Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (64 page)

              Ricks turned back to him, concern on her face.  “I could grab a medkit,” she said.  “There’s probably a vial of combat heal in there you could use.”

              “Don’t bother,” he said, grinding his teeth against the pain.  “We’re going to be dead in minutes anyway.”

              She leaned her rump against the console.  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.  And no more weapons.”

              Marcos grinned, though it was strained.  “We have one more left.”

              Dava blinked in confusion.  Then watching his eyes as he flicked them to his right, she smiled.  “The reactor?”

              He nodded.  “We can cause an overload.  In fact, it’s already started.”

              Her eyes widened.  “You already…”

              He nodded again.  “I did.  I already increased the power to maximum and disabled all the emergency cutoffs.  The reactor’s already running at one hundred and five percent and the levels are climbing.  Pretty soon the pressure is going to breach the core.”

              “How long?” she asked, her voice timid.

              “I don’t know.  I can’t crank the valves open any further.  Probably not long enough.  No more than five minutes.”

              “They’re going to open fire at any second!” Dava said, hopping up, running a hand through her black hair which had stuck to her sweat soaked face. 

              “I know,” Marcos replied.  “I can’t get it to breach any faster using the systems.”

              She smiled.  “I’ve always wondered what would happen if you shot a pulser at an active reactor core while it was set for overload.”

              “You’ve always wondered that?” he asked, gritting his teeth, though he was clearly amused.

              “Yup,” she said, walking over to the corpse of one of the security officers and pulling the sidearm from the holster on his hip.  Flicking off the safety, she raised the weapon, aiming it at the nearby reactor.  She glanced back over at him.  “I’m sorry we didn’t get that drink, sir.”

              “Yeah, me too.  Have to say, Ricks, you are an interesting woman.  I’m sorry we really didn’t talk before now.”

              Dava beamed at him.  “I’m sorry too, sir. 
I
have to say, I thought that being posted to the
Fury
was going to be boring.”

              Marcos chuckled and then gasped.  “Never a dull moment.”  He looked over at the console.  “The second ship is closing.”  He leaned his chin on his chest and closed his eyes against the pain.  “So long, Ricks.”

              Dava stared hard at the reactor down the barrel of the pulser.  “See you on the other side, sir.”  And she fired.  There was a blinding flash of light and for just an instant she felt an indescribable wave of searing agony and then nothing.

              An instant before
Ajax
opened fire, the reactor on the
Fury
exploded.  A burst of energy washed over
Ajax’s
shields, while chunks of debris hammered her.  She only suffered minor damage and altered course away from most of the debris.  A minute later,
Ajax’s
captain was calling to Verrikoth on the shuttle.  “Target destroyed.”

              “Acknowledged,” the pirate captain replied.  Well, it was an expensive enterprise, but now he had taken care of the meddling lieutenant and his thrice cursed ship.  However, it meant that the easy times were over.  He had crossed a line, one that most likely would not be ignored.  It
would
take a while for this incident to be discovered by Admiral Tandred, and of course he could deny it, but eventually, the Admiral would find out.  And when he did, he would bring in more than just one corvette to handle the situation.  He would bring in a
fleet
to the Cluster, he would find the one who had killed his people and destroyed one of his ships and then he would stomp that irritant into a squishy pulpy mass. 

              Verrikoth knew that it was time to start pushing up his timetables and to get the other plans he had in motion moving a bit faster.  For when the boot came crashing down, he would be damned if he would be beneath it when it fell.

Book 3 – Hauling freight and Opening Moves

Chapter 21

              Antares Grey put his arm behind his head, sighing in satisfaction.  He had done his usual rounds through the various pubs and other establishments throughout the main city.  He had even managed to find someone of interest, a woman who worked in the Ministry of Defense.  She was lonely but even better, she was one of the operators of the planetary sensor grid.  They’d talked and laughed over drinks, one thing led to another and they ended back at her place. 

              The woman, Monique, lay naked and entwined with Grey on her bed, the sheet pulled up to their waists.  She was running her fingers over his chest, humming slightly to herself.  “So what are you doing here, anyway?” she asked suddenly.

              He chuckled, which was more of a rumble in his chest.  “I thought that was obvious,” he said, looking at her, a wry smile on his face. 

              She laughed, her face flushing with pleasure.  “Well, I think you are certainly well deserving of your title of Chief.”  Monique quivered with the memory.  He laughed at her again.  “But seriously, why are you here?  On this world, I mean.”

              He grunted and looked up at the ceiling.  “We’re chasing a ship.  A cargo freighter.  We’re concerned about it, though.  It seemed to shoot up this system before it managed to get away.”

              She laughed.  “Yeah, you could say that.  Apparently, they tried to steal a load of consignment they had brought.  I guess it was for the ship in the orbital dock.  They were
really
unhappy that the freighter wouldn’t cough it up.”  She hummed again, shifting a bit.  “They were just going to take the cargo and leave; I guess the government wasn’t going to let them take off with the consortium’s property.  So they launched a bunch of the fighters to stop them.”

              “That sounds exciting,” Antares said, smiling a bit, stroking her black hair.  “Bit of space piracy.  And in your own backyard.”

              Monique shrugged.  “We’ve had pirates before.  But none as cowardly as these though.  They just ran away.  Though I guess it was the smart move, considering the crap they had for weapons.”

              Antares looked at her again.  “But I heard they managed to smoke six of your fighters.  If their weapons were crap, how’d they do that?  Your pilots can’t be that bad.”

              “They’re not,” she admitted, humming slightly to herself.  “The freighter had a starfighter of its own.  Took out four of them and the big ship managed to get the other two.  When the
Ganges
launched, they scooped up their fighter and ran as fast as they could for the hyper limit.”  She sighed, snuggling closer.  “Are you done pumping me for information now?”

              “Well I don’t know,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “I thought I would do a little more pumping.”

              She laughed and it was joyous.  “You spent the night with me just to find out about that ship, didn’t you?”

              He sighed.  “I always did like the smart ones.  And no, that wasn’t the… only reason,” Grey said, bringing his lips to hers.

              “A starfighter?” Harth asked, several hours later.  He was seated in his stateroom and Grey was seated at one of the small chairs, making his report.  “What kind of fighter?”

              Grey shook his head.  “Unknown, Commander.  My contact didn’t know and it wasn’t in their database.  What she could tell me was that it apparently wasn’t outfitted with any kind of missiles.  At least, if it had any, it didn’t use any during the running fight to the hyper limit.  And the freighter is in much better shape that we thought.”  He passed a datacard across the table to Harth. 

              Harth raised an eyebrow.  “Do I want to know how you got this information, Chief?”

              Grey smiled.  “I’ll be happy to tell you, if you want, Skipper.”

              “Forget it.  Give me the bad news.”

              “Well, I don’t have all the details, but from what I see on this,” he tapped the datacard, “Our target has fixed all of their hull issues.  Looks like they patched it all up, got everything back to really close to factory spec, at least with the hull.  Looks like their sublight drives are completely replaced as well.”

              “What the hell?” Harth asked, bewildered.  “Where the hell did they get replacements for all of that?”

              “No idea, Captain,” Grey admitted.  “My source didn’t know.  All I have is what I could get from the sensor feeds.  They were only running on passive so I don’t have anything about their internals.  Maybe
Ganges
does.”

              “If they do, their Captain isn’t letting on.”  Harth sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.  “I think he’s embarrassed that they made a fool of him.”

              “Probably right, sir,” Grey admitted.

              He nodded.  “Very good work, Chief.  Any chance of getting any better info on our target?”

              Grey shook his head.  “I doubt it, Skipper.  Not from the locals anyway.  Aside from boarding the
Ganges
and just taking what we need from their data banks, do you know of any way of getting the information from them?”

              Harth smiled then.  “Normally, I’d send you and Phillips.”

              “All respect, Captain,” Grey said, grimacing, “I don’t think even the Lieutenant could crack them.”

              “Why do you say that?”

              “A vibe I was getting from the locals,” Grey explained.  “I really don’t think the crew from the cruiser like it here and as soon as their hyperdrive is ready, they’re getting out of this system.  Fast.”             

              “So why do you think they won’t help us?”

              “Because we’re Republic Navy, sir,” Grey told him, as though the answer was obvious.  Perhaps it was.  “They really don’t trust us.  And if someone’s building warships out here, it’s because they intend on carving out their own little empire.  I’m sure they would want to interact with us as little as possible.”

              Harth nodded, considering the implications of this.

              “Administrator Korneyev, this is Captain Eamonn.  We’re going to be breaking orbit in the next twenty minutes.  Is the
Kara
ready?”             

              The lupusan gave a toothy smile.  “Yes, Captain, the
Kara
is ready.  As am I.  The sooner we can get to Ulla-Tran, the quicker we can be on our way back home.”

              He nodded.  “I’m a bit anxious to get underway myself.  I’ll signal you when we actually break orbit and we’ll head out to the hyper limit together.”

              “Understood. 
Kara
out.”

              Twenty minutes later, the two ships left orbit of the planet, beginning their long climb out of the sun’s gravity well for the hyper limit.  During their stay here, one of the shuttles had gathered up the fuel collector and brought it and its helium 3 cargo back to the
Grania Estelle
and topped off her tanks.  Morale was high on the
Grania Estelle
and even on the
Kara
it was an improvement over recent months.  They were moving toward home. 

              The
Kara
was still a hospital vessel, but her Administrator didn’t have the funds to purchase new equipment or medical supplies.  The locals here in Yullankla weren’t up on giving things away, even for friends of the crew of the bulk freighter.  They didn’t want shuttles from ships landing anywhere but at their cities, so the
Kara
’s people didn’t even have the opportunity to go prospecting for natural medicines in the wilderness.  So for this trip, the crew was riding in an unused ship.  The medics and doctors were unneeded anyway as the ship wasn’t carrying any patients.  For the moment, all they were doing was hitching a ride back home.  Once there, the ship could be restocked and then sent on its way to help in some other sort of medical emergency.

              “Isn’t that sort of ship meant for use with some sort of large task force?” one of the cargo handlers asked during dinner mess.  “Like for a fleet or something?”

              One of them leaned over and yelled across the mess hall.  “Hey, Samair!  What’s the story with the hospital ship?”

              The whole room went immediately silent as everyone turned to look at the engineer, who was in the process of raising a forkful of fried fish to her mouth.  She sighed, and set the fork down on the plate.  “Okay, Martinez.  And thank you very much for putting me on the spot.”  The man smirked at her from across the room.  She didn’t need to raise her voice to be heard in the now quiet room.  “Yes, the
Kara
is a ship that very well could be used in a fleet, to handle large numbers of casualties.  But a ship like that would also be ideal for dealing with planetary wide disease outbreaks, serious disasters, things like that.”

              The crowd seemed to take that in, working to digest it.  While they did that, Tamara took another bite of fish and then chewed quickly, for she knew there the question and answer session wasn’t over yet.

              “Okay, then what the hell were they doing all the way out here?” someone demanded.

              “Probably an emergency of some kind,” she said reasonably.  “What else would they be doing out there?  I imagine they’re doing the same thing we are, just going from system to system, plying their trade and helping people wherever they can.  They had reactor problems, as you all remember and got stuck.”  Tamara rolled her eyes and went back to her food.  Conversation started back up again and people turned back to their own meals.

              “What was all that about?” Tamara asked her companions.

              Corajen shrugged.  She was busy tearing apart a leg of lamb and wasn’t terribly interested in the conversation to begin with.  The lupusan wasn’t particularly dainty when she ate and didn’t believe in using any kind of tableware.  She wasn’t a total barbarian, after all, the whole point of meals was to eat the food, not wear it.  But it was clear that despite her trappings of civilization, she would have preferred to eat her food fresh from the kill, not in a five star restaurant. 

              Taja set down her cup.  “Crew is interested.  And you’re the woman in the know, Tamara.”

              “I suppose,” Tamara grumbled.  “But aren’t these questions that should have been asked back when we linked up with the
Kara
?  Not now, two jumps later?”

              “Probably,” Taja admitted.  “And who’s to say they haven’t been asking?”

              “Then why are they only bringing this to me now?”

              Corajen chuckled.  “Maybe it’s because of your frightening reputation, Tamara.  I mean you did just go to a bar and shoot three people.”

              Tamara waved that away.  “That was
weeks
ago,” she joked.  “I’m sure they’d all forgotten about that by now.”

              The other two laughed.

              “So tell me about implants,” Turan asked.  The officers all looked over.

              The senior officers were gathered in the wardroom, having just finished the morning meeting.  The meetings had become a much more congenial affair, now that the officers and the crew had a functioning ship beneath them.  It was amazing what that did for morale. 

              Tamara set down her datapad on the table where she had been making notes about jobs that needed doing, preventative maintenance, mostly.  “Well, there are all sorts.  There’s your most basic identification chip.  Most everyone had those back in the day.  It was a chip implanted under the skin on the top of your left hand.  It contained all of your personal information, medical info, banking data, everything.  It couldn’t grant you any serious access to computers or anything more than that.  It was also used as a means of security.  Anyone without the right data in their chip couldn’t get through locked doors.”

              “And do you have one of those?” the doctor asked.

              She nodded, holding up her left hand and wiggling her fingers.  “Yup.  Everyone in the Republic got them shortly after you are born.”  Tamara frowned.  “At least they did.  I assume they probably still do.”

              “What other kinds are there?” Taja asked, fascinated.

              Tamara shrugged.  “Lots.  My implants are actually on the low end of spectrum.  I’ve seen ones that are far more extensive.  People with cybernetic limbs, whole computer systems within their bodies.”

              “Isn’t that what you have?” the captain asked.

              Tamara shrugged.  “On a very small scale.  I’m talking about people with crystal data cores imbedded in their bodies.  Not very common.”

              “When can you start making them?” Corajen asked bluntly.

              “As soon as one of you illustrious merchant traders finds me a class five industrial replicator, and the software upgrades to make medical tech,” Tamara replied.  She crossed her arms under her breasts.  “Until then, I can’t make any.”