Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (11 page)

“And?” Emmerich asked, keeping his temper in check.

“Will we be giving them time to completely evacuate the station before we destroy it?”

Emmerich nodded. These men would go into hell itself with him, but they wanted to see the bill of sale first. It was only proper, considering what they were about to buy.

“With luck,” he continued, “the evacuation will be complete before this fleet arrives. The Emperor is not making war on civilians and scholars, so we have agents in place that will spread the panic far enough ahead of time that these people can escape. The plan is that they will carry the terror of watching us destroy the
Sentience
with them back to their homeworlds, but do so from the surface of the planet. The only thing we plan to kill on the station is the
Sentience
itself.”

“I see,” the man replied. “And is there a chance the
Sentience
could escape?”

“No,” Emmerich said flatly. “I have sent someone along to specifically trap her, possibly to kill her. We are actually the misdirection element here, not the assassins.”

The men around the table smiled and relaxed. Some of them with relief, that their naval careers would not be stained by such a mark, and the rest because assassinations in the night were their stock in trade.

Chapter XVI

Date of the Republic June 6, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard

Sykes emerged from the secured customs area and entered into the gigantic mall area that surrounded the University of Ballard like a thick and cushy blanket. The University and the Station were both significant tourist draws, filters that passed hundreds of thousands of people rapidly through and kept their money behind.

Because it would shortly be a collector’s item, especially when he got home, Sykes bought himself two t–shirts with the
University of Ballard
printed on the chest, wrapped around the school’s logo, one in blue with gold letters, and the other reversed.

He was too professional to call it a trophy. Plus, it was the sort of thing tourists did, and he needed to maintain his cover.

It sounded good in his head. He was a god–slayer, after all.

He smiled to himself as he walked the grand space like a good little tourist.

Sykes had lunch in a sidewalk café because he could. It was a useful way to study the crowds that swelled and receded around him.

Ithome on the planet below was a fishing town and a port. It had that feel to it.
Alexandria Station
was a university town in every sense of the word. A village of twenty thousand students and instructors, with another thirty thousand people wrapped around that providing support services.

Everything was geared towards the university’s needs, either financially, emotionally, or physically. Most generally, that meant students. Young men and women here to study, or here for advanced degrees.

Sykes was too old to pass himself off as a student, unless he had taken the time on a cover that required returning for a mid–life degree. There had not been enough time from the point this mission was activated to its probable completion, so he had fallen back on one of the old standbys, using the occupation of his primary contact as a his modus operandi. He at least had a passing exposure to old books, from a previous mission years ago, and could fake the rest appreciably.

If someone penetrated his cover in this short of a time, there was nothing he could do about it except chalk his death up to very bad luck. He certainly would never be traded home, once they figured out who he was.

A brief walk after lunch took him to a bookstore catering to both students and tourists. Again, anything to finance the school. Some students would always prefer to scrawl notes on paper, over having to flip back and forth electronically.

The literature section was boringly predictable, geared towards either the hundred or so ancient classics all students were expected to fake reading at one point or another, or the score or so modern pieces that showed off how bohemian a student was. It was almost like every university bookstore in the galaxy ordered from the same warehouse.

The engineering section was much more interesting. Sykes purchased a tome intended for the amateur civil engineer, showing off the entire station’s infrastructure to an extent that really should have been classified if these people were serious.

He could see the original schematics of the station when it was built. Every major installation or upgrade was detailed in its own chapter, along with the engineering challenges and solutions that had been encountered and overcome.

Very little of it was new information. Sykes guessed that his original briefing materials had been based on a previous version of this very title, or a similar one.

Briefly, he considered how it would look to purchase such a book, given his cover identity as an antique book dealer. Tourist might be enough. If pressed, he could always refer to a non–existent niece with an engineering bent.
Aquitaine
believed in that silly nonsense of sexual equality. They would be excited that a woman had the audacity to learn the necessary mathematics.

Sykes purchased the book without incidence. Perhaps he was a touch too paranoid, but that was rarely a detriment in his daily work.

He set out to find his hotel. A glass of wine and an evening of reading would be a useful way to pass the time while he waited for Admiral Wachturm to arrive, the hounds driving the fox to the hunter.

Chapter XVII

Date of the Republic June 10, 394 Jumpspace en route to Ballard

She knew better than to work herself into exhaustion, as appealing as the idea sounded. Instead, Jessica was going to bed at what Marcelle considered a reasonable time, and working to reset her body clock so that she would be at her peak of wakefulness when they arrived at
Ballard
, just in case the Red Admiral was already there and they had to come out firing.

Auberon
was three days out from their navigational rendezvous with the rest of the squadron and Jessica needed to be sharp.
Brightoak
and
Rajput
she could count on.
Stralsund
, for all the implied excellence of the crew, was still a wild card.

This wasn’t going to be a mass fleet maneuver, battlecruisers in the van with the destroyers, escorting dreadnaughts and carriers into battle. Nor was it going to be the antiseptic ranged engagements of two flight wings dueling for supremacy before chasing the losing side’s carriers away.

No, this was going to be a tavern brawl that spilled out the front door and into the muddy street. In the middle of a thunderstorm.

Unless things were completely upended on the Imperial side, it would be one battleship and all her attendants, coming down the gravity well at them full speed, guns blazing.

Hopefully, the Red Admiral had maintained his traditionalist approach. If the situations were exactly reversed, Jessica might have taken the time to attach an Escort Carrier or Carrier Tug to the Imperial forces, just to keep
Aquitaine
honest.

Everything she had planned for when she got there hinged on Wachturm not pulling a complete rabbit out of his hat.

Given the time windows, she knew he was counting on encountering the exact forces that had won at
Petron
, barely three months ago:
Auberon
,
Brightoak
,
Rajput
, and
CR–264
. Had there been more time, she would have run to
Petron
and picked up the rest of her other fleet, the
Corynthe
4–ring Mothership
Kali–ma
, her flagship; and the carriers
King Arnulf
and
Warlock
, plus whoever else wanted to come along. That would have been enough firepower to take down even the Red Admiral.

Jessica felt her breath catch. His face was suddenly there in her mind as she started to fall asleep.

Warlock
.

Daneel Ishikura.

The pirate she had fallen in love with, only to watch him die protecting her at the
Battle of Petron
.

Something else to lay at the Red Admiral’s feet. He might not have pulled the trigger, but his fingerprints were all over the strategic operation she had stumbled into at
Sarmarsh IV
.

It had been an Imperial mission to a group of pirates, led by the Red Admiral. He had obviously intended to help them overthrow their own King of the Pirates, knowing that the ensuing chaos would harm a
Republic of Aquitaine
ally in
Lincolnshire
, and require
Aquitaine
to commit more forces to that border when they could ill afford it.

A stroke of strategic genius, worthy of Admiral Wachturm’s legend.

Nobody had been prepared for her to arrive and stomp into the mess, let alone manage to stop it, and then top that by being crowned Queen of the Pirates herself. That would have been acceptable, had Daneel survived.

Some days, she still wasn’t sure she wanted to live. Only her various duties kept her going.

Auberon. Aquitaine. Corynthe.

Warrior. Command Centurion. Queen of the Pirates.

She dreamed of Daneel.

Jessica couldn’t remember any other person that had touched her heart as Daneel had.

Aquitaine
was a republic led by the Fifty Families, intermarried and interlocked clans that dominated all aspects of society.

She was just a girl from a lower–middle–class family, and had been identified young and groomed for the Fleet. Smart, capable, successful, but not someone with any great value in terms of the sorts of dynastic marriages that the wealthy and powerful planned.

At least, not before.

Now, she was a famous naval officer in her own right. That might have guaranteed entry into such a marriage by itself. That she was also a barbaric foreign queen with her own fortune would just be frosting on someone else’s dynastic wedding cake.

If she cared.

Daneel was gone.

Loud, brash, arrogant, with a smear of grease under one eye, fighting fires from when she had come over the horizon and destroyed his base out from under him. Or later, lying in bed after a duel and as assassination attempt, asking if marriage was such a bad idea. Jessica could still taste the rage that had bubbled over, telling him to learn the
Aquitaine
way if he wanted to court her.

The tricks your subconscious plays on your words.

She hadn’t meant it to come out that way. Consciously.

Probably.

And yet…

He had gone and done exactly that. Reinvented himself as an
Aquitaine
gentleman, forswearing all the barbaric finery of
Corynthe
to dress for
Ladaux
. Learning to harness stillness and let her energy wash over him without staining.

Touching him, over
Callumnia
. Feeling his heart race.

Making love to him.

Watching him die at the
Battle of Petron
, his own 4–ring crossing her stern to distract all the missiles.

Supernova
, dying like her namesake.

Jessica found herself on the black, featureless plane again, dreaming.

She hoped it was only a dream.

The sky was gray, the color of ashes the morning after a fire. No stars marred its cold perfection. The ground was a polished black stone that was not slick, but still felt like the surface of a gigantic black diamond.

Daneel stood there, tall and laughing and alive. He wore the muted tones he had adopted when he decided to become more than a pirate, more than an enemy, more than a friend.

His smile warmed her from the sudden cold bite in the air.

The daemonic Red Admiral appeared behind Daneel as she watched. She tried to cry out, but was unable to make a sound or move a limb to save her lover.

A fiercely–glowing red blade appeared in the monster’s hand. The creature smiled at her as he drove it into Daneel’s back and out through his chest.

Her lover’s smile vanished as the pain came over him. He tried to say something to her, but no words came.

Instead Jessica watched Daneel collapse to his knees, fall to the floor, die.

She felt herself transform, as before, facing this terrible great daemon made red flesh.

She became again
Kali–ma
, the Goddess of War, as the Red Daemon advanced on a second victim, a young woman with honey–blond hair in bangs and a French–braid.

Jessica had never actually met the AI named Suvi, but she dream–knew who the woman was.

Suvi wore a green uniform, not quite as dark as
Aquitaine
’s, but obviously related. An ancestor, if you will, with a short–brimmed forage cap and a large belt buckle made of polished bronze. Jessica recognized the logo of the
Concord
as the symbol on the buckle and the button on the cap.

Suvi did not wait passively for the Red Admiral, this ancient being. This was no faerie tale princess, helpless and bereft. Instead, she was poised. Unarmed, but unwilling to become a victim.

The bloody red blade transformed into a giant battlesword in the daemon’s hands as he swung at Suvi. Jessica/
Kali–ma
blocked it with their
main–gauche
, even as they swung their saber in response. The daemon conjured his own blade and blocked her strike.

They struggled, titans trading blows. Blood flowed. Sparks showered the ground. Anvils rang in anger.

Jessica/
Kali–ma
felt the daemon’s blade strike home in her chest, even as her own gutted the monster.

They fell side by side to the black stone, life leaking out.

At least I’ll see Daneel again.

Death embraced her.

Ξ

Jessica awoke to partial darkness. She could feel where tears had run backwards down her face while she slept, leaving her hair damp.