Into the Black: Odyssey One (55 page)

“All Archangels,” Stephanus’s voice smoothly slid over the net. “Increase velocity, spread formation.”

Jennifer pushed the thrust controls forward, as the fighter roared at her back. All around her, the others did the same. The fighters spread out, still accelerating as they closed distance with the enemy and leapt ahead into the brilliant, yet decidedly ghastly red glare, coming from the system’s primary.

“Keep your eyes peeled, ‘Angels,” Stephanus ordered. “They’re coming.”

Jennifer did as he ordered; eyes wide open as she stared into the sun, looking for the enemy. They were still fading in and out, like before, until suddenly they weren’t. Then they were there, screaming in from the brilliance of the star, but too large, relatively, to hide completely and she yelled in surprise.

“That’s it! Stay sharp!” Stephanus said a moment later as the enemy began to fire. “Make sure your combat computers are automatic adaptive settings and continue to accelerate.”

The needles in Jennifer’s neck felt like they were itching, though she supposed it was all in her mind. They weren’t supposed to feel anything once they were inserted.

The computer suddenly began wailing around her, as one of the enemy fighters singled her out for some special attention and a glancing laser strike tripped her combat computer’s automatic adaptive armor. The Cam plates that surrounded her shimmered, changing their base color to the best reflective surface for the enemy beam, then settled in as the wail died down.

Minimal damage,
she thought as she looked over the reports. The surface of her right wing was a little scorched and probably wouldn’t take another direct hit too well, since the brief flash had ablated away most of its armor, however, it was only a small surface.

She would survive it. Probably.

“Almost there ’Angels,” Stephanus said tensely, the sounds of damage reports from other fighters chattering over the net. “Hold on course… Hold… Hold…”

Then the Archangels interpenetrated the enemy ranks, the two forces slamming together at unimaginable speeds, as both sides started to turn and burn, trying desperately to claw themselves, fist over fist, into the position of best advantage.

And in that moment, all across the wing, the largest amount of solar interference was gone as the Archangels dropped behind the enemy lines, circling around in tight maneuvers and got the sun at THEIR back.

*****

Admiral Rael Tanner’s knuckles were bone white as he gripped the board in front of him. “What is he doing? By the Maker and all he has made, what is that insane fool doing?”

The Odyssey had stopped accelerating away from the remaining two ships, flipping end for end on the scanners and, while she wasn’t accelerating toward the ships, the distance between decreased quickly. The Odyssey was merely coasting now as energy discharges roared around them.

“Turn and run!” Tanner hissed, wiping sweat from his face with one stiff hand. “The Cerekus is here now you damned fool. Run.”

“Maybe they don’t see her?” Someone said.

Tanner shook his head, “That’s not possible. A ship the size of the Cerekus would be visible on any sensors that weren’t absolutely blinded.”

“The sun, Admiral,” A quiet voice spoke up.

“What?” Tanner spun, looking back at Milla, who was standing pale, in her borrowed armor.

“The sun. The Cerekus is straight from the Forge that means that Okana is directly behind them and the Odyssey’s passive sensors are…”

“Blind,” Tanner grimaced, fist slapping down in realization. “Even the best sensor systems would be overwhelmed by staring right into a star the size of Okana.”

“They don’t see the Cerekus, Admiral,” Milla said softly. “And, even if they did… They would as likely believe it to be Drasin, as anything else.”

Tanner’s curse echoed across the pit, making the ratings go pale white and bringing a booming laugh from the army control pit.

“Oh shut UP Nero!” Tanner growled in response, staring at the displays again.

There had to be a way.

*****

The form fitted seats kept him from bouncing around as Stephanus pushed the limits of his fighter’s capabilities, even with the Cee Emm cutting into his persona inertia. He snapped his plane around, not changing his velocity, as he first penetrated the enemy line and yanked his finger down on the forward auto-canon.

The gimbal mounted eighty millimeter, locked onto the first target he haloed, its roar lost in the vacuum of space, but not on Steph himself. The vibrations shaking the big fighter wrapped around him, as it sent out a shot burst.

Forty rounds found the enemy fighter, the explosive ordinance they had loaded in preparation for just this mission, ripping it to shreds and sending shrapnel flying along its previous course.

Steph twisted the throttle hard, slamming it forward at the same time and his plane spun on its axis, as its twin reactors opened up full and his minimized personal inertia slammed him back in the seat again. The fighter darted off in another direction in seeming defiance of all the laws of physics.

Around him the old dance had begun again, the dying over a completely unimportant section of space, merely a repeat of an age old ritual of which Commander Michaels was intimately familiar.

The Archangels were acquitting themselves well, as he knew they would, but there was already one emergency beacon blaring on the Search and Rescue frequency, so they’d taken their hits as well.

His mind wandered briefly, wondering how the new kid was doing, but he didn’t have time to focus on her, so he brought himself back to the moment.

“Angel Two, this is Lead… Make your run, I’ll cover,” he ordered.

“You got it, Boss.”

Stephanus tapped his controls, coming up behind ’Angel two and prepared to jump back into the fight.

Same old dance,
he thought wryly.
Only a different partner.

*****

“Ranging bursts,” Weston ordered firmly. “Paint them if you can, Mr. Waters.”

“Aye Captain. Ranging bursts,” Waters responded instantly.

The firing of the ranging lasers was silent, of course and did nothing to provide the crew with the same level of comfort or satisfaction that the hum of the main array did. There was something to be said, psychologically, for the noise of a real weapon.

After the bursts were fired, Weston had nothing to do but wait for the return, something that would take just under one minute now.

The waiting is going to drive me out of my mind,
Weston groaned silently, watching the numbers fall. He felt like his mind was going to crack under the pressure, something he’d never felt before. In the Archangels, there had been waiting of course, but it had always been waiting for the order to fly. Not this…, this unending battle.

That’s what it was.

Once battle was joined on earth, it generally ended in minutes. The winners won and the losers died. Or some of the winners won, at least.

The distances involved here was just dragging it on and on, into a never-ending war.

Eric blinked, rubbing his eyes and glanced at the clock.

Then he winced.

Over six hours since the first shots had been fired, more than eight since they had left orbit of the planet. He was getting tired, he could feel it and the ebb and flow of the fight wasn’t conducive to maintaining a healthy alert.

“Return fire!” Waters snapped.

Weston bolted straight in his seat, spotting the sweep of the energy signature coming from the starboard, “turn us to port and fire all keel thrusters!”

“Aye Captain!” Daniels snapped.

The Odyssey twisted away from the sweeping beam, catching only a glancing shot along the rear habitat, before Daniels had the big ship climbing over the beam.

“Damage to the rear habitat!” Lamont snapped. “Teams en route. We’re venting air, Captain.”

“Lock out the sections,” Weston ordered grimly. “We can’t afford to lose too much atmosphere.”

“Aye-Aye Captain,” Lamont checked some of the readings, then nodded. “Sections are now closed off.”

“That was just a glancing blow, Captain,” Waters informed him, “We’ve got a reading on the laser…”

“Adjust our plates to compensate,” Weston ordered, frowning. “Which ship fired that?”

“The angle indicates Bandit One, Captain.”

Eric grimaced, and nodded. “Very well. Maintain general settings on our port side and adjust all armor to starboard, to the new settings.”

“Aye Captain,” Waters said, but hesitated before speaking again. “The general deflection settings just aren’t going to do the job.”

“I think, Mr. Waters, that you may rest assured that you have just made an understatement of epic proportions,” Eric told the young man calmly. “Have we managed to paint either of them yet?”

“Uh… No Sir. Sorry Sir.”

“Keep trying.”

“Aye Captain.”

*****

“Move it, you monkeys!” Corrin growled as she and her team roughly shouldered their way through a group that had been evacuated from their section before the doors slammed down. “Get your butts to your secondary stations and out of our way!”

The crewmen and women scattered and started moving out, as Corrin and her team setup by the bulkhead that led to the damaged section.

“We’ve got a vacuum on the other side,” one of the team reported.

“All right, check your seals, lock this section off. We’re going in,” Corrin ordered grimly. “Have an E-Med team standing by.”

“You got it, Chief.”

They sealed the room, each man checking his own suit seal and then the seal of the man next to him.

“We’re good to go, Chief.”

“Clear the room,” Corrin ordered, features setting under her helmet.

*****

“Damage Control Teams are on the site, Captain,” Lamont said quietly. “We’ll be getting reports back shortly.”

“Very well.”

“And Engineering reports that we have full power coming off the Tokamak.”

Weston smiled, genuinely, for the first time in quite a while. “Excellent. Mr. Waters, narrow focus ping. Give me a real-time targeting solution.”

“Aye-Aye Captain,” Waters replied. “Single Ping.”

The surge went out, a single low ping of sound announcing the signal across the Bridge and the display in front of them, all snapped into suddenly clarity as enemy positions and formations were suddenly available to them.

“Main Laser Array, adjust for best general absorption against enemy materials,” Eric ordered.

“Aye Captain,” Waters replied, calling up all the previous examples of enemy armor and ordering the computer to average them out and devise a new beam frequency. In a matter of seconds, it was ready and he nodded, “Coded, Captain.”

“Give me a sweeping beam, right across their fighter escort,” Eric ordered.

“Aye-Aye Captain.”

*****

The Tachyon Traps sent a signal through the Bridge of the Cerekus, bringing Tianne’s attention back to the present. “What was that?”

“The ‘Odyssey’ just registered a light tachyon pulse and we received a return off the Drasin, Captain. Probably a sensor system.”

Tianne nodded, glancing at the time to arrival.

Six rotations.

She wondered if they’d be able to hold out. Normally she’d doubt it, however this ship was obviously more than it appeared. Perhaps they would survive.

Perhaps.

“Send the details to Admiral Tanners ordered calmly. He may find it interesting.”

“Yes Captain.”

*****

The low hum of the main laser firing had died out seconds earlier, and now the waiting had started again. Though the time was now dropping, the wait was no-less tense. The fact that it was becoming shorter by the second only meant that the battles were taking up a higher percentage of their time.

“Contact,” Waters whispered, drawing Eric’s eyes back to the screen.

For a moment, nothing, then a few of the fighters went up like matches in the darkness, flaring brightly under the sweeping gaze of the eye of the Odyssey’s main laser. Then, a few more went up and soon an entire formation was blazing ahead of the oncoming vessels.

Finally Waters nodded, “That’s it, Captain.”

Eric nodded. “Very nice shooting.”

Another glance at the board and the distance was down to under twenty-five light seconds now. Eric glanced at Daniels, “change evasive action, Mr. Daniels. Move to pattern Troy.”

“Aye Captain. Initiating Pattern Troy,” Daniels replied, initiating the command set.

The Odyssey shifted and groaned as they changed course on thrusters keeping themselves, hopefully one step ahead of the enemy attacks.

Chapter 37

“Jesus Christ,”

Chief Corrin didn’t say anything as she led her crew through into the damaged sector. The decompression had left the section in massive disarray, items as large as chairs and desks scattered around the room.

“Jason, you better see if we’ve got any survivors,” she ordered, looking around grimly. “Brian, you and your team follow me. We’re going to check that breech.”

The two men nodded and split off, as Corrin just kept walking.

The breech was three rooms over, but either the energy from the laser or the explosive decompression had apparently blown out the automatics on the heavy doors. Corrin growled as she looked over the place.

“What in the fuck were those doors open for anyway?” She bitched, kicking a chair out of the way. “We’re on a God-damned battle stations alert. That’s a mandatory lock down!”

“Yes Chief,” Brian Kreuse agreed from behind her. “Someone must have overridden them.”

Corrin cursed again, shoving through a door that had half swung closed. Inside the next room she spotted the deep gash, the enemy laser had cut in the Odyssey and the moving starscape beyond it.

“Careful now,” she said, walking closer to the gash in the floor. “Don’t want the spin to toss us right out the hole.”

“No ma’am.”

There was a desk jammed in the breech, one of the big aluminium jobs that the scientists liked to use, twisted into a useless hunk of metal that was most certainly going to be in their way.