She blinked, rising up on one elbow. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m just a grease monkey,” he replied. “I can run my department and now that you got the replicators and parts going, I can handle my end. But I’m hopeless at actually running a ship. You’ve got command experience; Xar loves to tell me how you ran a shipyard. So I’m turning over command to you.”
Tamara stared at him in shock. “I don’t want command.” She slumped back on the bed. “My decisions haven’t been the greatest lately. They’ve gotten a lot of people killed.”
“Nevertheless,” he replied. “You’re better at it than I will ever be. And it’s only for a little while, until the Captain’s back up and about.” Tamara’s face darkened at that. “And then once he is, you’re back in the Engineering department where you belong.”
She looked at him for a very long moment. It stretched on so long that Quesh thought she might not answer at all. “All right, Quesh. I’ll do it. With the understanding that once he’s back up, I’m out of the big chair.”
“It’s a cargo ship, Samair,” he replied with a slight smile. “Not a battlecruiser, as you’re so fond of saying.”
“In the last forty days or so, are you going to tell me it hasn’t felt like we’ve been fighting battles every single hour?”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Point taken. Rest up. We need to get moving soon and I need you functional.” He squeezed her hand gently and then walked away.
Tamara lay back, staring at the ceiling. For a brief moment, talking to Quesh, talking about command, she could forget, she could push away all the horrible thoughts that had been plaguing her the last several weeks. She could even keep the new horrible thoughts from joining the others. But now that he was gone, they all came rushing back in and she was overwhelmed. Tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks and she closed her eyes.
Chapter 8
Tamara sat at the Operations console on the bridge of the Grania Estelle, trying to get a feel for things since her very long absence from duty. In actuality, it had only been a few weeks, but even then she had been surrounded by guards and unable to do her job properly. She hadn’t really had a good feel for what was going on in the ship since they had jumped from Ulla-tran, forty-two days previous. There was a fair amount of damage on the diagnostic sensors, but all of it had been marked for repairs or bypass. She looked over the damage reports from the EVA teams and maintenance bots that had surveyed all of the external hull and truss damage and didn’t like what she saw. Tamara concurred with Quesh’s recommendation that they stop once they reach Seylonique for some serious repairs. If they didn’t exceed Orange level six while in hyperdrive and they didn’t run into any unforeseen problems, they would make it to Seylonique without incident, at least as far as the engines, shields and hull were concerned.
There was another sixteen hours of repairs planned, and then they would all go to navigation stations for the jump. This was a relief for the entire crew, all of whom were ready to leave this void and jump back into hyperspace. It would be just as dull, but at least they’d be moving again and emotionally there was a lift to this as well. This was a place where people had died. Pirates, mostly, but others, fellow crewmembers, friends. The sooner they could leave this bare patch of vacuum the happier the crew would be.
For the jump, Frederick Vosteros was acting as the ship’s astrogator, as the deck division’s two other astrogators had been killed in the cargo bay massacre. Oh, Captain Eamonn and Tamara could have easily filled the slot, but the man needed a job. For weeks he’d been sitting around with nothing to do and little more than the deteriorating morale conditions aboard ship and the impending mutiny to occupy his thoughts. And then, once the mutiny had happened, he and four other crewmen had been stuck in one of the multipurpose rooms on deck three, without weapons, the others afraid to come out. He’d had to keep them calm while gunshots could be heard echoing through the corridors. Any thoughts he might have fostered of slaying the heinous pirates while the atmosphere blowers fluttered his wavy locks and the cape pinned around his shoulders, much to the adulation of the ship’s company were smashed. He did manage to keep the others calm until the lupusan Security officer had come to check the room, which was a victory of sorts, but he clearly hadn’t covered himself with glory.
Vosteros was at the nav station while Tamara looked over the controls. “Um, Samair, I think we have a problem.”
“What’s that?” she asked, looking up.
“I said I think we have a problem.” He looked grim.
“What’s the matter?”
“The controls are locked,” he said, looking up and over to her.
Tamara frowned. “What does that mean? You can’t access the panel? I unlocked it for you.” She held up the Captain’s Key. As this was a civilian, rather than a military vessel, the Captain and the Owner each had access keys that could access and unlock everything. The Captain’s key could allow and grant computer access to the various officers and crew, and the Owner’s key could do the same, but could also grant computer access to the Captain. As both the owner and the Captain, Vincent Eamonn had possession of both, though he normally kept the Owner’s key locked down in a safe in the Security Office, and he wore the Captain’s key on a chain around his neck beneath his ship suit. The key was a rectangular device about five centimeters long with the indicator for Grania Estelle and for either Owner or Captain on it. Since he’d been stuck in sickbay, Eamonn had entrusted the key to Quesh while he recovered, who had then given it to Tamara.
“Yes, Samair, you did,” Vosteros replied, trying to keep his voice calm. “And the system allows me to work and calculate a course from here to Seylonique, but it won’t lock in.”
“How is that possible?” Tamara said, getting up from the Ops station and walking the short distance over to the nav station. She looked over his shoulder. The console was displaying an error message; that it was unable to upload the new data that Vosteros was attempting. “Huh,” she said in puzzlement. “All right, let me try something,” she said, pressing her thumb to the access jack.
Her HUD immediately popped up, fuzzed for a second and then became clear. She ran through a quick diagnostic on the panel. Perhaps there was damage incurred during the boarding action back in Ulla-tran? Or maybe when random gunfire had been shot off in here that caused damage? Then she saw it.
“Oh, shit,” she muttered.
“What?” Vosteros asked, sounding worried.
“The navigational array’s been messed with,” she said in disgust.
“What?” he demanded. “But we’ve been using it! We’ve been flying to Amethyst for over forty days!”
Tamara nodded, unjacking and her HUD disappeared. She rubbed the disabler device on her neck absently. “I know. Everything appeared to be fine, according to the logs. But there was some sort of sabotage done to the nav array at some point during our journey. It’s locked our course.”
“Locked our…” Vosteros trailed off. “Wait, you mean we have to go to Amethyst anyway?”
Tamara shrugged. “Well, no, there is a way around it. But this isn’t a software problem. If that was the case I could probably whip up a patch to override the lock. But this is actually programmed into the navigation system. We’re going to have to do a full diagnostic and might even need to check the components themselves.”
“Great,” the man replied, running a hand through his hair. “So what does that mean?”
“It means,” she told him, “That we’re most likely not going to be leaving in sixteen hours.” She pulled a comlink out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Quesh, this is Tamara. We need to talk.”
“How bad are we talking?” Quesh asked a few minutes later, his face on her bridge display.
“Bad,” Tamara replied, leaning forward in her seat at the Operations console. “I’ve traced the problem, except, as far as the ship is concerned, it doesn’t recognize it as a problem. The system has i
ts coordinates and course locked to Amethyst.”
“How the hell did this happen?” the Parkani demanded.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a lot of confusion after the boarding and after the pirate techs were crawling all over the ship. It must have been done then. It doesn’t register as a fault and navigation plotted a course to where the system is locked into going anyway, so we didn’t see that there was any problem.”
Quesh sighed, putting one of his left hands to his forehead. “So can you fix it?”
Now it was Tamara’s turn to sigh. “Technically, there’s nothing to fix.” She raised a hand to forestall him. “But I see what you’re getting at. Yes, we can fix it. But I don’t know where the problem is!”
“What do you mean?” Quesh asked. “It’s in the navigation system.”
“Yes, Quesh,” she said patiently. “But it could be in one component in the entire system. The system doesn’t register an error or a problem or damage. So that means there’s a hardwired component somewhere in there that’s locking the system to Amethyst. Which means to fix it we’d have to check every component in the entire system. Do you have any idea how long that will take? Something probably on the order of three weeks!” Tamara let out a long breath before continuing. “The way it’s set right now we can jump to Amethyst and stop at any point along the way, but we can’t change course.”
“Well that’s ridiculous!” the Parkani roared. “Turn the damned ship toward Seylonique and do the calculations manually.”
She tsked at him. “Really, Quesh? You really want me to do navigation calculations for a star some seventeen point eight light years through who knows what out there? Without the aid of the navigational computer?” Tamara waved a hand in the direction of space outside the hull.
“It can be done, Tamara,” he told her. “People did it for a long time before this handy bit of tech got built.” He grimaced at her facial expression. “All right, it seems you’re not up for that bit of mathematical wonder. What’s our alternative? Because I’ve got to tell you, going into the lion’s den isn’t a popular choice. And without our pirate friends on board to stop the brutes at Amethyst from simply boarding us again, how do we deal with going there? I love this ship,” he said, patting a nearby console fondly, “but we can’t go through what we did at Ulla-tran again. And I don’t just mean the ship, I mean the crew. They can’t deal with that again.”
Tamara nodded. “I know,” she said soberly.
The Parkani’s eyes lit up. “What about Stella? You were talking about waking her up and reintegrating her throughout the ship’s systems. She could do the calculations, couldn’t she?”
Tamara nodded again. “Of course. One problem. She’s the ship, Quesh. Stella is the Grania Estelle. Which means she’s tied into the navigational array, which means she won’t be able to make the changes either. Until we find the problem, Stella won’t be able to get us away from Amethyst either.”
“What if we disconnect the array from the main computer system?” Quesh asked. “And let her do the calculations then?”
She hesitated, steepling her fingers, pressing the tips of her forefingers against her lips, elbows resting on the console. “I… don’t know,” she finally said. “I have no idea if she could do it.”
He smiled. “Then wake her up,” he said simply. “And ask.”
Consciousness came back in a series of stages.
Point.
Line.
Triangle.
Polygon.
Three dimensions.
Polyhedron.
Multiple shapes.
Increase of data upload.
Increase processing rate.
Noise.
Sounds.
Processing…
Activating recognition protocols.
Incoming transmission…
“Stella? Are you there, little one? Can you hear me?”
Analyzing voiceprint.
Accessing memory files.
Samair, Tamara: voiceprint recognized.
Sending recognition signal.
Laughter. “Excellent. I’m glad to see you’re still in there, little one. I need you to wake up now.”
Receiving incoming transmission – data stream and access codes.
Suddenly the world came to life and Stella, the AI that had been grafted into the Grania Estelle’s systems woke up. All the world became available to her again, no longer was she hiding in what felt like a dark box for all eternity. Following Tamara’s instructions, she had shut down nearly all of her higher mental and processing functions, withdrew her mental tendrils from all sections of the ship save one: the reactor. She had kept just enough processing active to monitor and keep it stable, but everything else she had hidden away, to keep the pirates from finding her.
“Tamara?” the AI asked weakly, attempting to send a transmission to her implants as she had before. But the transmission failed. It was sent to the host recipient, as she had many times before, but the signal bounced back, unreceived. Stella tried again, with the same result. Finally, in frustration, she activated her vocal processors and spoke using the speakers in the console at Main Engineering where Tamara, and Quesh Trrgoth she noted, were sitting, waiting.
“Tamara, it is so good to see you again,” Stella gushed. She ran a quick scan with Grania Estelle’s internal sensors in Engineering. “But you look different. You have acquired a new piece of technology, Tamara, attached to your neck. And why is it that I cannot send you messages to your implants as I once did?”
The human woman sighed. “I’ll tell you all about it, Stella. But the pirates put this device on me that interferes with my implants. I can’t transmit or receive data unless I’m jacked in to the system. No more wireless access, at least until Turan and I can figure out how to disconnect the device without killing me. So we’ll have to do things the long way until then.”
“It is very cumbersome,” Stella admitted. “But I am very happy to see you both. Hello, Chief!”
“Hello, Stella,” the Parkani replied, smiling slightly. “It’s very good to see you as well. It hasn’t been the same without you.”
“I’m sorry I missed the fun,” the AI replied. Her familiar image, a young human woman with dark hair, a trio of red stripes running through that hair from her forehead to the back of her scalp. Both Tamara and Quesh shared a dark look, which Stella quickly picked up on. “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”
“It hasn’t been a fun time,” Quesh said, when it looked as though Tamara was having trouble controlling herself. Giving her a moment to compose herself, Quesh went on. “We lost a lot of good people and those that are left aren’t exactly as whole as they once were.”
The young woman’s artificial countenance looked down, her expression no longer cheery. “I’m sorry, Quesh. I’ve just been in that box for so long.”
“I know, little one,” Tamara said soothingly, shaking her head. “But we’re all just glad you’re awake. But I’m afraid we need your help.”
Stella looked up and grinned mischievously. “I only just woke up, Tamara. Can’t I get a minute or two to get my bearings?”
The engineers both chuckled. “Stella, if I know you, you’re already into every system on the ship again and you’re aching to get busy.”
Stella sniffed at Quesh’s very accurate statement. “I don’t appreciate the insinuation, Mister Trrgoth.” They all three chuckled. “So, what is the issue?”
“The navigational array,” Quesh told her. The quickly explained the problem.
“Yes, I understand,” Stella replied. “Well, I can get into the systems, see what I can dig up. Maybe I can pinpoint where the modified device, or devices are located so that you can replace them.”
They nodded. “If you could please, Stella, that would help us immensely,” Tamara replied. “But in the meantime, we have no way of knowing how long that’s going to take, even if you can find it.”
“Oh, I’ll find it,” the
AI replied, quite certain. The search had already begun.
“What about calculating a course?” Quesh asked.
“What about it?” Stella said. “Without a navigation system, we’re stuck. Even back in the old and primitive days they needed a nav array. Can’t just jump blind or fly by dead reckoning like you can in normal space. Otherwise you could end up anywhere, or drop out of hyper on top of a star, or inside a planet.” The engineer shuddered at the thought, Tamara just laughed. She’d known that there were no easy answers here, and if he was honest with himself, Quesh did too.
“All right,” Tamara said as the Parkani bristled a little. “Stella, keep looking. In the meantime, Quesh, you and I need to have a serious discussion about our options. Do we stay and fix the array or do we jump for Amethyst?”
“What about when we get there, Samair?” Quesh demanded. “If the nav systems are locked onto Amethyst, if we go there, we might not be able to leave without finding the issue with the array and fixing it.”
Tamara cursed. “That’s a very good point,” she admitted, kicking herself for not seeing it. “It seemed like such an easy solution. Jump to Amethyst, look around and then jump out. But you’re right. If we get there and can’t jump, we’re dead. We might not even have the slight chance of survival we would have had if Jax and his thugs were alive. Now we’re just a merchant ship to be plucked as a prize by whatever reinforcements are waiting there.”
“Again,” Quesh said sourly. “All right. No sense in sitting around moping. I’m going to have Xar’s team start work on the array. There’s no way of knowing what else might have been switched out or sabotaged.”
Tamara sighed. “Right. I’m going to get with Cookie and talk about stores.” Then she realized what she’d said and she felt an icicle stab her in the gut.
Quesh took a long breath, nodding in understanding. “When’s the memorial?”
Tamara blinked, her eyes suddenly burning. “1600. I figure it would give us some time to get things squared away.” It had been decided among the survivors that there would be a short memorial service now, but the bodies of the dead would be kept in one of the cargo bays, to be held there until they reached Seylonique, where they could be launched into the star. No one wanted to leave the dead out here, to mingle with pirates and be lost out here in the void forever. So they would bring their dead along with them and give them their eternal rest in a friendly star system. “I’d appreciate it if you could say a few words, Quesh.”
Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 Page 19