Aneka Jansen 7: Hope (29 page)

‘I found fucking with an Amazon fairly pleasant,’ Ella said from the doorway.

Anastasia turned to see her shouldering her pulse rifle. Aneka was behind her. ‘You two knew he was coming?’

‘A little too late,’ Aneka replied, ‘but I’m glad to see we weren’t needed.’

‘I don’t know. You got anything for a hangover on you?’

‘Try showering with Trin and her tail,’ Ella replied. ‘I find sex always helps me. I’m going back to bed. And get your security sorted out.’ She turned and slumped back towards the airlock.

‘I told you to stay in bed,’ Aneka said as she followed.

Anastasia grinned and then turned to see Trin looking expectantly at her. ‘What?’

‘Hangover cure reporting for duty, Captain,’ Trin said, her tail executing a sharp salute.

The captain shrugged. ‘Oh well, why the fuck not?’

Amethyst Hyde, 19.1.560 FSC.

‘We load the Hope last,’ Kade said flatly. ‘If they got that message and they send something, I want to be ready to fend them off.’

Drake gave a nod. ‘We have eight fighter drones available, and Gwy, but it’s going to take a while loading the Hope so I see no problem with leaving her until last.’ He glanced at Winter who was coordinating the second wave of transfers to the wormhole transports.

‘It makes little difference. The Hope will have a hangar bay to herself. Loading her last is acceptable.’

‘How’s the loading progressing?’ Kade asked.

Winter smiled. ‘In an orderly fashion. For a given value of “orderly.” Pirates, and there are a lot of them involved, are not noted for their cooperative nature.’

‘They know they need to do it. It’s mostly just putting on a front.’

‘We’re quite aware of that. We are accommodating them where it is viable, but there are a few requests which are having to be denied. Aneka and Ella are dealing with those, for the most part.’

‘You know, Ella seems like she knows one end of a blaster from the other, and she took down one of my crew with her bare hands no problem, but she doesn’t really seem the forceful type.’

‘She’s been dealing with genius students for the last thirty years, Captain. Believe me, she can be forceful when she needs to be.’

Pirate Cove.

‘And I’m going to need priority access to shipyard facilities when we get there. The Carpathia needs a full overhaul, new main guns, a new missile battery…’

Ella listened to Lane Nash listing his demands, maintaining a professional, interested expression the entire time. He was not the first of the pirate captains to try to abuse the facilities they were going to get and she was sure he would not be the last. They had all seen the transports, and the Hyde, and the Hyde’s fighter drones, and they had figured out that these new friends of Kade’s had some pretty juicy tech they could use to increase their firepower, and their bank balances.

‘The reactor needs refuelling soon,’ Nash went on. ‘Maybe an upgrade is due, increase the power output, maybe get one of those reactionless systems put in to reduce fuel consumption.’

‘Well, that all sounds quite reasonable,’ Ella said and Nash came to a grinding halt. Ella had worked out their standard response with Aneka. They had spent twenty minutes giggling over it, actually. ‘We can fit you out with all the latest equipment, no trouble at all.’

‘You can?’

‘Hmm, yes. Of course there is the contract you’ll have to sign.’

‘The… contract?’

‘Yes. It’s nothing too terrible. Obviously if we’re refitting your ship we want to see some return on the investment.’

‘I…’

‘Seventy-five per cent of your haul on any given operation.’ Nash’s eyes bulged. ‘You’ll be directed to appropriate targets by War. She has a list of approved aims she’s working to. It should make sure that the Pinnacle is kept on the wrong foot.’

‘Uh…’

‘And the new computer system will come with an AI to ensure that you keep within operational parameters and carry out the security mandate if necessary.’

‘Security mandate?’

‘Hmm, yes, well, we can’t have the Pinnacle getting their hands on this tech, can we?’

‘Uh, no?’

‘Quite. So if you’re boarded, the ship will self-destruct. You’ll take a lot of Pinnacle troops with you when you go. That’ll be quite something, won’t it?’

‘Uh… yeah. Look, maybe we can get by with a few standard repairs.’

Ella frowned at him. ‘You’re quite sure? We don’t want to send you out there practically unarmed. We can–’

‘I think we’ll manage,’ Nash said firmly. ‘I’ll see to getting the Carpathia docked for transport.’

‘Well… okay,’ Ella replied, trying her best to sound reluctant.

‘How did Nash take it?’ Aneka said into her head.

‘About as well as the last three.’

‘Did he go an odd shade of grey?’

‘No. He did go whiter when I told him about the percentage.’

‘This one’s going purple!’

Ella bit her lips to suppress a giggle. ‘Keep him going! I want to see this one.’ And she hurried off through the hangar bay corridors hoping Aneka would not be finished before she got there.

Hope of Sanctuary, 20.1.560 FSC.

The Hope of Sanctuary was a fair-sized vessel, but beside the wormhole transport ship which it was about to be docked with it was a midget. The huge, white-hulled vessel filled the view as Tebbot steered them in towards the largest of the three hangar bays.

‘Nice and easy, Mister Tebbot,’ Kade said. ‘We don’t want to scratch that paintwork.’

‘I think it would be us getting scratched, Captain,’ Tebbot replied, grinning.

‘Then we don’t want to scratch
our
paintwork. There’s plenty of time. Ease her in.’

‘Warp exit detected,’ Mags said, her tone flat. ‘Two more.’

‘Lent, get on to the Hyde and ask if–’

‘They’ve detected them,’ Lent said.

‘Range, Mags?’

‘Just over a light second. They’re in range for firing solutions with their main guns if they’re cruisers.’

‘Tell the Hyde we’re going to engage, Lent. All hands, battle stations. Put us in a defensive formation compared to the transport, get a firing solution plotted and start shooting!’

‘Forward turret coming to bear,’ Alderney stated.

‘Let’s hope we’re doing some damage.’

Gwy.

‘The lead cruiser is damaged,’ Gwy said as they accelerated towards the three Pinnacle ships. ‘However, return fire from the other vessels has severely damaged the Hope.’

Aneka watched the readouts hanging around her and nodded. ‘Instruct the drones to attack. Give them something else to worry about. Hold off until we’re closer before we open up.’

‘Orders sent, Aneka.’

Suddenly the force screens on the cruisers were flaring as eight tiny craft opened fire. The small, cloaked ships were hard targets, but they were no real match for the force screens on the cruisers.

‘When they can, target the rear hull sections. They have light armour there and if we concentrate fire, we may be able to breach the hull.’

‘Yes, Aneka.’

‘But I’m counting on you to shoot straight, Gwy. Your main gun is the best chance we have under the circumstances.’

‘I will do my best, Aneka, as the second best ship in the galaxy.’

‘First. Now prove me right.’

Hope of Sanctuary.

‘Main gun-focussing system is down,’ Cubby yelled over the intercom from engineering. ‘We’ve lost it completely. Forward hull armour took severe damage. We’re lucky we haven’t lost more.’

‘See if you can do anything to get it back,’ Kade snapped. ‘It looks like the drone ships are keeping them occupied for now.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, but the blast doors in that section have sealed. I think it’s a total loss.’

‘Yeah, well when we get where we’re going, I’ll buy you a newer toy. For now we need to keep them off the transport.’

‘Captain,’ Mags said, sounding puzzled, ‘the energy signature on one of the cruisers just dropped to next to nothing. It looks like their reactor has gone down.’

Kade grinned. ‘Looks like Gwy has got there then.’

Gwy.

A bright light flared to Aneka’s right and she glanced that way. A lucky shot had hit one of the drones and it was now a rapidly expanding ball of plasma and fragments. She shifted trajectory, swinging through a high-G turn which would bring Gwy around for her next shot.

‘My first target is running on auxiliary power,’ Gwy said. ‘The drones are having increasing difficulty in evading fire, but we are still undetected.’

‘Bringing us around for another shot. I want all of them powered down, if possible. Then Ana can use some of those nukes she’s got stowed away. Assuming she still has functional launchers.’

‘Firing… now.’

Aneka watched as the guns went silent and the force screen died on the second of the three cruisers. ‘Order the drones to attack the rear hulls of the two disabled ships. Now!’ She looped up and around, aware that she should be feeling a lot of force, but it was dampened by the suppressor system and masked entirely by the virtual environment. ‘Last one and we’re home free. More or less.’

Hope of Sanctuary.

‘Target that downed ship,’ Kade ordered.

‘My thought exactly,’ Alderney replied, his hands moving over the controls of his gunnery station.

‘I’m detecting missile launches from all three vessels,’ Mags said. ‘And the shields on the third ship just went down.’

‘Mid batteries to point defence,’ Kade said. ‘Do we know what they’re targeting?’

‘The transport, from the look of it.’

‘Shit! Tell everyone they can’t miss.’

‘I’m getting a message through from Gwy,’ Lent said. ‘It says, “Nuke the bastards.” I think she was relaying it from Aneka, because that doesn’t sound like an AI.’

‘You haven’t met Gwy. Missile rooms, get those nukes ready. I want them launched ASAP.’

Gwy.

‘The drones are engaging the missiles being launched from the cruisers,’ Gwy said. ‘I anticipate none of the weapons reaching their target.’

‘Good. Did Kade get the message?’

‘Yes. I am detecting missile launches from the Hope.’

‘Right. I think we should be elsewhere when those things hit their targets.’

‘That would be wise, Aneka.’

Grinning, Aneka pulled her ship around and headed off in the direction of the transports and the Hope. ‘Told you you were the best.’

‘Would you accept a joint placing?’

‘I think I can live with that.’

Wormhole Junction.

‘She’s going to need a lot of work,’ Cubby said morosely. He was looking out at the forward hull of the Hope of Sanctuary as she hung in dock on one of the orbitals. He was right too.

Sections of plating were gone, ripped open and lost to space. The damage extended deep into the hull where the focussing system of the main gun was now little more than melted metal. The ship looked in a bad way and her captain was looking a little as though she wanted to cry, but would not do so in front of anyone.

‘I think,’ Winter said, ‘that we can accommodate you. Considering the fact that you were defending one of our transports when she was damaged.’

‘I am
not
sanctioning the repair of that main gun,’ War said. The assembly in the room looked at her, surprised by the outburst. ‘Antiparticle beams? Please! We’ll rip the whole thing out and replace it with something effective. While we’re at it, we might as well replace those X-ray beams. I wouldn’t wish to do half a job. And Reality is up in arms over that drive system. It cannot be allowed, he says. It will all have to go. I believe some retraining will be in order, Mister Cubbington. I hope you won’t mind working with our technicians on the refit?’

The small man’s face slowly cracked into a broad grin, but then he straightened it and replied gruffly, ‘I’m sure it won’t be too much of an inconvenience.’

‘Working with the brightest engineers in the galaxy?’ Kade said. ‘Oh the trials you have to go through, Cubby.’

‘Aye, I live to suffer.’

New Haven, 23.1.560 FSC.

There were still buildings under construction in some sections of the town. Mostly those were businesses, or would become them; all the housing had been completed and people were moving into blocks of flats and family houses.

‘I have a house!’ Trin enthused, bouncing on the spot. This was normally quite impressive, but in the lower gravity she was clearing half a metre just pushing off from her toes. ‘A whole house! All to myself!’

Ella giggled. ‘Your tail can have one of the spare rooms.’

‘Damn tail gets to stay with me whether it likes it or not. Oh yes you do. No, we aren’t putting it to a vote.’

Kade was grinning. ‘I swear her tail will ask for a divorce one day. But this is all a pretty big step up from the old place.’ They were walking down the wide main street of the town. It was lined with currently unoccupied shop outlets. Or mostly unoccupied: there were a couple set up to provide furniture and clothes which a few AI drones were manning. ‘You know a couple of my crew are asking to leave.’

‘They are?’ Aneka asked.

‘Farmers. Or they were farmers before the Pinnacle kicked them off their land and now they have the chance to go back to farming. I’m not going to deny them. Don’t need crew with something better to do, and the refit gives me time to find replacements.’

‘It’s all going to be a lot of change,’ Cassandra said. ‘Do you think they’re up to it?’

‘It might come as a bit of a shock to the pirates, but the rest of the people… I think this is what they needed. It’s a real world they can call home.
This
is the Haven they should have had from the beginning.’

Part Nine: Bright Light of the Sun

Shadataga, 1.2.560 FSC.

Ella took a drink, savoured the taste of the whiskey and the burn as it ran down her throat, and then she said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘I like it when you do that,’ Aneka replied. ‘Your mind is one of your most attractive features.’

‘I think my boobs have it beat, but okay.’

‘What have you been thinking about?’

‘A sabbatical.’