Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (15 page)

“Very well,” Emmerich continued. “Captain Baumgärtner, please establish rendezvous coordinates for the squadron and make sure the other vessels are made aware when they arrive.”

“Yes, Admiral,” his right–hand man replied.

Emmerich could go do paperwork now. Possibly take a nap.
Amsel
had arrived within an hour of the original calculations, very accurate piloting across this great of a jump. It was perfectly expectable that half of the squadron might arrive first, and in a random order.

The whole point of this final step was to bring everyone together, close enough to the final target that they could emerge at
Ballard
as a single unit, far enough out to observe the defenders, before making the final assault run.

It would never do to give them enough time to react.

Jessica Keller just might escape him.

Chapter XXV

Date of the Republic June 11, 394 Jumpspace en route to Ballard

“Okay, youngster,”
Jouster
said, his voice blending that perfect mix of exasperation, superiority, and professor together, “graduation day. You’ve gotten a year of flight school and officer’s training crammed into seventy–something days. Time to show me what you’ve learned.”

Newly–minted Flight Cornet Cho Ayaka Nakamura, callsign
Furious
, half–scowled back at him. She hated being called youngster, especially when she wasn’t, and had made that clear. Hell, she was almost his age. He just used it to get under her skin.

Jouster
smiled at
Furious
from across the training bay as he got ready to drop down into his flight simulator for some serious play.

She was nice to look at, cute face, short dark hair, but it was painfully obvious to everybody but her and the flag centurion that those two were going to end up making babies, one of these days. They had that icky glow new couples got when the chemistry was perfect. You wanted to hate them, especially when they started finishing each other’s sentences or putting food in each other’s mouths, but they were just too cute.

It would be like hating puppies.

But, during the crap with the pirates and that damned Promenade, the girl had proven herself to be one of the best pilots
Corynthe
had. Keller, the dragon lady, had decided to recruit her when they headed back to civilization, opening a long–term pipeline to bleed off some of the talent that might otherwise go into piracy and instead make them respectable citizens of the galaxy.

Furious
stuck her tongue out at him as she dropped into her own simulator.

Okay, mostly respectable.

Jouster
brought his system awake and locked his helmet into place. Everything came live at once. Lights. Air. Sound. The training consoles were as realistic as you could get without strapping yourself into a fighter and launching into space.

“Hey,
Jouster
,”
Furious
called over the comm, “if I’m the youngster here, why did you put me in the best fighter?”

As wing commander, it has been his recommendation, but Iskra Vlahovic, the flight deck commander had made the final call. Still, it had been a good idea. The woman could flat out fly.

“Because six weeks ago,”
Jouster
replied, “I had a previously–stolen M–6
Gungnir
with no pilot, and a pilot with no fighter. Figure you were going to have to learn something anyway, and Dragon Lady’s connections were finally going to get the rest of us upgraded from the M–5’s.”

Jouster
ran a quick pre–flight. It was almost autopilot, but never automatic. This was the equipment that was going to keep him alive.

Do it right. Every day. Especially today.

Speaking of…

“
Hànchén
,
Bitter Kitten
. You two awake?”

“Absolutely, Commander,”
Hànchén
called. Flight Cornet Murali Ma. Tall, skinny kid. Smart as a whip, nerdy as hell. You were as likely to find him with his nose in a history book as down here in the flight simulators practicing. Damned good pilot. Still a few sharp edges and loose screws.
Jouster
could fix that.

“About time you got here,
Jouster
,”
Bitter Kitten
purred at him. Flight Centurion Darya Lagunov. Skinny brunette, average height, really gorgeous when she wanted to be. Flew relatively normal until things went sideways, then she turned into a gun–toting, maniac artist. Until
Furious
had come along,
Bitter Kitten
had probably been the only pilot on
Auberon
good enough to give him a run for his money.

Now, it would be a three–way. Not that either of them would be down for that sort of thing, but, you know, a man’s got to pay attention to those sorts of details.

Graduation Day.

Bitter Kitten
had been put in charge of the second flight wing. This was her chance to show off what she could do as a wing leader. She was junior to both of his own wingmates,
Uller
and
Vienna,
in terms of both experience and age, but
Jouster
knew better than to break up his perfectly–balanced team, just for seniority’s sake.

Plus, the three kids on second wing were all perfectly good flyers. Better than good. Virtuosos. Crazy lunatics with thrusters and guns, but that just made the whole flight wing better.

“Just making sure
Furious
could find the battlefield,
Bitter Kitten
,”
Jouster
called back. He could almost hear Nakamura’s teeth grind over the comm. He smiled.

Graduation Day.

Him flying with
Hànchén
as his wingmate, against
Bitter Kitten
and
Furious
. Boys against girls. No elaborate scenarios of attack, patrol, or defense. Nope, just an open arena and four lunatic pilots.

Time to rock.

Ξ

Cho Ayaka Nakamura had been one of exactly two girls qualified to pilot fighter craft in all of
Corynthe
and allowed to fly with the boys. And that only because her dad was a former bad–ass pilot and 1–ring captain himself, who helped her build her first stripped–down strike fighter when she was twelve and all of her girlfriends were busy discovering boys.

Even then, she’d had to be at least twice as good as any boy flying to be invited to audition for a slot. And willing to kick their asses in the locker room when they decided to get fresh.

She smiled at the thought. Both thoughts.

And then
Aquitaine
had come along.

Command Centurion Jessica Keller. The woman
Jouster
called
The Dragon Lady
.

As her hands and lizardbrain walked through the pre–flight checklist, Cho couldn’t help but remember that first dinner, at
Callumnia
, after she had come in second place in the JV race. Behind
Bitter Kitten
. Another woman pilot. Now her team lead.

Being there, surrounded by female marines. All of them that
Auberon
had, but still. Women in charge of things. On their own terms. Nothing like
Corynthe
.

And, for one glorious day, she had been
Corynthe
’s flight commander. Air boss of the
Queen’s Own
.

Even if she’d had to leave all that behind when she left with
Auberon
, it was still a better place than she’d been.

And there were a bunch of other girls out there that were good enough. David Rodriguez and his captains might be slow to adapt, but the girls would listen when
Furious
came back and told them how awesome it could be, flying in the real world.

Okay, halfway done. Communications lock–in.

Furious
toggled one of the switches on the control yoke until a green “7” appeared in the top right corner of her face screen.

“
Bitter Kitten
, this is
Furious
,” she said. “Confirming a secure comm channel.”

“Roger,
Furious
,” Darya replied.

Knowing
Bitter Kitten
, she was already done with her checklist and had been waiting. But then, she’d had years of doing this the
Aquitaine
way. Cho’d had weeks. It was still something to think about, instead of something that the body just did autonomously, like breathing.

But she’d get there. That jackass
Jouster
wasn’t about to make her look bad. Even in a training sim run in a battle arena.

“Checklist complete,”
Furious
said.

Ready for starflight.

“
Furious
,”
Bitter Kitten
said in her quiet voice, “I want to do something mean and sneaky today.”

Furious
smiled.
Duh
. It was
Bitter Kitten
.

“Go ahead.”

“So when we get close,”
Bitter Kitten
said, “it will be obvious which one of us is which. The M–6 is different enough from the M–5 visually, to say nothing of the scanners. When we go into our first turn, I’m going to fade wide and flair. You’ll take the lead flying at that point and I’ll turn into your wing. We both know
Jouster
’s going to be chasing you anyway. This should throw his timing off.”

And it was also a good way to let her do something nobody else could keep up with.
The M–6 had an edge in both speed and maneuverability over the M–5.
Bitter Kitten
might have to fall off the pace at the same time the boys did. But it also put
Furious
in a position to push the margins in ways she couldn’t if she was flying on Darya’s wing.

Furious
smiled.

“Sounds good,
Kitten
,” she said.

Time to outfly everybody in the sky.

“Flight control, this is gold team,” she heard
Bitter Kitten
call. “Checklists complete. Ready for the arena.”

Senior Centurion Iskra Vlahovic had once been a flight centurion, a pilot, until she had limped home from a battle almost as shattered as her fighter. Cho had still been in pigtails when it had happened, but that woman still knew her stuff.

Instead of retiring, she had gone ground crew and eventually become the air boss, the flight deck commander for
Auberon
.

She didn’t talk much, unless she had to. Everyone listened when she did.

Today, she was the referee. Which said a lot about how important this flight might be.

“Roger that, gold team. Stand by,” Iskra said soothingly into the comm.

A moment passed.

“Gold team, blue team, this is flight command,” Iskra continued in her quiet, solemn voice. “I’ve decided to add some fun today, to make this more realistic. There will be a planet below you, two stations, and seventeen cargo vessels in orbit. Nothing is armed. You will be deducted points for damaging anything except the other team. Enjoy.”

Furious
could hear the wicked smile in the woman’s voice, and then there was a moment of utter vertigo as her screens lit up.

Time to fly.

Ξ

Bitter Kitten
nearly burst out giggling when she saw the arena. She had been here before. Come to think of it, so had
Hànchén
and
Furious
. It was a large slice of the orbital skies above
Callumnia
, from that time when the three of them had gone racing together.

Jouster
would recognize it as well, but he hadn’t had to race it, like the three of them. Iskra was giving her team a very subtle edge today.

Of course, knowing
Jouster
, he’d said or done something to Iskra to piss her off, probably propositioned her one time too many.

And, let’s face it, she never supervises things like this, anyway, so it must have been good
.

She and
Furious
were high in the eastern sky, at least as far as the planet below them was concerned. It was rotating very slowly, relative, but everything was coming at them in orbit.

Another edge, since it was easier to slip by something going past you than to outrun it and slip in. That would be like trying to board a train from behind while on a motorcycle
.

Not that she couldn’t fly that good, if she needed to. But still…

Jouster
’s team was lower and in the southwest sky. From the race at
Callumnia
, they would pretty much emerge from behind the freighter that had been the mid–point turn–around.

Bitter Kitten
double–checked, but the launch rails were empty. Not that missiles would be very effective in this mess, but you never knew.

She took a moment, plotted everything, and sent
Furious
a map.

“Just for fun,” she said, “let’s pop up over number six like our asses are on fire. It’ll be like hawks dropping into their faces.”

“Roger, that,”
Furious
replied.
Bitter Kitten
could hear the smile in the other woman’s voice.

Since they were already in formation and headed the right direction,
Bitter Kitten
lit her thrusters and aimed at her target.

Furious
could keep up.

At
Callumnia
, they had been racing a slalom course in and through freighters sitting in a high orbit, passing close enough to basically touch three of them, and then back. Today, they had emerged behind the starting point of that race.

Bitter Kitten
shoved the nose of her fighter down and red–lined the engines.

“Time to swoop,” she called.

Freighter number six was a monster, almost a barge, easily twice the length of
Auberon
.

What made it even weirder was the design. Like
Corynthe
’s motherships, this vessel was in the shape of a dumbbell, with an engine cluster at one end, a command module at the other, and a long gooseneck in between. However, instead of fighters of various sizes, attached by their landing struts, the neck on
Six
was filled with shipping containers, either attached to the neck itself, or the next container inboard.