Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (26 page)

Damn her
.

Chapter XLV

Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard

It should be darker in here. The lights should be turned down to the very verge of ominous, like they did in the movies. Those bad ones you watched in the dead of night when nobody else was around to complain about your cinematic tastes.
Philistines
.

Denis shrugged. That might be too much verisimilitude for the situation. After all, they were only dark and hiding on the outside. Inside, he could still have light and heat. And fresh coffee.

“Tactical,” he said calmly. “Talk to me.”

Tamara actually held up her right hand to show him, across the bridge, that her fingers were, indeed, crossed. She half–smiled at him as well.

No words were needed.

Outside
Auberon
’s hull, the Red Admiral had launched an entire wave of missiles from himself and two cruisers. In a normal battle, it might have been enough, if he got lucky. Nobody had expected
Rajput
to speak up and kill three of them. That hadn’t been part of anybody’s plan.

Nobody, however, would ever second–guess d’Maine and his crew. Not in warfare.

“Giroux,” Denis said. “You’re next.”

“Siren appears to have succeeded, Commander,” the sensor officer replied. “All remaining signatures give the impression that they have turned and locked on the shuttle. With our shields turned all the way down and all active sensors off, we look to be a hole in space. I cannot confirm more on passive sensors alone. It helps that
Stralsund
pulled a drifting maneuver to put her physically between us and the missiles. Muddies up even a hard ping. Figure that’s coming next.”

“Roger that,” Denis agreed.

This would only work once. It only had to work once. Moirrey and Jessica would come up with something even more devious for the next time. Assuming they all lived through this.

“Gunnery,” he continued, keeping everyone on their toes. “Time to primary engagement.”

Centurion Afolayan had a ready smile today. Instead of picking a fight with the biggest bully on the playground,
Auberon
got to go after the punk sidekick who would slip a knife into your back when nobody was looking.

“Three minutes to the outer edge of range to the nearest escort. Four minutes to the great, white whale.”

“Squadron, this is the flag,” Jessica’s voice came over the comm. “Initiate Phase Four, variant three. Repeat, Phase Four, variant three. Break. Militia squadron, launch everything you have right now.”

Denis had his own little projector in front of his station. Not as impressive as Jessica’s down on the flag bridge, but good enough to follow the battle.

Ballard
’s defense squadron launched. And reminded him why they were a rear–echelon unit much more used to the possibility of chasing pirates away than fighting an enemy fleet.

Seriously? All over the place, guys. They even had two launch failures? Someone over there was getting maintenance black stars in their personnel file after this
.

Denis made a mental note to have an unfriendly chat with someone, assuming he got to them before Jessica or Iskra did, however unlikely
that
outcome might be.

Still, it looked impressive enough, considering what it was intended to do. It was
2218 Svati Prime
, all over again. Except this time, there would be intentional casualties.

“Tamara,” he said. “You should be up shortly.”

“Roger that.”

“
Auberon
flight wing, this is the flag,” Jessica’s voice purred. “Launch your birds now. Repeat, launch immediately.”

That was a much more professional looking salvo, even as sad and tiny as it was, compared to what they would have done in a normal battle. Still, as camouflage went, quite impressive.

“
Stralsund
,
Rajput
,
Brightoak
, this is the flag. Launch immediately. I repeat, launch immediately. All units prepare for Phase Five.”

Denis smiled to himself.

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war
.

Chapter XLVI

Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard

For a moment, she had thought that the end had come. That she was finally done.

The external station sensors showed that the Imperial force was still well away from the station. The fleet had stationed the two patrol gunboats close by if something did get close. They were nothing against even a corvette, but they could handle a missile or two. Nothing had gotten by them, so whatever it was must have happened inside her station.

Evacuation alarms everywhere hadn’t helped with her nerves, or whatever the electronic equivalent was.

The whole place had rattled.

Suvi checked her logs again.

Whatever that assassin had done had left her nearly blind between the outer skin of the current station and almost anything beyond frame four out from her core. Pretty much everything added on to the original station Doyle and Piper had built.

She suspected that the assassin had more help than other people realized. It took a great deal of technical knowledge to do that much damage to her and her systems, that precisely, without just blowing the whole station up instead. She wasn’t sure if he was being careful, or sadistic.

There
.

Seismometers localized it to main deck, give or take, right around frame six. In her mind, Suvi called that area Station Two. It had been the first major expansion of the original platform, kinda like upgrading from being a one–room school house to a proper university campus.

Close enough. That had been the point in time when the locals finally decided they liked her, and trusted her, enough to fund some major renovations with a planet–wide tax.

To make her an honorary citizen of
Ballard
.

It had marked the start of the era known as
The Story Road
, when
Ballard
first turned into a regional power. Pity the university hadn’t ever fielded any sports teams worth mentioning.

So. Sharp shock. Extreme pressure differentials that quickly dissipated. Too bad she didn’t have any spectroscopes in the area still working to confirm, but experience suggested someone had blown a hatch with high explosives.

That was one way to get closer to her. Not exactly subtle, and subtle had been the assassin’s trademark, so hopefully that meant Moirrey was coming. It also suggested that something had gone horribly wrong with the original path. That suggested the assassin had found them and detoured them.

And there was nothing she could do at this point without Moirrey.

Damn you, Henri Baudin
.

She hadn’t been this mad at him in centuries. But she felt his hands around her throat. They might look like those of any old Imperial spy and assassin, but she was trapped here because of Henri. If she survived this, Suvi promised herself she would never be bound like this again.

Ξ

He took a breath to calm his nerves and heart rate. There was still time, Sykes reminded himself. Space battles might feel like they were over in a minute, but hours might pass. The admiral would not be close enough to fire on the station yet.

And he would get a signal first. Hopefully.

Perhaps, he was a sacrifice. Certainly he was worth more than a mere pawn, but sometimes even the masters must offer a rook or bishop to entice the foe into making a mistake. Certainly, the
Sentience
was not allowed to castle out of this trap.

Still, something had caused an earthquake in a place without earth. Somewhere beside him, a good distance around the curvature of the station’s rings. And he wasn’t responsible. That left the
Aquitaine
fleet.

The woman and her two assistants. Blowing a hatch apart would probably feel like that, if speed was more important than subtlety.

So they had found another way around him. He had hoped that they would take the most obvious option in their hurry, letting him slip into them from the side, like a knife on a crowded bus platform.

The hallmark of a good agent was the ability to react quickly. He had guessed wrong here. And he was too far out of position to get to them before they made it deeper into the core.

Sykes checked the map in his head. Even this close, there were too many places they could get past him to get to wherever the
Sentience
wanted them to be. Still, most of them on this side of the exact center of the station should pass through one large workshop area, almost a hangar in scope, designed to let technicians get to all sides of the fusion reactor’s primary cooling interface.

There should be a number of places he could lurk under cover. The
Sentience
should still be blind there, if he had cut the right wires when he started, and there were several levels of catwalks he could use.

Sykes turned and began to jog inward. It probably wasn’t too late to kill them all.

Chapter XLVII

Imperial Founding: 172/06/16. Ballard system

It hadn’t been enough.

Emmerich watched the rapidly–decaying nova of the former escort frigate
Kappel
’s corpse fade.
Petrograd
had tried to save her, but everyone had been caught out of position by the change in targeting priorities and the need for sudden maneuvering, and two missiles had gotten home on the little ship.

One would have probably crippled her. The second had found some chink in
Kappel
’s armor. Perhaps a bulkhead not secured for battle. Maybe one of the power reactors had gone unstable at the wrong moment.

It didn’t matter that much.
Kappel
was dead.

On what had been his right flank, before the turn away,
Baasch
was in better shape. There had been far fewer missiles to engage, and those evenly divided between the frigate and her larger sister,
SturmTeufel
.

Still, it had been close. The light cruiser had been hit, but it had been a glancing blow against the shield wall, and not an arrow to the heart or guts. She was a bit lame now, but still fully armed and more than a match for either of the destroyers on that flank. Plus, both vessels were accelerating away from the enemy to the protection of the big vessels.

On what had been the van two minutes ago,
Essert
had been knocked around as well, but
Amsel
had managed to keep the hornets from stinging her to death. Like
SturmTeufel
, she was going to limp until she could be dry–docked, but she had survived what had appeared to be certain death ninety seconds ago.

“Captain Baumgärtner,” Emmerich said, careful to keep the weary relief out of his voice. “Have all vessels shift to defensive missile fire, primarily with sub–munition weapons. That will help against their fire when we begin to close. What is the squadron’s status?”

Hendrik actually looked down at his notes before speaking. Emmerich could see the same pain in his eyes when he looked up. And the mad quest for vengeance building.

Something else they shared.

“
Amsel
and
Petrograd
are intact and combat–ready, Admiral,” he replied quietly. “
Baasch
is fully functional, but
SturmTeufel
and
Essert
are both damaged and should be rotated out of the direct line of engagement.”

He paused to take a breath.

“The turn to port and acceleration have put the enemy warships on our number two facing, shortly to be number three if everyone continues forward on their current trajectories. The fighter squadron that had been on our number six has climbed straight up, relative to our flight path and the orbital ecliptic and they appear to be circling back towards the station. I would expect an attack pass from them with guns at some point as we turn in again, if we do not maneuver around that option.”

“Flag, sensors,” the man called across the bridge.

Emmerich was beginning to hate that man. Not for what he was doing, the lieutenant commander handling the sensor array was one of the best at the task or he wouldn’t be here. No, it was the ominous overtones every time he spoke.

There had been no good news today. Nothing in the man’s tone suggested a change to that.

“Remaining enemy force has turned inward,” the man continued. “Repeat, enemy force, both Alpha and Charlie groups, have turned inward.”

Emmerich took a split second to confirm the projection.
Petrograd
now in the van, with
Essert
on her wing.
Amsel
in the center, and
Baasch
and
SturmTeufel
protecting the rear flank.

He was badly out of position, headed the wrong way, and at a significant tactical disadvantage right now.

“Captain,” he said to Baumgärtner, “bring the squadron to flank speed. We need space to reorganize, but we will not give them time to return to base to rearm the fighters.”

“Acknowledged, Admiral.”

At least
Amsel
and
Petrograd
were out of primary range from the
Aquitaine
ships. He was going to exact a terrible vengeance shortly, when he could maneuver to bring his bow to the
Aquitaine
vessels.

“Flag, sensors.”

Emmerich caught himself before he physically cringed at the man’s voice. When this was done, he was going to promote that man and place him on another vessel, a reward to both of them.

“Oh, dear Lord,” the sensor officer continued, his voice suddenly breaking.

“Admiral,” he continued after a pause to swallow. “The Charlie force fighter craft have just opened fire on
Baasch
with…with primary beams. Multiple hits.
Baasch
is…”

Silence.