Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘A bit low, aren’t we?’ Monkey asked from behind her.

  ‘I’m not picking up radar emissions, but I’m also not taking chances. I’m going to get us out of the area of the city and then put her back down.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll go see if I can crack the seal on this guy’s suit. I assume we’re going to need access to the inside?’

  ‘I am detecting no foreign wireless transmissions,’ Al said. ‘I believe we will need physical access.’

  ‘Yeah, looks like it.’

  Between the road and the ruins of St Albans she spotted a ragged clump of trees which the maps they had gathered showed had various clearings in it. Swinging over that, she dropped into the first gap she could find. It seemed to take far too long to shut down the flight systems and even longer to limp her way back to the lab area where Monkey and Delta were standing over the body looking slightly disgusted.

  They had managed to get the man’s helmet off. He had brown, crew-cut hair and looked like a bit of a thug: not an unattractive thug, but a thug. There was also a cable sticking out of the back of his neck which disappeared under the collar of the suit.

  ‘He’s wired into the thing,’ Monkey said. ‘I mean… yuck!’

  Aneka grinned and settled down beside the body. ‘You haven’t been spending enough time around Ella recently. It’s just fibre optics. Ella has a port at the back of her skull not too different from this.’ She reached to the back of the man’s head, located the release stud beside the port, and pulled the cable free.

  ‘Like I said, yuck,’ Monkey commented.

  ‘Don’t let Ella hear you say that, and pass me a fibre wireless bridge.’ Delta handed over a box from one of the storage units and Aneka plugged the cable in. ‘Al,’ she said silently, ‘can you connect it up?’

  ‘I can, but the transmission protocols are different from the ones normally used by Federation technology. I’ll need to rewrite the bridge’s software and then discover the correct commands… This will take some time.’

  Aneka tried to keep the disappointment from her face as she looked up at Monkey and Delta. When she did, however, Delta was holding her pistols out. ‘We found these too. They look kind of damaged.’

  They did, one worse than the other. Aneka figured the more broken one was Bridget; her right side had taken the brunt of the explosion, so Bridget was the likely candidate. ‘Well, Al’s going to be a while breaking into the suit. I guess I’ll see what I can do about fixing them while we wait.’

  Monkey produced a scanner and medical kit. ‘And Mom would rip me a new one if I didn’t get tissue and blood samples off this guy. Work’ll keep my mind off things.’

  ‘Then I’ll help where I can,’ Delta said. ‘I haven’t lost someone I actually love, but I’m worried too.’

  ‘I know,’ Monkey said. ‘Help me get some cheek swabs, then you can run the DNA while I check the biochemistry.’

  Prime City, 7th August 3186.

  The sound of the door opening woke Ella. Two medi-techs were carrying Bashford back into the room and Ella started to get up, but then a pair of Enforcers moved in, one of them aiming his rifle at her. She stopped, and the medics carried on to the bench Bashford had been on before. He was unconscious, but she could see his chest moving.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ she asked. Across from her Gillian was waking too.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ one of the Enforcers said. ‘On your feet. Manu Dei wants to talk to you.’

  ‘No!’ Gillian snapped. ‘I should be next. You can’t…’

  The second Enforcer turned his rifle towards Gillian. Ella got quickly to her feet. ‘It’s okay! I’m coming. See to Bash, Gillian. When he wakes up he’s going to need you.’

  She started for the door, Gillian’s eyes on her the whole time. She heard the door close behind her and took four more steps before something touched the back of her neck and everything went black.

  Prae Wood, 21.9.526 FSC.

  ‘How are the repairs coming along?’ Monkey asked.

  Aneka was busy reassembling one of her pistols at a table. Her skin was back to a more normal colour at least. ‘Well, there were several parts damaged that I couldn’t replace, but I’ve managed to get one working gun from two. Meet Claret, who will hopefully do Bridget and Clara proud.’

  ‘I guess one gun is better than none. We got the results back on the DNA from our black-clad friend.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Uh, well I’m not Mom or Ella, but the computer’s pretty good at working on Jenlay… uh, Human genetics. That guy is closer to a Jenlay than he is to the people back in Matlock. A lot of markers suggesting an extended lifespan, higher intelligence, disease resistance, health… In fact, aside from some neural-sensory response coding in common, we could be looking at two different sub-species.’

  ‘What’s this common area?’

  ‘Uh… Not sure. I think it has something to do with scent. Probably increases certain neural responses to smells, though I’m not a neuroscientist so I may be wrong. Oh, and these people probably have better night vision than normal.’

  ‘Better night vision. And they don’t have the adaptations to radioactive fallout that the surface people have?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘So they were kept somewhere away from the fallout, where the radiation wouldn’t be a problem. That’s why we haven’t located the cities; they are underground. They probably didn’t have huge amounts of power to waste when they were modified. The lighting would be dim and they’d never see sunlight.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Not London. Probably away from the major fallout areas.’ Aneka shook her head. ‘Hopefully when Al cracks this suit’s computer we’ll know.’

  Prime City, 7th August 3186.

  The room was dark aside from the single spotlight which lit Ella. The light was uncomfortably bright, but she could close her eyes to take away some of the glare. The rest of her discomfort was harder to ignore. She had awoken strung up in some sort of frame. Her wrists were in metal cuffs high over her head, her neck was in a metal collar which kept her chin from moving down to avoid the light, and her legs were spread apart by a pair of manacles locked around her ankles. She was also naked, but the room was warm, almost too warm. She was not sure whether she was sweating because of the heat or the fear.

  Her implant told her she had been stood there for almost an hour with no sign of the mysterious Manu Dei, or any other interrogator. The idea was, she was sure, to disorient her and let the fear factor build. Well it was working, she was afraid.

  ‘Hello, Ella.’ The voice came from the darkness: soft, female, and somehow familiar. ‘Your friend Leo told me a lot of very interesting things and I had to take care of some of them before I came to talk to you. I apologise for the delay.’

  Ella mustered as much courage as she had available. ‘The delay I can accept. I’m not so happy about the bondage.’

  ‘It’s necessary, for now, that you don’t resist what I’m going to do.’ The voice was closer. Ella thought she could make out a shape: tall, slim, the suggestion of short hair. ‘You’re going to enjoy… some of it.’

  The voice… It can’t be… ‘Aneka?’

  ‘I haven’t used that name in a long time, Ella.’

  ‘Then… then you’re Yrimtan. You were Andrea Johnson on the Titan base, Aneka Jansen before that. The Xinti called you Yrimtan.’

  ‘Now I go by Manu Dei.’ She stepped forward into the light. ‘It means “Hand of God,” just as Yrimtan does.’ She looked almost exactly like Aneka, of course. Her hair was a pale, yellow-blonde, gold strands instead of Aneka’s silver. Her breasts were smaller and more naturally shaped, and they were covered only by some strings of silver beads. Her entire outfit seemed to be made of strings of silver pearls, barely covering her body, and her ample height was augmented by a pair of silver pumps. Despite her fear, Ella felt her skin heating.

  ‘Y-you’re using the sex pheromon
es.’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m using the other ones too. It’s interesting that you know about them. Leo didn’t.’

  ‘We d-didn’t tell everyone.’ Ella squirmed slightly in her cuffs. She was uncomfortably aware that she was becoming wet and trying to fight it. ‘We didn’t want people to think she was influencing them when she wasn’t. She doesn’t use them.’

  Yrimtan gave a throaty chuckle and reached out a hand, her palm alighting on Ella’s right bicep and stroking downwards. ‘I use them all the time. I engineered a susceptibility to them into the people here. I find it useful.’

  A soft tingle began in the skin of Ella’s arm. ‘That… that feels like…’ The tingling grew, spreading outwards from Yrimtan’s palm until it reached out across her breast and her nipple began to stiffen. ‘A neurostim… You’re using a neurostim.’

  ‘I’m not familiar with the word, but I understand the reference. I understand that my counterpart has force generators in her palms. A defensive measure.’

  ‘Y-yes,’ Ella moaned.

  ‘I was made to educate. I have neural induction elements in my hands which allow me to push thought patterns into a brain, should I need to.’

  ‘You used… oh… that to help Alan.’

  ‘Indeed. The same technology can be used to stimulate other nerves in different ways. Pleasure if you tell me what I want to know…’ The achingly beautiful tingling feeling changed in an instant. As if a switch had been flicked over it felt as though someone was running a blowtorch over her arm. Ella screamed, and screamed, until the pain faded away. ‘Or pain if you don’t,’ Yrimtan said softly.

  ‘What… What do you want to know?’

  The golden-haired Aneka smiled. ‘I want to know everything you know about the other me.’

  Prae Wood, 21.9.526 FSC.

  ‘I have gained access to the suit’s computer system,’ Al announced.

  ‘Finally!’ Aneka replied.

  ‘I’m sorry it took so long. Strangely the protocols include no security or encryption. It took considerable trial and error to get the transport layer protocols right and then determine the command sequencing…’

  ‘Al,’ Aneka interrupted, ‘I don’t really need to know the details.’

  ‘I know. I just wanted you to know that I haven’t been dawdling.’

  ‘Al, I never think you’re dawdling. Can we get access to any useful geographical data?’

  ‘I am downloading everything I can find from the suit’s databases now. I will begin searching soon.’

  ‘Let me know when you have something.’ Aloud she said, ‘Al’s got into the suit’s computer. He’s working on finding a location for the city.’

  ‘Good news, at last,’ Delta said.

  Aneka gave her a smile. ‘Yeah, good news. Then all I have to do is figure out how to sneak into an underground city guarded by soldiers with gravity pulse weapons, grenades, and rocket launchers. Then I have to sneak the others out so we can all escape this rock and get back to the Hyde.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound easy,’ Monkey commented, ‘but if it’s possible then you can do it. It’s going to be good to be back on the Hyde.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Aneka agreed.

  FScV Garnet Hyde.

  ‘Drake to Shannon,’ Drake’s voice came from the console speakers on the Hyde’s flight deck. ‘How’s things?’

  Shannon shook her head. He was down in their cabin, supposedly resting, but he could not help checking up on her. ‘Everything’s fine, Drake. I’m fine. You don’t need to check up on me every ten minutes.’

  ‘It’s been over an hour.’

  ‘Still… either get some sleep, or come up here and fuck me. There’s nothing happening. We’re on a standard trajectory back to Earth. No course corrections needed…’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit tame for you?’

  ‘Gonna let that stop you?’

  There was a laugh. ‘I can’t sleep anyway. I’ll be up there in ten.’

  Shannon grinned, reaching for the tube of lubricant she kept under the flight console. Her eye caught something moving on the sensor display and she frowned. Reaching out she tapped the dot on the display and it zoomed in. One dot became three and the computer identified them almost immediately: missiles.

  ‘Gopi! Aggy, how long before impact?’

  ‘Sixty-two-point-nine seconds at current trajectory,’ Aggy replied. ‘Recommend evasive action.’

  Shannon’s hands shifted over the controls, the Hyde spun on its axis, and the main engines fired jerking it sideways, relative to the missiles. She could see them adjusting their tracking and she shifted course again, twisting the ship violently away from its course.

  ‘Fifty-two-point-three seconds,’ Aggy said. ‘The missiles are tracking us and their engines are allowing them greater acceleration than we have.’

  Swallowing, Shannon looked back at the display. She was not a military pilot and the Hyde was not a military vessel. There was no way she could pull them away from missiles homing in on… ‘Aggy, are we picking up any active sensor pings from them?’

  ‘No, Shannon. They appear to be using a passive homing technique.’

  ‘All right…’ She swallowed again. It was going to be a terrible risk, but she had to hope it worked or they were screwed. ‘On my mark I want you to power down everything except life support and your basic systems.’

  ‘Yes, Shannon. Ready when you are.’ Just like that, no questioning, no second guessing. A Xinti AI always believed that an organic mind knew what it was doing.

  Vashma, I hope she’s right. Shannon twisted their orientation again, lining the ship up on Earth, and hit the main drives at full throttle.

  ‘Fifteen seconds, Shannon,’ Aggy said, her voice calm.

  Shannon counted to five. ‘Mark!’ Darkness enveloped the cockpit as all the displays went dead. She grabbed the arms of her chair to stop herself floating away as the gravity cut out, and then fumbled for her harness. Out of the window she saw three exhaust flares going past, and she held her breath…

  Something jerked the ship violently and it began to tumble, slowly, end over end. As it inverted completely Shannon was able to see the dying explosions that had taken place where she had cut the power. Deprived of whatever they were homing in on, the missiles had detonated at the Hyde’s last known position. Shannon exhaled.

  The flight deck door opened and Drake pulled himself in through the door. ‘What the Hell just happened?!’

  ‘It seems like someone doesn’t like us,’ Shannon replied.

  Prime City, 7th August 3186.

  The sight of Bashford stirring, finally, brought a smile to Gillian’s face. The medi-techs had left her alone with him about thirty minutes earlier, apparently satisfied that he was healthy. She had been sitting on the edge of his bunk waiting for him to regain consciousness ever since.

  He blinked at her, confusion and lack of recognition clear in his eyes. ‘Gillian?’

  ‘Yes, Bash. It’s me. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Uh… My throat’s dry.’

  Reaching down to the floor beside the bench, Gillian picked up a bottle of water the medics had left. Lifting his head, she put the bottle to his lips and poured a little of the liquid into his mouth. His eyes closed in pleasure as the cool water soothed his throat, and she poured more until he nodded that it was enough.

  ‘What did he do to you?’ Gillian asked.

  ‘She,’ Bashford replied. ‘Gillian, it’s Yrimtan. Manu Dei is Yrimtan.’

  ‘Are you serious? She’d have to be… Well, I suppose there’s no reason Aneka can’t live that long, but…’

  ‘It’s her,’ Bashford asserted. ‘She wanted information. Who we were, where we came from. She got very interested when I told her about Aneka. Then she asked about the Hyde. She wanted the transponder code and frequencies. I told her, Gillian. Anything she wanted.’

  ‘Aneka’s pheromones can make you do whatever she wants,’ Gillian said softly. ‘She never uses them, but…
’

  ‘That wasn’t all of it.’ Gillian frowned as she realised he was pulling at her robe. ‘Some kind of neurostim device. Pleasure and pain, over and over…’ A hand slid under the paper robe and up her right thigh.

  ‘Bash, I don’t think this is an entirely appropriate time to…’

  His hand curled under her butt, pulling her closer. His breathing was becoming rapid. As she spoke she felt his grip tighten on her buttock and he jammed his eyes closed. ‘I don’t know if I can stop myself,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  Gillian pulled his head against her shoulder and held him there. ‘Yes you can, lover,’ she whispered. ‘You’re strong, and we’ll work through this together.’ She felt his arms move, his hands tighten against her back, and hoped that she was right.

  FScV Garnet Hyde, 21.9.526 FSC.

  ‘So I remembered that story you told me,’ Shannon said, ‘about the pirates who were targeting ships by tuning their missiles to transponder frequencies.’

  ‘So you guessed that that was what these had been programmed to do,’ Drake said. Reaching out, he pushed a strand of blonde hair from her face. ‘Quite a risk.’

  ‘I didn’t think it could be worse than letting three missiles hit us.’

  ‘Three nuclear missiles.’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘You were fucking brilliant,’ Drake said, shifting his hips just so.

  Shannon groaned. ‘Sex in zero-G isn’t easy, but it’s so worth it.’

  ‘I think you deserve a reward for saving our collective butts. Besides, it’s a day and a half to Earth orbit as close as I can figure. There’s nothing much to do until we get closer and with Aggy down to basic maintenance we can’t even watch vids. So I’m going to keep rewarding you until you tell me to stop.’

  ‘A day and a half?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I can do that.’