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

by Terry Mixon

  Passive scans of the system were coming in. No ships detected.

  The hatch to operations slid aside and Doctor Cartwright came in with Carl Owlet at his side. He strode up to Jared and halted. “Everything is ready. I suggest you activate it as soon as practical.”

  “Send the signal, Zia. Narrow beam.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then he picked the device up on the scanners. It was as obvious as a ship flying fast on grav drives. He hoped the system really was empty. They couldn’t miss this.

  “At the speed the destroyers were running, how long before they flip, Zia?”

  “Five minutes, give or take.”

  Jared turned his attention to the elderly scientist. “How detectable will this be on the other side?”

  “Are we seeing anything from the flip point?”

  Invincible’s scanners didn’t show anything overt that he could see. The machine was showing up, but the gravitic field seemed normal. No, no it wasn’t. There was some kind of low-level fluctuation. He’d never seen anything like it, but it was subtle.

  “Look at this.” He brought the reading up on his console.

  The scientist looked closely at it and nodded. “Yes. Just about what we expected. Those fluctuations are almost certainly due to resonance inside the wormhole.”

  “And it will stop any ship from successfully flipping?”

  “We believe so.”

  “Here’s to hoping, Doctor.”

  They waited for the zero on the timer. A few seconds before it hit, Zia called out. “Contacts. Many small contacts. I think it may be debris.”

  No ship flipped into the area, but quite a bit of junk did. It appeared scattered widely across the flip point. Something had broken up. He hoped seven destroyers had made a failed attempt to transit and been destroyed.

  He launched a dozen probes to search the system, just to be sure. Either they’d still be here to get the data, or he’d leave a probe to collect it and flip back to Harrison’s World after they left.

  Jared waited twenty minutes and gave Zia the order to shut down the flip resonator. It vanished from the scanners a few moments later. “The device is shut down, Captain. Shall I launch a probe to test the flip point?”

  He studied the scanner readings. The fluctuations were still there, though they seemed to be growing weaker. “Give it a few minutes, Zia. Five.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  In the end, it was more than an hour before a probe returned intact. It reported no enemy ships on the other side of the flip point.

  Jared gave it another half hour though Doctor Cartwright insisted it should be safe. Courageous led the way and he sighed in relief when a probe came through announcing their safe arrival.

  They’d already picked up the flip resonator, so he gave the order to flip the ship. They appeared in the Harrison’s World system with a normal amount of nausea. A regular transition.

  “Drop the flip resonator in the center of the flip point. After we get our probes back with the data from the other system, we’ll turn it on. If anyone else comes visiting, I want them to find the ‘not welcome’ sign.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Doctor Cartwright, how long can it stay activated?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  With his lack of engineering skills, he seriously doubted that. “Get with Commander Baxter and try to make some kind of assessment. And let me know how long it will take to get the other two back online. With two flip points in this system, I’m betting the plan was to have one in reserve to take them out of service for maintenance.”

  “Of course. Right away.”

  They set course for Boxer Station and he called ahead for their status. Captain Kaiser of New York appeared on his console. Kelsey stood beside her.

  The dark haired officer nodded to him. “Welcome back, Captain. The seven destroyers flipped after you, so I think we have almost complete control of the system. We’ve evacuated Boxer Station. New York and Ginnie Dare are packed to the bulkheads with our rescued people and prisoners from the station.”

  Kelsey spoke next. She looked exhausted, but otherwise in good condition. “It looks like the officers were kept on the station. The AI shipped the enlisted personnel to Harrison’s World. We still have some marines sweeping the station to be certain that we got everyone. Breckenridge is in custody and Commander Meyer was shipped to Harrison’s World.”

  “Excellent work, Kelsey. I’m so sorry to hear about Reese. We’re going to miss him. Do we have any idea what the situation is like on the planet?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “We moved a probe in close to the planet. The stations fired on it once it got inside their orbit. On a hunch, we sent a second one in, but kept it outside their orbit. None of the stations fired on it. Without the system AI around to alter their programming, we might be able to do something to clear the way for us to send small craft down.”

  “Send one of the probes right up on top of one. See if it objects to being boarded from above.”

  Captain Kaiser nodded. “Will do. I’ll send you a complete update. Shall we head toward Harrison’s World?”

  He nodded. “Good idea. We’ll rendezvous an hour out. If the probe can determine anything about the internal layout on those things, we’ll make a plan to do something about them.”

  “I have some ideas on that,” Kelsey said. “Let me think about it some more. I’m taking a pinnace over as soon as we rendezvous. We need to talk.”

  “That never ends well.”

  She gave him a tired smile. “I’m sure. Oh, one last thing. Spear isn’t repairable. Her engineering section is a wreck. Not even Baxter can put it back together. You’ll have to absorb her crew onto Invincible.”

  “We have plenty of room and more work than we can handle. Once we’re in position, we can take everyone we need to. See you when you get here. Invincible out.”

  Jared was too busy coordinating repairs to notice Kelsey docking a few hours later. He only realized she’d arrived when she walked through the hatch to operations.

  He rose to his feet and she headed right for him. He started a little when she grabbed him in a hug, but held her tight a moment later. It had been one hell of a day.

  His sister stepped back after a bit. “There’s something we need to discuss in private. Shall we go see if the admiral’s office survived?”

  He nodded. “Zia, you have the ship. Call me if anything pops up.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The two of them made their way to the admiral’s office. It was larger than his office on Courageous by several orders of magnitude. A suite of offices, really. The admiral’s staff surrounded him. It had no personal items, but someone had moved some nice furniture in.

  Kelsey sat on the edge of the desk. “I’ve made a few decisions you won’t be happy with and I wanted to tell you in private so you don’t feel ambushed.”

  “You mean as if you’d brought me to an empty compartment and just dropped it on me with no warning?”

  “Should I send a note next time? It’s nothing awful, though you might not agree at first blush. Just a little bit of reorganization.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why does that set off alarm bells? What kind of reorganization?”

  “Did you ever see yourself commanding a ship like this? Or a fleet in combat? Or did you imagine your career would end as soon as Ethan assumed the Throne?”

  It was true. He’d resigned himself to reaching captain just before his half-brother cashiered him.

  Kelsey didn’t give him a chance to respond. “You’re commanding a fleet in space. A superdreadnaught, two battlecruisers, and two destroyers. And you’ve inherited a Fleet base. We can’t have a mere commander running this show.”

  “So, you think I should be a captain like Breckenridge? I wouldn’t fight a field promotion like that.”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly. And I’m not talking about a field promotion.” She
pointed her finger toward him. “Poof, you’re an admiral.”

  He blinked in surprise. “Excuse me? No, I’m not. Even as the leader of this mission, you don’t have the authority to promote me like that.”

  “As the direct representative of His Imperial Majesty, I do. The last instructions from Emperor Marcus allow me to act with the emperor’s voice. If my father wants to object, he can overrule me when we get home. He won’t, I assure you.”

  Jared started to argue and forced himself to stop and breathe. “I’ve worked hard to avoid any hint of favoritism. This is wrong.”

  “No, it’s not. I know just how far your career has fallen behind because of people wanting to avoid even the appearance favoring you. Admiral Yeats told me that you would have been a senior captain in charge of your own task force by now if you’d been anyone else. As far as I’m concerned, I’m making up for lost time. Besides, tell me that a ship like this would be under the command of anything less.” Her expression dared him to argue with her.

  The moment was surreal. He knew deep inside that she was going somewhere she shouldn’t. “If I can’t convince you this is a mistake, perhaps I can insert a bit of reason. Perhaps it would make more sense if you made me a commodore or vice admiral instead.”

  Kelsey jutted out her chin somewhat defiantly. “I appreciate your modesty and restraint, but I’ll stick with my original intention. Take command of your fleet, Admiral Mertz. Don’t get any ideas about arguing with me later, either. Invincible, log my orders promoting Jared Mertz to the rank of admiral and also his assignment to this ship as the commanding officer of this fleet.”

  “You’re taking my ship, too?” That hurt. More than he’d expected it would.

  She shook her head. “Don’t look at it that way. Athena was your ship. You took Courageous because the opportunity presented itself. This isn’t any different.”

  After a moment of silence, she continued. “You’re going to have to move a lot of people around to get this ship fully manned. And there are all the people coming in from Spear and Shadow. Besides, tell me that Commander Graves doesn’t deserve his own command. And a promotion. Actually, don’t tell me. I’ve already made that call. He just doesn’t know he’s about to become Captain Graves, commanding officer of the Imperial battlecruiser Courageous.”

  She stood and put her hand on Jared’s shoulder. “You know we’ll probably accumulate more ships to take back with us. And when we deal with the people on this planet, they need to see you for what you are, a senior Fleet officer. Trust me on this.” She squeezed his shoulder and headed out the hatch.

  He watched her leave with a hollow feeling inside. This wasn’t right, but he didn’t have any options other than accepting her promotion or resigning his commission. He didn’t have the luxury of the latter gesture.

  “Congratulations, Admiral,” Invincible said.

  “Admiral in public, Jared in private, please.” He rubbed his face. He really was going to catch every kind of hell when he got back home. The sad thing was that he couldn’t deny Kelsey’s logic.

  “Invincible, I want you to start compiling the data on those orbiting weapons systems. I’m more than half inclined to blow them out of space, but I’m not sure I want the people on that planet loose. For all we know, they might be ready to come out in force and take the system.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll have it for you shortly.”

  Jared left the impressive office—his impressive office—and headed back toward operations. He still had an attack to plan and execute if he wanted to rescue his people.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Kelsey’s next stop was marine country, where she upended Talbot’s world when she made him a marine captain. There were no marine officers among the rescued prisoners. The other officers thought they might have all perished in trying to defend Spear against the weapons platforms. She’d be willing to bet that most of the marines on that ship hadn’t survived.

  Even if they had, she didn’t know them. She didn’t trust them like she did Talbot. He’d just have to suck it up.

  She called Charlie Graves and promoted him to captain. That was the appropriate rank for a battlecruiser command. She’d have to get him some implants to make Courageous happy. He seemed just about as reluctant as Jared had been on getting the news. She suspected he thought she’d be overturned when they made it home.

  Kelsey had a lot more people in mind to promote, but that could wait until things settled down. And when the medical people weren’t harassing her. Doctors Stone and Guzman didn’t seem to accept that her nanites had her in good shape.

  The wound on her leg was healing well enough. They wanted to pop her into the regenerator, but other people would benefit from regeneration far more than she would.

  Yes, her wound hurt, but her implants told her it was healing well. The painkillers in her pharmacology unit kept the pain to acceptable limits.

  Talbot knocked on the hatch to her appropriated office in marine country. Someone had gotten him an updated uniform tunic with the correct rank. He looked good.

  “Time to armor up,” he said. “You sure I can’t convince you to sit this one out?”

  “I’ve already promised to let your people take the lead.”

  “Right up until you decide to do something dangerous. Look, I’m not going to argue about it, but you need to start looking at the big picture. Let us take the risks. If you die, we’re screwed. And I’d miss you.”

  Kelsey shook her head. “As long as you remember you’re the marine CO, I’ll stay where you are. Let’s go see if my armor is ready.” At this rate, it wouldn’t take long before it was as scarred as the woman from the emperor’ vid.

  They really didn’t have any idea how heavily defended the orbital weapons platforms were. They didn’t fire on the probes that stayed above them, but they might have internal defenses that were not so picky.

  Even if they managed to get the orbitals under control without too much trouble, they still had to rescue the people trapped on the planet. A planet run by Rebel Empire humans that she really didn’t understand yet.

  She hoped they could keep the orbitals intact. Their damaged ships would eventually leave, though they had already decided to leave some people at the station. These people wouldn’t be able to stop an organized expansion by a planet full of technologically capable people.

  Of course, the idea of keeping them pinned down with the threat of destruction from orbit made her stomach churn. Perhaps that wouldn’t prove necessary. She wouldn’t know until she learned more.

  They armored up and boarded the pinnaces. They’d take one of the stations as a group. They really didn’t have enough marines to try for all three at the same time.

  The approach was as nerve-wracking as she’d imagined. There were docks on the topside, so they entered that way with weapons ready.

  To find no resistance whatsoever. No people, no weapons platforms. Nothing. The computer on the station was in complete control. It didn’t even have life support turned on. No gravity, no heating, and no atmosphere.

  Carl Owlet hacked into the computer after a few hours of work. Once he had access, adding their ships’ IFF codes to the approved list proved trivial.

  They visited each of the other orbitals and found the same situation. By the time they had complete control of the orbital space around Harrison’s World, she was beat. So were the marines. The island the destroyers had taken the prisoners to was in darkness, so she ordered an early morning assault. There might be Rebel Empire humans down there. Visibility would help and a few hours wouldn’t make a difference at this point.

  * * * * *

  The ships moved into position as soon as the sun was over the horizon at the island. The pinnaces dropped as they had on Erorsi, as though they expected to take fire.

  Which turned out to be prudent. Half a dozen weapons emplacements on the island opened fire during the last leg of their drop, blowing two pinnaces out of the sky. The remaining pinnaces took
the weapons out, but that meant more dead marines. Taking this system was by far the bloodiest horror Kelsey had ever witnessed.

  Talbot had insisted she wait for the second wave, so she landed without incident. He was directing his people to set up a perimeter. There were a bunch of buildings in the facility, but no sign of humans. No mobile weapons, either.

  Marines set up portable weapons to cover the island in case the locals decided to attack. They only intended to get their people and withdraw, but they had to be secure while they did it.

  There were signs the base personnel had left in a hurry, but quite some time ago. No bodies, thank God. Just a big mess. A cursory sweep of the nearby buildings turned up no sign of their people.

  “Kelsey, we have visitors,” Talbot told her over the command channel. “There’s a boat approaching the dock nearest the landing field.”

  “On my way.” She headed back at a run and arrived just as the boat docked. It looked big enough to hold a lot of people or cargo. A number of people came down a portable walkway, a few of them dressed markedly better than the rest. Similar to what Kelsey had seen in the pictures the captain of the Rebel Empire destroyer kept on her walls. Rebel Empire nobility.

  And here she was dressed for battle, not diplomacy. Maybe gunboat diplomacy.

  The marines spread out and covered the people as they walked down the dock. Kelsey made the call to show no fear. If these people wanted trouble, she’d give it to them.

  “Talbot, you’re with me. I want a few marines behind us, but not too many. We’re not afraid of these people.”

  “Right.”

  She took her helmet off and shook out her hair. She really ought to cut it back if she was going to wear a helmet this often.

  The people from the boat stopped at the halfway mark and a woman in noble garb kept walking. Kelsey stopped Talbot with a gesture and went to meet her.

  The woman had dark, wavy hair pulled back into a tie. Her dress was of silk or some similar fabric. She eyed Kelsey’s armor with an expression of disdain.

  “I will speak with your senior officer.”