Children of Zanar 1: The Zanari Inheritance Read online

  ‘I know, Jin,’ Thea said over the speakers, ‘but how hard are they going to be looking for us? I mean, are we talking Barjinkin or Tordirial?’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as Tordirial,’ Jinny replied, skipping into the lounge. ‘Come on, Thea, there are still buildings standing out there.’

  ‘Right, so how close to Barjinkin are we talking?’

  ‘Um…’ Jinny paused, her lips pursed in what appeared to be deep thought. ‘Most of the fun was in the getting chased part. I don’t think I really killed many of them at all.’

  A lump bounced up into Kaya’s throat and had to be swallowed down hard. Who were these people?

  ‘Well,’ Thea said, ‘they haven’t locked the ship down so they mustn’t have linked you to here. Hang onto your shorts, we’re going for a ride.’

  Jinny giggled and began stripping out of her bodysuit where she was as the Sword lifted into the air, rising slowly until it was above minimum flight clearance. Jay’s eyes widened, apparently in interest more than surprise, but Jinny was wearing a candy-striped bikini bra under her suit, and she stopped with it draped around her waist before dropping into one of the other seats.

  ‘Hang on, kids,’ Jinny said, giggling, and the ship began to lift its nose until it was pointed upward, more or less, and that was when the main engines engaged. There was a shudder of vibration as the acceleration built rapidly from normal to six times normal, pressing them back into their seats and holding them there. During the old expansion phase before the Solar Empire, humans had altered their genome to handle zero-G and make themselves more generally tolerant to variations from the world they had been born on, but there were limits, and humans were just not designed to function under six gravities.

  Kaya felt like her face was being pulled around to the back of her skull. She was sure that someone was sitting on her chest, and not for any good reason either. This was just to make her feel like breathing was a chore. Talking was right out.

  ‘Woooohooooo!’ Jinny shrieked. ‘What a ride!’

  And Kaya gritted her teeth and wondered exactly what kind of crazy people she was flying with.

  Sword of Zanar, Abertine System.

  Thea walked into the lounge in the slightly stuttering manner of someone making sure their feet fell in just the right places to avoid falling over. They were down to four gravities along the longitudinal axis which, with the pressor fields providing balance, was about low enough to move in, but it was not exactly fun.

  Kaya was looking less than comfortable, still in her seat and, from the looks of it, concentrating on her breathing. She looked up as Thea walked in, nodding to her, but not saying anything.

  ‘That was awesome,’ Jinny said, pushing herself up off the sofa. ‘I do love it when you go to ten right out the gate, but that was pretty awesome anyway.’

  ‘I don’t think our guests would’ve liked me pulling ten gravities,’ Thea replied. She walked over to the couch Kaya and Jay were sitting on. Jay was looking a little grey, but he was obviously more used to the acceleration than Kaya was. At a guess, he had done more spaceflight; she was from a world with heavier natural gravity. Thea made a note to look up Sadrine’s Drift in the navigation database soon. ‘We can put you both under until we get to the limit,’ she suggested.

  ‘Would that help?’ Kaya asked, her voice faltering and breathy.

  ‘You’ll be on a respirator and we’ll hook you up to monitors. There are some drugs we can give you to help.’

  ‘And,’ Jinny put in, ‘it’s probably going to be pretty boring getting out there anyway.’ She sighed. ‘Why can’t they put more habitable planets outside the limit? It’d be much easier. None of this tedious plodding around in normal space. Huh. Boring space, more like.’

  ‘It’s this thing called physics,’ Thea told her. ‘You know, stellar luminosity, black body temperatures, albedo, atmospheric composition…’

  ‘I hate physics.’

  ‘Without physics, you wouldn’t be able to blow stuff up.’

  ‘I love physics! I’m gonna find something to eat. Shooting things always makes me hungry.’ And Jinny set off toward the galley without further comment.

  ‘Okay,’ Thea said, frowning, ‘I’ll play stewardess. You want to sleep for the next day or so?’

  ‘No,’ Jay said. ‘I’ll lie down, if the bed’s on a gimbal.’

  Thea shook her head. ‘The rooms are fitted with gravity beds. The field is a little… softer than the compensation field in the rest of the ship, but it won’t feel much different to sitting down.’

  ‘Then I’ll sit.’

  He did not trust them, that was apparent. Thea shrugged. ‘Your choice. Sora Trevorny?’

  ‘Put me out,’ Kaya said, struggling up onto her feet to go wherever Thea needed her. ‘But, um, how did you know my family name? We didn’t mention it.’

  Thea shrugged. ‘No, you didn’t. Aloud. But I’m a telepath and you were a little irritated that Jay gave his full name and not yours.’ Thea’s gaze flicked to Jay. ‘Can’t say I blame you, sora. It’s demeaning. Come, we’ll get you plugged in.’

  Jay opened his mouth to say something, but they were already moving away. He frowned at Thea’s retreating back instead.

  Kaya waited until they were in one of the cabins, which was more like a suite actually, before she spoke again. ‘Uh, you’re a telepath?’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ Thea replied as she retrieved a box from one of the cupboards. ‘I’m going to need you naked, sora.’

  ‘You can call me Kaya.’ Kaya managed a half-wheezing giggle. ‘Especially if I have to take my clothes off in front of you.’ Thea smiled at her and waited, so Kaya began to strip. ‘Uh, I was on Abertine to learn to use my biokinesis.’

  ‘Interesting. You’re just a biokinetic?’

  ‘Uh, as far as I know.’

  ‘Hmm. Have you ever used a gravity bed before?’

  Kaya looked around, not sure exactly what she was looking for. ‘Uh, just the regular kind of bed.’ She was down to her bra and panties, and her cheeks were already a little red, which she was definitely blaming on the acceleration, and her back hurt. ‘I feel like I got kicked in the back when we were getting out of that bar.’

  Thea made a turning motion with her finger and Kaya dutifully turned, a disorienting experience as the angle of acceleration shifted. ‘You took a hit,’ Thea stated.

  ‘I got shot?!’

  ‘It’s just a bruise. I was protecting you and your jacket took most of the rest of the force out of it. This way,’ Thea said before Kaya could respond and they walked through a doorway into what could have been a bedroom were it not for the lack of anything resembling a bed. Well, there were four posts arranged in the rough dimensions of one, but there was no actual mattress. Thea knelt down beside one of the posts and plugged a thick cable from the box she was carrying in near the base. ‘Just step into the space between the posts and take your underwear off. There are a couple of things to be… attached.’

  Naked, Kaya stepped in between the posts. Thea did something and Kaya found herself floating. ‘Oh!’ Her orientation was unchanged, the field lifting her keeping her facing into the direction of acceleration, but now she was floating and it was kind of relaxing.

  That lasted until Thea started connecting her up to the box. There was a band which went around her left bicep and then there was a slight feeling of cold there, then a sensation of pressure, and Kaya began to feel drowsy almost immediately.

  ‘Don’t fight it,’ Thea told her. ‘Just let it take you under. I’ll put the catheter in and put you on the respirator when you’re out. Jinny will get you up before we transit into hyperspace. That bruise will probably be gone by then. You’ll be fine.’

  ‘O-okay,’ Kaya managed, her eyes starting to close. ‘I feel… feel better… all…’

  Thea smiled. Cute kid. Thea kind of hoped her family were still alive and being held captive or something. It just seemed amazingly unlikely.

  ~~
~

  ‘So, are you a telepath too?’ Jay asked, walking up carefully behind Jinny.

  The impish girl turned and grinned. ‘Not really.’ I can send. The words entered Jay’s mind without her lips moving and then she was speaking aloud again. ‘But that’s not my main talent. Thea’s good at it, and Sienna… Oh, she’s the best. You’ll meet her later. Tomorrow, probably.’

  Jay frowned. ‘There are more of you on the ship?’

  ‘On the Sword? No, but we’ll be rendezvousing with the Oracle before we go on to Sadrine’s Drift.’

  ‘Uh, right. I’d only ever heard about Thea. I mean, not by name, but reputation. I’d heard she was in town. Didn’t know she was a telepath.’

  ‘Not something she brags about,’ Jinny replied. ‘Anyway, telepathy isn’t exactly her speciality. It’s just a tool.’

  ‘Right. So what is her speciality? Smuggling?’

  Jinny’s grin brightened. ‘We just do that to make money. What she’s really good at is killing people. And stopping people getting dead. And keeping the rest of us in line. I mean, you have no idea the trouble I can get into when I’m on my own.’

  Questions buzzed in Jay’s head, but he figured he should avoid making his chat sound like an interrogation. A few questions probably would not sound too bad though. ‘Yeah, Thea said something about Tordirial. I’ve never heard of the place.’

  ‘You probably wouldn’t have,’ Jinny replied absently. ‘They pretty much had to shut the place down what with the radiation hazards and chemical contamination.’

  ‘You nuked the place?!’

  Jinny dismissed that with a wave of her hand. ‘No, course not. Someone used a mini-nuke to try to nail me.’

  ‘We do not talk about Tordirial,’ Thea announced as she walked out of Kaya’s room. Her tone suggested that this was far from the first time she had given the reminder.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Jinny agreed. ‘We don’t talk about Tordirial.’

  ‘Good.’ Thea kept walking, right past them. ‘I’ll be on the flight deck. I want to be sure no one’s chasing us. Jinny will show you your room when you want to sleep, Sor Colder.’

  ‘Sure,’ Jay replied. ‘That’ll be great.’ He looked at Jinny, who was finishing off a sandwich she had assembled. ‘Could I get one of those? I haven’t eaten since last night.’

  ‘Course you can,’ Jinny replied. ‘Help yourself. We restocked the galley a few days ago. You should aim to have a good breakfast, you know. I know we can all survive on two meals a day, but breakfast is important and far too many people skip it.’

  Jay began to search through the various storage units for something which took his fancy. ‘Did you have a good breakfast this morning?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Jinny replied, starting to walk away. ‘His name was Shunsi.’

  50/1/483.

  The flight deck’s main hatch slid open and Jay walked through it. Thea did not even look around. ‘Good morning, Sor Colder. I note that you finally decided we weren’t going to murder you while you slept.’

  Jay stepped forward and then sat down in the second of the two acceleration couches which occupied the centre of the room. The flight deck was located right in the core of the Sword’s forward section and there were no windows. However, the curved forward wall was entirely taken up by display panels which gave a good view of more or less anything the pilot might wish to look at and supplied various data displays, mostly to do with engine management. Each chair was fitted with a number of translucent displays on gooseneck stands as well, though the ones around Jay were blank currently.

  ‘Yeah, well… I’m not accustomed to the company of telepaths,’ Jay said.

  Thea glanced at him, a thin smile on her face. ‘Hiding guilty secrets?’ She went on before he could respond. ‘I don’t do deep scans on people, Sor Colder. It’s impolite. I only scanned Kaya’s surface thoughts because she… is an interesting girl. Truthfully, I wished to be sure you were not attempting to smuggle her off the planet.’

  ‘Huh. Jinny said you were good at stopping people getting hurt. Unless you want them hurt.’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘How close are we to the limit?’

  ‘Just over an hour.’ The ship had been decelerating for hours now, though the only way you could tell was the brief period in the middle where the direction of thrust had switched over and the sofas in the main lounge had all turned around to face aft. ‘I’ll begin checking the entry plot data shortly, but we have a course already laid out once we’ve translated.’

  ‘We’re meeting up with another ship, is that right?’

  Thea nodded. ‘That’s right. Call it our mothership. She’s got bigger engines than the Sword and she’s got the best hyperspace navigator there is aboard her. She’ll get us to Sadrine’s Drift way faster than the Sword can.’

  ‘So where is this other ship?’

  ‘About three and a half light years out from Abertine.’

  Jay frowned. ‘Just sitting in deep space? How are we going to find a ship in deep space?’

  Thea smiled. ‘She’s not in deep space. You’ll see when we get there. Or you won’t. Trust me, Sor Colder.’

  ‘You should probably call me Jay. I don’t even know what your family name is to address you properly.’ Thea was obviously not going to give him more on their destination, so changing the subject seemed like a good idea.

  ‘I gave it up a long time ago. I’m just Thea. What do you know about Sadrine’s Drift?’

  ‘Just what I saw on the news channels. It’s a fairly new colony, less than a century. Largely agricultural, possibly some worthwhile mineral resources worth exploiting. They declared a colony event on, uh, the forty-forth after a Security ship discovered everyone was dead. It was interdicted while they checked it out properly. That last was what Kaya was told. As far as everyone else is concerned, it’s an undisclosed event and traffic to the system is banned. You think you can get us in past their satellites?’

  ‘Of course. Automated systems like that are easy. We’ll–’ Thea cut herself off as something chimed and she looked at one of her displays, frowning.

  ‘Something up?’ Jay asked after a few seconds of silence.

  ‘Yes. It appears that BCU Security are rather more keen to make our reacquaintance than we might have thought. We have two pursuers.’

  ‘And they’re catching us up? Ah, shit, they’ll be automatics.’

  ‘Indeed. Still accelerating at eight gravities.’ She paused and then added, ‘I doubt they’ve detected us yet, but they’re on the right course… It’s tight, but we should be able to jump before they overhaul us.’ Thea tapped at another of her panels. ‘Jinny, I want you to start getting Kaya back on her feet. We’ve got company and I don’t want her asleep if I have to evade an attack.’

  ‘Cool!’ Jinny’s voice came back over the cabin speakers. ‘I’ll go man the turret controls when I’m done. Maybe I can get to shoot something before we leave the system.’

  Thea sighed and Jay looked across at her. ‘Is she really always so keen to shoot things?’

  ‘You have no idea.’

  ~~~

  Kaya blinked and shook her head as a mild stimulant woke her from sleep. She was still floating, still naked, and she could still feel the same forces pressing on her body, but Jinny was grinning at her rather than Thea. The heated suit was gone now and Jinny was decked out in denim shorts, the same bikini bra, and a pair of boots which were mismatched: one was black, the other had a green camouflage pattern. The outfit was eclectic enough to fit Jinny’s quirky personality.

  ‘Morning, sleepy head,’ Jinny said, eternally perky it seemed.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ Kaya managed, reaching up to rub at her eyes and finding herself still tethered to the ‘bed’ by the collar around her arm.

  ‘About forty-five minutes inside the limit,’ Jinny replied, reaching up to detach the arm cuff. ‘We’d have let you sleep a bit longer, but there are a couple of AACs chasing us and Thea wants you awake
in case we need to take evasive action.’

  ‘Uh, AACs?’

  ‘Automated attack craft. They’re basically a hundred tonnes of missile with a bigger brain and a hundred-megajoule laser mounted down their spine. All engine and firepower.’

  ‘And they’re chasing us?’

  Jinny nodded and her grin got wider. ‘Uh-huh. Once I’ve got you in a seat and ready to handle a bit of ducking and diving, I’m going to the fire control position. We think they might catch us before we can translate and there’s nothing more likely to dissuade something from killing us than killing them first.’

  ‘Uh… Right, well, I guess I’d better get some clothes on then,’ Kaya said. ‘If you can get me down from this thing.’

  Jinny giggled and tapped on a panel on the bedpost, and Kaya began to float downward. ‘You looked kind of cute floating there with nothing on. You got something to wear besides all that cold-weather gear?’

  ‘I have something,’ Kaya replied. ‘I didn’t bring much with me from home, but I’ve got something.’

  ‘Great!’ Jinny said, turning on her heel. ‘I’ll go get the gun batteries ready.’

  ~~~

  ‘They haven’t detected us yet?’ Jay asked as the two pursuit ships got closer on the rear sensors.

  ‘We have a very low thermal signature and very good stealth characteristics,’ Thea replied. She tapped a key. ‘Coming into firing range, Jin, but they haven’t spotted us yet. Hold fire until they do. At this rate, they’ll have gone straight past us before they can get a firing solution.’

  ‘Do you just sit there coming up with ways to spoil my fun?’ Jinny’s voice replied from the speakers.

  ‘Yes. Everyone has to have a hobby.’ It sounded, to Jay, like two people reading a script, as though the two women had been performing the same comedy act for years. ‘Wait… Port side one is cutting power and realigning. Actioning ECM. Fire at will.’

  ‘About time,’ Jinny snapped back.

  On one of the main screens, a window opened up showing an image of the attacking craft as it struggled to realign itself to bring its huge spinal weapon around to fire. Heat blooms began to blossom across its hull, flaring out as the invisible beams Jinny was firing cut into the vessel’s skin and began to tear apart its insides. The AAC’s rotation stopped and it began to twist as attitude control went and then there was the moment when something inside it exploded, tearing the upper-aft hull apart. After that, it was a matter of watching the slow disintegration.