Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (8 page)

“Gotcha,” someone on the gun deck called. They were all awake and scanning their little area, in addition to what the actual sensor crew was doing.

CR–264
was moving at the sort of speed that would normally get him a very rude talking to from Flight Control. At least until he explained the situation. Then they might shut up. They might not. You never knew with bureaucrats.

He was flying forward at the sort of attack speed that one of
Auberon
’s melee fighters might have a hard time matching. That was okay as well. He wasn’t planning to come into this place at a polite speed, anyway. The record books said Station–to–Orbit when measuring records like this. If he did a slingshot longways around the planet, and he would at this speed, no question, it still counted.

After all, he was racing eternity here. Not just every other navigator out there today, but every other one that would be born. Stiff company. Gotta make them look like pikers when they saw his flight time.

“Bridge, gun deck,” a voice called. “No Imperials are identifying themselves right now. The station is intact, near as I can tell. Orbital Control is pissed.”

“They’ll get over it,” Kigali replied, half under his breath. “Comm, tell Orbital Control to bother someone else and to assign us an orbital approach to
Ballard Flight Station
so we can get close enough to send a shuttle over. Then find someone in charge over there and get me a private channel with full military scramble enabled.”

No point in starting a complete civilian panic. At least not yet. That would happen in a few hours, when the news got out. Right now, he needed the senior Command Centurion in charge over there activating all those silly contingency plans they had never expected to use.

Hopefully, someone had been keeping them up to date, and even training on them every once in a while. Otherwise, this was going to get very ugly, very quick.

Ξ

Kigali could tell that the man was going to be difficult as soon as he appeared on the comm screen. There was just a look to him. The first words made it obvious.

“This is Command Flight Centurion Timofeh Ariojhutti,” he growled, just short of a bellow. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, flying like that in my space, mister?”

Kigali took a deep breath before responding. That sort of loud hard–ass act probably worked on people that didn’t have to measure up to Jessica Keller on a daily basis. Here, it just made the man look like an amateur.

And Ariojhutti looked like a former fighter jock, that sort of average height starting to spread out around the middle from too much time flying a desk.

“Are we on a secured channel, Command Flight Centurion?” Kigali answered quietly.

“A what? Why?”

Kigali stared at him hard, almost dismissively. It was one thing to act tough. Tomas Kigali wasn’t in the mood to take any shit from some bumpkin in a boring defense slot, protecting a station in the middle of the
Republic
, even if it was about to become the front lines.

“My name is Command Centurion Tomas Kigali. I have priority orders from the Premier of the Republic, Command Flight Centurion,” Kigali said quietly. He let his anger underline his words. “You can secure this channel, or you can wait until I arrive by shuttle to personally deliver them. Your choice.”

That got the man’s attention. Apparently, big–fish–in–a–tiny–pond syndrome. Kigali considered knocking the man down and kicking him, at least metaphorically.

Maybe metaphorically.

Apparently, Ariojhutti got that message. He reached down and pushed a button off–screen. A red border appeared around the screen.

“Go ahead,” he said, much quieter.

Command Centurion Tomas Kigali raised himself slowly to his full height. It wouldn’t change how he appeared on the other man’s screen, but pilots tended to be short, or at least compact, especially compared to his own lanky height. It would give him just one more edge in this
discussion
.

“Premier Horvat and First Lord Kasum have declared martial law in the
Ballard
system, Ariojhutti,” he said simply.

The man blinked in utter shock, but said nothing.

Score a point for politeness, then. Or at least manners.

“Very soon, an Imperial task force is going to arrive, intent on destroying
Alexandria Station
,” Kigali continued. “
Ballard Flight Station
will probably be second or third on their list of things to blow up. I got here first because I could. The rest of my team will be along in five or seven days. We’re going to try to stop him. You’re going to help.”

“I’m in charge of this system’s defenses,” the man responded angrily, but quieter than before.

Kigali considered several responses. Most of them were rude, verging on unacceptable in polite company. Even among command centurions. He decided the man needed a good smack to the side of his head, if just to get his attention.

“The enemy force will be the Imperial battleship
Amsel
, with her cruisers and escorts, Ariojhutti,” Kigali said simply. Best to just stick the knife straight in and be done with it. “Your flight wing would last about three minutes against them. Your job, right now, is to get me a meeting with the civilians down on the planet so I can deliver my orders, and then to start evacuating the two stations so we can keep civilian casualties to a minimum. Later, we’ll have to fight Admiral Wachturm.”

“What are you bringing to the dance?”

Kigali had to give the man credit. The loud, obnoxious blowhard of a pilot who had started this conversation had slowly morphed into something approximating a professional. Give them a problem. Let them solve it. Maybe he wouldn’t have to let Jessica dress Ariojhutti down, after all.

Maybe.

“A strike carrier, a battlecruiser, two destroyers, me, and you.”

“Against a battleship task force? Are you insane?”

“We don’t have a choice, Ariojhutti, unless you want to let him just waltz in here and start blowing things up. Plus, we do have one thing on our side.”

“What’s that, Kigali?”

“Jessica Keller will be in command.”

Because, really, this was the Red Admiral. If Jessica couldn’t do it, nobody else was going to manage.

Chapter XI

Date of the Republic June 8, 394 Jumpspace en route to Ballard

“What exactly is it?” Jessica asked Moirrey as they stood on the flight deck, surrounded by crews feverishly working on esoteric tasks for the fighters and bombers that would be going into battle in a matter of days.

“Is no mine, ma’am,” the evil, engineering gnome, now centurion, replied. “Oz did this hisself.”

Jessica turned to her chief engineer for an explanation.

The man had a serene smile on his face. Anywhere else, she would have taken that at face value, but Moirrey had specifically asked her to come down to the flight deck to witness more
Mischief
.

The objects of the discussion squatted before them.

They looked like shuttle craft. Two of them. If you have gotten a group of Academy students drunk and asked them to assemble them. Without instructions. In the dark.

Certainly, not something one would be proud to show off. And yet, six more engineers, Able–bodied Spacers and First Rate Spacers, all seemed quite pleased with themselves.

Tickled, even.

“Oz?” Jessica asked. It was not a nickname she had heard before, but obviously things were a little more relaxed down in the engineering bays.

The chief engineer nodded at her with a prim little smile. He reminded her of nothing so much as a mother hen overseeing a brood of bright, chirpy chicks.

“It is indeed a rare thing,” he began, “when either the operations or capital budgets allow my department the freedom to exercise a degree of artistic liberty and autonomy in our work, at least on a scale such as this.”

He gestured expansively at the mess around them. His team had taken over an entire section of the bay, with all of the fighter craft stored vertically along the walls in their little racks, like bottles of beer cooling in the refrigerator.

“Here,” he continued, “there were no budgetary constraints worth mentioning. Indeed, with access to two complete fleet weapons packs, plus a few items we were able to effect trades for with the ground crews, I believe we have introduced two lovely new catalog items into the
Mischief
folder that Imperial Admiral Wachturm will not be expecting, simply because, while he may make a study of young Moirrey’s work, this represents an entirely different methodology of cognition about the vagaries of warfare.”

Vilis Ozolinsh had been born to one of the wealthiest and highest–profile of the Fifty Families that provided the governing backbone of the Republic. He should have been a line officer, or a Senator.

Jessica realized at that moment exactly what it had meant to her future that he had instead fallen in love with engineering as a very young man, instead of the traditional command track. He would have been a good Command Centurion. He was an excellent engineer.

If his family connections had managed to stick him out on the distant frontiers, so as to not have to think about the black sheep of the family, a lowly engineer, all the better.

He had been there when she needed him.

His smile gave him away. Butter would not melt in his mouth right now.

“What have you done, Oz?” Jessica asked, wrapping her head around this new person.

If his own folks could call him by a nickname, his commanding officer could make the effort as well.

He had a smile like Moirrey’s. Jessica wondered who had originally picked it up from the other.

“With unfettered access to a full two weapons packs,” he preened, “we were able to color well outside the lines, to quote one of Moirrey’s favorite sayings.”

He started walking towards the nearer of the two, Jessica, Moirrey, and the rest of the engineers trailing out behind him like a school of remorae trailing a shark.

“Each pack contains almost all of the components necessary for a vessel with a truly competent machine shop, such as ours, to repair almost any type or degree of damage to a standard transport shuttle.”

He tapped the little ship with one hand, almost a loving caress as he spoke more to himself than to his audience.

Jessica suppressed a snort. She had seen what her
truly competent machine shop
had managed, especially when they had committed two separate pranks on
2218 Svati Prime
during the
Long Raid
, what historians and writers were starting to call
Keller’s Raid
, despite everything she could do to dissuade them.

“In the past, that has not been of any great note, simply due to the limitation that
Auberon
neither carries such craft, nor has space for them during her everyday operations.”

Oz turned and fixed her with a hard smile. Predatory. Indeed, a shark in calm waters. She had never seen him thus.

It was an exciting development. She hoped.

“Here, I was struck by an interesting notion of Imperial tactics from my Academy days.”

“Go on,” Jessica said. The less she spoke, the more he would.

“Indeed, Commander. Thank you,” he said. “Normally, an Imperial vessel launching missiles will either target them to engage a class of vessel, such as our dreadnaughts, or aim them at the specific sensor signature of their intended victim.”

His face grew more serious at this point. Jessica could see pain in them that hadn’t been there before.

“At the
Battle of Petron
,” he continued with a softer look and a nod, “they used the former technique to target the 4–ring Mothership
Kali–ma
, and in the course of the maneuvering, destroyed
Supernova
instead.”

His voice had dropped to almost nothing.

Jessica still felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

For a moment, the flash of light as
Supernova
exploded flooded her mind. She felt her breath catch and tried to suppress the flinch she felt, but she knew he saw. Moirrey probably did as well. The others were to either side, and didn’t know her as well.

But even they fell silent and somber.

Jessica hadn’t realized how much her own loss had affected her crew, how much they apparently felt her pain.

She found some manner of solace there.

Eventually, she told herself, she would be able to remember Daneel without pain.

She just had to live long enough.

If there was such a thing as
long enough
.

A moment passed. Utter solemnity.

Jessica took a breath.

“So how would you solve this problem, Oz?” she asked as her voice began to settle.

“Ancient sailors,” he replied, “mariners on water seas, used to have a legend about a creature that would call them by singing. A beautiful woman who turned out to be half–fish, luring them to their doom on the rocks.”

“You mean sirens,” Jessica guessed.

“Indeed, Commander, the bane of the seafarer on the Homeworld. Replicated here in the hopes of luring Imperials to their own special brand of doom.”

Jessica let a single raised eyebrow ask her question.

“When launched, this shuttle craft, this Siren if you will, will emit a sensor signal so very comparable to that of
Auberon
that, when we briefly turn our own sensors down to almost nothing, Imperial missiles should instead begin to track on the shuttle, following it to their own doom. One hopes that we can lead an entire wave of such missiles so far astray that they are unable to recover and thus pose no greater threat.”

“I see,” she said. “The two shuttles are identical?”

“Oh, no, Commander,” Oz oozed charm and confidence. “Although money was no object here, we simply did not have that much in the way of spare electronics that we could cannibalize for this particular occasion, given the constraints of time under which we labored.”

Jessica followed again as he moved to the second shuttle. This one was in even worse shape. The bow section had a strange, dimpled appearance.