Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (27 page)

              “Are we going to stop at the station, sir?  Give the crew a little shore leave?”
              That was a legitimate question, despite the amount of excitement the other man was trying very hard to conceal.  The crew had been cooped up for a while on board
Legacy
ever since they had headed to Ulla-tran.  They hadn’t gotten off the ships since then and by now must truly be ready for some time away, even if it was only for a few hours.  There
was
a space station out there and the freighter nearby indicated that civilians did come through here.  “All right.  We’ll head in system, spend three days at the station.  That’ll give everyone a chance to go ashore for liberty.  That will also give you, Mister Kamerov, a chance to get with the Quartermaster and the station authorities and see what you can do to get us some fresh supplies.”

              The XO nodded.  “Yes, sir.  What about fuel?”

              Harth checked his display on his desk.  The fuel loads for
Legacy
hadn’t been filled since they’d left the fleet and luckily they hadn’t blown through it, keeping to economical cruising speeds in both hyper and in normal space.  Combat maneuvering in Ulla-tran had been at a minimum.  Still, reserves were down to forty-four percent, far lower than he liked.  “All right, see what you can do.  But make sure
anything
you bring on board is thoroughly checked: food, fuel, whatever.  I don’t need the crew getting poisoned or the engines getting all gummed up because of crappy product.”

              “No, of course not, sir.  I’ll take care of it.”

              “Good,” he said.  “You’re dismissed, Mister Kamerov.  I’ll contact
Ravage
and inform Tran of our travel plans.”

              The man straightened to attention, did a crisp about face and swept from the ready room.

              The heavy cruiser
Legacy
approached the station at a relatively low cruising speed, which Commander Harth had decided would be prudent. 
Ravage
was tucked in tight, only a thousand kilometers off the cruiser’s port side.  The reason for the slow approach was two-fold: first to conserve fuel in case they weren’t able to procure any at the station.  Second, to show a less threatening posture toward the locals. 

              “Droven, what’s the status of that warship?” he asked, turning in his command seat to the reptilian ensign.

              The ensign didn’t turn away from his sensor feeds.  “The destroyer is holding well back from us, Captain,” he reported.  “They’re maintaining a distance of one light minute.”

              “And the freighter?”

              “Holding position, sir,” the domak replied.  “They’re five hundred kilometers from the station.  They’ve just launched a shuttle, on course for the station.”

              “Sending over crew for liberty?  Cargo?”

              “Not cargo, Captain,” he said firmly.  “The station has a docking area near that main set of modules on the same vector as the freighter, sir.  If they were sending over cargo, I think they would have just pulled right up and docked.  Probably a lot less hassle, they just dock and open up the big cargo hold.”

              That made sense.  “Very good.  We, however, are not going to dock.”  Harth nodded in acknowledgement to his own statement.  “Comms, open a channel to the station.  Give them our name and that we intend to stop for liberty.”

              The young zheen at the communications console nodded, dipping his antennae briefly before turning to his console.  After a few moments, he turned back to the captain.  “Sir, they say that we are welcome at Hyperidon Station.”

              Harth chuckled.  “Hyperidon Station?  A rather grand title for the ramshackle construction before us.”

              The zheen’s antennae swirled with mirth.  “Yes, Captain.  A Primary Yokusk is on the line for you, sir.  Audio only.”

              Harth gestured.  “By all means, Khovik, put him through.”  The zheen petty officer pressed a control and then gave the captain a thumbs up.  “This is Captain Harth of the Republic ship
Legacy.
  Am I speaking to Primary Yokusk?”

              The voice that replied sounded as though it was a deep press of air passing through a gravel crusher.  “This is Primary Yokusk.  State your intentions.”

              “We’re just passing through,” he said jovially, as though Republic ships came through this system every day.  “We’ve been in hyperspace for a while.  I’d like to get your permission to let me crew come over for shore leave.”

              There was a pregnant pause.  “Very well.  How long are you planning to stay?”

              “Only a few days,” the captain said.  “I have no interest in starting trouble.  As I said, I only want to give my crew a chance to relax and unwind a bit before we get going again.”

              Another pause.  “Very well.  We are not a greatly equipped station, Captain Harth.  And I do not appreciate rowdy drunken sailors disrupting my orderly station.”

              Harth repressed a chuckle.  “I completely understand, Primary.  I will convey that information to my crew.  Will it be all right then if I start sending some over?  We will provide our own shuttles.”

              “Very well, Captain.  Welcome to Hyperidon Station.”  And the line was cut.

              “Mister Kamerov, liberty in thirty minutes.  You know the drill.”

              “Very good, Captain,” the stout man replied.  He pressed a control.  “All hands, this is the XO.  Liberty is declared starting in thirty minutes.  All second shift is on liberty until 0600.  Those who wish to visit the station, be in the shuttle bay in three-zero minutes.  Repeat, second shift is at liberty in three-zero minutes.  All those who wish to visit the station report to the shuttle bay in three-zero minutes.  That is all.”  He pressed the control again and the PA system shut off.  He glanced over at his commander.  “What do you think is going on over there, Captain?” he asked.

              Harth pursed his lips.  “I would like to hope that it’s just a trade station that happens to have a warship in system.  But I don’t think we’re that lucky.  If
Grania Estelle
was going here under the auspices of a pirate ship, then you can bet that station is going to be crawling with them.  Make sure to stress to the noncoms and the officers that everyone is to be on their toes.  No one goes anywhere alone, report anything suspicious.”

              Kamerov nodded.  “Aye, Captain.”

              The crews of
Legacy
and
Ravage
went aboard the station in shifts, making sure that no more than a third of their complements were aboard at any one time.  The rest of the crew who stayed behind made sure to keep a weather eye open; there was an unknown warship hanging around and it wouldn’t do for a pair of Republic vessels to be caught unawares.  Neither crew was afraid of the destroyer, but a fast attack at a critical moment could force an engagement that might cause damage to either of the two ships.  And with no truly friendly bases nearby and no outside repair capability, Harth did not want to fight if he didn’t have to.  At some point, they were going to have to make a trip to the Republic Outpost Byra-Kae, to report in if nothing else, and possibly to help out against the pirate flotilla that might be on their way there now. 

              But for now he was letting his crew relax a bit out on the station.  As the Primary had said, it was not a well to do place, stuffed with luxuries.  But they did have several eating (and more importantly,
drinking
) establishments, a few shops selling a variety of goods from within the Cluster, and best of all, a change of scenery from the bare gray metal of the two Republic ships.

              Granted, the station’s interior wasn’t that much different from most places, it too was made of metal, but the fact that the station was made up of so many disparate pieces made for a lot to look at.  In some places it seemed as though there was little more than a few tack welds holding the various pieces together, but the locals didn’t seem worried.  Moving down one corridor of what once was a cargo ship, the station opened up into a grand vista which looked out at a filtered viewport toward the star, some twenty light-minutes away.  The filter allowed anyone looking out the armor glass viewport to actually look at the sun without damaging themselves.  They were far enough out that the amount of radiation was fairly dispersed and low anyway, and it appeared to be little more than the size of a human child’s fingernail.  The view was still spectacular, with the amethyst cloud of the inner system ice belt framing the sun in front of it, which was what gave the system its name.

              Not that the locals here really spent much time admiring the view.  It was quickly apparent to the visiting crews that this place was little more than a transshipment hub for incoming and outgoing goods.  The freighter that was hanging around outside had just delivered a load of foodstuffs, most of which was earmarked for another system.  Once all that was unloaded, which
Legacy
’s arrival interrupted, the ship would be loaded up with a load of raw materials and ice from the ring for shipment out of the system.  The water here was no different than any other H2O elsewhere, but this system had its own ring.  There were very few other star systems, especially here in the Argos Cluster, which could claim to have a system-wide ice belt.  Many planets had rings like that, but very few had ones as big as Amethyst.  Thus, if you could get some of the ice from here, it was considered a collectors’ item.  Some even claimed it had special healing powers, though a simple scan would tell you that was rubbish.  But the myth pervaded and it drove up the price of Amethyst’s ice, so the locals didn’t complain.

              The station’s population was somewhere around the five thousand mark, which was hefty, but not anywhere near as large as some in the more industrialized systems.  In nearby Ulla-tran, the fueling station there held about as many people, with the orbital station about the primary inhabited with holding three times as many.  The population here at Amethyst was mixed, but more than forty percent were human, with a large zheen population and more than a few Sepetynes and Hovorians. 

              The crew managed to find ways of enjoying themselves, however.  The bars and other eateries were hit just as soon as
Legacy
’s people set foot on the station.  For the first few hours, things stayed calm, but it wasn’t long before things got rowdy.  The station’s people were spacers, just as much as the crew from
Legacy
and
Ravage
.  And it wasn’t long before both sides were getting into it, drinking and having a good time.  When it finally came time to return to the ship, there were more than a few sailors who needed assistance from their comrades to make it to the shuttle as the next batch were coming in from
Legacy.

              There was an undercurrent, though.  A tension, despite the drinking and comradery.  Station personnel were keeping a close eye on the Republic people, a very suspicious eye.  The occasional officer or noncom that noticed were given menacing stares before they would turn away.  No one said anything, nothing got out of hand and no overt action was taken, but more than a few chiefs or petty officers slowed their alcohol intake after being on the receiving end of those stares.  Once back to the ship, everything was reported, but again, so far, nothing had been done in any overt or actually hostile ways. 

              Kamerov and Lieutenant Sombre Mia, the ship’s Severite quartermaster, managed to scrounge up a decent amount of fuel for the two ship’s tanks.  It wasn’t the high grade helium 3 they were used to from back in the Republic, sadly, but they did manage to get a load of fair quality deuterium.  Neither ship had their own refinery, but between the cat-like Quartermaster and the ship’s engineering department, they managed to jury-rig a passable system in one of
Legacy
’s cargo bays.  Within hours, the deuterium was processed into a more pure material and put into the tanks.  Some shuffling around of fuel needed to be done, they didn’t want to simply add the deuterium to the fuel they already had, which would essentially dilute it.  They freed up the portside numbers two and three tanks for deuterium on
Legacy
, and transferred all the remaining helium 3 to the starboard tanks.  Switching around a few connections meant that the ship’s reactors would run off the lesser fuel first, saving the better grade stuff in case they needed it for combat.  The deuterium would go faster as it took more to do the same, and it would cause some radiation damage over time, but the engineering department was ready and capable of dealing with it.  Hopefully, they wouldn’t be running on “the cheap stuff” as one of the sailors put it, for very long.  They’d make the run to Tyseus, if they didn’t find the
Grania Estelle
then perhaps they might start the trip to Byra-Kae and top off tanks there with proper fuel.

              Commander Harth had a discussion with his Chief Engineer, a fiery old Severite.  She was in her late thirties, which for her race meant she was in the twilight of her years.  However, modern medicine kept the spring in her step and her tail, and reduced the amount of gray in her fur.  The chief’s fur was a brindled gold and brown, with the inevitable streaks of gray that the prolong treatments just couldn’t seem to eradicate.  But her verdant eyes always seemed to glow with some sort of inner light and she never seemed to stay still for very long.