Into the Black: Odyssey One (3 page)

It wasn’t
quite
a way to cheat Einstein, Weston knew, but it was a way to bend the rules, just a little bit. The big drive reactors that powered the Odyssey, stuck out just to the edge of the field and when the system was in full operation, they threw out Plasma at near light-speed. Plasma that massed exactly what it was supposed to, as it broke the edge of the field, pushing against the ship whose total mass was fooling the laws of physics into thinking it was ten percent of what it was supposed to be.

Without the field, the Odyssey could throw down a sprint mode that made a turtle look like a formula one racer. Its top end was just less than .1c. With the field, there wasn’t a thing built by man that could hope to catch her.

“Navigation,” Weston paused and corrected himself.
Use their names, Eric.
“Lieutenant Daniels, plot a course to bring us on a close flyby of the Demos Station and the Jovian research platforms.”

Weston heard the young lieutenant at navigation acknowledge the order and a few moments later, felt the shudder run through the ship as it realigned along its new course. The Odyssey was now reaching a quarter the speed of light and was still accelerating as it roared along toward the ship repair facility in the Mars Orbit.

As the ship approached the red planet, an officer behind Weston called out, “Incoming hail, Sir. It’s from Commodore Wolfe at Demos base.”

Weston smiled tightly, “how close are we now?”

“About 2 light minutes, Sir.”

“Acknowledge audio only. Inform them of our ETA and tell the Commodore that we’ll have visual in seven minutes.”

“Yes Sir.”

*****

“Excuse me, Chief…” Lieutenant Bermont said softly as he stepped up close to a squat and solidly built woman wearing the uniform of a Chief Petty Officer.

She glanced up from where she had popped open a conduit panel and was checking diagnostics, eyes falling to the bars on his uniform.

“Corrin, Sir,” she saluted.

Bermont returned the salute, nodding at the sturdy woman, “I’m looking for the RecDeck, Chief… ’Fraid I got turned around.”

She gave him a slightly sour look, but shrugged and jerked her head over her shoulder. “Down the hall you’ll find a tube. Take it back to Hab Two, lower decks.”

“Thanks, Chief.” Bermont nodded and walked off.

Chief Petty Officer Rachel Corrin rolled her eyes at the Lieutenant’s back and let a dry, yet brief, smile cross her weathered features.

“Groundhog,” she snorted, and turned back to her work.

*****

The seven minutes flew by as Weston carefully watched the officers under his command, keeping close watch on their reactions to the multitude of minor crisis that was part of the type of shakedown mission they were on.

“Captain, Commodore Wolfe for you on Visual.”

Weston looked up from the terminal he was working on and smiled at the gruff face looking back at him from the screen. “Hello Jeff, good to see you again.”

“You’re telling me? This is about the last place I expected you to turn up. I should’ve known that it would take something like that heap to pull you away from the ‘Angels.” The Commodore’s gruff words were easily belied by the grin on his face.

“Who said I left the Angels? Got ’em stored tight and secure on our flight deck,” Weston smiled tightly.

The Commodore laughed, “Now how on Earth did you manage that?”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Weston smiled. “It made for pretty good PR, besides its good training for the younger members of the group. Besides since the war ended, the ‘Angels have started to be a pain in the collective ass of the Public Relations department. They aren’t exactly peacekeepers, you know.”

“Well that’s a point that would be hard to deny. Not that I regret it one little bit, Eric. Warriors are never appreciated in peacetime, except by those they saved during the war. Looks like we’ve both come a long way from Japan, my friend,” the Commodore’s smile faded for an instant at the intrusion of old memories.

“We have at that Jeff and I can’t say that I’m sorry,” Weston responded soberly. He smiled softly, thinking about the carnage over Japan, when he’d first met Wolfe.

The Commodore, then Captain Wolfe of the United States Marine Corps, had been a Flight leader in the Battle of Japan. The Chinese Advanced Mantis Fighters had poured over the beleaguered Island state like locusts, faster and more lethal than the aging Corps issued Joint Strike Fighter, Short Take-off Vertical Landing (STVL), models that Wolfe had flown, taking the defence forces by surprise.

The first shots of World War III had been fired less than three miles from where the final moments of World War II had ended for the Pacific Theater.

The Commodore grimaced for a moment, his thoughts matching Weston’s, “I never had a chance to thank you for that, Eric. If you and the Archangels hadn’t shown up…”

Weston waved him off, “It’s history, Commodore. Japan was a whole different world and a completely different time. No need for thanks.”

The sombre moment lasted only a few seconds, “Well, I’ll surely be expecting your thanks when you bring that shiny new toy of yours to my station for repairs.”

The quiet mood broken, Weston laughed out loud and concluded the conversation as the Odyssey had begun arcing away from Mars Orbit, “Looks like we’re starting to pull away from you, Commodore. Is that tanker waiting on us?”

“She’s all yours. Been on high velocity orbit of Saturn for the past several hours. I would imagine her crew is getting impatient.”

“I’ll not keep them waiting much longer, Commodore. Odyssey out.” Weston nodded to the screen and smiled as the Commodore flashed thumbs up, before the screen flickered back to a forward view.

Eric looked back over his displays, watching the numbers flash by as the ship arced away from Mars orbit and hit one third light speed, roughly half her maximum cruise speed. The big reactors grew quiet as the crew watched the red planet dwindle rapidly in the void. Weston glanced away from the screen, his attention turning toward his own terminal.

“Helm, what’s our fuel status?” Weston asked some time later, looking up.

Daniel’s eyes barely flickered at the display, “More than sufficient until we refuel, Sir.”

“That’s not what I asked, Lieutenant,” Weston’s voice grew slightly sharper, his eyes boring into the back of the young man’s head.

“Sorry, Sir.” This time, Daniels looked long and hard at the display, “We’re at about ten percent, Sir. We burned about a third of that so far. Mostly during the initial burn at port speed.”

“Thank you, Daniels. Begin plotting a retro-burn and take us into the Trojan belt.”

Silence answered him and Weston knew that several eyes had swivelled to watch him as Commander Roberts stepped over to him.

“Uh Sir, we have a rendezvous to make, you heard the Commodore,” the Commander reminded him under his breath.

“Yes I did, but it’s going to have to wait,” Eric smiled slightly, gazing at the Commander evenly.

“Yes Sir.”

Roberts retreated and Weston felt the shudder run through the deck plates as the Odyssey’s course altered and her retro-firing sequence was initiated. Ahead of them loomed the huge face of Jupiter, marked as it had been for centuries, by the huge, angry red storm in its southern hemisphere. The Odyssey began arcing slightly off to one side, heading for one of the Trojan Asteroid Belts that hung ominously on either side of the huge planet.

*****

Bermont sighed as he settled back into the relatively comfortable couch that lined one entire wall of the admittedly large, crew lounge.

There was a screen embedded in the upper wall across from him that showed the rather impressive image of Jupiter from where someone had linked it into the exterior cameras. It was nice, he supposed, but definitely not his thing.

He glanced around the room and noticed that a few groups had formed, in their off duty hours, including a couple of tables that seemed reserved for the glory boys of the Archangel Fighter Wing.

Bermont smiled thinly as he watched the flyboys laughing over something he hadn’t heard. They say that the main difference between a Fighter Pilot and God was that God didn’t think he was a fighter pilot.

They also said that the Archangels were slightly more humble than most fighter pilots…

They were willing to settle for being God’s right hand rather than the Big Guy himself.

Bermont didn’t have the pedigree to match up with them, but he didn’t want reporters shoving cameras up his ass while he took a dump, either. He’d served with the Canadian Joint Task Force 2 before the War Act instituted the Confederation between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. After the Confederation, JTF2 remained viable for a few years, while the armed forces spent more time fighting than worrying about who went where, and in what.

Later, when all the old Spec Ops units got re-prioritized after the war, he’d been offered a slot on the Odyssey. He’d been leery of the offer at first, until he was briefed on the types they were calling up for the ‘security’ complement of the Starship.

Actual shipboard security was being managed by the Marines, which was what he’d expected of course, but the majority of the ground-based military presence on the ship was actually drawn from all the old ‘snake eater’ groups. He’d recognized a lot of the names on that list and had signed up without another thought.

His superior, Colonel Jackson Neill had told him that someone had decided that it’d be a bright idea if the military people on the ship, were already trained in hostile environments and survival techniques beyond the norm.

Bermont figured it was a load of crap himself, after all even if they did find themselves an alien world that they could breathe on, what were the odds that the snakes there would be edible?

But what was a special operations trooper to do in a post-war world? Apparently the Powers that were thought there might be some use for a few of them, eating
alien
snakes, if that’s what it took.

Bermont shrugged and leaned back, smiling to himself.

*****

Sometime later while traveling at impressive speeds, the Odyssey plowed into the Trojan Point, its navigation fields shouldering rocks aside like a line-backer covering his teammate. The ship shuddered to a slow drift, huge mountains of rock floating all around her.

“Tactical, power up the weapon systems. I want a full test before we go any further,” Eric ordered calmly, noting with mild amusement the sudden tension in the room.

“Yes Sir,” the officer behind him sounded a bit uneasy but that didn’t surprise Weston much. No one on board had more than a middling amount of experience with this ship’s defensive systems, since current treaties precluded weapons testing in Earth space.

Well, we’re a long way from Earth Space now. Let’s see how these firecrackers work.

Weston punched up a small HUD on his terminal and selected a series of floating mountains for the test.

“Helm, I’m transferring coordinates to you now. When you receive them, you are to treat them as hostile and maneuver according to combat protocols.”

“Yes Sir,” Daniels swallowed.

“Tactical, make weapons hot and fire when you have a lock.”

“Yes Sir.”

Weston glanced over at the Tactical officer, a rather young Ensign,
Waters… I think.
The Ensign was nervous but his hands weren’t skipping or stuttering across his console.
Good man.

As the coordinates reached the helm and tactical, the ship’s reactor powered back up to full burn status and the Odyssey began pivoting along its center point as the forward weapons were brought to bear on the first target.

“Lasers only on this one,” Weston carefully eyed the weapons status displays.

“Aye Sir.” Tactical was sounding less nervous now.

Good
. Weston thought with satisfaction, their training was taking over now.

As the Odyssey swung around towards the massive rock, a strange thing was easily visible on the surface of the asteroid. First a dim, reddish glow became evident and within seconds the glow had switched from red to white, and suddenly the asteroid was no longer visible on the screen, obscured by the sudden cloud of vaporized debris that had been thrown into its admittedly weak orbit.

“Fourteen seconds Sir. The new frequency analyser seems to work well with the auto-focus on the beams. That rock is a donut.”

“Good, bring us around to target number two, increase speed to twenty thousand k. p. h.”

“Roger. Target coming into range now.”

“Tactical, lock on and fire with Pulse Torpedoes.”

“Yes Sir. Firing.”

The ship shook slightly as the blazing white energy charges flew away from the ship. Although they were called torpedoes, they really were nothing of the sort. Their name came from the eerie ability they had to home in on nearby targets. This function made them lethal, in the extreme, to both hostile and friendly targets, if not carefully deployed.

The blazing projectiles slammed into a mountainous asteroid, shattering it along its girth, sending the resulting debris spinning away in opposite directions. The two newly formed asteroids drifted apart and were soon lost in from sight.

“Nice shooting. Prime HVM launchers, one through twelve.” Eric ordered, nodding in approval at both the effect and precision of the tests so far.

The HVM, or High Velocity Missiles, were kinetic kill weapons designed to make use of the Cee-Emm fields and primitive, yet powerful, plasma drives to accelerate a one ton piece of scrap metal to speeds of up to point eight Cee, or eighty percent the speed of light. The resulting kinetic energy was enough that adding explosives to the missiles would be superfluous.

“Primed, Captain.” Waters told him.

“Lock onto the indicated target, and fire when ready.” Eric ordered.

“Aye Sir.” Waters replied, tapping out a staccato rhythm on his console. A moment passed, a series of lights went green, and Eric could hear a faint tone escaping from the single earpiece worn by his tactical officer. “Firing.”