Into the Black: Odyssey One (12 page)

“Created? By whom?” Eric asked after a moment, taking a seat as he gazed evenly at the young woman.

As he watched her consider her response, Eric Weston took the opportunity to evaluate her. Milla Chans was pretty, he decided after a long moment, with a slightly exotic air to her eyes that added flavor to her face. She was petite, both slim and short, and probably didn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds. But she was fit, and obviously strong, or she would still be under Rame’s expert care, so Weston was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, on that matter. He was still considering her, when Milla finally started to respond.

“I do not think you are ready for that yet. If you were you wouldn’t need ask such a question, Capitaine. May I ask a question of you now?”

Weston hesitated a moment, frowning slightly at the evasion. In the end, though, he decided that it wouldn’t lose him anything to play along for a moment, “Yes if you like, however like you I do not promise to answer.”

Ithan Chans looked at him appraisingly, she had expected no less. “Of course, but I must ask this, anyway. Where are you from? I know it is not one of the Colonies because your ship’s technology is completely wrong, it is not of the colonies.”

“I can’t answer that, other than to say that we are a long range exploration vessel. As for our technology, what do you mean ‘wrong’?” Weston asked, genuine curiosity entering his voice.

Milla’s arms swept around the room, “I mean wrong. You use archaic airlocks, metal to construct your vessel… or the floors and walls here at least. And yet you obviously have dimensional access, and your computer… talks.”

She blinked shaking her head briefly over that last comment before speaking again, “It is painfully obvious even from what little I’ve seen that you must be one of the Others.”

Weston’s eyes narrowed slightly at the way she pronounced the word ‘Others’, like it was almost a curse. “What are the ‘Others’, Ithan?”

Milla’s lips curled, “The others are those who broke with their oath.”

By this point, Weston was completely confused, “oath?”

She looks up at him and looking into his eyes, she realized that he didn’t know what she meant. “There is a history to the universe of which you are completely unaware, one which I am ill equipped to relate.”

“Oh?” Dr. Palin leaned forward, rapt with attention, “Could you tell me more?”

Milla hesitated, shaking her head, “I don’t believe that I should. There are some things in this universe that are better left unknown. Some knowledge changes you… that knowledge exacts a terrible toll.”

Well. Isn’t that melodramatic,
Eric thought sceptically, noting with amusement that Palin was utterly fascinated. Weston was about to ask something further when a message chirped through his induction unit.

“Weston here,” he replied.

“Captain, we’re approaching the fourth planet,” Robert’s voice reverberated through his jaw and into his ear. “I thought you might like to be up here for this.”

Weston nodded, standing up, “I’ll be right up.”

He looked over to Milla nodding slightly, “I have to go. Feel free to ask if you need anything, and I believe that we can get someone in here to translate the menu for you.”

Milla looked puzzled as Weston smiled, but he didn’t comment further. Instead he turned to Dr. Palin, “Doctor, you’re with me. I want you on the Bridge for this.”

“Huh?” Palin looked up in surprise. “For…? Oh, yes. Of course, Captain.”

Weston nodded to Milla again, and led Palin out through the isolation ward airlock.

*****

The planet hung in space, glittering in the reflected and refracted light of its primary like a jewel in a satin black setting. The beauty of the scene was marred, however, by the torn and shattered fragments that occasionally passed silently over the sea green orb, a testament to the fact that the world’s defenders had not gone easily.

The low rumble of the Odyssey’s big reactors sounded ominous to the crew, as they watched the planet approach. There was simply something about the world on the viewer that felt…, wrong.

“Launch orbital drones,” Weston ordered as the Odyssey slid to a stop, relative to the planet, already punching up a link to the main sensor array.

“Drones launching,” Roberts replied, the report punctuated by the brief shudders that they felt through the deck. “Moving to take up orbital positions.”

Weston nodded, distracted as he examined the information on the screen. The numbers didn’t look right, but he couldn’t quite tell what was off. After a moment he looked up, “Analysis!”

“Sir…,” a voice from behind him and to the right spoke up, and Eric turned toward the young female Ensign. He had to think hard, but he placed her name quickly. “Yes, Ensign Rodriguez?”

“The numbers are all wrong, Sir.” Emma Rodriguez replied, frowning to herself. “We’re getting a serious shift in the oxygen content of the atmosphere. That’s why the continents are red-shifted.”

“All right. Why don’t you tell me why that’s wrong, Ensign,” Weston frowned.

“Because we’re getting indications of a lot of the same plant life as we’d see from Earth. In fact, this world is extremely rich is photosensitive plankton,” she replied, shaking her head. “No Captain. There is something wrong here.”

Weston nodded, turning back to his own display. That pretty much jived with what he felt in his gut, but added a little logical substance to his misgivings. “All right. Show me what the Drones are seeing.”

*****

Carnivore Combat Drones were catapult launched unmanned reconnaissance vehicles, designed as stealthy platforms to conduct surveillance over combat zones that had been previously cleared of more conventional platforms like, for example, satellites.

Equipped with the same Counter-Mass Generators that permitted the Odyssey to approach two thirds of light speed at best speed without a prohibitive fuel cost, the Carnivores could accelerate to a tenth of light speed in under eight seconds, and crash to a halt in just under ten.

And that was in an atmosphere.

In Orbital space the drones literally ricocheted around, altering courses on the proverbial ‘dime’, until they reached their pre-programmed orbital trajectories and slowed to a ballistic course that gave each of the five drones a relatively stable orbit.

Then the heavily shielded bottoms of the drones slid open, revealing sophisticated optics and intercept sensors, and they got down to the nuts and bolts of their job.

*****

“Well. It looks… normal.”

That comment from Lieutenant Daniels was accompanied by a quiet murmur of agreement from the rest of the bridge crew, though neither Eric nor Roberts commented.

“Wait…,” Roberts frowned. “Pan back on Drone three. Was that a city?”

The screen changed as an operator obediently followed the order, panning the image back and tilting to the optics of Drone Three, so they could zoom in on the site of interest.

“Certainly looks like one,” Eric said after a moment. “Bring the drone back around. Put it in a stationary orbit over the city.”

“Aye Captain.”

The drone swung around easily, the stabilized optics staying focused on their target as it came back and slowed to a stop over the city.

“Zoom in,” Weston whispered, watching as the city doubled in size, then did so again, and again. After a moment they were looking at an area that the computer listed as about the size of eight city blocks. On this world that meant a lot less than it did back home, because Weston only counted three massive buildings within that area.

Someone whistled, but nobody else paid attention.

“Well, something’s alive down there.” Roberts replied, noting the movement of traffic in the ‘streets’.

Weston nodded, “Yeah. Anything on Radio?”

“Negative,” Ensign Waters replied. “Nothing from the Tachyon lab either.”

“Zoom in again. Let’s get a picture of these people,” Eric ordered softly, leaning forward as he looked at the image in awe.

An actual alien world. An actual alien city. It was utterly incredible, awe inspiring. Historical.

Nightmarish.

The scene flickered again, zooming in close enough to read a proverbial paper over someone’s shoulder, and the crew of the Odyssey got their first look at the inhabitants of the city below.

“Sweet Mother of God. What the hell are those things?” Roberts asked in utter shock as he stared at the viewer.

Eric Weston shook his head slowly, “I don’t have the slightest clue. But maybe our guest could enlighten us. Commander, I’ll be in the Medical Lab. Have the Drones finish mapping the surface, and continue to investigate… those.”

“Aye Captain.”

*****

Milla Chans blanched white with shock and fear as she watched the screen closely. Her reactions was duly noted by Captain Weston and Doctor Palin, as well as Doctor Rame, who began to watch her very closely as he worried about a possible relapse to her shocked state.

On the screen, there was a. . . . swarm. No other word could quite describe it, and even that seemed to fall short.

The creatures were black with mottled brown and red across their carapaces. They moved through the remains of the once proud city, slowly dismantling the buildings piece by piece. They looked like Arachnids in some ways, like other terran insects in others, except that they were far too large for that type of creature.

In fact, they were hundreds of times too large to be insects. The Carnivore Drone’s scale meter on the HUD indicated that the creatures averaged five feet in height, the long spindly legs that extended beyond that notwithstanding.

They roamed through the city’s ‘streets’ like ants, dismantling the buildings piece by piece and carrying the materials down into tunnels below. There was no sign of anything living other than the arachnid beasts, and no sign that anything had been living there, other than the city itself.

“They are… Drasin,” Milla said softly, pronouncing the word Drah-Sin. “I… I had no idea that they would become so numerous… so fast.”

“What are they, Ithan?” Weston asked softly. “It’s obvious that they didn’t build that city. So what are they… and who built the city?”

“My people did,” Milla said, sounding almost helpless. “This was one of our. . . . colonies for… foodstuffs?”

“Agricultural,” Palin supplied.

“Whah,” Milla replied, nodding though the word had not being caught by the translator.

“She means yes,” Palin said, keying the word in. “it’s slang… like Yeah, or Yep.”

“I understand, Doctor,” Weston said calmly. “Miss Chans. . . . Milla… What happened here?”

Milla sighed painfully and took a shallow, ragged breath, staring at the screen, her eyes filled with sorrow. Finally, she closed her eyes as to shut out the horrible scene on the screen. Shuttering, and in a distraught voice, she decided to relate the terrible history, that she felt would be best untold. “Very well Captain, I shall relate my story to you to the best of my ability.”

“Thank you, Miss Chans.” Weston said softly, and then he sat back and waited.

She took a deep breath and began to speak.

Chapter 8

“Lieutenant Chans!”

Milla Chans spun on her heal and found her staring at her new commanding officer, “Yes, Commander Rathe?”

“Lieutenant, I need you to work with Stavrim and Mailyn for the next several days. They need your expertise with the new ‘weapons’ systems we’ve installed.” The Commander scowled at the word ‘weapons’ as if it tasted bitter to him.

“I understand Commander, I’ll contact them immediately,” Milla understood the commander’s distaste, even if she didn’t share it.

Why do all the command officers act as if it’s insulting to be forced to equip their ships with weapon systems? Well…, all except the Captain, and even he doesn’t like them,
Milla strode off, heading for the newly created control room where she knew we would find crewmen Stavrim and Mailyn. Work had been progressing well over the past few months of preparations, since the Tachyon burst from the frontier had changed her culture forever.

It was still a dream, or a nightmare, to her. The transmission hadn’t contained any information. Not even the most basic of modulation. It had been nothing more than a ‘tripwire’ of sorts. A warning, or alarm, given by a system so ancient that no one had known it was there until the Central World-Mind had begun giving the strangest orders.

No one questioned the orders at first, though they had been out of character for the World-Mind. Production on transports had slowed as new plans were spit out of the ancient database. Plans that included things that no ship in centuries had included.

Weapons.

Milla shook her head, clearing it as she stepped into the control room and looked around.

“Ah, Lieutenant. We are having some difficulties adjusting the target acquisition system that was recently installed.” Crewman Stavrim was trying to adjust the delicate crystalline circuits that transmitted the tachyon data streams.

Milla frowned, shaking her head severely. “Have you tried reintegrating the software? All those circuits should have been triple checked before installation.”

Stavrim had the good grace to look chastised, “No, we didn’t. No one here is checked out on the software.”

Of course not.
Milla sighed, dropping into a crouch by the open panel. She looked over the systems, but didn’t see anything damaged. That was a good thing, especially since replacement components were at a premium, at the moment. Especially since the shipyards were all otherwise occupied by new constructions, or conversions like the Carlache.

“All right, make sure you haven’t damaged the crystals and close up that panel. I’ll check the software,” Milla said even as she bent to the task, her fingers flying over the panel.

It took only minutes to find the problem; a minor software conflict had shunted the targeting sensors off alignment by two degrees. A small error, perhaps, but at any realistic combat range it would result in missing the target by thousands of meters. Not something she could allow slip by so easily, even though they hadn’t known what to do about it, she was glad that the two had managed to spot the error.