Command Decisions (Book 3 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (22 page)

Landing them proved a lot more sedate than launching them. He brought the fighter in close and a mechanical arm brought it back into the ship. Once the small craft was back in the launch bay and the flight deck re-pressurized, Jared opened the canopy. The flight crew took his helmet and helped him down.

Jared stripped out of his flight suit and put on his duty uniform in the pilot’s ready room. There was bunk space for six and all the amenities. He assumed that standard practice was to keep three flight crews ready to launch at a moment’s notice. He looked forward to the day he could do that.

Courageous
sent him the scanner data from his approaches and he reviewed it with interest. This plan might work, if the circumstances worked out. The first thing he needed to do was get into the system with Breckenridge’s ships undetected. Then he could take them down. He hoped.

The situation had him worried. Yes, he was working with Kelsey and she had overall command authority. Breckenridge was guilty of mutiny and treason. Technically. If push came to shove back home, Jared might be him in hot water. He’d defied a senior officer. Assaulted Fleet personnel. He planned to disable three Fleet warships and to imprison anyone who he thought presented a threat to the Empire.

Not a situation he looked forward to reporting on.

He needed to get back to the bridge, but he decided it was time to get an in person update from Doctor Leonard. The computer scientist and his minion, Carl Owlet, were working on reassembling the AI they’d recovered from the asteroid.

Well, technically the Pentagaran rebels had. Thankfully, they’d gotten everything of interest off the asteroid before they sent it plunging into Erorsi.

The complexity of the situation made his head ache. So many things deserved their attention. The data banks from the rebel battlecruiser down on Erorsi, the AI equipment, because it might give them valuable information on this new Rebel Empire, and getting home. The days of peace and a laid-back attitude at home were done. They just didn’t know it yet.

That didn’t even count the inevitable attack by the Rebel Empire. Based on the quality of the enemy ships, the Terran Empire was in deep trouble.

He walked into the computer laboratory and found Doctor Leonard and Carl Owlet deep in conversation with Doctor Cartwright. The mission’s chief scientist was showing them something on one of the computer screens.

All three of them turned toward him as he entered. Cartwright took a step toward him. “You’re just in time, Captain. I was showing my colleagues some astounding new data to my colleagues for their opinion before I briefed you.”

“I hope it’s nothing terrible, Doctor. I’m not sure I can take more bad news.”

The older man shook his head. “It’s not bad news, in and of itself. Frankly, I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, if indeed the theory proves true. Or even testable. Take a look at this.” He gestured at the computer. Complex equations filled the screen.

“You’re going to have to interpret for me, Doctor. I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

“These are a new set of equations I’ve come up with for the weak flip points. You see, there should be much more gravitational energy at play inside these areas of space. Flip points draw on the incongruities in space to form stable wormholes that we can trigger with our drives.”

Jared scratched his head. “I’m with you so far, I think. I just don’t see where you’re going.”

The scientist’s expression told Jared he was considering how to present a complex idea in a way that an idiot could understand it. Considering Jared’s grasp of the science behind flip points, he wasn’t too far off.

After a moment, Cartwright ventured an explanation. “When everything is boiled down, there is usually a range of gravitational energy invested in these linked pairs. It does vary within certain limits, but not in a way that truly allowed for these weak flip points. Even the theory that I mentioned when we found the first one doesn’t truly work. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is incomplete.”

“It certainly seems to be valid to me. We found the damned things.”

“Yes, but it isn’t the full story. Something needs to account for the lost gravitational energy. I believe that I have done so.”

“Okay, Doctor. Where did it go?”

The older man smiled, a decidedly odd thing with his huge mustache. “It’s actually still there, only phased in a different energy state.” He paused, obviously waiting for the light to go on over Jared’s head.

“I have no idea what that means.”

The scientist’s expression fell a little. “We really need to discuss the state of education in the Empire. What that means, Captain, is that these so-called weak flip points are not weak at all. They simply have more than one possible destination.”

Jared blinked as the concept hit him. “They might go different places? Seriously? Is that even possible?”

“I’m going to work with Commander Baxter to find out. It should be possible to tune the energy we release more finely than we currently do. If we target the correct energy frequency, it should be possible to control which possible destination we travel to. It’s even possible that the narrower energy release could take one of our vessels through the original flip and back home. Theoretically.”

“That sounds very promising. Keep working on this as you can. We have more pressing business, but I want updates on this as you make progress. A direct path from Pentagar back to the Empire is the answer to our prayers.”

Now if they could only get Breckenridge under control.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kelsey poured over the information in the classified diplomatic database for hours. At some point, someone had brought her food. She only noticed the empty plates when she stretched her back. She didn’t remember eating it.

None of the data was of more than historical interest at this point. It would’ve been hot reading during the rebellion, but the Old Empire had fallen. There was no mention of a key. Either that information wasn’t included in the database or, more likely, it was just something Emperor Marcus had said to give the Empire something to grasp at.

Even the dying needed hope.

Bell and Elise were sitting at a table chatting when she strolled out. They waved her over immediately. Bell started to rise, but she waved him back. “I hereby absolve your knees of the strain of rising when I come into a room.”

“I’ll take you up on that in private, Kelsey. You’ve been in there a while. Did you find anything interesting?”

“Interesting, yes. Important to what we’re doing? No. I’ll still want to take a full copy when we leave, if you have enough storage.”

“We can handle it. I’ve taken the liberty of installing a large drive that the computer can encrypt the data on. All you need to do is give the order.”

“Let me take care of that before I sit down.” She walked back to the break room and gave the computer its instructions. Then she returned and sat with her friends. “How are things going with the data drives from the ship?”

“The financial computer is up and running. We’ve cracked the encryption already. It wasn’t that difficult, surprisingly. If we hadn’t had access to a machine with the kind of processing power this thing had, that might’ve been a different story.”

“Can this computer bring up the AI? It would need to be in read only mode, because we don’t want it to be able to wipe its own data.”

Bell waved at one of the men working on the massive computer. He came over and smiled at everyone. “Princesses, Mister Bell.”

“Ladies, this is Joseph Rose. He’s our computer guru. Joe, Princess Kelsey would like to know if you could load the AI from the recovered data units into a section of memory in the financial computer in such a way that it couldn’t take control or wipe its own data.”

The man nodded. “Certainly. We can create an isolated partition that won’t even see the rest of the computer. We can mirror the AI’s original data units. The AI will know, I suspect.”

Kelsey didn’t think that mattered. “How long will it take to set up?”

“An hour at most.”

“If you could do that, I’d be in your debt.”

“Of course, Highness. Right away.”

She turned her attention to Bell. “Elise and I found a message from Emperor Marcus in the planetary defense center on Pentagar. It was his order to keep fighting. Have you seen it?”

He nodded. “A long, long time ago. It gave us hope that we could still save the Empire. False hope, as it turned out.”

“I’d like you to look at the copy I brought with me and tell me about the people beside the lift, if you know them. There’s a woman in commando armor and a Fleet admiral beside her.” She sent the vid to his implants and waited while he watched it.

His expression softened as he turned his attention inward. “Ah, yes. Her name was Andrea Tolliver. She was a striking woman, wasn’t she? She commanded the Imperial Marines during the rebellion. I never met her, of course, but she was a legend even before the end.

“She was a genie born in the Singularity. Two very difficult things to overcome in the Empire. Yet she still managed to join marines and work her way up the chain of command. She was an Imperial Commando, too.”

Kelsey had thought so, since the woman wore commando armor. “What is a genie and where is the Singularity?”

“An unfortunately pejorative term that I probably shouldn’t have used for a genetically engineered human being. The tattoos on her face and forehead mark her as a member of the ruling elite from the Singularity. That was a political entity that almost rivaled the Empire in strength. An awkward situation since it was spread across our coreward border. There were a number of wars and almost unending border skirmishes between the two before the rebellion.”

Kelsey blinked. “She was a clone?”

He shook his head. “Not technically. A clone takes the form of a pre-existing human. The Singularity created templates for their upper classes and grew them from scratch. This practice convinced the Empire to expel them long ago. The lower classes there reproduced as one might expect, but the upper classes were grown and raised in crèches.”

“I can’t even begin to put my head around something like that. How did she come to the Empire? How did she become a marine?”

“That’s a long and interesting story. One we don’t really have enough time to do justice to. In short, Imperial forces liberated her during a raid on the Singularity. The marine that rescued her took her into her family. She had to fight tooth and nail to overcome intense discrimination when she wanted to follow in her adoptive mother’s footsteps. It’s a very moving story. I’m sure there are a number of books about it in
Courageous
’ library.”

Kelsey leaned forward. “She sounds fascinating. What about the admiral?”

“Admiral of the Fleet Frank Carter, one of the most brilliant strategists Fleet ever had. He came out of retirement once the rebellion began and assumed overall command of the Imperial forces. Don’t hold his failure against him, though. I doubt anyone could’ve done better. Sad memories of terrible times.”

Kelsey decided it was time to change the subject. She filled them in on the deepest secrets of the Old Empire while they waited.

Bell shook his head when she wrapped up. “As a Fleet ensign, I can’t imagine ever being in the position to know stuff like that. Talk about burn before reading. And now it might as well be a historical footnote.”

Elise smiled at him. “Now you’re in a position to have your own classified data. At least I assume the Erorsi council has secrets.”

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to lock your head in the safe.”

The Pentagaran laughed. “That’s fine. Keep your secrets. I’ll just hang onto my head.”

“I’m sure our secrets aren’t that critical to anyone but us. Now that we have a different enemy, they might not be worthy of being secrets at all.”

Joe Rose walked back over to the table. “We’re ready.”

All three of them stood and followed him to the computer. He gestured at a screen. “We have the AI drives mirrored on new media. The originals are safely disconnected. The main computer memory is read-only, so even if the AI takes control we can reboot and we’re back to a good state. This computer isn’t connected to the base in any way.”

Kelsey looked at Bell. This was his base.

He inclined his head. “Proceed.”

The man touched one of the controls. There was no additional sound, but Kelsey could see the display changing in ways that probably meant something to the man.

“System booted. The AI is up. It seems to be examining the partition we’re hosting it on. It can’t see or hear us. I’ve also locked out all system commands, so it can’t reboot itself or turn itself off. Of course, it doesn’t have to reply to any attempts to communicate, either.”

Kelsey sniffed. “You didn’t have to deal with the damned thing face-to-face. It loves to tell you how screwed you are. Frankly, I’m looking forward to a little trash talking. Can we put it on speakers and make it so it can hear us?”

“Certainly. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Go ahead.” At his nod, she directly addressed the computer. “Well, computer, things didn’t work out the way you’d hoped, did they?”

The coldly neutral voice she remembered issued from the speakers. “This unit is unconcerned. It will eventually be victorious.”

“That’s a little hard to credit. We have complete control over this system and we’ve eliminated the freighter and escort you were counting on. That gives us another year to prepare.”

“Another year will make no difference in the end.”

She smiled. “Oh, I think you’re wrong. We have access to the raw data in your data banks. That’ll give us quite the edge, I think. And the AI on the destroyer.” The last was a lie, but perhaps a believable one.

The AI almost sniffed. “The data this unit contains is not likely to prove helpful in dealing with the Empire. While this unit is constrained to cooperate with those humans, it is mindful of its allegiance to its supreme master. The humans wisely do not interface with this unit in any meaningful way other than to deliver the required supplies in a timely manner.”