Command Decisions (Book 3 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (12 page)

“Odds are good the next system isn’t occupied. The Old Empire maps have it as a white dwarf with no habitable planets. The flip point leading deeper into the Old Empire is on the other side of the system.”

Jared nodded. “He has enough of a lead to get some distance and drop out of sight. The problem I see with that is that we’ll be able to block his escape. If he can ambush us right after the flip, he might be able to take us out. That’s the worst-case. What can we do if that’s his plan?”

“Send a spread of probes through. He won’t get them all. One of them will tell us where he’s at. Then we can flip through and blow him into atoms.”

“Pardon, Captain,”
Courageous
said. “There is one additional option. This vessel has decoys designed to masquerade as this vessel. One could be sent through and it would likely fool the enemy scanners long enough to draw their fire.”

“That could work. How long until we flip?”

“Just over twenty minutes, Captain,” Ramirez said.

Jared watched the situation behind them as they sped toward the flip point. The Pentagarans were still hours away from being able to assist in the rescue operations. With the loss of
Titan
and
One Bullet
, the death toll would be almost two thousand people. They’d blown up so quickly that there wouldn’t be any survivors.

Shadow
was intact, but two Old Empire missiles would’ve wreaked havoc inside her. She had to have hundreds dead and even more wounded. The two destroyers would have their hands full with rescue operations. Their medical staffs would work themselves to collapse, but it wouldn’t be enough.

He mentally glared at the icon representing
Spear
. That bastard should’ve been chasing the enemy destroyer. Those people died because Breckenridge had underestimated the threat. Again.

Jared sighed. He didn’t wish anyone on that ship harm. If Breckenridge had chased the destroyer and the enemy had destroyed
Spear
, they’d have lost almost as many people.

“
Spear
is launching pinnaces,” Zia said. “They’ll be boarding the freighter about the time we’re ready to flip.”

Hopefully they could capture the freighter without any further loss of life.

The freighter dashed those hopes when it fired on
Spear
. A missile flashed out of one cargo hold, followed by two more. The low rate of acceleration told Jared that the enemy had used the same trick he’d used on the Pale Ones shipyard. They’d taken missile warheads without the normal drives and fired them. Perhaps they’d been in the cargo the ship was delivering.

Spear
stopped two of them at a safe distance, but the third almost made it before the defensive railguns detonated it. They needed to get on board that freighter as soon as possible.

A missile flashed out of the heavy cruiser and into the freighter. The cargo vessel disintegrated in a massive explosion, destroying everything Jared had hoped to capture: the cargo, prisoners, and any computer records.

He rubbed his face tiredly. Breckenridge had botched every aspect of this ambush by the numbers. The incompetence that he’d accused Jared of was on full display. And he’d no doubt find a way to blame someone else.

Probably Jared.

“Three minutes to flip,” Zia said. “I’m thinking of sending the decoy through on the far edge of the flip point and coming through on this side in fifteen seconds.”

He shook his head. “Reverse that. We’ll go through on the far side. Release the decoy with a good trajectory to go through where we’d transition. We’ll brake hard and go through after it. This is going to be difficult, but I want you to be surgical, Zia. I want that ship crippled, but not destroyed. We need any information from him that we can get. Work with
Courageous
on targeting critical areas.”

Jared opened a channel to Lieutenant Reese. “We’re flipping in three minutes. Be ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Things went sideways in the ambush. The freighter is gone. We need this ship in one piece.”

“Aye, sir. We’ll do our best. The pinnace we brought over from
Athena
won’t be as good as the three Old Empire models, but if you can get us close, we’ll be able to lock onto their hull.”

“I’ll buy you every meter that I can. Good luck. I know it’s asking a lot, but keep Kelsey alive for me.”

“I’ll do my best. Reese out.”

They crossed into the flip point and dropped the decoy. Its scanner signature blossomed into one identical with
Courageous
. Jared was impressed. He wouldn’t have known it was a decoy if he hadn’t seen it come online with his own eyes. Metaphorically speaking.

The decoy flipped and he counted down fifteen seconds. “Raise the screens. Flip the ship.”

The gut-twisting surge of transition washed over him, but he kept a firm lock on the tactical situation through his implants. The first thing he saw was the spread of six missiles arrowing toward the decoy.

He traced them back in a flash and located the destroyer. It was in an area of space that would be behind a ship that made the fastest transition. With the course change he’d laid in,
Courageous
had the other ship right in her sights at point blank range while they were reloading.

Jared made a split second-decision, overrode Zia’s attack plan, and locked the missiles down.
Courageous
’ beam weapons came to life at his command and lashed out at the vessel sitting right in their face.

The lances of coherent energy slammed into the enemy’s screens, dropping them. The following shots tore into the destroyer’s hull.

Jared used his knowledge of the enemy deck plan to take out both his fusion plants by vaporizing the cooling and control circuitry. Two other beams disabled two of the missile launchers.

Robbed of the ability to control their own temperature, the plants performed as designed and shut down.

The destroyer fired two missiles at
Courageous
. Zia stepped in behind Jared and resumed control of the beams. She incinerated the warheads before they closed the distance to
Courageous
. Then she knocked out the remaining launchers.

The Zombie class destroyers didn’t have beam weapons. The massive power requirements for them restricted them to heavy cruisers or above. The antimissile railgun slugs it fired at them failed to penetrate
Courageous
’ screens.

Low power, pinpoint shots disabled even that offensive capability. The enemy destroyer hung before them, crippled.

Jared sent the go signal to Reese. This was all in his hands now. And Kelsey’s.

“Captain, I’m picking up a probe moving at high speed,” Zia said. “It’s on a course toward the other flip point in this system. It’s already at the far edge of our missile envelope.”

“Fire missiles. Take it out.”

Probes didn’t have the speed of missiles, but they could flip. He absolutely couldn’t afford to let word of their ambush get back to wherever this ship came from. If the probe got too far away from them, it would escape.

Zia launched four missiles, ludicrous overkill for a probe. Her caution proved warranted when two of
Courageous
’ missiles burned out before catching it. The other two took it out.

He heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

The marine pinnaces had launched while they dealt with the probe and were fast approaching the destroyer. This was the moment of truth.

Chapter Twelve

Kelsey felt surprisingly calm as the pinnaces swooped in on the crippled destroyer. Perhaps having a small celestial body dropped on one put things into perspective.

“Listen up,” Lieutenant Reese said over the general channel. “These people are likely armed with Old Empire weapons and they’ll know this ship better than we do. Don’t take any chances. If someone surrenders, fine. If not, don’t hesitate to put them down.

“If you see any computer equipment, make note of it. The engineering team will secure the ship’s AI. See that they and the princess stay clear of the fighting.”

He gave her a stern look. “The princess will try to stay out of the worst of it, but if she becomes engaged, you will support her to the hilt.”

She snorted softly. She’d keep clear if she could, but if they needed her, she’d bring the heavy firepower.

Reese continued. “We’ll be breaching the hull in four places. Tiger One will take engineering, Two will hit the bow, Three will take port, and Four will hit the starboard. Overwhelm any resistance as quickly as you can and support the other teams. We breach the hull in sixty seconds. Good luck.”

Up close, the ship looked surprisingly like
Courageous
had when they’d found her. The beams had melted their way through the hull in much the same way. Only there was a lot more debris pouring from the breaches: equipment, air, and bodies.

Kelsey didn’t want to think about that, but these people had just killed thousands of her countrymen. Her gut tightened and she pushed her regrets away. These people had earned what was coming.

Their pinnace stopped short of the enemy and fired the breaching charge, a web of small explosives bound together like a fishing net. It spread across a small area of the hull and exploded. The shaped charges ripped that small section of hull apart.

When the fresh cloud of debris had thinned, Reese gave the order to board. The ramp opened at the back of the pinnace and the marines swarmed across the gap with practiced ease. She made the jump without problems, the grav assist in her armor taking her exactly where she wanted to go. Her long hours of practice were paying off.

Part of her mind noted with amusement that Commander Meyer was having a much more difficult time of it. Sergeant Coulter was shepherding him across like a sack of potatoes.

Talbot and her guards hemmed her in protectively as the other marines set up a portable airlock and forced their way into the main body of the ship. They wanted prisoners, so spacing everyone wasn’t on the menu.

Her external speakers picked up the howling of alarms as she cycled through. The ship’s artificial gravity was still on, so that made moving around simpler.

The marines were taking fire from the forward part of the corridor. A dozen men and women in Fleet coveralls cowered under the guns of a marine fire team aft of their airlock.

She opened her senses and was surprised to discover they didn’t have implants. She’d expected them to have the same AI controlled virus that the Pale Ones did. That would’ve made them puppets for the AIs.

Kelsey consulted the diagram of the ship she’d downloaded. They were three levels away from the computer center. They needed to find a lift or stairwell.

That’s when the sporadic fire from up ahead became more intense. They must’ve run into heavy resistance. Then they started taking fire from aft.

“Enemy units moving behind us,” Talbot shouted. “Take cover!”

That meant dodging into compartments to the sides of the corridor. It meant being pinned down. A destroyer couldn’t have many marines aboard.
Athena
had only had thirty. With the four strike forces, they had almost two hundred marines.

Rather than ducking into one of the side compartments, she sprinted toward the fresh enemies and leapt.

The move took them completely off guard and she landed among them without taking a single hit. There were four men in unpowered armor. She lashed out and took two of them out before they could jump back. The other two threw themselves back and fired at her with their flechette rifles.

High-speed tungsten penetrators rang off her armor as she drew her pistols and shot them. One died as her darts took him in the throat. The other dropped as her neural disruptor stunned him.

Her armor was gouged where they’d shot her, but nothing had penetrated. Yay powered combat armor.

“Dammit! Will you stop that?” Talbot covered the cross corridors as his men took up positions. “You’re going to get killed.”

“We don’t have time to get pinned down. We need the AI intact.”

“We also need you alive. I need you alive.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m being careful. Now let’s get our people to this stairwell over here. We can get up to the computer center through it.”

“Wait for the LT.” Talbot must’ve sent a message to his commanding officer because other marines streamed past their position and up the stairwell.

Reese stopped next to her. “Good work, Princess. Don’t ruin it by running ahead of us. The enemy will be guarding the computer center. We want it intact.”

She felt her eyes narrow. “Are you saying I’d blow it up?”

“Your track record on capturing AIs is filled with explosions. And floods.”

“I only wrecked one,” she sniffed. “And that wasn’t my fault. You were sleeping on the job.”

“It’s called being knocked unconscious by the anti-boarding weapons. I’m surprised they haven’t tried that. Doctor Leonard rigged up something that we put into our armor to protect us, but they haven’t even tried.”

“Knocking out the fusion plants might have taken them offline.”

“True. The other teams report they’re moving forward under heavy fire. The bridge is secure, but there were no prisoners. The officers attacked with pistols and our people had to return fire. Engineering is still up in the air, but it looks like we might capture some people. We’ve secured a number of prisoners.”

“The ones I saw didn’t have implants. That’s odd. The Old Empire implanted everyone in uniform from the lowest recruit to the Admiral of the Fleet.”

The marine officer shrugged. “We’ll sort it out. The advance fire team reports the enemy has sealed the computer center. No surprise there. I’m afraid Commander Meyer took a ricochet. His armor mostly held up, but he’s got shrapnel in his leg.”

“Is it serious?”

“He’ll be okay once the doctor takes care of him. Time to move on to the AI.”

The armored hatch to the computer center looked very much like the one on
Courageous
. The marines were setting up a perimeter on one side of the area. The other one was conspicuously empty of people.