Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour (12 page)

‘Well,’ Ella said, ‘this is what we’ve found at dig sites, but we don’t know whether this is what they
originally
looked like. We’ve always assumed that this form, which is what they used the most, looks a lot like their original shape, but there are some things about them that don’t make evolutionary sense.’

‘The fingers and toes?’ Aneka suggested.

‘It’s not entirely likely, but possible. Humans and Jenlay were heading toward losing their smallest toe. On the other hand, they may have engineered this shape for greater stability, and we think they messed with the internal organs.’

Abby turned. There was another case with a much larger body model in it. More reptilian still, it looked like something from a bad sci-fi movie, and the huge antimatter blaster rifle it was holding did not help with the look. ‘And they would just pick whatever body they needed for the job?’ she asked.

‘Yes. That was their preferred warrior form at the start of the war. Physically powerful, fast, built-in weaponry in the shape of claws. They are actually a lot more precise than you might expect.’

‘The Warrior caste thought of themselves more as warriors than soldiers,’ Aneka said. ‘Those blasters were their signature weapon of war, but they preferred something more precise. My machine pistols and rifle are Xinti designs.’

‘As the war progressed and the Torem brought in some of their old, high-tech weapons, the Xinti turned to a different form.’ Ella turned and pointed at what appeared to be the prime exhibit in the middle of the room. ‘A lot of Jenlay think of
that
as a Xinti.’

Someone had either reconstructed or carefully rebuilt the humanoid, robotic body. It was all gleaming metal, polished to within an inch of its life, and Aneka somehow doubted that a real Xinti would have gone to war in something you could see from five klicks away. It was basically a heavy, metal skeleton about two metres tall with armour plates smoothing out the contours. The head was relatively small and quite angular, suggesting that it housed sensor systems only, the brain being located within the main body behind all that armour. This was a body built purely for war.

‘They’d given up their ideals by then,’ Aneka said, her tone a little distant. ‘That thing’s like one of those armoured battlesuits we’ve come up against. It’s not something a warrior would use. It’s designed only for war. It’s a soldier’s weapon.’

‘They weren’t losing when they started using them,’ Ella supplied, ‘but they were probably worried they might. Those things and the use of a lot of robots for fighting… that’s why Jenlay don’t like robots and cyborgs much.’

‘Kat and Dillon didn’t seem worried,’ Abby said, one hand drifting to the back of her neck. ‘I mean, yesterday they were pretty intimate with two cyborgs and whatever you classify Aneka as.’

‘It’s been a thousand years,’ Ella replied, ‘and robots are damn useful. Dillon’s from the Rim and people out there are more used to robots. Kat got to know me before she figured out I had cybernetic eyes and… Well, basically she’d rather have a friend than worry over that friend being a little strange.’

‘They’d figured out I wasn’t Human before they actually heard what I was,’ Aneka said. ‘Kat even said it might have freaked her out if she had known up front, so she was glad she got to know me before her prejudice ruined it.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, I get a couple of hate mails every month from someone who thinks I should be melted down for scrap.’

‘You get far more fan mail,’ Ella pointed out.

‘You get fan mail?’ Abby asked, grinning.

‘She does. I’ll get you a copy of the poster.’

Aneka groaned. ‘Please don’t do that. Just imagine what’ll happen if that gets back to Earth.’

Ella was suppressing a grin. ‘I am. It’ll definitely differentiate you from Manu Dei. She would never be caught dead doing that.’

BC-101 Hand of God, 27.11.528 FSC.

Abby was a distinctly different girl sitting behind a desk in one of the offices aboard the cruiser, which had now been declared officially as a diplomatic mission from Old Earth. She was back in her shipsuit, though the ones the Old Earth people used were not translucent like the ones the Jenlay created, and she was all business.

‘So, while I was enjoying myself things have been moving along,’ she told Aneka, Ella, and Gillian. ‘The Hand of God is officially Old Earth territory. I hope you brought your passports. One of your top politicians, a Senator Jackson Elroy, is flying here from Obati…’

‘We know Elroy,’ Aneka said. ‘He’s a good man.’

Abby nodded. ‘He won’t get back here until next year, unfortunately. Prime City has asked me to stay here until he arrives and I’ve said I would.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘I didn’t think I’d get back home for Christmas anyway. Besides, they want me here because your Senate isn’t waiting for more information. They’ve called for a meeting on the first so that the Herosians can explain themselves.’

‘That could go very badly,’ Gillian said, frowning.

‘Yes, but we’re talking about politicians,’ Abby said. ‘All politicians can do is talk. If they aren’t talking then they aren’t doing anything… Also, when they stop talking the shooting usually starts.’

‘Do you really think they can talk their way through this?’ Aneka asked. ‘This feels like the lead up to Iraq. The UN argued and everyone knew how it was going to end up.’

Abby gave a shrug. ‘Honestly? I don’t see how this can go well, but I’m new to this diplomacy business. Maybe the Herosians can be talked into backing down.’

Everyone went silent. No one wanted to say how unlikely that seemed.

‘You can spend Christmas with us,’ Ella said, more to say anything than for the actual words. ‘After last year, I could
really
do with a party, and…’

‘There is no way I will persuade your Administration
or
the Captain to let me off this ship without an official escort again,’ Abby replied, though she was grinning. ‘Anyway, I didn’t think you people did Christmas.’

‘We had a Christmas party two years ago,’ Gillian explained. ‘Well, a Jenlay version of one. Mostly it was an excuse to get friends and family together. It was just after Negral and there were a lot of us who just felt… Being together to celebrate seemed like a good idea.’

‘All right, how about we have a party here? Even if we have to set up some tents in the cargo bay we can host something. I can call it my thank you to the crew of the Garnet Hyde for re-joining our worlds. Obviously you can bring friends…’

Aneka chuckled. ‘You want to invite Dillon and Kat?’

Abby coughed, hiding her blush behind her hair. ‘I’ll think about that.’

‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Gillian said, ‘one of those friends asked me if I would pass on a request. Doctor Wallace. He’s the head of physical sciences at the university and he would like to take a look around.’ Abby started to open her mouth, but Gillian went on. ‘He was with us on Negral. He’s seen things even you don’t have access to and kept his mouth firmly closed, and he built the second-generation warp drive our military is experimenting with. He might even be able to give your engineering staff some pointers.’

‘He’s also a really nice guy,’ Aneka added.

Abby looked between them and then nodded. ‘I’ll have to ask Captain Tasker, but if you vouch for him…’

28.11.528 FSC.

Abraham Wallace was a very tall man, a fine example of what being born into a low-gravity environment would do to a Jenlay. Stick thin to begin with, his age was starting to show, especially in his face, which likely put him over two hundred. His muscles had never entirely grown used to normal gravity, but he moved around with ease thanks to a gadget the Negral AIs had given him which let him walk around in his own, personal, low-gravity field. Thanks to that he was able to wear more casual clothes on the ground, and at least there was no exoskeleton visible under his shipsuit.

Wallace was a genius, there were few who would object to that designation, but those who knew him also knew that he would be a genius who got next to nothing done without his glamorous assistant. Cassandra looked exactly like someone who should not be walking around with the old physicist. She was average in height, though her feet were usually in high heels which made her look considerably taller. She had long legs, wide hips, a narrow waist, a very expansive bosom, and the sculpted face of a model complete with crystal clear, blue eyes and long, platinum-blonde hair. To be absolutely correct, she had the sculpted face of a popular, if slightly outdated, sex robot. Cassandra was an AI, and the love of Al’s life.

Together they stood in the engine room of the Hand of God, peering at the machinery around them. Aneka had to admit that this really looked like the engine room of a starship. The Hyde had an engine room, and she had been in one aboard a frigate, but those were basically cabin-sized bays that gave easy access to the drives and reactors.
This
engine room was an
engine room.

There were pipes and cable ducts. There were huge chunks of machinery with flashing lights and glowing display panels. There were ladders running between the two decks, with the huge rear section of the main spinal weapons system below, and lots of… engineering above. The huge toroidal structure which formed the warp field was wrapped around the entire room. There was a big, spherical thing at the rear that was the reactionless drive. And right in the middle of it all was a heavily shielded structure containing an enormous fusion reactor.

‘This,’ Wallace said, ‘is what a spaceship should look like.’

Shannon, standing nearby, laughed. ‘It’s a lot roomier than my engine room. Not that I’d say that in front of Aggy.’

‘Aggy is quite happy being the AI aboard a science vessel,’ Cassandra replied.

‘Yeah, but I bet she’d be even happier if she could be on a science vessel this big with these engines. They look… What do you think, Doctor? Twice the power-mass ratio?’

‘She’ll do just over one-point-three light hours per second.’ The speaker was a woman, Madison Kent, the chief engineer of the ship. Unlike most of the crew, she was not an ex-Enforcer. She had helped design and build the ship, and it had been felt that having her aboard to handle any problems might be a good idea.

Shannon frowned for a second, doing conversions in her head. ‘Yeah, twice as fast as the Hyde. That’s pretty amazing for such a big ship.’

Kent smiled. ‘Partially we wanted to see if we could do it, but we sold it to the Guardians on the basis that it can deploy quickly. We could, if needed, warp our way out to Saturn in a matter of minutes. It’s not exactly a recommended manoeuvre, but it’s possible.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘I understood you were a pilot, Miss Patton?’

‘The Hyde’s a small ship. Drake and I have to handle everything from flying her to fixing her if she breaks. I tend to do the engineering. I was taught to work on our drive by some AIs and I wanted to see how this one stacked up to its smaller cousin.’

‘And?’

‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Shannon replied, laughing. ‘Actually, that’s a lie, but it’s different, and not just because it’s scaled up.’

‘Yours was designed by the Xinti; ours was extrapolated from a Human first-generation drive, derived from a Xinti drive. I’d imagine the similarities outweigh the differences, but there are bound to be some variations.’

‘And you were on the design team?’ Wallace asked.

‘Yes, though I was actually more involved with the hulking brute at the back. We got it working on a small scale easily enough, but scaling it up proved harder than we thought.’

Wallace almost swooped down on her. ‘You worked on the sublight drive? Oh, my dear, we have so much to talk about…’

~~~

‘Aneka?’ Aneka turned to see Tasker walking down the corridor toward her.

‘Charley, what can I do for you?’

‘Well, I was just wondering when I could have my lead engineer back. Your Doctor Wallace seems to have stolen her.’

‘Abraham gets
very
enthusiastic about physics,’ Aneka replied, grinning. ‘I’m sure he’ll let her up for air in… Oh, no more than a week.’ She started off again, now with the Captain walking beside her.

‘A week? Is that one of your ten-day weeks, or one of our seven-day ones?’

‘Local calendar. A week. Maybe two.’

‘Two weeks?’

‘At most.’

‘Twenty days?’

‘Let’s call it a month to be safe.’

Tasker narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m an ex-Enforcer. We had our senses of humour surgically removed when we got the job.’

Aneka chuckled softly. ‘Actually, I’m starting to think there might be hope for you lot after all.’

Mercy Island, Obati IV, 1.12.528 FSC.

Diana Ollander sighed, turned over, and slapped the pad on her bedside console which cancelled the alarm. She had learned early in her career that vocal cancellation led too easily to going back to sleep. She had also learned to program the computer to set the alarm off again if she did not get out of bed after ten minutes, but that was not going to be a problem this morning.

Still, she remained on her back, staring at the ceiling, for a while longer. She wanted to get herself ready for the day ahead of her and a moment’s thought would be a good start.

The Herosians had really fucked everything up. There was no other way to describe the current situation.

She had seen the Navy’s analysis of the wreck the Old Earth people had brought over. It matched perfectly the one sensor scan they had of the ships which had been performing sneak attacks all over the Federation, and it was very obviously Herosian. The design was all theirs and the crew had been Herosian.

Worse, the crew had been Herosian military.
In uniform!
Elroy had told her about some history book he had read about pirates back on the seas of Old Earth. There was a type of pirate called a privateer, the difference being that privateers had a licence to harry enemy shipping from the government of the time. They were basically state sanctioned brigands. At least
they
had had the sense to wear civilian clothing! If they were caught, they were just private citizens.