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

by Blaze Ward

  “Confidence is extremely high, First Lord,” the woman standing before him replied. That was almost her patent phrase in situations like this.

  She had no name that he had ever been told. The section of Naval Intelligence where she worked was highly compartmentalized away from the rest of the Fleet, almost an appendix stuck on to the organization as an afterthought. Nils liked to think of them as ghosts, or the faeries of ancient legend that came out at night and magically did chores.

  He had that sort of relationship with these people. Nils knew better than to ask them pointed questions. He would either get rebuffed, or outright lies.

  “How high?” he countered. The words on the page still did not change when he read them again.

  “This is one of our most trusted sources, First Lord,” she said. “Someone in the Imperial Household itself who very infrequently feeds us information that has never been wrong.”

  “Thank you, then,” Nils said, “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Happy to serve, First Lord.”

  She opened the hatch and departed without another word. Nils knew better than to be offended. They weren’t technically in the Fleet, that group, and certainly didn’t answer to him in any social or legal sense of the word.

  Faeries.

  “Kamil,” Nils called through the open doorway. “Could you come in, please?”

  His assistant, his right hand, entered immediately. Kamil had known the signs attendant on such a visitation as well.

  Bad news.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Find the Premier and roust him out of wherever he is, immediately, highest possible priority,” Nils said, “while I figure out my next step.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Nils watched the door close.

  Very bad news indeed.

  Ξ

  Tadej Horvat, the Premier of the Republic Senate, appeared on a small screen at an odd angle. Nils guessed he was using the video camera on his own secured comm, rather than relying on a public channel. Considering the message, that was probably the best choice.

  “What’s the emergency, Nils?” Tadej asked breathlessly. From the way the camera image bounced Tadej might be jogging up a flight of stairs.

  “Are we secure, Tadej?” Nils asked.

  “Yes,” the Premier replied, “barring words that might be overhead as I pass people on the way to my office. Or should I be headed up to yours?”

  “Yours is fine, Tad. This will take some time to resolve.”

  “What’s important enough to roust me from dinner? Not that it was anybody critical.”

  “I am looking at an Intelligence Briefing Note that was just delivered to me. Long story short, there was never any risk that Wachturm was going to attack Ladaux. That was merely a ruse. This was planned as a surgical strike against Ballard only. In and out. I could have moved the entirety of Home Fleet to Ballard with almost zero risk.”

  “We suspected that already, Nils,” Tadej replied. “Why the sudden emergency?”

  “It’s a trap,” the First Lord replied flatly.

  “Again, we knew that. Talk clearly please, Nils.”

  A moment of silence passed.

  “Nils?”

  “It’s the timing, Tad,” Nils finally said.

  “How so?”

  “The reports of the planned assault were timed to arrive on Ladaux on a specific day, Tadej,” Nils said. “Specifically, the day Auberon got home.”

  Even on the tiny screen, Nils could see his friend’s face pale. “Oh, dear.”

  “Yes,” the First Lord replied. “The Red Admiral went to Ballard specifically to kill Jessica. And I handed him the blade.”

  “Okay,” Tadej said. His image had stabilized, so apparently he had stopped moving. “What do we do next?”

  “I’m going to take Athena and her consorts,” Nils said, “and see if there’s anything left to salvage when we get there.”

  At the very least, he could give his warriors a proper burial.

  Chapter XV

  Imperial Founding: 172/06/08. Jumpspace en route to Ballard

  “So what do we know of the Sentience, gentlemen?” Admiral Wachturm asked the group of intelligence professionals arrayed to the left about his briefing table, across from Captain Baumgärtner and his various command staff and lieutenants.

  They were a necessary evil, these men. In a war to the death with Aquitaine, it was necessary to have people that lived in the shadows, fencing with one another. Better if they were the sort that enjoyed it.

  They certainly weren’t the type you invited to dinner. Or introduced to your daughters.

  Emmerich held his counsel and waited for the one in charge to speak.

  “The station that houses the Sentience was originally lifted into orbit above Ballard late in the second generation after they had achieved starflight. Their industrial base was sophisticated by that time and they were able to build a fairly large initial station. That was a little over twelve hundred standard years ago.”

  Emmerich nodded and took a drink of water to forestall himself from asking any questions at this point. The less time he had to spend with these men, the better. He considered again whether he should have the entire room disinfected and sterilized when they left.

  That was just being petty, but they left a stench in any room, at least psychically.

  “While we have deep cover agents in place and send occasional observation missions, we have never attempted to penetrate the security on the facility itself,” the head agent continued. “While scholars and tourists are fairly free to come and go in the section of the station dedicated to the university, casual travelers are prevented from accessing the facilities section and the computer cores that house the Sentience itself.”

  “Where are those located physically?” Emmerich perked up. Most of this briefing would be a waste of time, background information that might spark a tactical idea or defense arrangement later. But the engineering aspects would be crucial.

  “The station is actually an oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles, rather than a true sphere,” the man replied. “If you envision it as an onion, accreting layers over the decades and centuries, the original fusion reactor and computer cores that were removed from Kel–Sdala are located at the very center.”

  Emmerich was surprised to hear such an artistic reference from one of the intelligence officers. He tended to think of them as the accountants of hell, rather than actual people. It was safer that way.

  “Weak points?” Captain Baumgärtner piped up, taking notes literally in a paper notebook with an ink pen, a habit he had picked up over the years from his boss.

  “The station itself is just shy of seven kilometers across the equator, and five and a quarter at the poles,” the man replied, warming to his audience and sounding less like a bureaucrat and more like an Imperial gentleman. Go figure. “But almost all of the landing facilities are located on the equatorial belt, meaning fewer bulkheads horizontally than vertically, and generally weaker, at least on the university side of things. The station was not built to modern warship standards, but it was significantly over–engineered from the outset. Intelligence is of two minds as to the reason. First, it was possible that they built this to the specifications of the Sentience, planning this level of reinforcement so as to add all of the outer layers that have been accumulated in the time since. Alternatively, it may have been done to protect the station against tidal forces from Ballard’s moon, which is going to occasionally be close enough to affect the station’s superstructure.”

  “Are we aware of any defenses?” Emmerich asked keenly.

  All the men around him, on both sides of the table, seemed to simultaneously recoil in horror at the thought of a Sentience in charge of modern naval weaponry.

  “None on the station itself,” the man replied quietly after a moment.

  The men all started to breathe again.

  “However,” he continued, “there is a naval stat
ion in a different orbit. It has a few beam weapon emplacements, both Type–1 for defense and Type–3 for warships, plus an oversized flight wing, a full dozen M–5 Harpoon fighters, rather than the usual nine that a Republic force would normally field. Strictly second–line crews, generally dedicated to Search and Rescue and light customs enforcement. There are also two Revenue Tugs with twenty–man crews and extremely light ordinance. Nothing that would even be much of a threat to fighter craft, if we were a carrier.”

  “We will reduce it last,” Emmerich said. “The Sentience is the greatest threat to mankind. Keller will be the most dangerous opponent.”

  “A question, Admiral,” the Briefing Officer continued.

  Emmerich nodded to the man.

  “According to our research, the station could not be successfully evacuated in the time from our emergence to our expected engagement, even with time taken out for a significant naval engagement with Aquitaine forces.”

  “And?” Emmerich asked, keeping his temper in check.

  “Will we be giving them time to completely evacuate the station before we destroy it?”

  Emmerich nodded. These men would go into hell itself with him, but they wanted to see the bill of sale first. It was only proper, considering what they were about to buy.

  “With luck,” he continued, “the evacuation will be complete before this fleet arrives. The Emperor is not making war on civilians and scholars, so we have agents in place that will spread the panic far enough ahead of time that these people can escape. The plan is that they will carry the terror of watching us destroy the Sentience with them back to their homeworlds, but do so from the surface of the planet. The only thing we plan to kill on the station is the Sentience itself.”

  “I see,” the man replied. “And is there a chance the Sentience could escape?”

  “No,” Emmerich said flatly. “I have sent someone along to specifically trap her, possibly to kill her. We are actually the misdirection element here, not the assassins.”

  The men around the table smiled and relaxed. Some of them with relief, that their naval careers would not be stained by such a mark, and the rest because assassinations in the night were their stock in trade.

  Chapter XVI

  Date of the Republic June 6, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard

  Sykes emerged from the secured customs area and entered into the gigantic mall area that surrounded the University of Ballard like a thick and cushy blanket. The University and the Station were both significant tourist draws, filters that passed hundreds of thousands of people rapidly through and kept their money behind.

  Because it would shortly be a collector’s item, especially when he got home, Sykes bought himself two t–shirts with the University of Ballard printed on the chest, wrapped around the school’s logo, one in blue with gold letters, and the other reversed.

  He was too professional to call it a trophy. Plus, it was the sort of thing tourists did, and he needed to maintain his cover.

  It sounded good in his head. He was a god–slayer, after all.

  He smiled to himself as he walked the grand space like a good little tourist.

  Sykes had lunch in a sidewalk café because he could. It was a useful way to study the crowds that swelled and receded around him.

  Ithome on the planet below was a fishing town and a port. It had that feel to it. Alexandria Station was a university town in every sense of the word. A village of twenty thousand students and instructors, with another thirty thousand people wrapped around that providing support services.

  Everything was geared towards the university’s needs, either financially, emotionally, or physically. Most generally, that meant students. Young men and women here to study, or here for advanced degrees.

  Sykes was too old to pass himself off as a student, unless he had taken the time on a cover that required returning for a mid–life degree. There had not been enough time from the point this mission was activated to its probable completion, so he had fallen back on one of the old standbys, using the occupation of his primary contact as a his modus operandi. He at least had a passing exposure to old books, from a previous mission years ago, and could fake the rest appreciably.

  If someone penetrated his cover in this short of a time, there was nothing he could do about it except chalk his death up to very bad luck. He certainly would never be traded home, once they figured out who he was.

  A brief walk after lunch took him to a bookstore catering to both students and tourists. Again, anything to finance the school. Some students would always prefer to scrawl notes on paper, over having to flip back and forth electronically.

  The literature section was boringly predictable, geared towards either the hundred or so ancient classics all students were expected to fake reading at one point or another, or the score or so modern pieces that showed off how bohemian a student was. It was almost like every university bookstore in the galaxy ordered from the same warehouse.

  The engineering section was much more interesting. Sykes purchased a tome intended for the amateur civil engineer, showing off the entire station’s infrastructure to an extent that really should have been classified if these people were serious.

  He could see the original schematics of the station when it was built. Every major installation or upgrade was detailed in its own chapter, along with the engineering challenges and solutions that had been encountered and overcome.

  Very little of it was new information. Sykes guessed that his original briefing materials had been based on a previous version of this very title, or a similar one.

  Briefly, he considered how it would look to purchase such a book, given his cover identity as an antique book dealer. Tourist might be enough. If pressed, he could always refer to a non–existent niece with an engineering bent. Aquitaine believed in that silly nonsense of sexual equality. They would be excited that a woman had the audacity to learn the necessary mathematics.

  Sykes purchased the book without incidence. Perhaps he was a touch too paranoid, but that was rarely a detriment in his daily work.

  He set out to find his hotel. A glass of wine and an evening of reading would be a useful way to pass the time while he waited for Admiral Wachturm to arrive, the hounds driving the fox to the hunter.

  Chapter XVII

  Date of the Republic June 10, 394 Jumpspace en route to Ballard

  She knew better than to work herself into exhaustion, as appealing as the idea sounded. Instead, Jessica was going to bed at what Marcelle considered a reasonable time, and working to reset her body clock so that she would be at her peak of wakefulness when they arrived at Ballard, just in case the Red Admiral was already there and they had to come out firing.

  Auberon was three days out from their navigational rendezvous with the rest of the squadron and Jessica needed to be sharp. Brightoak and Rajput she could count on. Stralsund, for all the implied excellence of the crew, was still a wild card.

  This wasn’t going to be a mass fleet maneuver, battlecruisers in the van with the destroyers, escorting dreadnaughts and carriers into battle. Nor was it going to be the antiseptic ranged engagements of two flight wings dueling for supremacy before chasing the losing side’s carriers away.

  No, this was going to be a tavern brawl that spilled out the front door and into the muddy street. In the middle of a thunderstorm.

  Unless things were completely upended on the Imperial side, it would be one battleship and all her attendants, coming down the gravity well at them full speed, guns blazing.

  Hopefully, the Red Admiral had maintained his traditionalist approach. If the situations were exactly reversed, Jessica might have taken the time to attach an Escort Carrier or Carrier Tug to the Imperial forces, just to keep Aquitaine honest.

  Everything she had planned for when she got there hinged on Wachturm not pulling a complete rabbit out of his hat.

  Given the time windows, she knew he was counting on encountering the exact forces that had won at Petron, barely three mon
ths ago: Auberon, Brightoak, Rajput, and CR–264. Had there been more time, she would have run to Petron and picked up the rest of her other fleet, the Corynthe 4–ring Mothership Kali–ma, her flagship; and the carriers King Arnulf and Warlock, plus whoever else wanted to come along. That would have been enough firepower to take down even the Red Admiral.

  Jessica felt her breath catch. His face was suddenly there in her mind as she started to fall asleep.

  Warlock.

  Daneel Ishikura.

  The pirate she had fallen in love with, only to watch him die protecting her at the Battle of Petron.

  Something else to lay at the Red Admiral’s feet. He might not have pulled the trigger, but his fingerprints were all over the strategic operation she had stumbled into at Sarmarsh IV.

  It had been an Imperial mission to a group of pirates, led by the Red Admiral. He had obviously intended to help them overthrow their own King of the Pirates, knowing that the ensuing chaos would harm a Republic of Aquitaine ally in Lincolnshire, and require Aquitaine to commit more forces to that border when they could ill afford it.

  A stroke of strategic genius, worthy of Admiral Wachturm’s legend.

  Nobody had been prepared for her to arrive and stomp into the mess, let alone manage to stop it, and then top that by being crowned Queen of the Pirates herself. That would have been acceptable, had Daneel survived.

  Some days, she still wasn’t sure she wanted to live. Only her various duties kept her going.

  Auberon. Aquitaine. Corynthe.

  Warrior. Command Centurion. Queen of the Pirates.

  She dreamed of Daneel.

  Jessica couldn’t remember any other person that had touched her heart as Daneel had.

  Aquitaine was a republic led by the Fifty Families, intermarried and interlocked clans that dominated all aspects of society.

  She was just a girl from a lower–middle–class family, and had been identified young and groomed for the Fleet. Smart, capable, successful, but not someone with any great value in terms of the sorts of dynastic marriages that the wealthy and powerful planned.