Into the Black: Odyssey One (61 page)

Tanner nodded, shrugging “I would most likely do the same, however it was more the problem with scheduling a return that caused serious hesitation.”

Eric nodded. That was a given, he’d known, from the moment he mentioned it. However, there was no way to predict how the politicians, or anyone, on Earth was going to react to this situation. Contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization was one thing, a huge thing to be certain, but only one thing, just the same. Having been involved, however shortly, in an interstellar war, however, was not going to sit well with a lot of people.

And God alone forbid that the Block got a hold of the information, though Eric knew better than to believe that it wouldn’t happen. They would turn the entire event into a three ring circus, just in an attempt to steal a few more points of World favor for their latest position on whatever they were posturing about this week.

There were no guarantees in life, and less in politics.

“I wish I could be more certain when a second voyage would be authorized, Admiral. But I can’t,” Weston replied gravely.

Tanner nodded, “I understand. Thankfully, however, it has been decided that the benefits of potential contact with your people it is worth the risk of having some of our people caught on another world… They will want your guarantee for their safety, of course.”

“They’ll have it,” Weston replied firmly. “While I can’t guarantee that they’ll have free access to… my world… I will ensure that they are received as a diplomatic envoy.”

“That will be acceptable,” Tanner replied. “If you can prepare to receive them, I will have an orbiter bring the party to the Odyssey before… ah… before you are scheduled to depart.”

Weston smiled, noting the hesitation. Establishing a common time reference was turning into a real pain. The locals used a system based on a numbering system that they were still working on deciphering and had apparently created it to establish some sort of common reference point among their colony worlds.

It didn’t exactly distil down into something easily comparable to Earth time units, unfortunately.

“We’ll be waiting for them, Admiral.”

“Excellent. Then I will let you go, and see to their preparations,” Tanner said, “Good day, Captain.”

“Good day, Admiral.”

Eric turned to where Ensign Lamont was sitting, “Susan… have an appropriate reception prepared for our guests.”

“Aye Captain,” Ensign Lamont replied, her thoughts running back to her earlier research on diplomatic protocol.

She’d had to look that up several times over the last couple days, when it first looked like they might get such an animal aboard the Odyssey and found the subject, to be intensely complicated.

So much depending on cultural differences made things tricky and she had been tempted to go with one of the Block ceremonies for their extreme levels of, well, ceremony. In the end, though, she’d decided that simpler was better and had got together with one of the ship’s Stewards and a few others to prepare.

To that end, she opened a channel after acknowledging the Captain’s order and turning back to her console.

“Jackie? Yeah, it’s Susan. It’s on you want to warn the chef? Thanks. I’ll be down in a few to double check. Thanks.”

*****

“Look sharp, we got another batch of locals landing.”

The men groaned as the Chief spoke, thinking about the last time.

“Relax,” he grinned. “After the last time, I think that the Cap chewed their pilots a new one. We might not have to hit the collision alarms this time.”

A few men chuckled, but most of their faces were pretty grim, just the same. Flight deck people had a dangerous enough job when dealing with pilots who took their job seriously and whether the locals realized it or not, most of the men on the deck considered their ‘flying’ to be well up in the ‘hotdog’ category.

On any Carrier, let alone one in the evacuated environment of space, trust was integral to the smooth operation of the flight deck. The Pilots had to trust the deck crew and the deck crew had to trust the pilots. A break anywhere in the line could cost lives, either through bad communication or, in the worst situations, intentional misdirection.

Chief Mackenzie knew that and he knew that his men weren’t anywhere near that point just yet, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to remind them of one bit of good news.

“This is the last one of these we’ll have to deal with, for a while anyway,” he told them with a wry grin. “So stay on your toes, so to speak and if they rocket the deck… get the hell out of the way and leave them to me. Got that?”

The men nodded and acknowledged his words, so Mackenzie clapped his hands. “All right, get suited up. We’re taking over the deck at Oh-Fifteen-Hundred, and I’ll want it FOD checked by fifteen past. Move it!”

*****

In his cabin, Eric Weston was sitting behind his desk, looking over the proposed course that Daniels had prepared according to his wishes, for the trip home. The dog-legged flight path made fifteen different Transition hops, across almost four hundred light years of space.

The lieutenant had plotted the course to make the best use of the Odyssey’s legs, which were pretty impressive despite the limitations her Transition Drive built into her.

While the Transition effect had, in theory, no limit on distance it did have a practical limit in the case of the Odyssey’s power supplies. They could effect a Transition over a range of less than thirty light-years at any given jump, after which they had to recharge the massive superconducting capacitors that fed the drive.

The reason, according to the tech boys, was that while a Tachyon could transit the entirety of the universe in an instant, it still required the energy to do so. That was the theory that the Transition Drive was devised to exploit, in actuality.

That and the fact that nature abhorred Tachyons about as much as it abhorred a vacuum.

The universe simply did not seem to like the little buggers and went out of its way to make sure that they didn’t stick around any longer than they had to.

The entire Tachyon Drive was actually little more than a Tachyon based Laser system that actually ‘fired’ itself, along with the entire ship, by forcing every molecule in the Odyssey to jump several energy states in one go while keeping the ‘beam’ coherent over the length of its range.

When the power ran out, the universe exerted its influence on the Tachyons to return to their former energy state, allowing the ship and its people to reform.

Not a particularly fun way to travel, Weston would be the first to admit, but it was fast and, hopefully, untraceable.

Each Transition did have some energy leakage, of course, just like any Laser, had a minute corona of energy particles that could be read with the right sensors. The Odyssey would pulse a Tachyon surge both when she left a system and when she reappeared. The upside to this was that, like lasers, the energy leakage wasn’t much. Calculating it before had only academic value, but recent events had brought that information to the forefront of tactical data.

The ‘corona’ of a Transition jump was calculated as an irrational root of its total length.

Which, to be honest, gave Eric a headache to even consider.

The upshot of it was that they could predict the range at which an observer could ‘see’ their Transition. For a thirty light year jump, it would be almost five light years. This meant that any ship within five light years of their departure point or, more importantly, their arrival point, would be able to detect their transition.

For a ten light year jump, the number was just under two thirds of a light year.

The flip side of that was, of course, if they jumped in too small of a transition then they would increase the risk by broadcasting more tachyons over several smaller zones, rather than over a few larger ones.

Eric had ordered that the last five jumps on their return home would be kept to fifteen light years or less, but no less than eight.

However, it was the first two that interested him more than anything else.

He was looking at the Port Fuielles system map, when the call from the Bridge came through and he reached over and opened the channel. “Yes?”

“Captain, the Orbiter from the planet has lifted off. They’ll be landing in about ten minutes.”

“Thank you, Susan. Have everything prepared for their arrival, I’ll meet you on the parking deck,” Eric said warmly as he closed the channel, then shut down the holo-display of his desk with a wave.

Enough star maps for the moment, he had guests to greet.

*****

“Orbiter One has the ball.”

“Roger. LSO Confirms,” Chief Mackenzie said over the network. “All hands, eyes on the inbound plane.”

The traditions of carrier crews went back a long way and, though many of the procedures had been changed a hundred times since they had originally been drawn up, some terms just didn’t want to die.

Of course, the Chief supposed, calling the hunk of material coming his direction a ‘plane’ would undoubtedly piss off a lot of pilots. It was, however, coming in at a more reasonable rate than the last time and he was relieved to see that no one was going to have to dive for the blast shields, as the craft came to a smooth stop, about two feet off the deck.

He stepped out, and waved it to a lift with his signallers and wished for a moment that he could wipe his brow.

He’d feel a lot better, if only he knew for a fact that these locals were carrier qualified.

*****

On the parking deck, Eric Weston watched, along with Commander Roberts and Ensign Lamont, as the alien Orbiter rose through the deck and was slowly directed to a parking position. There it rested for a time, floating about two feet off the deck like it was nailed there, the disturbing image of its bulkhead melting away happening again.

Eric managed to keep from grimacing again, but he really didn’t like that particular technology. At least not this application for it, he had to amend to himself, a moment later.

He forced that thought from his mind and stepped forward, as three figures stepped off the Orbiter and he was surprised to note that he recognized two of them.

“Ithan Chans,” Eric said formally with a deep nod. “And Ithan Sienthe. A pleasure to see you both again.”

“Greetings, Captain,” the pilot, Cora Sienthe said gravely, nodding. “Permission to set foot on your vessel?”

“Granted,” Weston replied.

The young woman smiled slyly, as she stepped off the plank and onto the deck, and Eric had to smile in return when he heard her boots make a tacky sticking sound, as she remained well attached to the deck.

Milla did the same while both stepped aside for the third person.

Eric turned his attention to this one, an old man who looked quite fit for his obviously advanced age. He stepped onto the deck, his own boots attaching themselves solidly, then nodded gravely to Eric and the other two.

“Captain,” he said his voice oddly gravely in comparison to the fluid soft voices Eric had heard from most of the locals. “I am your… diplomat? I am Benjin Corasc, Elder of the Planet Ranquil.”

You certainly are,
Eric thought, carefully keeping it from his face as he returned the nod. “Welcome aboard the Odyssey, Elder Corasc. It is an honor to have you here.”

The old man waved the words away with a wry gesture, “the honor is mine, Captain. I, and my world, am in your debt.”

Eric just shrugged, “one doesn’t automatically rule out the other, Elder Corasc.”

The old man smiled, laughing a little harshly in his gravelly voice. “As you say, Captain.”

Eric nodded, returning the smile, then gestured toward the far wall, “If you’ll come with me, Sir, I’ll show you to your quarters. After that, I’m afraid that I must prepare for our departure from this system, however, I would be honored if you would join my Officers and me for supper this evening?”

“Of course,” Corasc said evenly, “I will need quarters for my Attachés as well, however.”

Eric glanced back at the two women, “Both of them?”

“Yes Captain. This will not pose a problem?”

“No, Elder Corasc. It will not,” Eric told him, then frowned. “However, I believe that Commander Roberts and Ithan Sienthe will need to speak concerning the proper securing of the Orbiter.”

“Excellent,” Corasc said. “Then Ithan Chans and I will come with you while they deal with such things.”

“Of course,” Eric nodded, waving slightly to Roberts as he guided the Elder toward the lift.

Commander Jason Roberts just nodded equally slightly in return, and then turned to speak with the young woman concerning her floating space ship.

*****

It was some time later, when Eric stepped onto the Bridge, a little worn out on the ‘polite-o-meter’ and looking forward to being underway again.

“Captain on the Bridge.”

“Ah, Commander,” he smiled as he took his position. “Did you get the Orbiter secured?”

“Aye Sir. Fascinating piece of technology,” Roberts replied.

“Yes, well, I’m certain that they decided that having some evidence of their tech base might be useful,” Eric replied.

“Undoubtedly, Sir,” Roberts said.

“Are we ready to ‘weigh anchor’?” Eric asked, a wry tilt of his mouth communicating his humor.

“Aye Sir.”

“Good. Helm, take us out of Orbit,” Eric ordered, settling into the seat. “Thrusters only until we clear the debris, then take us up to full acceleration.”

“Aye Sir,” Daniels responded. “Thrusters only.”

The deck rumbled under them as the ship started to break clear of the planet and Eric relaxed marginally. Whatever else happened, they were on their way home now.

Epilogue

“Commodore… I think we’ve got a glitch in that new array they installed.”

Commodore Wolfe frowned, leaning forward, “Pipe it up to my station, son.”

The young ensign standing watch nodded in response and directed the information up to the commander’s pedestal, where Wolfe was overseeing the running of the Demos base. The facility was a hybrid between a ship repair base and a terraforming command center for the Martian Colony Project, which meant that the Commodore had a lot to deal with on a daily basis.