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

by Terry Mixon

  “Less than a minute. I can’t control the anti-boarding weapons. They’re slaved to the bridge.”

  He accessed the ship’s systems. He couldn’t isolate them, either, but he could lock them out just like Baxter could in engineering. They accepted his shutdown command authorization and went offline just moments before an order to activate came in from the bridge.

  “I locked them out,” he shouted. “We have a chance.”

  Jared opened a channel to the Chief Engineer’s appropriated communication unit. “This is Mertz. We have the computer center. Thirty seconds to computer activation and I’ve locked out the anti-boarding weapons. What’s your status?”

  “We’re in engineering. We’re exchanging fire with the mutineers. Give me…one second…”

  The main overhead lights went out and the emergency backups came on dimly.

  “Main power cut,” Baxter said. “Oops. Someone just dumped the flip capacitors. I’m so clumsy. This ship won’t be flipping anywhere until you say so. This won’t stop the computer from coming online.”

  “Can you hold?”

  “It looks like the mutineers are giving up. We have things under control here.”

  The screens around Jared came to life and he felt the computer’s presence through his implants. Courageous online, Captain. Status?

  “Mutineers have the bridge. We think we’ve restored control in engineering. We’re trying to take the bridge. There are other hostiles outside the mess halls. That’s where the crew is. Can you access the anti-boarding weapons?”

  The computer switched to audible communication. “The boarding suppression systems have been placed on remote control. This unit sees that you have locked them out. That is all this unit could do until the modifications are removed.”

  “Hopefully we won’t need them. Coulter, take your men and hunt down the guards. We’ll lead you to them. I’m locking the computer center hatches until this is over.”

  “Aye, sir.” The marines followed him out. Jared closed the armored hatch behind them and locked it. He engaged the manual lock so that no one else could use a surprise code to open it. They’d have to burn him out.

  Jared took off his helmet and called Graves. “Status?”

  Someone else answered. “Ensign Turner, sir. They repulsed our attack. Commander Graves is hurt bad. The medics are rushing him to the medical center. We’ve called on them to surrender. They refused. We’re about to make another try.”

  “Hold for a minute. I’ll try to talk them out.”

  He opened a channel to the bridge. For a moment, it didn’t look like they would answer. Then the image of a man bleeding from a cut on his forehead appeared. It was not Rawlins.

  “You,” he snarled. “How the hell did you get out of the mess hall?”

  The man looked vaguely familiar, but Jared couldn’t put a name to him. “Put Rawlins on. It’s time to end this.”

  The man laughed roughly. “You’re going to need better communications gear than even the old Empire had to do that. He’s dead. You’ll deal with me.”

  “Fine. We have control of the ship. The main computer is back online and I control engineering. My people are hunting you down in the corridors as we speak. Surrender the bridge.”

  The man shook his head. “The King will have our heads, even if you don’t. You want your bridge back? Come and take it.” He grinned without the slightest bit of humor. “Oh, and I have some bad news for you. Rawlins retargeted the asteroid on your precious Princess when he retrieved our men from it. It’s on a ballistic course, so she won’t even see it coming. With the jammers in place, you don’t even have enough time to warn her that death is coming. I’ll see you in Hell.” The transmission ended.

  Jared’s heart jumped into his throat as he called the Ensign back. “Take the bridge right now. Medical care for any survivors, but don’t take chances.”

  “Aye, sir. Turner out.”

  He opened a channel to engineering and started giving orders as soon as Baxter appeared. “Get us headed back to Erorsi Prime at flank speed. Redline the drives. They’re dropping a kinetic strike onto Kelsey and the team.”

  The news wiped the smile off Baxter’s face. “I’ll wring every kilometer per second from the drives that I can. Engineering out.”

  Jared ran his hand across his face. He hoped the man was lying, but he couldn’t count on it. He had to find a way to get the ship back to Erorsi in time to save his sister. Even if he needed a miracle.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It took hours to strip the data units from the flooded battlecruiser and load them aboard the pinnace. Kelsey doubted they would be of much use without the assistance of people who knew the technology. That meant Bell and his associates.

  Thankfully, they’d probably be happy to help. Even though her team had failed to capture a functional AI, the Pale Ones converging on the mountain facility had never made it further than the foothills. They’d milled around for a while and then dispersed.

  She stood on the shores of the lake and stared at the sky. Had Jared stopped the mutineers? She prayed so, but they wouldn’t know until they made it to the shipyards.

  That’s when she noticed a streak of light high up in the atmosphere. No, several streaks. She wondered if they were meteors.

  Her implants popped up notice of an incoming transmission. Priority One. That sounded important. She accepted it.

  A distorted image of her brother appeared. “Kelsey! The mutineers redirected the asteroid back on your position! You have to get out of there right now! Hurry!” The message began repeating, but that ceased as the streaks above her exploded in little puffs of light.

  She whirled toward the pinnace and opened the general marine channel. “Incoming kinetic strike! Everyone into the pinnace right now! Drop everything and run!”

  Kelsey brought up the locator beacons for all the marines. Thank God no one was in the water. Most of the men were in or around the pinnace, but a few were inside the transmitter building. Including Talbot.

  “Talbot! Move it!”

  “I’ve almost got the data unit with the transmission records,” he said. “Thirty seconds. A minute, tops.”

  Cursing, she ran past the pinnace and into the building, dodging the other men as they came boiling out. Talbot had a data unit partly extracted from the computer. She grabbed it with one hand and ripped it out. She snatched him up with the other and bolted.

  Her enhanced musculature and powered armor got them both outside in a hurry. She triggered the grav assist and leapt for the pinnace. Her armor took them almost twenty meters into the air and dropped them right behind the last of the men running up the ramp.

  “Lift off!” Reese shouted as he raised the ramp behind them. “Maximum acceleration. Head for the mountains.”

  Kelsey glared at Talbot. “Now who’s making someone crazy? Have you lost your mind?” She shook the data unit at him. “This isn’t worth your life.”

  “Actually, it might be. This isn’t just a log of messages. It’s recordings of the content, too. I only had time to scan a few messages, but I think these are critically important. But, thanks for the lift.”

  “Everyone into your seats and activate the crash harnesses.” Reese shoved the data unit into a storage compartment. “Since we don’t have to go stealth, we’ll be over the mountains in fifteen minutes. How far off is the strike?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “I don’t know. The recording didn’t say.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to hope we have time.”

  That’s when she picked up something high above them through the pinnace’s scanners. It was closing in at an incredible rate of speed. “Here it comes! Impact on the lake in just a few seconds!”

  “Get us on the deck,” Reese yelled at the pilots as he strapped himself in. “Find some cover.”

  The streak in the sky descended with deceptive slowness, almost crawling toward the ground as the pinnace dove for cover. They almost made it to a ridgeli
ne ahead of them before the sky behind them lit up with intolerable brightness.

  “How long does it take a shockwave to—”

  A giant hand smashed the pinnace from the sky. It tumbled like a toy hurled by an angry child. The pilots jammed on the grav drives at the last moment and flipped them upright just before they plowed into the forest.

  Kelsey must’ve lost consciousness because the pinnace was a smoldering wreck when she woke up.

  Her restraints resisted her attempts to free herself, so she ripped them off. A few marines staggered around, but most hung limply from their crash harnesses. Her armor pinged their suits. Some of them were dead, but most were alive, if in bad shape.

  The fact that any of them had lived through the crash was a testament to the engineers who’d designed the pinnace and its safety system.

  Then she remembered the pilots. She couldn’t sense their condition. She forced her way onto the flight deck and discovered it had taken the worst of the impact. The pinnace had dug a furrow like a plow, knocking aside trees and rocks as it gouged the ground.

  One of the pilots hung from her harness, staring numbly at the stump of her right arm. The other pilot was missing, a jagged hole in the fuselage where he’d sat. The forest outside burned.

  Kelsey ripped some wiring from the shattered control consoles and tied a tourniquet on the woman’s arm just as Talbot heaved himself onto the flight deck. She was relieved to see him. She was almost as relived to see the medic behind him.

  She stepped back beside Talbot and watched the medic treat the injured pilot. “I didn’t think we were going to make it. I thought we were going to die.”

  “Me, too. I can’t imagine how they got us down in one piece.”

  That’s when the shakes hit her. They hit her so hard that her teeth chattered.

  Talbot pulled her into a hug. “It’s going to be okay. Just let it go.”

  And she did, the tears came pouring from her. Tears of relief, tears of grief, and tears of terror.

  * * * * *

  They were still bringing the injured out of the crashed pinnace when another pinnace howled in from above like a roaring beast of prey. It had barely touched the ground before it disgorged marines who rushed in to help with the rescue operations. A second pinnace landed right behind it with Doctor Stone and her medical teams.

  Jared came out at a run right behind them. “Kelsey! Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said through her still-tight chest. “Most of us made it, but some of the marines are badly hurt. One of the pilots is somewhere back there.” She gestured toward the raging forest fire behind them. Of course, except for the scar they’d made while crashing, everything around them was on fire.

  “We’ll start a search. I’m glad you got our message. I was afraid we weren’t going to get back in time.”

  “What were those things you sent? Probes?”

  He shook his head. “Five missiles. We added a communications package onto them and fired them as soon as we got in range of the planet. They were the only things fast enough to beat the asteroid.”

  Doctor Stone took the worst of the injured onto her pinnace and lifted off for Courageous. It took another hour for the rest of them to recover all the data units they’d captured. And to find the pilot’s body.

  Jared filled her in on the mutiny and his fight to regain control of the ship and she recounted their attack on the AI. He shook his head when they she finished. “We were both lucky. Luckier than we deserve to be.”

  “I know. I’ve been loaded down with all these implants and now had an asteroid dropped on my head. My father is going to be pissed. I hope you like Thule.”

  Once they had everything secure, they lifted off and headed for the mountains. They landed in almost the same place as Kelsey had this morning. She shook her head. Had it only been this morning? It felt like an eternity ago.

  She led her half-brother to the hidden entrance, which opened as soon as they arrived. Da Silva was waiting to escort them to the same conference room that she’d visited earlier. Once again, Reginald Bell was waiting for her. Alone this time.

  The old man gestured for them to sit. “We found some sturdier chairs, Princess. You look like you need to sit down.”

  Kelsey sat wearily. “Reginald Bell, this is our expedition commander, Captain Jared Mertz. Jared, Reginald Bell.”

  “Captain Mertz. It’s a great pleasure to meet you, though I wish it had been under better circumstances.” He straightened and saluted, his fist to his chest. “Ensign Bell reporting, Captain.”

  Jared returned the salute and extended his hand to old man. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’m so sorry that we weren’t able to stop the kinetic strike. I hope your people made it through.”

  The older man clasped Jared’s hand in his. “They designed this facility to survive a near miss from just such a weapon. I’m pleased to say it is a credit to its designers. I’m much more concerned with the long-term effects of the impact. We’re guessing that there will be months of darkness under a global debris cloud and years of bitter winters. The roving tribes of primitives will suffer greatly.”

  “I wish we could offer more help there, but it will be weeks before any other ships can arrive. Even then, the scale of this disaster is beyond imagining. We’ll do what we can, but it won’t be nearly enough.”

  “We appreciate everything that you can do. I can hardly credit that you’ve brought Courageous back to life. I never expected to meet a Fleet officer again.”

  Jared spread his hands. “Seeing everything about Courageous, I’m almost hesitant to call myself Fleet. Meeting a true Fleet officer is an unexpected dream come true. If you only knew how many questions I have.”

  “Don’t raise us to mythical heights, Captain. I’d imagine your Fleet is much like the one I served. Good men and women doing the best they could. Technology doesn’t define who we are. Was the impact a rebel counterattack?”

  “More like a last gasp, though I’m afraid the Pale Ones aren’t directly responsible for it in the end. It’s a long story, but the important part is that we’ve defeated the rebels. The controlling AI is gone.”

  The man blinked in surprise. “You’re certain?”

  Kelsey nodded. “There was a wrecked battlecruiser in a lake. We entered it and I communicated with it before I shut it down. Then the kinetic strike blew it up. No mistake.”

  Bell shook his head as though trying to clear away cobwebs. “It’s hard to believe. Can this nightmare truly be over?”

  Jared put a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “It is. We’ve defeated the rebels and freed Erorsi. I’m just sorry we couldn’t stop the asteroid. Erorsi was such a beautiful world.”

  “And it will be again. We recovered from the initial bombardment. We’ll survive this one, too. I think this calls for a drink. I happen to have some truly magnificent brandy in my quarters. I’ve been saving it for just this moment. I won’t tell my doctor if you don’t.”

  Jared shook his head with an expression of regret. “I’m afraid we can’t stay. Events are driving us back to the system next door. Pentagar. We’re on a tight schedule. Can we evacuate any of your people?”

  “Let me call the others. They’re helping put things right after the earthquake.” He walked slowly to the conference table and called someone.

  Jared put his hand on Kelsey’s shoulder. “I wish we didn’t have to rush back. I wasn’t kidding about all the questions. We might have all the data files imaginable on Courageous, but we don’t have any experience using the technology. He was a serving Fleet officer. The things he’s learned about tactics would be invaluable.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. Things didn’t work out so well against the rebels. Don’t be blinded by our vision of the old Empire. We’ve crawled back to our feet after a knockout punch. That’s huge. And what you’ve accomplished on this mission alone is the stuff of legend.”

  His skeptical expression made her laugh. �
��Think about it, Jared. You’ve brought an old Empire ship back to life. You’ve met the rebels and defeated them. You captured an entire planetary system with one ship. Tell me one of your contemporary officers that can claim anything like that.”

  “You’re exaggerating my role in all this. You played a bigger hand in this than I did.”

  She shook her head. “We’ve done it as a team. Bet nobody saw that coming.”

  He smiled. “No. I’m certain no one imagined anything like what we’ve done together. I was wrong to want you to stay home. You’re the soul of this expedition. I’m even warming to the half-sister part.”

  His words made her feel more than a bit guilty. He still didn’t know that she wasn’t genetically his sister. To his credit, she imagined that wouldn’t make one bit of difference to him.

  Bell ended his call and walked back over to them. “We’ve discussed the matter and decided that we’re not leaving. This is our world. It needs us. We’ll send a team of people back with you, if you have no objection. It behooves us to get to know you and our neighbors. And to get what help we can for the savages living in the wild.”

  “I understand. Will you be joining us?”

  “I shouldn’t, but I long to walk the corridors of my old ship one last time. My days are numbered and the chance will likely never come again. Our party will be several dozen people, if that’s acceptable. We should be ready to go in an hour.”

  Her half-brother grinned. “We’d be happy to have them. If you have any technical specialists that might come along, I know some people would love to talk to them. And we have the Pale Ones data units to get into. They’re water damaged and we can’t chance ruining them.”

  Bell nodded. “Our technical knowhow has slipped some from the days of old, but I’ll add a few people to our roster that can help. That’s what neighbors do.”

  * * * * *

  After they docked, Kelsey watched the old man walk out into Courageous with tears in her eyes.