by Evan Currie
“As you were,” she said, waving off his response. “I’m just stopping in to see how you’re coming along.”
“Almost ready, ma’am.”
“Good,” Gracen said. “Commodore Weston just requested clearance for his squadron. They’ll be heading for Priminae space within the day.”
Steph nodded, a pang of something digging at his heart. He pushed the feeling away. “We’ll be ready to move out shortly as well.”
“Good work,” Gracen said. “Along those lines, Commander, I have a new personnel assignment for you.”
“Alright . . .” Steph said slowly, uncertain why she was bringing something like that up. The admiral could assign who she wanted, and he wouldn’t object without significant cause.
“He asked to join,” she said, seemingly puzzled herself, “but he’s qualified, surprisingly so.”
“You’re starting to worry me, ma’am,” Steph admitted.
“It’s nothing bad, Commander, just . . . odd,” Gracen said, pulling a flimsy display from her uniform jacket and passing it over.
Steph looked the file over, his eyebrows raising at the first glance.
“Civilian,” he said, surprised.
“Intelligence specialist,” Gracen said. “He was a company man before the war, one of the last they ever recruited.”
Steph couldn’t decide if that was a point in the man’s favor or against him. The “company,” or the former Central Intelligence Agency, had a mixed reputation at best, particularly among military people. They were one of many US government agencies that didn’t survive the early actions of the war and the need to confederate North American governments into a single entity; they were largely felled by their own arrogance as they were chewed up by Block intelligence during the conflict’s opening stratagem.
Of course, anyone who survived those days might actually be good at his job.
“Seamus, huh?” Steph asked, mildly amused. “You say he asked for this assignment? I’m not sure I like running a charter service, ma’am.”
“You aren’t, but he does bring some useful skills to the table, I promise you.”
“Such as?”
“Most of the more interesting ones are classified for the moment,” Gracen said, having the decency to look apologetic as she did. “I am sorry for that. I just have to ask you to trust me.”
Steph sighed. “Well, I suppose I don’t have a choice.”
“You could kick up a stink,” she said, “but it would look bad on your record, and he’d probably get the assignment anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s about what I figured,” Steph said, not that he had been seriously considering turning the man down. “What’s his place in the chain of command?”
“He doesn’t have one,” Gracen said firmly. “I made that clear. He’s along to offer you the benefit of his skills. You choose if you need them or not.”
“How can I turn that down? Tell him to stow his gear, ma’am.”
“Already stowed, Commander.”
Steph’s head swiveled, eyes widening as he saw a figure standing in the hatch that he would have sworn wasn’t there even a second earlier. He narrowed his eyes just as quickly as he realized that the man in question had been listening in and he hadn’t realized it.
“Seamus Gordon, I presume,” he said tersely. “Do that again, and I will have a bell welded around your neck. Are we clear?”
“As crystal, Commander,” Gordon said, sounding like he was amused and trying to hide it.
“Good. Welcome to the squadron, Seamus. I’m sure you’ll explain why you’re here sometime before the knowledge becomes mission critical?”
“Do my best, Commander,” Gordon said cheerfully.
Gracen glanced between them. “I’ll leave you two to it, then. Enjoy getting to know one another.”
Steph barely noticed the admiral leave as he tried not to glare at his new civilian intelligence “asset.” Gordon just smiled on, seemingly blissfully unaware of Steph’s ire.
Chapter 9
Odysseus Task Force, Ranquil System
It’s good to be back in the black, Eric thought as he looked out over the curve of the Priminae homeworld. The sun rose ahead of the Odysseus as she led her task group into orbit.
A glance to the pilot’s pit left him feeling a little off. Not seeing Steph sitting there niggled at the back of his mind like something important was missing, but Eric pushed the feeling aside. Change was the one constant in both the universe and the military, and his helm crew was more than capable.
I might not trust them quite as much in close combat, though, Eric thought, amused and more than slightly terrified at the prospect of allowing someone he didn’t trust implicitly to handle high-speed maneuvers less than a hundred meters from an enemy vessel at closing rates well into significant fractions of c.
He would adjust. He always did.
“Signal from the surface, Commodore,” Miram said. “Admiral Tanner extends his compliments, along with a request to come aboard.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Eric said. “Thank him for the Odysseus task group, and clear him to come on board with my compliments.”
“Aye Captain.”
Eric checked the telemetry on his command display repeaters, noting that the admiral was already on approach, and rose to his feet. “Bridge is yours, Commander.”
“Aye Captain, I have the bridge,” Miram said without looking up from her work.
Eric made his way off the command deck, taking the footpaths through the ship rather than the lifts that would have gotten him to the docking bays far more quickly. He had time, and he liked to see the crew and be seen by them whenever possible.
Twenty-odd minutes after leaving the bridge, Eric stepped into the sealed bay where the Priminae shuttle would come to rest after it cleared the air locks. The deck crews were buzzing, though the cavernous bay was mostly empty, and he could see the massive lifts in motion across the bay.
Just in time, he thought with a satisfied half smile.
“You do calculate timing rather well, Commodore.”
Eric glanced aside to where Odysseus had joined him. The young entity was dressed, as was his habit, in the ancient armor of the Greeks aside from a few modern touches, such as his customary sparkling pink eyeshadow.
Eric frowned. “I tolerate a lot from you, Odysseus. However, when meeting with the brass, even foreign brass—actually, especially foreign brass—you should present a more professional appearance.”
The entity looked down at himself. “The armor is too much?”
“A tad.” Eric nodded. “Also, tone down the eyeshadow. Pink is fine, if you must, but no glitter, please? Subdued colors while on duty are the rule of thumb. We should have had this discussion before, but frankly your choice in style was the least of what people needed to get used to.”
The entity frowned, but his image grew fuzzy for a moment before snapping back to clarity. Eric gazed upon him with wide eyes for a moment, surprised by the shift.
He was still clearly in armor of Greek-inspired design, but it was tighter fitting and appeared to be made of modern composites rather than ancient bronze, though the entity had kept the color. The helmet was gone, which was probably for the best, but it did draw more attention to the very subtle feminine touches the eye coloring brought to his face.
“Better,” Eric said firmly. “Among the crew you may use whichever look you prefer, so long as it wouldn’t get someone else in hot water. No harassment, making others excessively uncomfortable, that sort of thing.”
“Aye Captain. Understood,” Odysseus responded curtly as he came to attention.
Eric turned back to the shuttle deck. The Priminae craft had cleared the locks and been lifted into position by the massive elevator and was now being moved into its final position by a trundling tractor walker. He was well aware that the Priminae themselves would have simply parked the craft on the pilot’s controls, but on an Earth ship that wasn’t how things were done
.
“With me, then,” he said without glancing aside at the entity. “The admiral will be waiting shortly.”
The two left the observation area, making their way to the flight deck.
Rael Tanner set foot on the deck of the Odysseus, looking around with eyes that sparkled with brightly intense interest.
The ship was, of course, constructed using Priminae techniques in a Priminae facility. By rights, it should be as familiar to him as any of the ships in the colonial fleets. In fact, however, there was a strange alien sensation that wrapped about him as he straightened up and looked around. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what was causing that sensation, though Tanner thought it was likely due to a multitude of small details that were just not quite as he expected them to be.
So close, yet distinctly different than anything in our own fleet. Remarkable.
The admiral was a short and slim man, often overlooked by others who didn’t know his position. It was a feature he had used to his advantage more than once, though in his youth he had often bemoaned the day he realized he wouldn’t grow any more.
Being of smaller stature hadn’t stopped his progression through the colonial fleet, eventually landing him the position of fleet commander during the last few years of peace they had. His experiences hadn’t prepared him for the brutal invasion that swept through Priminae. Nothing could have. In those days, the darkness had felt like an oppressive weight that physically locked everyone in place.
He would never forget the moment they detected the Drasin encroachment on Ranquil’s outer system sensors. He knew, with no doubt, that his people were going to die, and he would be there at the end.
It should have been over. Power for power, Priminae vessels could slug it out with the Drasin on a nearly even footing, but the regeneration capability of the Drasin and their terrifying multiplication meant destruction for everything in their path.
Until one small, insignificant vessel’s choice to stand in that path.
Rael smiled as he saw the man who’d commanded that vessel approaching, but his eyes were instantly drawn to the young figure walking beside him.
Is this the Odysseus I’ve been informed of?
It was Rael’s first time on the Odysseus since the inception of the rather curious entity he’d been informed of. He had, however, met with the one his people called Central in the aftermath of Odysseus being revealed. He would be lying if he didn’t admit to some fears concerning the very existence of the entities that had lived alongside people for so very long, but Rael was nothing if not a practical man.
“Commodore.” He greeted Weston with a smile, shaking hands in the Terran manner. “Good to see you again.”
“A pleasure, as always,” Eric said, gesturing to one side. “I believe you’ve been informed about young Odysseus, but haven’t had the pleasure yet?”
“Indeed.” Rael turned to the young armored individual. “Greetings to you, young Odysseus.”
“Welcome aboard, Admiral Tanner. The commodore speaks well of you.”
Rael smiled at the soft-spoken nature he observed in the entity. “I’m pleased to hear that. The commodore is forever in my highest regards. You are quite fortunate to serve under him, in my personal opinion, of course.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Don’t lay it on so thick. He’s already picked up bad habits from some of the crew along those lines.”
Rael chuckled. “Admiral’s privilege, Commodore Weston. I have little doubt you’ve done similar to your own people, no?”
Eric sighed in an exaggerated fashion, hiding a grin as he gestured to the lock that would lead into the ship proper. “Since I have no chance of winning this discussion, perhaps we should retire to more comfortable surroundings.”
“Of course,” Rael agreed graciously—after all, he had won—and followed as Eric began to lead the way.
He looked around as they moved. “It is remarkable how different this vessel feels from one of our own cruisers.”
“We have made some alterations,” Eric said.
“I’m quite sure you have, but I mean more in the smaller things. Procedures, where the crew are assigned, and so forth.”
Eric hummed slightly, considering that. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Priminae vessel in operation from the inside.”
Rael paused, mouth opening slightly as he thought about it. “We will have to correct that, then, when we have more time.”
Eric glanced at him. “I take it something has happened?”
“Indeed. Your office, perhaps?”
“My office.” Eric nodded.
Eric settled behind his desk as Rael took a seat across from him. Odysseus had vanished as they reached the office, but both men knew that the entity would learn everything they spoke of regardless.
“What happened?” Eric asked seriously, sitting back.
“A patrol squadron has vanished,” Rael admitted darkly. “They were at the edge of our space, one of the first systems hit by the Empire in their incursion.”
Eric grimaced. “They’re playing games.”
“We have no evidence of that,” Rael reminded him.
“Admiral, please.”
“I admit,” Rael said, “that the probability of that is overwhelming, but even so . . .”
“Without evidence, there’s certainly a limit on what we can sell to our governments,” Eric said. “But this is neither unexpected nor unusual. They’re certainly going to be testing our resolve in the coming years, if we’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” Rael asked, disbelieving.
“Yes, lucky. If we’re not, they’ll just decide to gather overwhelming force and try to flatten us in one go,” Eric said. “It would be expensive, but our best intelligence on the Empire says that they could do it.”
Rael scowled, his frustration evident.
“Yes, I’ve read the same information. It is . . . unsettling, to find that a politic such as this exists so near and we had no clue until so very recently.”
Eric kept his peace on that, though he was quite certain that the only reason the Priminae were unaware of the Imperial threat until recently was because someone, at some point in their history, had sanitized the records of all mentions of the Empire. The Priminae knew that they were colonials; they even referred to themselves as such. However, nowhere in their histories did they say where they’d colonized local space from.
The DNA analysis done on the Priminae, Terrans, and Imperials made it quite clear that while all three groups were clearly humans and from the same base, the Imperials and the Priminae were far more closely related. They shared the same junk DNA, indicative that they’d evolved on the same world with the same ancestors.
Humans, while physically within the general range of accepted deviation with both of the other groups, had evolved in an entirely different ecosystem.
All three groups, for example, had remnants of reptilian DNA from the early points of their evolution, but while the Priminae and Imperials had matching reptilian species that could be identified, humans had entirely different species in the same genetic markers.
This was causing something of an explosion among evolutionary researchers on Earth, of course, as it was throwing much of their assumed truths into question. If humans could evolve on entirely separate planets with no close ancestors to link them, it challenged many of the preconceptions of the mechanism behind evolution.
At the very least, the discovery brought some serious questions to the subject and opened up the idea of a much more closely guided form of evolution than science had previously been willing to accept given the dearth of evidence available.
“Well,” Eric said, “we have Rogues moving through Imperial space, as much as they dare, gathering intelligence. I’ll see if I can’t meet with one of them and get more information about what the Empire has been up to.”
Rael nodded gratefully. “Thank you. I would very much appreciate that.”
“Where did you lose contact with th
e squadron?”
“On the very edge of our space, we believe. They were due to perform a passing patrol, merely to scout for anything out of order,” Rael said. “Captain Javrow is not a reckless man, Eric.”
That, Eric was willing to bet, was probably an understatement. If anything, to his mind, the Priminae needed a little more recklessness in their souls. They tended to be overcautious, a trait that served them well in most situations, but when it came to a fight there was real truth to the phrase “fortune favors the bold.”
“We’ll find out what happened,” Eric said, hesitating a brief moment before he went on. “However, I have to remind you that we’re not in any shape for a significant campaign at the moment.”
“Yes, I understand,” Rael said. “Compared to the Empire, neither of our forces are truly prepared for what might come.”
“No, for the moment we’re holding them off with a strategic weapon, but that’s a poor thing to rely on,” Eric said firmly. “There are too many ways they could neutralize it. Our biggest asset right now is that the Empire seems too damn arrogant to do their intelligence gathering properly.”
“In that, I suppose we have been fortunate. I am not used to this way of thinking, my friend,” Rael said. “It is alien to me.”
“It should be alien to us all,” Eric said tiredly. “The art of war has a beauty to it, but it is a terrible beauty that sears the soul and leaves nothing unchanged in its wake.”
“A terrible beauty.” Rael smiled wanly. “That should not be a phrase that exists, I think.”
“Perhaps,” Eric admitted. “But that isn’t in our power to enforce. We just get to live with it, the best we can.”
“Well, on to other matters, more pleasant ones I hope,” Rael said after a pause. “How is young Ithan Chans? Sorry, I believe she is a commander now?”
“Lieutenant commander. She’s been assigned to another project.”
“Oh?”
Archangel Squadron, Deep Space
Flashes of blue Cerenkov radiation marked the passage of the six small vessels as they moved in formation through the interstellar void, warping space-time at several hundred times light. It was a pedestrian speed compared to the transition drive each of the ships possessed, but orders made it clear that they were to try to act as though they were not, in any way, connected to either Terran or Priminae forces.