Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2

by Michael Kotcher

  It was as though that system had become an “it”. In a person’s life, an event would happen, “it”, and then there were only the things before “it” and the things that happened after “it.” So it appeared that Ulla-tran was now an “it” for the crew. And even Stella was affected by it. No one who had been there in that system was immune to what had happened there. Stella had put herself into lockdown before the ship was boarded, so it was unlikely that the pirates had any real knowledge of her. There had been a screw up or two, a slip in front of one of them, but even that didn’t matter. The subject of Stella was never discussed by the pirates and now they were all dead anyway, so it hardly mattered.

  “Reactor’s online and holding at sixty percent,” Quesh said. “We’ve got the aux reactor down to five percent, trying to decide whether we should power it down completely or leave it powered up just at a trickle, to have it ready to roll when we need it.”

  “Leave it up for now,” the captain replied. “Hopefully we won’t need it again, but if we can just crank it up if need be that sounds a lot better than waiting several hours to ignite it, let it warm up and then increase power.”

  “Okay,” Quesh said, noting that on his data pad. “The hull’s a mess, but we knew that. I’ve held off on all but the most critical of repairs. We’ve had to completely seal off the outer compartments, those that are left, in the compromised areas. We’ve closed up the breaches in the multipurpose compartment in that section, so it’s habitable again.”

  The Captain nodded. “And the shields?”

  Ka’Xarian leaned forward. “We’ve got them extended all the way around the ship, though they’re very weak, only eight percent, in the forward, starboard section. It’ll protect us from heavy radiation and floating dust and minor debris, but certainly not from any kind of weapon strikes, or physical impact from say a rock or chuck of a ship.”

  The Captain frowned, but waved his hand indicating that the zheen should continue.

  “It’s going to take a serious overhaul to the hull, the shields and the power system to get things back up to acceptable levels in that area, Captain,” Xar told him. Quesh nodded in confirmation.

  “On the ship,” Quesh put in. The group as a whole nodded. “And we need more people. My teams can work on things piecemeal, a little at a time, but it’ll take forever. And with the amount of people we have, I have barely enough people to maintain a regular engineering watch rotation, to say nothing of doing serious repair and rebuild work. We’re down to sixty people, Captain.”

  “Well, we already knew we were going to have to pick up more people,” the Captain said. “I’m just hoping there are enough here that would be willing to sign on to a freighter.” He waved his hand, to shoo that issue away. “Speaking of that, we can’t hire anyone from way out here.”

  “Even if we transfer most the cargo division to other departments, we’re still looking at a severe manpower shortage,” Quesh stated.

  “You’re going to poach my people?” Taja demanded, outraged.

  “They’re all my people,” Eamonn reminded them, and Taja scowled, turning away. “But for now, I think we will transfer the cargo people over to deck and see where they can help out.”

  “They’re not trained for that!” the tiny cargo specialist spluttered. “They’re cargo handlers and the like. Most of them don’t know the first thing about the duties you’re putting them into.”

  Now it was Eamonn’s turn to scowl. “I doubt that very much. And even if that’s the case, having them there is no different than some of the greenies we had to hire from Instow. They can perform fetch and carry duties, if nothing else, or be taught how to stand a watch in Engineering or Environmental or the Bridge, which would free up more experienced personnel to do more advanced tasks.”

  Taja’s face was just pure anger, but she turned her face to look down at the table and didn’t look back up.

  “I’ll keep enough people in your division to maintain a watch, but honestly, just making sure that everything is still locked down and holding together is about all they’re doing at the moment,” he said. “Am I wrong, Taja?”

  She didn’t look up. “No, you’re not wrong,” she said haltingly.

  “All right. Then pick six of your people, including yourself and set a rotation.”

  Taja jerked herself upright. “Yes, Captain,” she said forcefully. She gave a mock salute, then rose from the chair and exited the wardroom. While it wasn’t possible, if she’d been able it was clear that Taja would have slammed the hatch shut behind her when she closed it. Everyone watched her go, but no one said anything.

  Eamonn grimaced, his eyes flicking to the door and holding his gaze there for a short moment before coming back to the males at the table before him. “So, where are we on the engines. As we were saying, we need to get the ship moving toward the inhabited planet, or in the very least toward where the shuttles are picking up rocks.”

  “We’re about as ready as we’re going to be,” Xar said, looking over to his boss.

  Quesh nodded. “I’ve got Samair standing by in Main Engineering to bring the engine up and I’m sure the bridge people are getting ready.”

  “They’ve been ready for hours,” the Captain told him. “Isis has been nagging me for hours to get moving.”

  “Then let’s get moving, Captain,” Quesh said. “Get us going and then we can do the rest of this meeting.”

  “One last thing first,” Eamonn said, raising one hand. He gestured to Turan. “How are we on the medical front?”

  “Better,” the Guura replied. “We only had a few that were injured due to the explosive decompression. I’ve had a few bumps, bruises and cuts from the engineering teams, but nothing serious. Thankfully.”

  “Praise the stars for that,” Quesh seconded. Ka’Xarian nodded.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” the Captain agreed. “Let me know if there are any problems,” he said to Turan.

  “Of course, Captain.” The Guura bowed his very long neck.

  “All right then,” Eamonn replied. He pulled out his communicator from his pocket. “Bridge, this is the Captain. We’re moving out. Get ready to ease us forward. And I mean easy, Isis. Start with maneuvering thrusters to brake our inertia and then very slowly start with the main engine. Set course for the asteroid field, where our shuttles are going to harvest some of the minerals.”

  “Copy that, sir,” the woman said. A second later there was a slight shiver in the hull and then it went away. “We’re moving, Captain. Fifty kph… one hundred… five hundred kph.”

  “That’s easing it up slowly?” Turan asked.

  The others looked over to him and he winced. “I’ve just said something stupid haven’t I?”

  They all smiled, but the Captain shook his head. “No, not really. Five hundred kilometers per hour sounds like a lot and in a planet’s atmosphere or on the ground it would be. In space, though, we’re barely crawling along. It would take years to get to the area where the shuttles are going to pick up rocks, decades or longer to get to the inhabited planet.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” the doctor replied.

  “We need to be very careful with this acceleration, Captain,” Quesh spoke up. “When we dropped out of hyperspace and we had that explosive decompression…”

  Eamonn nodded with a wry smile. “I sort of recall that, Chief.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the Parkani replied, grinning. “But the explosion caused us to roll, which caused the frame of the ship to twist. It wasn’t a big twist, but enough to cause fractures, cracks and other breaches all around the hull in the central section. The thruster burn we used to try and stop the roll caused further stress and basically made it worse. If we push to hard with engine one it’s going to cause the drive section of the ship to push forward and essentially crumple the already stressed trusses and hull plating of the damaged areas. Using the engines at all is going to be a risk, but the slower we accelerate the less stress we’re going to put on the
old girl.”

  There were nods around the table. “It’ll take about three days, but we will reach the asteroid field,” Stella piped up. “So long as the pilot doesn’t jam the throttles forward.”

  “We’ll be sure she doesn’t, Stella,” Eamonn told her, eyeing the holo. Stella nodded. “All right, then. We have a few days until we get there. Quesh, Xar, I want you both to set an engineering watch rotation, both in Main Engineering and Environmental, and then the rest of the Engineering division is going to get some rack time. Unless there is some system that absolutely cannot wait, or some emergency that is going to cause some catastrophe, your entire division is going to get some sleep.”

  Quesh looked as though he was going to argue, but then slumped a bit and then nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

  “Finally!” Turan exclaimed. “I’ve been after you for days, but I know that you’ve been busy trying to save our lives. But still, you big idiot, you need to sleep.”

  The Parkani gave a long suffering sigh. “Yes, Doctor,” he said.

  The Guura shook his head. “No, I am the one who can sigh like that, Chief. You’ve been giving me grief this whole time!”

  Everyone chuckled.

  Chapter 12

  The trip in system was as about as agonizingly slow as it was possible to be. Isis was sitting at her controls, after having set the course, just leaning back in her seat, datapad in hand, studying the ship and how to control it. The woman was determined to be the best pilot on the ship, even going so far as to ask Tamara for any help she could give. The engineer/fighter pilot was more than happy to share her knowledge and experience, downloading a number of texts, vids and other such information to a datapad for her to study. And study she did. She was devouring it. Isis had no desire to be a fighter pilot, she wanted to be able to fly the Grania Estelle better than anyone else. The others could operate the helm, but she wanted to know how to fly.

  And she was learning. George Miller was also updating his displays, going over everything he could find in the ship’s systems. He too was working like crazy to increase his skill set at his chosen field, though no one would claim that they knew how to run the Operations station better than him. He was looking through sensor diagnostics, data feeds, lines of control code, and based on the nods and smiles he was making, it was clear that he too was moving forward.

  They were a little more than a day’s journey from the asteroid belt when the shuttles arrived with their cargoes. “I have a big ol’ rock here for us,” Jesma reported gleefully. “And it’s loaded with a bunch of strategic minerals that we need for the power systems and others.”

  “That’s great work,” Eamonn replied, a smile on his face. “We’ve got bay eight cleared out for the rocks both shuttles are bringing in, match course and speed with us and bring them over.”

  “Copy, that, Captain,” Jesma said. “Both of the asteroids we roped are good sized, but they’re small enough that we could easily fit both into the bay.”

  “Very good. Bring those in, then land your birds.” He rubbed his chin with one hand, settling a bit more comfortably into his command chair. “Get back in, refuel, then get to the mess hall for some chow.”

  She nodded. “On our way, Captain. Shuttle One out.” And the connection was cut.

  Once the rocks came in and were secured, the engineering teams went to work with the cutting torches. Within minutes, material was being loaded into the replicators which greedily gobbled it up, refilling their bunkers. And just as quickly, Tamara had the machines back to work, building new parts. The engineers went back to work, but slower this time, their pace far less frantic than before. There was a fair amount of work that would need to be done to replace any twisted or cracked spars and trusses, as well as the hull plating and the outright breaches. It was something that, most likely, couldn’t be resolved without a full fledged repair slip. But, if this was a system that had an orbital station, as they knew it did, and a massive warship, as they knew it did, then more than likely it would have the repair slip they would need.

  After filling up bay seven with another pair of rocks, they started the long trip further in system, to bring them to the inhabited planet. At best speed, it would be a sixteen-day journey, but it would be a productive one as repairs progressed, albeit slowly, giving all the crew plenty of time for rest, and to keep to a regular schedule. There was perhaps far less downtime than the cargo division was used to, now that all but six of them had been pulled to work on engineering and deck watches, but most of them took it in stride.

  Those who didn’t, Taja dealt with personally. While it was technically the responsibility of the new department heads to deal with discipline issues, but the fiery cargo specialist still saw all of them as her people. There were some very long and loud “discussions” and a couple of hard slaps, and the whiners were suddenly much more motivated to do the jobs that had now been assigned to them. Eamonn, Quesh, and Stella were highly amused by this performance, the now more motivated crewmembers were far less amused. There was a bit of grumbling, which got a little louder once Taja had left the compartment. The new department heads were fine with that so long as the work got done to their satisfaction. For the most part, the cargo people were being put on gofer duties, and assigned to watch over stations and consoles while the more experienced people were given more onerous duties and during the trip it seemed to be a working solution.

  Twenty hours from the planet, they started to get a clearer picture of the system, and the other real estate here. The system consisted of a G-2 type star, young, but plenty warm. There were five celestial bodies, four of them gas giants orbiting far from the warmth of the sun. Between the second and third gas giants was the system’s very rich, very dense asteroid field. As they moved past that, they approached the two inner planets. The one closest to the star was extremely hot, with a sulfurous atmosphere and a barely solid rock surface.

  The one they were heading to was in the habitable zone though a bit closer than would, strictly speaking be comfortable for human life. It was a temperate planet, with very little axial tilt, which meant there was very little change in season throughout the year. It was lush and tropical, with abundant fish and animal life. The population was a little more than four million souls, primarily human, though there was a fair number of lupusan based here and a dash of other races. The information about the planet itself came from what they had learned from Administrator Galina and the other crew of the hospital ship Kara.

  In orbit of the planet was a space station, a large one, bigger than what they’d seen at Ulla-tran. It was cylindrical at its base, holding sensors, shield generators, engineering and power reactors, at the top of the cylinder was a wide, flat disk, twenty levels tall. Branching out from the central disk were eight smaller disks, each only ten levels tall. It looked almost like a tree, with each of the disk sections as its leaves and the cylinder pointed down at the planet.

  The station was in decent repair, as Grania Estelle’s passive sensors were telling them, better than the fueling station they’d seen at Ulla-tran, but as they came in closer, the truth was revealed. There was a large amount of corrosion on the cylindrical section of the station; one of the disks was completely dark and looked as though it had sustained a severe impact, judging by the three large breaches in the hull.

  “And there she is,” George reported, bringing up the station on his display.

  The others looked up from their consoles to stare at what he’d brought up. Docked on the outer section of the station, one of the farthest of the disks from the largest central section, was a ship. A very large ship. It wasn’t as large as Grania Estelle, which was over a kilometer long, but it was still a big vessel. It was sleek and bristled with weapons, with a keel length at just over six hundred meters and probably one hundred fifty meters wide. It was the battlecruiser, the one that they’d come to this system to use as protection. They all sat there and just gazed at the station and its protector moored to a docking slip.

/>   “It’s really here,” Serinda whispered, but her voice carried throughout the small command center.

  “It’s really there,” George replied. “We’re still a ways out yet, but it doesn’t look like they’re sending anyone out to harass us.”

  “Not yet, anyway,” the Captain said. “Any signs of ship activity near the planet? Or around the station?”

  George slapped a few keys on his console, then nodded a moment later. “Yes, Captain. I’m seeing two shuttles; one coming up from the planet, heading for the orbital station and there’s a smaller one, looks like a shuttlepod heading down into the planet’s atmosphere.”

  Isis snorted. “All that orbital real estate just to show two shuttles? No other ships?”

  “What about the Kara?” Eamonn asked. “They can’t have gotten here too much before we did.”

  “No, Captain,” Stella replied from her image at the bridge holo projector. She flicked a hand in the direction of the display. “Using best estimates and assuming the Kara maintained a constant speed the whole way from Ulla-tran and didn’t deviate her course, she should have arrived a week before we did.”

  “Any sign of her?” Eamonn asked, turning to check his own display, which showed the feeds from the sensors.

  “Not at this point, Captain,” George replied. “She’s not flying free at any rate.”

  “Docked at the station maybe?” Serinda asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Stella said, shaking her head. “We can see the battlecruiser easily enough. There are a dozen or so other ships that are docked along the outer disks, but Kara isn’t one of them.”