Goddess of War (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 4)

by Blaze Ward

  Joh could do that.

  Perks of power, as long as you didn’t abuse them. That was what made them all the more powerful.

  His Imperial Majesty requests…

  And then magic happened.

  Joh smiled to himself before settling into his serious face and taking a breath.

  He came around the corner of the doorway and looked inside.

  Sure enough. Books. Hundreds of them. Every color, every size, every topic, from what Joh remembered. The man didn’t have many idiosyncrasies, but collecting physical books was one of them.

  The man Joh was here to see sat behind a desk strewn with papers, neatly arranged into several stacks. He appeared to be editing a manuscript, as student papers would be electronic. Joh imagined he could hear the pen scratching the page.

  A shadow, or perhaps a sound, caught the man’s attention. He looked up from under fiercely brooding eyebrows. There were shadows in those eyes that had only appeared recently. Depths and pain.

  The beard was new as well. The hair was perhaps two centimeters longer than it would be under regulations, were this man still on duty. And it had finally gone the rest of the way gray, while Joh’s was still brown above his ears, at least for a few more years. At least Joh knew what he would look like, were he to grow a beard in a few years.

  The man’s time behind a desk had done the opposite of what one would expect, as he had apparently lost weight. Perhaps he had more time to eat right and exercise regularly. That would be a first, considering the need.

  Only the uniform hadn’t changed. That man had absolutely thrown a fit at the suggestion that he be promoted. Joh wondered if blue would be an insult after so much time in red.

  So much of the man’s legend wrapped up in the color red.

  In the end, Joh had acquiesced. It was one of the few times this man had made serious demands on his Emperor, threatened him with retirement, calling in old favors, blackmailing him with stories that could be told.

  And Joh owed this man more than either of them could ever possibly tally, let along repay.

  The Imperial Admiral of the Red Emmerich Wachturm studied his Emperor silently for several more seconds. It seemed to stretch into minutes, or days.

  They had been friends for nearly five decades. Words weren’t always necessary.

  “What’s she done now?” Emmerich asked simply.

  Joh blinked.

  How could Em possibly know?

  He didn’t. He was The Red Admiral. The best tactician in the last century, Fribourg, Aquitaine, or anyone else.

  He would probably know. Still…

  “How did you know?”

  “Anything else, from politics to show horses, you would have invited me to a quiet family dinner at the Palace and picked my brain over century–old brandy,” Em replied solidly.

  It was like listening to a mountain speak.

  “The only thing that would blast you out of your palace to come here and see me, personally and without warning, is Jessica Keller,” Wachturm continued. “It’s something so outrageous that Naval Command and your staff have no response, and you can only think of one man who can help.”

  Emmerich Wachturm studied him hard, eyes like a predator lurking at the edge of the fire, blinking slowly.

  Joh kept waiting for a growl to come from the darkness.

  “There are days I would like to hate you, Em,” His August Imperial Majesty replied sarcastically as he stepped further into the room, pulled a short stack of books out of the way, and placed them on the floor so he could plop down in the only chair and stretch his legs out to one side.

  “But I’m right,” The Red Admiral replied.

  “Em, you’re almost always right,” Joh replied.

  Joh watched a shadow of pain flit across the man’s face.

  Almost always.

  Except when it came to Jessica Keller.

  And then nobody ever seemed to be right, except perhaps Nils Kasum, First Lord of the Republic of Aquitaine Navy. The enemy.

  Emmerich Wachturm, Joh’s favorite cousin, had been his Best Man, his Sword, his Shield for decades now. Together, they had driven the Fribourg Empire to heights undreamt of a century ago.

  And then Jessica Keller.

  “You could have her assassinated,” Emmerich said quietly.

  Joh nearly snarled at the man who was his closest friend after his Empress.

  “If that is how I have to win, to rule, then I have already failed, Em,” Johannes, His Imperial Majesty Karl VII, Emperor of Fribourg, said sharply.

  Joh considered other options. He reached back with a hand and flipped the door closed softly enough that it would latch, but not hard enough to make the hair–trigger guards outside jump.

  Just enough to separate them from affairs of state.

  “That is the one other great pity,” the Emperor continued, almost murmuring to himself. “There is no man we could offer her in a dynastic marriage to broker a generational peace with Aquitaine.”

  “I greatly respect the man that the Crown Prince is becoming,” Emmerich replied with a nod. “But Jessica Keller would consume him like a flame. What news of the M'hanii Frontier?”

  “Your strategic changes have begun to bear fruit,” Joh replied. “Not enough. Not yet. But I can see the improvements. That is one of the reasons you are here, instead of on the frontier.”

  Emmerich scowled darkly in response.

  Inwardly, Joh cursed himself. He was a much better speaker than that. It was unnecessary to rub the man’s face in the fact that he had been forcibly retired from field command.

  By Imperial Edict…

  Emmerich was too close. It was too easy to relax around him.

  Unintended pain was occasionally the consequence.

  “Keller,” Admiral of the Red Wachturm growled into the hollow quiet.

  He sounded like a mid–winter bear roused at the end of a short stick.

  “They commissioned the new Auberon as a Star Controller,” Joh replied carefully.

  How much of that was an Aquitaine response to Emmerich Wachturm and his famed Battleship Amsel, the Blackbird? A Star Controller could take on a Battleship and win.

  Another reason Em was in this office instead of command. He would try, and she might finally beat him bad enough to cost the Emperor his best strategist, his Best Man. His best friend.

  “Instead of a work–up cruise to show the flag, like much of the Imperial High Command suggested, she went straight to the frontier and launched an attack,” Joh continued.

  Wachturm raised a single, beetling eyebrow, but retained his poise.

  “On the off–chance you were right,” Joh said, “I had ordered a fleet to assemble and hide at Iger. A few Admirals suggested that would be her target, to pay us back for the defeat they suffered there four years ago.”

  “She wasn’t defeated at Iger, Joh,” Emmerich laughed gruffly. “Only that fool Loncar. Where did she go?”

  “Thuringwell. April 28.” Joh replied.

  It was a mark of all those years on a flag bridge. Joh had seen it many times.

  Emmerich’s face fell into confusion and a hand reached out automatically to pull a book from a nearby shelf, almost without looking. The Red Admiral probably could locate his copy of the Imperial Gazetteer half asleep and blind, stinking drunk.

  Most of the good officers were like that.

  The Fribourg Emperor sat patiently as Wachturm flipped the book open and devoured the page.

  “Duke Waltev Damsell?” he asked with a furrowed, confused brow. “That fop?”

  “I’m sure he thinks of himself as a dashing rake,” Joh smirked. “He certainly was, thirty–odd years ago. But yes. Him.”

  Moments of hard silence stretched as Em read and thought.

  Joh could see Em’s eyes dance back and forth on some distant, unseen horizon.

  “She’s mousetrapped you, Joh,” Em finally said.

  “There is a reason I came here, Em, instead of ord
ering you to the palace, you know.”

  “No,” Em countered. “It’s worse than that.”

  “How?”

  “Think about Ballard. What we did there,” The Red Admiral said.

  Joh could see the man practically leap from point to point, like lily pads on a deep pond, intuitively grasping something that had eluded everyone else. Joh seriously considered retiring Grand Admiral Huff, another of their cousins, just so Emmerich Wachturm could be promoted to supreme command of the fleet. It might be the only thing that kept the Empire alive over the next decade if they didn’t stop Jessica Keller.

  Joh shook his head in confusion.

  Em nodded sympathetically.

  “We let the spies know we were going for Ballard,” Em continued. “Partly to destroy the Sentience, but mostly as a trap. Kasum couldn’t risk sending Home Fleet to stop us, afraid that we might strike Ladaux instead.”

  “And?”

  “Your fleet is trapped at Iger now,” Em said. “Thuringwell isn’t close, but Iger’s the only logical place to attack that frontier for military advantage.”

  “I’m aware of that, Em,” the Emperor replied dryly.

  “2218 Svati Prime had no military significance either, Joh,” the Red Admiral replied, just as dryly. “Look what she did there.”

  Joh shuddered. There weren’t words to describe the psychological impact of Keller’s Long Raid, as history had taken to calling that campaign. The entire Fribourg Empire had convulsed, until the Red Admiral himself had chased her off. But even then, he’d only chased her off. Other worlds still looked over their shoulders when her name was whispered.

  “What are we facing at Thuringwell?” Em asked in a hard tone.

  Joh brought himself back to the present. Thuringwell was still a smaller problem than being the Emperor.

  Today.

  “A Star Controller task force,” Joh said. “Auberon. Three cruisers. Half a dozen escorts, the heavier ones they call destroyers. Several support ships we haven’t been able to identify, but presumably construction forces.”

  “And she’s just camped at Thuringwell?”

  “She is.”

  “Then we’re missing something.”

  Joh smiled instead of replying.

  “Can I return to the field?” Em asked.

  His tone was light, but the words were very, very heavy. Certainly, having the Red Admiral in command again would help, but it would take him away from his duties to the rest of the Empire.

  Was that what she had planned? Could she possibly know about the M'hanii Frontier?

  “No.”

  That was one Imperial Edict that would not be revisited. Not today.

  “Then you will need at least one entire battleship task force, probably two, if you want to dislodge her,” Em said.

  If he was disappointed, it didn’t show in his tones.

  “Two?”

  “A Star Controller is a force of gravity, my dread Emperor,” Em said, only partly sarcastically. “I will remind you that it is functionally equivalent to both a battleship and a Fleet Carrier at once. And under Jessica Keller’s command.”

  Joh nodded.

  This was why he had come here. That fear in the night, that Emmerich Wachturm would be right, again.

  But he couldn’t help himself.

  What in blazes would she want with a place like Thuringwell?

  Chapter XXXV

  Date of the Republic July 1, 396 Ramsey Starport, Thuringwell

  And that, as the man in the video used to say, were that.

  The ’road weren’t done, not by a long shot, but the hard parts were behin’ ’em nows.

  Moirrey stood on the catwalk of her little personal watch–tower office and looked out over the field of the new starport they was just abouts to dedicate.

  Give it three more days fer the last of the concrete to cure and all the witches to be exorcised from the wiring runs, and Lady Keller could come down herself and bless the place with her awesome ju–ju.

  Behind Moirrey, the door to the main watchroom opened quietly. Moirrey sighed, knowin’ it were too good to last. Saana were here to mother–hen her into paperwork, or som’tin’.

  Why dinna they tells her aforehand how many trees a Centurion were required to kill on a daily basis? Even electronic ones? Reports, reports, reports.

  At least she gots her own budget these days to build toys. First prize for all the time in the lab back home had finally come true yesterday, when she got to back the first locomotive into the flat yard with a stack of cars behind her and pinball them into a second stack of cars just waiting fer their load of rocks to get dug outs the ground fer smeltin’.

  And it dinna even sound like porcelain crashing, fer all the tons of steel going bang.

  Still, were awful quiet.

  Something weren’t right.

  Saana would usually just start in with whatever needed doing, confident that her boss could absorb it all and play it back later at slow speed fer the interestin’ bits if she needed.

  Weren’t Saana.

  Moirrey looked over as Digger leaned on the rail next to her.

  He smiled down at her. He had a gleam in his eyes.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I’m no’ lettin’ you tunnel throughs a mountain, Digger.”

  He just grinned and shook his head. It were an old conversation by now.

  “That’s later, Centurion,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll be submitting plans for a four–leaf clover subway system under the new starport.”

  “Seriously?” she asked. “Yer gonna mole the place?”

  “A–yup. I brought the John Henry all this distance, Moirrey. I’ll be damned if we don’t use it somewhere.”

  She started to say something when a sound caught her attention.

  Kinda a soft whomp.

  Several of them.

  Then a whistle like the wind coming up, ’cept it kept coming.

  Digger got all twitchy, then grabbed her and pushed her to the door, ripped it open, and shoved her inside.

  What the hell?

  Moirrey started to say something, but he weren’t listening.

  “Saana,” he yelled, grabbing Moirrey’s hand and dragging her towards the staircase. “Get down. Incoming!”

  Then he were pounding down stairs, pulling her along like a mom who stopped too long at the store on the way home and now were late fer her soap operas.

  Slap, slap, slap.

  Down into the office she shared with Saana.

  At least Saana thought Digger were as daft as she did. She just stood there like a quizzical dog.

  “Under the desk,” he yelled. ORDERED. “Now.”

  Words became deeds.

  Digger pushed Moirrey down and stuffed her under the desk, and then crawled in with her.

  Not exactly how she envisioned their first date, but sometimes a girl’s got to be open–minded. Moirrey adjusted into the little space and squirmed closer against Digger.

  Just a bit. You know, fer safety and all.

  Across the way, Saana were doing the same, no less confused. At least she had space on her side. Best to use it.

  “Digger,” Moirrey asked. “What…?”

  And that, were as far as she got.

  The whistling screams outside suddenly turned into booms.

  Big booms.

  Crap exploding everywhere booms.

  Three of them. Two kinda dull.

  One that sounded like the earth were ending.

  Moirrey were suddenly glad there was a building around her. And a desk. And a Digger. Even if she were accidentally a little more wrapped around him than him protecting her.

  Whatever.

  Saana would just have to make do with a desk.

  And then silence.

  Eerie still quiet. Kinda like that first break of dawn.

  Right before all hell broke loose.

  Moirrey had been around the marines and ground troops enough to identify the sound of t
he big vehicle–mounted twin autocannons letting rip, like a giant duck farting.

  The 66mm particle cannons on a trio of tanks sitting down at one end of the field had a whip–crack sound, like someone had snuck up and throwed a cat into a watering trough when it weren’t looking.

  Fer about two minutes, all the hounds of hell were baying.

  Outside, a man’s voice slowly broke through the noise.

  “CEASE FIRE. CEASE FIRE. ALL UNITS STAND DOWN. READY DEFENSIVE POSTURE TWO.”

  It took a bit, but calm returned.

  Digger looked over and kind of down at Moirrey. He had an awkward grin and a serious blush going.

  Moirrey unwrapped herself from around him and kinda unsquished her boobs from his ribcage.

  Mostly.

  Enough.

  I mean, you could get a ruler in there now. Maybe. At least a piece of paper. It’s the thought, right?

  Still, probably not the time to sneak a kiss. Outside, it were serious business. Quiet, but serious. Slobbering amounts of ordnance had been going down–range with smaller booms, but that were mostly over.

  No necking on the battlefield, young lady.

  Today.

  Digger didn’t look like he wanted to crawl out from under the desk any more than she did.

  Trust Saana to go all mother hen and ruin everything. Nothing like getting caught out just as you were going to start necking on the couch, when the parents suddenly came home.

  “What was that, Digger?” Saana called from across the way.

  Digger flinched and leaned back. His hand stopped being wrapped around Moirrey’s hip in a way that he could drag her in for a good smooching.

  Moirrey wanted to growl at Saana.

  Digger shrugged with promise and slithered out of her grasp.

  “Somebody fired a mortar at us, Saana,” he replied, rolling up on his knees in the empty space between the desks and standing.

  Moirrey nearly leaned out and patted his bottom as he did, but caught her hand short.

  No necking on the battlefield.

  He turned after he stood and held out a hand that pulled her clear vertical in one swoop.

  “Seriously?” Saana asked as she surfaced as well. “How did you know?”

  “This was not my first firefight, Yeoman,” Digger replied with dignity.