Veil of Shadows (Book 2 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  Kelsey set the flechette pistol down and picked up the neural disruptor. She brought it up and aimed at the target. Instead of an aiming point, she saw a circle about four feet across. She focused on the pistol and discovered that the aperture was adjustable. The tighter the focus, the more intense the effect. She also discovered that she could control the intensity of the beam through her implant.

  An internal safety demanded her override to set it to lethal. She ordered it to, just to make sure that she could, and then reduced it back to stun. Her implant indicated that a narrow beam would stun a human being for up to four hours. If she took it to its widest aperture, it would stun anyone in a 90° arc in front of her for about half an hour, though that drastically reduced its range.

  She could see how something like this would be very useful. Especially for someone like the police.

  Next, she examined the flechette rifle. It fired the exact same ammunition as the pistol, but had a significantly longer range and greater capacity. “The generator in the rifle is bigger and uses the same flechettes as the pistol. One magazine holds a hundred flechettes. The velocity is boosted to 3,500 meters per second, though. Over ten times the speed of sound.”

  “Damn! That would go right through one of our armored vehicles. They must’ve had some seriously advanced armor to deal with.”

  It seemed as though the targets on this range wouldn’t be very useful for testing a rifle, but she was wrong. On a hunch, she sent a mental command to the range and a tiny target appeared against the far wall. According to the range, it was simulating a human being at 2,000 meters. She brought the rifle up and fired at the aiming point, but missed. Out of ten total shots, she missed all of them.

  She handed the rifle to Talbot with a grimace. “Well, that sucked. Apparently computer assisted aiming only goes so far.”

  Talbot rested the rifle on the firing rest and began slowly shooting. The range indicated that he hit eleven times out of twenty. He smiled up at Kelsey. “And that’s where practice and experience come into play. This is a sweet weapon. I can see we’re going to get real attached to it.”

  “And that brings us to the last rifle,” she said. “According to my implants, it’s a plasma rifle. The range is now giving me a safety lecture. Apparently, you need to get behind me and I need to turn the range’s magnetic safety field onto high. And the range won’t allow more than one plasma rifle to fire at a time. By the way, this safety field is why we’re not blowing holes in the far side of the range with the flechettes.”

  According to her implants, the plasma rifle was a relatively short-range weapon, but inside its reach, it was king. It also indicated that she should not fire at targets closer than twenty meters. So she had the range create a target out at twenty-five meters. She created a Pale One for her to shoot at. She ordered it to charge.

  Kelsey raised the plasma rifle smoothly, aimed for center mass, and pulled the trigger. The speck of fire that flew from the bell of the plasma rifle was almost intolerably bright. Like the spot where someone was welding. Her ocular implants dimmed the hellish light immediately, but Talbot cursed behind her. She hoped she hadn’t temporarily blinded him.

  The pea of fire struck the charging Pale One and blew him apart. The wave of fire expanded behind him for fifteen or twenty meters. It would’ve incinerated him and all his friends.

  She laid the rifle on the rest with the deadly end pointed down range. Then she turned to Talbot. “You okay?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “That was a little bright for my taste, so some warning would be useful next time. We’ll need to rig up some goggles to wear when one of these is on the range. Holy shit. That is the most deadly crew served weapon I have ever seen.”

  On a hunch, Kelsey checked the rifle. “Sorry to pop your bubble, but that isn’t a crew served weapon. They must have a bigger version. Ditto the flechette rifles.”

  “I can hardly imagine. An army with those things would be unstoppable.”

  “Except that they were stopped. I think if there’s a lesson here, it’s that no one is too badass to be beaten.”

  The marine nodded somberly. “Too true, Princess. Too true. That said, we can make things as difficult for the enemy as possible.”

  Talbot had her walk him through the disassembly and cleaning of the weapons. The neural disruptor required no cleaning at all and the flechette weapons needed only minimal attention. No gunpowder. The plasma rifle on the other hand, required significant servicing, even after only one shot. Luckily, the weapons were able to explain in detail exactly how to disassemble and clean themselves properly.

  Once they had them reassembled, Talbot jerked his head towards the door. “Come on. Let’s put these away and go look at something else. I think you’ll like it.”

  Kelsey held up her hand. “Hold up there, Speedy. You promised me a belt and holsters. I’m taking these with me.”

  He scratched his chin. “I’m not so sure that Captain Mertz would be happy with you wandering around strapped. Maybe we should keep these in the armory.”

  “Does Captain Mertz keep his pistol in the armory? I’m betting the answer is no.” She planted her fists on her hips and gave the marine a steady look. “I’ve never been one to throw around my weight, but I am the senior diplomatic representative on this mission. I believe I’m entitled to keep weapons in my quarters. I promise not to parade around wearing them everywhere.”

  Talbot shrugged. “That’s way above my pay grade, so I’ll let someone else argue with you.”

  He searched through a small pile of belts until he found one that was small enough for her. He added two holsters and helped her adjust them. The touch of his hands on her hips made her intensely aware of his body close to hers. Her heart raced a bit and she felt a little more alone when he stepped back to examine his handiwork.

  He removed the power packs from both pistols and had her practice drawing and aiming them. He corrected the mistakes she made and instructed her to practice. He then stressed that she should remove the power packs unless she expected to need the weapons. Then he filled half a dozen magazines with flechettes and put them in a bag for her with a couple of extra power supplies.

  Walking around armed felt very odd, but incredibly reassuring. She followed Talbot into another room and looked around. Large boxes filled it. More like crates, really.

  “What’s all this?”

  “There’s a lot of large marine equipment that we haven’t had a chance to examine closely. We’ve only started cataloging it.”

  He walked to one of the crates set a short distance aside from the others. Someone had obviously opened it before, because the side fell down when he yanked on it. Inside was a suit of armor.

  Talbot ran his hand down the dark grey metal arm. “This is a set of powered combat armor. There are others like it in the armory, but they probably need some serious maintenance. I’d like to see if you can tell me anything about this set.” He tugged on it and she saw that it was on a small rack. An arm allowed it to turn ninety degrees and come completely outside the crate.

  She stared at it in awe. The back opened so the person could slide into it, including the legs. Not the arms, though. It looked like the wearer was supposed to wiggle into those. The helmet was detachable and had an opaque metal face. How was the wearer supposed to see anything? It looked as intimidating as hell.

  The armor didn’t seem incredibly thick, especially when one was talking about weapons like those flechette and plasma rifles. She queried the armor. Detailed information flowed in front of her eyes.

  “This isn’t marine armor. It’s commando armor. It tells me that it’s less protective than a full marine combat rig, but significantly more agile. They designed marine armor to fight in the middle of the battle. It’s heavy, thick, and mounts those big ass weapons I was telling you about earlier.

  “Commando armor is made for stealth. It can take a beating, but the wearer is supposed to strike from the shadows and be gone before the enemy can find
them. The exterior skin can be made to mimic its environment. This says that there are some medium-size flechette and plasma rifles that can be used with it.”

  Talbot whistled. “You mean there’s something more badass than this? That’s awesome. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there are any of those sets of armor aboard this ship. We took the liberty of installing a power unit in this one, obviously, but I’m certain that it’s not ready for use. In fact, I’m not even certain that anyone without implants can use it. Can you tell me?”

  She queried the suit for a status. “I’m afraid that these suits require interface with the user’s implants to work. You wouldn’t even be able to see where you’re going. It looks like the suit needs to be disassembled, cleaned, and a few modules replaced. We can probably salvage them from other suits right now, or better yet, find where the commandos stored them. Then we need to adjust it to fit me.”

  “That sucks, but it is what it is.” He gestured toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go see if we can find some spare parts.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  After three days of maneuvering through the asteroid field and testing the various systems, including firing the beam weapons at various hunks of rock and metal, Jared decided Courageous was as ready as she was going to be for the trip to Pentagar.

  Offensively, many of the missile launchers were still offline, but the beams were mostly operational. The drives also seemed to be in working order. Time to cross their fingers and take a chance. “Zia, make sure Best Deal is ready to follow us through. Pasco, prepare to flip the ship.”

  Jared crossed his fingers. The familiar sensation of nausea gripped him and the screen changed.

  Kelsey sat bolt upright. “I see Athena! I know it’s her! I can also see four Pentagaran ships. I’m not sure which one is which, but one is really big.”

  “Tell us what you can about Athena.”

  “I can see where she’s taken battle damage. I can sense fusion power plants, including one that looks a little out of balance. Her weapons are off-line. The same for the Pentagaran warships. I guess the big one is Mace.

  “That seems like a safe bet.” Especially since Jared had sent a message to Commodore Sanders to expect them about this time.

  Jared touched an icon on his console, opening a channel to engineering. Dennis Baxter appeared on the small screen a moment later. “How did the flip drives take the transition?” he asked.

  The engineer grinned ebulliently. “They performed flawlessly. We are good to go.”

  “Excellent. Pass my congratulations on to all your people. Bridge out.”

  “Best Deal just flipped into the system,” Kelsey added. “She’s a little more than 7,000 kilometers astern of us.”

  “Zia, open a channel to Mace. My compliments to Commodore Sanders.”

  A few seconds later, the Commodore appeared on the main screen. The older man grinned. “You made it. I still can’t believe that I’m seeing this. I would’ve never thought an old Empire vessel could be made operational again.”

  “And in just a few weeks, too,” Jared agreed. “It wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t gotten the main computer online. This ship is amazing. How are things going? Any activity from the Pale Ones?”

  “The probes you put in place have been giving us a pretty good picture of what’s going on in the other system. There’s activity around the shipyards, but the number of ships is low. I think you really hurt them. Which is good for us, of course.”

  “How many ships are you estimating?”

  “We think three or four dozen.”

  Jared considered that. “I find the fact they haven’t been reinforced interesting. If they could call for help, I think they would have. That’s good news.”

  The Commodore nodded. “The Admiralty is in agreement with you. It’ll still be another ten days before we have the first of our refitted ships ready to flip. We can only hope that the circumstances remain the same until we can go over there in force.”

  A flashing light on Jared’s console captured his attention. The icon was unfamiliar to him.

  Kelsey cleared her throat. “Pardon the interruption, Captain. Courageous would like to interject a comment. Since you don’t have implants, the console requires your manual authorization.”

  The request was a bit unsettling. He’d spoken to the ship’s computer a number of times, but he still hadn’t started thinking of it as a full-fledged artificial intelligence with the initiative to interject itself into events. He touched the icon. “Go ahead, Courageous.”

  “This unit apologizes for the interruption, Commander Mertz.” The voice from the overhead speakers was male, low, and melodious. Jared wasn’t certain how long it would take him to become accustomed to a ship that was referred to as “she” having a male voice. He wondered how they’d handled that in the old Empire. From his expression, Commodore Sanders was hearing the AI as well.

  “This unit wishes to verify the occupation of the next system. It desires to launch a probe through the flip point.”

  Jared gave Commodore Sanders a questioning look. The older man nodded. “Give me a few minutes to make sure everyone knows what’s happening.” The screen went back to the star field.

  “Courageous, since we have a few minutes I’d like to ask some questions. What are you hoping to find?”

  “This unit has taken a great deal on your word. It has granted you authorization on a probationary basis. This unit requires verification that the situation is as you have stated for that situation to continue. It is also a necessary step before this vessel enters a possibly hostile system. Which this unit desires to do as soon as possible.”

  Commodore Sanders’ image replaced the star field. “You are cleared to launch a probe, Courageous.”

  “Commander Mertz?” Courageous asked.

  “Launch the probe.”

  The ship immediately launched the probe. Jared had already seen how much faster Courageous’ missiles were than Athena’s, so the probe’s speed wasn’t that much of a shock. He could see on the screen, however, that it was causing a bit of talk on Mace’s bridge.

  Commodore Sanders shook his head. “That probe is faster than any missile we’ve got. I can see we’ve got even more technological catching up to do than I’d imagined.”

  “I think I can make that a little easier,” Jared said. “Our scientists are pulling data off the main computer. We’ve already accumulated quite a bit of technical information for you. While we’re waiting for the probe, I’d be happy to begin transmitting some of the highlights. It would be a lot easier to send the majority of it over on a cutter, though. It takes up quite a bit of space and the transmission time would be significant.”

  “I’d appreciate that very much. If you’ll excuse me, I have a few things requiring my attention. I’m certain you do, as well.”

  Jared ordered Zia to begin sending the priority data once he’d signed off and instructed her to send the full data packet they’d been collecting over on a cutter. Then he turned to Kelsey. She looked worried.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I can’t say that I’m a big fan of going back over there.”

  “Hopefully, we won’t need to go before the Pentagarans are ready to accompany us. Even if we do, fighting isn’t on our list of planned activities. The most I’d expect to happen now is for the computer to ask to send some probes a bit deeper into the Erorsi system for a more detailed scan.”

  He decided to change the subject. “Lieutenant Reese tells me that you’ve taken some old Empire weapons back to your cabin.”

  She stiffened. “We’re not going to fight about them, are we?”

  He held up a conciliatory hand. “Allow me to take a moment to give you official permission to store them there and to carry them when we’re under combat conditions.”

  Kelsey visibly relaxed. “Thank you. If we run into trouble, I want to help create a more positive outcome than last time. You should come down to the armor
y and pick up a pair for yourself. You won’t regret it.”

  “I might just do that. I also hear you been working on armor. How’s that going?”

  Kelsey smiled. “The damned thing is ridiculous. I’m already stronger than anyone has a right to be and it easily doubles that. I actually carried one of the weight machines across the gym. I know I’ll never use it, but it’s certainly reassuring to have it in the closet.”

  He felt his eyes widen. “You actually have it in your closet?”

  She laughed. “No, it’s down in the armory. I’m not paranoid enough to think that I need powered armor beside my nightstand.”

  It took an hour for Courageous’ probe to transition to the Pale Ones system, scan, and return. Courageous and her Pentagaran escorts had followed it toward the interdiction zone at a more sedate pace. There was still no enemy activity near the flip point and the probe they’d left on station was intact. He’d expected that since it was returning regularly to send them updates.

  They sent over several more probes to scan deeper into the system. With the enhanced capabilities these probes commanded, they might as well get as good a picture as they could manage. It wasn’t as if the Pale Ones didn’t know they were there.

  They only had to wait about an hour and a half to start getting decent information from the Erorsi system’s main world. One of the two shipyards was still constructing ships, but it seemed as though they’d abandoned the damaged one. Not only were there no ships present there, it was powered down.

  Jared frowned. There didn’t seem to be any active ships around the planet. Surely, they hadn’t left it unguarded. Where were the remaining ships?

  “Captain Mertz,” Courageous said. “This unit has located possible hostile units near Erorsi. There is a large object under propulsion. This unit believes there is a high probability that it is an asteroid on a collision course with the primary world in this system. This unit has witnessed similar events in the past.”