by Blaze Ward
Conrad was amazed at how many women Aquitaine had under arms. The Fribourg Empire didn’t allow women to do much of anything dangerous or exciting.
He glanced at Elizabeth and took one last drink from his canteen. Neither of them had been expecting Aquitaine to respond that quickly. It might have been thirty minutes, from first call to troops dropped.
These people were not fooling around.
“Mid–valley,” he said simply into the comm. “There is a clearing on the creek. We’re on the east edge, back under the trees.”
“Understood,” she said simply. “Walk slowly into the clearing.”
They were already here?
Conrad checked his shotgun, slung across his back next to his backpack. The canteen went back on the belt, as did the radio. Elizabeth did the same, wary as a rabbit.
On a lark, he took her hand in his, like a couple of lovers on a hike. Hopefully, it would make them look less threatening.
She nearly balked for a second, and then relaxed with a soft growl that promised words later.
The clearing was suddenly too small. Pleasant and homey had given way to eerie and confined. Conrad took ten steps into the low grass and looked around.
“Hello?”
“Good enough,” a man yelled. “Stand right there. And put the weapons on the ground slowly.”
It came from his left. Maybe. Nothing but trees.
Nothing to do but obey. Conrad moved like a mime he had seen once, all over–sized gestures done slowly for people to observe. He really didn’t want to die, today. Elizabeth was just as twitchy.
Once the guns were down, he took Elizabeth’s hand again and stepped well away from them.
Silence. Eerie, delicate silence.
A man appeared. Big, bulky, intimidating.
He walked closer with deliberate paces, a pistol in one hand held low by his side.
The stranger smiled, but the face was not a pretty one. He looked like an ogre trying to figure out how to not scowl.
As he got closer, Conrad realized he might come up to the man’s nose in height, and was maybe two–thirds as far across the shoulders.
Giant. Coming closer. Death.
Conrad took a deep breath and silently said a prayer in his head.
The risk and reward of command.
The stranger paused about ten meters away. The pistol came up and loosely pointed in their direction, more a statement of fact than a threat.
“Gold–Seven?” he rumbled in a deep voice.
Conrad nodded.
“Just you two?”
Again, a nod. Conrad didn’t trust words. He could see movement emerging along the edge of the trees behind the ogre. Lots of movement. Mostly guns pointed in his direction.
A whole lot of guns.
A short whistle from the treeline.
The man holstered his gun and smiled. Kind of.
“I’m Centurion Vo Arlo, attached to Fourth Saxon,” he introduced himself. “You wanted to talk?”
Chapter XXIV
Date of the Republic May 8, 396 SC Auberon. Above Thuringwell
“What do we know?”
Jessica felt powerless. Isolated.
It was not a happy feeling, watching her contingency plans fall apart. She had always had everything worked out several steps ahead of the other guy.
Here she was in close orbit, trailing the Imperial station as her engineers rebuilt it slowly. Nothing particularly interesting was happening at this altitude.
That was the primary reason she had chosen a dead–end place like Thuringwell. Almost no interstellar traffic, and all of it predictable enough that she might be able to capture everyone that blundered along. That would keep the Fribourg Empire in the dark far longer than an attack on Iger would have.
Hopefully, there was still a reinforced battle fleet still hiding at Iger for her to never come.
She would only get one chance to surprise them with this trick. It would work or fail under her hands. Well, hers and Wakely’s. Plus Fourth Saxon, LVIII Heavy, Digger, Moirrey, and a whole cast of people history might never remember.
But it would all hang on her head.
Success has many parents. Failure is an orphan. That was what the ancients had said.
Jessica looked around her cabin. After so long on the Strike Carrier, she was still getting used to the quarters she had inherited aboard the Star Controller. This room, her single cabin, was only slightly smaller than her old Flag Bridge had been.
She had an attached private sleeping chamber with a personal head and shower. A walk–in closet that was huge.
The better for all those custom–tailored uniforms I’m probably supposed to have.
Jessica snorted under her breath. Former First Fleet Lord Loncar probably would have filled up that closet and overflowed into another chamber.
Out in the main room, a salon that could comfortably seat half a dozen people and a bar to serve them, plus a full conference table with broadcast electronics over in one corner.
She had considered stripping the place out and putting in a training dojo here, but she was the Fleet Centurion. She needed to command her people. That meant having their respect and not being too far out there. As she knew she was.
Not as bad as Alber’ d’Maine, but close.
Deep breath.
On the screen Wakely was still reviewing her notes.
“When we landed, the Imperial Security folks at the various mining camps bolted like rabbits,” Wakely said with a hint of a smile. “The Army Regulars didn’t have orders to do anything stupid, so they kept order until we could put local troops in place and take charge.”
Lop off the head of a snake, and it flops around. Decapitate an Imperial Army garrison and it will simply keep on keeping on. Aquitaine infantry troops probably would have done the same thing as Imperial Security, and almost as fast.
Still, the mines were intact and had started producing ores within three days. If the current rate was only half of what it had been before, Jessica had no doubt that it would ramp up once she got through to these men.
“As a result, we have all the records at the mines that were destroyed in Yonin,” Wakely continued. “We also have a guest, of a sort.”
“Of a sort?” Jessica asked.
“The man is Conrad Penztler,” Wake replied. “Imperial records show him as a ring–leader who tried to organize a strike in the primary mine. He was tortured for a while before he was released. He disappeared into the forest, became what they call bushmen around here, and joined or started a small planetary liberation movement. He came to us to talk.”
“And he just turned himself in?” Jessica had a hard time buying that.
On the one hand, gift horses. On the other, gifts bearing Greeks.
“They heard our offer of amnesty, Jessica,” Wakely replied, looking straight at her on the screen for the first time. “That’s what Penztler wanted to discuss. The gift he gave us was the location of a platoon of guerillas that were moving in to hit the starport again.”
“Did we get them?” Jessica asked sharply, leaning forward.
“No,” Wakely began. “Burdge put a patrol in front of them as a dam, and is currently chasing them backwards into the heavy brush.”
“What? Why?”
“That’s what I asked, Jessica,” she replied heavily. “He said wanted to drive them hard and see where they went. He figured that they might call for help that he could turn around and mousetrap. We have far more firepower on call than they do.”
Jessica rested both of her palms flat atop her thighs and bit back her first response. She would have annihilated them and dared the rest to challenge her. But you could do that in space, where there was no place to hide. You fought until someone surrendered or fled into JumpSpace.
War on the ground was far more messy.
“Good enough,” Jessica growled. “What else can he tell us?”
“Actually, Margrave,” Wakely said with a twinkle in h
er eye. “He wants to talk to you about the entire liberation movement surrendering, or possibly enlisting in our cause.”
Jessica stopped and played that last part back again in her head.
“That easy?” Jessica asked with an edge.
“It is what we set out to do, Jessica,” Wakely said with a serious, almost sepulchral tone.
Jessica let herself smile.
“I didn’t actually think it would work, Wakely.”
“Me, neither. But what do we have to lose?”
“Everything, Palsgrave. Everything.”
Jessica took a breath before she continued.
“You think I should come down and meet with this man?”
“He is apparently the second–in–command of the largest force of rebels under arms,” Wakely replied. “And he thinks that they might be willing.”
“Good enough,” Jessica said. “I’m already adjusted to Yonin local time. I’ll come down first thing tomorrow and have a chat with his man.”
Jessica keyed off the channel and leaned back to think.
No plan survives contact with the enemy. That’s why he’s the enemy. His job is to fuck it up.
And her original plan had gone right out the airlock anyway.
Orbital Control destroyed instead of captured. The station itself badly damaged. One of the ore freighters shattered into pieces all over the starport, just now being cleaned up. Imperial Security reacting far faster than they should have, to get under arms and disappear before she could bottle them up. If estimates were correct, there was nearly a full cohort of troops out there, possibly six hundred hard, angry men.
And they were going to fight her to the death on this one.
Chapter XXV
Date of the Republic May 9, 396 SC Auberon. Above Thuringwell
It was one of the benefits to the local planetary infrastructure Jessica hadn’t anticipated, but was more than willing to take advantage of. The City Hall building on the planet below her, at Yonin, had been built like a veritable fortress by previous, extremely paranoid, mayors and planetary governors.
Not only had LVIII Heavy’s particle cannons not particularly damaged the structure, but it was actually still strong enough that an administrative shuttle could land on the roof with clearance on all sides. Instead of landing amidst all the mess at the starport, and knocking everyone there off rhythm with salutes and busywork, she could go straight to the capital to meet with Wakely.
Jessica had a particularly jaunty walk this morning as she came out of Auberon’s main corridor and entered the dramatically–overdone Ready Room for visiting dignitaries.
Again, unlike former First Fleet Lord Loncar, she didn’t need to make a production of catching a shuttle to the surface. Denis Jež had everything in hand here. The squadron knew what to do, and she could always command from the surface if an Imperial warfleet decided to show up right now, assuming they didn’t give her time to get back to her Flag Bridge.
An Imperial commander was likely to be careful. Not everyone was willing to take the risks that Emmerich Wachturm, the dreaded Red Admiral, did as a matter of course. He might charge in on her at full bore, like last time.
Live by the sword…
The ready room itself was overkill, but Auberon was a Star Controller, not just another warship in the fleet. This would be the first place a visiting Ambassador or First Fleet Lord would see when they boarded. As a result, it was built big and pretty.
Inside the airlock–grade door to the flight deck, the room was twelve meters wide and sixteen long, with a four meter ceiling for no better purpose than to impress scale on a visitor. The carpet was Republic of Aquitaine Navy Green, a dark, forest green, just this side of moss, thick enough to wade through, but durable enough to last through any kind of party, including Auberon’s pilots.
The walls and ceiling were raw metal that had been covered over with a paint the naval architect called Celadon, perhaps a shade more green than Ladeaux’s sky in the morning. At least here, unlike most places, no pipes were visible, with only HVAC air vent outlets in the walls.
Along Jessica’s left–hand wall, a row of bolted–down, cloth–covered sofas and comfortable chairs, were arranged into three little groups and done in a mottled gray pattern that would hide any stain. Across the way was a full–service bar with a small kitchen in the room behind it, in case she needed to throw a dinner party complete with cocktails and munchies, but didn’t want to bother the Main Wardroom up three levels.
Decadence, writ in naval architecture.
Centurion Enej Zivkovic, her long–time Flag Centurion, was already there waiting, seated on a sofa with his computer on his lap and one of his Yeomen beside him, when Jessica arrived. He looked up from his conversation, saw her, and whispered one last set of instructions. The other woman nodded, turned, nodded deeper to Jessica, and flew from the room without a word.
Jessica walked close and smiled at the man who was as much her left hand as Denis Jež was her right. She nodded to indicate the woman who had just left.
“Anything I need to worry about?” she asked.
“They’re big boys and girls, Commander,” he replied, closing up the shell of his computer and standing. “They can handle it themselves, for the most part, once somebody makes a suggestion. If you have to get involved, I’ve probably screwed up. Yeoman Travere is already aboard and waiting for us.”
Jessica had wondered where her aide d’camp had disappeared to. Normally, the tall woman was her shadow, following her everywhere except the head. An hour ago, she had said she would make the flight, and vanished.
Enej awaited Jessica’s attention.
Jessica was struck suddenly by the changes in the man before her. Enej was as much taller than normal as she was shorter than average, but he was skinny. Not lean, like Tomas Kigali, or even average, but skin over bones. Even his uniforms tended to look baggy. He kept his blond hair very short, almost a buzz cut, and his green eyes didn’t miss anything.
Originally, he had come from a very poor family, another Scholarship Student like Jessica. The kind that got into Fleet Boarding school, and later the Academy itself, on brains and not connections.
Kindred spirits.
But unlike Jessica, Enej had not impressed anyone enough along the way that they took an interest in his future career. She was where she was today in part because a future First Lord of the Fleet had been her first tactics instructor, twenty–five years ago.
Enej had ended up in the boonies of the Fleet, a brilliant young officer in a fleet of merely very smart ones. His problem was the lack of a pure killer instinct. An aggressive officer, even a dumb one, would advance, if he was lucky enough to survive. Enej played multi–dimensional chess, rather than poker.
Until Jessica had scanned his file before taking command of CVS Auberon, he was doomed to go nowhere. She had taken a chance on the young man, reading between the lines in his personnel file, and had never regretted it.
This morning, he stood perfectly still before her.
Jessica wondered if the semi–quiet relationship he had maintained with Furious, one of her top pilots, had influenced the man, or whether coming so close to death so many times had burned all the fidgeting out of the man.
Once, her Flag Centurion had fidgeted constantly, rocking his weight back and forth on his feet, or drumming his fingers on a countertop. Something.
Today, perfect calmness, like the surface of a pond in the first light of dawn.
Night and day, but they had all been through the fires at First Petron and First Ballard.
None of them would ever be the same.
Enej had gone from being merely a Flag Centurion to being her Chief of Staff. And he would probably continue in this role until she retired, or one of them got killed.
Having his solidity, along with Denis Jež and her other commanders, made it all possible.
Jessica let the moment stretch a bit longer, enjoying the calm competence the man exuded into the
room. It was like the first warm sunlight rising.
“We ready?” she asked, finally.
“Shuttle’s warmed up,” he replied simply. “Pilot has a running calc going. Escort team will launch as soon as you step onto the flight deck. Everything else is waiting for us or in one of our heads.”
He paused and smiled a mischievous grin.
“And Gaucho’s a bit put out that he’s not flying you down this morning.”
“I have no intention of going to this meeting smelling like a horse.”
“That’s what I told him, Commander,” Enej concluded. “Plus, he’s having fun playing taxi for Fourth Saxon, and the rumor mill says he might have a cowgirl girlfriend.”
“What woman would be crazy enough…?”
Jessica paused and thought about it for a second.
“Dash Mitja? Scout Patrol, First Cohort.”
“That would be the one, boss.”
Jessica shook her head and turned towards the airlock–hatch. Those two getting together would either cancel each other out, or multiply the crazy. There would be no middle ground.
Heaven help us all.
Just outside of the big hatch was a small office. The transparent walls enclosing it kept the sound of the flight deck out, and, in event of an emergency, kept air in.
Seated at the center of the chaos, surrounded by a team of helpers, Command Flight Centurion Iskra Vlahovic looked like a queen. She was a former pilot who had been medically retired after they cut her out of the shattered remains of her fighter craft. Then she came back to service and recreated herself a second career as a flight engineer.
A small woman with an outsize personality, and a willingness to keep pilots in line. Something that Jessica had needed when she inherited the bizarre Flight Wing of old Auberon.
And it had worked so well she had kept the same strange configuration on the Star Controller. Instead of three flights of nine M–6 fighters like the others, she had two, plus the old Scouting and Saturation Wing alignment: da Vinci in her little P–4 Outrider scout, augmented now with four S–11 Orca medium bombers, and four more M–6 fighters. From a distance, it would look like the typical full wing of twenty–seven signatures, right until someone looked close, or the Orcas let loose.
