Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour (18 page)

Abby coughed. ‘Well let’s hope we don’t get attacked by ogres today.’

‘Ogres?’ Elroy asked, frowning. ‘Isn’t that some sort of mythical creature?’

‘Mutated Humans,’ Ella supplied.

‘Strong and kind of dumb,’ Aneka added, ‘with a predilection for kidnapping women. Anyway, I assume you’ve seen all the reports on the ship Abby brought with her? The wrecked one?’ She sat down beside Ella, leaning back wearily.

‘I have,’ Elroy said, sitting down in his preferred armchair. He tapped at a tablet perched on one of the arms and the huge wall screen opposite him lit up with a schematic of the wreckage. ‘It’s all a little moot if it turns out that the Herosians have started a war, but the evidence is fairly damning.’ His gaze moved to Abby. ‘What I really need to know is whether we can count on support from Old Earth if we need it?’

‘I haven’t heard a definitive answer,’ Abby replied. ‘I think the fact that they haven’t called me back is a good sign. The Guardians, uh, our military, think that helping the Jenlay would be good strategically. It’s a matter of deciding whether we can spare the ships, I think.’

Elroy bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘Your own security is important.’

‘Yes,’ Aneka agreed, ‘but we know the Herosians will come after Old Earth because they already have. As far as we know, the Pinnacle is nothing but a potential threat.’

‘
You
were the one who said you didn’t want them making decisions based on your assessment,’ Abby pointed out. ‘I think that’s the advice they’re getting from the Guardians, but it’s a question of overcoming fear. An unknown fear versus a known one.’

‘It’s hard to compete against an unknown fear,’ Elroy commented bleakly.

‘In this case,’ Ella said, ‘it may work to our advantage. The Citizens are very rational people. If they can’t quantify it, they may well place a tangible risk as a higher priority.’

‘I wouldn’t say you’re wrong,’ Abby said. ‘Ella’s assessment of my bosses is quite accurate, in my opinion. Her training in psychology is more extensive than mine.’

Elroy smiled at her. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you seem rather young for a diplomat, Abigail.’

‘I… suppose I am, but my teachers say I have a talent for it. They also say they don’t. They know what to do, and they can teach the technicalities of it, but they’re just not very…’

‘Social,’ Aneka supplied.

‘Uh… Yes, that works.’ She gave Aneka a slightly apologetic grin. ‘They’re getting better. You know half the crew of the Hand have taken up…’

Aneka thought she knew what the girl was going to say and she did not particularly want Elroy knowing she had introduced recreational sex to the Old Earth people. ‘I’m glad they’re taking up a hobby,’ she interrupted.

Elroy looked between them, shrugged, and went on. ‘Well, I have a woman from old Old Earth and one from modern Old Earth, and an expert of our understanding of Old Earth. I’m a student of history with a need to understand how the two Earths can relate to one another. I’m sure you can see where this is going.’

Aneka grinned at him. ‘We should get drinks in. This could take a while.’

~~~

They had had dinner brought in. Nothing too fancy: good, tasty, New Earth food which Abby seemed to quite enjoy. She had commented on the fact that the wine did not really taste like wine and suggested she bring a bottle or two down from her diplomatic supplies if she visited again. Elroy and Ella had looked at Aneka who had shrugged and said she had not really wanted to mention it before.

The talk had been largely undirected, but over the course of the afternoon almost the entire story of the Garnet Hyde’s trip to Old Earth had come out. Ella’s seduction of Abby had been left out. What Yrimtan had been, and the fact that she had been killed by Aneka had not.

‘I want to thank you, Aneka,’ Elroy said as they sat at the dinner table, drinking and chatting.

‘For what?’ Aneka asked, smiling.

‘The story of you and Yrimtan, or Manu Dei, or whatever she was calling herself, I get the feeling that there are very few people who know all of it.’

‘Not many. I don’t think you can really understand the people over there without knowing how they got the way they are. Still, I’d rather this didn’t get wider exposure.’

Elroy nodded. ‘Agreed. I don’t think we’ll gain…’

‘Urgent message received from the Admiralty,’ the house’s computer announced in a bland tone.

Elroy looked up at the ceiling, which was where the sound came from, but not really where the message was going to be seen. ‘It never
sounds
particularly urgent,’ he said absently.

‘I keep thinking the same thing,’ Aneka said. ‘I assume you’d better take that privately.’

‘Yes,’ Elroy said, unfolding himself from his chair, ‘I suppose I should.’

‘What do you think?’ Ella asked once he was out of the room.

‘I think it’s about Obati,’ Aneka replied. ‘I also think they wouldn’t have tagged it as urgent if it was just to report a transmitter failure.’

‘I don’t know,’ Abby said. ‘Your Navy seems a little excitable. Not that I’m expecting good news either.’

‘Several sites devoted to watching the activities of the Navy are reporting an increase in activity around Corax,’ Al stated. ‘CFM have just put up a newsflash that they are expecting an imminent statement on the Obati situation.’

Aneka sighed. ‘Al says there are reports on activity around Corax and there’s going to be an announcement about Obati soon.’

‘Corax?’ Abby asked.

‘One of the moons around Joval Seven,’ Ella told her. ‘Among other things, there’s a Navy facility there. It mostly handles frigates and gunships…’

‘Just the kind of ships you’d use to set up perimeter defences and patrols,’ Aneka said.

Elroy’s voice cut in from the speakers, interrupting their discussion. ‘Ladies? I think it’s best if you come through here and see this. I’ll have to tell Abigail anyway…’

‘He didn’t sound happy,’ Ella commented as they got up and followed the route he had taken to the lounge.

Elroy waited for them to sit down and then flicked a finger at the wall screen, which was currently showing nothing. ‘This arrived through the normal FTL relay system about half an hour ago. The Navy have confirmed the encryption and authentication codes. It’s genuine.’ He tapped his pad and the video started running.

The image looked degraded at first, but Aneka quickly realised that what she was seeing was a man’s face obscured by smoke. It looked as though he was standing, attached to some form of bracing structure by a harness, and there seemed to be some sort of image behind him.

‘It’s a Delta-class frigate,’ she said. ‘That’s the captain’s station.’

The man spoke, confirming her assessment. ‘This is… Captain Levant of the Delta Carpathia. All drives are down, reactor is offline. We’re running on backup power. Life support is… more or less functional, but we’re not sure how long it’ll last. There are four of us left. I’m transmitting our position along with this in case someone can help, but…’ He dissolved into a fit of coughing.

‘How many crew are on one of those ships?’ Abby asked.

‘Fifteen,’ Aneka replied flatly.

‘A large contingent of Herosian ships jumped into the system about fifteen hours ago. The Obati system. Uh, we detected high levels of thermal activity, atmospheric shockwaves. No radiation, they must’ve used kinetic impactors. Big ones. We were outnumbered. The Herosian ships on duty here joined their fleet. I warped out when they took out our main drives. Had to get this message out. Someone had to. Warp’s gone too now and we’re drifting. The Senate… The Senate’s gone. I never thought they’d really do it.’

The video stopped, leaving the room in silence.

‘How many people on Obati?’ Aneka asked after a few seconds.

‘Including the military personnel in orbit,’ Elroy replied, ‘around forty thousand.’

‘Right…’

‘I have a statement to prepare for the news channels,’ Elroy went on. ‘I plan to keep it simple. We have had nothing from the Herosians themselves. Frankly, I’m not sure D’Jarnis even knows what’s going on.’

‘I’ll send a message to Earth with the news,’ Abby said, her voice dull. It was one thing to expect the worst, another to have it happen.

‘Thank you, Abigail. I’m sorry our evening had to end in this manner.’

‘It was always likely that it would,’ Aneka said. ‘We all knew we were likely to hear this today. We were lucky we got this long before it arrived.’ She got to her feet. ‘We should get Abby to her shuttle.’

‘Indeed,’ Elroy agreed, standing up as well, ‘but could I take a moment of your time first, Aneka?’

Ella got up, holding out a hand to Abby. ‘We’ll go get ready to leave,’ she said, glancing at Aneka.

‘Yeah,’ Aneka replied. ‘I’ll be there shortly.’

When she turned around, Elroy was walking over to the window. He stopped in front of it, looking out at the pale blue glow from the pool.

‘I… need to ask you to do something, Aneka,’ the Senator said. ‘It’s something I never thought I’d ask of anyone, but I’m not sure I can ask it of anyone else.’

Aneka stepped up to stand beside him. She had a feeling she knew what his request was going to be, but she needed to hear him say it.

‘Marcus Dowler,’ Elroy went on. ‘He needs to be eliminated from the equation.’

‘You want me to kill him,’ Aneka stated.

‘I want you to kill him,’ Elroy agreed.

‘I’m not an assassin, Senator…’ Her gaze took in the lounger resting at the edge of the pool. Diana Ollander had used it more than once. ‘Senator Ollander was on Obati,’ she said.

‘Yes, she was.’

‘Jackson…’

‘I don’t want you thinking that this is for personal reasons,’ he said firmly. ‘We have never worked out how he communicates with his handlers. He
will
continue to pass information to them and that
must
end.’

Aneka was silent for a moment. ‘I’ll need to think about it. It’s not what I do, but… Someone once told me that some of us have to do things we don’t like so that everyone else doesn’t have to.’

‘Winter,’ Elroy said. ‘She used to say something like that.’

‘Yeah…’

‘Make no mistake, Aneka; I’d do this myself if I had the slightest possibility of succeeding. I can’t make this a personal matter… but it is.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Aneka said, and then she turned from the window, picked up her gun cases, and left.

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 19.1.529 FSC.

‘He asked you to do that?’ Winter sounded surprised. She was currently in her blonde, teenage avatar, though Aneka guessed they were all a little lost without their guiding parent-mind. They might all drift a little, as Justine had.

‘Yes, he did,’ Aneka said. They were talking in the street, just a woman chatting to a young friend. ‘
If
I do it, it has to be subtle. I can’t just shoot him. And that limits my options for getting to him.’

‘Well, give me a couple of days. It’ll let you think about it and I can arrange something… subtle.’ She grinned, rather maliciously. ‘I think you
should
do it, by the way. He needs to be eliminated, and Elroy will feel obligated. The latter might be more useful than the former.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘You realise that this is exactly what I
didn’t
want to end up doing?’

‘I am aware of that fact, yes. If you decide to go ahead, I’ll prime Elaine with some information I’ve collected. We should be able to nail almost all of the FSA moles in one night. That will just leave the ones that I’m quite sure exist in the Navy.’

Aneka grimaced. ‘One problem at a time, please.’

Beryum System, 20.1.529 FSC.

Beryum was an odd sort of place to put a colony. A trinary system, the colony had actually been established on the lone moon of one of the gas giants circling around the distant, third star, an orange dwarf. The two primaries were almost invisible, collapsed long ago into white dwarves, but at a minimum separation of two hundred AUs, Beryum never felt much of an effect from them.

The moon, which everyone referred to as Beryum, was small for a garden world, and the atmosphere was low on oxygen. It was not the warmest place to live either and there was often snow on the ground. Life had developed there, happy in the marginal conditions, but the colonists had got used to working in breather masks and heated suits when they were outside the domed environments which formed the cities. They had come for the minerals, of which Beryum was abundantly supplied, but the system also provided a lot of Helium-3 to the near systems, and there was also a line in various herbs and spices which could not be found anywhere else. The local fauna was inedible, but not particularly dangerous. The slightly difficult living conditions, and the proximity to Herosian space, had kept the world’s population down, which meant those who went to live there had more wealth to share around. The Jenlay who lived on Beryum had a comfortable life.

The government facilities on the planet were both a source of pride and a bone of contention, and they had been for half of the four centuries the colony had existed. Beryum had a substantial naval presence, which had helped in the construction of its large, and prestigious, spaceport, but some felt that such a large base so close to the Herosians was a provocative mistake. Part of the base was an FSA facility, generally considered to be there to keep an eye on the border region. It had Herosian and Jenlay staff, but that just made things worse; the Jenlay of Beryum were not especially fond of the Herosians since the world’s ownership had been contested early in the life of the Federation. It was generally considered a clear manifestation of the Herosian urge to own everything since they hated the cold, and Beryum was far from being a warm place.

None of this concerned Mizzy Tuft. She was far more concerned about the screen she was glaring at and the maths problem it was presenting to her. Her AI tutor was attempting to educate her in the joys of basic arithmetic, and Mizzy just did not seem to have a numeric sort of brain. That fact had been noted by the education network and her class programme had been adjusted accordingly. Several higher-level mathematics modules had been dropped from her curriculum and replaced with social studies. Mizzy would be able to do basic maths, but whether she knew it or not, she was on her way to becoming an administrator, maybe even a politician or lawyer. The network was good at working out people’s vocations, but at six, Mizzy was still a little young to be planning that far ahead.