“Damn, I miss Stella,” he muttered to himself, making sure to keep his voice low. The last thing he needed was for one of the damned pirates to hear him and start asking questions. There was probably already enough instances of people slipping up to get them interested in who this ‘Stella’ person was. One of the engineers had made the slip early in the journey from Ulla-tran but had recovered quickly, persuading the pirate that Stella was a woman he’d met back at Kazyanenko that he’d spent a wild night with. The thug seemed to buy it and the matter was dropped. But a couple of others had slipped up as well and it was unlikely that the pirates were going to believe that this Stella was friendly with all of them, even if she was someone who sold her wares in a red-light district.
He glanced around, trying to look nonchalant and thankfully no one was near him who could have heard. There were two of the soldiers here, but they were hanging around the main doors, just like they always did, keeping an eye on everything but staying out of the way. He let out a long sigh of relief and then turned back to his display, continuing his work. Quesh growled in frustration as he saw two more problems crop up on two different subroutines and he went to work to try and smooth them out.
“Chief!” a voice bellowed from the doorway. “Chief!”
Quesh growled audibly and turned away from his display toward the voice. Then he blinked in surprise as he saw who it was. “Captain! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”
Eamonn entered Main Engineering and walked over to where the Parkani was working. “Thanks, Chief, that means a lot to me. I guess no more brooding sessions in my quarters for weeks on end.”
“It’s good for you to get out and about, Captain,” the Parkani said with a smile. He stood up from his console, ignoring his cane and arching his back to get a kink out. His legs were almost back to normal and he only needed to use the cane a few times a day, typically if he’d been on his feet for a long stretch. “Good for the morale of the crew.”
Eamonn shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. How are things going in here?”
“Shields are good and holding. Once the work on the nacelles are done, we’ll be good to go. We’ll be able to hold speed at Orange level six, just as predicted.” At the captain’s frown, he quickly continued. “I’ve had Xar and his teams going over the hull, but there is just too much in the way of metal fatigue and outright damage done to the stress points on the hull. When we get to Seylonique, we need to harvest a few big rocks and do some serious work on the hull. I’m talking maybe a month’s worth.”
Eamonn nodded. “Sounds fine. I think we’ll bring on some new crew there as well get to work on getting ourselves back up to full strength.” He glanced casually over at the soldiers in the doorway, who weren’t paying them the slightest attention, they were busy eyeing two of Quesh’s female technicians who were installing a load of fiber optic cable. He lowered his voice, moving closer. “On that note, I need to speak with you, Xar and Captain Vosteros the next chance you get. I don’t think that we’re going to meet our appointment in Amethyst.”
The Parkani nodded, keeping a straight face. “I think that might be the best idea, Captain. My shift ends in about four hours. I can meet you in your quarters briefly then.”
The Captain straightened up. “That should be fine, Chief. Keep up the good work. Let me know if there’s going to be any problems.”
“Of course, Captain,” Quesh said, tossing a lazy salute. The captain laughed; this was a merchant vessel, not a military ship. No one ever saluted on board Grania Estelle.
He returned the salute and turned away, leaving Main Engineering.
“My quarters are getting crowded,” Eamonn observed as the three males got themselves comfortable. “I haven’t had so many people over in a long time.”
“That’s because you’ve been shut away, Captain,” the chief said, settling himself into one of the chairs at the table. He grunted and then put all four of his hands on the table. He laid his cane across his lap.
“How’re the legs, Chief?”
The Parkani shrugged. “Much better, though there’s good days and bad days. Can’t overwork it, but I’m so very glad to be out of sickbay and Turan’s clutches.”
“Oh, I doubt you’re out of the good doctor’s clutches, Chief,” Xar said happily, patting his boss on the shoulder. “The instant one of his many informants decides you’re pushing yourself too far, Turan will be all over you.” He chittered happily. “You know he will.”
Quesh gave his second a dark look. “I truly hope that you, Xar, are not one of those informants. Because very bad things would happen to anyone I find snitching.”
“Of course I’m one of his informants, Quesh!” Xar replied happily, causing everyone else in the room to chuckle and the chief to grumble under his breath. “He treats me with respect and courtesy. Unlike some in this room.”
“You mean he bribes you,” Quesh guessed.
Xar’s antennae straightened in mirth. “Very good guess, Chief. He works with Cookie and they’ve been getting me ku-resh.”
“Ugh,” Quesh said, gagging. “I don’t know how you can eat those.”
“They’re not poisonous to Parkani,” he told the other male. “You could try them. Though I’d prefer if you didn’t.” Everyone chuckled again. “Because if you like them, I’ll never get any more.”
“You might not anyway, snitch,” the Chief said darkly, taking a swipe at his fellow. Xar backed away, chittering laughter.
“All right,” the Captain said, getting control of the meeting. “Settle down. Now, I spoke with Cookie already and he’s agreed to my plan. But I’m going to need the rest of your help to pull this off.”
“You want to take the ship back,” Vosteros said.
Eamonn smiled, rubbing his hands together. “I want to take the ship back. I’ve been moping about, feeling sorry for myself and for all the rest of us for far too long. You all have been getting together to plan and I should have been a part of that. Seylonique is a great plan and we would be heading there anyway if all this,” he gestured widely as though to encompass their whole circumstance, “hadn’t happened. And now, Chief, you’re telling me once we’re there, assuming that the locals are agreeable to it, we need to stop for some serious overhauls.”
“I am saying that, Captain,” the Parkani agreed. “The old girl got a hell of a beating at Ulla-tran. She gave better than anyone was expecting, but a lot of our original repairs didn’t cover serious hull work. We’d only really just sealed her up tight, we didn’t replace much in the way of connecting trusses or weakened hull sections. But that’s a secondary issue at the moment.”
“Yes, it is,” the Captain agreed. “There are sixteen pirates on board my ship at the moment, including the worst of the lot, one Gideon Jax. My plan takes four of them out of the equation in fairly short order.”
“How?” Vosteros asked, curious.
“Cookie takes two in the mess hall and I get two in the brig,” the captain said. “After that, I let the lupusan sisters out and if she’s up for it, Moxie as well. And if the stars are all in perfect alignment, none of the three of them will kill me on sight.”
“Probably just maim, Captain,” Quesh commiserated.
He sighed. “And I’d deserve it. But that’s a problem for another time. There are two guards on at all times in Main Engineering and then at least one on the bridge since we made this unscheduled stop. That’s seven we’ve accounted for, but nine we haven’t. Jax has a few off duty at any one time, and they’re usually hanging out in one of the lounges or sleeping in the berthing areas.”
“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” the other captain pointed out. “And your ship isn’t exactly small.”
Xar tapped the table with one blunt finger. “Now it seems to me that what we need to do is control their ability to talk to one another,” he mused. “If we can prevent them from calling for help, it would give us a short window to secure critical areas and get the bulk of them before they can
strike back.”
“All right, how do we do that?” Eamonn asked.
Quesh turned to the zheen. “Xar?”
“I can get the comm system to lock out any but authorized users, but preventing them from talking to each other is going to be more difficult. They all have their own radios, so the only way I can see to prevent them from using them is to flood all channels with static. That will stop them.”
“But it will alert them that something is wrong,” Vosteros pointed out.
Xar’s antennae swirled. “Exactly. But the minute Jax or one of the leaders figures out that some of his men aren’t responding, they’re going to raise the general alarm anyway.”
“All right,” Eamonn said. “How long will it take you to set up the communications modifications?”
Xar thought for a moment. “Maybe half an hour. The hard part will be locking them out. Jax has got a few good people in technical positions and they’ve been working on Grania Estelle’s systems the whole time. They’re not as good as Tamara with software, but they’re better than me. It won’t take them long to get past any blocks I put up.”
“Then it just means we need to work quickly,” Vosteros said, feeling himself getting excited. The energy level in the room was rising.
“Secure Main Engineering, the brig and then get anyone with a gun to Security,” Eamonn decided. “If we can get in there and break out more weapons, I think we’ll have a better chance of securing the ship.” He nodded. “And we’ll need to reroute all bridge functions away from the bridge to Engineering. I don’t need Jax trying to commandeer the ship from there.”
“That’s a good idea, sir,” Quesh said. “It’ll take about ninety minutes to transfer all function away from the bridge, but if Jax or one of his tech weenies is up there, they’re going to see it happening. The bridge consoles are going to show the transfer and they will still retain function for a while.”
“Will they be able to stop the command transfer?” Eamonn demanded.
The Parkani looked to the zheen, who splayed his hands out to the sides. “Not sure, Captain. Maybe, if whoever tries is familiar enough with our systems and if they catch it before the point of no return. Which is about an hour into the process. Which means we need to have a serious distraction going on elsewhere on the ship if we’re going to pull this off. If Jax retains bridge functions, he might just shut down life support and let us all suffocate.”
But both captains turned on him. “What would be the point of that?” Vosteros asked.
“He can’t run the ship by himself,” Eamonn said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And we’re way out in the void, there’s no reason anyone would ever find him out here. Jax might threaten to turn off life support, but unless he’s willing to kill himself he won’t do it.”
“You sure he’s not willing?” Xar asked. “I mean he spaced twenty-four of our people, Captain.”
Eamonn nodded. “Moxie did that too, Xar, and I don’t think she’s crazy or suicidal.”
“Right, but I think we need to prepare for that regardless,” Vosteros put in. “As a precaution.”
The captain nodded. “Good idea. Xar, you’ve worked in the environmental sections before. Get down there and lockout the bridge controls. Put the whole thing on local control. That way even if Jax has quick enough reflexes he can’t suffocate us.”
“Aye, Captain,” the zheen replied. He hesitated. “When are we getting Tamara out, Captain?” Xar seemed very concerned.
Eamonn speared him with a look. “As I said already, Xar, I’m getting her out when I release Corajen and Saiphirelle.”
“Right. Sorry, Captain.” His antennae drooped and he turned away, contrite.
“I care about her too, Xar. She’s taken a lot of punishment from these bastards and I owe her. I can’t take that back, but I can…” He sighed, unsure of how to continue. “All right, people. We’ve got some jobs to do and not a lot of time to do them. We go tonight.” He looked to Quesh. “As soon as you start the transfer from the bridge to Main Engineering, you let me know, Chief.”
“Understood, Captain,” the Parkani said. “I can have that going in ten minutes.”
“Good. Get started.” He stood up. “I want my ship back tonight.”
They all stood and left the captain’s stateroom, heading for their various parts of the ship.
It took more than an hour to get the lockouts and the interference for the comms equipment ready. Quesh set it up with a little help from Xar and then let the program sit, waiting for the go ahead signal. Meanwhile, Ka’Xarian had retreated to Environmental where he busied himself with segregating the life support units from the rest of the mainframe, all the while trying to cover his tracks. It was hard work, and on two separate occasions one of the pirate technicians came by to find out what he was doing. The zheen had planned a swap of one of the algae matrices, scraping out one of the tanks and scrubbers of the old stuff and preparing new medium to infuse. This was something that needed to be done every few weeks on all sixteen tanks, but the engineering crews assigned to Environmental were good about keeping up on that. Everyone on board needed to breathe, so this section was always given priority to repairs, with only the main reactor given any higher priority status.
It was loud, hot, dirty work, and work that required precision as well as a goodly amount of elbow grease. No amount of the spent algae matrix could mix with the still good batches. This meant that everyone was working in a proscribed drill, to make sure no contaminants remained in the tank or the scrubbers, and that nothing got into the other batches. Someone also had to monitor the computer to make sure that the tank was properly isolated from the ventilation system.
And that’s what Ka’Xarian was doing while the full change out of the tank was going on. He was still keeping one compound eye on what the team was doing, but at the same time, he was isolating the ventilation and command and control system. It was a delicate balancing act, keeping the system closed while trying to finish his work while also trying to keep the pirates from figuring out what he was doing. He was sending a fake feed to the bridge, in case anyone was checking, though he doubted that. The bridge watch up there consisted of only one crewman, and they were only there to keep a Mark-One eyeball on the displays in case anything went wrong. So far, nothing and the pirates hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary being up.
Finally, he made a low blat of relief, but forced himself to remain calm and nonchalant. Yukrix, the zheen pirate tech was hanging around, always watching, some sort of scanning device or datapad in his hand. He was looking at everything going on in the Environmental space; his compound eyes allowed him to do that, but he wasn’t raising any alarm or giving any indication he was finding anything unusual. He was persistent and he was good; Xar was forced to admit that in a moment of honesty. It was too bad, really, that someone of his talent would have to be a soulless murderer, Xar reflected. They could use someone of his skills on the Grania Estelle, but even if he should surrender to their custody and agree to obey by their rules, they could never trust him again. A shame.
He pressed a button on his wrist communicator twice, then continued to monitor the procedure going on, all the while watching Yukrix, whose antennae made circles over his head, amused at the Environmental crew taking care of the spent matrix. Ka’Xarian had an idea for handling the good technician, one that might keep him quiet long enough for the crew here to secure him and move on to other sections of the ship.
Xar clacked his mandibles in mirth, the noise covered by the din of the work party. If it worked, he would enjoy it very much. Yukrix probably wouldn’t.
Chapter 6
And suddenly, almost without knowing how it all happened, everything was moving forward and with ever increasing speed. Vincent Eamonn stepped into the brig, his hands behind his back and the two pirate guards looked up as he entered. They were pugnacious fellows; that seemed to be a requisite to be a part of Verrikoth’s band, though these two were human. There w
as a fair number of zheen and other races in Verrikoth’s employ. These two were dressed in mismatched armor, though really all they had were wrist bracers made from heavy plastic, meant to protect the arms if they got into a fight up close. Some of the others had a variety of body armor, but these two, strangely, did not. Perhaps there was more armor and equipment to be found in the berthing areas or stored in the lockers at Security, but these two were wearing only gray ship suits, the bracers and their weapons. Each of them was outfitted with a sidearm, a stun pistol and at least two blades, a very lethal combination.
“What do you want?” one of them demanded, sneering at the captain as he approached. In the passing weeks, the pirates had made no attempt to hide their scorn for the civilians who ran the ship.
“Come to see his bitches again,” the other one replied and then guffawed.
“No, I decided to come by to see if I could persuade you to let me see my officer,” Eamonn answered, flicking his head in the direction of Tamara’s cell.
“Ooh, listen to ‘im, Drang,” the first one said, chuckling, slouching a bit more in his chair. “Per-swade us! How very civilized of ‘im!”
But the smile was wiped from his face as Eamonn produced a bottle of booze from behind his back. “Rogerian firebrand,” the captain told them, as he saw their eyes bulging. “Would this be enough to let me see my officer?”
The first one was watching the bottle in Eamonn’s hand greedily. “I reckon it might, Captain.” His voice was oddly strained, yet respectful. “What do you say, Drang?”
“I say,” the other replied, his voice shaking a bit in wonder, “Why the hell are you wasting time?” He gestured for the captain to hand the bottle over. “Give it here.” Eamonn handed it over, the other man snatched it out of his hand.
Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 Page 13