Aneka Jansen 7: Hope Read online

  ‘Who are you trying to convince, Ella?’ she muttered to herself as she made her way into the silent ship. It was small, and the engines were not powerful. It was going to take her a long time to get home. On the other hand, it did mean that pretty much all the flight systems were wrapped around the cockpit where she could have easy access, and that was going to be important. She spent ten minutes locating the power feeds into the communications array, and then another twenty carefully adjusting the audio filters to distort her voice and make it sound like the comms system was flaky. Satisfied, and with the sun starting to come up, she sat down in the control chair and began powering the engines.

  ‘Light transport vessel nine-six-seven-four to Ariadne control. Requesting clearance for lift-off for engine tests.’ She waited, hoping she was not going to have to try to make a run for it, because if that was the case, she was probably fucked.

  ‘LT-nine-six-seven-four, please hold for verification.’ Ella closed her eyes, but there seemed to be very little pause before she heard, ‘LT-nine-six-seven-four, you are cleared for lunar transition and return. Please note that your comms are coming through with some distortion.’

  ‘Noted, control. I’ll put it on the list for them to look at when I get back.’

  There was no reply and Ella cut in the antigravity system and pushed off the ground on thrusters. She would do everything by the book, at least the book back home, until she got out to the local moon. Push the ship up into low orbit, do one circuit and then fire the engines for lunar transition. She was supposed to be testing the engines, so pushing the flight out a little would not be unusual. Yes, this was going to work.

  Almost entirely out of interest, she actually did run the engine performance metrics as she powered the ship out of orbit. The sublight drive was a fusion torch variant and seemed efficient enough, if a little low in power for her current preferences. There seemed to be nothing wrong with the refit. Pinnacle engineers appeared to be proficient, though she had expected nothing less, even from people working on a fairly basic transport ship. A diagnostic sequence on the warp drive indicated that it was fully operational and Ella figured the time getting out to the moon would be best served by looking through navigation data for a destination planet.

  As the ship injected into lunar orbit to swing around for the return journey, Ella clambered under the main console, located the comms system power feeds and yanked them out. She was about to get back up and fire the engines when the vessel gave a violent shudder and alarms began going off. The torch drive was offline and badly damaged from the readouts she was seeing. Something going wrong with the refit seemed unlikely given that the thing was not even running, but there was no indication of anything on sensors which might have attacked.

  Warping in such close proximity to the moon was not exactly recommended, but she figured that it was the best option she had, and she was getting the engines ready when she heard a deep clang resonate through the hull. It sounded a lot like something had just attached itself to her ship. Internal sensors told her the airlock had been opened and she considered hiding somewhere, but there was not exactly much space to do that and she would almost certainly be found anyway.

  Ella got to her feet and stepped around the flight chair. If someone came through the door, she might be able to overpower them. It just did not seem like a likely outcome.

  And then someone did walk in, and the whole situation got that much stranger.

  Hope of Sanctuary.

  Captain Anastasia Kade was a very tall, long-haired platinum blonde with very long legs and an expansive chest. She was totally different from Aneka and also quite similar, which was not what had shocked Ella. She was, apparently, the leader of a bunch of pirates who had seen an easy target and gone for it. That was not that shocking either, though she was wondering what they were doing in the middle of a Pinnacle system.

  No, the weird thing was all the anachronism. Kade’s crew were a mismatched bunch dressed in all manner of random garments and carrying weapons which belonged in previous times. They were all Human or of a Human subspecies, but that was about all you could say about them. That, and that they were pirates, for want of a better term. Clearly audacious pirates, but pirates all the same. Kade was dressed in a shirt-and-corset affair which exposed a lot of cleavage. She was in extremely tight, hip-hugging trousers and ankle-length, high-heeled boots. She carried a sword and a large handgun which looked like it fired actual explosively driven projectiles! Everything was just wrong, but strangely stereotypical.

  ‘Welcome to the Hope of Sanctuary, Miss Narrows,’ Kade said as she escorted Ella in through the airlock. ‘She’s an ex-Pinnacle vessel, but we’ve made a few modifications and now she’s used to fight them.’

  The structure was definitely Pinnacle in design, but someone had painted elaborate murals along the corridor walls. Ella was not an art expert either, but it looked to her as though whoever was responsible had talent, and the style was the same throughout so it was probably one person.

  As they rounded a corner, a woman appeared through a door and fell into step with them. She was not especially tall, and she was blue. Her skin was blue, her tail was blue, and her hair was a slightly darker blue. And she was naked aside from an array of belts which held knives and cartridges for the shotgun she had strapped across her back. Her nose was flattened but Human in shape, and she had yellow, almost golden, irises. Ella guessed that she was a Felix: a transgenic subspecies of Human with cat DNA mixed in.

  ‘Groff’s not going to make it,’ the cat-girl stated.

  ‘Shit,’ Kade growled. ‘See to it his wife gets his share from this trip.’

  ‘Of course. Who’s the redhead?’

  ‘Trin, this is Ella Narrows. Ella, this is my first mate, Trin. Ask Cubby if he’d join us in my cabin, Trin. Ella has a story she’s going to tell me and then we’ll see what we’re going to do with her.’

  ‘Sure. Lanyon says the ship’s a bust. Nothing useful.’

  ‘Except, possibly, for Miss Narrows here. Get us moving. I want us out of the system before they notice their dead transport.’

  ‘I’m on it.’ Trin turned right down a corridor and Ella was left following Kade forward, presumably to the captain’s cabin.

  The captain’s cabin was not really what Ella was expecting, but she decided that she should have expected it, given the captain. There were at least two rooms since there was an inner door, and the one they entered seemed to be a lounge, but there were no chairs, just cushions laid down in piles, all of them covered in brocade, or embroidered, or just in bright shades of purple and red.

  Kade placed her sword on a rack which seemed designed for it and then went to what looked like a real wood cabinet which had been fixed to one of the walls.

  ‘Drink?’ the pirate asked brightly, taking a bottle and two glasses out. The bottle was about half full of a dark liquid.

  ‘Uh… Actually, that would be great. I’ve had an eventful few weeks.’

  Kade handed her a glass and poured a healthy measure of the fluid into it. Her own glass got a little more. ‘Captured by the Pinnacle and a long way from home, I have no doubt. It sounds eventful.’

  ‘Yeah…’ Ella took a drink. Her eyes widened and the only thing stopping her from choking was that she had got used to the malt whiskey from Old Earth which Aneka liked. ‘What the Hell is this?!’

  Kade laughed again and gave her a slap on the shoulder. ‘Rum. We make it ourselves, but it’s an old recipe. You took it better than most do when they’ve never had it before. It’s kind of a tradition on pirate ships.’

  ‘It’s not bad. So… You’re really a pirate?’

  Shrugging, the tall blonde walked across to a pile of cushions and sprawled into it with lazy ease, and without spilling a drop of rum. She stretched out, crossing her ankles and resting her head on one arm. ‘Pirate, freedom fighter, thorn in the Pinnacle’s side… Take your pick.’

  ‘You don’t like them much I take it?’ Ella s
at down on her own pile, more upright than the captain.

  ‘You really aren’t from around here. I’m an Amazon. We’re a parthenogenic, all-female subspecies created by… Well, never mind, she was a bit of a loon, but she made us to be strong, independent, and basically pacifist. Attack us and we’d fight back, but she wanted a community of women who lived in harmony and didn’t need men.’

  ‘But… parthenogenesis? You’d all be clones of your mothers.’

  ‘Minor genetic mods to the gametes and you get variations. It was never a problem. It worked, and we had a great society. There were problems. No such thing as a perfect society, of course, so there were bound to be problems. And then the Pinnacle turned up. It was about forty years ago, they had started expanding in a pretty measured manner and no one had really noticed. They arrived, declared Arcadia to be part of the Pinnacle and the Amazons to be horrific aberrations of nature… It was a slaughter. They had superior weapons and numbers. They enslaved about ten per cent of the population and killed the rest. My mother got me out on a ship which was running the blockade. Never saw her again. I’m probably one of the last few hundred Amazon’s alive in the galaxy. So, yes, I hate the Pinnacle. What’s your story?’ Kade sank half her glass without showing any signs of it impinging on her senses.

  Ella was about to answer the question when the door opened. The man who walked in was short and a little on the plump side, balding and with a flattened nose and a wide mouth. His eyes could have been more or less any colour because they were obscured by a pair of goggles with ridiculously thick lenses in them. He was carrying a valise which looked to have been made from recycled carpet.

  ‘Ah, Cubby,’ Kade said. ‘Thanks for coming down. Get that collar off her, would you?’

  Cubby peered at Ella for a second through his thick glasses and then leered. ‘My pleasure, Captain.’ He walked over and knelt down beside Ella, opening his bag and extracting various tools. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Keep still,’ Kade suggested. ‘If he gets this wrong… Well, you’ll die in agony, but he’s very good. Kind of a genius is our Cubby.’

  ‘Have to be to keep this crate flying,’ Cubby commented.

  ‘You can talk, just keep still.’

  ‘Uh… Sorry, I totally forgot.’ Reaching up to her neck, she caught the collar as her implant sent the unlock code. ‘I figured out how to control the collar. Otherwise they’d have been able to track me as soon as they noticed I was gone.’ Cubby was looking a little disappointed. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You worked out how to control the collar?’ the little man said. ‘With what?’

  ‘Implanted radio and computer.’

  Kade frowned. ‘Perhaps you should start with who, and what, you are?’

  ‘Well, I’m a scientist. Archaeology, psychology, anthropology, palaeoanthropology, history…’

  ‘You know all that stuff? How old are you? Thirty? Sixty, maybe?’

  ‘A hundred and eight last birthday. I’m a Jenlay. I guess that’s another Human subspecies. We’re very long-lived.’

  ‘Damn, girl, I thought I was doing good and I’m not seventy yet.’

  Ella smiled. ‘You are doing pretty well as far as I can see. Anyway, we’d found a planet in Old Earth records–’

  ‘Wait… Old Earth? You’ve been to Earth?’

  ‘Yes. We stopped off there on the way to Lacora to update them on the plans for the survey. I dropped in on a friend. She’s the Ambassador to the Collective–’

  ‘The Collective?’

  ‘It’s what we call the collection of states who work with the Shadataga. This is getting really off-track. We found Lacora in some Old Earth records. A lost colony where they had discovered ancient ruins and then been wiped out by some disease. I wanted to study the place, so I got an expedition together and we went out there.’

  ‘I know that world,’ Cubby said. ‘They tried to colonise it years back and everyone died within a week.’

  ‘There’s a nanovirus endemic in the water. We have the technology to make sure it didn’t affect us, so we went in and studied it, examined the ruins, did planetary surveys. We were getting somewhere with the virus too. Then the Pinnacle came and killed everyone, except me. They said we were terrorists manufacturing a bioweapon. They told me that we had illegally entered Pinnacle-controlled space, which I’m pretty sure we didn’t.’

  ‘What they neglected to mention,’ Kade said, ‘is that your home planet is Pinnacle space if they decide it is.’

  ‘I think the AIs might have something to say about that. Anyway, they sentenced me to life in slavery, I escaped, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get home. And then I was miraculously picked up by a pirate ship. I guess I should thank you. I’m not entirely sure how much food there was on that transport.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘My pleasure too,’ Cubby put in. ‘If you want to thank me properly though…’ He was leering again.

  ‘Go and see to your engines, you lecherous old goat,’ Kade said. ‘You know, I’m sure she was pulling a little to the left when we came in to dock. Thrust vectors must be off.’

  ‘She was?! Oh! Oh, that won’t do!’ The remainder of the tools were tossed into the valise as rapidly as possible and Cubby was on his feet and heading for the door a second later.

  ‘Was she out of balance when you came in?’ Ella asked.

  ‘No, of course not! He keeps those engines purring like kittens, but he’s paranoid about it and it’s the only way to stop him trying to get into your bed.’

  Ella giggled. ‘You know, this place is all wrong. This looks like a Pinnacle ship, but I couldn’t detect you so you’ve a cloaking system. I can’t feel the engines, so I suspect you’ve got a reactionless drive in this thing and they don’t use them.’

  ‘Scavenged Xinti technology. There are various wrecks from the War scattered around systems all over the place. Cubby can get anything working if you give him a bit of time and the resources. The Hope used to be a Pinnacle battle cruiser. They mothballed it when those PLCs came online and I, uh, liberated it.’

  ‘Okay… But you’re going up against men armed with energy weapons using a sword, a gun that belongs in a museum, and no armour.’

  ‘We’re damn good,’ Kade replied, grinning. ‘But we don’t engage in open battles, it’s all aboard ships and stations. Pinnacle troops aren’t heavily trained in close-quarters battle because they refuse to accept they might be boarded. They use antimatter blaster rifles in open war, but those are too dangerous on a ship, so they’re down to stun batons and force pistols. My sword is an old design from a place called Japan, but with modern metallurgy. My gun fires armour-piercing explosive rounds. Try doing that with a Gauss pistol.’

  It made a weird kind of sense, but the place was still something of an anachronism. It was all so… retro. Especially compared to the society Ella had been living in for the past thirty years.

  ‘So, I guess you want to get home?’ Kade asked.

  ‘That would be… nice.’

  ‘Well… I can’t get you there. I know roughly where Old Earth is supposed to be, but I can’t spare the time. We’re heading back to Haven from here. There may be someone there who knows the way better and can get you there. I think that’s your best shot.’

  ‘Haven?’

  ‘Haven,’ Kade replied, nodding. ‘The last great hope for those running from the Pinnacle, or a hive of cutthroats, criminals, and nutjobs. It’s a bit like the pirate thing, yes? All about perception.’

  Ella was not sure she was exactly comforted by the statement.

  ~~~

  The cabin Ella had been allocated was fairly bare, but it had a couple of chairs and a bed, and the latter was quite comfortable compared to the planks she had been lying on for the last couple of weeks. It would do. What she was not entirely sure of was why she had a room to herself.

  Certainly there was space. The Hope was not close to a full complement of crew. There were more
people aboard than just the crew: Kade seemed to have been picking up strays, slaves, and prisoners from various places she had liberated. But they were all in what would have been the barracks for the ship’s marines. Ella fitted that class of people nicely, but she had been put in her own room.

  Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth just yet and question Kade’s motives, Ella was just about to attempt to find some food when the door opened and Trin walked in. She had lost the bandoliers, but there was still a dagger with a jewelled hilt strapped to her left thigh.

  ‘I need your measurements,’ the blue woman stated, holding up a tape measure.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘We like to get people we rescue out of those disgusting outfits as soon as possible. Captain’s policy. One free change of clothes for everyone we take off the Pinnacle.’

  ‘Uh… okay.’ Ella climbed off the bed and stood with her arms raised.

  Trin looked at her, head tilted to one side. ‘Don’t be bashful. I want to do this properly.’

  Shrugging, Ella pulled her dress over her head. Thinking about it, the walk across miles of Ariadne’s scrubland had not been fun or good for her dress, and a shower was probably going to help more than food. And she had never been bashful.

  Trin began taking measurements and then noting the figures down on a tablet, humming tunelessly as she went. It gave Ella a chance to look at the girl more closely. Trin had no fur, but there was a slight down covering some of her skin, particularly her arms, legs, stomach, and back. It was a little thicker on her tail giving that appendage a slightly darker colour. Her tail flicked around as she worked, almost as if it had a mind of its own. Ella was not exactly sure it was truly prehensile, but it was clearly flexible… No, the fact that it had settled on stroking up the back of Ella’s left thigh while Trin measured her breasts seemed to indicate that it was pretty much a prehensile tail. The downy fur was soft and tickled a little as it found Ella’s behind.