The figures waiting there did not get much clearer as they got closer. As the underside of the ship grounded about five metres from the edge of the water, Aneka popped open the hatch and poked one of her pistols out. She zoomed the image in and got two surprises.
The first person she narrowed in on was Sharissa, dressed in a combat bodysuit of some kind and carrying a laser rifle. Poking over her shoulder was something which looked like a man-portable, anti-tank missile launcher of some sort. Clearly she had been briefed on the attack on the diplomatic facility.
The other figure resolved into a pretty blonde with an unforgettable, forgettable face dressed in a typical, grey business suit. Winter. It was not possible, but there she was, standing on the beach as though Aneka had imagined seeing her killed two days earlier.
‘That is surprising, even for her,’ Al commented.
‘She died,’ Aneka replied. ‘I saw her die. I heard her blow herself up, for Christ’s sake! A double doesn’t explain this.’
‘A clone? Forced growth. It’s theoretically possible to overwrite neurons with data taken from a scanned brain…’
‘I have a feeling that this is one of those questions that she won’t want to answer right now.’ Aneka climbed up onto the deck of the submarine. There was a narrow section around the hatch you could stand on and a sort of walkway marked across the hull to the edge of the disc, presumably hardened to allow people to walk on it without breaking through. She stood on that and then kneeled down to call into the craft. ‘Come on up. If these two are going to kill us we’re royally screwed.’
They had to wade up onto the beach. Aneka was thankful that her Ultraskin leggings, while air-permeable, were moderately waterproof. She could feel water squishing in her boots, and Truelove looked distinctly uncomfortable. Then again, she was grinning, though Aneka was not sure if it was the sight of her boss, alive despite the odds, or a residue of the recent sex. Maybe both. Sharissa’s smile was more obviously because she was seeing Aneka and Ella.
‘At least I can tell your mother you’re safe,’ she said to Ella as they approached up the sand.
‘Safe is a matter of degrees, under the circumstances,’ Winter countered. ‘Let’s get into the plane. We have fresh clothes for you all. Elaine, you’re piloting once you’ve changed.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Truelove replied, heading straight for the open door of the VTOL.
‘Keep it low, off the radar, and fly a wide loop out over the ocean. Our final destination is the spaceport, but I need time to talk to Aneka and Ella before we get there.’
‘Sure,’ Aneka said, starting after Truelove. ‘It’ll be nice to get out of these boots. I must say I’m more than a little surprised to see you here, Winter.’
The spy mistress gave her a quick look. Something which said, ‘Not a word, even if you know something.’ What she actually said was, ‘I need to talk to you and there seem to be few people I can trust. If I can’t trust Sharissa with you two then I’ve grievously misjudged her.’
‘You’re armed to the teeth,’ Ella said.
‘Yeah, well there was a report of some sort of super-battlesuit being used in the last attack,’ Sharissa replied. ‘I’ve got two tactical missile launchers with high-explosive, multi-purpose warheads, and if those don’t stop it, Vashma help us.’
‘I saw the thing,’ Aneka replied. ‘Don’t count on it. It was high-tech. Too high-tech, and they had antimatter rifles. I don’t know who they were, though I can guess, but they’re getting their equipment from somewhere special.’
Winter grunted a response, frowning. ‘Inside. I don’t want to be stationary for longer than we need to be.’
Inside the cabin was a large bag containing a change of clothing for Truelove, and disguises for Aneka and Ella. Their wet clothes were to go into a suitcase along with Aneka’s guns, and what they had to wear as alternatives had Aneka raising her eyebrows at Winter.
‘Believe me, all will become clear,’ Winter said. ‘Now, Idridia.’
Shrugging, Aneka started to undress. ‘We found a downed Xinti ship that seemed to have been taken down by a nuclear bomb in the war. Must have got too close. The flight deck was wiped out and it fell out of the sky into the side of a fortified outpost.’
‘It was the same class as the Agroa Gar,’ Ella said. ‘A science vessel, no weapons. The drive systems were wrecked in the crash. It looked like the warp drive broke its moorings and ploughed through the sub-light drive, but the stealth system must have been intact.’
‘Must have been?’ Winter asked, picking up on the phrase.
‘Someone took the primary generator out in its entirety. They may have got some of the hull emitters. Hard to tell.’
‘They also messed about with a robot they found in there,’ Aneka went on. ‘Maybe a security android, maybe something they had as a guard in case they had to leave the ship. Whatever, they plugged in some batteries and woke it up. It killed one of them and scared the rest off, and then its power ran out some time in the last seventy years.’
‘But the body,’ Ella said, ‘was a Herosian wearing an Ashad Hithor armband.’
‘We found a few other things around the site labelled with Herosian writing,’ Aneka added. She pulled a memory card from one of her belt pouches before putting her belt into the suitcase. ‘Everything we saw is on here. You can go through it in as much detail as you like. The evidence is kind of circumstantial, but you’ve definitely got a Herosian-formed and managed mercenary group taking a stealth shield system from a Xinti ship, and seventy years later you’ve got vessels with the same technology attacking shipping.’ Naked, she picked up the outfit Winter had provided for her. ‘Are you really serious about this?’
Winter nodded. ‘Aside from the value as eye candy, you’re leaving the planet on a ship which… Well, no one is going to think twice about two women getting aboard if they’re dressed like that.’
‘Winter, what the Hell are you up to?’
Yorkbridge Spaceport.
‘We look like a couple of hookers,’ Aneka muttered. ‘Everyone’s looking at us.’ She was dressed in a black faux leather corset, which pulled her in violently at the waist and pushed her breasts up and out into almost frightening shapes, black thigh-high boots with stiletto heels, and a skirt, which was just two strips of cloth hanging from her corset. Her normal hair was pinned up under a long black wig. Ella was in a fishnet dress, with holes large enough that you could just about use it for fishing, in neon pink. There was, at least, a G-string under it. Her shoes were ludicrously tall, high-heeled pumps in a similar pink, and her hair was hidden under a fedora.
‘I think that’s the idea,’ Ella replied. ‘Are any of them looking at our faces?’ She did have a point. ‘I think it’s exciting. You look incredible and you know I’m an attention whore. There’s hardly anyone here doesn’t want between my legs, and I’m fairly sure most of them want to beg to kiss your boots.’
‘Yeah, well, let’s just concentrate on getting to this shuttle. Who’s she got us meeting? A pimp?’
‘Maybe. Put some more swing in your hips. You want them concentrating on how your skirt swishes.’
Cringing, Aneka let her hips swing more. ‘I’m not a vamp. I don’t do this stuff.’
‘Then maybe you should. The guy we just passed was actually drooling.’
Allowing herself a, hopefully mean-looking, smirk, Aneka said, ‘Yeah, well be careful when you turn around, your nipples could have someone’s eye out.’
Ella just giggled. They had turned onto one of the corridors that led to a landing pad and the crowds of their admirers were now behind them. Ten metres down and they walked through an access door and outside to where a shuttle was sitting on the Plascrete ahead of them.
As they approached it, a man walked down the steps to meet them. He was smiling disarmingly; Aneka got the impression he did that a lot and was good at it. He had a young face with a thin, straight nose, narrow chin, hollow cheeks, and a wide mouth. He was not e
specially tall, but he looked fit, if thin, and there was a hint of muscle in his chest and arms. His hair was long at the back, and jet-black wisps hung around his face. He was wearing casual clothes, a sweater with the sleeves pulled up past his elbows, casual slacks, and loafers. There was something about his grey eyes which seemed wrong. They belonged to someone much older.
‘Ladies,’ and he said the word as though he meant it, no matter how they were dressed, ‘I’m Eddie Bauer. Our mutual friend with the mysterious background asked that I take you to my next destination.’
A woman appeared at the top of the steps. She was tall, blonde, and very attractive with an expansive chest barely hidden under a black dress with fishnet sides, a deep décolletage, and small, diamond holes all over it. She called down, ‘Eddie, we need to leave. Control is asking us to clear the pad.’ She had a voice to go with the body: beautiful.
‘New girls are here, Alice. We’ll be right up,’ Eddie called back. He turned back to Aneka and Ella, smiling.
‘New girls?’ Aneka asked, keeping her voice low.
‘That was for anyone watching. I’ll explain once we’re out of here.’ He grinned and turned to the stairs. ‘I guess this’ll need a little explanation anyway.’
Aneka and Ella glanced at each other and then followed him up into the shuttle. Alice was waiting at the top to take the case Aneka was carrying and get it stowed away. ‘Eddie’ll talk to you once we’re in orbit,’ she said. ‘We’ll have a bit of time to talk during the orbital transition. Get strapped in, this thing doesn’t have gravity.’
She had barely got the door closed and strapped in herself when the engines powered up and the ship blasted forward down the short runway, pressing them all back into their seats. Well under the size for a vessel to have anti-gravity, the shuttle relied on aerodynamics to lift it off the ground and get it airborne, and for the initial lift into the upper atmosphere. Aneka glanced across the narrow aisle at Ella; sure enough she was gripping the arms of her acceleration couch. Spacecraft generally did not bother her, but anything which relied on wings made her nervous.
Aneka heard the engines throttle back as they neared low orbit and the force, which had been pressing them to their seats as though they were lying on the ground, gave way slowly to freefall. A minute or so later Eddie floated back from the cockpit.
‘Computer will push us up to rendezvous with the Serai when we hit the right point,’ he said, hovering over the seat in front of Ella. ‘We can talk. Like I said, I’m Eddie Bauer, owner and operator of Eddie’s Transgalactic Escorts.’
Aneka blinked at him. ‘I was joking when I said that Winter was sending us to meet a pimp.’
‘He’s not a pimp,’ Alice said. ‘Not exactly anyway.’
‘And you are?’
‘Alice Hollister. I was one of his girls for quite a while. Now I’m the hostess when we have clients aboard the Serai.’
‘I’ve never heard of a travelling brothel before,’ Ella said.
‘We’re unique,’ Eddie replied, ‘in more ways than one. My girls are the best in the business, and many of them have… special talents which people will pay top credit for. I say girls, but we do have two guys on the team at the moment. The complement varies. People join, people leave. I keep moving.’
‘No one’s ever left the Serai worse off than when they got on,’ Alice said. ‘I was working the street on a backwater mud ball when Eddie found me. Now I’ve got management skills. I could leave, but the Serai’s my home.’
‘A brothel-keeper with a heart of gold?’ Aneka said, narrowing her eyes a little at Eddie.
‘Something like that,’ he replied. ‘If you like you can think I’m atoning for past misdeeds. It’s not far from the truth. Whatever, occasionally I do the odd favour for Winter. Like taking a couple of women aboard my ship and flying them to Odanari where there’s a safe house she uses sometimes.’
‘And why is it that Winter trusts you to do this?’
‘She knows me. And right now she trusts me like she trusts you. We’re not part of her Agency, and she doesn’t know who she can trust inside it.’ The engines engaged, speeding the ship up to move to a higher orbit, and Eddie pushed back from the chair. ‘I better get up to the cockpit. Docking’s pretty manual.’
‘He’s a good guy,’ Alice said. ‘You can trust him.’
Aneka looked back at her. ‘Not that we have a lot of choice.’
Alice grinned at her. ‘Not really, but you can. We’re a family aboard the Serai. It’s a little dysfunctional at times, but it’s solid. As long as you’re aboard you’re part of it, and Eddie will do anything for his family.’
CRV Serai.
The Serai was something of a sprawling vessel, three thousand tonnes of what seemed to be bolted together, blocky modules held together by the willpower of the chief engineer who was not best pleased. He was waiting on the other side of the airlock with another girl in a black dress identical to Alice’s when they walked aboard from the shuttle.
‘Eddie, that induction coil is not going t’ hold together for another month. If ya can’t get me another one then I ain’t gonna be held responsible when the power cuts out in the middle o’ Vashma’s ass an’ we’re left floatin’!’ He had the thickest accent Aneka had ever heard on a Jenlay, and he was speaking Rimmic on top of that. Mind you, he looked the part of an irascible engineer. Aging, if gracefully, his face spotted with almost as much oil as his Bi-weave coveralls. On the short side with thinning, greying hair, he did not take much care of his fitness or his appearance, but there was still something about his features which made Aneka think he was related to the girl standing beside him.
‘Minsky,’ Eddie said, ‘calm down. We got you your induction coil. It’s in the hold with the other supplies. Will the current one hold until we get to Odanari?’
‘Oh, y’did?’ Minsky’s ire deflated. ‘Well… yeah, we’ll manage.’
‘Good. We’ll be there a couple of weeks. Plenty of time for you to take the reactor down and get it fitted. Now… we do have guests…’
Minsky’s eyes scanned up and down Aneka and Ella. ‘Guests? I thought you’d picked y’self up a Dom and her sub.’
‘Minsky…’ Eddie whined.
‘That’s okay,’ Ella said, in Rimmic, which seemed to surprise the old man, ‘I don’t mind playing Aneka’s sub and she does make an amazing dominatrix, doesn’t she?’
Minsky blinked. ‘Young folks today have some weird ideas. But she does look good’n a corset.’ He even wheezed when he laughed. ‘Y’ don’ see so many o’ them these days. It’s good t’ see a girl knows how t’ dress proper.’
Aneka grinned at him. ‘I’m old-fashioned,’ she said, in Rimmic.
Minsky wheezed another laugh and turned, heading for the aft corridor. ‘Jus’ make sure them floozies o’ yours don’t all run their hairdryers at once, Eddie.’
‘Dad!’ the girl exclaimed. Yup, related, though it looked like she had got much of her looks from her mother, including long, black hair that was funnelled into a ponytail by a long, conical, silver binding. Her dark skin was marked with various tribal tattoos. ‘Sorry about him,’ she said to Aneka and Ella, switching to Federal, ‘he’s permanently grouchy.’
‘Does he speak Federal at all?’ Ella asked.
‘No, he says it’s only used by soft lenshushi,’ she rolled her eyes. Ella giggled.
‘He is, however,’ Eddie said, ‘a really exceptional engineer.’
‘Mechanic,’ the girl corrected. ‘You know he hates it when you call him an engineer.’
‘Right. Anyway, Anne, would you show Aneka and Ella to their room.’ He smiled at the couple. ‘You’ll only be with us for about a day and a half, but you might as well be comfortable. We’ll get Alphonse to sort out a snack for you. Feel free to wander about once we’re under way. I’ll go get Pat out of bed.’ He started off toward the bow, Alice following after him.
‘Pat?’ Aneka asked.
‘Patricia Dash,’ Anne repl
ied. ‘She’s our pilot. And she’s a really good one. Come on. Let’s get you to your room.’ She started off in the same direction as Eddie and Alice, but where they had continued on, Anne turned right after about fifteen metres. ‘Oh, when Eddie said you could wander around…? That’s fine, but stay away from Kitty. She’s testy at the moment.’
‘Kitty?’ Aneka asked, starting to feel like she was going to have to ask about every name she heard. ‘How will we recognise her?’
‘Oh, easy. She’s not too tall, pretty, average breasts, really good body though, uh… kind of a narrow face with a flat nose, black hair… Oh, and she’s got blue skin and a tail.’
Ella giggled. ‘You probably could have just led with that last part.’
‘Uh, yeah, maybe. She’s a Felix, some people call them cat-girls. She’s in season for about five days every three months, and it just so happens to be now. She gets bad tempered if she isn’t getting sex, and horny as anything you’ve ever seen. That tends to stick around for a week or so after and she’ll jump anything with a pulse. You should be safe for now; when she’s in oestrus she only wants men.’
‘Shame.’ Anne flashed her a grin. ‘Eddie said all the girls here had some special talent or other?’
‘Yeah, most of them,’ Anne replied. ‘Uh… I’m not actually one of them. I’m a maid, one of Alice’s assistants. I mean, I have, if someone asked for me specifically, but Eddie’s really specific about it, no one under thirty on the permanent staff.’
‘Okay.’
‘I mean I wouldn’t want you thinking he makes anyone do anything against their will, or even persuades them to…’
‘We got it, Anne,’ Aneka said. ‘He’s a good guy. Winter trusts him, that’s all that matters at the moment.’
‘Okay. Well anyway, aside from Kitty we’ve got Magda, who’s an empathy, Beth, who can make you see and feel whatever she wants you to, and the twins, who are mindlinked. Then there’s the more normal folks. Brandon’s just a really big guy, Lisa is amazingly flexible, you should see her dance, and Saint is a normal guy, but he makes his clients feel like they’re the most important woman in the universe.’
The Winter War Page 19
