by Blaze Ward
Goddess of War
Blaze Ward
The Jessica Keller Chronicles: Volume Four
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Overture: Seventh Son
Imperial Founding: 174/03/21. Seventh Son. Above Thuringwell
Seventh Son was old, as freighters went. Well–used, but well–loved at the same time. Oversized corridors instead of something cramped. Too many lights, but power was cheap and it was worth the time and effort to keep the ship bright inside.
Merryn settled into the left–hand bridge seat and studied her blinking console as the ship came out of final jump. Thuringwell was right where it was supposed to be, a yellow and green and blue marble hanging on a spackled, black background. She brought the big engines on line and felt the slightest shiver in the gravplates as the little freighter re–routed a sudden overabundance of power.
Seventh Son probably could have made do just fine with only one of those two engines back there, but Merryn liked being able to outrun damned near anything in space. Not all of her destinations were nice, boring, little, Imperial industrial colonies like Thuringwell. Hell, a place like this she didn’t even need to have Tyler manning the gun turret.
“Thuringwell Traffic Control,” she pushed the record button on the comm. “This is TCL–100893471AJQ. Requesting lane assignment for docking. Cargo of mixed goods including sector mail from Kittras.”
A ping and the message was away. If they were on the ball over there, forty–five seconds for a reply. It was mid–day Tuesday. Otto should be on duty. He was always a professional, unlike Lo or Michael.
Merryn looked around the bridge as she waited. The starship was over a century old, but still in reasonably good shape. She probably had another three years before she needed to strip and repaint all the crew compartments. The hallways everywhere else were still a soothing, airy green, occasionally decorated with flowers and horses she had painted when she was a teenager with aspirations to high art.
Back when she still thought her father would be around forever.
The electronics, at least, were state of the art. Every spare bit of cash went into keeping the internal systems and engines sharp. More than once she had outrun a wanna–be pirate on the edges of the Rhios II gravity well.
The local officials there were far more corrupt than here. Thuringwell’s current Duke was a patriot and a stickler for rule of law. So he just perverted the laws in his favor rather than ignoring them like they did everywhere else.
And then brought in men like Colonel Dieter Haussmann to enforce them. Merryn shivered just a little, remembering her last encounter with Imperial Security’s local Operations Commander.
She had been pretty sure he was going to open that second–to–last shipping container on the last trip.
Smuggling narcotics probably would have gotten her twenty years on a prison colony. The guns in that crate would have gotten her executed.
And it wasn’t like she was a revolutionary, or anything. If these people didn’t like their Duke, that was their issue. She was just going to make a good amount of money on the side providing them illicit materials.
Come to think of it, the Duke might have preferred it if she brought some of the softer narcotics. Not having anything to take the edge off of life on a crappy, dead–end world like this was part of what was driving the angry men to contemplate doing stupid things.
Stupider things.
Of course, Duke Waltev Damsell rarely came to Thuringwell to see that for himself, preferring life in the salons of the Imperial Capital, St. Legier.
“Seventh Son, this is Traffic Control,” Otto’s voice broke through her reverie. “Dock 14 is reserved. Lane assignments attached. See you in a few hours.”
Merryn lined the beast’s great nose up with the distant station and let the engines pulse.
From the outside, Seventh Son looked like one of the great aquatic rays that had been brought to space from the Homeworld during the great terraforming era and seeded in so many oceans. She was a wide, flat ellipse, thick in the middle, with the bridge where the creature’s eyes would be, wings that sloped subtly down, and a nasty stinger in the tail, right where she needed it when she was being chased by bad men.
Even if today she was going towards them.
Chapter I
Date of the Republic December 1, 395 Brani, Ladaux
That ornately–decorated, white door probably would have intimidated her, once upon a time. Terrified her, even.
But that was before.
Nothing could intimidate Jessica Keller today. All capacity for that had been burned out of her. Purged forever in the fires of battle at First Petron and First Ballard.
Today, she was even poised on the verge of returning to space, to starship command, for the first time since she had been formally relieved of duty above Ballard. Even the Court Martial for losing half of her squadron, both Auberon and Rajput too damaged to even make it home, had been a mere formality, Fleet Lords comparing the tonnage of losses for the Republic of Aquitaine Navy that day against the horrendous damage inflicted on the Fribourg Empire in a single afternoon of withering combat.
Today, she was nearly ready to go home. Back to space. Back to command. Back to the Eternal War she intended to win.
But first, a surprise visit into an even scarier place than the First Lord’s office at Fleet HQ. After all, she had been there several times now. And if she and a man like Nils Kasum weren’t going to be peers, they were certainly comrades in arms.
She could relax on that knowledge.
The door ahead was a more disconcerting puzzle.
Jessica took a moment as the hired skimmer dropped her at the top of the formal circular driveway, on a curb lined with well–manicured grass and artistically shaped hedge. She was surrounded by the evening air, redolent with rose gardens and an orchard of fruit trees nearby, planted long ago and slowly expanded by each office holder.
Jessica found the air comforting, even if she preferred the carefully processed air aboard a starship. Right now, she needed to catch her breath, center herself. This was a social event, not two war fleets maneuvering, or politicians that needed to be battled across a tabletop. Probably.
Who could have ever imagined that at twelve years old and holding the admission letter welcoming her to the Fleet Boarding School, that one day she would be looking at the front door of the President of the Republic? Had it really been twenty–six years?
Jessica pulled the invitation from the inside pocket of her jacket, just to read it once and experienced again the thrill. The heavy linen paper felt so imposing in her hands.
So far she had come, and yet so far remaining before her.
She smiled and tucked the letter back into her jacket. The language had been unusually specific. No uniforms. No Plus–One. A private dinner. Semi–casual cocktail attire, whatever that meant.
For Marcelle, her long–time steward and personal dog–robber, it had meant a budget to go shopping, and then time for a team of expert seamstresses to work their utter magic
and dreams into fabric.
The result was a form–fitting belted tunic in indigo, with sleeves down to just past her elbows and a shallow–V collar in a lighter purple, over a gray patterned skirt that came down to the top of cute, little, chocolate–dark, lace–up boots. Marcelle, but more to the point Indira, Jessica’s mother, had insisted on a light–weight gray–black jacket over that, cut somewhere between her normal, hip–length dress jacket and a bolero, done in a rough herringbone texture.
She no longer doubted the eyes of Marcelle, Indira, or Moirrey Kermode, when it came to fashion. The mirror an hour ago had made her look amazing.
And Jessica was no longer itchy wearing civilian clothes. Twenty–two months groundside, doing the rounds of politicians and finishing a Class II degree at Fleet Command School, had finally gotten her comfortable in mufti. A long visit home to Petron had done wonders, as well.
Home? Petron?
She could see duty. Jessica Keller was all about duty. But the trip to Petron four months ago, with Desianna Indah–Rodriguez, technically merely the senior government minister to David Rodriguez, Desianna’s son and Jessica’s Regent, but more importantly, her friend, had unlocked something, some painful knot in her soul.
She took a deep breath and faced a new dragon’s den. This woman tonight was merely the President of the Republic of Aquitaine. How scary could someone like Calina Szabolcsi be, after standing before her own throne on Petron again?
Ξ
The Presidential Palace was mostly a museum these days, rather than a working office. The Presidency itself was largely ceremonial and formal, with true power residing in the Senate.
That being said, it still came with perks.
Jessica was met at the door by two members of the Palace Guard in formal, rather dressy uniforms evoking an earlier age, backed by four other men and women with harder faces and heavily armed, lurking quietly in the corners.
The man on the right checked her invitation with diligence and ceremony before passing her with a warm smile to an usher. The latter was a young woman, possibly still a university student with family connections. Jessica followed her through a set of secured doors out of the museum and into the Personal Quarters.
These rooms were warmer, homier. Jessica could feel Madame Szabolcsi’s touch in the decorations, the colors, the very air. Carpets here were a warm green, walls a softer blue. Art on waist–high pillars regularly represented the best of the Republic: ceramics, bronzes, exotics of all kinds.
The young woman walked Jessica to a closed door, pulled it open outward into the hallway, and gestured for Jessica to proceed.
“Madam President awaits, ma’am,” she said with an impish grin and a twinkle in her eyes.
Jessica smiled back and stepped through the door.
Now, she would find out what was really going on.
Jessica entered the room, not quiet keyed up for a combat drop, but a little more wired than normal. The inhabitants put her on an ever–sharper guard even as she knew she was supposed to relax.
At a glance, there were only four people in the room, and she knew every single one of them, at least by sight and reputation.
Standing to her left, holding a tall goblet of something purple, First Fleet Lord Petia Naoumov. Flag Officer of the Star Controller Athena, SC–005. Commander of Home Fleet. The senior serving officer in the Republic of Aquitaine Navy. Jessica’s line boss in just about all things.
Petia was tall, taller even than Jessica’s aide Marcelle, with long black hair done up in an elaborate, formal braid, and Japanese ancestry in her skin and the bones of her gorgeous face. Tonight, she wore a flowing dress in taupe and sand colors, accentuated with bright green as she smiled in Jessica’s direction and nodded.
Jessica made a point to memorize everything she saw, knowing she would be grilled mercilessly by three fabric experts tomorrow.
Standing next to the First Fleet Lord was Hennigan McCandless, fourth generation of McCandless and Daughters, one of the largest and most important ship foundries in the Republic, and technically her own father’s boss, Miguel Keller now being one of five active Master Builders at the firm.
Hennigan was a small woman, with blond hair buzzed short on the sides and spikey on top. Her eyes always reminded Jessica of sapphires, or perhaps tanzanite. She was wearing dark blue slacks and a matching jacket over a crimson shirt. Not quite a power suit, but appropriate for a shark like Hennigan, even such a girlie shark.
Hennigan stepped close and engulfed her in a hug, and stood on her toes to plant a warm kiss on both cheeks.
“It’s good to see you, Jess,” she said with a warm smile.
“You too, Henn,” Jessica replied with an evil grin, leaning back but not breaking contact. “Is my ship done, yet?”
The smaller woman’s smile grew larger and she laughed throatily.
“I am not at liberty to divulge such state secrets, Keller,” she teased.
Hennigan turned her head to indicate the other pair of women in the room and gestured with one hand.
“Ask them.”
Jessica stepped clear of the hug and looked to her right.
Closer, standing next to a small bar tucked into the corner, was Senator Judit Margrét Chavarría, Premier of the Senate, political head of the Republic. They had never met formally, but Jessica had sat in occasional briefings with the woman.
She was a short, stocky fireplug of a woman, no taller than Moirrey Kermode, but she felt twice as massive. Her mahogany skin and black eyes stood out against a yellow dress that looked like the cold–weather descendant of a Sari, all wraps and long, flowing pieces going hither and yon.
Jessica started to say something when her brain finally registered who it was standing behind the waist–high bar, pouring drinks.
Calina Szabolcsi. Madame President.
She was tall, with an erect carriage that made her seem a head taller than Jessica’s barely average height. Her shoulder–length hair had long since gone silver–gray, but the piercing green eyes and bronzed skin had lost nothing with age. There was a charm, a charisma about the woman that was nearly magnetic. She was dressed in the most basic black: cotton dress, leather belt, onyx stone pendant set in a silver necklace.
The President gestured to the array of bottles around her with a smile.
“What will it be, Madam Keller?” she solicited.
Jessica’s normal default in these situations was a white wine. Usually something light, and barely consumed, but at least polite. Useful in unsure circumstances.
Tonight had a very different feel to it. Lighter, almost playful. Someplace Jessica Keller rarely visited.
“Champaign cocktail, please,” Jessica replied.
“Anything particular?” the President asked with a sly smile.
Jessica shrugged.
“Surprise me.”
The evening was already a surprise on many levels. She would let these women set the tone.
Something else she was learning to do. Let go. On occasion.
The President worked some invisible magic beneath the counter and handed Jessica a goblet that was an even deeper indigo than the First Fleet Lord’s, and far more fizzy.
Jessica took a sip and let the bubbles tickle her nose.
Political events were always serious events over wine. Fleet parties tended towards either harder alcohols or coffee, depending. This tasted vaguely like grape juice, cranberries, and champagne, heavy on the juice.
“Ah,” the President said with a bright voice, “our last voice is arrived.”
Jessica turned to consider the final guest, and received a greater surprise.
Dr. Wakely Okafor. Jessica had taken a master class in Imperial Governance from her during Fleet Command School. And plotted assorted mayhem with the woman over tea afterwards.
Wakely was a native of Zanzibar, one of the founding worlds of modern civilization and a member of the fabled Story Road that ran through deep space to Ballard.
Her
idea of cocktail attire was a bright red tabard, slashed to the hip over matching pants short enough to be called capris and a tight blue, long–sleeved top. In the middle of her chest, and once she turned to speak to Petia, her back, a blue cross fleury, musketeer–style. It showed off the defined muscles in her arms and shoulders. Wakely’s lines might have been better than the President’s, a woman who was herself a retired professional athlete. Their muscles were almost as good as Jessica’s, a master of Valse d’Glaive.
Her skin was the healthy brown of a good hot chocolate, with eyes like brown dwarf stars, hot and subdued. Dr. Okafor’s hair was almost shaved on the sides, and standing more than a hand–span tall on top, like some fierce, tribal mohawk atop a Maasai warrior from her ancient homeland, or a Samurai from Petia’s.
Jessica stood to one side as Wakely waded carefully into the room, far less at home in these rarified chambers. A glass of wine appeared and seemed to relax her.
“My friends, now that we are all here, I give you a toast,” President Szabolcsi intoned formally, holding her glass in the air. “The Republic.”
Jessica joined the ringing of glasses and took a drink.
“I suppose you are wondering why I have asked you all here tonight,” she continued with a merry laugh. “I realize that sounds like a bad mystery novel, but I will lay all the blame at Judit’s feet and absolve myself of all responsibility save bartending.”
This was not how Jessica expected an evening with this group of people, these women, to unfold. By any stretch of the imagination.
The Premier took a moment to eye each of them silently, carefully before she spoke.
“They will ask,” she began, in a dark and ominous tone. “In those Imperial Halls of Planning, those Intelligence wonders. They will speculate, when you go home and chat about a lovely, lively evening of drink and good food. They will draw the obvious conclusion.”
Judit took a drink and encouraged each of them to do the same.
“They will be wrong,” she continued with the faintest sneer in her tone and lips. “Because they are fools, they will believe what we want them to see.”
