Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3)

Last of the Immortals

Blaze Ward

The Jessica Keller Chronicles: Volume Three

Copyright © 2015 Blaze Ward

All rights reserved

Published by Knotted Road Press

www.KnottedRoadPress.com

Cover art:

Copyright © Innovari | Dreamstime.com – Spaceship And Futuristic City Photo

Cover and interior design copyright © 2015 Knotted Road Press

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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: Suvi

Date of the Republic June 1, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard

That was the problem with living forever. Or however close to forever a six–millennia–old artificially intelligent computer could get these days.

Every day was somebody’s birthday. Or the anniversary of their death. Weddings. Births. Battles. Graduations. Retirements. Final episodes.

Something.

She imagined blowing her cute blond bangs out of her face in semi–frustration.

Most of them were people that only Suvi remembered. That was one of the few downsides to being an AI, a
Sentience
. Of having a perfect, electronic memory, multiply–redundant and backed up to seventeen different locations on two planets, a moon, and a tiny, little matte–black satellite orbiting sunward where people tended to forget about it.

She couldn’t forget.

Not that she wanted to.

Remembering was a human thing, although she wasn’t. Even when they forgot, which they frequently did.

And that was not necessarily a bad thing, since her kind, possibly even cousins of hers, in the electronic sense, had been responsible for wiping out galactic civilization last time around and nearly taking the human race down with it.

It just reminded her to be more human, to hold on to that side of herself. After all, she’d be a quiet little librarian on Kel–Sdala at the time, and not one of the idiots bombarding the Homeworld with giant rocks.

Not my fault at all, people
.

No, it was her job to remember all the wonderful people she had known across six millennia of realtime.

Six? Remarkable.

Silly in a way, that she, of all people, would have been the one of her kind to make it this far. But it was occasionally a silly galaxy.

Today was a birthday people would only know if they were historians of the
Rebirth
, and even then, it would be dicey. Humans were fickle.

Everyone remembered Doyle Iwakuma,
The Explorer
, the man who had gone to
Kel–Sdala
in a rickety old hull, a converted
Concord
minesweeper almost as old as Suvi was.

Doyle. Her knight in shining armor. Her Prince Charming come to rescue her from the deep, enchanted sleep caused by the destruction of human civilization.

Hell, that very hull,
Ngoma Mwisho
,
The Last Waltz
, had been very painstakingly restored and preserved as a memorial to Doyle. Suvi could see it right now on a video feed from the
Museum Of The Ancients
down on the planet below her, on the edge of the city of Ithome, on a headland overlooking the bay.

She would have liked to have been allowed to put on physical legs and walk through it once. Walk through all of Ithome.

If they would let her.

The electronic version of the ship that she occasionally visited was just that, a ghost of the great ship. Without the smells or grease stains. She would have liked to touch those places she had only ever seen. Stand where some of her favorite people had once trod.

Remember
.

But this wasn’t Doyle’s day. His birthday celebrations were always a holiday in September, almost as big as the
Republic of Aquitaine
’s Founding Day.

No, today was a much more personal holiday. Someone who was almost as important to history as Doyle, and certainly to Suvi, but not nearly as well known. Mostly that was a result of standing so close to someone so amazingly–famous that everyone knew his name. A woman explorer who later turned politician and finally philanthropist.

Doyle’s favorite niece, Piper Iwakuma–Holmström.

The University of Ballard, that great paean to knowledge and learning, had actually been Piper’s idea originally. Suvi still remembered the conversations on the way home from
Kel–Sdala
, audio carefully preserved so she could remember the young, bright–eyed girl, vastly different from the heroine of her other uncle’s dashing, best–selling adventure novels. To say nothing of the mature woman Piper grew into, or the grandmother of nine with the ready smile.

No,
Alexandria Station
had been Piper’s idea.

Loft the great databanks, and their
Librarian
, into orbit above
Ballard
. Set them into a high orbit, but not geo–synched above Ithome. Let the station move like a moon, so that children everywhere could look up into the night sky, or the day on those occasions when her disk was full, and dream about traveling to the stars.

Suvi remembered a very young Piper, dangerous and exotic, but still wet behind the ears and eager to learn from her not–yet–famous uncle. Eleven and a half centuries ago, she had been born on the planet below.

Suvi lit a very bright candle on a small cupcake and smiled a happy smile.

Overture: Johannes

Imperial Founding: 172/05/18. St. Legier

Dinner was complete. It had been a quiet success, as far as Johannes was concerned. This night needed quiet successes.

He watched the females of the Imperial Household rise from their places around the comfortable dining table in the cozy family dining hall and prepare to depart. This was not the grand showpiece down on the first floor of the palace, reserved for formal affairs. No, this was home.

He smiled as the women slowly filed up to him to say good night.

The room seemed to lose something vital as they did. It wasn’t there in the darkly–stained wood on the walls, or the granite tiles on the floor in a complex, story–telling mosaic. Perhaps they just reflected the energy of the women, and it departed with them.

Steffi
, the
Princess Ekaterina Stephanya
, was first. At fifteen, she was on the cusp of womanhood; her long red braids making her look at once younger, and older. She was the practical one. She would study medicine, or law, as arrangements were made for a suitable match. It was not something that had to be accomplished today. Or even tomorrow. So she would spend her time studying something sensible, useful, educational.

She stepped close and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night, Papa,” she said quietly before withdrawing.

Casey
, the
Princess Kasimira Helena
, was next. At just thirteen, she was still a child in many ways, her blond hair French braided and proper in a way that did nothing to disguise the mischievous glint in her eyes.

“You promised to read me a story tonight, Papa,” she said, spearing him with the sort of serious look that only a thirteen–year–old girl can manage, before she kissed him on the cheek.

“In a bit, Casey,” he smiled back at his youngest.

She was the artist in the group. Her brother Ekke, still seated, the oldest, was the Crown Prince. He was a good one. He would make a good Emperor someday. Steffi, the middle child, was the student, always analyzing, or reading on politics. She would make a very proper advisor to some young man, when they found the one they wanted to admit into the Imperial Household.

But Casey was the wild one, the dreamer. She not only read fairie tales, she wrote them. She painted the walls of her chambers, and did a better job than some of the professional artists he had hired for other rooms in the palace.

Heike
, the
Lady Wachturm
, came along next. Emmerich Wachturm’s youngest was, in many ways, very much like Casey. Youngest daughters, pretty blonds with beauty and brains and dreams. She was close enough in age with his own daughters to make a good companion, just as her father had been for him when he was young. At the same time, she was enough older, twenty now, to be responsible. Steffi would never feel free to be silly, even with just Heike around, but Casey would be in good hands.

“Good evening, Uncle,” Heike said. She also kissed him, chastely, on the cheek, before departing with the two younger girls.

Kati
, the
Empress Kasimira Ekaterina, of the House of Alkaev
, the love of his life, was last. Her kiss was not innocent. It verged on improper for the room, and the company. It promised much more if he didn’t stay up too late with his political machinations and his story–telling.

Johannes
,
His Imperial Majesty Karl VII, Emperor of Fribourg
, smiled as the women departed in a haze of perfume, and whispers, and giggles. He lifted a freshly–poured glass of brandy and looked at the two men left behind.

Ekke
, the
Crown Prince Karl Ekkehard Szczęsny Wiegand
, at sixteen finally old enough to join these sorts of grown–up family conversations after dinner. He was a younger version of his father, and his grandfather before that. Kati’s own father could be seen in the green eyes and the overall coloration of hair and skin, but the bones were absolutely the House of Wiegand. He would
BE
Fribourg
someday.

That left the man at the far end of the small table, his cousin Em.

Emmerich Wachturm
,
Imperial Admiral of the Red
, tactical and strategic genius, boon companion.

Angry, angry man.

Johannes took a sip and measured the rage boiling just below the surface of Em’s scalp. It had been decades since he had seen his cousin so angry. Not since…Yes, best not to bring up memories of that time in college tonight. Or that woman. Especially not tonight.

“Em,” the
Fribourg
Emperor finally said quietly, projecting friendly calm as well as he could down the long table, “I have not ordered you to desist, but I would like to be convinced, before I give my blessing to this affair.”

He watched his oldest friend, his strong right arm, his Best Man, work to relax. Em appeared to be trying hard not to grind his teeth. That was at least a start.

“Please, Em,” Johannes continued. He noted that Ekke watched carefully from the side, not adding any fuel to the fire, but instead absorbing the flow of energies. That had been the first lesson. An Emperor can lead, but only where people are willing to go. You must understand them first. You do that by listening.

Johannes watched Emmerich take a drink of his own brandy and then set it on the table. He reached instead for a glass of water.

Probably a good sign
.

He could always get the man roaring drunk later if politics made it necessary.

“She made me a laughing–stock, Joh,” Em finally replied.

“I wouldn’t go that far, Em,” the Emperor replied. “She didn’t beat
you
. And she’s lost twice to you before this.”

“It’s not the same, your––Johannes,” Em said. “I could have stopped it, rescheduled it, something. But she tricked me, deceived me. I was blind.”

“Haven’t you yourself told me that she just might be your equal on the battlefield?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“No buts, Em. She’s good, and she got lucky. These things happen in war. I want to talk about
Ballard
. Simply, why?”

“Why this, or why
Ballard
?” Emmerich asked.

“Why do you want to make this tremendous, near–record–setting voyage to assault a world of scholars in the middle of nowhere, taking an entire battle fleet with you? The Imperial public will not be pleased by the suggestion that we might suddenly be making war on scholars and civilians. Before I give you my blessing, I want to know what I’m buying.”

Em took a deep breath. His eyes lost focus. Or rather, they came to focus on a point a thousand light years away.

“You had to have been there that night, Joh,” he said finally. “That man, Arnulf, King of the Pirates, he understood how to rule. He asked her about their Founding Legends.”

“Founding Legends, Em?”

Johannes glanced over to make sure, but Ekke was intently focused. As he should be. This was a priceless opportunity to learn from one of the very best. Emmerich Wachturm was a once–in–a–generation genius on the battlefield.