by Blaze Ward
He nodded with understanding and went to work.
They just might survive.
Ξ
“Sensors,” Tomas Kigali asked, “any of those targeted at us?”
The screen looked like an avalanching mass of army ants, or killer bees. Certainly likely to ruin someone’s day.
“Negative,” the woman called back.
Someone else’s day.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the gun deck,” Kigali called into the comm with a lazy drawl. “About time you earned your keep.”
He grinned at the navigation crew in close range. The gunners were down a level. He could see their faces on one edge of his screen.
“Engines to flank. Someone tell Brightoak to drop back and let us handle this,” he smiled. “Helm to three–five–five, up twelve, begin a slow corkscrew spin left to bring every gun to arc sequentially.”
The sky was going to look like a Founding Day fireworks celebration in a bit. If he had either of the other two escorts, this would be a cakewalk. But Rajput needed the cover. Here, he at least had Sky Dancer sitting out on an aft wing taking potshots. David Rodriguez and his crew were pretty good.
On the screen, the wall of missiles began to diverge into two separate elements. Kigali checked the projections and cursed under his breath.
“Kali–ma,” he said into the secured comm. “You are the primary target of half that group. Go defensive immediately.”
He could keep enough of them off of Brightoak to keep her going, but the other half was going to pass too far on his starboard flank to engage, even if he abandoned Brightoak right now.
Good luck, boss.
Ξ
“Helm,” Jessica called. “Hard right turn, right now. Redline the engines once we come about and spin two–seventy to keep the guns bearing.”
The pilot looked at her with huge eyes and kept typing furiously on his console.
Jessica felt the grav–plates blur with the stress as every available erg of energy went into the engines and gyros.
Auberon could never have made this turn, but Kali–ma was the Goddess of War. She understood.
“Guns, forget safe firing rates,” she continued. “Override the interlocks and burn out the barrels and generators if you have to. The next twenty seconds are life or death, people.”
“Right, Captain,” someone called. Kali–ma began to spray fire sideways and aft.
It was like something from the Vedas back there, as if She walked the field of battle again.
“Supernova,” the flag centurion yelled, accidentally leaning back from his microphone. “Shear off. You are blocking our field of fire.”
Jessica watched the icon that was Supernova cross Kali–ma’s stern, making a similar turn, but wider and slower.
Only Enej heard the response, but he uttered a word that would have normally made him blush. Here, he slammed a fist into the counter hard enough to make hardened pirates next to him flinch.
Kali–ma came out of her turn and raced away, a warhorse turned thoroughbred smelling the home stretch.
Jessica’s heart stopped as she realized what was happening behind them.
The Imperial missiles were set to go after Kali–ma, but that was by size, not an active sensor signal. They were passively watching the sky in front of them as they closed.
And Supernova looked just like Kali–ma when the two signals blurred together.
Jessica understood why Enej had probably just broken his hand on the desk.
Those missiles had stopped following Jessica, because they had another target. A closer target.
“Engines, all stop now. Shut it down. Guns continue to engage.”
Sky Dancer, Supernova, and Kali–ma poured their fire into the valley of death.
It was almost enough.
Two missiles got through.
One went off with a glancing blow, catching a corner of Supernova’s shields and shredding them. The other went home into her engine well like a saber to the heart.
Jessica’s heart.
Supernova went up like her namesake, a shockwave vaporizing her aft section and continuing forward until the bow shattered to pieces.
No one survived that fire.
For a moment, the entire bridge was silent.
In a corner, someone muttered the Mariner’s Prayer for Lost Souls.
Jessica went cold. Completely numb.
It lasted for a second before the fire lit, deep in her chest.
It was as though the Goddess Of War whispered death in her ear.
She looked at the screen. The Imperial fighters out there had been more than decimated. Slaughtered, perhaps.
Annihilated.
The two–to–one Imperial ratio at the beginning had reversed in her favor. One of the Lincolnshire escorts had been mauled, but still held her station. Auberon looked a little rough. Sky Dancer had a gimpy leg.
The Imperial side was beginning a turn that would take them to the edge of the gravity well and safety. They had shot their bolt and failed. Now, they would escape.
The rage caught fire in Jessica’s chest, flowing hot and mad to her fingertips. She took hold of the microphone and locked her eyes on the projection icon for Wei Chi.
“Squadron, this is the Flag,” she said. “Raise the red flag.”
“Please confirm, Admiral,” Furious replied nervously.
“No quarter, Furious,” Jessica said flatly.
She could taste copper.
They would taste death.
“Flag, this is Auberon,” Denis said. “Negative on that last command. Aquitaine will not carry out that order.”
She wanted to hit someone, something. She wanted to destroy everything, burn it down, sacrifice it in Daneel’s name. Abandon hope, all ye who enter. That would be an acceptable memorial.
If Aquitaine would not help her vengeance, she was still Queen of the Pirates.
“Furious?” she said.
“Acknowledged, Your Majesty,” the only female fighter pilot left said calmly. “Queen’s Own, prepare to unleash hell.”
The sound on the comm could have been mistaken for an earthquake, a dull rumbling slowly building in intensity. It was only after a second that she recognized the sound.
Forty hard men, growling with their own anger.
The Fribourg Empire was not welcome here. Wei Chi had signed her own death warrant by bringing them. These men, and woman, were about to make that point in the most destructive manner possible.
Brightoak and CR–264 turned away as Kali–ma and Sky Dancer came out of their turns and began to charge. Interestingly, the one undamaged Lincolnshire escort, Winnipeg, accelerated to come to her side and engage as well. They had just as much dislike of the Fribourg Empire, and were making it known.
Enej waved a hand to get her attention. She had been a thousand kilometers away.
“The Escort Carrier, Admiral Schmitz, and the two Carrier Tugs are asking for surrender terms, Commander,” he said forcefully.
“Immolation,” she said simply.
She went back to where she had been.
“Jessica,” a voice intruded on a private channel.
That was her name. Or had been. Before.
Now she was simply Kali–ma. Goddess of War.
Avatar of Destruction.
“Jessica, this is Desianna,” the intrusion continued. “Please respond to me, Jessica.”
Desianna. Arnulf’s widow.
Her friend.
“This is Keller,” Jessica finally growled into the microphone.
“Jessica, don’t do this. Please. I’m asking you to let them surrender. There is a better way.”
“They killed Warlock,” Jessica raged.
“I know that,” Desianna said soothingly. “But this shouldn’t be your legacy.”
“They killed Daneel,” she repeated, shock and sorrow finally creeping into the rage, tinging the red to a more maroon hue.
“And they killed Arnulf. Jessica, you
aren’t the only one to lose someone you loved today.” She paused for a breath. “You have already made many more than enough widows, Jessica. You need to stop the battle. This isn’t how we’re going to change Corynthe. There is a better way.”
“How?”
“Your wrath has broken them, Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates,” Desianna poured cool water into the hollow fire of her soul. “We can mold the survivors. Please, Jessica, let it go.”
In her mind, she could still see the flash of fire as Supernova came apart, Daneel sacrificing himself to protect her.
She had lost him, the only man to ever touch her, ever hold her.
And he was gone.
Was it enough?
The Goddess of War nodded.
Epilogue: Petron
Date of the Republic March 16, 394 City of Corynthe, Petron
She still thought of it as Arnulf’s throne, regardless of the fact that it was hers now. Being so tall that her feet did not touch the ground hadn’t helped. At least until she had exercised royal prerogative and added a small footstool so she could sit comfortably.
Queen Jessica surveyed her Court. Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates. Admiral of the Corynthe fleet. Mourning widow.
On her right, Enej Zivkovic, continuing his role as her flag centurion, regardless of where the fates took them. He stared down at the crowd from his height on the platform like a breakwater across a harbor mouth.
On her left, Desianna Indah–Rodriguez, Chancellor to the Court of Corynthe, widow of King Arnulf, Dowager Queen. Jessica hadn’t asked what had happened to Jing Du. She suspected she was better off not knowing that answer. He was simply marked on the reports as having committed suicide in his cell during the battle.
Before her, her Court. Three mobs, carefully sorted into groups, separated by a meter of open space and facing her like pie slices. Unlike her first visit to this Court, where she had barely rated an interruption to side conversations, the room was nearly silent, every eye facing forward, every soul on pins and needles.
To her left, in the first row, David Rodriguez, representing the combined Captains of Corynthe, and beside him, Cho Ayaka Nakamura, Furious, representing the pilots of The Queen’s Own. Uly Larionov, the captain of the little 1–ring Mothership Baba Yaga, had been granted precedence as well, having sent the only three fighters he had ready into the Battle of Petron when he could have simply watched.
Plus, his blade had killed a king.
On Jessica’s right, senior centurion Denis Jež and Command Centurion Robertson Aeliaes were in the front row, along with senior flight centurion Milos Pavlovic, Jouster. The other flight commander, Marta Eka, Southbound, had been killed in the battle, along with the tower gunner from the S–11 bomber Starfall, Ebbe Lanik. Considering the scope of the confrontation, Vedic in scale, Aquitaine casualties had been amazingly light.
It had been a slaughter among the pirate fliers, on both sides of the equation, as well as the Imperial pilots. Forty percent of the men who had gone into this battle had not returned, and all of the Imperials and all but one of the pirates were male.
In the center slice, the six captains of the Imperial Squadron stood in the front row, politely escorted by a team of heavily armed marines from Auberon and her own palace guards. Garth Agano and the captains of Valhalla, Warduck, Chevalier, and Ares stood close by, shackled with heavy iron chains, mostly as a public humiliation, but not part of the Imperial group.
Jessica looked at the group standing behind the Imperials. A few officers, many of the surviving pilots, all in a state of shock. She considered how she looked from their point of view, remembering that Navin the Black, all two plus meters and one–hundred–twenty kilos of him, stood behind her, looming over her like Arnulf’s shadow brought to life.
Today, the man had actually brought a marine boarding axe to go with his field utilities. He probably looked like Doom.
Certainly, she felt that way.
One other face. Where was he? There.
Imperial Admiral of the Red Emmerich Wachturm, Duke of Eklionstic, cousin of His Imperial Highness, Karl VII. Dressed today in his most formal uniform and looking like the Imperial gentleman he was.
At the moment, he was part of the Aquitaine contingent, rather than in with his countrymen. That was important, considering what was going to happen next.
Jessica took a deep breath and rose from the throne.
Her throne.
The nervous energy would not let her do this seated. She nodded at Desianna’s glance and stepped next to her.
Even breathing stopped.
“It is the will of this Court,” Jessica began, her voice pitched to be clear to the marines at the back of the hall, as well as the people down front, “that mercy be shown.”
After several hours of vicious arguments in her new private chambers, with the key elements of her new administration, primarily Desianna and David. Still, they had prevailed over her mad desire for vengeance at odds with all civilized custom. It was probably for the best.
Jessica gestured with one hand to indicate the group of Imperials in the center, carefully not including the Red Admiral.
“Your vessels are forfeit as reparations for damages done,” she pronounced flatly. “As a condition of your surrender, you will additionally pledge on behalf of your government that you will return to the Fribourg Empire and never again operate in Corynthe. Anyone who does will be treated as common criminals, rather than organized members of a foreign military governed by the laws of war. Who speaks for you?”
The captain of the Escort Carrier stepped forward and bowed politely. Perhaps a touch more than necessary, but he had heard the comm traffic during the battle. He knew how close to death he had come.
“I speak for the Empire, Your Majesty,” he said carefully, never once looking over at the Red Admiral. “It shall be as you say.”
Jessica nodded curtly and the man stepped back.
She paused, looking over the group again, before turning to the Red Admiral.
“Admiral Wachturm,” she said, much more politely, two colleagues discussing lunch plans, “it is my intent to hire a vessel to transport these men back to an Imperial world safely. Given the broader situation, I believe it would be appropriate to forego my earlier plans to review your circumstances at Ramsey, in Lincolnshire. I can offer you a place on this vessel, such that you will arrive home when they do. You are not subject to their sentence. Would you find that an acceptable outcome?”
It was diplomacy. Publicly. The art of the said and the unsaid. Treat him with care and dignity. They would face each other again, someday.
“Command Centurion Keller, Admiral Keller, Your Majesty, I thank you for your hospitality and hope that I can return the favor someday.”
Jessica gestured him to move to the center. “If you would join them, then, Admiral?”
She watched the man move with great dignity.
He had not been mousetrapped and defeated by a lucky woman. He was still the victor at Qui–Ping, even on a technicality. He was still The Red Admiral. The Imperial officers crystalized around him like rock candy in cooling water as he entered their realm.
Jessica looked around until she found the two men she wanted next, the captains of the Lincolnshire escorts, Admiral Matsushita and Winnipeg. They were a few rows behind Denis, standing on either side of Tomas Kigali and trying not to look nervous, here in the lion’s den. She smiled to reassure them, and then turned to David Rodriguez on her left.
“When the interlopers depart,” she said calmly, as if the Imperials were already gone, “the Navy of Corynthe will impress the two Carrier Tugs. T–87 will henceforth be known as King Arnulf. T–104 will enter the fleet,” she took a deep breath to hold her voice, and her nerves steady, “as the Mothership Warlock.”
The least she could do to keep his memory alive here. Both of their memories.
“What about the Escort Carrier?” somebody in the middle of the Captains spoke.
Jessica only saw who because Uly Larionov turned to a captain a row back and punched him in the stomach hard enough to double the man over. The rest of the captains stepped back, as though someone had left dog shit on the sidewalk.
Jessica held her snarl in check. This had to be done correctly, the first time. Everything else rode on this moment.
“That vessel, Admiral Schmitz, along with the escorts Bremmen and Schlachtross, will be transferred to the navy of Lincolnshire,” Jessica replied, a queen doling out rewards to her faithful knights. “The third escort, Porcupine, will remain with Corynthe.”
“May I inquire as to why, Your Majesty?” David stepped forward and spoke clearly. This had all been worked out well in advance, but the observers did not need to know that.
Diplomacy.
“Because,” Jessica said, “when Corynthe asked for help in her time of need, Lincolnshire came to her assistance. That, ladies and gentlemen of the Court, is the basis of the relationship we will cultivate with our neighbor, going forward. We do this, in part, to thank them. But also to make sure that Corynthe does not grow so strong that we are tempted to prey on a weaker neighbor.”
That seemed to satisfy the captains.
Jessica stepped back to Arnulf’s throne and sat.
“Is there any other business to come before this Court?” Desianna called from her spot. After a moment of silence, she continued. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Court, you are dismissed. Good day.”
Jessica watched the room slowly empty, Imperials being escorted to a nearby hotel rented to keep them safe while transport was worked out, captains returning to their crews, the Aquitaine squadron returning to their role as Protectors of the Throne, for now.
Desianna stepped close enough to whisper, just the two of them.
“I know you don’t believe me now, Jessica,” she said quietly, “but you will survive.”
Jessica held back a fresh torrent of tears that wanted to erupt. She still had to shepherd Corynthe to a new place, ready to stand on its own.
And in the back of her mind, the Goddess of War still occasionally demanded blood.