The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (59 page)

▸MOST COMPLEX SPECIES in the galaxy developed in environments humans would find familiar, no matter how superficially different it might have been from Earth or similar environs. Atmosphere, gravity, day and night. Even the largest of life-bearing planets, or the smallest, had enough lines of similarity for a person to extrapolate and begin to understand the nature involved.

The Drasin were born of the stars themselves, lived their lives in the black of space, and were bred for one purpose alone.

To a human, there was no comprehending either the perspective that gave them or the lengths to which they would go to achieve their purpose. Lengths such as launching themselves through the cold black of space, scattered in the tail of a comet, knowing that, at best, only a few would even strike the target they were aimed at. Of those few, most would not survive, but that did not concern them.

They were Drasin. One was all it often took.

The large warship of the red band was looming in the distance, growing fast as it slowed relative to their fall. The first
little ship was so small that dozens had fallen past it, still tumbling along on their trajectory to the ultimate target, but this new ship was large. It had a gravity of its own; they could see the warp and twist of space as they closed on it.

Silicate claws and mandibles flexed, the moment of action bearing down on them, and like a hard rain on a tin roof, the Drasin fell to the
Cerekus
.

A faint echo of sound—something exploding, almost—was the first hint of trouble to reach the bridge of the
Cerekus
. Tianne looked around, trying to place the sound, but before she could ask anything, an alarm sounded from the damage control station.

“Captain, we’re venting atmosphere. Sector Twelve, Deck Nine.”

She didn’t bother ordering them to control the problem; they’d already be doing that. “Bring up the external viewers of the hull in that area.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The screens flickered, showing a gaping hole in the armor of the
Cerekus
with atmosphere venting wildly through it.

“We must have been struck by something, Captain.”

“That’s impossi…ble.” Tianne barely finished the word as she considered what she was about to say. There was a feeling deep inside her now that she couldn’t identify, and wished that she would never have to. In theory, nothing could penetrate the debris reppelling fields used to keep the ship from being holed through by small bits of flotsam and matter as they barreled through the black of the voice. In theory, however,
there were no Drasin in the vicinity, and she knew that wasn’t true.

Tianne took manual control of the screens, flicking through the camera views quickly enough that they flashed by in a blur until she stabbed her finger down onto a control and stopped the screen on an image that caused her blood to run cold.

“It—It’s cutting through the hull.”

That feeling in Tianne’s gut turned ice-cold, and she reflexively gripped the console in front of her to hide the emotion.

On the screen, everyone could see one of the Drasin drones slicing through the composite hull of the
Cerekus
, pulling the slagged material apart without even waiting for it to cool.

Tianne ignored the talking that had erupted, instead palming open the ship’s communications channel. “All crewmen, this is Captain Tianne. We are being boarded. Draw weapons from the armories, and prepare to combat the Drasin boarders.”

She then turned back to the crew surrounding her. “Seal this deck. Nothing comes in. We have a job to do.”

They stared for a moment, still clearly shocked.

“Now!” she snapped, jolting them back into action.

A moment later, the blast doors protecting the command deck slammed shut, leaving the deck entirely sealed from the rest of the ship. Tianne nodded, taking up her station again as she checked on the progress of the
Cerekus
’s current mission, the comet they were towing. It was breaking up, but most of the material was remaining in their control. They had to pull it clear of any threat to Ranquil, regardless of the current threat on board.

“Bring the drives to eighth power,” she ordered, “slowly.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Venting atmosphere, Sector Forty-Three, Deck Twelve!”

The
Cerekus
rumbled a little more, its powerful drives fighting the mass of the large comet fragment as they powered up a few more degrees. Tianne felt the shudder through the deck and into her bones, leaving her uncertain as to how much was caused by the drives and how much by the knowledge that her ship was infested with an enemy that she and her people were still coming to grips with how to combat.

“Security reports contact with Drasin, Sector Ten, Deck Nine!”

“I want every free crewman scanning space around us. Use visuals, if you must! Find where they’re coming from!”

In that moment, she realized that she was deep into something she’d not trained for. There were no procedures for this, no steps to follow.

Fear gripped her, but she tried valiantly to push it aside, because there was work to be done.

CENTRAL COMMAND, MONS SYSTEMA, RANQUIL

▸“EMERGENCY PULSE FROM the
Cerekus
, Admiral.”

Adm. Rael Tanner turned from where he was working and approached the young ithan who’d spoken. “What’s the nature of the emergency?”

“Drasin, Admiral.”

Tanner scowled, moving back to his command station. “Details, Ithan. To my station.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

They were waiting for him by the time he arrived, and Tanner found himself not quite believing the flood of data that was still pouring in from the
Cerekus
. That they’d been boarded was shocking enough, but that it had happened the way that it had…Well, it made no sense.

How did they approach the ship undetected?
He couldn’t imagine how anything could get within the detection radius of one of those monster ships; they were packed with technology beyond what even his own command center used.

Unfortunately, Captain Tianne hadn’t included that piece of information in the emergency pulse, so Tanner had to assume that it was unknown to her as well. He looked to the real-time screens following the
Cerekus
’s position, noting that it was even now moving to pull the comet back from its apocalyptic trajectory.

Tanner approved of Tianne’s dedication to duty, but couldn’t shake his concerns, either. Even a few of the Drasin drones were a serious threat as they seemed to have veritable immunity to standard-issue Priminae weapons.

The thought struck a chord with him, and Tanner headed over to where Nero Jehan was overseeing his section of things.

“A word, if you would?” he asked quietly.

Nero looked up and grunted, but nodded curtly. He stepped out of the controllers’ pit and joined Tanner on the upper level of the room.

“What is it, Rael?”

“The new weapons, the ones issued to your forces,” Tanner asked softly, “were any sent to the
Cerekus
?”

Nero shook his head. “No. Priority was assigned to ground forces.”

Tanner winced. “I was afraid of that.”

Nero frowned, perplexed. “Why do you ask?”

“The
Cerekus
has reported Drasin boarders.”

The big outer colonies man stared, stunned. “That is not good, Rael.”

“As our friends from the
Odyssey
would say, Nero, tell me something I do not already know.”

CEREKUS

▸ARMED WITH MILOSEC lasers, the squad of crewmen, led by a coranth named Cirrus, cautiously advanced through the corridors of the large warship, both looking for and hoping not to see their quarry. They knew that their weapons were very nearly worthless against the Drasin, those reports had been made clear after the previous encounter in system, but what else could they do?

Scraping sounds were heard from ahead of them, just around a corridor, so they slowed and inched forward. Cirrus signaled a stop before he moved ahead to cautiously peer around the bulkhead. He blanched when he saw the mottled red-and-brown coloring of the large insect-like Drasin drone, scratching and burning through a bulkhead just ahead.

Cirrus backed off, grabbing the shoulder of an ithan he knew worked in Engineering.

“Miran, what’s through the bulkheads just up here?” he asked.

She paused, considering it for a moment before speaking. “Control circuits.”

“For what?”

“Atmosphere generators.”

Cirrus looked distinctly ill by this point. “They’re going to cut through them!”

“Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll just reroute control through other circuits. The
Cerekus
has multiple systems to handle every important function.”

Cirrus relaxed marginally, but the nagging concern was still eating at him. “That thing out there looks terribly interested in those circuits.”

“It’s an animal,” another crewman said in a panicked voice, “likely doesn’t even know what’s behind the bulkhead.”

“And if it does?” Cirrus hissed in challenge.

The crewman backed down silently, so Cirrus looked back to Miran. “Any thoughts?”

She shook her head. “It could be part of a systematic attempt at sabotage, but I would think they would need more Drasin—many more, if they wanted to be sure of it being effective.”