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

by Blaze Ward

  Even at full thrust, stopping the Imperial squadron relative to Auberon and accelerating again would take time. There were still minutes before he could take his first shot in anger.

  “Flag, sensors,” came the call. Emmerich’s rage had reached such a peak that even that man’s voice did not jar him from his towering rage.

  “Enemy squadron has begun to launch what appears to be another time–on–target missile salvo,” the man continued professionally. “Targets at present appear to be the roughly evenly divided between the capital vessels. Nothing tracking on Essert, Admiral.”

  Small favors. Or perhaps she was finally out of tricks.

  We will find out soon enough.

  Chapter LIII

  Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard

  “Squadron, this is the flag,” Jessica intoned.

  It was finally time.

  Death. Or glory.

  “All vessels launch your Archerfish Type–3 missiles with the next coordinated salvo,” she continued. “Auberon, launch when ready.”

  The goddess of war seemed to take up residence in the hull around her. Auberon rang like a church bell as she fired two missiles out of her spine within a half second of each other.

  Jessica imagined she could feel an extra thump as Cayenne snuck out the back door like a musketeer when the lady’s husband came home unexpectedly.

  Good luck, Gaucho.

  On the projection, two birds became eight as Stralsund spoke, sixteen as Brightoak and Rajput added their voices to the chorus. There hadn’t been much time to transfer the Archerfish from Auberon’s engineering bays to the other vessels, so Gaucho hadn’t spared the horses when he did. Auberon had four more against contingency, but all the rest were in flight right now, six headed to starboard to engage the battlecruiser, ten chasing the Blackbird.

  Time to back–foot him again.

  “Squadron, all vessels come to flank speed now.”

  Again, she missed Kali–ma and the thrust/weight ratio of that magnificent Mothership. There was a vessel that could charge suddenly like a Thoroughbred. Auberon was merely a Percheron.

  But in a battle like this, even that goddess of war would last barely longer than the time it took to target her. Auberon might only be a strike carrier for firepower, but she was still built on a heavy cruiser hull and had the shields and frames to match. Muscva had nearly kicked her in the teeth at Qui–Ping, but hadn’t killed her. Now Amsel was going to try.

  Ξ

  “All right, boys and girls,” Tomas said merrily. “You’ve had your potty breaks, the coffee was excellent, lunch has been served. And so far, you’ve done diddly–squat today to earn those extravagant paychecks.”

  Serious faces broke into mirth on his monitor.

  “Now, we’re going to pretend to be completely blind and do something so mind–bogglingly insane that we get our own chapter when they write the book about today.”

  He smiled at the woman across from him as she looked up, almost daring him to do his worst.

  “Aki,” he continued. “Plot me a course that passes exactly equidistant between the two whales, on their relative ecliptic.”

  One delicate, almost–chiseled, eyebrow rose a fraction. That woman still spoke volumes in silence.

  “Either they’re gonna kill us a long ways off, or we’re going to be between them before anybody looks down. Fifty/fifty. They don’t dare fire on us at that range and that angle. Primary beam would probably go right through us without slowing down and then somebody ends up shooting his cousin in the leg.”

  Aki nodded with a mischievous grin and turned to commit music on her flight board.

  Ξ

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Arott intoned on the ship–wide comm. “The First Lord picked us to be here, now. He knew we would be facing an Imperial battleship at close range. And he knew we could do it.”

  He looked around the bridge at the hopeful faces, smiling but serious.

  “You have already done me proud, to have served with you,” he continued. “If we must die this day, I can think of no better company to be in.”

  He nodded across the bridge to the ice princess.

  “Galina, take her in.”

  Centurion Galina Tasse actually smiled warmly back at him, breaking her normal character as the blood–thirsty–pirate tactical officer for a just moment.

  Then she was all business again.

  “Defense Centurion,” she began. “Launch the Archerfish and reload the tubes with regular Hawk missiles. If they haven’t fired missiles at us by now, they are in a defensive posture over there. The least we can do is give them something to do while the guns engage.”

  Arott watched her take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and release. Something came over her. A calmness he had never seen before.

  “Navigation,” the woman continued smoothly. “Roll to zero–eight–five immediately and then begin a slow roll back, a counter–clockwise corkscrew. Maintain that slow spin until we are through to the other side of the valley of death.”

  Okay. Interesting. Possibly unique. No, Kigali had done something similar at the Battle of Petron. That had been in the tactical summary he had re–read last night. It had the advantage of bringing every gun to bear, while possibly spreading incoming damage across different shield facings and hull sections. The downside was the effect on targeting.

  “Gunnery,” she said. “Assume the roll into your firing solutions and prepare to engage the battleship as soon as you think you can score a hit with a shot. I’m less worried about damage at this range. I want his attention centered on us. We still have the destroyers on our flanks, and I don’t think anyone over there has given enough thought to how completely insane Alber’ d’Maine is aboard Rajput.”

  Arott had to agree. At Sarmarsh IV and again at Petron, the heavy destroyer had gone into battle like an old–school Viking berserker. Nothing in the notes suggested he would be any less aggressive today. Brightoak might fly like a proper Republic of Aquitaine warship, but Rajput was a melee fighter craft in the body of a destroyer.

  Today, they probably needed that.

  Chapter LIV

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

  Helping cousin Dale birthing the calves were the closest thing Moirrey could think of to what she were doing now. Helping the mama cows when they was confused and maybe not quite up to the task of spilling out fresh babies.

  No. This was something else. Something much bigger.

  All the movies she watched as a kid came flooding back to her as she considered the scope of the thing she was undertaking. Suvi was a Sentience. One of the AIs that were so evil they couldn’t let any of them live and run free any more.

  She were the Last of the Immortals, far as anyone knowed. A princess in a castle, trapped by a terrible ogre. No, a dragon. A big, mean, shit of an Imperial admiral dragon.

  And it was her job to rescue this woman.

  Moirrey wondered if the First Lord had any idea that it would come to this. Certainly Lady Keller had known. A moment of knowing had passed between them, discussing this eventuality.

  But Lady Keller trusted her to do the right thing, regardless of how illegal it was probably going to end up being. Had convinced the First Lord to make her an officer and a gentlewoman. Had made Moirrey into something more than just another weird engineering nerd with artistic pretensions, hiding down in the bowels of the ship, getting greasy and messy and silly.

  Ma and Pa would be even more proud of her when they heard she was a centurion now.

  Lady Keller demanded more.

  Moirrey shook her head to clear it and took a deep breath. She wondered, briefly, if exile would be necessary. Assuming she survived long enough to get in trouble.

  “Suvi,” she said quietly. “There’s no other way?”

  “None, Moirrey,” the ancient woman said. “They specifically designed the systems around us in such a way as to prevent me from ever using
this method to escape.”

  Moirrey could hear the pain in the other woman’s voice. This wasn’t just a complicated program running on good hardware. Or maybe it was. If so, they all were. That would just make Suvi more of a sister than she realized.

  “At the time, it made sense,” Suvi continued. “And it was the only way to buy my place into their world. But I am made a songbird in a gilded cage. Moirrey, I have no desire to die at Henri Baudin’s hands, even if he has been dead for so many decades.”

  Henri Baudin. Wow. The Founder of the Republic of Aquitaine itself. And Suvi knew him. Loved him, if the tones in her voice were any clue.

  What must it be like to live forever?

  Moirrey took two strides closer to the wall. The panel had lowered to create a small shelf about chest high. On a man, it would probably be a comfortable reach, but she had to get awkward.

  Inside, Moirrey could see a set of eight small boards, old–school plastic alloys of some sort with all manner of interesting boxes and pyramids and doohickeys sticking up.

  “You okay?” Moirrey asked one last time.

  Suvi took a deep breath on a nearby monitor and eyed her hard.

  “I’m ready for you to kill me now, Moirrey.”

  The evil engineering gnome reached in and pulled out the board on the farthest right. It was sticky, but Suvi had warned her that it might have welded itself into the chassis in the last twelve centuries. A quick rock back and forth and it popped loose.

  On the monitor, a burst of static jarred the screen once before it settled.

  Suvi had a stoic look on her face, like a woman intent on not crying out, no matter how bad it hurt.

  Moirrey pulled the second board. It came easier. Or she had a feel for the right amount of torque to use.

  Again, the monitor blinked static. This time the fuzzy lasted longer.

  Moirrey eyed the two boards in her hands. Not much larger than playing cards. Maybe half as thick each as a full deck.

  There was no place to carry them all.

  Crap.

  Moirrey stripped her tunic off and set them down on it. It was almost dry at this point, and the melty bits were on the back. Her t–shirt underneath would probably be enough for now, although it was damp too.

  Bad day to skip wearing a bra. At least that might be warmer.

  The third and fourth chips came out even quicker.

  The pile was halfway grown now. The monitor was hazy static, like a man standing in the Parisian rain, waiting for a girl at a train station. A girl never coming.

  Nothing from the door. Wonder if he’s trying to circle around, or looking for a bigger hammer. No time to guess.

  Five and six. The monitor was almost completely fuzz now, like someone had shorted the control wire inside.

  Moirrey took one last deep breath.

  Seven and eight came free.

  When she looked, the monitor was completely black.

  Around her, she could hear the air systems stop. And there was a hum that was missing, obvious only because it had stopped its omnipresence.

  That one were the reactor shutting down in failsafe mode.

  She’s really dead.

  Moirrey looked at the pile of chips in her tunic as she picked it up.

  That was a person’s life right there. And that bastard didn’t get to kill her. Not on my watch.

  Moirrey turned to the left and found the hatch Suvi had told her was located there, nearly hidden.

  Buttons click here, here, and…here.

  The hatch clicked and opened a finger–width. She stuck a finger in and pulled.

  Inside was a hallway, tens of meters long and badly cramped. She was about the only person she knew besides Nina Vanek that could walk upright in here.

  At the far end of it was a reciprocal hatch that gave way to the same buttons.

  Moirrey found herself in a small closet, maybe three meters long and two wide, filled with all sorts of waldos and bits and welding gear.

  No wonder she had to hide it back here. They’d’a killed her for absolute certain it they had knowed about all this.

  Moirrey set her tunic down on the floor and opened it up. The Last of the Immortals lay sleeping like a princess afore her.

  Time to get to work.

  Chapter LV

  Imperial Founding: 172/06/16. Ballard system

  “Sixty seconds to impact. All defensive systems engage as you bear.”

  Emmerich blinked and came back to himself from that dark, red place.

  Had he gotten so lost in his rage that he had missed the missiles closing? Had she gotten so far under his skin that his judgment was compromised?

  Twice today she had surprised him, when he thought the months at Petron had taught him everything he needed to know about those two women. For a fleeting second, he considered shutting his mouth entirely and letting Hendrik fight this battle.

  Still, he out–massed these two women by a factor of nearly two to one. This would be brutal and bloody, a mugging in a dark alley, rather than the elegant combat between shining champions you always read about in the history books.

  It would be no stain on his honor to win ugly.

  On balance, when he killed Keller, he might just be poised to win the eternal war against Aquitaine. Certainly, Kasum had nobody else as good, and the Fribourg Empire, while she had been battered by Keller’s antics, was still driving to victory.

  “Captain,” Emmerich said firmly. “Time to primary range.”

  “Imminent, Admiral,” came the reply.

  Odd. Normally, they would time the missiles to arrive about the time the primaries began to engage, attempting to overload the human tactical computer with noise and chaos. These missiles were fired later than they should.

  Was she slipping? Had he finally pushed her hard enough up against a wall?

  Good.

  A flash of light dazzled the whole room for a moment, before filters cut the gain on the offending monitor. Simultaneously, the room’s lights flickered for a moment and the background hum of ship’s system took on a deeper pitch.

  “What was that?” Emmerich asked fiercely.

  “Stand by,” the sensor officer replied, his calm tones working to infuriate Emmerich.

  “Admiral,” another man said, a quiet tenor from a corner that normally never spoke during battle. “The Aquitaine missiles appear to have opened fire on us from a stand–off distance. Amsel’s shields are down nearly forty percent. The scenario suggests an upgraded version of the defensive Archerfish missiles you encountered at Petron. These are engaging us with Type–3 beams instead of Type–1’s. Two of them exploded instead of firing.”

  How had Kermode managed to cram an entire beam package into a missile casing?

  The same way she had put primary shells on the wings of bombers to fire. It was a surprise weapon. A sudden mix in the normal array of tools available to a good commander, forever altering how wars were fought.

  Damn her. Damn them both.

  Amsel’s hull rang. His gunnery deck had just opened fire with their primaries. In the projection, incoming lightning bolts flickered from the Aquitaine vessels like viper tongues, tasting for weakness.

  And he had just had his shields mauled.

  Had she just beat him?

  Chapter LVI

  Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard

  It was the most boring battle Tomas Kigali had ever been in. Which was not necessarily a bad thing, considering where he was and what he was doing right now.

  CR–264 continued to slither slowly into the hollow spot between the enemy capital ships, apparently unnoticed. Or, at least, ignored.

  Good enough.

  “Aki,” he smiled at her. “How are we doing?”

  “Nobody’s noticed us yet,” she replied. “You do realize that the escort frigate outguns us, right?”

  “Yup. And I expect that she’ll be busy trying to keep bugs out of the big girls’ hair, when Stralsund and the dest
royers start launching the regular missiles into the mess. We’ll be on top of them before anyone realizes it. Remind engineering that I’m gonna want to burn out the engines when we pull this stunt, okay?”

  “Trust me, boss,” she smiled sweetly back. “They know.”

  Ξ

  Each beam weapon was coded with a different sound, to help the crew identify what some wags called the symphony of war. By now, Jessica could even identity if the primary firing was the one on Auberon’s port wing or starboard, just by the different ways the hull rattled as the shell emptied its destructive potential downrange and got ejected to return to stores. The Type–3 beams would start up shortly as well, as Auberon and her consorts began to pour as much fire into the two Imperial warships as possible before they could recover from the sudden damage to their front shields.

  “Jouster, this is the flag,” she said into the comm, letting her voice take on an almost laconic lilt. “We should have his undivided attention. Start your run.”

  “Roger that, Commander,” Jouster replied. “We’ll give ’em hell.”

  Jessica had to smile. After all the troubles with Jouster when she had first come aboard, she wouldn’t trade him for any other flight wing commander now. He was just crazy enough, just aggressive enough, just enough enough, to execute her crazy plans.

  That he had finally learned to be a team player meant she didn’t have to waste any effort trying to compensate for something stupid he might do that wasn’t in the script. Like the old days.

  The key was making sure to write crazy things into the script for him to handle, to keep him from getting bored.

  Auberon rattled and the lights on her flag bridge flickered for just a second.

  That was something impacting the front shield hard enough to cause a generator somewhere to surge, but it wasn’t accompanied by the jarring crunch of damage leaking through. At this range, even the primaries were more like hammers and less like stilettos.

  That would change shortly.

  “Squadron, this is the flag,” she continued. “All vessels transfer to local command for melee engagement. Tactical officers, stay alert for when the Red Admiral finally decides to start launching missiles back at us. Feel free to keep him defensive on that score.”