Aneka Jansen 7: Hope (6 page)

‘Quite.’ The display changed to a schematic format showing a moderately typical-looking space station based on a converted asteroid. ‘They build them all to the same basic design. An armoured core area, outer regions protected by the scavenged rock, and a substantial amount of weaponry. They typically have at least one light cruiser stationed there at all times.’

‘So, if Ella’s there, she’s going to be in the core section? I assume they put habitation in there?’

‘According to the standard layout. Security is tight, but substantially below our technological level. We have two generations on them. Gwy’s screens will have no difficulty in keeping us hidden. However, active scans would give us away.’

‘You’ll need to go in and find out where she is,’ Gwy said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Not your fault, blame physics.’ Aneka closed her eyes. The Pinnacle had had Ella for almost twenty days and they were not exactly known for their kindness to ‘aliens.’ On the other hand, she had been taken, which meant they had had a reason to keep her alive… Ella
was
going to be alive when Aneka found her. It was as simple as that. ‘Right. Now, about you two…’ Aneka opened her eyes and looked first at Al’s avatar and then at Cassandra. ‘What are you doing?’

Cassandra managed to look a little sheepish. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You haven’t seen each other in months. I know your relationship is as much mental as physical, but you haven’t even been standing close together much of the time. Frankly it’s starting to piss me off.’

‘We were being sensitive.’

‘And I did point out that it would
not
work,’ Al said.

Aneka shook her head. ‘We’re all adults. Some of us are a thousand years old. Just because Ella’s done something stupid with a man who is not fit to wipe mud off my boots does not mean my self-esteem is sufficiently damaged that I need to be babied. You two better start acting like a couple again or I’ll shout at you. Loudly. Using heavy sarcasm. Understood?’

‘I do not believe that further clarification is required,’ Al told her.

‘We’ll be good,’ Cassandra added meekly.

‘Good,’ Aneka said, leaning back in her chair, ‘because I haven’t had any in ages either, so when you two have finished reconnecting, it’s my turn.’

12.11.559 FSC.

The fortified rock that was Border Enforcement Station 395 filled the view from Gwy’s flight deck. As space stations went, it was not especially large and it was rather unassuming, considering that it was meant to mark Pinnacle’s claim to the system. It was fairly well armed, with good sensors, and there was a cruiser attached to it via a docking pylon, but the effect was rather unimpressive.

‘I believe your view is coloured by the stations back at Shadataga,’ Al commented.

‘Maybe,’ Aneka replied. ‘Gwy, are we getting anything which might be Ella’s implant?’

‘No, Aneka,’ the ship replied. ‘However, the station is noisy and the wireless system implanted in Ella is designed for short range.’

‘Yeah… Okay, we observe for a while. See what you can do about tapping their comms. Do full passive scans of the station, and compare it with the generalised schematic. If I’m going in, I’d like to know as much about the place as possible.’

‘I have already begun,’ Gwy replied.

‘Of course you have. I expected nothing less.’

~~~

Aneka moved across the surface of the asteroid carefully, keeping low against the rock. It was mostly to ensure she did not float away from it since it was spinning and the only things keeping her attached were the gripper strips on her nanosuit. She was using the suit because it had optical camouflage, radar stealth, and thermal suppression, and she could only keep her personal cloak up for so long. The fact that it could bounce bullets and beams as well as her shield was incidental; she did not really expect to need that.

‘All right,’ she said, ‘everything’s in place. Blow it.’

Of course, the explosions made no sound, but she felt the slight vibration in the rock as the docking pylon holding the cruiser in place sheared off along a joint and the big warship began to spiral slowly off into space.

‘I am detecting alarm codes being broadcast through the station,’ Gwy reported.

Aneka nodded, even if the AI could not see it. ‘Good. Al?’

‘Connection to the internal network made. I have successfully bypassed security. The airlock will open… now.’

‘If only everything was so easy.’ Aneka slipped in through the opening door and waited for the lock to recycle. The plan was simple enough. The alarms would pull most of the personnel to the other end of the station. Aneka would slip in, locate the cells, rescue Ella and get her aboard Gwy where she could berate her at length on the way back to Shadataga. The makeup sex would be lengthy and very energetic. ‘Okay, do we have a location for Ella?’

‘There are no currently occupied cells according to the environmental systems,’ Al replied. ‘We need to locate a secure terminal so that I can access their more restricted systems.’

Aneka’s heart sank. ‘There are weapon turrets in this section, right? We could probably jack in from there.’

‘A good plan. Go right. You should see an access ladder to the nearest turret in about twenty metres.’

‘The cruiser has stabilised its spin,’ Gwy reported. ‘I am monitoring traffic regarding the issue. You were correct. Their initial assumption is mechanical failure. They are, however, actively scanning the near area, almost as though they are expecting a cloaked ship.’

‘Cloaking tech isn’t common in this region,’ Aneka said, not frowning because it was quite hard in the suit.

‘No, but they are performing slow, high-definition scans in a wide frequency range.’

‘You’re secure?’

‘They have not detected me yet.’

The turret was a tight squeeze for a big man and not too easy for Aneka, but it had a control panel with a data port. Aneka settled into the gunner’s seat, produced a length of optical cable and plugged it in. Then she told her suit to open up and the metallic material unwrapped from around her head and neck so that she could plug in.

‘Searching,’ Al stated almost immediately.

Aneka tried to wait patiently. It was not an easy task when your brain ran at the speed of a high-powered quantum computer, but she did her best. The scanning was concerning her. Why were they scanning for a cloaked ship? There were few cultures in this region of the galaxy with the technology to build one, as far as she knew none of those had done so, and if they had, they were unlikely to attack the Pinnacle.

‘Al, could you spare a few cycles to check internal comms? See if you can find out what they’re looking for.’

‘A pirate vessel,’ Al responded without pause. ‘A ship called the Hope of Sanctuary. The commanding officer has stated several times that someone called “Kade” might be responsible. They have failed to locate Gwy, however, and are standing down from high alert.’

‘They’re still scanning,’ Gwy said. ‘I assume that since nothing else has happened they are just being thorough.’

‘And I have found the data on Ella,’ Al said. ‘It is not good news. She was taken off the station to be delivered to a planet named Ariadne approximately eight days ago.’

‘Crap,’ Aneka growled. ‘Can we get location data?’

‘Already done. Aneka, they convicted her on trumped-up terrorism charges. The sentence was passed down from quite far up their hierarchy. And that is where things get odd. She is to be enslaved on arrival at Ariadne, but the commanding officer was told to tell her she was being taken for execution.’

‘Okay, well at least she’s alive. But why the subterfuge? Isn’t slavery bad enough?’

‘There is no explanation aside from a comment that she is to be treated under “protocol fourteen.”’

‘And I assume you can’t find that protocol explained anywhere?’

‘There is nothing with that description in the data we took on Oberian,’ Gwy put in.

‘I suspect that it forms part of an eyes-only instruction given to station commanders,’ Al said.

Aneka sagged slightly. ‘How important do we think that is?’

‘I am unable to pass an opinion without further information. If we don’t know, we could be left in a difficult situation on Ariadne.’

‘And that’s going to be hard enough as it is. This is going to get messy.’

Cassandra’s voice cut in at that point. ‘Do you need me over there with Al’s drone?’

‘No… but get ready. You’re going to become pretty visible soon and Gwy will need some help.’

‘What do you need?’

‘I need a route to the reactor and communications room on this station, and you need to get ready to take out that cruiser.’

~~~

‘Hey, arsehole, wake up.’

Detrow groaned and turned over on his bed. His suite was fairly palatial considering that it was aboard a Pinnacle space station. He did not have to share the rooms with anyone else either. Not all of the crew were so fortunate. As his vision swam into focus, he realised that he was sharing it with someone now. Someone holding a very large handgun.

‘That’s right,’ Aneka said, ‘open those eyes and pay attention. I need some information, and you’re going to give it to me. I’m on a bit of a schedule here, so I’d appreciate it if you listened carefully and answered quickly.’

‘You’ll never get out of here alive,’ Detrow growled, reaching for the comms unit beside his bed… and stopping when he realised it had been ripped out.

‘I beg to differ. What’s protocol fourteen?’ His eyes flicked to her pistol. ‘Oh, sorry, you haven’t been introduced. This is Racine. She’s so far ahead of any technology you have it would make your mouth water, I have no doubt. I came up with the concept, but it took a genius and two of the greatest artificial minds in the galaxy to make it work. She’s a multi-role, automatic, replicator-fed gravitic pistol. Capable of firing a three-mil round at a respectable percentage of the speed of light. She’s very accurate, so if I pull the trigger right now, you’ll lose both your legs below the knee. Now, what’s protocol fourteen?’

‘You’re looking for the Narrows woman. She was sent to be executed.’

‘I’ve seen the orders. What’s protocol fourteen?’

‘You can’t have–’

There was a sharp crack and the bed tore open along its entire width. Detrow felt the heat searing into his buttocks and scrabbled off the bed as it began to smoke. Aneka was on her feet beside him before he even realised she was moving, her hand locked around his throat and Racine pointing at his face.

‘Last time. Keep in mind that this information is useful, but not of sufficient importance that I won’t blow your head off and leave to find it elsewhere. What’s protocol fourteen?’

‘Prisoner of special interest,’ Detrow said quickly. ‘Someone in the hierarchy is keeping an eye on her. It’s usually an intelligence operation.’

Aneka’s head rolled back on her neck and she looked up at the ceiling. ‘I killed six people setting this up so you could tell me that she’s a political prisoner? Well that’s just great.’

‘You’ll still never get out of here alive.’

‘Seriously, don’t bet on that.’ Silently she added, ‘Al, blow it. Gwy, hit the cruiser as soon as the bombs go off and then come get me.’ She looked at Detrow, waiting for the alarms to start.

‘What have you done?’ he asked as claxons began sounding.

‘You can find out when you wake up.’ Then she slammed her gun into the side of his head.

13.11.559 FSC.

‘As requested, both the reactor and communications system of the cruiser have been disabled,’ Gwy said as Aneka marched through from the airlock, heading for the main cabin. ‘Cassandra has already initiated warp, and we are on our way to Ariadne.’

‘Great. Ask her to join us in the cabin when she’s happy with the course.’

Cassandra was not exactly happy, but the course was laid in and Gwy was well able to handle the flight from there. ‘So we went to all that trouble, and tipped our hand to the Pinnacle, to discover nothing especially useful?’ the android asked as she walked in.

Al’s avatar stirred as he took control of it. ‘Essentially that is true. The loss of their communications system will significantly delay any warning they may give to their compatriots, however.’

‘Well,’ Aneka said, ‘we confirmed what we suspected, that Ella’s capture had a reason beyond simple information gathering. Any thoughts on the subterfuge regarding her sentence?’

‘They want her scared,’ Cassandra replied. ‘She’ll spend the flight thinking she’s going to die when she gets to the destination. Can we get to Ariadne before she does?’

‘I have no information on the ship which took her,’ Al said. ‘A cruiser we could beat, but if they sent some sort of courier vessel, they have a sufficient head start to make it unlikely.’

‘If they sent a courier to pick her up,’ Aneka mused, ‘it would imply that they’ve had this entire thing planned out for a while. There’s some plot behind all this and I don’t like it. Gwy? We’re at full warp?’

‘Of course, Aneka.’

‘Okay, we make best speed to Ariadne and see what we can discover there.’

Part Four: Ariadne and the Pirate Queen

Ariadne, 12.11.559 FSC.

‘I am pleased to tell you that, by the mercy of Pinnacle Commander Lucifent himself, your sentence has been commuted to life in slavery.’ The officer explaining this to Ella was smiling at her. She suspected that he expected her to be happy about it so she presented him with a relieved smile.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Apparently he had been expecting more because he looked a little confused for a second. ‘Thank you
so
much,’ she added.

‘Yes… You have been assigned to the family of one of our commanders. You will be taken there immediately. This is your first and last warning.
Any
attempt to escape or act to the detriment of your owners will result in your immediate execution.’

‘Of course.’

The man frowned at her. ‘Take her away,’ he said to the guards standing on either side of her.

Ella went, meek as could be, with the guards. In truth, she had expected the reprieve and it came as no surprise. They had woken her up four days earlier and treated her like a condemned prisoner the entire time. The ship she was on seemed small, a fast courier vessel in all probability, and that had been one extra fact to go with the others which had begun to circulate once the initial panic had worn off. The vessel had to have been sent out ahead of time to collect her. But why was she being shipped to a planet to be executed anyway? The gunner who had displeased his captain had been killed without pause, so why would they wait to kill her?