The Red Admiral by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Knotted Road Press

Chapter XXXVIII

Date of the Republic April 26, 400 SC Auberon, Outer Edge of FR-0093416-B

Darkness.

Space was technically completely empty, when you measured all space consumed by mass, as a percentage of the overall whole.

Humanity was a rounding error on the cosmos, when you multiplied the resulting space by all of time.

Arott grinned internally. As always, he quartered his private, philosophical thoughts away from the group surrounding him. Wouldn’t do to ruin their perceptions of him as a boring person, especially at this late date.

In the years since he had met Jessica and this team that he had become a part of, Arott knew he had developed a reputation as a by-the-rules stickler for detail. And, compared to the rest of these lovable maniacs, that was certainly the case.

But he had found something about himself after First Ballard. Or rather, during the battle, watching Alber d’Maine go into full-berserker mode, and Tomas Kigali saunter through the valley of death as though going for High Tea.

They were not men known for deep introspection. Most of Jessica’s people really weren’t. They were warriors. For most of them, they had achieved their highest dream in life on the day they added that third stripe permanently and became Command Centurions.

Arott had felt the same way, once. Before a very private conversation with the old First Lord, Nils Kasum, about what place Arott wanted for himself.

Now, he wanted to shape the future itself. In small ways.

Jessica was going to go down in the history books as one of the most important people of this century, and possibly many in either direction, but that was Jessica Keller. The woman was just as impressive as the myth. Perhaps more so, when you knew her and knew how much of what she did was based on her personal vision of what was right.

Arott didn’t always agree with her. Didn’t always even understand her, but he suspected that nobody did. Perhaps not even Keller herself.

She sat at the far end of the long conference table from him, in the room he had taken as his, her warriors around them on both sides, poised like lesser hawks before the majestic phoenix. He would be moving out of this room, off this ship, all too soon. This was probably the second to last of these meetings, there remaining only the formal one that would send him on his mission.

The one where she would rely on him to maintain her entire logistics train for a galactic war, with nothing more than vague notions of what she was going to be doing next.

First Ballard, all over again. He missed Stralsund, now in Doyle MacEoghain’s capable hands, but wouldn’t have traded with the man.

Endings. And beginnings.

Just for effect, and to maintain his reputation, Arott picked up the stack of printouts and tapped them into perfect squareness on the tabletop, before setting them back down and turning to look at Senior Centurion Bhattacharya, seated midway down on his left. Her report had been as detailed as he could have possibly wanted, over and above what zu Kermode had produced.

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