Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2

by Michael Kotcher

  He nodded slowly. “Well, in any case, I think we need to increase fuel production. We can’t swing a mine yet, and I have some significant problems with what we’ll need to do, but I like the concept. And you are, of course, correct about the fuel situation. I hadn’t taken the long view on this.” She stayed quiet for a moment, giving him time to think. “All right. You and I and the engineers are going to have further discussions on this topic, but I like where your mind is headed, Stella,” he told her and her smile grew. “For the moment, I want you to put forth to Quesh to look into making another two fuel collectors. But we’re also going to have to look into a more elegant solution to bringing the fuel back and forth. Using our shuttles has kept the overhead down, but having crewmembers on a seventy hour one-way trip every week has got to be hell. In fact, I’m sure it is.”

  Stella nodded slowly. “I will look into what we can do about that, Captain. Perhaps a sublight tanker? Something that can collect all the fuel but be much more comfortable to have to essentially live in for that amount of time.”

  “Yes. See if there are any ships currently docked at the station that would could rent, lease, or if need be, buy. Don’t make any offers, just look over what’s there and report back to me.” He held up a hand. “I know you can probably get everything in about fifteen seconds, Stella, but I want a day or so to think about this and I want to speak with my engineering officers before we start moving forward. But please let Quesh know about the collectors.”

  She nodded. “I will, Captain. And I want to thank you for hearing me out.”

  He chuckled. “Stella, I want to thank you for pointing out the flaws in my money making schemes. We’ve been operating on a shoestring or worse for so long; I think I have a lot left to learn. And since there’s no real established procedure for all of this, we’re all just making it up as we go. So I think we all need to sit down and hammer out an actual plan and a schedule and a budget for all this. I’d like to reduce the amount of flying by the seat of our pants for this.”

  “I’ll drink to that, Captain.” And they both laughed. “Very good, Captain. I’ll get in touch with Chief Trrgoth immediately, as well as Ka’Xarian and Tamara once she’s back aboard ship. “

  “Good. Let me know what they say.”

  “Of course, Captain.” The holo projector shut off as the AI left to do as she’d said.

  Quesh looked up from the diagnostic he was running. “You want to do what?” he asked, distracted. Repairs on the hull and support trusses were moving forward at the scheduled pace. The ship was still open to space, but the second rib had just been completed six hours ago, leaving only five to go in this section. Once they were completed, hull plating would be attached, bolted and sealed into place. Once that section was sealed up, the crew would move to the next one, tearing apart the twisted and cracked hull and trusses to get those fixed. Once it was all completed, Grania Estelle would have a new collar, essentially, around the damaged section. An entire section of the ship not just a patch was going to be replaced with new material. Which sadly was something that had to be done. It wasn’t something that they could just spackle over and hope it would all be okay. The damage reports and diagnostics clearly indicated it wouldn’t. That entire section, all the way around the central section of the ship needed to be replaced or else the ship wouldn’t survive a jump into hyperspace. It was a huge pain, since the longer the ship stayed here in Seylonique, the more money the Captain (and by extension, the crew) was losing. A freighter sitting still wasn’t hauling freight. Which made what Stella was talking about sound all the more crazy.

  “Well, Chief,” the AI continued, undaunted, “I was thinking that the collectors we’ve been using the gather and process helium 3 fuel are fine for shipboard operations, but as far as collecting for commercial applications, they just aren’t cutting it. So, I suggested to the Captain that we construct a full on gas mine.”

  The Parkani blinked, rubbing his chin with his upper right hand. It had potential. And Stella was right; the collectors they were using were perfectly acceptable to keep Grania Estelle’s tanks topped up with fuel, but to run a station or a warship, the collectors simply couldn’t handle the demand. And it was impractical to build a bunch of them, like the locals had done at Ulla-tran. It would be better if they could build a mining station above the gas giant and use it to extract the materials they would need from the planet.

  “Okay,” he said slowly, nodding slightly, “I see where you’re going with it and I like the idea, but that is a huge project. We’re working our asses off just getting the ship fixed up and you want to build a mining station?”

  “Well, obviously, this isn’t something that we’re going to get done today, or next week,” she agreed. “But the Captain wants to start thinking about it and try and work out some sort of plan for it. And for that idea, he wants you to build two more of the standard helium 3 collectors. We’re going to put them in the gas giant to increase production.”

  Quesh sighed. “The replicators have been running nearly full blast for weeks, to build all the replacement parts we need for the ship. If I bump the queue to build more fuel collectors it’s going to throw off my schedules.”

  “Not appreciably, Chief,” Stella said, shaking her head. “I’ve looked over everything and at the pace we’re currently moving, if you ‘bump the queue’ as you say, we can get the collectors built and only lose twelve hours off the schedule with spare parts. That would give the teams working on the hull time for a rest, since they’ve been working at a pretty hard pace.”

  He nodded, and then pulled up a list of replicator schedules on his console. He changed a few priorities, added a few and pushed the list down. Then he nodded as he noticed the changes. “Yes, you’re right, that would work. All right, I’ll get those started and we’ll get a team together to start them moving.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” Stella replied, sketching him a sloppy salute from her image on the display. “Just think, we get these done and then we can start moving on to the next phase.”

  “The next phase?” he asked suspiciously.

  She nodded. “Of course. We can’t go from having four collectors one day to a gas mine the next. There are going to have to be some intermediate steps. Oh and the Captain wants to have a full strategy session with you, Xar and Tamara about all this. Probably within the next day or so. He said he wanted to marinate on it for a day or so and then get you all together to brainstorm.”

  “All right, I’ll start coming up with ideas. Now go on, get out of here,” Quesh said gruffly. “We both have work to do.”

  She laughed at him and then disappeared.

  Tamara stepped off the shuttle and into the boat bay of the Grania Estelle with a smile still on her lips. It had been very good to see the old wolf. They’d been friendly back during her Navy days, but she’d silently despaired at his sermons, as she’d said. But she felt that after her own epiphanies that she had no right to judge anyone their own beliefs. To find that someone she’d known two and a half centuries ago was not only alive, but here was just another miracle. Her mood could not be punctured by anything short of a hull breach.

  “Tamara!” Stella called from the terminal by the main door to the boat bay. “I’ve been trying to call you on your communicator for the last hour, but the lupusan who answered said you’d given him the device! Were you robbed? Are you all right? I was about to call security.”

  Tamara chuckled. “I’m sorry, Stella. I should have commed the ship first and informed you of what had happened. I met an old friend and he didn’t have a communicator or a public comm code. So I wiped all but the ship’s comm code and another for me, once I got myself another communicator, and gave him mine. I’m going to talk with Turan about hiring him on as another for his medical gang.”

  Stella frowned. This clearly wasn’t the answer she was expecting. It wasn’t like Tamara to be so giving of her possessions, especially to someone she had only just met. But the AI shook her digital
head and continued. “Well, something serious is in the works and we need your input.”

  Tamara focused. “Is everything all right?”

  Stella waved a dismissive hand. “Fine, though everyone’s workload is going to triple if we actually move forward with this.”

  Tamara chuckled. “As if we weren’t busy enough with repairs to the ship. All right, what have you gotten me into now?”

  “Me?” Stella asked, innocently batting her eyelashes. “Why would you think I had anything to do with it?”

  “Because if the Captain or Quesh had done something, I think they would have contacted me first, or if not first then you would have warned me to watch out,” Tamara said, a crooked smile on her lips. “So, let me get another communicator and then get suited up and you can fill me in.”

  “Well, you’ve definitely thought about it,” Tamara said approvingly. She was just sealing the seams of her skinsuit and was donning her helmet. She and the rest of her team were suiting up to go out and work on the third rib today, getting started. It would take about two days to get everything done for the rib, now that they had the rhythm down. “And I’ve had a few thoughts about this repair job as well. We’re going to need a few more repair bots, and you, my dear Stella, are going to control them.”

  “I am?” the AI asked over Tamara’s suit comm. “Tamara, with the processing power I’ve got, I would only be able to control two or three bots at a time. And I know with a job this important you wouldn’t trust the bots to run on automatic.”

  “You’re right I wouldn’t,” she replied. “Which is why I think we’re going to have to sacrifice a bit and upgrade your processing power. I’m thinking an addition to your computer core; I was thinking a few exabytes of processing power.”

  Stella was silent for a moment. What Tamara had proposed would more than double the ship’s computing power. Tamara only had the suit’s comm activated; she didn’t have a link to her HUD yet, something that she, Stella and Turan were still working on. This meant she couldn’t see any facial expressions that Stella was making. “You can do that? The amount of processors you would need wouldn’t fit in my computer core. The processors would be way too bulky. I would certainly appreciate the increase, but that’s just a waste of space,” she said sadly.

  Tamara nodded. “Yes, you’re right, that would be the case if we were using standard processors. But there are some milspec molycirc that I think will do the trick. The amount of computer processing power I’m considering here would take up a space about a meter high, half as wide and thirty or so centimeters thick. I think that should fit into the core quite easily. We’ll have to make sure that the cooling system is up to spec, but that’s easy enough. The milspec gear doesn’t generate as much heat as the civilian stuff.” The Republic milspec grade molecular circuitry was, as of two hundred and fifty years ago, the most efficient computer processors that could be found and were highly sought after. Inevitably after all this time, there would be better tech, but it didn’t seem that much of it had found its way out here to the Argos Cluster. So, Grania Estelle would once again be getting a serious leg up. “I won’t be able to get it replicated until we’re done with this shift, but once I am, remind me to stop up at the replicator bay and get that started.”

  “You’ll bump the queue,” Stella warned.

  Tamara shrugged. “It’ll be worth it if you can control twenty or more repair bots. It’ll speed up repairs in the long run. Oh, and it might be a good idea to inform the Captain and the Chief before anything gets done. I think that they might want to know what I plan on doing with your systems before I start actually making any serious changes to schedules and such.”

  “Will do,” she said. “And Tamara?”

  “Yes?” Tamara asked, as her helmet HUD confirmed seal with comms active and suit integrity showing at one hundred percent. Eight hours of air showing on the status feed.

  “Thank you,” Stella said humbly.

  She laughed. “You’re very welcome, Stella. Now scoot. We’ve got to get this rib going.” She changed comm channel, using the one that her team was on. “All right kids, suit check. And then everyone check each other.” And she stepped forward to inspect her buddy’s suit.

  The wardroom wasn’t full, there were only five people present, but everyone here was anticipating… something. Stella was seated in her regular place atop the table, sitting cross legged, elbows on her knees on air a few centimeters above the holo projector. The Captain was in his accustomed seat at the head of the table, with Quesh on right right side of the table and Tamara and Ka’Xarian sitting next to each other on the left. The engineers looked exhausted and rightly so. All the engineering teams, even augmented with the new hires, had been running eighteen hour days, with barely enough time to sleep. Tamara’s little jaunt to the station had been the first free time she’d had since the ship had arrived here in Seylonique. And the new hires were beyond green. A few had some welding experience, or some time working with computers, or even a few hours in space suits, but for most of them, this was their first real job working in any serious capacity. The experienced hands aboard the ship were doing their best to provide on the job training and everyone was stepping up, but in a lot of cases it was slow going. Tamara and Quesh were switching off, every other day, one working on the external repairs, the other working on training and classes for the new people, but there was a lot of repair work that needed doing.

  “All right, let’s get this meeting going,” Vincent said. “What’s the status on the repairs?”

  “Things are going well,” Quesh replied. “Third rib will be completed later today; we should have three more done in one week. That leaves only two. So ten days, we’ll be ready to start plating the hull back up in this section.”

  Vincent nodded. “Good. How long to close it back up?”

  Quesh looked at the others. “Three days?”

  The others nodded. “About that,” Xar answered. “Assuming no problems.”

  “Very good. Let me know if something changes with that,” he said.

  “Actually, I was thinking we might change a few things,” Tamara spoke up. The others looked to her, Stella with a happy look on her face, the others with a bit more trepidation. “Oh don’t look so scared,” she chided with a smile. “It’s actually a good thing. I want to upgrade the computer core, specifically to give Stella much more computing power. From there, we’re going to build a few more maintenance bots, which will help us speed up the process of the overhaul.”

  Vincent frowned. “And why do we need the processing power?”

  “It will allow Stella to have greater control over them, and she can help with the repairs.” Tamara looked at the Captain. “You were the one who wanted us to move faster, get this all done quicker so we can get back out into space, were you not?” She smiled.

  He nodded. “I was and I am.” He looked to the AI. “Are you up for this?”

  “Oh, yes, Captain,” she said enthusiastically, sitting up straighter and nodding. “I’ve been doing well to maintain the ship’s functions and make sure systems stay active despite the damage and repairs. But with the extra power, it will make that easier and I can help out more with the repairs.”

  Vincent considered this for only a moment. Then he nodded. “Very good. As soon as we’re done here, get started on that, Tamara. Now, I’ve considered Stella’s idea and I think that it is a good one. But clearly it isn’t something that we can just fly over to the gas giant and build. Not if we ever intend to get back out into space again in the next ten years. We’re going to need help and permission and most importantly, warm bodies.”

  The others were nodding. “I like the idea, Captain,” Xar said, nodding slightly. “If we could get it off the drawing board and actually build the thing, we would be able to bring up far more fuel than we could ever hope to use.”

  “That’s the point, Xar,” Quesh said. “We wouldn’t be keeping the fuel we’re bringing up and refining for ourselves, w
e’d be selling it to the locals. Or more likely, we’d be looking into some sort of profit sharing arrangement with the locals here. But still! The amount of fuel that station could bring up, that would be a lot of profit.”

  “What station?” the captain asked, slightly irritated. “You all keep talking about this mining station, but I haven’t seen any plans. Nothing.” He gestured. “So? Have any of you ever built anything like this before? Because I haven’t.” The three engineers looked at each other for a long moment, as though engaging in some sort of telepathy. “I didn’t think so. So, Stella, any bright ideas?”

  “This isn’t a combat situation, Captain,” she replied, sounding a little defensive. “It isn’t something that must be solved in the next ten minutes or we all die. It’s something that we can plan, work on and expand on. We can get the basic blueprint drawn up and then refine it from there.”

  But the captain shook his head. “Not if we’re going to bring this to the local council. They’re going to want a finished design, ready to go, if they’re even going to think about supporting us.”

  Tamara nodded. “Based on the rather cool reception we got at the last meeting, I’d think we’d need to have everything all lined up for them to even think about working with us, from designs to logistics, to a cost analysis, schedules and potential hirings.” But then she pursed her lips. “But I think I have a few ideas. Stella, can I borrow that holo projector?”

  The AI smiled. “Of course, Tamara.” She winked and blinked out. Tamara picked up her datapad, pressed her thumb to the port and stared at the display on the device. Her gaze unfocused for a few moments and then she nodded. Pressing a button on the datapad, the holo projector activated and an image appeared.

  “Well, how about this?” she asked, setting the pad down.

  The design was reasonably simple, and they thought it looked very similar to the orbital station at the habitable planet. There were two sections, one was a disk, similar to one of the smaller hubs from the main orbital station. The other was also a disk, but this was washer-shaped, with a hole in the center. The two parts were connected by spun and woven nanofiber cables, four of them, three equidistant from each other around the outer edge of the washer, and one connected to one part of the center hole. The upper section contained living spaces, the three fusion reactors necessary to run the station, admin, control centers, as well as refineries and storage tanks, which would be held in the outer compartments. The lower “washer” would be the actual collection system. Here, giant scoops would suck up huge amounts of gasses and particulates from the gas giant. Once the collection tanks were full, the upper hub would winch the lower section up into high orbit, out of the atmosphere to transfer everything over to the main refineries aboard the upper station.