Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (65 page)

              He frowned, but he took the slip and read down the list.  His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.  “How in the hell did you get all these parts?”

              Tamara only smiled at him.  “I have my ways, Mister Jollin.”

              He looked up at her in awe.  “I am interested.”

              “Good,” she said with a smile.  “Then we can do business.”  She gestured to the sheet in his hand.  “Consider that a gift, and a taste.”  Vincent didn’t look happy about that, but he didn’t say anything

He eyed her.  “But only the first one is free, right?”

“I’m a businesswoman too, Mister Jollin.  Can’t just be giving away everything for free.”

“I’m already paying you thousands for the helium 3 fuel,” he complained.

“But if the reactors fail, then it won’t really matter how much fuel you have, will it?” she asked, bluntly.

He grimaced.  “No, I don’t suppose it will.  What do you want?”

Tamara looked to her captain who nodded.  “What we want is to start working on some serious building projects in this system.  One of which,” Eamonn said, “is working on getting this station up from the dregs.”

“Hey!” Miklos protested.  “This is my station that I’m fighting to keep.”

Vincent nodded.  “I know.  And I also know you’ve been doing very hard work with very few resources.”

“That’s true enough,” the engineer agreed.

“I want to continue with my operations here but I can’t do that without funding,” Vincent went on.

“I’m pretty much at the end of my discretionary budget, Captain,” Miklos replied.  “I’m authorized to buy fuel, but that is it.  I can’t even afford to make payments to buy those parts you were hinting at before, Ms. Samair.”

“Please,” she said, waving a dismissive hand.  “Like I said, we’re going to be getting to know each other pretty well.  We can dispense with the formality, at least in private like this.  Call me Tamara.”

“Miklos,” he said with a smile.  But then the smile faded.  “But that doesn’t change what I said.  I have no money to buy extra things from you.”

Vincent nodded.  “What if we short the fuel payment slightly?  Just enough for the cost of the parts?”

Miklos frowned, then pulled out his datapad and did a few quick calculations.  He chewed his bottom lip.  “Well, I think that will be doable.  How much are you wanting for the parts?”  Vincent named a figure.  Miklos looked up at him.  “Really, Captain?  You’re going to gouge a hardworking man?  You can do better than that.”

“Twenty thousand less,” Vincent replied.  He shook his head slightly.  “But I won’t go lower than that.”

“Done,” Miklos said immediately.  He stuck out his hand and the Captain shook it.  “Damn, I thought you’d only go as high as eight!” he cackled.

Vincent grimaced and shook his head again.  “I’m getting soft in my old age.”

Tamara smiled at him.  “We still put up with you, Captain, even in your old age.”

“Quiet, you,” he grumped.  “All right, Miklos.  That will help.  Keep in touch with Tamara here to work out your replacement parts.  But I have another issue.”

“And what’s that, Captain?”  The engineer looked positively jovial with the notion he would be getting parts to fix up his station.  The list of reactor and control system parts that were apparently waiting for him had him drooling already.

“To continue with operations in this system, I need to get a ship.  My own is going to be departing here to return to trading, but I want to use one as a mobile construction platform,” Vincent explained. 

Miklos nodded.  “Makes sense.  Better than to keep shuttling back and forth from the station.”  He laughed.  “And it’s been working for you so far, sending out shuttles from your ship instead of docking.  Though I gotta say you are really pissing off the big bosses because of that.  They were thinking they could be taking you for a ride with docking fees, air fees, power fees, and hell, if you bother them for long enough they could send in boarders.”

“That was my understanding as well,” he agreed.  “Which is why I’ve kept my ship away from the orbital.  But the problem is I don’t have the upfront capital to simply purchase a second ship.”

The man looked confused.  “Well I feel for you both, but I don’t understand how you think I can help you with that.”

“Well, in order to make any sort of profit I need to be able to sell to the station, or to the planet below.”  Vincent sighed.  “And the station authorities are not too keen on working with me.”

              “There are some of the locals that would be willing to buy…” he began.

              But Vincent cut him off.  “Not in anywhere near the numbers I would need to make this all worthwhile.”

              The burly engineer crossed his arms over his chest, looking off at the bulkhead.  “All right, so what is your ultimate plan here?”

              “Build some support infrastructure and eventually base my operations out from here and eventually make this system a hub for trading again.  For that we’re going to need fuel, hence the gas mine.”

              Miklos’s smile was radiant.  “I cannot wait to see how you pull that off,” he said. 

              Tamara grinned.  “You give a girl some space to work and the proper resources, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

              “But, I need the ship for that and I don’t have the money to buy it.  I was thinking of selling minerals that we get from rocks in the asteroid belt, but no one on the orbital is willing to play ball.”  He sighed.  “All right.  I’ve now said that exact sentence over four hundred times to twenty different people and the answer has not changed.  Which means I need to stop asking it and start asking different questions.  Mister Jollin?”  He looked up, addressing the engineer directly.

              “Captain?”  Miklos looked.

              “Who do you know down on the planet’s surface who would like to get in on the ground floor on an amazing business opportunity?”

              The shuttle set down on the surface of the habitable world, just outside of one of the smaller cities.  The city was located in the hinterlands, near to the southern pole on one of the middle sized continents.  Tamara stood, adjusting her heavy jacket and pulling on her gloves she looped the strap for her knapsack over her shoulder, across her chest.  This area was known for blistering winds and occasional snowfall, and like most spacers, Tamara was really unsuited for harsh conditions.  Compared to the locals, she knew that her clothing was far thicker and more insulated, but she didn’t care.  This place seemed sleepy by comparison to other dirtside cities she’d seen, even in just the few months since she’d awoken in this time.

              She stepped down off the ramp, with Corajen following along right behind her, the Captain and two more of
Grania Estelle
’s security company following along just behind them.  Before them, at the edge of town less than a hundred meters from where they had landed, lay a row of prefabbed buildings, garages, small apartments, all of which looked shabby and run down.  Like everything else in this system, the buildings were neglected, spotted with corrosion and let off a faint whiff of rot.  Or in the case of this area, not so faint.

              “What’s the name of this dump?” Corajen asked, her ears flat to her head, her nose twitching on the end of her muzzle.  The lupusan had spurned heavier clothing, knowing that her own thick pelt could easily keep her warm.  Her fur had fluffed out slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice.  She was armed with her carbine, and with various blades tucked away, as well as a pair of Tamara’s slimmer grenades clipped to her belt.  A pistol hung from a shoulder holster, but with the carbine in her hands, it was unlikely that any of the other weapons would be needed. 

              “Endricar,” Vincent replied, looking around.  “We’re supposed to find a woman named Suriaya.  She owns a small machine shop around here.”

              “A small machine shop?  What the hell?  Why are we wasting our time with a small fry like this?” Corajen demanded. 

              “This is the person Miklos told us to meet with,” Tamara reminded her.

              “So?”

              “So, I want to meet with her,” Tamara replied. 

              “I do as well,” Vincent put in.  “If Miklos is this hot to trot about us meeting this woman, then I believe it’s a good idea.”

              They headed into the town and Tamara tried to keep from stepping in the every large puddle of muddy water in the middle of the road leading between two of the buildings.  She stepped to the outside of it and managed to avoid most of the water as she did so.  Eamonn laughed at her but she ignored him.

              Coming around the front of the buildings, the group could see that they were just as ramshackle and dirty from this direction as they were from the rear.  There were a number of half-fished projects lying in piles all over.  “This looks like your cargo bays when I first came aboard
Grania Estelle
,” Tamara commented, wrinkling her nose a bit.

              Vincent frowned.  “It does a bit.”

              “Who the hell is that?” a voice demanded from inside one of the buildings, a garage.  You mocking the sanctity of my establishment?”  The speaking voice had changed to more of a bellow.

              “Just observing the amount of what appear to be discarded projects front of your shop,” Tamara replied, raising her voice a little.  Corajen was still relaxed, though the engineer had noted that her hand had tightened slightly on the grip of her carbine.

              “How dare you!” the voice said angrily.  It was a deeper voice, but a female one. 

              Activating her HUD, Tamara scanned into the darkened interior of the ship, through the open doors.  The shop wasn’t large, but it was big enough to house a pair of small shuttlepods or one of
Grania Estelle
’s cargo shuttles inside with plenty of room to work.  There was a second workshop in the adjacent building, filled with various pieces of equipment for casting, stamping components as well as a full blown machine shop.  Her enhanced vision provided by her implants allowed her to see the equipment, as well as a portly figure advancing from the first building.

              The figure emerged from the darkness of the shop.  It was clearly a woman, round, dirty, wearing a grubby coverall.  Her arms were thick and well-muscled though her left hand was encased in metal, a cybernetic replacement.  She had another enhancement around her left eye, a horseshoe of coppery metal that ringed her eye, the open end facing the bridge of her nose.

              “What the hell did you say about my shop?” the woman demanded.

              “I said,” Tamara replied calmly, putting her hands on her hips, trying to look confident in a heavy jacket and gloves, compared to this woman in front of her who was just radiating heat.  “I said, that there looks to be a lot of unfinished projects just piled up outside here.”

              “Don’t you come down to my shop and start disrespecting me in my own house!” the woman roared.

              “Knock it off, grubby,” Corajen growled, putting plenty of subsonics into her voice.

              “You threatening me, bitch?” the woman asked, completely unfazed.

              “No, ma’am,” Vincent replied.  “What I’m doing is coming to speak with you about a business opportunity.”

Chapter 22

              “What the hell are you talking about, a business opportunity,” the portly woman replied, suspicious.

              “I’m Vincent Eamonn,” the captain introduced himself.  “I’ve sent up a few businesses in system and I heard through the rumor mill that you are a business woman looking to get her hands on several metric tons of various metals for the shuttle you’re trying to build.”

              She eyed him suspiciously.  “And how the hell would you know that?”  She crossed her arms over her chest.

              “Because you’re Suriaya,” Vincent replied.  “A man that I trust told me about your little problem, and that I might have the things that you need.”

              “And why would I trust you?” Suriaya asked.  “Some fast talking foreigners coming down to my shop, insulting me and selling me lies.”

              Tamara reached into her knapsack and extracted a rectangular bar of metal, about the size of her hand if she held her fingers straight.  Stepping closer, she handed it to the other woman.

              Suriaya eyed her suspiciously, then turned her attention to the bar.  First she held it close to her face and smelled it, then started in surprise.  She squinted at it and Tamara’s own scans on her HUD indicated that the grubby mechanic was scanning it with her optical implant.  After a moment, she looked up, the suspicion having receded somewhat, replaced with a mix of awe and pleasure.

              “Duralloy ingot.  Where did you get this?”

              “Made it,” Vincent answered.  “Mined the ores from the asteroid belt, refined it on my ship.  And there’s a lot more where that came from.

              “It’s ninety-four percent pure,” the mechanic said, a touch of wonder in her voice.  “I’ve never seen any better than eighty-one percent.”

              Vincent shrugged.  “I have good equipment and better crew working for me.”

              “I need forty-four metric tons of this for my project,” Suriaya said, clutching the ingot with her metal hand.  It was clear that she was not going to give it up without a struggle.

              “Easily done,” Vincent said.  “Five thousand credits and I can have it shipped here in an hour.”

              “You came all the way here, with all your goons, just to sell me five thousand credits worth of duralloy?” Suriaya asked.  “That doesn’t track.”

              “As I said, I was looking to make a business deal and hopefully get started on a more lasting relationship,” Vincent explained.  “My source up on the orbital also said that you might be able to point me in the direction of others who might want similar deals.  There are some projects that I’m looking to get started on and making good contacts and buyers would only help me.”

              “I could do that,” she admitted.  But then she shook her head.  “But right now, all I got is this and your word.”  She held up the ingot.  “You bring me the shipment you indicated, I’ll pay you the credits and we can talk.”

              “That is something I can do,” Vincent replied.

              An hour later, a second shuttle came down from orbit, delivering the agreed upon shipment.  Suriaya was suitably impressed by the pair of cargo shuttles in such good order.  But upon seeing the pallets of metal stacked neatly her mouth dropped.  She looked over at the freighter jocks and her resolved stiffened.  She went into the shuttle’s cargo bay and examined the shipment, nodding as she determined that Vincent had not exaggerated his claims.

              “All right,” she said, excitement getting into her voice.  The duralloy had been cut into sheets two meters wide and ten meters long, ten centimeters thick, perfect for use in skinning the shuttle she had been building.  “This is amazing.”

              Vincent nodded.  “Would you require any assistance in cutting these up?”  Tamara was already pulling the hover pallet down off the shuttle, pulling it from the landing area over to the main entrance of Suriaya’s shop.

              “I can’t believe this is happening,” the portly engineer said, shaking her head slightly as Tamara expertly steered the hover pallet to a stop inside the main doors. 

              “Believe it,” Tamara replied, looking up from what she was doing to her.  “I can have my bots,” she gestured to the two hovering machines, “unload these right here, unless there’s somewhere else you’d like them.”

              “Just move it over to the pallet there,” Suriaya indicated a grav cart that had seen better days, though Tamara judged it adequate to hold the sheets of metal alloy. 

              With a quick command entered on her datapad, the bots hustled over and using their small tractoring beams, they collected up the sheets of metal and in moments had it all transferred to the grav cart.  A few more quick keystrokes and the bots were pulling the hover pallet back over to the shuttle on their own.  “All set, just need the payment,” Tamara said, holding out her datapad.

              Suriaya scanned the display on the device, then nodded, and thumbed the acceptance, transferring the agreed upon credits to the Captain’s account at Ganner and Saoirse.  “Well worth it,” she crowed.  “Finally gonna get my baby to fly!”  She rubbed her hands together in delight.  Then she looked over to the Captain.  “And I’ll talk to a few people.  You’re a man of your word, Captain.  I know a few that would be interested in working with you.  Not necessarily for duralloy, you understand,” she said.  “But they might want that, or other materials.  I also heard that you were selling refined helium 3 fuel to the orbital station.”

              “That’s right,” he said, nodding.

              “I know ol’ Joxxas would be interested in having a conversation with you,” Suriaya said.  “He’s

been hankering to get his hands on some since you all showed up.”

              “Then I think he is someone I would be interested in talking to,” the captain replied. 

              “And how do I get in touch with you again?” she asked.  “When I need more resources?”

              Vincent smiled.  He handed her a slip of flimsi.  “This is a secure comm code that you can call at any time to set up another meeting, or if you prefer, a transaction.”

              She took it, looking it over and nodded.  “I’ll be talking to you?”

              But he shook his head.  “One of my associates, or possibly Commander Samair here,” he indicated Tamara, “who is my Chief of Operations here in Seylonique in my absence.”

              “Your absence?”  Now she was starting to get suspicious again.

              “I’m a freighter captain, Ms. Suriaya,” he explained.  “My ship is in final stages of refit and once that’s done, I’m going to be heading out to try and establish trade routes with some of the nearby systems.  Commander Samair is going to be heading up things here while I’m gone.”

              She hesitated for a long moment, then she nodded.  “All right then.  Commander,” Suriaya said, “I will be in touch.”  Then she turned and went into the shop.

              “All right, Captain, let’s get going.”

              Over the next twenty days, Tamara led the group to over a score of small businesses, and by the end of her travels she had established business relations with all of them.  All were small business owners, ranging from building of ground cars, construction bots, and even one who built bridges for over the numerous rivers and tributaries that crisscrossed the local area.  All needed metals and fuel and all were interested in continuing the business relationships.  Money was starting to flow into the company coffers, but it was far short of the goal needed to purchase the
Samarkand
.

              “Over a hundred and eighty thousand credits, Tamara,” Vincent said.  “In twenty days you made as much money as we did with that first sale of fuel to the station.”

              “You exaggerate, Captain,” she said.  “We made over three hundred on that first deal.”

              “Yeah, to the station,” he replied.  “And you made a number of contacts, at least half of whom want to continue purchasing metals and fuel from us.”

              “All good things, Captain,” Tamara agreed.  “But while that is a large pile of money, it’s not nearly enough to purchase the ship.”

              “No,” he acknowledged, “But it is enough to shake the ship loose.  We lease it for now, continue making payments.”

              “Really?  I thought the locals weren’t willing to play ball.”

              “Well, I haven’t spoken to them yet,” Vincent admitted.   “But if we can put a big enough down payment on the ship…”

              Tamara crossed her arms.  “Captain, Stella said that you had already secured an investor for this project.”

              “Triarch Kozen’ck, yes,” he said.

              “Talk with him.  Get him to front the money to purchase the
Samarkand
and get us off the ground.  We need to get moving on repairs before
Grania Estelle
leaves.”

              “I won’t deny that,” Vincent said.  “All right.  Let’s you and I go see Rattanda Vae.”

              “Rattanda Vae?” Tamara asked skeptically.  “Who is that?”

              “She’s the one we need to speak with.  She runs the scrapyard that owns the ship.”

              “Severite?”

              Vincent smiled.  “How did you guess?”

              “The name sounds Severite.  One of the local families, I’d wager.”

              “And you would be correct,” Vincent replied.  “She’s from the Azavina Family and a respected businesswoman.  Hopefully as well as respected, she’s also willing to be open minded.”

              Tamara put her hand on his arm.  “Call the Triarch first, Captain.  I get the feeling that this Rattanda Vae isn’t going to accept anything but money and if the Triarch is interested in making money off us, then he needs to act the part of the investor and actually invest some money.”

              Vincent nodded.  “All right.  Head down to the boat bay and get the shuttle prepped.  I’ll call him and see what we can swing.”

              “A ship?” Kozen’ck asked, his face looking puzzled over the display.  “You need me to buy you a ship?  But why?  You already have a ship.  You have several ships.”

              Vincent nodded.  “Yes, but my main vessel,
Grania Estelle
, is going to be departing this system in a few days to try and establish a few markets in the local area.  I need a mobile platform that will allow my associates that remain behind in the system to operate.  The station is too far away and too cumbersome to work from.  My people would be spending hours in transit between the areas of operation and the station, losing valuable time, wasting fuel and having my people tired out.  If there was a ship we could use, we could bring the work platform anywhere in the system.”

              The zheen didn’t answer for a moment.  “That does make sense.  But what is to stop your people from simply taking the ship and flying off?”

              Vincent chuckled.  “I understand your concern, Triarch.  It’s one that I myself shared when I considered working with a partner in a cooperative.  What was to stop them from simply sailing off and leaving me in the lurch?  The answer was nothing.  I couldn’t stop them.  But I decided that I needed to try and develop some trust, which I understand is sorely lacking in the Argos Cluster these days.  You started down that path already, Triarch, when you decided to work with me.”

              “Yes, I suppose I did.”  He sounded unsure.  “But seven million credits…”

              “Yes, Triarch,” Vincent said, nodding.  “It is a lot of money.  But what were you expecting?  We are looking to start some major infrastructure in this system.  Yes, in the end it will make exponentially more than you put into it, but there are going to be some costs.  I’m not trying to run things on the cheap, but I’m not going to throw away money here.  I want the things we build to last and I want my crews to be safe.  But at the same time, we’re not making things out of platinum and diamonds.”

              “Good.  I’d have a very hard time selling that to anyone else.”

              “Screw anyone else,” Vincent said heartily.  “You’re getting in right at the beginning.  In a month, we’ll be harvesting minerals from the belt in a much more serious way and we’ve already got a few orders in.  Think about what’s going to happen when other ships start coming here?  And when the businesses on the planet’s surface realize what they can do with the materials I can sell them?  Don’t worry about getting your investment back.”

              “Won’t all this just make the system a more tempting target for the pirates?” Kozen’ck asked.  “If all these buildings and structures and all this industry just starts springing up, it’s going to paint a fat bull’s-eye on this system.  A big flashing beacon that says ‘Come and get me!’”

              Vincent nodded.  “That is a concern, yes.  I’m hoping that as I get things rolling the people who are supposedly in charge of this system are going to see that the money maker is something that needs protecting and will take steps accordingly.”