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

by Blaze Ward

  The big ships always had spare crew that could plug in and rotate people through breaks and naps, even during the biggest battles. CR–264 was as lean and tight as he had been able to get her in five years of command. If that meant a touch of idiosyncrasies, that was the price of doing what they did.

  After all, everybody paid attention to the big hitters. Nobody ever collected trading cards for fleet escorts, especially not former revenue cutters that should have been retired about the time he was born.

  Maybe after this battle, they might change their minds.

  It was, after all, theoretically possible that someone else could somehow shave another eighty–three minutes off of his run from Ladaux to Ballard, but everything had to be absolutely perfect.

  Wasn’t gonna happen.

  “Nav,” Kigali continued. “Plan Two involves us drifting in place on the rest of the squadron at the inflection point and shifting backwards in line. If I forget, throw in a one–eighty flip in the middle of that, like a flat barrel roll without the acceleration. Then be prepared to burn out the engines getting our asses clear. Got it?”

  Aki, Yeoman Aki Ridwana Ali, looked at him and raised one delicately–chiseled eyebrow before she shrugged and nodded.

  “Red Admiral’s going to be pissed,” she said, tilting her head.

  “That’s why I wanna be gone when he figures it out,” Kigali replied. “Figure sixteen tubes over there at the start of battle. We’ll have the destroyers on our corners, if they’re still in business at that point, plus the wings and the big girls, but we’re still gonna be the closest thing to hit.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  Chapter XXXVII

  Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard

  Moirrey felt the weight of command settle on her shoulders like the blanket–turned–superhero–cape she’d had when she was just a young–un.

  Right, ‘cause twenty–six was over the hill, weren’t it?

  Things did not smell right.

  “Doc, Arlo, time to get silly,” she said. “Suvi, can you get us to the fabrication lab safely?”

  “I believe so, Moirrey,” the AI replied, her voice still off by some unmeasurable amount. “The assassin seems to have located the node that controls all of my sensor relays beyond frame nine. Additionally, there are large blind spots in a variety of areas closer to my processing core. Yeoman Arlo, I would prepare yourself for an ambush.”

  “Well ahead of you, sir,” came the reply.

  Moirrey heard a whirring sound as a nearby printer suddenly spun up and spit out a piece of paper.

  “For those areas where we will have to be separated,” Suvi said, “this is the route you will need to follow to get to the lab where we can work, plus the access codes for the doors. I will prepare as much as I can ahead of time, but there are certain tasks that I will require your assistance, your hands, to complete.”

  “Gotcha,” Moirrey said.

  She took a few seconds to commit the lines to memory.

  It were a useful thing, borne of all the time spent studying schematics. You canna always stop in the middle of a job to look up which wire to weld, when yer arms–deep in something with the laser.

  “Arlo,” Moirrey continued. “Yer up.”

  Either the room were extra quiet, or she was just too keyed up. The sound of the pistol safety clicking echoed off the walls way louder than it should have.

  “Roger that,” he said as he took the map and studied it, counting doors and turns under his breath.

  She watched him stop cold and turn to the doc with a serious face.

  “Dr. Crncevic, I brought along a spare pistol for Moirrey, but she doesn’t want it. Would you prefer to be armed?”

  The doc squinted back at the marine, like he was suppressing an eyeroll or something.

  “Yeoman Arlo,” he said finally, “I haven’t fired a weapon in over a decade, much to the chagrin of the rest of my family. I would probably be more dangerous to us with it than without.”

  “Oh, fine, Vo,” Moirrey said with an exasperated sigh, and maybe a little eyeroll of her own thrown in. “Gimme the gun. But you better not get yerself killed, or I’ll never talk to you again.”

  The weapon he handed her was a remarkably compact little hunk of black plastic and metal, even more so than the little sidearm she had taken to packing in her messenger bag when she was planet–side. It almost vanished into her own small palm, and easily slid into her back pocket.

  “Can we go now?” Moirrey inquired sarcastically.

  That didn’t work. Arlo just smiled down at her.

  “Aye, sir,” he said. “As you command.”

  One eyeroll just wouldn’t cover this, but his back was already turned to her, so she pelted him with several, just in case. He didn’t seem to feel them.

  Must be the body armor.

  Ξ

  “Approaching frame six,” Moirrey heard Arlo say quietly.

  The hallways down here were generally wide enough, so she had made him walk to the left of center, so she could see around him on the right. The doc were tall enough to see over both of them, but he had silently paced her as they moved inward through the semi–ancient bowels of the old station.

  It were like sneakin’ into the castle to rescue the princess, and not knowing when the orcs or dragons would show up. Fortunately, she had her own troll fer protection.

  The hallway was wide and well–lit. From her memory of the map, this was more of a secondary axis in the station. If she had to guess, Moirrey would have said that this was an equipment transport corridor, and maybe a blow–out channel in case the fusion reactor went sideways. Warships like Auberon had something similar, but their power systems tended to be really close to the outer hull so they could be vented the shortest possible distance, and not where people might be.

  Ya counna do that on a station built like this one. Everything went outwards like layers of mother of pearl.

  The hatch reinforced her assessment. It were just barely solid enough to hold air, but not armoured like most of them would be. Again, any explosion would take the path of least resistance. You wanted that away from people. Hard walls would hold. Soft doors would vent. Of course, if someone started shooting at the station from the outside, it were likely to be like poking a grape with an icepick.

  Moirrey settled and watched silently as Arlo fiddled with the door. Sixteen digit numeric passcodes tended to be a pain in the ass. Talking to him while he worked were just mean. And he hadn’t done anything to merit that.

  She smiled.

  Yet.

  The hatch opened toward them into the hall, instead of retracting sideways into the wall.

  Yup, blow–out valve. Boom comes this way. That should mean a straight shot down into the reactor core from here.

  Across the threshold, the hallway turned into a larger room. Messy. Full of, well, not junk, but stuff that had been stashed here over the years and kinda forgotten, from the looks of it, and the tarps spread across things to keep dust off of ‘em.

  Movement way across the way caught her eye.

  It looked like a guy in a maintenance uniform, dingy gray with his hat kinda pulled down over his eyes as he worked on the far door.

  “Hey, fella,” Moirrey called to him.

  The guy turned around all nice and like, and then Arlo suddenly knocked her and the doc down and started shooting.

  “What?” was about all she could manage to get out as her brain decided to turn back flips inside her head.

  Her butt was cold. And her back, leaned against the pillar. And this floor wasn’t exactly clean. If her uniform were ruined, she were taking it out of Arlo’s hide. Or his paystub.

  He wasn’t looking at her though. He was tucked up tight against something, leaning out just enough to fire his pistol.

  Wait, who was he shooting at?

  Doc wriggled closer and quick–scanned her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

&nb
sp; Why wouldn’t she be? What was wrong with these people? Why was…?

  Oh.

  Moirrey’s eyes picked out a spot on the hatch that had closed behind them. It was a melted dimple about the size of her palm.

  She did the math. If she were standing, that would have been just about dead center between her boobs. She was so happy Arlo was here.

  “I’m fine, Doc,” she chirped. “Think we found the bad guy.”

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Imperial Founding: 172/06/16. Ballard system

  And just like that, battle was joined.

  Emmerich snarled under his breath.

  The embarrassment at Petron.

  All the months of seething on the flight home afterwards. All the planning to bring everyone together at this one place. To have Jessica Keller and the Sentience where he could kill them both at one time.

  There would be no escape for either of them.

  “Captain Baumgärtner,” he said forcefully. “Please confirm the scanner readouts.”

  Emmerich retreated into himself and gamed out various scenarios as the command crew worked and rechecked figures.

  “Admiral,” the captain replied confidently. “Those vectors are substantiated. The enemy squadron is coming out to do battle. Auberon and the battlecruiser, plus their escorts, with a squadron of fighter craft on each wing. Auberon’s craft will be on our starboard as we close, with the local militia on the port. They appear to have held back some fighter craft and a pair of barely–armed patrol boats defensively, so we are facing nine on that wing instead of all twelve.”

  Inside, Emmerich smiled. It had been a long time since he had encountered a truly worthy opponent. The target he wanted was tucked carefully in the center, protected by the heaviest guns available. Cavalry on both wings ready to swoop and pounce if he turned either direction to engage them separately. All enemy forces on the planetary plane, preventing him from simply by–passing them on his way to strafe the station.

  It was masterfully done, for someone with very little battlefield intelligence ahead of time.

  Still, he was here as Napoleon, master of the field of battle.

  This battle would be the subject of any number of doctoral theses and adventure novels in the future. Best then that it was a war of the titans.

  “Captain, assume the current maneuver cones are vectors and plot the intersection on the main projection.”

  The chaos of cones and shapes resolved itself quickly into three blue lines closing, and did not quite intercept the green line Amsel was taking.

  So, a fencing pass, was it?

  No, this was Jessica Keller. Look for the third and fourth derivatives. She will not have planned only two steps ahead.

  “Sensors,” Emmerich called out. “Review your logs and your readouts. Keller frequently uses the fighter squadron launch as a cover for committing mischief. Have all vessels execute a hard sweep of their immediate vicinity. They already know we are here.”

  “Stand by,” a man’s voice replied. “Affirmative. New target acquired. Designation Delta One.”

  Emmerich felt the sudden surge of adrenaline slowly taper off as the new icon appeared on the screen, well back from the rest of the Aquitaine forces.

  “Target appears to be a standard administrative shuttle, Admiral. It maneuvered briefly into its current position and then stopped. Vessel has held steady since then.”

  Emmerich’s brain snapped back to the battle at Qui–Ping. The rout. Hounding Keller. Losing the battlecruiser Muscva to a surprise missile strike. Auberon tumbling like a wounded duck through space. And then…

  Even when he was a prisoner/guest aboard Auberon, it had been impossible to get the truth about what they had done to escape. Imperial Intelligence had concluded someone had turned a standard orbital mine into a platform to fire a single primary beam. Considering the other mines that had been left behind by Keller and Kermode, it was a safe bet. Certainly, all of his attention and Amsel’s shields had been pointed forward, letting the primary beam carve a wound deep into the Blackbird’s back.

  It was not a mistake he would make twice.

  Yes. A fencing pass. Race past the Republican forces on his way to the station, firing en passant as he did. And stumbling right into another primary beam when and where he least expected it, poised to do the most possible damage.

  Clever.

  Not clever enough.

  Two can play, young lady.

  “Navigation,” the Red Admiral called out. “Bring the squadron down to one half speed and spread the escorts out a shade. I expect a time–on–target missile launch from all three foes. When they do launch, all vessels drop immediately to one quarter speed and go fully defensive without waiting for orders from the flagship. That should throw off their timing.”

  Emmerich watched and listened as Captain Baumgärtner translated and relayed his orders.

  “Sensors,” he continued after further thought. “Plot a sphere around Delta One at the range of a standard primary beam. Navigation, do not cross that boundary without orders.”

  A chorus of affirmatives came back from the room.

  No, she would not fool him again.

  Chapter XXXIX

  Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard

  “Giroux,” Jessica comm–ed from her comfortable flag bridge seat. “Confirm that last bit.”

  “Stand by,” the sensors centurion replied.

  She took a breath and watched the little dots in the projection shift and realign.

  “Confirmed, Commander,” Giroux said finally. “Enemy squadron has slowed by roughly a third. Best estimate, they’re moving about half speed right now.”

  Jessica fought down a smile. Plan Two was designed to keep him from swooping past her and destroying the station in a running chase before she could stop him, but there was always a risk that he could catch her out of position as she came out to fight him.

  He might have just made his first mistake. There weren’t going to be many today, not at this level of chess, and any of them might be terminal.

  What would cause him to suddenly be cautious?

  Jessica studied the movement vectors again carefully. Certainly, the Red Admiral was poised to engage a wall of incoming missiles on three sides. It had been his tactic in the first place, on her second raid of 2218 Svati Prime. Only her utter paranoia, and Wachturm’s intent on going after her and Auberon, instead of one of the escorts had saved the day. That, and him having to hand off a really good plan to merely–average commanders to execute.

  The Red Admiral would have seen her formation that day and reacted better, had he been there.

  He was here now.

  But he wasn’t on his game.

  A little gold star, well behind the squadron, high in Ballard’s orbit, got her attention.

  A–ha.

  Yes. He had seen them launch shuttle number two and was expecting a surprise.

  She smiled to herself. It was Qui–Ping, all over again.

  Wrong surprise.

  Vectors aligned in her head.

  “Enej,” she said suddenly. “Shift the squadron three–five–five, down eight, and then have them prepare to flatten that back into a reciprocal but parallel course to close with Amsel. He’s expecting us to either turn soon, or try to get down to primary range and engage. I want him to keep thinking that right up until we maneuver.”

  “Affirmative, Commander,” the flag centurion replied, leaning forward again to talk into a sound–deadening microphone.

  Around her, Jessica could feel Auberon begin to roll onto one wing.

  There was just something about how the gyros responded and the whole hull changed pitch. Very few people she had ever encountered had understood, but they had all been warriors, deeply in tune with their chariots. They knew.

  “Squadron, this is the flag,” she said, keying the wider comm with her voice. “Enemy squadron has slowed their approach to Ballard, so we will delay missile launch. All t
argets remain the same.”

  The Aquitaine warships had the same number of missile tubes as the approaching Imperials, but the two flight wings put them both to shame with the number of rails they could fly. Only once, granted, but it would still be an amazing amount of firepower going down range.

  Pity most of it would be wasted, but still, it would serve to distract the Red Admiral at the time she needed him back–footed.

  The carnage today was likely to be an epic fit for the ancient Vedas on the Homeworld. Ancient Sanskrit tales from the place on the lost Homeworld called India. Terrible battles with even–more–terrible gods. Millions of people killed and entire civilizations overthrown. And great champions who would not be cowed, even facing gods in single combat.

  Ξ

  Stralsund’s bridge was always a quiet place, even in the midst of battle. Noise suggested chaos, and Arott would have none of that on his ship.

  “Galina,” he said, waiting for his tactical officer to glance over. “We need to sell this well. Amsel and that battlecruiser are likely to be pouring all their fire into Auberon if Keller’s right. I want us to drift a little closer than planned as we get in there. Tease them. Any fire they send our direction is something that’s not going after Keller or the flight wings.”

  “You really think they are going to ignore a battlecruiser to go after a carrier, Commander?” she asked.

  “Keller’s actually betting on it, tactical,” he replied, sounding harder than he intended. Perhaps. “This is personal between them. This is a bully in a bar picking a fight with someone you know. We have to get in there and take care of business. Stralsund can handle it.”

  “Affirmative,” she said simply, turning back to her boards. “Navigation and engineering, use maneuvering thrusters and gyros only to begin a side–slip. Maintain heading and plane, but force us to drift starboard and begin to rise, relative to Auberon and Amsel. Gunnery and defense centurions, we will roll starboard just before engagement to bring everything to bear, overhead relative. Prepare your firing solutions accordingly.”