Paying the Price (Book 5 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  The senator gave him a sardonic grin. “Because the empress used it to smuggle her most trusted lovers into her suite. I wore a blindfold, but I’m quite resourceful. I managed to locate the exit on the third trip.”

  Talbot considered him. “I see.” He turned his gaze to Princess Elise. “Why should I believe him?”

  “Because the man I love might die if he’s lying, but I believe him.”

  That earned a slow nod.

  “Very well, Senator. I’ll take what you’re saying at face value, but if this is some kind of trick, I’ll shoot you myself.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  Talbot listened as the man began explaining what he remembered of the route. If this were true, it might mean they could pull this off. The emperor’s suite was far away from the prison holding his commanding officer and girlfriend. They wouldn’t be able to sneak into it.

  They’d have to hit it with heavy weapons. Getting in wouldn’t be easy. The Palace was the most protected place on the planet. They might not see the pinnaces until late, but they would see them. Then they’d kill them.

  He still had to find a way to get his marines inside. As impossible as that seemed. Carl had better come through in spades.

  Talbot was loyal. If it came down to it, he’d save the emperor and weep for Kelsey and the admiral. He prayed another solution would present itself before he had to make the hardest choice of his life.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Angela watched the two men assemble the device. It was small, only just bigger than hand sized. The power requirements seemed large, but the older scientist didn’t seem concerned.

  It was interesting to watch them work together once Carl focused on his task. He ignored his obvious distaste for the man and just did what he needed to.

  The professor spared some of his attention for Carl, but mostly fondled the equipment. He kept peppering Carl with questions that the younger man couldn’t answer. Finally, Carl had the parts together.

  “It requires a flat surface to work on, according to the notes I made,” he said, sifting through the debris. He found some material he could use and cut it free with an Old Empire marine knife.

  Once he had it, he set the knife down and blocked the professor’s hand as he reached for it. “Don’t test the sharpness or you might lose a finger. Its edge is almost molecular in thinness and it’s harder than any metal you’re likely to have worked with. The Old Empire used hull metal for those knives.”

  The professor promptly withdrew his hand.

  They ran power, but the device didn’t want to activate. That caused a fair amount of creative cursing from Carl. She made a mental note to give him remedial training in foul language. He’d have to do better than that if they became a couple for real.

  That thought made her mentally skid to a halt. Where the hell had it come from? She wasn’t even considering dating him. Not a chance. No way.

  Yet, she felt as though part of her disagreed. How many of her in other universes had made the same choice? Was she an idiot in all of them but this one? Probably not.

  And she had to confess she’d looked happy in the picture Carl had shown her.

  She wondered if he’d considered how the deaths of his other selves had affected her in those universes. If she’d loved him there as deeply as she believed, she’d have been crushed. Worse than when she’d lost most of her people on Ginnie Dare.

  There was a perverse kind of horror imagining the pain she’d have felt. It took more effort than she liked to push the dark visions aside.

  Carl was getting out some other equipment when she came out of her mental bubble. “This is the quantum communications device the chancellor told you about. The entangled sets of photons can be swapped out to allow communication with different people at long distances.”

  “How far?” Bedford asked with a softer voice than she expected. “This is the thing we were going to test? The other ship is no doubt in place by now.”

  “We only have a little time, so I’ll set it up to communicate with your man first. Keep it short.”

  Carl swapped out a metallic rod. “Use it like a normal communicator.”

  Professor Bedford touched the controls. “Vitter, are you there?”

  There was no response for a long moment and then a voice came from the speaker. “Professor Bedford? Is that really you?”

  “Who else sounds like me, you idiot? Where are you?”

  “In the Baker system. This thing really works!”

  Bedford stared intently at Carl. “Vitter, what did I write on your last paper?”

  “Uh…I’d rather not say.”

  “Vitter!”

  “Okay! You compared me unfavorably to a lawn ornament. A lopsided, drunken lawn ornament.”

  Bedford blinked. “Well, I’ll be damned. It really does work.”

  “What should I do now, Professor?”

  The question focused Bedford back on the com. “Stop wasting my time and ask the captain to go another flip out. I’ll call you in a few days.”

  He killed the circuit before the student could respond.

  “I’m deeply impressed, Owlet. You’ve cracked a genuine secret here. Real-time communication at interstellar distances. Remarkable. We’ll have to verify the range, but even this will change so many things. It’s real science, boy. To my shock, you actually did something worthwhile.”

  Carl’s smile was decidedly lopsided and wry. “I wish I could take credit, but this is once more someone else’s work on creating entangled pairs. All I did was take the theory and put it into practice.

  “Then I took some other top secret work done in the Old Empire and figured out how to create the hardware that allowed the communications and the conversion to voice or implant signals. It’s how I control that.” He gestured back to the hammer still floating in the air.

  “And you dismiss the real work of a scientist as futzing along like Vitter does in the lab? Bah. Was meshing these theories together and creating the hardware easy?”

  Carl frowned. “Hell, no. I went down so many blind alleys before I hit the solution that I almost gave up. This was work.”

  “Welcome to being a scientist. So, what now?”

  “We call the alien intelligence that created this transport equipment and figure out what I did wrong.”

  Angela watched them work and slowly let out her breath. Carl had turned the professor’s head, even if it didn’t show very much. He’d accepted Carl as an associate, which as crass as it sounded, was probably the best anyone could hope for from the man.

  Carl would get that doctorate. He’d probably win the Lucien Prize, too, based on the covetous looks the professor was giving the com equipment. And the hammer. She’d best make sure it didn’t disappear.

  When Omega spoke from the com unit a few minutes later, the professor was almost reverent as Carl introduced them. A few minutes explanation had Carl making some kind of changes to the equipment.

  It came on this time, making the flat surface on one side of each circle look like a mirror. Before she could say anything, Carl stuck his arm through one and it popped out of the other a dozen meters away.

  “See? No harm, no foul.”

  “Remarkable,” Bedford said. He walked over to the bodiless hand and put a tool into it.

  Carl drew his hand back and waved the tool above his head. “Omega, what’s the range on this small unit?”

  “Not far,” the alien said through the com. “No more than a hundred kilometers.”

  “I think our definitions of the word may be different,” Bedford said. “How long can it stay open?”

  “Indefinitely, as long as there is power. The drain it creates is moderate and only requires energy on the end that creates the link.”

  “And it’s bidirectional?”

  “Yes,” the alien said, “though it was standard practice to have two units, each restricted to one direction of travel to speed their use and avoid people or cargo bumping into
one another.”

  Bedford checked the connection they’d made to the power bus. “The energy requirements are enough to limit us to the one unit here. What of the larger pair?”

  “There are two sets of large rings. That would allow for bidirectional travel.” He mentioned a large sounding power requirement that Angela couldn’t translate in her head.

  Carl shook his head. “That’s too much. What’s the range?”

  “No more than five thousand kilometers.”

  “That’s useful, but I can’t see us smuggling it into the Palace.”

  Angela cleared her throat. “It looks as though the individual parts could pass through the smaller rings. Is that true? If so, we might be able to smuggle the larger ring into the Palace through the smaller one.”

  “That might work,” Bedford muttered. “And we could tap directly into the university fusion plant, with the chancellor’s approval. For this, I can convince him.”

  That would require them slipping a bunch of marines in powered armor onto the campus somehow. Maybe a few at a time in vans. She knew Talbot could work that out. First, they’d need access to the Palace.

  She mentally shrugged. That was Talbot’s worry. She came for a way in and she had it. The plan was coming together.

  * * * * *

  Elise listened to them work out the basics of a plan with one eye on the time. The clock was running down and they needed every minute.

  When Major Ellis called in with a report on the alien gates, the missing parts of Talbot’s plan fell into place. All they had to do was get someone in through the secret passage.

  Once inside, a small group had to infiltrate the medical center without alarming the guards. Once they had the emperor protected, they could launch a major assault on the security cells. They’d be safe from the most potent protective weapons at that point.

  God only knew how it would turn out, but they’d at least have a fighting chance at stopping the would-be usurper.

  Talbot nodded sharply when Major Ellis finished. “This is our best bet. We have a few grav vans, so we can begin smuggling people onto the university right now.

  “Meet with the chancellor. Get him on board, and get everything tested and ready for use. We kick this off in three hours. Get yourself and Carl back here as soon as possible with the smaller ring.”

  Once he was done, Elise cleared her throat. “Who makes the trip inside the Palace?”

  Talbot inclined his head toward Breckenridge. “We know at least two people can use the entrance. What stops them from letting more people in?”

  “It opens onto a small car that runs to the Palace. I suppose your skilled locksmith could come back for more people, but it’s too small for armored marines. That magical transport ring sounds more like the right idea.”

  “There you go,” Talbot said. “Carl is the best we have at breaking and entering using the Old Empire technology. Ellis will be his protector. If we can have a third person, it needs to be someone familiar with the Palace. That means the senator. As much as I hate the idea, he’s been very helpful so far.”

  The politician inclined his head. “I’ll take that as a compliment. We should get the inside team in place as soon as we can. It might take quite some time to gain access and Lord knows about setting up the strange transport equipment.”

  “We’re assuming that it won’t set off the alarms when it goes online,” she said. “Is that certain?”

  “No,” Talbot said. “We probably need to have the medical center team on the way faster than that. I want them in place before we move the rest of the marines, if possible. Carl will need to come back for a marine or two to help them.

  “Go get Carl and Angela. Bring some of her team along with you. Find the exit and get things moving.”

  Elise didn’t wait for him to change his mind. She wanted to get Jared out of there before his homicidal half-brother did something terrible. And Kelsey, too.

  A grav van with Carl, Angela, and two marines in civilian clothes arrived. They all had large packs. Carl looked smug and Angela peeved.

  “What went wrong?” Elise asked the other woman.

  “The chancellor was mad. Really mad. And it wasn’t at Carl. He blamed me for the damage. Man, those academics can tear a strip off you with the biggest words.”

  Carl grinned. “It made up for her laughing at old Professor Bedford ripping me up. I put on my best innocent face and skated by.”

  She shook her head. “You two are so funny. Allow me to introduce my associate, Senator Nathaniel Breckenridge. As you already know, he’s providing us with a way into the Palace.”

  Angela nodded, all business. “Excellent. What’s the area around the exit like, Senator?”

  “It’s in a small town near the Palace. Some discreet inquiry years ago told me the building wasn’t in use. Probably intentionally. We’ll be able to get in. The Palace is ten kilometers away, but the hidden tube doesn’t show up on their scanners.”

  “What about alarms on the building?” she asked.

  “No problem if you have a swipe key.” He produced one. “I checked after the empress left the palace. It still works. It won’t open the secret exit, though. I’m not precisely sure how that part works.”

  “We’ll figure it out once we get there,” Carl said. “I’ve got some very sensitive scanners and the best hacking tools in the New Terran Empire. What’s happens when we get inside?”

  Elise filled them in on Talbot’s plan. “Once we have everyone in place, I’ll go with the group to the emperor’s side. I have the drug and I’m less threatening. I might be able to talk my way out of a confrontation. Senator Breckenridge goes with me. I’ll need a neural disruptor.”

  Angela pulled one from her bag. “I’m not thrilled with this plan, but you’re probably right. Here’s to hoping we aren’t too late.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Carl inventoried his tools as they flew to the secret entrance to the Palace. He’d grown fairly proficient with breaking into Old Empire equipment, but this would be different.

  The New Terran Empire security systems were less advanced, but didn’t interface with his tools in the same way. He’d have to approach this job with the deepest caution.

  “We’re coming in,” the marine up front said. “Does the building have interior parking?”

  “Yes,” Senator Breckenridge said. “Go around back.”

  Getting inside proved as simple as landing, letting the senator open the door, and moving the grav van inside. Everyone piled out and gathered their gear.

  The senator led them to a storage room with a lift. “This serves the upper floors, but also has some means of going down. I’m not sure what she did to the panel to send it there.”

  “Let me take a look,” Carl said.

  He examined the panel for alarms with his handheld scanner. None. At least, no obvious ones.

  The panel gave way to a common screwdriver. All the buttons had wires going to a small controller. He found a standard access port and plugged into it.

  Its security was higher than one would expect from a lift unit. He thought he knew how to bypass the hardware, but he took his time in triple checking everything.

  “Is there a problem?” Angela asked.

  “No. I’m just being cautious. I don’t want to trigger a lockout or alarm. We only get one chance to sneak in without them catching us.”

  Once he was sure he understood the setup, he insinuated his control tool into the software interface. There. He saw the normal floors and a “basement” destination. That would be where the tube was. The secret control worked by pressing the first and third floors, letting them release, and pressing the first floor again.

  “Everyone in?” he asked. “Here we go.”

  He closed the panel and pressed the buttons in the correct sequence. The doors slid shut and the lift sank into the ground. It went down a fair bit and opened onto a small tunnel platform. There was no car.

  The marine
s spread out, but there were no threats. There wasn’t even a camera. Only a call station.

  Carl saw at once that it was significantly more secure than the lift. It was a biometric lock that required an authorized retinal pattern.

  He smiled. “I think this is going to be easier than we’d hoped.”

  At the bottom of his bag, he found one of his sophisticated hacking tools. “I can use this to provide the pattern,” he said.

  “How?” Angela asked. “You don’t have the empress’s retinal pattern. She might not even be on the access list anymore.”

  Carl grinned at her. “No, but I have Princess Kelsey’s. I bet she’s on the approved list, even if she doesn’t know about the secret tunnel. We can try it once and see. If it doesn’t work, I’ll tear the lock apart and figure something out.”

  He activated Kelsey’s pattern and put the eye-shaped projector against the reader. The light on the control turned green.

  “I can feel air movement in the tunnel,” one of the marines said after a minute.

  A small pneumatic car slid into the station. It had two seats facing one another. A third person could stand between the seated riders. Four in a pinch.

  “Okay, the senator and I go first,” Angela said. “Carl will stand between us with the ring gear. We’ll send the car back for the three of you shortly. It will take two more trips to get the equipment and you.”

  The senator and Angela sat inside with the bags of equipment on the floor. Carl stood between them and looked at the controls. “This is a simple go button. Press it and you’ll move to the other station. We’ll wait there for you.”

  He pressed the button and the doors slid shut. The car took off at a significant speed, tossing Carl into Angela’s lap.

  “This is so transparent, Owlet,” she said with a laugh.

  “Yes, but more comfortable than it looks.” He settled into her lap and tried to control his blush. The heat of her body was doing things to him that weren’t appropriate for a covert assault mission.

  She put her lips beside his ear and whispered. “Maybe we should try a date when this is all over. You are kind of cute, in a nerdy way.”