Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (35 page)

Tanner shook his head. “Too many such elements. Nothing they have done since they arrived has made sense. What are you to do now?”

“Now we get the Heroics into space,” Gracen said. “Are your people still willing to fill in some of the crew spaces?”

Tanner nodded. “We’ve already secured volunteers from the fleet. There are many who would have given much to serve with the
Odyssey
before . . . well, you understand. I could have
filled an entire starship with those who would desire greatly to serve under the command of Captain Weston.”

Nadine smiled wanly. “If we can find a way to retake Sol System from the Drasin, that could still happen.”

Tanner’s eyes widened in shock. “They told me that the
Odyssey
was destroyed when Captain Weston took her into the atmosphere.”

“She was.” Gracen nodded. “Somehow he wasn’t.”

“Amazing.”

Something in his tone unsettled Gracen, but she didn’t have the time or inclination to worry about it.

He took a long, slow breath, but nodded finally.

“What can I do to help?”

Stephen “Stephanos” Michaels walked the corridors of the new
Odysseus
and would have to admit, if pressed, that it was an impressive ship. More of a warship than anything he’d seen in space before, including the
Odyssey
herself, the
Odysseus
didn’t match anything the Priminae had put into orbit so far.

The ship felt a lot more human than the Primmie ships, possibly because of the input of human designers and engineers from a relatively early point in the process. It had certainly taken a short time to go from bare bones to almost complete, especially given that they’d been revamping the plans practically on the fly to incorporate Terran technical capabilities.

When did I start thinking about us as “Terrans”?
he wondered as he walked. Steph supposed that it was logical. After all, the Primmies were human too, so he couldn’t consider people from Earth as simply “human” anymore. Earther just sounded stupid, so Terran it was.

The
Odysseus,
and the rest of the Heroics, were built with the latest Priminae power and drive systems for FTL. Priminae lasers were, unfortunately, not combat effective against the Drasin, so they’d gone with Terran designs, enhanced as high as they could with the power they had available. That made their knife-range weaponry about as lethal as it could be, but Steph knew that if things got that close they were already in deep kimchee.

The standoff weapons were somewhat more impressive, primarily the transition waveguide cannons that bristled across the
Odysseus
’ decks like the big-bore cannons of old blue-water navy battleships on Earth. They could spot a target at fourteen light-minutes, which utterly redefined the term “standoff range,” but unfortunately had to sacrifice the pulse torpedoes as the system was considered insanely dangerous by the Priminae engineers.

The worst of that was that he couldn’t disagree with them.

A thump and a string of curses in English caught his attention, and Steph turned in the direction of the voice he recognized. He came to a stop at the feet of someone who was buried in one of the wall panels up to her waist.

“Milla?”

The slim and small woman cursed again, bringing a smile to Steph’s face as he considered how much she’d changed since he met her. The cursing in English was new, mind you. He supposed that she must have learned some particularly choice words while in D.C., and knew well from personal experience that it was always easier to curse in another language than your own.

The woman in question pushed herself out of the space behind the panel and looked up at him. “Stephane? What are you doing here?”

“I was assigned to the
Odysseus
,” he said, grimacing slightly. “Chief helmsman.”

She smiled brilliantly at him. “That is excellent. I volunteered for duty with you. I have been asked to handle the . . . tactical systems. Is that right?”

Steph chuckled at her confused question. “Well, I expect that you’d know better than me, but if you mean did you use the right words, yes, you did.”

“You don’t seem so happy with the assignment,” she said, examining him closer as she cleaned off her hands.

“I’m a pilot, not a driver for a million-ton hulk of ceramic and metal.”

She scowled, looking a little confused. “The ship flies, no? I do not understand. What is the difference?”

Steph snorted. “A ship this size, it responds like a garbage scow. A Double A fighter? Trust me, Milla, there is no comparison.”

“Even with the . . . what did you call it? Nick?”

“NICS,” he corrected. “Neural interface, but yes. NICS is intended for precision maneuvering. It won’t make the ship any more responsive, just more precise.”

“Oh.” She practically pouted.

Steph couldn’t help but laugh at her expression. He’d known people like Milla before. Lots of folks didn’t understand the allure of strapping into a fighter and powering through multiple barriers like a bat out of hell. To her and people like her, anything that weighed under a hundred thousand tons was a toy ship, and guns that couldn’t take out half a planet were pea shooters.

He preferred the surgical precision of a fighter. The ability to take out a bad guy in a room without waking up people sleeping in the next was an awesome capability. Hammering the surface of a planet until it cracked was a job for lowbrows with compensation issues. What was worse, he wasn’t even going to get to be a lowbrow. He was just a bus driver.

That said, he didn’t want to bring Milla down, so he put on a smile and just shrugged it off. “So you’ll be running tactical ops, then?”

She nodded. “Yes. I believe that I will be completing my training under a Lieutenant Rivers?”

“Waters.” Steph laughed. “He’s good. He handled the
Odyssey
in combat. He knows his stuff. Listen to the man.”

“I will.”

“Waters has been assigned to the
Bellerophon,
I think,” Steph said. “They’re giving him command. Learn everything you can from him. I know you know the systems here front to back, but he knows how to fight a ship.”

“I will,” she said again. “Do not worry.”

“Milla, love, I never worry. I’m just awesome that way.” He grinned at her, winking.

With the admiral away from the Forge and the Heroics, Commander Jason Roberts found himself with annoyingly few things to take up his time.

Actually, he supposed that he should consider himself Captain Roberts, the admiral having asked him to take command of the
Achilles
. It was, in every measurable way, a step up from the
Odyssey,
and yet he felt diminished since accepting it.

Though I expect that has more to do with the fact that the nation I represent has, in effect, gone from a nation one billion strong to a thousand people begging shelter and sanctuary from the Priminae
.

Oh, intellectually he knew that they were more than that. They brought a lot to the table beyond their technical offerings, so beggars they were not. For all that, however, Roberts still felt like the charity case at the dining room table. It was a
feeling he was not used to, nor was he inclined to get used to it if he had any choice in the matter.

He’d been surprised, shocked honestly, when the admiral had managed to negotiate for a half dozen ships. Granted, they’d had to give up the military technology they were guarding, but he couldn’t fault the decision given the circumstances. Technical advantages were moot when you didn’t have the muscle to employ them.

For all that, though, it was the Priminae decision that intrigued him.

Roberts was savvy enough in political affairs to know that the NAC would likely have agreed to the same deal, then stalled on the ships until its own defenses were shored up. Sure, the NAC would have paid up eventually, but not in a hurry while it was under the gun itself.

Yet here they were, getting the first six ships of a new run, six of the most powerful starships that ever existed, according to any experience or record he’d had or seen.

For an interplanetary government under threat of war, that was a decision that bordered on the insanely reckless.

Roberts looked over the bridge of his new command, eyes lingering on the people moving around the area, making last-minute checks on every station. The
Achilles
was almost ready for deep space trials, which for her was likely going to be combat, but there were thousands of things to check and recheck while they had the time.

He took a seat at the center console of the bridge, silently watching for a time, before calling Winger over.

“Deb,” he said, “could I talk to you for a minute?”

“Of course,” newly christened Lieutenant Commander Michelle Winger said, walking over.

“You’ve been familiarizing yourself with the guts of the control systems, I believe?”

The sensor tech nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“I want you and whoever you can find that knows the new systems to start looking for any sort of override code or hardware,” he said.

“You think that the Primmies. . .?” She trailed off.

“I would have,” he answered with a shrug.

She nodded. “I’ll get on it, sir.”

Roberts just nodded, gesturing to dismiss her. After Winger left he opened the station in front of him, logging in to the ship’s computer control. The system was based in Priminae technology, both faster than anything he’d ever seen on the
Odyssey
and yet, paradoxically, far more primitive.

They had been porting as much software as they could from the
Enterprise
computers, rewriting what they couldn’t, and occasionally keeping the local version when that proved superior, but it was a long job and he was worried about what might be lurking in the depths of the alien hardware.

They were going to be fighting using six unknown new constructions, with hardware he questioned on a deep personal level, and crews that where two-thirds comprised of people whose loyalties he couldn’t completely trust.

It was going to be one hell of a shakedown cruise.