Free Aneka Jansen 7: Hope by Niall Teasdale Page B

to join us, then they simply don’t gain the benefit of our technology.’
    ‘And if they attack you?’ the senior officer asked. ‘You’re not saying you won’t defend yourself?’
    ‘No, sir. If they attack us and pose a meaningful threat, the response is something which was trialled once, several hundred parsecs away from here. We blow up their star.’
    There was laughter around the room. To Ella, some of it seemed a little strained. ‘No one can blow up a star,’ one of the wives said. Her laughter had been particularly strained.
    ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ella replied, ‘we can.’
    ‘This is fine dinner conversation,’ Mrs Arundal said into the silence. ‘Elisabeth, that is a new dress isn’t it?’
    Ella stepped back a pace and watched as the conversation progressed. She had to wonder what Arundal was up to, him and the senior anyway. They had allowed that to continue for some reason, and engaging her in it seemed to indicate that it was meant for her. Had they been trying to scare her with their weaponry? Or trying to discover what might be used against them? The latter was hardly a secret and there was no known defence against War’s star killer. She was sure they were up to something, but discovering what it was was not a priority. When the house went dark tonight, she would be leaving and their schemes would mean nothing.
    17.11.559 FSC.
    Ella looked out across the spaceport landing pad towards a ship, a light transport vessel, which she was currently hoping was going to be her ticket off the planet. She was frowning.
    Things were going just a little too well for her tastes. Getting out of the house had been simple and the township gate had been unguarded. Well, it was a civilian community on a planet the Pinnacle viewed as being under their control. There was no need for guards on the gates, but it just somehow felt out of character for the Pinnacle. Her collar was still about her neck, but inactive. She assumed that it could be tracked, but removing it seemed more likely to draw attention than keeping it on; she was still dressed in the manner of a slave.
    She had made her way as quickly as she could to the port. She was still barefoot and she could not move on the actual roadways. The ground at the sides of the roads was rough, and she needed to stay away from the silver webbing, but there was room enough to move about unseen. So it had been well into the early hours when she got to the port and tapped into the computer network there looking for a ship she could use.
    The transport ship was just out of an engine refit and was marked down for a test flight. No specific schedule had been assigned; it appeared that it would be run in when a suitable pilot was available. Well, as far as Ella was concerned, a suitable pilot had just been found, but she was worried that it all seemed just a little convenient. Still, Aneka had some phrase about horses given as gifts…
    The airlock controls were not even locked, although that made a certain, perverse, sense. If you were there then you were allowed to be. No slave would make it to the port to find an unlocked ship, right? So why bother locking the door.
    ‘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