Last of the Immortals (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 3) (6 page)

Not a nightmare. She had been fighting daemons in her sleep quite a lot, these last few months.

No, the anguish was the loss of her second arms.

For a moment in time, in the dream, she had been a goddess.

Chapter VI

Date of the Republic May 29, 394 Fleet HQ, Ladaux System

“What do you think?”
Auberon
’s pilot, Nada Zupan, asked, looking back over her shoulder.

Denis had a moment of shock, watching Nada’s ponytail bob. It had gotten almost down to her kidneys, where she had kept it barely to her collar for as long as he had known her.

It reminded him of Jessica. Her hair was getting that long, as well.

Denis wondered if all of them were unconsciously imitating her. Not necessarily the worst role model to have, all things considered.

Denis paused and checked his boards.

“Marcelle has a
Do Not Disturb
on Jessica’s key,” Denis said, “so maybe she’s finally sleeping.”

He considered the rest of the Roster board. He pushed a button at the side.

“Security, Tawfeek here,” the voice replied over the audio channel.

“This is Jež, on the Bridge,” Denis replied with a simple smile on his face and in his voice. “Can you locate the flag centurion for me?”

“Stand by, sir,” Tawfeek said.

A moment passed.

“Uhm, sir, are we on a private channel?” Tawfeek continued.

Denis raised an eyebrow as he looked at the microphone. He keyed the audio suppression system in his command chair.

Why did we need a private channel?

“You are now, Tawfeek. Go ahead.”

“Right, sir. According to my systems, Mr. Zivkovic is currently located in the private quarters assigned to Flight Cornet Nakamura. And if I might suggest, sir, unless this is an emergency, you might want to wait five or eight minutes?”

“Nakamura?” Denis said, surprised.

“
Furious
, sir,” Tawfeek replied quietly.

Why did he need to wait…? Oh. Right. Yes. Not that important.

“Thank you, Tawfeek,” Denis said. “I’ll talk to him when he’s on duty next.”

“Acknowledged.”

The line went dead.

Denis chuckled to himself briefly before he put on his serious face and cancelled the audio suppression.

Nada had a knowing grin on her face when he looked up, but nobody else on the bridge seemed to be paying attention.

“Seems like we’re in charge, Nada,” he said. “Thank Flight Control and the Quartermaster for getting us loaded ahead of schedule, then notify everyone else that we’re heading out. I’ll let you be flag centurion for a while and coordinate movement with
Stralsund
and the destroyers as we back away. Then plot a best–time run to the edge of the gravity well and get us to Jumpspace as soon as possible. The Red Admiral is waiting.”

Nada nodded and began to play her symphonies on the board in front of her.
Auberon
responded with the creaks and groans of a warship preparing for maneuvers.

To Denis, it sounded like old tack on a horse, during a cold winter morning, back on his grandfather’s farm.

Auberon
was going to war.

Ξ

Moirrey looked up blankly as someone touched her on the shoulder. For a moment, total darkness, until she remembered to flip up the welding mask.

The chief engineer, Senior Centurion Vilis Ozolinsh, stood patiently beside her workstation, hands crossed across his back and a serene smile on his face.

“Yeah, Oz?” Moirrey asked, slowly coming back to the room around her. It felt strange to be in the present tense again.

“Newly–promoted Centurion Kermode,” he began with a wicked smile, his accent the perfect clipped tones of the best schools, “I feel as though I am repeating myself. But then, we’ve been here before, haven’t we?”

Moirrey blinked again and glanced around her.

The workstation was piled with paper printouts and strange little bits of gear. Her welder that she slid home into its little carrier, the one decorated with sparklies and bangles. A working model of the miniature Harpoon fighter remote that they had used to test the Archerfish, before
Petron
. Other half–finished ideas made tangible parts.

And Oz, standing there serenely.

“That we have,” she smiled back.

“So, young lady, we shall shortly find ourselves at the sharp end of the stick again. Will it work?”

He gestured expansively to the pile of semi–junk that seemed to be taking over every flat space in the area. The latest miniaturization project sat patiently under the magnifying work lens.

“I dinna think the Red Admiral will be expectin’ this one, Oz,” she said. “
Petron
were one thin’, but
Mischief
keeps needin’ ta betters. Already smacked him on the bum hard once. He’ll no fall a second time. Best to keeps him guessin’, rights untils we go sideways on ‘im.”

“Very good,” Ozolinsh replied. “How soon until the first batch is ready to test?”

Oz already had six of the top ten High Scores from the
testin’
afore
Petron
. Another batch of
Mischief
to play before invitin’ the pilots aboard to play were just right silly. The man were a natural fer ‘is sort of thing. Shame he were never interested in pilotin’ for reals.

Or maybe nots. She’d’a likes to had a spit–and–polish boss, otherwise.

BORING.

“End o’th’shift, Oz,” she chirped. “If you can find someone on swing to mount ‘em and wire it up, we should be ready to play Red Baron in the mornin’.”

“Excellent, young lady,” the Chief Engineer beamed. “I shall dig out my scarf and flight goggles and be prepared first thing.”

She watched him spin on a heel and depart with a jaunty stride.

They were truly off to hunt the great, white whale, weren’t they?

Now, if she could only know if she were Fedallah, or Ishmael.

Chapter VII

Date of the Republic May 29, 394 Fleet HQ, Ladaux System

There was a serenity to this view, Loncar decided. Probably designed for such things at the beginning.

Below him, the mighty fleet carrier that had anchored his most recent Task Force:
RAN
Archon
. A faithful steed that had carried him into battle for most of a decade.

Before that bastard of a First Lord, Nils Kasum, had put him on the beach again. A man like that should understand his worth to the fleet and keep him in constant command of task forces, instead of pushing papers and the occasional mission.

The dry–dock at fleet headquarters stretched out nearly to infinity, designed to service the biggest vessels flying. Fleet Carriers were second only to the two greatest ships in the fleet, the Star Controllers:
Athena
and
Archimedes
, flagships of Home Fleet and First War Fleet, respectively. Still,
Archon
and her sister
Ajax
could almost fill one of the mammoth bays. The light cruiser
Hualien
, close by in bay two, was dwarfed for all her own size.

That was power there. Glory.

He turned and took three strides across the hallway, his long legs consuming the space quickly. This porthole showed a view of deep space. If he leaned far to his right, he could see
Ladaux
below, but it was the ship dominating the sky in front of him that held his attention.

RAN Auberon
.

Her
ship.

The strike carrier had backed away from her loading dock and was transitioning for a deep space run. Around her, like bright knives in the distance, other vessels prepared to depart as well.
Rajput
,
Stralsund
,
Brightoak
. The escort had already departed, flying like an utter madman devoid of any thought for anyone but himself in his mad haste.

Her time would come.

The sound of his comm chirping ruined the tranquility of the scene.

“Loncar,” he said brusquely. “Go ahead.”

“First Fleet Lord Loncar,” Brand’s voice oozed out of the speaker. “I have some information you might find interesting. I wonder if we might meet tomorrow in my office down on the surface?”

Loncar smiled. It must be interesting if Brand wasn’t even willing to offer a hint over the comm.

“That would be fine, Brand,” he replied. “I will let you know when I can catch a shuttle down.”

Chapter VIII

Date of the Republic June 2, 394 Ithome, Ballard

“Good afternoon, Mr. Sykes,” the customs officer said brightly. “Do you have anything to declare?”

The man whose paperwork identified him as Sykes smiled back at the young woman before him, knowing that ninety percent of this encounter was designed as social engineering to locate people
Up To No Good
.

He wasn’t about to let that show. This trip was too important.

“No, ma’am,” he replied, letting his voice drift into a soft drawl he had picked up once upon a time, some eight hundred light years spinward. “Expect I’ll be taking things home, so I plan to travel light and buy things here.”

“Very good,” she replied. “And the purpose of your visit?”

“Tourism,” he said simply. He pointed vaguely at the invisible sky outside. “I wanna see the sights, smell the ocean, and maybe take a day trip up to
Alexandria Station
at some point.”

Sykes watched like a hawk as she slid the little booklet with his latest identity into a scanner and let the galaxy’s most dangerous computer system have a look at him. He was far too professional to actually let this woman see his tension, but everything hinged on the next ten seconds.

Either they let him in, or saw through the disguise and he’d spend the rest of his short life in a small box, awaiting execution.

After a moment, the machine beeped happily. The woman pulled out an actual mechanical stamper and marked his tourist documents with it before sliding it back across the counter to him.

“Welcome to
Ballard
,” she said with a smile.

Sykes glanced down at the stamp. It was a stylized image of the planet
Ballard
, just a slice, with
Alexandria Station
orbiting overhead. Just like it did now. At least for the next few weeks.

Less, if he was successful.

Ξ

The city of Ithome was a lovely place. It still held the character it had originally developed during the long hiatus in starflight, before
Zanzibar
came calling, twelve centuries ago, to re–ignite human civilization.

According to the tourist brochure and his briefings, the city was a maritime capital, located on a fantastically deep and sheltered bay, possibly the caldera of an extinct volcano, or at least the modern remains of one.
Zanzibar
’s first starships to go exploring again had been designed to land on water, so they had picked an oceanic world with a modicum of steam technology to visit first. And had landed in this very bay.

Sykes walked casually through the older parts of the city, down near the original wharfs and factories that had processed fish. A few of the buildings still did, for export to other parts of the planet and system, and many parts of the
Republic of Aquitaine
. The famous mutant tuna of
Ballard
were probably the second most profitable export from this world, reaching as much as ten meters in length and frequently serving as the apex predator in
Ballard
’s enormous seas.

Only the import and export of knowledge and scholars out–weighed the fish, at least in value.

Sykes checked his local almanac and turned to his left.

There.

Approaching zenith in the southern sky, visible as a waxing quarter moon today.

Alexandria Station
.

Home of
The
Sentience
. The AI who claimed to be the savior of humanity.

Pandora
.

Nothing on his person would incriminate Sykes, if he were accosted. Everything was in his head, safely tucked away. Plans. Schedules. Contact names. Wiring diagrams.

The modern assassin’s most effective tool was his mind.

Especially when stalking the most elusive, the most dangerous creature in the history of mankind.

The AIs who thought themselves gods.

Sykes smiled to himself.

Deicide
was such a lovely job title.

He turned a corner and headed down the little side street into what he would have called the Kasbah on his home world. Narrow streets, not much larger than alleys, running hither and yon at angles and in directions personally intended to insult Euclid and Jefferson.

Old Ithome. Pre–starflight, or rather, Hiatus–era, since all worlds save one were the result of starflight, and that one was dead.

A city from the
Time of Darkness
.

Sykes imagined he could smell fish oils on the bricks of the streets. That, and sweet burning incense from a strange little boutique he passed that appeared to be a Chinese apothecary.

Wonders of the modern universe.

He continued past a noodle shop barely bigger than the cook inside before he found his destination.

The store dealt in exotic books for the most part. In an era when almost all human knowledge was available at your fingertips, especially on
Ballard
, some people still preferred the mass and gravity of an actual book. Paper printed with ink and bound in cloth or leather.

There were books everywhere. In the front window, proudly displayed. Stacked on every shelf on every wall. Piled carefully on any surface flat enough and sturdy enough to handle them.

Old books had a smell unique to themselves. It had permeated the wooden shelves that lined most of the shop, possibly even worked its way into the old stone of the walls themselves.

The door had a little brass bell on it that had tinkled when he entered. It seemed to summon a small gray tabby cat from somewhere in back.