Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (29 page)

              Tran shrugged.  “Yes, sir, they might.  But even if that’s the case, they might have the parts and equipment we need and our own crews can do the work.”

              Harth nodded.  “All right.  Are your people back aboard?”

              “Yes, sir,” the other replied.  “I’m ready to leave when you are.”

              “Then let’s not hang around any longer.  Take up position on my starboard side.  We’ll fly in formation for the hyper limit.”

              Tran gave a smile.  “Very good, sir.”  The call ended.

              “Navigation,” he said, looking up at the other officers and crewmen on the bridge.  “Plot a course for the hyper limit, with a vector toward Tyseus.”

              “Aye, sir,” the navigation officer replied. 

              “Helm, once the course is plotted, engage engines and get us going.  Communications, make sure that we’re linked to
Ravage
and make sure she stays with us.”

              The various officers acknowledged and Harth settled himself more comfortably in his command seat.  The station had been an oddity; that much was certain.  Once his shuttles had launched, the people of the station had done as they were told.  Perhaps they were concerned about the amount of firepower he and his people represented, he mused.  An Amun-Ra heavy cruiser wasn’t the biggest beast in the yard, not by a long shot, but out here in the Cluster,
Legacy
was among the meanest.  His supply officers had triple checked everything they’d bought from the station, checked it all for poison, biological contamination, hell, even explosives and everything had come up empty.  Nothing they’d bought was terribly appealing, sadly.  Mostly the quartermaster had picked up a lot of military rations, something the crew would grumble about, but would eat all the same.  These types here were different than the ones they were used to and so far were decent.  They’d tried them out the day before and the crew’s grumbles were fewer than they had been before the ships had arrived here at the station.  The galley crew did what they could to try and spice up the meals but there was only so much they could do with what they had to work with.  Fresh food was a huge luxury on a warship and they’d gone through it in fairly short order.  The station’s people didn’t have anything resembling fresh protein or fruits and vegetables that they were willing to sell in any sort of quantity, so the Quartermaster had done her best, as always.

              The two ships swiveled in place and then accelerated away from the station as their main drives kicked in.  They were in no great hurry, once they arrived at the hyper limit,
Ravage
’s slower hyperspeed would dictate the pace of the journey.  Shaving a few hours off here in normal space probably wouldn’t gain them anything for the trip to Tyseus, so Commander Harth had ordered an economical cruising speed away from the station.

              “Sensors, what’s that destroyer doing?”

              Drommen consulted his displays.  “She’s moving to put herself in between us and the station, Captain.  But other than that it doesn’t appear that she’s trying to shadow us.”

              “No signals coming from them either, sir,” the communications watch piped up.

              “Very well.”  It wasn’t like he’d really expected anything fancy from the other warship.  They’d been conspicuous in their silence during
Legacy
and
Ravage
’s three day stay.  The warship had done a long, looping patrol, sent a shuttle of their own to the station, received one back that the sensors had determined was full of cargo, organics, most likely foodstuffs of some sort.  But at no time did they send any signals to the Republic vessels.  Drommen managed to catch a few comm laser transmissions to the station, but as neither of the Republic ships interposed themselves between the destroyer and the station, they couldn’t listen in on the transmissions.  It was suspicious, certainly, but nothing came of it during their stay, so Harth had done his best to tamp down on his curiosity.  It was their star system, after all, and if they wanted to be standoffish and rude, that was their business, so long as it didn’t interfere with his mission.  They had wisely stayed clear when the unpleasantness on the station occurred, and hadn’t sent any transmissions until a few hours later.

              The crews of both ships had been rounded up and brought back to the station, their credit balances quite a bit lighter but their spirits lifted.  More than a few had bought trinket and souvenirs from the various shops on the station and while the locals had been less than cordial at first at the arrival of a horde of Republic sailors and Marines, they were more than happy to part them with their money in exchange for some inventory.

              A worthwhile stop, Harth said to himself.  A bit of a dustup, but it was all worked out in the end, and only an additional two thousand credits were required to quiet things down.  Of course, Duncan was willing to admit, if only to himself, that he was more than willing to carry out his threat.  For their sakes, he was happy he didn’t need to, but this was a Republic ship with a military crew and he would do whatever it took to keep his people safe.  He sighed.  It was just too bad they hadn’t caught up to the freighter.  He was concerned about that.  They should have only been a few hours behind and even with the additional three day stop,
Grania Estelle
never arrived.  Well, they’d catch up at Tyseus.

              He straightened in his command seat and watched the displays as the two ships continued to move away from the station.

Chapter 10

              “Captain, I’m not liking what I’m seeing on the starboard side hull,” Quesh reported.  They were less than a day from breakout at Seylonique and Vincent Eamonn had resumed his command of the ship.  The regenerated leg was scheduled to be attached shortly after breakout so for the last few days he’d been making do with a mechanical prosthetic and a cane.  He didn’t like either, for the prosthetic put painful pressure on his stump and chafed, and he hated the cane because he needed it to walk.  Of course, Eamonn hated the hover chair even more, so he suffered through it.

              “What is it?” Eamonn asked, lowering himself slowly into his chair at the wardroom table.  He gasped as the weight came off his leg.  He put the cane on the table and leaned into the back of the chair.  Looking up, his eyes happened to catch one of the cleaning bots hovering near one of the bulkheads to Quesh’s right.  It was humming cheerfully as it gathered any dust or dirt that may have accumulated. 

              “There’s a lot of stress being put on the hull, sir, a byproduct from
Ganges
firing on us on that side,” Quesh explained.  “Samair, Xar and I got a good portion of it patched and spackled over, but all this time in hyperspace has put a lot of stress on the old girl.”

              Eamonn nodded, wincing at the pain in his leg.  “Right, but we knew that already.  I thought you said we would be good for the trip into Seylonique.”

              “I did say that,” he conceded, “and it wasn’t a lie or an exaggeration.  But the higher speed we’re currently piling on has put some additional stress on the hull.  I thought we’d compensated for that, but apparently it’s more than we’d expected.”

              “Meaning what?” Eamonn asked, looking at his Chief Engineer.

              The Parkani set all four hands on the table.  “We’re going to have to reduce speed.  Red level seven.”

              “We’re eighteen and a half hours from the hyper limit, Quesh.  Reducing speed will add another week to our trip.”  He eyed the Parkani.  “Can’t the ship hold up for that long?”

              Quesh raised his upper two hands.  He let out a breath before speaking.  “I don’t know, Captain.  Maybe.  But I would say in another five hours we’re going to have serious… breakage in that section of the hull.  Might even cause a breach.”

              Eamonn sighed heavily.  “Stella?  What’s your take on this?”

              The holo projector on the table immediately glowed and the image of the young AI sprang to life, as though she was standing on the table.  She was dressed in a standard ship’s uniform, her black hair still sporting the three red streaks, as per usual.  “I have to agree with the Chief, Captain.  The hull isn’t compromised yet, but it won’t hold for the eighteen and a half hours we need.  The Chief is correct in his estimates as well.  If we hold this speed for another five hours, we may have a breach in the hull.”  The young AI grimaced.  “In fact, it’s not that we
may
have a breach, we will have a breach.  And then we will
violently
transition back to normal space.”

              “Even though the shields will still be holding?”  It wasn’t a question.

              “The shields protect us from the stresses of hyperspace, from the huge amount of energy required to travel this fast, but there’s still stress being put on the hull.  Normally, we don’t even notice.  The hull’s made of strong stuff and when it’s in good repair, the stresses don’t bother us.  But with the hyperdrive pushing us forward through space, pressure is put on the ship and if it’s enough, the metal could warp and twist, it could fracture and crack and eventually breach.  If the hull breaches in one place, it could breach in others.  Not to mention support trusses and braces,” Quesh put in.  “And once that starts…”

              “All right.  I get it,” Eamonn said.  He pressed a control on his wrist communicator.  “Bridge, this is the Captain.  Reduce our hyper speed to Red level seven immediately.”

              “I…” There was a sigh from the woman at the helm.  “Yes, Captain.  Reducing speed now.”  There was a small reduction in the background noise, of the hyperdrive slowing down slightly.

              Stella looked up, as though she was consulting some screen outside of the pickup of the projector.  Quesh checked his own data pad.  “That’s helped,” the Parkani said.  “It’s reduced stress on the hull by over sixty percent.  I know that the extra week is a pain, but I’d rather that than…”

              “Ripping a huge hole in my side,” the AI finished.  Both males looked to her and nodded.

              “Well I certainly want to avoid that,” the captain agreed.  “Now, have you started working up your maintenance and overhaul schedules once we get there?”

              Quesh tipped his head from side to side.  “Working it up, still.  But Captain, when we get there we have got to look into hiring on new people.  More people for my engineering teams, anyone with welding experience.  We can work on computer systems, enviro and drives later.  But I need bodies and I need them ASAP.”

              Eamonn nodded.  “Yes, we need all sorts of crew.  I’m hoping we can find the ones we need here in Seylonique.  And I’m also hoping that this industrialized system is much more friendly than the last one we were in.”

              “To be fair, Captain,” Quesh said giving him a look, “Ulla-tran wasn’t all that bad until the pirates showed up.  And it’ll be good to see the people from the
Kara
again.”

              “Yes, it will.  And you’re right, it
wasn’t
all that bad until they decided to come in and ruin everything.  Except for the bastards who assaulted and captured the crew of the
Emilia Walker.
”  Quesh had the good grace to look embarrassed.  “Keep me informed of any changes to the schedules.”

              “Yes, Captain,” the Parkani said, getting to his feet.  “I surely will.  I am still concerned on the stresses to the hull, especially on that starboard side, Captain.  We’ve done some patches and tried to beef it up as well as we can, but you need to go easy on the old girl.  She can’t take much in the way of serious jolts.”

              “I understand, Chief,” Eamonn said soberly.  “I’ll speak with my bridge watch and ease her out of hyper when we get to breakout.”

              Tamara sat in the mess hall, eating a passable facsimile of Cookie’s fish soup with a crusty roll and a glass of ale, her datapad turned off on the table next to her bowl, just sitting by herself and eating.  The last seven days had been long, especially at first.  To know that they had less than nineteen hours to go before breakout and then be told that there was now an additional week to be added on was hard to accept.  Morale was already low, though it had been steadily on the incline ever since the retaking of the ship and with the imminent arrival of the ship in Seylonique, things were almost back to normal, or as close to that as they could get on a ship that had lost so many. 

              It was odd that they would all be so excited about arrival into a system they knew little about.  They did have an ally here, potentially, in Administrator Galina on the
Kara
, who if she’d taken a direct course from Ulla-tran should have beaten
Grania Estelle
here by about two and a half weeks.  Which meant that the good Administrator would be there to greet them and hopefully give them an introduction to the locals.  There was no way of knowing what they would find there, in the system.  They had a decent spacefaring society, one of the few true ones in the Argos Cluster and that battlecruiser certainly gave them a blanket of security.  A ship as powerful as that one would certainly give anyone with hostile intentions pause and there were few if any other vessels of that size and power in the Argos Cluster.  One would think that would make Seylonique a hub, a place where people would want to go for security and safety.

              But it appeared the locals on Seylonique had other ideas.  They apparently were very territorial and did not appreciate uninvited visitors.  On occasion they would allow ships to come in,
Grania Estelle
had come here once before, several years ago, but it was one of the few.  The bulk freighter had a load of processed minerals at the time, which was something the locals were willing to trade for, were eager to trade for, in fact.  It was one of the few times in
Grania Estelle
’s journey that they had actually sold everything in the ship’s holds, and had actually turned a tidy profit.  The captain had always meant to come back to Seylonique with another load of refined materials, but things had never seemed to work out.  The rising damage and the inability to secure another load of materials had prevented another trip.  Even now, they were coming here with little more than a large load of helium 3, intended for the pirates, but perhaps they could sell some to the people at Seylonique.

              Tamara looked around at the mess hall.  There were several others here, stragglers from the end of lunch mess.  A few nodded to her from their own places in the mess, but no one got up and she was glad of it.  There were times when she would be grateful and eager for conversation and banter, but not today.  Not during this meal.  It wasn’t as though this particular meal was very special or significant, but for just this short period of time, she wanted to be alone with her thoughts as she ate.  She was morose and in a funk but she wasn’t in any mood to break out of it. 

              She wasn’t lonely, per se.  And it wasn’t as though she was bored.  She’d been running diagnostics and patch jobs all throughout the starboard section ever since the reduction in speed.  It had been an exhausting trip and for the moment, Tamara was just thinking that some time off would be nice.  Not that she’d be getting any serious rest in the next month or so.  Repairs to the
Grania Estelle
would take at least that long, probably longer.  In fact, she was sure they would, but it was unlikely that the ship would be hanging around in one system for much longer than that.  The Captain, the Cargo Specialist and the Chief Engineer would get itchy feet sitting here hammering out dents in the hull.  They’d repair the outer hull and support beams and trusses, fix up a few of the sublight engines and then they’d be on their way again.  If at all possible, the captain would hire on enough crew to bring them up to a full complement, Taja would stuff the holds full of goods and then they’d probably be on their way.  Hopefully the ship had enough of whatever the locals in Seylonique would want or enough money in the ship’s accounts to purchase enough to make the trip worthwhile.

              She chuckled to herself as she took a bite of bread.  Of course it would be worthwhile.  According to the charts, Seylonique had a good-sized asteroid belt that was rich in minerals.  Three gas giants and a beautiful inhabited world.  All anyone could ask for.  Hopefully there would be some sort of meeting of the minds that could happen which would allow
Grania Estelle
and her crew the chance to exploit and enjoy the resources there, maybe even make some friends.

              Tamara turned at the sound she heard behind her.  Hearing the familiar shuffle-thump-clunk, she sighed.  She could feel her hackles starting to rise and she immediately tamped down on her emotions.  She saw the Captain entering the mess hall, Tamara gritted her teeth and went back to her soup, though her heart wasn’t in the meal anymore. 
Oh, I am not in the mood for this right now.
  She wasn’t normally one to shovel food in her mouth, or rush through her meals, else she might have done so now.  As it was, she was seriously considering it now.  She would risk a lack of decorum and a bit of rudeness to now have to speak with him.  She wasn’t ready. 

              “Moxie!” he called, shuffling over to her, a tray with a sandwich and glass of milk clutched in his fist.  He clumped over to the table she sat at and plopped down heavily onto the bench across from Tamara.

              Tamara plastered a bright smile on her face, one that she’d used in the past as a commander of a Republic station, having had to deal with unpleasant situations and people.  “And how can I help you today, Captain?”

              He blinked in surprise.  Eamonn hesitated for a moment, clearly having expected a different response from her.  “I hope you don’t mind that I join you.”

              She shook her head, taking another spoonful of soup.  It was starting to cool down.  She’d need to eat more quickly.  “No, of course not,” Tamara replied, her lips still locked into that smile. 

              Another hesitation.  “I’m not your enemy, Moxie.”  He had a hurt look on his face that was quickly squelched.

              Tamara lost the smile.  “What do you want, Captain?  My soup is getting cold.” 

              He raised an eyebrow at her, taking a bite of his sandwich.  “Clearly your soup isn’t the only thing that’s cold around here.”  He gave her a knowing look.

              “Good afternoon, Captain,” Tamara said, standing and swinging a leg over the bench.  She grabbed the tray, slopping the remainder of the soup onto her hands and the tray, cursing.  Hustling over to the sideboard, she tossed the tray and dishes onto it and stormed out of the mess hall, flicking the soup off her hands.  Those few in the mess hall, especially the Captain, were watching her as she left.  The mess hall was silent for the long seconds it took for the sound of her ship boots to disappear down the corridor, and then those who remained spoke only in very low voices.