Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (75 page)

              Serinda frowned.  “Captain, we’re being hailed by a pair of starfighters.”

              George piped up just an instant later.  “Captain, two starfighters approaching on an intercept course.”

              “Serinda, put them through,” Vincent ordered. 

              “Audio only, sir,” she said.  Then she pressed a control and a voice came over the speakers.

              “This is Aplora Flight leader to unknown bulk freighter.  You will state your identification and your intentions.  You are crossing into a protected zone.”  The voice had the distinctive tones and buzz of a zheen.

              “Put me on,” he ordered.  Serinda gave him a thumbs up and he turned to his display, showing the blips on the sensors that were the fighters.  They were doing long, lazy orbits around the
Grania Estelle
, never stopping, never holding position anywhere but always managing to keep the big ship under their guns.  “This is Vincent Eamonn, Captain of the bulk freighter
Grania Estelle
.  I’m here for refueling and to speak with Tamara Samair.”

              “I’m sorry, Captain,” the buzzing voice replied.  “Commander Samair is busy and has many demands on her time.  I’ll put your name in the queue and she should get back to you if she can in a few hours.”  Vincent gritted his teeth at the tone of this pilot’s pure gall.  “But in the meantime, we can get you set up for refueling ops.  I’m transmitting a flight plan for you to approach the fueling tanker above the mining station.”

              Vincent checked the feed.  Indeed there was a ship holding position above the gas mine, a massive freighter about five hundred meters in length, and about one hundred and fifty wide.  It was designed similar to that of the
Grania Estelle
, but instead of having huge cargo bays attached to the central part of the ship, four massive fuel pods ran two thirds the length of the ship.  A pair of shuttles was docked with the tanker, fueling hoses connected and Vincent assumed that they were probably transferring fuel from the mine to the tanker, filling her tanks.  Then he frowned.  It would take days to fill the tanker using the shuttles, even if they were packed to the fills with fuel bladders.  They must be pulling fuel off to possibly bring to other ships: tugs, other shuttles, perhaps even the
Samarkand
. 

              “Understood, Aplora Flight lead,” he said, trying very hard not to scream at the pilot.  “Helm, navigation, follow the course they send us.  Take us in at speed eighty.”

              The two bridge officers nodded and the lumbering bulk freighter moved off to follow the vectors provided by the starfighters.  The two fighter pilots apparently had either nothing better to do or were concerned that Isis couldn’t pilot the big ship properly, so they were holding station one hundred kilometers to either side, one slightly higher and the other slightly lower than
Grania Estelle
.  Vincent wasn’t sure if he should be comforted that the pilots were showing a good deal of concern for either his ship or security (probably the latter) or irritated that they needed it at all. 

              Refueling ops proceeded apace.  Once they were close enough to the tanker, hoses sprang forth from both ships, easily connecting the two ships and within mere minutes, fuel began pumping into the bulk freighter.  “We should be refueled within seven hours and change, Captain,” George reported.

              Vincent nodded.  “Very good.  Keep an eye on things.  George you have the conn.  I’ll be in the wardroom.”

              A moment later, he was in the wardroom, closing the hatch behind him.  “Stella?  What the hell is going on here?  Is Tamara still here?  Did the locals finally move in and take over?”

              The young female AI appeared on the display.  “I don’t show much indication of that, Captain,” Stella said.  “I’ve been monitoring local communications chatter and there’s lots of talk about the station and the mining work going on.  Apparently some of the local pacifist groups have started complaining loudly about the armed fighter wing that’s been doing security patrols around the gas mine.  It seems our good Tamara has bolstered her protection a bit.”

              “Oh?” he asked, interested.

              “Yeah,” Stella said with a smirk.  “She recruited zheen pilots for the pirate starfighters we got from Verrikoth and then she either built, bought or found six more.  They’re a different design though,” the AI said, bringing up an image of the ships.  They were narrow ships, little more than a fuselage with an engine, a wedge shape almost a spike.  The starfighters were armed only with a pair of laser cannons, which seemed very light, but considering the ships that had been through Seylonique lately, the popguns those fighters were armed with could handle any mischief the freighters might try to get into. 

              “They don’t look very tough,” he said dubiously.

              Stella shrugged.  “They aren’t,” she admitted.  “Based on the specs, they appear to be very fast and maneuverable, though as you suspected, they can’t take much in the way of damage.  They have paper-thin armor and a pair of class two laser cannons in the nose.”  She grimaced.  “That’s not like Tamara, to bring in some slipshod fighters like that.  She’d have wanted something much more robust.”

              Eamonn nodded.  “Maybe she managed to buy these ones.  It would make sense.”  He looked at the pictures on the display with a critical eye.  “They certainly look like they’ve been ridden hard,” he said, indicating the sandblasted hull plating, the patterns of corrosion on the hull.  Vincent saw that yes, these ships might be nimble, but they’d seen some very hard use.  “I don’t know.  Maybe they’re better than they look.”  Stella gave him a look that mirrored his own feelings on the subject.  Vincent sighed.  “No, I don’t suppose I really believe it either.”

              “Why hasn’t she contacted us?” Stella asked after a moment.

              “I don’t know, Stella,” he said.  “I hope it’s just because she’s busy and hasn’t noticed our arrival for some reason.  But I honestly don’t know.” 

              Stella spent an entire tenth of a second considering the problem. 
Grania Estelle
had been in system for days now and her course had taken her to the gas giant and the whole fueling operation here, the most logical target.  With her reactor running on helium 3 fuel, her shields at over ninety percent, hull integrity back well into the green and her hyperdrive properly tuned, the ship wasn’t blowing through fuel like she used to.  Upon her arrival back in Seylonique, the ship was only down to fifty-eight percent in fuel reserves, a far better result than she’d been at up until only a few months ago.  So despite all the improvements and upgrades, the gas mine and a top off of her tanks was the obvious destination once she arrived back in the system.  So why wasn’t Tamara calling or coming out to greet them?

              There were a few different reasons why this might be so, Stella reasoned.  She might be sleeping.  But she’d have known the ship was coming for days now.  So the likelihood that she would be asleep now as the bulk freighter came in for refueling seemed unlikely.  She might be on the orbital or on the planet.  These options seemed more likely and Stella gave a virtual nod.  Yes.  She must be out of range of easy communications.

              There was an easy way to check, though it was annoying for the amount of lag time because of light speed communications.  She shot off a query to the orbital station looking for Tamara.  She also pinged every fighter, every tug, every shuttle, every communications array within
Grania Estelle
’s easy comm range.  Finally, as the tenth of the second finally came to an end, Stella was just about to concede defeat when finally she found her.

              “Captain, I have her,” the young AI said with a grin.  “She’s out in her
Perdition
fighter, going through what looks like a live training exercise with some of the zheen pilots.  They look to be doing flying and shooting maneuvers at the edge of the asteroid field.”

              He nodded.  As Stella brought up the sensor feed, he could see the four blocky pirate starfighters flitting in and out of a collection of rocks at the edge of the belt, well away from the four tugs that were hauling asteroids.  They were flying around, shooting targets in the belt on what looked like a predetermined path.  Tamara’s fighter was holding position several hundred kilometers above the course, giving her a bird’s eye view of the exercise.

              “Can you open a channel?” he asked.

              “Yes, Captain,” Stella said.  “Just one moment.  Let me see if I can get her.”  She ran through the channels until she found Tamara’s tactical channel.  Now, if Tamara was engaged in maneuvers, would she answer?

Chapter 25

              Tamara nodded to herself in satisfaction.  Her flyers were starting to shape up nicely.  They still had a ways to go, but they were showing definite improvement as this exercise was proving.  She wouldn’t have allowed them to play tag with the asteroids if she didn’t think they could get through without getting killed.  The machines they were using certainly weren’t the best, but for the moment, they were the best she could give them.  There were plans in the pipelines to build new and better starfighters but other projects had cropped up.  She didn’t like the
Sepulcres
or these
Lancer
-class fighters the new guys were using.  They had a lot of problems, they weren’t the greatest of design and in the case of the
Lancers
severely lacking in their armament.  But, it was what she had to work with until she could free up some resources to get better fighters out there.  And they
did
have good speed and maneuverability.  They were able to handle any of the in system traffic and freighters that came to the system, though she had to admit to herself that so far all the in system traffic and freighters had been hers.

              Today’s exercise had been a swoop and shoot, forcing them to fly through the nest of asteroids firing powered down targeting lasers at beacons that had been set amidst the rocks.  Points were awarded for whoever could shoot the most beacons while maintaining a high rate of speed.  She’d be running the rest of her small fighter squadron through this exercise throughout the next few days, and she’d given strict orders that none of those who had already flown it were to speak about it to the others until they’d all gone through.  No one argued, since they wanted to see how good their fellows would be.  They were shaping up into a decent fighting unit.

              An indicator on her control panel blinked.  She keyed the comm.  “This is Samair.  I’m a bit busy right now, so I hope that this is important.”

              A small voice answered.  “Tamara?  It’s me.”

              “Stella!  Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice!  When did you get back?”  She started checking her sensor feeds and then blinked.  “What the hell?  How did you make it all the way into the system already?”

              “Tamara, we’ve been on approach for the last four days,” Stella replied.  “How did you not notice?”

              Tamara let her head fall back against the headrest and sighed.  How the hell had she not noticed that the
Grania Estelle
was in system?  It wasn’t as though she was some tiny stealth ship sneaking into the system.  “I’m sorry, Stella.  I’ve been so busy with the projects here I don’t even remember to eat half the time.  I’ve got about another hour working with my flyers here and then I’ll be able to fly over to the
Grania Estelle
.”

              “The Captain will be glad to meet with you, Tamara.  And I’ll be glad to have you back aboard.”

              Tamara smiled broadly.  “It’ll be good to be back.  And we all have a lot to talk about.”

              Tamara eased her fighter down, landing in the boat bay aboard the bulk freighter without even a bump.  She took a few moment to power down the ship, then popped the canopy.  Removing her helmet, she climbed out of the fighter.

              There was a small party waiting for her as her boots hit the deck.  Ka’Xarian didn’t even wait, he came over and embraced Tamara, startling a gasp from her before she hugged him back.  “Good to see you, Tamara.”

              She laughed.  “It’s good to see you too, Xar.”  She released him and looked back around the bay at the two shuttles under construction.  “I see you’ve been busy,” she commented, flicking her chin in their direction.

              The zheen nodded.  “Yes, we are.  Had to replace the one we gave you and then the one we sold to the people at Heb.”

              “You’ve put together shuttles a hell of a lot faster than that, Xar,” she pointed out.

              He nodded again.  “Right.  But we only started on these two about a week ago.  Should be done in a few days.”

              “I’m sure you’ll handle it.”  She turned to the others.  “Quesh… I mean Chief Trrgoth,” she corrected herself, forcing a blank mask on her face, but her eyes twinkled.  “Good to see you again.”

              He stood motionless; both sets of arms crossed over his barrel chest.  A stern look was on his face.  “Didn’t expect to see you back here, Samair,” he said.  He bobbed his head.  “Though I will admit, it’s an impressive amount of work you’ve gotten done out there.”

              “Want a job?” she asked with a smirk.  “I need someone to run construction ops on the gas mine.”

              “Hey!” a voice came from the main door of the boat bay.  Vincent Eamonn stood there, a frown on his face.  “Don’t you try poaching my people, Tamara.  You have your own people.”

              She turned on her heel, ignoring Quesh’s grin.  She gave him a crisp military salute.  “Of course not, Captain Eamonn, sir.”  She stood there, holding her posture rigid.

              He sighed and returned her salute.  “Knock it off, Tamara,” Vincent said, trying hard not to smile.  “Now, get your ass off this boat bay and to the wardroom.  We have a lot of things to talk about.”

              “If you get Noken to bring up something to eat, you’ve got a deal, Captain,” she countered.  “A girl’s got to eat.”

              “I think we can manage something,” Vincent said, beckoning her to follow.

              “So, talk,” Vincent said as they sat down in the wardroom. 

              Tamara shook her head.  “Such finesse, Captain,” she admonished him.  “You are still such a charmer.”

              “Tamara, I’ve been out of the star system for months, when I left things had barely started and now you’ve got the mine already up and running,” Vincent exclaimed.  “I saw shuttles and tugs and fighters and hell, miner bots chewing up big asteroids!  And I’m interested to see the books.  I suspect if I check them I’ll find a healthy balance?”

              She nodded.  “Yes, Captain,” she answered.  “Somewhere around eight million credits.”

              Vincent stared at her, dumbfounded.  “What?”

              Tamara glanced around, as though confused.  “Yes, Captain.  A little more than eight million.”

              “But…  How?” he asked.

              “I’ve been selling materials,” she replied simply.  “And parts for things.  We’ve gotten a few helium 3 reactors built and then sold to a few cities down on the planet.  Got a good price for them.  And now, of course, they’re buying their fuel from me.  Well, us,” she corrected herself.  Then she grimaced.  “But, sir, there is a problem.”

              “Oh?” he said with a laugh.  “Not from where I’m sitting, Moxie,” he said, addressing her with the nickname he hadn’t used since her imprisonment by the pirate armsman.

              She flushed at the name, but it wasn’t from anger.  Considering the amount of money she’d put in his bank account he’d earned the right to call her a silly nickname.  Besides, it was… nice… to hear him call her that again.  As though things were coming back to a degree of normalcy again, despite the fact that things were changed more now than they’d ever been.

              “The problem,” she said, clearing her throat slightly, “is that so far, we don’t have any kind of official name.  I’ve been operating just as the Chief Operations officer for the company of outsiders.  Most of our customers have been asking who we are, what company do I represent, and I never have any good answer for them.  I’ve told them that I represent you, the captain of the
Grania Estelle
, but no one seems to like that answer very much.”

              Vincent pursed his lips.  “I never really thought about it before.  I opened the business account in my own name, but it was never really more than a placeholder.  I knew it at the time, but other things came up, and my priority was with getting things moving and getting the ship repaired.  But you’re right, Moxie,” he said.  “I’ll give it some thought and let you know what we’re going to call the company.”

              Tamara nodded.  “Sounds fine to me, Captain.”

              Vincent looked up at the overhead for a moment and then sighed.  He looked over at the display on the wall.  “Stella?”

              She immediately appeared.  “Yes, Captain?”

              “Can you give Tamara and I a few minutes of privacy?  I’ll call you back when we’re ready to talk shop again.”

              Stella hesitated for just an instant, her eyes flickering to Tamara’s face.  The engineer had a blank look but nodded ever so slightly.  Stella looked straight ahead for just a moment and then she nodded and her image blinked out.  The images on the display cleared, leaving just the message of “NO SIGNAL”. 

              Tamara raised an eyebrow, leaning back a little in her seat and crossing her legs.  “Sending Stella away.  Should I be nervous, Captain?”

              “Vincent, Tamara,” he said, a little exasperated. 

              She frowned.  “What?”

              “It’s my name, Moxie.”  He glared at her slightly.  “Call me Vincent.”

              She blinked, slightly started at the force behind her glare.  “Why the sudden change, Vincent?”

              “Was that so hard to say?” he asked, still looking slightly angry.

              “Why are you suddenly so angry with me?” she demanded.

              Eamonn sighed.  “I’m not.  I’m damned surprised and grateful at the amazing job you’ve done here, Tamara,” he said seriously.  “And I know our relationship has been… strained to put it lightly as of late.”

              She gave a wry smile, but there was less warmth as memories flooded in.  It wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been in weeks past, but there was a degree of chill moving through her blood at the reminder.  “I’d say that’s a fair assessment.”

              “I’m tired of that damned stain on my life, Tamara,” he said.  “Ulla-tran and all the horrible things that went with it.  Our fighting on the fueling station and that damned asshole Goris Hana attacking the
Emilia Walker
.  Our desperate run and fighting with the pirates and all of those nightmares.  I want to get past it.  And I know it doesn’t matter and it might not help, but I want to apologize to you, Tamara.  For everything that you went through.”

              She just sat and regarded him for a long moment.  She nodded.  “Thanks, Vincent.  But I think it’s just a time in all our lives that is best past and forgotten.”

              “I wish none of that had ever happened,” he said bitterly.  He tapped a fist on the table.  “But it has, and we can’t just forget it.  We both know that Verrikoth and his fleet won’t just go away.  We will see them again.”

              She nodded.  “Most probably.  But right now we’re not in much shape to be able to do much about it.”

              “I know.  Your small fighter compliment here is a start, but you’re right, it isn’t going to be enough.  Oh, maybe against one of those converted merchant ships he’s got.  But against those light cruisers?”

              “Yeah,” she said, tapping her fingertips on the tabletop.  “They’d come in here and trash everything I’ve built over the last few months and there’s damn little I could do to stop them.”

              “What about the battlecruiser?  The
Leytonstone
?”

              Tamara grimaced.  “Well, as I’m sure you noted, the locals are working on it, but they’ve been pretty quiet about what they’re actually doing.  Neither I nor any of my people have been allowed aboard.  They’re not buying any kind of parts from me to fix it up.  I know that because I haven’t been selling any to anyone.  They might be able to get it up and running, but it’s slow going.  I don’t even know if it’s mobile yet.  And if it is, it’ll be slower than this old girl here.”  She patted the tabletop.  “But I put some plans in motion to try and help us out.”

              He nodded.  “I figured as much.  That’s why I sent Stella away.”

              She chuckled.  “I should have known you’d have figured me out.  What have you been working on?”

              “Down on the planet, I’ve got four different companies working on modules,” Tamara told him.  “R3 Systems, Uniplex Industries, Nch’gall Corp and Ysevey Industries.  They’re slow and they’re doing things the long way, but I’ve been getting reports from them every other day.”

              “The long way?” Vincent asked, slightly confused.

              “Essentially by hand,” she told him.  “I’m not releasing replicators to the general population.  And as far as I could tell, they don’t have any of their own to use.  I chose these four companies because they’ve got their own foundries capable of making trusses and plate metal and such things.  They can also make conduits and control junctions and work electronics.  The only thing they really can’t make is power reactors, but I can take care of that.”

              “What exactly are you having them build?” he asked, fairly sure he already knew the answer.