Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (17 page)

“Why you first?” Mairi demanded.

“Because I thought of it first,” she pointed out.  The other woman crossed her arms over her chest in disagreement.  “Fine,
you
go first.  I’m too tired to argue.”  Mairi smiled.  “But don’t worry.  I
will
be waking you up in four hours.”  Tamara looked her companion straight in the eye as she said this.  The other woman groaned but nodded, then headed into the cargo section, pulled down a section of the bulkhead which doubled as a bunk.  Laying down, she was asleep within minutes.

Tamara watched her enviously, but with a small sigh, turned back to her instruments.

In the end, she let Mairi sleep for over six hours.  In that time, as the asteroid belt grew ever closer, she began to try and scan the various rocks within what she considered the range of the shuttle.  There was much to find here.  As in years past, from Tamara’s admittedly dim memory of the star system, Instow was a resource-rich system, and with its proximity to Hudora and its shipyards and industrial nodes, there was once a prosperous mining industry here.  Apparently, with the destruction of Hudora two and a half centuries ago, the system had completely withered on the vine.  Perhaps the Federation had done some follow-up attacks that had trashed the infrastructure here.  Perhaps pirates had come in years later and looted the system and killed a number of the inhabitants.  Perhaps without the hub system of Hudora next door, the economy of Instow simply dried up and people departed to greener pastures.  She might even find out if they could bring the
Grania Estelle
in to the habitable moon.

From what little she had gleaned from the
Perdition
’s sensors during the raid (the shuttle’s sensors were almost as bad as the ones on the
Grania Estelle
; there wasn’t time or materials to spare to upgrade them for this mission), had determined that the system was so far empty of artificial structures.  Aside from the crippled bulk freighter (and perhaps a trio of pirate vessels) there were no ships in system, no artificial satellites, nothing.  Clearly, the locals wouldn’t object (or be able to object) to the crew of the freighter getting their materials from the asteroid belt.

Looking at the display, her eyes kept falling on the gas giant, for which the habitable moon orbited.  “I wonder…” Tamara muttered to herself.  One of the many big problems on the
Grania Estelle
was that they were using straight seawater as a power source.  That caused multiple issues within the ship’s reactor, since the water had impurities in it, which over time would gum up the mechanism, which would cause conduits and other such tubes to fail.  Also, by using extracting the straight hydrogen from the seawater for fuel it greatly lessened the reactor’s power ratio and heightened its radiation emissions.  Tossing in jury rigged sections of the fusion bottles made out of parts never designed for the role or the load and a computer that wasn’t up to the task of handling that challenge and yes, there was trouble rapidly coming to a boil.

Which meant that, again, the crew (and Tamara was gracious enough to throw in her own hat with that lot) would need a better source of fuel, such as deuterium or helium 3.  And as her eyes continued to look at the gas giant, a slow smile began to spread over her face.  Pulling out her datapad, she set to work designing a collector that could pick up and siphon out the materials needed.  A helium 3 collector.

It took about four hours to come up with something and she tried to keep it as simple as possible.  It was a very utilitarian design, drawing from her memories of similar devices she had seen and used back during her Navy days.  It consisted of a collector device which would suck in the materials and inflate several large bladders after being filtered through a series of force fields and other filtration systems.  The bladders would also serve as buoyancy devices to keep the collector in the higher layers of the Jovian’s atmosphere.  Once it was full, the collector could simply wait to be emptied.  And if the scans were to be believed, the atmosphere was made up of a dense concentration of particles, which meant that the collector would fill very quickly.

Of course, that meant a full teardown and rebuild of the ship’s reactor.  It was on the list, at least.  Tamara sighed.  There was so much work to be done on that ship.  Then she brightened.  “It sounds like fun.  And a lot of work.”  Satisfied for the moment, she accessed her implants, setting an alert to wake her in an hour and closed her eyes.

“Tamara.  Tamara!”  A voice penetrated the blackness.  “Tamara!”

She awoke with a start, her breath was coming in tiny rapid gasps.  Her heart was hammering in her chest.  Her implants indicated that two minutes were left before the time was up to wake her.  It took her a long few seconds to realize where she was, what was happening.  A hand was on her shoulder, shaking her. 

“Are you all right?”

She blinked, turning to the sound of the voice.  It her a long moment to determine it was Mairi.  Her breathing began to slow and the constant pulsing in her chest also began to lessen in intensity.  Her implants were showing displays on her HUD that her vitals were gradually returning to normal from the danger range. 

“Hey, you with me?  Can you hear me?”  Mairi’s voice was getting more worried.

Tamara nodded.  “What is it?”

The young woman looked at her with her eyebrows raised.  “What is it?  You were screaming.”

Tamara blinked.  “I was?”  A quick check of her implants, showing the readouts of her biometrics indicated that her stress levels were well over critical.  It would certainly explain the screaming and the rest.  “I think I had a nightmare.”

The other woman nodded.  “I should say so.  Woke me up.”

Tamara’s hands began to shake slightly and she clenched her fists.  “Sorry.”

“You want to talk about it?”  Concern was covering her face.

Tamara shook her head.  “I don’t really remember.  I didn’t even know there was a problem.  I set my implants to alert me when an hour had passed and then I was going to wake you up.  I closed my eyes…”  She let out a very deep breath, trying to control her shivering.  She felt cold, as though she’d been splashed with a bucket of frigid water. 

“You’re not all right,” Mairi concluded.  “Get out of the pilot’s seat.  I’m taking us back.”

“No!” Tamara nearly shouted.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to shout.”  She shook her head, sitting up straighter.  “We can’t go back.  We need the rocks that are out here.  I don’t think the ship can make it back if we don’t succeed.”

Mairi stood over her, looking skeptical.  “I’m fine, Mairi.  It was just a nightmare.  I’ve been going all out for two days now, I’m sorry I scared you.”

Still, the young woman didn’t budge.  “Fine.  How long until we’re there?”

Tamara checked her displays.  “Three hours, forty-six minutes.”

“You will get some sleep on the way back.”  It wasn’t a request.

Tamara nodded.  “Of course.  I’m not going to be sleeping now for a while.  Not after that.”

“All right.  Fine.  Then I’m going to sleep for a while longer.  Unless you need me to stay up here a while longer?”  She looked at Tamara questioningly.

“No, Mairi.  Thank you for your concern.”  Tamara gave her a small smile.  “I’m fine now, really.”

“You’re a liar, is what you are.  But I’m going to nap for a little while longer.  Wake me up an hour before we get there.”

Tamara nodded, a bit too vigorously.  “I will.  I promise.”

Giving the other woman a suspicious look, Mairi went back into the cargo area and laid back down.  Tamara blew out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.  Mairi was very determined and if Tamara had given up the pilot’s couch, there was a very good chance she might have turned the shuttle around and flew back to the
Grania Estelle.
  They’d come too far to turn back now.  And Tamara hadn’t lied.  They truly
did
need the asteroid and its materials.

Tamara turned back to her displays and twisting her mouth to a grimace, began searching for a proper rock to haul back.

Chapter 6

              “So what exactly are we looking for?” Mairi asked.  “You’ve been rather tight-lipped about the whole thing.”

              Tamara nodded in apology.  “Yeah, I have been.  Well, the best thing would be an ice ball, so that we can use it to feed the reactor.  The other minerals are certainly necessary, but fuel is the most critical.”

              “Okay, so we look for water.”  Mairi was nodding.  “How hard can that be?”

              Tamara chuckled.  “Very, with the sensors on this clunker.  But, all is not lost!” she said grandiosely.

              Mairi was shaking her head.  “What?”

              Tamara pointed.  “That.  It’s a very nice sized carbonaceous chondrite.”

              The other woman’s eyes glazed over.  “A what?” she asked tiredly.

              “It’s a big rock made of some organic chemicals, but more importantly, water.”  She maneuvered the shuttle around so that they could capture it with the tractor.  “Usually we can find up to about twenty two percent of its chemical matrix is water.  Ooh, good.  It’s a beauty.  A good two hundred and sixty-four metric tons.  That will work out nicely.”  The shuttle flipped around, end over end, until the aft section was only a few dozen meters from the rock. 

              “Activating tractor,” Mairi said, flipping a switch.  There was a slight shiver through the deck of the shuttle.  “Got it.  Okay, we’re latched on.  How do you
know
these things?”

              “I’m setting course back to the ship.  It’s going to take most of our fuel to get back there.”  She engaged the thrusters.  The inertial compensators kicked in, trying to nullify the g-forces that the propulsion system was putting out.  “Gotta get this big thing moving,” Tamara muttered.  Slowly, the shuttle began to manhandle the rock, tugging it back in the direction from whence they came.  “There we go, getting some speed now.”  She glanced at the other woman.  “As to how I know, I learned from other spacers and when I was in the military.  There were a lot of things to learn.”

              Twenty minutes later, they were on a steady course for the
Grania Estelle
.  “All right, your turn.”  Tamara pulled herself out of the pilot’s couch.  Mairi nodded and easily slid into her place.  Tamara eyed the other woman as she familiarized herself with the pilot’s controls.  “You shouldn’t need to do anything until we get much closer.  Can you handle this bird?”

              Mairi grinned up at her.  “Was that a proposal?”

              Tamara nodded tiredly.  “Very cute.  I’m serious.  Can you fly this thing?”

              “I’ve flown a shuttle a few times.  Not this
particular
one, mind you.”  She glanced around nodding slowly.  “But I’ve got this.  And if there are any problems, I’ll get you straightaway.  Go.  Sleep.  You need it.”

              Tamara sighed, knowing she had to, but still slightly concerned about this woman driving the shuttle while she slept.  Going into the cargo compartment, she laid down on the bunk, and closed her eyes.  She was instantly asleep.

              “All right!  Try it now.  Easy!” Quesh immediately warned.  “Whoever breaks my engine gets strangled!”  He checked the displays.  “All right.  Nice and steady.  We’re going to start out real slow.  Bring the engine from idle to zero point two power.  I want a trickle of power.  Do
not
ham fist the controls, you get me?  Starkey, I’m talking to you now.”

              “Yes, Chief,” the man replied, his hands on the controls.

              “Bridge.  Engine one is up and running.  We are moving now, but I’m only bringing it up to point zero two power.”

              “Understood,” the Captain replied.  “Chief, I understand we’re going to have to step down the reactor.”

              “Because of the fuel constraints, yes, Captain.  We’ve only been operating at about twenty-three percent of max anyway, but I’m going to have to bring it down to ten percent.”  He nodded as the engine came on line, pushing its power level very gently to point zero two. 

              “How long can we maintain that level?” the Captain asked.  He sounded worried.

              Quesh couldn’t see him, they were on voice only, but he knew.  “About sixteen hours with present fuel levels.  And that’s if we’re on life support only.  If we run the engines too, we’ll be out in four.”

              “Then shut the engines down!” the captain almost bellowed. 

              The Parkani sighed, waving to his crew to stop.  Starkey cancelled the engine power up sequence.  “Captain, I can shut down the engines, but then we’ll just die out here.  We need to get at least moving in the direction of the moon, if we’re going to have any chance to survive.”

              “So you’re cutting our survival time by twelve hours?”  The Captain found himself getting angry with his chief engineer.

              Quesh was about to roar back at his captain, when someone in the background on the bridge spoke up.  “Wait one, Chief,” the Captain ordered.  And then muted the line on his end.

              The Parkani stood there, fuming while his crews stood there, waiting for his go ahead.  “All right Chief.  Go ahead and do your engine burn.  But only use the fuel amount you indicated before.”

              The Chief frowned.  “If I might ask, Captain, why the change?”

              “Moxie’s just signaled.  She’s on her way back with a big rock that apparently is full of water, so we can replenish our reserves and keep the reactor going for a couple more weeks.”

             
That girl. 
“Good news, Captain.  All right, we’re ready down here.  Tell the helm zero point two only on the engines.  We just need enough thrust to overcome inertia and get us moving in the right direction.  After we get the fuel, then we can do a supplementary burn.”

              “Understood, Chief.” 

              Quesh watched his data feeds and after a slight shiver through the hull, the ship started to move.  It was an agonizing snail’s pace, but they were moving under their own power again.  At this speed it would take about five weeks to get to the inhabitable world in system, but at least there was some progress.  Once the fuel came in, they could do better.

              The arrival of the shuttle was to a heroes’ welcome.  Tamara could hear the cheers over the comm as she very delicately delivered the rock to cargo bay two.  Quesh had decided that two was a better choice, and the cargo workers had shifted everything over to that bay instead.  It just barely fit through the cargo doors, and she was trying very hard not to let it touch the deck.

              “Why?”

              Tamara chuckled as she eased a little more thruster.  “Because it’ll rip through the deck.  All right, deck crews, get in there and secure it.  Then we can start carving it up.”

              Ka’Xarian came back over the circuit.  “Thanks, you did your job, Tamara, we got it.”

              “You sure?”

              “One of my favorite playthings is the plasma cutter, little girl,” he said, a slight tinge of amused hum in his voice.  She laughed.

              “Copy that, Xar.  I’m going to park this baby here because this shuttle is bingo fuel.  We need a refill.”

              As she settled the bulky shuttle down on the deck, with only a very slight bump, a team of four people in EVA suits entered bay two, armed with steel cables and p-tongs.  They strapped the big rock in place, one each on the top and bottom, three evenly spaced across the middle.  The tech at the control panel at the inside of the bay closed and secured the doors, airing up the huge compartment, but made sure to leave the gravity off.  The last thing they needed was the big rock smashing through the deck of the cargo bay.

              As the fuel tanks began to fill with water, the morale of the crew continued to rise.  The breached tanks had been repaired, and Quesh had been able to bring the reactor back up to fifteen percent.  The repairs continued apace, Tamara and her team as well as Ka’Xarian and his working on repairing some of the cracks in the hull trusses as well as in the hull plating itself.  It involved cutting out the damaged pieces entirely and welding and bolting back in place the new pieces.  They weren’t able to do many, there were many demands on the replicator’s time.

              Tamara and Pip, this time, went out and brought back another rock with the shuttle.  This time it was one composed of various different metals, among those gold and platinum.  “Why gold?” the Captain had asked when Tamara had reported back.  “Aside from some use in electronics and heat shielding, we don’t need very much.”

              “Well, to be honest, I grabbed this one for the platinum and the other strategic minerals.  But then I saw the gold and had an inspiration.  I thought we might need something to trade to the locals when we get to Instow.  We can turn it into coins or bricks to trade with.”

              The Captain nodded slowly.  “Good thinking.  Normally we have to barter some things when we get here.  I’d never thought to make coins or bullion.”  His eyes brightened.  “And since the metals out here are not mixed with the dirt and things of a planet, they’re pure.  Pure metal.  Yes.  Yes, I think we might be able to work something out.  Very good thinking, Moxie.”

              “Thank you, Captain.”  She smiled, but was already thinking about the next thing on the list.  “I’ve been making lists for repairs.  It’s pretty long.”

              He nodded.  “I can imagine.  How bad?”

              “Well, if you want this baby back to factory new, or as close as we can get her without a space dock, it’s pretty large.”  She showed him her datapad.

              His eyes bulged.  “Wow.  There’s over two hundred items on this list.”

              Tamara shook her head.  “No, Captain.  Well, yes, but that’s just list A, the primary and critical list.  The letters continue on, decreasing in priority as they go on.  There’s something along the line of ten thousand or so items.”

              Now the man gaped.  “Fifteen
thousand
?”

              She nodded again.  “Yes.  At least.”

              “How the hell are we going to deal with that?” he despaired.

              She laughed at him.  “Yeah, it looks overwhelming.  Can’t think of it that way.  We just prioritize everything and chip away at it.  One item at a time.”

              The Captain looked at the A list again.  “I see a new replicator and replicator replacement parts are very high on the list.”

              “Yes.  I’m slightly concerned at the strain we’re putting on it.  I want to overhaul replicator one and then supplement it completely, since we’re now down a replicator.”  She twisted her lips into a grimace.  The loss of the second machine was a serious blow.  True, it hadn’t been truly functional, but having only to overhaul it instead of a complete replacement would have taken far less time and fewer materials.  But there was nothing for it now.  They had to move forward.

              “After that, we need to get the shields and reactor completely overhauled.  We can’t be hanging around with no shields.”

              He shuddered.  “No, I should say not.  But even working at breakneck pace, working everyone as hard as possible, I can’t justify sitting here in orbit of Instow until everything is done.”

              She shook her head, waving one hand.  “Of course not.  I’d want to get sensors, minimal shields, at least one more engine and the hyperdrive back up.  Other than that, I’d want to get some serious exterior work on the hull done and the boat bay.  Everything else we can work on in hyperspace.  Though I do think grabbing a few more rocks to fill up the holds would be a good idea.”

              “I agree.  I was going to suggest that, actually.”

              “What about replacements?”

              He started.  “Replacements?  You mean crew?”              She nodded.  “I’m sure we can get some here at Instow.  But I don’t know if I’m comfortable bringing on that many people all at once.”  He took a long breath.  “But I know we can’t operate with almost half the crew out of action, what with the dead and the wounded.”  He nodded to himself.  “I’ll look into it, see what can be done.”

              Tamara nodded in understanding.  With so many dead or wounded, they were down to forty-two crew that could actually do their jobs.  And with a good number of the engineering crew among the dead and wounded, they needed as much help as possible.  The cargo division were busy doing anything they could to help, whether that was fetch-and-carry duties or easy jobs that required little supervision.  But even still, that wasn’t anywhere near enough. 
Grania Estelle
had already been undermanned when Tamara had come aboard, normally, a ship this size would carry a crew more than twice its former size.  But now, with so few actually able to perform their tasks, the captain would be naturally hesitant to bring in too many at once.  Discipline would be difficult to maintain with so many new crewmen, more than a few unused to working in space, unused to duties on a star ship, even if it was a cargo ship rather than a fighting vessel.  So, he would be cautious, bringing in new hands in small groups, perhaps only ten or so at a time.  And while they would certainly help, it would take time to train up these new people, which would slow repairs and even normal operations until a new routine could be established.  But there was nothing for it.  It was something that the current crew would simply have to live with.