Aneka Jansen 6: The Lowest Depths of Shame

by Niall Teasdale

  Aneka wedged herself into the racks, bracing a shoulder and a foot to keep herself stable, and switched out the magazines in her pistols. The things were not going to survive forever in a vacuum, but they did not breathe and they were annoyingly hard to put down. As the rush of air subsided, half a dozen bodies fell to the floor of the lifts and Aneka went to work.

  Norden Forest, New Earth.

  A pinging noise sounded in the quiet of the tent and quiet turned to silence. The perimeter sensors had detected movement somewhere in the area. Winter and Sharissa picked up carbines and checked that the safeties were off. Janine slid her pistol from its holster. And then they waited.

  Three minutes later something fell into the side of the tent and there was a muffled curse. ‘Gopi! Fucking camouflaged tents. Can’t see them until you fall on them…’

  ‘That,’ Janna said, ‘sounded very much like David Gilroy.’

  ‘Rescue party, reporting as requested,’ said a second voice.

  ‘And that was Bash,’ Sharissa supplied.

  Winter was already unsealing the tent, but she went out with her carbine in the lead and only seemed to relax when she turned to see the two men standing beside the tent, which was more or less invisible even up close.

  ‘You weren’t detected coming down?’ Winter asked them.

  ‘We brought one of the transport drones,’ Bash replied. ‘If they can detect us through the cloaking shield on those things…’

  ‘No,’ Winter said. ‘They haven’t a hope. I still suggest you depart as quickly as possible.’

  Bash nodded agreement. ‘We were told four passengers…’

  ‘I’m staying,’ Truelove said as she emerged from the tent. ‘So is Janine. Everyone else goes with you. You brought the extra equipment?’

  ‘Back at the pod. It’s about fifty metres north of here. Two lightweight grav cycles, neutrino beam comms unit, several rifles, explosives, combat armour… You going to war?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Truelove replied, ‘but a girl likes to be prepared.’

  Sapphira.

  ‘No survivors?’ Shaw asked. ‘None at all?’ They were sitting around one of the heaters again, but the general feeling of tension around the room was gone, except in that one small area.

  ‘We can’t be absolutely sure about Sapphira Vista,’ Ella said. ‘There could be a few, but it’s going to need a thorough ground search to find them, and you’d be going up against… well, a lot of chucks.’

  ‘You’d be better off making sure this continent is secure before you try going over there,’ Aneka said. ‘When we get back we’ll see if we can get some assistance for you. New Earth may not be much help, but Shadataga may be able to send some robots out. They can get your FTL connection back up and maybe set about clearing out Sapphira Vista.’

  ‘They’d do that?’ Shaw sounded a little surprised.

  ‘We won’t know until we ask, but I think they will. They’re… helpful, and good publicity is never a bad thing.’

  The Representative nodded. ‘I still don’t understand how this has happened. I mean, I know what happened, I just can’t come to grips with why someone would do it. How could someone choose to destroy a planet’s population for… for profit?’

  Aneka sighed. ‘It’s a distraction. I’m afraid you are all collateral damage designed to keep people… us from noticing something else they’re up to. What worries me more is that whatever that is, it’s probably worse.’

  Part Six: The End of War

  Shadataga, 1.3.531 FSC.

  War and Winter stood before the display table in the operations room watching information streaming in from the probes in the Joval and Eshebbon systems. It was not entirely new data, due to the FTL lag, but it was as up to date as they were likely to get, and it was being displayed there mostly for the benefit of the others in the room who were not getting the same data streaming directly into their minds.

  ‘They’ve fortified the system,’ Drake said, his eyes on a tactical map of Eshebbon. ‘What’s that? A couple of cruisers, a dozen frigates?’

  ‘A battalion of troops on the surface,’ War supplied with a nod. ‘They know that we know, or suspect that we will find out, and they want to make it difficult for us to do anything about it.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound heartless,’ Bashford said, frowning at the displays, ‘but couldn’t you just… blow the whole thing up?’

  ‘That is an option,’ the AI replied, ‘but there is a complication. The military personnel are one thing, but they have prisoners on the surface. While the need to eliminate this virus is great, we should exhaust other options before we resort to extreme measures.’

  ‘What other options? We don’t have an army to send in there and if we did it would likely result in those prisoners being killed.’

  Winter nodded slowly. ‘Yes. We’re down to one viable option which does not involve the mass slaughter of innocents. We have several days before they can begin manufacturing the virus in bulk. And another few days before they will be ready to ship it out. Hopefully Aneka will be back by then.’

  ‘You’re going to send Aneka in?’ Janna asked. ‘On her own against an entire naval fleet?!’

  ‘Gwy can slip in undetected,’ Winter replied.

  ‘But…’

  ‘And Aneka’s new body is equipped to handle considerably more stress than the old one. Yes, I’m going to ask her to go in, face off against a battalion of Marines, rescue the hostages, and destroy the production facility. Because she can do it.’

  ‘If they get back in time?’ Gillian said.

  ‘If they get back in time,’ Winter agreed.

  Gwy, 7.3.531 FSC.

  Aneka checked the flight data hanging in the air around her and nodded. In a few minutes they would be dropping out of warp and into orbit around Joval IV, and they would be effectively back where they started aside from having a little more information about the ends the conspiracy would go to to keep their plans marching on.

  ‘Let’s get the cloak up, Gwy,’ she said, more to say something than for a need to give the command.

  ‘Cloak engaged, Aneka. I am detecting no major changes in deployment of ships within the system. Everything seems to be as we left it.’

  ‘So whatever they wanted to keep us away from, it’s not visible.’

  ‘Apparently that is the case… I have detected one of the Shadataga probes in orbit over our destination. It is pulsing an identification signal which seems to indicate that we are supposed to notice it is there.’

  Aneka frowned. ‘Why don’t I like the sound of that?’

  ‘I would imagine your extensive experience indicates that such a circumstance indicates a problem,’ Gwy replied in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Should I acknowledge it when we drop out of warp?’

  ‘Yes. If there’s something wrong we want to know about it sooner rather than later.’

  A minute later the warp drives cut out and twenty seconds after that they were getting a data feed from the probe. Aneka watched the information flowing through for a few seconds. Her face hardened.

  ‘Echo this up to the cabin,’ she said. ‘As soon as we’ve got everything, send a message saying we’re on our way and then get us out of here and bound for Eshebbon.’

  ‘Warp in approximately sixty-eight seconds,’ Gwy acknowledged, and Aneka dropped out of the flight environment, switching over to the wireless connection as she unplugged from the chair.

  Ella was watching the walls of the cabin where the data from Shadataga was playing out. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is bad.’

  ‘I know,’ Aneka replied. ‘We’ll be on our way in a few seconds.’

  ‘If this is correct they’ll be starting production sometime today, Aneka.’

  ‘And it’s six days to Eshebbon. That’s still six days to get there and dismantle their operation. It should be enough.’

  ‘It better be.’

  ‘I… can’t believe they would do this?’ Cassandra said. ‘Even after Sap
phira, I can’t believe they would contemplate genocide.’

  Aneka sighed. ‘During the second of the big wars on Old Earth, before my time, but not that long before, the Nazis decided that various groups of people were “undesirable.” They started by gathering them up and putting them into ghettos and camps. But keeping them alive was a lot of effort so they started executing them. They used bullets at first, but that was expensive and the soldiers didn’t much like executing women and children, and it was slow. So they industrialised it. Huge gas chambers were built, furnaces to dispose of the bodies. Millions died. A lot of people view it as being aimed specifically at one group, the Jews, but they killed huge numbers of various ethnic groups. Just about anyone no one was going to worry too much about really. Whether they would have stopped at that if they had won the war is an open question, but when you believe in some sort of superior race it starts getting hard to decide when to quit… And they weren’t even gaining anything out of it. It was just ideology. Pierce and his people are going to be able to just walk in and take over any planet they want after this.’

  ‘It’s inhuman!’ Cassandra said, eyes wide.

  ‘No, unfortunately it’s not. Killing things we don’t understand, or like, is very Human. I thought it was un-Jenlay, but apparently I’m wrong.’

  High Yorkbridge, New Earth, 8.3.531 FSC.

  Pierce sat behind his desk in the FSA building, examining the reports coming through from Eshebbon with a smile on his face.

  Fortification of the facility was, he deemed, sufficient to withstand an assault from outside the system. He had no evidence that anyone knew of what was happening there, but he also knew that his underlings had failed to capture Truelove and her cohorts, and there had been enough time for the data Part had stolen to reach other ears.

  Someone had suggested that the AIs on Shadataga might mount a massive assault, or destroy the entire system. Pierce was absolutely convinced that would not happen. There were ‘innocent’ people on Eshebbon. The peace-loving AIs with their lofty goals would not kill the hostages. He was convinced of that. He had the stomach, the wits, to understand that there had to be losses to secure victory, but no one who wanted peace the way the AIs did would have the balls to destroy a system, no matter what they said.

  Production of the virus had begun now. There was nothing left to stop the Committee’s work. There would be peace in the galaxy. Once there were no aliens around to get in the way, there would be peace.

  Gwy.

  ‘This isn’t a plan,’ Ella stated flatly. ‘This is some bits of a plan and the hope that you can improvise the missing parts when you get into a heavily fortified facility without being spotted on the way in and…’

  ‘That’s the best kind of plan,’ Aneka interrupted. ‘Plans with a lot of detail get people thinking they have it all worked out. Complacency is your worst enemy.’

  ‘I think guns are your worst enemy,’ Cassandra said. She was siding with Ella, largely because neither of them would be going in with Aneka, but also because she liked her plans a little more filled out. ‘Can’t you at least take Al’s drone with you? For fire support?’

  ‘I need Al concentrating on my support. If he’s splitting his attention between me and his drone he’ll be less efficient at both tasks. I go in alone. They won’t know I’m even there until I come out with the hostages.’

  ‘And then you’ll have a battalion of troops trying to kill you,’ Ella said.

  ‘Trying, yes.’

  ‘I read the specs on your new systems, you know. If they can concentrate enough fire they can penetrate that shield of yours. You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.’

  Sighing, Aneka sat down on a chair facing the two women. Al’s drone was sitting quietly on the bed behind them, not getting involved beyond the odd statement of fact; he knew that it was Aneka’s job to do the persuading.

  ‘To be honest, I’m having a lot of trouble not seeing this as a brilliant opportunity to test my new body out under combat conditions. I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to be facing off against trained soldiers armed with state-of-the-art weaponry to rescue civilians caught up in this mess. It’s what I wanted to do before the Xinti took me. It’s what I trained to do. It’s what I’m good at.’ She lifted her head and looked at them, her gaze intent. ‘I’m really, really good at killing people to save other people. Let me do what I’m good at.’

  ‘You…’ Ella began, swallowed, and then went on, ‘you’re really good at some other things too.’

  ‘Eating you out does not count under the circumstances.’

  Ella looked at Cassandra, who nodded.

  ‘We think it does,’ Ella told her.

  Behind them, Al began to chuckle.

  10.3.531 FSC.

  Gwy looked at Aneka and Ella, a distinctly timid expression on her obsidian features. Her body had changed in the virtual environment of the flight deck. There were some elements of definition that had been added which she was not entirely comfortable with, but also very excited about.

  Cassandra had decided, as they flew back from Sapphira, that the AI was part of their little family, but was missing out on an aspect of that relationship. So she had adapted the sensory modules the higher AIs had fitted her and Al with to Gwy’s systems, and worked with her to create a more… complete avatar, at least for private use.

  Since they were only a couple of days from Eshebbon, and Ella was almost constantly demanding what she was worried would be the last sex she ever had with Aneka, it had been decided that it was high time to test Gwy’s new features.

  ‘I… I am unsure that this is a good idea,’ Gwy said. ‘What if I lose control of my engines? What if I forget…?’

  ‘Pretty much every system on this ship has a subsidiary control AI handling the details,’ Aneka said. ‘You know full well that your job is to supervise them all, not to keep control of everything.’

  ‘Y-yes, but…’

  Ella stepped closer and reached out, tracing her fingers down Gwy’s right arm. The AI fell silent as the new sensations hit her mind.

  ‘If you’re really worried about this,’ Ella said softly, ‘we won’t do it. Now.’ The fingers traced back up over the smooth skin. ‘Later, when things have calmed down…’

  Aneka moved around to stand behind the avatar and pushed her soft, pale-blue hair aside. Lips met neck. The skin was cool and very smooth. ‘If you want to stop, we can,’ Aneka said, planting another kiss.

  ‘M-maybe a little more?’ Gwy breathed, even though breath was something she definitely did not need.

  Ella reached for the nearest nipple. They were sort of moulded. It had been decided to stick with the solid feeling of the normal avatar, but there was enough give in the virtual flesh that when Ella squeezed, the reaction was immediate.

  ‘Oh…’ Gwy moaned. ‘I… I think I see… why you like this.’

  ‘Oh Gwy,’ Aneka whispered as she pressed her body against Gwy’s back and reached down between her legs, ‘you don’t know the half of it.’

  12.3.531 FSC.

  ‘The station will be in darkness in a little over one hour,’ Gwy said. ‘I am detecting a full range of sensor systems in operation. Active scanning is being used from the ships in orbit and the facility itself. The layout of the buildings is as indicated in the probe data we received.’

  Aneka watched the wall screen for several seconds, noting the shifting positions of vessels. It looked like the Navy had made a fairly classic mistake.

  ‘We’ll go in over the northern pole,’ she said. ‘They’ve concentrated all their ships in equatorial orbits. The cloak should stop them seeing us anyway, but there’s no point in taking risks when they’ve given us such a huge opening.’

  ‘The mountain range a klick north of the facility would seem to offer the best cover for a landing,’ Al suggested.

  Aneka nodded. ‘When I’m out, you give me twenty minutes and then you come out, low, and wait at the edge of the foothills.’ She gl
anced at Ella, who was trying her best to pay attention and ignore what was going to happen soon at the same time.

  ‘Twenty minutes?’

  ‘That’ll give me time to get in. I won’t need to contact you before then and there’s no point in being exposed, even with the cloak, longer than you need to be.’

  ‘Okay… If the data from the probes is right, the larger building is the research centre and the civilians are probably in there. The other one is the virus fabrication plant.’

  ‘And we have something special lined up for that, but we need these people out first. It’s going to need pretty amazing timing. You signal for the pickup and then you move. They’ll probably detect the transmission.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ella replied. ‘We’ll be out of there the second we call in the cavalry.’

  ‘Good. Just don’t forget to pick me up, okay?’

  ‘Well, do we have time for one more shower before we go down?’

  ‘Not really, and we’ve all been banging each other senseless for the better part of three days.’

  ‘Well then… I’ll try to remember…’

  Eshebbon.

  The scope of Aneka’s rifle picked out cameras and active sensor arrays, and the blind spots which no one had bothered to fix because who was going to be able to get this close anyway?

  ‘Overconfidence,’ Aneka commented silently. ‘You know, if I ever turn evil I’m going to need someone to make sure I don’t do things like this.’

  ‘Should you decide that evil is a valid career choice, I will be available for ego-pricking,’ Al replied. ‘However, they may not be being quite so foolish. Does the ground about one hundred metres out look disturbed to you?’

  Aneka looked, zooming in the scope as far as it would go. ‘You’re right. Mines.’ They were in a loose ring, not very evenly spaced, but close enough that it would be hard to get past them.

  ‘Standard Navy munitions have a computerised, radio-controlled safety system. I should be able to hack it if we get close enough to one of them. They may detect the intrusion, however.’