Free Aneka Jansen 7: Hope by Niall Teasdale Page A

they needed to know.
    Well, now Ella had everything she needed too. Once the party was out of the way and the house quiet, she would leave.
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    There were eight additional people at the table tonight. All the men were in uniform. The women were in floor-length gowns, either strapless or with very thin straps. Ella had decided that this was the current fashion since she had seen the same sort of gown in the shops.
    The uniforms were uninformative, but the ages suggested one officer senior to Commander Arundal and the rest probably juniors. They all seemed to be friends, which was somehow not what Ella was expecting. She had really thought that the primary purpose of the party was either social climbing or career advancement, but the atmosphere was too relaxed. The chatter at the table was social. There was a tendency for the men to drift off into work talk, but the two senior wives were there to redirect things.
    ‘Has anything come of our attempts to solve the Iyonvrie situation?’ one of the junior officers asked.
    Arundal favoured him with a smile. ‘Your wife will be rolling her eyes, David, if you keep talking business.’
    The young man’s wife grinned. ‘I’m used to it. And everyone is interested in Iyonvrie. One of the main holdouts on the current border?’
    Arundal glanced at his superior and Ella saw the slight nod. Iyonvrie was apparently a security matter, but discussion was being allowed. It was being allowed in front of a slave. ‘We are progressing several plans to get around their technology.’
    ‘Antimatter bombs,’ one of the other, younger, officers said. Ella got the feeling it was speculation. ‘Their screens prevent nuclear weapons detonating, but they won’t stop an antimatter explosion.’
    So this Iyonvrie had some form of strong nuclear force enhancement technology. It would render most nuclear weapons useless. Shadataga used similar fields when transporting radioactive materials and in some experiments to slow down the decay of short lifetime isotopes. Using antimatter to initiate a fusion weapon, or using pure antimatter as the explosives would get around the field, however. These people were talking about using weapons of very massive destruction against a world in order to conquer it. And they were doing it in front of a slave.
    ‘Your military science is up to scratch I see,’ the older officer said. ‘Such devices would do the job, but there are simpler means of bypassing their damper fields.’
    ‘Kinetic bombardment,’ someone suggested.
    ‘But that would require construction of larger gunships to be effective.’
    ‘The dreadnoughts would be sufficient.’
    ‘Not to be fully effective. We would need extra-long accelerators. The dreadnoughts would be far more effective with antimatter warheads.’
    ‘Gentlemen,’ Arundal said, ‘let us seek an unorthodox point of view in our deliberations. Ella, you say your people can eliminate their opposition with ease. How would you go about defeating the defences of Iyonvrie?’ Ella raised an eyebrow; it was an unexpected turn of events.
    ‘You’re asking a slave?’ one of the women asked.
    ‘Ella was convicted of bioterrorism and, by the mercy of Pinnacle Commander Lucifent himself, placed in slavery rather than being executed. Her culture, it seems, has some very powerful weapons and she does not seem unwilling to discuss them. Ella?’
    ‘We wouldn’t attack this planet you’re discussing with intent to capture it, sir,’ Ella replied. ‘Our weapons expert has, I believe, run simulations of weaponry with that objective, but they have never been built. I believe her favourite was a hypervelocity projectile. A reactionless drive capable of accelerating a large missile to near-light speed.’
    The man favouring the kinetic impactors did not seem especially happy to have had his option confirmed. ‘You’re saying you could build that, but never have?’
    ‘There’s no point, sir. If a world does not wish