Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour (10 page)

‘I’d be honoured, Captain,’ Drake said.

Tasker grinned. ‘Call me Charley, otherwise we’ll be captaining back and forth, and we’ll sound like idiots.’ Drake nodded his acceptance of that, adding a grin for good measure, and Tasker turned her attention to Aneka. ‘Ma’am, it’s a real honour to meet you.’

Aneka shook her head. ‘You’re Charley, I’m Aneka, no arguments. I’m not her.’

Tasker grimaced slightly and Aneka’s eyebrows went up. ‘Sorry, I lost a bet. She’ll rub that in… You should meet our Council rep. I believe you’ve met her before…’ Tasker stepped aside and another figure could be seen grinning from the end of the small reception room.

Not especially tall, her face half hidden behind long, black hair, the girl was pretty in a cute sort of way and obviously quite young. She looked more or less the same as the last time they had seen her, except that she appeared to be quite comfortable in a skintight vacuum suit and that had not always been the case.

Ella bolted past Aneka and Drake, arms flung wide as she rushed at the girl. ‘Abby!’

Abby giggled as she was wrapped in the enthusiastic redhead. ‘Hello again, Ella. This is not a dignified way to greet a diplomatic envoy.’

Aneka walked toward them, smiling. ‘
You
are the representative the Council sent to New Earth?’

‘Apparently,’ Abby said, ‘I have a talent for diplomacy that the Citizens just don’t have. I’ve always been good at dealing with people. A little shy about it sometimes, maybe, but the last year has been so busy I guess I kind of forgot about that. When they needed to send someone here in person, Holly and Councillor Harper basically just looked straight at me.’ She looked over Ella’s shoulder at Tasker. ‘And Charley there. Best Commander in the fleet, in charge of our best ship.’

‘Best ship in the fleet until the Helios comes on line,’ Tasker said. She glanced at Drake. ‘Stellar-class battleship. She’s going to be a beast.’

‘Bigger,’ Drake replied, ‘is not automatically better.’

‘You said “needed to send someone,”’ Aneka interjected. ‘We were doing fine by FTL comms, and the Council wanted to keep things fairly arm’s length.’

‘And,’ Gillian said, ‘you clearly haven’t announced you were coming to the Administration.’

‘So why the need?’ Aneka finished.

Abby’s face went very serious, very suddenly. ‘You’d better come and have a look.’ Disengaging from Ella, she walked out through the rear door of the room and turned down a corridor, then into what appeared to be a sort of observation deck looking out over another section of hangar bay.

Al flashed up a schematic image of a ship as Aneka looked out through the window, twisting it to match the orientation of the wreckage she was seeing beyond the Polyglass. There was a bit less than half a ship visible, and that had ruptures along large sections of the hull plating. She was looking at the bow section of something that had once weighed in at around a thousand tonnes and was now probably more like four hundred. It was still a match.

‘It’s one of the frigates that’s been attacking our shipping,’ Aneka said. ‘You killed one.’

‘It attacked one of our Q-ships,’ Abby said. ‘One of its fuel tanks ruptured and blew pretty much the entire engineering section to dust, but we managed to recover this.’

‘Q-ships,’ Aneka said. ‘Haven’t heard that term in a while.’

‘Not all the Enforcers were muscle-bound lunkheads,’ Tasker replied. ‘Manu Dei did actually encourage us to think occasionally. One of our guys was a bit of a military historian.’

‘What’s a Q-ship?’ Ella asked.

‘Basically,’ Tasker replied, ‘it’s a transport of some sort that’s been kitted out with weapons. The idea is that it gets attacked instead of a real transport, and it can fight back.’

Ella nodded. ‘It sure looks like it could. It looks too damaged to get much definitive information about its origin from it.’

‘Ah, well that’s true,’ Abby said, ‘but we are pretty sure who’s behind the attacks.’

‘How?’ Drake asked, frowning at the wreck.

‘Because we managed to get several bodies out of the wreckage.’

~~~

The Hand of God was a big ship with a relatively small crew supplemented by heavy use of automated systems. It still had a hospital in it that could treat fifty people simultaneously, basically an entire working shift of thirty-six people, with room left over. Four of those places had been given over to freezer boxes with dead bodies in them.

Aneka looked into one of them and frowned. The occupant did not come as a surprise, but it did come as something of a worry.

‘Are they all Herosians?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Abby replied. ‘We’ve been over the wreckage too. None of the signage is in Latin script. We don’t have records of the Herosian language, but…’

‘It’s definitely a Herosian ship,’ Gillian finished for her. She sounded worried too.

‘We figured you’d be pleased at the confirmation,’ Abby said, ‘but we also thought this might cause some friction.’

‘You’re right there,’ Bashford commented, his eyes on another of the bodies. ‘There have been several incidents. They’ve been played down, but the Jenlay Administration is getting nervous, I think.’

‘And the Herosians are getting both belligerent and defensive,’ Aneka added. ‘Our main security organisation is busy rooting out moles. No one is actually saying that they’re Herosian agents working against the Federation, but I think everyone knows it. They’ve tried to kill or capture me, and there have been various assassination attempts against people who have been sticking their necks out too far.’ She looked down at the corpse in the freezer. ‘This… This is going to be like throwing rocket fuel on an inferno.’

Part Three: Fire

BC-101 Hand of God, New Earth Orbit, 22.11.528 FSC.

There were naval engineers crawling all over the wreckage of the Herosian frigate. Aneka stood on the observation deck watching them work, a frown on her face.

They had spent the evening aboard the cruiser, planning how to proceed, slept in the rather more comfortable conditions of the VIP cabins, and then flown in the following morning. The reception had turned from cautious to enthusiastic too quickly for Aneka’s liking. Tasker and Abby had acquiesced to the Administration’s request to come aboard to look at the bodies and the wreckage, but at Aneka’s suggestion the Captain had put guards on the engineering sections. There was no reason for any of the New Earth people to be in those areas, and for now they were to be kept out of them.

There were exactly two representatives of the FSA aboard, and one of those was there purely to guard the other; Truelove was in the cruiser’s conference room with some Admiral or other and a couple of the New Earth Representatives. Abby and Tasker, as well as Gillian and Ella, were in there talking. The two scientists were there primarily to act as mediators; Aneka had absented herself because the Old Earth people viewed her as a leader and the New Earth people were just not going to understand that.

‘They’re taking a lot of time over that.’

Aneka did not turn at the sound of Drake’s voice. ‘I suppose they want to be sure,’ she replied. ‘Plus they’re probably trying to figure out whether they can get any useful tech off it.’

‘And the longer they stay, the more chance they can get a look at this ship’s technology.’

‘Not much chance of that. Not much chance it’ll do them any good if they get it. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. We’re pushing the Herosians kind of hard.’

‘Huh. They’re summoning Elroy back from Obati to see for himself. The Herosians are pushing to have a team visit.’

‘No chance,’ Aneka said vehemently.

‘From what I’m hearing, Abby is being very firm about that. Very polite, but also very firm.’

Now Aneka did turn, giving the man a grin. ‘I’m still having trouble reconciling the girl I met in Matlock with the woman in the conference room.’

Drake chuckled. ‘It’s barely the same person. She’s a Citizen. She’s got the computer implant and the education. At least she’s not on those cyberdrugs the city dwellers seem to like so much.’

‘Too down to earth for that, but I am glad she hasn’t dabbled. She wants to come down and stay with me and Ella for a couple of days, you know?’

‘I’d heard. See the sights of Yorkbridge. Encounter Jenlay society.’

‘Yeah… Can anyone say “culture shock?”’

Drake laughed. It was rather a nice sound to hear considering the rather depressing view outside the windows. ‘If there’s anyone who can help her through that, then you’re that person. Still, she’s got to get the Administration to agree to it first.’

‘Oh, I get the feeling that if she wants it, she’ll figure out a way to get it.’

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 24.11.528 FSC.

Abby looked around as she emerged from the subway flanked by Aneka and Ella. She was doing her best not to look like a tourist, though that was actually what they were using as a cover for her visit. She was a visitor from one of the Rim worlds, not used to the culture in the core. She had studied a little Federal, enough to get by, so that was covered, and no one knew she was on the planet, aside from a few people in the Administration and the crews of the Hand of God and the Garnet Hyde. Truelove and Justine knew as well, but they were not telling anyone in the FSA. The Old Earth’s representative was going to get an unvarnished view of New Earth society.

‘The architecture is so strange,’ Abby said as they walked through the streets toward Aneka and Ella’s apartment. ‘So big! And those signs… Are those Chinese characters?’

‘Hani,’ Ella said. ‘Aneka says they’re derived from Chinese, but they’re spelling out words in Federal.’

‘Right… I learned a little bit of Mandarin from Mei.’

‘How’s she doing?’ Aneka asked.

‘Well. She’s studying linguistics. Her Federal is much better than mine, and she’s been resurrecting several languages that only a few people still know.’

‘And your father?’

‘He’s fine. I visit fairly often. The Citizens managed to get some of their antigravity aircraft working so we can move around easier. He was worried about me coming out here, but he knows this is important, especially to you people. Am I dressed properly?’

She was looking around at the people they were passing. It was a work day, mid-afternoon, and most of the people on the street looked more her own age than Aneka’s. There was a fair amount of faux-leather about, fishnet tops, and very short skirts. They had dressed her in tight jeans and high-heeled clogs, both in a denim-like Bi-weave, and a strappy top largely composed of Bi-weave mesh. Aneka had suggested a bra under it, but Abby had looked at Aneka’s semi-transparent leotard and Ella’s cropped T-shirt, and then declined quite calmly. Her hair did a fairly good job of hiding her nipples anyway.

‘Worried you might be too covered up?’ Aneka replied, grinning.

‘Well… yes.’

‘This from the girl who couldn’t keep her eyes off our boobs and was worried about wearing a shipsuit.’

‘I’ve spent a year learning to be more… cosmopolitan.’

Ella giggled. ‘We can find you something more revealing later. You’re fine like that. Aneka was more covered up when she first did this walk.’

‘That’s true, I was,’ Aneka said. ‘These days I don’t care. Everyone here knows I’m not from New Earth, even that I’m not Jenlay. So if I dress a little strangely, that’s just me, and this suit has some advantages if we run into any problems.’

‘Are you expecting to?’ Abby asked, looking around at the citizens going about their business.

‘No, but lately I’ve been a little more paranoid than usual.’

They stopped beside something which looked like a garage door and Ella punched a button beside it to summon the lift.

‘You live up there?’ Abby asked, looking up into the layer of haze which obscured the sky between the tall buildings.

‘Yeah,’ Aneka said. ‘They’ve got a fairly small population and a huge amount of space, but they still like living in tower blocks.’

Abby giggled. ‘It’s different from what I’m used to. I kind of like it.’

‘See what you think when we get upstairs.’

The lift took them up to a platform running along the side of one block, shielded from the long drop only by a railing. The haze was below them now, and it blocked the view of the streets beneath, but it still looked a long way down. As Ella started across the bridge between one building and the next, Abby looked a little dubious.

‘It’s safe,’ Aneka said, ‘and the flat’s just across the way. We can get you settled in and then you can decide what you’d like to do.’

‘Okay. Could we go shopping? I’d like to get some ingredients and cook for you.’

Aneka laughed. ‘You’re the guest. We should be cooking for you.’

‘Please… I haven’t had a chance to cook in ages. We can have a nice meal, some wine, and then we can chat.’

‘Fair enough,’ Aneka said, smiling, ‘but we’ll help. The ingredients won’t be what you’re used to.’ She followed Abby in through the door to their block.

‘Abby does not have much better alcohol tolerance than Ella,’ Al commented. ‘Both of them on wine? You do know where that will end up?’

‘After what happened in Matlock, I’m not so sure, but this isn’t the same girl Ella seduced back there. Actually, I’m a little suspicious of her motives in suggesting the wine.’

‘Interesting. I can’t wait to find out what actually happens.’

~~~

‘And this is what you watch for entertainment?’ Abby asked, blinking at the huge wall screen in the lounge. It was displaying a movie currently showing on one of the entertainment channels, New Earth Leisure. That meant a comedy featuring a lot of nudity and a fair bit of sex.

‘I’m not really fond of this particular genre,’ Aneka replied, ‘but they don’t make films like the ones I
did
enjoy and Ella thinks these things are funny.’

‘What can I say?’ Ella said, grinning. ‘I grew up with these. Culturally, we like our entertainment very positive, and we view sex as a positive thing. So the hero, or heroine, gets the girl, or boy, with some humorous interludes on the way. There’s a happy ending, usually involving a bed. No one gets hurt.’