Flight of the Blackbird (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 5)
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FLIGHT OF THE BLACKBIRD
THE JESSICA KELLER CHRONICLES: VOLUME 5
BLAZE WARD
CONTENTS
Overture: Sigmund
Overture: Marcelle
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
CORYNTHE
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
ST. LEGIER
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
KASIMIRA
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Chapter XLI
Chapter XLII
Chapter XLIII
Chapter XLIV
Chapter XLV
Chapter XLVI
Chapter XLVII
Chapter XLVIII
Chapter XLIX
Chapter L
Chapter LI
Chapter LII
Chapter LIII
Chapter LIV
Chapter LV
Chapter LVI
Chapter LVII
Chapter LVIII
Chapter LIX
Chapter LX
Chapter LXI
Chapter LXII
Chapter LXIII
Chapter LXIV
Chapter LXV
Chapter LXVI
Epilogue: Vo
Epilogue: Jessica
Epilogue: Emmerich
Epilogue: Casey
Flight of the Blackbird: Cast List
Author’s Note
About the Author
About Knotted Road Press
Also by Blaze Ward
OVERTURE: SIGMUND
IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 175/08/10. DITTMAR PALAC,. WERDER, ST. LEGIER
In the end, treason had required a private meeting at the palace of one of the conspirators, so Sigmund had chosen his own.
It was not a darkened back room, in a seedy bar, on the wrong side of town. The capital city of the entire Fribourg Empire did not have a wrong side of town, although Sigmund had discovered some of the more interesting hidden corners Dockside in his youth.
No, the room surrounding them tonight was opulence itself, representing not just wealth.
Power.
Priceless antique artworks, primarily in porcelain, combined with life-sized oil portraits of former Emperors and other famous relatives of his. A man-sized suit of armor cast in bronze to look like a Hellenic antique and hung from a mannequin. Swords of various styles, both ancient and modern, filled display boxes or hung from gold-coated racks. A reminder that he was a warrior, and not a dilettante.
This was not the Imperial Palace, nor the Grand Fleet Operations complex. It was not one of his private clubs where kin or sycophants might wish to engage him in a conversation made awkward by the compatriots with whom he was meeting.
No, this was his primary palace.
The Household staff were all loyal to him, or they would not be here. And they would all hang together, if he were uncovered.
Sigmund Dittmar, Prince of the Blood, Imperial Admiral of the White and a raft of other titles, scanned the men surrounding his table as the plates were removed and brandy poured. As he was one of the highest-ranking officials, a member of the Imperial Staff as well as a close cousin of the Emperor himself and a wealthy patron of the arts, it would raise no suspicion that he met with the Duke of Osynth B’Udan, the capital world of the M’hanii Frontier sector that was the center of so much combat over the last half decade.
Rodrigo Yamimura was a tall, skinny man. Rangy, with an unruly crown of dark hair that did not come by that shade naturally. Sigmund knew him as a powerful man in his home sector, with a long memory for slights and an unwillingness to ever let an insult be forgotten.
In that, they had much kinship.
The man to Yamimura’s right was a small man by any standard you wished to judge. Tito Garcia-Novarella was generally considered by Sigmund’s spies and sources to be Yamimura’s hatchet man. He had the look of a man that might cut your throat over a silver florin found in a gutter.
It was the other two men who were the most interesting, the most obscure. Probably the most dangerous.
Certainly the most exotic.
Of the three general flavors of humans who had colonized the galaxy, the Fribourg Empire was dominated by the sub-type that historians generally called Euro-American. There were worlds representing every hue and culture that had existed in the last millennia of the Homeworld, before Earth itself had been rendered uninhabitable, but the seeds of mankind had scattered to the four winds with the first star-drives, like dandelions in a wind.
These other two visitors had a look unlike any Sigmund was familiar with.
If pressed, he would have called it roughly Asiatic. They had the bones and coloration one normally associated with the ancient Chinese diaspora, but of a darker color, more of a nut brown than a buttery hue. Their eyes had something of the fold of the Chinese genotype as well, but rounder, more like his own.
They had been induced to dress as Imperial merchants this evening, in slacks and blazers of a style that was utterly ancient, but Sigmund could tell by the way they pulled at their clothing that they found it uncomfortable. Possibly barbaric, from the occasional quiet word muttered.
The one with the darker skin was taller and skinnier than his compatriot, and seemed to be in charge. And his name was utterly incomprehensible, even after ten thousand years of starflight within which to explore.
Au Banop Dejha Quin. Where Au represented one of eight officially recognized clans of the realm known as Buran. Banop represented, in a way Sigmund had not fully grasped, his rank as a scholar and minister in his own government. Dejha as a crèche designation rather than family. Quin alone was a personal name.
The Admiral suspected that the man was more likely to answer to an alpha-numeric designation, if pressed.
He chose not to ask.
The other had barely spoken. He seemed to exist for no other reason than to provide a witness, when they returned to their homeland.
Xi Fezar Palu Dwan. Short and broad where the first was tall and skinny. Lighter where the speaker was darker-toned.
Sigmund addressed himself to the first stranger, the one who might answer to Dejha Quin. The five of them were alone, and would remain so until he summoned his staff.
“I have read your complaints, gentlemen,” he said, conjuring his best Admiral’s voice for the occasion. “The remedy you propose is treason of the highest order. Why? Why should we commit ourselves to this path? What will it gain each of us?”
The two Imperials blanched at the directness of his tone, but kept their mouths shut. They were delivery boys. Nothing more. And they were well aware of that.
The visitor spoke slowly, carefull
y. His eyes blinked too infrequently for a normal person.
“The Eternal, the Lord of Winter, wishes this war to stop, Admiral Dittmar,” Au Banop Dejha Quin said in an accent that fought hard not to range all over the musical scale. “Our worlds are well beyond Samara, beyond even that gulf of darkness between galactic arms, but we desire to hold that system as a permanent frontier between us. The government of Karl the Seventh is aggressive and expansionary. He will not rest until he has conquered all of known space.”
Sigmund nodded.
“So you propose regicide as a solution?” he inquired, his voice barely above a harsh whisper.
Even he could not bring himself to say the word too loudly.
“We propose that Fribourg install a new government,” the stranger, this alien man, replied. “One that will negotiate a border, and honor it. One that will be content to conquer the rest of this quadrant of the galaxy, outward to the rims, and ignore the coreward worlds where we live. Karl does not desire peace, so we have fought his infractions. We have pushed your navies back at every encroachment, and will continue to do so. We offer to make a personal demonstration to your Emperor of the power of the Lord of Winter that he might learn to live in harmony with his neighbors.”
“And if the Peace with Aquitaine is signed?” Sigmund asked, barely able to keep the snarl out of his voice.
“We do not believe Fribourg will honor it,” Au Banop Dejha Quin said coldly. “Else we would also offer a Twenty-Five-Year Peace between us as well. Fribourg only recognizes strength. If this place called Aquitaine is so foolish as to trust your government, then one might hope that Imperial ambitions could be satisfied, sated even, there.”
Sigmund nodded. He had worked to stop Karl from even considering a treaty, but the man would not budge. All because of one woman, and the emasculating fear that had arisen among grown men at the very mention of her name.
“How quickly could you act?” Sigmund asked. “If we commit to this course.”
For the faintest moment, a smile might have flashed in the stranger’s eyes.
“Four months round trip,” the man said simply.
Sigmund felt his mouth drop open, in spite of himself.
“How is that possible?” he asked.
“The Lord of Winter has his ways, Admiral. Or should I say, Your Majesty?”
“My Duke, or Admiral would be appropriate,” Sigmund said. “Nothing else. Until later.”
The stranger bowed his head formally.
Sigmund held up his glass of brandy. The others joined him in a toast.
“Gentlemen,” he said quietly. “To victory.”
The dates were already set, and the invitations en route. Not only would he displace Karl and his line, Sigmund would have the Empire’s greatest enemy at his mercy when it was all done.
The realm know as Buran might be mysterious and exotic, but they were also extremely distant and, as they had said, only defending themselves against invaders. They did not even occupy the worlds of the M’hanii Frontier, merely using those as an armed firebreak for their own worlds, farther yet across the deep, stygian gulf.
As Emperor of Fribourg, Sigmund might ignore them for perhaps another decade or more, so that he could finish the job his two cousins: the Emperor and Emmerich Wachturm; had failed to accomplish. Because his first order as the Imperial Power would be the execution of Jessica Keller.
Without her, the Republic of Aquitaine didn’t stand a chance.
OVERTURE: MARCELLE
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC APRIL 13, 398 PENMERTH, LADAUX
Marcelle carried little five-year-old Juan-Pablo to the car, fast asleep after all the excitement of the evening. She handed Jessica’s youngest nephew, maybe her own youngest nephew, depending on how one counted these things, into the arms of Jessica’s sister-in-law Sasha and let the woman secure the third and last child.
There had been hugs from all the kids, but it was growing late, and they were all worn out.
Marcelle reached way down to hug the tiny, frumpy Sasha, and then Slava, Jessica’s brother, and then she stepped back. She watched Jessica make her own rounds, kissing each child good night and then the two adults.
The family had never been as close as they had grown over the last few years. Marcelle took some credit for that, but she knew that Jessica had toiled to overcome the complicated family dynamics she had brought with her, first as a frequently-absent Navy officer, and then as a famous and fabulously wealthy one.
But when Marcelle and her charge came to Penmerth, it was just family. The Republic of Aquitaine Navy held fast at the door, unwelcome inside the cozy little home of Miguel and Indira Keller. Doubly so on a night when the extended family, including Miguel’s brothers and sisters-in-law, had all gathered to celebrate the birthday of little Margaret, just turned seven and all set to grow up and be like her famous auntie, the Queen of the Pirates.
Jessica Keller.
Marcelle grinned, thinking about the last seventeen years she had spent looking after the woman. She had originally volunteered for this task as a way out of a dead-end career as a lower-decks Navy peon. Along the way, Jessica’s entire family had adopted her, to go along with her own younger siblings. And nieces and nephews galore.
Marcelle watched Jessica kiss her parents good night, and then joined them, the oldest semi-adopted daughter in the household, and far and away the tallest. The party had been a rousing success, but Marcelle knew that Jessica would be ready for quiet.
The two women made their way to an armoured flitter that Jessica had finally broken down and bought with some of her accumulated wealth. It was low, and midnight blue, and vastly over-powered, but just exactly the sort of transport a young, successful Fleet Lord/Fleet Centurion was supposed to arrive in.
First Rate Spacer Willow Dolen waited patiently outside the vehicle for them.
She had been unwilling to leave the vehicle while everyone was inside at the party, taking her new job as Jessica’s personal bodyguard perhaps a touch too seriously. Marcelle had gotten over such things more than a decade ago, but decided not to mention it to the young woman who was still a bit star-struck.
Indira had responded by personally delivering roasted rabbit and cake. It was that kind of family.
Dolen was standing outside the vehicle now, awaiting them, blue eyes like an owl studying the darkness, hand probably close to a beam pistol of some sort, tucked into her jacket and out of sight. She and Marcelle exchanged nods.
Marcelle opened the rear hatch and guided a bleary-eyed Jessica inside, to be cocooned by the butter-soft, gray leather and darkness, before climbing down into the driver’s seat and powering the systems live. Dolen waited a long moment and then joined her up front, the other door closing like a bulkhead hatch.
The partition between the front and the back seats was down right now, a leftover from their conversations earlier as they approached the party. Marcelle raised her hand to power the switch, but Jessica stopped her.
“No,” the Fleet Centurion said. “I’m good, as long as we can have no music, please.”
“That I can arrange,” Marcelle said.
The flitter made remarkably little sound as Marcelle brought the repulsors on-line and hovered a meter off the ground before pivoting the great beast in place and drifting down into the street.
The Kellers lived out on the quiet edge of the small city that was Aquitaine’s capital. Many of the roads here were still dirt, not because it was too expensive to pave them, but because the folks around here preferred it that way.
Small family homesteads, truck farms, started up not too much farther out from here. Miguel Keller’s two brothers both lived within a short drive and had each been here with their wives, although with none of the next generation, most of whom had moved off-planet.
“That was lovely,” Jessica announced in a tired voice from the back. “But I am so glad to be able to send them home with their parents and have quiet.”
Marcelle understood, int
ellectually, that her boss was an introvert. She had even studied the care and feeding of such strange, alien creatures.
She still did not get them.
“Is that why you never had any?” Marcelle asked carefully.
Jessica was bone-tired, from the drawl in her voice. Being around noisy people always required time alone in the darkness, but Jessica would never let outside people see that. Some might think it a weakness, while others might be offended at the suggestion.
“Partly,” Jessica replied, surprising Marcelle.
The Fleet Centurion must be really tired. Normally, she ignored those comments.
“Partly, after I worked my ass off getting a combat command, I wasn’t about to turn around and get a ground assignment for several years,” Jessica continued. “And any man who came along was going to be both second fiddle to the Fleet, and the house husband in the relationship.”
“What about the Peace?” Dolen asked carefully, still learning what was safe ground with her boss, even after nearly a year. “If there is to be less war, would you want to start a family?”
From the silence, Marcelle was afraid Willow had crossed a line, but Jessica was just thinking.
“No,” the Fleet Centurion said from the back. “I made that decision long ago. It’s not worth revisiting today. Even if I thought the Fribourg Empire would honor such a thing.”