Goddess of War (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 4)

by Blaze Ward

  Standard Fleet tactics for a force this size called for the entire force to drop out of JumpSpace well outside of the planet’s gravity well as a block, launch fighters, and march carefully to the guns. Jessica sneered at the memory of First Fleet Lord Loncar treating Third Iger that way. A textbook screw–up.

  Hopefully, enough Republic spies had planted enough seeds in the current of rumor that the Fribourg Empire expected her to try for what would have been labeled Fourth Iger, had she gone there instead. It was also a good target, but more heavily defended.

  A key anchor point for the entire frontier.

  Hopefully, there was an entire battle fleet poised at Iger, hiding and waiting for her. Like moray eels down in the rocks for a swimmer to come overhead. And they would stay put when the news of Thuringwell arrived, convinced that this was just a distraction to pull them out of position before she jumped them.

  What the hell would anyone want with a place like Thuringwell, anyway? What did it gain the Republic?

  What, indeed?

  Emergence.

  Like diving into a warm swimming pool. One moment dry, the next wet. The whole universe flinched around her.

  All the projections came live at once.

  Instead of a single projection in the middle of the big conference table, like the old Auberon, she had the big hologram in the center, and eight more smaller ones around it, plus an entire conference tabletop of flat screens displaying whatever information she needed behind their waterproof screens.

  She was still nervous to set down a mug of coffee, even after Marcelle, her aide, had turned over a cup of coffee on it, just to prove a point.

  Jessica smiled, and turned to look at Marcelle, comfortably waiting in a nearby corner jumpseat for Jessica’s orders or needs.

  Marcelle smiled back knowingly.

  Would she have ever gotten here without that woman’s help?

  “Contact,” Enej called.

  Where he used to have a trio of enlisted assistants on the Strike Carrier, he now had a whole dedicated Flag Staff, fourteen people tracking things in this room, plus more in another cabin, talking to everyone, making sure nothing rolled off the table when it got messy out there.

  An Imperial fleet would have had three times as many people at hand, in a much larger room. But Republic fleets were not commanded from the Flag Bridge.

  They were directed.

  Everyone knew the plan, and their place in it. They were professionals. But here, they were given flexibility to adapt to circumstances without clearing it with the Fleet Centurion first.

  Loncar would be ranting and frothing at the mouth right now. It was only one of the reasons he would never command again. After all, he hadn’t actually been convicted of treason, only implicated and allowed to resign his commission and return to his estates in disgrace. Not like some of the others who had been involved.

  Nils Kasum had let Loncar slide off the hook, but that was more of a favor to the Noble Lords of the fleet. He still needed their support, even if many of them would have gladly watched Loncar hang once his behavior became public.

  “Give me the dispositions, Enej,” Jessica called across the room, loud enough that everyone could hear.

  He might not even be the one to handle the task, but someone would update the screen with the things she needed. Another thing this crew did better.

  RAN Ballard had gotten here first and sat quietly for several hours, listening to the traffic and watching like a gargoyle from the distant edge of the system. It was one of the best things a Survey Cruiser did, scouting quietly.

  It was better than Jessica had hoped. And worse.

  Farther down the gravity well, one of the enormous ore freighters had just started her descent into the planet’s atmosphere. They were monsters that collected all the minerals from the surface and hauled them off to one of the planets that specialized in steel mills. Being on the ground when she got here, Jessica could easily capture it and fill it with ore to haul off.

  Jessica sneered to herself. A Republic world would have put the mills closer, here on Thuringwell’s surface or on an orbital platform. But that wasn’t how the Imperial economy worked.

  Thuringwell was a monoculture economy world, like so many of them were. Almost an old–fashioned company town, as she had understood the term from her studies of ancient history. The only industry was the mining of truly exotic minerals from a planet with a random overabundance of them, apparently having been born in the neighborhood of several ancient supernovae.

  You could work in the mines, or support the miners.

  Even with nearly ten million inhabitants, there was almost no agriculture on a scale larger than a few farmers markets supplying fresh vegetables, from what almost amounted to victory gardens.

  Plus, there were very few women here, and those were mostly professional entertainers of various flavors, rather than wives starting families.

  Everything was shipped in from elsewhere, leaving the men below her trapped in their circumstances: dead–ended, broke, and unhappy.

  The central projection lit up with a full schematic of Thuringwell and nearby space.

  Two smaller bulk freighters in orbit, probably unloading shipping containers of food and consumables to one of the orbital platforms owned by the Imperial Navy or the Duke. A variety of smaller country craft, locals without JumpSails just getting into orbit or onto the surface.

  The Imperial Navy station came into view.

  Again, that stark reminder of 2218 Svati Prime. These things were almost exactly alike, usually built in pieces at a central yard and transported to station for assembly. An even dozen fighter craft for emergencies. A pair of local patrol boats for rescue and customs duty. Less firepower combined than either of her destroyer squadrons.

  Again, why the hell would anybody want a place like Thuringwell?

  “Squadron, this is the Flag,” Jessica intoned formally, knowing her words were automatically routed to all of the ships in the area. “Prepare for final jump.”

  Screen Seven showed Auberon at the center of a sphere. Behind her, the Assault Carriers, Abbotsford and Achaemenes, with CR–264 close by like a sheepdog herding them.

  Outside that, the Battlecruiser Nyamboya, with Robbie Aeliaes commanding; the Heavy Cruiser Experimental Shivaji, with Alber’ d’Maine at the helm; the Light Missile Cruiser Ishfahan, under Dorian Matveev; and the Survey Cruiser Ballard, with Cosmina Lungu.

  Further in, the Escort Force. Her and Robbie’s old command, Brightoak, and her squadron mates, Vigilant and Rubicon, protecting a trio of Escort Carriers: Andover, Albena, and Advocate, each of them a modified destroyer capable of fielding a trio of fighters. A whole other squadron of melee fighters.

  Well up the gravity well, Jessica’s Support Force. Two fast Fleet Replenishment Freighters: Duncan, and Jessica’s old cohort from Ballard, Mendocino. The Support Carrier Andorra, hauling an entire flight wing in cold storage and replacement pilots for extended campaigns. The Minesweeper Wombat, filled with deadly, little eggs like a spider. And the most revolutionary concept in modern warfare: the Troop Transport Ladysmith, reconfigured and loaded up with cattle, pigs, and sheep.

  Thuringwell had been terraformed, once upon a time, millennia ago. Much of her surface today was grass–covered plains and a good mix of deciduous and evergreen forests.

  Rabbits, beavers, squirrels, and lots of other small animals had been added, along with predators to keep them in stock. Deer, elk, and bighorn had been turned loose, along with a few cattle, pigs, and sheep.

  What she was bringing were new herds to expand bloodlines and see if she could make the entire planet self–sufficient for food.

  It was a very good use of some of the treasure she had inherited as Queen of Petron, along with pallets and pallets of seeds of all kinds and entire orchards of young fruit trees in half–barrels.

  The Command Centurion of Ladysmith, Guiomar Zelenko, hadn’t been pleased to find out her latest mission, until she
sat down and really dug into the ramifications of Operation Harbinger. At that point, she had cackled madly and thrown herself and her crew into the task with a fervor.

  Jessica smiled broadly.

  Revolutions were won down in the scrum, doing the little things that made it easier for the ball carrier to break loose and get all the glory scoring. Like flying the galaxy’s largest farm animal truck into battle.

  “All vessels, execute Plan Epsilon,” Jessica said formally. “Make your jumps. Engage as you bear.”

  Alpha had assumed an enemy fleet too large to engage, followed by a rapid retreat into JumpSpace.

  Beta, Gamma, and Delta would see the fleet engaging progressively smaller forces.

  Now the fun would begin.

  Epsilon was fox in the hen house. Any of the three cruisers could destroy the station, if that had been her plan. Hopefully, overwhelming force would cause the Imperial side to politely strike their colors and nobody would be killed today.

  Tomorrow, if all went well, the hard part of governing, and the heads–cracking–together of a polite revolution.

  Jessica rolled the dice.

  Chapter XI

  Imperial Founding: 174/04/28. Thuringwell Orbital Control

  Otto watched the signals as the Imperial Ore Carrier TCH–101251071MBQ settled into her glide descent and began to slowly circle her way down to Yonin Port on the surface below.

  Everything was on the beam.

  He took a sip of stale coffee and checked the boards. Nobody else was scheduled until tomorrow late shift, so he could mostly put his feet up and let the systems quietly listen to deep space murmuring. Another thirty minutes and MBQ would be on the ground. He could pull out a book at that point.

  Calm. Quiet. Proper.

  The arrival signal was jarring. That was intentional.

  A ship dropping out of JumpSpace that wasn’t registered should immediately get the attention of the Traffic Control Officer. It was the signal for a customs intercept, ninety percent of the time. Occasionally, it meant pirates, but Thuringwell was protected enough to keep them at bay.

  A second chime sounded.

  A third.

  Oh, schiesse.

  Otto watched the signal board light up with arrivals.

  Fourteen signals were active by the time he could bring his brain to engage.

  Fourteen?

  And then a cloud of smaller signals erupted. Melee fighters. Hordes of them. None of them displaying an Imperial identification signal.

  Otto unlocked the little rocker control at the top of his board and took a deep breath before he pushed it to the lock position.

  “All hands to battle stations,” he said into the comm, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Enemy invasion fleet inbound.”

  The room’s lights went red. A siren wound itself up, sufficient to wake the dead.

  Why the hell would anybody want a place like Thuringwell?

  Ξ

  The alarm brought Dieter to his feet automatically.

  “All hands to battle stations,” the man’s voice said. “Enemy invasion fleet inbound.”

  How many years had he planned for this moment? Prepared with every ounce of his being? Waited to be vindicated?

  “Traffic Control, this is Colonel Haussmann,” he keyed the comm live.

  “Channel Two, Colonel,” Otto Vollelk replied immediately.

  Good, that man was on the ball. One of the others would have wasted precious seconds arguing protocol with him. Otto had already sent him the scan logs.

  Mother of God. That’s an entire battle fleet. And those two are Republic Assault Carriers. This really is an invasion.

  Dieter took a moment to memorize everything, and then transmitted it to the surface for safe–keeping.

  He switched to a second comm channel.

  “Go ahead, Colonel Haussmann,” Captain Arnholdt said immediately.

  The station commander had a very calm voice. Dieter could already hear the resignation of defeat in it.

  Fool.

  “What are your plans, Captain?” Dieter asked anyway.

  As if there was any doubt.

  “Strike on honorable terms, Colonel,” the man replied. “They outgun us by at least two orders of magnitude. Combat would be simple suicide at this point. I suggest you do the same.”

  Suggest? You do not offer suggestions to the Imperial Security Bureau, Captain.

  “As you will, Arnholdt,” Dieter said simply. “I will escape and carry on the fight from the surface.”

  Dieter cut the channel before the man could reply.

  The man had nothing useful to say.

  It was one thing to fight off a squadron of small raiders. This station would be overwhelmed in less than an hour. Possibly, they would be destroyed. More likely, everyone would be taken prisoner and used to assist the invasion force.

  That would not do.

  Dieter typed in the twenty–seven digit code that wiped out his board’s memory. In fifteen minutes, if he didn’t override it, it would do the same to the station’s memory core.

  And then it would activate the scuttling charges.

  Dieter scowled at the universe.

  He had warned them on St. Legier that this day might come. They had laughed and sent him to a distant backwater planet as a punishment.

  He would show them.

  There weren’t many of his security officers on the station. Most were located on the planet’s surface, playing cat to the many mice hiding in the brush and the granary. Dieter sent a signal to them, activating the correct sequence of contingency plans.

  Those cowards in the Imperial Fleet might be about to surrender. Imperial Security never would.

  Dieter pulled the key to his safe from a necklace under his tunic and opened the armored box in the bulkhead behind his desk. Papers could not be intercepted, could not be corrupted. And they burned nicely.

  The red notebook went into a satchel kept in the safe for just this moment, along with a bundle of currency, a handgun, and two spare powerpacks.

  A seven–digit code activated the timer on the flash charge to destroy everything else inside. He closed the safe door most of the way, grabbed a small go–pack from the bottom drawer of his desk, and stepped to the outer door to his office.

  “Why do you want an office so far from the central complex, Colonel Haussmann?” they had asked, time and again.

  Dieter smiled cruelly to himself as he walked directly across the hallway and opened the hatch to the emergency escape pod.

  He stepped in, sat down, stowed his gear, and felt the system come alive and embrace him. Five seconds later, it launched him straight down to the surface of Thuringwell.

  Let us see how well your invasion pans out, Aquitaine.

  Chapter XII

  Date of the Republic April 28, 396 SC Auberon. Above Thuringwell

  Jessica stared at the display in quiet shock. At least for a moment.

  Surprise occurs in the enemy commander’s mind.

  Mine.

  Move.

  “Enej,” she called sharply. “What the hell just happened?”

  In the primary projection, the icon that had been Thuringwell’s orbital command station had just exploded.

  Well, fizzled, really. That part that had been the Imperial Fleet’s fighter squadron base had vented plasma through the lock shields. A tremendous lot of it.

  The rest of the station didn’t appear to be in much better shape.

  As she watched, tertiary explosions continued to wrack the place, like an earthquake in pudding.

  Jessica had an image in her head halfway between an orange being ripped in two by an ogre, and a snowball in the face of a blowtorch.

  “Engineering suggests someone tried to blow the station up from the inside,” her Flag Centurion replied after a moment. “Not all the scuttling charges went off.”

  He checked his readout closely.

  “Both cutters appear to have survived. No fighters mad
e it out.”

  Jessica considered the options. None of them were good. Nothing she had planned had taken this chain of events into account.

  “Squadron, this is the Flag,” she said, knowing the message would be transmitted everywhere and obeyed. It better be obeyed. “All units stand down hostilities unless fired on. Repeat do not fire unless fired upon first. Transmit that order in the clear, just to make sure everyone in the system hears it.”

  She took a deep breath and trusted the fates.

  “Enej,” she said formally. “Contact the two Imperial cutters and order them to begin rescue operations immediately. Launch Gaucho right now to assist, and then coordinate getting as many DropShips and EVA teams as we can over there to pick up survivors. Back them with all the GunShips in case anyone feels frisky, but anybody on our side who fires first better hope the Imperials get to them before I do.”

  “Aye, sir,” he replied. “Stand by.”

  Jessica watched the man lean forward and speak rapidly into a sound–deadening microphone.

  Eighteen months planning. And nobody had ever suggested something as amazingly stupid as destroying the space station when Aquitaine showed up.

  Apparently, I need to hire a couple of twelve–year old boys for better ideas in juvenile delinquency, next time. Maybe I should ask Marcelle’s nephews.

  Chapter XIII

  Date of the Republic April 29, 396 SC Auberon. Above Thuringwell

  “Gentlemen, welcome,” she said quietly. “I am Fleet Centurion Jessica Keller, of the Republic of Aquitaine Navy.”

  Two new faces had joined her staff of projections around the table, to go with the thirty–odd who were physically present in the room. Lieutenants Walsh and Koppanen, commanding the two Imperial cutters, CML–1596 and CML–1688, respectively.

  Both men were in shock, but handling it well. Hearing her name seemed to at once jar them, and then relax them. Apparently, she was the succubus in the night to many Imperial folks, but she still had a reputation for honor within the Imperial Navy.