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

by Terry Mixon

  To his shock, a pair of men in lab coats were staring at him from one of the many tables set up in the room, their mouths agape.

  “Who the hell are you?” one of them demanded. “You’re not cleared to be in here! I’m calling security!”

  So much for being all alone in the labs.

  Talbot shot the man and then took the other one down before the first one had hit the table and collapsed to the floor.

  “Spread out,” he ordered his marines. “Make sure no one else is hiding in here.”

  The lab was set up in a pattern similar to the first one and seemed to be of about the same size. Rather than a large piece of equipment resembling a regenerator on steroids though, this room held rack after rack of computers.

  Talbot stepped over to the table where the two men had been working and saw that it was covered with what looked like parts of another computer. The two men had taken this machine apart far beyond what anything Talbot had ever seen.

  Or even thought possible. They’d not only disconnected everything that could be disconnected, they’d taken chips off of the board and set them aside. Nonremovable chips, or so it seemed.

  “Carl?” he asked. “What the heck are they doing here?”

  The scientist took in the contents of the table in at a glance. “Completely disassembling a computer of some kind. They’ve used specialized equipment to remove the chips from the boards they normally reside on. That’s pretty unusual.”

  “Why are they doing it and how does it relate to whatever medical research they’re doing here?”

  His young friend shrugged. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. Yet I don’t see anything else in the room. This has to be the project they’re working on.”

  Talbot looked at all the computers in the room and shook his head. “It’ll take forever to get the files off these things.”

  One of the marines waived at Talbot. “Colonel, I have something.”

  He headed over to where the woman was standing and found himself looking at a hatch built into the wall. Based on its location, it led into the lab next door, lab eight. That would be the one at the very end of the corridor on this side of the hall.

  This was a very different layout than what they’d seen in the previous laboratory. It had been completely self-contained. Were there even more computers next door that they’d have to worry about?

  Or worse, more people. People that could come in at any moment looking for one of the two men he’d stunned.

  Unlike the exterior hatch, this one didn’t seem to require an access code. Talbot summoned half his marines and triggered the mechanism. With their weapons out, they stepped into the other room.

  Unlike the lab they’d just exited, this one looked as if something had exploded inside it. Hunks of debris littered the floor and the smell of burned circuitry and hot metal hung in the air.

  Having been around devastation for much of his adult life, Talbot recognized this wasn’t fresh damage. Something had blown this equipment apart weeks or months ago. Possibly years.

  That made sense. If Doctor Lipp was here looking for information from this lab, all of this had to be here before she was hired. Call it a minimum of two and a half years.

  “Carl, I need you to come in here and tell me what I’m looking at again.”

  Moments later, Carl stepped into the room and goggled. “Holy crap. Someone blew up a computer. A big one. That must be where the pieces parts on the table came from.”

  “Is this the hardware from a sentient AI?” Talbot asked.

  The young scientist stepped over to some of the damaged equipment and began examining it. Moments later, he shook his head.

  “While it’s big enough for that, this is something different. It matches up with what I was seeing in the other room, though. There are markings on the chips and boards that aren’t in Standard. Since the Rebel Empire is just like us linguistically, that implies this hardware comes from outside the Empire.”

  He looked up at Talbot and patted part of the damaged equipment. “This is made very similarly to Imperial hardware, though I can see some differences even at a glance. Our technology and this share a common ancestor.”

  Talbot grunted. “The only group we know of like that is the Singularity. If this is one of their computers, it might have critical data we absolutely have to have at some point. They’re helping the Clans and this might have come from one of their ships.”

  He checked his internal chronometer. They probably had four or five hours before people started showing up for work in the labs. These two rooms were absolutely filled with equipment. It would take every second they could beg, borrow, or steal to get the majority of it.

  Coming to a decision, he gestured at the damaged hardware. “I’ll send as many people over as I can. Have them start taking this and the other computers back to the first lab. Keep an eye out for security. Don’t let anyone come and catch us in the corridor with this stuff. We’re taking everything we can.”

  Veronica covertly monitored the video feeds that Kelsey’s associates with Recovery Incorporated had shunted to the cargo hold where she and her people were hiding. Part of her worried that someone on the other side would detect the access, but Jason Young seemed pretty sure they were on safe ground.

  The crewmen that had arrived on the cargo shuttles had quickly hurried to various sections of the ship and began making it ready to move. That made sense if they intended to flee.

  Yet it still didn’t explain what Don Sommerville was up to. He was assigned to the shipyard, yes, but her old friend was obviously taking command of this ship with the expectation that he was going to be leaving in it.

  Kelsey had indicated that the third shuttle had held Fleet marines, but Veronica disagreed. Those people were wearing unpowered marine armor, but they were not marines. She’d been around enough Rebel Empire marines to know that these people were too disciplined. Too controlled.

  Her suspicions were confirmed when a fourth cargo shuttle docked and disgorged a mixture of crewmen and more individuals in armor. The last one off the shuttle was the female Fleet security officer that had “greeted” them when they’d docked with the yard earlier.

  Veronica opened an audio only communication channel to Princess Kelsey. Hopefully the lower bandwidth would help keep the signal from coming to anyone’s attention. It should mix in with any number of other signals going out through the ship right now as the other crewmen spoke to one another.

  “I have an update,” she said without identifying herself, trusting the other woman to recognize her voice. “Another shuttle has docked and I see that security officer your friend Carl got to know earlier.”

  A few seconds of silence greeted her, but she waited, knowing that the princess was probably reviewing the feed right now.

  “It looks like you were right,” Kelsey conceded. “The people in armor are Fleet security. Which, in its own way, is even more confusing. Why would Fleet security be helping Commander Sommerville take control of this freighter?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea, but I’m not sure we can overpower this many people. I hope you’ve got a good plan in mind.”

  “I’m still working on that,” the other woman admitted. “Once I figure it out, I’ll let you know. Out.”

  That was fairly brusque coming from Princess Kelsey, but the young woman had a lot to worry about with the Clan warships having just destroyed the battle station at the flip point and begun boosting toward Archibald at maximum acceleration.

  Doctor Rehnquist cleared his throat. “I think I might have a few answers to the situation we find ourselves in.”

  Veronica raised an eyebrow at the scientist. “That sounds refreshing. Do tell.”

  The older man swiped a hand over his balding head. “I’ve been reviewing video feeds from other sections of the ship. I think I have a few items that you’ll want to see. Why don’t we start with feed twenty-seven?”

  She accessed the feed in question and fro
wned. It looked like a small control room. Three people sat in the center of the compartment facing one another over a trio of consoles. Veronica had to admit that she’d never seen anything quite like this particular configuration.

  “Do we have any idea what they’re doing?” she asked after a few seconds.

  “Use the zoom feature and go in close to the consoles. Two of them are visible from this angle.”

  Veronica did as instructed and then swore. What she was looking at had no business being on a freighter. That was a tactical console. One that indicated it was in control of a dozen missile launchers.

  She switched to the other console and saw that it was more defensive in nature. The interface she was examining was designed to manage a heavy warship’s battle screens and antimissile defenses. But only cruisers had defenses like that, not freighters.

  The third console wasn’t in direct view, but it probably had to do with weapons of some kind, too. Beams, perhaps? Yet one more impossibility on a freighter.

  “You said that you had more than one thing to show me,” Veronica told the scientist after a moment. “What else have you found?”

  “I’ve been going over the feed from main engineering. This revelation is less obvious, but the drives seem quite muscular for a freighter. The grav drives in particular seem designed to achieve a level of speed comparable to a much faster vessel. The gravitic compensators are similarly overpowered.”

  Veronica considered his words for a long stretch of time before finally nodding. “Honestly, I’m not certain if that really affects what we’re doing in the slightest. We’re already inside the ship so they can’t stop us from boarding with those weapons or run away from us with their drives.

  “This is all very interesting, but we need to find an edge that’ll let us overpower them. I don’t suppose you have anything for me in that arena, do you?”

  The scientist grinned at her. “As a matter of fact, I have. I’ve been looking over the manifests from a number of crates in this hold and I think you’ll be pleased to discover some of the things we have to draw upon. Come take a look at this.”

  He led her across the cargo hold to a series of large crates lined up against one of the bulkheads. “I think these might go quite some way toward evening the odds.”

  She used her implants to access the manifests built into each crate and her eyes widened in shock. “That can’t be right. These don’t have any more business being here than the weapons this ship is apparently armed with. Still, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  The row of crates sitting in front of her indicated that they were filled with powered marine armor and all of the associated weapons that went along with those suits. None of the people with her was trained in using them, but they’d be virtually invulnerable to standard weapons inside the things.

  If they could use them, of course. She knew the suits were wired with explosives to make certain they didn’t get into the wrong hands. Or to put down a rabid marine, if needed.

  “Start opening one up,” she told the doctor. “I’ll see if Princess Kelsey has any idea how we can make them safe to use. Good work, Doctor.”

  As she stepped back, she considered how this might change the equation. If they could make the suits operational, that just might give them a chance.

  35

  Zia was relieved when they finished assembling the larger ring and opened the connection to their freighter. The crewmen aboard the ship poured into the lab and began helping disassemble and move everything in sight.

  Even though they had a direct connection, it was still going to take a while to transfer everything. And until they were finished, things could still go terribly wrong.

  Just a few minutes after this process had started, Talbot hurried back into the room. From his expression, there was trouble.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as her gut started tightening.

  “It seems the good doctor was holding out on us,” he said as he took in the activity around them. “The lab she wanted us to break into isn’t involved with medical research. Unless Carl is gravely mistaken, they have some kind of large computer down there that was blown up a couple of years ago. He thinks it’s a Singularity computer.”

  Zia blinked at him, shocked. “Seriously? How the hell did the Rebel Empire even get their hands on something like that?”

  The marine officer shrugged. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. The problem is, we’re not going to be able to pass it up. Whatever it is, it might be critical to the war with the Clans. We’re going to have to take it with us and that’s going to really complicate this raid. They have a lot of equipment down there. Two labs full, in point of fact.”

  She rubbed her face. “We only have a few hours to get everything that we need. I suggest that you tell Carl to get the most important things first.”

  “Already done,” Talbot said. “He’s is going to have everything moved here and queued up for transport through the ring as quickly as possible. He’s got one eye on the security officers so we’ll stop if they send someone in our direction. If anyone shows up early for work, we’re going to have to stun them.”

  That would work for a little while, Zia knew, but there was going to come a point where too many people were coming into the research area for them to stop them all.

  “Have him expedite as much as possible,” she finally said. “As soon as they figure out what’s going on, they’re going to start screaming. We need to be gone by then.”

  As soon as Talbot headed back toward the other lab, Zia stepped through the ring and into the freighter. Thankfully, there was plenty of room in the massive hold to store everything they were stealing today. Crewmen were already securing pieces of equipment against one of the far bulkheads.

  Zia stepped over to one of the communications consoles built into the bulkheads and called the bridge. “This is Anderson. What’s the status on the last shuttle from the station?”

  “They’re on final approach now, Commodore,” a young male voice said. “They’re not reporting any issues and are less than five minutes out.”

  “Excellent. Get everyone off it and send it back so the last of the team can use it. Also, have the ship ready for departure on short notice in case we have to expedite. What’s the status of the incoming Clan vessels?”

  The voice on the other end paused for a moment. “It looks like the incoming hostiles are still about six hours out. The Rebel Empire Fleet ships that went to the gas giant are moving to intercept the incoming vessels, so that timeframe might grow.

  “It looks like they picked up the four battlecruisers that we suspected might be out there. Even so, they don’t really stand a chance, considering that the Clans had more than enough firepower to destroy a battle station. That’s pretty brave of them in my book.”

  “Never fall into the trap of thinking that your enemies are cowards,” Zia said. “They may not believe in the same things that you do, but human beings can be gallant and brave even when they’re doing the bidding of terrible people. Do the Clans have a force heading toward the other flip point?”

  “Yes, ma’am. None of the ships at Archibald are going to be able to escape the system through the usual methods.”

  She nodded. “They’ll come in and take over the station and shipyard, and then start hunting for ships that ran. They’re not going to hurry after us as long as we get moving on schedule. Have someone come through the ring and inform me if the situation changes.”

  Once the man acknowledged her order, Zia headed back through the ring and into the lab.

  The hatch to the corridor was open and Carl was helping to move a cart full of scorched computer parts into the room. He waved a hand at her and stepped over.

  “I’ll need more of the crewmen from the freighter to come help. We can get a lot of the equipment as long as we have the hands to move it.”

  “This is risky,” she told him. “Every time you move something out into the open, there’s a
chance that someone will open the hatch at the end of the corridor and see us.”

  Her young friend shook his head. “Not happening. I’ve tasked one of the marines with monitoring the video feeds in the corridors leading up to the research area. If anyone shows up, we’ll have at least sixty seconds notice before they arrive.”

  “While that may be true, I’d rather not get into a fight that makes us blow up the rings. They’re irreplaceable.”

  Her friend nodded. “I know. I’d rather not put them at risk, either, but it’s not as if we have a choice. Those computers might have information about the Singularity that could make a difference for us in the future.

  “It’s obvious the Singularity is involved in this war and it’s only a matter of time before they realize the New Terran Empire exists. When they do, they’re going to come for us. We have to have these computers and the wreckage that the lab rats were studying.”

  Zia’s implants pinged. It was a message from Talbot. Someone was coming toward the research area. She took a moment to tap into the feed and recognized the lead researcher for the project that Doctor Lipp had been trying to steal. What the heck was he doing here in the middle of the night?

  Well, that hardly mattered. They’d have to take him down and hope that no one else came looking for him.

  She opened a channel to Talbot. “Let him come to you. Stun him as soon as he comes through the hatch. Put him on the next cart over.”

  “Copy that. I’ve got two prisoners that were here when we broke in to send with him.”

  “Really? You should’ve mentioned them.”

  “Sorry. Other things on my mind. I’ll handle it. Out.”

  She sealed the hatch leading out into the corridor and began waiting. Hopefully this was the only interruption they were going to have to deal with.

  Inside, she laughed. No, this was probably only the first of a cascading set of complications. Life had a way of throwing curve balls at them and they were going to have to deal with them.