Susan nodded and quickly entered the message. A moment later, however, she frowned and entered another command. She scowled, entered more commands, and then called for a technician.

“What is it, Susan?”

“FTL comm is offline,” she said, shaking her head. “Never seen anything like it, but then again I’d never seen an FTL comm until a few weeks ago.”

“No ideas?” he asked, one eye on the battle. Steph was handling the ship well. He and Milla were a good team.

“It reads like interference, but that’s impossible,” she said. “Not on a tachyon-based system.”

Michelle Winger, across the bridge, scowled in turn and shifted her attention from the fighting for a moment. It only took a few seconds for her to let out a word that would have made Eric blush once, before he became a Marine. He turned in her direction. “Michelle?”

“We’re being jammed,” she said, her tone completely disbelieving. “The entire region is flooded with tachyons.”

“That’s not possible,” Milla said, looking over, eyes wide. “I have never heard of something that could flood an area like that!”

“Every FTL scanner I’ve got is whited out,” Michelle said, shaking her head. “We’re not sending anything FTL anytime soon.”

Eric scowled, but it didn’t matter.

“Fine. Send the message via laser comm,” he said, waving it off. He had a fight to conduct.

The Odysseus twisted in space, lashing out with lasers in a near-constant flood. The region around her was a wasteland of plasma and debris, interrupted only by the constant influx of Drasin vessels.

As many as she destroyed, however, there were more to fill the empty spaces. And though Odysseus fired first and fastest, the enemy got in their blows in return. Atmosphere bled from the kilometer-and-a-half-long hull. Bodies of the dead hurtled alongside the carrier, caught in the space warp that powered her. Forty enemy ships fell to her lasers, another half dozen to the missiles of the Enterprise, and a double handful to the fighter craft that buzzed around the edge of the battle like lethal insects waiting for a target to sting.

The Drasin lasers were just as powerful, if not as sophisticated, and they cut deep into the Odysseus’ hull with every passing moment. More air bled away, more systems were damaged and hastily patched by the crews within, working feverishly to do what they could.

For every hole they patched, three more would blow open, and for every system they saved, another ten would fail. It was a task worthy of Sisyphus, but the work crews of Odysseus threw themselves into it like the gods themselves.

In the end, it wouldn’t be enough, of course . . . but then, it wasn’t always about the end.

Sometimes it was the journey that counted and every one of them had signed on for an odyssey.