Reconnaissance in Force (Book 6 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  She used her implants to go over the scanner readings from the spy probes. The resolution was crappy, but without going active, they’d need to rely on the emissions from the ships themselves. The destroyer seemed like a Zombie class, just like before.

  The little destroyers had been ubiquitous in the Old Empire. They were very utilitarian and filled a number of roles with ease.

  The freighter was larger than the last one, and the power output was a tad higher, but that was probably fine. With a missed shipment, they’d probably brought enough to make up for the loss.

  “Remind me why we’re not using those fancy FTL coms that Sir Carl developed,” Levy said.

  “Because it’s possible they’d detect the signal. It does generate a small, but noticeable gravitic signature. They might not be able to tap into it like Omega did, but we don’t want to take any chance of tipping them off that we’re here.

  “There’s also the fact that Sir Carl is still putting them together. We thought we’d have a while longer to get ready.”

  He nodded. “I really hope we don’t need it this time.”

  “Thankfully, we only have a destroyer and freighter to worry about.”

  She settled back into her chair. In half a day, this would be over. One way or the other. She hoped they captured the freighter intact. That was just the kind of break they needed to have a fighting chance.

  * * * * *

  Jared had to admit he was surprised by how early the freighter was, but the records they’d recovered from Erorsi had a few occurrences this early in the year. He was damned lucky he’d been conservative.

  Though, to be fair, even if his forces had missed the arrival completely, the Pentagaran forces were well situated to take care of the two ships.

  With Zia’s early warning, it was no problem at all to get the various ships in the Erorsi system into hiding. Invincible was in Erorsi orbit, taking the place of the destroyed orbital.

  With the two shipyards there, that made three objects with fusion plants for the approaching destroyer to detect. Since that was what it expected to see, he’d made sure they could mimic the old orbital’s output as closely as possible.

  It only took a moment to access the strategic map of the Erorsi system. Some of the ships were out of place, but racing to get in position before the freighter and its escort arrived. There was plenty of time, so long as the warship didn’t outpace its slower companion, and that seemed unlikely.

  Persephone was almost in position. The Marine Raider ship was almost undetectable when either moving slowly or stopped. She would sit behind the flip point.

  The plan was to launch both of the Marine Raider pinnaces ahead of the expected arrival and get them inbound. That would reduce the required acceleration to match courses. It also meant they were vulnerable to being spotted, or even failing to catch up if the target ships took a different course in.

  He’d worked extensively with Marcus in playtesting the attack runs. They had a very high chance of being on the proper course, and almost a two-thirds chance of escaping detection.

  Those were odds he could live with. The chancy part came when the boarding parties seized the freighter. That’s when everything could go to hell.

  “If the ships bump their speed ten percent, how long until they transit, Marcus?”

  “A little more than five hours, Admiral.”

  He nodded. All their assets into place in less than three. That worked.

  Now it became a waiting game. One with a chance to increase their overall odds of success dramatically in the war against the Rebel Empire. Unlike the last time, they had the edge in firepower now. If needed, they could saturate the destroyer’s defenses and obliterate it without risking any marines.

  * * * * *

  Kelsey didn’t wait for Persephone to get into position before she launched the stealthed cutters. She, of course, went with them.

  Major Angela Ellis—her former bodyguard and new executive officer—would rather have had her stay on the ship, but that reduced the chances of quietly capturing the freighter by almost twenty percent. Too high a risk to take.

  Of course, Angela had sicced a new minder on her. Lieutenant Regina Paulson wasn’t as physically imposing as Kelsey’s tall friend, but she was a tough and determined marine. Kelsey was sure the dark-headed woman had secret orders to keep her as safe as anyone could in a firefight.

  The princess was in her Raider armor and outfitted for war. Not that she expected to need most of her weapons on this mission, but she’d been caught short far too many times to skimp when she had the chance to prepare in advance of the trouble.

  Half of the recovery team was on this pinnace, along with three dozen marines in unpowered armor. The other pinnace had the other half of the recovery team and another set of marines. If only one pinnace managed to rendezvous with the freighter, they could still carry out the mission.

  Kelsey sat at the pinnace commander’s station on the marine deck. It gave her a wide console to oversee a map of the system. Even though she was completely comfortable using her implants, there was something about seeing the data laid out like this that made it feel more natural. She doubted that would ever change.

  This feels like old times, Ned Quincy said.

  “You can use your outside voice,” she said aloud. “Everyone, Ned Quincy is an AI that is going to appear beside me. Don’t be alarmed.”

  The marines already knew Ned, but she hadn’t had any reason to tell the recovery team. She probably should keep his existence secret, but she’d grown tired of talking to him in her head.

  His image appeared beside her, made to look solid by the emitters she’d installed. He waved at the goggle-eyed recovery agents. “Afternoon. The princess should also mention that I’m classified. Keep this under your collective hats.”

  They nodded and kept watching the projection curiously. Lieutenant Paulson wandered over from the rest of the marines.

  Ned turned to face them both. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. Sneaking up on other ships is a stock in trade for the Raiders. The destroyer complicates matters, but if they aren’t looking too hard, they’ll miss us. Even at point blank range.”

  “Any last minute advice?” Kelsey asked.

  “Commit. Once you’re in, push through hard and fast. The worst-case scenario is getting onto the freighter and having word get out while you’re still capturing it. Make sure you don’t give anyone time to yell, either in person or over the com.”

  Kelsey nodded. “Good advice. We’ll be in a good position by the time the destroyer and freighter flip into the system. It’s all a matter of waiting for them to catch up with us. Piece of cake.”

  Her gut put the lie to her casual words, though. Being able to make more Raiders was riding on this mission. If anything went wrong, they might not be able to recreate what was done to her, and they desperately needed more people with her capabilities.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This wasn’t her first rodeo. She’d make it happen, even with the inevitable surprises along the way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brandon was sitting at one of the spare consoles on the flag bridge practicing with his implants when he spotted an unusual reading from the freighter. At first he thought it was the relatively unfocused nature of the passive scanners themselves, but the more he refined the data, the more certain he became that there was actually something different about the ship.

  “Captain, I may have something,” he said.

  She turned in her seat and gave him her full attention. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been using the passive scanner data to practice using my implants, and I think there’s something different about the freighter. Not as in just different data based on the class, either. Something that shouldn’t be there.”

  As the ships had come closer, they’d been able to narrow down the classes until the probability was over ninety percent. That was just about a certainty, con
sidering the limited number of possibilities. He had a very good idea of what the readings from the freighter should look like, but there was something off.

  “How so?” she asked.

  “We’re almost certain it’s a Yeager class freighter, but I think I’m seeing more than one fusion plant. There’s the ghost of a second one in the data.”

  Anderson’s eyes unfocused for a moment and then she frowned. “I think you’re right. It’s shielded, I think. Not as well as it could be, but easy enough to miss if you’re not looking closely. Good catch.”

  She tapped her console. “Most freighters only have a single fusion plant. This must be some kind of custom job. I wonder what they need the extra power for.”

  “Could it be a weapon?”

  As a former tactical officer, he knew she had to be thinking along those lines, but it was his place to ask the question.

  “I suppose so, but I’m not seeing the reason. They have a destroyer right next to them. Against the ships the Pale Ones used, it’s more than capable of handling the job. Even if they wanted to give it some punch, they’d go with missiles. Beams are too short ranged to give an otherwise unarmed ship.”

  “Maybe they gave it battle screens.”

  “That might make more sense, but again, why? It’s a freighter. The cost and space required for the second fusion plant would eat into cargo capacity and make it a lot less profitable.”

  One of the women monitoring the consoles around them stiffened and turned in her seat. “The destroyer just went to active scans.”

  “Are we in danger of detection?” Anderson asked.

  “No, ma’am. We’re too far away for a normal return from our hulls, and with the fusion plants at standby, they won’t be able to detect the reduced power output. The drones we have shadowing them came from Persephone. They’re heavily stealthed and I don’t think they’ll see them either.”

  “Then what are they doing?”

  Brandon tapped into the appropriate scanner feeds and examined the raw data. “It looks like the scans are stronger in front of the ship. I think they might be giving the flip point to Erorsi a closer look. We don’t have anything there to detect, so we should be safe.”

  The captain frowned. “It must be worried about an ambush of some kind. That might make sense with the loss of the last freighter and escort. Their suspicion is going to make the princess’s job harder, though.”

  He shook his head. “Do we have any idea why the Rebel Empire is so cavalier about losing ships? They run the Empire. If someone was taking out my destroyers, I’d be worried.”

  “Commander Richards didn’t know. He wasn’t on the command track, so they restricted the information he had on certain things.”

  The destroyer seemed satisfied after about fifteen minutes of scanning and went back to passive.

  They watched it get closer to the flip point over the next few hours. The last thirty minutes was the hardest. Brandon knew the captain probably wanted to get their fusion plants back to full capacity, but they couldn’t afford to jump the gun. They’d wait until the ships were gone before they even started the process.

  “Status change,” the ship’s computer said. “Passive scanners are picking up other vessels in the system.”

  The captain sat bolt upright. “What? Where? How many and what kinds?”

  “Numerous vessels have transited the other flip point into this system. With this unit’s probes shadowing the original vessels, the passive scanners did not detect them until they engaged their drives at full power. This unit is detecting twenty-six ships accelerating at military speeds.”

  Brandon accessed the feed through his implants. There wasn’t much data at all for him to examine.

  “We need to launch other probes to intercept the new forces,” he said. “The destroyer was looking for anyone at the Erorsi flip point that could detect this task force.”

  Anderson nodded. “That has to be it. Why? This has never happened on previous supply runs.”

  “Then it isn’t a supply mission,” he said grimly. “It’s an ambush. One we can’t warn the admiral about.”

  She shook her head. “Worse, we can’t stop the princess from boarding the freighter. With that extra fusion plant, it must be some kind of Q-ship. It looks like a cargo hauler, but they’ve converted it into a warship. She’s going to sneak on board looking for supplies and probably find an armed military crew.”

  * * * * *

  Kelsey watched the freighter and its escort flip into the system through the passive scanners with satisfaction. The game was on.

  Once the two ships had begun accelerating into the system, she was able to get a better idea of their course and speed. It wasn’t as firmly nailed down as an active scanner reading would get, but close enough.

  She opened a general frequency. “Okay, people, we’re on. They’re actively scanning the area around the flip point. That’ll probably die down as they become more comfortable with their surroundings.

  “They’re on a course for Erorsi that pretty well matches our estimates. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll board in about an hour. An attack that far out from any planet will be so unexpected that we should be able to seize the freighter without too much trouble. Then we’ll signal Admiral Mertz and he’ll ambush the destroyer.”

  One of the recovery agents, Andrew Olivier, spoke up. “What if the destroyer isn’t happy with our signals once the fighting starts? We can’t trot out the original crew. They’ll tip our hands. We can’t make them suspicious.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” she said. “The ambush will kick off with one of our destroyers shooting at the freighter and almost missing. The debris from the missile explosion will miss us, but we’ll pretend it knocked out our drives and communications. There will be enough uncertainty that our people should be able to separate the two ships. Then the ruse won’t matter.”

  They spent the next half-hour going over the details. Once they’d made a few last minute tweaks, they settled into their restraints. Now was the critical moment. The approach and boarding could go wrong in so many ways.

  They’d approach with the freighter between them and the destroyer, maximizing their chances of going undetected. Once close to the hull, the two pinnaces would split up and attach at predetermined locations.

  Time crawled as the freighter grew large in the passive scanners. No one on board seemed to notice them, but her heart was racing. It didn’t slow until the pinnaces split up and attached to the hull.

  The most dangerous part of the operation was over. They’d snuck up on the target. Now all they had to do was get on board and incapacitate the crew.

  Kelsey unstrapped and lowered the ramp. The radios they were now using were low powered, but she didn’t even want to chance that. She used hand signals to get everyone moving in the manner she wanted.

  The recovery team took the lead to the targeted airlock. It was one used for emergency ingress. They used a very similar procedure to what the marines had done when they’d attacked Boxer Station. They cut the metal around the controls and bypassed the sensor wires.

  She made a mental note to have that particular security flaw corrected on Persephone. If someone snuck onto her ship, she wanted to know about it.

  The hatch opened soundlessly into the vacuum. It was a standard emergency airlock, so there was room for half a dozen suited people. Two of the recovery agents and three marines joined her inside.

  The recovery agents did some more work on the interior controls before they cycled the airlock again. Probably making sure the inner door didn’t signal the bridge.

  Maybe she should have them do a security review on Persephone to identify weaknesses she hadn’t considered.

  The airlock opened off a corridor. It was empty. She attached a remote to the bulkhead and kept everyone inside as the rest of the team came inside.

  Once she had everyone inside, she consulted her implant map for the ship class. Her team was responsible fo
r securing the bridge and computer center. There were some crew quarters on the way that they’d bypass and deal with after they made sure no call for help would be forthcoming.

  They ran into a problem almost immediately. The corridor dead-ended without the lift she’d expected.

  Why close off the corridor like this? There wasn’t any cargo area in this part of the ship. This made no sense.

  Well, they didn’t have time to figure it out. She backtracked and found a set of stairs that took them up three levels. The bridge and computer center were on the same deck, adjacent to one another.

  That’s where they ran into their first crewman.

  The woman came out of a compartment almost as soon as Kelsey entered the corridor. She was dressed in a dark coverall with a tool belt strapped around her waist. Best guess was that she was in maintenance.

  Kelsey had been ready for this, and had her stunner out. The pale blue beam took the woman in the chest while she was still gaping. She collapsed at once, making a little noise.

  “Lisa?” a voice called out from inside the compartment. “You okay?”

  A glance inside showed a man in a similar coverall working on an air handler. He had no more warning than his friend did before Kelsey stunned him.

  The marines hauled the woman into the compartment and tied them up.

  “This is a stroke of luck,” Hopwood said. “We can use these coveralls to get our people closer to the bridge without raising suspicions. These two don’t have implants, so I won’t need to use the jammers Sir Carl worked up on them.”

  “Jammers?”

  He nodded. “To keep prisoners quiet. Think of it as a little helmet with a chinstrap. Once we have them tied up, that would keep officers from screaming for help electronically.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she admitted. “Too bad we don’t have something that works over a larger area. Preferably without silencing us.”

  The man grinned. “I think he’s working on something like that.”