by Blaze Ward
“Can you track it?” Dash asked.
“Can your horse swim?” Yağmur fired back.
Dash chuckled. Göll would get a running start into any body of water big enough for her to float, if you let her. Whether you got off first or not.
“That thing come equipped with local video capabilities?” Vo asked from one side.
Yağmur started as Arlo stepped closer, like he had appeared out of the shadow of a tree or something. He did move quietly, when he was on the ground. Deliberate–like. Ninja, some of the troopers had decided.
“No, sir,” Yağmur got formal quickly. “Single beacon laser transmitter only. Standard Imperial model. You establish the first laser on the line, and then walk plumb until the signal begins to degrade with atmospheric distortion. Drop a second unit and phase them into linkage. Second unit normally zigs in a different direction to throw off snoopers like me. Build an entire array and you can talk and watch secretly.”
“Is Haussmann sneaky enough to redirect the line down the line?” Vo wondered aloud.
“Doubt it, sir,” Yağmur said. “Imperials tend to be linear that way. The first marker line is usually within ten to fifteen degrees of the overall path.”
Vo turned towards Dash now, looking down at her with a troubled look.
“Worth an overflight that direction to see if we find him?”
“Negative,” Dash said. “Never let him know we’re coming. You’ll ask someone upstairs for recent scout imagery from orbit to see if they’ve left any clues. Otherwise, we sneak up on them. Aoibhín, let everyone know we’re swinging around wide left and circling. Castle 3rd will follow the line and keep us on track.”
You didn’t salute in the field. That just marked officers to get shot by snipers. Everyone jumped to and started moving, which was good enough.
There were bad guys out there, thinking they had pulled a fast one on her.
Boy, weren’t they going to be surprised?
Chapter XL
Date of the Republic July 4, 396 SC Auberon. Above Thuringwell
It had taken a little reminding, and a few arguments, mostly with Enej and Marcelle, but Jessica had mostly learned her lesson. Nearly getting killed in the field, over something stupid, could still be a learning experience. Creator knew she had nearly gotten killed enough times to be a genius by now.
Rather than spend as much time on the surface as she had planned, she mostly communicated by secured comm these days. Daily calls with Wakely. Weekly full briefings with a larger team. Regular reports from the Legate. Notes from Moirrey, usually filled with sparkles and unicorns, regardless of being official fleet memos. Terse, almost telegraphic reports from Vo.
Not being in control frustrated her, but Jessica had at least come to grips with that aspect of growing up. Of being in command. Sometimes, you had to send people into situations over their head, and hope that their training would see them through.
After all, wasn’t that what she was doing?
Today, a long overdue chat.
Things on the ground were getting boring and routine. On the one hand, that idiot Duke had long since beaten everyone into at least conformity, if not submission. On the other, she hadn’t upset their apple cart all that much.
It was fascinating how people could quickly adapt to an entirely new routine, once they got over the initial shock. One quick bow wake and everything settled. Wakely was still a novelty, a woman in charge. Jessica was the boogey–man come to get them in the night if they misbehaved. The locals had mostly shrugged.
Things had almost gotten boring again on Thuringwell. That was when she expected the anarchy to begin. Haussmann had not disappointed, but they had been mostly little raids and explosions. Nothing big. Cydelmynster had gone silent, but he would need time to decide how he wanted this to go down.
Jessica leaned back from her chair and looked around her office. She knew she would find Marcelle just outside the door when she opened it, probably waiting with all the magical implements to make fresh coffee.
Maybe she would need coffee later. Right now, it would just make her need to pee.
That could wait. She liked her office.
Star Controllers were monstrous beasts. Bigger than anything that moved. Staffed by thousands of the best crew in the fleet. Everything was done on a grand scale.
Except her office.
Technically, the design specs classified this as the workspace for a junior Centurion on her staff, but it was a perfect fit for her. Four meters on a side. Just enough for a desk, two chairs, and a sideboard, with a small sofa tucked into the corner.
It was only after she had claimed it and decorated it that Jessica realized how closely it matched Room 2304 at Ladaux Fleet Headquarters. The office of the First Lord of the Fleet, Nils Kasum.
The Dragon’s Den.
Jessica smiled. She didn’t need to have this meeting here. She would go to him. Security had already confirmed that he was as trapped in daily paperwork as she was, as late in the day as it had gotten.
Jessica rose and stretched, turning her shoulders ninety degrees left, and then right. Tomorrow, she had scheduled a bout with the training robot. Nothing exciting, just enough to keep her on her toes.
Like this next meeting might do.
She opened the hatch and emerged from her chrysalis. Sure enough, Marcelle was there, with her nose buried in a book.
By now, Marcelle knew her well enough to not even rouse. Jessica would have pinged her on the comm if she needed something. A single raised eyebrow spoke volumes.
Jessica nodded. Marcelle almost smirked in reply and went back to her book.
The novelty of having an adoptive big sister had worn off decades ago, but having someone who could almost read your mind never did. And it reassured her. Marcelle wouldn’t hesitate to walk her right back into her own office and yell at Jessica if she thought it was necessary.
Not that it had been, recently. Not in days.
Jessica pulled her tunic straight and set out. Best to sneak up on the man.
The duty watch schedule was synched to Yonin below now. It was late enough in their day that most of his staff was off–duty, at least as off–duty as a starship ever got.
His door was open as she entered the outer office and signaled his Yeoman to silence with a finger to her lips. Jessica smiled at her, and gestured for her to depart.
The woman gulped, nodded, and stood up silently.
And Jessica was alone in the outer office.
She leaned on the doorframe and studied the man as he looked down and read something intently.
Jouster. Command Flight Centurion Milos Pavlovich. Tall, dark, handsome. Brilliant pilot. Unconventional pain in the ass. Flight Commander, Star Controller Auberon.
“How is it you never managed to get properly Court Martialed and grounded, Jouster?” she asked suddenly.
She had to give him credit. He barely flinched as he looked up from his screen.
He studied her for a moment before he responded, probably trying to figure out what he had done this time. The man had a history of pushing his luck. Becoming a Command Flight Centurion hadn’t tempered him much.
“When I was young and stupid,” he smiled wryly, “I was always the best pilot around by far. Later, I had a commander who forced me to behave and inspired me to even act like a professional occasionally.”
Jessica nodded. Somewhere along the way, Jouster really had grown up.
She stepped into the office and sat in the only chair.
“You ever regret being in charge?” she asked.
It was a mark of his tempering that he could relax around her enough to tease her back.
“Nope. You?”
“I accepted it early on,” she replied. “The cost of those two hours of combat was the weeks of drudgery that preceded it. Do you still get to fly enough?”
“Mostly,” he shrugged in turn. “I have a good ground staff that takes care of most of that side of things. I hired my o
wn version of your Flag Centurion to handle paperwork. I probably get to fly about twice as much as most men and women in my position.”
That was a novel approach. But then, this man had always pushed the envelope, in life as well as in flying. At least he was doing it constructively these days. A bit like Jessica.
But at the same time, he was extremely young to be in this position of authority, and still be one of the best pilots around. Most had at least a decade on him when they commanded a force this large, and had begun to lose those fine edges that marked good pilots and helped them survive.
Jessica made a note to review the setup with Petia and Nils once she got home, to see if doing it that way would make the entire fleet more efficient, more dangerous.
Every little advantage that could be eked out.
“So what can I help you with, Fleet Centurion?” Jouster asked suddenly.
His voice hadn’t gotten serious, but he had lost the banter. Again, a serious man recognizing the situation. Jessica Keller was in his office, unannounced, rather than having him come to her.
That would probably knock anybody a little off keel.
“I need to know how well the entire flight force will react,” she said simply. “The Fribourg Empire won’t wait forever for us to be successful here. They can’t react with what they probably had waiting at Iger, at least, not all of it. But they’ll come. I have no doubt of that.”
“Is that why d’Maine is always practicing his stealth?” Jouster leaned forward and put his elbows down on the desk, sliding his computer screen to one side.
“Yes,” Jessica said simply. “And Wombat. And Ballard. And everybody else. How ready will you be?”
Now he leaned back. His eyes got a distant look and flickered side to side as he began to read reports and panels in his head.
“The three wings off Auberon have been training together for a little more than a year,” he said. “Because First Lord loves us, he let me have Bitter Kitten as the lead on Second Squadron and then let me stack it with the best I could recruit from across the fleet, as well as through your connections to Petron.”
“Petron?”
Jessica was only a little surprised. They might be pirates by nature on Petron, but she had impressed the hell out of those pilots the day she became Queen. The survivors, at any rate.
“In addition to Furious, I was able to recruit one of the only other three women currently combat–qualified from Petron. Kinnison.”
“Only one?”
Jessica knew about Flight Centurion Mio Yoshioka, nicknamed Kinnison for the wreck of the ancient super–dreadnaught abandoned on the surface of Bunala. That planet had taken on some manner of mythic status in Jessica’s legend, the place where she supposedly first swore her blood oaths with Arnulf Rodriguez, then King of the Pirates.
The man she would later avenge.
“I tried to get Starling,” Jouster said with a shrug that turned into a grin. “But she decided to settle down and have a family and has gone into legitimate business. And Wiley has gone into line command instead and plans to eventually take over David’s spot commanding Kali–ma, since he has to be a king in your place.”
Jessica remembered Wiley from her last visit home. She could see the woman turning into just as good a Captain as she had been a melee fighter. And if Jessica wasn’t home that much, that just meant that David could focus on acting as king in her stead, until everyone just accepted him in the position and she could abdicate in his favor. Or maybe become Dowager Queen and train up a whole generation of girls to not accept second–class citizenship.
The possibilities gave her something to plan for in another two or three decades. Assuming she lived that long.
“So where does that leave you?” Jessica asked.
“Bitter Kitten’s Second Squadron is entirely female,” he replied, smiling like a shark. “With the exception of Hànchén, who has been adopted as an honorary sister after he outflew everybody but Kitten and Furious. I would stack them up against anybody else in the fleet and bet heavily. Third Squadron under da Vinci still looks like a normal melee force, until you get close enough to see one P–4 Outrider scout, four S–11 medium bombers, and only four M–6’s. And I’ve been pushing First Squadron, telling them that Second Squadron’s probably better. They are, but that gap is closing.”
“Who are you?” Jessica said with a grin of her own. “And what have you done with that Jouster that I nearly convinced to resign in disgrace?”
If you took everything else away, her career might be judged a success, just for turning Milos into a proper Command Flight Centurion and pointing him at the Imperials, instead of where he had been headed when she met him.
“I had a good example to follow,” he said, much quieter. “Lead by excellence. Demand excellence. Settle for nothing less.”
The words came back to her. The words every Command Centurion spoke, even the pilots, when they took command.
She will exercise excellence and demand the same of her crew, that the whole reflect the greatest acclaim in serving the needs of the Republic and the will of the Senate.
Jessica had walked into this room with a few vague misgivings. Only a few. They were all gone now.
“What about the rest of the plague of locusts?” she asked.
“The Destroyer Squadron has been together for years,” he replied. “Those three wings are used to operating as a single team. Depending on the battle, I’ll either put them dead center and build out from that, or hang them way out on a flank as a crossing attack.”
“And Andorra?” she asked.
“Now that the station is fully repaired and a little expanded, that sneaky little Transport Carrier has uncrated and off–loaded fifteen of her chickens. That leaves her with space to fly the other fifteen from her own decks, as long as you don’t mind us taking ten to fifteen minutes getting everybody launched. You’ll have a little more than six squadrons in flight when the Imperials come, maybe eight worth of firepower if you let me send all the Gunships out as well and keep the two escorts in to protect the station. Do we know what’s coming?”
It was Jessica’s turn to lean back and think.
“By now, they’ve probably crept into the system, hiding in the darkness, looking around,” she spoke, mostly to herself. “If we’re lucky, they missed Shivaji and don’t grasp the significance of Andorra. But they’re still going to bring enough ships to take on a Star Controller.”
She fixed him with a tight stare and relaxed some of her natural reticence. This man was going to be a significant part of why she survived. Or didn’t.
Three years ago, she had finally learned to build strategies around Jouster doing something tactically insane in order to give him something to do. To channel him in productive directions. Bitter Kitten and Furious were just as bad, and even better pilots.
She needed him prepared for what was coming, regardless of her not knowing. And this wasn’t one of those situations she could assume he had done his homework. Nobody approached this topic as obsessively as she did. Nobody.
“Simulations of Imperial doctrine suggest three primary tactical options,” she continued, ticking them off with her fingers. “Two battleships with task forces. Four Fleet Carriers with their escorts. One of each. So, aggressive, defensive, or sweeping.”
“What else have you planned for?” he asked, his voice now as serious as hers. He knew her well by now.
“A wall of escorts and missile cruisers doing hit and fades,” she replied. “Three squadrons of heavy cruisers and battlecruisers charging us like a barbarian horde and then racing out the back at full speed. Just about everything I could think of or that the Red Admiral had ever tried.”
“Will he be back?” Jouster asked.
Their last battle with the man had been nearly apocalyptic. Two squadrons of warships wrecked. Thousands killed. Alexandria Station destroyed.
But he had failed. Jessica and Suvi both survived.
“I doubt it,�
� she replied. “He’s been in retirement since First Ballard. If Karl let him off the leash now, he would need at least six months to train up a crew. That’s that much longer for us to dig in. In another three months, we might well have won Thuringwell.”
“So they’ll be here soon?” he inquired.
“Every day, I wake up expecting them,” she replied.
That took him a bit aback.
“Are there any as good as the Red Admiral?” he asked finally.
“No,” she shook her head. “Well trained, lucky, good, but nobody with his genius for maneuver and aggression. I’ve planned for crazy, but we won’t know until they arrive. And then it will be messy, but not to the death. We’re not the only campaign under way right now. If they strip the frontier to come here, they’ve probably left some other system wide open for First War Fleet to raid.”
“We’ll be ready, Commander,” Jouster said simply.
Jessica rose from her seat and held out her hand. They shook. Not Command and Fleet Centurions. Not man and woman. Comrades atop the wall, waiting for the creatures of the night to arrive.
She smiled, wandering back in her mind to the times she had nearly ended this man’s career. She didn’t think she had ever given Nils Kasum as many fits, but now she was beginning to wonder.
She also knew that she had forged the right sword for this mission.
Because the Imperial Fleet would be here soon. And they would not be friendly.
Chapter XLI
Imperial Founding: 174/06/03. Yonin, Thuringwell
Today, Merryn had dressed a little more formally. Taken the time to break out a less comfortable outfit, the sort of thing she would wear for a meeting with a banker or new customer. She wore a sedate and fairly conservative indigo skirt that nearly covered her black lace–up boots. To go with it, four layers of overlapping silk tops, almost like kimonos, from lavender to cream at the inner–most. Her hair was up and swept back and over her right shoulder, coiled up like a small, fuzzy tail.
