Into the Black: Odyssey One (64 page)

“Captain!”

Eric paused, glancing back, and saw a young man approaching from his six. He held his step until the young man caught up to him, than nodded politely. “Lieutenant.”

“Sir.” Lieutenant Walter Daniels came to a stop and saluted, “Commander Roberts sends his regards and wanted me to give you this Sir.”

Eric returned the salute, than accepted the memory chip from the young man, wondering why Roberts had sent him on a gopher job. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Not a problem, Sir.” Daniels responded, “I was heading to the Station lounge anyway…”

Eric smiled slightly, nodding. That explained why Daniels had been tapped for gopher duty, it gave the young man another excuse to visit with a certain young ensign assigned to the Liberty Communications Center. “Very good than. As you were, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Eric watched him leave for a moment, than pocketed the chip and turned and continued on his way. He still had an Admiral to meet, after all.

*****

Amanda Gracen looked up as her ‘One O’Clock’ was shown into the office, nodding curtly to her secretary. As the Naval Attache retreated from the room, she eyed Eric Weston for a moment before nodding to a chair across from her. “Take a Seat Captain.”

Eric nodded, stepping forward and sliding into the comfortable chair that was situated across from the Admiral. “Admiral.”

Gracen looked down at the files displayed beneath to hard plastic surface of her desk, idly flipping through them with economical flickers of her fingers. After a moment she looked up again, than leaned back in her high backed chair. “Well Captain, do you have a status report on your ship?”

Eric stiffened, just slightly, than nodded. “Aye Ma’am. The Odyssey is fully repaired and her crew is fully integrated and as good a group of people as I’ve had the honor to serve with.”

A flicker of something floated in the eyes of the Admiral, but Eric couldn’t quite identify it. Amusement, perhaps, but he just couldn’t be sure. She nodded at his words, than flickered through to another file. Eric wished he could tell what she was looking at, but the display in the Admirals desk was designed to be read from the Admiral’s position only.

“Have you followed the developments with the Ambassador’s dealings?” She asked after a moment.

The ‘Ambassador’, Elder Corusc, had been charged by his people with negotiating a treaty with Earth in the aftermath of the fierce battle the Odyssey had waged in their home system against alien invaders the Colonials referred to as the ‘Drasin’. The technology of the two cultures had diverged heavily in direction, leaving the Odyssey with an advantage in weapons sophistication though woefully outpowered on a matter of pure brute force.

Eric had spent a great many nights since than imagining what the Earth technology base could do with all that pure energy. Many of the limitations the Odyssey suffered from were due largely to a lack of power, as opposed to a lack of technology.

Weston shook his head slightly in response to the question though, he hadn’t had time with the make work projects the Odyssey had been forced to endure. “I’m afraid not, Ma’am. I’ve been a little busy.”

The narrow smile on the Admiral’s face told Eric that she knew precisely what he had been busy doing, but that was another matter.

“Pity.” Was all she said on the subject, “You might have found it interesting.”

“I’m sure that I would have.” Eric replied, keeping his tone neutral.

“Unfortunately,” She went on, “Much of the technology won’t be of any use to us for several years at least…”

She let her words drop off, than abruptly started speaking again. “Including, I’m afraid, their power systems.”

Eric stiffened almost at once. That was the last thing he wanted to hear, “Pardon me, Ma’am?”

“The Colonials,” Gracen said, using the term Eric and his people tended to use for the non-terran human’s, “Use a power system entirely different from ours, and I’m afraid that we haven’t figured out a way to generate electricity with it just yet. Not with any real efficiency at least.”

Eric grimaced. He should have thought of that, he supposed.

“We have some designers working on entirely new weapon and ship designs, but for the immediate future we won’t be tapping that particular resource.” She told him.

Eric nodded and sighed, “Understood.”

“Still, that’s not to say that no good came of it.” The Admiral half smiled, “The medical technology, while still not compatible with our own systems, doesn’t really have to be. We’ve already begun integrating a great many of the techniques into our own medical center here on Liberty, and so far the results are promising.”

Eric nodded absently, still mourning the loss of all that power in the back of his mind. It was only than that something about the conversation made him frown.

“Pardon, Admiral,” He said after a moments thought, “But have we reached an agreement with the Elder?”

Admiral Gracen smiled again, this time a little wider. “Yes. We have.”

Eric nodded again, his mind working hard now. He knew that Corusc had been a little frustrated with the pace of Earth born politics, but by the same token the Colonials all seemed to be fatalists in one way or another. Or, rather, most of them were.

He’d met a couple that were the same sort of struggle unto the death types that Eric generally associated with human beings, but those were both military, more or less.

Corusc was certainly a great deal more patient than he would have been, taking over three months from their arrival in the Sol system to patiently bounce from one state dinner to another in the hopes of recruiting some help, practically any help, for his people.

Three months was a long time in any war, but even more so in the type of genocidal war that the Colonials were struggling to defend against. So Eric understood the Elder’s frustrations quite easily.

He looked back at the Admiral, “What kind of agreement?”

“We’ll supply advisors for their ground forces in the form of Green Beret detachments,” Gracen replied, “As well as providing them with the technical specifications on both our adaptive armor and Laser systems. We won’t be giving them either the technical specifications on the Transition Drive system, nor will we give away the coordinates of the Sol System.”

Eric nodded, agreeing with both points.

The Transition Drive was certainly the ace in the hole for the Human, no the Terran forces. It was a rather nerve racking system that allowed effectively instantaneous travel across distances of up to thirty lightyears. Even more if they could generate enough power to do it.

Likewise, the exact Stellar Location of the Sol System wasn’t something to be traded away at any price in the current situation. Eric wasn’t certain if the enemy had any way to learn it from the Colonials, but it was far far better to remain under the RADAR as it were.

At least until a Home Fleet and System wide defense system could be put into place.

However, in order to carry out even this agreement, it would mean sending the Odyssey on another mission. Eric’s eyes narrowed as he considered that. Not that he was opposed to another mission, however at the moment the Odyssey was the single largest accumulation of firepower in the Sol System.

“When will we be returning to Ranquil than?” He asked mildly.

“In two weeks.” She replied, “Your crew will have that time for Leave.”

“Yes Ma’am, they’ll appreciate that.” Eric nodded, but he was still thinking about local defense. “Admiral… Without the Odyssey here, if the Drasin should arrive…”

“That’s unlikely to happen, unless they managed to back track your Transition bursts,” Gracen replied, “But if it does we should be adequately prepared.”

Eric didn’t say anything, so she went on. “The Normandy, and the Enterprise are well under construction by our own crews as you know, they’ll be approaching minimal operational status in the next two weeks, though they’ll need another month to be completed. Additionally, the Soviet Alliance has begun construction on the Gagarin. She’s a light destroyer the Soviets had originally planned to use as a test bed for some new ideas of theirs, as well as a matter of showing their ‘flag’ in the new space race.”

Eric nodded, understanding. The Soviet Alliance was still relatively weak, coming out of the Block Wars with a nasty pounding to their credit from the Chinese forces that invaded from the south. They’d done well enough, considering that their military had been badly outmatched by the newer and more modern Block forces during the war.

Ironically, though, it had done them a lot of good on the economy side of things. Since the end of the twentieth century they’d been struggling to find their footing in a world that was jumping ahead by leaps and bounds and leaving them far behind. The war had forced the entire loose knit agglomeration of nations to face a common enemy on even ground, and to pour a lot of effort into a common goal.

Since the end of the Block War the Alliance had been making great strides to stepping back into the field of Premier powers on Earth, and the Gagarin would be an important prestige point to them.

“The Block, of course,” Gracen said with a mild twist to her lip, “Has the Mao Tse Tung under construction in addition to their in-system freighters and armed shuttles. So I believe that we’re covered.”

Eric nodded, he supposed that was true enough, even though the Mao wouldn’t have nearly the defenses it needed to withstand a strike from a Drasin Laser. If they could out maneuver it, though, they should have at least an effective weapons parity. He didn’t have the slightest clue what the Gagarin would boast in terms of defensive and offensive power, however.

The Confederation was certainly in the lead for the new race to space, having already made it to other star systems and opened negotiations with a non-terran civilization, however that particular coup didn’t entirely transfer to prestige or power within the Sol System itself. The Block had a lot of that in their own feathered cap at the moment, especially since they gave the old United States a nasty kick to the teeth before the war by winning the first leg of the race and beating the US back to the Moon.

Returning his mind to the subject at hand, however, Eric supposed that the orbital defenses would be enough when combined with the ships that were approaching completion.

Even so, a small handful of ships just didn’t sit well with him as the main line of defense for the NAC and the planet as a whole.

They needed Fleets and they needed energy systems to power them to Parity with the Drasin at least. A Power Parity, with the NAC’s sophistication advantage, would let him sleep a lot better at nights.

Of course, some basic Intel on the enemy wouldn’t hurt either.

“Very Well, Admiral,” Eric said aloud. “I’ll inform my crew and begin preparations.”

Gracen nodded, “I hope you’ll ensure that your own name appears on the Leave List as well, Captain.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Eric replied, though he’d not really thought about it.

“Good. Dismissed.”

*****

Temporary Colonial Embassy
Washington DC
North American Confederation

Ithan Milla Chans sighed as she looked out over the parts of the city she could see from the room she had been given upon arriving on this ‘Earth’.

The city was impressive in it’s own way, she supposed, though the buildings weren’t even close to the size of Mons Systema. There were a great many more people visible at all times, it seemed that everyone in the entire city would get out and mill about. The populations in her own city never seemed to be quite as visible as this.

It had taken her several days before she finally asked, and was informed that the people weren’t outside for the pleasure of being outside, but were instead actually commuting. That had come as a shock of sorts since Milla had never gone outside to commute, public transports were integrated throughout the entire city she grew up in.

“It is a strange place, is it not, Ithan?”

Milla half turned and nodded respectfully as Elder Corasc walked up behind her. “Yes. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.”

“That is because our cities were planned.” The Elder replied, “This one… grew.”

Milla frowned, eyeing the Elder curiously.

He smiled thinly, “I do not mean literally, Ithan. I mean that they built the city as they needed it, rather than in advance the way we do.”

Milla blinked, her mouth falling open just slightly, than she nodded. “I see.”

“Do you?” The Elder asked mildly, than shrugged. “Perhaps you do.”

Milla turned to ask him what he meant by that, but Corusc had already turned his back and was walking away. She considered calling to him, but worried that he might consider it disrespectful, so she just turned back to the cityscape outside the room she stood in and contemplated what the Elder had said.

*****

“May I help you Sir?”

“Commander Micheals to see Milla Chans.” Stephen Micheals replied calmly, glancing around the office front that had been supplied for the Elder and his two aides.

“One moment please.” The secretary responded pleasantly, thumbing a control on her desk while Stephen waited.

Thee front office was nice enough, he supposed, though it didn’t quite fit with how he had come to view Milla’s people. Of course, a lot of his knowledge of them was largely second hand, so he probably was at least as inaccurate as the office was.

He wondered if the rumors were true, that they were shipping out again shortly. He hoped so, though he knew that if they were than they’d probably be back in the fire before long. Milla’s people were in a bad way, but Stephen had found that he liked the ones he’d met and he didn’t enjoy seeing people he liked get hurt.

The way he saw it, the only way they’d be shipping out was if the brass and the politicians had come to an agreement with the Elder. He hoped that was the case.

“Stephen?”

Stephen shook his head clear of the random thoughts and smiled when Milla appeared from the doors that led to the back offices, and the living areas within. “Good afternoon, Ithan Chans.”