by Blaze Ward
“It is, sir,” she replied, polite if not sickly sweet. “I promise that you will be treated as a most honored guest during your stay. And probably subject to some level of awkward hero worship from my crew. But necessity dictates that things aren’t always the way we prefer.”
He set his coffee mug down carefully and studied her face, looking for something.
After a moment, he found it, whatever it was.
He nodded once, carefully.
Jessica nodded back, just as precisely. This was not a man to trifle with.
And she was not a woman to simply be pushed aside.
Chapter XIV
Date of the Republic October 5, 393 Sarmarsh System
Denis had apparently entered the big engineering conference room last, from the mob of people already present. Jessica had saved him a chair, at her right hand. It was fitting.
He looked around as he sat. Several engineers and senior officers were present. And all the big players: Tamara Strnad, his tactical officer; Navin Crncevic, the ship’s dragoon; Vilis Ozolinsh, the chief engineer; Iskra Vlahovic, the flight deck commander; Anastazja Slusarczyk, commander of the GunShip Necromancer; and Hollis Dyson, Gaucho, the commander of Cayenne.
The latter did not bode well. It suggested that something crazier than normal was brewing.
Jessica rapped her fist on the table to bring order to the murmurs.
“Okay, people,” she announced to the room, “they’ve had forty hours to stew down there. We don’t have the resources to storm the place. At least, not without heavy casualties. Marines are crazy, but not bulletproof.”
She nodded to the giant black man who led the fifty–eight member marine contingent, commonly called Navin the Black by his own people, as though he were an ancient Viking. He smiled and nodded back.
“How do we neutralize the base?” Jessica concluded.
Tamara leaned forward with a careful look on her face. “If you don’t want them to escape,” she began, “we could sit up here for a week or so with the Type–3’s and just blast the surface until we melt everything and bury them. Husbands the Primaries and missiles when we can’t restock them out here. I presume you are looking for a solution that is either faster or more humane?”
“Thank you, Tamara,” Jessica replied. “Yes to the latter. Faster and more humane.”
Denis considered the situation below. The base had been disarmed by all the strikes, but not particularly damaged. The flight bay had suffered a catastrophic failure, so they had no immediate way off the moon until they fixed something, but they couldn’t do that while Auberon and her consorts sat overhead.
“Have we offered them a carrot?” Denis asked quietly.
The room fell into stunned silence.
Pirates?
“A carrot?” Jessica asked him.
“Sure, we’ve got the stick. If they don’t see a carrot, they’re just going to have to assume we’re here to kill them all, and they’re going to make that as expensive as they can.” He shrugged. “I would.”
“We could turn it into a refugee crisis,” Enej said from the opposite corner of the table. Denis had missed the man when he walked in.
“Explain, Enej,” Jessica said clearly intrigued.
“Right now, they’re pirates, and we’re the Republic,” he said with a wry smile. “Aquitaine hunts down pirates and hangs them. That’s how it’s always been done.”
Several hands and fists pounded the table. Many of the crew came from poorer worlds where piracy was an everyday fact of life. People like Moirrey Kermode, but there were many others from the Outer Reaches.
“So,” Enej continued over the noise, “what if we treat the place like it had just suffered a major natural disaster, and all these fine folks are colonists that need to be transported back to where they came, with nothing more than what they can carry on their backs?”
He leaned back and smiled at the abrupt, shocked silence that rippled around the room.
Denis was reminded of a still pond on a quiet fall morning, with a little fog on the water. And then some enterprising twelve–year–old hurled a great big rock as far out as he could, shattering the calm with a huge splash of energy. The folks around him were like that.
Denis turned to his boss. “There you go, commander,” he said. “A carrot.”
She rewarded them with a warm grin. “And here I was trying to figure out the orbital mechanics necessary to redirect one of the asteroids and slam it into the moon hard enough to kill that base.”
“Ooh,” Moirrey piped up from the engineering end of the table. “Gots that covered, ma’am. Nina does, that is.”
Denis looked at that corner and saw Auberon’s primary pilot, Nina Zupan, sitting between the flag centurion and Yeoman Moirrey Kermode, blushing uncomfortably as the engineer pointed at her.
“Is that true, Zupan?” Jessica asked.
“Yes, sir,” Nina replied. “But it was Moirrey’s idea. I just did the math.”
“Tell me,” Jessica commanded.
“Is simple, ma’am,” Moirrey chirped as the room listened. Moirrey’s radio drama narrations during the Long Raid had kept the crew alternatively rapt and giggling. She had a background on stage that made her a natural speaker.
“The gas giant’s orbitin’ a wee faster bit than the asteroids in the belt. We could pick out one of the bigger ones, attach a big boom to knock it out of line and some thrusters, and fly it out an’ slam it into the bigger moon pretty easy. Jus’ needs ta know when you wants to blow up the base so’s we know which one to pick.”
“An asteroid?” Jessica said with a blink.
“Aye, ma’am.” Moirrey smiled. “Considered a comet, but they’s harder to find the right one, and are mostly fried ice cream anyway. Crunchy shell, squishy middle. Probably just drop a new lake on the surface of the moon. Might drown ‘em eventually, if ya gots time to wait.”
Jessica leaned back and sipped her coffee as the folks around the table tried to suppress snorts and laughter. Denis could see the wheels in Jessica’s head turning as she plotted all the permutations. That was what made her her.
Abruptly, she made up her mind. Another thing she did so much better than Command Centurion Kwok, her immediate predecessor. Not that Denis missed him one bit.
She leaned forward decisively.
“Okay, gold stars for everyone today,” she announced, like a school teacher with a rowdy class. “Moirrey, you and Nina go ahead and find me a rock. I want to annihilate this base in five to seven days. They get that long to decide if they want to be survivors. Everyone else, figure out what you can do to help make that happen.”
Denis watched her stand suddenly, nod at everyone, and depart.
He rose as well. Time to make it happen.
“Navin and Gaucho,” he said loudly. “Find me everyone with enough zero–G experience to work on our hammer, once we have it identified. Engineering, we’ll need spare thrusters from the flight deck and a really big shaped charge to make this work. Let’s go, people.”
Chapter XV
Date of the Republic October 6, 393 Sarmarsh System
Jessica walked out onto Auberon’s bridge in the middle of the main shift and took a moment to look around. See and be seen. This was another of those moments that was likely to cement her reputation a complete hard–ass in the fleet. Might as well do it right.
She had taken a long shower to relax, and taken the time to put on her best dress uniform, the one she wore to diplomatic receptions with the longer tunic and the slight flair to the pants. Three white stripes on the right sleeve. Auberon’s namesake patch on the left shoulder.
Nothing else. Nothing needed.
Her hair was pulled back. It was long enough now that she would have to decide soon if she wanted a tail or should cut it severely. She hadn’t decided what the future would bring. When it did, she would adjust.
It was what she did best.
Denis Jež was in the command chair, as was his wont whe
n he wasn’t doing paperwork. They had already made the arrangements to have everyone on duty today, now, so she was dealing with the most senior crew. That would just make it easier.
Denis nodded to her and gestured to the chair, silently asking if she wanted to sit. It was technically her seat, since she was the command centurion, but she almost always worked down on the flag bridge. Being there required to her think bigger than just one vessel, useful when she had a whole squadron to command, and, in this case, political and diplomatic repercussions to consider.
The bridge seemed to grow quieter, as conversations tapered off. Good, the seriousness was not lost on people.
“Flag bridge, please contact the base on Alpha and get me the person in charge,” she said, loud enough to carry to every corner.
“Stand by, Commander,” the flag centurion said over the comm. “I had already contacted them a little early. He’s waiting for you.”
Jessica grinned to herself, just for a moment, and then physically banished it. It was amazing how good her crew really was, some days. Far better than she had expected, or deserved. But they were a weapon she was forging, against the day when the First Lord let her go on the offensive.
All seriousness, she turned to Auberon’s primary pilot, the Danish–looking elf, Nada Zupan. “Bring him up on the main screen, Zupan,” she said, serious quiet in the gap. “Let’s see who we’re dealing with.”
The screen blinked, turned to static, and then resolved to a flat image of a man.
Jessica judged him to be a little older than she was, perhaps forty standard years. He had long dark blond hair, loose and somewhat askew, and a matching beard, and had that tattered look of too little sleep, accentuated by a smear of something black that had been absently wiped on his cheek, and deep bags under the eyes.
He looked like he would clean up well, especially for a pirate on the fringes of the world. The cat–green eyes were still sharp.
Jessica gave him her most serious look. She was the Law here, in more ways than one.
“I am Command Centurion Jessica Keller,” she intoned, fully aware that these words would be played back at her next court martial someday, most likely. “Aboard the Republic of Aquitaine warship Auberon. And you are?”
She watched him take a slow breath as he studied her in turn. The pause dragged. She was almost ready to continue when he spoke.
“My name is Daneel Ishikura,” he said, in a voice that was a pleasant, deep tenor. “I am Corynthe’s governor for this system.”
“According to the authorities at Ramsey, this is a Lincolnshire world,” she replied. “That makes this an illegal colony, and you, trespassers.”
He took another breath before he continued. Jessica was impressed at his control. She could see the exhaustion written on his face. The last three days couldn’t have been fun. At least they had gotten all the fires out in what remained of the flight bay.
“And they sent the Republic to destroy us?” The question was a quiet snarl. He didn’t have much leverage, and knew it.
“On the contrary,” she said, lightening her tone. Time for the carrot. It might even work. “I was hunting pirates that have been plaguing the sector. Those I intend to utterly destroy.”
She paused to let that sink in. A little stick never hurt.
“In the process, I came across this colony. It being illegal, you will have to dismantle it and return to your home worlds in Corynthe,” she pressed the point. “However, since you seem to have suffered some manner of natural disaster, I am prepared to provide transport for your people.”
“You were the disaster, Aquitaine,” he yelled, rising from the chair. She only realized he had been sitting because the camera software was slow to react as he rose to his feet. “You destroyed this base.”
Jessica took a breath of her own to calm her emotions. Hadn’t the Premier and First Lord both said she needed to work on her diplomatic skills? She would need them, in spades, one of these days, unless she planned to be just a commander for her whole career. Could she dream bigger? This was the first trial.
“I destroyed the pirates, Ishikura,” she said carefully. “Civilian hostages and innocent colonists do not have to be hung. I’m willing to lump your whole lot in there and take you home.”
They stared at each other for several moments. Around Auberon’s bridge, even the air systems seemed to be holding their breath, not just the crew.
“Or else?” he asked her, finally.
And now, the stick. Or, in this case, the saber. The strong left hand when blade dancing.
“In a little over 150 hours, I will cause one of the asteroids from the belt to bolide into this base at orbital velocity,” she said simply, trying to remove all trace of emotion from her voice.
This was just an act of war, nothing more. Not revenge. Not execution.
Now, the carrot.
“If you and your people are still there, they will be destroyed with the base. However, if you surrender in the next forty–eight hours, I will have time evacuate all of your people and transport you to Corynthe. You won’t have much more than what you can carry. But you will not be dead.”
“What kind of an option is that, Keller?”
She glowered harshly at the man. Inside, she was surprised he had caught and remembered her name, as tired and stressed as he appeared. Apparently, he was sharper than he looked.
“Lincolnshire will give me a medal when I annihilate your base, Ishikura,” she said. “If this base was an act of war against Lincolnshire, then the Republic will send me with more fleets to destroy Corynthe as well. It is an outcome I find unnecessary, today. You could change my mind.”
“And what makes you any better than a pirate, Aquitaine?” he hissed.
“A willingness to withhold the blade, mister,” she replied with a harsh finality. “You have forty–eight hours.”
Jessica turned to the pilot and signaled with one hand.
She watched Zupan push a switch, confirm it, and nod back to her.
“Signal cut, Commander,” the pilot said simply.
“One hundred and fifty hours, Commander?” he asked. “So scenario three?”
Jessica turned to Denis. She was rewarded by his calm competence. It was so powerful to be able to ask for a random pirate base in the middle of nowhere to be killed by slamming a giant rock into it, and know that her people would move heaven and earth to make it happen.
Literally, in this case.
“Yes, please, Denis,” she replied. “Let me know what you need.”
“Just your testimony at my court martial, sir.” He smiled up at her.
“Mine will be first, Denis, I promise you that.”
She turned to encompass the rest of the bridge crew. “We will most likely know the final outcome in far less than two days, people,” she said raising her voice enough to be heard. “Monitor all their transmissions and let me know when they make their final decision.”
She watched heads nod in her direction, and departed the bridge.
She had already made up her mind to destroy the base by the most emphatic method possible. Hopefully, she might be able to rescue the people first.
Killing on that scale had never kept her awake at night. Even if it was war and those people were either invaders, or they were armed outlaws facing the posse. Either way, this would be murder, plain and simple.
Like dropping a bag of kittens into a river.
Anything necessary to accomplish the job. That had always been her motto.
Right now, she wasn’t so sure.
But she could never let that be known.
Chapter XVI
Date of the Republic October 7, 393 Sarmarsh System
Imperial Admiral of the Red Emmerich Wachturm entered the officer’s wardroom with a moment of trepidation. This would be an entirely new world.
Auberon was a Republic of Aquitaine vessel. A proud one. At one time, flagship of the forces across the Cahllepp Frontier from his own Imperial
fleet. Now, the personal chariot of Jessica Keller. No, strike that. This ship was the sword in her left hand.
She rose as he approached the main table and smiled warmly at him. He was struck again by the resemblance to his youngest daughter, Henrietta, generally known to all as Heike. It was there in the physicality of the two women, although Jessica Keller was a decade and a half older. Perhaps, it was what he hoped his daughter would turn into, someday.
They had the same build, the same eyes, that same look. Underneath, the same voracious intellect.
For Keller, it meant that she had gone from a blue collar family to the heights of the Republic fleet, limited only by time in grade, not by any shortcomings of her own.
Heike’s life, her potential, was more limited, only in that she was a woman in a man’s Empire. Fribourg would not tolerate women in combat. Females from the Republic were Amazons, not Imperial Ladies. Best they be treated as such, exotic creatures from beyond the pale.
And yet…
Emmerich was informally introduced to Keller’s inner staff, at what she had promised would be a working dinner, rather than a state affair. He looked forward to taking their measure as people and professionals, not as to how well they remembered their classes in deportment.
At his right sat Denis Jež, Keller’s first officer, continuing his role as aide to the ambassador, regardless of the need. The man reminded him of his own long–time assistant, Flag Captain Hendrik Baumgärtner, who was currently hopefully enjoying a well–deserved vacation with his family back home.
On Emmerich’s left hand, Auberon’s chief engineer, Vilis Ozolinsh, a short, broad, Oriental man who spoke with the tight, clipped accent of the best schools on Anameleck Prime. Here was a man of the highest social standing, serving as merely an engineer, something else the Empire would never have understood. Or accepted.
Down both sides of the table, two other women sat politely. Tamara Strnad, the tactical officer, a role with no equivalent in the Fribourg Empire, where captains were expected to fight their ships in real time, rather than handing off those decisions to others. That had to slow things down, didn’t it?