Ghosts of Empire (Book 4 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (35 page)

They arrived at the bridge and she spoke. “Computer, I’m placing Admiral Jared Mertz in command of this vessel.”

“Negative. Only a Marine Raider may command this vessel. This unit cannot accept Admiral Mertz as the commanding officer. However, you may designate him as your operational delegate.”

“Well, I suppose that’ll have to do. Make it so. Are you ready to move,
Persephone
?”

“Yes, Kelsey.”

She turned to Jared. “The ship is yours, Admiral. Let’s go take these bastards out.”

He smiled grimly. “It’ll be my pleasure, Captain Bandar.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Olivia awoke with a massive headache. She’d been stunned. It took her a minute to realize that Abigail had tied her to a chair in her own office at the council building. And not the comfortable one behind the desk.

Abigail King sat in that one. The bitch looked smugly pleased with herself.

“It’s about time you woke up. I’ve been overseeing the consolidation of the planet while you’ve been napping. I hope it doesn’t irk you too badly that I’m savoring the moment.”

Olivia’s mouth tasted like something had died in it. “This is the point in the program where I tell you that you’ll never get away with this and you share your clever plan with me.”

“Since you’ll never escape this building, I don’t have a problem with that scenario. Your rebel friends have been sneaking around outside for the last hour or so. They probably don’t realize that I can see them moving into place to attack, but that’s okay. It’s all part of my so-called clever plan.”

“Not to quibble, but technically you’re the rebel. We’re the resistance.”

“So you did know. I’d been curious.” Abigail rose from behind the desk and walked around to stand in front of Olivia. “I really don’t care what you and the scum like you call yourselves. You’re traitors and once we restore the lords to power in this system, we’ll root you out.”

Olivia shook her head. “You know the AIs murdered trillions of people to enslave humanity. How could anyone support continuing that?”

“Because I and the other loyalists get to wear the boots on the necks of people like you. The AIs are in control and nothing you do will ever change that. What did you hope to accomplish? Revolution? The lords are firmly entrenched and have enough firepower to stop anything you try.”

“It looks like you’re the one in the building about to be overrun. In the end, it doesn’t matter if I live or die. The resistance will win. You can’t stop men in powered armor.”

The other woman laughed. “That’s the best part. I don’t have to. Once the attack begins, I’ll scurry out your secret exit and let them have everything. Ah! You didn’t know I knew about that, did you?

“You also didn’t know we made extra nuclear weapons when we built the bomb-pumped lasers that destroyed the stations and the superdreadnought. We had to, because we didn’t know where we’d need to put every weapon. Besides the three that are still in place in buildings Master Calder owns, I had the spare brought here. Once I’m away, I’ll blow it up. Oh, and you, too.”

Olivia tried to keep the despair she felt off her face, but she doubted she’d succeeded.

* * * * *

Jared was amazed at how stealthy
Persephone
was. After they began moving toward the gas giant where the enemy awaited them, the computer advised going to what it called “active stealth” and increasing speed substantially.

That seemed counter intuitive, so he tried to find out what that entailed. The computer politely told him to mind his own business. It was classified and he didn’t have need to know.

Somewhat nonplussed, he kept the speed where it was and told the computer to engage active stealth. Due to the position of Boxer Station, he could communicate with it without risking the enemy receiving a transmission that tipped their hand for most of the trip out. They managed that by restricting where the communication beams went.

The staff at Boxer Station had replaced the scanner units destroyed in battle, so they had a good view of the system that didn’t tell the enemy anything they didn’t already know.

“Boxer Station,
Persephone
. We’ve gone active with stealth. How are you reading us?”

The voice of the lieutenant in charge of Boxer Station’s repairs sounded shocked when she came on. “
Persephone
, we’ve lost you on our scanners. You were there one moment and then you were gone. We’ve gone to targeting scans and we think we
might
have you ranged, but we can’t be sure.”

That was ridiculous. They were right in Boxer Station’s lap. There was no way they could
fail
to see them. At this range, they could have seen the fighter that he loved so much, even just coasting along.

Jared shook his head and stepped over behind the helm console. “Take us up to the speed that the computer recommended.”

Lieutenant Heather Brand touched her console. “Increasing speed.”

“
Persephone
, we have you again,” Boxer Station said.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” he muttered. “Go ahead Boxer Station. How clear is the reading?”

“It’s spooky, Admiral. Even though we know pretty much where you are, the readings aren’t firm at all. And they’re getting weaker as you pull away. By the time you get to extreme missile range, we’ll have lost you again. If we weren’t painting you hard, we’d have already done so. Whatever stealth that little ship has, it’s amazing.”

This might have a chance of working after all.

* * * * *

Sean couldn’t believe he was even trying this. He had a ring of marines around the council building, entrenched with heavy weapons. At his command, they’d storm the building after pinnaces took out the defensive positions. Inside five minutes, they’d have most areas under their control.

So, instead of going with that relatively safe plan, he was sneaking through the sewers with his rag-tag team of marines and the coordinator’s closest confederates. Their plan? To find a spot where they could breach an unused sub-basement with a shaped plasma charge. Then they’d infiltrate the more traveled corridors and try to rescue the coordinator.

What could possibly go wrong?

The coordinator’s tech wizard had a scanner of some kind and was probing the walls of the wretched tunnel. The incredible stench didn’t faze the woman in the slightest.

“I think about here.” She tapped the moldy, stained plascrete beside her. “This should be about three meters thick and heavily reinforced. You’ll want to keep from going overboard with the blast. If you take out the wall on the other side of the room, you might bring down the level above it. That one has machinery that will be noted if it goes offline. And it might collapse this whole section of the building”

“Lovely. Everyone, spread out. If this building is so shielded, how do you know where to place the charges?”

“Power conduits,” the woman said as she made her way past him, wisely retreating down the sewer. “I can see the ones feeding the area around the council building and they give me distances.”

“So, you’re guessing.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to be insulting. This is much more refined than a guess.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Have it your way.”

The marine armorer carefully placed a plasma charge on the wall. They could tailor the output by regulating how much plasma it generated. That theoretically allowed them to use only the force necessary. They’d know in just a minute how good the tech lady was.

“We’re ready, sir,” the man said. “We need to pull back about fifty meters. I can remotely detonate it at that point.”

Once they were in place, he made sure the marines were ready to charge and gave the order to go.

The explosion was more significant than he’d expected, but still low key. The plasma flash was blinding, but they’d shielded their eyes. Once it was done, they rushed in. The hole through the wall was large enough for them to use, but still bubbled with heat.

One look through told him that the blast had trashed the room, but it hadn’t done more than blacken the far wall. The tech had called it almost precisely. Dinner was on him if they made it through this alive.

The marines tossed heat resistant material over the shattered remnants of the wall and scrambled into the council building. They divided into teams to hit the critical areas as quickly as possible. He led his people up three levels to near where the coordinator’s office was and waited for the word that everyone was in place.

One by one, the teams checked in. When the last one was ready, he gave the order. “Go. Go. Go.”

* * * * *

Kelsey watched the gas giant through
Persephone
’s passive scanners as they entered orbit. It was beautiful, in a cold, ethereal way. All pale colors in sharp bands. A darker blue storm that was probably bigger than Avalon churned along the equator.

She and the marines were strapped into their slots on the two pinnaces the Marine Recon ship boasted. They’d had to leave
Invincible
’s pinnaces back at Boxer Station. They weren’t stealthy enough.

They slipped past the protective station without it seeing them. Based on the way the missiles and beam emplacements were laid out, it wouldn’t be able to shoot at them now. That was one less thing to worry about. She didn’t know if there were other stations hidden in the planet’s depths, but that was a problem for another day.

The station hosting the battlecruisers wasn’t scanning, but they’d be hard to miss if anyone was looking at the area visually. Their only chance for success was to slip up completely unseen.

Persephone
would stay in the clouds above the battlecruisers. The stealthed pinnaces would drop down as quickly as possible and try and land on the station before anyone saw them.

“Talbot, is everyone ready?” she asked.

The marine nodded. “Ready, Princess. Say the word and we drop down on these bastards and ruin their day.”

They’d crammed almost two hundred marines into the two pinnaces. A third more than they were rated for. Yet that was a ridiculously small number of people to storm a space station and four battlecruisers. Less than forty on each team.

The only saving grace was that the enemy had to have even less people. Not counting any automated weapons platforms, of course. If those were active, they’d all die.

“Kelsey, we’re in position,” Jared said over the encrypted combat link. “They’re not showing any sign they know we’re up here. Once you cut free and start dropping, you’ll be at the station in less than sixty seconds. Are you ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be. Everyone, stand by for drop.”

“Good luck.”

The pinnaces cut loose and fell like stones into the pale clouds.

* * * * *

Abigail happened to be pouring a drink when she felt something shake the building. Just a little. The ripples in the expensive alcohol told her she hadn’t imagined it.

“Well, I think we might have some visitors,” she purred at Olivia. “If so, I’d best be on my way. I wouldn’t want to linger and get caught up in the blast. Do say hello to everyone for me. And pass along my heartfelt wishes for them to roast in Hell.”

She sent the activation command to the warhead and the timer went live. Fifteen minutes. Now it was unstoppable.

Olivia couldn’t respond. After a while of listening to the woman rave, Abigail had gagged her. That was unexpectedly satisfying.

The former coordinator of Harrison’s World glared at her replacement as Abigail made her way through the secret door behind the bar and into the small lift hidden there. It took her quickly down to an abandoned grav train station.

The massive concourse must’ve once served a large section of the city, but now it sat forgotten. Not empty, though. A shiny new grav train waited to whisk the coordinator away to safety in case of a dire emergency.

And it would fulfill that function. The title was hers. And the best part? Abigail could blame the explosion on her enemy. Nothing could stop her now.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Sean led the men and women under his command toward the coordinator’s office. They had stunners out as their primary weapons because they’d rather not injure any more people than absolutely necessary.

He’d visited the Imperial Senate building back on Avalon as a kid, and then later as a serving officer called to give testimony on Fleet affairs. This place one-upped that august building in snoot factor. Seriously, who put marble busts of all the former councilors in little alcoves? After five hundred years, they were
everywhere
.

Everything around them spoke of large amounts of money spent for the sole purpose of showing off wealth and power. As corrupt as some of the senators at home were—and he knew one such man very well from his association with Captain Breckenridge—they weren’t in the same league as this.

Thankfully, most of the defenders were elsewhere. Probably guarding the most likely exterior approaches. All he saw at first were civilians, who wisely fled.

That changed when they arrived at the executive wing. Armed and uniformed security commanded them to halt and then opened fire with flechette pistols. His people outnumbered them, though, and their stunners carried the day. One of the coordinator’s people was badly wounded in the firefight, so he detailed a few people to guard their backs and watch over her.

Sean expected the coordinator’s office to be under heavy guard, but the outer office was deserted. The marines flowed into the main room and cleared it quickly. Coordinator West sat tied to a chair and gagged.

He pulled the cloth from her mouth. “Are you okay?”

“No. She has a nuclear device in the building. It’s activated and on a short timer. We need to initiate an evacuation right now. We only have ten minutes.”

Sean used his knife to cut her free. “Most of the people won’t get clear in time. Where is it?”