Hidden Enemies (Book 9 of The Empire of Bones Saga) Read online

  Hidden Enemies

  Book Nine of The Empire of Bones Saga

  Terry Mixon

  Contents

  Hidden Enemies

  Also by Terry Mixon

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Mailing List

  About Terry

  Hidden Enemies

  Book Nine of The Empire of Bones Saga

  by

  Terry Mixon

  Trapped between murderous xenophobes and calculating artificial intelligences, an interstellar war threatens to wash Princess Kelsey Bandar away in a tide of blood.

  With her most powerful ship crippled, only a desperate mission to steal what she needs right out from under the noses of her enemies offers a way to get her people safely home.

  As if that wasn’t hard enough, success requires her foes never learn of her existence and therein lies the problem. Few have ever accused Kelsey Bandar of subtlety.

  Hidden Enemies

  Copyright © 2018 by Terry Mixon

  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.

  Published by Yowling Cat Press ®

  Digital edition date: 8/25/2018

  Print ISBN: 978-1947376120

  Cover art - image copyrights as follows:

  DepositPhotos/magann (Markus Gann)

  DepositPhotos/innovari (Luca Oleastri)

  DepositPhotos/mik38 (Miguel Aguirre Sanchez)

  DepositPhotos/Elenarts (Elena Duvernay)

  DepositPhotos/@Kevron2000 (Kevin Carden)

  Donna Mixon

  Cover design and composition by Donna Mixon

  Print edition design and layout by Terry Mixon

  Also by Terry Mixon

  You can always find the most up to date listing of Terry’s titles on his Amazon Author Page.

  The Empire of Bones Saga

  Empire of Bones

  Veil of Shadows

  Command Decisions

  Ghosts of Empire

  Paying the Price

  Reconnaissance in Force

  Behind Enemy Lines

  The Terra Gambit

  Hidden Enemies

  The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 1

  The Humanity Unlimited Saga

  Liberty Station

  Freedom Express

  Tree of Liberty

  The Fractured Republic Saga

  Storm Divers

  The Scorched Earth Saga

  Scorched Earth

  The Vigilante Series with Glynn Stewart

  Heart of Vengeance

  Oath of Vengeance

  Bound By Law

  Want Terry to email you when he publishes a new book in any format or when one goes on sale? Go to TerryMixon.com/Mailing-List and sign up. Those are the only times he’ll contact you. No spam.

  Dedication

  This book would not be possible without the love and support of my beautiful wife. Donna, I love you more than life itself.

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, the people who read my books before you see them have saved me. Thanks to Alan Barnes, Tracy Bodine, Michael Falkner, Cain Hopwood, Kristopher Neidecker, Jay Nedds, Bob Noble, Andrew Olivier, Jon Paul Olivier, John Piper, Bill Smith, Tom Stoecklein, Dale Thompson, and Jason Young for making me look good.

  I also want to thank my readers for putting up with me. You guys are great.

  1

  Kelsey Bandar stood at the edge of the bazaar and tried to take everything in. People everywhere were shouting and calling to one another, likely hawking their wares. She didn’t speak Pandoran, so that was just an educated guess on her part, however.

  The similarities to places she’d seen in old Terran movies was striking. Particularly since everyone was dressed for the hot, dry climate in flowing clothes, mostly light colored with bright sashes and wraps around their heads. They looked like blue alien Bedouins.

  Her guide had provided her with the same kind of clothes so she didn’t stand out. They felt strange to her, the cloth both heavier than she was used to and somewhat coarser against her skin. She’d chosen to go with a bright red sash and head wrap to hide her blonde hair.

  Unfamiliar scents filled the air around her. Most were aromas from spices in open bowls at a few tables nearby, but some came from vendors cooking delicacies for the hungry crowd.

  Well, perhaps delicacy was the wrong word. That made it sound as if the food was prepared for discerning diners at a fancy restaurant. As the daughter of the Terran Emperor, she’d eaten at such places many times. Good food, but not nearly as satisfying as nachos and a beer at a flea market.

  Which, she realized, was exactly what she was looking at. Just like the ones at home, even though it was laid out differently and had a desert feel.

  Aside from the aliens. While there were humans in the crowd, they were few and far between. One in a hundred at most. Probably fewer.

  Every other being present was a Pandoran. That was the name she’d given them when her people had discovered their preindustrial society on the far side of an unexplored multiflip point.

  The Pandorans were so close to being human that it beggared the mind. They averaged a little taller and had arms and limbs that were of the same proportions and in the same places. Their eyes were a little larger, their teeth a little more pointed, and their noses somewhat more slender.

  The similarity was amazing until one got to their bluish skin tones. The youngest of them were a pale blue that shaded duskier as they aged until the elderly were almost midnight in color. Their hair was dark without exception. No greying for them.

  Her medical people had discovered just how such an unexpected parallel development had occurred, but the information had raised far more questions than it had answered. In the distant past, someone had manipulated human DNA and relocated these people here.

  While here doctors were still wrestling with the time scale involved, it had to be much farther into the past than humans had had space travel. Aliens had done this. Real aliens, like Omega. Not him or his people, of course. They’d left this universe for an alternate dimension and never known about
flip points.

  She hadn’t told them yet and that was, thankfully, a problem she could put off until later.

  They’d only just made contact with the Pandorans and knew virtually nothing about their society. That was the reason she was here. Well, one of the reasons.

  Kelsey couldn’t imagine how she was going to get a handle on everything that needed doing. There was just so much needing her attention. Yet this initial contact had to be from her.

  She could solve one problem by getting something to eat. The heavenly scent of the roasting meat was making her mouth water.

  Kelsey turned to Derek. Her guide was the son of the ruler here in the Kingdom of Raden. A warrior, he towered over his fellow Pandorans, which meant he was close to two-thirds of a meter taller than she was.

  At first, she’d wondered if the Pandorans watching them thought she was a child. At a meter and a half, Kelsey was far more petite than most women. In the presence of such a large man, she probably didn’t strike most people as more than a teen.

  Derek’s name was longer and significantly harder to pronounce in the Pandoran tongue—she’d had him recite it for her and he’d laughed when she’d tried to repeat it—so the tradition was for them to use a simpler name when dealing with humans.

  “Could we get something to eat?” she asked. “I’m starving.”

  With her Marine Raider enhancements, Kelsey was always hungry. Thankfully, after several years of being in this condition, she was no longer embarrassed by her gargantuan appetite.

  There was a spicy scent coming from a haunch of meat cooking over a fire nearby. She gestured toward it as her preference.

  “Of course,” he said, his Standard unaccented.

  He and his people had learned to speak the language when the survivors of the Clan battlecruiser Dauntless arrived on their planet sixty years ago. They were one more complication she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle.

  “Roasted varl is a tender meat with an aftertaste that both our peoples find pleasant,” he said. “I suggest you find another vendor though. The scent you are probably smelling is a spice called Jedawa. Most find it quite hot.”

  Kelsey felt the corners of her mouth quirk up. “Now I have to know what it tastes like.”

  “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  The Pandoran noble stepped over to the vendor and exchanged some coins for two hunks of roasted meat on sticks and two crude flagons of what looked like beer.

  She helped him carry the purchase to a rickety wooden table set on the smoothed flagstones. Other diners were seated around them, sampling various kinds of foods.

  With Derek’s warning in mind, she took a tentative bite of the meat. It was spicy, but not so hot that it ruined the taste of the food.

  Kelsey closed her eyes and tried to fit the meal into her previous dining experiences. The varl tasted like venison, she decided. It was tender and rich. She could easily envision adding something like this to her diet going forward.

  Considering that none of them knew how long they’d be orbiting Pandora, getting some trade going for food was yet another task she had to see to but she wasn’t going to let worrying about it ruin her lunch.

  The spice was a bit much for general consumption, she decided. Maybe half as much would be a better fit. Or something else entirely. Though she vowed to make sure Talbot got the full experience first. She wanted to watch her husband squirm.

  She turned her attention to the beer. It was good and tasted very much like some she’d sampled on Avalon. It was a pale ale of some kind and the aftertaste was quite pleasant.

  “This is good,” she said after taking another bite of the meat. “A bit spicy, but I can deal with that. I’ll want another stick before I’m done. The beer is great, too. A local brew, I assume?”

  Derek chuckled. “In our society, almost all food and drink is locally produced. I couldn’t tell you who brewed this, but I agree it is one of the better ones I’ve had over the years.”

  “Did you have beer before Dauntless crashed on Pandora?”

  His smile widened. “We did have a society before humans came. Beer has been a staple of our people for as long as we’ve kept records. Though I will admit that humans have brought innovation even to that. They ferment some powerful liquors with new and interesting flavors.”

  Kelsey nodded. “Humans do like their booze. I’m going to have to talk with someone about food and such for my ships at some point. We’re outfitted for long journeys, but with Audacious damaged, we might be here for a while.

  In fact, the carrier might be there forever if they couldn’t repair her flip drive.

  Derek nodded seriously. “Once you’ve revealed yourself to my father, I’m certain that trade can be quickly and easily established. You undoubtedly have much worthy of trade.”

  That was the reason she was here in the capital city of the Kingdom of Raden. She wished there’d been a secure way for Derek to get word to his father, but the man hadn’t trusted anything other than speaking in person for knowledge of the new humans on their world.

  A pinnace had dropped them off within walking distance of the city before dawn and they’d made their way in on foot. Now they were waiting for Derek’s human partner, Jacob Howell, to get back from the palace.

  Jacob was something of a spy for Clan Dauntless, but he worked hand-in-hand with the Kingdom of Raden. He knew how to get into the palace without raising any eyebrows.

  As if conjured by her thought, Jacob stepped out of the crowd beside their table. His expression hinted at bad news.

  “We need to get you out of here,” he said to her in a low voice. “Someone knows you’re here.”

  “Who?” she asked as she stood, her excellent meal forgotten.

  Two human males entered the square to her right and almost immediately spotted Kelsey and party. They started through the crowd with determined and displeased expressions.

  Derek stood. “Take her. I’ll distract them.”

  Jacob took Kelsey by the elbow and guided her away from the oncoming men. “We can get out of the square and lose them in the side streets.”

  “Why are they after us?” she asked as she allowed herself to be taken away.

  She knew she wasn’t in serious danger. With her Marine Raider enhancements and the concealed weapons under her loose clothes, she could handle ten times that many people without being in any trouble at all.

  He opened his mouth to respond but stopped dead in his tracks when two men blocked their escape route. They were armed with swords, though those were still sheathed, and seemed as displeased as their fellows.

  One stepped forward. “Stand fast, Jacob Howell. I summon you and your companion in the name of Clan Dauntless.”

  Kelsey moved her hand closer to her stunner, but Jacob didn’t look as if he intended to resist.

  “Damn the luck,” he muttered.

  “What did you do?” Kelsey asked.

  “Nothing this time. They’re here for you.”

  She swiveled her head toward him. “Excuse me?”

  “My name is Isidro Poston,” the man in front of them said to her. “In the name of Clan Dauntless, I instruct you to accompany me to the clan chapterhouse at once to explain yourself.”

  “That’s going to be something of a challenge,” Jacob said. “But one we cannot avoid at this point. I suggest we accompany them and I’ll try to make this less painful for everyone.”

  Kelsey considered raising hell, but decided that might make enemies she could ill afford at a time like this. Instead, she forced herself to relax.

  The two men from the other side of the square were now standing behind Jacob with Derek off to the side. The alien man shrugged.

  “This had better be entertaining,” she warned Jacob. “This hasn’t been a very fun week.”

  “It will undoubtedly be entertaining,” he said with a small smile. “The question will be who laughs loudest.”

  Commodore Zia Anderson surveyed the
parts spread out on the battered wooden table in front of her. There was a disassembled coolant transfer conduit and what looked like the electronics from a life support substation. All of the pieces were heavily corroded.

  Efrain, the Pandoran that Derek had assigned to watch over her before he took Kelsey to the capital, stood passively behind her, but he noted her glance back at him.

  “They are sorting the recovered debris, cleaning it, and attempting to determine what use it might currently serve,” he said in a diffident tone.

  That made sense. There was a lot of similar activity going on around them. Hundreds of Pandoran workers were processing debris on the covered tables surrounding the wrecked hulk of the battlecruiser Dauntless.

  On her other side, Carl Owlet shook his head. “Won’t do them any good. Those circuits are fried.”

  The young scientist was accompanying her to find out if by some miracle the battlecruiser’s flip drive was salvageable. The odds against that were long, but it never paid to ignore the obvious first play.

  Carl had declared in advance that the flip drive was toast, even if it had survived the crash. He was certain that it had burned out in the same way as her ship’s had on the transit from the Clan system called Icebox through the multiflip point.