Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart (4 page)

‘Mister Baron, full passive analysis,’ Anderson ordered.

‘Processing,’ Baron said, ‘but… Shari, can you check that alignment?’

Prentice took her hand from the right joystick and tapped quickly over the keypad set behind it. ‘If your navigation data is right, then my alignment’s right, Ti.’

Baron grunted and his hands started moving rapidly over the console before him. Aneka watched, frowning. ‘What’s wrong, Ti?’ She asked.

‘I’m getting next to nothing in the way of useful data. It’s like the thing’s almost vanished… Very high neutrino readings…. I’m no astronomer, but I’d have thought there should be way more evidence of this thing at this range.’

‘That pretty much locks it down then,’ Anderson said, frowning.

‘You know what’s happened?’ Aneka asked.

‘Theory rather than fact, but you said that the only time you’d heard the warp drives behave that way was flying into a gravitationally unstable region, and there’s the intense gamma-ray wavefront we hit, and now we can’t see the star and we’re getting very strong neutrino emissions. I did some reading. I think that quark star of theirs went nova. Sloughed off a layer as high-energy gamma rays and collapsed the remains into an electroweak star.’

Aneka frowned. ‘That would have blasted anything in the system to… less than dust, right?’

‘Nothing survives being in a system when a nova happens,’ Baron supplied. ‘And that’s a normal nova, not some super-dense stellar eruption.’

‘The gravity wave would probably have ripped anything apart that the gamma burst didn’t vaporise,’ Anderson agreed.

‘The AIs did it,’ Aneka said, her voice quiet. ‘They blew their own star system up to take out the Xinti who attacked them.’

‘They could do that?’ Prentice asked.

‘Yeah, they could do that. How long before we can get out of here, Captain?’

Anderson looked at her, at the slightly nauseous look on her face, and nodded. ‘I want everyone fresh for when we power up that drive for the first time. First watch tomorrow. Mister Baron, I’d like as much data collected on Negral’s neighbourhood before then. Arrange it.’

Aneka gave Anderson a nod and started towards the door at the rear of the room.

University of New Earth, 26.11.525 FSC.

‘No word?’ Ella asked. She was standing at Gillian’s desk, her expression forlorn.

‘No,’ Gillian replied, ‘but that doesn’t mean anything yet.’

‘It means that Negral is staying quiet for more reason than just a desire to do so.’

‘True, but little more than that. The FTL transmitter on the Brigantia doesn’t have the range to reach Sapphira. There’s no point in worrying over it now.’

Ella grimaced. ‘That’s easy for you to say. I’m worried.’

Gillian was not really sure what to say. Almost anything would be empty platitudes. ‘Ella, Captain Anderson and her crew are supposed to be among the best in the Navy. Drake has heard of her and said good things. Aneka is a very resourceful woman. They’re going to find out what’s happened and come back to tell us.’ She gave her assistant a grin. ‘And you’ll be there to drag Aneka into bed and not let her out for a month.’

‘I know,’ Ella replied. Her smile did not return, which was a bad sign. ‘I just wish…’

‘What is it Aneka says? If wishes were horses…’

‘We’d all be riding Arabs. I never have understood the reference.’

FNf Delta Brigantia.

‘You know,’ Anderson said, ‘we have sufficient supplies that you don’t have to starve yourself.’

Aneka smiled at her across the mess room table. ‘And I have sufficient supplies of raw materials that I don’t need to eat. Frankly, this stuff isn’t appetising enough for me to want to.’

Anderson prodded one of the browner piles of mush. ‘Can’t say I blame you. It’s an acquired taste.’

‘They’ll be expecting us to have called in by now, right?’

‘If we got to Negral and found everything working, yeah. We should be back at Sapphira before they start worrying excessively.’

Aneka gave a short laugh. ‘Ella was probably worrying the moment I was out of sight. I never asked, do you have a partner?’

‘Sure. She’s a thousand tonnes of metal and plastic with a fusion reactor for a heart.’ She looked around at the ship. ‘She’s never failed me, doesn’t bitch about all the time I spend in space, and I won’t find her in bed with the neighbour when I come back to her.’

‘That sounds like bitter experience talking, but I won’t pry. I take it interpersonal relations between the crew are discouraged?’

Anderson shrugged. ‘They aren’t encouraged. There’s nothing in the regs saying people can’t fall in love. Kind of stupid to try to stop it.’

‘Didn’t stop them trying in my time.’

‘Huh. If one of my senior officers looks interested in someone of lower rank I give them the speech.’

‘The speech?’

‘Same one I give myself. I might have to send one of these people out to die. I can’t be making decisions based on personal feelings if that happens. They have to realise the same is true of them.’ She peered at Aneka, eyes narrowing. ‘You’ve commanded. Ever fallen for one of your people?’

‘Not even when I went private. Did sleep with one. Martial arts instructor. Neither of us was serious about it though. You’ve never…?’

‘Even Chance wouldn’t chance that. I don’t have any trouble finding dates when we’re planetside, and I don’t stop this lot hooking up when they need the relief. It’s way better than having frustrated crewmen making mistakes. I have to keep some professional detachment, however. Daventry’s the same, though he’s young enough to think he can still make something permanent work. He’s got a guy named Darren back on New Earth.’

Aneka chuckled. ‘Ella’d never manage this long without sex. You’ve obviously got more control.’

‘No, I’ve got a really good vibrator.’

Hayward Alpha Research Facility, Eshebbon, 7.12.525 FSC.

The air was freezing. Not literally: Ella had been on a world where the air was literally a frozen carpet on the ground which vaporised into puffs of gas when trodden on. Eshebbon was nowhere near that cold, but it was sub-zero and the ground was covered in a thick layer of snow and ice. Ella suspected the snow never really melted aside from when robots were sent out to steam clean the pathways.

‘We should hurry.’ The voice was that of Andrew Kottigan, the head of security at the station. He had been sent out to meet Ella when the shuttle had brought her down from orbit. ‘Spend more than a few minutes in this temperature and you’ll freeze.’

Ella nodded, though it was only her face that was feeling the chill. She was still in the ship-suit she had got on Negral and it was keeping her at a comfortable temperature. With her helmet on she would be fine more or less indefinitely, not that she had plans to need that. Kottigan was wearing a heat suit: a thick, thermal bodysuit.

‘Why put a research station on a frozen ball like this?’ she asked.

‘Security,’ Kottigan replied, ‘and safety. Very limited resources and it’s hard to farm on so it’s never been settled and there’s no indigenous life larger than a microbe. We do research here on some of the most virulent, dangerous diseases ever encountered. If there’s an escape there’s no one here to die except us.’

‘Comforting.’

‘Don’t worry. Most of the really dangerous stuff is over at the Beta Station. There’s two kilometres of ice between here and there. The stuff they’ve brought you in for is all here.’ He stopped in front of a thick, metal door with a wheel mounted on it. ‘The surface facility here is pretty open,’ he said as he turned the wheel to un-dog the door. ‘There’s a secure elevator down to the labs, but you’ll be up here on your off-time.’

The door was swung open and they stepped into a small chamber with another, inner door. Not exactly an airlock, more a weather shield. When the inner door was opened Ella could understand why; the temperature inside was easily twenty degrees hotter than outside. Kottigan stopped in the room beyond to start stripping off his suit. Beneath it he was wearing a light T-shirt and a pair of briefs.

‘I’ll get you set up with a room and Nayland will be up to sort out your work in an hour or so.’ The man pulled on what looked like sweat pants and then added running shoes. Formality was obviously not a big deal here. ‘You can get comfortable before you need to start.’

‘I’m pretty anxious to get going. Sooner I start, sooner I’m done.’

Kottigan laughed. ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be here either if the pay wasn’t so good.’

He led the way out the rear door of the room and then up a circular, metal staircase into the tower structure above the entrance. Two floors up Kottigan opened another heavy door with a locking wheel and ushered Ella into a room. It was surprisingly comfortable looking. The walls were currently displaying a fairly pleasing scene of a summer day over fields of high, yellow grass, but there was a real window, not high but spanning most of the semi-circular outer wall. The bed was a double, and there was a shower cubicle taking up a corner. The room also had a computer console mounted into a desk.

‘This is one of the guest rooms,’ Kottigan told her, ‘for visiting dignitaries and the like.’ He gave her a grin; the heat seemed to have improved his humour. ‘You qualify as a VIP. I’ll tell Nayland you’re here.’ He turned and headed back out, pulling the door closed behind him and turning the wheel.

Ella checked the door. There was no way to properly lock it, but she figured she had some privacy. She would certainly hear if the thing was opened. She began stripping off her suit. A shower seemed like a good idea and then she would put on some clothes more suitable for the tropical conditions in the station.

~~~

There were no messages for her. Somehow she had hoped that the Delta Brigantia would have made contact during her flight and Gillian would have relayed the good news. There was nothing, but she had sent a short message back to New Earth saying she had arrived safely. She was wondering what she should do now when the door wheel turned with a squeak.

The man who stepped into the room was dressed in a white, Ultraskin suit and a Plastex lab coat. Ella wondered briefly whether she should have gone for something other than a T-shirt and shorts. However he gave her a smile, which looked fairly sincere, and moved forward, offering his hand.

‘Miss Narrows, I’m Alec Nayland, head researcher here on Eshebbon.’ He was tall, handsome, with a hint of age in his face, but his body was fairly athletic. There was a wisp of grey in his short, black hair which made her wonder whether the age was down to actual age; he would have had to be a couple of hundred years old if it was.

Ella went through the little handshaking ritual, returning his smile. ‘Mister Nayland, I understand you have some Old Earth records you want transliterating?’

‘Alec, please.’

‘Then it’s Ella.’

He nodded acknowledgement. ‘A survey team discovered a facility out beyond the Rim. Some sort of biological research facility with some quite remarkable technology, and some very dangerous micro-organisms. The written records we’ve been able to do a pretty good job of translating, but there are audio logs and videos, and we just don’t have the skill locally to work it all out in enough detail.’

‘Luckily enough, we recently came by a really excellent source of information on how to pronounce Old Earth English.’

‘Yes… Miss Jansen. I believe she’s your partner.’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘Excellent. We’re prepping your clearance now, but it’ll take an hour or so. Please feel free to get some food. There’s a canteen on the floor below. The coffee’s not great, but it’ll keep you awake. Obviously we don’t allow food in the labs. I’ll escort you down as soon as we’re ready.’

‘Thank you,’ Ella said. ‘Do I need a suit to go down there?’

‘Hmm? Oh, no. This is habit. The area you’ll be working in has nothing in it considered any more dangerous than the common cold, and those bugs are in the deeper labs.’ Turning, he left the room, dogging the door behind him and leaving Ella to work out what to do with herself.

She had just decided that she
would
go get some food and coffee when it occurred to her that Nayland had known she was with Aneka. It was not a secret, but not exactly public knowledge either. Well, it was a secure facility and they would likely want to know who was coming to visit. Shrugging, she started out and down to the canteen.

FNf Delta Brigantia, Sapphira System, 8.12.525 FSC.

Aneka heard the warp drive’s tone drop in pitch and knew they had entered the gravity field of Sapphira. The system had three, fairly widely spaced stars in it and the complexity of the resulting gravity tended to give warp engines a little trouble. For a second she held her breath, worried that the damaged drive would fail under the stress, but then the sound cut out entirely and the ultrasonic howl of the antimatter torches took over.

‘All hands,’ Anderson’s voice sounded over the cabin speakers, ‘We have arrived in the Sapphira system. We’re currently on full burn for Sapphira Three. Prepare the ship for reception.’

It had been an ‘all hands’ broadcast, but Aneka had nothing to do. She lay back on her bed and relaxed. Beside her, Grant was looking restless. ‘You’re still on official sick leave,’ Aneka pointed out. ‘The others can handle it.’

‘Huh. Hopefully I can get some bone regeneration done while the ship’s being repaired.’

‘If you do, you’ll have to go back to sleeping in the bunkrooms.’

Grant laughed. ‘No one’s going to believe I was in here this long and we never fucked.’

‘Alison would throw me out an airlock if I hurt your wrist. How long d’you think the repairs will take?’

He shrugged. ‘Five days? Give or take. I’m a gunnery tech, not an engineer. It’ll take a proper dry dock to repair that forward turret so we won’t be handling that here. You’re pretty keen to get back to that redhead of yours.’

‘Yeah. Ella… She liked me as soon as she saw me. Knowing what I was didn’t bother her at all. She’s believed in me even when I doubted myself and she’s got this smile… It’s like someone lets the sun into the room when she smiles.’