The Winter War (25 page)

The spy mistress gave her a
quick look. Something which said, ‘Not a word, even if you know
something.’ What she actually said was, ‘I need to talk to you and
there seem to be few people I can trust. If I can’t trust Sharissa
with you two then I’ve grievously misjudged her.’

‘You’re armed to the teeth,’
Ella said.

‘Yeah, well there was a report
of some sort of super-battlesuit being used in the last attack,’
Sharissa replied. ‘I’ve got two tactical missile launchers with
high-explosive, multi-purpose warheads, and if those don’t stop it,
Vashma help us.’

‘I saw the thing,’ Aneka
replied. ‘Don’t count on it. It was high-tech.
Too
high-tech, and they had antimatter rifles. I don’t know who they
were, though I can guess, but they’re getting their equipment from
somewhere special.’

Winter grunted a response,
frowning. ‘Inside. I don’t want to be stationary for longer than we
need to be.’

Inside the cabin was a large bag
containing a change of clothing for Truelove, and disguises for
Aneka and Ella. Their wet clothes were to go into a suitcase along
with Aneka’s guns, and what they had to wear as alternatives had
Aneka raising her eyebrows at Winter.

‘Believe me, all will become
clear,’ Winter said. ‘Now, Idridia.’

Shrugging, Aneka started to
undress. ‘We found a downed Xinti ship that seemed to have been
taken down by a nuclear bomb in the war. Must have got too close.
The flight deck was wiped out and it fell out of the sky into the
side of a fortified outpost.’

‘It was the same class as the
Agroa Gar,’ Ella said. ‘A science vessel, no weapons. The drive
systems were wrecked in the crash. It looked like the warp drive
broke its moorings and ploughed through the sub-light drive, but
the stealth system must have been intact.’

‘Must have been?’ Winter asked,
picking up on the phrase.

‘Someone took the primary
generator out in its entirety. They may have got some of the hull
emitters. Hard to tell.’

‘They also messed about with a
robot they found in there,’ Aneka went on. ‘Maybe a security
android, maybe something they had as a guard in case they had to
leave the ship. Whatever, they plugged in some batteries and woke
it up. It killed one of them and scared the rest off, and then its
power ran out some time in the last seventy years.’

‘But the body,’ Ella said, ‘was
a Herosian wearing an Ashad Hithor armband.’

‘We found a few other things
around the site labelled with Herosian writing,’ Aneka added. She
pulled a memory card from one of her belt pouches before putting
her belt into the suitcase. ‘Everything we saw is on here. You can
go through it in as much detail as you like. The evidence is kind
of circumstantial, but you’ve definitely got a Herosian-formed and
managed mercenary group taking a stealth shield system from a Xinti
ship, and seventy years later you’ve got vessels with the same
technology attacking shipping.’ Naked, she picked up the outfit
Winter had provided for her. ‘Are you really serious about
this?’

Winter nodded. ‘Aside from the
value as eye candy, you’re leaving the planet on a ship which…
Well, no one is going to think twice about two women getting aboard
if they’re dressed like that.’

‘Winter, what the Hell are you
up to?’

Yorkbridge Spaceport.

‘We look like a couple of hookers,’
Aneka muttered. ‘Everyone’s looking at us.’ She was dressed in a
black faux leather corset, which pulled her in violently at the
waist and pushed her breasts up and out into almost frightening
shapes, black thigh-high boots with stiletto heels, and a skirt,
which was just two strips of cloth hanging from her corset. Her
normal hair was pinned up under a long black wig. Ella was in a
fishnet dress, with holes large enough that you could just about
use it for fishing, in neon pink. There was, at least, a G-string
under it. Her shoes were ludicrously tall, high-heeled pumps in a
similar pink, and her hair was hidden under a fedora.

‘I think that’s the idea,’ Ella
replied. ‘Are any of them looking at our faces?’ She did have a
point. ‘I think it’s exciting. You look incredible and you know I’m
an attention whore. There’s hardly anyone here doesn’t want between
my legs, and I’m fairly sure most of them want to beg to kiss your
boots.’

‘Yeah, well, let’s just
concentrate on getting to this shuttle. Who’s she got us meeting? A
pimp?’

‘Maybe. Put some more swing in
your hips. You want them concentrating on how your skirt
swishes.’

Cringing, Aneka let her hips
swing more. ‘I’m not a vamp. I don’t do this stuff.’

‘Then maybe you should. The guy
we just passed was actually drooling.’

Allowing herself a, hopefully
mean-looking, smirk, Aneka said, ‘Yeah, well be careful when you
turn around, your nipples could have someone’s eye out.’

Ella just giggled. They had
turned onto one of the corridors that led to a landing pad and the
crowds of their admirers were now behind them. Ten metres down and
they walked through an access door and outside to where a shuttle
was sitting on the Plascrete ahead of them.

As they approached it, a man
walked down the steps to meet them. He was smiling disarmingly;
Aneka got the impression he did that a lot and was good at it. He
had a young face with a thin, straight nose, narrow chin, hollow
cheeks, and a wide mouth. He was not especially tall, but he looked
fit, if thin, and there was a hint of muscle in his chest and arms.
His hair was long at the back, and jet-black wisps hung around his
face. He was wearing casual clothes, a sweater with the sleeves
pulled up past his elbows, casual slacks, and loafers. There was
something about his grey eyes which seemed wrong. They belonged to
someone much older.

‘Ladies,’ and he said the word
as though he meant it, no matter how they were dressed, ‘I’m Eddie
Bauer. Our mutual friend with the mysterious background asked that
I take you to my next destination.’

A woman appeared at the top of
the steps. She was tall, blonde, and very attractive with an
expansive chest barely hidden under a black dress with fishnet
sides, a deep décolletage, and small, diamond holes all over it.
She called down, ‘Eddie, we need to leave. Control is asking us to
clear the pad.’ She had a voice to go with the body: beautiful.

‘New girls are here, Alice.
We’ll be right up,’ Eddie called back. He turned back to Aneka and
Ella, smiling.

‘New girls?’ Aneka asked,
keeping her voice low.

‘That was for anyone watching.
I’ll explain once we’re out of here.’ He grinned and turned to the
stairs. ‘I guess this’ll need a little explanation anyway.’

Aneka and Ella glanced at each
other and then followed him up into the shuttle. Alice was waiting
at the top to take the case Aneka was carrying and get it stowed
away. ‘Eddie’ll talk to you once we’re in orbit,’ she said. ‘We’ll
have a bit of time to talk during the orbital transition. Get
strapped in, this thing doesn’t have gravity.’

She had barely got the door
closed and strapped in herself when the engines powered up and the
ship blasted forward down the short runway, pressing them all back
into their seats. Well under the size for a vessel to have
anti-gravity, the shuttle relied on aerodynamics to lift it off the
ground and get it airborne, and for the initial lift into the upper
atmosphere. Aneka glanced across the narrow aisle at Ella; sure
enough she was gripping the arms of her acceleration couch.
Spacecraft generally did not bother her, but anything which relied
on wings made her nervous.

Aneka heard the engines throttle
back as they neared low orbit and the force, which had been
pressing them to their seats as though they were lying on the
ground, gave way slowly to freefall. A minute or so later Eddie
floated back from the cockpit.

‘Computer will push us up to
rendezvous with the Serai when we hit the right point,’ he said,
hovering over the seat in front of Ella. ‘We can talk. Like I said,
I’m Eddie Bauer, owner and operator of Eddie’s Transgalactic
Escorts.’

Aneka blinked at him. ‘I was
joking when I said that Winter was sending us to meet a pimp.’

‘He’s not a pimp,’ Alice said.
‘Not exactly anyway.’

‘And you are?’

‘Alice Hollister. I was one of
his girls for quite a while. Now I’m the hostess when we have
clients aboard the Serai.’

‘I’ve never heard of a
travelling brothel before,’ Ella said.

‘We’re unique,’ Eddie replied,
‘in more ways than one. My girls are the best in the business, and
many of them have… special talents which people will pay top credit
for. I say girls, but we do have two guys on the team at the
moment. The complement varies. People join, people leave. I keep
moving.’

‘No one’s
ever
left the
Serai worse off than when they got on,’ Alice said. ‘I was working
the street on a backwater mud ball when Eddie found me. Now I’ve
got management skills. I could leave, but the Serai’s my home.’

‘A brothel-keeper with a heart
of gold?’ Aneka said, narrowing her eyes a little at Eddie.

‘Something like that,’ he
replied. ‘If you like you can think I’m atoning for past misdeeds.
It’s not far from the truth. Whatever, occasionally I do the odd
favour for Winter. Like taking a couple of women aboard my ship and
flying them to Odanari where there’s a safe house she uses
sometimes.’

‘And why is it that Winter
trusts you to do this?’

‘She knows me. And right now she
trusts me like she trusts you. We’re not part of her Agency, and
she doesn’t know who she can trust inside it.’ The engines engaged,
speeding the ship up to move to a higher orbit, and Eddie pushed
back from the chair. ‘I better get up to the cockpit. Docking’s
pretty manual.’

‘He’s a good guy,’ Alice said.
‘You can trust him.’

Aneka looked back at her. ‘Not
that we have a lot of choice.’

Alice grinned at her. ‘Not
really, but you can. We’re a family aboard the Serai. It’s a little
dysfunctional at times, but it’s solid. As long as you’re aboard
you’re part of it, and Eddie will do anything for his family.’

CRV Serai.

The Serai was something of a sprawling
vessel, three thousand tonnes of what seemed to be bolted together,
blocky modules held together by the willpower of the chief engineer
who was not best pleased. He was waiting on the other side of the
airlock with another girl in a black dress identical to Alice’s
when they walked aboard from the shuttle.

‘Eddie, that induction coil is
not going t’ hold together for another month. If ya can’t get me
another one then I ain’t gonna be held responsible when the power
cuts out in the middle o’ Vashma’s ass an’ we’re left floatin’!’ He
had the thickest accent Aneka had ever heard on a Jenlay, and he
was speaking Rimmic on top of that. Mind you, he looked the part of
an irascible engineer. Aging, if gracefully, his face spotted with
almost as much oil as his Bi-weave coveralls. On the short side
with thinning, greying hair, he did not take much care of his
fitness or his appearance, but there was still something about his
features which made Aneka think he was related to the girl standing
beside him.

‘Minsky,’ Eddie said, ‘calm
down. We got you your induction coil. It’s in the hold with the
other supplies. Will the current one hold until we get to
Odanari?’

‘Oh, y’did?’ Minsky’s ire
deflated. ‘Well… yeah, we’ll manage.’

‘Good. We’ll be there a couple
of weeks. Plenty of time for you to take the reactor down and get
it fitted. Now… we do have guests…’

Minsky’s eyes scanned up and
down Aneka and Ella. ‘Guests? I thought you’d picked y’self up a
Dom and her sub.’

‘Minsky…’ Eddie whined.

‘That’s okay,’ Ella said, in
Rimmic, which seemed to surprise the old man, ‘I don’t mind playing
Aneka’s sub and she does make an amazing dominatrix, doesn’t
she?’

Minsky blinked. ‘Young folks
today have some weird ideas. But she does look good’n a corset.’ He
even wheezed when he laughed. ‘Y’ don’ see so many o’ them these
days. It’s good t’ see a girl knows how t’ dress proper.’

Aneka grinned at him. ‘I’m
old-fashioned,’ she said, in Rimmic.

Minsky wheezed another laugh and
turned, heading for the aft corridor. ‘Jus’ make sure them floozies
o’ yours don’t all run their hairdryers at once, Eddie.’

‘Dad!’ the girl exclaimed. Yup,
related, though it looked like she had got much of her looks from
her mother, including long, black hair that was funnelled into a
ponytail by a long, conical, silver binding. Her dark skin was
marked with various tribal tattoos. ‘Sorry about him,’ she said to
Aneka and Ella, switching to Federal, ‘he’s permanently
grouchy.’

‘Does he speak Federal at all?’
Ella asked.

‘No, he says it’s only used by
soft lenshushi,’ she rolled her eyes. Ella giggled.

‘He is, however,’ Eddie said, ‘a
really exceptional engineer.’

‘Mechanic,’ the girl corrected.
‘You know he hates it when you call him an engineer.’

‘Right. Anyway, Anne, would you
show Aneka and Ella to their room.’ He smiled at the couple.
‘You’ll only be with us for about a day and a half, but you might
as well be comfortable. We’ll get Alphonse to sort out a snack for
you. Feel free to wander about once we’re under way. I’ll go get
Pat out of bed.’ He started off toward the bow, Alice following
after him.

‘Pat?’ Aneka asked.

‘Patricia Dash,’ Anne replied.
‘She’s our pilot. And she’s a really good one. Come on. Let’s get
you to your room.’ She started off in the same direction as Eddie
and Alice, but where they had continued on, Anne turned right after
about fifteen metres. ‘Oh, when Eddie said you could wander
around…? That’s fine, but stay away from Kitty. She’s testy at the
moment.’

‘Kitty?’ Aneka asked, starting
to feel like she was going to have to ask about every name she
heard. ‘How will we recognise her?’