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

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Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) Page 28

by Blaze Ward


  Marcelle knocked, initiating the ritual.

  The door slid back into wall silently.

  “Come,” Nils Kasum said formally.

  As always, Marcelle preceded and stepped to the right.

  Thus do we bring order to our lives.

  Jessica followed and stopped in the middle of the room at rigid attention, two steps from his desk.

  “Marcelle,” the First Lord said quietly. “We probably won’t be long. Could you do me the favor of a few minutes of privacy with Jessica?”

  This was the First Lord of the Fleet. He could have easily ordered her steward out. Or teased her, as he often did. Today was formal, taciturn. Almost dour.

  How bad had it gotten?

  Marcelle disappeared silently. The door clicked faintly when it closed.

  Silence passed between then, like a table game.

  Jessica and the goddess of war could out–wait entropy itself today.

  “Jessica,” he began. “I’m sorry.”

  Huh?

  “First Lord?”

  “Please, call me Nils today. This needs to be personal, not professional.”

  “How can it be anything but professional, Nils?”

  That might have been a touch sharper than it needed to be.

  And perhaps not.

  “I sent you here to die.”

  “I know that, Nils. We knew that at the time. This mission was always a forlorn hope.”

  “Emmerich Wachturm played me, Jessica. He set me up. This was all part of his grand plan.”

  “Me standing before you on Athena’s deck, while he limped home missing several teeth, was never part of his plan, Nils.”

  She could feel the anger light, deep inside. The goddess of war growled hungrily.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about how things have played out,” Nils said after a beat. “I think it would be appropriate for me to step down as First Lord and retire.”

  In her soul, the goddess of war drew blades.

  It wasn’t lust for blood or battle.

  It was that place she had been when Suvi and Moirrey were at risk. When Ian Zhao was poised to conquer all of Petron. When the Red Admiral’s fighters appeared at Third Iger.

  Defender of the faithful. Protector of the realm. Harbinger of Order.

  “I won’t allow it,” she said, giving mouth to the words the goddess of war howled inside.

  “I beg your pardon, Keller?”

  Jessica took a step forward, leaned over the desk top and stopped, lurking over the man close enough to breathe on him.

  “I. Will. Not. Allow. It.”

  The words took on the solidity of stone, tainting the air with a hint of ozone.

  “Explain,” he replied, not leaning back, not giving an inch.

  Jessica stood upright again.

  “This was not just an attack on a backwater Republic world, Nils,” she said forcefully. “This was a man blinded by his anger, seeking, however unconsciously, to repeat the original sin. Of burning the first Library at Alexandria. According to the research I’ve seen, it was named Alexandria Station because it was intended to recreate the original Library on the Homeworld, during the ancient Roman Empire. Before the barbarians destroyed it.”

  Her heart was pounding hard enough to drive nails.

  Burgers with Moirrey and Suvi, no, Summer, had turned into an entire evening of storytelling between the four women, generally left alone by the locals after a round of autographs and photos.

  It had gotten very, very personal.

  “This was an attack on the very foundation of the Republic itself, Nils,” Jessica softened her tone. “Suvi is part of Henri Baudin’s founding legend. This was an Imperial attack on Baudin himself.”

  There was too much energy. Jessica let herself pace, as if she were back on her own bridge. In a way, she was. This was her quest, her windmill, her white whale.

  “Nobody died aboard the station except the assassin,” she continued. “But all that wreckage has been falling out of the sky, all that stuff that we couldn’t catch or slice into pieces small enough to burn up. It has been a week of aurora borealis and shooting stars and meteors for the people of this planet and all the visitors from the university.”

  She stopped square in front of him and turned.

  “Do you have any idea what that has done to the people of Ballard, Nils? To the scholars that represent every world in the Republic and half a dozen other nations?”

  He mutely shook his head, eyes almost as serious as the goddess of war in her now.

  “It has made them furious, First Lord of the Republic of Aquitaine Fleet. The University of Ballard was attacked by the Fribourg Empire without any provocation. None. Not the Sentience aboard her. Not Suvi. The university itself. They are angry. Raging. There are fussy little shopkeepers in Ithome baying for Imperial blood right now.”

  She paused to breathe, amazed at how hot her skin had gotten in such a short period of time.

  “If you resign, you’ll be telling them that it was all a mistake. That we shouldn’t have been here. That you’re sorry it came to this.”

  Her face curled up in a snarl better suited to a predator spying a chicken, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “You sent me to the Cahllepp Frontier to poke Fribourg with a sharp stick, Nils. I succeeded. So Karl sent the Red Admiral to Lincolnshire and Petron. We stopped him there. Tomas Kigali has apparently been telling people stories and lies about the battles at Sarmarsh IV and Petron. One of the hottest things you can buy in the marketplace right now is a set of action figures, First Lord. Me in that black royal combat uniform, Furious commanding The Queen’s Own, and Kigali himself as Mercury, Messenger of the Gods.”

  She bored into his soul with her look

  “Nils, you didn’t send us here to die. You sent us here to stop the Red Admiral. Dying was the risk. It’s a risk every day I serve, every time I get out of bed.”

  She found herself pounding the desk with her finger in rhythm with her words. Even his semi–smile at recognizing his own habits in her barely tempered her rage, focused far away, on St. Legier and an emperor she had never met.

  “You sent us here to win, Nils. We won. Now what?”

  All the energy fled. Jessica almost staggered to the seat behind her and collapsed into it, regardless of decorum.

  They had already gone well past that point anyway.

  “What’s your squadron’s status, Jessica?” Nils asked quietly, finally seeing the mad tide ebb.

  “You will have to decommission Rajput in place and scrap her right here in orbit. She’ll never make Jumpspace again.”

  Again, the tapping.

  “Brightoak will need a complete engine rebuild, but she’s otherwise relatively intact.”

  Tap.

  “Stralsund will be in dry–dock back home for six months before she can fight.”

  Like nails in a coffin lid.

  “CR–264 is almost new–in–box, although Kigali has some mad ideas to lengthen her frame and add an interchangeable weapons module with missiles or primaries or something.”

  “Would that work?” Nils asked, intrigued.

  “I have kept Tomas Kigali well away from Moirrey and Oz, thank you very much.”

  “What about Auberon, Jessica?”

  She had known the question was coming. It was still a punch to the gut.

  Not as bad as losing Daneel, but very, very close.

  The pain must have shown.

  Nils waited patiently while she tried to pull her soul back together. Even the goddess of war helped sweep pieces up.

  “Auberon is a broken sword, First Lord.”

  Retreat into formality. Keep the pain at bay. Something. Anything.

  Her soul lay smashed nearby in a close orbit, too painful to even think about.

  Nils surprised her when he stood and started pacing himself. Another thing she had apparently learned from the man.

  Three long strides placed him
at a porthole. He got her to look by tapping the glass and pointing.

  “All swords, all warriors, break, Jessica,” he said, barely above a whisper. “It is the nature of things in what is a very hard business.”

  He studied her closely, every door open to the world.

  “I am concerned about the warrior, not the sword. Is she broken?”

  And there it was. The question that haunted her dreams. Her nightmares. Her soul. The thing she could not answer, she, the girl with all the angles studied and all the contingencies planned.

  How much had she lost when Daneel died aboard Supernova? How much more of her had died in orbit when the station disintegrated while Auberon tumbled away, powerless to save it? How much had she lost thinking Moirrey had died there?

  And yet.

  Moirrey had survived. Had succeeded.

  Had gone so far above and beyond her duty that neither of them could ever tell anyone without being executed as traitors to the species.

  Suvi had survived. Had escaped. Had told them stories over beer and burgers about men and women from their history lessons. Men and women she had known, had taught. Had loved.

  And she had survived. The Red Admiral had thrown everything he had in his mad quest to kill Jessica Keller. And failed.

  That was the very definition of victory.

  The goddess of war reached out and hugged her no less fiercely than she had Moirrey. Poured power and warmth back into a soul that had gone hollow and cold.

  Jessica breathed. It was enough to break the spell.

  She felt the chains fall away from her mind, her soul. She rose from the chair, unable to be contained by it any longer, and came to attention before him.

  “Auberon is a broken sword, First Lord,” she announced quietly, firmly, finally. “It is one more debt the Red Admiral owes me.”

  “You will not collect it yet, Jessica.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he said with a harsh smile. “It will take a year or more of hard preparation, but as you have said, he is going nowhere. And you have damaged Fribourg already more than you know. The Battle of Ballard will simply drive that stake in deeper.”

  “And then?”

  He pointed out the window again, encompassing the corpse of her warhorse, her people.

  Her life.

  “Like Rajput, she will be decommissioned in place. I can think of no better place for her to serve as a museum, than at the site of her final battle, Jessica. But her name, her battle flags, her legend, that will be reborn. And you will take the war to Fribourg. I have plans for you.”

  The goddess of war nodded. It was a beginning.

  And maybe, just maybe, Jessica would be able to sleep again without nightmares.

  Last of the Immortals Cast List

  Auberon

  Name

  Rank

  Position

  Jessica Marie Keller

  Command Centurion

  Commander

  Marcelle Augustine Travere

  Yeoman

  Jessica’s Personal Aide

  Denis August Jež

  Senior Centurion

  First Officer

  Enej Zivkovic

  Centurion

  Flag Centurion

  Tamara Strnad

  Senior Centurion

  Tactical Officer

  Aleksander Afolayan

  Centurion

  Gunner

  Nina Vanek

  Centurion

  Defenses

  Nada Zupan

  Centurion

  Pilot

  Vilis Ozolinsh

  Senior Centurion

  Chief Engineer

  (Phillip) Navin Crncevic

  Senior Centurion

  Dragoon

  Daniel Giroux

  Centurion

  Science Officer

  Moirrey Kermode

  Yeoman

  Evil Engineering Gnome

  Nicolai Aoiki

  Senior Chef

  Chief Chef of the Wardroom

  Jackson Tawfeek

  First Rate Spacer

  Marine

  Vo Arlo

  Yeoman

  Marine

  Nadine Orly

  First Rate Spacer

  Signals Marine

  Augustine Kwok

  Command Centurion

  Former commander, Auberon

  Tobias Brewster

  Centurion

  Emergency tactical bridge

  Others

  Name

  Rank

  Position

  Alber’ d’Maine

  Command Centurion

  Commander, Rajput

  Tomas Kigali

  Command Centurion

  Commander, CR-264

  Arsen Lam

  Centurion

  First Officer, CR-264

  Aki Ridwana Ali

  Yeoman

  Pilot, CR-264

  Robertson "Robbie" Aeliaes

  Command Centurion

  Commander, Brightoak

  Arott Whughy

  Command Centurion

  Commander, Stralsund

  Doyle Enda MacEoghain

  Senior Centurion

  First Officer, Stralsund

  Tiyamike Abujamal

  Senior Centurion

  Chief Engineer, Stralsund

  Galina Tasse

  Centurion

  Tactical Officer, Stralsund

  Waldemar Ihejirika

  Command Centurion

  Commander, Mendocino

  Petia Veronika Naoumov

  First Fleet Lord

  Commander, Athena

  Timofeh Ariojhutti

  Command Flight Centurion

  Commander, Ballard Defense Forces

  Pilots

  Name

  Rank

  Position

  Iskra Vlahovic

  Senior Centurion

  Flight Deck Commander

  Jouster / Milos Pavlovich

  Senior Flight Centurion

  Flight Commander

  Uller / Friedhelm Hannes Förstner

  Flight Centurion

  Jouster’s Wingmate

  Vienna / Avril Bouchard

  Flight Centurion

  Jouster’s Wingmate

  Bitter Kitten / Darya Lagunov

  Flight Centurion

  Wing Commander

  Hànchén / Murali Ma

  Flight Cornet

  Bitter Kitten’s Wingmate

  Furious / Cho Ayaka Nakamura

  Flight Cornet

  Bitter Kitten’s Wingmate

  da Vinci / Ainsley Barret

  Senior Flight Centurion

  Scout Pilot

  Gaucho / Hollis Dyson

  Flight Centurion

  Commander, Cayenne

  Takouhi Taline Nazarian

  Yeoman

  Loadmaster, Cayenne

  Anastazja Slusarczyk

  Senior Flight Centurion

  Commander, Necromancer

  Leila Ketevan

  Flight Centurion

  Commander, Damocles

  Ya’rah Mhasalkar

  Pilot, Stralsund

  The Republic of Aquitaine

  Name

  Position

  Indira (Chastain) Keller

  Jessica’s mother

  Miguel Keller

  Jessica’s father

  Vyacheslav Keller

  Jessica’s younger brother

  Sasha Keller

  Jessica’s sister-in-law

  Rahul Keller

  Jessica’s nephew

  Margaret Keller

  Jessica’s niece

  Juan-Pablo Keller

  Jessica’s nephew

  Nils Kasum

  First Lord of the Fleet

  Kamil Miloslav

  Personal Aide to First Lord Kasum

  Bogdan Loncar

  First Fleet Lord

  Tadej Marko Ho
rvat

  Premier, Republic Senate

  Andjela Tomčič

  Senator, Republic Senate

  Anton Tennerick

  Senator, Republic Senate, Chairman

  Judit Margrét Chavarría

  Senator, Republic Senate, Opposition leader

  Brand

  Aide to the Chairman

  Calina Szabolski

  President of the Republic of Aquitaine

  The Fribourg Empire

  Name

  Position

  His Sovereign Imperial Majesty Karl VII of the House of Wiegand

  Emperor, Fribourg Empire

  Kasimira Ekaterina of the House of Alkaev

  Empress, Fribourg Empire

  Karl "Ekke" Ekkehard Szczęsny Wiegand

  Crown Prince, Fribourg Empire

  Ekaterina "Steffi" Stephanya

  Princess Royale, Fribourg Empire

  Kasimira "Casey" Helena

  Princess Royale, Fribourg Empire

  Emmerich Wachturm. The Red Admiral.

  Admiral of the Red. Hereditary Duke of Eklionstic. Commander, Amsel.

  Hendrik Baumgärtner

  Flag Captain, Aide to Admiral Wachturm

  Henrietta "Heike" Wachturm

  Daughter of Emmerich Wachturm

  Otto Scheinberg

  Captain, Petrograd

  Faris Sundén

  Captain, SturmTeufel

  Ballard

  Name

  Position

 

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