‘Yes, but we’re talking about politicians,’ Abby said. ‘All politicians can do is talk. If they aren’t talking then they aren’t doing anything… Also, when they stop talking the shooting usually starts.’
‘Do you really think they can talk their way through this?’ Aneka asked. ‘This feels like the lead up to Iraq. The UN argued and everyone knew how it was going to end up.’
Abby gave a shrug. ‘Honestly? I don’t see how this can go well, but I’m new to this diplomacy business. Maybe the Herosians can be talked into backing down.’
Everyone went silent. No one wanted to say how unlikely that seemed.
‘You can spend Christmas with us,’ Ella said, more to say anything than for the actual words. ‘After last year, I could really do with a party, and…’
‘There is no way I will persuade your Administration or the Captain to let me off this ship without an official escort again,’ Abby replied, though she was grinning. ‘Anyway, I didn’t think you people did Christmas.’
‘We had a Christmas party two years ago,’ Gillian explained. ‘Well, a Jenlay version of one. Mostly it was an excuse to get friends and family together. It was just after Negral and there were a lot of us who just felt… Being together to celebrate seemed like a good idea.’
‘All right, how about we have a party here? Even if we have to set up some tents in the cargo bay we can host something. I can call it my thank you to the crew of the Garnet Hyde for re-joining our worlds. Obviously you can bring friends…’
Aneka chuckled. ‘You want to invite Dillon and Kat?’
Abby coughed, hiding her blush behind her hair. ‘I’ll think about that.’
‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Gillian said, ‘one of those friends asked me if I would pass on a request. Doctor Wallace. He’s the head of physical sciences at the university and he would like to take a look around.’ Abby started to open her mouth, but Gillian went on. ‘He was with us on Negral. He’s seen things even you don’t have access to and kept his mouth firmly closed, and he built the second-generation warp drive our military is experimenting with. He might even be able to give your engineering staff some pointers.’
‘He’s also a really nice guy,’ Aneka added.
Abby looked between them and then nodded. ‘I’ll have to ask Captain Tasker, but if you vouch for him…’
28.11.528 FSC.
Abraham Wallace was a very tall man, a fine example of what being born into a low-gravity environment would do to a Jenlay. Stick thin to begin with, his age was starting to show, especially in his face, which likely put him over two hundred. His muscles had never entirely grown used to normal gravity, but he moved around with ease thanks to a gadget the Negral AIs had given him which let him walk around in his own, personal, low-gravity field. Thanks to that he was able to wear more casual clothes on the ground, and at least there was no exoskeleton visible under his shipsuit.
Wallace was a genius, there were few who would object to that designation, but those who knew him also knew that he would be a genius who got next to nothing done without his glamorous assistant. Cassandra looked exactly like someone who should not be walking around with the old physicist. She was average in height, though her feet were usually in high heels which made her look considerably taller. She had long legs, wide hips, a narrow waist, a very expansive bosom, and the sculpted face of a model complete with crystal clear, blue eyes and long, platinum-blonde hair. To be absolutely correct, she had the sculpted face of a popular, if slightly outdated, sex robot. Cassandra was an AI, and the love of Al’s life.
Together they stood in the engine room of the Hand of God, peering at the machinery around them. Aneka had to admit that this really looked like the engine room of a starship. The Hyde had an engine room, and she had been in one aboard a frigate, but those were basically cabin-sized bays that gave easy access to the drives and reactors. This engine room was an engine room.
There were pipes and cable ducts. There were huge chunks of machinery with flashing lights and glowing display panels. There were ladders running between the two decks, with the huge rear section of the main spinal weapons system below, and lots of… engineering above. The huge toroidal structure which formed the warp field was wrapped around the entire room. There was a big, spherical thing at the rear that was the reactionless drive. And right in the middle of it all was a heavily shielded structure containing an enormous fusion reactor.
‘This,’ Wallace said, ‘is what a spaceship should look like.’
Shannon, standing nearby, laughed. ‘It’s a lot roomier than my engine room. Not that I’d say that in front of Aggy.’
‘Aggy is quite happy being the AI aboard a science vessel,’ Cassandra replied.
‘Yeah, but I bet she’d be even happier if she could be on a science vessel this big with these engines. They look… What do you think, Doctor? Twice the power-mass ratio?’
‘She’ll do just over one-point-three light hours per second.’ The speaker was a woman, Madison Kent, the chief engineer of the ship. Unlike most of the crew, she was not an ex-Enforcer. She had helped design and build the ship, and it had been felt that having her aboard to handle any problems might be a good idea.
Shannon frowned for a second, doing conversions in her head. ‘Yeah, twice as fast as the Hyde. That’s pretty amazing for such a big ship.’
Kent smiled. ‘Partially we wanted to see if we could do it, but we sold it to the Guardians on the basis that it can deploy quickly. We could, if needed, warp our way out to Saturn in a matter of minutes. It’s not exactly a recommended manoeuvre, but it’s possible.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘I understood you were a pilot, Miss Patton?’
‘The Hyde’s a small ship. Drake and I have to handle everything from flying her to fixing her if she breaks. I tend to do the engineering. I was taught to work on our drive by some AIs and I wanted to see how this one stacked up to its smaller cousin.’
‘And?’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Shannon replied, laughing. ‘Actually, that’s a lie, but it’s different, and not just because it’s scaled up.’
‘Yours was designed by the Xinti; ours was extrapolated from a Human first-generation drive, derived from a Xinti drive. I’d imagine the similarities outweigh the differences, but there are bound to be some variations.’
‘And you were on the design team?’ Wallace asked.
‘Yes, though I was actually more involved with the hulking brute at the back. We got it working on a small scale easily enough, but scaling it up proved harder than we thought.’
Wallace almost swooped down on her. ‘You worked on the sublight drive? Oh, my dear, we have so much to talk about…’
~~~
‘Aneka?’ Aneka turned to see Tasker walking down the corridor toward her.
‘Charley, what can I do for you?’
‘Well, I was just wondering when I could have my lead engineer back. Your Doctor Wallace seems to have stolen her.’
‘Abraham gets very enthusiastic about physics,’ Aneka replied, grinning. ‘I’m sure he’ll let her up for air in… Oh, no more than a week.’ She started off again, now with the Captain walking beside her.
‘A week? Is that one of your ten-day weeks, or one of our seven-day ones?’
‘Local calendar. A week. Maybe two.’
‘Two weeks?’
‘At most.’
‘Twenty days?’
‘Let’s call it a month to be safe.’
Tasker narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m an ex-Enforcer. We had our senses of humour surgically removed when we got the job.’
Aneka chuckled softly. ‘Actually, I’m starting to think there might be hope for you lot after all.’
Mercy Island, Obati IV, 1.12.528 FSC.
Diana Ollander sighed, turned over, and slapped the pad on her bedside console which cancelled the alarm. She had learned early in her career that vocal cancellation led too easily to going back to sleep. She had also learned t
o program the computer to set the alarm off again if she did not get out of bed after ten minutes, but that was not going to be a problem this morning.
Still, she remained on her back, staring at the ceiling, for a while longer. She wanted to get herself ready for the day ahead of her and a moment’s thought would be a good start.
The Herosians had really fucked everything up. There was no other way to describe the current situation.
She had seen the Navy’s analysis of the wreck the Old Earth people had brought over. It matched perfectly the one sensor scan they had of the ships which had been performing sneak attacks all over the Federation, and it was very obviously Herosian. The design was all theirs and the crew had been Herosian.
Worse, the crew had been Herosian military. In uniform! Elroy had told her about some history book he had read about pirates back on the seas of Old Earth. There was a type of pirate called a privateer, the difference being that privateers had a licence to harry enemy shipping from the government of the time. They were basically state sanctioned brigands. At least they had had the sense to wear civilian clothing! If they were caught, they were just private citizens.
No, there was no way they were wriggling out of this one, and that was just going to make it harder to salvage anything out of this mess. Elroy had used another analogy, something about cornered rats. Ollander had thought it was distinctly appropriate, considering they were talking about the Herosians.
Sighing again, she slipped her long legs out from under the sheets and padded across the deeply piled carpet to the bathroom. A shower was going to do her good, relieve the stress a little.
Of course, that was another thing. The Council had dispatched Elroy to meet with the Old Earth representative and deal with things on New Earth, and her little affair with him had been one of the few bright spots in her life here. She smiled as she started the water running. He was older than she was, and much older than her two partners, but he sure knew what he was doing in bed. And on the carpet. And in the shower. And on the kitchen counter…
She shook her head and stepped into the shower. If she kept thinking like that she was going to be depressed all day.
Instead, she realised as the water soaked into her long, black hair, she was probably going to be frustrated and angry all day. Maybe depressed would have been better.
Yorkbridge Mid-town.
‘How long before we get any news from these Senate meetings?’ Aneka asked.
‘Well they put a new communications link in last year,’ Ella replied from the kitchen, ‘but it’s still a seventeen-hour lag.’
Aneka gave a grunt of displeasure, her eyes on the silent wall screen which was displaying almost non-stop coverage of the current Herosian situation on CFM. ‘Just like my time. They’ve got no news, but they have to report something so they keep recycling the same scraps over and over.’
Giggling, Ella handed Aneka a mug of Ashtenna coffee. ‘Here, this’ll help.’
‘Only because it tastes good. You know, I finally worked out what it is about this stuff that’s so good.’
‘Oh?’ Ella walked around the couch to settle down beside Aneka, hips pressed together.
Aneka swapped her mug to the other hand so that she could actually lift it and then slipped her right arm around Ella’s shoulders. ‘Yeah. Coffee usually smells great and tastes like a watered down version of its scent. This stuff tastes the way it smells.’
‘Huh, yeah. It’s probably best the caffeine doesn’t affect you. You seem kind of hyped.’
‘I’m restless. Do you think Kat and Dillon would be up for a trip to the beach?’
‘Probably. Since you started monitoring Kat’s bio-chip on your runs she says she’s getting a much more effective workout.’ She sipped her coffee, savouring the taste for a second. ‘And while you’re out running, I’ll persuade Dillon to give you another wrestling match.’
Aneka laughed. ‘You know he doesn’t entirely like doing that.’ Which was true. When Aneka’s secret nature had been revealed, Dillon had made a joke about how they could have got up to all sorts of things had they known she was almost indestructible. In reality he was a fairly gentle man and Kat’s suggestion that he try wrestling Aneka had turned out to be a bit of a washout. It had not entirely helped that he knew Aneka was letting him win at the end. They had given it another go, making it more game and less sport, and that had worked a bit better…
‘This is for a good cause. I know we can’t tire you out, but a bit of rough sex will do you good.’ She thought about it for a second and then added, ‘We’ll put you in a corset and you can pretend to be forcing him. I think big old Dillon might actually really like that.’
Aneka gave a slight shrug. ‘I’ll try anything once. Not going to work though. I feel like I’m watching a very slow, multi-car pile-up and I can’t do anything to stop it.’
‘That’s making the assumption that it’s your job to stop it, love. It’s not. It’s down to the politicians and, if they fuck it up, the Navy.’
Aneka sighed. ‘Oh that makes me feel so much better.’
Senate Grand Forum, Obati IV.
The Herosians were either in denial, or there was something very bad going on. None of the Herosian politicians seemed to be willing to accept the truth and they were so vehement about it that Ollander was starting to have doubts herself.
Herosian Senators had been filing onto the podium for the last hour to give long speeches. All of them boiled down to one thing, however. They knew nothing of these ships. Whatever the truth was, these ships could not be anything to do with the Herosian government. Had there not been attacks on Herosian shipping? It was ridiculous to think such ships could have been hidden from the politicians and they knew nothing of them.
The first counterargument had been that the Jenlay had made the whole thing up. This was some sort of conspiracy between the two Earths to discredit the Herosians. That might have worked if the Torem had gone for it, but they were having none of it. They pointed out that Old Earth had been quite reluctant to become involved with the Jenlay, and that all the data on the wreck appeared to be genuine.
Now the slightly less belligerent Herosians were suggesting either a mercenary group or a rogue faction within the military. The latter made more sense, and it was true that Herosian society tended to form cliques and groups which operated secretly. That was usually over business deals and cartels, however. A mercenary group was a possibility; one had been responsible for the assault on New Earth. But then there was the problem of the uniforms. Still, those pushing the military faction theory could point to the recent attempt to kill or capture Aneka Jansen which had been ascribed to a rogue Admiral.
Currently it seemed like even the Jenlay were willing to entertain the ‘rogue navy’ idea. Ollander had to admit that it might give them a way out. At the very least it could bring about a delay in open hostilities while the politicians demanded action from the military. There were already negotiations going on regarding Jenlay military units being deployed into the Herosian border regions to search for facilities being used by the rogues.
Ollander settled back in her seat amid the huge, curving ranks of seating the Senators used, and tried to relax. Another Herosian was climbing up to say the same things as his three predecessors and she really needed to relax.
Tristar Township, New Earth.
Gillian had been ignoring Bashford’s activities for the last couple of hours, but when he started disassembling and running component checks on his weapons she decided that she needed to intervene.
‘Bash, love, what are you doing?’ Sort of an intervention anyway.
‘Mostly,’ the bald facilitator replied, ‘I’m keeping busy.’
‘By checking every bit of survival gear you have at home?’
‘Uh-huh. And taking inventory. I’m not sure we won’t need it and you know I like to prepare when I have the time.’
Gillian watched him as he continued running tests on the dining table. Then she
looked around at the wall screen where CFM was still rehashing the few released details of the Herosian pirate ship. The sound was off, but the reporters and pundits looked very serious.
‘I’m going to go over the city emergency plans,’ she said. ‘I recall they’re on record at the Administration’s information site.’
‘Not a bad idea.’
Senate Grand Forum.
The tall, blue-and-white clad form of Senator Yakis ambled toward Ollander as she sat eating lunch at one of the tables overlooking the ocean. He looked like he was ambling with a purpose, but she ignored him for now. She enjoyed being in this spot, watching the water washing up the beach. It was relaxing, and she needed relaxing.
Obati IV had been selected as the site for the Senate for two reasons. It was relatively central, at least between the Jenlay and Herosian regions. More importantly, no one wanted it. Resource poor and essentially flooded, the only land took the form of islands, some fairly large, but most no bigger than a mountain top sticking up from the vast, worldwide ocean. The island with the Senate buildings on had never been given a real name; it was just the Senate Grand Forum.
It had been selected primarily for the size, which was sufficient for the buildings planned for it, and for the proximity of a group of other islands, which were used for the spaceport, diplomatic residences, and staff housing. It was, however, quite beautiful in places and the balcony overlooking the black sand beach with the deep blue water beyond was one of Ollander’s favourite places on any world.
‘Enjoying the view?’ The Torem had ambled within vocal range.
Ollander smiled up at him, nodding toward the seat opposite. ‘It’s a very nice view.’
‘I grew up on stations and habitats,’ Yakis replied, folding himself onto the seat. ‘I tend to prefer starfields.’ Ollander gave a slight shrug, conceding the vagaries of aesthetics. ‘It occurs to me,’ Yakis went on, ‘that while the prevailing theory has merit, and does give us time to work on a political solution, it does have one flaw that may “come back to bite us.” I believe that is the right idiomatic phrase.’
Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour Page 10
