The Winter War (32 page)

‘Get the psychics on the case,’
Dowler growled.

‘Sir!’ The voice came from
behind him, and Dowler turned to see the young man he had taken on
as his assistant. ‘Sir, there’s something you should see. The news
channels…’

The Islands.

‘You seem, Mister Dowler, to be
presiding over the leakiest organisation in the Federation.’ Elroy
sat on his favourite chair looking up at Dowler’s face on the video
wall. Elroy was amused and trying not to show it, and Dowler was
incredibly pissed off and also trying to avoid showing it.

‘The source of the leak will be
found, and I don’t believe it came from my…’

‘First, it’s not your office.
You’re the
interim
head, don’t get comfortable. Second,
you’ve had no luck in finding the source of the first leak. And,
finally, there is material in this one which was known only to
members of the FSA. The assault on the terrorists in Harriamon
spaceport, for example.’

‘I
will
find out who
leaked this information, Senator. Count on it.’

Elroy smiled. ‘I am,
Administrator. I am.’ His finger flicked over his tablet and
Dowler’s face vanished. Ollander was painting her fingernails,
dressed in a push-up bra and thong. Either she had no sense of
personal space or she was doing it on purpose. She knew Elroy was
without a partner at the moment.

‘You enjoyed that far too much,’
Ollander said, not looking up.

‘I did. The news networks seem
to be taking the details of Aneka’s recent past rather more kindly
than the basic revelation.’

‘Her actions paint her in a far
better light. That hostage rescue on Harriamon you mentioned to
Dowler seems to be the area of focus.’

‘On Old Earth they used to have
“action heroes” and “super heroes,” fictional characters who did
amazing things to defend the weak. Aneka did something no one else
could have done, eliminated a potentially catastrophic threat, and
with barely any civilian injuries. They don’t realise it, but
they’re painting her as a super hero.’

‘It’s not doing any harm to the
case for Winter either.’

‘No, it’s not.’ He watched as
she finished her nails and stood up, frowning at something
off-screen. ‘A problem?’

‘Hmm… Oh, well…’ She bent
forward, picked something up, and then held the object out toward
the camera. It was a dress in silver metallic fishnet. He could not
really determine the length, but it was short. ‘I’m taking the boys
out to Shin You and I’m trying to decide between this…’ She dropped
the dress behind her and retrieved another, which appeared shorter
and was composed of gossamer thin, red Nusilk. ‘…or this.’

Elroy was, for once, briefly at
a loss for words. ‘Neither really goes with your lingerie, Diana,’
he finally managed.

She laughed. ‘Oh I won’t be
wearing anything under them, Jackson.’ She dropped the second dress
and reached for the clasp at the back of the bra. ‘Here, let me try
them on and you can tell me which is best.’

Elroy suppressed a sigh. She was
definitely
doing it on purpose.

Herosian Gunship.

‘You’re doing that on purpose,’ Aneka
said.

‘What?’ Ella replied, all
innocence.

‘Lying there naked and making
little sighing noises every so often. Read a book.’

‘I’ve been reading a book. And
you’re hardly dressed.’

Aneka was wearing a cropped
T-shirt and shorts; her suit had been damaged too badly for even
the bio-plastic it was made from to repair effectively. ‘I am,
however, wearing something. Justine’s taking a shower, go bother
her.’

Ella sat up, her face shifting
into something which was half-frown, half-pout. ‘Are you really
saying you don’t want to have sex with me?’

‘I’m saying we had sex an hour
ago and we’ve been doing little else for weeks, and… Oh God! Come
here and take that look off your face.’

Bouncing off the bed, Ella
skipped the couple of paces to where Aneka was sitting, and perched
in her lap, as directed. Snuggling in as close as she could get,
she began placing small kisses along the side of Aneka’s neck.

‘You don’t think you’re
overdoing this a little at the moment?’ Aneka said, keeping her
voice soft.

‘Yeah… I know… I am,’ Ella
replied, not stopping the kisses.

‘Then why keep it up?’

‘I’m trying not to, but… I just
see you, or Justine, or anyone I like the look of and… I’m so hyped
up at the moment I can’t stop myself half the time. All this time
alone with nothing much to do isn’t helping.’

‘We are going to have to try to
get you back to normal as soon as this business is settled.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Ella went back to
kissing Aneka’s neck.

‘And in the meantime, we could
tape you to one of the bunks for eight hours a day.’

‘Mmm, kinky.’

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 23.8.527 FSC.

Justine watched the news channels with
a smile on her face. Things were going better than she had
expected. She had tracked down the source of the leaked information
about Winter and the later one about Aneka to the Herosian embassy,
no great surprise there, and had decided to fight fire with
ethanol. She had carefully arranged for certain reporters who had
been a little more sympathetic to Winter to receive anonymous drops
of information on untraceable data cards and the results had been
effective.

The interview someone had
attempted with Katelyn Looper and Dillon Zacks, Aneka and Ella’s
neighbours, the day before had been broadcast on only a couple of
channels. It had been very short, for one thing, consisting of
Katelyn stating that, ‘Aneka is a good woman. I don’t give a fuck
whether she’s a robot or an alien ghost from another dimension. She
saved my life, saved my friend’s life, and you can take your snide
remarks and fuck yourself with them.’ That had been followed by
Dillon offering to demonstrate how the reporter’s camera could be
used as an endoscope. It had not aired on many channels, but it had
still caused a slight uptick in opinion regarding Aneka.

With the announcement the
previous morning that the secrecy order on Aneka had been lifted,
more people were free to talk about her. The entire crew of the
Garnet Hyde had found themselves with cameras pointing at them at
one time or another. All of them had said that Aneka was no more a
Xinti than they were, and backed it up with stories of how she had
saved their lives on Alpha Mensae, or Old Earth, and how she had
fought to find a way to leave Negral when it looked like it would
be unsafe to do so. Surprisingly, Delta Ling’s statement that if
Aneka had not intervened, she would not have a boyfriend was a very
popular clip.

The most surprising interview of
all, however, had been done over a tachyon connection to Harriamon.
Recorded questions had been answered by Captain Tor ‘Ape’ Gibbons
of the Admiral Banfry, though what the station had got back had
probably been a lot different from what they had expected.

‘You want to know what my
opinion is of a Xinti walking around the streets of Yorkbridge?’
Ape had said into the camera on his terminal. ‘Well… As I said in
answer to your previous question, I was here when the Garnet Hyde
arrived in the Harriamon system. I detained her, and I was there
when Winter interviewed her. I told my son and his mother that they
should stay away from her, and I thought Winter was insane to let
her go back to New Earth.’

He paused, apparently collecting
his thoughts. ‘And then they got hijacked to Negral. That’s where
Aneka’s body was built. You could say that Negral was her home
world as much as Old Earth was. Aneka Jansen wanted to get my
family out of there, get them home. That may be a Xinti-built body
she’s walking around in, but the mind inside it isn’t a Xinti mind.
You ask someone religious whether she’s Jenlay, or Human, or
whether it’s really Aneka Jansen, I don’t care. It’s a damn good
mind and a lot of Jenlay could learn a thing or two from her. She’s
willing to risk everything for people she’s never met, and she’ll
move planets for her friends. So don’t talk to me about a Xinti
walking around Yorkbridge, there isn’t one.’

Tristar Township.

‘The Admiralty will have a fit,’
Gillian commented.

‘If we’re lucky,’ Drake replied
from the wall, ‘they’ll suffer collective heart failure and be
replaced by competent officers.’

‘Are they still bugging you? The
reporters.’

‘There’s a van outside, but most
of them have given up. Shannon’s lying in the bedroom with the
windows darkened until the headache goes away. At least when she
comes out it won’t be as bad. You?’

‘I had the township guards chase
them out after the interview.’

‘And that’s why I’m staying
here,’ Bashford said, ‘rather than going back to my apartment.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Drake replied, ‘and
the sex has nothing to do with it?’

‘A fringe benefit.’

‘What about Monkey and
Delta?’

‘They’ll be here in about an
hour,’ Gillian said. ‘I invited Janna, but she said the reporters
haven’t gone after her yet and she wanted to be at home when
Sharissa was released.’

There was a noise from
off-camera at Drake’s end, and then Shannon wandered into frame,
sleepy and naked. She blinked at the camera, or rather at the wall
at the other end. ‘Oh, hey guys. If I’d known he was on the phone
I’d have put something on.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Gillian
asked.

‘Much better now there aren’t
reporters crawling all over the house. I just hope it’s done some
good.’

‘Consolidated Media’s opinion
polls are showing a bit of a polarised reaction,’ Bashford replied.
‘There’s actually
more
overall interest in Aneka than there
was, but still more negative reaction. On the other hand, the
positive viewpoint is at about seventy per cent.’

‘It’s similar to the reaction to
the Negral negotiations,’ Gillian put in.

‘Not bad, I guess. I feel sorry
for Aneka and Ella. I mean, wherever they are, they probably don’t
even know this is happening! They’re going to come home to… Well,
it’s going to be quite a change.’

‘Yes, but at least Aneka won’t
have to keep the secret anymore. She hated it. If only one good
thing comes out of this, it’s that.’

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 25.8.527 FSC.

Sharissa knew, more or less, what to
expect when she walked into the flat, but was not quite prepared
for the sheer elemental force of a worried Janna dashing forward to
hug her in the doorway. It was almost rib-crushing, and it
certainly demonstrated how worried the woman had been.

Still Janna was not sufficiently
wrapped up in her own relief at seeing her partner again to not
notice the blonde girl waiting patiently behind
her
blonde
girl. ‘Who’s your friend?’ she whispered.

‘Give me my lungs back,’
Sharissa replied, ‘and I’ll introduce you.’

Janna let go enough that she
could pull Sharissa in through the door. ‘Janna, this is Elaine
Truelove. She’s… She was Winter’s assistant so they’ve been pretty
hard on her, and she doesn’t have anyone at home…’

Janna’s features melted into a
look of sympathetic concern. ‘Oh Vashma, yes, of course. Come in,
dear, make yourself at home. You don’t want to be out there at the
moment.’

‘Uh, no,’ Truelove agreed. ‘The
press are everywhere.’

‘Gillian Gilroy invited me over
to her place,’ Janna said. ‘If it gets bad I’ll call her and see
whether we can all hide there. It might mean sleeping on the couch,
but…’

Truelove nodded. ‘She’s in
Tristar, where the press can’t get to her. Isn’t that a bit of an
imposition?’

‘As I said, I’ll ask, but she’s
already got her boyfriend, her son, and her son’s girlfriend there.
I think she rather likes having a full house. She was very
accommodating at Christmas.’

‘Christmas?’ Sharissa asked.

‘Some Old Earth festival just
before First Day. Ella decided we should all celebrate it after
they came back from Negral. Now, are you all cleared?’

‘They brought in telepaths,
after the conventional interrogation,’ Sharissa told her. ‘When
they said we knew nothing about Winter’s background, or why she
might have been killed aside from the obvious, Dowler couldn’t hold
us.’

‘And it’s on record that Winter
was going to tell the Administration’s Security Committee who was
behind the shipping attacks,’ Truelove added.

‘Well, yes,’ Janna said. ‘What
else would she have been there for?’

‘I think Dowler wanted people to
believe she was going to reveal that she had been working for the
Xinti for years.’

Janna rolled her eyes. ‘Is the
man insane? Winter was no more a Xinti spy than Aneka is.’ She
paused. ‘Um, you don’t know where she and Ella are, do you?’

‘I’m sorry. As far as I know,
the only person who knew where she hid them was Winter. I’m sure
they’re safe, but I don’t know when they’ll be back.’

Janna sighed. ‘As long as
they’re safe. Come on, let’s get you settled in. Do you want to
stay in the guest room? There’s plenty of room in our bed…’

Sharissa rolled her eyes. She
knew it was partially displacing her worry over her daughter, but
she was quite sure that Truelove would end up in their bed. Janna
was being Janna. Which was a good thing, under the
circumstances.

Herosian Gunship, System G3069,
22.9.527 FSC.

System G3069 had ten worlds circling
around an M5 main sequence star, a red dwarf. Ella examined the
data on it on the co-pilot’s console while Aneka busied herself
with piloting the ship.

‘Winter’s here?’ Ella asked,
sounding perplexed. ‘I mean, why here?’

‘There’s one habitable planet,’
Aneka remarked.

‘Barely. Low gravity, barely a
third of an atmosphere, and the surface temperature rarely gets
above freezing. No one lives here.’