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

by Terry Mixon

  “And let’s not forget that computer system from the asteroid,” Jared added. “We have a team of people removing everything so we can take it back with us. For safety reasons, we won’t shut it down completely until it passes Erorsi and we can get it on a course that won’t threaten the planet later.

  “We still don’t know what its original purpose was. It obviously predated our arrival by quite a few years. Perhaps since the Pale Ones invaded the system.”

  Kelsey ate more of her breakfast, thinking. “That’s something I don’t get. If the Pale Ones conquered this system five hundred years ago, why wait hundreds of years to send ships through to attack Pentagar? That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  Graves shrugged. “With those things, who knows what makes sense?”

  Jared waved his hand. “No, Kelsey has a good point. That’s a serious discrepancy. It would be very useful to understand the reason behind it. I’m hoping we’ll find some kind of information on the shipyard we’ve captured. Yet one more avenue of investigation that I’d like to pursue before we run for cover.

  “Finally, there’s the mountain range that the Pale Ones targeted. I’m not so certain that was an accident of geography. I can’t see the Pale Ones targeting something that isn’t important. At the very least, we should search carefully to be sure there’s not something of interest there.”

  The first officer glanced at his chrono. “I should be getting up to the bridge. You both have a good morning.” Graves gave her a small salute and headed out of the officer’s mess.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Kelsey hissed at Jared. “Have you lost your mind? Why did you have to get implants now? What if something had gone wrong? This is insane.”

  He inclined his head toward her. “I’ll admit there was an element of risk, but I judged it to be small. Every single Fleet officer in the old Empire went through this exact procedure. It’s becoming painfully obvious that we’re going to have to move forward in implanting volunteers to take advantage of all the technology on this vessel. I’m pretty sure that Lieutenant Reese is ready to implant himself and several dozen of his men just to keep track of you.”

  She made a face at her half-brother. “Don’t imagine that you’re going to sidetrack me with that remark.”

  Jared smiled. “I’d imagine not. But you don’t have to worry about it for a while. The workstation says it’s out of cranial implants. Until we locate more, you and I are it. Look on the bright side. Now someone on the bridge can take advantage of all those advanced scanners and critical systems.”

  “Not if you don’t tell anybody about it. Care to run the reasoning for that by me?”

  “It’s complicated. Look around you. What do you see?”

  She looked around at the men and women eating and returned her attention to him. “Our crew having breakfast?”

  “How about potential spies? We have a lot of Pentagaran officers and men aboard. We don’t really know any of them. Who’s to say that some of them aren’t associated with the group behind the assassination attempt? Do we really want word that we’ve begun implanting our personnel to get back to that group?”

  “That’s paranoid. Surely these people have been vetted.”

  Jared shrugged. “Perhaps the Pale Ones ambush made me a little paranoid, but what do we really know about who was behind the attack? Who’s to say they couldn’t have placed a team aboard this ship? The point is, we can’t be sure. This is a basic precaution. We’ve had to be more trusting that I like up until now, but we need to be realistic.”

  Kelsey pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “That’s crazy. Following that logic, we should be marching everybody into a room and putting them to a lie detector. I mean, really, who can we trust?” She made certain that her expression made clear that she was being ironic.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do they have those? I might have to change my plans.”

  “You’re maddening. No, not that I’ve heard. That’s probably a good thing in this case.”

  She ate some more of her breakfast. “What am I supposed to do today?”

  “As much as it’s going to piss Lieutenant Reese off, you’ll be accompanying the team he sends down to the surface. Not only may they need your firepower, they may need access to something through your implants. It’s only a scouting mission, so I’m not expecting any encounters. We just need a better idea of what the situation is like down there.

  “I’ll be leading the mission to the damaged shipyard for much the same reasons. I’m sure that Charlie is going to be making a suggestion to change the regulations when we get back home so that Captains don’t get to leave the ship so much. So far, I haven’t let him off to explore a single thing.”

  She finished the last of her food. “And what if there’s a problem? What if the Pale Ones have some ships hidden somewhere? What if an armada comes sailing through the flip point? What if the other shipyard decides to suddenly open fire on Courageous?”

  “Let’s handle those in order. If there are hidden Pale Ones off the planet’s surface, I think they’d have come after us already. With the exception of the ambush that they had waiting, they haven’t shown any signs of being very subtle. Even the ambushers weren’t that subtle.

  “If a fleet of Pale Ones comes through the flip point, we’ll have time to recover everyone and still beat them back to the Pentagaran flip point. Lastly, if the other shipyard opens fire, Courageous will blow it into atoms. This is our chance to get information about the Pale Ones. We have to take advantage of it.”

  As much a she didn’t want to, she had to agree with his logic. Anything they found out about the Pale Ones in this system could be critical to dealing with them when they came back in force. Which she expected them to do. She didn’t know how long it would take, but those monsters had undoubtedly sent for reinforcements.

  “What makes you think that Lieutenant Reese is going to let me go? He was pretty mad.”

  Jared tapped the rank insignia on his collar. “This right here guarantees that you’re going. The details of how you participate are up for grabs, though. I suggest that you convince him that you’ll be good this time, because the details are his call.”

  Her half-brother stood. “In fact, let’s go down and settle this right now.”

  She downed the rest of her coffee and followed him to marine country. Once again, the marines were packing various bags and obviously preparing to depart.

  Lieutenant Reese’s eyes narrowed as soon as he saw her. He strode over. “Captain. Princess. We’ll be ready to leave in about ten minutes.”

  “It seems I’ll be raining on your parade,” Jared said. “Princess Kelsey will be accompanying you.” He held up a hand to forestall the marine’s immediate response. “Before you start giving me your list of no doubt valid reasons why that’s a bad idea, you may run into a situation where her implants are key to accessing equipment or information that you need. She’s going. The details of how she goes are entirely up to you.

  “Time is short, so I’d best be getting my gear on. I’m leading the mission to the disabled shipyard. Good luck on your mission and stay in contact.” He didn’t look back as he headed for the locker where his gear was stored.

  Reese gave her a skeptical look. “I don’t believe I need to explain why I think this is an exceptionally bad idea, do I, Your Highness?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “I believe that I can guess your reasons. All I can say in my defense is that if it had been anyone else you wouldn’t be nearly as angry. It’s not that I did the wrong thing, it’s that I did something you didn’t want me to do. If Senior Sergeant Talbot threw himself into the room with the Pale Ones and slammed the door behind him, would you be giving him nearly as much grief? That’s not an excuse, but I wanted to bring that to your attention.”

  Reese scowled. “Actually, that is an excuse. And it’s entirely beside the point. I gave you an order that I expected you to obey. You’re not a marine, but you were under my comma
nd. I need to be certain what everyone under my command is going to do in any given set of circumstances.”

  “Most of you would’ve died if I followed your orders. I’m sorry that put me in danger, but I was already in the line of fire. I’m sorry this upsets you. If the same set of circumstances comes up again, I’ll do what needs to be done.”

  He sighed. “Fabulous. You will stay with Senior Sergeant Talbot. You will only fire your weapon or leave his side if he orders you to. If you step the least bit out of line, I will send you back to the ship and deal with Captain Mertz’s wrath. Am I crystal clear?”

  She held her hands up, palms forward. “Perfectly, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t make me regret this. Go suit up.”

  She didn’t wait around for him to change his mind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rawlins met his computer man shortly after breakfast. He wasn’t sure why Jenkins had called him, but he knew the man wouldn’t have made any contact at all if it weren’t important.

  The meeting had to be circumspect since it wasn’t at a common event, such as breakfast. Technically, they were both supposed to be working on their assigned tasks.

  Deviating from the repair that Rawlins was supposed to be doing carried extra risk. He wasn’t exactly high man on the totem pole. That meant he had to have a valid reason to be absent when they needed him. One that would pass at least cursory scrutiny.

  He accomplished this by pocketing one of the critical parts for today’s repair. When the lead technician discovered they’d “forgotten” the part, Rawlins headed off at a trot to retrieve another one from stores. The fact he already had it meant that he had a short window of opportunity to go meet with his man.

  He didn’t know what excuse the computer specialist had used to break away from his compatriots, but he was waiting in the storage room that they had agreed on as a secondary gathering point when Rawlins got there.

  The intelligence officer tapped his chrono. “You have two minutes. What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until lunch?”

  “Our observer in operations says that Captain Mertz and Princess Bandar have left the ship. The Captain is over on the damaged shipyard and the Princess went down to the surface of the planet. I thought you’d want to know that we have a brief window when both the senior naval officer and the only implanted human are off the ship.”

  Rawlins nodded slowly. “Yes…that is something that I needed to know. Do you have any idea how long they’ll be gone?”

  “The mission to the surface has a minimum timeframe to rejoin the ship of half an hour. Depending on where the ship is in orbit, the timeframe might stretch out to over an hour. Captain Mertz, on the other hand, could be back aboard in fifteen or twenty minutes. I’d imagine they’ll both be gone significantly longer than that, though.”

  “The presence or absence of Jared Mertz probably won’t alter our chances of success very much. In fact, I’d actually prefer we have him in our hands when the time comes. That prevents any last minute heroics.

  “Princess Kelsey on the other hand, is a very different story. There’s no telling what those implants of hers make possible. She might be able to override anything we do. And that’s leaving aside the purely physical aspects of having someone with those combat modifications on the ship with us. Have you made any progress in accessing the ship’s anti-boarding system? Can we get control of the stunners built into the interior of the ship?”

  Jenkins nodded. “I’ve managed to figure out what systems would have to be turned off in order to isolate the system from computer control. It means you have to pull half a dozen modules scattered across the ship at roughly the same time. The computer would notice the situation almost immediately, but I have access inside the computer control facility and I can isolate it. They’d notice immediately, so the clock would be ticking. Once they’re on to the situation, they could restore control in less than a minute.”

  “How obvious is it that the cutoff was intentional?”

  “They’ll know. This is only something we can execute one time.”

  Rawlins considered that. “We may not get a better opportunity. How are we looking on marine strength?”

  “We have a dozen marines, a dozen engineering technicians, and the people we brought to run the ship. We’ll be stretched pretty thin.”

  Thin indeed. Without a full set of engineers and pilots, they’d have to browbeat some of the Pentagaran fleet personnel into working with them. That was dicier than he preferred. Given a choice, he’d want people loyal to the cause in control. There was no telling how the regular crew would react. Would they support the takeover once he made it clear they were under orders? Or would they decide the orders were illegal? Which, of course, they technically were.

  He’d prefer to avoid shooting any of them. Even if they weren’t in on the plan, they were his countrymen. He would if he had to, but he’d regret it.

  Rawlins took a step toward the hatch. “I’ve made a list of the people I think most likely to assist us under duress. It’s in your files. Summon them to a room where the anti-boarding weapons won’t knock them out when Mertz is on his way back. When Mertz docks, we’ll make our move. If the team on the planet starts back before then, contact me.”

  He left without another word. The plan was in motion. The Terrans wouldn’t know what hit them.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lieutenant Reese decided they’d use restored old Empire marine pinnaces for the boarding and planetary exploration. The stealth materials in the pre-Fall pinnaces made them much more difficult to detect and their scanner suites were substantially better than the ones made in the Empire today, even with the occasion glitches they still had.

  They also had remote drones that would make searching the planet significantly easier. Those only interfaced with the pinnaces that launched them. That probably helped in making the decision.

  Jared made the trip over to the shipyard absorbed by the scanner readings. It was even better than sitting in the cockpit during approach. There was nothing between him and the 360 display of everything around them. He quite literally had a ringside seat. He wasn’t certain exactly what a ringside seat was, but it must’ve been pretty good when they coined the phrase.

  The approach was nerve-racking, but uneventful. The shipyard certainly looked like a Pale Ones construction. No paint had been used anywhere, the skin of the hull had very little uniformity, and it seemed like it would probably fall apart if he kicked it. That was probably due to the widespread damage from the fusion weapon.

  Unlike Kelsey, he had absolutely no desire to get between the marines and any threats. Yes, they’d already done a quick search of the shipyard and found no living Pale Ones. Most of the equipment was offline. However, that didn’t mean that there were no dangers. Or that by powering on the systems they wouldn’t create some.

  Sergeant Coulter was giving his team last-minute instructions. They’d begun a pass-through with the engineers to locate any self-destruct charges and disable them. They’d also disconnect any computer system from the networks. Only when those tasks were complete, could they be relatively certain that it was safe to start bringing systems back online.

  When the Sergeant was finished giving his instructions, he turned to Jared. “Captain, do you have any changes to suggest?”

  “I’m not going to interfere with your orders, Sergeant. You’re in charge of tactical operations. I’ll just tell you what I want done and you figure out how to do it. How long do you believe it will take to complete the search for self-destruct devices?”

  Lieutenant Andrews, the leader of the engineering team, cut in. “At least an hour. Perhaps two. That’s not really something I’d like to rush.”

  “Neither would I,” Jared said. “While your people are working on that, let’s see if we can locate the primary computer controls and start isolating it.”

  The engineer, who was sitting across from them in a regular vacuum suit, nodded. “That’s goin
g to be easy. The initial search teams located one major computer control center and a smaller annex. Both of them were disabled when the fusion device went off.”

  Jared had known that from the reports he’d downloaded before the mission. He had a good idea of the layout on the shipyard as well. It was like a map in his head. That was one aspect of having implants that Kelsey had never mentioned. It made absorbing and reviewing data a lot faster.

  “I also want a complete search done for other old Empire equipment. Especially anything that looks like the Pale Ones might interface with it, or if its purpose isn’t clear. I understand that’s somewhat vague, but you get the idea. If it feels odd, I want to know about it.”

  The docking was just as anticlimactic as the trip over. Unlike the large space station they’d boarded to rescue Kelsey, they didn’t land in a bay. They picked one of the empty construction areas that had a retractable boarding tube. Several of the marines floated across to it and manipulated the exterior controls to extend it to the pinnace. The presence of the controls was another anomaly. Savages wouldn’t be in suits, so they’d never have access them.

  There wasn’t any atmosphere in the facility. The explosion had breached every major hull. Which accounted for the lack of resistance when the search teams passed through the first time.

  Gravity was also out, so they floated into the shipyard past the floating bits of equipment and Pale Ones corpses. Engineering teams accompanied by marines split off from the main party as soon as they came to a major intersection in the corridor. Jared let Andrews lead the way to the main computer, even though he knew exactly how to get there on his own.

  It took them about ten minutes and one wrong turn to locate the large computer center. Andrews had his people do a cursory inspection for any booby-traps and then start pulling off access plates. Like most critical computers, the system used hard wires to interface with the station systems.