by Terry Mixon
She raised an eyebrow at the thought and skimmed the data looking for any mention of the ghosts. Nothing. Yet one more mystery.
While she didn’t consider herself as knowledgeable as a Fleet officer, she knew enough to categorize the firepower present at El Capitan. There were enough ships here—though none larger than a heavy cruiser—to give Admiral Mertz’s fleet a run for its money.
There was also a Fleet base here. Based on the information in the data set, it was about a hundred and fifty years old. So something not built under the Old Empire.
That meant she didn’t have any idea of how it was laid out, though the resistance had given them some generalities about its capabilities. Just like Harrison’s World, it was the home of the System Lord.
That alone made the fortress immensely powerful. With the firepower that modern technology could bring to bear, the sentient AI magnified its lethality by orders of magnitude.
El Capitan was going to prove a tough nut to crack when the time came to invade. Of course, any system with this level of firepower was going to prove challenging.
She was about to route the data she’d received to Admiral Mertz when she had another idea. What do they know about Terra?
As it turned out, a little bit more than she did. They had never been to the capital of the Old Empire, but the resistance here had gotten word from another cell closer to the center of the Empire.
According to the resistance sources, each of the three standard flip points was heavily invested with defensive stations, both in the Terra system and on the other side of the flip point.
Interesting. Even an important system like El Capitan only kept its forces on the defending side. She’d assumed that the Lords had decided to protect systems like that, regardless if it made sense or not.
What exactly were the AIs protecting against? Were they worried about people accessing Terra or were they more concerned about the people imprisoned on the capital eventually making their way out? Perhaps that was why it was defended on both sides of the flip points.
Terra had a System Lord. That wasn’t a surprise, though it was going to make the mission more challenging.
It maintained control of the defensive systems on the far side of each of the flip point via targeted rules of engagement. Only ships with the correct passcodes could even approach the flip points without being fired upon.
Not that she imagined very many ships wanted to transit to Terra in any case. From everything she’d heard, the capital was a smoking ruin.
The resistance data had no information about whether that was true or not. They’d find out when they got there.
The very last thing she found in the data set was a listing of important people on El Capitan. Mostly members of the higher orders that rule the planet. Those would be the most loyal members of the Rebel Empire present in the system.
Unless of course there were leaders of the resistance sprinkled among them. That last brought a smile to her face, since that was exactly what she’d been on Harrison’s World.
It was very possible that a similar situation existed here on El Capitan. If so, she wouldn’t find that information in the data sent by the resistance. No. They’d go to great lengths to conceal their identities.
The data did provide some information about the people aboard Athena. A brief check of the records gave her matching faces for several of the people on the ship right now.
Interestingly, each of them was a member of the higher orders. And not just minor members of the nobility either. These were people with influence and authority.
The highest ranking of the individuals was on the bridge. Her name was Jaleesa Keaton. She was a sitting member of the system’s ruling council. That was the equivalent of the group of leaders Olivia had chaired as Coordinator of Harrison’s World. Two dozen of the most powerful people on the planet.
She verified that the numbers on El Capitan were about the same. The woman at the command console was far too important to be commanding a mission away from the planet, yet here she was.
The next most senior person was Bertram Gust. He was a junior member of the ruling council. Apparently he was closely aligned with Keaton.
The third in command, so far as Olivia could see, was a woman named Jocelyn Oldfield. The records the resistance had sent indicated she was Gust’s assistant.
What were such powerful and influential people doing on board a supposedly automated Rebel Empire destroyer?
Well, they’d find out soon enough.
Olivia sent the information the resistance had provided on to Admiral Mertz. He’d undoubtedly use it to help formulate their plans going forward.
26
Kelsey sat in the near darkness of the maintenance tube and tried not to fidget. The close confines were making her antsy. The claustrophobia reminded her too much of being trapped inside the machine that had forcibly implanted her.
She hadn’t used to feel this way about tight spaces. She’d spoken with Justin Guzman about the change at length over the last few years. Therapy, he’d called those sessions. Reliving torture was how she’d thought of them.
Still, those conversations had helped give her some distance from the trauma. Now, sitting here unable to do anything, she felt the fear and anger flowing back into her. The raw terror at not being able to control her own fate.
Another check of her internal chrono revealed that only five minutes had passed since the last time she’d checked. Five minutes. It felt as if five hours had gone by.
Ironically, five hours was exactly how long they still had to wait until Athena flipped out of the El Capitan system. Hopefully, these hours would be quiet ones.
“Highness, we have a problem,” Commander Roche said softly in her ear.
“Of course we do,” she said, resigned. “What is it?”
“Some of the enemy personnel have begun doing systems checks. Right now they’re only working on accessing everything remotely, but if they’re going to be thorough, they’ll need to do some checks in person.
“Unfortunately, the maintenance tube we’re sitting in runs behind the computer center. If they intend to verify the computer’s functionality, they’ll need to send someone here.”
“Where can we relocate to? Are we even going to be able to relocate?”
He shook his head slightly. “I don’t think so. We have a lot of equipment stashed in the back end of this maintenance tube. While it’s conceivable that the intruders will miss seeing it, that’s not something we can bank on.
“Also, it would be reckless to try to move the equipment. We’re sitting in the middle of a heavily trafficked area of the ship. The odds of someone seeing us approach certainty.”
“Perfect,” she said with a sigh. “What can we do? Wait for someone to stick their head into the maintenance tube and punch them out?”
That brought a slight smile to the Fleet officer’s face. “That’s not such a bad plan, all things considered. The only problem I see with it is that they’ll miss whoever they send fairly quickly.
“I know Admiral Mertz wants to avoid any interaction at all until this vessel has left El Capitan. That’s the smart move. If the intruders become concerned, they could warn someone back on the planet. That might spark a mission to Harrison’s World once we make a break for it.”
Thereby voiding everything the New Terran Empire in this universe had accomplished so far and leaving them in a terrible position. That couldn’t be allowed to happen.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not sure we can do anything to change what happens next,” she said slowly. “If they come looking into this maintenance tube, we can’t just wave at them and let things pass. We’ll have to take out whoever comes through that hatch.”
“And bluff our way through any last-minute communication once we reached the flip point,” Scott agreed. “Let’s hope they have enough things to look over without coming into this maintenance tube for the next five hours.”
&nbs
p; If Kelsey had thought that time was passing slowly before, it crawled now. Every second was like a drop of syrup preparing to fall onto a pancake.
And of course thinking about pancakes made her hungry. Kelsey had taken the precaution of stuffing her jacket with survival rations. They fed the gnawing hunger in her gut, but were hardly pancakes.
She started using her implants to access the feeds from engineering and the corridors around the computer center. Her anxiety level rose, but things were quiet for the moment.
At the hour mark, she’d started to think that they’d made it. Of course, shortly after that was when disaster struck.
One of the men in engineering walked over to the woman in charge of the compartment and told her that he was going to check the computer center. She told him to hurry up because she wanted him back at his station by the time they flipped.
“Scott,” Kelsey said softly. “We’ve got trouble.”
It amused her darkly to use the same warning he had earlier. This wasn’t the time for levity, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Tell me.”
“One of the people in engineering is coming to the computer center to do some systems checks. I hope that means he’s just going to be in the center itself and not stick his head into this maintenance tube, but we can’t plan on that. We need to be ready.”
He glanced at his wrist unit. “We have about fifty minutes until we can flip. Whatever happens, it’s going to take place while Athena is in the middle of all those battle stations and ships around the flip point. Even if we make a run for it, the mobile units stationed there will chase us down.
“Destroyers are fast, but they’ll be right on top of us. They’ll be able to fire missiles immediately after they flip into the next system.
“Also, we really don’t know what’s on the other side of this flip point, other than the unverified information Olivia got from the local resistance. They say it’s empty, but they might not know everything.
“We can’t take chances, so we’ll be as prepared as we can get. Whatever happens, we need to assume the consequences are going to be drastic if anyone learns of our presence.”
Kelsey nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on this guy’s progress and keep you updated. If I even think he’s headed towards us, I’ll let you know.”
And considering that she was positioned right next to the hatch, she’d be the one dealing with the problem. Oh, there were marines in the tube with her, but she had those vaunted Marine Raider implants. If the guy caused any trouble, she could shut him up the fastest.
The stunner at her hip would be the fastest means of dealing with him. The safest, too. She’d rather not kill a man simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Also, she couldn’t be certain that his death wouldn’t register on some piece of equipment or in his superiors’ implants. Simply stunning him stretched out the time that those people might wonder what had happened to him but not be overly alarmed.
As they said, hope springs eternal.
To her relief, the man went directly to the central computer core and began a detailed inspection of the consoles and control runs inside the room. Using the concealed video pickups Mertz had planted there, Kelsey scrutinized his every move.
It was almost as if she was looking over his shoulder. She could read what he was typing into the various consoles and she could make uneducated guesses about what the parts he was examining were.
With about fifteen minutes to go until the ship arrived in the flip point, he began closing up the consoles and access panels. He didn’t directly interact with the other people in the room, so Kelsey wasn’t certain what his next course of action would be. She hoped he’d return directly to engineering.
He dashed that hope when he came directly toward the maintenance tube in which she was hiding.
Oh crap.
“Everyone get ready,” she said. “We’ve got someone coming to look in the maintenance tube. I’ve got him.”
Considering the deadline the man was operating under, he shouldn’t be wasting his time like this. With only a dozen minutes left before he had to report back to his station, she wasn’t certain what he thought he’d see.
No matter what his motivation, this introduced some serious complications into their plan.
Kelsey opened an implant communication channel to Mertz. It was still difficult not to think of him as the Bastard. She was trying, but it was hard.
As soon as he answered, she got straight to the point.
We’ve got a situation. One of the people from engineering is about to look into the maintenance tube behind computer central. I’m going to take him out.
Make it quick, Mertz sent back. We don’t know if they have some kind of automated monitoring, but we can’t let him scream for help.
I’ve got it covered, but he’s expected in engineering in ten minutes. What do we do if they delay the flip because he’s not there?
I’ll worry about that. Just shut him down fast. If you don’t we’re all screwed.
No pressure.
Kelsey positioned herself near the hatch, drew her stunner, and readied herself. She heard marines moving into position behind her, ready to back her up if things went really wrong. She hoped she wouldn’t need them.
A minute later, the hatch slid open. She aimed her weapon at the opening and waited. And waited. And waited.
Where was he?
She took a deep breath and leaned forward just enough to peer into the corridor. The man she’d been waiting for was standing half a dozen meters away frowning at an open access panel.
He was half turned away from the hatch, but that didn’t stop him from seeing her, curse the luck. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to shout something.
Kelsey shot him before he made a sound. He dropped quietly into a loose heap.
Had he gotten off an implant warning? No way to know for sure unless things went completely into the crapper.
Looking in both directions to make certain no one else was present, Kelsey stepped into the corridor, closed the panel the man had been peering into, slung him into a fireman’s carry, and ducked back into the maintenance tube.
A touch on the controls sealed the hatch behind her. It was all up to Mertz now. Her fate—all their fates—were in his hands.
Jared considered the situation as soon as he disconnected from Kelsey. If things were going to go wrong, the worst possible time would be right now.
They were a little more than eight minutes away from the flip point at their current speed. The destroyer was virtually on top of the defensive fortifications. If the people on his bridge sent any kind of distress signal, it was all over.
Just to be certain that something like that didn’t happen, he initiated a lockdown of outgoing communications. If things seemed normal when they reached the flip point, he could enable their ability to communicate with their comrades with only a moment’s notice.
One of the side benefits of allowing these Rebel Empire jerks aboard Athena was that they had no problem running the scanners at full power. What would’ve seemed incongruous from an automated vessel wouldn’t be questioned from a live crew of people known to be loyal.
That meant they were getting priceless data that they could use against the Rebel Empire at some future point. The detailed information from the fortifications would be very valuable when they had to assault this system or one like it in the future.
Jared sent a message to Commander Hall. It was time to send a final data packet to Invincible through the FTL com. Athena might transit with little to no warning, so he wanted to be sure he got all the critical information to the fleet.
She quickly had the data compressed and burst transmitted it to the superdreadnought. Marcus had confirmed receipt of the transmission and returned the path they would take to meet him at Terra.
It would take the fleet a bit more than a week longer to get there, but he’d already known that. They’d also arrive at a dif
ferent flip point linking to Terra. Also unavoidable. He’d have to improvise to get them in. Somehow.
The Rebel Empire personnel on Athena’s bridge were focused on their tasks. Jared hoped the upcoming flip would consume their attention. With any luck at all, no one would notice the missing man had not returned to his post.
He knew better than to assume that was going to happen, though. No. Far better to prepare for the worst case scenario.
Though the control systems aboard the destroyer wouldn’t show anything, he still had the ability to trigger the antiboarding weapons. That meant Jared could drop every single intruder aboard his ship with a thought. If it seemed as though they were about to discover his people, he’d stop them in their tracks.
He also kept an eye on the team in engineering. Since they had dispatched the missing man, if anyone was going to notice his absence, it would be them. Their actions or lack thereof would dictate how he responded.
In a perfect world, he’d let them make the flip and deal with them on the other side. He fervently hoped the next system was empty of human presence. That would allow them to deal with the Rebel Empire crew immediately.
Because he was monitoring the situation in Athena’s engineering compartment, he saw one of the senior people glancing at the main hatch more frequently. And he also saw the deep frown that suddenly filled the woman’s expression.
She walked over to the unnamed man Jared had labeled as the senior officer in engineering. “Austin isn’t back. He’s not responding when I call him either.”
That caused the man to frown as well. “Perhaps he’s inside a section of the ship that’s interfering with our implants.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” the woman allowed. “But I was very clear that I wanted him back here before we flipped. According to my timer, that’s only three minutes away. He should have at least started back.”
The man laughed. “As if Austin is the most punctual individual we know. If you let him bury himself inside some piece of machinery, he’ll completely forget what time it is. The man is an unrepentant gearhead.”