Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3)

by Blaze Ward

  Last of the Immortals

  Blaze Ward

  The Jessica Keller Chronicles: Volume Three

  Copyright © 2015 Blaze Ward

  All rights reserved

  Published by Knotted Road Press

  www.KnottedRoadPress.com

  Cover art:

  Copyright © Innovari | Dreamstime.com – Spaceship And Futuristic City Photo

  Cover and interior design copyright © 2015 Knotted Road Press

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  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Overture: Suvi

  Date of the Republic June 1, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard

  That was the problem with living forever. Or however close to forever a six–millennia–old artificially intelligent computer could get these days.

  Every day was somebody’s birthday. Or the anniversary of their death. Weddings. Births. Battles. Graduations. Retirements. Final episodes.

  Something.

  She imagined blowing her cute blond bangs out of her face in semi–frustration.

  Most of them were people that only Suvi remembered. That was one of the few downsides to being an AI, a Sentience. Of having a perfect, electronic memory, multiply–redundant and backed up to seventeen different locations on two planets, a moon, and a tiny, little matte–black satellite orbiting sunward where people tended to forget about it.

  She couldn’t forget.

  Not that she wanted to.

  Remembering was a human thing, although she wasn’t. Even when they forgot, which they frequently did.

  And that was not necessarily a bad thing, since her kind, possibly even cousins of hers, in the electronic sense, had been responsible for wiping out galactic civilization last time around and nearly taking the human race down with it.

  It just reminded her to be more human, to hold on to that side of herself. After all, she’d be a quiet little librarian on Kel–Sdala at the time, and not one of the idiots bombarding the Homeworld with giant rocks.

  Not my fault at all, people.

  No, it was her job to remember all the wonderful people she had known across six millennia of realtime.

  Six? Remarkable.

  Silly in a way, that she, of all people, would have been the one of her kind to make it this far. But it was occasionally a silly galaxy.

  Today was a birthday people would only know if they were historians of the Rebirth, and even then, it would be dicey. Humans were fickle.

  Everyone remembered Doyle Iwakuma, The Explorer, the man who had gone to Kel–Sdala in a rickety old hull, a converted Concord minesweeper almost as old as Suvi was.

  Doyle. Her knight in shining armor. Her Prince Charming come to rescue her from the deep, enchanted sleep caused by the destruction of human civilization.

  Hell, that very hull, Ngoma Mwisho, The Last Waltz, had been very painstakingly restored and preserved as a memorial to Doyle. Suvi could see it right now on a video feed from the Museum Of The Ancients down on the planet below her, on the edge of the city of Ithome, on a headland overlooking the bay.

  She would have liked to have been allowed to put on physical legs and walk through it once. Walk through all of Ithome.

  If they would let her.

  The electronic version of the ship that she occasionally visited was just that, a ghost of the great ship. Without the smells or grease stains. She would have liked to touch those places she had only ever seen. Stand where some of her favorite people had once trod.

  Remember.

  But this wasn’t Doyle’s day. His birthday celebrations were always a holiday in September, almost as big as the Republic of Aquitaine’s Founding Day.

  No, today was a much more personal holiday. Someone who was almost as important to history as Doyle, and certainly to Suvi, but not nearly as well known. Mostly that was a result of standing so close to someone so amazingly–famous that everyone knew his name. A woman explorer who later turned politician and finally philanthropist.

  Doyle’s favorite niece, Piper Iwakuma–Holmström.

  The University of Ballard, that great paean to knowledge and learning, had actually been Piper’s idea originally. Suvi still remembered the conversations on the way home from Kel–Sdala, audio carefully preserved so she could remember the young, bright–eyed girl, vastly different from the heroine of her other uncle’s dashing, best–selling adventure novels. To say nothing of the mature woman Piper grew into, or the grandmother of nine with the ready smile.

  No, Alexandria Station had been Piper’s idea.

  Loft the great databanks, and their Librarian, into orbit above Ballard. Set them into a high orbit, but not geo–synched above Ithome. Let the station move like a moon, so that children everywhere could look up into the night sky, or the day on those occasions when her disk was full, and dream about traveling to the stars.

  Suvi remembered a very young Piper, dangerous and exotic, but still wet behind the ears and eager to learn from her not–yet–famous uncle. Eleven and a half centuries ago, she had been born on the planet below.

  Suvi lit a very bright candle on a small cupcake and smiled a happy smile.

  Overture: Johannes

  Imperial Founding: 172/05/18. St. Legier

  Dinner was complete. It had been a quiet success, as far as Johannes was concerned. This night needed quiet successes.

  He watched the females of the Imperial Household rise from their places around the comfortable dining table in the cozy family dining hall and prepare to depart. This was not the grand showpiece down on the first floor of the palace, reserved for formal affairs. No, this was home.

  He smiled as the women slowly filed up to him to say good night.

  The room seemed to lose something vital as they did. It wasn’t there in the darkly–stained wood on the walls, or the granite tiles on the floor in a complex, story–telling mosaic. Perhaps they just reflected the energy of the women, and it departed with them.

  Steffi, the Princess Ekaterina Stephanya, was first. At fifteen, she was on the cusp of womanhood; her long red braids making her look at once younger, and older. She was the practical one. She would study medicine, or law, as arrangements were made for a suitable match. It was not something that had to be accomplished today. Or even tomorrow. So she would spend her time studying something sensible, useful, educational.

  She stepped close and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night, Papa,” she said quietly before withdrawing.

  Casey, the Princess Kasimira Helena, was next. At just thirteen, she was still a child in many ways, her blond hair French braided and proper in a way that did nothing to disguise the mischievous glint in her eyes.

  “You promised to read me a story tonight, Papa,” she said, spearing him with the sort of serious look that only a thirteen–year–old girl can manage, before she kissed him on the cheek.

  “In a bit, Casey,” he smiled back at his youngest.

  She was the artist in the group. Her brother Ekke, still seated, the oldest, was the Crown Prince. He was a good one. He would make a good Emperor someday. Ste
ffi, the middle child, was the student, always analyzing, or reading on politics. She would make a very proper advisor to some young man, when they found the one they wanted to admit into the Imperial Household.

  But Casey was the wild one, the dreamer. She not only read fairie tales, she wrote them. She painted the walls of her chambers, and did a better job than some of the professional artists he had hired for other rooms in the palace.

  Heike, the Lady Wachturm, came along next. Emmerich Wachturm’s youngest was, in many ways, very much like Casey. Youngest daughters, pretty blonds with beauty and brains and dreams. She was close enough in age with his own daughters to make a good companion, just as her father had been for him when he was young. At the same time, she was enough older, twenty now, to be responsible. Steffi would never feel free to be silly, even with just Heike around, but Casey would be in good hands.

  “Good evening, Uncle,” Heike said. She also kissed him, chastely, on the cheek, before departing with the two younger girls.

  Kati, the Empress Kasimira Ekaterina, of the House of Alkaev, the love of his life, was last. Her kiss was not innocent. It verged on improper for the room, and the company. It promised much more if he didn’t stay up too late with his political machinations and his story–telling.

  Johannes, His Imperial Majesty Karl VII, Emperor of Fribourg, smiled as the women departed in a haze of perfume, and whispers, and giggles. He lifted a freshly–poured glass of brandy and looked at the two men left behind.

  Ekke, the Crown Prince Karl Ekkehard Szczęsny Wiegand, at sixteen finally old enough to join these sorts of grown–up family conversations after dinner. He was a younger version of his father, and his grandfather before that. Kati’s own father could be seen in the green eyes and the overall coloration of hair and skin, but the bones were absolutely the House of Wiegand. He would BE Fribourg someday.

  That left the man at the far end of the small table, his cousin Em.

  Emmerich Wachturm, Imperial Admiral of the Red, tactical and strategic genius, boon companion.

  Angry, angry man.

  Johannes took a sip and measured the rage boiling just below the surface of Em’s scalp. It had been decades since he had seen his cousin so angry. Not since…Yes, best not to bring up memories of that time in college tonight. Or that woman. Especially not tonight.

  “Em,” the Fribourg Emperor finally said quietly, projecting friendly calm as well as he could down the long table, “I have not ordered you to desist, but I would like to be convinced, before I give my blessing to this affair.”

  He watched his oldest friend, his strong right arm, his Best Man, work to relax. Em appeared to be trying hard not to grind his teeth. That was at least a start.

  “Please, Em,” Johannes continued. He noted that Ekke watched carefully from the side, not adding any fuel to the fire, but instead absorbing the flow of energies. That had been the first lesson. An Emperor can lead, but only where people are willing to go. You must understand them first. You do that by listening.

  Johannes watched Emmerich take a drink of his own brandy and then set it on the table. He reached instead for a glass of water.

  Probably a good sign.

  He could always get the man roaring drunk later if politics made it necessary.

  “She made me a laughing–stock, Joh,” Em finally replied.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Em,” the Emperor replied. “She didn’t beat you. And she’s lost twice to you before this.”

  “It’s not the same, your––Johannes,” Em said. “I could have stopped it, rescheduled it, something. But she tricked me, deceived me. I was blind.”

  “Haven’t you yourself told me that she just might be your equal on the battlefield?”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “No buts, Em. She’s good, and she got lucky. These things happen in war. I want to talk about Ballard. Simply, why?”

  “Why this, or why Ballard?” Emmerich asked.

  “Why do you want to make this tremendous, near–record–setting voyage to assault a world of scholars in the middle of nowhere, taking an entire battle fleet with you? The Imperial public will not be pleased by the suggestion that we might suddenly be making war on scholars and civilians. Before I give you my blessing, I want to know what I’m buying.”

  Em took a deep breath. His eyes lost focus. Or rather, they came to focus on a point a thousand light years away.

  “You had to have been there that night, Joh,” he said finally. “That man, Arnulf, King of the Pirates, he understood how to rule. He asked her about their Founding Legends.”

  “Founding Legends, Em?”

  Johannes glanced over to make sure, but Ekke was intently focused. As he should be. This was a priceless opportunity to learn from one of the very best. Emmerich Wachturm was a once–in–a–generation genius on the battlefield.

  “Aquitaine was founded by Henri Baudin, the man who practically re–invented modern starflight,” Em said, his voice shifting into professorial mode. “”He studied at Ballard, learned from her.”

  “Her, Uncle?” Ekke said quietly.

  “The AI, the Sentience, the demon who runs the University of Ballard. She presents as a young woman, not much older than your cousin Heike, Prince,” Emmerich said seriously to his student, his cousin, his future Emperor. “She is a black widow spider, intent on her prey. She is Eve, offering the apple and damnation. But more importantly, she is one of the Archstones to the Founding of Aquitaine. If we destroy her, we strike at the very base of Aquitaine’s own legends. As the Great Marshal once said, the morale is three to one to the material.”

  Johannes leaned back to consider his response.

  “So destroying Alexandria Station above Ballard would affect the Republic in a manner similar to a Republic fleet suddenly appearing above 2218 Svati Prime and dropping a bomb?”

  “I believe so, yes,” Emmerich said quietly with a shudder.

  Jessica Keller and her Strike Carrier Auberon had caused no end of panic with the surprise attack on 2218 Svati Prime, even after it was revealed to be no more than a series of pranks. People were angry. That a woman did it just compounded the rage in certain Imperial circles.

  Johannes could see Em’s mad energy beginning to ebb. That was good, considering what he had to do next.

  “And the second part of your plan, Em? Do you trust that the Republic spies here on St. Legier are good enough to lure her to her own doom?”

  The fire was back in those eyes. A mad, hot, nigh–biblical fire.

  “I have been following her track as well as I could from our own spies, Joh,” Em said. “If we leak the information in the next two days, a courier could return it to Nils Kasum at Ladaux, just about the same time she arrives home from Lincolnshire. He’ll send her to stop me. After all, she’d beaten me three times now, according to their scoring system.”

  “And if he doesn’t? Or she doesn’t arrive in time?”

  Johannes watched Em tap the table with a demonic syncopation as he spoke.

  “Then I will destroy the station, and the succubus who inhabits it,” he said fiercely. “And then I will make sure she cannot escape me by hiding below.”

  “You may not,” the Emperor replied hotly, angrily, “bomb a civilian world, in my name or any other. Is that clear, Em?”

  “Perfectly, your Majesty,” Em nodded, all serious now. “I cannot imagine we would have to strike more than one or two places. The AIs, those ever–superior Immortals, are not smart enough, or paranoid enough, to truly protect themselves from an agent of vengeance like my battleship Amsel, the Blackbird.”

  “What about Nils Kasum, Aquitaine’s First Lord, Uncle?” Ekke asked, showing the depth and breadth of his studies. “Will he strip Ladaux of enough ships and firepower to stop you? Destroy you, so far from home?”

  “He dare not,” the Red Admiral replied, calming some. “He cannot know if this is a feint designed to lure him away from Ladaux just in time for me to swoop in. He does not have
enough margin of ships to play with, to even send help to Ballard, beyond the woman and her squadron of misfits.”

  “And Jessica Keller?” the Emperor of Fribourg asked solemnly.

  “If I am right, your Majesty, I will catch her at Ballard,” Emmerich Wachturm, The Red Admiral, promised, “and I will destroy her.”

  Overture: Emmerich

  Imperial Founding: 172/05/21. Prime Base, St. Legier

  Today was a day for dress uniforms, so Emmerich Wachturm had pulled out the one he normally wore for ceremonies the Emperor would attend. Karl Johannes Arend Wiegand would not be present today, since that would present far too much opportunity for spies to find out too much, too soon. But Emmerich had treated the day as such anyway.

  What he was about to do was a serious thing. The kind of event that history books and doctoral theses covered.

  Best to do it right.

  His battleship, IFV Amsel, the Blackbird, had finally been repaired from the damage Jessica Keller did to it at Qui–Ping, along with taking time in dry–dock to do a long–term service extension that would keep the vessel at the tip of the spear for another twenty years.

  She was ready for war again.

  Emmerich looked around the Primary Conference Room at the men attending him. Captain Otto Scheinberg, commander of the battlecruiser Petrograd was brand new to the squadron, although he had served as a First Officer on Muscva years ago, back before she was destroyed at Qui–Ping. Yet another thing to lay at Jessica Keller’s feet.

  At the other end of the scale, flag captain Hendrik Baumgärtner had been his personal aide for nearly twenty years, a trusted and valued friend.

  In between, Captain Sundén from the light cruiser SturmTeufel had been with him for just over five years now, while the captains of the frigates tended to be either promoted regularly to larger vessels, or broken by the cauldron of service with the dreaded Red Admiral. Still, it was possibly the best Task Force the Fribourg Empire had in the field.

  He would need that, where he was about to go.