Ghosts of Empire (Book 4 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  That was good. That was great.

  Except for the fact that the last one was on internal power and coming to life. That was bad. Very bad.

  The bad guys must’ve focused their attention on that one. It made sense. A completely functional warship of that size would have a very good chance of taking out every mobile vessel in this system. It could certainly defend this planet from all attacks while they took their time getting the other three ready to fight, especially with the armed station above it.

  Kelsey and the rest had an excellent chance of taking everything else intact. All that left for him to do was figure out how to defeat a ship the size and power of Courageous with a damaged Marine Recon vessel. One with only two operational beam weapons and no missiles at all.

  “The operational battlecruiser has detached from the station,” Lieutenant Brand said. “It raised battle screens before it exited the stations cover. They appear to be opening the range from the station, but are not accelerating much at all.”

  “Can we penetrate their screens with our beams, Persephone?”

  “Yes, Admiral. However, the amount of damage this vessel can cause is limited and its battle screens are significantly weaker than those of a battlecruiser. One direct salvo will likely destroy this vessel.”

  They needed a bigger weapon. Well, it just so happened that they had one. He opened a ship-wide channel. “All hands, this is Admiral Mertz. I want all non-essential personnel to go to the rescue pods and stand by. When I give the order, the rest of you will have thirty seconds to join them. Slave all controls to the bridge. I’ll eject you when the time is right. It’s been an honor.”

  That seemed entirely too much like the speech he’d given on Invincible earlier.

  “Lieutenant Brand, lay in a course to ram the battlecruiser in the engineering section. If we can disable their drives, it won’t be a threat anymore.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll need to move us around to a better approach vector. It will only take a—”

  She leaned forward and stared at her console. “Explosion on the battlecruiser. Something big in the engineering section.”

  Jared tapped into the scanner feed. It was a damned big explosion. Now there were large secondary blasts ripping the aft section of the ship into chunks. Its grav drives failed and it began falling.

  That’s when he saw a pinnace detach from the hull of the doomed battlecruiser. It looked damaged, too.

  “We’re receiving a transmission,” Brand said.

  The overheads came to life. “Persephone, this is Talbot. We’ve disengaged from the battlecruiser, but we took some damage. A hand would be really nice because our drive just failed.”

  The pinnace arced downward and disappeared into the clouds below the station. It didn’t have the strong hull a battlecruiser did. The pressure would quickly crush it.

  “Take us after it,” Jared ordered. He hoped they could catch it before the pressure did their own compromised hull fatal damage. If that happened, they’d all die.

  * * * * *

  The bomb was right where the tech suspected. On any other day, he’d stare at all the art and baubles packed into the small room. Today he only had eyes for the oblong weapon set on top of an ancient, hand-carved chest.

  Sean stared at the complex bundles of wires and controls on the nuclear weapon with apprehension. Especially when the armorer shook his head.

  “No way,” the man said. “I can’t defuse that in five minutes.”

  The tech attached her computer to it. “Maybe we can disable the anti-tampering mechanisms. It’s not as if we have much to lose. We can’t get far enough away to survive the blast anyway.”

  Feeling like a third wheel, Sean watched the two of them work feverishly. The countdown clock was racing toward zero and still time seemed to flow like molasses.

  At fifty-three seconds, the tech shouted in triumph. “I’ve disabled the anti-tampering features!”

  “Can you disarm it?”

  The marine shook his head. “No, but I’ll keep trying.”

  That’s when the solution hit Sean. “Can we accidentally set it off?”

  “No.”

  “Put the spare breaching charge on it and run like hell.”

  The man gaped at him for a second, whipped off his pack, and pulled out the spare charge. He fiddled with the controls and slid it under the bomb. “Out! We need to close the vault to maximize the damage.”

  That was probably going to piss off a number of wealthy and powerful people. He could live with that.

  Seconds later, the three of them had the vault closed and were running for all they were worth. They made it into the stairwell just as the charge went off.

  The good news was that he immediately knew the nuke had failed to explode. The bad news was that the stairs collapsed on them and he lost consciousness in a moment bright with pain.

  * * * * *

  Kelsey hunched down and returned fire at the hostiles. They didn’t have powered armor, so the exchange was very unfair. And lethal.

  “Make a bridgehead,” she said. “Find the control room and let’s pin them down.”

  The marines moved ahead of her and immediately ran into heavy resistance. They kept moving forward, but the bad guys contested every centimeter. The fighters on the other side had the benefit of knowing the layout and having prepared the area for defense. They hadn’t had long, but someone over there knew what they were doing.

  “All teams,” Kelsey said. “Send everyone you can to deck nine. Find a way in and put pressure on the defenders. Hell, make a new way in and keep them off balance. We need to end this now before someone over there gets desperate.”

  She got responses from everyone but Talbot.

  “Talbot? Do you read?”

  More ominous silence.

  “Anyone from team two. Respond.”

  After another lengthy silence, she called Jared. “Persephone, do you see anything going on with battlecruiser two?”

  Her brother’s silence was even more frightening.

  An explosion in the distance announced one of the other teams making a move. The marines in front of her used it as a cue to drive forward. There was a hail of flechettes and then they were overrunning the defenders.

  The fight trailed off rapidly from there. The defense had been very fragile. Once the marines made it in, they rapidly seized control of the deck. Except for the armored hatch leading to the control center.

  With the ships not showing signs of resistance, and no one finding people on any other deck, she suspected the remaining enemy was on the other side of that hatch. So, she needed to get inside and end this.

  But she’d try to talk them into surrendering first. There were obviously things going on under the surface of Harrison’s World that she’d like to settle before they had to leave.

  The hatch had a communications interface, so she linked to it through her armor.

  “Surely you don’t expect us to just open the door?” a man asked. He sounded cultured. Refined.

  “That would be the sensible thing to do,” she said. “We have control of this station and the ships. This isn’t going to go in your favor. Yield and you live. Resist and die. It’s as simple as that.”

  He laughed. “After what we’ve already done? Don’t insult my intelligence. You’ll turn us over to someone on Harrison’s World for trial and execution.”

  She had to admit he had a point. There was no chance these people wouldn’t pay the ultimate penalty for their part in the nuclear explosions. No matter what she promised, that debt would need to be paid.

  “True,” she said. “How about a quick death after a fair and speedy trial?”

  She didn’t know where she’d read that, but it seemed like the appropriate brand of gallows humor.

  “Thanks, but we’ll just stay where we are. You’re welcome to come in, but I promise you a warm welcome. Oh, and I’m sure you’d rather not destroy the controls and computer for this station. That might mak
e things dicey when the grav drives fail. Like what happened to your ship.”

  Hopefully, that was a lie, but Jared’s silence worried her.

  She terminated the conversation and turned to the marines. “Okay, we need a plan to get into that compartment without destroying everything. Ideas?”

  Lieutenant Terry Evans eyed the hatch. “That looks pretty thick. We need to figure out how large the control center is and see if there are other ways in.”

  “That’s a good place to start,” she said. “Everyone spread out and find me a way in. I’ll watch the hatch.”

  It only took them a few minutes to make the assessment and regroup.

  “It’s big,” Evans said. “Maybe thirty meters across. This is the only entrance on this level.”

  “What about above it or below?”

  He shook his head. “We’d have to breach it, and that’ll still wreck almost everything in there when we come in shooting.”

  It doesn’t have to.

  She listened to the voice of the dead Marine Raider. What are you thinking, Ned?

  If you set a plasma grenade on the lowest setting, it will probably breach the compartment. I’d suggest the ceiling. The odds of something important being that high are minimal. Once you gain access, you can toss a combat remote down the hole and jump in after it.

  Kelsey shook her head. I’d still trash the compartment with flechettes. If I go for stunners, they’ll shoot it up resisting me. And me too, of course.

  They’ll be somewhat disoriented from the breaching. To minimize damage, I suggest you use my swords. If the marines toss in smoke, the enemy will have difficulty even seeing you. Your implants will let you see them just fine, though.

  I’ve never used those swords in combat. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be very effective with them. You had years of practice and training.

  And I could use them for you, if you permit.

  She considered the plan for a moment and slowly nodded. I’ll do it. Thanks. You have my permission to control my body during the upcoming combat until the fighting is over.

  “Okay,” she said. “Here’s the plan.”

  To say they all thought it was a bad idea was an understatement. Suicide was the word that Evans used.

  So, she put her foot down. “I think the odds are a little better than that. In the end, what choice do we have? Come on. We don’t have any more time to waste.”

  She almost dragged a couple of reluctant marines up to the next level and estimated where the control center was under them. There were some empty compartments that might have been offices on a normal space station. Leave it to an AI to include them on a station that most likely never saw a permanent staff.

  Kelsey picked the compartment that was best placed and got everyone ready. One marine would toss the reduced strength plasma grenade, another would throw a combat remote into the breach, and the rest would follow up with smoke.

  She drew her swords. “Go.”

  Even at reduced strength, the plasma grenade sounded like the end of the world. It blasted a hole in the deck bigger than the office. The marines followed up with the remote and smoke.

  Her armor processed the signals and gave her a layout of the control center. It was big, all right. And full of people staggering around as though they were drunk and firing pistols at shadows.

  No time to waste.

  Kelsey jumped into the compartment and gave herself over to Ned Quincy.

  It was very much like when she’d allowed what was to become Ned to control her the last time. Except this time there was a lot more blood. Arms and hands seemed to be the preferred targets to her swings, though there were a few thrusts. And screams. Lots of screams.

  All in all, killing everyone in the compartment didn’t prove necessary, thank God. Some people were unconscious and others chose to surrender. Those with missing hands or arms had no choice but to stop fighting or die.

  Less than thirty seconds after she jumped into the compartment, the fight was over and Ned returned control of her body to her.

  She really needed to start working with these swords so that she could do that for herself. She opened the hatch and the marines rushed in, securing the compartment and the prisoners.

  While they did that, Kelsey found an active control panel and accessed the station’s scanners.

  The battlecruiser was far below them. It seemed to be in the process of coming apart as it fell. Persephone was somewhat higher, but also falling. She doubted it could go much lower and survive.

  * * * * *

  Jared had to take Persephone deeper than he’d have preferred, but the able Lieutenant Brand came up with a way to save the pinnace. She flew the ship under it and slowed their descent until the pinnace was safely on top of the ship.

  The marines made their way to the nearest airlock, which was on a slope, so that made getting them in trickier than it would have been in space. Then they slowly rose up until they were back in the same clear atmospheric band as the station.

  As soon as they became visible, Kelsey called the ship.

  “Thank God!” she said. “We thought you were gone.”

  “No,” he said, “though getting Talbot and his men off that ship was a hell of a lot more complicated than it should’ve been. What’s your status?”

  “We’ve secured the station. We have injured and wounded prisoners. The station computer is being unexpectedly cooperative. The prisoners never expected us to get into the control room so quickly. I found an open console with the command overrides already entered.”

  She smiled at him over the link. “This fight is over.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Twenty-four hours later, Jared was sitting back at Lord Hawthorne’s estate with Kelsey at his side, Olivia West and Commander Meyer sat across from him, and Lord Hawthorne was making drinks.

  The commander was a bit worse for wear. He sported an arm that had been broken twice in one day, three broken ribs, and a shattered knee, but he was in good spirits. Things could’ve been worse. He didn’t die in a nuclear explosion, for example.

  “Are we sure that there aren’t any other little surprises scattered around the system?” Lord Hawthorne asked.

  Jared shrugged. “We can’t tell until we examine everything more closely, but why have a second station hidden when you have something like that one?”

  Olivia nodded. “That fits with what we’ve been able to pull from Abigail and Lord Calder. Once we authorized the use of truth drugs, they spilled their secrets readily enough. Our forces raided their secret base—the one where their single pinnace came from—and we’ll be going through their secrets for quite some time. The gas giant station was there as backup for the system AI, by the way. If things got bad, it would activate the extra ships.

  “Your attack on Boxer Station was so sudden and overwhelming that it didn’t have time to complete the activation. After you won, the station shut the battlecruisers back down when it never received final orders from the AI.”

  She sighed. “And it illustrates how badly outclassed we’d have been if we’d have attacked it on our own. It would have destroyed us. Thank you.”

  “Yet here you are,” Kelsey said, “in undisputed control of this planet. With the loyalists on the run, you can consolidate your gains. And now that Doctor Leonard has repaired the malfunctioning flip jammer, we’re not in deadly danger of the computer-controlled destroyers overrunning us.

  “Speaking of which, he could use some help repairing the third one that was damaged in the original fight. We’d like to block Erorsi and Pentagar off from the Rebel Empire. In fact, it would be very useful if we could make more of those.”

  Lord Hawthorne grimaced. “We can probably repair the one unit, but we won’t be building more very quickly. It took years to construct the ones we have. It requires incredibly fine tolerances in the parts and a host of rare materials. We anticipated expanding the construction later. So, no, we don’t have any spares laying around. That th
ird one is actually meant to be a spare.”

  “Pity,” Jared said. “Still, we have time. We also can’t count on that device being a panacea. Anything man can build, he can circumvent. We have to plan on that happening and not rely on being safe forever.

  “We’ll move the spare to Erorsi and we’ll just have to take some calculated risks when we take them offline for maintenance. We’ll need the parts and manuals, of course.”

  The nobleman nodded. “I’ll get them for you tomorrow.”

  “We’ve made arrangements for a cutter to bring the bodies we found on Invincible down tomorrow, too,” Kelsey told Olivia. “I know they were your comrades and they deserve to finally come home.”

  He could see the coordinator’s eyes growing damp.

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me.” Olivia cleared her throat. “What do we do next? Obviously, freeing the rest of the Empire won’t happen overnight, but that has to be our goal. We fix the ships we can and make our plans going forward.

  “Well, so long as that’s what the emperor says. We’re under your authority when it comes to things like that.”

  “Don’t you already have a lot to do here?” Sean asked. “Rescue operations and recovery from the nuclear explosions will take years. Suppressing the loyalists and keeping them from other mischief will take even longer.”

  “That’s a good point,” Kelsey said, “but we need to be working toward that goal. Here’s what I propose. Our ships will need weeks of repairs. Perhaps months. That gives us time to help get things in motion.

  “We’ll get the shipyard at Boxer Station back online and reactivate the asteroid mines. Raw materials and finished parts will be key to getting the repairs of the derelict vessels under way. I’m more than happy to share those responsibilities with Harrison’s World, with the understanding that Fleet needs to keep the system and the ships locked down. We’ve all seen what a few unpleasant surprises look like when they threaten to put the AIs back in control.”

  That brought immediate nods from everyone.