Behind Enemy Lines (Empire of Bones Saga Book 7)

by Terry Mixon

  “Not only are they too powerful, but they seem too knowledgeable. If they’d had access to even a portion of this technology, that mad computer would never have been able to hold them.”

  About that time, one of the marines twitched. The stunner effects were wearing off.

  Castille stood and gestured toward the ramp. “Everyone out. Take the military prisoners with you. Stash them in a compartment on the base. I want to control what the woman sees when she wakes up. A bunch of mostly naked people will give her the wrong impression of what’s going on.”

  Veronica raised an eyebrow as she stood. “And what kind of impression are you going to give in your underwear?”

  He grinned. “A good one, from all accounts. However, I’m going to dress before she wakes up, even if it’s still damp. If she’s used to being in control, she’s going to resist. Most of those types think Fleet officers are jumped-up proles. I can’t afford to feed into the mind-set.”

  She walked down the ramp with him. He probably did cut a wide swath through the ladies. He wasn’t her type, though. Not even close.

  After he’d dressed and gone back inside the cutter, she stared out over the water. No matter what Castille believed, she strongly suspected the contents of the tablets—and even the computers themselves—would horrify the security officer, as they would her, if for different reasons.

  Based on the long-abandoned state of this facility, if they could find any information at all, she’d be willing to trust that it was accurate.

  She wondered what she would do if their captors had been truthful with her. What if the AIs truly were the monsters those people said? What if her entire life had been a lie?

  At this point, did it really matter? She’d served the Empire for decades. Was she going to stop now?

  Would Castille even let them stop? Would he want to? Security officers were intensely dedicated to the Empire. He’d keep fighting, even if the truth was ugly.

  That raised an interesting question. Did he already know the answers to the questions she’d been asking herself? Did he willingly serve things like Levy thought the AIs were?

  She sighed. No matter how this played out, their lives were changing. She could feel it in her bones.

  Raul sat near where the prisoner lay on one of the acceleration couches. He’d left her hands bound in front of her, so she’d be fairly comfortable. He might have to change that if she proved uncooperative.

  The woman’s eyelids flickered momentarily and then flew open. She raised her hands to her head and groaned.

  He sympathized. Stunners left the most obnoxious headaches.

  “My apologies for the rough manner in which you’ve been treated,” he said.

  She glared at him. “What the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you?”

  “My name is Raul Castille. I’m afraid that you’re still a prisoner, but you’ve traded up for a better class of captor.”

  The woman rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “That remains to be seen.”

  He spread his hands with a smile. “Now that you’re awake, why don’t we get to know one another? While it’s true that I have you at a disadvantage, our situation is not all one-sided. For example, I don’t know who you are. Perhaps you could enlighten me.”

  “How could you possibly not know who I am? Were you born in a cave?”

  He blinked, nonplussed. “Apparently so. I take it that you believe yourself to be someone important. You’re going to have to give me a few pointers if you expect me to grovel appropriately.”

  The woman managed to draw herself up haughtily. “I am Justine Bandar.”

  “You’re related to Kelsey Bandar? Why did she have you in custody?”

  The woman stared at him as though he were an imbecile. “I’m Justine Bandar, ex-wife to the Terran emperor, mother to the crown princess. One of the most powerful nobles in the Empire.”

  She sounded so arrogant that he had no difficulty believing that she was telling the truth. Except for the fact that he wasn’t ready to buy into this story that there was another Empire.

  “Ah. I see the problem. I’m not from the Empire. At least, not your Empire.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? I thought my daughter was making that up.”

  Raul opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. He wasn’t quite certain how to respond. He’d expected defiance or fear, not whatever this was.

  “Well,” he said after a moment. “This is going to be a refreshing change of pace for me. Why was your daughter holding you prisoner? Did you break some law?”

  “If I’m not going to give my daughter the satisfaction of cooperating with this absurd charade, what makes you think I’m going to behave any differently toward you? I did nothing wrong.”

  Yes, this was going to be significantly different from his normal interrogation technique. The woman wasn’t going to be much of a physical threat, so perhaps he should lead with the carrot.

  He rose to his feet and stepped toward her. “Now that you’re awake and I have a better idea of who I’m dealing with, I think it’s safe enough to unlock those restraints.”

  She wasted no time in extending her hands toward him.

  Once he removed the cuffs, she rubbed her wrists. “At least this is a step in the right direction. That doesn’t make up for you giving me this beastly headache.

  “My daughter has kept me locked in a dreary little room since she caught me. I was never one to pay much attention to the news. I honestly have no idea who you are.”

  Raul had worked almost exclusively with Fleet personnel for the last decade. His experience in dealing with civilians—particularly those belonging to the higher orders—was strictly limited. That’s what this woman was, though she probably used different words to describe her social class.

  “It sounds as though your daughter did you a great injustice,” he said, making certain to have a compassionate tone.

  “You have no idea. This is all so much more complicated than it needed to be.”

  “It turns out that I have time to listen, and I’m told that I have a sympathetic ear.”

  Justine Bandar considered him for a moment. “Perhaps the two of us do have the potential to exchange information. I’ll tell you my story, if you tell me yours. And I want some water and a pain pill.”

  He had absolutely no idea what they were going to discuss, but if it gave him insight into the enemy, it was more than worth the time to be chatty. It only took him a moment to get her some water and a pain pill.

  Raul handed them to her and leaned back in his chair. “You have my word that I will share information as freely as you do. Why don’t you begin?”

  This was going to be fascinating.

  21

  It only took Carl about fifteen minutes to identify the occupied system. The maps they had of the old Terran Empire called it Archibald.

  Kelsey thought that was one hell of a name. Archibald was one of the original core worlds. Persephone’s database listed it as once having a population above ten billion.

  Of course, that was before the Fall. Based on the space traffic they’d observed and the sheer number of communications they’d intercepted, that was probably still accurate.

  It’s population undoubtedly dwarfed Avalon’s. She’d seen the recordings of Imperial City in the old days. Cities like that probably covered Archibald.

  While the historical data available to her was interesting, Kelsey sat on pins and needles waiting for the probe to return with more information. It arrived on schedule without any issues and began streaming what it had captured into their systems.

  It was going to take time to make sense of all the details. All she wanted from the initial readings was a feel for how dangerous this place was going to be for them.

  Carl looked up from his console. “Based on the communications the probe intercepted, I can confirm that this is Archibald.”

  Kelsey stood and walked over to him. “That’s nice, but it do
esn’t really get us where we need to go.”

  “I agree,” he said. “Several of the other probes we’ve sent out have found other flip branches that are potentially more useful. Both are empty systems that aren’t on any Imperial map that I’ve discovered.”

  “Any sign of the ghosts?”

  “Nothing yet. That doesn’t mean they didn’t use those systems, though. They had to go somewhere. Also, I need to check the multiflip point from the other side.”

  Kelsey cocked her head. “You mean the two sides might access different systems?”

  The young scientist nodded. “Almost certainly. Just because it links to the system we’re in with one branch doesn’t mean that all of its available branches will go to the same locations as this side. We’re going to have to do a thorough check to be sure.”

  Kelsey supposed that made sense. Exploring these new multiflip points was going to be incredibly complex. If she understood correctly, it was theoretically possible to flip from one side to the other, pick another branch flip to a new system, perhaps many times. All without traveling across any of the systems they visited.

  That allowed a traveler to visit a ridiculous number of systems in an extremely short period of time, but only after they had mapped out the frequencies required to transition to those systems.

  The ghosts might be only hours away, though perhaps any number of unmapped flips stood between them.

  “Are those two systems the only other possible branches from this multiflip point?” Kelsey finally asked.

  “Probably not. I still need to figure out the frequency boundaries and probe each zone to be certain.”

  Carl bent down. “In fact, one of the probes just visited a fourth system. Hm. I’m picking up a few radio signals. There’s definitely somebody there, but they aren’t spread throughout the system. All the transmissions appear to be coming from the same area of space.”

  “Send the probe back to get us more information. That might be where the ghosts went.”

  Another hour passed. Kelsey spent some of the nervous energy building inside her by getting food for everyone on the bridge. They’d just finished eating when the probe returned.

  “I don’t think this is a ghost system,” Carl said slowly.

  “Why not?” Kelsey asked.

  He wordlessly threw an image onto the screen.

  Kelsey wasn’t certain if this was a news program or some other kind of entertainment, but the person centered in the video was definitely not human. Very close, but with some startling differences.

  The being was tall and slender with pale turquoise skin. Based on the being’s prominently displayed assets, the speaker was female.

  The similarities between these beings and humans were incredible. She had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth in the same locations as a human woman. As were her breasts.

  Her eyes seemed larger, though not by much. Her nose was slender and short. Her mouth wider. Unless Kelsey was mistaken, her teeth seemed a tad pointed too.

  Kelsey thought she looked exotic, but beautiful. “Well, I didn’t expect to find aliens. Can you explain why they look so much like us?”

  The young scientist shrugged. “I have no idea. The only other aliens we’ve encountered were radically different.”

  The race of beings that had built Omega station in the Nova system and traveled to a different dimension had been aquatic.

  Their study of the Omega race was still in its infancy. What she knew for certain was that anything was possible when it came to alien life. The Omega race was nothing like humanity in physical shape.

  Kelsey frowned. “You tapped into their video pretty easily. Shouldn’t figuring out their transmission protocols have taken you a while?”

  “You’d think so. Here’s another mystery for you. They’re using standard Imperial frequencies and encoding.”

  She blinked. “Excuse me? These are aliens. How is that even possible?”

  “I haven’t got the faintest idea. What I can tell you is that they’re only located on one planet in the system. It’s in the habitable zone, though far outside the range this probe can pick up. They may not be as advanced as this makes them seem.”

  Kelsey rubbed her forehead. “We don’t have time to investigate all these mysteries. We need to find the ghosts, not aliens that somehow got their hands on Imperial technology.”

  “What makes you think the two aren’t connected?” Angela asked from her console. “Perhaps the ghosts traded with the natives. If they were advanced enough to make use of Imperial technology, they might have provided something useful in return.”

  “Isn’t there some kind of rule that forbids interfering with aliens? Some kind of prime directive?”

  “You’ve been watching too many of those old prespaceflight entertainment vids. The Old Empire never met an alien species. Why would they have a rule against uplifting them?

  “Even if they did, these ghosts were desperate. I think they’d be willing to break that particular rule if it gave them an advantage they needed to survive.”

  Kelsey shook her head. “Dispatch three stealthed probes into the system to gather more information. In fact, send probes into all the empty systems as well. Start mapping them. We’ll leave the one probe at the Archibald multiflip point to continue gathering data.

  “Carl, I need to know how many potential branches this side of the multiflip point has. I want probes in every single one of them within the next hour. You can spend time after that doing your experiments to narrow down the frequency bands, but I need to know what we’re dealing with.

  “Until we find out more information, we’ll designate this system as Pandora, so we have a name to call it. Besides, the alien’s skin color makes me think of that old movie where they used the name.”

  “On it,” Carl said.

  Kelsey returned to her seat and gestured for Angela to join her. “This is spinning out of control. The number of systems we can potentially access is going to keep growing exponentially.”

  “That’s a lot better than having no potential destinations,” the tall marine said reasonably. “At least we might find another system that leads us back to Pentagar or Harrison’s World. Potentially even home.”

  “If we’re lucky. If not, we’ll need to find the ghosts. They went somewhere. It would be very useful to make friendly contact with them.”

  The marine clapped Kelsey on the shoulder. “You’re still new at this. Just be glad no one is shooting at you.”

  Kelsey supposed that was true. Things could always be worse.

  Of course, things could always get better too. Maybe Talbot would find the escapees quickly. She might not like her mother very much right now, but she wanted her safe. Fast.

  Once her uniform dried, Veronica began examining the tablets they’d been charging inside the abandoned facility. Most of the contents seemed innocuous. Their owners had used them for everyday tasks, and there were no files worthy of further study.

  That was until she found a journal. That proved both fascinating and horrifying.

  The fascination stemmed from the fact that the man who wrote it—Commander Frank Beaumont—had obviously been keeping a record of his daily activities and thoughts for years. The entries spanned five decades.

  The earliest entries gave her a flavor of what it was like growing up on an agricultural world far from the center of the Empire. It documented how his family raised food for more populous systems.

  Frank’s father hadn’t been pleased when he’d joined Fleet. That didn’t seem to bother Frank all that much. The two of them seemed to have issues.

  Veronica only skimmed the entries, but it quickly became clear that this man hadn’t lived under anything like the old dictatorship as she knew it.

  Then came the revolution. That’s where things became horrifying.

  Once fighting broke out, he documented everything. She no longer nursed any doubts that Captain Levy had told her the unvarnished truth. The AIs had lied. The ho
rrors she read made her physically ill.

  She forced herself to continue reading until his ship—the battlecruiser Infamous—escaped an ambush while escorting a number of civilian ships filled with refugees near Dresden.

  He documented how the AI-controlled ships had mercilessly vaporized the defenseless civilian vessels where they could. That alone told her the truth. It was monstrous.

  The commodore commanding the protective task force had rallied and counterattacked. She’d defeated the attackers, but reinforcements attacked the pickets she’d left at Dresden. That forced her into hiding.

  Their task force didn’t have supplies to stay in the outer system forever, but it was too dangerous to travel farther. They repaired what they could and waited.

  His account didn’t specify how he’d gotten to this system. Perhaps he didn’t know.

  She set the tablet down on the dirty console and rubbed her eyes. She could continue reading, but his story had already answered the most important questions she’d had. She knew who’d built the base and why they’d concealed it so well.

  How could this be happening? How could everything she knew be a lie?

  And what the hell could she do about it?

  Castille wouldn’t accept this. She knew it. He’d either declare it to be some kind of trick or find a reason to disregard the story. What he’d probably done to Commodore Murdock made it clear the lengths he was willing to go for the Empire.

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to make a decision about how to proceed right now. He was still busy questioning the female prisoner. Whatever they were discussing must’ve been fascinating. He’d been in the cutter for hours.

  The two marines and the cutter pilot had woken shortly after the woman. Her people had them in an old conference room. She’d resisted the urge to question them. Maybe that had been the wrong call.

  She went in search of cleaning supplies. Once she had enough basic equipment, she had Graham take it all to the conference room.