Aneka Jansen 6: The Lowest Depths of Shame by Niall Teasdale

reached that conclusion myself, especially given that they won’t let anyone else go up there.’
    Truelove nodded. ‘They’ve quietly moved all “non-essential” staff off the moon. That means only military personnel and the people from a number of munitions contractors and suppliers who have offices there are left.’
    ‘You’re looking into those companies.’
    Truelove smiled. ‘I’m not. I’m a member of the FSA reporting to Admiral Pierce. They are being looked into, however.’
    Elroy’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Good. I wonder if Pierce can come up with a security reason for me to avoid the Hand of God.’
    ‘I’m sure he can try, sir,’ Truelove replied.
    BC-101 Hand of God.
    ‘Security situation?’ Tasker asked.
    Technically her XO, a man named Lionel Morrison who she thought was a little too serious but a very good officer, did not need to give a report. He could have sent it via the ship’s internal networks and Tasker could have read it via her implant. Even Yrimtan had viewed that level of disconnection a bad thing. Personal contact cemented relationships, and relationships built the foundations of a working organisation. So Morrison gave her his report, even if she could read the details later.
    ‘The ship is secure,’ he said. ‘We’re picking up what I’d consider an abnormally high level of active sensor activity, but the hull and our ECM systems are blocking it. Passives are unlikely to get anything.’
    Tasker nodded. ‘It’s irritating, but it’s not unexpected. We have better ships, and they want to know what we’ve got.’
    Morrison returned the nod. ‘Flight crew have had to warn two Jenlay vessels that their flight paths were too close to our hull. Both corrected course immediately, but I don’t believe their pilots are that bad.’
    ‘That’s actually not a bet I’d be willing to back you up on. Some of their pilots are damn good, but I think most of those are currently somewhere between here and Dokar. Still, twice is coincidence. If we get a third instance, I’ll put a complaint through to their command. Safety notice.’
    The executive officer actually let a slight grin form. ‘That’s an elegant solution, Captain. Was there anything else?’
    A message flicked up in Tasker’s vision field and she scanned it. ‘Seems that Senator Elroy would like to pay us a visit. I trust him, but make sure the internal security grid is fully operational.’
    ‘Of course, Captain. Honour guard?’
    ‘Just for the welcome, but make sure the ECM suite is active when he’s aboard. Fully active.’
    Gwy, 2.9.530 FSC.
    Aneka sat in Gwy’s flight chair surrounded by the hangar bay of the Amethyst Hyde. Of course, technically, she was surrounded by an image of the hangar bay, but the feed, direct into her internal network via fibre-optic cable, was sufficiently real that she found herself stopping her simulated breathing.
    ‘The transition is a lot faster, and smoother,’ she said. ‘The extra bandwidth really makes a difference.’
    Gwy’s obsidian avatar appeared beside her. ‘Thank you, Aneka. I have been practising a little to improve performance, but the additional speed does help a lot.’
    Aneka looked around at the room, or the only feature of the room still visible, which was the chair she was sitting in with its twin control sticks mounted on the arms. She had learned to fly using this kind of multi-function directional control system so that was how Gwy emulated the flight controls for her. Shannon and Drake used different systems to fly the old Hyde, less intuitive, more reliant on the computers to perform the precise power and direction controls that were needed. She assumed they used an emulation of the same to fly the new Hyde, but…
    ‘Why do I actually need this chair?’ she asked, almost to herself.
    ‘To sit in?’ Gwy suggested.
    ‘Ha ha. No, I mean, I fly you like I’d fly the Delta…’ There was a stab of pain somewhere at the thought of the