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

by Terry Mixon

  “Carl tells me that the alien gave him a set of disks made of some crystalline substance and a reader to pull the data off of them. Supposedly those discs contain the entirety of the knowledge of the alien race. That’s a lot of data to parse.

  “He’s been working on some type of hybrid reader that could pull data off of the discs and put it directly into our computer mediums, but he hasn’t quite gotten it worked out yet.”

  Veronica considered that for a long while in silence. “Those can’t have been the only magnificent scientific breakthroughs that people made. Just to get to the point of creating a station that could use the power of a star to explore other realities would have to mean any number of tremendous breakthroughs that came before it.

  “Hell, even the concept of alternate realities makes my brain spin. Are we talking about places where there are copies of you and me? Realities that one couldn’t tell the difference between ours and theirs? Ones where humanity never developed? Universes inimical to all life?”

  Parker nodded. “All of those and more besides. Considering the power requirements, I’d wager that no trans-universal gates will be created anytime soon, but the Omega station created a pair of brand-new flip points between the Nova system and two other systems: Pentagar and Avalon. Permanent flip points.”

  The thought of that kind of power frightened Veronica. The Omega race was so much further advanced than humanity that they could’ve crushed it, had the timelines had matched up and they’d been so inclined. With enough time, the New Terran Empire could develop a level of technological power to bring the Rebel Empire to its knees.

  If they had enough time to make it work.

  Veronica considered Doctor Parker. “You’re being friendlier than I would’ve expected, Doctor. I appreciate the courtesy.”

  The older woman smiled slightly. “I’ve had some time to think. While you might have served the Rebel Empire and the AIs, you’ve got the moral backbone to stand up to them. If you’re going to leave your entire life behind to stand beside me, the least I can do is try to be civil.”

  “I appreciate that,” Veronica said sincerely. “This is all so strange to me and my people, but we want to do the right thing. We need to correct the wrongs we’ve been allowing to occur through inaction. I believe there are plenty of others inside the Rebel Empire that would do the exact same if they only knew the truth.”

  Somewhat hesitantly, Doctor Parker reached up and put a hand on Veronica’s shoulder. “The time is coming for an open conflict between the New Terran Empire and the Rebel Empire. You’re going to have a chance to tell your story and be heard by millions.”

  Veronica frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

  “When the fighting starts, they’re going to need people to tell the worlds that fall under the sway of the New Terran Empire exactly what’s been going on. Who better to do that than someone from the Rebel Empire? Someone like you.”

  After staring at the scientist for a few seconds, Veronica felt her stomach give a slow roll. “I’m not much of a public speaker. I kind of have issues with that.”

  Parker grinned. “We all have our burdens to bear, Commander. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  19

  Talbot stood just behind Carl as his friend worked over the scanner console on Persephone’s bridge. Under Kelsey’s direction, the Marine Raider strike ship had slipped farther into the Archibald system. The freighter trailed them at a safe distance, ready to retreat if an enemy ship came too close.

  The Rebel Empire warships had continued on their way toward the outermost gas giant. To the best of their detection ability, the warships didn’t even make contact with the station or shipyard orbiting Archibald.

  In another stroke of good luck, once the warships had come through the main flip point, there was a gap of several hours before the next merchant ship had transited. With a little adroit maneuvering, it would be possible to insert their freighter into the traffic pattern with no one being the wiser.

  The probes they’d seeded throughout the system had detected no transmissions from the battle station at the designated flip point, so there should be no record of which ships were expected to arrive at Archibald prime. All the approvals had to have happened earlier in the journey.

  Kelsey had launched a number of stealthed probes to examine Archibald prime from several vantage points. Her goal was to determine what assets were already in orbit and how they could be accessed, if need be.

  The shipyard was the largest structure orbiting Archibald’s moon and easily dwarfed the yards they’d seized in the Erorsi system when they’d captured it. It even topped the ones they were building back in the New Terran Empire by a good margin.

  He wondered how many other yards like this existed inside the Rebel Empire. If there were ones like this in every major system, they could collectively produce a lot of ships in a relatively short period of time. That was bad news.

  Still, there had been no yards at Harrison’s World, so they couldn’t be everywhere. Paranoia was only a good thing when taken so far.

  The station in orbit around Archibald wasn’t in the same league as the massive shipbuilding structure. It was comparable to Orbital One back home, so that was still saying something. He wondered why it was in planetary orbit but the shipyard was circling the moon. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have them closer together?

  Carl grunted and tapped his console expanding a window. It looked like the passive scanner feed of the distant warships.

  “What have you got, buddy?” he asked softly.

  The other man turned in his seat and faced him. “All twelve of the enemy ships really are heading for the outermost gas giant. The question in my mind is, why? Are they heading to a secret station with battlecruisers like we found near Harrison’s World? If so, what’s driving them? They’re supposed to be a deep, dark secret.”

  “I know we said that the AI would be closer in, but what if it’s not?” Talbot asked. “Maybe they positioned this one way out there.”

  “That just doesn’t make any sense. The communications lag would be big. Even with their normal positioning in an asteroid belt, that introduces a significant lag. This would be unworkable.”

  The young scientist turned his seat toward Talbot. “Whatever they’re doing, it has to be something with the station holding the battlecruisers. That’s going to impact our mission. The raid was risky before, but the odds of the Rebel Empire Fleet directly intervening just got a whole lot worse.”

  Talbot considered that and then nodded slowly. “Agreed, but it doesn’t change anything. Kelsey is still going forward with the plan. We both know that. Can you redirect an FTL probe to keep an eye on them?”

  “Already done,” Carl said with a nod. “I have several moving out that way slowly, so they won’t reach the gas giant today. They’ll arrive sometime tomorrow and start using their passive scanners to gather data. I programmed them to send their take every six hours with some randomization thrown in to keep any observers from detecting a pattern in the grav pulses.”

  “I know you keep saying the FTL coms are detectable, but realistically, how serious a risk is that?”

  The scientist shrugged. “It’s a low order probability. The pulses are weak and, so long as they are kept brief, isolating exactly where they’re coming from would be difficult. Just pulling them out of the background noise in a system this big would be a challenge.

  “I’m taking extra precautions in having more than one probe watch the gas giant. Two will be in orbit around it and two others will be a long distance away. The close ones will use regular tight beams to get the data to the outer probes and only when the gas giant is between those and the targets will the distant probes use FTL coms.”

  “We should do something similar near the Archibald Station and the yard, just in case,” Talbot said. “We could talk to Persephone and give Angela updates via tight beam. She wouldn’t be able to return the favor, but something is better than nothing.”<
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  Carl nodded. “Already done. And, if push comes to shove, we have a couple of FTL coms we can use to talk to her directly. Those are a last resort sort of thing, but if we don’t have them, we might desperately need them.”

  “We’ll need self-destructs on those. We can’t let the Rebel Empire know about FTL.”

  “Already done. There’s a plasma grenade in each that can be set on a timer, manually detonated instantly, or remotely set off just like the ones we’ve built into the rings. Princess Kelsey, you, and anyone you designate will have the codes to make it happen.”

  Talbot really hoped they didn’t have to destroy the rings. They were priceless and irreplaceable.

  Still, they’d gotten away with using them once already. The odds were against them this time and, if push came to shove, he’d destroy the rings to keep the Rebel Empire from getting their hands on the alien tech. Or even grasping what they could do, if he could.”

  “It would suck if we have to destroy the rings,” he said after a moment. “I know we have the plans to build them, but that isn’t likely to happen in the short term, is it?”

  “No,” Carl said with a shake of his head. “We’re still designing the tools to build the machines that can start setting up other machines that can make the parts for the rings. They are easily a year or two out. Further if we run into problems, which is inevitable since we don’t understand the theory completely.”

  “We’ll plan as best we can and hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Carl laughed a tad bitterly. “We got lucky last time so I’m not holding my breath. Keep your options open and save the small ring, if you can.”

  “I’ll try, buddy. I really will.”

  He knew that didn’t mean much if things went bad, but he’d do his best to leave them with options when the time came.

  Eighteen hours later, Zia was back at the command console on the freighter. Enough of a gap had developed in the flow of ships from the main flip point to Archibald prime that they could slip into the pattern without raising any eyebrows.

  Unfortunately, their time of anonymity was at an end. According to the data their probes had gathered, the freighter was just about at the range where traffic control would contact them.

  If she said something wrong, there was no way the freighter could get back to the multiflip point without being intercepted. Worse, she couldn’t even try or they might find it. Everything had to go perfectly or they were screwed.

  “We have an incoming signal, Commodore” Alan Barnes said from the helm console. “It’s traffic control.”

  “Call me Zia. One slip now and some very bad things start happening.”

  The man nodded. “Got it. Sorry. You want this on the main screen?”

  “Give it to me on my console.”

  Moments later, the image of a man in a Fleet uniform with lieutenant’s tabs appeared. His expression seemed bored to her. Good.

  “This is Archibald Control,” he said, his voice monotone. “I need your port of origin, manifest, and the names of any shipping companies you’re doing business with.”

  Their knowledge of Rebel Empire trade was somewhat short of minuscule, but they’d hit pay dirt looking at the computer records on board this freighter. While the data wasn’t going to be useful for specifics, it gave them the appropriate format for such files and recordings of many communications just like this one.

  “Sending now,” Zia said, adding a somewhat sour note to her tone. “I hope this isn’t going to be the same kind of cluster we had a couple of stops back. We just want to see what goods you have available and blow off a little steam. We don’t have any cargo destined for Archibald.”

  The man nodded absently and studied the screen off to his left. “If you’re not offloading, we don’t have to bother with a customs inspection. Just the usual ID checks to get on the station. I’ll send you parking instructions. Welcome to Archibald.”

  The screen went dark and Zia sagged a little. “I was afraid that wouldn’t be good enough for them. Get us into our spot, Alan. I’ll go brief everyone.”

  The bridge was too small for every interested party to be there. In fact, if they’d had to use the main screen, the presence of any extra people would’ve seemed odd. That meant Princess Kelsey and the others were in a makeshift conference room nearby.

  Zia rose to her feet and quickly made her way back. Everyone looked expectantly toward her as she stepped into the compartment.

  “So far, so good. We won’t have any customs officials coming our way and they’ve given us a parking orbit. They’ll be expecting some of us on the station, so we’ll see how good our identification is. I’m not expecting them to be all that thorough unless we have to go down to the surface.”

  Talbot smiled a little at that. “As Carl says, show them what they expect to see and they won’t ask any questions.”

  “That’s not what I say,” Carl protested mildly. “Weren’t you listening? People see what they expect to see. As long as you don’t give them a reason to question their initial impressions, they won’t change them.”

  Veronica frowned at Carl. “That seems like a very unscientific sort of thing to say. Or maybe it’s just unusual for a scientist to be saying it.”

  The young man grinned at her. “I’ve had some interesting teachers.”

  Princess Kelsey rapped her knuckles on the table. “Focus, people. This completes step one of our plan. We’re in a position to start scouting the station. From there, we have to figure out a way to get over to the shipyard. I’m certain they have some kind of regular transport, but Fleet is going to be paying attention to the people that are on it.

  “Some of us are going to have to start looking over the medical research facility, too. Based on what Commodore Murdoch said, it’s located here on this station. That’s going to make it easier to access, but there will undoubtedly be issues with timing between the two operations.

  “The people looking into the research facility won’t be able to act until we have what we need from the shipyard, but they’ll have to know for certain if anything warrants our attention before then. If there’s not, then we’re not going to break in.”

  “But we won’t know what they have unless we break in,” Carl objected. “So we kind of have to halfway break in? Break in and then break back out? Something like that.”

  The princess smiled. “That’s going to be up to you to figure out. It’s entirely possible that you, Doctor Parker, and her computer specialist can break in remotely and ransack their files. If so, that makes our job a lot easier.”

  Doctor Parker shook her head. “Research facilities keep their classified data on disconnected systems. We’re not going to be able to find out what projects they’re working on without getting physical access.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Keep in mind that this isn’t like the research you were doing, Doctor. These folks might have communications that mention what their projects are. If we can find any evidence of an advanced regeneration device, then we’ll have to proceed. Otherwise, the secondary mission is still discretionary.”

  Zia smiled at Kelsey. “Since they’ve seen my face, I think it might be best if I’m one of the ones that goes on board station to get us some temporary housing.”

  Kelsey nodded. “Take Commander Giguere with you. The two of you can look around for suitable housing and get a read on what we’re dealing with.”

  “We’ll make it happen.”

  She wondered how much gray hair she was going to have by the time this mission was over. Being among the enemy for any kind of extended period of time was going to be nerve wracking. Well, she’d just have to make sure no one slipped up.

  20

  While Veronica might never have been aboard Archibald Station, she’d visited plenty of orbitals like it over the years. Coming as a civilian, she discovered, was significantly different than how it had been as part of Fleet.

  The docking bays in the civilian section were significantly bus
ier than the ones in the military areas she’d visited, the crowds more chaotic, and the people more varied. Especially in the clothing they wore. It seemed every color imaginable was represented in some form.

  Including some in eye-searing florescent shades that almost hurt to look at.

  There was also more shouting than she was used to. People unloading various cargo shuttles all seemingly had something to say to one another at the top of their lungs. It was kind of weird how many emotions could be carried from person to person at maximum volume.

  Zia Anderson stepped out and put her hands on her hips as she looked over the bay. “It’s just like back home.”

  Veronica turned her head slightly toward the other woman and raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you had this much chaos at your previous job. If it was anything like mine, it was a lot more orderly.”

  The taller woman laughed. “I had a life before that job, you know. My parents were merchant spacers. I’ve probably seen a dozen bays just like this before I became an adult. I never would’ve thought it would be so similar. Where we’re going to get housing while we’re here. Any ideas?”

  Rather than answering the question, Veronica stepped over to a pair of men arguing over a crate. She wasn’t sure if they were disputing the ownership or just the disposition, but they were enthusiastic in their posturing.

  “Hey, boys,” she said. “We’re new. Where can some of our crew hole up without spending all our cash? We’d rather be drinking.”

  The man paused their heated discussion and one of them pointed down a nearby corridor. “Go straight down that. Past the third cross corridor you’ll find Statler’s. It’s not the bottom of the pile or the top, so it should suit you just fine.”

  Without waiting for a response from her, they resumed their argument as if she’d never interrupted them.