Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart

by Niall Teasdale

  Al flicked the image on the screen to show the view below them as it receded. The Plascrete was still glowing from the heat for several seconds after the jets had stopped hitting it. Of the chucks who had been there, there was absolutely no sign.

  Part Two: The Way Home

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  ‘Am I allowed to give you orders, DeMarco,’ Aneka asked. She had just finished giving the captain of the Delta Lantilla the short version of what had happened on the planet below. He had been surprised, to say the least.

  ‘No,’ DeMarco replied, ‘but you can give me recommendations.’

  ‘Okay. Got any nukes on that thing?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Uh, no. Nuclear warheads are not standard issue on Federation warships, except in time of war. Which means never.’

  ‘Damn. Then I recommend that you hold position here and stop anyone going down there. I’ll recommend that a gunship come out here and nuke that place into a smoking hole.’

  ‘You’re going to need some pretty solid evidence to get them to do that.’

  ‘Oh, I think we’ve got it. We’ll be in orbit for a few hours. Miss Narrows has been through a lot, but we need to have a report sorted out to send ahead of us.’

  ‘Right. Fair winds, Pegasus. Delta Lantilla out.’

  Aneka blinked at the console. ‘Fair winds?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Al replied. ‘Ask Drake when we get back. He’s ex-Navy.’

  Shrugging, Aneka checked that the computer was happy holding orbit and pushed her chair back. ‘Start gathering a summary of the data you got from their computers. We’ll compile the report when I’ve checked on Ella.’

  ‘That might take several hours,’ Al said, his voice sounding amused.

  Aneka smirked, rising from the chair. ‘God, I hope so.’

  Picking up her weapons as she passed through the ship, Aneka stepped into the cabin and laid them down on the floor beside the crumpled heap of fabric that was Ella’s suit. The helmet and boots were lying alongside; it looked like the redhead had been anxious to get out of them. The sound of falling water could still be heard from the small washroom off to the right. Aneka sat down on the edge of the bed and began pulling off her heavy boots and the leggings she wore under them.

  The water stopped and a second or two later Ella emerged from the cubicle holding a towel, but not drying herself. She looked oddly hesitant and Aneka could not quite figure out why until it hit her. Her eyes widened. ‘Ella… What have you…? You’ve got boobs!’

  A timid grin spread across Ella’s face and she posed a little, pushing her chest out. Ella was a pretty girl, very pretty. Slim, but with impressive hips and a narrow waist. Her face was more like cute than attractive, though the change in hairstyle had pushed her away from that, and if Aneka were to think about it she would not have complained. Ella smiled a lot, which was good because when she did her green eyes lit up and she could turn a winter day into summer. Without a smile she always looked sad. She had inherited most of her looks from her mother, but the one thing she had not inherited was Janna’s breasts, which were impressively large. Ella’s breasts were not small, but they were on the smaller side of average… Or they had been. Now…

  ‘Do you like them?’ Ella asked, her smile starting to fade when she did not get an immediate answer.

  ‘I just… Why?’

  ‘Well, I went in for the eyes and the computer, and I thought… I thought I’d get these done… I thought you’d like them…’ Her arms rose, covering her breasts with the towel she was holding. ‘You don’t like them.’

  Aneka was glad they had been covered up because she had been having trouble taking her eyes off them. She looked up into Ella’s eyes. ‘I liked them how they were. I mean, they look gorgeous, but you didn’t need… Why?’

  Ella sagged a little further. ‘I… didn’t want to lose you. You can do better than me. And don’t say you can’t because I know you can! I wanted to be so gorgeous that you’d never want to go with anyone else, and this is the only bit of me I could really improve. I’ve been getting more looks from others, so I think it’s worked… But if you don’t like them…’

  Aneka suppressed a sigh. It was crazy, but she thought she had got the hang of it. This had driven it home: the great hypocrisy underpinning Jenlay culture. Jenlay were naturally attractive, and with cosmetic surgery being a trivial matter anyone could fix any little defect they felt they had. Everyone was pretty, so they looked deeper when seeking out a partner; that was the idea. Except that Ella had lost her looks, and her eyes, to a disease and no one had wanted her until that damage had been repaired. If everyone was pretty, no one had to settle for ugly partners, and attractiveness was always relative anyway. Ella felt insecure about her looks despite having a body most people from Aneka’s time would have killed for.

  ‘Come here,’ Aneka said, her tone firm. Ella crossed the floor to stand in front of her, and Aneka pulled the towel away. ‘Arms at your sides.’ Reluctantly, Ella obeyed. Aneka reached up and ran her fingers over the sides of Ella’s breasts. Ella sighed. Cupping the twin globes Aneka lifted them, feeling the weight, and then began circling the nipples with her thumbs. Ella moaned. ‘They’re gorgeous. I can’t tell they’ve been enhanced.’

  ‘M-modern cosmetic surgery.’

  ‘Uh-huh, but have you considered the consequences?’

  ‘C-consequences?’

  ‘Big boobs were the bane of my life. I was stuck in sports bras most of the time. Getting anything sexy to fit was just about impossible. They bounce. Your back hurts…’

  ‘This is the future… oh, don’t stop… the future, remember? There are nanofibre supports laced through them and around my ribs. Added support for the spine. I had my ankles and calves done too… Can wear higher heels without mmmm… discomfort.’

  Aneka shook her head. She was not going to go into that one. ‘What about the sweating?’

  ‘Sweating?’

  ‘Yeah, cleavage is a sweat trap. All this flesh pressed together. You’ll be all clammy in there.’

  ‘That’s what… what showers are for. I think my nipples are m-more sensitive than they were.’ Aneka leaned forward and sucked hard on the left one and Ella said, ‘Nnngggg! Vashma yes, they are.’

  ‘You’re crazy; I haven’t been able to sleep on my stomach since I was fourteen! I’ve no idea why you’d want that. And now I’ll have to learn your breasts again, but they’re lovely because they’re attached to you.’

  ‘Thank you. Now shut up and fuck me.’

  Giggling, Aneka pulled her down onto the bed. ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  ~~~

  Aneka lay spooned against Ella’s back. Ella lay in Aneka’s arms, squirming a little and panting. Aneka was enjoying Ella’s new breasts immensely.

  ‘It’s… really hard to… think with you… doing that,’ Ella commented.

  ‘You need to think?’ Relenting a little anyway, Aneka eased off her teasing, though it made only a little difference; Ella’s body was wired, the slightest touch was electric. ‘If you didn’t know they were this sensitive, does that mean you didn’t have sex while I was away?’

  ‘I… No… I didn’t feel like it. Then I wanted to save these for you. And then… ah! Then I came here. Did you?’

  ‘No. It was on offer on First Day, but I was missing you a lot. I think the frigate’s captain would have accepted an offer. And I said I’d invite Shari Prentice, the pilot who taught me to fly, for some recreation time. She’s cute and I thought you’d like her.’

  Ella giggled. ‘Thank you for thinking of me. And if she taught you to fly, I think I owe her as much as you do.’

  ‘Well I’m proud of you.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Hell yeah! You going without for all that time? Weren’t you worried about things healing over?’

  ‘Hey!’ It was hard to pout with Aneka playing her fingers over sensitive skin. ‘How long is the t-trip back?’

  ‘About six
days once we get going.’

  ‘Good. Don’t think you’re getting out of bed.’

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  ‘Okay,’ Aneka said, ‘we’re sure we’ve got everything in there that Winter needs to know?’

  Ella nodded while leaning over the pilot’s chair, one of her breasts pressing on Aneka’s right shoulder. Her lips were pursed and she had obviously managed to drag her mind out of the gutter to be particularly serious about the report they were filing. Except for the part where she had suggested recording the video message naked. Okay, so the camera angle precluded anything showing, but the nudity was still fairly obvious. That had been pure Ella.

  ‘I can’t think of anything else she needs. Send it.’

  Aneka tapped a key on the console in front of her and the data package they were sending to New Earth began to unspool into space as a stream of tachyons. She had no real clue how the FTL communications system worked, but it did, and it would get the information back to Winter, and let their friends know that Ella was safe, several days before the Pegasus would get there. She also knew it was a one-way process, at least for a ship. The beam had to be targeted precisely. The receivers for interstellar transmission were huge to allow for hitting a target light years away. Not only could a spaceship not carry a big enough receiver, but targeting one was a practical impossibility. They would have to wait until they got home for a reply.

  Turning her head, Aneka found her face full of breast. ‘You know, I bought you a T-shirt on Sapphira and the assistant thought it was for me and said I’d need a size bigger. Guess he was right.’

  Ella giggled. ‘A prophet on Sapphira, huh. You know me and T-shirts, the tighter the better.’

  ‘This is going to be more or less indecent… not that that’s ever stopped you. I guess we should get underway.’

  ‘Please. I want to get home. Well, I want to spend five or six days in bed with you and then get home.’

  Laughing, Aneka began tapping keys on the navigation display. Given that no one, not even a woman whose mind was running on an ultra-fast quantum computer, could really fly a ship at warp speeds, it was basically up to the computer to handle it. All Aneka had to do was set the destination, get the ship to a designated warp entry point, and press a button. The computer provided her with a transit solution in a matter of seconds, including an orbital exit vector.

  ‘Okay… transit burn in five minutes, thirty seconds.’

  ‘Can I stay up here and watch?’

  Watching someone flying a ship to a warp point was not exactly exciting, but Aneka was pretty sure that Ella was asking to stay close to her, not to watch her waggle some joysticks. ‘Sure.’

  So Ella was there, hanging over Aneka’s shoulder, as she activated the main engines and the stars began to move across the view through the front window at increasing pace. ‘Wow, this thing really moves,’ Ella breathed.

  ‘Same drives as a Delta-class frigate. I think they’re rated at two-G.’

  ‘But the warp drives…’

  ‘Are twice as fast as a Delta, three times what the Garnet Hyde can do now.’

  ‘Wow,’ Ella said again.

  ‘Yeah, it’s great in theory, but there’s so much space taken up with engines and a huge antimatter reactor to power them, that there’s not much room for anything else. This was supposed to be a prototype for a new frigate, but I don’t think it’s viable unless they can develop a new power supply system.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll be at warp point in a few minutes, time to say goodbye.’ She tapped the comms key beside her hand. ‘Pegasus to Delta Lanilla. We are on our way out. Just checking in before we go. Warp in… ninety-eight seconds.’

  DeMarco’s voice came over the speakers in response a second later. ‘DeMarco here. Fair winds, Pegasus. Say hello to New Earth for us.’

  ‘Will do, and I hope you can do the same soon. Pegasus out.’ She shut off the radio. ‘Fair winds?’

  ‘No idea,’ Ella replied. ‘There aren’t any winds in space.’

  ‘The Navy had some weird customs back in my time. Sailors are superstitious. Okay, warp in three, two… hold onto your knickers.’ The stars ahead of them blurred and became streaks which shifted ever bluer.

  ‘I’m not wearing knickers.’ The light from the stars filled the screen and flared up through a bright blue into nothing, and then the computer replaced the direct view through the Polyglass with an adjusted image. The stars were back, even if they were just computer-generated images of where the stars should be.

  ‘I’m very aware that you are, in fact, naked.’ Aneka’s fingers shifted over the console, checking the flight parameters just like she had been taught. ‘Al, you’ll monitor?’

  ‘As I did on the way here, of course. I’m not expecting problems.’

  ‘Neither am I, but she’s experimental. I’d rather not get stuck fifteen parsecs from the nearest port.’

  ‘A good point.’

  ‘Okay, course is set. Nothing to do now but wait until we get there.’ She gave Ella a nudge with her shoulder to push her back a little, and then slid the chair back so she could get up.

  Ella did not give her the opportunity, stepping over her immediately and sitting down, straddling her hips. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice soft and her face serious.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For coming to get me.’

  ‘Always, love.’

  Ella leaned forward. The feeling of her breasts pressing against Aneka’s was still a little novel, but her lips felt the same and her pointy little tongue darting out to brush Aneka’s was just as it had always been.

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  Even Ella, always enthusiastic about sex, could not manage six days of it without some sort of break. In practice she knew that she would get bored after a while, so she was not really planning to spend the whole time in a torrid re-enactment of every porn film she had ever seen. Right now she was going over the Tilton files in-vision while she sat on the desk chair specifically because it was not lying on the bed.

  ‘That shirt is too small,’ Aneka commented as she emerged from the shower room.

  Ella giggled. Since Aneka’s baggage from the Brigantia had been taken straight to the Pegasus, Ella’s present had been in it and Aneka had given it to her. She had managed to get it on, but she looked like something from a men’s magazine in it. Her boobs were squashed together, and out of the bottom of the shirt, and there was no way she could wear it practically. Given that it was all she was wearing the overall look was ‘porn star waiting to go on.’

  ‘These files… You know, I never appreciated how useful you must find this. The reading things in-vision thing. I mean, it’s really great. I wish I’d done this years ago.’

  ‘It makes waiting in line for the coffee a lot more bearable,’ Aneka agreed. ‘The files?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. They had a lot more information than they were letting on.’

  ‘This is news?’

  ‘Not about the virus. I mean, yeah, they had all that data too, but there was a lot of information about this Tilton place. It seems to have been operating for years. They set it up not long after warp drives were first engineered.’

  ‘By “they” you mean Humans?’ Aneka said. ‘Old Earth Humans.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Seems like they were looking for somewhere to do… unsafe experiments. Genetics, nanotechnology, nothing as advanced as M-Nine-Sixty, but still some nasty stuff.’

  ‘That’s what it was, M-Nine-Sixty?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I think we should call it Chuck Disease.’ Ella gave another giggle. ‘What date does it give for this Tilton place starting?’

  ‘Uh… the first report is from twenty-forty-eight.’

  Aneka whistled softly. ‘You always said the warp thing happened just after I was taken. Thirty-seven years after the Xinti grabbed me, Humans were opening secret, unethical research centres on another world.’

  ‘Some of the research there prob
ably ended up in me, Aneka. It wasn’t all bad.’

  ‘It was the past.’ Aneka gave a shrug. ‘And I guess if some of the research turned Humans into Jenlay… Mostly it’s just that it was so soon after… My replacement really worked fast.’

  The slightly distant look in Ella’s eyes went away and she focussed her attention on Aneka. ‘Your brother worked fast. He had help from this… Yrimtan, but it was him and the others working with him that cracked the warp drive the Xinti dropped.’

  ‘Alan was a bright kid. I didn’t see enough of him in the last few years, but whenever I was home he’d be talking about the latest sci-fi shows and some new development in physics.’ She grinned. ‘The last Christmas I was home he was all fired up because he was sure they were going to find the Higgs Boson that year at CERN.’

  ‘I know it was discovered sometime back then. That’s the thing. I think… Well, Gillian and I think that Humanity was selected for uplift because they were in a period of huge discovery in science. We know it was happening even before the Xinti stuck their oar in and what we’ve learned from you and from Aggy’s databases has just confirmed it.’

  ‘Makes sense, I guess. Before my time maybe they’d never have figured it out.’ Aneka grinned and walked over to the bed, settling down and leaning back on her elbows. ‘That doesn’t explain Roswell.’

  ‘Roswell?’

  ‘Supposedly a crashed alien UFO in New Mexico. And probably a hoax.’

  ‘Sure? The next crashed ship gave us warp drive.’

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  ‘Aneka, do you have the data Evolution gave you on the locations of the uplift projects?’

  Ella was reading the Tilton documents again while Aneka lay in bed, her eyes shut. The morning had been very energetic and Aneka was a little bemused that Ella had the energy for data analysis. Everyone had their own way of relaxing, she guessed. ‘Probably. Why?’