Race to Terra (Book 10 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

“I need a distraction,” she said with feeling. “How do you deal with this?”

  “Feeling a little stressed?” he asked with a smile. “You know, you can get up and walk around a bit. Pass command on to someone else and take a break for just a bit.”

  “Do you do that?”

  “Probably not as often as I should, but yes. If you’d like to have a few minutes away from the bridge, I have something down here that I think you’d like to see.”

  “Is it good news? Please tell me it’s good news.”

  “It is good news.”

  “I’ll be right there,” she said as she stood and killed the communications link. A few words with Commander Hall had command transferred for the moment, and Olivia was on her way to engineering via the lift.

  When she arrived, Jared was waiting for her. “We have it set up in the maintenance tube.”

  He led her to where they had a table holding the FTL com and some other equipment staged around it that she didn’t recognize. There were a lot of hard cables running back and forth between the com and the other equipment.

  Present were Kelsey Two, as they’d all taken to calling her privately after she’d come up with the idea, Commander O’Halloran, Austin Darrah, and Sean Meyer. All of them were clustered around the monitor observing something.

  “What’s the good news?” she asked Jared.

  “We finished receiving the last of the modification information about half an hour ago.”

  She was somewhat annoyed that he hadn’t notified her about all of this, but even though she was pretending to be the mission commander, he was really in charge, so she couldn’t tear a strip off of him. As much as she wanted to.

  “And have you made the changes?”

  He nodded. “We just brought the system back up so that they could run a diagnostic on it. Once that’s done, they’re going to attempt to utilize Morse code from the other side.

  “Rather than flipping the machine on and off, which would make two-way communication particularly challenging, Carl came up with a method of using just the status pings as a way to do it. That way both sides can send data at the same time and receive it.”

  She frowned slightly. “I don’t know that much about Morse code, but are there two different kinds of signal? Dots and dashes? How are you differentiating between them?”

  Austin looked over at her. “It’s not as hard as you might think. Once we’ve verified that we have good communication in both directions, if we send three pings together, it will represent a dot. If we send six pings together, it will represent a dash. If we send ten together, it means end of a transmission. Even if one somehow gets dropped, the intent will still be clear.”

  “How quickly will we be able to exchange information?”

  The young man shrugged. “It depends on what your expectations are. If you look at how slowly we’ve been exchanging information, this is going to seem very quick indeed. If you compare it with standard communications, this is going to be extremely slow.

  “As you might imagine, video is out of the question, except perhaps for very small snippets that will take a significant amount of time. Audio is somewhat friendlier, but that will still take more time than just sending a text message.”

  Commander O’Halloran straightened. “I think we’re ready to run the first test.”

  Jared moved over to stand behind the man. “What do we have in mind?”

  The Fleet engineer gestured toward a microphone. “If you want to speak directly into the microphone, the equipment will translate your words into Morse code and send it. The response will come out of the speaker as a generic, computer-generated voice, but it should be comprehensible.”

  He turned toward Olivia. “How far away from the next flip are we? Has Fielding given you any indication of when he expects to join us for the flip?”

  She shook her head slightly. “He hasn’t said a word, which leads me to believe that he’s just going to show up at an inconvenient moment to spring something on me. I really can’t excuse myself from being on the bridge for very much longer. At this point, we’re only a couple of hours away from the flip point.”

  “Any normal person would show up about half an hour before the flip,” Jared said. “That virtually guarantees that Fielding will be there an hour ahead of time.”

  “Or show up five minutes beforehand,” Olivia grumbled.

  Jared laughed. “That sounds just about like the man. Well, at least we’ll be able to get this next segment of our mission underway instead of wondering what’s going on. I can’t escape the feeling that there’s something more to what we’re doing than he’s told us. Sean, go hold down the bridge in case he does show up early.”

  Commander O’Halloran waited for Jared to take a seat after Sean left and then touched a button next to the microphone and made a gesture with his hand for Jared to start.

  “Kelsey, this is Jared. We’ve made the modifications just like you instructed, so I’m hoping this does the trick and we can start our dialog.”

  For a few seconds, nothing happened, and Olivia’s heart fell. They’d gotten something wrong, and the communications attempt had failed.

  Then a voice came out of the speaker. Not a regular person’s voice, but a generic, monotone computer-generated one. Weirdly, she still heard it as Kelsey’s voice in her head.

  “Jared, it’s good to hear your voice, so to speak. Kelsey here. I’ve got so much to tell you about what’s going on. We’ve learned so much that we didn’t know before about the Rebel Empire and all kinds of other, unexpected things.

  “We’re okay on this end, even though we’re under a bit of pressure. What’s your status? Are you guys okay?”

  Olivia relaxed. She looked over and took in the other Kelsey’s expression.

  Kelsey Two was listening to the voice with a frown but didn’t really seem angry. More like she was just nonplussed. Olivia suppose one didn’t hear the voice of one’s twin from another universe every day.

  The one person that looked confused was Austin Darrah. He had a peculiar expression on his face and was looking back and forth between the com and Kelsey. He probably wondered about the odds of having two people with the same name involved in the conversation.

  While they trusted the young man a little way, they hadn’t explained to him that the Kelsey he knew came from another reality and that her doppelgänger was on the other end of the call. They’d have to do that at some point, but now wasn’t the time.

  “We probably only have between half an hour and an hour to exchange information before we have to cut the communication,” Jared said. “We’re about to flip into a system that has one of the System Lords in it, so we’d best keep this pithy. As quickly as you can, in as much detail as you feel comfortable with, give me a status on what you’ve been up to.”

  Olivia wondered to herself whether or not they should send Austin and Kelsey Two away. Kelsey One would probably be sharing information that was highly classified.

  Jared, for his part, didn’t seem to be overly concerned. In fact, he gestured for more chairs to be brought in so that everyone could sit and listen. He’d obviously made up his mind that he wasn’t going to keep these secrets from their new allies.

  Olivia still suspected that if their Kelsey brought up anything that he didn’t want them to hear, he’d quickly shut her down.

  Over the next half hour, she listened incredulously as Kelsey One went through their adventures and tribulations. She was amazed at the wealth of scientific information that they’d gotten away with and amused at the number of prisoners they’d accumulated.

  Thankfully, she knew she’d be able to help with at least one of their problems. Now that they’d restored communication, she’d be able to speak with this Lieutenant Commander Sommerville and reassure him that Kelsey was actually in communication with the real resistance.

  That might very well allow the other man to give her friend enough information to find her way to Terra in time to join them t
here. Particularly since they’d cracked the mystery of the weak flip points. Or, as they now referred to them, the multi-flip points. That was actually a much better name.

  The far flip points that they discussed were a complete shock. No one had ever predicted that something like that existed. She made a mental note to have Elise send her people searching the outer part of the Pentagar, Courageous, and Erorsi systems. If any of the three had far flip points, that might give her people many more options to search the universe.

  Hell, the way these multi-flip points had different branches that could be explored, even from the same position inside a single flip point, vastly expanded the opportunities to explore the universe and connect with other systems that might not be reachable through normal flip points.

  There was one in the Courageous system right next to Pentagar and another in the Erorsi system. They might now be gateways for Elise’s people to get to a lot of new systems.

  With the flip point modulator that Carl Owlet had designed, scout ships would be able to use different branches from any multi-flip point, go to the other side, and then access even more branches from there.

  Considering that the one example Carl had examined closely had showed that some of the branches on either side didn’t match up with the ones on the first side, there was the potential that a ship could flip along one branch, turn right around and flip along a second that didn’t go to a location reachable from the first side, and then turn right around again and go to a third location that neither of the others could see. Perhaps even more.

  Obviously, that wasn’t going to be an infinite array of possibilities. Still, regular flip points only connected with about a tenth of the stars in the universe, at least in the areas humanity had explored. If the multi-flip points connected with even the same number of previously unreachable systems, that doubled the destinations available.

  And then there were the far flip points. They obviously connected to systems reachable by regular flip points, but what if they also reached systems that connected to different networks of regular flip points?

  That had been a hypothesis that she’d read about when doing her research on the subject in college. She admitted that the idea of completely separate networks of flip points weaving around one another made her brain hurt, but if the professionals said it was possible, then it was something that she couldn’t dismiss out of hand.

  That might explain how the Clans had lived separately from the Rebel Empire for so long without being discovered. If the worlds that they’d obviously occupied and built their new civilization on were part of a separate network, the Rebel Empire could blithely go about their business and never have a clue that such a powerful enemy was so close by.

  But that was a mystery for another day.

  Another aspect of what Kelsey had discovered completely intrigued her. The Pandorans with their human DNA that had to have been placed inside them before humanity had ever discovered space travel. Who had done it and why?

  That was another mystery that wasn’t going to be solved today.

  She glanced at Kelsey Two again. The other woman’s expression was grim.

  Olivia had known that she resented the success that Kelsey One had achieved, and she could even understand it. Still, she’d need to talk to the other woman and try to head off some of the bitterness she could see already building inside her.

  This wasn’t a competition. The successes that Kelsey One had achieved could help Kelsey Two.

  Jared responded briefly about how impressed he was with what they’d accomplished and then launched into the far shorter tale of what they’d been up to. The key elements only took a few minutes to pass along, and he ended with an explanation of what they hoped to accomplish.

  Olivia noted that he left out that they had visitors from another universe. A glance at Kelsey Two showed that she’d noted the omission too, and it didn’t make her any happier.

  Jared went on, not recognizing how Kelsey Two was seething. “I haven’t got any idea what Fielding intends during this so-called ‘repair mission,’ but once we have it out of the way, we’ll be on our way to Terra. We’re supposed to be there roughly a week from now. My suspicion is that it’ll take us a few days longer than that, considering we need to carry out the mission here.

  “If you can convince your resistance contact to help you, that would be incredible. We’re separated from my fleet, and even at best speed, they’re going to come in at least a week behind us and from another direction. Odds are very high that the defenses that keep people out of the Terra system are strong enough that any incursion against them would draw a response from all the surrounding systems in time to interfere with what we’re trying to do.

  “This is still a stealth mission, and I’d prefer to make it happen without the AI realizing what’s going on before we kill it. Olivia is going to need to be back on the bridge very shortly. If you could bring Lieutenant Commander Sommerville down and let her have a brief discussion with him to authenticate her identity, I think that’s about all we have time left for.”

  “I’ve already sent for him,” Kelsey One said. “He walked in just in time to hear that last little bit. Olivia, if you have time to go ahead and have a discussion with our friend, that would be very helpful.”

  Olivia nodded even though the other woman couldn’t see her. “Hello, Commander Sommerville, my name is Olivia West. I’m the coordinator of Harrison’s World and the leader of the resistance there. We’ve staged a coup and taken over the system and are working with Kelsey and the New Terran Empire.”

  She proceeded to give him a recognition code. He responded with the appropriate response and then sent her a code of his own that she responded to.

  He then sent one that she was unfamiliar with. In fact, it didn’t even seem to follow the same pattern as the rest of the recognition codes.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that one,” she said. “Is it a red herring?”

  “I have no idea what a red herring is, but if it means that that was a trap to see if you’d respond to it, it was. I suppose that I’ll have to accept that you’re really a member of the resistance. I can’t begin to tell you how that complicates things for me.”

  Olivia could almost hear the dry tone of his voice as he said it, even though the computer wouldn’t have carried that information across.

  “I live to serve,” she said solemnly.

  Her implants pinged with an incoming call from the bridge. It was text only from Sean. It indicated that Fielding had arrived.

  She sent a response that she’d be there momentarily and turned to Jared. “Fielding is on the bridge. We should probably head there and see what other surprises he has in store for us.”

  10

  Angela sat in Persephone’s command chair as they made the transition to Archibald. This was it, her first independent command, and she was going back into the system they’d barely escaped from the last time they’d been there. One with an invasion in progress.

  Commander Sommerville had confirmed that he’d intended to use a far flip point in the system. His admission had been grudging, and he had obvious reservations about telling them anything, but he’d finally pinpointed where it was located in Archibald’s outer system.

  Her mission was to make certain that the rest of their ships wouldn’t encounter Clan warships as they made their way out to it. Persephone was very stealthy, so Angela didn’t anticipate any problems. The other ships wouldn’t have her advantages, though.

  In the few days since they’d made their escape from Archibald, the Clans had fully occupied the system. Her passive scanners were easily able to pick up grav drives moving across the system and surrounding the main world.

  Kelsey had taken the precaution of leaving a stealthed probe that gave them occasional updates via FTL, so Angela had come into the system certain that no one was close enough to detect her.

  The problem was that the Clans were still searching for the Q-ship that had gotten
away. She didn’t blame them. It had killed one of their frigates.

  That meant there were far too many vessels quartering back and forth across the outer system. Sommerville had intended to change course once he was clear of detection, so the enemy wasn’t near the far flip point, but they were still an obstacle to be avoided.

  One serious complication was that the clans knew about far flip points. Frankly, she’d be surprised if they weren’t looking for them in each system they’d taken from the Rebel Empire.

  If Angela was dead unlucky, the Clans would find it, and she’d have to use brute force to get their ships through, which would trigger a pursuit that wouldn’t turn out well for her or her friends.

  Her goal was to get the carrier, the Q-ship, and the freighter she was shepherding safely to the far flip point and be gone before the search pattern expanded to include the areas where the multi-flip point or far flip point were located.

  She had no idea if the Clans could detect a multi-flip point, but they’d had one to examine for five hundred years. She wasn’t discounting the possibility.

  If they found it, that might be a disaster for Pandora, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about that. The forces of the New Terran Empire were hopelessly outgunned and would die in that system if they stood their ground.

  No, they had to get the critical manufacturing equipment and knowledge back to Avalon at all costs. The survival of their own worlds depended on it.

  While the multi-flip point was safely clear of any enemy traffic, there were ships between it and the far flip point. Whatever path she chose would have to be circuitous, and they’d have to go slowly.

  “Well, there’s no time like the present,” she said. “Signal Audacious to come through.”

  This was going to be the most nail-biting moment for Angela. They’d installed the flip drive that Carl had had built by the Rebel Empire shipyard and then snuck out of the system on board the Q-ship they’d hijacked. If it failed, they were screwed.

  They’d tested it along a different branch of the multi-flip point successfully, but it was still experimental technology. Until they’d used it for a much longer period of time, Angela was going to be worried every time they made a transition.