Auberon (The Jessica Keller Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

The vessel would be here for a while, probably far longer than she.

Beyond it, in the humongous center bay, lay one of the greatest of the gray beasts, the Fleet Carrier
RAN Archon,
resting as if beached. Of the two Fleet Carriers, she had taken the most damage at
Iger
, and bore most of the scars. Not as many as
Brightoak
, but enough. The other Fleet Carrier
RAN
Ajax
had gotten away almost unhurt, comparatively.

Jessica glanced at her faint reflection in the plexisteel. 1.6 meters tall. Green eyes. Brunette hair kept short for a suit. She’d tried blond for a while, but found it more effort than reward. Strong shoulders and thighs. Tendency to fleshiness if she didn’t eat and exercise with mono–maniacal devotion.

Discipline.

The forest green dress uniform of the
Republic of Aquitaine
Navy was tight enough to show off her curves, with three white stripes for a Command Centurion encircling her right upper arm and
Brightoak’s
patch on her left shoulder. For formal, official duties, she had all the tags on her right breast that indicated schools, certifications, and service. Because this wasn’t for a cocktail party, none of the medals or awards she was entitled to wear were on the left.

Footsteps approached from behind, loud enough to draw her attention, not loud enough to be rude. She looked up at Marcelle’s reflection as the woman got close.

Her steward, her
yeoman
, her aide. Yeoman Marcelle Travere was tall, over 1.85 meters, and elegant looking with short black hair. Or would have been if she had ever taken a notion to try. The Navy had become her life young and she had dedicated herself to it with single–minded devotion for better than two decades now.

Something else they shared.

Jessica wondered if Marcelle’s career hung on the same threads hers did. Only one of them was being court–martialed today, but they might both go down with the same gavel.

“First Lord sent me to find you,” the older woman said quietly with a wry smile. “He expects that it’s about time. Figured I’d find you here, looking out on the ladies.”

Jessica smiled at the implied joke. Neither of the women had really ever found the time to have men in their lives. Marcelle had never really cared one way or the other, or perhaps never really drawn any distinctions worth mentioning. Jessica had always been too busy. Too many things to do, places to go, things to see. Never time to slow down.

That might be about to change.

Jessica shrugged, glanced once more down at her ship, at least hers for a little while yet, and nodded. Yeoman Travere preceded her back down the long hallway without a glance back.

Chapter II

Date of the Republic June 26, 392 Command Headquarters: Ladaux

As the Bailiff of the Court rap his ceremonial staff on the floor once to get everyone’s attention, silence rippled out like waves on a still pond.

Jessica was impressed. The courtroom was as packed with people as the Gendarme would allow. People filled every seat behind the railing that separated her from them.

In front of her, a single long table and five empty chairs.

“All rise,” the Bailiff bounced the words off the back of the small auditorium. “This Court will return to session.”

Like everyone else in the room, Jessica stood to watch the five Justices file slowly into the room, their decades of naval service lending even greater dignity and gravity to the scene. One by one, they stopped behind their seats and waited until the Bailiff rapped his staff again and they sat.

The room noisily did the same, and then quickly subsided.

The silence in the room was oppressive. Jessica had to fight the urge to look over her shoulder and see if everyone else was holding their breath as well. It would have looked bad, and her solicitor would have tapped her hand to bring her eyes back to the front anyway.

The Fleet Lord on the far right, the President of this Court, looked quietly out over the entire audience, dragging the silence to uncomfortable lengths. Pins would have been embarrassed to drop.

Finally, he looked down at the paper in front of him, as if seeing if for the first time.

“The defendant, Command Centurion Jessica Marie Keller, will rise,” he commanded.

Jessica stood behind the table that had been her second home for the last three days. Her solicitor rose as well, and stepped back a step, leaving her alone to face them. Jessica was not offended. The man had done a splendid job presenting her case and protecting her command decisions from the prosecution.

But they both knew that this was going to be a political decision. And she just didn’t know the five Justices on the court well enough to know how many of them were classified as
Fighting Lords
, and how many were
Noble Lords
. It was probably a fair mix.

How fair?

So she stood and came to parade rest, her hands crossed behind her, chin up, eyes challenging these men and women to do their worst. It was what she was best at.

“Centurion Keller,” the president began in his grand, stentorian voice, “you have been accused of dereliction of duty and willfully disobeying a direct order by your lawful superior officer, in regards to what has been recorded as the Third Battle of
Iger
. You have pled not guilty.”

He paused there to fix her with those great, beetling eyebrows, like an owl about to pounce on a field mouse.

The field mouse considered baring her teeth in response.

“This Court,” he continued, “has heard all the necessary testimony, which is hereinafter entered into the record, and stands prepared to make final our judgment. Do you have anything further to say to this Court?”

Jessica took a quick, shallow breath through her nose and flexed the muscles quickly in her back, all the while standing as a marble statue.

“If it please the Court, your Honors,” she said after a beat, nodding, “I do not.”

The president nodded in satisfaction. He looked down at the paper before him once more before he looked up at her. She could see traces of triumph creeping into his eyes and his voice as he spoke.

Whose triumph?

“This Court finds the defendant…not guilty, and commands that the charges against her be struck from her record. Further…”

Whatever else he said was drowned by the sudden surge of cheers and noise behind her. Jessica would read the decision later. For now, she was mobbed by an impossibly large mass of well–wishers wanting to shake her hand, or touch her arm, or just say
thank you
to her.

Who were all these people?

She looked around for her solicitor, but the man had already been swallowed by the sea of humanity. Marcelle managed to elbow and jostle her way through the mess long enough to lean in close, just as a Fleet Lord Jessica had never met kissed her on both cheeks.

“
He
would like you to call upon him,” Marcelle growled in her ear. Said that way, there was no real doubt as to who she meant. Jessica nodded, but knew it would be several minutes before she could escape the press.

What had she done to be so popular with so many people?

Chapter III

Date of the Republic June 26, 392 Command Headquarters: Ladaux

It was a non–descript door, simply marked
2304
.

Jessica watched as Marcelle rapped firmly on the door with her knuckles and then stepped back and out of the way.

Marcelle gave her an automatic once–over before nodding. Jessica had not, after all, had time to muss her dress uniform, yet.

The day was young.

Jessica came to parade rest beside Marcelle and waited. The first half of her fate had already been decided, downstairs in that court room. The other half waited on the other side of this portal. It was perhaps the most notorious door in the Fleet, the personal office of the First Lord of the Fleet.

The door opened silently into the bulkhead.

“Enter,” a man’s voice called.

Marcelle stepped through first, moved to the right, and came to rest out of the way. Jessica followed an instant later.

As offices on fleet space stations went, it was neither large nor ostentatious, as befit the man sitting behind the desk. Two chairs in front, bolted down, a small plant in a pot on a sidebar, pictures of First Lord Kasum’s father and brother in their full Senatorial regalia, scattered in with the pictures of the First Lord’s wife and family. Behind him, a lovely oil painting of
RAN Devereux
against an orbital sunrise, back before the First Lord, or his first command, were famous.

Jessica stopped in front of the desk and waited. Some Fleet Lords demanded a salute, but First Lord Kasum had always been more about content than form, even back when he had been the Command Centurion instructing new recruits on fleet tactics at Fleet Boarding School, teaching a raw Scholarship Student how to maneuver in six axes of motion.

And he has not changed much in those eighteen years.

The hair was fully gray now. He was still thin as a rail, 1.83 meters tall and maybe 80 kilos soaking wet. The voice was the same rich bass, so incongruous coming from such an otherwise slender chest.

He fixed her with an appraising look for several seconds before turning his attention to her companion.

“Thank you, Marcelle,” he said simply with a smile.

“First Lord,” her steward murmured back.

Jessica couldn’t look, but she would have been willing to bet the woman beside her was blushing furiously right now.

This from a woman who occasionally got so rowdy drunk they got thrown out of dockside dive bars. But who turned into an absolute kitten around members of the Fifty Families that ruled the
Republic of Aquitaine
.

“Travere,” he continued, “I’m going to keep her here for a while. Kamil should be able to get you something to drink and a quiet spot to wait. Tell him I sent you, please.”

“Aye, sir.”

The door hissed shut a moment later.

Jessica studied her old instructor, her mentor, her guardian angel for several moments, but there were no clues to be had. His desk was completely bare save for an empty mug and a magnetic pen in its holder.

Finally, he smiled up at her and pointed at one of the chairs.

“Sit, Jessica.”

She did.

The silence stretched.

“It was interesting,” he finally began, “when I empaneled a Court for you. It had to be an even one, balanced between Fighting Lords and Noble Lords, but it also had to be a fair one. We are, after all, a Republic, not a democracy, so there is an expectation that the best will lead, out of a notion of service, rather than birthright.”

He paused to study her face. She gave nothing away. It was a speech she had heard from him before.

“First Fleet Lord Loncar, after all, had charged you with something very serious. The Noble Lords do not take well to having their orders questioned, especially not so…publically.”

Jessica kept her snarl to herself. Kasum was an ally, possibly even a friend, if she had had any of those at this point.

“I would expect to be punished, sir,” she finally said into the hanging breech, “for doing my job poorly. For allowing a commanding Fleet Lord to establish an Order of Battle so poorly thought out. Not speaking up, not stopping him, would qualify.”

Kasum waited, but she was done. This was his show. He nodded.

“So he put you on the right flank and ordered you to protect the carriers. Standard Fleet tactics, straight out of the manual, yes?”

“Correct,” she replied, venom and disdain creeping into her voice. “With an unscouted moon outside the left flank.”

“How many response maneuvers did you have plotted for your squadron, when the first Imperial fighters came around the horizon Jessica?”

She paused, not unsure of her answer, but unsure of her audience for the first time.

This man was one of the First Families. One of
Them
. How much could she safely tell him?

He nodded at her sudden discomfort, as if that alone answered the question. In a way, it had. He let the moment drag.

“Four,” Jessica finally said, “with seventeen possible variants depending on the size and makeup of the attack.”

She actually watched his eyes open wide.

It felt good to surprise him. She had rarely done it when she was a student.

He recovered in less than a blink.

“And if you had been in the position you practically demanded Loncar place you, at the start of the attack?”

She couldn’t keep the sneer out of her voice this time, so she didn’t try. “
Vigilant
probably would have required a week in drydock,” she said harshly. “
Rubicon
less than that. My ship,
Brightoak,
perhaps nine to twelve days because we would have been the tip of the spear. As usual. Instead,
Brightoak
will be six to eight months having her nose rebuilt.
Rubicon
just flew again after five weeks.
Vigilant
might have to go to the wrecker, depending on how she’s surveyed.”

Jessica hadn’t thought she could surprise her old tactics instructor twice in one meeting. It was one of those days.

Her anger felt hot and sudden in her belly, far more so that just facing a Court Martial.

“What makes you so sure, Jessica?” he asked quietly.

She took a deep breath to control her emotions, almost ashamed of him seeing her like this. Eighteen years seemed to slip away.

“Because it is standard Imperial flight technique, sir,” she spit out, biting each word as it passed. “They would have flown into a wall of missiles, and then been trapped above us in the gravity well, trying to climb out of reach while we shot the hell out of them from below and two cruisers sat above and fired down on them. I believe your term, once upon a time, was mousetrap.”