Aneka Jansen 7: Hope (12 page)

‘Actually… I’d kind of like to know that too. Did you put him up to this? Or was it his idea and you just watched until it was over?’ Stalking over to the wall, Ella grabbed her boots and then headed for the door. ‘You can put me on half-rations if you want, Kade, but I’m
not
a member of your crew yet, and this is
not
a great way to get me to join up.’

‘Narrows!’ Kade’s roar followed Ella from the room, but the door cut off anything else she might have said.

~~~

It was late when Ella’s cabin door opened and the captain walked in. Ella had begun to hate the fact that all the door locks seemed to have been disabled on the ship.

‘So,’ Ella said before Kade could speak, ‘am I starving or what?’

‘If this were a military vessel you would be. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate the break in discipline. But this is a pirate ship and you’re not even a member of the crew, as you rightly pointed out. I trust my crew to tell me when I’m doing something stupid. Most of them are too awed by the image of Anastasia Kade to do it, but Trin will, and Cubby’s been with me long enough to know when to step in.’

‘And neither did when you came up with this bright idea? You should put
them
on half-rations.’

‘Huh. I needed to know you could handle yourself in–’

‘Then you should have asked. I’d have fought someone in a controlled situation. I could have killed him! How is he?’

‘He’ll be fine once Melisan’s taken care of him. You want her to take a look at that bruise on your chin?’

‘It’s fine. Skin-deep. It’ll be gone in a day. Look, the woman I’m trying to get back to, Aneka, she was the one we found frozen on a Xinti wreck. She was born on Old Earth over a thousand years ago. She was a soldier and when she came here she became a… Well, she works on security and logistics for our digs, and then she gets sent on dangerous missions and sometimes I go with her.
She
taught me to fight, and she made sure I’d be damn good at it, and she made sure I knew that if someone’s trying to kill you, you try to kill them right back.’

‘It’s a good philosophy.’

‘You’re kind of like her, tall and blonde, big boobs, all combat-ready. Except that she’s not a manipulative, underhanded control-freak, and she knows not to play fucking mind games with a psychologist!’

Kade looked at her, her face unreadable. ‘Do you prefer beam weapons or projectile?’

‘What?’

‘Get Lanyon to show you the armoury tomorrow. Pick something you like out. Even if you don’t decide to join us, Haven isn’t a place to walk around unarmed. Call it a gift.’ She turned back towards the door. ‘And if you do decide to join us, the position is still open. You may not be sure about me, but I’m
definitely
sure about you.’

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The armoury was just a section of the hold where they kept their store of weapons. It was pressurised at least, and the nukes, Ella was happy to hear, had been put in the unpressurised section forward of it. This part had originally been there to store spare missiles and munitions for the ship’s marine contingent and it ran to a couple of thousand tonnes of space. It was far from full.

‘We’ve got all sorts in here,’ Lanyon told her as he showed her around. ‘Now me, I prefer something with a bit of weight and automatic fire.’ He patted a bulky, archaic-looking weapon with one of his lower hands. ‘This baby puts out nine hundred rounds a minute of seven-millimetre caseless, but I expect you’d want something smaller.’

‘Just a little. And I’m trained on beam weapons.’

‘Well then… Uh, we’ve got lasers. Infrared, blue-green, polychromatic, ultraviolet… Those have crap range in an atmosphere, but we’re usually firing at short range. Uh…’

‘X-ray and gamma? Those don’t work well in an atmosphere either, but you seem to have everything.’

‘Got one graser and a bunch of X-ray ones. Use them in boarding actions if we have to EVA. Particle beams? Even got a couple of antimatter ones, but we don’t like using them. Tend to blow holes in hulls. And there’s this…’ He picked up a rather stylish-looking pistol with a large, ovoid port at the front. ‘Pinnacle use them for shipboard actions. Fires a presser pulse.’

‘A force pistol? Perfect! I’m used to a rifle version, but the pistol should work.’

Lanyon raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve used one of these before?’

‘Standard issue weaponry to the Guardians on Old Earth, and me when in close quarters. I use an antimatter blaster when there’s some range available. Like you said, they tend to blow things up.’ She picked up the weapon, peering at it. ‘Used right, you don’t even have to kill your target with one of these, but the rifles will punch a man through a wall.’

Lanyon let out a little whimper. ‘Will you marry me?’

Ella giggled. ‘I’m already married. Not that we call it marriage, but it’s the same thing, more or less. That’s assuming she’ll… Well, anyway, sorry, already taken.’

‘All the best ones are,’ he grumbled. ‘Or they’re the captain. Or a cat.’

~~~

‘He said that?’ Trin was sitting beside Ella to eat her lunch. Trin’s tail had decided to curl around Ella’s waist, which she was not complaining about so long as it did not tickle. ‘What’s
wrong
with being part cat?’

‘I don’t think that’s what he meant, exactly,’ Ella replied, grinning. ‘You did say you were flighty, and on the plus side he rates you as one of the best ones.’

‘You have a point. I won’t accidentally murder him next time we have sword practice.’

‘How do you “accidentally” murder someone?’

‘Oops! My knife slipped.’

‘Ah. And Kade would let you get away with that?’

‘No, she’d skin me, but it’d be worth it. Never let a prejudice stand. I was born on a Human world. Me and my mother were treated like shit. Dad died not long after I was born and Mom did everything she could to keep us going.
Everything
.’

‘Moms can be like that. The good ones.’

‘I learned to stand up proud, push back when I was pushed. I learned that prejudice is about fear, and I made the bullies fear me.’

‘I was a bit of a doormat until I met Aneka. She taught me to fight. I mean, I always had ideals I thought I would stand up for, but she… Well, my job and Aneka anyway. You can’t run a department and be a pushover. I had to learn to keep my emotions off my face and get callous about things when I needed to.’

‘This Aneka sounds like a strong woman.’

‘You have no idea.’

‘Mind you, I saw how you took Alderney down. Impressive. And when I say it was impressive, I’m impressed. Could you have killed him?’

Ella forked pasta into her mouth and chewed, delaying the answer. ‘He wouldn’t have been the first.’

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Ella walked onto the bridge of the Hope and Kade turned in her seat to look back at her. The captain’s eyebrows raised a little, asking an unspoken question.

‘All right,’ Ella said, ‘I’m in.’

Kade gave a nod. ‘I’ll organise some familiarisation simulations. We should have time for that, but you won’t get much real experience, I’m afraid. It’s fifteen days to Haven, but once we get there I’m hoping to get the information we need and be gone pretty quickly.’

‘What is this “big score” you’re working on?’

The captain grinned and tapped her nose with an index finger. ‘Need to know until we’re on our way. I’ll be briefing the entire crew then.’

Ella started to turn. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever met a woman named Winter have you?’

‘Not that I remember. Why?’

‘I think you two would get on really well.’

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Ella had more or less been expecting a planet, and what she got was an asteroid belt. Given that she was meant to be familiarising herself with the controls, Kade had suggested she sit in the second helm position and fly the ship in. It gave her a good view of things, but she was glad Tebbot would be taking over for the final docking manoeuvre. If she were honest, she was used to
far
more responsive ships than the Hope: it felt like she was having to drag all that mass around by hand as she manipulated the controls to push them in toward their target station.

‘Pirate Cove,’ Kade said from behind her. ‘Home sweet scummy home.’

It was a vaguely egg-shaped asteroid a bit less than half a kilometre on its longest axis, which it was rotating around. More spin gravity, Ella guessed. Primarily it was all rock, pale grey and boring. There were a few lights dotted over it and, around the midsection, a number of turrets. Out at one end was a pair of docking gantries near a large hatch which was presumably the hangar bay. They were heading for the gantries.

‘You mostly live on the ship, Boss,’ Tebbot pointed out. ‘Uh, start braking and I’ll take over in a minute.’

Ella gave a nod and pulled back on the throttle stick. The engines went into reverse, even if their pitiful push was unnoticeable through the compensators. They seemed to decelerate very slowly, but Tebbot seemed quite happy with things. The drive unit back there was definitely one of the earlier models.

‘Kade to the crew.’ Ella heard the captain speaking behind her and figured it was going out ship-wide. ‘We’ll be docking in… whenever we can wake up the control team anyway. Should be soon. I want the cargo that’s going out off the ship in an hour so get your behinds ready for that. When we’re done, we get twelve hours’ shore leave. Twelve. If I have to come around with Lanyon and Trin to drag you out of a brothel, I
will
forget to bring you back from the next trip. Kade out.’

‘Do you have to do that often?’ Ella asked, her eyes on velocity displays and vector tracks.

‘Drag them out of brothels? More than I’d like, but they’re actually pretty responsible. Except for Tebbot there. How many times have we had to get you treated for pox, Tebbot?’

Tebbot mumbled something incomprehensible and then added, ‘I’ll take the controls now.’

Kade burst into laughter as Ella hit the button which would switch primary control over to the other seat and then sat back in hers.

‘So, I get shore leave too, I guess. Any suggestions?’

‘Stick to the core areas. There’s a park in the East Wing, but it can get a bit rough. I know you can handle yourself, but you don’t know the area.’

‘Sensible.’

‘There’s a club, Nightside, which isn’t too bad, a gym if you want to work out, a few shops. I can lend you some cash, in advance, if you like, if you want to shop or exercise the other way.’

‘Other way?’

‘There’s a brothel.’

‘Oh, that way. Uh, which end’s east?’

‘Hangar bay and cargo, and the gantries are all in the West Wing. East has the lower rent areas–’

‘The brothel’s not as clean,’ Tebbot grumbled, ‘but it’s cheaper.’

‘–the park and farms, and also the refinery and fuel storage. We aren’t the only ships that work out of here and most need fuel to run.’

‘Sounds like a garden spot.’

‘Just keep your gun on you and visible. You’ll be fine.’

Ella watched the approaching station as it grew larger in the view screen. ‘In this outfit, where am I going to hide it?’

Pirate Cove, Haven System.

Highside and the area around it were like nothing Ella had ever really seen before. There was a bit of her home world, Harriamon, about it in that it had been carved out of rock and it was a bit of a sleazy maze, but there the similarities stopped.

Dropping from the core on a lift took you from free fall to one G, and gave you a good view of the interior of the asteroid. Above her, wrapped around the top side of the void, was Highside proper, where the houses were. None were huge, but they were apparently comfortable and big enough even for a small family, even if families tended to avoid Pirate Cove. Below it was Nightside, the club, and the arcades and shops which served the inhabitants. It looked kind of scruffy, but well maintained.

The lift came to a stop, and Ella checked the pulse gun clipped to her right boot and the dagger tucked into the left. Trin had slipped it in there as they had left the ship.

‘I don’t really know how to use that,’ Ella had pointed out.

‘
They
don’t know that,’ Trin had replied.

There were younger adults but no children that Ella could see as she walked through the twisting alleys between the blocks. There was a shop selling produce, so it seemed like the farms Kade had mentioned produced a variety of basic vegetables. Ella figured they were hydroponic, but fresh food was fresh food. She found a shop selling a variety of weapons, melee and firearms, from all generations of technology.

The clothing shop was interesting because it indicated the style of the residents. She decided that ‘pirate chic’ was in, but there were slightly more general clothing for men and long dresses, all be it with low bodices, for women. A long skirt had to be a real pain in low gravity, but then any kind of skirt was prone to modesty failure in those conditions. Not that Ella was really prone to modesty. However, her own outfit was getting not even a second glance so the populace was comfortable with a variety of fashion styles. Eclectic came to mind: pieced together out of scraps, like the Hope, and Pirate Cove itself.

Most of the technology was a little on the low side for the region, but not too far. The structure of the place was pretty low-tech, early interstellar level probably. There was some stuff closer to Shadataga… for a given value of closer anyway. Better than New Earth had had during the Federation period and probably stolen from the Pinnacle.

And there was one more thing about the people: for the most part, they were very, very firmly minding their own business. Ella figured it was the clothes. Dressed as pirate crew, or at least in the style the pirates seemed to favour, Ella was treated as someone you spoke to only if asked a question, and avoided by preference. On the other hand, there was respect about it more than fear. The fear was there: some of the crew had shown something of a casual attitude to morals so that was likely warranted. But no one seemed scared of her while she was just wandering around window shopping.