Hidden Enemies (Book 9 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  The assassin’s weapon was almost in line with the king when Kelsey reached him. Using far more force than was probably necessary, she shoved the older man to the side.

  Kelsey considered pushing Derek away, but he and his weapon were probably what was going to stop the assassin from following up with the king once he’d dealt with Kelsey.

  She hunched lower and jammed her shoulder into the ornate throne that the king had been standing in front of. The angle was bad and she ended up losing her footing, but coming from the floor below the dais gave her just enough angle to send the throne toward the assassin.

  The stone was a façade. It shattered as she struck it, revealing the wood beneath. The lighter weight meant it moved far easier than she’d expected.

  It didn’t have enough momentum to actually reach the assassin, but it drew his fire at the last moment, spoiling his aim. His flechettes tore huge chunks out of the throne before he stopped his impulsive burst.

  The tableau was over and all of the guards were reacting to the man. Some were racing toward him while others seemed to be hurrying to get between him and their king.

  Derek opened fire at last, but she didn’t have a chance to see the results of his shots before one of the assassin’s flechettes shattered the top of the throne and sent a chunk into the side of her head with great force. Pain lashed through her and the world went abruptly black.

  11

  Veronica nervously sat in the chair Carl indicated for her. He’d told her there was no risk with this procedure and she could accept intellectually that that was probably true. That didn’t keep her from being completely and utterly terrified at the idea of allowing a System Lord access to her thoughts.

  As if sensing her fear, the young man smiled reassuringly. “I promise there’s absolutely no danger here. No pain, not even any uncomfortable sensations. You won’t feel a single thing.”

  “How is this going to work?” she asked, relaxing in spite of herself.

  The young scientist sat down across from her. “When I ask her to, Fiona will request access to your implants. She doesn’t have the codes to write anything. Those are closely guarded secrets and when we upgraded you, we installed new hardware that mandates your informed approval to any access or changes. We did this to keep the AIs like the System Lords from being able to overwrite the clean code now running in your implants.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “What someone can install, someone else can remove. You realize that as soon the System Lords figure out your trick, they’ll be able to reverse it.”

  Owlet shook his head. “The package includes a very effective anti-tampering protocol and some other unadvertised surprises for them. It can even tell if someone is under duress. Without the correct codes, the implant will fry itself and all the wiring in the brain.

  “Now before you start panicking, an outcome like that isn’t harmful to the person. Sadly, it means that they can never have implants again because the process of removing the damaged wires and attempting to install new ones would be much more destructive than the initial implant procedure itself.”

  Veronica ran the options she could think of through her mind. In the end, she decided he was right. Being forever stripped of implants was a small price to pay to avoid mental slavery. Particularly when the new medical nanites they’d given her would allow her to live for centuries.

  No one now living in the Rebel Empire had a clue medical nanites ever existed. All references to them had been suppressed. Modern scientists had said they were too complex to build, obviously at the insistence of the Lords. Veronica didn’t know why the AIs didn’t like the things, but they obviously didn’t want to allow them back into existence.

  “And how are you going to prevent the AIs from getting these codes?” she asked. “If they get them, it’s game over all over again.”

  “That’s our little secret,” he said somewhat smugly. “What I will say is that the number of people with that critical information is very small and widely spread across the New Terran Empire.

  “They don’t have to be located where anyone needs an update. The update itself can be signed so that the implants recognize it’s an un-tampered with, verified update. Even so, the update is unpacked into a segregated part of implant memory. Then the implants go through the code line by line verifying there’s nothing harmful.

  “Only once that is accomplished will they ask the user if they would like to accept the update. And the user can say no. It’s your head. If you don’t want to risk a change, don’t.”

  She still wasn’t sure that the cocky young man had thought of all the angles, but there was only so much human beings could do to protect themselves. It was always easier to break than to build. So long as humans had implants in their heads, there was a risk that the AIs would be able to seize control of them.

  Veronica took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  Carl looked over to the image of the AI. “Fiona, please link with Commander Giguere and verify the honesty of what she’s saying. Let me know the moment she revokes her permission or tells an untruth.”

  “Yes, Carl,” the deceptively authentic-looking woman said with a smile.

  The AI turned her cybernetic gaze to Veronica. “As Carl said, I not only mean you no harm, but I am incapable of inflicting harm upon you in this manner. Permission to access your implants can be revoked with a thought. Do you grant me permission to access your implants in a read-only configuration?”

  “I do,” Veronica said before she could change her mind.

  She struggled to determine if anything had changed. She still felt the same.

  Do not be concerned. You are in no danger.

  Veronica flinched in spite of herself. The voice in her head had been Fiona.

  I revoke your permission to be in my head.

  “Commander Giguere has revoked permission, Carl,” Fiona said, seemingly unperturbed.

  The young man scowled. “I haven’t even asked you any questions yet.”

  Veronica smiled a little. “I just had to make sure that I could do it. I once again give permission for Fiona to access my implants in a read-only configuration.”

  She waited a beat to see if the AI would say anything else in her mind, but heard nothing.

  Commodore Anderson cleared her throat. “I feel the need to add that for the time being, even once you’ve proven your loyalty, I’m going to require that the ship’s computer monitor you at all times. Whether that’s here on Persephone or back on Audacious.

  “I’m not talking about monitoring inside your head, but monitoring your physical presence. We’ve done exactly the same thing with other prisoners that have come over to our side and it’s just a precaution to verify you aren’t tempted to change your mind.

  “None of the data the computer gathers will make it out of a subprogram to the main system unless it detects something about you that it thinks means you’re going to betray us. So not even the computer itself will know what you’re doing in private that way.”

  Carl Owlet, Zia Anderson, and Colonel Talbot began peppering her with questions. All of them were related to what she felt about the Rebel Empire, the System Lords, and the New Terran Empire.

  Veronica answered them as honestly as she could. She had nothing to hide. After less than ten minutes, the questioning was over and she again revoked the AI’s permission to monitor her thoughts, intensely pleased that the whole process was done. She felt exhausted.

  Commodore Anderson extended her hand to Veronica. “Welcome to the New Terran Empire, Commander. I think you’ll find we’re much easier to work with than your former coworkers.”

  That made Veronica chuckle. “That wouldn’t be hard. You wouldn’t believe how cutthroat Fleet is in the Empire. So what do we do now?”

  “The next step is to bring all of your people over and repeat this,” Talbot said. “The research scientists from the Dresden orbital have already gone through this process. We’ve verified they really are on our
side, just like you.

  “The only people that I suspect we’ll never be able to clear are Commander Renner and Commodore Murdoch. Renner for obvious reasons. Murdoch because even though she has a grudge against the Rebel Empire, she doesn’t really disagree with what they’re doing.”

  Commodore Emilia Murdoch was a tough case, Veronica agreed. The woman had commanded the Dresden orbital until its capture. She wasn’t a traitor to the Empire. No, she was one of their ardent supporters.

  From what Veronica had heard, the commodore had only supported the New Terran Empire in getting the access codes to the secret research and manufacturing computers because her security officer, Raul Castille, had tried to murder her. He’d ended up breaking her neck, leaving her paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of eternity, particularly since the woman had medical nanites and would live that way for hundreds of years.

  That was a ghoulishly terrible fate and Veronica felt sorry for the woman, but she completely understood why her new compatriots could never trust Murdock.

  “Understood. If we can get my crew vetted, I’m sure we can assist you in some way.”

  Commodore Anderson smiled. “I don’t suppose any of your people are familiar with the Archibald system, are you?”

  Veronica had complete access to her people’s service records. A quick check verified that none of them had ever been to Archibald. Wherever Archibald was.

  “Sadly, no. That said, the Empire is fairly consistent in how worlds are laid out and run. I can probably give you a lot of information about the Empire in general that might be useful.”

  Anderson sighed. “I suppose that was too much to hope for, but it didn’t hurt to try. Let’s get your people over here.”

  Veronica nodded and took a steadying breath. She was committed. This rebellion was hers now, too. It was time to take the first steps at getting her countrymen out from under the heels of the AIs.

  Zia took a cutter back to Audacious once the verification of Commander Giguere’s crew was complete. She was grateful that they’d all passed. It would’ve been awkward if one of them had failed and split what was obviously a well-functioning team of friends.

  In combination with the research scientists, those people presented serious danger to the AIs. Their collective knowledge would give the New Terran Empire so much to work with.

  Yes, they already had Lieutenant Commander Michael Richards, the computer officer they’d captured earlier in the conflict. He was cooperating, but he wasn’t here. She needed information at her fingertips. Fleet Command might not approve, but she’d risk it.

  Captain Brandon Levy, her flag captain, rose to his feet from the center seat. “Welcome back, ma’am. Did everything go as planned?”

  “Pretty much,” she said as she took her chair back. “It looks as if we have some new allies. Unfortunately, none of them knows a thing about Archibald. I suppose it would’ve been too much to hope for.”

  The big man nodded. “The Rebel Empire is a big place. It seems as if they’ve kept their Fleet officers segregated. Maybe the computer from the Dresden orbital has something about Archibald.”

  All the computers they’d salvaged from the Dresden orbital were set up in standalone mode in one of the compartments close to Carl Owlet’s lab. While he wasn’t aboard, the research scientists from the Dresden orbital were and they could check them.

  Carl had granted the researchers relatively high access levels to all the systems in the lab and they were continuing their work. Well, some of them were continuing their work while others were struggling to understand the new hardware and science breakthroughs Carl had made in the last couple of years.

  “That’s a good idea,” Zia said. She used the large command console in front of her to bring up a com channel with the lab. Moments later, Doctor Jacqueline Parker appeared on the screen.

  The lead research scientist was a middle-aged woman with dark skin and curly hair. She hadn’t been smiling much when they’d rescued her, but that had certainly changed over the last week.

  Now the woman smiled widely when she saw Zia. “Commodore, what a pleasure. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s a pleasure for me too, Doctor. I was wondering if you could access the Dresden computers for me. I’m trying to determine if we have any information on the Archibald system. It seems as if that’s the closest location where we might be able to get what we need to fix our flip drive.

  “Unfortunately, none of the people we have aboard from the Rebel Empire know anything about the place. I’m making the assumption that none of your people have been there, but I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.”

  The woman laughed and shook her head. “We lived on the Dresden orbital from the time we were children. I can assure you that none of us have been anywhere interesting. Let me check the computer and see what I can find. Hold on just a second.”

  It seemed that the Rebel Empire had been taking children that were offered by the mad computer on Erorsi and making them into research scientists at Dresden. Of course, it wasn’t a very friendly sort of thing to do. They’d implanted explosives in the scientists’ heads in what was almost certainly the worst retirement plan ever.

  Leave it to the Rebel Empire to figure out how to ruin something that was actually humanitarian. She’d seen what the mad computer had done to the human survivors of the Fall. It had forcibly implanted them with Marine Raider implants and used them as fodder to attack the system next door. They were monstrous savages.

  Thankfully, Pentagar had managed to rebuff all the attacks over the intervening five hundred years before Admiral Mertz and Princess Kelsey had destroyed the computer. Their stout defense hadn’t stopped the computer from sending a tithe of children to the Rebel Empire every year in exchange for Marine Raider hardware and other supplies it couldn’t build for itself, though.

  To their credit, the Rebel Empire had finally decided to end the computer’s rule on Erorsi. They’d also planned to conquer Pentagar, but Admiral Mertz and his fleet had been there to stop them cold. Which was where they’d captured Veronica Giguere and a lot of other Rebel Empire forces.

  Most of the Rebel Empire survivors had gone to the New Terran Empire for processing, but Brandon Levy had decided to make Veronica Giguere and her command crew his personal project.

  The Rebel Empire didn’t know that they’d lost so many ships and people. Not yet. And if she and Princess Kelsey could get the data they’d captured at Dresden home, that delay might just give the New Terran Empire a chance for victory.

  Doctor Parker’s eyes widened little bit. “It looks like I have something for you. There’s only basic information about Archibald in the system, but I think I hit pay dirt in the Fleet section. It seems that one of the officers you’ve captured was stationed there when she was younger. Commodore Murdoch.”

  Zia felt her expression souring. The woman had given them the keys to open the research computers and manufacturing hardware to their use, but the woman’s continuing despair at her medical condition made her unreliable at best. She’d done what she’d done to get revenge, pure and simple. Everything she said was suspect because they couldn’t really trust her.

  “I suppose that’s better than a kick in the head,” Zia said with a sigh. “I’ll see if she’s willing to cooperate. Otherwise, how are you doing down there? Are you getting settled in? Finding lots of interesting things to look at?”

  The older woman nodded. “I must confess that I didn’t understand how someone as young as Carl Owlet could be in charge of the science division when you brought me on board. Now I get it. I cannot imagine how he made the jumps in intuition to create some of these new scientific theories that he’s working from.

  “Take the FTL communications for example. It’s brilliant. Point to point communication from one system to another through flip point. Potentially also to nearby systems not connected by flip points at all. Impossible to intercept and devilishly hard to detect.

  “Though I will
say that I think his theory is incomplete. It may be possible to communicate longer distances with some modifications to the hardware. The theory says that the range should be unlimited. I think that’s right. It’s just going to require a lot more experimentation to work out the bugs. That’s where experience comes into play.”

  Zia felt the corner of her mouth quirk upward. “I’m sure Carl will be the first to tell you that he’s feeling his way through a dark room trying to figure this out. He’s a smart guy, but he’s running on intuition. I hope you’re right. That would certainly make things a little easier for us.”

  Parker nodded. “Every major breakthrough that humanity has made has come from someone trying something they didn’t know was ‘impossible’ or making a fortuitous error that granted them insight into something they hadn’t planned. I really think if you dig deep down, that’s what you’ll find.

  “I’ve got my people working with the FTL coms right now trying out various general modifications to the hardware. Obviously we won’t be able to test anything outside the Pandora system. I’m just trying to get a general feel for how this works. We’re dealing with some ghosts in the system right now, but I’m pretty confident that we can improve on Carl’s design.”

  Zia frowned. “Ghosts in the system? Like what?”

  The woman shrugged. “Sometimes, when we engage the modified hardware, the throughput drops to almost nothing. It’s really strange.”

  “Keep me in the loop. I want to know what you find with that. Thanks again, Doctor.”

  “My pleasure. Good day, Commodore.”

  Zia sat back into her chair, thinking about the strange behavior of the FTL com. What could that possibly mean? And how might it help or harm them going forward?

  12

  Kelsey woke to find Derek hovering above her, his expression worried. Based on all the shouting going on, not very much time had passed. Probably no more than a couple of seconds. Her implants confirmed that.