‘All right. We’ll talk to Gwy about it in the morning.’
‘No we won’t.’
‘No?’
‘Oh no,’ Ella replied, ‘not if you’re going to punish me properly. I expect to sleep in.’
2.2.560 FSC.
‘I think it sounds like a very interesting idea,’ Gwy said. Her image was being projected into the apartment’s lounge using holographic emitters around the room. All the apartments had them now and the only reason Aneka had never had them installed aboard Gwy was that they were not really needed most of the time. ‘Aggy will discuss it with Captain Drake.’
‘I don’t understand why Aggy needs to–’ Ella began.
‘Because I do not have the laboratory facilities you may need. I will make an exceptionally serviceable shuttle and allow the use of more survey probes since fewer transports will be required. And she would like to go.’
Ella frowned. ‘I can’t take Aggy on a silly little field trip like this.’
‘I suggest,’ Gwy said mysteriously, ‘that you discuss that with Captain Drake.’
~~~
‘Aggy’s been a bit… unsettled for a while,’ Drake said as he poured out glasses of shinishee.
‘She’s bored,’ Shannon supplied.
‘It’s not like we get to do much survey and scientific work ourselves,’ Drake went on. ‘She’s almost a glorified transport. The analysis work we did on that cluster fuck on Lacora was the most science she’s been asked to perform in… well, a while, and even then it was mostly data collection so that the main work could be done here.’
‘But she’s your ship!’ Ella protested.
‘Huh, when I get to fly her. Which is once in a month if I’m lucky. I’d consider going with you, but I’ve just committed to some work out in Torem space. So that’s another reason for Aggy to sit in the dock bored. No, you’re both excellent pilots, and Aggy is quite capable of running the ship herself. Gopi, she took the qualifying exams to be a ship’s master a couple of years ago and I know she keeps up on the regulations. Even if you would be outside of controlled space anyway, you’d be entirely legal as far as operations are concerned.’
‘We can’t take a huge ship like Aggy out for just us and Gwy.’
‘I don’t see why not, but if it bothers you, get a team together.’
‘Abby was saying she could do with a break,’ Shannon said. ‘I was talking to her last week and she’s getting tired of all the diplomatic crap she has to put up with. Some of those worlds you’re talking about could have people on them. You’ll need a diplomat.’
Aneka shook her head, grinning. ‘All right, we’ll talk to Abby.’
~~~
‘Oh yes please,’ Abby said as she poured coffee. She was just out of bed and dressed in a light, silky robe. When Aneka and Ella had arrived, she had greeted them warmly and then shoed a rather well-endowed young Jenlay Aneka recognised from the student roster out of her bedroom.
Abigail Linden was fifty now, not that you could tell. The surface Humans of Old Earth did not have the genetic longevity of their city-dwelling cousins, but medical science did not really require it to keep you looking young. She had aged a little, but she was still the fresh-faced girl they had met in Matlock where she had tended the guest cottages. Her attitude had changed more than her looks. She was a far more cosmopolitan woman now; she had been married to a Jenlay for fifteen years before they had separated by mutual consent, and since then she had had a string of lovers, both male and female. Far from the timid maid she had been, Abby was now a confident, strong woman and an exceptionally good ambassador.
‘If I have to listen to one more Herosian explain that a contract for peanuts is vital to the economic viability of his entire region,’ she went on, ‘there is going to be a major diplomatic incident involving the rectal insertion of a tent pole.’
‘Well, we’ve all felt like that about Herosians,’ Aneka said, ‘but peanuts? They’re carnivores.’
‘Apparently “carnivore” is a matter of degree and most need some supplemental vegetable matter. Herosians found out about peanuts, which are apparently perfect for them and they love the taste. Satay sauce is apparently the new taste sensation to garnish your meat with.’
‘Huh. I like satay. It’s hard to believe I have that in common with the Herosians, but you’d be interested in coming with us?’
‘Hell yes! Conrad has been almost begging for more responsibility, and he’s a good diplomat. He’ll need some assistance, but I have my staff well trained. It’ll take a month or so to get things organised though.’
‘Oh, I think we all have a few arrangements to make before we can go,’ Ella said.
‘Yeah,’ Aneka put in, ‘Cassandra is going to talk to Abraham later. She needs to persuade him that he can live without her for that long. That could easily take a couple of months.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Ella said, ‘Cassandra will want to come. This is turning into an expedition.’
3.2.560 FSC.
‘I have a shortlist of seventeen who would like the chance to go,’ Gillian said. ‘I think you should consider all of them carefully, though it’s obviously up to you how many you take.’
‘You know,’ Ella said, sounding a little sullen, ‘this started out as me and Aneka, and Gwy, and Cassandra would probably want to go, and that was going to be it.’
‘There is plenty of room on the Amethyst Hyde. You’ll be able to fuck each other’s brains out in solitude and have a proper team when it gets to the working parts. If you get somewhere and find something really interesting, you know you won’t want to leave the job half-finished.’
‘Well… yes…’
‘So you go over the profiles and make sure no one is going to irritate you. These are good people with little field experience. You’ll be doing the University a service and getting your break.’
‘We’re going to need a couple of good facilitators with a team that size,’ Aneka commented. ‘Especially an inexperienced team. I’ll go over my lists and find some.’ She looked over at Ella who was sagging a little. ‘Two will be enough. So that limits your team size to fourteen given the cabins available on Aggy.’
‘Okay,’ Ella said. ‘I’ll go over the profiles and see who we have.’
18.2.560 FSC.
‘How long ago did they arrive?’ Aneka asked, watching the display hanging over the operations room’s central table.
‘Thirty-two minutes,’ War said. ‘Three of the dreadnoughts and fifteen cruisers.’
‘Wow,’ Kade said, watching the dots representing the Pinnacle fleet as they swarmed through the Haven system, concentrating on Pirate Cove. ‘They really didn’t like losing those ships.’
‘Their first act was to destroy the weapons systems on Pirate Cove. They have been systematically relieving the system of all defences and then boarding the asteroid stations since then.’
‘This is real time?’
‘It is,’ Winter said. ‘We have a probe in the system and we’ve been running a comms wormhole out to it for ten days. Frankly, I’m glad they’ve finally arrived because watching for them was getting tedious.’
‘Have you fired it?’ Aneka asked, looking at the tall form of War.
‘Eight minutes ago.’
‘Fired what?’ Kade asked, looking between them.
Aneka smiled. ‘Let’s just say that in just over two minutes, those guys are going to have a really bad day. And I hope you didn’t leave anything back there that you wish you’d brought with you.’
DN-004, Haven System.
‘The place is empty?’ Colonel Drovari sounded as though he could not really believe what his assault teams were telling him.
‘There’s no one here, Colonel,’ said the voice on the other end of the comms channel. ‘They seem to have all left. Every last one of them. There are ships in the bays, small craft, an old freighter, but there are no people here of any kind.’
‘You checked for the operative?’
/> ‘Yes, sir. She was either spaced or taken with them.’
Drovari gave a grunt and cut the channel off. Where could the entire population of Haven have got to? The message they had received had been short and unclear, but it had indicated that Kade was alive and knew what was going on. Cruisers had been dispatched and they had vanished…
‘Sir?’ It was the sensor operator. ‘I’m getting some… unusual readings.’
‘Quantify that statement, Ensign.’
‘There was a brief gravimetric distortion. Now the gamma radiation level on the hull is increasing.’ A shudder ran through the ship and he added, ‘Further gravitational effects, sir.’
‘Give me a view of the outside. Pan across the stations. Something has to be attacking us.’
‘Gamma radiation continuing to increase. Visible spectrum levels increasing.’
The view screen taking up one wall showed black space with a few tiny dots in it which were asteroids. As it panned around, however, the background light increased and filters cut in to dim the glare.
‘Oh my God,’ Drovari breathed as Pirate Cove came into view, a black shape in sharp relief compared to the star behind it which was now glowing at several times the brightness it had a moment ago. ‘Get us out of here!’
The light from the star just continued to grow.
Shadataga.
‘And there goes the probe,’ Winter sighed.
‘I don’t get it,’ Kade said. ‘What did you do?’
‘Can I do this one?’ Aneka asked. ‘I actually understood this.’
‘Be my guest,’ War replied, smiling.
‘Okay. So the wormholes we use for transport are held stable by something called a string. It’s a special kind of… cosmic particle that crosses dimensions. It has no thickness, just a length, and it’s very massive.’
‘With you so far,’ Kade told her.
‘Great. Obviously, there’s a fair amount of gravitation associated with one of those. That’s why we need the shielding on the transports. Wormholes are traversable without it, but your ship might come out the other end in bits.’ She took a deep breath. ‘One way you get a supernova is if a star becomes so massive that it can’t hold its own weight up against the force of gravity. The star collapses and then explodes. And if you drop the terminus of a wormhole into the centre of a star…’
Kade was whiter than usual. ‘You can collapse the core and the star goes supernova.’
‘Technically not,’ War said. ‘There is insufficient mass to produce a true supernova, but the localised effect is sufficiently similar that we don’t exactly worry about it. Or I don’t. Try not to suggest that it is around Reality. Anyway, the result is a tremendous burst of electromagnetic radiation and following that… Well, if those ships have survived the gamma burst and the thermal effect, in a little over ninety minutes they will be hit by a large amount of the star’s outer layers travelling at about ten per cent of the speed of light.’
‘You people really can blow up stars.’
‘Yes, so try not to get on their bad side,’ Aneka suggested.
~~~
‘So, we sent our message,’ Ella said as she lay in bed beside Aneka. ‘Which was basically “We’re bigger and meaner than you, back off.” What do you think they’ll do?’
‘Well, I hope they’ll back off.’
‘But you don’t think they will?’
‘I’m not sure their pride will let them back down so easily.’ Aneka gave a little shrug, careful not to displace Ella’s head. ‘They may be more practical than I think.’
‘No… I think you’re right. They’ll at least put up a show of defiance. I wonder what it’ll be.’
20.2.560 FSC.
‘We have received a message via our contacts on Oberian,’ Speaker said to the people assembled in the room. ‘I would welcome your opinion.’
‘From?’ Aneka asked.
‘Jaden Howell Lucifent, the fourth. He’s the current Pinnacle Commander, which is their head of state. I believe, Aneka, that you would refer to him as a dictator.’
‘Not winning me over so far.’
‘Well… “It is the wish of the Advisory Council of the Pinnacle Sovereignty that a diplomatic discourse be reached with the entity known as the Collective. In furtherance of this goal, we request a preliminary meeting between leaders of our respective nations to take place in the Oberian system, which is neutral ground.” It goes on to mention an old mining station in the asteroid belt which has sufficient space around it to preclude sneak attacks and sufficient privacy to avoid entanglements with the Oberian governments. Comments?’
‘I hate diplomatic-speak,’ Abby said.
‘You’re a diplomat,’ Ella pointed out.
‘That’s why I hate it, and that was really flowery diplomatic for “We don’t want to admit we’re fucked, please talk to us.”’
‘Yes,’ Aneka agreed, ‘but… Have they set a date for the meeting?’
‘The twentieth of next month, or their equivalent,’ Speaker told her. ‘Thirty days from now.’
‘Just about doable on a fast ship. They’re expecting to see our head of state, or a high-ranking politician. “Leaders of our respective nations.”’
‘No one sends their head of state to something like that,’ Abby stated. ‘An ambassador of some sort, maybe a politician.’
‘Yes, but that’s what they’re asking for.’
Ella sighed. ‘It’s a trap, isn’t it? We sent them a message, killed some of their troops, and they want to send Speaker home in a body bag.’
‘Me?’ Speaker said.
‘Well, you’re the closest thing we have to a head of state, and you do look the part. You know, well dressed, distinguished, kind of sexy for an older guy…’
Speaker coughed. ‘Point made, Miss Narrows. Thank you. Have we any suggestions as to the proceedings from here?’
‘We give them what they want,’ Aneka said, ‘more or less.’
Mining Station 23, Oberian System, 20.3.560 FSC.
Harolt Perinot walked into the mess hall of the mining station with a quiet confidence. The Collective contingent had not arrived, everything had been prepared beforehand, and there were four-armed Pinnacle soldiers behind him to make sure everything went off without a hitch.
He sat down at the only table in the room and waited. They had stripped out all the other tables, which gave it more of a conference room look but also cleared any fields of fire. Now it was just a matter of time. His instructions indicated that the Collective representatives would turn up, but if they did not, well, it was an indication that these people were in need of a proper education of what it was to mess with the Pinnacle.
‘Warp exit detected, sir.’ The voice in his ear came from the comms officer of the cruiser he had arrived on. ‘Single location. Small craft, no more than one hundred tonnes. It’s got some good engines though. Expect their arrival in three minutes.’
Perinot tapped his earpiece. ‘Understood. Stand by. We don’t believe they’ll try anything violent, but you never can tell with these inferiors.’ He closed the connection. ‘You heard him. Three minutes. Stand ready.’
Behind him there was the sound of men checking magazines. They were using old-fashioned caseless projectile weapons with expanding-head rounds. They were quite lethal to unarmoured targets, but there was no risk of them punching through the relatively thin hull of the station. Of course, that was all purely for self-defence.
At three minutes, forty seconds, the door at the other side of the hall opened and Perinot did a double-take. A tall, strongly built but stunning woman with short, white hair walked through the door and paused, examining the room. She was wearing knee-high boots, lightly armoured, a short jacket, and a black unitard which was translucent enough that he could see the shadows of her breasts through it. She seemed to be unarmed, though there could have been a weapon in her jacket.
Apparently satisfied, she stepped forward and then to the side, leaning against
a wall and crossing her arms. A far shorter, older man walked through after her. He was aging, very distinguished with white, receding hair and a hooked nose. He wore an old-style, classic double-breasted suit, all white, and he walked with a cane which he did not seem to need. An affectation then.
‘Good afternoon,’ the man in white said, ‘I am True Congress of the Mind Comes Through Understanding, but you may call me Speaker. I represent the Collective, but I am the joint Dean of the University at Shadataga.’
‘Colonel Harolt Perinot of the Pinnacle Military,’ Perinot replied. He did not get up or offer a hand, but he said, ‘Please, take a seat. We have much to discuss.’
‘We do?’ Speaker asked, taking the seat opposite the colonel. ‘Then I would be interested to know why I am speaking to a colonel. The message we received from your commander stated that “leaders of our nations” should meet.’
‘Quite. I represent–’
‘The Pinnacle has a highly structured social order based largely upon military rank. You are quite highly ranked, Colonel, but hardly sufficiently high up the chain to represent the Pinnacle. Are you attempting to waste my time, Colonel Perinot?’
‘No. We wish to send a clear message to your Collective and I have been chosen to deliver it.’ There were three loud bangs and Speaker slumped forward in his seat, head banging on the table as he fell. Perinot pulled the pistol he was holding from under the table and aimed it at the woman. There was the clatter of arms being shouldered behind him as the four guards made their carbines ready. ‘You will be delivering that message, along with this… corpse.’ He frowned. Why was the woman looking so calm?
‘I’m Aneka,’ Aneka said, uncrossing her arms and pushing away from the wall. ‘Aneka Jansen. Best to remember the names of those you’re threatening.’
‘Well, Jansen, I suggest–’
‘Why did you do that? Are you actually trying to start a war?’
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