Ghosts of Empire (Book 4 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (31 page)

“Here’s what I’m proposing. You’ll need to get the marines out of the city by the coast. They’re assisting in search and rescue. Take them to the island and they can draw combat gear. Once they have that, you’ll need to provide their rides. All the pinnaces are helping in orbit.”

She nodded to herself. That matched what she’d heard. “I have the transport available. With all of this moving around, I think we’ll need to hit the council building sometime before dawn. That leaves us time to rescue your people, if I can find any farm or rural property that is associated with Abigail in any way.”

“That works for me. I can give you an address to pick us up. We’ll need combat gear for a dozen marines. I suggest you pick us up now and we can coordinate what needs to happen next.”

That suited her just fine. “Give me the address and I’ll send someone right away. Thank you.”

She disconnected the call and turned to William. “We’ll need someone from Grant to bring the pinnace, if they have it put back together, and some weapons for Commander Meyer. I don’t want to divert any of the other transports.”

He shook his head. “That’s not going to be possible. We’ve already sent the pinnace to assist
Invincible
. I spoke with Captain Black and authorized him sending it. In fact, I’m going to be joining him in trying to save that ship.”

Olivia blinked in surprise. “Okay, I can see sending the pinnace up to help. Exactly how is your presence supposed to improve their odds?”

“Because I’ll be flying another ship up to add one more set of grav drives.”

“You can fly? All they have left is the fighter. Surely that won’t help something so large.”

“You don’t think I could fly a fighter? I’m sure I’d be dashing. No, there’s another ship. It hasn’t flown in a very long time, but the automatics say it’s still functional. It might just make the difference between success and failure. And yes, I’m trained to fly a ship. It’s just been a while.”

She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t as though he needed her permission. “Good luck. Come home to Craig. And me, of course.”

He gave her a florid bow. “I shall return. And I’ll want your promise that you’ll be careful. If Abigail kills or captures you, I’ll be devastated.”

“We have a pact, then.” She rose to her feet and gave him a hug. “Good luck.”

Once he was gone, she went out to find her tech. “Tell me you have something.”

The woman looked up from the console she was working at. “Several things, actually. Deputy Coordinator King—now styling herself with your title, by the way—made another public statement. It was more of the same, but she did confirm our suspicions she was inside the council building by word and deed.”

“How so?”

“The address was filmed in your office. She also mentioned she was going to stay there ‘working for the good of the people of Harrison’s World’ until you were brought to justice. The number of security people around the building is becoming ludicrous. Surely all those people have something better to do than guarding some political gasbag.”

The woman paused for a moment. “Present company excluded.”

“Thanks for that,” Olivia said dryly. “Any word on where this farm might be?”

“Possibly.” The woman manipulated her screen and a map of the area. “Deputy Coordinator King’s family owns a number of agricultural facilities in the area surrounding the capital.”

Olivia examined the map closely. It showed a dozen large properties. “We’ll need to scout them. Can you get an enlarged image of all of them?”

“I’m not plugged into the satellite network and someone has been cutting off my access. They haven’t frozen me out, but I’m certainly not able just to waltz into that kind of system anymore. It might take me a while.”

“Unless you’d care to drive out there personally, I’d suggest you get busy.”

* * * * *

Jared resisted the urge to go down to engineering. That wouldn’t make any of this go faster and it might slow them down. The pinnaces and cutters were doing what they could to alter
Invincible
’s course, but it was increasingly looking as though they wouldn’t make enough of a difference to save the ship.

The crew would be able to use the escape pods, but the loss of the massive ship would hurt the Empire badly. The loss of the AI would be even worse. They didn’t have enough time to get the computer removed.

Ginnie Dare
and
New York
were racing in from the flip point, but they’d be hours too late to do any good. Unless of course he managed to save the ship. Several pinnaces had managed to match the ship’s uncontrolled tumble and were using their drives to stabilize her as much as they could.

The lift doors opened and Princess Kelsey rushed onto the bridge. She wore a massive suit of armor, though she held the helmet in the crook of her arm. “It wasn’t my fault.”

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “I must not have heard what happened yet. What disaster did you not cause?”

“Any of this. I just wanted the record to show that for once. How are we doing?”

“Not good. The small craft are giving everything they have, but it’s not going to be enough. I’m preparing to give the order to abandon ship. Unless, of course, Baxter pulls off a miracle.”

Kelsey stood beside one of the backup consoles. “Do you think there’s much chance of that?”

“Honestly? No. And you know what galls me? We’re not that far away from having enough thrust. If we had three or four more pinnaces, we’d squeak by. We’d skip off the atmosphere and probably burn off every external fixture on the ship, but we’d survive long enough for the destroyers to get here.”

“How long do we have?”

He checked the countdown timer in his head. “Five minutes until I have to order the crew to the pods. Ten minutes until we enter the atmosphere. I’ll order the small craft to break away as soon as we begin the evacuation.”

She shook her head. “There has to be a way.
Invincible
, is there anything on the ship that can give us the extra boost? What if we vented the atmosphere out the back?”

“While clever, that would not generate sufficient thrust,” the AI said.

“We need more ships,” Kelsey said.

He agreed, but they were using all they had. “The resistance sent up their pinnace. It’s helping. Lord Hawthorne is bringing a ship up. It won’t get here in time. That’s it for every small craft in the area.”

“Actually, it isn’t,”
Invincible
said. “Scanners are back online and I’m picking up another pinnace. It has already left the area around Harrison’s World.”

“What?” Jared accessed the scanners through his implants and saw that
Invincible
was correct. There was a pinnace racing toward…a gas giant in the outer system away from the flip point? That didn’t make any sense.

Kelsey must’ve been checking it, too. “Why is it going all the way out there? It has to be the pinnace that tried to kill Coordinator West.”

“And we have no way of catching it, either.” Jared checked the clock and their updated trajectory. “Time to call this. I’m sorry,
Invincible
.”

“As am I, Admiral. If only the engines in these small craft were more powerful. I’ll miss seeing how this story turns out. Good luck.”

Kelsey frowned. “Wait. Can’t we make them more powerful? What limits their thrust?”

“Safety interlocks,” Jared said. “Those grav drives might explode if pushed too hard.”

“And an explosion would be worse than our current problems how?”

He followed her train of thought and decided she might have a point. It would put the pilots in grave danger, but if they volunteered…

“
Invincible
, contact the pilots. See if they’re willing to take the risk.”

A few moments later, the AI responded. “All are prepared to risk it, Admiral. The danger is high, though. I recommend everyone abandon ship before you put your plan into effect.”

“Open a ship-wide channel. Tie in every suit com as well.”

“Ready, Admiral.”

“All hands, this is Admiral Mertz. We’re going to try one last thing to save the ship, but we can’t do it with you on board. Abandon ship. All hands abandon ship. Godspeed.”

An undulating warning sounded on every speaker at maximum volume. It announced the absolute worst case for any ship.

Swarms of emergency pods jettisoned from the hull. They darted away at savage velocities, designed to carry their precious cargo clear of whatever was going to kill the ship as fast as possible. They all angled down toward the planet’s surface, their beacons screaming for rescue.

He looked at the bridge crew. “I believe you have a pod waiting for you, too.”

Zia shook her head. “I’m the captain of this ship, sir. I decline to leave her before everyone is safely away. Everyone else, you heard the Admiral.”

No one moved. Kelsey put her hands on her hips. “Jared, you’re wasting time. Save this ship. If it doesn’t work, then we can run for our lives.”

“So much for me being noble.
Invincible
, have the pilots disabled their safeties?”

“They have, Admiral. All report ready for maximum acceleration.”

“Everyone strap in. This might be
very
rough. Align the ship as you see fit and go,
Invincible
.”

The crew tightened their restraints. Kelsey, who couldn’t use any of the seats in her armor, locked her helmet down and grabbed a console.

The increase in acceleration wasn’t much, but he saw an immediate effect. Their course slowly began to change. Bit by bit, it edged closer to being enough.

Then a massive impact rocked the ship. Fresh alarms wailed.

“One of the cutters exploded, Admiral. Hull breach amidships. We’re beginning to rotate. I calculate less than a fifty percent chance this vessel will rebound from the atmosphere. I recommend that you order the others to cease acceleration and abandon ship.”

He nodded. “Kelsey, please accompany the bridge crew and abandon ship. I’m going to stay and try to make this work.”

“We both know you can’t move me, so let’s save the theatrics and get on with this.”

Silence reigned for a few seconds. “Well, then. One last roll of the dice. We’ll know how this turns out in sixty seconds. It’s been an honor, everyone.”

He sent the order for the small craft to break away. This was it. Either they’d make it on their own or they wouldn’t make it at all.

It didn’t take long before he felt the ship punching through the upper regions of the atmosphere. Even a massive vessel like this could move in odd ways when meeting an almost fluid resistance. The exterior scanners showed quite the light show as they went deeper.

At least until the drag ripped off the exterior scanner arrays. Shortly after that, it started raising the hull temperature. That temperature change would be the only way they’d know if they made it back out of their death dive.

The gentle movements of the ship became wild bucking in a much shorter time than he’d thought possible. Kelsey had the worst time of it. The console she was holding onto broke loose and sent her tumbling.

That scared him to death, but she grabbed onto another one and braced herself under it. “I’m fine. This tumbling can’t hurt me in my armor. I’m more worried about smashing one of you.”

“The temperature is leveling off,”
Invincible
said. “I believe we may be skipping back off the atmosphere. Much the same as a thrown stone skips across water.”

“How do you even know about that?” Jared asked. “And as a warning, those sink in the end.”

“The video collection in the library is quite instructive. If we are skipping out of the atmosphere, we should have enough time for
Ginnie Dare
and
New York
to arrive. They can tow us into a stable orbit.”

Zia turned to face him. “The hull temperature is definitely leveling off. We’re not going deeper into Harrison’s World’s atmosphere.”

That brought a loud cheer from the rest of the bridge crew. And a sigh of relief from him. “Well done, everyone. Well done.”

“Thank the small craft pilots,” his flag captain said. “They really saved our bacon.”

“Do we have communication? Can we get them to return and help stabilize the orbit until the destroyers get here?”

Zia shook her head. “We’re completely cut off. No communications, no scanners. No weapons, for that matter. The beam arrays are gone. The missile tubes are intact, but the hatches will be welded shut. We also lost our flip vanes. We’re trapped in this system until we can replace them.”

Kelsey climbed out from under the console she’d used as cover. She’d bent its leg columns with her grip. She pulled her helmet off and shook out her hair. “That beats the alternative. I’d rather have to wait to leave than never get out of here at all.

“And speaking of not being able to go anywhere, we need to find out what that pinnace is up to. If they think it’s worth doing, we have to stop them.”

Jared nodded. “We need one of the probes launched after it. Make that a priority, Zia. And find some way to get in touch with
Ginnie Dare
. I want them in pursuit as soon as possible.”

Zia turned to her console. “Aye, sir. I’ll send someone out a lock to look over the probe launcher and to make an estimate of our new course. They can use the suit com to get in touch with the pinnaces. One of them can relay to
Ginnie Dare
.”

Jared rose to his feet. “You forget it’s just us. I’ll go take a look and get this rolling myself. Come on, Kelsey. You can make sure I don’t fall off.”

The hostile pinnace’s course worried him. What could it be racing toward? Obviously, something that the enemy thought might be helpful against his ships. And if it could take out
Courageous
, it was nothing to sneer at. He had to stop them.

Chapter Thirty

Sean breathed a sigh of relief when he got word that
Invincible
had survived her near-death experience. He hadn’t known the ship even existed before today, but he grasped how important something like it would be to the Empire. No matter what Captain Breckenridge thought, war with the AIs was inevitable. Hell, it was already happening. They had to have the ships and technology to win it.