Auberon (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 1)

by Blaze Ward

  The field mouse considered baring her teeth in response.

  “This Court,” he continued, “has heard all the necessary testimony, which is hereinafter entered into the record, and stands prepared to make final our judgment. Do you have anything further to say to this Court?”

  Jessica took a quick, shallow breath through her nose and flexed the muscles quickly in her back, all the while standing as a marble statue.

  “If it please the Court, your Honors,” she said after a beat, nodding, “I do not.”

  The president nodded in satisfaction. He looked down at the paper before him once more before he looked up at her. She could see traces of triumph creeping into his eyes and his voice as he spoke.

  Whose triumph?

  “This Court finds the defendant…not guilty, and commands that the charges against her be struck from her record. Further…”

  Whatever else he said was drowned by the sudden surge of cheers and noise behind her. Jessica would read the decision later. For now, she was mobbed by an impossibly large mass of well–wishers wanting to shake her hand, or touch her arm, or just say thank you to her.

  Who were all these people?

  She looked around for her solicitor, but the man had already been swallowed by the sea of humanity. Marcelle managed to elbow and jostle her way through the mess long enough to lean in close, just as a Fleet Lord Jessica had never met kissed her on both cheeks.

  “He would like you to call upon him,” Marcelle growled in her ear. Said that way, there was no real doubt as to who she meant. Jessica nodded, but knew it would be several minutes before she could escape the press.

  What had she done to be so popular with so many people?

  Chapter III

  Date of the Republic June 26, 392 Command Headquarters: Ladaux

  It was a non–descript door, simply marked 2304.

  Jessica watched as Marcelle rapped firmly on the door with her knuckles and then stepped back and out of the way.

  Marcelle gave her an automatic once–over before nodding. Jessica had not, after all, had time to muss her dress uniform, yet.

  The day was young.

  Jessica came to parade rest beside Marcelle and waited. The first half of her fate had already been decided, downstairs in that court room. The other half waited on the other side of this portal. It was perhaps the most notorious door in the Fleet, the personal office of the First Lord of the Fleet.

  The door opened silently into the bulkhead.

  “Enter,” a man’s voice called.

  Marcelle stepped through first, moved to the right, and came to rest out of the way. Jessica followed an instant later.

  As offices on fleet space stations went, it was neither large nor ostentatious, as befit the man sitting behind the desk. Two chairs in front, bolted down, a small plant in a pot on a sidebar, pictures of First Lord Kasum’s father and brother in their full Senatorial regalia, scattered in with the pictures of the First Lord’s wife and family. Behind him, a lovely oil painting of RAN Devereux against an orbital sunrise, back before the First Lord, or his first command, were famous.

  Jessica stopped in front of the desk and waited. Some Fleet Lords demanded a salute, but First Lord Kasum had always been more about content than form, even back when he had been the Command Centurion instructing new recruits on fleet tactics at Fleet Boarding School, teaching a raw Scholarship Student how to maneuver in six axes of motion.

  And he has not changed much in those eighteen years.

  The hair was fully gray now. He was still thin as a rail, 1.83 meters tall and maybe 80 kilos soaking wet. The voice was the same rich bass, so incongruous coming from such an otherwise slender chest.

  He fixed her with an appraising look for several seconds before turning his attention to her companion.

  “Thank you, Marcelle,” he said simply with a smile.

  “First Lord,” her steward murmured back.

  Jessica couldn’t look, but she would have been willing to bet the woman beside her was blushing furiously right now.

  This from a woman who occasionally got so rowdy drunk they got thrown out of dockside dive bars. But who turned into an absolute kitten around members of the Fifty Families that ruled the Republic of Aquitaine.

  “Travere,” he continued, “I’m going to keep her here for a while. Kamil should be able to get you something to drink and a quiet spot to wait. Tell him I sent you, please.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The door hissed shut a moment later.

  Jessica studied her old instructor, her mentor, her guardian angel for several moments, but there were no clues to be had. His desk was completely bare save for an empty mug and a magnetic pen in its holder.

  Finally, he smiled up at her and pointed at one of the chairs.

  “Sit, Jessica.”

  She did.

  The silence stretched.

  “It was interesting,” he finally began, “when I empaneled a Court for you. It had to be an even one, balanced between Fighting Lords and Noble Lords, but it also had to be a fair one. We are, after all, a Republic, not a democracy, so there is an expectation that the best will lead, out of a notion of service, rather than birthright.”

  He paused to study her face. She gave nothing away. It was a speech she had heard from him before.

  “First Fleet Lord Loncar, after all, had charged you with something very serious. The Noble Lords do not take well to having their orders questioned, especially not so…publically.”

  Jessica kept her snarl to herself. Kasum was an ally, possibly even a friend, if she had had any of those at this point.

  “I would expect to be punished, sir,” she finally said into the hanging breech, “for doing my job poorly. For allowing a commanding Fleet Lord to establish an Order of Battle so poorly thought out. Not speaking up, not stopping him, would qualify.”

  Kasum waited, but she was done. This was his show. He nodded.

  “So he put you on the right flank and ordered you to protect the carriers. Standard Fleet tactics, straight out of the manual, yes?”

  “Correct,” she replied, venom and disdain creeping into her voice. “With an unscouted moon outside the left flank.”

  “How many response maneuvers did you have plotted for your squadron, when the first Imperial fighters came around the horizon Jessica?”

  She paused, not unsure of her answer, but unsure of her audience for the first time.

  This man was one of the First Families. One of Them. How much could she safely tell him?

  He nodded at her sudden discomfort, as if that alone answered the question. In a way, it had. He let the moment drag.

  “Four,” Jessica finally said, “with seventeen possible variants depending on the size and makeup of the attack.”

  She actually watched his eyes open wide.

  It felt good to surprise him. She had rarely done it when she was a student.

  He recovered in less than a blink.

  “And if you had been in the position you practically demanded Loncar place you, at the start of the attack?”

  She couldn’t keep the sneer out of her voice this time, so she didn’t try. “Vigilant probably would have required a week in drydock,” she said harshly. “Rubicon less than that. My ship, Brightoak, perhaps nine to twelve days because we would have been the tip of the spear. As usual. Instead, Brightoak will be six to eight months having her nose rebuilt. Rubicon just flew again after five weeks. Vigilant might have to go to the wrecker, depending on how she’s surveyed.”

  Jessica hadn’t thought she could surprise her old tactics instructor twice in one meeting. It was one of those days.

  Her anger felt hot and sudden in her belly, far more so that just facing a Court Martial.

  “What makes you so sure, Jessica?” he asked quietly.

  She took a deep breath to control her emotions, almost ashamed of him seeing her like this. Eighteen years seemed to slip away.

  “Because it is standard Imper
ial flight technique, sir,” she spit out, biting each word as it passed. “They would have flown into a wall of missiles, and then been trapped above us in the gravity well, trying to climb out of reach while we shot the hell out of them from below and two cruisers sat above and fired down on them. I believe your term, once upon a time, was mousetrap.”

  He smiled at her. “Okay, Provisional–Cornet Keller,” he said, also falling back eighteen years, “how would you have handled the Order of Battle and why? Please show your work.”

  Jessica let go of a breathe she had not realized she was holding. The stress and heat seemed to flow out of her fingertips and ground into the cool wood of the desk. She smiled warmly for the first time today.

  “I would have sent both wings of fighters under the southern pole hot and fast, with the destroyers right behind them, then the battlecruiser followed by the Fleet Carriers, with the two light cruisers in the rear providing flanking protection.”

  The First Lord cocked his head at her in wonder. “And what are the probabilities, cadet?”

  She ticked them off on the desk with one hand. “First. If the patrol fighters are paying attention and are any good, they see us as soon as we clear the horizon, panic, and emergency scramble the wing. Considering that they had a supply tug modified to hold fighters and an older escort carrier, they can probably get ten fighters up by the time we arrive, so five to one odds, plus their carrier is outgunned by a factor of about fifty to one. Maybe they fight, maybe they strike. Depends on how stupid or crazy their commanding officer is.”

  “Second,” she continued, tapping the desk in rhythm with her words. “They are not looking down like they should, and we get on top of them before they can do anything. Two patrol fighters facing fifty–four armed opponents, plus an enemy fleet, point blank. They strike immediately. We put crews aboard the Imperial vessels, ignore Iger completely, and fly home like rich pirates, laughing at them. Major tactical victory for us, possibly a significant strategic win across the entire sector, considering the loss of material resources on their side that have to then be replaced. They go on the defensive for at least a year.”

  He leaned back and watched her as she spoke.

  Jessica blinked as she fell silent. It felt like squadron command school all over again. One of the Noble Lords would have probably just failed her out of his class for such reckless audacity.

  Nils Kasum was a Fighting Lord. Had been one of the best of them.

  “Very well analyzed, Cadet,” he smiled at her. “When the fleet returned home, I had a group of friends game out the scenario at Iger over a case of wine. Most came to the same consensus you did. Two of them would have gone on and attacked Iger anyway.”

  Jessica pursed her lips, but refrained from commenting.

  Kasum noticed and stopped.

  “You disapprove, Jessica,” he asked honestly. “You? One of my most aggressive destroyer squadron commanders? Why? Why not attack Iger, having stripped her defenses?”

  “Pushing your luck, First Lord,” she whispered. “A good commander knows when to take all the credits off the table and go home laughing. That one, last, seductive call of the dice is what breaks you. Every time.”

  His smile said something. She wasn’t exactly sure. Perhaps she had just passed a test she didn’t even know she was taking?

  He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk and lace his fingers under his chin. She felt like a minnow facing a shark.

  “What I’m about to tell you, Command Centurion Keller,” he began formally, all the banter gone from his voice, “does not leave this room. Ever. Am I clear?”

  Jessica nodded, suddenly understanding the little hints around her in the last month led here. The Court Martial. The media stories. The leaks to the press. The acquittal. Even the banter with her old mentor. She felt doors closing around her while she waited for him to open the one in front of her. “Aye, sir.”

  “It’s very simple, Jessica. We’re losing the war.”

  The whole universe slid out from under Jessica. The room grew cold. She felt her eyes grow a little, but quickly brought her face back under control. The hot fire of rage in her belly refused to settle, though.

  “Losing, First Lord?” she asked, unable to regain her calmness. Her life had been dedicated to the war. Fighting it. Winning it.

  “Losing,” he said simply. “It isn’t obvious, and won’t be for a decade or more, but we are losing. Or rather, the Empire has a small tactical advantage and they have begun to push us back in a way that will accelerate slowly over time. It’s only visible as a shadow on the largest pictures of the war front.”

  “I see,” Jessica muttered.

  “The thrust at Iger was intended to open a new front,” Kasum said. “Drive a wedge into a major trade route. Force them onto the defensive for a few years so we could rebuild the fleet. Their advantage isn’t much right now. Perhaps an extra cruiser laid down every year. But those things build up over time.”

  “How can I help, First Lord?” Jessica asked. She could feel her equilibrium slowly return.

  “In here, right now, you can call me Nils, Jessica. I’m about to ask you to do something crazy, so I need us to be on a personal level, and not just a professional one.”

  “I see…Nils,” she replied.

  Just how crazy? Just how personal? Irrational thoughts flashed across her eyes. Was he planning to marry her off to one of his relatives in some sort of political alliance? One of his enemies? Her? The Scholarship Student from a blue collar family?

  He was smiling at her discomfort, so it must not be too bad. Right?

  Everything she was, everything she had become, was because of this man. From her earliest days as a raw cadet to the youngest–ever squadron commander in the RAN. He could reasonably ask for just about anything at his point. And she would find a way to make it happen. Happiness be damned.

  “I’m intrigued by your comment on pirates, Jessica,” he finally said.

  She thought that anything he might have said would have been less confusing. Pirates?

  “Pirates? Nils?”

  “At Iger, you would have been happy capturing four squadrons of Imperial fighters and their crews, and a pair of past–their–prime ships, and running away. Other commanders likely would have destroyed everything out of hand, or gambled on attacking Iger afterwards.”

  “That’s right.” Jessica had no idea where this line of questioning was going. She was an expert on fleet maneuvers, not political ones.

  “Right now, I cannot throw another fleet together and make another attempt like Iger, anywhere along the war frontier,” Nils said, tapping his finger on the desk.

  With a start, Jessica realized where she had picked up the habit. At least she had emulated the best.

  “The two sides will both be recovering for a year,” he said.

  “What can I do?” Jessica asked simply.

  “I want you to think like a pirate,” came the response.

  Jessica felt an eyebrow try to climb off of the top of her head. Pirate? Her?

  Silence seemed the best course of action right now.

  “You are too much of a distraction for the fleet right now, Jessica. Have you been following the media?”

  “Yes, sir. Nils.” She just could not fathom either the hero worship or the vitriol her case had sparked. Was she that far out of touch with ordinary people?

  “I want to send you someplace quiet for a time, away from the limelight,” he continued. “And turn you loose to act like a pirate.”

  “I…see.”

  “Your squadron will have to make a lot of noise and distract the Fribourg Empire, much like we were trying to do at Iger, but you won’t have the resources necessary to invade anywhere or hold enemy systems. I want you on the tactical and strategic offensive, and knock them onto their heels for a while.”

  “That’s all well and good, Nils, but Brightoak won’t be ready for battle for at least a year.”

  “I’m aware
of that, Jessica,” he said. “You won’t be taking that squadron with you.”

  “No? What will I be using, First Lord?”

  She just couldn’t keep calling this man by his given name. It felt so awkward.

  “Jessica, the Court of Inquiry struck all charges, and further, they recommended your team for a unit citation and you for a medal. As First Lord, it is in my prerogative to also reward you in a different way.”

  She watched him open a desk drawer, dread warring with savage glee as he pulled out a familiar–looking official document, signed it, and slid it across the desk at her.

  ‘By will of the Republic of Aquitaine Navy and First Lord Nils Kasum, the undersigned, Command Centurion Jessica Keller, is hereby ordered to…’

  She quickly read through the document, noting the space at the bottom for her to sign in front of her new crew on the new ship when she took command.

  She read it again and looked up at him. “I’m not familiar with this ship, sir.”

  “She is an older vessel, Jessica,” he said with a warm smile. “Currently relegated to a quiet frontier sector where she mostly patrols to keep pirates at bay. The fleet occasionally rotates ships and crews through the area when they’ve been at the tip of the spear too long. The Fribourg Empire does the same, across the wide, black gulf between them. I want you to set that part of the border on fire, to make the Empire have to spend a lot of time and ships and people stopping you, when they might be better spent stopping me somewhere else.”

  “And how do you propose I do that?” she asked. “Which Fleet Lord will I be answering to?”

  “Myself,” he smiled triumphantly. “This ship is already something of an unofficial flag ship for the sector forces, and there is no Fleet Lord currently assigned. That means the only person giving you orders is me.”

  Jessica smiled like a schoolgirl. Or a shark.

  She read the name of the ship again. It sounded fierce.

  RAN Auberon.

  Chapter IV

  Date of the Republic July 2, 392 Anameleck Prime