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

by Terry Mixon

  “What about the ship itself? Can you restore power?”

  “Not a chance. You nailed the support equipment on both fusion plants. The repairs will take a while. The good news is that this ship is repairable. Zia will have to give you a rundown on the weapons systems, but they can probably be repaired as well, given enough time.”

  Jared didn’t think they’d be fixing this ship any time soon. That would probably fall to the Pentagarans. “What about the drives?”

  “Undamaged. I could maneuver the ship if it had power. The flip capacitors are charged, so if you tow the ship back into the flip point we can get it back to Erorsi.”

  He grunted at the unexpected good news. “And the drive systems will let you? I figured the control systems would be locked down.”

  “They are,” the engineer said cheerfully. “I’ll manually trigger the flip at the drive itself. You give the word and we’ll get going.”

  “Okay. I’ll have our small craft get the ship moving toward the flip point. Good work.”

  It would take several hours for the small craft to get the hulk drifting into the flip point. Thankfully, it wasn’t far away. The extra time would allow the probes they’d sent out to scan the rest of the system. He doubted there was any human presence at all, but it never hurt to be sure.

  The last stop on his tour was to see Kelsey. She was in marine country. Of course. It had become her second home. He supposed she had more in common with them now. She’d been through things only they could understand. And her lover was a marine.

  She was out of her armor and dressed in the clothes she’d worn earlier. A bandage on her left arm was the only sign anything had changed. She headed over as soon as he came in. “Don’t get on me about this. My armor isn’t impervious.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t get into these fights, but I’m glad you’re well protected when you do. You communicated with the guy in the computer center. What did he say?”

  “He thought I was someone else. He wanted to know the status of rigging a self-destruct device. Called me a traitor when he figured out he didn’t know me. That pretty much sums up our chat. Did we get anyone else with implants?”

  Jared shook his head. “No. Based on the initial evidence, it looks like officers had implants and enlisted didn’t. Doctor Leonard is scrubbing the virus out of the one prisoner’s implants as we speak. Once he finishes, I want you to lead the questioning.”

  Kelsey gave him a surprised look. “Me? I don’t know anything about interrogation.”

  “Perhaps not, but you’re good at talking to people. He might say something to you that he wouldn’t say to me. At least you’ll be able to get a dialog going. I want to know who he thinks you are. A traitor to whom?”

  She nodded. “Okay. First, though, I’m going back over to the destroyer. Some pieces of equipment require implants to access. I also want to look at the weapons we recovered. They seem about on par with the ones we have. If so, we can commandeer their ammunition supply. That’ll be a lot faster than restoring what we found here on Courageous.”

  He looked over at her armor on its stand. There were several spots that had obviously taken hits. The arm had stayed mostly intact, even after multiple hits. “Do they have anything like this?”

  “Ask me after we finish searching the ship. One of your shots took out their marine country, so we haven’t had a chance to do a thorough search of it. No one we fought was in powered armored, though.”

  Jared nodded. “Get into your spare armor first. I wouldn’t want any unexploded ordinance to put you in danger. The marines will examine the destroyer’s two pinnaces to see if we can replace the one we lost. If so, we’ll do it before we flip back to Erorsi.”

  She cocked her head. “Why? Is there a rush?”

  “I expect Breckenridge to try and confiscate that ship as soon as we get back over there. Baxter can flip it once. We might be able to recharge the flip capacitors again and get it to Pentagar. But anything we want off that ship needs to be over here before we go.”

  “We’ll see who ends up in control of what,” she said grimly. “I’ll be sure to scavenge anything that looks interesting, though. What about the ship’s missiles? Could they replace what we’ve used?”

  “God, I hope so. We could use a break.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kelsey used her armor’s lamp to look into what was left of the destroyer’s marine country. One of Courageous’ beams had ripped it open and incinerated so much. Bodies and parts of bodies floated by her. The artificial gravity had finally failed all over the ship.

  Some of these bodies were in standard marine powered armor. Not all of them. Fewer than a dozen, though it was hard to be sure. She was going to have more nightmares. They must’ve assembled here, waiting to see where Courageous’ crew boarded. And then Jared had drilled a hole right through them.

  Talbot and his men fanned out as they searched the area. The beams hadn’t destroyed everything. The armory was intact. They had to cut the hatch off, but inside was a treasure trove. Ammunition that would work in their flechette weapons, power packs, and other high tech weapons of war.

  Including more armor. Two suits of Old Empire marine armor in racks.

  She stopped to give one of them a closer look. It resembled her armor, but the plates were significantly thicker. She tried to query it via her implants, but it demanded a code she didn’t have.

  Odd. Her suit hadn’t needed one. Why would these?

  “Talbot, these suits look like they’re intact. I can’t access them, but I don’t think they require enhanced musculature like mine.”

  She removed one of the helmets. It had a real view screen inside the faceplate. “I’m not sure why, but it has manual controls under the chin and a screen to see the outside world.”

  He took the helmet and looked inside it. “We have something similar. We use our chins to control communications and other functions. These can work without implants.”

  “Then why have implant access at all?”

  “That’s a good question. One we’ll probably need the eggheads to answer. I bet they can hack these suits.” He gave her a smile. “I hope so, because then I can keep up with you.”

  “You wish.” She pulled a massive plasma gun off a rack on the wall. “Holy cow. Look at this thing. I could take out a pinnace with one of these. It must be one of the heavy weapons I read about. There are big honking flechette rifles, too. The neural disruptors are small, though. Made for unarmored people.”

  “It doesn’t make much sense to have the guys in armor carry weapons that won’t work on the people they’re fighting. Let’s give the rest of marine country a look.”

  They found a storage area with crated equipment, but not much else of interest. Reese made the decision to take everything back over to Courageous before examining the contents. Kelsey made sure they stripped the armory. None of these weapons was going to be falling into Breckenridge’s clutches if he pulled a fast one.

  One of the pinnaces was unrepairable. The beam that blew through marine country took out its bow. The other seemed intact. The enemy had locked the controls, so they called Carl Owlet down to break into it while they loaded as much of the weapons and armor aboard as they could.

  She gave the young computer scientist a suspicious look when he arrived. “You’re pretty good at boosting vehicles. Did you have a life of crime before going to university?”

  He laughed and started working on the pinnace’s console. “Hardly. I’ve just had enough experience on this expedition to make up for it. Especially on this ship. It looks like they locked everything down. Including stuff that doesn’t even make sense. It’s as though this ship was designed by someone with paranoid delusions.”

  “Perhaps it was. These people are working with the Pale Ones, so odds are good they’re rebels. Or whatever the rebels became after they won. How are you getting around the lockouts? Or even accessing the equipment with main power down?”

  “Most
stuff can be operated by someone without implants and we brought portable power supplies. I dig into the mechanical elements and isolate the lockout. Then it’s just a matter of convincing the equipment that I have an authorized code.” The red light on the center console went green. “Like that. It won’t prompt for codes anymore. Is there anything else I can unlock for you?”

  She smiled. “Actually, there is.” She showed him one of the suits of armor they were loading.

  He examined it. “I might be able to swing it, but not here. I need to get at the critical components. Man, this looks kick ass. Excuse my language.”

  “No apology necessary. It is kick ass. Now, while they finish loading the pinnace, I’d like to see a few areas of the ship. If you could get me in, that will save some wear and tear on the hatches.”

  “Sure. If Commander Baxter needs me, he’ll call.”

  Kelsey gave Talbot the high sign. “Come on.”

  She set off looking for the captain’s quarters. They found it after a few false turns. The hatch gave way under the young man’s computer skills, sliding open on an opulent chamber.

  These quarters were almost the same size as hers were on Courageous. That made them improbably large in a destroyer. The extra space had to come from somewhere. Probably from other people’s living areas.

  Luxurious white carpet covered the deck, and wood and glass furniture filled the space. Art graced the walls and knickknacks of gold and silver occupied prominent shelves, secured against zero-G. She looked around with disbelief.

  “This looks more like a king’s quarters than a small ship’s captain. It doesn’t seem like someone of Jared’s rank could afford this.”

  Talbot looked into one of the other compartments in the suite. “This bedroom is like a bordello. Not that I’m familiar with the inside of one,” he hastily added.

  “You’d better not be.” She found the office. A large desk of pale wood dominated one side of the room. Holos covered the walls. It only took a moment to identify the captain. A short, thin woman with long brunette hair. She was in every image. Her companions ranged from Fleet officers to well-dressed civilians. The civilians all had the same sleek look that the worst members of the Imperial Senate had back home. Oily. Scheming.

  Kelsey floated behind the desk. “Can you access this console?”

  “The AI is down, so that means the network is offline. The emergency power switch is on the right side under the edge. I’ll get one of the portable power supplies if we need to.”

  She powered the console on and tried to access it when it came up. “It’s secured.”

  “Let me take a run at it.”

  The computer genius opened the side of the console and began tinkering inside. “This thing is fully encrypted. I can get in, but it’ll take me a few minutes. I might not be able to fully access it, either.”

  “Do the best you can.”

  Talbot poked his head into the office. “Kelsey, you’ll want to see this.”

  She followed him back to the bedroom. It was even worse than she’d feared. The walls were passion red and the bed looked like it could hold a dozen people. Talbot led her to the closet. One side had what looked like regulation Fleet uniforms, though of an expensive cut. The other had clothes that Kelsey would be mortified to wear in private.

  “Seriously? And you wanted me to see this why? Not a chance in hell, buddy.”

  He grinned at her through the faceplate of his armor. “While that makes for an interesting visual, no. What I want you to see is behind the uniforms.”

  She slid them to the side and saw what he meant. There was a safe in the back of the closet. “Right you are. You win a reward of my choice later.”

  It looked like it was implant controlled. If so, she’d never get it open. It was sturdy, too, but people with the right tools could open anything, given enough time.

  “How’s it going in there, Carl?”

  “I’m almost…I’m in. The console is coming up. The unsecure portions of it are available.”

  “Do you know anything about safes?”

  “As in the vault kind? Not yet.”

  The young man came into the bedroom and jetted to a stop, gawking at the furnishings. His face looked almost as red as the silk covers.

  “Wow. This is…unexpected.”

  “You can say that again. Give this a look.”

  He examined the safe. “I could probably cut it open with enough time, but that might damage the contents. There might be an easier way. Come back to the office with me.”

  She followed him. “Something in here could get me in there?”

  “Maybe. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Tell me, do you use the same computer password for everything?”

  Kelsey frowned. “What does my computer password have to do with anything?”

  “People tend to select one or a few passwords and then use them for a lot of systems. Odds are good that the commander of this ship was no exception. I’d give better than 50/50 odds that the access for this console is the same as the safe.”

  “That’s an interesting fact, but we don’t have that code. It’s in the dead captain’s head.”

  “We might be able to convince the console to give it up. I’m going to try to fool the system into giving you the key. When I tell you to, try to access the console.”

  He dug back into the guts of the console. “Now.”

  She tried to access the console and it rejected her. “It blocked me.”

  “This might take a few tries.”

  In fact, it took almost half an hour and she was ready to give up when the console unexpectedly sent her a complicated code.

  “It sent me an access code,” she said in surprise.

  “Thank God. I was afraid this wasn’t going to work after all. Hang on a second and let me get the system put back together.”

  He reassembled the console and floated away. “Go ahead.”

  She fed the console the code and the secure sections unlocked. There were a number of files that she was afraid to access. This computer had been in rebel hands. She didn’t mind looking, but she didn’t want to pull anything into her internal memory until the professionals had it fully checked out.

  “Is there any way to copy files from this console on a portable device?”

  Owlet nodded. “There are some auxiliary data ports that we can use to transfer files. I brought some in my bag.”

  Kelsey returned the bedroom and Talbot while Owlet got back to work. She put her hands on her hips and stared disapprovingly at the closet. “I can’t believe someone would have clothes like this. These unmentionables really are unmentionable.”

  “I can assure you the only unmentionables I want to mention are yours.”

  “Not in public. Wow. She held up some type of corset. It looked like something a dominatrix would wear. “Did you find a whip?” she asked rhetorically.

  “As a matter of fact I did.” He pulled one off the shelf above the clothes. It wasn’t very long, but it had some heft. Having someone beat you with this would be painful. Very painful.

  Talbot held up one of the uniforms. “This is almost your size. With a little bit of tailoring for your height, you could wear it.”

  “Thankfully, I don’t have to.” She stared down at the safe. “I’m almost afraid what we’ll find inside it.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  She nodded and sent the code she’d stolen from the console. The safe clicked open. “Remind me to start picking a different password for everything that needs one.”

  “Me, too. What’s inside?”

  There were several shelves inside. The topmost held two sleek pistols. The top one’s barrel told her it was a neural disruptor, but it was substantially smaller than the pistols they’d found so far. The one under it was an even smaller flechette pistol. Both easily concealable.

  She picked the neural disruptor up and queried it with her implants. It rejected her attempt to connect with it.
She’d seen this before. Weapons could be set so that only a particular set of implants could fire them. The marines had figured out how to reset them.

  She pocketed the pistols and their custom power packs. The middle shelf held folders of printouts. She flipped through several of them and determined they were personnel files of some kind. A few of the subjects were Fleet personnel, but many were civilian. She’d take them with her and examine them more closely when she had time.

  The bottommost shelf had the most interesting items thus far. Data chips in small cases. Dozens of them. And any data worth locking into a safe had to be important to the person keeping it. Perhaps critical data on this Rebel Empire.

  “I want all of this back on Courageous,” she said to Talbot. “This captain seems like the devious type. There might be hidden stuff we haven’t found. Go over her quarters with a fine-toothed comb. We’ll need every edge we can get once they find out about us.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took several hours for Courageous’ small craft to tow the crippled destroyer back into the flip point. Jared sent one of the Pentagaran warships through first to be sure that everyone knew not to open fire when the destroyer appeared. They’d sacrificed a lot to capture the ship and he didn’t want to see it destroyed.

  Zia turned from her console. “The destroyer is inside the flip point, Captain.”

  “Give them the signal to flip in thirty seconds. Take us across.”

  The flip made him momentarily dizzy, but he recovered quickly. The Old Empire implants made the process easier. That was a nice bonus.

  He quickly picked up a number of Pentagaran warships surrounding the flip point. No Fleet ships though. Those were all still engaged in search and rescue.

  Jared quickly sent a prerecorded message to the ships around him, reiterating his instructions not to open fire on the destroyer. It appeared a few seconds later without incident.

  “Signal incoming from Spear,” Zia said.