Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (67 page)

“Well, Captain, do you want to sit down or are you going to start screaming at me without delay?” she asked him, eyebrows arched.

“I’ve been told that you ordered a withdrawal from the system,” he gritted out.

“Incorrect. I was
ordered
to withdraw,” she said lightly. “We are making preparations now to leave orbit.”

“We can’t leave almost ten
billion
people to . . .”

“Captain,” she cut him off, “have you seen the numbers?”

When he couldn’t reply, she went on.

“We can eliminate maybe another two hundred of the drone ships, a little more if we get lucky, a little less if we don’t,” Gracen said. “That’s not enough to save Earth. It’s just barely enough to cut ourselves an escape route in their net, which is the only reason we’re still here picking up refugees from Earth.”

“There
must
be a way,” Eric objected. “What about the drives, Captain Sun . . .”

“The enemy learned from past mistakes,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re spread far enough out that you’d not get more than a few dozen, maybe a couple hundred at best that way, and you’d blow your ship’s drives to do it. Not an option.”

Eric slumped as much as his armor would allow, shaking his head. “There’s got to be a way to do this.”

“If you can think of it, you’re welcome to make a suggestion,” Gracen said, standing up, “Now, if you’re no longer looking to enact an offense that could be court martialed, you should get changed and cleaned up.”

“Pardon?” Eric looked puzzled.

“Captain, we’re about to need every experienced hand we’ve got. Have someone assign you quarters, get cleaned up and changed, and report for duty,” she ordered. “You’ve fifteen minutes.”

“Admiral, with all due respect, I have a mission and it’s down, well, on Earth,” he told her, gritting his teeth.

“I’ll have those orders changed. I can do that. I’m an admiral,” she told him. “Now get out of my office and do as I told you.”

Eric glared, just bordering on insubordination, but finally just nodded.

“Aye aye, ma’am.” He ground out, pivoting on his heel, then marched through the door.

Shuttles were moving back and forth from Earth to the Heroics as quickly as they could, which, considering they were Priminae shuttles, was pretty damned quick. Men, women, children, and some supplies were being ferried up under
intense secrecy, most of the passengers themselves not even knowing what was going on, while those in the know tried to work out just how many people they could get away with transferring before the squadron had to run.

“We have an untested waveguide array in New Mexico,” President Conner offered up. “It was built to take out the original fleet, but we should be able to put a hole in this one.”

“I’m not sure I’d recommend that.” Gracen shook her head. “I’m familiar with the technology, and firing from a gravity well is tricky enough. But also from an atmosphere?”

“Our people think they can work out the variables,” he said. “You can have some of the people I sent you run the numbers. We can’t fire as far as you might manage, but then, this close to the Earth and the Moon, neither can you.”

She nodded, noting that was the truth.

The waveguide system depended on a lot of factors to determine effective range. In theory, barring any outside influence, the range was effectively infinite. You could target a ship or planet, or just about anything else, from across the
universe
if you had its coordinates. In reality, well, things were more complex. You had to know the coordinates, of course, which meant it had to be in range of some kind of scanner system, and then you had to factor in outside influences.

Gravity fields would affect the range and accuracy. So, this close to Earth and the Moon, the computers were already dealing with a three-body system once you factored in the Sun. That made targeting calculations incredibly complicated, and would likely limit the practical range to only a couple light-minutes.

That was still a massively long distance, and a very decent standoff range, but it was far short of the ranges
achieved by the
Odyssey
and
Odysseus
in previous deep-space engagements.

A waveguide from the Earth’s surface would have all that to deal with, plus the unknown effects of firing through atmosphere.

Frankly, Gracen was just as happy it wasn’t her facility to command.

She had enough problems.

She had problems
.

Gaia watched, from all points and at all times, as her world, her people . . . herself, in a very real way, was being slowly dismantled. Torn piece from piece, and being replaced with those abominations that were slowly hacking her to death
.

Death
.

It was a discomforting and alien thought. She’d never really considered that she might die, if she were honest with herself. Philosophically she had pondered the afterlife, but only as something that happened to others
.

Now, though, it was all too real, and she wished that she had pondered it just slightly harder. Maybe she would have figured it out
.

She stepped through space and onto the decks of the
Odysseus
as the ship hung in low orbit, flitting through every space at once, before settling on the quarters assigned to Captain Eric Weston. He was in the shower.

“Oh Captain, my Captain
,” she said in a musical tone, smiling as he jumped and covered himself.
“Believe me, I’ve seen it before.”

He glared at her.

It was cute, actually. If she were human, she might be attracted to it, and him, but she’d done that before and there was nothing there for her
.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed, looking around, annoyed and worried.

“Just . . . saying goodbye,”
she told him, her smile holding ethereal qualities.
“I wish you all success in your future, Captain. I had hoped I might witness it.”

Eric wrapped himself in a towel, looking on at her in confusion. “I . . . Gaia . . .”

“Avenge your fellows,”
she said, her tone growing icy cold.
“Avenge them and me. These
abominations
do not belong in this universe. End them.”

“They’re destroying everything I’ve ever sacrificed to protect,” Eric said. “There is
nothing
in this universe that can stop me from doing just that.”

She smiled at him.
“I know. Why do you think I came to you? You have a nicely developed sense of vengeance, Captain. Hone it well.”

He nodded curtly, not knowing what else to say.

Gaia looked about.
“This is a good ship, Captain. Better, I think, than the one you left below. She will serve you well.”

“She’s not my ship.”

Gaia just smiled, ignoring him.
“Good bye, Captain . . . and good luck.”

She stepped out of space and into time, vanishing from the room.

Eric considered what had just happened, wondering not for the first time at the state of his sanity, or lack thereof, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He pulled on his uniform, or what now passed for it, and tried to make it look right. The cut was off and the colors bothered him, but at least it was clean and comfortable. He hadn’t had either of those in a while.

He looked in the mirror, actually a piece of smart glass, he supposed. It listed information about him, some of it surprisingly personal, and most of it more than a little creepy. He ignored it and focused on how he looked.

Almost professional.

Probably the best he was going to pull off with short notice.

Alright. Fine. Get to work, Eric. There’s too damned much left to do
.

He steeled himself and stepped out of the room, turning left as he headed for the lifts.

The main bridge was buried in the depths of the ship, as it should be in any sane design, so he had to take the lift “down” into the core levels. The gravity felt . . . natural. That was the first thing he consciously noted about the
Odysseus
. There was none of the bizarre, often motion sickness–inducing tidal shift that came from the
Odyssey
’s centrifugal gravity.

He walked through the corridors, pretty sure he was heading the right way, and tried to ignore the shocked looks that followed him. Whispered words, sharp exclamations, and pointed fingers made it clear that it was him that they were talking about. He ignored them. He’d probably be just as shocked if someone he knew had returned from the dead, though he hoped he’d be a little less obvious about it.