Homeworld (Odyssey One) (55 page)

The real problem was the fact that the
Weifang
would be blind before and during the action. And Sun would be counting on a man—his enemy just a few years earlier—to get the aliens into a position where the
Weifang
’s sacrifice would have meaning. If Weston failed, or the man betrayed him, Sun would have sacrificed his ship and crew for nothing.

All men are tested in their lives, but this may be more than I can endure.

Sun didn’t know what to do, and for the next few hours he decided that he would do nothing. Let the Confederate sweat. He would wait and see if the man’s dire warnings of an invasion en masse would materialize as real. He would decide when he knew if there was a target or not.

STATION LIBERTY

“ENTER.”

Admiral Gracen looked up to see Eric walk in, and then glanced quickly to the side to check the clock. He’d been gone almost six hours and they didn’t have time to burn. “Where have you been?”

“Talking to an old friend and enemy,” Eric told her with a more than slightly infuriating smile. “Then a quick chat with the captain of the
Weifang
before a little research; then I came here.”

She raised her eyebrow at that litany of tasks, but refrained from anything else.

“Were you able to figure out whatever it was you went there to figure out, at least?” she asked dryly.

“Could be. We’ll know when the bad guys get here, I suppose,” he told her, looking far too relaxed for her taste.

She scowled and called him on it. “You could at least have the decency to look half as stressed as I’ve been since our Priminae friends dropped this little bomb on us.”

“What’s the point? We’re committed now. Stress is for when you have options, decisions to make. We’ve got a
battle to fight. I’ll stress out when I can actually do something about it.”

Gracen rolled her eyes. “Fine. While you were gone, Captain Kian contacted me to inform us that her ships’ long-range scans have picked up the lead of the bowshock wave. Judging from the
Odyssey
’s logs, we’ll pick it up in another few hours ourselves. They’re coming here, alright.”

“Not much doubt,” Eric said. “Something about us really honks them off, Admiral.”

She snorted, shooting him a dark look. “I wonder what that might be?”

Eric shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Nice of you to say, but I don’t think it’s me or the
Odyssey
. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why’d they come in with almost thirty ships, Admiral?” he asked, genuinely confused. “That’s not their style. They don’t operate like that. Up until now this group has been controlled, systematic, even downright conservative in their battle plans. They send in waves to test defenses, strengths, weaknesses…they don’t just charge in with thirty ships in some kind of blind rage, let alone thousands. The
Odyssey
never did anything to warrant this kind of action, not until we popped all thirty or so earlier…but that should have put them back on their heels, ma’am, not egged them into a red rage.”

Gracen grimaced, but had to concede the point.

Whatever else, it was clear that they were working without the full story. That wasn’t as uncommon as one might think, she supposed. In fact you rarely got to work
with
the full story in a war. Still, this was something else. They were missing key elements that seemed to
define
their foe, elements that were
basic and almost always assumed in interactions with other people on Earth.

All they were seeing were the actions, not the motivations, and the actions made no sense according to any logical set of motivations she could imagine.

“It’s almost like there are two groups giving orders,” she said finally. “One is a thinking, planning, group….”

“And the other is instinctive, animalistic, and completely inhuman,” Eric finished, nodding, “I know.”

“It does seem that way,” Gracen sighed, “which both makes a lot of sense, and none at all. I suppose you have a theory?”

Eric shook his head. “Not on this, ma’am. There’s just too much going on that we don’t know to even make a guess.”

She nodded. “Some days, I think that we should have damned well stayed in our own backyard.”

“I can’t say I disagree,” Eric admitted, “though I think it would only have been to our benefit if we somehow knew what was going on out there just the same. Ten years, fifty, a hundred? What’s the difference. They were coming here eventually. I’m sure of it. If we’d just sat here in our ignorance, would we have developed enough defense to hold them off, even with all that time?”

“I don’t know,” Gracen admitted. “There’s been more effort thrown into research in the past two years than in the past twenty. I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” Eric said, sighing. “Why is it that we only see short-term benefits? No one wants to invest in the future if it’s more than twenty-four hours away, it seems to me sometimes.”

“Visionaries cost too much,” Gracen said with a sad smile.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Eric said before adding a belated, “ma’am.”

“Keep me apprised of your plans, Captain,” Gracen said while activating her desk. “I don’t want to be surprised by any cowboy actions. Are we clear?”

“Clear, ma’am.”

“Good. Dismissed, Captain.”

Eric rose to his feet, saluted, and left the office. Like the admiral, he had work to do.

PRIMINAE WARSHIP
POSDAN

KIAN LOOKED OUT over the blue-white world they were orbiting, impressing the image on her mind. There was more water here than on Ranquil. It caused thicker and more impressive clouds than she normally saw back home. Earth was a pretty world, she decided, her mood dark.

A very pretty world that was about to come to a very ugly end.

She looked over the data that the ships were receiving, some from Ranquil’s central command and some from the leading edge of the oncoming Drasin fleet.

And it had to be a fleet, there was no doubt about that now. Not to her, not to anyone who saw the data. The sheer power and size of the trans-light signals were conclusive. Something was coming this way, and whatever it was, it was bigger than anything she had ever seen in her life; bigger than anything the Priminae had ever recorded, to be precise; and it did not bode well for the people on the world below.