‘We just went into warp,’ Aneka said as an in-vision monitor told her that fact.
‘Forty-odd days to home,’ Ella replied. ‘Did Delta decide to sleep with everyone or is she taking a nap for the rest of the trip?’
Aneka grinned. ‘She’s going into cold sleep.’ After her last long trip in the fridge, Delta had said she would sleep with anyone she needed to to avoid it again. When the entire crew had wanted in on the action they were teasing, but she had still decided that she would spend the ninety-eight day trip back to New Earth dreaming. Most of the crew were joining her for this leg. Even Ella was going to bed and leaving Aneka as the only conscious person aboard.
Well, technically there was Aneka and Aggy. ‘The cold sleep chamber is ready to receive guests,’ the ship’s computer announced over the speakers in the cabin. ‘Captain Drake has requested that everyone make their way there.’
Ella grumbled softly and pulled Aneka’s arms closer around her. ‘Just once more before bed.’
Aneka sighed. ‘Tell Drake we’ll be another twenty minutes, Aggy.’
1.2.527 FSC.
Aneka walked through the near-silent ship, wandering the halls for no other reason than that she wanted to. It was almost silent, but no one else would have been able to hear the sounds. There was the slight shush of the air moving through the circulation system and the ultrasonic whine of plasma passing through the magnetic containment field of the fusion reactor. The old warp drive had played an ultrasonic duet with the reactor, but if the new one made a sound it was outside of even Aneka’s extended range.
And she was never really alone. Al was with her everywhere she went, monitoring her body and mind every waking moment. Aggy was, essentially, the entire ship. She was everywhere there were internal sensors and a set of speakers, which was everywhere aside from the unpressurised hold. Both of them knew to stay quiet when Aneka was out for a walk, unless she spoke to them.
‘Aggy, about two hundred years ago when you first woke up again and we were trying to repair the station after those robots sabotaged it…’
‘That was not two hundred years ago, Aneka,’ the computer responded. She appeared, walking beside Aneka. Actually just a projection into Aneka’s vision field; that of a buxom woman with gold skin, silver eyes, and short, honey-blonde hair.
‘It feels like that long. You said you’d compiled all the data you collected on me before my abduction.’
‘I did, yes. I still have the relevant files awaiting your inspection, if you wish to examine them.’
‘Yeah, I’d like to look at it. I think I can cope with it now and… Well, I’m a bit bored and seeing what someone else thought my life came to should keep me interested for a while.’
‘Keep in mind that I was analysing you as a candidate for the Human Evolution Programme, not as a potential date.’
‘Huh. Well, you got to know my body more intimately than any date I ever hooked up with.’
Aggy decided that answering that would likely be a bad idea.
~~~
‘Why did you even have a Facebook page?’ Al asked. ‘You hardly ever updated it. There’s no profession listed.’
‘Yeah well, putting down “professional mercenary” seemed like a bad idea. Alan said I should do it, and I thought it might hook me up with some old school friends or something. It wasn’t until the page was up I realised I didn’t have any old school friends I actually wanted to meet.’
‘Did any of them contact you?’
‘Yeah. Three boys who didn’t stand a chance back then and wanted to know whether having money made a difference. The school bitch sent me a message to let me know she’d become a catwalk model.’ Aneka looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. ‘Died of an overdose of cocaine about a year later.’
Her military record was in the files; everything she had ever done or had been written about her. ‘Some of this stuff is classified, Aggy,’ she commented.
‘Some of it took a lot more effort to get than other parts,’ Aggy agreed. ‘However, this was extremely pertinent information to my mission. The extra effort was necessary, if relatively useless.’
‘Useless?’
‘It was apparent that many of those handling your performance reviews tended to view political considerations for your advancement over your actual capabilities.’
‘Right. I haven’t even seen some of this stuff. There’s that psychological evaluation they did. The one that said I was psychotic because I wanted to be in a combat position.’
‘And you never got to see it?’
‘No. One of my COs gave me the summary. Prick.’
She closed the file and opened another, which turned out to be a huge database of email messages. It was a mix of ones she had sent and received, and others which had been written by others but mentioned her. There were a lot of them, a really big lot.
‘I could spend months going through this stuff,’ Aneka said. Then she thought about it and added, ‘Not that I have a whole lot else to do.’ She clicked a file.
15.3.527 FSC.
‘Solitude isn’t getting to you, is it?’ Drake asked. Mid-flight checks were a requirement on any trip longer than fifty days. Aneka suspected he was checking on her as much as on the ship. He was, however, making a show of the latter; they were walking up to the flight deck.
‘I’m not exactly alone,’ Aneka replied.
‘No, I suppose not, but you don’t have another Jenlay awake with you.’
‘True, except that I’m not a Jenlay, so technically it wouldn’t be another Jenlay.’
‘Uh, another… No, person doesn’t work either because Aggy and Al are sentient…’
Aneka grinned. ‘Another person I can physically interact with?’
‘That works, I guess, though it does start to sound kind of trivial.’
‘Huh. I miss Ella. It was the same on the flight to Earth… Old Earth. Better get used to saying that again. I never thought I’d ever miss waking up next to a woman, but I do. It’s okay the first morning. Then on the second I think, “She’s not going to be there for days,” and after that it’s every morning. Like there’s a hole in the bed where she should be.’
‘I was the same when Shannon was in hospital.’ They had arrived at the door of the flight deck and he raised his head to speak to the computer. ‘Captain Drake ready for in-flight checks.’
‘Of course, Captain,’ Aggy responded, and the door opened. ‘You know, I could just open the door for you. There’s no need for that little ritual. I do know you’re scheduled to make this check.’
‘Humour me, Aggy,’ Drake replied. ‘I’ve been saying that to get in here mid-flight for quite a while.’
‘I shall attempt to be patient.’
Drake grinned, shook his head, and walked in to sit down on the pilot’s seat. His hands started moving over the controls as soon as the consoles lit up. Aneka followed him in, perching on the co-pilot’s seat and pulling up one leg to rest her chin on.
‘What’ve you been up to?’ he asked, his attention on the displays appearing in front of him.
‘Reading thousand-year-old emails.’ He glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. ‘Aggy collected a load of data on me when they were deciding who to uplift. I’ve been reading through it. She was exceedingly thorough.’
‘I am always exceedingly thorough,’ Aggy pointed out.
‘There’s stuff going back to my first Hotmail account. Armybrat eighty-two. I was feeling imaginative. Dumped that and got Aneka underscore Jansen when I went into the Army, and then I dumped that for armybitch at Gmail when I quit. And she got all of them.’
‘Several of the messages in your oldest account were very revealing, Aneka. You were something of an idealist. You thought that you could do something good with your life by joining the armed forces. The change as you progressed was noticeable. Particularly in some of the messages sent late in your second account’s lifespan.’
Aneka gave a shrug. ‘Yeah. Mind you, there were a f
ew embarrassing moments. I found some emails an old boyfriend sent me describing, in great detail, what he wanted to do with me when I came home on leave.’
Drake barked a laugh, his eyes on a display which was slowly transitioning to show that all the ship’s systems were working. ‘It’s tough making long-distance relationships work, but the sex when you meet again…’
‘Not in this case. By the time I did get home on leave he was fucking a blonde waitress from Guildford.’ She frowned in contemplation. ‘Maybe that’s why I coped reasonably well with the attitude to sex Jenlay have. I stopped believing in long-term relationships before I got stuck in stasis. Ella’s the longest partnership I’ve ever had. Most lasted a night or a week at most.’
‘Three-and-a-half years is a record then?’
‘Hell yeah!’
‘Well, as expected, everything is fine. Good work, Aggy.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Aggy replied.
‘There’s some food in the mess,’ Aneka said.
‘Thanks. I feel like someone hollowed out my stomach to make a canoe.’
Sitting in the mess with a bowl of some sort of pasta dish, Drake breathed in the aroma and sighed. ‘I need this. Isn’t going over this stuff a bit depressing?’ It was clearly a conversational gambit to keep her talking while he ate. She was not going to complain.
‘Some of it. Most of it just reminds me of family and… Well, they were good times. I could get maudlin over the loss, but I’d rather remember the time I did have and not worry over what might have been.’
‘Good attitude,’ Drake said around a mouthful of spaghetti.
‘It’s that or mope in my room a lot. Not that I leave my cabin much. I mean, there’s not much to do. Bash left me some chores. There were a few things they didn’t get to check over on the Harriamon leg so I said I’d finish up. Did that in a week. I only sleep four hours a night. I don’t like those terrible sex comedies you people think are so hilarious.’
‘Hilarious is pushing it.’
‘I’m reading through Aggy’s book collection, but I tend to read fast so I’m trying to pace myself.’ Drake was not pacing himself particularly; his food was almost gone. Aneka reached to her throat and unsealed her leotard.
Drake sucked in the last strand of spaghetti, chewed, and then said, ‘Is that an offer?’
‘Maybe even a request.’
He unsealed his shipsuit. ‘You sure you’re not feeling lonely?’
‘Not lonely.’ She stepped out of her suit and waited as he stood and slid his down to his thighs before pushing him back into his chair. ‘But you’re right about physical contact, I think.’ She straddled his legs, pushed her hips forward, and sank onto him with a sigh.
Drake let out a groan. ‘You, uh… You’ve been thinking about this for a while.’
‘Since I woke up.’ She began a slow rise and fall motion. ‘Well, after I’d got over the missing Ella thing for the day.’
‘I can… tell.’ After a minute he added, ‘That is maddening.’
Giggling, Aneka quickened the pace until she was bouncing madly up and down in his lap and she could feel her stomach muscles tightening as each bounce drove the tension higher. Drake had a fondness for enthusiastic sex, which made Shannon a good match for him since she liked doing it in inappropriate places. It also made Aneka a good choice for random encounters since her body could take anything he wanted to throw at it.
She felt her inner muscles clenching. ‘Coming…’ She got a groan for a reply and felt him swelling inside her, and then there was the rush and she threw her head back and let it wash over her.
‘You… You’re getting… better at that,’ he commented.
She shifted her hips, eliciting a moan, and then slid off him with a shudder. ‘Have you ever met our neighbour, Dillon? He’s a big guy. I’ve had some practice.’ She dropped into the seat beside his and tossed him a box of wet wipes.
Drake barked a laugh. ‘I see you thought of everything. Ella’s getting up early, right?’
‘Fifteen days before we arrive. Everyone else at five days.’
‘Doesn’t she get enough alone time with you?’
‘This is Ella we’re talking about.’
‘You have a point.’ He got to his feet and pulled his suit back into place with practised ease. ‘Let’s get me back in the freezer and you can get back to your reading.’
Aneka got to her feet, not bothering with her own suit, and followed him to the cold sleep room. It was on a lower deck, at the back of the habitation section, and it was basically one large room containing eight white pods. The occupants were filled full of chemicals, which kept their bodies from dying, and then cooled down well below zero. Body functions almost ceased, neurological activity fell to not quite zero; essentially they were in a long, slow sleep.
With Drake back in his pod, she checked the process to cool him down was starting up correctly and then turned away. She did not like watching the needles going in, though Drake was asleep before they did thanks to a sedative gas. Instead she crossed over to Ella’s pod, checking the readouts even though she knew Aggy would have alerted her to a problem, just as she would have alerted her to any flight issues.
‘Al, connect me through to Ella’s implant. Full sensorium.’ Ella was dreaming about Earth. Old Earth. Matlock, in fact, or nearby. Walking through a field with the wind blowing in her hair. Aneka smiled. ‘Okay Al, replay the physical sensations from that session with Drake. Just touch, none of the other sensations.’
She had really meant for him to play them to Ella, but she had to lean over the pod as sex with a fit Jenlay played through her body. When she came down, Ella’s walk had been interrupted by a handsome shepherd. Well she was always bugging Aneka for outdoor sex.
‘Okay, disconnect. God I need a shower.’
22.3.527 FSC.
Aneka closed a rather boring email someone had sent her accountant regarding her tax assessment. It had been sent around the time of her kidnapping and it was nice to know that while she was being dissected on an alien ship, the tax system had been working properly. Looking at the next message in the list she frowned.
‘Aggy? The next message here is after you grabbed my team, isn’t it?’ There were actually quite a lot of emails she thought were after that date.
‘We did not leave the system when you were taken,’ Aggy said. ‘Chief Scientist Aktana wanted to be quite sure that you were the subject he wanted before returning to Negral. We were in system for almost eight solar days before leaving and I continued to monitor communications during that time.’
‘Oh. So these messages… a lot of them are going to be about me and my team going missing.’
‘Yes, Aneka. There are mundane emails such as that one to your accountant, but there are several regarding your disappearance.’
‘Oh.’ Aneka looked at the screen. There was no indication of the contents of the messages until she opened them. They were marked with a serial number and a timestamp, and Aggy had explained that she had compiled specific search routines to hunt through the texts for information she was interested in.
‘I could understand if you might find reading these uncomfortable,’ Aggy said. The sound quality had changed a little and, sure enough, Aggy had decided that projecting her image into the room would be preferable.
Aneka sat back in her chair and regarded the golden figure. ‘You’ve been through them?’
‘Given that you were on the Agroa Gar, I paid more attention to traffic regarding you, but I was not analysing the data extensively.’
‘My family…?’
‘Your parents were not extensive email users. There is one email from your brother to a friend in which he indicates he will not be attending a party due to your disappearance. I believe your parents were notified five days after your capture from some of the other traffic, presumably by telephone or personal visit.’
‘Huh. I could actually see Anderson going out to tell them himself.’ She paused f
or a second before adding. ‘I think I need to psych myself up for those ones. I’ll leave them for tomorrow.’
‘As you wish, Aneka. Have a pleasant evening.’
Aneka grinned at the air where Aggy’s image had been. It was not like either of them were actually going anywhere, but Aggy was big on the formal pleasantries. Looking to her left, she saw the list of emails again. Then she reached out and flicked the monitor into standby.
23.3.527 FSC.
Aneka frowned at the email she was reading. It was from her old boss to an address she did not recognise and the contents were disturbing. At first she had not been sure why the email had been put in the list until she had found her name in one line. Aneka is one of my best. You assured me you had this covered. Everywhere else there were no names, just references to a ‘stolen package.’
‘Aggy? Do you have any other messages between Anderson and this email address?’ Aneka asked.
The golden-skinned woman appeared between Aneka and the bed. ‘Checking…’ She was gazing off toward a corner of the ceiling as though trying to recall something and, despite her feelings about the email, Aneka grinned at the Human-like pose. Aggy looked down. ‘I have found… Why are you grinning at me, Aneka?’
‘You look so Human doing that. Do you do it to make us feel comfortable?’
‘I find Humans, and Jenlay, react better to my presence if I enact Human mannerisms where I am able to mimic them. I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable.’
‘No, I find it endearing. Thank you for taking the trouble to make us at ease. What did you find?’
‘The email address used there appears twice in Mister Anderson’s private mailbox. I have no other emails originating from it or with it as a recipient.’
‘Let me see the other one then.’ A new window opened on the console screen and Aneka turned to look. There was not much to the mail, just a date and a set of coordinates. The date was a very familiar one: May the sixteenth, twenty-eleven. ‘Aggy… Aren’t those coordinates…?’
‘The latitude and longitude given are where you were captured, within a one-kilometre radius, Aneka.’
The Winter War Page 10