Empire of Bones

Empire of Bones

Book One of The Empire of Bones Saga

by

Terry Mixon

Empire of Bones

The Terran Empire is dead. Long live the Empire!

Commander Jared Mertz, the bastard son of the Emperor, and his half-sister, Princess Kelsey, barely speak to one another. To their dismay, their father seizes an opportunity to change that and sends them on a dangerous quest to explore the fallen Empire.

Separated from home by an impassable gulf and struggling to redefine their relationship, they find themselves thrust into a vicious war. Unless they work together to stop the Empire’s deadly legacy, billions face a horrific fate.

Works by Terry Mixon

The Empire of Bones Saga

Empire of Bones

Veil of Shadows
(September 2014)

Anthologies Terry Has Work In

Dirty Magick: Los Angeles

Short Fiction

The Man Who Stole History
(Alternate History/Time Travel)

War Fish
(Military Science Fiction)

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Empire of Bones

Copyright 2014 by Terry Mixon

Published by Yowling Cat Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and/or retrieval systems, or dissemination of any electronic version, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review, and except where permitted by law.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover art by Donna Mixon

Cover Image copyrights:

Depositphotos.com/innovari

NASA and STScI (Hubble)

Footage Firm, Inc

Print edition design and composition by John McCarthy

Follow him on Twitter: @SurfsideJack

He may be reached at: [email protected]

This book wouldn’t exist without the support of my wife Donna and daughter Felina. I love you both very much.

It often takes a village of creative minds working together to polish a group of words into a gripping, cohesive story. Thank you to my village and my tribe.

To my podcasting co-hosts, past and present: Justin Macumber, Ryan E. Stevenson, Eliyanna Kaiser, P. G. Holyfield, Paul E. Cooley, and Scott Roche. The Dead Robots’ Society brought us together and we’ve discussed every aspect of writing and publishing we could imagine over the last six years and three hundred plus weekly episodes Your encouragement and creativity inspire me.

To the Dead Robots’ themselves—our fans. I've had the great pleasure of meeting some of you. A few have even bought me dinner. Thank you for inviting my co-hosts and I into your homes. We apologize for the mess.

Finally, to those who beta read this novel: Tracy Bodine, Paul E. Cooley, Michael Falkner, Cain Hopwood, Kristopher Neidecker, Bob Noble, Jon Paul Olivier, Felix R. Savage, Christa Wick, and Jason Young. Your insight helped shape this story into the finished novel you hold in your hand. Words cannot express my gratitude.

Special thanks go to John McCarthy for donating his time and effort in both formatting the print version of this book and in schooling me on how to do it myself. They also go to Tracy Bodine for finding an amazing number of slips in the final proofreading. I’m deeply indebted to you both.

Numerous others have participated through comments in one way or another. I appreciate you all.

• Empire of Bones
  
• Works By Terry Mixon
  
• Copyright Notices
  
• Dedication
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Preview of Veil of Shadows
  

Commander Jared Mertz, captain of the Fleet destroyer
Athena
looked up from his console when his tactical officer spoke. “Contacts bearing two-five-zero by three-three-zero. Gravitic scanners show at least three ships under power and on a slow course toward
Orbital One
.”

He leaned forward in his seat and gave Lieutenant Zia Anderson his full attention. “Put them on the main screen. Have they seen us?”

The forward display switched from a tedious view of the asteroid they were in a close orbit of to a graphical representation of the immediate area of space. A small blue circle represented his ship. The enemy task force, marked with a red diamond, appeared on a projected course that took them ahead of and below
Athena’s
position. Their current range was just over a million kilometers.

Their slow speed prevented their grav drive signatures from showing up on the gravitic scanners beyond this short range. By his estimation, they’d need to increase speed by twenty or thirty percent before
Orbital One
might detect them from deeper in the system.

If
Athena
had been actively scanning with the normal space scanners, the enemy would’ve detected them much further out and gone dark before the destroyer noticed them. Relying on only the passive and gravitic scanners had been the only way to spot them first.

“Have they seen us?” Jared asked.

The tall redheaded officer shook her head. “I don’t think so, Captain. The asteroid we’re grappled to seems to have fooled them.”

“Keep all active scanners offline, but arm the missile tubes and bring all combat systems to standby. Sound general quarters and send a tight beam warning to
Orbital One
.”

“Aye, sir.”

Lieutenant Pasco Ramirez,
Athena’s
helmsman, examined his console readouts. “Their drives are at minimum, sir. They probably exited the flip point about three hours ago. At their current speed, they’ll cross our orbit in about half an hour.”

They officially called the incongruity in the space-time fabric that allowed for interstellar travel an Osborne-Levinson Bridge, but no one outside a university used that name. Jared figured it hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes before someone called it a flip point, because that’s exactly what happened when the special drives pulled on the weakened area of empty space. The ship ceased to exist in one planetary system and appeared in a different one light-years away.

It had made the existence of the old Empire possible. And the rebellion that destroyed it.

“Be ready to bring our drives online at a moment’s notice.” Jared returned his attention to his tactical officer. “I want to fire two salvos of missiles after they pass us, just before they’re out of effective range.”

“Sir, we don’t have any speed built up,” she warned. “They’ll have us as soon as they pivot.”

The red team ships would need to turn before they could return fire because the massive drives a starship required left no room for missile tubes aft.

“I know. With their momentum and course, we might be able to get out of easy firing range before then. If we want to make these war games more than a toss-up, we need to bloody their noses. Keep working on possible scenarios while I chat with the XO.”

He opened a channel to operations.
Athena’s
executive officer appeared on Jared’s console a few moments later. His second in command already knew what Zia had reported, but Jared summarized the situation and his plan to make the red team pay for their inattention.

Lieutenant Commander Charlie Graves grinned. “It’s about time they showed up. I was beginning to think they’d gotten lost.”

“I’m sure Admiral Yeats would have something incisive to say about that in the after action report.”

“Wouldn’t he?” The lanky officer glanced away from the screen. “Okay, we’re starting to get some better data now. It looks like six hostiles, tentatively identified as three destroyers, two light cruisers, and a heavy. We’re not supposed to know who’s participating in the exercise, but Ensign Enova says she’s sure the heavy cruiser is
Spear
. She served her midshipman’s cruise on her.”

Jared allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch upward. “We’ll overlook that little violation of the simulation guidelines just this once. Who’s in command of
Spear
?”

“Wallace Breckenridge. The ensign says he’s a real ‘by the book kind’ of guy. Apparently, he’s not the kind that appreciates anyone thinking outside the box.”

“Then we’ll be giving him quite the unpleasant wakeup call. Let me know if you see anything else as they close range. Bridge out.”

The six red diamonds slowly inched toward
Athena
on the screen. The red team would intersect their course about four hundred thousand kilometers away, just inside
Athena’s
most effective targeting range—half a million kilometers.

Time crept by as Jared waited for the enemy to notice their presence or perhaps send a destroyer to check the asteroid out, but they didn’t. He let the distance between them open again once they’d passed until the enemy was almost out of optimal missile range.

“Separate from the asteroid, Pasco. Zia, as soon as you have a passive lock, fire. Don’t go active until they respond. We might get the second salvo off before they can react.”

The screen lit up with four amber sparks representing
Athena’s
missiles as they exited the tubes. They screamed toward the enemy task force, their grav drives at maximum.

“Missiles away,” Zia said. “Telemetry indicates target acquisition. Thirty seconds until interception. Tubes reloading.”

There wasn’t any reaction from the red team for several more seconds and Jared could imagine some scanner officers gaping as the missiles appeared from nowhere and came howling in from astern. Zia launched a second set of missiles just as the enemy formation changed speed and began turning.

“Full acceleration,” Jared snapped. “Evasive maneuvers. Set course for the outer system. Use the asteroid for cover as long as you can.” Few of the eight missiles they’d launched would get through red team’s defensive fire, but even one would be enough to leave a mark.

He waited for the enemy to return fire, but they didn’t. Hadn’t the red team been at combat stations? He could almost hear the klaxons blaring and see the men rushing to bring their missiles online.

The enemy destroyers broke formation and began accelerating after them. Their anti-missile railguns fired at
Athena’s
first salvo, destroying two of them. Another detonated short of
Spear
, while the fourth lit up the heavy cruiser.

“Hit on the primary target,” Zia crowed. “It took him astern. High probability of serious internal damage.”

The enemy task force finally brought their weapons online and a swarm of missiles streamed after
Athena
—four from each destroyer, six from the light cruisers, but only three from the heavy cruiser. Less than half the eight Jared had expected from the large ship.

Still, twenty-seven missiles were much more than a destroyer like
Athena
ever wanted to see chasing them, even at extreme range. “Electronic countermeasures,” he said. “Evasion pattern delta.”

“I’m working on it,” Zia responded curtly, obviously too focused to realize that wasn’t precisely the tone an officer should use with her captain.