A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (57 page)

              Sebastian shrugged.  “I know.  But we’ll end up recalling half of your… squadron within a couple of months.  We just want to prove to Heb that we’re serious.  And on the homefront, with First Principles’ new warships available and the other five corvettes from the new squadron in space and on patrol, we should be able to weather it.”

              Reshi sighed, then she frowned.  “So I’m to lead a squadron, escort the
Kara
and set up a picket in Heb?”

              “That’s the long and the short of it.”

              “Who’s going to negotiate with the locals?”

              He just stared at her and blinked incomprehension.  “Well that
is
the job of the senior ship commander, my dear, is it not?”  He saw her blanch and had to struggle to maintain his composure.  “I know that public speaking and other such related courses are required at the Academy.”

              Sebastian shook his head as she got herself under control.  It took her a moment, but Reshi rallied.  A glimpse of the captain she might some day become peeked through the fear, well, jitters, really.  “I understand, Councilor.  I’ll make you proud.”  She didn’t sound quite as confident to his well-trained and practiced ear, but she was holding up well.

              However, his own control finally broke and he burst out laughing.  “My dear, I’m teasing you!” he said, as he slapped a hand down on the desk in front of him and she grimaced.  “But, I have to admit, seeing how you rallied so quickly after being told such a large responsibility was landing on your shoulders only makes me more sure of my decision to make you commander of that ship.  I’m now wondering if I should leave the negotiations to you.  My niece, I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

              She glared at him but couldn’t keep the pleased smile off her lips.  “I’ll do it if you need me to, Uncle.  But perhaps I might argue that since this is my first command, and this is such an important case, that someone with more experience be brought along to at least
start
the negotiations, before you throw me to the wolves?”

              He laughed, taking pity on her.  “Very well, my dear.  I shall accompany you on this mission, but only as a chaperone.  You shall do all of the work and I shall stand back and beam like an incredibly proud uncle.”

              General Typhon snarled and let the datapad slip from his fingers and drop to the desk.  He wanted to hurl the offending device across the compartment and get the wonderful crash as it shattered, but he refrained.  He had indulged such passionate impulses before but his supply of irreplaceable Federation gear was dwindling so he was forced to curb those impulses.  When he had left the Federation, he’d loaded his ships with tools, food, ammunition, weapons, but with the exception of one small parts fabricator for the assault shuttles on the heavy transport, he didn’t posses the industrial capacity to make things like new datapads.  Many times over the years of his self-imposed exile he’d cursed his short-sightedness.  He couldn’t pass the buck; he was the general, this trip into exile had been into exile so he was the one who should have thought to acquire at least one industrial replicator.  It was a common regret, one that he’d berated himself over for decades.  He’d started to cook up a plan for a raid into the fringes of the Federation to try and secure one.

              There were cons as well as the obvious pro, of course.  He’d been gone from the Federation for over two and a half centuries.  The border worlds might still have the same planets spinning about the various stars, but the worlds would be different: the people and most importantly, the defenses.  His own ships were solid, well-cared for, but they
were
over two hundred fifty years old and there were some things that needed a yard to properly address and service.  The crews and engineers had done their best over the years and
Illuyanka
still ran well, but problems had been building up over the years.  Cracked braces, worn out computers, degraded plasma conduits, all of it worked on and patched and when possible, replaced with parts taken from prizes and reconditioned to work with Federation tech.  Typhon put a hand on his desk.  His ship had taken a pounding on the raid in Seylonique and now badly needed to put in for a refit. 
Illuyanka
’s hull had numerous breaches, her shields damaged, which dropped the light cruiser’s hyperspeed to Red level Six.  Red damned level six.  It was a complete disgrace.  His most impressive warship was slower than cargo ships loaded down with swag.  There were only three places he was aware of in local space that could handle the overhauls: Seylonique, Ulla-tran, and one of Verrikoth’s shipyards.  None of those were particularly attractive options and it was entirely likely his ship would come under fire at any of them.

              The processed metals and other trace materials looted from the mining and extraction station back in Seylonique would certainly help.  The hull damage could be patched and new conduits made to replaced the damaged ones.  But the shields and more importantly the generator nodes were still damaged and the engineers would need to rebuild them.  From scratch.  That was several months of work, which would leave
Illuyanka
sitting at a maximum shield strength of fifty-eight percent until then.  Hyperspeed would be restricted to the top of the Red levels of the hyperspace rainbow for six to eight months.

              And then of course there was the sabotage of HT-626.  The holes had been patched and the big hangar doors rendered functional again, but the real damage had been to the assault shuttles carried within.  All but seven of those assault craft had been heavily damaged, most in ways that were not cheap, easy or quick to fix.  Commander Luurr, who had just barely managed to convince Typhon his life should be spared, was busy cannibalizing parts from some of the shuttles to get others online.  Four more shuttles were nearly ready, which Luurr managed to get done by the time the small fleet reached the hyper limit and there were two more that would need a few minor replacement parts to get operational again.  The rest would need full teardowns and rebuilds, weeks more of work would be required, with the small parts fabber running full blast the whole time. 

And for all the years that he had been in exile and while
Illuyanka
had been his terrible swift sword, Typhon still thought of himself as an infantry officer.  The troops and their assault ships were his greatest weapon.  The warships were simply the means to get boots on the ground.

He’d redirected the corvette
Byvennot
to the nearby star system of Heb.  Once one of the cargo ships unloaded here, it would follow, bringing enough fuel to restock
Byvennot
’s bunkers.  Hopefully, the corvette could get the locals there to cough up materials and other sundries needed for repairs.  Typhon wasn’t too confident on that score; Heb wasn’t a very high tech world.  He’d raided there a century ago and the Dog Soldiers had done well for themselves.  Maybe they would get lucky again.

Kozen’ck sat straight in his chair, his antennae drooping in exasperation.  “So Chakrabarti takes four of our fleet corvettes to Heb on an open-ended timetable, leaving us to explain things to the citizens in a time when pirates might show back up here at any time,” his mouthparts clacked, “and now you want to send another ship out of the system?”

Kly and Arathos nodded in agreement.  They were a strange pair; the powerful, youngish lupusan and the pudgy, balding, slightly over middle-aged human.  Their policies and politics were vastly different, save one: they wanted to keep control of the star system with themselves, with the council.  On nearly ever other issue, however, they fought, sometimes bitterly.  But something must have happened on that trip to Ulla-tran.  It wasn’t as though they were fast friends, arms over each others’ shoulders telling off-color jokes, but clearly something had changed.  The fact that the two were coming to the Triarch together to present this plan clearly underscored its importance.

“Yes,” Kly replied after a gesture from his colleague.  “I, rather,
we
, feel its past time to send an official Seylonique-flagged vessel to Bimawae and get some proper scans of that alien ship.  We’ve been lookin at the same pictures on the news for months now.”

“You haven’t been back for long enough to be offended by the repetition of those sensor readings and digitals, Harmon,” Kozen’ck pointed out.

But the portly councilor shook his head.  “But don’t you see, Triarch, I’m
not
offended.  I’m intrigued!  I’m fascinated!  A truly alien species, one the likes that either of our peoples haven’t discovered in over a thousand years!  And this just drops into our backyard!  I for one think that this is something we should investigate.”

“And he convinced me,” Arathos put in, as the seemingly enraptured Kly paused for breath.

“What does Colonel Gants have to say about this?” Kozen’ck asked.  “He is in defacto control of all Naval forces in the system.”

But the lupusan councilor shook his head.  “With respect, no he isn’t.  Oh, the Navy answers to him, right enough.  But
he
answers to
us
.”

“And therefore we don’t need his opinion or approval; we can just pull a ship and send it wherever we want?” the zheen guessed.  Kly shrugged, Arathos simply remained silent.  “I’m not going to just cut him out of the loop, gentlemen.  I’m not saying I don’t agree with you,” he said, raising a hand.  “I think Bimawae should be investigated, a renaissance of science was triggered by the arrival of that ship and those people.  But I’m not just going to go behind Gants’ back and poach a ship.”

Kly snorted.  “I thought the whole point of us funding the construction of those warships was so that we could do with them what we wanted whenever we wanted.”  He was still grumpy about being so blatantly forced to pay his share.  It was a
lot
of money, after all.

“There is that,” Kozen’ck conceded.  “But there is no such thing as zero accountability, especially at our level.  It was a good thought, having those corvettes at our beckon call, but there’s only so much that we can do.  Should do,” he corrected himself.  At Kly’s grimace, the Triarch buzzed slightly and continued.  “I’m not going to yank a ship out of the fleet without so much as discussing it with the fleet commander.”  His antennae waggled.  “And neither are you. 
I
will speak with Gants.  If there’s nothing else?”

“There is,” Arathos spoke up.  “We want the ship to be
Kulketze.
”

“Why that one?”

“Because we believe that Commander Vin can be trusted to do the job,” Kly replied firmly.  He was adamant, almost defensive about it.

Kozen’ck buzzed.  “You mean you have an ‘understanding’ with Vin and he’ll be sure to filter all data collected through you two before the rest of us get to see it.”

Kly managed to look hurt, while Arathos maintained a stony silence.  The Triarch raised a hand, carapaced palm up.  “You will share any and all information that
Kulketze
brings back with the rest of the council.”  He waved a hand, signaling the meeting was over.  “I will contact Colonel Gants and get
Kulketze
authorized for this mission.”

Instead of trying to send burst transmissions from across the system, the Triarch hitched a ride on a shuttle heading to the outer system, wanting a look at the First Principles’ shipyards for himself.  His security personnel weren’t happy about it, but they were never happy when he wanted to leave the safe spaces of the orbital station.  The ship arrived several days later at the shipyard complex to a small degree of fanfare.  He participated in a videoed interview with a Navy public affairs officer from off of
Leytonstone
, where Kozen’ck talked about wanting to see some of the space infrastructure elsewhere in the system, praised First Principles for their industry and their ingenuity and their hard work, then went over to the battlecruiser for a meeting with the Colonel.  Tamara Samair was still on the station and the Triarch figured he would pop in on her later for a meeting, but his true purpose for being here was the meeting with Gants.

Gants, as it turned out, was of two minds for the mission.  He was all for sending a ship to the nearby system to check on the alien ship.  It was a chance of a lifetime, a chance of
ten
lifetimes.  He wanted to get a ship there, hopefully to find something useful out there in Bimawae, find more out about the aliens.  He was also, however, reluctant to release
Kulketze
from the fleet and system patrol duties because Commander Vin was the youngest, newest and least experienced of all of the Navy Captains.  Gants wanted him to get some more experience
in
the Seylonique star system before going gallivanting. 

“Samair has sent some of her captains out of the system on patrols, on escort duties.”

Gants sighed, trying not to get angry.  “Tamara Samair might have a lot of experience in Navy Operations, but she is
not
an officer in
this
Navy, Triarch.  And I will thank you to remember that.”

“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with her, Colonel,” the zheen replied.  “It isn’t a secret.”