Paying the Price (Book 5 of The Empire of Bones Saga) (6 page)

He nodded. “For a full strength one, yes. This one is somewhat lightweight in the protection department. It doesn’t need to shield you from a ship’s missile. Flechettes and plasma are more in line with the threats I envisioned you facing.”

“Captain Black didn’t mention anything about a battle screen,” Major Ellis said with a frown.

“It was a last minute addition,” he admitted. “I didn’t think I’d be able to make the hardware small enough, but I had a last minute breakthrough. It’s very short range. Just a couple of meters, at most.”

Kelsey seemed impressed. “Is it only good in a single direction or is it omnidirectional?”

“Single direction only. And the smaller the coverage area, the stronger the protection. That’s what made the hole in the plascrete. I wanted it to be useful against threats as well as in flight.”

The princess cocked her head. “Flight?”

“Sure. The grav drive is pretty powerful. See the strap? It can secure around your wrist and pull you along. Not like dragging you, because the grav drive affects you all at once. It’s more a way to keep you inside the field. You and your armor will slow it down, but not that much, I’d imagine.”

She sat back. “I could fly. Now
that
is cool. We’ll come back to that. Could you add this to marine armor? Or to my Raider suit?”

He nodded. “Sure. It would take me a while to design something to fit into an appropriate place inside the armor. Space is somewhat at a premium. It would drain the power cells fast, though.

“It would be better if the suits were redesigned to use the grav/fusion power packs. It would also give them new capabilities similar to yours.”

That last didn’t exactly make him happy. He’d wanted to give her something unique.

Still, anything that kept the marines alive was a good thing. Part of his mind was already starting to work over how he could do that.

Kelsey snapped her fingers. “Hello in there.”

He came back to reality. “Sorry. I was thinking about how I could make that happen.”

“You’ve got the entire trip home to work that out. Back to the hammer. So, it would really allow me to fly? How fast?”

“I’ve never really opened it up. With the extra load a person adds, I suspect somewhere around Mach 15.”

She looked stunned. “Are you pulling my leg? That’s insane.”

Major Ellis looked like she shared that opinion. Only she wasn’t so happy about it.

“That’s incredibly irresponsible,” the marine said. “That could kill an unprotected person.”

“Angela,” Kelsey warned.

“I’m sorry, Highness, but that’s madness. Not even you could survive a crash at that speed, armored or not. You’re tough, not invincible.”

The marine focused her attention on Carl. He shrank back a little at her intense expression. “Princess Kelsey told me I had to let her do the ass chewing, but I’m putting you on notice. If your antics hurt her, I’ll hurt you. Am I clear?”

“Angela!” Kelsey said as she surged to her feet. “I think you’ve said enough. Perhaps you should wait for me on my pinnace.”

The marine gave him one last, hard look before she bowed her head toward Kelsey. “Perhaps I should, Highness. My apologies to you.”

The large woman stalked to the hatch and spoke briefly with the marine there before she left.

Carl noticed that she hadn’t taken back any of what she’d said. If something went wrong, the woman could break him in half.

Kelsey sighed and resumed her seat. “I’m sorry about that. She’s a bit overprotective. She means well.”

“I don’t disagree with anything she said.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t usually build things that have the potential to kill. Not so easily, anyhow. I need to keep that fact firmly in mind.”

He’d test this hammer to levels that combat equipment would envy. He’d die before he allowed it to hurt his friend.

“As for the flying,” he said, “the grav drive and battle screen keep you protected. I’ll obviously need to test it very,
very
thoroughly before there are human trials.

“A collision would hurt, but the battle screen would absorb most of the kinetic energy and deflect all the debris away from you. You could fly through a pinnace, but I’d recommend you wear armor. Something still might bounce back. If you somehow became separated from the hammer, it will come back by the shortest route unless you’ve ordered it elsewhere.”

She nodded slowly. “How could I do that? My implants have the same 15-meter limit as everyone else’s. The armor boosts it to several hundred, but that’s pretty short for something like this.”

“I designed and built an extended range communications implant. I’ve tested it out to ten kilometers. The hammer has the same range, but can track the user from even further away.”

“Like with a beacon?” she asked. “That’s a bad thing in combat. You don’t want your enemies to be able to track you.”

“Actually, it’s nothing like a beacon. It uses aspects of quantum mechanics to track the wielder. There are no detectable signals at all. In any case, I had Doctor Stone put the matching unit inside me. It works great at the ranges I’ve tried. I’ll narrow down the maximum useful range before I turn the final version over to you.”

He held up his hand and the hammer flew from the table into it with a slight singing sound. “Just like in the vids.”

“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor,” she said. “Or, I suppose ‘she,’ if this was intended for me.”

“It seemed easier to go gender neutral,” he said. “Unlike a magic hammer, I can’t change the inscription on a whim. So, I went with ‘they.’ It seemed simpler.”

“You even put the inscription on it? Damned impressive, Carl. Damned impressive. Still, you’re going to need to convince a very skeptical audience before I try it, though.”

Carl set the hammer down beside him. “Whatever it takes.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you’re being so understanding. I want you to work with Major Ellis. She’s going to vet every aspect of this hammer before I accept it.”

He felt his mouth drop open. “Seriously? The woman hates me. You’ll never get it if that’s the bar I have to meet.”

Kelsey stood, her expression sympathetic. “I understand, but that’s the way it is. And I’m fairly certain she doesn’t actually hate you. She’d give her life to protect me and I won’t dismiss her concerns. Even when expressed in such an abrupt manner. Sometimes you have to overcome tremendous obstacles to get what you want.”

“She’s not an obstacle, she’s a mountain. With wild animals ready to rip me apart.”

She headed for the door. “I’ll be rooting for you. As I said, I’d really like to have something like Mjölnir. Are you up to making that happen? I hope so. Good luck.”

Carl sat there long after she’d left, trying to imagine how he could please the impossible woman. No scenario he envisioned worked.

He was doomed.

Chapter Five

Elise sat up when Doctor Lily Stone lifted the headset off her temples. “Everything good?”

Stone nodded. “The update went smoothly and the hardware replacement checks out, too. Congratulations, Your Highness. You’re no longer hackable by the Pale Ones or the Rebel Empire AIs.”

She hopped off the examination table. “I can’t begin to tell you how good that makes me feel, Doctor. My people have a cultural fear of forced reprogramming that you newcomers just don’t understand. Being immune to having these implants suborned is a huge relief to me.”

“I saw what those things put Kelsey through. And the poor bastards on Erorsi. They’ll need modifications, too.”

“Won’t that be fun?”

Elise could hardly imagine how difficult it was going to be to track down every single Pale One on Erorsi. Especially now that the planet was going through such a brutal and semi-permanent winter. The asteroid impact had thrown enough debris into the atmosphere to obscure the sun and living was tough.

Current estimates put the timeframe before the weather patterns returned to some semblance of normal at fifteen to twenty years. Even then, the long cold streak was going to alter things permanently. Many species were going to die. The biosphere was going to change, and not for the better.

At least they didn’t have to obey the mad AI anymore.

Perhaps that was how they’d get them fixed. They could use the equipment the AI had used to control the Pale Ones to summon them to a central area and sedate them. Part of her cringed at forcing them to obey, but this would be the last time. Then they’d be free forever.

“Could you explain again what changed in the hardware?” she asked as Stone walked her to the door.

“Certainly. We replaced the central node in your implants with a new model designed by the folks at the Grant Research Facility. This one is not subject to external overwriting without the person’s consent and active cooperation, and it includes a number of performance improvements thanks to other research they’ve done over the centuries. They tell me the performance is even faster, but it already seems like lightning to me.

“The core kernel’s programming is now hardwired. A sentry subroutine will monitor the implants for aberrant behavior and overwrite any new code. Or if the user tells it to.”

“That’s reassuring. So, no more people under the control of their hardware?”

Stone nodded. “Precisely. Kelsey still has what she calls combat mode, but that’s not
quite
the same thing. Her implants control her body in combat, but she’s always in the driver’s seat.

“Also, Carl Owlet put a nasty surprise in there for anyone that tries to overwrite the implant code. Your implants will hack a rogue unit that attacks you, taking control of it instead. I don’t know the details, but I understand the program is wickedly subtle. The AI won’t even know what’s happening until it’s too late.”

Elise grinned. “Payback is a bitch. I assume it won’t work against a true AI.”

“No,” Stone said. “They’re immune in much the same way you are. That’s where Carl got the idea. On the plus side, those things are rare. The odds you’ll ever run into one are pretty slim. Not counting Marcus and Harrison, of course.”

“Why didn’t the Old Empire do this? It seems so straightforward.”

Stone shrugged. “We may never know for sure, but Kelsey thinks that critical people were killed by whoever was behind the rebellion. Carl says that the old implants have something that is supposed to allow only a restricted few to update the code. Something about private keys. Without them, the Old Empire was powerless.

“We captured those keys when we rescued Princess Kelsey. With them, we can easily update the old hardware. The people at Grant have come up with new keys and we’ll make sure that trusted people in many places have a way to get it, but not have it taken from them. I don’t know the details and I’m happy with that.”

Elise nodded. “And we’re sure they’re secure?”

“They had Marcus try and hack someone. He failed. That works for me.”

“Me, too.” Elise shook Stone’s hand. “Thank you, Doctor. When will everyone have this update?”

“We’re focusing on your people now. The change is quick and your doctors can handle the process now that we’ve trained them. I figure all of the people in the task force heading to Pentagar will be done before they get home.

“Commodore Meyer will have his people done in about the same timeframe. Then he’ll assist Coordinator West in getting Harrison’s World done.”

Elise felt the corner of her mouth quirk up. “Those two have been working together pretty closely these last few months. I think their relationship might be changing from a purely professional one.”

Stone raised an eyebrow. “You think? They seem pretty professional to me.”

Elise waved her hand dismissively. “I have an eye for that kind of thing. He might not know it yet, but Coordinator West is interested in deepening their relationship. And she’s good at keeping her cards close to her vest.”

Considering the woman had been running an underground movement for most of her life, conspiring against the AIs while infiltrating their puppet government, that was something of an understatement. Elise had played poker with her, Sean, Jared, Kelsey, and Talbot. That had been an eye-opening education. An expensive one, too.

The woman didn’t have a single tell. Not one. Her bluffs were indistinguishable from the rest of her hands.

Kelsey was by far the best player Elise had ever met, and she was outclassed. Worse, Elise was almost certain that Olivia West had thrown a number of hands to play down her advantage. And she’d still trounced them all.

Elise had made a number of notes to improve her own skills in that arena. In fact, she’d gotten together with the coordinator several times and sat at the feet of the mistress. Those skills would serve her well as a stateswoman. Particularly now that she was on her way to the seat of the New Terran Empire.

Based on everything she’d heard, and some of the things she hadn’t, there was going to be trouble. She’d need to work hard to turn that situation around before it bit them all in the behind.

“I’m not saying that her intent will necessarily mean anything,” Elise added. “It takes two to dance, after all. It really depends on what Sean wants. What about the people in Jared’s task force?”

Stone smiled. “We have a lot of people to work through, but we’ll be done before we reach Avalon. Keep an eye on things over the next few days. I don’t expect that you’ll have any issues, but if you do, call me at once.”

“I will. Thank you, Lily.”

Elise made her way to the ship’s library. With all the electronic books, most crewmembers never saw it, which was a shame. She’d found it amazing and fascinating. And that was before they’d put any books in it.

Just the idea that a modern warship would have a two-level room of that size dedicated to the printed page was astounding to her.

She’d lost no time sending a message home for books to fill it with. Word had spread to Coordinator West’s friend and mentor, Lord William Hawthorne. He’d found many tomes to add to the haul. Between the two of them, and the various finds in the graveyard, this library was now worthy of the name.