The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (40 page)

▸“BOTH THE
ODYSSEY
and the
Heralc
have entered into engagement range of the enemy ships, Captain.”

Johan Maran nodded briefly, eyeing the numbers on his own projection. He was still a short few cycles from interception, and the Drasin behind him were beginning to accelerate again, so they would soon be coming into range themselves.

The best bet was to continue on the present course, intercept and destroy the innermost Drasin, then turn to meet the remaining two with all remaining ships.

He just hoped that the
Heralc
and the
Odyssey
would be remaining, then.

“Understood. What is our reactor mass?”

“Both reactors are holding at point-eight-five gravities.”

Johan nodded. At that level, the reactors had enough mass for a prolonged mission, even at the horrendous energy expenditure of warfare.

“Increase power draw to engines.”

“Yes, Captain.”

NACS ODYSSEY
Ranquil System

▸“BOTH PRIMMY SHIPS are increasing speed and closing, Captain.”

Eric hid another grimace at Winger’s use of the shortened “Primmy” for the Priminae people. She’d done it again, so he had to make a note to not take her on any diplomatic missions to the surface.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said aloud. “Are they crossing our beam?”

“Negative, sir. They’re staying clear of our firing vectors so far.”

Commander Roberts smiled dryly. “How uncommonly intelligent of them.”

“Careful, Commander,” Eric reproved, “we already know that they don’t have much experience fighting. It’s no surprise that their joint-operations doctrine is lacking. In fairness, we don’t even have one of our own just yet, either.”

Roberts nodded reluctantly. “Aye, sir.”

“That said,” Eric went on, “I think that we should probably have a talk with the admiral about developing one. Don’t you, Commander?”

“Which admiral, sir?” Roberts asked with a hint of a smile.

“Any of them that will listen, I suppose.”

“Admiral Tanner it is, then.”

Eric had to suppress a snort of amusement, which he immediately forced away before shooting a mild glare in Robert’s direction. Commander Roberts didn’t notice, or appear to at least, so Eric had to forgo the satisfaction of watching his first officer squirm a little as the timing dictated he pay more attention to the work at hand.

“Lieutenant Daniels, have you calculated our approach vectors?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Then engage when ready.”

“Aye, Captain. Engaging maneuvering program.”

The
Odyssey
bucked and twisted in space as her main thrusters flared again, burning the fuel stored in her tanks at an incredible rate as she began to build delta-v toward her targeted destination. The thrusters built along the length and breadth of the large ship always flared, seemingly at random, pitching and rolling her along nearly random course corrections and adjustments to keep the enemy ahead from locking onto her with their lasers.

Momentum and inertia in space are two of the biggest obstacles to serious maneuvering, the sheer mass of a space vessel working intensely against its maneuvering abilities, no matter how powerful a thrust it has. Even if thrust is powerful enough to overcome mass and inertia in short order, the humans inside are not structurally designed to withstand significant acceleration.

Across the vast expanse of even a single star system, one to ten gravities of acceleration were insignificant, and anything more would kill a person in short order, so something had to be done in order to make space travel practical, if not possible.

For Earth, that breakthrough had come at the same time, and in the same form, as the technology that finally provided the true heavy-lifting capacity needed to begin serious work in space. The counter-mass field, or CM, reduced “effective” mass of anything within its projected range, according to a geometric formula.

The lighter something is, the more effective a CM field would be. Hypervelocity missiles dropped to less than 1 percent of their full mass, while Archangel fighters operated at about 4 percent of their total mass while under full counter-mass support.

A ship the size of the
Odyssey
sat right at the point of diminishing returns, a factor that had figured heavily into her size. Power expenditures to effectively reduce the mass of a significantly larger vessel were considered prohibitive by Earth-based science.

So, as it was, the
Odyssey
massed out to just under 22 percent her total real mass while under full CM support. That gave her a reasonably fast sprint, and decent top end, but certainly prevented the big ship from making maneuvers like her smaller brethren.

So when the big ship’s thrusters flared, she slid along her previous course for a time, building up delta-v until her power curve began to outweigh her inertial force.

Then the
Odyssey
plunged toward the wounded Drasin cruiser, the people on board her scrambling to keep her powerful weapons pointing in just the right direction as they awaited the order to let loose the proverbial dogs.

PRIMINAE VESSEL HERALC
Ranquil System

▸“FIRE!”

The order cracked across the bridge, tension turning it into a whiplike thing that snapped everyone as the tension continued to increase around them.

Kierna watched as Ithan Serra plunged her finger into the projected interface built of photons and solidified atmospherics, feeling the satisfying rumble of feedback as the ship acknowledged her command.

The firing of the forward laser banks was anticlimactic, no sound emitting from the lethal crystals, as they were excited by direct power siphoned from the reactor mass of the ship’s power cores. Outside, Kierna knew that there would be no significant light, except for a flash of visible light reflecting off the
Heralc
’s hull and perhaps a similar flash visible to the enemy ship about a tenth of a milli-cycle before the laser struck home.

On her projection, though, the scene was a bit more dramatic. The path of the laser was traced in real time across the three-dimensional view of the battle zone, the compressed nature of the projection making the beam crawl across it so
slow that Kierna had the urge to yell at it as if that would alter the speed of light and the basic structure of the universe.

Serra glanced up and around to where the captain was sitting. “Fired, Captain. Beam will intersect target in nineteen-tenths, Captain.”

Kierna nodded. “Thank you, Ithan.”

Serra nodded and turned back to her station as Captain Senthe focused his attention on the twin power cores and their total mass.

The numbers were not encouraging, he noted quickly. The power draw from them was exceeding their capacity, and the total reactor mass was now down to under two-thirds of standard gravity each.

He could almost imagine that he could feel the difference already, though he knew that it wouldn’t become noticeable until they dropped to about one-half standard gravity. At that point, the
Heralc
would begin to founder in space like a lame animal, unable to maneuver either to attack or evade. When that happened, they were as good as dead.

NACS ODYSSEY
Ranquil System

▸“FIRE WHEN READY, Mr. Waters,” Eric Weston said calmly, taking a sip from a cup of coffee the Yeoman had fetched him.