had she seen Weston’s bone white knuckles or the blood red holes he was drilling into his palms with his clenched fists, but she wasn’t supposed to see that and so she didn’t. Weston focused all his considerable willpower on projecting a command presence to everyone on the bridge, but the Transition effect took its toll on him, as well.

In a markedly different system over twenty light-years away, the unique signature of the Odyssey re-entering dimensional space began to unfold. Section by section and deck by deck, the big ship stepped down from the tachyon stream and rebuilt itself particle by particle.

Throughout the ship, its crew began the arduous steps needed to ensure that the ship had reintegrated the entire myriad of its systems successfully. On the flight deck, Stephanus ordered the first of the Archangel fighters into position on the ship’s catapults and had their backup take positions on the big elevators that separated the vacuum of the flight deck from the hangar bay.

On the bridge, the scene was much the same as elsewhere, with the notable exception of a very pale and, seemingly, very cold young woman strapped into her seat.

“Get the sensors back online, I need a full scan of the system,” Eric Weston snapped as crisply as his nauseated stomach would allow.

“Aye Sir. Full scan in three minutes Sir.”

Weston lanced back where he knew Milla would be, and quickly motioned a young Ensign over to check on her. As the young woman moved to respond to his order, Eric pulled another display forward and tapped in a command to echo the sensor displays.

Milla Chans looked up from her shivering self, as a warming hand was laid on her shoulder. The young woman looked at her with a gentle smile, “Are you okay, Ma’am?”

Milla looked up at the young woman who had stepped over to her, “That was among the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.”

The young woman smiled sheepishly, “yes Ma’am, the transition drive is hard to take. Here let me help you here.” She unlocked the restraint straps that held Milla in place and slipped them back into their rollers.

Milla pitched forward when the embrace of the straps was gone, but the woman caught her easily, expecting that. It took a few moments for the shivering and weakness to pass, and then Milla nodded slowly and began to move of her own accord.

Milla stood up and stretched of a moment, “thank you…?”

“Ensign Lamont Ma’am. Susan Lamont.”

“Thank you Susan. I am Milla.”

Ensign Lamont smiled, “I know. Most everybody on board knows your name by now Ma’am.”

Milla laughed silently, “I should have guessed that. A ship’s gossip network is always the most efficient system on board, no?”

Susan smiled ironically, shrugging, “Always has been as far as I know, Ma’am.”

Milla turned her attention back to the activities on the bridge; the Captain’s attention had been drawn to the incoming telemetry from the ships RADAR and LIDAR sensors. The main screen had come back online finally and Milla took a step closer to examine the diagram that had appeared on it.

She gasped quietly, mouthing opening into a round ‘oh’ of shock, and she stumbled forward, barely catching the back of the Captain’s command chair to steady herself. Behind her she, felt Ensign Lamont move up quickly, lopping an arm under hers, and bolstering her up, but she couldn’t seem too martial the presence of mind to thank the woman, or even throw her a grateful glance.

My God. It’s the Fuielles system.

It was impossible, but it was the Fuielles system that floated on those screens, outlined with red and blue lines by the computer. The Primary was a mid-sized yellow star, with eleven planets circling it. Milla stared in shock, taking an involuntary step forward and clutching at the chair back as she tried to find her voice.

“How?” Milla’s voice was soft floating on breath only a few feet, but her hesitant question caught the attention of Captain Weston.

He half turned and smiled at her, or perhaps the Ensign behind her, then gave Milla an apologetic look.

“I should have tried to explain it to you, but suffice to say our method of travel is somewhat faster than what you described in your story. Less pleasant I’ll bet though,” he finished with a wry grin.

“Yes, you could say that,” Milla said dryly, her stomach still churning as the memories of the event twisted at the back of her mind.

Eric nodded, seeing the emotion hidden in her eyes. The Transition Drive was perhaps one if not the most disturbing things he’d ever endured, certainly it was THE most disturbing thing outside of a battlefield. He took a breath as he glanced back around the bridge, then nodded and waved her closer.

Milla returned a few steps up to the chair that Eric had set up for her. The Captain smiled at her and tapped in a command into one of his smaller displays. A graphic appeared on it a second later and Milla blinked as she recognized the general outline of the Odyssey.

“Our system charges every molecule in the ship with a tachyon surge,” Eric Weston told her as the graphic surged with color, and the ship began to break apart. “Since Tachyon’s aren’t particularly fond of existing in this universe…”

He smiled crookedly, shrugging as the graphic vanished from the screen. “What happens is that we are actually broken down to sub-molecular components, which flash across the intervening space… When the Tachyon surge runs out of power…,”

The graphic on the screen reintegrated automatically.

“…so do we and we come to a stop. Hopefully, right on target,” Eric half smiled, “if we’ve done our calculations right.”

Milla nodded slowly, not really understanding the details in the slightest, but following the general principal easily enough.

“I’m told that the ship actually jumps instantaneously, the effect that we see is a result of a subjective time distortion,” Weston paused a moment, then smiled. “Of course that doesn’t make it any easier to handle the effect.”

“Fascinating,” She said, and she was fascinated. Instantaneous travel between star systems was an incredible achievement.

Beyond that, even, it flew in the face of everything she had ever been taught. It was supposed to be impossible, utterly and completely.

“We think so,” The Captain grinned. “We actually have a few theories about traveling like you do… well… something close anyway. The problem is that we can’t navigate at supra-light speeds, our nav computers aren’t fast enough.”

Milla simply nodded, she understood the problem. Navigating at faster than light speeds required Tachyon based computing systems, something these people hadn’t developed. Otherwise one was forced to constantly stop and start as one checked their position and, perhaps more importantly, the path one had chosen to ensure that it was clear of debris.

Remarkable, they couldn’t do it the easy way so they cut through the problem and made another option,
Milla thought to herself, looking around the bridge of the starship just as something galvanized one of the men sitting ahead of her.

“Captain, readings are coming in from the long range scanners.”

“Report,” Weston’s attention snapped back to the task at hand.

Milla fell back a step, eyes still intent on the actions of the people around her, until she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head to see Ensign Lamont standing behind her.

“This way, Ma’am,” The young Ensign smiled, gesturing back to the chair. “You’ll be better off here.”

Milla nodded and allowed herself to be guided back as the people around her went to work.

*****

“Yellow Star, similar to ours. Eleven planets,” Ensign Waters pause a long moment as the data fed through his station, “no life signs, anywhere.”

Waters quiet statement froze most of the bridge, those without vital duties couldn’t help but spare a backward glance to the young woman seated at the back of the room. Milla had gone white, she couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible; the Fuielles system should have millions of people and enough life forms to have registered on even weak sensors from outside the system.

“You are mistaken,” her voice was firm.

Waters gulped and bent back to his station, rechecking the readings and directing the sensors more carefully at the systems planets.

“No Ma’am. There is a debris ring around the fourth planet that looks artificial, but no life signs. I… I’m sorry, Ma’am,” the young man said after a moment, his voice tense as his fingers automatically rechecked the numbers that the computers were sending him.

“Helm, plot a course to take us around the fourth planet. We’ll do a qui-” Eric began to say.

Weston was cut off by an exclamation from Ensign Waters, “Captain! There’s an object incoming on an interception course. Silhouette coming in now, sir.”

“Put it up, Mr. Waters,” Eric ordered his voice quiet yet firm.

Waters swallowed, tapping in the command, “Aye Sir.”

A moment later the dark silhouette of the approaching vessel was on the main screen. The ship read out as relatively small, only fifty meters or so, but it seemed to be pretty quick.

“Trying to get a clearer shot Sir, the material seems to be absorbing the LIDAR and RADAR signals.”

Weston nodded, “switch to the Tachyon sensors.”

“Aye Sir, but at this range they probably won’t be much better.”

Waters was proven wrong a moment later, when the silhouette on the screen snapped tightly into focus showing the ship in more detail. Weston was studying the vessel thoughtfully when he heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him and turned to see Milla’s face blanche.

As if I had to guess what that means,
out loud Weston spoke calmly, as he half turned to face the visitor on his Bridge, “I take it you recognize the ship?”

Milla nodded dumbly for a moment, “It’s a Drasin reconnaissance vessel. The same type as the one we encountered after…”

After another star system was sterilized…, leaving only those things behind,
Weston finished silently.

“Combat Alert. All crewmembers to their duty stations.”

The Captains voice rang out on all decks as the military crew of the exploration vessel snapped to their duties, going to full battle station alert in an instant. Commander Roberts slid into his station and began activating controls. Shudders ran though the Odyssey as armor plating slid aside from the weapons they protect and the ominous devices were freed from their captivity.

Eric nodded in satisfaction as he watched his people react smoothly to the situation, training kicking in as they brought the ship from a ninety percent stand down to full military power.

When he spoke his voice was calm and crisp, no hint of even the brief transition sickness that had been there minutes before. “Full power to the navigational deflectors. Waters, try to hail them. Commander, power up all weapon’s systems, get a passive lock on that ship. Don’t ping them, yet.”

“Aye Sir,” they both chorused as they bent to their tasks.

“Captain, we have a passive lock, but it’s only at eighty-three percent. The vessel isn’t radiating any tachyons, so a real time lock is impossible, unless we hit them with active Tachyon sensors. The computer is doing course estimations,” Commander Roberts reported a moment later, his voice showing exactly what he thought of the computers estimates.

“That’ll have to do for now Commander, Waters is there any response?” Eric asked calmly.

“Negative. No response to our hails. Initial sensor data is coming back, sir,” the Ensign said, sounding a little nervous as he leaned over his console.

“Send it to my station, Ensign.”

Weston turned his attention to the data feeding into his terminal, looking for any information he could use, to either prevent or win what looked to be an inevitable conflict. Frowning he looked at the data closer before realizing what had struck him as odd.

“Ensign, did you run this through the fractal imaging program? All I’m getting here are echoes.”

Waters stammered for a moment and re-examined the data himself, “what you have is correct, Sir. I don’t recognize the pattern. The material seems to be refracting the sensors. We can’t get a good scan.”