by Terry Mixon
“Sure.” The marine climbed in and she closed it up behind him. “The screen just activated. It’s a pretty advanced heads up display.”
The last part of that came though her implants. “You need to turn on your external speakers. Only I can hear you. Actually, I might be able to do that.”
She sent an implant command and the external speakers activated. “Try talking again.”
“Can you hear me?” The speakers worked.
“Loud and clear. I’m not sure I like being able to access and control your suit like this. It feels wrong.”
Talbot flexed his knees. “It sounds about like these other people, though. Just how much control do you have?”
Kelsey invaded his interface and seized control of his armor. She stretched his arms over his head and bent him over to touch his toes. “About that much.”
He straightened when she released him. “That’s total bullcrap. I couldn’t do anything while you were calling the shots. We need to disable that.”
“That’s probably doable,” Owlet said. “The devil will be in the details. I’ll look into it.”
“And I promise not to make you dance like a ballerina,” Kelsey added with a smile. “Mostly. Let’s go check out the strength limits on this thing. I bet it’s more powerful than my commando armor. Look at those arms.”
By the time they were ready to call it a night, she knew exactly how powerful the marine armor was. Slightly less than twice as strong as her commando armor, and significantly more resistant to damage. It might even be able to survive one of the small plasma rifle seeds. It wouldn’t be worth much at that point. Still, any landing you could walk away from was a good one.
One thing in her favor was that this new armor was slow and clumsy compared to her commando armor. She was literally able to dance around Talbot as he tried to catch her. Speed and dexterity counted for a lot in battle. She could live with that.
Right as they were finishing, the control unit for the leg shorted out. There had to be an underlying problem with it. The loss of the armor annoyed Talbot.
She patted him on the shoulder. “Come on. Maybe they can get it working again. Tomorrow will come earlier than either of us like, so we should get some sleep.”
While he climbed out of the armor, she checked the ship’s scanners. Spear and her consorts were more than two thirds of the way toward the flip point. She still had no idea how they were going to deal with that problem. She just hoped the man’s idiocy didn’t get them all killed before they had a plan.
Chapter Nineteen
Jared woke to the sound of the shower. He stretched and smiled. Last night had been sinfully delightful. Elise and he were normally more discreet, but now that they knew the secret was out, they could relax a little.
He waited for the water to cut off, slid out of bed, and padded into the head. She was standing beside the shower tube toweling off. The sight of her made him smile even more widely.
She wrapped her hair in a towel and kissed him. “I tried not to wake you.”
“You should’ve. Waking up with you is my idea of the perfect start for the day.”
Elise gave him an indulgent smile. “We don’t have time for that today. We’re meeting with Admiral Sanders after breakfast. Get a shower so you don’t smell like me.”
He laughed. “I’m in no danger of smelling like you.”
“If you’re a good boy, we have time for a leisurely breakfast.”
“And if I’m bad, we won’t eat at all?”
“If you’re bad, I’ll have to swat your nose. Shower.”
Jared reluctantly headed into the tube. The soap and hot water swirling around him felt good. He let it clean him and rinsed off.
Elise was already fully dressed by the time he returned to the bedroom. It only took him a few minutes to dress in his uniform. They left for breakfast together, the Royal Guards outside his room both falling in behind them.
The officer’s mess was already crowded, but they’d reserved a table last night. Princess Kelsey, Talbot, and Admiral Sanders were there and already sipping their coffee.
He held out a chair for Elise and then sat down. “Good morning. Admiral, I didn’t expect you so early.”
“Highness. Lord Captain. I found a seat on an earlier flight and decided to join Princess Kelsey. She was already up. We’ve had an illuminating conversation about Captain Breckenridge.”
Jared grimaced. “The bridge pinged me when he flipped last night. I’ve sent a probe to take a snapshot of the other system. If we can identify it, we might be able to see if they pose a danger mucking around over there.”
“And if they do?”
“Then we try to stop them. Somehow. They most likely left a probe to watch for any attempt at following them, so this isn’t going to be easy.” He turned to Kelsey. “Good morning. Did you get a chance to examine the equipment from the destroyer?”
She nodded. “I did. We recovered a bunch of flechettes that we can use in our own weapons. We might be able to use some of the weaponry, too, if Carl can unlock them permanently. It’s crazy. They secured all the weapons with codes that make them useless if someone replaces the power pack. The armor, too.”
Talbot snagged a bun from the loaded platter the server brought out to them. He buttered it slowly as Kelsey dug into the large plate she’d ordered. The man shook his head in amused disbelief.
“I still can’t see how she puts it away like that. It’s crazy.” He looked away from her glare and focused on Jared. “Anyway, the two suits of armor we recovered were down with system failures, but Owlet got one of them working long enough for a test drive. They’re really something.”
Jared sighed. “I’m not surprised to hear about their paranoia. It seems to be a repeating theme with these people. Every critical system on the destroyer is locked up tighter than the Imperial Scepter.”
He looked at Kelsey. “We loaded the files you recovered onto a standalone system. Even though the destroyer’s captain locked the console you got them from, she also encrypted them. We’ll have to crack that, but at least we got them. The same for the data chips from the safe. These people come from a brutal, repressive society, I think.”
“The Rebel Empire is a dictatorship for sure, though one with a velvet glove,” Kelsey said. “I’m not sure about the brutal part.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to come up with the right words for them. It’s still early in the investigation. How many suits of armor did they have, Talbot?”
The marine shrugged. “The lowest estimate is eight. I’m leaning toward ten. It’s hard to tell. Their bunks indicate a maximum marine complement of eighty. Significantly more than a destroyer in our Fleet would have. The sleeping area is pretty cramped.”
“What do you think of the armor, Kelsey? How does it compare to yours?”
“Definitely more powerful, but clumsy. I can almost run circles around Talbot.”
“Yeah, but when I catch her, its game over. That suit is amazing. I feel invincible inside it.”
Kelsey poked him in the shoulder. “Don’t let it go to your head. They have weapons that can take it out.”
Admiral Sanders took a bite of his eggs. “Indeed. The mere presence of an armed cadre of men in such armor indicates a need for it. A destroyer has little room for even the items required during a normal deployment. Those suits took a significant amount of space that could’ve supported other things.”
Jared thought about that. “What could they need armor for? The Pale Ones? Perhaps they worried about an ambush?”
“Commander Richards called us traitors,” Kelsey said, after a big bite of her pancakes. “That hints at the possibility of an underground.”
Talbot snorted. “Rebels against the Rebel Empire. Would they be loyalists?”
“They very well might be,” Jared said. “We’ll see if we can shake anything loose from him. He’s still talking, though not about anything sensitive. Kelsey found his weakness.”
; Sanders raised his eyebrow. “And what was it?”
“His people,” Kelsey said. I’ve allowed him supervised visitation and he’s been somewhat more cooperative. He’s also been reading the Imperial history books. I’ve kept tabs on his choices. The parts I’ve read are quite the education, even for me. I can’t imagine what he thinks of it.”
“He probably suspects it’s propaganda,” Jared said. “In his shoes, I’d think so. Once he reads enough, finds the internal consistency, he might begin to doubt. It won’t be in time to help us with our problem, though.”
Sanders looked at him inquiringly. “What exactly is your plan going forward, Lord Captain?”
“I’m in a hard spot,” Jared admitted. “We’re critically short of missiles. The ones on the destroyer are too small for Courageous. If we get into a serious fight, we’re done for. Not that I can use lethal weapons against Breckenridge. I’m not sure what options are still available.”
Kelsey pushed back her empty plate. “Too bad we don’t have some of those Pale Ones stunning weapons for ships. They have to be neural disruptors on a huge scale.”
“Even if we did have them, we can’t exactly sneak up on the other ships. They’ll spot us far too quickly.”
Pardon this unit’s input, Captain, but I may have a suggestion.
Jared resisted the impulse to look up. “Courageous has an idea. Go ahead.”
This vessel has several fighter craft. They are very stealthy. Under the right circumstances, they may be able to get quite close to other ships without detection. Particularly with the limited scanning capability that Captain Breckenridge’s ships seem to possess.
“I hadn’t considered the fighter ships. I wasn’t even sure they were operational. In any case, we still can’t use ship killers on them.”
Fighter ships come in several possible configurations. One of them is an anti-piracy variant with just such a stunning weapon and two anti-ship missiles. If pirates have hostages, it behooves Fleet to take them alive.
That got Jared’s attention. “Courageous says the fighters can be configured to use a weapon just like the Pale Ones stunners. How many fighters does this ship carry, Courageous? How many are operational?”
This vessel has three fighters. All are operational at this time. However, operating a fighter is not like flying this ship. There is no space aboard for anything but the most minimal of manual controls. The Empire designed those vessels for pilots with implants.
He grimaced. “Graves isn’t going to like that. We have three operational fighters, but the pilot needs implants.”
“Since I can’t fly, that only leaves you,” Kelsey said. “He really won’t like that. Damn Breckenridge’s itchy trigger finger.”
Elise put her hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Things will work out. You’ll figure out how to stop him.”
Captain, the probe you dispatched to trail the task force has reached the weak flip point. It detected no sentry probe and transitioned. This unit set it to return shortly with an initial scan. That should be enough for this unit to determine if the destination system, if it was known to the Empire.
It has returned. Receiving data. Processing. No sentry probes or ships in close proximity to the target flip point. Destination system identified. It is a system without habitable worlds of its own somewhat further out from the core worlds than Erorsi and further spinward. Roughly two hundred light-years away.
Spinward, he sent via his implants. What does that mean?
The Old Empire referred to galactic directions in three-dimensional space with certain key words. Coreward would refer to something toward the galactic core. Spinward is in the direction of the galactic rotation. Anticoreward and antispinward are the opposites. Galactic north and south cover deviations from the plane of the galactic ecliptic. The destination system is roughly in the same plane as Erorsi.
He nodded. “Courageous has determined where they flipped to. It’s about two hundred light-years away and known to the Old Empire. One good thing is that it’s located further from the core worlds of the Old Empire. And Breckenridge didn’t leave any obvious sentry probes. He must really be sure we won’t come after him. If everyone is done eating, we might want to adjourn to a conference room.”
Kelsey grabbed some bacon off Talbot’s plate and stood. “If we’re going to follow them, perhaps we should get on our way to the flip point. We don’t want to let them get too far ahead of us.”
Jared shook his head. “We have time to examine what we know first. Let’s settle on a plan and then act.” He called Graves to join them. He wasn’t going to cut his second in command out of the loop, especially when he was going to have to surprise him with the fighter situation.
Of course, if the way was clear out to Avalon, they might just let them go. No need to get into a fight he didn’t have to.
Graves met them at the conference room hatch. His exec looked well rested and cheerful. “Morning, Captain. Highnesses, Admiral. Talbot.”
“Morning, Charlie,” Jared said. “Have a seat and I’ll bring you up to speed.”
He sent an implant command to the screen on the wall and brought up the map of the Old Empire. He zoomed in on their sector as the rest sat. “Here we are. Erorsi is in blue. Pentagar is green. Avalon is in amber.” He brought up the 3D nightmare of crisscrossing lines that represented the flip system.
“As you can see, the Courageous system flip point is a one way from the new Terran Empire to our area. The new weak flip point takes us back in roughly the same direction, but further in the direction of galactic spin. It’s possible to get to the new Terran Empire from there in seven flips. That’s the way home.”
Jared zoomed in further to the system where the remnants of the task force had gone. “This system only has a reference number. None of the worlds is habitable and no human presence was established. It has three flip points, counting the weak one. One leads out in the general direction of home. The other toward the Old Empire. Courageous, is there any system of note in the direction of Avalon?”
“That section of the Old Empire was what could be called a backwater. Mining worlds and such that supplied rare elements to industries deeper in. It was growing and would have become mature in its own right with time, but there are no worlds of special note in that direction.”
Graves shook his head. “I still have difficulty getting used to a computer this advanced. I’m amazed at how like a person it is.”
Kelsey grinned at him. “Imagine talking to him at high speed through cranial implants. Courageous isn’t sentient, but he is very capable. It’s easy to think of him as a person though he’s not. No offense, Courageous.”
“None taken. This unit is quite aware that it falls short of the sentience threshold.”
Talbot grunted. “Did the Empire ever achieve sentient AIs?”
“This unit has seen some pre-rebellion communications that hinted at such, though no official word of such exists in this unit’s memory banks.”
“I suspect that the AI that started the rebellion was sentient,” Kelsey said. “That might have been a poor decision on someone’s part. It looks as though Breckenridge has better than fifty percent odds of finding our Terran Empire if he heads the right way. If he has bad luck, he might go around it, but that’s another problem. What’s in the other direction?”
The computer continued. “There are worlds that once had higher populations in that direction, depending on which course he chooses. There is one system of special note.” A system two flips away from the destination system flashed red. “This is Harrison’s World. While not of extremely high population, it housed a major Fleet base called Boxer Station. At one time, it was responsible for the defense of this entire quadrant of the Empire’s outer reaches. The most recent records this unit has show it was a rally point in the counter attack on the rebels.”
Admiral Sanders looked at the map speculatively. “What would that have meant, Courageous?”
“Before the rebellion
it was home to the Ninth Fleet, one of the largest groupings of Fleet vessels in the Empire. Perhaps a hundred superdreadnaughts and supporting vessels. Four to five times that many battlecruisers. Many additional smaller units. Everything required to support them. That number may have gone up in the final days.”
“Or dropped due to combat losses,” Graves said. “Tell us about the civilian world.”
“Harrison’s World had core world population and technology. It housed both the Fleet support facilities and the political leadership for its sector. Duke Louis Gray was the last sector governor listed.”
Elise cleared her throat. “Is there any indication that the weak space-time bridge is open in both directions?”
“This unit believes it is.”
“What about Spear and her consorts?” Jared asked. “Any indication of them?”
The screen expanded into a map of the destination system. “As they do not have maps of the system, it seems they have spread out in an effort to locate flip points or other features of interest in the system. Their probes are actively scanning. This unit believes it likely they will locate the flip point leading deeper into the Empire first.”
“Hopefully they’ll do a thorough search and go down the right one first. If they do that we can just let them go.”
His sister gave him a look. “We can almost count on Breckenridge doing the wrong thing.”
Jared sighed. “Then we’ll need to come up with a plan to go after them soon. It will take them as much as a day to find the first flip point. I’ll need to practice with a fighter and consult with the folks on Erorsi. They can probably help us some with the data you recovered from the destroyer. We’ll need to leave it here.”
He looked over at Elise. “As much as I’d like for you and the admiral to come with us, we’re going in stealthy. If we can take Breckenridge out, we’ll be back soon. If you would accompany Kelsey to Erorsi and talk with Mister Bell about getting some of his people to join us, that would be very helpful.”
Elise nodded. “Kelsey and I can handle that. I’m looking forward to seeing his facility for myself. What will you do once you catch up with Captain Breckenridge?”
