Paying the Price (Book 5 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (4 page)

That wasn’t stopping Doctor Leonard from chortling over whatever it was he was seeing.

She’d tried sampling the data feed, but didn’t have the background to understand it.

“Captain,” Lieutenant Jack Thompson said, turning away from the helm console. “I think we’re closing in on a large planet. The ship is veering slightly off course.”

She leaned forward and looked through the ship’s scanners. Other than seeing the course deviation, she wasn’t getting anything. Not even on optical. Frankly, they weren’t really even sure of how close they were to whatever was left of the sun.

Kelsey frowned and did some comparisons in her head. “I’m not sure it’s a planet. That might be the star remnant or the black hole. We should try to triangulate it. Take us on a divergent course and tell me how far away that thing is.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

She returned her attention to Doctor Leonard. “Can you give me an update? We might have found the central body in this system.”

He looked up from his borrowed console, blinking owlishly. “What? Of course you have. I spotted it five minutes ago.”

Kelsey restrained her initial response. “Don’t you think you should share little details like that, Doctor? We’re flying blind here.”

“Ah. Forgive me. The gravity pull you’re seeing is coming from the central object in the system. A black hole, I suspect, based on the type of radiation we’re seeing. And, in no small degree, the amount of stellar matter we’re flying through.”

“Why so?”

“If the sun were still intact, its solar wind would’ve pushed all these energetic particles clear. We’d see a starkly bright object where the sun once was. A star without its mantle of gas would be unmistakable.

“Since we’re not seeing anything like that, it must be because the solar mass collapsed into a black hole and it’s drawing the remaining stellar matter inward without the corresponding push of the solar wind.”

That made her sit up. “We’re not in danger of falling into it, are we?”

“Oh, no. We’re still quite distant. The space around it will clear to some degree as we get closer. We won’t see it optically, of course, but we should have an unparalleled view of the event horizon. Which we also won’t see directly.”

“You make it all sound so exciting. We should have Christmas cards made.”

Doctor Leonard smiled. “That’s clever. Indeed, we should. What we
will
see shortly is the accretion disk. It’s spinning around the black hole and generating the radiation ahead of us. I imagine it will be quite spectacular.”

He returned to his data and she had the ship move back into a course that would take them closer to the black hole. Slowly.

Space cleared until they could see the vast emptiness that was the central system. The titanic blast had vaporized the inner planets, leaving only husks to circle what might have once been a life-giving star.

The charged particles hid any gas giants in the outer system from view. The nova would have stripped them of their atmospheres, but their cores should be mostly intact. She imagined they would be very educational to the scientists.

In the place of honor was a spinning disk of glowing dust. It was very beautiful. And quite deadly, if the radiation levels were to be believed. As they grew closer, those kept going up. At some point, the radiation would be a threat even with their battle screens.

“That’s it,” Doctor Leonard said. “The black hole at the center of the system.” He turned to face her. “It’s so powerful that even light cannot escape its clutches. The ultimate prison. Well, technically, the matter inside eventually evaporates, but I’ll stand with my analogy.”

“If we can’t get close, how are you going to get more data?”

“I believe we can get excellent readings from a safe distance. We’ll have to devise dedicated probes the size of cutters to get into close ranges, but that won’t be happening anytime soon. Rest assured, though, what I get here will revolutionize our understanding of black holes.”

“Captain, what’s that?”

She returned her attention to the helmsman. “What?”

He highlighted part of the scanner readings. It was some kind of debris orbiting around the black hole. “An asteroid? Something blown off a planet?”

“No,” Doctor Leonard said. “Lieutenant Thompson is quite correct. The orbit is unusually stable for such a small object near something with the mass of a black hole.”

Kelsey made some measurements. She’d really rather not get that close, but they could get closer to the object and determine exactly what it was in relative safety.

“Take us in,” she ordered, “but only until we get better readings.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

He took
Persephone
in closer. It took almost an hour before they were seeing details optically. The object wasn’t as irregular as she’d expected. In fact, it was far too regular to be natural.

“That’s artificial,” she said. “Nature abhors consistent lines like those.”

Leonard frowned. “Who would put something out here? How could they? Is it another Old Empire relic?”

Kelsey shrugged. “I have no idea, but we’re going in for a close look. If this is something we need to explore before we head home, I want to take as much data back to Jared as I can. Get me the cleanest scanner readings you can, Doctor.”

He nodded and bent back over his console.

This little adventure was showing signs of excitement after all. Hopefully, without the kind of destruction that usually meant for everything around her.

* * * * *

Major Russ Talbot looked up from his console when someone knocked. Angela Ellis stood outside his office aboard
Invincible
. He gestured for her to come in.

“I thought you were down on Harrison’s World, Major. What brings you here?”

Nine months ago, he’d been a senior sergeant and Angela had been a lieutenant, the same rank as his now-dead boss.

Kelsey had waved her magic finger—yes, that one—and made him a major. He hoped to God that someone didn’t convince her to make him a damned colonel before they got home. His career was already screwed all to hell.

If the recent changes in their rank bothered her, she didn’t allow it to show. “I’ve got a big problem, Russ. Carl Owlet.”

The marine grinned and leaned back in his chair. “Your idea of big differs from mine. I’m not sure he even shaves regularly. He hitting on you?”

“What? No. No! He’s doing something much worse. Look at this.”

She sent him a vid through his implants that made him sit up abruptly at the destruction.

“Holy cow!” he muttered. “Is he okay?”

“I’m told he’ll make a full recovery, but he made that damned thing for Princess Kelsey.”

“Ah. All becomes clear. You’re worried he’s trying to kill your principle.”

She sighed and sat abruptly in one of the chairs. “No, not really. He’s just not thinking and I’m worried about what something like this would mean for the princess. What if he makes it more dangerous?”

“I’ve known Carl for over a year. He’s bright. Damned bright. Perhaps not as grounded in common sense as I’d like, but not a menace. And you’re not giving Kelsey enough credit. She doesn’t usually grab the biggest weapon handy to smash a problem.”

Not recently, anyway.

“So I should just let him give her that thing? It can blow holes in this ship.” She sounded resigned.

He smiled a little. “I understand that you want to keep Kelsey safe, but you can’t just shoot everyone who might give her something dangerous. For Christ’s sake, she routinely wears powered armor and has an armory in our closet.”

It was common knowledge that he and Princess Kelsey were an item. He shared her palatial quarters and her bed. He’d overseen the installation of the armory. It had everything from two spare sets of armor—one Marine Raider and the other an upgraded general marine assault suit—to an array of every weapon they’d found to date.

If their commander had been anyone other than Jared, he’d have had a coronary.

“Look,” Talbot said after a moment. “Talk with her about it. She’ll listen to your concerns.”

“Yeah,” Angela said glumly. “She’ll listen and then do whatever she likes.”

“Welcome to the Imperial Guard, in everything but name. And thank God it isn’t me keeping her from doing crazy stuff now.”

She sighed. “The universe hates me.”

* * * * *

Jared walked into
Invincible
’s briefing room and nodded to the various officers and scientists gathered there. It was early in the morning and most of them looked a bit out of sorts.

“Good morning, everyone. There’s coffee and a buffet against the wall. Please indulge yourselves.”

He suited words to deeds and filled a plate. If this turned into anything like some of Kelsey’s other discoveries, it might be harder to find time for food soon.

Kelsey had an even larger plate than his, but didn’t look nearly as discomfited by putting it all away as she used to. His sister was adjusting to her new condition.

“I told you not to do anything to wreck my schedule,” he growled as he sat beside her.

She smiled. “I didn’t put that thing there. Not my fault.”

Once everyone took their seats, he nodded toward Kelsey. “Tell us what you found.”

The screen came to life. She must’ve used her implants to load the files. They were all becoming more adept at doing things like that.

An image of a large space station showed against a bright swirl of dust. It was difficult to make out the surface details, but it was undoubtedly artificial. They’d obviously enhanced the image, probably due to being so distant from the object.

“We found this station orbiting the black hole in the other system,” Kelsey said. “Due to its proximity to the event horizon, we were unable to approach as closely as I’d have liked.
Persephone
told me our drives and screens were up to the task, but it would put us at almost 90% of capacity. I decided that was cutting it a little too close.”

Jared nodded. “Good call. We don’t want a failure to send you falling into a black hole. Your father’s already going to kill me for everything you’ve been through.”

The people gathered around the table rumbled with laughter. Even Kelsey. They had enough distance to find the humor in something like that now.

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” she said. “So, while we couldn’t get close, we did creep up enough for the scanners to get some data. The layout is nothing like what we’ve found in any of the Old Empire databases. With Doctor Leonard’s concurrence, I’m declaring this as probably non-human in origin.”

That set off a murmur around the table.

“Wait,” Jared said. “You mean as in alien? Not just one of the other human polities that existed back then? The Old Empire never found evidence of sentient alien life.”

“I submit that we just did,” she said seriously. “We attempted to communicate with it, but the station didn’t respond. It may be that our methods are so different that it didn’t recognize our message. It’s also possible it isn’t completely functional. In that environment, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Doctor Leonard cleared his throat. “The design elements of this station are markedly different than what we’ve seen before, Admiral. Rather than a sphere, this is more like a massive ring with the center aligned toward the black hole. That means very little in and of itself, but combined with its survival in the most hostile environment imaginable, and lack of battle screens, that has to mean something.”

Jared thought about that. “Kelsey thinks the station’s protection might have failed. Perhaps it once had screens.”

The older man shook his head. “The orbit is too precise for a derelict. If it were being flooded with radiation, the drives that kept it in place would have also failed. It’s protected by something we’re unfamiliar with.”

“We’ll have to send a ship in more closely to find out,” Kelsey said. “And that falls to you to decide, Admiral. Do we look now or later?”

“I can send a few ships in to take a closer look after you head out,” Commodore Sean Meyer offered.

He’d recovered nicely from the injuries he’d sustained a few months ago and settled into commanding Boxer Station with more ease than Jared had expected. His cadre of officers from the destroyed heavy cruiser
Spear
was working out better for him than he’d hoped.

“I could even task my exec with that,” he said with a grin toward Captain Paul Cooley. The man’s injuries had been far worse than Sean’s and he was only now getting used to the artificial legs they’d built for him.

The emotional damage from losing his ship and many of his crew would take longer to heal.

Paul nodded. “I can take some ships in to check it out.”

Jared shook his head. “We should look before we head back for home. We’ll leave the follow up exploration to you two.”

He leaned back for a moment and thought about it. “I’ll take every ship in my fleet through. We’ll search the system thoroughly and get as many readings as we can. Then we’ll head for home.”

“That’s a little bit of overkill, don’t you think?” Kelsey asked dryly.

“I want to know if there are other flip points there and where they let out. Nothing in the Old Empire records indicates a system like this one and I doubt it went nova in the last five hundred years. The aliens that built that station came from somewhere. I’d like to have an idea of where that might be.”

He checked the time. “Everyone head back to your ships after you download the data Princess Kelsey brought back for us. We’ll move into the Nova system in half an hour. And that’s a capital Nova, as in the new official name.”

Kelsey waited for the others to start leaving before she spoke. “I honestly didn’t mean to delay our departure.”

He smiled. “As if I were going to go home without as much information about a potential alien species as possible. This won’t take long.”

Jared hoped it actually worked out that way for once. It would be a refreshing change of pace.

* * * * *

Carl arrived back on the science ship
Pallas
just in time to avoid any awkward questions. He’d brought the hammer with him, safely tucked away in his gear with the grav drive making it almost weightless.