Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (99 page)

              “Bridge!” Tamara cried over the comlink.  “We’re inside.  You can commence full burn on engines four and six!”

              “Helm, engage engines four and six, bring us to fifty percent,” the captain ordered from his seat at Operations.

              “Copy, fifty percent, four and six,” the woman seated at the helm, a human female by the name of Isis replied.  She was one of the newest people that had been hired at their last stop before coming here at Ulla-tran, and the Captain still wasn’t terribly familiar with her yet.  She tended to work the helm on shifts opposite her captain, which meant that until this current crisis and with the guards keeping Eamonn on the bridge for three straight shifts, he’d only spent a few minutes in the last month in her presence.  She was a large woman, plump, middle-aged with graying hair and crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes.  However, she seemed to be skilled at the helm, enough to impress both the Stella and George at her hiring.  The Captain had signed off on her without really having met the woman, he’d been busy with other things at the time, but so far had had no reason to complain about her.

              “Why not to max thrust, Captain?” the leader asked, his voice deceptively calm.  “I’d like to put as much distance between us and that cruiser as possible.”

              “So would I,” Eamonn replied dryly.  “But if I just have Isis jam the throttles forward, we run the risk of burning out the engines.”

              “You don’t trust your engineer?” the leader asked, more of a statement than a question.

              Eamonn scowled at him.  “Of course I trust her.  But these are new connections and components, thrown together in a rush.  If I push them too hard too fast, we could blow something and then we’d be drifting again.”

              They stared at each other for a long moment, before finally the soldier nodded.  “Very well, Captain.  Ease us in.  But you
will
take us to full burn.”  He stepped closer to the Operations console.  “And once we reach the hyper limit and we jump, Captain, then you and I will have a discussion about all these new parts and components your engineer is finding to repair the engines.”  Eamonn blanched, but quickly recovered.  The soldier continued.  “Because I saw the state of your holds after we boarded.  They were empty.  And I am hearing whispered talk of replicators.  And you are going to give me a full report about this situation.”

              The Captain clenched his jaw, but he didn’t need to say anything.  The leader stepped back looking over at Isis at the helm.  The conversation was apparently over; he’d had his say.  Apparently the Captain was going to be having a further discussion later, but for now, the leader was back on task again.  It wouldn’t be long now, Eamonn realized, checking the displays. 

             
“Grania Estelle
is nearly to the hyper limit, Captain,” the sensor officer reported.  “They’ve just taken on the fighters that were trailing them, sir.  They should be jumping within the next few minutes.”

              Commander Harth sighed.  “There’s no help for it.  Track their course and vector and calculate all known destinations on that trajectory.”

              “I’m on it, sir,” the sensor officer replied, nodding.

              Harth shook his head.  He’d had a small crop of crew brought on
Legacy
just a few days before they went on this mission.  After months in space, he’d thought they’d had plenty of time to knock the green off these greenhorns, but every so often someone would say something like that, showing their small amount of experience and a lack of professionalism. 

              “Very good, Sensors,” he said, grimacing.  The officer didn’t even notice his captain’s irritation, so focused was he on his assignment. 

              The man glanced up again a moment later.  “
Grania Estelle
has jumped to hyperspace, Captain.”

              Harth nodded.  Well, the chase would be on again.  Once they got
Ravage
up and running, the little flotilla would be able to resume the pursuit.  He relished it, wanting to bring that wayward vessel to heel.  But on the flipside of that, after all these months of flying through hyper, trailing after a bulk freighter and a mysterious Commander, Harth was anxious for it to end.  He wanted to return to the Republic and to the Fleet.  There were things out here in the Cluster that the Admiral definitely needed to be made aware of and the Navy definitely needed a reinforced presence out here.  Perhaps he could get himself assigned to a more permanent posting out here, to patrolling areas of the Cluster.  Definitely a thought that might be worth pursuing.

              “Continue sensor sweeps of the area,” he ordered.  “Lieutenant Tran, keep an eye on things; you have the conn.  I’ll be in my ready room.  Oh, and Sensors, get me that list of possible trajectories ASAP.”

              “Aye, Captain,” both men chorused as Harth stood and walked off the bridge.

              The landing had gone a bit rougher than they had expected, trying to put six starfighters down in a cargo bay with no landing tractors was apparently more difficult than anticipated, but they managed.  As it turned out, it was more nerve wracking for the crew in the
Grania Estelle
than it was for the pirate pilots.  They brought their fighters in under reaction thrusters only, a bit faster than was really necessary, dropping their landing struts and skidding to a stop on the deck.  They, thankfully, came in one at a time and luckily the cargo bay was depressurized to help with the landings, otherwise the skidding fighters would have come in with a shower of sparks.  As it was, furrows were cut into the decking by the pirates’ landing struts, something the cargo bay attendants furiously cursed about over the comms.  The great cargo bay doors closed and less than a minute later, the ship made the jump to hyperspace.

              It wasn’t quite the smooth jump that the crew had gotten used to over the last few months since the drive had been properly calibrated, but it was nowhere near as rough as the teeth-rattling vibrations followed by a bone-jarring jolt of yesteryear.  There was a shivering throughout the deckplates and enough vibration that it was noticeable, but nothing terribly violent.  The soldier leader did make comment about this to the Captain, mocking the man for the poor repair of this massive ship.  The Captain, to his credit, called a relief officer to the bridge to man the Operations station, and then simply walked off the bridge with no further comment.  The leader followed, leaving his two compatriots on the bridge to watch the crew there.  The two men walked into the wardroom, closing the door behind them.

              Tamara walked back to her quarters, her tiny cabin deep within the ship.  It had been a very long few days.  Now that they were in hyper again, and most likely for a good long time to come, the frantic pace of the work would diminish somewhat.  Oh, there was still plenty of work to be done, but there was no one actively shooting at
Grania Estelle
now, no tricky maneuvers to work with, no time sensitive repairs that needed to be made.  At least, not yet.  She figured she’d have a few hours before either the Captain, Quesh, or the pirate leader stated banging on her door demanding some new job be done.

              Stripping off her sweat stained and filthy clothes, she dropped them all into the laundry and stepped into the shower.  After a good hot scrub, she stepped out, feeling a great deal better.  She was still exhausted, but the overwhelming malaise Tamara was feeling lifted.  After drying off, she put on a t-shirt and underwear and flopped onto her bunk.  After a long second, she felt herself relax and the tension that had built up in her back and neck and legs released, melting her onto the bunk.  Tamara closed her eyes, ready to sleep.

              She wondered about Stella.  The AI’s core matrix was still in the ship’s computer core, but most of her higher (and lower) cognitive functions had been shut down to avoid detection.  She was still monitoring and controlling the ship’s fusion reactor but not much else.  The rest of the crew was handling the other tasks that she had been doing for the last couple of months.  It was much less efficient, but it helped keep her secret and safe.

              Tamara sighed as she felt herself sink deeper into relaxation.  She missed their discussions, their talks about random things, even the nagging the AI gave her over her dark dreams.  Tamara had been pushing herself so hard in the last few days that she hadn’t dreamed at all, simply collapsed onto her bunk and passed out.  Now, she was feeling the same way, the sweet, comforting feeling stealing over her, but still, she missed her friend.  Stella was still there, only not.  It wasn’t quite the same, but Tamara took heart in the fact that her friend wasn’t dead or gone, but just silent.

              Sleep overtook her then and she knew no more.

              Sickbay was quiet.  Finally, after all the madness, things were starting to settle down.  Turan was slumped into his chair at his desk, hands on the desktop.  The Guura had been working twenty-two hour days since the survivors of the
Emilia Walker
had been brought aboard.  The three crew from the other ship were recovering, slowly in the case of the young zheen, Kay’grax.  His entire arm was encased in a clear plastic container, filled with regenerative fluid.  A new hand was regrowing, but it would take weeks before he would be ready for full duty.  In the meantime, he was seated in a berth in sickbay his eyes and antennae buried in datapads overflowing with technical manuals.  For now, he was working on getting up to speed, because Ka’Xarian had every intention of hiring on the young zheen.  Kay’grax had done pretty well on his own in very stressful circumstances and the engineer had no intention of letting that raw talent go to waste.

              Marcos, the brawny human, had already been released and transferred to the cargo division.  He was quickly adapting to his surroundings, getting in with his new colleagues.  Taja was pleased to have such a burly and hardworking new member of her team.  For the moment, there wasn’t a whole lot for the cargo people to do, especially now that they were in hyper, but Taja was making sure they stayed occupied.

              Captain Vosteros was also recovering slowly from his injuries.  He’d had a lot of internal injuries and bleeding and while the station medic had pumped him full of drugs to keep him running and patched up the wounds; he had been on death’s door when Turan had gotten his hands on him.  He was in and out of consciousness, though in his time awake he asked about his ship, but no one could give him any news.

              Ka’Xarian walked over to the Captain’s sickbed.  Turan was nearby, but still at his desk.  He had informed the Assistant Chief that he was not to get his patients too excited or he would throw the big bug out of his sickbay on his head.  Meekly, the engineer nodded in agreement and went over to the Captain.

              “Ah,” Vosteros said, struggling to sit up.  “My savior.  I never did get the chance to thank you, my lad.”

              Ka’Xarian gave a small bow in acknowledgement.  “I’m glad we could get you out of there, sir.”

              “But clearly there’s more,” the man replied shrewdly.  “Though as I said, I am glad to see you.”

              “Yes, sir, there is.”  Ka’Xarian’s antennae dropped a bit.  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed down here in sickbay, but we’re in hyperspace now.”

              The captain nodded.  “Yes, I did notice that a little while ago.  So my ship is gone then.”  It was a statement, not a question.

              The zheen nodded.  “Yes, sir.  And with the… situation we’re currently in, I don’t know when or even if we’ll be back in Ulla-tran.  Even if we do someday go back, there’s no way of knowing if your ship will even still be there, or if Goris Hana will simply keep it, claiming he has salvage rights, since the crew abandoned it.”  He held up a hand to forestall Vosteros’s furious retort.  “Yes, sir, I do remember that they stole your ship and kidnapped you and your remaining crew.”

              “And killed one of them!” he shouted, before clutching his side and wincing.

              There was a scraping of a chair on the decking and the sound of feet walking in their direction.  “I told you not to get him excited, Ka’Xarian,” Turan said harshly, running a hand scanner in Vosteros’s direction.  “Damn it, you made him pop some of the sutures.  Get out of here,” he said angrily to the zheen.  “Captain Vosteros, I need you to be calm, or I’ll be forced to sedate you.”

              “Sorry, Doctor,” Ka’Xarian said, contrite.  “I’m sorry, Captain.”  He slipped out past the Guura and the orderly who had started to work on Vosteros and fled the sickbay.

              There was a hammering on the metal door, jolting Tamara awake.  She rolled off her bunk just as the door slid open and two figures rushed inside.  Rough hands seized her arms and jerked her to her feet and she fought them.  A fist smashed into her gut and she doubled over, retching.  Another hand backhanded her across the face and her vision swam.  Another hit to the stomach caused her to spit up bile, but the burn in her throat was completely eclipsed by the agony in her abdomen and her jaw.  She ceased her struggles and the two figures dragged her limp form from the room.