The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (5 page)

The petty officer nodded and ordered the loader to back off and do just that. When the big machine popped the seals on the can, Corrin stepped up and yanked the sides down.

“Those aren’t HVMs,” the petty officer said simply as they stared.

“No shit,” Corrin replied, sighing. “Hang on, I’ll put a call in to the duty officer. Maybe they’ve got the manifest code for these things up on the bridge.”

It wasn’t supposed to work that way, she knew, but mistakes happened even with the “miraculous” inventory management system and the most advanced computer networks.

“Bridge? This is Chief Corrin. I need a data check on an inventory serial,” she said into her induction piece. “That’s right. Just came aboard a couple hours ago. Serial number
alpha-niner-dash-twelve-four-bravo-sixteen-three-two-niner…That’s right…I’ll hold.”

She looked over the crate of munitions idly as she waited for the check to come back, eyeing the slim rocket-shaped items with only mild curiosity. “You know, PO, these look like they might be for the Archangels.”

The petty officer glanced at the weapons for a moment, then scratched his head. “Well, they’re sure in the wrong place, if that’s the case.”

“No shit,” Corrin snorted, then stiffened as the bridge contacted her. “Yes, I’m here, Bridge.”

She nodded, then shook her head. “That’s fine, we’ll stock them aside until someone figures out what they’re for. You might want to check with the Archangels and see if they’re missing a shipment. These things might be for them.”

With that, she signed off and shook her head. “What a cock-up. We’ve got shit being delivered here that even the bridge don’t recognize.”

“What do we do with it?” the petty officer asked, eyeing the twenty crates sitting there.

“Standard procedure,” Corrin replied, a little harshly. “Seal this one back up, and grab a couple Marines to stand guard on the shit until we find out what it’s for. If we don’t get an answer back before the last shuttle goes out, we ship it right back to the brass and let them figure it out.”

“Right.”

Corrin eyed the munitions until the petty officer sealed them back up, then went back to her job.

Topside, in officer country, Ensign Lamont was stalking through the knee-knockers and door locks with her tablet in one hand and a computer’s location report in the front of her mind. Her prey wasn’t carrying his induction unit, and so she had to get ahold of her man face-to-face. Up ahead of her, she heard a familiar voice calling out and quickened her pace to catch up.

“Hey, Lieutenant, how come you’re still on board?”

As she passed through a lock, she saw Lt. James Amherst pause in midstep as he finished throwing on his flight jacket and glanced around to the speaker. When he saw Chief Sittler, the Archangels’ crew chief, approaching with a friendly smile, he returned it easily. “Just getting ready to take off. You?”

“I’m on duty until we finish loading for the mission,” Sittler replied with a smile. “I’ll be Earth-side in a couple days.”

Amherst nodded. “Glad to hear it. You guys need the break.”

Sittler laughed. “We do OK.”

“Better you than me,” Amherst replied, pulling the zipper up on his jacket, though it wasn’t cold. He was about to say something more when Ensign Lamont made herself known.

“Chief Sittler, I’ve been looking for you,” she said, sounding a little put off.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the chief replied, coming a little straighter. “I was about to take a shower and hit the sack, so I tossed my induction set a while ago. What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got a shipment on the parking deck that looks like it might be one of yours, but we can’t identify it,” she said, relaxing slightly, and handed him a data plaque.

“I can see that you’re all busy, so I’m off.” Amherst grinned, turning around and heading for the door while
Sittler frowned at the information. The chief never noticed him leave.

“I don’t recognize these numbers, ma’am. Hang on a second while I check our manifest.” Sittler sighed, grabbing another plaque from his thigh pouch and punching up another set of numbers.

“No…No, it’s not…Hang on…”

“What is it, Chief?” Lamont frowned.

“I’ve got a blacklisted number here,” Sittler told her. “Could be your mystery package. With all the new work and gear we’ve been getting, some of the clearances haven’t passed through the computers yet. I’ll just send a request—damn it.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll have to get back to you on this, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry to mess up your sack time, Chief,” Lamont said, actually sounding sorry. “But you’ve only got two hours; then we ship those crates back where they came from.”

“Got it, ma’am.” Sittler nodded. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Very good, Chief. Carry on.”

LIBERTY STATION
Lagrange Four, Earth Orbit

▸ERIC ARRIVED IN the private conference room early, more than slightly curious about the nature of the meeting he’d been called to. The admiral hadn’t had much more information than the location and the order for him to “be there.”

After a few minutes, a nondescript man walked up. “Captain,” the man said evenly as he sat across from Eric, “thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“Did I have a choice, Mister…?”

“Call me Gordon, Captain.” The man smiled. He could afford to smile, Weston supposed, as he was clearly with some ABC agency or another.

“Gordon, then,” Eric replied evenly. “Now, I don’t suppose we could get to whatever matter brings us here?”

“Certainly, Captain,” the man replied, drawing a data plaque from his case and thumbing it on. “I’ve actually been meaning to have this conversation for some time; however, it always got put off. Since you’ll be shipping out soon, I opened up some room in my schedule.”

“I’m pleased for you,” Eric said dryly. “However, that doesn’t tell me much.”

The man smiled slightly. “How much do you know about the Priminae?”

Eric blinked, taking a moment to process the term, then shrugged. “Apparently not enough to use that term for them.”

The man smiled again. “Well, it’s the closest we can translate what they call themselves. I suppose it doesn’t have the ring of ‘Colonials,’ but it doesn’t have the latent meaning, either.”

“I suppose.”

“We want more information about their central ‘computer,’ Captain.”

Eric raised an eyebrow. “Then ask them.”

“We have. A lot.” Gordon smiled again, reminding Eric of a particularly sleazy shark.

Eric didn’t.

Gordon cleared his throat. “Well…To be frank, we don’t know if they’re holding out on us or if the translations are simply missing something. In either case, we want someone to eyeball their computer and, if possible, figure out exactly how it fits into their society.”

“Pardon?” Eric frowned.

“Captain, there are some indications from our conversations with Ambassador Corusc that the Priminae have an established technocracy,” Gordon said, then smiled apologetically. “That is, we think that their central computer might be a little more than a repository of knowledge.”

“I’m aware of the meaning of the word,” Eric replied, thinking back to his conversations with Rael Tanner.

It was possible that there was some truth to the statement, he realized, though he wasn’t certain what difference it made. In any case, what process a people used to rule themselves didn’t really matter so much as how well they did so. Still, he had to admit that the central computer intrigued him.

“What we’d like to know is exactly how much influence this computer has and what are its capabilities.”

“Influence?” Eric asked with a confused frown. “It’s a computer—what influence could it have?”

“Quite a lot, actually. However, that’s another issue. The fact is that we’re really not certain that it is a computer. The refined translations aren’t giving us much of a confidence level in this case, I’m afraid.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Really, Captain, I’m surprised at you,” Gordon replied, actually looking surprised. “Knowing how a potential ally is ruled is vital information. It goes to predicting how they’ll react in given situations and can be of vital importance to our embassy people.”

Eric blinked. “What embassy people?”

“Weren’t you informed?”

“Informed of what?” he asked, beginning to become exasperated.

“Why, we’re sending an embassy staff with you, of course.”

Eric took a seat in the comfortable lounge, trying to forget his meeting with Gordon while he waited for the next shuttle Earth-side. The view from the lounge was impressive, almost as good as what he routinely saw from the
Odyssey
. Outside Station Liberty, the lounge he had chosen looked almost directly on the nearly complete NACS
Enterprise
. That sight took his mind off of Gordon—quickly.

It was going to be a big ship, he could see, eyeing the changes that had been made from the original Odysseus Class
plans. Some of those changes were only noticeable to his highly trained eye, but others would leap out at anyone.

He felt an almost sad pang as he noted that the
Odyssey
was going to be the only ship of her class to actually be built. The
Enterprise
was similar, of course, but enough changes had been made from the lessons learned during the
Odyssey
’s construction that the ship was a class of its own.

Her habitation drums were larger, for one, which was supposed to reduce the nausea one had to endure on occasion when shifting from one section to another in the
Odyssey
. The large rear “command tower” was gone, having been scrapped from the plans when the
Odyssey
’s power plant proved to be inadequate to the task of powering those sections with artificial gravity.

The
Enterprise
flight decks were three tiered as well, which Eric thought was mildly interesting, but that was normal since the
Enterprise
was destined to be a dedicated carrier, as opposed to the
Odyssey
’s multifunction stance.

He’d stolen a glance at the plans for the fighters that would make up the largest part of her complement and had to admit that he was impressed. The naval planning board had opted not to go with the original space-only design that had been proposed in favor of a more versatile multipurpose space-superiority fighter.