Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (8 page)

              “Look at that!” one of the nearby crewmen, a young man with sandy hair and a wicked smile cried.  He was looking straight at her, as she was about to bring the last bite of griddle cake into her mouth.  Tamara set the fork down.  “Who’d have thought a tiny little thing like her could go through a plate like that?”

              “Cookie!” he shouted, turning to the kitchen.  One of the men, a stocky man with a barrel chest and thick, muscled arms wearing a black apron whose color matched his moustache looked up from his tray of bread.

              “What?” the man called back, the Elysian accent very heavy.

              “What did you put in her food?” he asked, a huge grin on his face.

              Cookie, one Chef Raoul Duchagne, frowned, wiping his hands on a rag.  “What the hell are you babbling about, Martinez?  Are you complaining about my food?”

              The young man’s smile slipped a tiny fraction, but he rallied quickly.  “No, it’s good like always, Cookie.  I just want to know what you did to her food to make her chow it all down like that.”

              Cookie looked over at Tamara, who was getting up from her seat at the table.  “You want to hit on that woman, Martinez, have the balls to do it yourself.  Embarrassing yourself and her like this isn’t going to get her to like you.”  Martinez’s buddied laughed and the young man flushed, tuning away.  Apparently, the cook here was just as formidable as the captain. 

              Tamara bussed her tray over to the dishline area, where Duchagne was there to meet her.  “I hear that you came aboard on an escape pod, little girl?”

              She glared at him.  “Thank you, Chef, for the very good meal, but I am not a little girl.”

              He chuckled.  “From what I hear, you are not… young.”

              “No, I’m not.  I’m older than you are by a wide margin.”

              Duchagne smiled.  “Now, now, it’s never good to boast about your age.  And call me Cookie, everyone does.”

              “All right… Cookie.”  She still had that wary feeling about him, as though he was trying to cover for his friend’s gaff. 

              “And Martinez?  He’s an idiot, but he’s harmless.  At least he better be,” Cookie growled, turning his gaze over to where the other man was still eating with his buddies.  “But I want you to know, that if you need anything, you come to me.  You’re safe in here.”

              A tiny crack formed in the ice around her, but it quickly froze again.  “Thanks, Cookie, but this is still onboard the ship.”

              “True,” he admitted, looking back at her.  Then his face grew iron-hard.  “But this is
my
mess hall.  Everyone knows this place is sanctuary.  Not even the Captain would dare breach that.  Not if he ever wants anymore of that
lasprauga
I make for him.”

              Tamara laughed.  She couldn’t help it.  She smiled at him this time with real warmth.  “Thank you, Cookie.  I will remember that and I look forward to your next meal.”

              He clapped her on the shoulder.  “I look forward to having you here too!  It isn’t every day I got another beautiful woman to walk into my mess hall.”

              She looked down.  “Clearly, Cookie, you need your eyes examined.”

              “And clearly you need your head examined.  Don’t be intimidated by these fools.  This is a good crew and a good ship.  And if what the scuttlebutt I hear is true, you might just make this ship a better one.  Now go, I cannot stand around talking to beautiful women all day.  I have a kitchen to run!”  He swatted playfully at her and she retreated.

              She watched the stocky little man bustle back into the cooking area, snarling good-naturedly with his staff, who feigned innocence at his accusations.  He was a good man, she wanted to believe it.  Tamara only wondered if she could trust him.

              In a short while, she was back in the cargo bay, making last minute checks on the
Perdition
.  “Looking good,” she commented, tightening one last bolt.  “Just need to pull the radiation buffers off the engine, fuel it up and she’ll be ready for a test flight.”

              Ka’Xarian nodded.  “I agree.  I’m impressed at how quickly we’ve been able to get this work done.”

              Tamara smiled at him.  “Oh, come now, Xar,” she said, using the nickname, “It really isn’t all that much work, though we did do a
bit
of a marathon session.  Now,” she said, putting the wrench back in her belt, “I just need to get over to the replicator and get my skinsuit out and then I can take this beauty for a
ride
.”  The
Perdition
class fighter had a life support unit on board for thirty hours, but with a skinsuit, one could stay on board for another six hours.  While Tamara had no intention of sitting in the fighter’s cockpit for thirty-six hours, nowhere near close, she had no desire to be caught outside the
Grania Estelle
without a skinsuit, which would provide its own life support should there be a serious issue with the fighter.  “I had it get started before I came down here, so it should be done in a few minutes.”

              A few minutes later, she got herself into her suit and climbed into the cockpit.  Sealing her helmet, she brought the canopy down, which also sealed.  “Comm check,” Tamara said.

              “Reading you clear,” the ops officer replied.  “Sounds good.”

              “All right, I’m beginning power up procedures.”  Pressing a few buttons, she noticed that all the computer systems on board booted up properly and the readouts were all green.  “I’m in the green.  All set for launch.”

              “All right, Moxie,” the captain’s voice came over the line.  “The cargo bay is depressurized and we’re opening up the door.”

              “Right,” Tamara said, as she felt all those old feelings started flooding back.  It had been years (not counting the long sleep) since she’d flown a fighter, ever since she’d gotten out of the Starfighter Corps.  She very much enjoyed being an engineer, but there was nothing like that old feeling of flying, of being in the cockpit.  While the design and building of things, great and small, was probably a more fulfilling sensation in the long run, there was very little that could match the sheer adrenaline rush of a combat flight in a proper starfighter. 

              This, of course, was only a test flight, to break all the gear in, to fine tune some things, but still, it felt the same.  The great cargo doors began to open, sliding inexorably upward until they disappeared in the upper section of the bay. 

              “All right,” she said, as she hit the repulsors and the tiny ship rose up a meter from the deck.  She smiled mockingly.  “This is Moxie One, heading out.”  There was a chuckle over the comm.  Pressing the throttle levers gently, moving on maneuvering jets only, the
Perdition
fighter slid easily out of the bay and into the black.

Chapter 3

              From of the bridge of the
Grania Estelle
, the captain and the rest of his bridge crew were watching the flight test while still keeping an eye on the ship’s systems.  The freighter was about ten light minutes from the hyper limit, beyond which the gravity well from the system’s star was weak enough that a ship could jump into hyperspace and fly away, faster than light.  And at the speed in which the
Grania Estelle
was currently wallowing through space at, they had another twenty-seven hours before they could jump. 

             
Which gives Moxie more than enough time for her test flight
, the Captain marveled.  He was watching her, and her ship.  The fighter was moving around the
Grania Estelle
, clearly Moxie was using the freighter as a stable platform for her to perform her maneuvers.   The
Perdition
was twisting and turning, performing barrel rolls, looping around and over the freighter.  He could hear her whooping in delight on the radio, though he was sure she didn’t mean to be celebrating over the radio.  So far, he had to admit, he was impressed.  That pile of junk had been sitting in his cargo bay for a long time, just taking up space.  He’d had people look at it, but no one had wanted to do anything more with it than sell it for scrap.  He’d kept it as an oddity, a reminder of when the Republic was in better times, though he hadn’t been alive to see those times.  He’d never known himself to be nostalgic with anything other than the
Grania Estelle
.  The fighter had been in the cargo bay so long, he’d nearly forgotten about it. 

              He’d figured when he’d thrown this test at her that Moxie would balk.  Or, that when it came down to it, that the little ship couldn’t be fixed.  That it truly was a pile of junk and that she was no better than anyone else.  But she’d somehow pulled out a miracle and for the first time in over a decade, the Captain dared to hope.  If she could fix that one starfighter, perhaps she might be able to do something for him.  His big girl was old, beat up, patched and way past her prime, but she was
his
girl, this great ship of his.  He’d done his best over the years to hold her together, and the fact that she could still fly, much less continue to operate in hyperspace was a testimony to his will and the skills of his crew. 

              But it was a losing battle.  Every month, things got just a little bit harder.  Parts were just a little more difficult to scrounge up.  Each time they jumped another ragged system would start to sputter or fail and the crew would do whatever was necessary, cannibalize whatever was necessary to keep the whole thing going.  But they were nearly at the end.  Unless a whole batch of fresh parts came in and right soon,
Grania Estelle
might only make another two or three jumps, tops.  And when she failed, they would all be out of luck.

              But for now, he indulged himself in watching Moxie loop and flip her fighter around and around, dared by a woman from the past to hope.

              It was wonderful. 

              The sheer freedom that came with flying, it was… indescribable.  Back in the day, Tamara had kept her flight hours up the best she could, but she was a Commander in the Navy and second leader of a base.  She really didn’t have the time to go out flying every week.  But it had only taken a few moments (and a quick refresher using her implants) to familiarize herself with the controls.  The control stick felt like it had been molded to fit in her hand.  With the thrusters, main engines and repulsors all upgraded, this fighter could
dance
.

              She was enjoying the maneuvers, flying around the big freighter, performing loops and rolls, pushing the fighter’s engines to maximum, then flipping one hundred eighty degrees to brake hard, to test out the inertial nullifiers.  She was putting all the systems through their paces, working the little ship hard. 

              After about an hour, and after a number of chuckles coming her way from the
Grania Estelle
, “Hot mike, Moxie One,” was said a number of times, but she ignored it, whooping loudly.  More chuckles.

              Finally, the test flight was coming to an end, or more specifically, her fuel reserves were running low.  “Moxie One to
Grania Estelle. 
I am approaching bingo fuel and I am returning back to base.”

              “We copy, Moxie One,” the ops officer replied.  “Bay Four is still open.  Take it nice and easy coming in please.”

              “Yes, Mother,” Tamara replied.  “I won’t scratch your deck.”

              She’d done carrier landings before, of course.  In the Navy, unless you were a dirtsider and therefore only flew in atmosphere, it was a requirement that you have at least a hundred carrier landings under your belt before you could pass basic training.  Of course, now, she didn’t have anything as luxurious as a hangar deck to touch down on.  But, the deck was waiting.  There was one functioning running light illuminated just above the open maw of the bay, she was forced to try and put this bird down without any landing lights. 

              “No problem,” she said, angling the fighter and cutting acceleration. A few puffs on her forward thrusters began to burn off the ship’s speed.  She hadn’t gathered too much momentum in this last approach, knowing that the landing might be a little difficult this first time.  The fighter entered the bay at less than five kilometers per hour, a little nudge with the stick and the
Perdition
swung around, facing nose-out to the door.  Cutting in the repulsors and idling the main engines, she eased it down to the deck, without so much as a bump.  “How was that, Captain?”

              From the bridge, the captain smiled.  “Show off.  Closing the bay doors now.”

              The test flight was a success.  Her follow up maintenance took about an hour, a few tweaks and tune ups on a few things, but so far, everything was working well.  Putting her tools away, she patted the side of the fuselage in satisfaction.  “Beautiful…” she whispered, taking one last glance at the
Perdition
fighter.  Now, it was time to speak with the captain about the real job.

              The captain was in his quarters and as she entered, she saw him sitting in one of the chairs at the small table, a mug of beer in his hand, a tablet in the other.  The man was quite pleased.  “Moxie!  You said you could do it and I have to admit, I doubted you.  But, you’re a woman of your word.  Now that you’ve proven your worth and you proved me wrong.”  He gestured her to one of the threadbare but overstuffed chairs that were bolted to the deck.  Tamara sat.  After their last conversation together, she was far less open and friendly toward the man.  Outwardly, however, she put on a brave face and smiled, acting as though she was dealing with just another unpleasant superior officer.

              “Glad everything went as planned.  So where do we go from here?”  She was exhausted, the euphoria from the starfighter project had worn off, leaving only the dull empty ache that had been slowly filling her these last few days.

              He eyed her speculatively.  “That depends on you, Moxie.  We’ll be arriving at the hyper limit in a few hours, so I won’t be letting you tear down the engines, but I think you could find ways to keep yourself busy.”

              “Where are we headed, Captain?”

              He smiled.  “Moxie, our… arrangement… is special.  You’re not a crewmember.  You’re not a passenger.  You’re more of a…”  He struggled to find the word.

              “Contractor?” she supplied helpfully.

              He bobbed his head.  “Sure.  Yes.  Exactly.  You are a contractor.”  He leaned forward.  “Which means, you do your job, you earn your keep and you let me worry about where we’re going.”

              Tamara shrugged.  There were only so many places that were reachable from this star.  Only two other systems in fact, guessing at the engine specs she’d glanced at briefly.  But she could look all that up later.  And by the look on the captain’s face, he was realizing that as well.

              “I have a request,” she stated, looking him in the eye.

              One of his eyebrows shot up.  “Do you now?”

              She nodded.  “I do.  I said I wanted to help you rebuild your ship and I meant it.  And I
will
rebuild it.  But, it will take forever if I’m working alone.  May I borrow your engineering teams to do the work?”
              “You want
my
crew to be doing the work?”  He sounded amused.

              “No, I want them to be assisting
me
,” she clarified.  She sat up straighter.  “Let’s be honest.  I can’t be everywhere at once.  And your teams have been doing a fair job of holding this ship together.”  Tamara felt she could be gracious here.  In her opinion, they had been doing an atrocious job, though, in all fairness, they did not have full access to the replicators to make replacement parts.  The ship was decrepit, but the fact that she was still flying and relatively safe was a testament to their will.  “I can fix the ship, but if I can train them on how to maintain and repair their ship, you can keep this beauty flying for another two hundred years.”

              The captain nodded.  “Now that is something I want to see.”  He flicked his fingers in dismissal.  “Off you go then.  Fix my ship.”

              Ten minutes later, she was standing in the mess hall, with a group of engineers seated at tables before her.  The Chief Engineer, a gruff Parkani male, crossed his four true arms over his barrel chest, looking out over his teams with his four hard eyes.  Quesh Trrgoth was a no-nonsense fellow, who worked his teams hard.  But, he was good at bringing out the best in his people and they all worshipped him, even the zheen Ka’Xarian.  He was good with systems, but the lack of parts and the lack of a well-trained crew had hindered his efforts.  He had seen what Tamara Samair had done with that
Perdition
fighter and was interested to see what she could do with the big ship.  The captain had refused to change the schedule for the jump, so they would need to work on projects that wouldn’t affect the ship in hyperspace until they reached the next star system.

              “All right everyone, thank you for being here.  For those of you I don’t know, my name is Tamara Samair.”  There was a quiet rumble around the room.  A few had met her already and were impressed with her work ethic and her ability to unlock the replicators.  “I’ve been tasked by the Captain to start work on rebuilding this ship.  We’re going to try and get her as close to factory new as possible.”

              “What?” someone demanded.  “That’s impossible.  We don’t have a space dock to work at!”

              “No, we don’t,” she agreed.  Tamara swept her gaze over the crowd.  There was a degree of belligerence in the engineering teams, which was nothing new to her.  She had been the manager of a shipyard after all.  “Which means that in some cases we’re simply going to have to do the best we can.  And, since the Captain has decided not to wait around for us to work, we’re going to have to do some of our repairs in hyperspace.”  More muttering, darker this time.  “Look people, I’m not saying we’re going to be doing the really dangerous stuff.  I’d really like to overhaul the reactor, but since that along with the hyperdrive is going to be in use, obviously we can’t.  What we can work on is the power distribution system, life support, and we can work on patching the interior of the hull.”

              “Why not the outside?” the same heckler asked. 

              She raised her eyebrows at him.  “You want to be on the outside of the ship in an EVA suit while we’re in hyper?”  The man gulped and closed his mouth, some of the others laughed.  “I didn’t think so.  So, we’ll work on the interior of the hull for now to try and reclaim some real estate.”  That got a lot of their attention, since because with three of the eight main cargo holds breached, a huge amount of cargo space was unused.  The captain in particular had been very interested in
that
particular project.  Having those bays breached had been a massive waste of money, seeing as all that space was therefore unused.

              “All right.  The Chief tells me that we have a good crop of welders in this crew here,” she gestured to indicate the assembled lot, some of whom nodded.  “I understand though, that there’s been just too much work trying to keep the rest of the ship going to try and repair the damaged bays.”  The Parkani nodded.  “We’re going to start slow.  The Chief and I want to evaluate everyone’s skills and learning curves as we work on the more complicated systems.”

              “Once we’re in hyperspace, we’ll be there for about twenty-three days.  By the time we get to the next system, I’d like to see that the life support systems and a good part of the power systems are overhauled.”  The engineers all exchanged looks, clearly indicating that they didn’t think it was possible.

              “I hope you slept well,” the Chief spoke up.  “Because for the next three weeks, none of us will be sleeping much.”  A chorus of groans.  “Oh, knock it off.  We can get a nap or two once we get out of hyper.”  Though the look he and Tamara shared broadcast the same thought,
not likely
.  “All right.  I’ve assigned teams.  Company A,” he gestured with one of his hands to a group of the techs, “You’re going to be working on life support in the aft sections.  Company B, you’ve got the forward sections.  Companies C and D,” he indicated the rest, “You’re on the power grid.  I’ll be working on fixing up the EPS grid, the stars know we’ve just sat and lived with it for long enough.”