Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (98 page)

              This whole situation had fallen apart far too quickly.  One minute they were getting angry with the locals over the stealing of a cargo ship and the big bulk freighter was trying to assist, the next they’d been boarded and now were under hostile control.  And now this. 

              She shook her head, clearing such thoughts from her mind.  It was because she was so tired, she told herself.  Right now, the pirates and the Republic ship were fighting against one another, but it wouldn’t be long before one side prevailed.  Once that happened, someone was going to chase down
Grania Estelle
and bring the big ship to heel.  Whether that was a pirate or the Republic ship, it honestly did not matter. 

              The soldiers on the ship were bad enough.  But if they could stay separated from any outside assistance, maybe Corajen and her people could deal with them.  Which meant they needed to get to the hyper limit as quickly as possible.  Which meant they needed to get more than one engine operational.

              “Xar!” she bellowed over the din of Main Engineering.  A few of the techs glanced over to her, but immediately continued with their assigned tasks.  A second yell got his attention and the purple-hued zheen trotted over to her.

              “You know that I am the Assistant Chief, Tamara, right?” he asked sourly.  “I outrank you.”

              “Time for that later, Xar,” she told him.  “I need to get another engine, or better, two operational.  Once the pirates and the Republic get things sorted out outside, the winner is going to be coming after us.  Which means we need to be able to get this big bitch moving and right quick.”

              “Even with all six engines up and functional, the old girl wasn’t exactly swift and nimble,” Xar replied.  “She was faster than the
Kara
, but that ship was in even worse shape than we were.”  He hissed.  “I hope we see them again someday.  They were good people.”

              Tamara nodded.  “Yes they were.  And maybe we can get to Seylonique one day.  But sadly it’s not going to be this day.”  The zheen flared his antennae in a negative.  “So, the engines.  I’m going to take my team out and try and get at least one other online.  Can you handle things here?”

              He hissed in annoyance.  “Can I handle things here?  Girlie, I was running this outfit long before you got here.”

              She smiled.  “I’m sure Quesh just sat in his easy chair, a beer in his hand while you were running things.”

              “More like three beers in hand,” he corrected buzzing with laughter.  “But essentially.”

              “All right.”  She clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to her console.  “Engine Four looks like the best candidate.  I’ve got the parts started in the replicator and we’ll work from the inside as much as we can, but I know we’re going to need to take a team EVA.”

              “You’re going to have to clear that with the bridge,” Xar reminded her.

              Now it was Tamara’s turn to hiss in annoyance.  “Yeah.  Wonder how the soldier boy up there is going to take this news?”  She blinked, activating the comms with her implants.  “Captain, it’s Moxie.  We need to talk about Engine Four.”

              Eamonn sighed, rubbing his forehead.  Doing the duties of the Operations officer and running the ship was exhausting.  And now Moxie was calling in from Engineering, most likely with some report he wasn’t going to like.  Doing all this while under the hawk eye of the leader and his soldiers was not helping his stress levels. 

              The cramped bridge only allowed the leader and two of his soldiers, one human and one zheen, to be up there, but since they all carried weapons and the bridge crew did not, three was more than enough to keep them in line.  The man was still unnamed, even after the few days he’d been aboard.  Granted, none of the pirate guards had been terribly chatty during their stay aboard the ship, except to spout orders make rude or vulgar comments to the crew.

              “What about Engine Four, Moxie?” Eamonn asked, running one dark skinned hand over his scalp.  He checked his displays.  Engine Four was currently offline.  “It’s down.”

              “Yes, Captain, it is,” she confirmed.  “But I think with a little work, I can get it back up.  But I’m going to need to take a team outside to do it.”

              The leader chuckled as he listened to her.  “Outside?  Your engineer has a bolt or two loose, I think.”

              Eamonn glared, but didn’t say anything to him.  “We can’t do much to protect people on the outside, Moxie, you know that.  And with the shields the way they are…”

              “Understood, Captain.  I just wanted you to be advised.  Any chance we could get a shuttle out for recovery ops should someone slip?”

              The leader shook his head.  “Absolutely not.  You are not sending any shuttles out there, Captain.”  The two men locked eyes, the leader’s gaze was like iron. 

              Finally, Eamonn looked away.  “No shuttles, Moxie.  Make sure you and your team are secured to the hull.  We can’t go back for anyone who comes loose.”

              There was a pause.  “Understood, Captain.  Moxie out.”

              “Captain, report from Gunnery Sergeant Rajendra, corvette is secured, twenty-two prisoners, four of his Marines are down.”  The comm officer sounded excited.  “Shuttle pilots are requesting a return to
Legacy
to pick up engineering and medical teams, sir.”
              “How many combat medics are in the Gunny’s platoon?” Harth asked.

              “Two sir, and they’re already working with the injuries, but the Gunny is requesting additional assistance.”

              “Understood,” the Captain replied.  “Get the teams together down in the shuttle bay, have Ensign Foster to prepare to take the
Ravage
as a prize, she’ll be in command.”

              “Copy that, sir.”  The comm officer turned back to his controls.

              “Helm, keep us close in on the corvette, and be ready to move if I order it.  I don’t like those fighters coming our way.”

              “Aye, sir!”

              The fighters were actually moving toward the
Grania Estelle,
not the Republic warships (as they both were now).  But they weren’t making a beeline straight for the cargo ship, they were maintaining distance of about ten light seconds behind, making sure to put themselves between the freighter and the
Legacy
.  Which was a problem.  If Harth decided to go after the freighter, they’d pounce on the disabled corvette, killing his Marine platoon and the command crew he was sending over.  If he stayed, the
fighters would simply follow the big freighter out, park in one of the cavernous cargo bays and jump away and the chase would begin anew.  He tapped his fist on the arm of his chair, cursing fate once again. 

              Hopefully, once Foster got aboard
Ravage
, it would be a matter of days, not weeks, to get her up and running again.  Then they could go after them and finally run down that wayward freighter.

              “They’re hanging back,” the leader said with a smile.  “Good.  Tell your teams out on the hull they’d better hurry, because in four hours I want you to bring the engines up to full power.”

              Eamonn ground his teeth.  His very small hope for deliverance was drifting further and further back. 
Grania Estelle
’s engines were still offline but her velocity was still enough to carry her away from the objects and stations of this star system and toward the hyper limit.

              He pressed the control.  “Moxie, it’s the Captain.  You have four hours before I engage the working engines at full.  What’s your status?”

              “My team is at Engine Four now, we’re working as fast as we can.”

              “I’m not kidding, Moxie,” he told her.  “Three hours and fifty-nine minutes, we are going full burn.  You’d better be done and back inside by then.”

              “Then stop wasting time, sir,” she snapped.  “I’ll report back with updates.  Samair out.”

              The leader snickered, as did his two fellows, but none of the bridge crew did.  The captain absently rubbed his sore abdomen but didn’t raise his eyes from his displays, scowling.

              “We’re approaching the hyper limit, Captain Verrikoth,” the sensor operator called out.

              The zheen rubbed his hands together in a very human gesture.  He’d been waiting for this for hours now.  He hadn’t truly been all that concerned about the Republic cruiser that had shown up to challenge him, but he hadn’t exactly been without worry, either.  He was fairly certain that his flotilla of warships would defeat the bigger ship, but he was concerned that he would lose a good many of them in accomplishing this.  Seeing how quickly the ship dispatched the
Ravage
, his level of concern did go up a bit more.  He still had plans for the Republic base at Byra-Kae and that required his warships and the bulk freighter.  For now, they were going their separate ways.  But he trusted his soldiers aboard the big ship and he knew that they would keep the merchant crew on task.

              “Leader Wolf will keep them in line,” the zheen mused.  “Of that I have no doubt.”  The bridge crew around him looked up at him, but at seeing that he was speaking to none of them, they didn’t speak up.  “Make the jump as soon as we cross the limit,” Verrikoth ordered.

              “The warships have jumped,” Eamonn reported.  It felt good to be working at the Operations console, it had been his position before he’d taken over as captain and it felt as though he was slipping on a pair of old, well-worn gloves.  He checked the chronometer, less than an hour to go on the four-hour deadline.  He took a breath and slowly let it back out.  The soldiers looked completely calm and unconcerned.  He supposed they felt they had nothing to worry about.  As long as he and his people behaved themselves and followed orders, the soldiers were calm.  For now.  How long that would last, Eamonn wasn’t sure.  They were pirates, after all, and locked in a can for weeks on end while they flew through hyperspace to Amethyst would test the resolve of even the most morally minded individual.  And these guards were anything but morally minded.  Eamonn was actually surprised none of the soldiers had decided to take what they wanted from the crew.

              The external feeds to the hull sensors were destroyed in the attack, but he’d kept an open comlink to the engineering team working on the sublight engines.  Serinda had been monitoring them constantly, there was a battle going on nearby after all, but so far she’d heard nothing but chatter about what they were doing.  No problems.

              “Come on, Moxie,” he whispered to himself.  He knew that if she didn’t get that work done, the guard leader would force him to jump the ship to maximum acceleration, or what passed for that at this point, whether the team was back inside or not.  And most likely someone would get shot once they were under power again.

              Tamara desperately wanted to wipe the sweat from her forehead.  She’d rushed out the airlock in her skinsuit, sealing the helmet and forgotten a sweatband.  But she was proud of her team.  They were moving at breakneck speed, having completely torn out all the broken or cracked housing and components for Engine Four in record time.  Now they were in the process of getting all the new replicated parts installed, and making sure everything was trimmed out and calibrated.  This was only going to be a temporary job; once they got to Amethyst, Tamara fully intended on coming back out, tearing the whole engine down and rebuilding it.  They were welding temporary structural supports on the trusses holding the engine mounts together, as microfractures had spider webbed out due to the damage.  What they needed to do was yank the whole assembly and rebuild it from scratch, but with the crazy deadline there simply wasn’t time.

              Normally, they would collect all the damaged components and haul them back inside for replicator material.  But again, there simply wasn’t time.  Now they just threw the pieces out into the void, uncaring where they went.

              “All right,” she said, as Mairi bolted down the last piece.  “Should be good to go.”  She ran a diagnostic on her data pad; everything seemed to be in the green.  In some cases the readings were just barely in the green, but the engine should run with little problem.  “Twenty-one minutes to deadline.  Pack it up, people, we’re heading back inside.”  Tamara blinked, activating her comms to the bridge.  “Bridge, this is Samair.  Engine Four is up, make sure that you sync it with Engine Six.  We’re heading back in now, I’ll let you know the instant we’re in.  After that, you’re good to burn.”

              Serinda’s voice came back right away.  “We’re monitoring you, Tamara.  Captain says good work.”

              “Thanks, Serinda.  Like I said, we’re on our way back.  Samair out.”  She cut the connection.  Her team had gathered up their gear and were starting back to the airlock.  They made sure their steps were deliberate, making sure their magboots were firmly catching on the metal of the hull before they would lift the next foot.  There was no time to dawdle, but her team were all veterans at this point, they wouldn’t slip.  They quickly hustled across the few hundred meters of hull to the airlock.  Two minutes later they were inside the airlock and it cycled open, letting them inside.