Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (23 page)

“He cut the line, Captain,” Serinda said after a short moment.

“What the hell is he talking about?” the Captain demanded.  “We didn’t kill anyone.”

“Maybe you were right, Captain,” she said.  “Maybe he needed an example of ‘offworld butchery’.  But why?  Ships don’t come through here very often.”

“No,” he said, “but if an offworld vessel was responsible for a massacre, it would give him the perfect reason to restrict offworld travel and incoming visitors.  They’d have no one to talk to but him.”  He paused.  “But I think it’s less about his own city than the other ones.  If he can point to a massacre done by offworld barbarians, then if he can play his cards right, the other cities will band together.  Might even elect him proconsul.  Sloppy, but smart.”

"Um... Captain?" Serinda said, her voice sounding confused.  "That transmission was on wide beam."

"What?" he said, rounding on her.  "You broadcast it to the whole system?"

She gulped.  "Oh, no, Captain.  Not me. 
He
did.  He didn't send a tight beam transmission to ship, he just set the transmission on broadcast and called up."

The captain sat there in his command seat for a very long moment.  "So... he called up here to... what?  Browbeat me?  Accuse me of mass murder?  And then what?"

No one answered.  The Captain snorted.  "What did he expect?  That I would just cave and admit to that sort of thing?  That I would meekly surrender to his judgment?"

"I don't know, Captain," Serinda replied.  "Maybe he did.  I get the feeling from the few conversations I've heard that he thinks of himself as a charismatic individual.  Perhaps he thought that us uneducated barbarian spacers would fall all over ourselves to try and please him."

"Captain, he did know that we needed trade goods," George Miller pointed out.  "And if we were willing to sit in orbit and keep asking, whatever we needed must have been really important."

The Captain pursed his lips and nodded slowly.  "That's a very good point, George."

"And," Serinda added, "He wanted to be sure that the whole system heard your conversation."

Now he frowned.  "So perhaps the intended audience wasn't just for those on the planet but elsewhere?"  He turned to George.  "What's the status of the sensors?"

George sighed.  "Still pretty lousy, Captain.  I've only got about a kilometer's range on the sensors.  And our gravitics and neutrino detectors are still down.  They're on Chief Trrgoth's to-do list, but he hasn't gotten to them yet."

The Captain nodded again.  He turned back to the communications station.  "Serinda, get Moxie on the horn.  Tell her to return to the ship, soonest.  It's not an emergency, this isn't a panic scramble, just get back up here.  We need her."

Serinda turned and began her transmission.

When Tamara pulled off her shipsuit helmet after setting down in the cargo bay, the Captain was there, looking up at her.  She set the helmet on the top of the flight console, then got up and climbed down from the cockpit, the Captain having helpfully pushed the small ladder up to the side of the fighter.  When her boots hit the deck, she staggered a bit, and he reached out and gripped her elbow to steady her.

"Thanks," she mumbled, then stood up straight as he let her go.  "So, Captain.  What's so all fired important that you needed to drag me back up here?  Aren't you concerned that Taja and the group would need me for air support?"

"I am," he admitted, his expression unhappy.  "But I'm concerned about the ship more.  We're blind.  Your fighter has better sensors than the ship does that worries me.  Coupled with some unpleasant conversations I've had with the Consul of Terminus, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to have some ability to see out into space."

She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck.  "A prudent thought."  Tamara looked at him, her eyes a bit bleary.  "Well, I agree with you.  We need to get at least the bow sensors up to snuff.  I'm sorry, Captain, but your precious
Grania Estelle
is almost completely blind.  I don't think the ability to see what was happening would have really helped during our... fun... with the pirates.  But it certainly would help with early detection."

"And we've been sitting here for quite a while."

"And will be for quite a while longer.  We're getting the engines up, but technically, we could break orbit once the cargoes are all taken care of.  But the hyperdrive is still down, as are the shields.  Without those two systems, we're not going anywhere."

"How long?" the captain asked, a little worried.

Tamara snorted.  "A while.  Probably about a month to get everything up to decent levels.  I know you all got used to a rather serious level of quaking at entry and breakout, but I'd like to get the hyperdrive well-tuned before we attempt a jump.  And we're going nowhere without shields and sensors."

"How long to get the bow sensors up?" he asked, getting back to the original reason for summoning her back.

She yawned, an action so big she thought that her jaw would crack.  The captain chuckled.  "Sorry, Captain, I need a nap before we do anything."

"Fine, get four hours, then get with the Chief about this.  I really don't like sitting around blind."

Tamara grinned at him.  "Captain, when I got here, you were almost as blind as you are now.  In fact, with the addition of the
Perdition
fighter, your sensors are actually a little bit better than they were before.  Do you even know what it's like to be able to see out into the Deep Dark?" she teased.

"Actually, yes.  It wasn't until the last five years or so that the systems go so bad.  But you're right, they've never actually been very good.  What's the best range we could get?"

She stifled a yawn, putting a fist in front of her mouth.  "Sorry, Captain.  Gravitic sensors for detecting faster than light traces and neutrinos?  They'd probably be good for about ten light minutes in any particular direction.  I think I might could be persuaded to provide you with milspec level equipment for that."  The captain goggled at her.  "What?  There would be a bit of quid pro quo, mind you, but if we can get better sensors in here, you can hopefully keep anyone from sneaking up on you."

"But military spec?"  His jaw clicked shut.  "I can't imagine it."

Tamara smiled.  "I'll get you squared away, Captain, don't worry.  And I'll make sure to get Quesh the right spares and info to keep them up and running.  I can work with the gravitics and get them in with milspec parts.  But the standard sensors won't be anywhere near as good," she warned, the smile slipping.  "The ship really isn't configured for military sensors and we kind of need to be able to see now.  So to get them up and running in the shortest amount of time, you'll have to settle for civilian grade."

"And the range?  If we use civilian grade?"

"About a hundred thousand kilometers, give or take.  Fine grade resolution, about ten thousand.  But far better than the kilometer or two than you've all come to be used to."  She yawned again.  "Sorry, Captain."

He sighed ruefully.  "Go, get your four hours rack time and then I expect you working with the Chief."

Four hours went by incredibly fast.  Tamara quickly found herself out of her quarters and walking down the passageway before she quite realized what was happening.  Checking herself as she rounded a corner she felt a great wave of relief to see that she was dressed in her ship suit.  She was still feeling greasy and dirty, because she hadn’t taken the time to shower, but she didn’t care.  The four hours had been rejuvenating, she supposed, because she felt she had some energy again, but her brain wasn’t quite functioning properly.  It was as if her body was moving, but her mind was set on autopilot, and it wasn’t really seeing or hearing anything going on around her.

“Make a hole!” someone behind her barked.  Instantly, Tamara found herself leaping to the side to flatten herself against the bulkhead.  A group of three technicians, and two women from the cargo division, were trundling past, carrying a long metallic beam between the five of them on a hover pallet.  One of the cargo workers nodded to Tamara as they passed, but the rest were concentrating on getting the soon to be installed structural support beam steady.

Once they were clear, Tamara shook her head to clear the fuzziness (only partial success) and continued on to the engineering spaces.  Quesh was there, standing in front of one of the rebuilt control consoles.  It was of an older design, even from Tamara’s perspective, but from the looks of it, Quesh had done a good job of getting it together and hooking it up.  She shouldn’t be surprised.

“It’s about time you got up,” he groused as she walked in.  He turned to her, holding out one of his arms, a coffee mug in his hand.

“Oh, you blessed male!” she gushed, taking it from him.  “Real coffee!”

He nodded.  “Taja managed to get it for us.  I haven’t had it in months.  Had to make do with red leaf tea.”

“Ha!” she barked, sipping the rich steamy liquid.  It was black and very strong, but that didn’t matter.  She had been so long without the drink that it was almost a physical pain to have a mug of it back in her hands again.  She hadn’t been allowed any drinks aside from water in the brig and there wasn’t any to be found aboard the
Grania Estelle,
either.  The food replicator she was building didn’t have a proper coffee recipe, so she had been forced to make do without.  “Oh, it’s so good.  Quesh, I truly hope that you find happiness with an insatiable female who caters to your every whim.”  She took another sip as the Parkani smiled.

“I appreciate the thought, Samair,” he said, as the other nearby techs laughed at her enthusiasm, “But I don’t think the Captain would appreciate me stealing his ship.  She’s the only insatiable female I need.”

“Your loss,” she said, continuing to drink.  It was hot, but she didn’t care.  “Is there any more?  Because Captain wants us working on the bow sensors today one cup is not going to be enough.”

Quesh snickered and nodded.  “Cookie can set you up.  Coffee shrine is in the mess hall.”

“Thanks.  I get another cup later.  So, what have you already started?”

The Parkani glanced back at her.  “Smart.  Xar’s already outside with two teams.  They’re pulling the number one and two main sensor array right now.  Once that’s done, they’ll bring the parts to cargo bay four.”  He picked up his communicator and flipped it open.  “Xar, its Quesh.  Report.”

The zheen’s voice cracked over the comms.  “Quesh, its Xar.  Number one array is disassembled and being loaded into the shuttle.  Bryione is going to fly it back into bay four, then come back and pick up number two array.”

“Good work, Xar.  Have Bryione call in when she’s delivered the first round.”

“Well, this is a total shambles,” Tamara was saying a short while later.  Cargo Bay Four was now filled with the equipment that had been pulled from the number one sensor array.  A lot of it was worn, patched, spliced, and there were scorch marks on more than one section of the disassembled array.  “I’m actually impressed that you lot were able to keep this thing running at all, with all this damage and jury rigged repairs.”

“We did the best with what we had,” Quesh told her, starting to get angry.  “We didn’t have all your fancy Navy resources.”

“There’s no reason to get angry,” Tamara said.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.  I’ve told you before, Quesh, many times how impressed I was with your work.”

“No more comments like that, Samair,” he said.  “I’m really tired of being thought of as some tiny operator who needs the big bad Republic Navy girl to save his ship.”

“Now wait a minute,” she protested.

“No, Samair, no.”  They both turned to face each other, but the big engineer crossed both sets of arms.  “Ever since you’ve come aboard, you’ve been criticizing my work and my teams and my ship.  Now for the most part, you’ve been right, I’m sad to say.  We were light on training, light on spares and sinking fast.  But it’s your damned superior attitude.  I won’t have it.”

Tamara looked at him.  He was serious.  His pride was hurt, probably had been for a long time.  He was a good man, a good engineer and he
had
held his ship together as best he could with what he’d had to work with.  It
was
a testament to his skills that he had kept the
Grania Estelle
running as long as he had.  But he had been presiding over a failing ship, with dwindling resources as the ship’s profit margins slowly dried up.  Then in came Tamara, showing him up, and showing him up.  Granted, he couldn’t fix the replicator and even if he could, he couldn’t unlock the tech that she could, which probably stung. 

But she had her own pride.  It didn’t matter that he was right, it didn’t matter that they both needed each other.  She’d been pushed too far for too long and while the crew of the
Grania Estelle
had taken her in and were good people, there was only so much she would put up with.

“
You
…” she hissed, “would be
dead
without me!  Your replicators would be frozen solid.  You wouldn’t even
have
one of them and oh, let’s not forget, you’d be stuck, hovering here in orbit until you had to give up and go down to the planet.”  Her own arms were crossed over her chest and her legs were spread apart, in a fighting stance, the front of her body angled slightly away from him.  He wasn’t a fighter, but she had gone through basic training and then some more combat training when she went into flight school.  She knew a few things.