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

by Terry Mixon

  Jared wasn’t exactly happy to hear that, but there was nothing he could do to stop his sister. She was going to do what she thought was best, regardless of how he felt. Acceptance of that particular trait came hard to him, but he wasn’t going to let it bother him anymore than it had to. Kelsey was coming whether he liked it or not, so he might as well like it. He didn’t dare call her back to argue, in any case. There was far too great a chance of the enemy detecting the attempt.

  “I’m starting to pick up more data from Terra orbit,” Evan Brodie said. “I’m detecting at least two orbital bombardment platforms, as well as a lot of other types of station. The weapons platforms are definitely powered, but so are at least half a dozen other stations. Potentially as many as a dozen on the side of the planet I can see.

  “There are some massive installations on the moon, as well. A lot of damage there, probably from the fight to take the system back during the Fall. Without being obvious about it, I’m not going to be able to be clearer on conditions there.

  “I’m not detecting any ships, but they could be concealed behind or even inside some of the stations. A couple of them are gargantuan. Since I doubt the AIs needed to build all of this capacity, a bunch of it must’ve been left over from before the Fall. Potentially, they tried to turn Terra into one of their subjugated planets and failed.”

  Jared rubbed his chin while he thought about it. “I’m sure they did try to bring Terra to heel, but that obviously didn’t work out for them. What I’m wondering is why they felt the need to exterminate everyone on the planet. What changed?

  “They obviously have enough force to keep people out of this system as well as to make certain that no one from the surface can escape. Maybe we’ll be able to find out once we get down there. Janice, what’s our ETA?”

  The helm officer checked her console briefly. “Two hours, twelve minutes. Almost there.”

  The next few hours went by even more slowly than the previous two. By the time they reached orbit, they had a much better impression of what was in orbit and had even begun discerning some of the surface.

  In total, there were five orbital bombardment platforms. One of them seemed to be powered down, though he couldn’t see any reason for that. The other four were certainly more than enough to deal with any issues requiring kinetic weaponry.

  In addition, there were twenty-seven stations of various sizes that still had power. They ranged in size from medium size to immensely large. The biggest one was at least ten times the size of Orbital One back around Avalon. There were hundreds of other stations without power. Terra’s industrial capacity must’ve been immense before the AIs had killed it.

  “I’m starting to get some readings from the surface,” Evan said. “The side of the planet facing us show signs of organized kinetic bombardment. It isn’t enough to completely destroy the urban environment below, but it’s significant. I’ll start working to match up the craters with what we know about Terra from before the Fall to try and identify what the targets were.”

  “What about the Imperial Palace?” Jared asked. “Can we see it from here?”

  The tactical officer shook his head. “We’ll be coming around the planet to where we can see what it looks like in about ten minutes.”

  “We have another incoming message,” Wanda said, frowning. “Another voice message from the AI. It’s telling us to initiate deployment of the drones.”

  “Have you managed to locate the source of the transmission?”

  Not that they can afford to shoot at the damned thing, not with cruisers sitting right behind them. They could probably damage a station, perhaps even destroy it and the AI, but they’d still die.

  The communications officer nodded. “It’s coming from that massive station just ahead of us. Whether it is a relay from elsewhere or even a recorded message, I couldn’t say.”

  “Send a question back,” he said. “Ask if it has a preference where we start deploying the drones. The time it takes for it to answer will let us know if it’s really there or somewhere else in the system.”

  She turned back to her console. Moments later, she nodded. “It’s sent us six locations spread out around the planet. It wants one crate in each location and the drones programmed to spread out as far as possible. I guess the AI is in the station.”

  Jared supposed that would work as well as anything for purposes of spreading the plague. It might make it really awkward getting to the Imperial Palace if the AI was dictating where they could land though.

  “Put the map on the main screen and highlight the designated landing zones.”

  A map of Terra flashed up on the main screen, and six areas on it began flashing. Imperial City was located where the old American city of New York had been. The Imperial Palace was located a moderate distance away from the city, sitting farther north. The closest designated landing zone from either was easily three thousand kilometers away.

  “Well, that’s going to be challenging,” he admitted. “Whatever we do, I think it’s probably best to save the closest landing point until the very last. Once we’ve accomplished the mission, we become expendable.”

  “Imperial City is coming up,” Evan Brodie said. “It looks like it took a direct hit. Perhaps more than one. The Imperial Palace area, on the other hand, seems to be mostly undisturbed. At least on the scale I can detect from orbit. It probably took collateral damage from the hits on Imperial City, but it wasn’t destroyed outright.”

  That was good news. No matter how difficult it was going to be getting to the Imperial Palace, recovering the override was at least possible.

  “Start loading the first crate aboard our remaining cutter,” Jared said. “We’ll start with the next landing zone past the Imperial Palace. Once we get down, we’ll start getting an idea of how difficult this is going to be.”

  Kelsey grimaced as she stared at the representation of the flip point. It was as weak as the branch that led from the New Terran Empire to the Courageous system. The one that had trapped the original Athena. Using it would be a risk, even for Persephone.

  She rubbed her face and sighed. They didn’t have much of a choice. It was either use it or not get to Terra at all.

  Carl had run the risk assessment, and the news was far from promising. The Marine Raider strike ship was small, so she would almost certainly make the flip successfully, but that might come at the same price Audacious had paid getting to Pandora. They might not be able to get back.

  With that in mind, she’d pulled all the critical personnel she could onto Persephone. If they were stuck, she wanted to have everyone she needed to help Jared.

  That meant the small ship was packed. Even though she’d been designed to carry a Marine Raider strike force, that wasn’t a lot of people in the larger scheme of things. A single Marine Raider went a long way in a fight.

  And then there was Fiona. She took up the largest previously open area on the ship, further reducing the available space. Well, she was an ace up their sleeves, so they’d have to make do.

  Talbot had insisted they bring as many marines as possible, and Carl had needed his science team. That meant hot bunking, and all the people would stress the life support system if they were cooped up here too long.

  Well, best to get this done. She left her quarters and made her way to the bridge.

  Angela started to rise from the command seat, but Kelsey waved her back down.

  “You’re the commanding officer,” she said as she planted herself next to the console. “I can stand. What’s the status on loading supplies and people?”

  “Just finished. The pilots are strapped into the fighters, and Raptor says they’re ready to deploy. We haven’t had time to rig up a way in from the fighters directly, so we’ll have to extract them once we’re ready to bring them back in.”

  Lieutenant Grappin and his people would be screwed if they got into a fight, simply because there were only six fighters and they had no way to quickly rearm them after a fight. If they got
into a scrape, it would almost certainly end badly for them.

  They’d still volunteered instantly for the mission. Like Marine Raiders, fighter pilots were a particular breed that ran toward danger. She was lucky to have them. They all were.

  She’d considered bringing more pilots along, but that idea had made Raptor bristle. Apparently, one pilot to a fighter was the rule, and he wasn’t pleased at the suggestion that he share his bird.

  So be it.

  “If we’re loaded, then let’s get over there and see what Jared has found for us,” Kelsey said. “Flip the ship.”

  Even with her implants, the transition was a bit rough. No alarms started blaring, and a quick check of the ship’s systems showed they’d made it without blowing their flip drive. She sighed in relief.

  “What do we have?” she asked, even as she linked her implants to the scanners.

  “We’re in the Terra system,” Angela said. “We’re nowhere near detection range of any ship or station that we know of, but we knew that from the probes we’d already sent over. We’re inside the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, and almost on the opposite side of the sun from Terra, Mars, and Jupiter. Saturn is out system from us but is too distant for anything there to spot us.”

  “Then let’s see if this was a one-way trip,” Kelsey said. “We need to know if we’re stuck.”

  Angela nodded to Jack Thompson at the helm, and he manipulated his controls. The flip drive engaged, but they stayed in the Terra system.

  They were trapped.

  36

  Olivia worked with the others to unload the crate of reconnaissance drones. It was large, heavy, and bulky. She also wasn’t sure if the AI could even see them doing the work. It might only be noting their landing from orbit.

  The place it had dictated for the first landing spot that Jared had chosen was outside a devastated city that she didn’t have a name for. It didn’t look as if the city had been hit with a kinetic weapon but had rotted in place over the centuries.

  Major Scala and some of his marines were keeping an eye on things just to be safe, but she hadn’t seen any indication of human occupation. There had to be people out there, but they weren’t showing themselves. If there wasn’t anyone to worry about, the AIs wouldn’t be deploying the Omega Plague here.

  Once she and her helpers had the massive crate out on the ground, she sent the command to open it up. The drones inside were already prepared for deployment, but she took a moment to double-check the settings on each.

  They’d programmed them to spread out in the pattern the AI had wanted, but for different reasons. The drones had no bioweapon to disperse, but they could and would take readings of the areas they patrolled. They’d forward that data back to the central control unit—a larger drone with significantly more capability—and it would sync that data to the other five control units via long range com.

  In the end, if they were here long enough, that would give them a lot of information on the remaining human population, as well as an idea of what the planet still looked like so long after the occupation.

  “The drones are ready,” she said after a moment. “I’m sending them out.”

  Once everyone else had stepped clear, she activated the drones, and they began lifting off one by one and flying off in all directions. They’d spread far and wide, collecting data from many thousands of kilometers away.

  That task done, she left the crate as it lay and headed back into the cutter. Even as she was strapping in, data began flowing in from the drones.

  There had been people watching them. They were concealed in the ruins of several buildings and seemed concerned about the events they’d witnessed.

  Olivia couldn’t blame them. They had reason to be worried. If the drones were the ones that had started this mission, death would soon be spreading among them.

  The lack of that death would eventually tell the System Lord that something had gone wrong. Probably before Jared and their crew were done here. That might make getting off Terra particularly challenging.

  The marine officer brought the last of his people inside, and everyone strapped down. At her signal, the pilot lifted off and headed back for orbit.

  “That took less than an hour from when we detached from Athena,” Scala said. “Give us another twenty minutes to get back to the ship, and we can start loading the next crate. Call it two hours to deploy and recover from the mission for each crate. That gives us ten hours of work before the AI can get froggy with us.”

  “That’s a little optimistic,” Olivia said, turning to face him. “It might wait until we’ve deployed the last set and use the orbital bombardment weapon on us.”

  He shook his head. “Overkill. Besides, it would have to wait for the drones to clear the impact area. With that kind of time investment, it might as well allow us to return to orbit and deal with us there.”

  That thought made her rub her face. “How do we avoid that? It thinks it controls the ship and that we have bombs in our heads. When it makes its move, it’ll expect results fast.”

  “The explosives are the first line of attack, I suspect,” Scala said. “One signal and we all supposedly drop dead. No need to get fancy with that kind of option. The only question is what it does next. Does it want to recover the destroyer or eliminate any chance of contamination?”

  “The latter,” she said. “It’s gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that we humans are the cutout. It doesn’t risk contaminating itself or any other ships. Once it thinks we’re dead, it won’t risk verifying it. At that point, it’ll get rid of the ship somehow.

  “When it does, we need to be somewhere else, and the ship itself needs to respond to commands the way the AI expects. Sadly, I suspect that means Athena is going to be dropped into the sun to make sure there is no contamination risk.”

  The marine officer grimaced. “Or deorbited. We definitely don’t want to be aboard for anything like that. We’ll need to make sure everyone is off the ship by that point. If we’re wrong, we can try to recover her later.”

  Olivia nodded. “And we need to get everyone down to the surface or to one of the stations. With the cruisers watching us like hawks, I think it has to be the surface. We’ll have to rely on Persephone to get us out once we accomplish the mission.”

  “With the ships in orbit—and the AI for that matter—how will they get to us? Do we even know if they made it into the system?”

  “They made it. Sean dropped a code word into the last communication from orbit. They wouldn’t have risked a long signal, but they made it. Persephone and her pinnaces were designed to sneak up on the most advanced scanner suites without being spotted.

  “The ship might not be able to get into orbit, though I’m not ruling that out, but the pinnaces can. They’ll have to be much more careful in the atmosphere, but there’s no reason they couldn’t get some forces down to us and give us a ride out once we accomplish the mission.”

  By this point, they were back up in orbit and starting to maneuver toward Athena. They’d dock in ten minutes.

  “The last drop is going to be key,” Scala said. “We have to get everyone off the ship and still deliver the crate. Does the cutter have that kind of capacity? Worse, can it get back to the ship from the surface on automatics?”

  Olivia didn’t know about either of those things. “I hope so. If not, we’re going to be in the position of leaving some of our people on Athena and hoping they can figure out another escape option.”

  And since the other options seemed pretty bleak, that might very well mean a suicide mission.

  Angela watched the scanner data flowing back from the stealthed probes grimly. It was building up an unpleasant picture. The AI had a lot of firepower out there. Trios of ships patrolled the system.

  Since the damned AIs had no idea about multi-flip points or far flip points, that hardly made any sense. Why be so paranoid?

  Kelsey was conferring with Talbot and Carl about the upcoming insertion onto Terra. A
s much as Angela hated the idea of sending the princess down to the surface, she was a significant asset and might make the difference between success and failure.

  Yes, Talbot was also a full Marine Raider, even if he was still a little off on his use of his arms and hands, but that would fade in a day or so as he finally mastered his enhanced limbs.

  The problem against arguing that Kelsey should stay in orbit resided in the other woman’s implants. She had the codes that only the crown princess of the Empire could wield. A computer system down there from before the Fall would yield to her where it wouldn’t do so for Talbot.

  Inside the Imperial Vaults, there would almost certainly be security systems that only she could deal with. Admiral Mertz could use the key, but he wouldn’t be able to handle any kind of computer lockouts.

  So it looked as if Kelsey, Talbot, Carl, and a number of marines and scientists would be making the trip down. Only a half load for the pinnaces, because they needed to keep space open for the admiral and his people.

  Once everything was done, the pinnaces would have one chance to slip out. Going back in was a risk they couldn’t afford. Once and done.

  She was still brooding about that when the ship’s computer sent an alert to her. For a second, she was afraid the AI had found them, but it was only an anomaly detected by one of the probes. The one they’d sent toward the Alpha Centauri flip point.

  Angela tapped into that specific feed and felt her eyes widen. The AI had invested the flip point with battle stations and ships. A lot of ships. Hundreds of them. Most were powered down, but not all.

  That made absolutely no sense. Terra had three regular flip points. Two of them let out to the rest of the Rebel Empire, but the third was special. Alpha Centauri was a cul-de-sac. The system was only accessible from Terra and led nowhere else.

  A guard force of this magnitude leading to a system that no one else could get to made no sense. And not just a regular guard force. A very powerful one. More so than what they’d detected at the other two regular flip points.