The Winter War (23 page)

‘Shit!’ Aneka exclaimed. ‘Ella,
get your helmet on. Now!’

‘We’re under attack,’ the pilot
said, almost over the top of her. ‘I’m trying to evade, but… It
came out of nowhere, right ahead of us. If we’re lucky our speed
will take us past it before it can get a solid lock.’

Ella was too busy forcing her
head forward to get her helmet into place to worry about anything
too much, yet. The pilot was shifting trajectory madly as beams
lanced past the hull, Al indicating each miss along with the
relative movements of the two ships. As far as Aneka could see,
they were well matched, and the frigate-sized vessel was closing
the distance quite effectively.

Aneka gripped the arms of her
chair as the shuttle twisted around on its longitudinal axis, and
then there was a blinding flash of light from the front of the ship
as the pilot’s efforts finally failed.

‘Control systems entirely
disabled,’ Al said, his voice calm. ‘I doubt the pilot survived
that.’

‘Aneka!’ Ella screamed, the
sound carrying even through her helmet.

‘Stay calm,’ Aneka said as soon
as Al indicated they had a connection between their implants.

‘That looked like it took out
the whole cockpit,’ Ella replied. ‘How am I supposed to stay
calm?’

‘Fair, but panicking won’t
help…’

‘They’re just picking their
target now. They’ll fire again…’

‘The engines are still on full
burn. They’re having to play catch-up. There’s still a chance that
we’ll be pushed clear.’

‘Right… Right, and the pilot
will have sent a distress call.’

‘Yeah. So let’s just hang on
and…’

There was a sound like something
big and ugly waking up in the back of the ship. Metal under extreme
stress was trying very hard to hold itself together and not doing
very well. Messages from the shuttle’s damage control system began
to flash across Aneka’s vision, and then cut out suddenly. A graser
beam had cut through one of the fuel tanks…

‘Aneka?’ Ella said. It was
almost a whimper.

‘Hold on, love,’ Aneka replied.
‘I’m with you. Whatever happens.’

With a sound like shattering
glass, a rupture appeared in the ceiling over their heads. Beside
Ella a conduit exploded and electricity arced out, dancing over her
suit as though it was trying to find a way in. Another rupture tore
through the hull beside Aneka and shards of crystalline metal
slashed into her arm. Messages flashed in-vision indicating damage
to her dermal layer. The ship gave a groan, as if in agony, and
then there was silence.

‘Aneka?’

Aneka undid her straps and
pushed herself across to where Ella was sitting, still gripping the
arms of her acceleration couch. ‘I’m here, love. A little cut up,
but I’ll be fine. That short didn’t hurt you?’

‘No. If they decide to check on
us…’

‘I’m guessing they won’t want to
hang around. They’ve destroyed the shuttle. They probably figure
everyone in here is dead.’ Al put up a message indicating that the
air pressure was dropping. They had lost life support, but then
they were lucky they had not been vaporised entirely.

‘Aren’t we?’ Ella replied, her
voice soft. She was trying to stave off the panic Aneka had warned
her against.

‘No, we’re not. Your suit has a
good twelve hours of air.’

‘What about you?’

Al displayed a figure for her.
‘I can go half that before I’ll start having problems, as long as I
don’t do anything. And let’s face it, floating is all I have to
do.’ Al displayed another message and Aneka bit her lips. ‘The… the
cold might get to me before then. I might go inactive, but it’ll
take a while, maybe a long while. We just need to hold on,
okay?’

Fear battled across Ella’s face
framed by the padding of her helmet. She was trying hard to keep
her breathing steady; losing it now would just use oxygen she might
need later. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll be okay. As long as you’re here
I’ll be okay.’

‘That’s my girl.’

New Earth, 4.8.527 FSC.

Diagnostic messages scrolled past on
the inside of Aneka’s eyelids. Everything in the green, all
optimal. She opened her eyes and sat up, not recognising the room
around her, but immediately seeing someone who put a smile on her
face.

‘You’re okay,’ Ella said,
bouncing to her feet and rushing the couple of steps from her chair
to hugging range.

‘I seem to be…’ She checked the
downtime display at the end of the diagnostics. ‘Sixteen hours?
I’ve been out for that long? What happened? I remember blacking out
when the cold got to me…’

‘Aggy happened,’ Ella replied.
‘They only got a partial fix from the distress beacon before it
failed. The Brigantia went out from Corax to try to find us, but
Aggy got there first. She warped out from New Earth. Didn’t even
have a crew aboard. Apparently Drake isn’t sure whether he wants to
tell her off or kiss her.’

‘Probably both.’

‘Uh-huh. Her sensors are better
than the Brigantia’s, obviously, and she found the wreckage. I
think you still had oxygen, however you store it, but not much.
Anyway, the Brigantia got us back to New Earth and I guess your
systems decided keeping you out until you were fully repaired was a
good idea.’

‘I guess. Where are we?’

‘That same facility in the
Islands. This is the security bunker. The medical facilities
weren’t much use for you, but it seemed like a good place to put
you while you recovered.’

‘We’re in a bunker?’

‘It seemed like a good idea,
considering.’ Aneka looked around Ella to see Winter standing in
the door of the room. She was not looking happy. ‘No one should
have known where you’ve been. No one should have known you were
back. Someone, however, put through that order to have you diverted
to Corax, and tipped off one of those cloaked frigates that you
would be flying from there to New Earth. And the orders did not
come from me.’

‘You’ve got a mole in the FSA,’
Aneka said.

‘Quite. I suspected as much, and
tried to negate the issue, but the informant has higher access than
I’d have believed possible.’ She frowned. ‘What did you find on
Idridia?’

Aneka swung her legs out of bed.
‘Clothes first, debriefing after that.’

Winter nodded. ‘I can wait that
long,’ she said, and turned to leave the room. She stopped at the
sound of a dull thud, turning and frowning back at Aneka. ‘Did that
sound like…?’

‘An explosion,’ Aneka finished
for her, her statement punctuated by two more noises, each louder
than the last.

‘Get dressed quickly,’ Winter
said.

‘We’re in a bunker though,’ Ella
said, sounding nervous. ‘I mean, they can’t get in, right?’

Turning again, Winter started
out. ‘At the moment I’m not sure anything is secure. That includes
the entry codes to this place.’

Aneka was busy putting on her
suit. ‘Ella, watch out the door, but stay behind the wall.’

Ella rushed over to do just that
and immediately said, ‘There’s someone coming down the corridor.
Don’t recognise her. Short, wavy blonde hair, long legs, narrow
face, a tan. Not much in the way of boobs, but she’s sure got
nipples.’

‘Sounds like Truelove. She’s
Winter’s assistant.’

Sure enough, it was. ‘Miss
Narrows,’ Truelove said as she entered the room, ‘I’m Elaine
Truelove. Hello again, Miss Jansen.’

Aneka nodded, pulling a boot on
over one Ultraskin stocking. ‘Truelove. What’s going on?’

‘A strike force is attacking the
facility.’ The woman’s voice was calm, but her dark eyes were
shifting a little nervously and she looked tense. ‘They have very
advanced weaponry, and some heavy artillery. This bunker should be
secure, but I’m to take you to an escape craft.’

Aneka stood up and strapped on
her gun belt, then fixed the holster straps to the tops of her
leggings. ‘What about Winter?’

‘My orders were very
specific.’

‘Right.’ Silently she said, ‘Al,
can you get me a layout for this bunker?’

‘I believe so. The local network
appears to recognise our identification codes.’ Almost immediately
a map appeared showing the complex of tunnels and rooms which
formed the bunker. There was a tunnel to the east that looked like
it headed out from the side of the island.

There was the sound of another
explosion, this one barely deadened by the Plascrete walls. ‘Get
Ella to the ship. I’m faster on my own. I’ll check on Winter, and
the situation…’

‘Those aren’t my orders, ma’am,’
Truelove interrupted. ‘I’ve lost contact with the surface forces
entirely. We need to leave.’

‘And you really can’t stop me.
Get Ella out of here. I’ll slow down anyone trying to follow.
Move!
’

Obviously deciding that she was
not going to be able to dissuade Aneka, Truelove grabbed Ella’s arm
and pulled her out into the corridor. Aneka slid past them, her
pistols in her hands, and ran ahead. ‘She really can move fast,’
Truelove commented.

Ella was clearly resigned to
Aneka playing hero again too. ‘Yeah. I just wish she’d run
away
from the trouble more often.’

Aneka reached the T-junction at
the end of the medical section and turned left toward the main
entrance of the bunker. She could already hear gunfire; energy
weapons were being discharged up ahead somewhere. She frowned.
There was something odd about the sounds, but it was a familiar
odd. Truelove had said that the attackers had very advanced
weapons…

She reached a door, ducked in to
one side of it, and hit the open button. The sound of gunfire
immediately grew louder. Slipping her pistol around the edge of the
door, she used its sight-camera to scope out the room beyond. The
far side of it was a heavy, armoured bulkhead with a door in it,
standing open. Men in tight-fitting, but clearly very advanced,
combat armour were occupying the door, firing into the room with
bulky-looking rifles of a design Aneka recognised immediately.
These were not Xinti-manufactured, but they were certainly
antimatter blasters. Closer to her, behind a desk, which had
obviously been designed for use as a shield since it was still
there, Winter and two marines were firing back with laser rifles.
From what Aneka could see there were four dead marines with them,
and no dead men on the other side.

‘Aneka, get out of here!’ Winter
yelled over her shoulder.

‘Yeah, right,’ Aneka muttered.
She squeezed the trigger, spraying the area of the doorway with
needles which flashed into plasma knives as each projectile bit
into its target. The result was immediate. Two of the gunmen went
down, the other two staggered back, clearly wounded. ‘No, you get
out of there,’ Aneka yelled back.

Something moved in the haze of
smoke beyond the bulkhead door, something large with a man-shaped
heat signature that was otherwise invisible. There was the scream
of ripping air and an explosion, and a section of the wall between
the room and the corridor vanished in a blaze of light and heat.
Messages flashed up indicating that her right hand had taken some
dermal damage, but she was more concerned about what it had done
inside the room. She risked looking in.

Winter was down. One of the
marines had been more or less decapitated, and the other was not
moving. Her quick glance could detect no sign of breathing. Tucking
her pistol under her left arm, Aneka grabbed the back of Winter’s
combat suit ready to pull her out, and then she saw the thing
advancing toward them.

It was big, big enough that it
almost filled the doorway. Roughly the shape of a man, it had a
heavy helmet with no visor, two enormous mechanical arms, and thick
legs. The body was solid armour. In its hands was a rifle, which
looked like it was really designed to be mounted on a vehicle: a
massive antimatter cannon.

‘Dreadnought armour,’ Al said.
‘Nothing we are equipped with can penetrate that, though I have no
idea where these people have got it from.’

Aneka snap-fired at the monster
battlesuit, more as a distraction than anything else. She pulled,
dragging Winter out into the corridor and then away from the door
before that gun could be brought to bear. It was close; there was
another shriek of air being torn apart by a laser and then half the
doorframe vanished. Aneka continued dragging. If she could get
clear they had a chance; there was no way that thing could get
through the doorway and move in the corridor if it did.

‘Stop.’ The word was almost a
whisper.

Aneka did not stop, but she
looked down. ‘I’ll get you out of this.’

‘I’m… dead. Internal injuries…
too much. Leave me… Aneka. Don’t tell… anyone. I’ll make sure… they
don’t… follow.’ Winter had only one working arm, but she used it to
reach for something on her belt: a grenade. ‘Go.’

Aneka’s hand clenched around her
pistol. ‘No. We can…’

Winter pushed the cap off the
grenade. ‘Go.’

Aneka ran, letting go of
Winter’s collar and sprinting for the corridor the escape ship was
on. A couple of seconds later there was an explosion, a wash of
heat at her back, and the sound of falling masonry. Aneka bit back
a sob and kept running.
Tell no one?

She was still considering what
to say when she rounded a corner and found Truelove waiting behind
another bulkhead door, and next to what looked like a submarine
hatch in the floor.

‘Winter?’ the blonde asked.

And the lie just fell into
place. ‘I couldn’t get to her. They’ve got some sort of heavy,
armoured battlesuit. I couldn’t even dent it. I found a grenade and
collapsed the corridor.’

Truelove nodded as though that
was just some fact to assimilate, but her throat flexed as she
swallowed hard. ‘Get down there,’ she indicated the hatch, ‘and
strap in. I’ll close the doors and follow.’

There was a metal ladder down to
another hatch, and below that there really was a submarine. Ella
was already strapped into one of the six seats, looking relieved to
see her partner, so Aneka took the seat beside hers and pulled the
straps into place, locking herself into the seat. Truelove came
down a couple of seconds later and headed up to one of the front
seats.