Reconnaissance in Force (Book 6 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  “Three each,” she said. “We can’t allow the battle station to survive.”

  “We also can’t let any of the destroyers live,” he countered. “We have to get them, too.”

  “We know where their fusion plants are. Pick one pilot in each group to eject and let their fighters go terminal on the enemy. In a perfect world, we’d be able to control them remotely via our implants, but we can’t risk the enemy detecting any signals. We’ll have to do it the hard way.”

  His eyes lost focus as he considered the tactic. “Pulling what the admiral did? Bold. If we follow up with missiles right on the kamikazes’ heels, it should finish them off before they can scream for help. Still, this is chancy. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be in trouble.”

  “Then let’s make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  * * * * *

  Kelsey made it to the command deck for the station right after the marines had stormed it. Once again, they’d stunned everything that moved.

  She made the rounds of the consoles, moving stunned people out of the way and looking for any that had been left unsecure. Due to the speed and ferocity of the attack, not everyone had been on the ball. She found an auxiliary panel unlocked.

  Finding the security information took longer than she liked, but was reassuring when she did find it.

  The very first thing she did was trigger the anti-boarding stunners. That would take everyone off the table. Her people were shielded. She also locked out the escape pods. None of them had ejected, but she wouldn’t discount the idea of someone getting around the lockout.

  The pinnaces would keep an eye out for any and deal with them. The jamming would keep the Rebel Empire fleet from hearing any distress beacons.

  The next challenge was to locate the computer cores. It turned out that there had been someone in the core room. Unfortunately for him, he was woefully short on clearance. He didn’t know the codes to erase the system, so he’d been left with a large wrench as his only tool of destruction.

  He’d managed to smash some equipment before she used the anti-boarding stunners, but the cores were intact.

  Kelsey let out a sigh of relief. “That was close. Let’s try to keep anyone else from getting too excited.”

  She called Audacious. They’d left a few frequencies open for just this purpose. “Zia, I think we’ve pulled it off. Does Captain Levy know how he’s going to grapple the station?”

  The Fleet officer nodded. “He’s got that under control. We’ll be able to move in twenty minutes.”

  “Excellent. What’s the status of the Rebel Empire fleet?”

  “Still on course. The detachment heading toward Admiral Mertz will be there before we can secure the station. The other one is still a ways off from flip point three. If we get under way on time, we’ll beat them, but not by much.

  “I have a plan to distract them, though. If Annette can take out the defenders, we might be able to escape in the chaos. One of the captured freighters is almost empty. It will be a critical part of my ruse.”

  “I hope your plan works. Otherwise we’re in deep trouble.”

  * * * * *

  Zia sent a crew over to unload the mostly empty freighter. It would make a great addition to her decoy, hopefully confusing the Rebel Empire forces for a while as to what had really happened at Dresden.

  Princess Kelsey had instructed her to hold off notifying Admiral Mertz of their intentions until the last moment, figuring he would try something bold and heroic. Zia probably should have argued more strongly that she had a duty to keep him in the loop, but she privately agreed. If things went south, she wanted to see the majority of their forces make it safely home. The Empire would need them to survive.

  Using the FTL coms now was a risk, but less of one now that the station was theirs. Unlike last time, she needed this to be a two-way conversation.

  “Open an FTL link to Invincible,” she ordered her communications officer.

  A few moments later, Admiral Mertz appeared on the main screen.

  “We were getting worried, Zia. Based on the initial data, the enemy was splitting up to cover all the flip points. Are you in danger?”

  She gave him a wry smile. “Nothing we can’t manage, I hope. We’ve secured the orbital.”

  He nodded. “Excellent. We’ve worked up a number of different scenarios to break you out. Depending on the actual forces we’ll face coming in, we should be able to get you though.”

  “Actually, the princess has a different plan.”

  “Of course she does.” He sighed. “Lay it out.”

  “First, I need to give you the reasoning. I’ll be quick because I don’t want to keep this line open any longer than I have to. The major point is that the orbital didn’t just make Raider implants. It also built sentient AIs.”

  The admiral sat up abruptly. “Seriously? Then we need to put every effort into getting you out of there as soon as possible.”

  She shook her head. “We can’t extract all the equipment from the station in the limited time we have available, sir. We’re just going to steal the whole thing.”

  “The whole—”

  He stopped himself. “You’re going to put the orbital into the recovery ship. That’s brilliant. If you can evade detection on the way to flip point one, we’ll keep them off you.”

  “The odds of us making it through to you are slim, Admiral. Too slim. We’re arranging our own distraction and breaking out through flip point three. The fighters will hit the defenders there before the reinforcements arrive. We’ll distract the relief force and escape before they know what’s happening.”

  Admiral Mertz looked down at his console. “There aren’t any links on that route to bring you home. The Rebel Empire Fleet is going to chase you down. It’s too risky. We’ll come up with something else.”

  “I can’t recall the fighters, Admiral. They’re only a few hours from executing. We’re committed.”

  He considered her for a long moment. “That’s Kelsey’s doing, isn’t it? She told you to hold off notifying me so that I couldn’t countermand her scheme.”

  Zia sighed. “I wish it were that simple. I looked at the options, and your likely responses, before I decided that I agreed with her. The Empire needs your ships and your experience to survive, Admiral.

  “Even if we made it to flip point one, the odds of us extracting the station and keeping the Rebel Empire ships off us while we retreated to Erorsi nonexistent. It’s too far. Our only chance is to vanish, leaving them to scratch their heads about what happened.”

  He looked skeptical. “And you think you can do that?”

  She smiled. “With just a dash of luck. I’m sorry for the deception, Admiral, but I’m doing what I think has the best chance of success in the long run. If it works out, we’ll be able to give you a final status report before we escape.”

  The unspoken part of that was they’d also tell him if it all went to crap.

  Jared Mertz considered her for a long moment. “You’re the officer on the scene, Zia. I have complete faith in you. Good luck.”

  “I’m attaching everything to the transmission now. We’ll call once we’re about to leave the system. Thank you for your confidence, Admiral.”

  “You’ve more than earned it. You’ll need every bit of skill and smarts to get back home, but I know you’ll do it. Make us proud.”

  She nodded, her heart swelling with emotion. “Thank you, sir.”

  Zia attached the files about the escape plan and ended the transmission.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Annette watched the range to the targets grow smaller. They were coming in on a purely ballistic course, and at fairly high speed. Since the ships and battle station weren’t scanning continuously, they probably wouldn’t even know they were in danger until it was far too late.

  The probes gave them a good idea of exactly where they needed to hit. She’d already moved the fighters they were using as rams up front. Not by much, but she had to give the
pilots time to eject and fly past the targets before they destroyed them. At this speed, it would only mean a delay measured in fractions of a second.

  A second stealthed probe had been giving them statuses on the force headed their way, but they’d had to shut it down. They were close enough to the flip point that the defenders might pick up the edge of the beam.

  They should be too far away to pick up the explosions. Space was vast and even the flare of failed fusion plant faded fast. As long as they weren’t actively scanning when the time came, the attack should go undetected.

  Unless someone got a distress call off.

  That was the worst-case scenario. If the Rebel Empire ships raced in, there was no way they could escape. They had one chance at this.

  Annette forced her mind off the chances of failure. She had to maximize the chances of success.

  The battle station was still the biggest question. Without knowing where the fusion plants were inside it, they couldn’t use pinpoint targeting, like they were with the destroyers.

  The plan called for the three fighters to ram the station, and as the pilots were flying past it in their suits, the rest of them would use missiles to tear the thing apart. That should blow at least one of the plants. Probably.

  She hated the uncertainty.

  Well, there was one thing she could do to increase their chances. They were too close to the targets to notify any of the others that she was about the change the plan, but it was worth the risk.

  Annette used her maneuvering thrusters to slow her speed just a hair. Unlike the grav drives, the chemical reaction wouldn’t be detectable. She had to use every ounce of thrust she had to make enough difference, but it put her behind the remainder of the attacking force.

  Her internal timer slowly crawled to zero and the space in front of her burst with light. Even before her mind had fully registered the explosions, her implants fired her missiles to follow them up.

  The rest of the pilots spiraled past the damaged battle station and raced into deep space. She didn’t.

  Her canopy blew off and the powerful grav drive under her seat blasted her straight up. Annette didn’t see her beloved fighter plow into the already expanding craters on the target, but she couldn’t miss the blinding flare of a failed fusion plant as she hurled past it.

  In a moment, it was gone and she was tumbling through space. An alarm was howling in her ears. Suit integrity had failed and she was losing atmosphere. Her radiation count was also off the charts.

  The exposure was so brief that she’d probably live, supposing they found her quickly, and she didn’t suffocate first.

  Her helmet locked tight around her neck, cutting off the loss of air. Her body could stand a brief exposure to vacuum. With any luck, one of the other pilots would find her. An emergency ball from the external stores of the fighter would keep her alive.

  They’d disabled their beacons. One going off would ruin the stealth they’d struggled so hard to achieve. It also meant that they’d have to find her with short-ranged scanners or she’d be lost forever in the depths of space.

  At least she could take solace in the fact they’d destroyed the battle station. Hopefully, the destroyers were gone, too.

  In any case, her part in this little drama was over. It was up to the princess and commodore to make their sacrifices mean something.

  * * * * *

  Kelsey sat at a borrowed console on Audacious’s flag bridge and watched the passive scanner results from flip point three with satisfaction. Annette Vitter and her people had taken out the battle station and all three destroyers. The path was clear, so long as they diverted the Rebel Empire ships that were currently headed in that direction.

  She turned to Zia. “Are we clear of Dresden?”

  The other woman looked up from her command console. “We’re just leaving the exclusion zone you’d designated around the planet. I’d like to have another half-hour at this speed before we kick things off. If they spot us now, everything was for nothing.”

  The carrier, Persephone, the recovery ship with the hijacked station in its grip, and the fully laden freighter were creeping along at a very low acceleration. Too slow to show up on the scanners of any ships that happened to look their direction. They hoped.

  “I understand,” Kelsey said, “but we don’t have the luxury of being certain. If they don’t fall for the bait, we’re in for some serious fighting. Your fighters will only barely make it back to us before we get to the flip point. They have a lot of momentum to burn off, and they can’t use real acceleration to do it. If that force doesn’t divert, they’ll screw us all.”

  Zia sighed. “I know. Well, if wishes were horses, we’d all be ass deep in horse crap.”

  “I see someone else still likes to look into the historical archives. Execute Operation Troll.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Zia said. She pressed a button on her console. “Signal away. It’ll take a minute for things to kick off on the other end.”

  Kelsey calculated the time it would take for the trigger signal to race to Dresden, so she was ready when the distress signal came.

  It had taken them a while to find the emergency procedures for the orbital, but once they had them, designing a faked distress signal was easy. They had a lot of archived message traffic to use in splicing together a believable message using the actual people manning the station. That was the key, she thought.

  The image her people had put together was computer generated, which probably wouldn’t have been enough to fool anyone for very long under normal circumstances, but they’d sent the data they had to Marcus through the FTL com.

  The AI had access to tremendously more computing power than they did. The video he’d sent back looked and sounded very authentic.

  The main screen came to life with a view of the orbital’s main control room. The commanding officer—the boring commodore that Annette Vitter had mentioned—was staring out at them with a look of pure desperation on her face.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday! We need immediate assistance in Dresden orbit. One of our fusion plants has entered some kind of runaway state and we can’t get it to shut off. We’ve moved the critical research to one of the freighters, but we can’t—”

  The transmission ceased.

  One of the support staff looked over at the two women. “We have an explosion in Dresden orbit. The freighter’s fusion plant detonated right on schedule.”

  Kelsey nodded in satisfaction. When the would-be rescuers arrived in orbit, they’d find a real mess. Zia had put all the ore that they’d brought around the freighter. It wasn’t as much mass as the station, but it was a significant fraction.

  They wouldn’t decipher that mess for a while. By the time they realized that the station couldn’t have been destroyed—either through analyzing the debris or just recognizing there wasn’t enough of it—she and her people would hopefully be long gone.

  The two inbound freighters would be close enough to see the explosion, but too far out to get any details. Their messages would add authenticity to the ruse.

  Kelsey watched the task force closest them in the passive plot and crossed her fingers. If they all came running, the distraction was an unqualified success. Otherwise, she’d have to fight the remainder at the flip point and the rest of the force would quickly be on their heels as they ran.

  The task force changed course as soon as the distress signal arrived at their location. To her intense satisfaction, all the ships turned together. They would arrive in orbit a little before her slower ships made it to the flip point.

  Kelsey worried about the active scanning until they were clear, but the signal strength never peaked high enough to mean the others could have seen them. The gamble had paid off.

  Not that she relaxed until they’d arrived at the flip point. The fighters had rejoined them. The defenders had never even seen them coming, so there were no combat losses, other than seven fighters used as ramming weapons.

  The only unexpected
news was that Annette Vitter had been one of the kamikazes. That hadn’t been part of the plan. The woman’s people had noticed she was missing and frantically searched for her until they’d located her. Without a beacon, that was a real challenge.

  Word was that she had radiation poisoning and was suffering from vacuum exposure, but that she would live. Kelsey couldn’t wait to hear the story of the attack, and to watch the recordings.

  “We’ve recovered all our fighters,” Zia said. “We can transition at any time.”

  She nodded. “I’ll give Jared a final status first. This will be the last time he and I talk before we find a way home.”

  The other woman smiled. “I can’t wait to see the vid drama they make about your latest exploit.”

  Kelsey couldn’t help rolling her eyes at that. Perfect. They’d managed to keep the damned original vid out of the public eye, but she had no doubt it would be everywhere by the time she got back. It was a good thing she’d be gone for months and couldn’t see it or any prospective new ones.

  * * * * *

  “Incoming FTL signal, Admiral,” Marcus said.

  Jared looked up from his console. “On screen.”

  Kelsey appeared. She stood beside Zia Anderson’s control console and smiled at him.

  “Well, things are in good shape here and we’re ready to flip. The majority of the ships at the remaining flip points are racing for Dresden. They sent a signal to the battle station at flip point three, but accepted a brief acknowledgement we sent back without suspicion.

  “The orders are for the ships here to keep watch with a higher level of vigilance. We said we’d make sure no one slipped past us, of course.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe you pulled this off. You stole an entire orbital. That’s impressive.”

  “They’ll figure out we tricked them sooner or later,” she said with a wry smile. “The destroyed units here will tell them which way we went. We’ll try to stay out of sight until we can sneak back home.