Steel Beneath the Skin

by Niall Teasdale

  Even in the dark the forest was bright to Aneka’s eyes. She walked along the game-trail to the point where the track branched off to the east and came across nothing. No tracks, no signs, nothing. As she approached camera fifteen, Al connected through to its control circuitry and a diagnostic display appeared in her vision field.

  ‘No sign of any faults,’ she said. ‘No visible damage.’ She flicked through the diagnostic displays to find a transmission coverage graph. ‘It’s been transmitting constantly. The dropouts have to be something jamming the signal.’

  ‘The transmitter on those things isn’t powerful,’ Monkey said over her comm. ‘It wouldn’t take too much to interfere with the sig-’ He cut off in static and Aneka had her pistol in her hand before she knew she was reacting. Something moved past her, a sound of rapidly moving footfalls, a sensation of presence, but even as she turned and looked after it she saw nothing. ‘-ka, do you read me?’

  ‘I read you,’ she said, this time managing to keep herself silent outside her head. ‘There’s something here. Something with some wicked stealth characteristics.’

  ‘Your signal cut out along with the camera,’ Monkey said, and was immediately cut off by Bashford.

  ‘Aneka, I want you back on this ship as soon as you can get here,’ the lead facilitator said, his tone urgent. ‘We’re going to lock down the shuttle and hold until morning.’

  Aneka took a last look down the track and then turned, heading back. ‘On my way.’

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  ‘It’s using some form of wide-spectrum, adaptive camouflage,’ Aneka said as they sat around the shuttle over breakfast, ‘and a close-range jamming system to knock out radio comms. Al detected the jamming, but it didn’t make much difference at the time. Why would it need that on top of the stealth?’

  Monkey, who seemed to know more about xinti weapons technology than anyone else, supplied the answer. ‘The Xinti had that kind of capability. Multi-spectral stealth coating was used on their scouting probes, but it wasn’t so much use against very high or low band scanners and the security sensors can probably see a wider band than your eyes. Even assuming this thing isn’t a xinti, the same would apply. So it jams the camera transmissions while it’s passing them.’

  ‘Why assume it’s not?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘It didn’t attack you.’

  Aneka sucked on her teeth. ‘I wouldn’t make that call just yet. If this is a scout, it may not be sufficiently armed to take on what it would probably recognise as a combat model. A xinti scout could probably identify me. Maybe it even figured if I was a xinti-build, I was on its side.’

  ‘It’s not impossible,’ Gilroy said. ‘They had a highly stratified, hierarchical structure. Any organic life form, or a form derived from an organic life form, was higher up the ranks than a digital one. If it identified you as an emulation and it’s a robot, an AI, which seems likely given the timescale, you would outrank it.’

  ‘Huh. Maybe I can talk to it if I can spot it.’ She looked at the wide-eyed expression on Gilroy’s face. ‘What?’

  ‘You speak Xinti?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I could understand them on the ship. That translation software I’m running works for them, and I seem to be able to mimic just about any sound I want so the weird noises they make…’

  ‘No one knows how to speak Xinti,’ Ella stated flatly. ‘We can read their writing, but no one has ever figured out their speech.’

  ‘I guess I’d be a lousy spy if I couldn’t report back.’ Her reply was absent sounding, as though she was thinking about something else. Her fingers moved over the keyboard. ‘Surface team to Garnet Hyde, do you read?’

  Patton’s voice sounded over the speakers. ‘Patton here, Aneka. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Those EM noise bursts you picked up, do you have recordings?’

  ‘Sending them down now. I’ll send the high-def scan data down at the same time. We’ve covered most of your immediate area.’

  ‘Thanks, Shannon.’ Aneka watched as the display on the security console showed the download of the data files, then selected the first one to complete, indicating that it should be treated as an audio file and played back. A burst of static erupted from the speaker and Aneka frowned. ‘A status report, “Approaching sector two boundary. Activity detected.” They’re xinti, and it sounds like there’s more than one if they’re sending back reports.’ She moved to the last of the files; the metadata attached to it indicating that it had been recorded just after her encounter with the scout. ‘It’s reporting the encounter with me,’ she said. ‘It says it’s detected xinti components and identified me as a xinti. A second voice tells it to return to sector one.’ She frowned. ‘It identified me as a xinti?’

  ‘Probably some aspect of your computer system,’ Gilroy suggested. ‘Xinti “brains” were different from the standard computers they used in robots.’

  ‘They have some sort of base?’ Bashford said.

  ‘That would be my estimation,’ Aneka said, still bothered by the identification. ‘What’s the plan, Boss?’

  Bashford was the kind of man Aneka would have considered it a pleasure to work under. He knew his limitations, and his first action was to look at Monkey. ‘We haven’t been attacked,’ the younger facilitator supplied. ‘Dad always said that whenever anyone encountered a xinti defence system, it didn’t wait around. If it was going to hit you, it hit you. I don’t know why it hasn’t, but I think the Navy would be very interested in finding out. Maybe we need to be more careful, but I think we stay.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Gilroy said for the scientific contingent, ‘we want to remain here as long as it’s safe. If this is a potential Xinti site as well…’

  Bashford gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘I know. That just gets your juices flowing faster. All right. Aneka, go through the rest of those transmissions. You might want to see if you can tune to the frequency they’re using, maybe pick up their comms. Join us at the admin office when you’re done. Monkey, break out the carbines and get the ladies some side arms.’ He looked around between Ella and Gilroy. ‘Wear them,’ he added firmly and very much as though he had been through this before.

  People began to move and Aneka turned to the console, preparing to pipe the Xinti noise through her internal translation system. She paused as Monkey stopped beside her. ‘You want a carbine to go along with that cannon of yours?’

  She remembered the specifications on the polychromatic laser carbines they carried. Her blaster had more raw power and the same penetration capability, give or take, and the smaller draw meant she could actually fire more charges before needing to reload. The carbines had her beat hands down on range, but… ‘In this terrain we won’t be engaging at the kind of ranges where a longer barrel has an advantage. I’ll stick with Bessie.’

  Ella’s head went up. ‘You named your gun?’

  Aneka turned to her console. ‘Bessie is a good name for a BFG.’

  ‘What’s a BFG?’

  ‘Big fucking gun,’ Aneka, Monkey, and Bashford said in unison.

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  There had been nothing much in the other recordings. The scout had identified the four jenlay, though the word it had used translated as “human,” and determined that Aneka was not one early on. It had made a report indicating that the team was doing a survey. There had been no indication of an intention to attack, but it was clear that they had been watched more or less the entire time they had been there.

  The body count so far was thirty-three, including the three looters. They had found ten corpses holed up in what had, in fact, turned out to be a house on the edge of the settlement. Three had been found in the shop, which appeared to be a general goods store from the contents. The remainder had been found in the administration building, and their location was telling. It appeared that a group of miners had made a last stand against the xinti forces in the west wing where they had power and water. They had collected enough rations to last several days, and touched none of
them.

  Aneka had walked among the rooms, taking in the upturned desks with blast marks a lot like the damage her pistol did, but bigger. These people had not stood a chance against the invading force, and they had probably known it. There had been no hope of reinforcements. FTL communications relied on the transmission of a tight beam of tachyons, according to Bashford. You had to know exactly where you were sending it, and even using modern equipment the transmission lag was measured in days. They had dispatched a report to New Earth from the Garnet Hyde, and that was going to take around twelve days to get there. They would not be getting a reply; it was impossible to hit a ship with a tachyon beam at that distance. If they ran into trouble, a high-warp response cruiser would take ten days to get to them from the nearest Naval base.

  So far, however, the xinti scouts had left them alone. In fact, there had been no more camera outages, and no more burst transmissions. The team had settled into a working pattern where Gilroy and Ella did their job while the three facilitators guarded them. Monkey and Bashford took turns manning the security station on the shuttle, alternating that with sentry duty alongside Aneka. Aneka’s body did not seem to tire very easily, and she was now well suited to the task of keeping a constant, armed, watch outside whichever building the two archaeologists were working in. It gave her a chance to learn a little more about her colleagues.

  ‘So, your father is in the military?’ Aneka said to Monkey as they stood outside the shop. Well, she stood, he sat on a crate, his carbine resting on his thighs.

  ‘Captain of the Admiral Banfry. It’s an Admiral Class battleship. Captain Tor Gibbons, though his friends call him “Ape.”’

  Aneka grinned. ‘Another reason they call you Monkey?’

  ‘Huh, yeah.’

  ‘What about your mother?’ She had already learned that, since marriage was a thing of the past, people did not assume married names. Children were allowed to choose the surname of whichever parent they wished, though traditionally girls would take their mother’s name and boys their father’s.

  ‘Oh, she’s inside digging through old stuff.’

  Aneka glanced at him, seeing the slight colouring of his cheeks. ‘The Doc is your mother?’ Clearly he had got most of his looks from his father.

  ‘He takes after his father,’ Gilroy called from inside, confirming the speculation, ‘though he’s more my build. Ape is a sweet man, built like an armoured car, though. I’d probably still be with him if he spent less time in space.’ She poked her head out through the door to add, ‘The sex was incredible.’ Monkey went scarlet and she grinned at him before ducking back inside.

  ‘Parents are supposed to be embarrassing,’ Aneka said, consoling the boy. She kicked herself; he was older than she was before she had been turned into a robot. ‘Your dad’s the one who taught you about the Xinti?’

  ‘Well, they both did. Dad is the one who told me horror stories about them. He’s why I… well, wasn’t keen on you when we found you. That and…’ He trailed off.

  ‘And what?’ Aneka prodded.

  Monkey looked mildly mortified. ‘Well, I’ve never met a robot or cyborg that looked like you. I… I’m a bit…’

  Gilroy’s face appeared in the doorway again. ‘David tends to be a little timid around very attractive women. Especially ones he’s personally attracted to.’

  Ella appeared as well, just behind her boss. ‘Psychologically, you’ve got to be his worst nightmare. A woman part of his brain is afraid of, and another part wants to take to bed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say nightmare,’ Monkey mumbled. He pulled himself up straighter and added, ‘But they’re right. I don’t think I could bring myself to ask you, and if I did I’d probably freak out part way through. So it’s probably a good thing I’m shy.’

  Aneka shrugged. ‘Well, back in my day, women were trying to shake off the homemaker-or-whore stigma. I mean, equality in the western world was fairly evident. Hell, I was a combat soldier. Women ran big companies. There was still something of a stigma over being a sexy, self-confident woman. And now… The first time you looked at me and saw my body instead of a xinti killing machine I was happy. I’ll take lust over loathing any day.’

  ‘You’ll get both when we go home,’ Ella told her. The younger of the two scientists specialised in psychology and anthropology, though she was a good archaeologist. ‘There are people with a fetish for cybernetics, and robots. There are also people who have a far deeper hatred, or a phobia, regarding them.’

  ‘It’s herosians you’ll need to worry about,’ Monkey said. ‘They really don’t like anything Xinti. I can see there being some diplomatic issues when we get back.’

  Aneka’s shoulders hunched. ‘Something to look forward to then.’

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  Another thing they had decided to make a rule on was that everyone was inside the shuttle by nightfall. That did not, of necessity, mean that the work ended then, but it generally meant that Aneka took her sleep break just after dark, getting up just before everyone else retired for the night, and then spending most of the time until after dawn sitting at the security console, bored and alone.

  The sight of Ella padding toward her down the aisle, naked, sleepy-eyed, and yawning brought a smile to Aneka’s face. It was about fifteen minutes before sunrise and there was light showing in the sky; just enough that Aneka could see the little redhead without enhanced vision.

  ‘I woke up early,’ Ella said, rubbing at her eyes, ‘and I thought I’d come down here. We haven’t been alone for days.’

  Aneka reached out, slipping an arm around Ella’s waist and pulling her closer. ‘Är min flicka kåt?’

  Ella blinked at her. ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s Swedish, “Is my girl horny?”’ Aneka’s fingers slid up Ella’s stomach to the under-slope of her breast.

  ‘S-Swedish?’ the redhead stammered.

  ‘My father was Swedish, born in Sweden.’ She began stroking her middle finger across Ella’s nipple. ‘That’s one of the countries in northern Europe. In the old days, like a thousand years before my time, they were known for being fearsome warriors.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ella said, half a moan.

  Aneka curled two fingers from her free hand into Ella, sliding them easily between slick labia. ‘By my time people think we’re all porn addicts and perverts.’ She got a whimper out of her partner, curled her fingers, and began to push against the spot she had discovered which seemed to drive Ella particularly wild. ‘Mind you, I’m only half Swedish, and I was born in England.

  Ella said, ‘Nggg,’ and Aneka giggled. Ella’s knees started to buckle and Aneka tightened her arm around her victim’s waist, holding her up with no effort. Ella started panting, it would be a matter of seconds now.

  Camera fifteen’s display went to snow. It looked like the scout was back, but Aneka ignored it as Ella’s hands gripped her shoulder, her inner muscles tightening convulsively around Aneka’s fingers. The little redhead whimpered and mewled in ecstasy as Aneka watched the camera displays. Fifteen did not come back and fourteen went out.

  Aneka slipped her fingers free, getting a moan of loss from Ella. ‘Go wake the others.’ Camera thirteen went to snow. ‘We’ve got trouble.’

  ‘N-now you tell me,’ Ella mumbled, but she forced her legs into life and started down the aisle.

  By the time a half-dressed Bashford had appeared from the sleeping area five more cameras had gone out. ‘They’re back?’

  ‘And this time the cameras aren’t coming back online.’

  Bashford moved to the other side of the aisle and began typing. A window opened on Aneka’s display showing the display from the ship’s sensors. ‘Three targets,’ she said. ‘Two of those look kind of large for what I sensed a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Probably full-sized combat robots. You have an anatomical chassis, these things are constructed purely for war.’

  ‘That’s not a good sign.’ She tapped a few keys and had Al display the resulting transmis
sion in her vision field. Then she swung her legs out and started toward the rear door, picking up her belt and gun as she went.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Bashford asked, sounding quite calm despite the alarm showing in his posture.

  ‘Can this thing stand up to two xinti warbots? Because I’m pretty sure the looters we found came here in a ship and there’s no evidence of it.’

  ‘You can’t either,’ Bashford pointed out.

  ‘No, but I can try talking to them. At worst I can buy you some time to get off this rock.’

  ‘Aneka…’

  She stopped and turned to look at him, seeing Ella in her ship suit in the aisle just past him. ‘Bash, I should have died a thousand years ago. I did die, what’s left is a ghost in a box. I’ve got synthetic skin with nothing but steel under it. You people have long lives to live…’

  ‘So do you,’ Ella said.

  Aneka stared at her for a second. In-vision she could see the warbots moving along the track toward the ship. ‘I’m a soldier, Ella. This is what I do.’ She turned, hitting the hatch button as she walked toward it. ‘Get this ready to take off. If I can’t stop them, you’ll need to go without me.’

  The ship’s imaging radar showed the scout robot standing at the entrance to the trail, right on the edge of the concrete. Aneka marched forward, pulling her pistol and lining it up on the spot where the thing was standing. Knowing where it was she could make out its outline; it was humanoid, shorter than she was, and seemed to have a skeletal structure rather than her smooth contours. She opened her mouth and let out a burst of what sounded like static. ‘De-cloak and identify yourself.’

  Now the radar image showed the two warbots stopping. The scout’s body resolved itself into a metal exoskeleton, humanoid in shape with a blank face and camera lenses for eyes. Apparently designed for general purpose operations, it had human-style hands and a pistol a little like Aneka’s but smaller attached to one thigh. Its voice sounded, a quick burst of noise which Aneka’s software translated as a soft, male voice. ‘Scout Unit Guad Balla Four-Nine-Three. Interdict operations, area denial. Insurgents identified as human. Indicate condition.’