Auberon (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 1) (18 page)

“I’m not sure yet, Nils,” he replied as he sat, holding a delicate cup in one hand.

“I have good people,” Tadej continued, “and I pay them well to keep on top of things. They were monitoring the hearing, but hadn’t dug deep enough into those reports to realize what was going on. I’ll be talking to them next, but I needed to get down here before you did something you wouldn’t regret later. Especially since Tomčič is apparently behind it. I know there’s no love lost there, especially since
Iger
.”

“Tadej, I have brought charges of espionage and treason against people for leaking less sensitive information to the press,” Nils sighed.

“I know that,” the Premier sighed back. “And I need to keep this from spiraling out of control into an utter scandal. I was all set to go on vacation next week.”

Nils smiled. The Premier’s vacations were social events of the first order, with people rushing to book up every hotel room in the vicinity, on the off–chance of being seen with him, or, better, being invited to dine and socialize. Marriages were often arranged and fortunes made at such gatherings.

“First order of business will be to slap a highest clearance security rating on that report,” he continued.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Nils replied. “The prepared statements have already gone to the press and there’s nothing else in the report that’s all that interesting. I would appreciate an explanation.”

Tadej sipped his coffee and watched Nils’ face. “Calm enough now to ask politely instead of bellowing across the bridge?”

“You planning to be there to referee?”

“I have no choice at this point, Nils. This little stunt is making the Senate look bad. Petty. Silly. School–yard antics. Somebody needs to be taught to handle these things the proper way. That wasn’t it.”

“Then,” Nils said quietly, “I would suggest you read Jessica Keller’s personal report right now, Tadej. I wanted to sit on this as long as possible, but I’m not sure that will be possible now. And it makes for such wonderful reading. Especially in light of what went on this afternoon.”

He slid the folder across the table and sat back as the man sipped his coffee and flipped through the pages.

Sounds came from him that sounded remarkably like suppressed giggles, but Tadej was far too urbane and sophisticated for that to be the case.

Nils finished his coffee as a knock came at the door.

Kamil opened it a crack, just enough to speak, but not be seen. “First Lord, the Sergeant At Arms is here to see you.”

Nils watched Tadej surge out of the sofa angrily. It was like watching a tidal wave suddenly appear on the horizon. He expected the effect would be similar.

The Premier took a moment to very carefully set down his empty mug and the folder before he stomped to the door. Nils smiled as the man took a deep breath and turned on the charm.

Only, it wasn’t charm. Planet–crushing anger, perhaps. Lava was certainly involved.

Tadej pulled the door open and confronted a middle–aged man in the formal uniform of the Senate’s Gendarme.

“What the hell are you doing here, Milon?”

The anger radiated off of Tadej like heat waves. It was actually a rather fun to watch, since the Premier rarely got the opportunity to use it on people. Nils found it far more entertaining to watch him do it to someone else.

It had the desired effect. From where he sat, Nils could just see the man’s face pale and blanch with surprise. He even took a half–step back.

“I was sent by the Chairman, Premier,” he stammered nervously. “The First Lord had not been dismissed as a witness and the committee demanded he attend them.”

“You work for me, Mister Postovich,” Tadej’s voice got eerily quiet. “I suggest you return to your office right now and spend some time remembering that. It is a situation I can easily rectify, if provoked. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Senator,” the man said, falling over himself in his haste to escape the outer office and colliding with a pair of Senatorial Guards behind him.

The group fled noisily up the hall.

Nils rose as the noise faded. He joined Tadej at the door with a silent look of inquiry.

“Yes, I suppose,” Tadej replied. He turned to Kamil. “Thank you for the coffee and the competence. You do a credit to your boss, Kamil, unlike some of my people.”

He turned to Nils and sighed. “Let’s go put out a fire before it gets further out of hand, Nils.”

Nils nodded and trailed into the man’s wake.

The afternoon
was
going to be interesting, it seemed.

Chapter XXX

Date of the Republic March 10, 393 Outbound from Qui–Ping system

Another tactical simulation.

Jessica sat at her desk and went through it, thinking how she would have reinforced
2218 Svati Prime
and, in turn, how to assault that.

Some people knitted. Others read books. This was how she filled her spare time.

It was a seductive game to play, trying to out–think total strangers. Even more so an acknowledged genius of an Imperial Admiral named Emmerich Wachturm. The man so good that the Republic Academy taught him and his tactics.

There was nobody else that had been born in the last century,
Republic of Aquitaine
or
Fribourg Empire
, accorded that honor. Nobody else deserved it.

A knock at the door distracted her. She paused the simulation, then went ahead and shut it down. Her coffee was empty, anyway, so now was a good time to get up and stretch her legs. Maybe another mid–week session with the combat robot.

Valse d’Glaive
required subtlety and suppleness in equal measure. It helped to keep her mind from falling into ruts as well, as the robot was programmed to pick up bad habits and exploit them. Often painfully.

“Come,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

“You have a visitor, sir,” Marcelle said with an odd, subdued tone to her voice. It was enough to bring Jessica’s head up. Marcelle never let emotion get involved in her job. Today she sounded troubled. Marcelle?

“Send them in, Marcelle, and then some fresh coffee, please.”

“Right away, sir,” the Yeoman said as she stepped back.

Senior Flight Centurion Milos Pavlovic,
Jouster
, stood in the doorway, an extremely anxious and ashen look on his face.

Oh, what the hell?

“Come in,
Jouster
. Sit. What can I do for you?”

She watched him move carefully, precisely, like he was at pains to do everything right. His field uniform even looked cleaned.
What was he up to now?

“Sir,” he said quietly as he sat, “I’ve come to apologize.”

Jessica leaned back with an apprising look on her face. Not quite the last thing she expected to hear today, or from him, but very, very close.

“Really? Do tell.” She couldn’t keep the tartness out of her voice even if she wanted to, so she didn’t try.

To his credit, he flinched at the tone and subsided instead of lashing out.

He took a deep breath, obviously working from a rehearsed speech about how he had learned from his mistakes and would be a better pilot and leader in the future.

She almost threw him out of her office right then, just on general principle, but something about his body language stayed his execution.

“Up until yesterday,” he said, quietly, diffidently. It was so far out of character that she had to lean forward to hear him. “I thought I was a better tactical officer, a better battle manager, than you.”

He paused and took another breath.

Jessica wiped all trace of emotion from her face and paid close attention.

“You called me a lazy amateur going through the motions, suggesting that you would have handled it entirely differently and your method would have succeeded completely, where I got deeper and deeper into trouble.”

“I did,” she said, just as quietly. She would have lost money betting with any number of people that she would never have heard even this much contrition out of
Jouster
. “Am I wrong?”

“No, damn it,” he growled, more at himself than at her. “And that just makes it worse. I was flying on autopilot, doing exactly what the book says not to do, trusting that I was so much better than the other guy that I could get away with it. I got in over my head and had to be rescued.”

He paused again. Took another labored breath.

“And I got one of my own killed. Gustav Papp wasn’t my best pilot, or my best friend, or even my favorite wingmate, but he died saving my butt from my own stupidity. I killed
Ironside
.”

“That you did,
Jouster
,” Jessica said quietly into the gap. “Do you understand now why I don’t trust you?”

He gave her a pained look, like this was the first time he had ever looked into his own soul. Knowing him, it might have been.

She let him stew.

“So then I talked to the First Officer, looking for sympathy,” the man continued. “He told me to grow up.”

“I see,” Jessica said, mentally adding a gold star next to Jež’s name. Her First Officer was turning into a proper commander. That alone would make everything else almost a bonus to her task.

“So I went down to the tactical simulator bay, all set to prove you wrong, Commander. To show that there was no better way to handle the situation.”

Jessica noted that the pilot had developed a pitch of fire to his voice. It was like watching the stages of death play out before her eyes.

“I spent the next twelve hours studying you, looking for that signature move that you think would have worked at
C’Xindo
. I studied
Iger
,
St. Germaine
,
Hulun Buir
, and
Bratsk
.”

“Interesting,” she said. This conversation was already well beyond what she expected. “What did you find,
Jouster
?”

“You don’t have a signature move,” he said, almost angry at her, or, more likely, himself. “Every battle you won by using an entirely different maneuver, or trick, or sailing plan. There was no pattern to it.”

“There’s not supposed to be,” she admitted. “Predictability equals death.”

“I realize that,” he cried, voice moving up half an octave, “but I had to find something, anything to prove you wrong. And it wasn’t there.”

He gasped and took a heavy breath, obviously working to calm himself.

Jessica was impressed. This was a side even his personnel files hadn’t hinted at.

“So then I thought about you as a person,” he continued.

Jessica had to fight a grin off of her face.

That might be the first time he had ever thought of her as a person rather than a commander, or a taskmaster, or a piece of ass he might chase.

She kept her face serious. He probably deserved better than her thoughts about him at this moment.

“What struck me as utterly unique about you was
Valse d’Glaive
. The Dance of Swords. So I spent four hours studying the art form, watching video. It is an unlikely combination of two ancient fighting forms from the Homeworld, from cultures a hemisphere apart.
Tai Chi
, which people still practice today, and Florentine–style fencing, from a city in a nation–state on a planet that was destroyed three thousand years ago.”

“The Dance Of Swords?” she asked, intrigued by his line of thinking. He might be on to something that someone else could exploit.

“Aye,
Valse d’Glaive
,” he replied. “A blade in each hand, able to attack or defend equally well and from either direction. But coupled with movement. Acrobatics, tumbles, leaps. Misdirection. So I went back to each of those battles, and I saw what you did.”

“What did I do,
Jouster
?” she said quietly, intrigued for the first time.

“You let them commit, Commander. Forced them to commit, in fact, either to the obvious blow or the misdirection. It didn’t matter to you which way they committed. Once they did, the other hand struck. Every time. Every single time.”

Jessica felt a moment of d
éjà vu
overwhelm her. She flashed back sixteen years to Nils Kasum saying almost the exact same words to her while grading her final in Advanced Tactics.

She leaned forward and studied the man in front of her, chin resting on a fist as her eyes bored in. Interesting.
So I might have to do something predictable soon, just to keep being unpredictable?

“So how would you win at
C’Xindo
,
Jouster
?” She couldn’t help sounding like Nils Kasum right now. It was like he was standing in the corner, watching. Hopefully applauding.

“Pick a pole,” he said. “Probably the southern one since the squadron was planning to climb out of the ecliptic after their strafing pass.”

“Go on,” she smiled at him, much warmer than she would have thirty seconds ago.

“The BattleTug Captain has already committed to racing around the planet to try and get a shot at
Rajput
or
Auberon
as they go by. It won’t be much of a shot, because we caught them so far out of position, but they’re really, really trying. If I had gone under the pole, we might have been able to get underneath of him before he even noticed we were there. Tactical simulator suggests a worst case we could only have two missiles home as we blew by him at full speed. Best case, five of six. The difference is a month in drydock versus possibly enough damage to have killed her right there in orbit.”

He paused and took a deep breath. He held it so long she thought he was done and was about to reply.

“Instead,” the man continued, “I took the obvious path, a pursuit course right into orbit with him where the defense fighters could catch us. We did barely any damage at all, and I killed Flight Centurion Papp. You saw it intuitively and wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

All the air trailed out him like a balloon. He even seemed to sag in on himself.

Jessica was completely amazed. Utterly blown away. She had been expecting to transfer his sullen ass on to some next Commander to deal with.