Flight of the Blackbird (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 5)

by Blaze Ward

  “Why Bunala?” Jessica asked him, shocked.

  “Jessica, that is the largest wrecker yard of starships in known space,” he said with rising excitement. “And resting place of the only known Concord super-dreadnought in the galaxy. We may have surpassed the ancients in many ways, but who knows what other things they might have to teach us, lo these millennia since. With Your Majesty’s permission, of course.”

  “Granted,” Jessica said quietly, deep in thought. “And I understand why Karl would want to reward Vo Arlo. Knighting him and making him an honorary Colonel of the Imperial 189th Division fits the rest of this. Why does he want to knight Moirrey? Everything she has done to date has come at their expense.”

  Nils felt his shoulders shrug unconsciously.

  “Perhaps Karl wants to take her measure personally,” he said. “He’s never met her, only heard stories and read formal reports by people covering their asses and grinding axes.”

  “And maybe Dieter Haussmann of Imperial Security was hated so much that they want to reward her,” Tadej chimed in sarcastically.

  “So if I’m off gallivanting around the Empire, who will hold the flag for Auberon?” Jessica asked him carefully.

  There. Nils could finally see it in the back of her eyes. The pain. The unspoken worry that someone might ruin her finely-honed crew, like an idiot hitting a rock with the edge of a sword because he didn’t know any better.

  “I have had a few, private talks with an old comrade of yours, Jessica,” he said quietly. “I think Fleet Centurion Arott Whughy would be the perfect candidate. He and Denis get along quite well, and it’s past time he got a mission like this that took him to the back of beyond.”

  He wanted to say something more, something about what it had done for her career, but he knew that was too sensitive a topic, especially now.

  Nils could still see the ghost of Daneel Ishikura when he looked in her eyes.

  That haunted loss.

  Jessica Keller had gone to Lincolnshire to deal with a simple issue of pirates. From there to Corynthe.

  If it hadn’t been for the need to immediately plunge back into battle with Emmerich Wachturm, Nils wasn’t sure Jessica’s career, or her mind, would have survived that loss.

  No, best to leave it at Arott. The two respected each other, and Nils knew that Petia had threatened the man to be on his best behavior with someone else’s warfleet.

  Jessica took another heavy drink, emptying her glass, deep in thought. Fortunately, Sigrún was arriving with an anti-pasta plate half a meter across, filled with cheeses, fruit, crackers, and cold cuts.

  “So I’ll be on leave for six to eight months? Off-duty?” she finally asked Petia when she set the glass down.

  “You’ve never off-duty, Keller,” the First Centurion countered knowingly. They shared a quick smile. “In this case, you are simply going to be conducting the Eternal War by other means.”

  Nils felt an ominous shiver ghost down his spine at the secret smile the two women shared. Three, with Judit.

  He still hadn’t gotten all of that story, from any of them.

  If the war between Aquitaine and Fribourg was truly over, even for a generation, what would Jessica do? Worse, how much danger would there be on the galactic rim, if Jessica Keller truly went home to Corynthe permanently?

  CHAPTER III

  DATE OF THE REPUBLIC APRIL 18, 398 SC AUBERON. ABOVE LADAUX

  “Ma’am,” Moirrey nodded as she entered Jessica’s inner office.

  Jessica motioned the tiny woman, her own, personal, evil engineering gnome, to sit. Marcelle followed her into the room and put down a coffee service and began working her ritual magic.

  Jessica had been plotting this since that meeting with Baumgärtner. Beans harvested in Lincolnshire and brought cold to Ladaux. Fresh-roasted three days ago and left to vent, using the mysterious alchemy that only Marcelle had ever mastered. Fresh cream and honey from Jessica’s uncle’s farm, brought up to orbit this morning.

  Moirrey had grown up. There was no other way to describe the changes in the seated woman since they had first met, so many years ago, when it was Jessica’s mission to rock the Empire to its core at 2218 Svati Prime.

  Moirrey no longer fidgeted when she sat. The uniform of a centurion no longer looked over-sized and wrong on her. Perhaps she had grown into herself finally. Jessica sometimes wondered if she herself would ever do the same.

  They waited in warm, companionable silence as Marcelle worked before finally leaving them alone with two steaming mugs of the best coffee in the galaxy.

  Jessica considered the Centurion seated across from her. So much she had asked from this woman over the years. Such great risks and rewards, as well as secrets the two of them would have to take to their graves.

  Jessica could see questions flit across Moirrey’s face unasked. The cute, raven-haired pixie was practically bubbling with something, and yet sat perfectly still.

  Jessica smiled.

  “It’s because you’ve entered the pantheon of creatures that scare the Emperor of Fribourg,” she said simply.

  Jessica should have been surprised, but she had come to expect calm from Moirrey.

  The engineer nodded at her sagely.

  “So this dinna mean I have to gives up bein’ an engineer ta be’s an Imperial Lady?” she replied sideways.

  Jessica laughed and smiled warmly.

  “No more than I do, Pint-sized,” she said, watching Moirrey’s eyes flare for just a moment at the nickname.

  Moirrey’s best friend Dina had called her that. As had Suvi, the Last of the Immortals. So could the Queen of the Pirates.

  “So what’s this I hears about a crew goin’ to Bunala and sniffin’s around, Jessica? Without me, I might add.”

  “That’s what you get for becoming important people, Moirrey,” Jessica replied with a broad smile they shared. “First Lord wants to see what they can learn, what they can improve on, if we don’t have to build warships as fast as we can, just to keep up with Fribourg.”

  “Gon’ta rebuilds Alber’ again?” Moirrey asked with a burr.

  Jessica laughed again this time. It felt good to be alone with Moirrey, a sister she had never had until recently.

  After Thuringwell, when Alber’s Heavy Cruiser Experimental, Shivaji, had nearly melted itself in half, they had indeed had to cut her into three pieces and scrap the middle one for metal. With the Peace, they had ended up rebuilding her with a more traditional middle section, but had done so in such a way that they could pull whole sections out as modules, with the intent of building new ones and plugging them in as engineers made dreams into steel and power systems.

  Only Alber d’Maine would look forward to flying such a messy and complicated ship. Anything to be a better warrior.

  “Probably,” Jessica said. “It depends on what they find at Bunala, and what happens over the next year.”

  “And whats we tells the mighty Lords o’da Fleet ’bouts Project Mischief?” Moirrey asked with a silly grin.

  Jessica set her coffee down carefully on her desk and considered the woman. Butter wouldn’t melt in Moirrey’s mouth right now. If she didn’t trust the evil engineering gnome so much, Jessica might be worried.

  “What have you come up with?” Jessica asked slowly, carefully.

  The Creator only knew what might bubble up from the engineering bays, with this woman thinking evil thoughts. Her business cards read Advanced Weapons Tech for a reason.

  Moirrey’s eyes twinkled. Jessica couldn’t think of another term. She was reminded of Moirrey’s phrase about glitter being the most important part of any day.

  And unicorns. Because, you know, unicorns.

  “Lots o’craziness, ma’am,” Moirrey said. “If’n’s we’ll be ’boards Kali-ma fer, like, months, I might ask Oz fer some leftover parts to haul out, since I know some folks who know some folks. Might be able to trade fer useful tidbits. And build me n’David some toys.”

  The smile on Moirrey�
��s face looked so peaceful and innocent. And yet, this woman had been directly responsible for more deaths at First Petron than anybody else on the field that day, both commanders included.

  One of these days, Nils Kasum was probably going to try to promote Moirrey Kermode to a ground job at a Fleet Weapons Lab.

  Over my dead body. I probably will have to take her with me when I finally do retire to Corynthe. Assuming I’m still Queen and get to retire from that as well. David needs to have the crown in fact, as well as theory.

  “We have a budget for both spare parts and for trade goods, young lady,” Jessica replied. “And if Oz can’t cover it, ask me. I have money I’m not spending.”

  On her first visit to Lincolnshire, five years ago, Jessica had brought with her four of the big, Mark 2 shipping containers, filled with goods normally only available in major Aquitaine ports, and sold them to each of four local shipping houses for the same price. Petron might absorb two easily, and there were a number of other planets that nominally offered her their allegiance. Perhaps she should plan for six, plus whatever Moirrey and Oz got up to?

  “That I can do’s, ma’am,” Moirrey chirped as she finished her coffee. “Been playing with ideas fer beam weapons, since Corynthe don’ use missiles and stuff lik’n’s we does it here.”

  “Sounds good, Moirrey,” Jessica replied. “I’ll let you get back to your shore leave. I’m sorry we won’t have time to stop off in Lincolnshire on the way, but have Marcelle schedule me a pair of two-hour blocks a week apart. You can show me everything, and then I can come back with questions about how we implement it.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  And Moirrey was gone. A little birdie had whispered in her ear that Moirrey had a hot date scheduled in twelve hours, planetside, with Digger, the Senior Centurion of the Construction Ala that HQ had decided to permanently attach to First Expeditionary Fleet, Jessica being the most likely to be dispatched on the sorts of fleet-sized Show the Flag missions where building roads, bridges, and hospitals was almost as important as fighting.

  Peace was going to be almost as much an undiscovered country, as near as Jessica could tell.

  She emptied her own mug and checked her messages. Security hadn’t updated her, so she knew where her next target was to be found.

  Moirrey had been easy, but the woman who had turned into her little sister was a glass-half-full kind of person. Jessica’s next job wouldn’t be so easy.

  CHAPTER IV

  DATE OF THE REPUBLIC APRIL 18, 398 SC AUBERON. ABOVE LADAUX

  Because it was a live firing line, the main hatch was locked from inside and was keyed to his voice. It would take someone with a priority override to open the door.

  Vo preferred it that way right now. He still wasn’t sure how he felt.

  The little light continued to blink above the doorway, indicating that someone was waiting patiently outside for him to finish whatever it was he was doing and make everything safe for entry. It would also continue to beep once every two minutes as a friendly irritant.

  Vo stood on the firing line and considered the target seventy-five meters away. At this range, one man with an English-style longbow was not a threat to another single man, if the target was paying attention and could move out from under the arrow. Elk and deer might spook, if they knew enough about men to be afraid, but they might not.

  No, this was the time of battle where formations of archers lobbed shots at formations of infantry or cavalry, presuming their own intervening wall of steel protected them.

  Vo’s target was man-sized. Navin the Black had always taught him to shoot at men with a bow as if he was going to with a rifle or a beam.

  You never know when you’ll be shipwrecked on a hostile planet, with nothing but a knife and your wits, and have to survive.

  Vo considered the bucket at his feet. A score more arrows rested there, feathers up, waiting their turn. He had hand-fletched them from stock he had bribed the engineering bays to produce. The bow in his hands was a composite, rather than traditional yew. Layers of wood glued together with care, normally a task done over a winter when planetside, shaped lovingly with heat and carved with hand-tools.

  Hostile planet. You against the universe. Go.

  The door beeped again.

  Four times meant whoever waited was serious, and patient. That narrowed it down to a handful of people.

  The Command Security Centurion would have gotten on the comm and told him to haul his ass over and unlock the door. That nobody had done so narrowed it down all the more.

  Vo sighed, rested the still-strung bow on a pair of hooks, and walked over to the door. The code wasn’t meant to be complicated, just to keep people from wandering in during the middle of a training exercise where they might get hurt.

  Not everyone knew how to safely play with guns and knives.

  He felt like an ogre when the door opened. She didn’t even come up to his shoulder.

  Maybe she cleared the bars on his chest.

  Vo stepped back and then to one side so she could enter.

  “Fleet Centurion,” he rumbled noncommittally.

  “Mr. Arlo.”

  Jessica Keller stopped in front of him anyway and looked up, studying him close enough to be uncomfortable. She did that to people.

  Vo wondered what secrets she learned.

  Instead of speaking, she turned and walked to the space where he would have stood to observe one of his students learning the ancient art.

  Vo stood perfectly still and stared at her from across the space.

  “If you think you need the practice, Vo, please continue,” she said in a warm, soft voice that seemed to emanate from the heavens above.

  Or the depths of hell itself.

  Vo wasn’t sure what he needed. He had chosen to meditate with a bow today. It would have looked awkward, at least to him, if she had walked in on him practicing kendo with his own fighting robot, a variant of the type she had made famous Republic-wide.

  Oh, what the hell.

  He sealed the door again with the code and returned to the firing line. Lift the bow from the hooks and find the perfect rest with the left hand. Check the left wrist’s bracer. Adjust the fingerguards on the right hand. Feet set.

  Arrow picked up by the nock, then locked tight on the string. Weapon overhead, feathers brushing the cheek. Bring down to level while breathing slowly out before releasing.

  Come to stillness. Find the intersection of arrowhead, target, and gravity.

  Release.

  The shot flew true and struck the man dead-center in the chest. There wasn’t another arrow within eight centimeters of it. Vo figured he couldn’t do that again on a bet.

  Rather than flinch, or grow superstitious, he nocked the next and let fly.

  The key to archery is muscle memory. Repeat the same shot ten thousand times. The entire act becomes automatic.

  The second shot hit the man in the thigh. Good enough to wound and immobilize.

  Vo stood perfectly still and took a breath.

  “Navin tells me you have mixed feelings about this,” she said from beside and below him, like a pixie dragon tucked away in his left back pocket.

  Vo prepared the third shot. Released it.

  Hip.

  “Why me?” Vo finally said, realizing she would wait all day.

  The Fleet Centurion was like that.

  “I’ve watched the video from Thuringwell, Vo,” she replied quietly. “If you slow it down and watch Horst’s face, he realized that he had gone as far as he could, and that he was about to die. Anybody else in that situation, and there would have been violence. Given the hussars you were with, I would have expected them to roll over the Imperials like a plague of angry locusts.”

  He heard her take a breath and then move around to where she was in his peripheral vision, though still safe behind the firing line.

  Vo glanced down.

  “Horst and his platoon are alive because you chose to act with honor, Centurio
n Arlo,” she bored in on him. “It’s one of the many reasons you keep accumulating medals. Why I keep sending you on the hard missions.”

  “But this?” he finally said, head hung and shaking.

  “Vo, written into the Peace Treaty itself is that the 189th Division will continue to maintain a permanent Honor Guard on Thuringwell, even as it turns into a Republic world,” she explained carefully. “An Imperial Division, guarding an Imperial memorial, on a Republic world. Fourth Saxon’s own Armorer is providing the swords those men will bear.”

  She moved the rest of the way around him, looking up from close enough he was practically breathing on her.

  He didn’t even flinch. Visibly.

  Why was it okay that she could see him like this?

  “Vo, this is the Emperor’s way of personally saying thank you.”

  Her words ground through him like broken glass.

  The Fribourg Emperor was going to knight him. And make him an honorary Colonel of the 3rd Regiment, 189th Division.

  Him. City boy from Anameleck Prime. Street punk and former small-time cat burglar. Enlist for four years or go to jail for two. All his friends from those days were pretty much dead, imprisoned, or burned out.

  Even his family barely knew him.

  Centurion Vo Arlo. Order of Baudin. Republic Cross. With Bar.

  About to become Colonel Ritter Vo zu Arlo of the Imperial Army of Fribourg.

  How the hell did that happen?

  “Because you’re the one that wanted to be a hero when you grew up, Arlo,” she said with a smile as she took a step back and came to parade rest.

  Vo closed his mouth and turned beet red. And remembered to breathe. And to stop muttering out loud.

  “When I sent Moirrey over to Alexandria Station, I told Navin what I was expected and who I wanted,” she continued in a brighter but still serious tone. “I thought he would send Jackson Tawfeek. He chose you.”

  “JT might have managed,” Vo said diplomatically.

  “The only reason you aren’t a Dragoon on your own ship someplace else, Vo,” Fleet Centurion Jessica Keller intoned, “is that I won’t let First Lord have you. Any more than I will let him take Moirrey away from me. Get that through your thick skull. Use a hammer if you have to. Remember that you’re there to make the 189th proud of you, too. And not just me and the entire, damned Fleet.”