Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (31 page)

“Engineering and damage control, this is the bridge,” Arott barked. Galina might be fighting the battle, but he was still responsible for everything else. It was what made
Aquitaine
work. “What is our status?”

There was too long of a pause before a voice came back.

Galina was cursing under her breath again. Or still.

“Bridge, this is damage control team three,” a woman said firmly. “Engineering is intact, but we’re looking into frame damage on the comm lines and secondary systems. We’ve lost two gyros and power transfer cables to the gunnery bays right now and that’s more important. I can relay orders, Commander.”

“Stay on topic, Three,” he replied. “I’d rather have power and guns than conversation.”

“Understood, sir. Out.”

“Sensors,” he continued. “What’s happening around us?”

“Blackbird seems to be in worse shape than we are, Commander,” the man replied. “She’s drifting and appears to be developing something of a tumble. A worse tumble than ours, anyway.”

Two angry drunks, fighting in the street. But he had punched the bigger guy at least as hard as he had gotten punched.

“Nav, can we fly?” Arott asked.

Mhasalkar gave him a pained look.

“Not straight, but the engines work,” the pilot said. “We can move. Where?”

“Away from this line,” Arott replied. “There’s a light cruiser back there somewhere and we need time to repair things so we can get back into battle. We’re dead meat if he gets to us unarmed.”

Mhasalkar’s fingers began to dance as he nodded.

Around them, Arott could feel
Stralsund
answer the reins and begin to surge again. Losing two of the nine gyros meant she wobbled badly, almost drunkenly, but at least she was shifting away from a close encounter with the rest of the Imperial squadron when she couldn’t even shoot back.

Chapter LVIII

Imperial Founding: 172/06/16. Ballard system

He couldn’t remember the flag bridge ever being completely dark before. Not in all the years Emmerich had used
Amsel
as his flagship. At least there were voices around him, so if he was dead, he had company on his flight to hell.

Dim red emergency lights came one, but even they did so fitfully. Painfully. He sneezed at the dust in the air.

That last barrage had hurt the great ship, badly.

The flag bridge was intact. Whatever that battlecruiser had done had stayed well away from the heart of the vessel. It was still bad, though. The grav–plates felt like they were running at fifty percent.

Emmerich reached out a hand and grasped the underside of the projection console, just in case.

Beside him, Captain Baumgärtner had a hand on his forehead. Blood dripped between the man’s fingers, passing through the badly–degraded projection image like fireflies. He swayed.

Emmerich reached out his other hand and grasped the man’s shoulder to steady him.

“Someone summon a medic,” he bellowed to the room.

Hendrik’s pupils were different sizes as the two men stared at each other. He oscillated with the shifting gravity, obviously nearly unconscious on his feet, but driven by decades of hard service to remain vertical.

“M’allright,” he slurred. “Can still fit. Fight.”

Not even roaring drunk had his aide sounded so bad.

Emmerich could still command a warship himself.

“Damage control, get me our status,” he roared, pulling Hendrik close to his side like the boon companion he was and holding him stable. “Sensors, I’m blind here. Where is the battlecruiser? Where is
Auberon
?”

“Stand by, Admiral.” Right now, the lieutenant commander on sensors was so calmly professional that Emmerich decided that promoting him would be a true reward, and not just a way to get rid of him. Even in the face of the apocalypse, he would probably sound no different.

“
Amsel
is currently tumbling, Admiral,” the man continued. “We are rolling to starboard slowly but generally maintaining our line of flight. Engines are still a max output, defensive guns are able to engage. Shortly, we will be completely through the
Aquitaine
formation. The enemy battlecruiser is also tumbling and appears unresponsive. She looks to be trying to disengage from
SturmTeufel
.
Auberon
and
Petrograd
are still firing as they pass, with the two destroyers trying to assist.”

Emmerich rotated the entire field of battle in his head.

“Tell
Essert
to ignore the little frigate and move to protect us from the fighters. They’ll be here soon.
SturmTeufel
is to track on the battlecruiser and engage if safe, or withdraw if she comes back on line. Does
Petrograd
need assistance?”

From across the room, a gunnery lieutenant spoke up. “Admiral, as we tumble, I can try to fire primaries laterally back across the flank. Something like
Auberon
did to us at
Qui–Ping
.”

Qui–ping
. Where
Auberon
had been badly mauled by
Muscva
and still neatly hammered his front shields to fifty percent. Before Moirrey Kermode.

“Authorized,” he said. “Fire as you bear.”

A medic materialized on Hendrik’s other side. “I have him, sir.”

“Take good care of him, man,” Emmerich said. There had been precious few battles over the years without Hendrik beside him.

“What’s the status on
Petrograd
?” he called.

“Holding her own and through. And…My God…”

Chapter LIX

Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard

Because of the dreams, because the goddess
Kali–ma
had seemed to take up residence in her soul, Jessica had been reading the ancient Hundi Vedas, anything she could get on the history of the goddess and her cult. There were precious few stories she’d been able to find in all the books on the religion, mostly how to worship and what songs to chant instead of what it was you were worshipping.

But she was still the Goddess of War. And she stood unconquered on the bloody plain in those tales.

And this tale was positively Vedic.

Auberon
had held. Somehow.

Enough drift. Enough wiggle. Enough roll. Enough electronic noise blasted into the aether. Enough little luck. Something.

Her front shield was gone and slowly being regenerated, but her spine was intact. There was localized damage almost everywhere. They would be months in dry–dock making her whole again, but she still answered the reins.

Going in at full speed had probably saved her life. All their lives. Out and through the back, like Kigali had said. Not enough time for an anxious battlecruiser to do her worst. And he had paid too much attention to
Auberon
, and not enough to her wing mates.

Rajput
had flown nearly under her nose, suffering nothing but Type–2 and Type–1 beams as she hammered the battlecruiser with primaries from almost knife–fighting range. And it had worked.
Rajput
had pissed the battlecruiser’s captain off enough that he turned his fire on the heavy destroyer instead of firing another salvo that probably would have broken
Auberon
’s back for good.
Rajput
needed a dry–dock as well, but they both flew true.

Thank you, Alber’
.

“Squadron, this is
CR–264
,” Kigali’s voice chimed out. “I could really use some help about now.”

Jessica checked the projection, rotated it fifty degrees to the left and up for a different perspective. She rolled it back two minutes and played it forward at high speed to place Kigali in a context.

Yes, that man was insane. And had probably also saved them all today.

Ξ

“Aki, light it up, right now,” Kigali said urgently.

He waited for her to nod, generally in his direction without ever looking up at him, before he continued.

“Gun deck,” he continued. “Turn off your interlocks and fire as fast as the capacitors will charge. Your only limits right now are trying to keep the guns themselves from exploding. If they do, remember that shit happens.”

Faces on his board were serious. A symphony of single tones, keyed to each of the six guns, erupted as weapons on both flanks let loose.

Both
Fribourg
warships had undamaged shields on their flanks, but both commanders had apparently decided that the little escort wasn’t going to fire unless he had missiles to engage.

So they had mostly forgotten about him.

Hell, it wasn’t like a single Type–2 and a pair of Type–3’s on each flank was going to do much damage to their shields anyway. If they had any.

Because, really, how often does a frigate open fire on a battleship from close enough to pee on him? I mean, besides today
?

Kigali smiled. He almost giggled out loud.

Right about now, there were a pair of Imperial Chief Engineers desperately trying to re–route their shield generators to keep the big girls behind him from slapping them in the face. And here he was, pinching their butts as he went by. Just enough to get their attention.

Oops
.

CR–264
surged with power as the engines went into a place as just as close to terminal overload as his engineers thought they could get away with without actually blowing them all up.

He hoped.

Tomas Kigali wasn’t a prayerful man. Normally. Space was too chaotic and too weird to assume a deity overseeing it. At least one who actually liked you. Today, he was happy to invoke any pantheon willing to listen.

Hell, at this point, he might be willing to offer human sacrifices to gods he didn’t even know, if that’s what it took.

The joys of command
.

His bridge lights flickered, blinked, firmed.

Yup, got someone’s attention. That was incoming fire
.

Aki snarled something rather rude, mostly under her voice. Only she could make a phrase like that sound sexy.

And then they were clear.

If he had even a single missile launcher, he would have thrown a raspberry at someone right now. Maybe he would ask for something to be added on, when they got back to base. Even a single–mount external launcher. Something. The rest of the team was going to be off–line for a while. He could take the time.
CR–264
had to suffer nothing but waist beams thrown at them right now, and that was a high–angle deflection shot.

Talk about low–probability waste–of–time
.

“Boss,” Lam called suddenly from the gun deck. “We got trouble.”

Kigali snapped the projection back an order of magnitude. He’d been tightly focused on threading a deadly needle.

There was an Imperial light cruiser bearing down on him. They did not look friendly. And they were probably still a little pissed about that thing with the flight wing. It
had
been kinda rude.

“Squadron, this is
CR–264
,” he said carefully. “I could really use some help about now.”

Ξ

Jouster
had a great view, if this was a tennis match between people he didn’t know or particularly care about.

The flight wing was blasting in full tilt at the battleship’s shoulder, largely masked by the ship’s bulk from the defensive fire of either the frigate or the battlecruiser. Even the Type–2’s on the GunShip and the S–11’s wouldn’t penetrate very far, but there were an awful lot of fighters about to open fire. Without missiles, they couldn’t kill the Blackbird, but they could sure rip a whole layer of skin off.

Talk about street pizza.

“Flight wing, this is
Jouster
,” he called. “Take it over the top and prepare to put a single pot–shot into the battlecruiser as we go by. Do not slow down. Open fire now.”

Nobody needed to hang around in a mess this ugly. They would always blast clear, loop around, and come back a second time. What he really needed to do was keep everyone’s attention on his people, so
Cayenne
could locate
Damocles
and rescue any survivors.

Lightning erupted around him as everyone pushed their triggers almost in unison.

The Blackbird lit up like St. Elmo’s fire. Just for a second, though, before her flank shields failed and shots started hitting bare metal. Then it was oxygen and hull metal subliming under their withering fire.

That’ll teach you to mess with the lady, assholes
.

And then they were over the Blackbird, like buzzing the tower on a clear day. Sure enough, the frigate was there, waiting like a trapdoor spider as they popped up.

“Break,” he called sharply, putting action to words and snapping his control yoke and pedals to roll away to the left. Across the way,
Bitter Kitten
would be doing the same to the right. Hopefully,
da Vinci
and the lumbering slugs could do something equally impressive, otherwise, they might end up bugs on windshields.

Oh, what the hell
.

His barrel roll had brought his nose around almost far enough, but he still had all the forward inertia. And that damned frigate was just sitting there asking for it.

“
Uller
,
Vienna
,” he called. “Maintain your flight path, but do that spinny thing that
Furious
did to whomp my butt in the training sim. Rolling to port now.”

Jouster
put words to deeds and unsnapped his gyros, even as he brought the throttle back to nothing. A quick pitch left and his nose drifted farther off his flight line, drawing a giant cone across the sky as he rolled on his hips and fired.

There. And a second time
.

“Enough,” he continued. “Hit the cruiser as we go over and then get the hell out of here.”

Good thing he’d skipped breakfast this morning. That was a good way to power–puke your guts all over the inside of your helmet.