A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (43 page)

He nodded.  “I also want to give my people some liberty on your orbital station.  They’ve been cooped up aboard the ship for the whole trip here.  Give them some time to go aboard the station, see the sights; spend some credits.”

Laurent chuckled.  “I’m sure the local business owners will appreciate that.”  Then she frowned.  “How much cargo are you actually bringing back to Seylonique, Captain?”

He shrugged, letting out a breath.  Vincent leaned back in his chair.  “Well, it certainly isn’t enough to fill all of my holds, not by a long shot.  It’s only filling one and a half of my available holds.  But, having all those empty holds will save on fuel costs for the trip back.  Also, the lack of serious mass will allow us to make some better time on the way back.  My engineer is crunching the numbers, but he’s thinking that we can push up high into the Yellow level of the rainbow, perhaps level five or six.  Which will be amazing for a bulk freighter as old as this baby,” Vincent said, patting the table fondly.  “Cut several days off the trip, depending on how much extra speed we can get out of her.”

“I see.  But you will be back with another load of fuel for us?” Laurent asked, her voice betraying just the slightest hint of nervousness.

“Don’t worry, Senior Proconsul.  Considering the amount of profit I’m bringing in on this run, added with the fact that you want repeat business?  Yes, I will be back this way with all alacrity.”  He gestured to her.  “In fact, if you’ve got another contract for me, I’ll get that thumbed for you and we can get moving.”

Tamara was looking over the latest reports on the various defensive satellites and platforms that were coming online around the three biggest pieces of FP real estate.  Each location now had at least six of the Mark 2 platforms, which carried a complement of twenty missiles, as well as four double turbolasers that would easily find a home on a ship as big as a heavy cruiser.  All of them were tied into a command and control net, extending the sensor range of the various stations.  The shipyard and the mining station (which was back up to 80 percent capacity now) each had six and the Kutok mine had eight.  Well, eleven in a pinch.  The three “heaters” were also reasonably close to the gas giant and were close enough to tie into the defense net.  Of course, using the heaters would completely screw the melted steel ball project, which still had another month to go before it would be time to start spinning it to change it from a big ball of steel to a big plate of steel.  The Mark 2s were static defenses, which made the admin council less nervous and (not that she actively sought it out) Councilor Hroth had personally sent a note to FP’s offices stating her approval given what had happened at the Kutok mine.

There were four more days before the Councilor could be gracing them with her august presence, and Tamara wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about that.  It wasn’t as though she was going to have to bunk with the she-wolf, since most of Tamara’s time was spent aboard
Moxie-2
, but the days where Tamara had a free hand to do as she wished here in the outer system were just about over. 

Well, it was good while it lasted.
  She gave a sigh and gave a glance over to the two other displays that were active.  There were two programs up; as she was multitasking on three different things at once.  In addition to her daily amounts of paperwork (which was never ending), she was watching the code for her new Engineering AI compile.  The program wasn’t quite to a self-sustaining level yet, but the fledgling AI was nearly there.  Perhaps it would be ready by the time the Councilor arrived.  It would certainly be quite the coup to show the government official the newest member of the First Principles’ family.

The third project was the plans for the new company replicators and control implants.  It was this third project that that was the most troubling.  Tamara had built plenty of replicators in her time, first in the Navy and then once she awoke from her long sleep.  But those were tried and tested Republic style devices.  This was the first time she’d ever designed, programmed and built one from scratch.  She’d sent the initial designs and control code to Ka’Xarian and his team over at the shipyard to go over everything and continue with the coding.  She was confident with the encryption, it was just the control subroutines that needed tweaking.  She also wanted Xar and his team to have a hand in building the devices; to see what they were made of.  They could build ships, but that was just following directions.  But she wanted the zheen and his fellows to be innovators and what better way then to chuck them in the deep end and see how they did on such a critical project?

Moxie-2
was in a parking orbit above the gas giant, out of the way of the orbital traffic, but close enough to be within easy radio range.  Tamara looked up as another display activated.  Magnus’ porcine visage appeared, looking as stern and forboding as ever.  It wasn’t often that the security AI for the gas mine would contact her directly, so she stopped her work and looked at him. 

“Magnus,” she said, addressing him.  “How can I help you?”

“We just got a burst transmission from the planet, local news.”  He actually sounded slightly disgusted.

She checked her chrono.  “Right on time.  I’m just surprised that you would be the one to tell me.  Isn’t there
anyone
else that could have relayed the message?”

He gave a grunt.  “There were plenty.  But I was combing through the newsfeeds, looking for any actionable intel and I found something that might interest you.”

Tamara actually smiled.  “Oh, you were thinking about me; that’s so sweet.”

The boarborn glowered at her, giving another grunt.  “If you’re going to be insulting, then see if I ever do this sort of favor for you again.”

Tamara had to stifle a chuckle, smoothing her face into an expressionless mask, though she knew that she wasn’t fooling his detection subroutines.  He seemed mollified by her efforts, though, because his glower reduced slightly.  “I’m sorry, Magnus.  Thank you for this and for thinking of me.”

He gave a sharp nod and then his image vanished from the display and a video clip appeared in his place.  Tamara pressed a control and it activated.  She saw the newsfeed; it was featuring the various anchors from the evening news program at the orbital, two human females, a lupusan male and a male zheen.  They were seated behind the newsdesk with a new from the armorglass port behind them, showing the orbital traffic and a spectacular view.

One of the women was talking.  “-Well I know I wouldn’t want to be involved in that dance.”  She flashed a dazzling smile and the zheen, seated next to her, chittered in laughter.  “And in other news, there’s a serious find that’s been discovered in a neighboring star system.”

The other woman immediately responded.  “Yes, this is interesting.”

“When moving cargo through the nearby star system of Bimawae, an independent freighter captain discovered something near one of the local gas giants: an alien ship.”

The zheen turned to face one of the cameras, which focused on him.  “Now I know what you in the audience are thinking: it’s an alien ship, who cares?  There are aliens all over; zheen, lupusan, humans, Severites.  But this, good people is something different.  This ship and whoever it is that is flying it, is something truly… well… alien.”

The first woman interjected.  “Here are images from the trade vessel of the alien ship.”  A display opened to Tamara’s right, in front of the reports she had been reading, showing enhanced footage of the massive alien ship, which was racing past the camera and moving toward the gas giant.  The view then switched to a more static shot of the disk-shaped vessel moving slowly into the upper atmosphere, scattering dust and particles as it pushed through.  “Our researchers have scoured all the information sources within the system and can find no trace of this ship, this massive vessel anywhere.  We’ve begun expanding to outside sources, sending an envoy to Ulla-tran to check their databanks.”

“This is potentially the biggest scientific find in decades, centuries,” the lupusan put in.  “Do you know what this means?”

“It means that one starship captain and his crew, of course,” the first woman replied, “Have stumbled upon a new species.  Well, we think, anyway.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though the scanners on the cargo ship were able to get much in the way of any serious resolution on their sensor sweeps, but from what they did find, it’s clear that we are dealing with a completely new people.  Or in the very least, a new class of ship.”

“Sources inside the government have decided to send a ship to Bimawae to investigate this ship further and we here at Lonso-NTW will bring you the exclusive footage and information on this story as it unfolds.” 

The images of the vessel changed to a shot of Frederick Vosteros, decked out in an expensive dark suit, with a gorgeous, dark-skinned, exotic-looking woman in a green sparkly dress hanging on his arm.  The freighter captain cleaned up well, but his short, stocky frame seemed somewhat out of place with the statuesque beauty standing next to him.  They both were smiling, waving to the cameras.  Tamara frowned slightly.  She was happy for him, having found a woman like that and they both seemed happy, but it was the woman that was puzzling her.  Oh, not that Frederick couldn’t get with or keep a stunner like her, no, it was her identity that bothered Tamara.  She recognized that woman, but she just couldn’t place her.  She was just about to attempt to pull up the information on her implants when one of the anchors spoke up.

“And here we show Frederick Vosteros, the captain of the ship
Redcap Madness
who discovered the alien vessel out on the town with none other than Krishna Vaidynathan-Rhee, reality vid star and philanthropist.”  The other female human anchor paused while the two turned toward one another and passionately kissed, with cameras flashing.  A second later they separated, and hand in hand they climbed into a hover taxi, escaping the pack of reporters following them.  “Well, they certainly look like they’re having a good night.”

“Or they’re about to,” the lupusan riposted, and smiles broke out among the humans.  The zheen swirled his antennae in amusement.

Tamara whistled. 
Krishna Vaidynathan-Rhee.  I knew I recognized her.  That’s quite a catch.  Well, Frederick, good for you.  I hope she’s as good as her reputation would have us believe.
  Unlike most of the reality-vid set, Ms. Vaidynathan-Rhee was far more wholesome than most of her comrades and while she wasn’t above showing a little skin, she wasn’t a brazen tramp.  Her charity work, as well as the work on her fashion line getting aspiring designers a start in the business, had made her a true power house among the various celebrities on Seylonique.  If Frederick was going to get with anyone from that world (the vid world) then he couldn’t have made a better choice. 
Good for you, Frederick
, Tamara thought, beaming.

Chapter 14

The arrival of the
Leytonstone
and her task force was greeted with media events to rival that of Frederick Vosteros’s discovery of an alien ship and sighs of relief from just about everyone in the star system.  That much firepower and protection coming back into the system was more than enough to ease the minds of everyone, including Tamara Samair and her fellows at First Principles.  There was a small amount of finger pointing in the media, despite the jocularity at the big gun returning home, but that was quickly quashed.  No one wanted to be seen as the one who wasn’t glad to have the shining defender back where she belonged.

The convoy, however, was over a month late. 
Mondragon
had returned home quite a long time ago, with the understanding that the rest of the task force would be following along shortly behind.  And while the frigate was able to travel a great deal faster than the other ships by virtue of being alone, it still should have only been a matter of a couple of weeks for the rest of the group to catch up.  The amount of concern felt by everyone was growing with each passing day, because there was simply no way of knowing what had happened.  Had the pirates gotten them?  Had there been a drive failure and the ships lost?  No one knew and there was no way to find out.  Outside of the hyper limit of a solar system there was simply no way of finding a lost ship, short of combing every kilometer of space along the path of that lost ship, which was a task so difficult and time consuming as to be bordering on the completely futile.  It would take years to traverse the space in between two star systems, even if you knew the exact vector of your quarry.  Without even that specific set of data, the only other way of finding anything along that path and reporting back would require sheer dumb luck, or a century or two of intense scans.

Colonel Gants was in a foul mood.  Oh, he was certainly happy to be back home if for no other reason than to get those infernal council members off his ship and out of his hair.  They would never actually be out of his hair, of course, as he was subordinate to their command, but at least there would be a degree of distance that he didn’t have when they could walk onto his bridge or knock on the door to his quarters at any moment.  They never gave him a moment’s peace.

To start, the admins had taken an additional two weeks to parse out something or other with the government in Ulla-tran.  Gants thought it was an addendum to the trade agreement, but when the agreement had come back with no significant changes he was confused and angry.  It seemed that the admins were just wasting time, sipping cocktails and chatting about nothing while his ship, the
flagship
of the Seylonique Navy, was just sitting here.  Anything could be happening back home and they were just sitting here.

Then of course, the ultimate in humiliation happened just as the task force was approaching the Ulla-tran hyper limit.  Gants leaned back in his chair, seething at the memory.  A coolant pipe in reactor one had ruptured as the convoy had approached the hyper limit.  The pipe was faulty, old, well-worn and made of substandard materials and had failed during the power up procedure for the jump into hyperspace.  It ruptured, causing the temperature in reactor one to spike.  A fire broke out in Reactor room one, and a number of components were washed in scorching plasma from one of the nearby plasma conduits, which also had ruptured.  Six engineering techs were rushed to sickbay with serious plasma burns while the chief engineer scrammed the reactor.  Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary to blow it out into space, but the fuel feeds were cut to prevent a catastrophic failure. 

The ship still had three fully functional reactors, but with the damage to the cooling pipe on reactor one, neither the chief engineer nor the colonel were willing to chance it on the other ones.  A full diagnostic and scans with the internal sensors was conducted as well as sending crewmen with
hand
scanners going over every inch of the ship’s power systems.  The rest of the convoy could have carried on without them, but Gants was reluctant to have the
Leytonstone
remain alone with a serious engineering casualty.  So the freighters went on to Seylonique escorted by the corvettes, but the two destroyers remained behind to cover the battlecruiser.

The damage to Reactor One had been extensive and some of the repairs were beyond what the crew of the
Leytonstone
(or her destroyer escorts) could perform in the field.  So, Reactor One was left completely out of the loop and the engines and shields were powered up.  They made the jump but only at seventy-five percent of the battlecruiser’s max speed, which meant at the top of the Yellow level of the hyperspace rainbow; fast for a freighter, but a warship could normally do much better.

“Sensors: report,” Gants ordered, turning to the officer in question.

“Scopes are clear, Colonel,” the man replied, his eyes moving between displays.  “
Equinox
and
Solstice
are holding position at one light second and five light seconds from us, respectively.”

He gestured in the forward direction.  “Very well.  Helm, lay in a course for the gas mine.  Let’s get in and top off the tanks, and we’ll get an update.”

Lieutenant Commander Paxton turned to his commanding officer.  “Sir, there’s a lot of work to do on Reactor One and all the surrounding spaces.  Shouldn’t we just speak with the FP representatives and get a space in the shipyard?”

Gants rubbed his temples with one hand.  The last thing he wanted to do was to go begging to Samair, hat in hand, asking to have her people work on his ship.  There was no way of knowing how long it would take for her to agree (assuming she did) and then of course his beautiful ship would be back in yard hands, potentially for months.  But Paxton was right.  There was nothing for it.  “I want to stop at the gas mine first and get an update.  After that we’ll start worrying about the repairs.”  It actually hurt to say those words.  He loved this ship and seeing her dealing with such damage was physically painful.  Gants knew that he was going to have to swallow his pride in order to get
Leytonstone
back up to fighting form.

But he just shook his head.  “I know the engineering department has been doing well keeping everything up and running with only three reactors and I do appreciate it,” the colonel said, nodding.  And he meant it.  “I’ve seen the Chief’s schedules for repairs, but I want him to go over everything and get that whole area prepped.”

“I know the Chief, Colonel,” Paxton replied, smiling wryly.  “I know he and his teams have already begun what prep they can with the rest of the power system up and running.”

Gants nodded again.  “Helm, do you have a course for me?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Then set course.  Take us in, speed three hundred.”

“Colonel, there’s a lot of activity going on in the space around the Kutok mine.”

Gants pushed himself out of bed, activating his comms as he did so.  He grabbed his spare uniform, folded neatly on the nearby chair and began pulling it on.  “There’s always a lot of activity going on around the gas giant, Ensign Wales,” he said harshly, trying hard not to snarl at the sensor officer for waking him up. 

He could hear the man gulp.  “Sorry, sir.  But the sensor readings we’re getting are very strange.”

Gants sighed, pulling up his uniform trousers and then stopping.  “Ensign, I am not in the mood to be playing games right now.  And if you make me drag every iota of information out of you, I can guarantee that you are going to make me cross.”

“Yes, sir.  Sorry, Colonel,” the man replied meekly.  “Well, the number of defensive ships around the gas giant is… off.  I’m reading the First Principles’ destroyer
Persistence of Vision
, but that’s the only one of their warships that’s on my scanners.”

“Couldn’t they just be further in system?” Gants asked, pulling on his uniform tunic.

A pause.  “Well, yes, sir, but I don’t think so.  There are a number of tugs and shuttles that are corralling two separate patches of what look like debris.  I’ve tuned the sensors and it looks like those… patches… are pieces of ships.”

He paused, buttoning up the tunic.  “Pieces of ships?  How many ships?”

“That’s hard to say, sir.  But based on the amount of debris there is enough for five, possibly seven ships the size of the FP corvettes.  And there’s more, sir.”

Gants shook his head.  “They don’t
have
seven corvettes.  Go ahead.”

“
Curroth
is here, sir, as are two of the Navy corvettes.”

Gants frowned, pulling on his boots.  “What the hell?  The council had the ships redeployed out here?”  He pursed his lips, thinking.  Then he shrugged.  “Well, I suppose that makes sense.  The gas mine
is
one of the more important pieces of real estate.”

“Yes, sir,” Wales replied.  “Without fuel, nothing will fly.  There is also a project that’s being worked on that, frankly Colonel, I don’t understand.”  Before the colonel could berate the man, he went on.  “There are six big gun platforms, mounted on what look like decent-sized asteroids, sir.  According to my sensors, I’d say that each is a battery of turbolasers and heavy lasers that would rival a battery from the
Leytonstone,
or perhaps even bigger.”

“And you say there are six of them?” he asked, impressed. 
Looks like Samair finally stopped screwing around and actually built what might be a decent defense, assuming that they could be moved to avoid kinetic strikes.

“Yes, sir, but while I think they will act as defensive weapons, they’re not currently being used for that.  They’re being used,” the sensor officer said in clear disbelief, “to heat a huge chunk of metal.  Sensors are showing it’s a big iron ball.”

“She’s heating up a big iron ball?” Gants said, blinking in surprise.  “Wait, she’s doing what?”

“It’s an iron ball, Colonel,” the man repeated.  “But I’m also showing a large amount of other materials, mostly carbon, in a stable orbit above the planet.”

The colonel shook his head.  “What the hell is that crazy woman doing?  A giant ball of iron?”

“Actually, sir, with the components I’m seeing out there, if the engineers can combine the carbon and the other materials with the iron, it would make steel.  Once the heating stops, it would cool into a giant steel ball.”

“Well that makes even less sense,” the colonel replied.  “I’m on my way to the bridge.”  He slapped the comm panel to turn it off and then left his quarters. 
A giant steel ball?  That makes no sense at all.  The steel I can understand, though there has to be a faster way of getting it.  Which means that she clearly intends to use it for something important.  I’ll have to ask.
  After less than a moment, he stepped out of the lift and onto the bridge. 

One of the Army troopers at the side of the lift stiffened and called, “Colonel on the bridge!”

“As you were!” Gants stated before anyone moved.  He moved over to Ensign Wales at the sensor area.  The ensign was working with three other ratings, going ever every scrap of data from the battlecruiser’s sensor array.  “Anything else?”

“There’s a lot of work being done, Colonel,” Wales said with just a glance back at his CO.  “A
lot
of new defensive platforms, not even counting those big ones working on the metal… ball bearing there.  That’s not the same fueling tank farm that they had before.  I don’t understand it, sir.  It looks as though they just tore everything down and rebuilt a lot of the infrastructure out here.”  The ensign looked confused.

But Gants turned away.  “Communications!” he barked.

“Sir!” the chief petty officer seated there answered, sitting up ramrod straight in the chair.

“Get me Aloicius Greer on the line.  Now.”  He waved his hand in the general direction of the space beyond.  “Hail
Curroth
and have the call transferred to my ready room.”  His voice was very calm, very quiet, but as cold as frozen helium.  The bridge fell completely silent as everyone did their best to avoid the Colonel’s attention.  He stalked across the bridge from the sensor area over to comms, a grimace clear on his face.

He stepped off the bridge and went into the ready room, the door closing securely behind him.  Gants sat down heavily in the chair behind his desk, dismissing the displays full of reports and bringing up the communications display.  An irritatingly long time later, but was only a few minutes, the image of the destroyer captain appeared.

“Colonel,” Greer said by way of greeting.  “I’m glad to see you back home.”

“From what my sensor operators are telling me, we missed some excitement,” Gants replied sardonically.

The captain frowned slightly.  “What you missed, Colonel, was an incredible stroke of luck and yet an utterly amazing series of blunders by this… company and its security forces.”

“What the hell happened here, Greer?” Gants demanded.  “What kind of telemetry do you have from the battle?  Send it to me.”

The destroyer captain grimaced, covering some emotion that Gants couldn’t quite decipher.  But the tone of the man’s voice was nothing but acid.  “I’m afraid any telemetry or sensor data I have is second hand, Colonel.  That Samair woman hasn’t been entirely forthcoming about releasing that data.  And sadly when the attack took place, the only assets that were here in the outer system were hers.  All of the Navy assets were held back close to the planet while we were waiting for your task force to return.”