Command Decisions (Book 3 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  Command Decisions

  Book Three of The Empire of Bones Saga

  by

  Terry Mixon

  Command Decisions

  After winning a hard-fought victory, Commander Jared Mertz and Princess Kelsey discover another insidious foe blocking their way home. A remnant of the Old Empire still exists and seems allied with the savage, AI-dominated Pale Ones.

  With the existence of the Terran Empire at stake, another enemy, this one from Jared’s past, threatens everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. Jared and Kelsey must fight for survival while the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

  Works by Terry Mixon

  The Empire of Bones Saga

  Empire of Bones

  Veil of Shadows

  Command Decisions

  The Mankind Unchained Series

  Liberty Station (forthcoming)

  Anthologies Terry Has Work In

  Dirty Magick: Los Angeles

  Dirty Magick: New Orleans (forthcoming)

  Do you want Terry to email you when he publishes a new book or when one goes on sale? Go to TerryMixon.com and sign up. Those are the only times he’ll contact you. No spam.

  Command Decisions

  Copyright 2015 by Terry Mixon

  Published by Yowling Cat Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and/or retrieval systems, or dissemination of any electronic version, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review, and except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design and composition by Donna Mixon

  Cover Image copyrights:

  Big Stock Photo / 1971yes

  Deposit Photos / kevron2002 (Kevin Carden)

  Deposit Photos / innovari (Luca Oleastri)

  Print edition design and composition by John McCarthy

  Follow him on Twitter: @SurfsideJack

  He may be reached at: SurfsideJack@gmail.com

  Logo Design by Emily Karnes

  She may be reached at: SilkSpinner@ComplexActions.com

  Dedication

  To my wife Donna. I love you more than life itself.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to all of you reading this book. Your support has made this series possible. Hell, it’s made my writing career possible. I deeply appreciate your patronage. And for those of you who left kind words in a review and/or recommended me to a friend, I’m doubly indebted.

  Next, to all of you who’ve interacted with me via email or Facebook. It’s great to meet people who get as much of a kick reading my stories as I get from writing them. Your encouragement has helped me more than you can possibly know. Writing is a lonely business. Thanks for pulling me into the light every once in a while.

  To my podcasting co-hosts: Justin Macumber, Paul E. Cooley, and Scott Roche. Thanks for everything you do. Now go write.

  Finally, thanks to those who beta read this novel: Tracy Bodine, Michael Falkner, Cain Hopwood, Kristopher Neidecker, Bob Noble, Jon Paul Olivier, and Jason Young. I would look like such an amateur without your keen eyes and incisive commentary. Thank you so much.

  Special thanks go to John McCarthy for formatting the print version of this book. And for putting up with me. Seriously.

  Numerous others have participated through comments in one way or another. Thank you.

  Chapter One

  “Behold. Imperial City, the capital of the Terran Empire.”

  Jared Mertz stepped up to the railing and looked out over the vast city. Monolithic buildings stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. Sleek grav cars in every imaginable color flitted past at breakneck speeds.

  The city wasn’t sterile, though. Gardens bloomed in planters on the steep walls where the sun could get to them and wide green spaces lined the ground far, far below. The scents in the air held a hint of nature.

  Pedestrians dominated the ground between the buildings like a swarm of insects. They also filled wide walkways that crossed from one building to another in an endless stream. He’d never seen so many people at one time.

  The implant recording fooled his senses. It felt as though he’d gone back in time to stand in the Old Empire at its heyday.

  Reginald Bell gazed down with a serene expression. “New York City. The most populous metroplex in the old United States. Two hundred and fifty million people. The first Terran emperor changed its name to Imperial City, but the residents here never accepted it. Even though United States of America no longer existed as a political entity, New Yorkers never forgot their heritage. Their attitude was legendary.”

  Jared tilted his head back and looked up. Even though they were on the three hundredth floor, the building still towered over them. “Just how tall is this building?”

  “Four hundred and fifty-two floors, counting the penthouse level. It provided homes and businesses for a quarter of a million people. I suspect many of them never left it during their lives. Not even in the end.”

  A bird landed on the railing about ten meters away. It was a smooth gray and very fat. It stared at them as though it was waiting for them to feed it.

  Jared shook his head. “I can’t believe how real this looks. I can hear the birds, I can smell the ocean, and I can see everything down to the smallest detail. How is that possible?”

  “They brought in special equipment capable of recording in far more detail than any human being can actually sense, even with Princess Kelsey’s commando implants. They wanted every Fleet service member to be able to see Imperial City as it was. There are a number of other recordings just like this from across the Empire in Courageous’ data banks. Unfortunately, they’re made for implant viewing only.”

  Jared sent a mental command to his implants to terminate the vid. Honestly, the word vid felt like the greatest understatement he’d ever made. The incredible view disappeared, leaving him sitting in his quarters aboard the Imperial Fleet battlecruiser Courageous. Across the coffee table from him, Bell opened his eyes.

  The ice in Jared’s drink had almost melted, but he took a deep sip anyway. The alcohol burned going down. “All of that historical detail and only we can see it? That’s going to make the historians revolt if we don’t capture that freighter and its implant supplies. They’ll demand we launch an expedition deeper into the Old Empire immediately.”

  The old man laughed. “I imagine you’re right. Not even the prospect of the Pale Ones would deter them. Courageous might be able to display these vids on a monitor, but much of the fine detail is going to be lost.”

  The Old Empire had designed so many things for people with implants. They hadn’t considered unenhanced human beings needing to access them. Yet, here in the post-Fall Terran Empire, only the three of them had those implants.

  The cataclysmic rebellion and civil war half a millennium ago had wrecked the Old Empire and killed uncounted trillions of people. As of yet, they had no idea how many feral humans survived amid the bones of the Empire. Or how many isolated pockets of civilization like the Kingdom of Pentagar survived.

  The Kingdom occupied a single planet. The resurrected Terran Empire he came from added several dozen heavily populated worlds and perhaps twice that number of frontier planets to the count. That left tens of thousands of systems
that had once been part of the old Terran Empire left to explore.

  And to do that, they had to deal with the artificial intelligences that had staged the revolt and the poor bastards they’d forcibly implanted.

  Bell picked up his glass and sipped his whiskey. “Now that the Pentagarans have their first ships ready, when will you be returning to Erorsi? Have the recordings the AI made changed your plans?”

  During the final battle to control the system next door to Pentagar, Kelsey had defeated the controlling AI and salvaged its data banks. In the process of gathering everything they could, the marines had pulled data off the communications systems the AI had used. The news had not been good.

  “We’re still reviewing the oldest of the transmissions. They go back over five hundred years. I don’t think we’ll get any deeper shocks that we’ve already gotten, though. The AI’s communications records told us everything we needed to know.”

  The AI controlling Erorsi received supplies each year about the same time from what certainly appeared to be a ship from the Old Empire. The most recent conversation between a man and the AI had been brief, but chilling. The human had looked like a Fleet officer. Definitely not a savage like the Pale Ones.

  Unlike this man, the feral humans didn’t even seem capable of speech. Once Princess Kelsey and the marines had destroyed the AI that controlled them, the primitives had ceased to be a direct threat. They’d still need to summon them to a central area and overwrite the corrupted implant code. Then the poor bastards could live out their lives in whatever peace they could find.

  The man in the recording spoke to the AI in an obsequious tone, declaring that the freighter had all the supplies the AI couldn’t build for itself. Including implant hardware. The AI told the man that it had adolescent human beings for them in trade. Children. He shuddered to think of how the others might be using those kids.

  Obviously, something of the Old Empire survived. Something twisted and terrible. Jared’s problems had become several orders of magnitude more complicated with the revelation.

  “Based on the rough schedule of the resupply, it’ll be along in another few weeks,” Jared said. “We go back to Erorsi tomorrow and set up an ambush. We need that freighter’s cargo and we cannot allow it to raise the alarm.

  “Two thirds of Pentagaran ships will hide behind Erorsi while the rest lay in wait with Courageous in the asteroid belt. We’ll catch the freighter and its escort, if any, between the hammer and anvil. The marines will clear the freighter before Kelsey boards to work with its computer.”

  Bell nodded. “You’re short on missiles, so will you be able to handle any escort?”

  “Courageous says the escort is a normally a destroyer, so I think so. We’ve have three dozen missiles left. Any battle will leave us critically short, though, so I’m hoping this is one of the years where the freighter doesn’t have an escort. It comes alone more than half the time.”

  Bell took a sip of his drink. “I hope that’s how it plays out. My people have enough problems. The kinetic strike might not have directly hurt us, but our facility is dependent on hidden farms for food. The impact sent a tremendous amount of debris into the atmosphere. That means a harsh winter that will last half a decade, if we’re lucky. The crops are dead.”

  “Hopefully all the supplies we brought will tide you through. That won’t help the primitive humans out in the wild, though. I’m afraid they’re in for a very rough time.”

  “It’s a tragedy,” Bell agreed. “One bit of good news. We found where the AI was holding this year’s tithe of children. Hundreds of boys and girls between the ages of four and six. We’re doing what we can to fit them into our community.”

  The older man shook his head. “That’s a problem we can solve. What if they send someone looking for the missing ships?”

  “They might not. The communications logs have several instances where the AI and the humans had discussed the lack of a freighter the previous year. It sounds as though they just shrug when a freighter fails to return and send another next year. Hopefully by then, we’ll be able to deal with them. We don’t really have a choice. Once we stop the freighter, we’ll do what we can to help your people recover Erorsi.”

  “We appreciate your assistance, but that’s going to take much, much longer than either one of us has left to dedicate to it. Your people will be trying to find your way home soon. Are you taking a Pentagaran embassy with you? Perhaps Crown Princess Elise?” Bell’s lips quirked up in a smile.

  Jared wished she was coming along, but that wasn’t realistic. Their relationship had grown closer over the last several months. They’d taken to dining together almost every night, and frequently took sightseeing trips around the Kingdom enjoying one another’s company. They’d become intimate in the last few weeks, but no one could possibly know about that. They’d taken elaborate precautions.

  He didn’t want to admit he’d fallen in love with her, because that kind of relationship was doomed from the start. One day she’d rule her people in her father’s place, while he’d be going far away, perhaps never to return.

  Jared sighed. “I’m certain they’ll be sending an embassy with us, but I doubt Elise will be coming along.”

  “Well, I hope for both your sakes that you’re wrong.”

  Jared felt his gaze narrowing. “Pardon me?”

  The older man smiled. “Don’t frown at me, Captain Mertz. I’m just making an observation. The two of you seem so well suited to one another. And I’d rather not lose the pool.”

  “Pool? What pool?”

  “The pool the crew has on whether she’s coming along with us. I’m rather pleased to say that most of us are behind you. The Pentagaran members of the crew think she’s not coming. The rest of us are wagering love will win out.”

  His heart leapt into his throat. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Bell laughed. “Then you’re the last one to know, my boy. Everyone can see how the two of you feel about one another. That may well be the worst kept secret ever.”

  The news flabbergasted Jared. They’d been so careful!

  “Please tell me you’re kidding about the pool. Who knows?”

  The older man shook his head, his eyes full of laughter. “We go out of our way to spare your dignity and to give you both the privacy you deserve, but we all know. Should I place a bet for you? No, that sounds unethical now that I think about it.”

  The buzzer to his cabin spared Jared the agony of figuring out how to respond. He rose and walked over to the hatch, still eying Bell. He only remembered that he could’ve checked the vid feed with his implants after he’d opened the hatch.

  His half-sister, Princess Kelsey Bandar, breezed past him. Sister, he corrected. She’d insisted they drop the qualifier. He didn’t imagine her real brother, Ethan, would feel the same way.

  “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had,” she complained. “Talbot is a slave driver. Tell me you have beer.”

  Senior Sergeant Talbot, her ever-present Imperial Marine guard, followed her in with an apologetic nod to his commanding officer. “She’s exaggerating, Captain. She barely broke a sweat.”

  Jared closed the hatch with a grin at their repartee and headed for his kitchen. “I have some beer chilled down to the edge of freezing for you. As always. What exactly did the monster have you doing today?”

  Not anything she couldn’t handle, he was sure. The commando implants the Pale Ones had forced upon his sister made her almost superhuman. Graphene reinforced bones, artificially enhanced musculature, and sophisticated combat programming in her implants made her improbably formidable.

  Kelsey took the beer from him, twisted off the cap, and drank deeply. “Running,” she said when she’d finished a long draft. “He made me run up a mountain.”

  Talbot opened his own beer more sedately. “Pfftt. That was barely a hill. My drill instructor made us sprint up much more difficult terrain than that before breakfast.”

  “In unpowered comba
t armor with a pack that weighed more than twice your weight? I doubt that.”

  “With that exact weight,” he shot back. “It’s not my fault you’re such a little bitty thing.”

  She smiled wickedly at the burly marine. “That’s not what you said when I tossed your ass around the mat yesterday. I seem to recall you saying something more along the lines of ‘I think you broke me.’ Isn’t that right?”

  Jared opened his mouth to add his opinion when it hit him. Perhaps it was because Bell had raised the thought in his mind, but now he wondered how he could’ve missed the way these two were looking at one another. The way they were talking to one another.

  Their body language spoke volumes. Talbot reached out to touch Kelsey’s arm as she sat down and she wasn’t pulling back when their legs pressed together. It spoke of just the same kind of intimacy that he and Elise shared.

  They were lovers.

  His sister was the daughter of the Terran emperor, second in line to the Imperial Throne. Talbot was a marine noncom charged with guarding and training her. For helping her to adjust to the implants. For them to be involved in a relationship was…

  None of his damned business, he realized. She wasn’t an officer in his chain of command. She was a civilian. There were no laws or Fleet regulations against them having a relationship.

  Kelsey frowned at him. “What’s wrong? Did something go down the wrong pipe?”

  He nodded. “That’s exactly what happened. Sorry. As for running up a mountain, that doesn’t sound like much of a challenge for you, Kelsey. I’ve seen how much you can lift in the weight room. Why was it so stressful?”

  “Because he made me do it at a full run for over an hour. I don’t care how enhanced you are, your real muscles will complain in half that time.”