Odysseus Ascendant

by Evan Currie

  Gracen rose to her feet. “How?”

  “They transitioned directly into the L Two Lagrange point, Admiral!”

  “They what?!”

  AEV Washington

  “Ready weapons,” Bricker ordered. “We’re about to clear Luna.”

  The few ships remaining of what had been Earth’s defense fleet were flying low to the lunar surface, moving fast against the passing terrain below as they raced for the horizon and began to climb for altitude again.

  Computer systems began registering enemy targets as they appeared over the horizon, and in an instant Burke was feeding priorities to the remaining weapons at his disposal with clearance to fire at will.

  The force swung around Luna, already firing all weapons as they prepared for the inevitable counter-fire from the enemy fleet.

  The first enemy lasers began to rain down, once again raising alarms, until they were suddenly cut off.

  “New contacts! IFF signals recognized! Captain, it’s the Odysseus!”

  AEV Odysseus

  “Deploy picket drones, launch all fighter squadrons!” Weston ordered, leaning forward as he fought not to puke all over his station.

  The entire task group had transitioned to one of the stable gravity regions in the solar system, in this case the L2 Lagrange point set by the Earth/Moon system. Targeting the small point had entailed a certain level of risk, but it appeared to have worked as best he could tell, though Eric felt somewhat worse for the trip than normal.

  He risked a sickly look over to where Miram was struggling much as he was. “Did we lose anyone?”

  She covered her mouth, eyes clenched shut briefly before she looked over the data feed.

  “Seven Rogues aren’t on our scanners,” she said, her tone and body language more than a bit devastated.

  Eric grimaced himself.

  He didn’t know what had happened to the vessels, but it was safe to assume that they hadn’t reintegrated. Possibly they’d jumped outside the stable gravity zone of the L2 point, possibly something else.

  Steeling his stomach, Eric rose to his feet.

  “Lock transition cannons onto the Parasite ships,” he ordered. “Clear a path. I want those Imperial cruisers!”

  “Aye Captain,” Milla responded quickly. “Targets locked . . . transition cannons free . . . firing.”

  Spheres of nuclear fire erupted across the Imperial Fleet, tearing through the hundreds of Parasite destroyers descending on their position as drones and fighters poured out of the vessels of Task Group Odysseus.

  Lord’s Own Dreadnought, Empress Liann

  “That’s not possible!”

  Lord Jesan’s oath went largely unnoticed as everyone was far too busy dealing with the sudden increase in enemy fire that had come from nowhere.

  Jesan was in a rage as he tore through the data available to him.

  “Were they hidden in stealth? Why?” he asked. “Why sacrifice so many for . . . what?”

  Unfortunately for the Imperial lord, there were no answers to be found as those around him tried but failed to explain the enemy’s decisions.

  He shook it off, forced down the rage at being surprised as reality reasserted itself.

  He still had enough power to accomplish his mission. The enemy forces were not nearly so strong as to actually fend off his fleet. He would simply lose far more ships than calculated in the process. It just maddened him that he couldn’t understand the situation.

  None of it made sense. Nothing these people did seemed to make sense.

  Three flashes of Cerenkov blue punctuated the battle space as modified Double A platform fighters launched from the three Heroics that were leading the charge. The Odysseus, the Bellerophon, and the Boudicca each put drone squadrons into space amid a cloud of picket drones.

  Stephanos took the vanguard position, letting Burner and Cardsharp fall into formation along with their drone wings as he checked the enemy formation.

  “Stay close, and don’t deviate much from the prepared flight plan,” he ordered the other two Archangel pilots, two of only four now left alive. “We’re cutting right through the heaviest fighting, so try not to get nuked by friendly fire.”

  Cardsharp laughed, just happy to be out from the helm of the Boudicca finally. It wasn’t that the bigger ship wasn’t enjoyable to fly, in its own way, but she was doing exactly what she’d always wanted once more.

  “You got it, Stephanos. Nuked by our own side, bad. Got it.”

  The three drone squadrons, each led by a modified Archangel, spread out as they flashed into the midst of the fighting, drones following along, and interpenetrated the enemy line of battle, heading for the big boys beyond the Parasite destroyer screen.

  They dived through the gaps between the ships, flashing past at reckless speeds in order to avoid being targeted by any close-in point-defense systems, only easing back slightly when they burst through the screen to meet the Imperial cruisers.

  Stephanos cleared his weapons’ safeties, flying right into the teeth of the enemy.

  “Archangel Lead, Fox Hades.”

  “Archangel Two, Fox Hades.”

  “Archangel Three . . . Fox Hades.”

  Eighteen drones loaded with antimatter six-shooters opened fire as one.

  Lord’s Own Dreadnought, Empress Liann

  “Deploy countermeasures!”

  Jesan held on, knowing from previous experience that the countermeasures wouldn’t be effective. No one had yet worked out how the enemy interceptors deployed their weapons, and at damn near the speed of light the available sensor data that might explain it was in short supply no matter how many ships they had scanning.

  White flashes erupted across the screens as the antimatter payload the interceptors unloaded on the Imperials interacted with regular matter, producing energetic results. The Liann wasn’t exempt either, several detonations tearing into her despite the screen of chaff thrown out to block the unblockable.

  The ship rumbled, the size of the dreadnought absorbing the devastating power of the negative matter munitions, but around her cruisers began to die.

  Jesan gritted his teeth. “Someone swat those pests!”

  AEV Odysseus

  “Get those picket drones out at least twenty light-seconds or we’ll never get enough of a warning to adapt,” Eric ordered, shifting focus as a pair of enemy Parasite destroyers adjusted their course to intercept and were highlighted on the combat display. “Milla, kill those two!”

  “Aye Captain, tasking t-cannons . . . firing . . .”

  Two spheres of nuclear fire erupted in space, signifying the deaths of the destroyers as ordered, but Eric had already moved on to the next crisis of the moment.

  The opening instances of the fight were the most chaotic he had ever experienced, including his time flying against the Block. Transitioning right on top of Cislunar space had been effective in getting them on-site fast enough to accomplish something, but it had thrown them right into the mix without his normal period of being able to size up the enemy strategy.

  This wasn’t a strategic move-and-countermove battle, as Eric had fought in space so many times before. This was a furious exchange of barely planned blows, a slugging match that would inevitably go to whomever could stand up the longest against the punches that were landing. That wasn’t a situation that favored his ships and crews, as Eric knew too damn well.

  “Drones in position, Captain!”

  “Slave them to the task force’s armor control system and let them run,” Eric ordered.

  Damage reports from enemy fire dropped off almost instantly as the armor of the task group began to adapt ahead of the arrival of the lasers. It was a miracle only possible in a world with FTL communication and still blew his mind.

  The drones were, in many ways, a shield that provided them with critical data, but they were also soft targets. Inevitably, even if the enemy wasn’t targeting them directly, the drones would be struck by laser fire and vanish into the black in a bri
ef flash of fire.

  Odysseus stood on the bridge behind Eric, accessing the computer records and calmly running the calculations.

  “ETA to picket drone depletion . . . five minutes, twenty-one seconds,” he said quietly.

  “Thank you, Odysseus,” Eric said. “Launch our last set at the three-minute mark.”

  “Roger, Commodore,” the intelligence said, taking over some of the tasks in order to lighten the workload for others as much as possible.

  “Make the best use of the time we can,” Eric said. “Burn them out of my sky! Enemy cruisers are priority targets for our lasers and HVM loadouts, but if you can’t see a cruiser, fry a destroyer instead!”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” Milla responded. “All lasers firing.”

  AEV Juraj Jánošík

  “Picket drones active, Captain!”

  “Take us into the teeth of the enemy fire,” Aleska ordered in a snarl. “Punch a hole through the destroyer screen. I want a cruiser to our credit from this battle!”

  The Jánošík opened fire with the powerful lasers mounted on the length of her keel, burning enemy destroyers from the sky as her rapidly adapting armor shrugged off return fire with an ease that Aleska regretted would be so short-lived.

  The burning of the lasers opened up a hole through the destroyer screen, allowing their scanners to spot the more powerful and dangerous cruisers beyond.

  “Make time-on-target calculations for the cruiser, and fire HVM and pulse torpedoes,” she ordered.

  “Aye Skipper! Missiles and torpedoes away, time on target . . . one minute, twenty-eight seconds!”

  Aleska leaned forward, anger on her face as the explosion of a Priminae Heroic lit up the screens to her left side.

  “Keep firing!”

  In the midst of the exchange of terawatt-level lasers, antimatter pulse torpedoes, and high-velocity missiles, the Vorpal squadrons raged across the second line of Parasite destroyers like angry wasps among giants. Through painful experience, they’d learned that their superluminal missiles just didn’t pack the punch to really tear into the heavier cruisers of the Empire’s forces but could wreak havoc on the destroyers.

  Calls of “Fox Five” filled the tactical network as Alexandra Black led her Excalibur squadron on a vicious stampede through the enemy forces, leaving nothing but utter chaos in her wake.

  “Excalibur Lead, watch for cross fire,” Hawkins ordered. “Split the destroyers ahead and meet around the other side.”

  “Roger that, CAG,” Alexandra said as she pushed the throttle forward and threaded her fighter through a gap in the enemy formation. “Last one there bugs the captain for the FTL upgrades next.”

  “Like you’re not going to make me do that job anyway, Black.”

  The front line of the Imperial formation faltered, coming under heavy fire as the Odysseus group poured on the firepower. Behind that line, however, the remaining ships of the Empire bulled on through with no regard for their losses.

  The second and then third rank of destroyers took savage losses, but in short order they closed the distance and crossed the drone picket, running right through. Once inside the picket line, the Odysseus group’s defensive advantage went up in smoke along with several Rogue destroyers as the enemy fire intensified and their armor adaptations ceased being useful.

  The tide of battle shifted in a swift reversal, pushing the crews of the Terran and Priminae vessels onto the defensive as the weight of firepower surged down against them.

  AEV Odysseus

  “Flank speed!” Eric ordered over the alarms screaming from every console. “Take us into the Imperial formation!”

  The frazzled pilot sitting in the pit, having taken Steph’s place, twisted in shock.

  “What?”

  Before Eric could say anything, however, the armored form of Odysseus appeared beside the pit and dropped to one knee.

  “The commodore issued an order,” Odysseus said. “Follow your orders. I will help.”

  The pilot hesitated just a moment before turning back around and nodding resolutely.

  “Right. Flank speed, into the enemy formation. I’ve got this.”

  “You do,” Odysseus said firmly.

  Eric wasted only a moment on the byplay before he shifted to the squadron network. “Follow us in and through. If you stay here, you’ll die for sure. The only way out is through!”

  The Odysseus surged ahead, all beams firing as it charged right into the face of the enemy.

  CHAPTER 28

  Task Group Prometheus, AEV Autolycus, Imperial Space

  “We found it.”

  Morgan nodded, his grin more than a little feral.

  They’d been backtracking the Imperial Fleet for weeks, running quiet as they looked for the Empire itself. Moreover, they needed an important world. Imperial outposts had proven common enough, but most were nothing but mining operations of varying types.

  Nothing strategic of value, and his orders were specific.

  This world was different, however. The population was estimated well into the billions, but far more importantly the system held a vast stellar infrastructure. It seemed that they’d located a shipyard facility, and from the looks of the hulls they were scanning it was a military operation.

  “Double-check our numbers, and make sure we’re not leaking anything,” he ordered. “We don’t need to be spotted now that we finally found what we’re looking for.”

  “Aye sir,” Commander Li responded. “All systems are secured. We’re running silent.”

  Morgan nodded, knowing she was right. He was just being a little paranoid, but he felt some justification. They were so close now that he could almost taste it.

  He unbuckled from his station and kicked loose, drifting in microgravity over to where the newly installed FTL comm was taking up a chunk of his bridge space. He began entering the pulse coding for the discovery into the system, taking his time and making sure he got it right.

  The system was a busy one, but they had time just the same. Space was a huge place, and not even as busy a system as this one had much activity in the area they’d chosen to park in. There was little of value in the region, just C-type carbonaceous asteroids. Incredibly common, the C-types made up seventy-five percent of asteroids in Earth’s home system and seemed similar here.

  They were dark rocks, with no particular value for materials, and thus made perfect positions to park a ship if you didn’t want to be noticed. Odds were the field was already well mapped, and barring a good reason, no one was going to bother looking in their direction again anytime soon. He just needed to be sure not to give anyone a good reason to look.

  Morgan carefully adjusted the tachyon transceiver, aiming for a directional pulse in order to reduce any chances of being noticed. They had intentionally parked between the Imperial presence and the general direction of Earth and the Priminae worlds for that very reason.

  “Ready to transmit,” he said, looking around. “A little prayer wouldn’t be out of place right about now. Might not help, but it sure won’t hurt.”

  With those words he sent the final command that pulsed a signal out in a fraction of a second, hopefully short enough not to be picked up.

  “Now . . . we wait,” he said, “and hope the hell we’re not too late.”

  Allied Earth Command, Cheyenne Mountain Facility

  “Admiral . . .”

  “Not now! Whatever it is, not now!”

  Gracen snapped the words out angrily, eyes glued to the fighting they were only seeing through computer displays but she knew was being paid for in the lives of hundreds right over their heads even as the messenger tried to get her attention.

  “Admiral, I think you should see this. Priority relay from Prometheus via Ranquil.”

  “What?” Her head snapped around, eyes boring into the man. “Tell me you’re not kidding.”

  “No ma’am, I would never—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish as she shoved him out of the wa
y and lunged for her desk. The message in question was there on her notifications list, and she popped it open immediately, eyes scanning the pulse code. She could only pick out two words without running the code through the computer, but it was enough.

  “Yes!”

  Her scream startled everyone in hearing, but Gracen didn’t give a damn.

  She linked into the FTL comm, sending a signal out to Prometheus Actual, the deep-space world discovered by Captain Passer and the crew of the Autolycus during the King of Thieves mission. A video link opened almost instantly.

  “Yes Admiral?”

  “Commander Janek.” She nodded briefly. “Please tell me that the facility is ready.”

  “Yes ma’am. Do you have the coordinates?” Janek leaned in.

  “Sending them to you now. You may engage at will.”

  “It will be my pleasure, ma’am,” Commander Janek said eagerly. “Prometheus Actual out.”

  The screen went dead, and she immediately shifted her focus to more local issues. Gracen linked into the command battle network, transmitting directly to the ships fighting for their lives right at the edge of Cislunar space.

  “Cheyenne Mountain to Odysseus, Commodore Weston, Prometheus is in play!” she yelled. “Say again, Prometheus is in play!”

  Gracen stared at the display, eyes darting up to the fighting. “Come on, Commodore . . . tell me you heard me.”

  After an interminable silence, a familiar voice came back.

  “Roger,” Eric Weston said over the communications link. “Confirm receipt, Prometheus is in play. Am proceeding with new mission, Odysseus Actual is assuming command of Prometheus Actual.”

  “Roger that, Commodore, Prometheus Actual is standing by to receive orders,” she said, slumping. “Do what you have to do.”

  “Roger, Cheyenne Mountain. It’ll be a pleasure.”

  AEV Autolycus

  “Signal from Prometheus Actual, Skipper,” the communications duty officer reported. “They’re requesting target information.”

  “Send them the latest calculations, along with vectors for all primary and secondary targets,” Morgan ordered instantly, leaning forward as much as the seat restraints would allow him.