Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (6 page)

              She couldn’t catch her breath.  She held her hands up, palms out in a supplicating gesture.  “You need to understand something.  I’m two hundred and fifty years out of time.  Things were much different back then.”

              “You were Republic?” he asked tonelessly.

              “I was,” she said, holding up her left arm, where the Republic starburst symbol was embroidered on the sleeve.  “I am a Commander in the Navy, second in command of the Hudora Shipyards.”  Tamara stood, uncertain, as the zheen just stared at her through those huge compound eyes.  She didn’t know how he was going to react.

              “How did you end up in the escape pod?” His voice hadn’t changed at all in pitch. 

              She sighed.  “I was set up.  Two of my fellow officers, my superior and his subordinate were involved in a smuggling scheme and they set me up to take the fall for it.  I was arrested and court-martialed.  If the system hadn’t come under attack by Federation forces, I would have been found guilty and sent to prison.  Luckily, I suppose, the attack came in just before the verdict did.  I was able to break out of my cell in the confusion of the battle, but my subordinate caught me trying to escape and shot me and launched me out into space.  After shooting up the inside of the pod.”

              He nodded.  “I noticed that.”

              “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your family,” she went on, her words coming out in a rush.  “I can’t believe that the Republic could have fallen so far.  I won’t make excuses, but I just want to say that I had nothing to do with any of that.”

              His antennae rose and then fell.  “I know you didn’t.  I checked over the pod while you were with the captain.  It confirms your story of being asleep for so long.  And,” he went on, his mouthparts clacking in what sounded like what could be a glimmer of warmth, “if your magic touch with the replicators can fix that fighter and the
Grania Estelle
, then I think that you and I could work well together.”

              “I’d like that,” she said, smiling slightly.  The replicator chose that moment to beep, indicating that the job was done.  Stepping over, she opened the door, and pulled out a tray of tools, of two identical sets.  She handed him the tray.  “Do you have a toolbelt I could borrow?”

              He took it, his antennae flaring in surprise.  “This is a
comprehensive
set!” he marveled.  “I’m impressed.  I don’t have half of these things.”  He looked up at her.  “I think I can find you something to use.  We should get to work.”

              Tamara nodded, following him out of the room, heading back to the cargo bay.

Chapter 2

              Returning to the cargo bay, Tamara began a serious scan of the fighter.  “Such a beautiful baby,” she cooed.  “I only ever flew a
Perdition
once.  It was one of the greatest experiences in my life.”             

              Ka’Xarian turned to her, though that was really unnecessary because he could see perfectly well to the side due to his compound eyes.  “I’m confused.  I thought you were an engineer.  An officer.”

              “I am.  Or well, was.  But I flew with the starfighter corps for seven years before I got out.  I was always good at fixing and building things, even as a kid.  I always helped the maintenance crews who worked on our fighters.  After I got out of the starfighter corps, I switched to the engineering track.  Never looked back.”  She smiled, running one hand down the length of the fighter’s fuselage.  “But I never gave up my love for this fine beauty.  He can take me to dance anytime.”

              The
Perdition
class starfighter was a marvel of Republic engineering.  It was an aerospace fighter, capable of maneuvering in atmosphere as well as in space.  It was designed for aerospace superiority, meaning it was meant to take on other starfighters.  The ship was designed like an airplane, with a long fuselage and a pair of forward-swept, slightly downward canted wings.  It boasted a pair of high powered engines, a pair of heavy particle cannons on the ends of the wings and a cockpit for a single pilot.  “This beauty has amazing handling.  I cannot
wait
to get it all fixed up.”  She crawled onto the fuselage and popped the canopy. 

              It slid upward and she climbed into the cockpit.  Plugging her datapad into the jack, she began running diagnostics.  Antivirus programs went to work, cleansing the systems, meanwhile she began taking a look at everything in the cockpit that on a first glance needed either fixing or outright replacement.  A very long list was starting to grow.  The exterior hull was battered.  Apparently at some point, the fighter must have flown through the upper atmosphere of a gas giant because most of the paint had ablated off.  The underside of the hull was banged up, it looked as though the fighter had come in for a very hard landing at some point.  The cylindrical fuel tanks, which were under the rather thin hull armor were both breached, probably due to the hard landing. 

              “Oh, no, the power couplers are fried.  Whoever flew this poor baby jammed the feeds open all the way, ran the afterburners on full tilt the whole way in.  Probably the one who crashed it.”  She sighed.  Then she brightened.  “All right, enough moping.  Time to get to work!”

              “According to diagnostics,” Ka’Xarian said, “it looks like more than half of the electronics are fried.  We’re going to need to do a complete rebuild.”

              “I actually prefer that,” Tamara replied.  “I don’t want some century-old processor to fail in the middle of combat maneuvers.  Let’s get to work pulling them out.  I’m going to get the replicator started on working on the replacements.”  Pulling up her datapad, she pressed the command sequences, and getting a ping in response, Tamara stuffed it back into her pocket with a grunt.  Pulling out a few tools, she set to work on the cockpit electronics.

              It took little more than two hours to pull out the shorted-out circuitry, and half again as long to replace it with the new components from the replicator.  Every time a new part emerged, Ka’Xarian couldn’t help but marvel.  It had been so long since the replicator was doing its job that it was an amazing thing to see.  The zheen set up a pair of crewmembers to continue to feed junk components into the replicator to keep the raw material bunker as close to full as possible.  The crewmen also had very strict instructions that they were otherwise not to touch that replicator.  Actually, it was less of an instruction and more of a threat, that both of them would end up on Ka’Xarian’s supper plate if they did anything to hurt that replicator.  They believed him.

              It didn’t bother Tamara, the threat, because she completely agreed with it.  They needed that replicator to fix the
Perdition
and she’d be damned if she had to go and build another replicator.  That might happen at some point anyway, since the other replicator would need a rebuild and at some point she would be leaving this ship, so she would need at least a micro-industrial replicator to take with her when she did.  But that was a problem for later.  For now, she needed to stay focused on the fighter.

              Which was an easy thing to do, as it turned out.  She was enthusiastic about the project and with Ka’Xarian’s help, the work actually went quickly.  He wasn’t up to Tamara’s level as far as fixing things went, but he was a very quick study.  It wouldn’t be long before he would be able to work unassisted, though in all fairness, it wasn’t often that people these days worked on Republic military hardware.  The zheen’s workers kept bringing parts as the replicator finished making them, and they had a nice little assembly line going. 

              The captain wandered in after about twelve hours of work.  Tamara and the others had stopped; they were taking a meal break, the first in all that time.  “You are a machine, Moxie.  I never thought that piece of junk would ever get unwrapped let alone get rebuilt like this.”

              She held up a ration bar in salute.  “You shouldn’t doubt a woman when she’s sure.  It isn’t healthy.”

              “Well, if I’d known you were actually this good, I might have put some money down.”  He had a broad grin on his face.  “But, it doesn’t fly yet.”  He tsked.

              “You’re doubting me again,” Tamara replied, giving him a stern look.

              “All right.  All right.”  He threw his hands up in surrender.  “But until that thing actually flies,” he pointed, “I will continue to doubt.”

              She winked at him.  He chuckled and then walked away.

              Tamara took another bite of the ration bar and grimaced.  “This isn’t actually too bad,” she said aloud.

              “Liar,” Ka’Xarian replied.  He was eating some sort of beige-colored paste from a bowl.  It looked vile and smelled worse, and the fact that he was eating it by bringing the bowl straight up to his mouth and then having his mandibles shovel it into his mouth wasn’t helping Tamara’s digestion any.

              “How about that… goop?” she said with a grimace.

              “This?” he said, slightly raising the bowl.  “It’s good!  It’s a conglomeration of various…”

              She paled as some of the goop dripped from his mouth parts and into the bowl.  “Never mind!  I’m sorry I asked.  I’m glad that you like it.”

              He chittered with laughter, which caused some of his food so splatter a bit.  “It’s not my favorite, of course.  There’s a place on Suspiria that has the best plommenkaa.”  She knew the name, it was a zheen delicacy.  His amaranthine exoskeleton, what she could see anyway that wasn’t hidden by his coveralls, tinted suddenly with a bit of rose, indicating pleasure.

              “Just like Mother used to make?” she teased, taking another bite.  She blinked her eyes rapidly.  It had been a long day, exceptionally long if you considered the hibernation.  But she wasn’t ready to rest yet.

              His antennae curled, showing disgust.  “Don’t even joke about that.  My mother was the worst cook ever.  Even when it came out of a food synthesizer she managed to burn it.”  He took another slurp.  “So I’m impressed with your stamina.”

She scowled.  “Is this a sex thing?  Because I’m busy right now and it isn’t funny.”

He shook his head.  “It’s not like that.  I don’t do humans.  Besides, I’m already mated.  But most humans I’ve seen, especially on this ship, couldn’t have been working as long or as hard as you have since you came onboard.”

She shrugged, finishing off the ration bar.  “I’m a Navy officer, I’m used to having close deadlines.  Besides, I’m motivated.”

“Motivated?”

Tamara nodded, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.  “Captain said I get to keep the fighter once it’s completed.”

He nodded, impressed.  “I’m surprised you got the Captain to agree to that.  He isn’t known for his giving nature.”

“Well, I’m technically buying it from him by working off the debt.”

He eyed her quizzically.  “And how would you work it off?”

“If he likes the quality of my work – our work – on the
Perdition
here, I’ll work to fix up the
Grania Estelle
.”

Ka’Xarian nodded slowly, finishing the rest of his meal.  “Well, from what I’ve seen while we’ve been working on this, I’ll be happy to work with you on the big ship.”

“Well, there’s not much left to do on the fighter.  Probably another day, working on the engine rebuilds and then another twelve or so hours putting the guns together.  Then after that just the tuning and tweaking.”

“How long do you think
that
will take?”

She sighed.  “Hard to say.  Hopefully only a few tedious hours.”

He set the bowl down.  “Then let’s get to it, shall we?”

              It actually took nearly three days.  After all that time, and barely six hours of sleep, Tamara took a step back to admire her handiwork.  Well, hers and Ka’Xarian.  She had to hand it to the zheen, he was pretty good at his job.  And maybe now, with proper support, they could get the freighter up and running correctly.  But that was a job for later.  For now, she was going for a test flight.  Or rather, she was once the Captain had inspected her work on the
Perdition
. 

              He was inspecting the work, though he wasn’t pulling anything apart.  No, he was running a hand over a wing here, looking over a component there, even stuck his head in the cockpit for a closer look.

              “So, what do you think?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

              He turned to her.  “I think it
looks
pretty,” he answered noncommittally.  “All the parts look shiny and new, but I think it takes a lot more than that to make a ship fly.”

              She nodded.  “You’re absolutely correct, Captain.  Which is why once we’re done here, I’m going to be taking my baby for a test flight and shakedown cruise.”

              “Good.”  He pointed to the far bulkhead.  “Those cargo doors open, though they might need a little grease.”  He chuckled.  “I haven’t had them opened in about what, Xar, two years?”

              The zheen chittered.  “Longer.”

              Tamara hauled herself up off the pallet she was sitting on.  She groaned as she did, then stretched, trying to ease the kink in her back. 

              The captain watched her.  “You could sleep before this test run, Moxie,” he said, turning away from the fighter.  “Come to think on it, have you slept at
all
since you got out of the pod?”

              “I’ve slept,” she replied indignantly.

              “Tiny naps,” Ka’Xarian put in.  “Only one or two hours at a time, no more than ten or eleven hours total.”

              She glared at him.  “Tattletale.”

              He hissed back playfully.

              “I don’t need to sleep yet,” Tamara told them both.  “I’m fine.”

              The captain eyed her, his head tilting to one side, as his eyes studied her face.  “No.  You’re not.  You crash that ship because you’re exhausted and then I’m out a starfighter and all of the credits for the fix.”

              “It’s my fighter!”

              The captain’s face seemed to tighten, as though the skin was covering iron rather than bone.  “No, Moxie, it isn’t.  It isn’t your fighter until
my
ship is fixed up.  That was the deal we struck.  Plus, you owe me for the use of my replicator, though I’ll discount you because you fixed it, but then there’s power consumption, raw materials, and labor costs.”

              Tamara felt her hands clenching to fists.  “Labor costs?” she demanded.  “
I
did the labor!”

              The captain nodded, a smug grin on his face.  “And so did my assistant chief engineer.  He doesn’t work for free.  And he certainly isn’t working on the
Grania Estelle
, like I hired him to.”

              She stood there fuming.  “So now what?”

              “Now?” the captain replied.  “Now, you are going to get some rest.  Xar, get her some quarters. There should be a room on deck eight.”

              The zheen nodded.  “Got the cleaning bots going over it now.  Should be ready by the time we get there.”  He turned to Tamara.  “Look, Tamara.  You can argue with the captain, which isn’t smart,
or
you can follow orders like a good soldier and then get to play with your toy.”

              She glared at them.  Her feet felt as though they were glued to the deck.

              The captain sighed.  “Look, Moxie, things are very simple.  You either play nice and we’re all happy, or I rescind my deal, and I sell you, your pod and that shiny new
Perdition
fighter to the next merchant I see.”  His voice had dropped, low and dangerous.  “Why do you think I didn’t ask about your name?  You’re not my friend.  You’re an asset.  You’re a way to put credits in my account.  You’re a way to keep my ship running.  That’s it.  You start acting reckless, taking chances with
my
property?  With
my
bottom line?  You will not be living free for very long, Moxie.”