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

by Blaze Ward

  Command Centurion Tomas Kigali. CR–264. Nicknamed The Yachtsman. Current holder of almost every interesting and important sailing record for distance, speed, or extreme soloing. Physically almost Arott’s doppelganger, being tall and thin and blond. Psychologically almost a world away. Kigali had an easy smile and breezy way about him that one would expect to find on a tropical island somewhere, probably with a surfboard in hand and a rum–based iced–something in the other, wearing a shirt with flamingos printed on it.

  Command Centurion Waldemar Ihejirika. Fleet Replenishment Freighter Mendocino. The forgotten Service in the Fleet. The mailman, the milkman, the corner store. The quiet professionals who kept everyone else in socks and fresh cream. The young man, Ihejirika, looked nothing like his surname, being so pale as to be almost translucent, offset by straight black hair so dark that it looked painted. But he had the serious look of a professional mechanic facing an unruly ground vehicle. That would be helpful.

  Senior centurion Denis Jež. Per the First Lord, the man was the commander of Auberon, while Jessica commanded the entire squadron, acting as her own private Fleet Lord. And, according to the stories and rumors circulating in the Fleet, it was an amazingly successful team. Jež sized him up with a glance and nodded. So, secure that he was still the second dog. Good enough, for now.

  The last woman at the table had no place that Arott could identify. She was just a centurion, and a newly commissioned one, to watch her glance down at the single broad stripe encircling her upper arm occasionally, and to touch it in awe. She had spoken with a strange accent, almost like a song bird, an image reinforced by her tiny size and overall pixieness.

  And everyone else went out of their way to practically fawn over the young woman. Who was she? What was she?

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Nils Kasum said, drawing all eyes back to himself. “Time is short. I wish I could do more to help, but I cannot risk it, even over something as precious as Ballard.”

  Arott watched Nils size up the room, pain evident in his eyes. It was clear that the man was preparing himself, steeling himself, to say goodbye, firmly convinced that the people before him would never come home.

  They were a forlorn hope, the Charge of the Light Brigade into the Valley of Death. At least in the First Lord’s mind.

  “There is nothing more to say, except thank you,” the First Lord continued. “I may represent the Fleet in the halls of power, but you are the Fleet. As I said earlier, we can sleep at night because you will be there, holding the wall. I will turn things over to Jessica for your briefing.”

  Arott watched her rise and face the room.

  He had always enjoyed strong, sexy women, if taller. But there was something different about Jessica Keller. Something wrong.

  He remembered the video of her from the Court Martial. Calm, still, focused. A warrior facing unstoppable odds, intent on overcoming them. And she had.

  Here, the odds were even worse. This squadron could probably take on a battleship, or her escorts. He could not envision how they would defeat both. But that was why she was Jessica Keller.

  “Command Centurion Arott Whughy,” she began, “Command Centurion Waldemar Ihejirika. We’re doing this because I pissed off the Red Admiral. Embarrassed him, publicly. Beat him.”

  She speared him with her look. The eyes were focused on him this time. And they weren’t. It was as if she was still looking past him. Or looking at him and seeing someone else. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

  “At Callumnia, he and I talked about the Founding of the Republic,” Jessica continued. “Part of that legend is the woman known as Suvi, a Sentience allowed to live and teach at the University of Ballard. Her mere existence is an affront to the Fribourg Empire.”

  She paused to draw a deep breath, glancing to either side at the others.

  “Forty hours ago,” she said, “we received an intelligence report that Wachturm’s squadron, led by the battleship Amsel, is going to make a long sail, followed by a surprise attack to destroy Alexandria Station. We’re going to beat him there and stop him.”

  “How?” Robbie Aeliaes asked. “Even with a battlecruiser on our side we can’t do it.” Robbie turned to him with a sympathetic smile. “No offense. That’s a battleship.”

  “None taken,” Arott replied with a smile.

  He agreed.

  Jessica Keller smiled for the first time. She pointed at the centurion on the other side of the table, the woman Arott couldn’t place.

  “Mischief,” she said.

  Arott realized how right he had been before when he described the others as a single entity.

  Everybody else nodded as if that was a perfectly acceptable answer.

  It was insane.

  “Mischief?” Arott asked into the silence.

  “Mischief,” the young woman, Centurion Kermode, said brightly, her accent growing stranger with each syllable. “We dinna told the Red Admiral everytin at Petron, sir. They’s still tricks and surprises left in the poke fer ‘im.”

  “And,” the First Lord spoke up, “the addition of some of that Mischief to Home Fleet gives me enough freedom to send Stralsund with you, without risking a double attack.”

  Arott managed to smile unconvincingly. They were all crazy together.

  Keller noticed.

  “Centurion Kermode is my Advanced Research Weapons Technician, Whughy,” Jessica said. “Her job is to invent better tools, better weapons, better options. My job is to take them into battle and win with them.”

  A what? An Advanced Research Weapons Tech? On a Strike Carrier? Attached to the flank frontiers of the Republic?

  Arott glanced at Nils Kasum, saw the man smile.

  A thought clicked.

  Jessica Keller was among the very best commanders because she had surrounded herself with very good people, and encouraged them to color very, very far outside the lines.

  Arott probably had someone like that on the lower decks of Stralsund, and he had never once considered using them, turning them loose.

  Okay, maybe he could be third dog for a while. There was apparently much more to learn than he realized.

  Arott nodded, as much to himself as to Keller.

  She studied him a moment longer than purely necessary.

  Arott felt like a side of beef being sized up by the butcher. Or a hog about to become one of the butcher’s customers.

  It passed as she turned that horrible focus onto the commander of CR–264. The room seemed to warm again.

  “Tom,” she said, voice friendlier now. “I’m sending you ahead. I want you to set a new sailing record, to give them as much time as possible to evacuate the station. I don’t know if the AI can leave, but the university is as much the people as it is the books. If we can save them, we’ve done something. He can’t occupy an entire planet, and he can’t hold a siege that far from home.”

  “Jessica has asked me to send along a Declaration of Martial Law in her name, signed by the Premier,” the First Lord suddenly interjected. “They may not listen until she actually arrives, but at the very minimum it will be enough to make them plan ahead.”

  Kigali nodded, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

  The Yachtsman turned to Arott suddenly and fixed him with a stare similar to Keller’s. It was a predator spying potential prey.

  “Seventeen days sail?” he asked.

  Arott heard the challenge in his voice. Tomas Kigali flew a tiny, ancient, under–gunned Fleet Escort, but apparently considered himself at least as much a warrior as anyone else at the table.

  Good to know.

  “Sixteen if we push,” Arott replied, reasonably sure how carefully tuned his engines and jump drives were. Home Fleet squadrons were expected to sail in large groups, arriving together and hitting a target together. Coming in like pearls on a string was a good way to be eaten like grapes.

  “Not bad,” Kigali replied with a warmer smile. He turned back to Keller. “Best single transit ever recorded from Ladaux is currentl
y fourteen days, four hours, station to station. I’m aiming for twelve and a half days.”

  Jessica raised an eyebrow at the man. “And that record will last until…?”

  “Until they build a better JumpSail, boss.”

  “Good enough,” Jessica said. “Everyone else is right now being packed to the gills with Primary shells and missiles.”

  She pointed at Ihejirika. “Mendocino will be coming with us, and she can keep up with the squadron. I expect to empty every weapon we have fighting the Blackbird. Primaries, missiles, kitchen sinks. Unlike Wachturm, we’ll have the ability to reload afterwards.”

  She paused, marking every one of them with her presence. Arott was almost sure she had left her scent on him, the look was so powerful.

  “And now, my friends, we are going to go slay the great, white whale.”

  Chapter III

  Date of the Republic May 28, 394 Edge of the Ladaux System

  Tomas Kigali sat on his tiny bridge and watched the clock count down the moments to the edge of the gravity well.

  They were pushing today. Kigali had told his first officer, Arsen Lam, that they were going to set a record that nobody was ever going to break, at least not with the technology they had today. If somebody had to invent something better just to beat him, all the better. Those kinds of bragging rights would last forever.

  It had started the moment they cleared the bay back at Fleet HQ where they had been docked. Rather than come clear on maneuvering thrusters alone, like they were supposed to, CR–264 had lit her engines for thrust. Not enough to damage anything. At least not significantly.

  He had made sure there was nobody behind them in the bay that might be hit by wash. But he was certainly far enough outside the rules and regulations of the space dock that he would have gotten a good tongue–lashing from someone.

  Had they dared.

  Nobody had. Not even the Stationmaster had said anything.

  Word had leaked out. Not hard to figure out, when you watch a handful of vessels, fresh back from the frontier, suddenly given crash–priority for supplies and reloads, with a hard departure deadline. Something bad was about to happen, somewhere, and Fleet was throwing everything they could at it.

  CR–264 had a serious head start on the rest of the squadron. The little fleet escort, herself just an old Revenue Cutter impressed into service during a previous emergency and serving well past her expected lifespan, had neither missiles nor Primary beams that needed to be reloaded.

  Kigali had instead been able to take his time loading food and replacement parts without having to deal with the munitions techs. There had even been time for a good nap.

  And now, Tomas watched the engine read–outs, running hot but stable. Very hot. Probably shaving useful months off of the lifetime of these engines, from the heat.

  This was no way to treat good equipment. He would have dressed down another Command Centurion for such recklessness, and done so publicly, embarrassingly.

  And here he was the one doing it.

  Hopefully, when this was all done, they would actually have time to relax and spend six months in dry–dock. Assuming he didn’t cook his engines first getting there.

  “Arsen,” Tomas called down the open hatch to the fighting deck, “let me know the instant you think we’ve cleared the edge of the gravity well. I’m not jumping just then, but that will start the clock. We’re already an hour ahead of schedule.”

  “Acknowledged, top,” came the call up. The boys and girls down on the fighting deck didn’t have anything useful to do, tucked in here safely at the heart of Republic space, but the whole crew had picked up on his energy. It wasn’t nerves, but they all knew they were part of something very big.

  Something that started with the fastest ever sail to the very back of beyond.

  Chapter IV

  Date of the Republic May 29, 394 Fleet HQ, Ladaux System

  First Fleet Lord Bogdan Loncar considered the man seated across from him. Technically, Brand wasn’t supposed to be allowed in the Officer’s Club, since he was purely a civilian political operative working for the Senate, but rules could be bent and allowances made. And the room was private, so very few people would know.

  Especially when the need for privacy overwhelmed all else.

  Loncar sipped from a highball glass and tried to control his breathing. Everything about Jessica Keller made him want to rage. It would feel good to stand up suddenly and shatter the glass against the pseudo–fireplace with a good sidearm toss.

  Considering his station and rank, eyebrows might be raised, but not voices. No, at most, whispers. The wrong kind of whispers, right now, but that was the risk when dealing with the plebeians who made up so much of the lower decks.

  “So, Brand,” Loncar said finally, his control restored. “What have you been able to learn?”

  The operative studied him for a moment longer than necessary.

  “A year ago,” he replied, “you were sent with a task force to the Cahllepp frontier.”

  “Yes, yes,” Loncar said, exasperated. “It was necessary to clean up the amazing mess Keller left behind.”

  “Was there much Imperial activity in the aftermath of her raid?”

  Loncar bristled, sipped, subsided.

  “Barely any, Brand,” he said. “For generations, we and Fribourg have maintained a studied indifference to one another across the gulf. She didn’t change that.”

  “Oh?”

  “No.” Loncar felt his voice ranging louder. He fought to keep his emotions under control. “The problem was piracy. My family has extensive holdings in shipping and manufacturing in that sector, and we have sustained tremendous losses.”

  “How so, First Fleet Lord?” Brand leaned forward and rested his chin on his fist, apparently rapt.

  “The Fribourg Empire was forced to shuffle forces around randomly, since they no longer have the ships and squadrons to garrison every system effectively until they can rebuild. That has opened the door to raiders coming and going. Mostly, they have stayed on the other side of the gulf, but occasionally they have attacked our frontier.”

  “I see,” Brand replied. “I was not aware of that. Were you successful in driving them off?”

  Loncar shrugged and sipped from his glass.

  “My task force was ill–equipped for such a thing. Pirates are usually in armed freighters or small gunships that a fleet escort could chase off. When we find them, they immediately flee before my squadrons can form up to give chase. In the end, it was necessary to scatter my various elements across the entire frontier, having them patrol randomly.”

  “But it appears to have been successful?” Brand’s tone could have been a statement, or a question. Loncar wasn’t sure.

  You were never sure of things when dealing with Brand.

  “Raids have dropped back to less than they were before Keller caused all her trouble,” he replied flatly. “However, I broke up my destroyer squadron and sent them off to the very reaches of the sector for that purpose. Which brings me to why you are here. Vigilant and Rubicon did as they were told. Command Centurion Aeliaes, commander of Brightoak, appears to have ignored my express orders and gone haring off with his old squadron leader. I want to know why. Charges of insubordination should be filed.”

  The rage was back.

  Nobody else could do that to him. Only Jessica Keller. Robertson Aeliaes could come close, but he was one of her protégés, so it was to be expected that the man was almost as bad. Something of her had rubbed off on the man.

  Loncar took a deep breath as Brand waited. What he wanted, nay demanded, required patience and allies. Brand had no friends, only those people he could exploit to further his own ends.

  Fortunately, those ends tended to mesh with his.

  “After you departed,” Brand began, “Keller was assigned to something of a diplomatic mission to Lincolnshire. The government there was having problems with piracy and asked for help. It is my understanding that First Lord
Kasum and the Premier are grooming her for greater things.”

  “That woman should have been cashiered from the service and put ashore permanently,” Loncar seethed, almost slamming his glass down onto the table top. “Not rewarded. Look what she did at Cahllepp.”

  “Indeed, First Fleet Lord, indeed,” Brand replied. “However, the Premier is in a strong position right now, and fully supports the First Lord. We must work sideways around them.”

  “How many senators and members of the Fifty Families have lost money from her actions? Especially around Cahllepp?” Loncar leaned close to make his point.

  “Many, sir,” Brand said. “But she has also become very popular because of the Long Raid. Much of the fleet supports her right now. And, by extension, the First Lord.”

  “She is a bull in a china shop, Brand,” Loncar snarled quietly. “She needs to be removed from command before she does something terrible. If she was insubordinate with me, she will be all the more so with the Senate. She must be stopped.”

  “And that is the end to which we are working. But one does not simply remove the First Lord of the Fleet without a very good reason and a great deal of support. Nils Kasum is even more popular than Jessica Keller.”

  “Then find that reason, Brand,” Loncar said flatly. “Before it is too late.”

  Chapter V

  Date of the Republic May 29, 394 Fleet HQ, Ladaux System

  Auberon was still hours from departure, even with every systems and weapons tech available on the station hastily stuffing the great carrier to the gills with supplies. Jessica figured that Denis could handle that. He certainly didn’t need her looking over his shoulder every five minutes.

  Mendocino had already backed away from the station and started her sail out. She wasn’t going to be pushing her engines as hard as the rest of the squadron, since she could contribute nothing useful to the fight. Her job was tending to the survivors.

  If there were any.

  The Fleet Replenishment Freighter would meet them on the other side. Whether that was across the long jump to Ballard, or the River Styx, remained to be determined.