The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (83 page)

Tanner slowly shook his head. “No. I do not.”

“Yeah. Somehow I figured you’d say that,” Eric said before he walked across the room and took a seat.

“What are your opinions, Captain?” Ambassador LaFontaine asked, her face a neutral mask.

Eric was silent for a moment; then he finally shrugged. “Someone out here is playing a dangerous game. I don’t know if they’re Priminae or not, but it’s pretty clear that they know the Priminae playbook forward and backward. These ships have me worried, Ambassador, simply because I can’t imagine any reason for them to build them from a strategic or tactical point of view. They can’t pretend to be a Priminae ship—they’re made of metal, a blind sensor tech could spot it. So I have to conclude that this is one of their standard designs.”

LaFontaine nodded solemnly, then looked over at Tanner. “Admiral, where did you get the designs for your combat ships?”

“From the archives maintained by Central.”

Of all the people in the room, only the ambassador noticed the sudden tension evident in the captain’s face and body. She eyed him for a moment as he made a visible effort to relax, then turned back to the admiral.

“Do any other worlds have access to those designs or archives?”

“All the central worlds, several outlying colonies,” Tanner admitted after some thought. “The archives are not…How is it you explained it, Captain? Classified?”

“You don’t classify military ship designs?”

“Who could build them?” Tanner shrugged.

“Who could tame the Drasin?” Eric countered, a little harshly. “Two very big questions that have the same answer, I suspect.”

“This is getting us nowhere, Captain,” LaFontaine cut in. “For now, the mission is unchanged. When the
Odyssey
is repaired, I want you to head home and report to the NAC what you’ve learned.”

Eric nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“In the meantime, Colonel Reed and myself will continue with our missions here on Ranquil,” she said. “But, Admiral, I do suggest that you investigate just where your enemy got those designs. The captain is right, the answer to that question may well be the most important piece of information you and your world ever uncover.”

Tanner nodded slightly, but didn’t comment.

Eric rose again. “I’ll escort you both back to the planet.”

“That won’t be necessary, Captain.”

“Please, Ambassador. It’ll be days before the
Odyssey
is spaceworthy…I need something to do,” he said with a wooden smile.

LaFontaine eyed him for a long moment, wondering just what the man was up to. She knew it was something, but didn’t know what. Finally, however, she elected to merely nod.

“Thank you, then, Captain.”

“Yes,” Tanner said as he, too, got up. “I thank you for the information you have brought us. We will do as you suggest and try to devise the most we can from it.”

Eric nodded. “Of course.”

He escorted them out of the room, smiling and chatting. When they had their escorts, Weston promised to join them shortly and returned to the briefing room and looked around at his officers, the Ambassador, and others still sitting there.

“I assume that you have something else, Captain?” LaFontaine asked calmly.

He gestured to the screens on the far wall, “During the last bolt from the Dyson construct the enemy ships were splashing active scans all over the system.”

“That was in the report, yes.”

“What we left out, to this point,” Eric said, “Is what we picked up from the scans on our own systems. We couldn’t decode it while engaged, but since we transitioned out people have been poring over that data. We think we know why they built the construct in the first place, Ambassador. The Drasin drones have shown to be pretty good replicators, but they’re flawed.”

Everyone nodded, having read the reports based on the
Odyssey’s
own examination of the long-term systems destroyed by Drasin invasion. There was an indisputable generational flaw in the drone replication, one that led them to become nearly immobile and have an extremely short lifespan. Basically, after a few generations of replicating, all they could do was eat and replicate. That hardly made them any less
dangerous, unfortunately, since by that time there was nothing left to fight them on an infected world.

“We haven’t seen whether the ships can replicate themselves,” Eric said, nodding to the screens, “But I think we know now that they don’t rely on that, not if these scans are accurate.”

On the screen they saw a close up of one of the Dyson plates as the
Odyssey
passed, and inside the computer enhancement they could see the profiles of dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of the distinctive Drasin ship profile.

“It’s not a habitat,” Eric said, “The construct is a shipyard.”

“Oh lord,” LaFontaine whispered. “There are so many.”

“Yeah, and that begs another question, Ambassador…” Roberts spoke up. “If they have that many ships available…why haven’t we seen them
here
yet?”

A long silence made it clear that no one in the room had a good, or any, answer to that.

Eric sighed, “We’ve found some answers, but all those gave us was more questions. We have a lot to do now that we know exactly what has just moved into our neighborhood. This could be the most important information we can possibly bring home. The Drasin are nothing short of a plague, and whoever is holding their leash is completely insane. We can’t let them run around loose, not if we can do anything about it.”

“But can we do anything?” LaFontaine asked.

“All I know for certain is that we can’t do nothing,” Eric said. “That’ll kill us dead, guaranteed.”

“What do you intend now?” she asked, curious.

“For now?” Eric shrugged. “For now, I’m going to catch up with our guests. I have business on the planet.”

He dismissed his officers and excused himself from the room, looking normal and as unconcerned as possible but inwardly, Eric Weston was really only focused on one thing. He kept seeing those new ships, their profiles so very close to the Priminae ship that even now orbited Raquil just below the
Odyssey.

Central, you and I need to have another long chat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Evan has been writing most of his life in one format or another, and though his postsecondary education is in computer sciences and he has worked in the local lobster industry steadily over the last decade, writing has always been his true passion. In his own words, “It’s what I do for fun and to relax. There’s not much I can imagine better than being a storyteller.”