Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (27 page)

“Admiral,” he said solemnly. “
IFV Baasch
has been destroyed.”

Emmerich actually felt the blood surging into his eyes as his vision turned red with rage.

It wasn’t just Keller he was fighting here. This was also Kermode’s doing. This was the mad science technological gambit he had been expecting. If anyone could expect something like that.

He was going to kill both of those women before he was done.

Chapter XLVIII

Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard

No plan survives an encounter with the enemy. First Lord had pounded that into Jessica’s head from the first day of class. Any fool could create a pretty good plan for engaging a known foe. That was science.

As soon as the other guy moved or fired, your plan went out the window, if your foe was any good.

Art, as Nils Kasum would often say, was found in the dance that began before the first shot was even fired.
Maneuver separated the merely–proficient from the exceptional
.

Jessica watched Emmerich Wachturm, the Red Admiral, like a hawk. She saw the exact moment when he realized that she was going after his escorts and not the capital vessels.

She had killed one. And wounded the light cruiser. In a normal battle, an invading Imperial force would retire now, flee to Jumpspace, and husband their strength, a tactical loss but not a devastating one. Standard Imperial doctrine.

This was personal. He had come here to kill her. Suvi was just the excuse for picking the field of battle.

Jessica had to beat him soundly. Thrash him mercilessly. Possibly kill him, if that could be done, given the mighty king’s relative safety in his terrible castle. Any other solution would just let them come back again when she wasn’t here to protect Suvi.

To do that, she had to make him angry. Simple as that. Killing his knights and pawns would do the job, even if they were sometimes just nameless spear carriers in the second row.

“
Jouster
, this is the flag,” she growled into the comm, letting her emotions play more in her voice as she spoke. The team needed to understand that this was no longer just a battle. It was going to be another
Battle of Petron
. Perhaps the second half of that battle. It was going to be a tale for a modern Veda, someday. Something worthy of the ancient Hindu battles where entire cultures were upended and destroyed in massive conflagrations.

To do that, she had to win.

This time she would keep her head, regardless of the words the goddess of war was whispering in her ear right now.
Petron
had been vengeance, pure and simple. The
Fribourg Empire
had almost gotten the better of her. This was, for lack of a better term, a damsel in distress. Emmerich as the villain. Suvi as the princess in the tower.

Jessica managed to contain herself before she started giggling over the squadron–wide comm at the image of herself as Princess Charming on a white horse. The squadron needed her solemn and in command right now. Especially right now.

It was about to get serious.

“This is
Jouster
,” he replied. Apparently, she had paused longer than she thought.

Focus, damn it
.

“
Jouster
,” she continued, “begin your attack run on escort number three. Line up
Damocles
,
Starfall
, and
Necromancer
, take your shots, and then move the wing as fast as possible to the trojan orbital designated Imperial LaGrange point five and stand by. I expect an immediate response.”

“Acknowledged,” he said. “LaGrangian point five. Stand by.”

Jessica found herself shocked by the professionalism in the man. More than she realized.

Where was the obnoxious punk she’d inherited two years ago? Had he actually managed to grow up? Or had they all been deep enough into the fire at
Petron
to finally forge even people like
Jouster
into steel?

Stranger things had happened. Look at her.

“Bridge, this is the flag,” she continued. “The game is up. Bring the shields and sensors to full power and plug us back into formation.”

“Roger that,” Denis replied happily.

Auberon
seemed to surge with power. Maybe purpose. Though perhaps Jessica just imagined it.

“Squadron, this is the flag,” she said. “Come to zero–three–zero, up ten, and prepare to engage escort three and the light cruiser. You will likely only get one shot, people. Make it good.”

She could hear Nils Kasum’s voice in her head.

Today’s lesson in fleet maneuvers, young lady, is poking bears with long sticks. Make sure you’re ready for him when he gets angry
.

Ξ

And now, it was about to get interesting.

Jouster
smiled a reckless, cheerful smile. He wasn’t going to pull the trigger, but it was his squadron that was about to make history, doing something nobody had ever done before. And he wasn’t even going to get court martialed for it. Win win.

“Flight wing, this is
Jouster
,” he drawled merrily. “
da Vinci
, bring your team around and prepare to unleash mayhem.
Bitter Kitten
and I will conform to your movements. I am sending the next waypoint to all vessels. Program it and stand by.”

He popped his knuckles around the flight stick without ever losing contact. This wasn’t going to be as fun as running a combat slalom through the freighters of
Callumnia
, but he was pretty sure things were going to be getting stupid quickly.

That was okay. He thrived on stupid.

“And we’re go,”
da Vinci
called. Senior Flight Centurion Ainsley Barrett was a laconic goof ball most of the time, but every once in a while she got to shine. Flying a barely–armed
P–4 Outrider
didn’t help. One little popgun and great big sensor pods slung underneath did not lend themselves to melee fighting.

But then there were times that made up for it.

Jouster
brought his nose around and down as
da Vinci
started her run. She even lit her overdrive and surged ahead for a just a moment. The
M–5
’s could keep up, but the bombers and the GunShip lagged. Still, the bad guys had to be looking at the fighters, so they might ignore the hand actually holding the knife.

At least until it was too late.

Ξ

Arott fought to keep his face neutral.

Galina had been all set for a fencing pass with an opposing battlecruiser and a battleship. Probably a suicidal one, but nobody joined the fleet to grow old and die in bed. And that woman got a little too death–or–glory at times.

When the Imperials turned away, all of her careful drifting and pirouetting had come to naught. She hadn’t stopped swearing under her breath since.

Galina, the ice princess, cursing like a dock worker.

It was only one of the shocking things he had seen so far today.

He hadn’t really believed the so–called
siren
would work. Yet it had. It would never work again, most likely, but it had back–footed the Imperials and let
Aquitaine
get close enough to draw first blood.

He finally understood the strategy behind killing only the escorts first. That still left the major ships intact but, as Jessica Keller had explained, surprise takes place in the enemy commander’s mind.

And she had surprised Wachturm. Badly. Actually caused him to flinch. In battle.

At this level of play, even the most mundane of mistakes could be lethal.

“Squadron, this is the flag,” Jessica Keller’s voice rang across
Stralsund
’s bridge. “Come to zero–three–zero, up ten, and prepare to engage escort three and the light cruiser. You will likely only get one shot, people. Make it good.”

Galina smiled. She even stopped muttering.

“Navigation,” the ice princess said firmly, once again a consummate professional. “Conform to squadron maneuvers and bring the speed up five percent after we turn. Gunnery, prepare firing solutions for
SturmTeufel
and lock them in. Have secondary solutions for the escort, but I expect everyone else will kill the frigate. Defense Centurion, load two tubes with defensive missiles and prepare for the next salvo from the Imperials to be at us and
Auberon
shortly.”

Acknowledgements rang around the room as people shifted to that higher plane of consciousness called
battle
.

Chapter XLIX

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

“I dinna like it,” Moirrey said quietly.

She pointed at the room ahead, vast and warm and humid. Her engineer’s senses screamed fusion reactor cooling stacks. Not the core itself. That were gonna be armoured all over the place and ventable back up various hallways that could get them safely away from people if she went boom.

No, this would be where they transferred the heat from the core to useful things, like making power and heat and water. Modern starships dinna do it that way, but this place were a shrine to the old ways.

And some damned fool had turned the lights way down, so it were dark and murky in addition to moist and foggy.

“You watch too many bad adventure movies, boss,” Arlo whispered back.

“Or you dinna watch enough of ’em.”

“What am I missing?” the doc leaned close to whisper.

She kinda forgot her was with them. Apparently, Doc had learned some useful sneakiness along the way. Being raised on a fleet base as a kid probably honed some mighty interesting skills. Certain not something ya normallies runned inta in a librarian.

“Don’t feel right,” she said, turning to take his measure.

Calm. Reflective. Not gonna run headlong into a trap. And it sure felt like a trap.

“Why not?”

Not challenging. No male ego. Simple question. Scholar seeking data to transform inta informations.

“Ya nevers turn the lights down, place like this,” she said, matter–of–factly. “Keeps it bright so’s you don’ touch nothing hot. Plus, someone screwed the air system. Too much moisture. Corrodes things and shortens operational lifespans on key system components. Bad juju.”

She watched him absorb the words like a dry sponge, blinking rapidly.

Good.

“So he’s in the chamber somewhere,” the doc said after a beat. “Alternatively, he wants you to believe it to be a trap, long enough to slow you down and prevent us from saving Suvi.”

“Conundrum, Doc,” she nodded back.

“No,” he whispered back. “Not really.”

She weren’t fast enough to catch Doc Crncevic as he surged to his feet and stepped around them into the room.

“What’re’ya’doin’?” Arlo hissed, flipped the safety off and trying to scan every direction at once.

Doc stopped and looked at them with all the seriousness of Father Time.

“Finding the assassin,” he said back. “Moirrey is too important to risk. You need to be able to fire back. We’re all expendable, but I’m the most so. Ergo, I lead. Let’s move.”

Moirrey bit back a tart retort. Weren’t the place. And the doc were right. Bigger’n all of them. And nobody gots ta live forever, ’ceptin’ maybe Suvi, if they pulled this off.

She stayed close to Arlo’s shadow, looking back at her flanks constantly, pistol sniffing corners like a hunting dog trying to find the rabbit. He were doing the same, so they probably looked like Cerberus, heads wagging in counter–syncopated rhythm.

Didn’t do any good.

But the bad guy did make a right serious mistake.

Moirrey caught movement on her left.

“Duck!” she yelled, diving headlong fer cover as she did so. Bad guy didn’t shoot at her. He’d’a prolly killed her this time if he had. Or maybe she moved quick enough and threw off his shot.

Bastard drilled Arlo dead–center.

Moirrey found herself half under a cooling array control board. One of those big ones like a sound mixing board from a dance club, with a hunnert dials and matching vertical sliders for tweaking things.

Even from here, three meters away, she could smell cooked meat.

Arlo were on his side, dragging himself painfully under some kind of cover.

It were a stupid idea, but Moirrey had a full three dimensional map of the room in her mind. Second nature fer an engineer in a room like this. Locate every damned things that might be risky and hold your place in the room at all times, so you dinna back yer butt into a button that might make things go boom.

Dipshit over there were on a catwalk. Dark and nearly invisible, but zero cover. And there were nothing behind him that would cause problems in the next thirty–six hours if she boomed it.

Moirrey half–stood and popped off three shots in roughly the right direction, spreading ‘em like old–fashioned torpedoes in an aquatic navy game. Catch him moving either way, or staying still.

And then back under cover before he found her.

And slide yer silly ass to the left
.

He would be expecting her to close with Doc and Arlo, would be aiming there. She might get around his line of sight and find his catwalk before he got his ass away.

She owed him. Double so if he killed Arlo.

“Centurion,” Doc yelled loudly across the entire room. “Arlo is wounded, but it’s not bad. Marines come with trauma plates. This one took most of it.”

Yup. Paranoid bastard intent on invading Guatemala. Now she had to get the bad guy so’s Arlo could get to a med–bay.

Moirrey took a deep breath and popped from cover, firing as she did.

Almost got the bugger, too.

She had him, dead. And he still got away.

Moirrey were pretty sure she’d never seen a human move that quickly. She might have touched him with a bolt, but it looked like most of the energy liberated on a rail as he slid off and dove headlong into open space. It were like watching a flyin’ squirrel do his thing.

She threw herself sideways as well, getting the pistol over the side of the stairwell and firing a shot. Bastard got the hatch closed, er she’d’a drilled him the butt. Instead, she got sparks.