The Winter War

by Niall Teasdale

Aneka checked the send date. It was the fifteenth, the day before they had gone in. Aneka had sent the extraction coordinates out through encrypted radio. ‘Why would Anderson be sending our extraction point to some mysterious email address?’ It was obviously a rhetorical question and Aggy gave no answer. ‘Could someone have known you were on Earth? That you were looking for candidates for the project?’

  ‘While not impossible, it would be highly unlikely. The only people who knew about the programme were Xinti. My cloaking system was more than sufficient to keep us hidden from the technology available on Earth then. The infiltrations I conducted of secure servers was never discovered, to my knowledge, and if it were it would likely have been attributed to a more mundane source.’

  ‘Well, someone seems to have known something was going to happen.’ Aneka frowned. ‘Anderson pushed me to do that op. We were just off a two-month assignment guarding some arsehole businessman in Afghanistan and I’d said we needed the break, but he pushed… Someone made sure I was there, in the middle of nowhere, so you could grab me, and Anderson told them where it was going to happen.’

  ‘I was following you from the moment you left Baghdad. The message was not for my benefit.’

  ‘No, I didn’t think it was. Could you please go through your records looking for anything else related to this email address? I’m not expecting anything, but it’s worth a try.’ Reaching out, she closed down the console and then turned away from it.

  ‘Of course, Aneka. Are you all right?’

  Aneka’s frown deepened. ‘Confused. And I hate mysteries.’

  24.3.527 FSC.

  Aneka finished watching her diagnostics cycle but kept her eyes closed. She was lying on her back, not on her side curled up against Ella. Still another sixteen days until the redhead was up and pestering her for sex at every opportunity. At times it was annoying. Lately it had been getting to the level where it was almost a problem. Right now, Aneka would have given quite a lot for Ella to be lying there begging for ‘just one more come before we get up.’

  Sighing, she opened her eyes, swung her legs out of bed, and found herself looking at a pair of golden thighs. She looked up. ‘Morning Aggy. You know, if you had a physical body you could really take advantage of my current frame of mind.’

  ‘The batteries on your favourite vibrator are fully charged, Aneka,’ Aggy replied happily.

  ‘It’s Ella’s favourite, that’s why I’m using it. I don’t have a favourite vibrator since I usually have Ella. She may not vibrate, but she hums quite well. Is there a reason for your early appearance?’

  ‘I have done as you asked. As I indicated, there are no other emails from or to that account. I was unable to find any references to any component of it. I tried tracking the mail server for the account only to discover that its internet address was changed frequently. In every copy of the DNS database I took a snapshot of, in fact. I have concluded that the address was a throwaway one designed to obscure the recipient.’

  Aneka nodded. ‘I guess that makes sense. So it’s a dead end?’

  ‘I did not give up so easily,’ Aggy replied. ‘I did a full heuristic search for other captured emails around that time period using similar phraseology, as well as scanning for messages utilising the same email server. Having discarded all the ones related to postal or courier services, I was able to narrow the list to nine thousand, six hundred, and twenty-seven messages.’ Aneka blinked at her. ‘Unfortunately I had to work through these manually to avoid false negatives, which is why it has taken me until now to find this.’ Lifting her hands, she put her palms together, and then spread them to produce a window in the air. She held it out to Aneka. Taking the window in hand, Aneka held it up and looked at it. She knew it was not actually real; it was something Aggy was projecting for her. But she could actually feel the thing in her fingers! Focussing on the contents of the projection instead of the projection itself, Aneka examined the message.

  It seemed to be from a company executive to someone else in the same company. The Major is complaining about his lost package, sprang out at her. Anderson had been a major before leaving the Marines. The operation went exactly as our Principal said it would. His information was right on the money. So whoever it was seemed to have been aware of what was going to happen. Someone, their ‘Principal,’ had told them. The advancement in technology we expect from this event will make every last one of us richer than God.

  ‘Who the Hell is Deltram Technologies Ltd?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘They were a small investment corporation,’ Aggy replied, ‘based out of Baltimore, Maryland. They specialised in cutting-edge technology investment, according to their SEC filing.’

  ‘There is also a Deltram Technologies FRC in the Federal Register,’ Al added. ‘Their filing lists the same sort of activity, which may be coincidence given the considerable span of time involved.’

  ‘I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence,’ Aneka stated flatly. ‘There’s nothing else you can find, Aggy?’

  ‘Nothing, Aneka. My capture of emails was not complete except in areas of specific interest, such as you and the other potential subjects. I can only data mine what I have, unfortunately.’

  ‘Not your fault. Okay, I guess we’ve hit the end of this road for now. Thank you for your help, Aggy.’

  ‘My pleasure, Aneka. Frankly, if someone was aware of our activities back then, I would like to know who and how as well. I am not greatly fond of mysteries myself.’

  20.4.527 FSC.

  Ella hauled herself upright and groaned. Aneka handed her an open bottle of isotonic water and waited for the little redhead to consume half of it before saying, ‘Morning, love. Good sleep?’

  Ella growled at her. ‘I had this really weird dream.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. I was taking a walk in the hills above Matlock, I think. The wind was blowing in my hair, the sun was shining, and I was feeling all light and breezy. And then I’m suddenly getting pounded by this beefy shepherd.’

  ‘Hmmm…’

  ‘And after that he had friends. Finishing up with his sister. I’m horny as fuck! You wouldn’t know anything about any of this, would you?’

  Aneka put her hand up to her chest, fingers spread, and affected a hurt look. ‘Moi?’

  ‘Yes, you! You didn’t think I’d want you enough when I got up?’

  Aneka grinned. ‘Let’s get some food in you. You’ll need the energy.’ Reaching into the pod she lifted Ella out and set her down on the deck. ‘Believe me, you’ll need the energy.’

  ~~~

  ‘I can’t move,’ Ella said.

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Aneka replied, grinning.

  ‘We can’t spend the night lying on the mess room table.’

  ‘Well if it comes to that, I’ll carry you back to the cabin.’

  Ella giggled. ‘It might. Vashma that was good. What’ve you been up to while I was asleep?’

  ‘Reading. Books, and there were some files Aggy kept from when she was researching me for uplift. Oh, and I fucked Drake when he got up for the mid-flight check so I’d have something to play to you and start that dream off.’

  ‘How long have you been planning that?’

  ‘Couple of months. I missed you. I don’t like it when you’re not in bed when I wake up. It feels like… like there’s a hole in my world.’

  ‘You say the nicest things.’

  ‘It’s true. Sue me.’

  ‘I’d much rather fuck you.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t move?’

  ‘I lied.’

  29.4.527 FSC.

  Ella was pacing. It was sort of comical aside from the fact that Aneka was not sure why. There was not much space in the cabin for walking back and forth, so it was a couple of steps, turn, a couple of steps…

  ‘You should really stop that,’ Aneka told her from her position propped up on one elbow on the bed. ‘You’ll get dizzy.’

  Ella stopped and turned, and looked at Aneka with a
weird sort of concentrating-confused expression. ‘Okay, here’s the thing. I was thinking about what you said when I woke up. Like there was this hole, you remember?’

  Aneka looked at her with a quizzical half-grin.

  ‘There was a hole. In your life. When I wasn’t in bed. Or not in bed, exactly, but there. When I wasn’t there. And I started thinking. And the others will be up tomorrow and I thought I’d better say something before then because if you want to then we can start planning and if you don’t I’ll have some time to sort that out. See?’

  The half-grin remained. ‘Uh… no.’

  ‘You don’t?!’ Ella’s eyes widened.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh. Oh! I wasn’t really very clear, was I? Look, we’ve been together for nearly four years now and it’s been really great. I mean, it’s been really great. I’ve never felt so good in my life and that’s the important thing, you see? That we feel great, because we should feel great. We have a right to feel great. That’s what life should be about. You do your best to find someone you like, and maybe love, and you try to be as good together as possible, but then maybe you need more and I think that maybe we should do that, because I know you’d think of it as more than it was, because I read up on it in our notes and I know it was more important back then and now it’s really just a legal thing…’ She turned slightly red and stopped to drag in a lungful of air.

  ‘But that’s important too!’ It was kind of like watching a train wreck; Aneka thought she should step in and stop her, but it was just too fascinating. ‘I mean if something happened to me you’d be out on the street! So that’s important, but I’d understand if you felt it was too much because nothing would change, probably, so it wouldn’t be like it was back then, but it does still have some meaning, you see?’ She gave Aneka a quick look as though she expected an answer, and then went on anyway.

  ‘Or! Or you might not want to because I was such an idiot back on Earth. I’d never do anything like that again. I’d include you in everything or not do it because you didn’t want to. I was such a watemchu! So what do you think?’

  ‘My universal translation software is having a fit?’ Aneka replied. Ella made a noise like, ‘mmmnnnggg,’ which Aneka thought might be frustration. ‘Okay, so you’re asking me if I want to… make our relationship official? Do whatever it is you do to register us as a couple?’ Ella nodded dumbly, her expression slightly pleading. ‘Okay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sure, why not? Like you said, I think, somewhere in that carefully rehearsed speech, we’ve been living together for over three years. It would take care of any legal problems if one of us dies or something. And I’m not going to expect you to become monogamous because of it. If I wanted that I’d have to chain you to the bed.’

  ‘You can do that if you want?’ Ella said in a small voice.

  ‘Come here and kiss me, idiot.’

  Ella dropped to her knees by the bed, and was kissed.

  30.4.527 FSC.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Drake said before starting on his plate of food. There was a general round of the same sentiment from the rest of the crew, who were digging into food as well.

  ‘It is very practical,’ Gillian commented. ‘You are living together and there are benefits if something should happen. It’s also very romantic.’

  Aneka laughed. ‘It’s not exactly what marriage was supposed to be, but it is what a lot of people considered it to mean. You lot live so long that sticking with one person for life is too difficult, but most marriages ended in divorce in my time, so it’s not exactly a change.’

  ‘It’s still symbolic to a lot of Jenlay,’ Gillian said.

  ‘Especially in some parts,’ Delta added. Her home world, High Drahain, had something of a conventional view of relationships compared to other parts of the Federal core.

  ‘Well,’ Ella said, ‘we’ll get it sorted out as soon as possible. We’ll have to have a party after the ceremony…’

  ‘There’s a ceremony?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘Not much of one. You just have to agree to the formalisation in front of a couple of witnesses. Idents are registered. That’s it.’

  ‘And then we have a party?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘With drink and Jenlay?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Okay, but I get first dibs on you.’

  The Islands, New Earth, 5.5.527 FSC.

  Aneka had decided that she could get used to returning from trips and being locked up in seclusion while the Administration figured out what to do with her and her friends. They were back in a diplomatic facility they had used when returning from Negral, and Aneka was busy lying on the grass outside the room she had been assigned with Ella working on her tan.

  ‘You are, of course, aware that your skin will neither darken nor pale under ultraviolet light?’ Al asked as she lay there. ‘I find it unlikely that Ella is going to develop anything other than sunburn.’

  ‘I like the warmth,’ Aneka replied. ‘I think the same is true of Ella since she put something which looked like factor ten billion sun block on before she came out.’

  ‘That is a valid point.’

  ‘Have you managed to tunnel through their security to talk to Cassandra yet?’

  ‘What makes you think I would do that? All right, yes, I have. I’ve been discussing your activities on our trip to Earth, though I found it amusing to start with your interesting ploy to have Ella begging for it on the trip back.’

  ‘The fascination you two have with my sex life is a little disconcerting.’

  ‘Cassandra was originally conceived, if you’ll pardon the pun, as a sex toy by a deluded genius,’ Al replied matter-of-factly. ‘She is, obviously, inclined to be interested in sexual activity. I was designed to observe you and I enjoy making Cassandra happy. Providing her with the intimate details of your intimacy is guaranteed to make her happy.’

  ‘I’m not sure whether to be insulted or amused.’

  ‘Are we actually going to be called in to talk to anyone, do you think?’ Ella asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Aneka replied. ‘I think we’re waiting on someone.’

  ‘Quite possibly Winter,’ Al informed her. ‘Someone detonated a bomb at a Federal office building she was due to be attending.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘That was late last month, but there has been a significant increase in security around her since then.’

  ‘Huh, she’s going to hate that.’ Aloud she said, ‘Apparently someone tried to blow up Winter. Security’s been beefed up around her.’

  ‘She’s going to hate that, but… We don’t get things like that happening on New Earth.’

  ‘Apparently you do. At least you do now.’

  ‘Oh. Wait, was anyone hurt?’

  ‘I don’t know, but explosives generally result in injuries at least.’

  ~~~

  ‘The bomb was discovered and the building evacuated, but the explosives technician who tried to defuse it was killed when it exploded.’ Winter was dressed in one of her severe, grey business suits, the effect softened by the removal of the jacket to reveal the sheer, white blouse beneath. She looked tired.

  ‘You got no warning that something like this might happen?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘Nothing. And no claims of responsibility have emerged that we can take seriously.’ The spy mistress picked up a tumbler of whiskey from the small table beside her chair and took a fairly large pull on it. ‘Obviously that makes me rather irritated, but that’s not why we’re here.’

  Winter had arrived late in the afternoon in an armoured vertol aircraft. The number of security personnel around the facility had risen by a significant factor almost immediately. Aneka suspected that the extra bodyguards were what was making the woman tired, and likely increasing her irritability. She was looking more relaxed here, in one of the mansion’s drawing rooms surrounded by people who had spent much of the last year out of Federal sp
ace, than she had since she arrived.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Drake asked.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Winter replied, ‘Elroy will be arriving with a couple of other politicians. We’ve got a press conference arranged for the day after, so they’re going to brief you on the current political situation so you aren’t caught out. That said, we decided to limit the presence to Doctor Gilroy…’

  ‘Gillian,’ Gillian interrupted. ‘We’ve known each other for a while and you’re sitting there with your jacket off. I think we can dispense with the formalities.’

  Winter bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘Gillian and Aneka will be handling the press along with Elroy.’

  ‘Not you?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘There are no actual security implications, and if I was there all we’d get is questions about the bombing.’

  That made sense. ‘Why were you supposed to be at that building?’

  ‘A meeting concerning the shipping attacks. I was presenting the data my own people have uncovered along with Aggy’s analysis. She’s good. We’d figured out that pattern too, but she did it with less resources and obviously knows more about the technology being employed.’ Winter gave Drake an evil sort of grin. ‘I should steal her off you and get her working for me.’

  ‘She’d never agree,’ Ella said. ‘She’s a ship’s computer. A science ship’s computer. She’d hate being stuck on the ground running intelligence analysis.’

  ‘I know. And since she’s just as good a resource aboard the Garnet Hyde, I have no problem with it.’

  Aneka sighed and sank the remainder of her own whiskey. ‘Another press conference. I just adore those.’

  ‘You’re good at them,’ Winter told her. ‘And anyway, it could be worse. You could be me.’

  6.5.527 FSC.

  ‘Thus far,’ Senator Elroy said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the conference room table, ‘we have established the high-speed tachyon communication link to Old Earth and exchanged a few fairly diplomatic messages. The real work will begin when we start talking details, but I’m quite pleased with the progress so far.’