Veil of Shadows (Book 2 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (32 page)

Jared tilted his head back and looked up. Even though they were on the three hundredth floor, the building still towered over them. “Just how tall is this building?”

“Four hundred and fifty-two floors, counting the penthouse level. It provided homes and businesses for a quarter of a million people. I suspect many of them never left it during their lives. Not even in the end.”

A bird landed on the railing about ten meters away. It was a smooth gray and very fat. It stared at them as though it was waiting for them to feed it.

Jared shook his head. “I cannot believe how real all of this looks. I can hear the birds, I can smell the ocean, and no matter where I look, I can see everything down to the smallest detail. How is that possible in a recording?”

“They brought in special equipment capable of recording in far more detail than any human being can actually sense. Even Princess Kelsey. They wanted every Fleet service member to be able to see Imperial City as it was. There are a number of other recordings just like this from across the Empire in
Courageous’
data banks.”

Jared sent a mental command to his implants to terminate the vid. The incredible view disappeared, leaving him sitting in his quarters aboard the Imperial Fleet battlecruiser
Courageous
. Across the coffee table from him, Bell opened his eyes.

The ice in Jared’s drink had almost melted, but he took a deep sip anyway. The alcohol burned going down. “All of that historical detail and only we can see it. That’s going to make the historians on the science teams revolt if we don’t capture that freighter and its implant supplies. They’ll be demanding we launch an expedition deeper into the old Empire immediately.”

The old man nodded. “I’d imagine you’re right. Not even the prospect of the Pale Ones would deter them. I’m afraid that only you and Princess Kelsey are going to be able to see them until you get what you need to implant others.
Courageous
might be able to display these vids on a monitor, but they were never designed to be viewed by someone without implants.”

So many relics from the old Empire were made for the use of people with cranial implants. Their designers hadn’t considered unenhanced human beings needing to access them. Yet, here in the post-Fall Terran Empire, only the three of them had implants.

The cataclysmic rebellion and civil war half a millennium ago had wrecked the old Empire and killed uncounted trillions of people. As of yet, they had no idea how many feral humans survived amid the bones of the Empire. Or how many isolated pockets of civilization like the Kingdom of Pentagar survived.

The Kingdom occupied a single planet. The resurrected Terran Empire added several dozen heavily populated worlds and perhaps twice that number of frontier planets to the count. That left tens of thousands of planetary systems that had once been part of the Terran Empire left to explore.

And to do that, they had to deal with the artificial intelligences that had staged a revolt and the poor bastards they forcibly implanted. Yet Jared and his people would need to do it if they ever expected to return home.

Bell picked up his glass and sipped his whiskey. “Now that the Pentagarans have their first ships ready, when will you be returning to Erorsi? Have the recordings the AI made changed your plans?”

“We’re still reviewing the oldest of the transmissions. They go back over five hundred years. I don’t think we’ll get any deeper shocks that we’ve already gotten, though. That most recent recording told us everything we needed to know.”

The AI controlling Erorsi received supplies each year about the same time from what certainly appeared to be a ship from the old Empire. The conversation between the man and the AI had been brief, but chilling. He looked like a Fleet officer. Definitely not a savage like the Pale Ones.

He spoke to the AI in an obsequious tone, declaring that the freighter had all the supplies the AI couldn’t build for itself. Including implant hardware, which Jared was determined to have. The AI told him that it had adolescent human beings for the Empire. Children.

Obviously, something of the old Empire survived. Something twisted and horrible. Their problems had become several orders of magnitude more complicated.

“Based on the rough schedule of the resupply, it’ll be along in another few weeks,” Jared said. “The earliest it’s come is a week from now. We go back to Erorsi tomorrow and set up an ambush. We need the freighter’s cargo and we have to make certain it doesn’t raise the alarm.

“The ships from the Kingdom will split up. Two thirds of them will hide behind Erorsi while the rest lay in wait with
Courageous
in the asteroid belt. We’ll catch the freighter and its escort, if any, between the hammer and anvil. The marines will clear the freighter before Kelsey boards to work with its computer.”

“You’re short on missiles, so will you be able to handle the escort if it comes?”

“
Courageous
says the escort is a destroyer. We’ve managed to get three dozen missiles operational, so I think so. It’ll leave us critically short, though, so I’m hoping this is one of the years where the freighter doesn’t have an escort. The freighter comes alone more than half the time.”

Bell took a sip of his drink. “I hope that’s how it plays out this time. My people have enough problems. The kinetic strike might not have directly hurt us, but our facility is dependent on the hidden farms for food. With all the debris the impact sent into the atmosphere, it will be winter for three or four years. The crops are dead.”

“Hopefully all the supplies we brought over will tide them through. That won’t help the primitive humans out in the wild, though. I’m afraid they’re in for a very rough time.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Bell agreed. “We did find where the AI was holding this year’s tithe of children, though. Hundreds of boys and girls between the ages of four and six, taken from God knows where. We’re doing what we can to fit them into our community.”

The older man shook his head. “That’s a problem we can solve. What if they send someone looking for the missing ships?”

“They might not. The communications logs have several instances where that was discussed. It sounds as though they just shrug when a freighter fails to return and send another next year. Hopefully by then, we’ll be able to deal with them. We don’t really have a choice. Once we stop the freighter, we’ll do what we can to help your people recover your planet.”

“We appreciate your assistance, but reclaiming Erorsi is going to take much, much longer than either one of us has left to dedicate to it. Your people will be trying to find your way home soon, I’m sure. Are you taking a Pentagaran embassy with you? Perhaps Crown Princess Elise?” Bells lips quirk up in a smile.

He wished she was coming along, but that was unrealistic. Over the last two months, their relationship had grown into something much more intimate than friendship, though still less that he’d like. They’d taken to dining together almost every night, and frequently took sightseeing trips around the Kingdom enjoying one another’s company.

Jared didn’t want to admit he’d fallen in love with her, because that kind of relationship was doomed from the start. She would one day rule her people in her father’s place, while he would be going far away, perhaps never to return.

“I’m sure they’ll be sending an embassy with us, but I doubt Elise will be coming along.”

“Well, I hope for both your sakes that you’re wrong.”

Jared felt his eyes narrowing. “Pardon me?”

“Don’t frown at me, Captain Mertz. I’m just making an observation. The two of you seem so well suited to one another. And I’d rather not lose the pool.”

“Pool? What are you talking about?”

“The pool the crew has on it. I’m rather pleased to say that most of us are behind you. The Pentagaran members of the crew think she’s not coming. The rest of us are wagering love will win out.”

His heart leapt into his throat. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Bell laughed. “Then you’re the last one to know, my boy. Everyone can see how you feel about one another. That may well be the worst kept secret ever.”

The news flabbergasted Jared. Elise and he had been growing closer over the last two months, but they’d only become intimate in the last few weeks. And they’d been so careful. How could everyone know?

“Please tell me you’re kidding about the pool. Who knows?”

The older man shook his head, his eyes filled with laughter. “Literally everyone. Don’t worry, now. We all go out of our way to spare your dignity and to give you both the privacy you deserve, but we all know. Should I place a bet for you? That sounds unethical, now that I think about it. You shouldn’t place a wager on something you have a hand in, after all.”

The buzzer to his cabin hatch spared him the agony off figuring out how to respond. Jared rose and walked over to it, still watching Bell. He only remembered he could’ve checked the vid feed with his implants after he opened the hatch.

His half-sister Princess Kelsey Bandar breezed past him. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. Talbot is a slave driver. Tell me you have beer.”

Senior Sergeant Talbot, her ever-present marine guard, followed her in with an apologetic nod to his commanding officer. “She’s exaggerating, Captain. She barely broke a sweat.”

Jared closed the hatch with a grin at their repartee and headed for the kitchen. “I have some beer chilled down to the edge of freezing for you. As always. What exactly did the monster have you doing today?”

Not anything she couldn’t handle, he was sure. The commando implants the Pale Ones had forced upon his half-sister made her almost superhuman. Graphene reinforced bones, artificially enhanced musculature, and sophisticated combat programming in her implants made her a match for tasks beyond any of the rest of them. Even at her unimpressive one point five meters in height.

Kelsey took the beer from him, twisted off the cap, and drank deeply. “Running,” she said when she’d drank a long draft. “He made me run up a mountain.”

Talbot opened his own beer more sedately. “Pfftt. That was barely a hill. My drill instructor made us run up much more difficult terrain than that.”

“In unpowered combat armor with a pack that weighed more than twice your weight? I doubt that.”

“With that exact same weight,” he shot back. “It’s not my fault you’re such a little bitty thing.”

She smiled wickedly at the burly marine. “That’s not what you said when I tossed your ass around the mats yesterday. I seem to recall you saying something more along the lines of “I think I broke something.” Isn’t that right?”

Jared opened his mouth to say something when it hit him. Perhaps it was because Bell had raised the thought in his mind, but now he wondered how he could’ve missed the way these two were looking at one another. The way they were talking to one another.

Their body language spoke volumes. Talbot reached out to touch Kelsey’s arm as she sat down and she wasn’t pulling back when their legs pressed together. It spoke of just the same kind of intimacy that he and Elise shared.

They were lovers.

Kelsey frowned at him. “What’s wrong with you? Did something go down the wrong pipe?”

He took a sip of his drink. “That’s exactly what happened. Sorry.”

His half-sister was the daughter of the Terran Emperor, second in line to the Imperial Throne. Talbot was a marine noncom charged with guarding and training her. For helping her to adjust to the implants. Them having a relationship was…

None of his damned business, he realized. She wasn’t an officer in his chain of command. She was a civilian. She was the Ambassador on this mission. There was no law or Fleet regulation that said the two couldn’t have a relationship.

In any case, it wasn’t any more of conflict of interest than his relationship with Elise. Less so, really. He wisely decided to change the subject.

“That doesn’t sound like much of a challenge for you, Kelsey. I’ve seen how much you can lift in the weight room. Why was that so stressful?”

“Because he made me do it at a full run for over an hour. I don’t care how enhanced you are, your real muscles will complain in half that time.”

Jared sat down next to Bell. “I wouldn’t last ten minutes. I’m a Fleet officer, not a ground pounder.” He gave the marine an apologetic glance. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

He pinged Bell’s implants and asked for a private communications channel, which the other man quickly accepted.

Is there a pool on how long these two are going to be together?

Bell’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at the two across from them.
Are you sure? The two of them are always with one another and they behave like this all the time.

I’m pretty sure. Let’s find out.

Jared smiled at Kelsey. “Did you know that there’s some crazy pool going on with the crew? They think Elise and I are a couple and they’re betting on whether or not she comes back to Avalon with us. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Really? I hadn’t heard.” Kelsey looked over at Talbot. “You know every gambling table on this ship. Have you heard of this?”

His eyes darted to Jared. “Ah… I might have heard something like that. Purely speculation, I’m sure.”

“There is a betting pool and you didn’t tell me?” Kelsey slapped Talbot on the shoulder. “Put me down for whatever you bet on them staying together. Because I know that’s where the smart money is.”

Talbot gave her a flat look.

“Oh, and there’s another pool,” Jared added. “You might want to get in on it, too.”

“What’s that?” Kelsey asked.

“It’s a wager on how your father reacts when he finds out you’re dating a marine. I have my money on him sending Talbot to Thule for the next decade or so.”

Kelsey managed to stare blankly at him, but she flushed. Talbot gapped like a fish out of water. That was all Jared needed to know his suspicion was correct. They really were lovers.

His half-sister sighed. “I knew someone would figure it out eventually, but I never dreamed they’d have a pool.”

The marine shook his head as he stared pityingly at her. “There is no pool. I’d have heard. He just baited us out.”