Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2

by Michael Kotcher

  “Yeah, they have a big, wounded bluff,” Corajen put in.

  The engineer shrugged. “True, but better than before.”

  “Which brings us back to the original point of discussion, Captain,” Stella said, addressing him. “Yes, there are things that the locals are going to need and want. They’re going to need an ever increasing supply of fuel both for the station and for that ship. Then they’re going to need processed minerals, and they’re going to need a lot of them.”

  Eamonn shook his head. “And if the admins won’t buy from us?”

  “Then they’re idiots,” Corajen said bluntly. “But we all knew that. You’re already selling fuel to the engineers, sell to them.”

  “I’ll talk with them,” Eamonn said with a sigh. “See what they say.”

  “All right,” the lupusan said, crossing her arms. “Back to the real matter at hand. Why am I in this room right now?”

  “I want you to stay here with me in the system,” Tamara said without hesitation.

  The wolf woman looked to her. “You’re staying here?”

  “I’m going to talk to my team later, I want them to stay too when Grania Estelle heads back out, but yes, I will be staying here. There’s a lot of work in progress and a lot that still needs to be done. And I need someone to hold everything together while I get that work done.”

  “And you want me?” She sounded disbelieving.

  Tamara smiled slightly. “Take this in the spirit it was intended, but if you want people to stay off your lawn, you get the meanest, nastiest bitch you can find to guard it.”

  Corajen stared at the woman for a long moment, then let out a yip of a chuckle. “So we’re staying here and building an economic empire. You were saying something about a ship?”

  Tamara nodded. “The Samarkand, yes.”

  “So you’re going to be skippering the ship?”

  But the engineer shook her head. “No, the Captain pointed out that doing that is a full time job and if I’m commanding the Samarkand I can’t be doing the job he wants me to be doing. So, we need a captain. And I have one in mind.”

  “You want me to come and work for you?” Galina Korneyev asked, incredulous.

  The lupusan, Tamara and Eamonn were meeting on the station, in one of the small cafes. Tamara had her usual cup of coffee, but the others had ordered tea. The former administrator had been keeping herself busy as much as possible since Vincent’s meeting with the local business executives, but both of the humans could tell that she was looking a bit worn. She had become persona non grata with the government for her outspoken views and her apparent siding with these upstart outsiders and it was always hard for a captain to lose her ship.

  “Is that such a hard thing to believe?” Vincent asked. “That your skills might be sought after?”

  She gave him a look that dripped bitterness. “If you’ve been living the way I have, getting the looks and snide comments I have, you wouldn’t find it so hard to believe.”

  “Well, it’s true,” Vincent replied. “I want you on my team. Tamara here,” he gestured, “Agrees. I’m working to secure another ship and I’d like you to be the captain.”

  Galina’s ears twitched. “You have another ship?”

  Vincent gave a wry smile. “Not yet. That’s my next stop. I have to see my lawyer and then make a stop at the bank.”

  “You can just buy a ship?” Galina asked, impressed. “I didn’t realize you were so wealthy.”

  Vincent shook his head. “Sadly, I’m not. I’ve got some more sources of potential income to tap, but until I can find someone here on the station that is willing to purchase, my source of funds is somewhat insufficient.”

  The wolf woman eyed him for a moment. “Comments like that suddenly make me less interested in accepting this offer.”

  “I would too,” the captain replied. “But I have a very large crate filled with gadolinium in my hold and a large amount of gold and platinum in that same bay.”

  Galina’s ears went back. “Then why can’t you just buy a ship? With that kind of dosh, I should think it should be a simple affair.”

  “Remember that comment you made a minute ago? About looks and snide comments?” She nodded. “Well, you’re not the only one who’s been getting them. The admins on the station don’t like me and these new ‘progressive reforms’ I’ve been bringing.”

  “And no one on the station is talking to you?”

  “Well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I have an ongoing business relationship with the station engineers. I sell them fuel for the station’s reactor.”

  She nodded. “I’d heard about that. I still have a few friends here on the station. And from what I heard, they are worshipping the space you fly through, Captain.”

  “Well, that’s encouraging,” Tamara said.

  The two humans looked to the elder lupusan. “So, Galina, will you join us?”

  She smiled, but leaned her head back slightly. “So far, Captain, I’m not seeing anything to join. Get yourself a ship and we’ll talk.” She picked up her teacup, which was more of a bowl, and used her long tongue to drink some of the liquid.

  “That’s your final word?” Eamonn asked, unable to hide all of his disappointment.

  “It is,” Galina replied. “Don’t look so hurt, Captain. You’ve proven that you’re a man of your word, but right now you’re only selling an idea. And as an idea, I’m interested. If you get yourself a ship, come back.”

  “Mister Jollin, it’s good to see you again,” Vincent said, extending his hand.

  A burly man rose from where he was rewiring a panel and beamed. “Captain! Always good to see you.” He wiped his hands on a rag, then clasped the captain’s hand warmly. “What are you doing down here?” the man asked.

  Vincent smiled. “This is hardly the bowels of the station, Mister Jollin,” he replied. “Hub three is in decent shape, thanks to you.”

  “We’re keeping the station running, thanks to your fuel loads,” Jollin said.

  “Well, keeping things running is in part what I’m here to talk with you about,” Vincent went on.

  Jollin flicked his chin at Tamara. “Who’s your friend?”

  Vincent smiled. “This is Tamara Samair, she’s my Operations officer for my affairs here in Seylonique. Won’t be long before my ship is ready to roll, and I’m going to need someone to stay here and run things for me. Tamara, this is Mikos Jollin, one of the head engineering officers on the station.”

  “A pleasure to finally meet the man,” Tamara said, shaking his hand.

  “And you, miss,” he said with an appraising look. He looked over to Vincent. “Looks like you hire pretty, Captain.”

  Tamara grimaced. It wasn’t anything that she hadn’t heard before. Though in the Republic this kind of thing had long since fallen to the wayside, there were still the occasional people, usually men, who would joke or speak in less than flattering terms. Jollin’s comment was downright innocent compared to what Tamara had heard in the past.

  She looked him over with a critical eye. “Well,” she said with a slight smile. “I do appreciate a man who works with his hands.”

  “And I didn’t hire her because she’s pretty, Miklos. I hired her because she’s a damned good engineer.”

  “Well then, Ms. Samair, you are definitely someone I want to get to know better,” he said enthusiastically.

  “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months,” she told him. “In the spirit of friendship,” she said, pulling a slip of flimsi and handing it to him, “I have a pallet of replacement parts in hangar bay two that I think will interest you.”

  He frowned, but he took the slip and read down the list. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “How in the hell did you get all these parts?”

  Tamara only smiled at him. “I have my ways, Mister Jollin.”

  He looked up at her in awe. “I am interested.”

  “Good,” she said with a smile. “T
hen we can do business.” She gestured to the sheet in his hand. “Consider that a gift, and a taste.” Vincent didn’t look happy about that, but he didn’t say anything

  He eyed her. “But only the first one is free, right?”

  “I’m a businesswoman too, Mister Jollin. Can’t just be giving away everything for free.”

  “I’m already paying you thousands for the helium 3 fuel,” he complained.

  “But if the reactors fail, then it won’t really matter how much fuel you have, will it?” she asked, bluntly.

  He grimaced. “No, I don’t suppose it will. What do you want?”

  Tamara looked to her captain who nodded. “What we want is to start working on some serious building projects in this system. One of which,” Eamonn said, “is working on getting this station up from the dregs.”

  “Hey!” Miklos protested. “This is my station that I’m fighting to keep.”

  Vincent nodded. “I know. And I also know you’ve been doing very hard work with very few resources.”

  “That’s true enough,” the engineer agreed.

  “I want to continue with my operations here but I can’t do that without funding,” Vincent went on.

  “I’m pretty much at the end of my discretionary budget, Captain,” Miklos replied. “I’m authorized to buy fuel, but that is it. I can’t even afford to make payments to buy those parts you were hinting at before, Ms. Samair.”

  “Please,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “Like I said, we’re going to be getting to know each other pretty well. We can dispense with the formality, at least in private like this. Call me Tamara.”

  “Miklos,” he said with a smile. But then the smile faded. “But that doesn’t change what I said. I have no money to buy extra things from you.”

  Vincent nodded. “What if we short the fuel payment slightly? Just enough for the cost of the parts?”

  Miklos frowned, then pulled out his datapad and did a few quick calculations. He chewed his bottom lip. “Well, I think that will be doable. How much are you wanting for the parts?” Vincent named a figure. Miklos looked up at him. “Really, Captain? You’re going to gouge a hardworking man? You can do better than that.”

  “Twenty thousand less,” Vincent replied. He shook his head slightly. “But I won’t go lower than that.”

  “Done,” Miklos said immediately. He stuck out his hand and the Captain shook it. “Damn, I thought you’d only go as high as eight!” he cackled.

  Vincent grimaced and shook his head again. “I’m getting soft in my old age.”

  Tamara smiled at him. “We still put up with you, Captain, even in your old age.”

  “Quiet, you,” he grumped. “All right, Miklos. That will help. Keep in touch with Tamara here to work out your replacement parts. But I have another issue.”

  “And what’s that, Captain?” The engineer looked positively jovial with the notion he would be getting parts to fix up his station. The list of reactor and control system parts that were apparently waiting for him had him drooling already.

  “To continue with operations in this system, I need to get a ship. My own is going to be departing here to return to trading, but I want to use one as a mobile construction platform,” Vincent explained.

  Miklos nodded. “Makes sense. Better than to keep shuttling back and forth from the station.” He laughed. “And it’s been working for you so far, sending out shuttles from your ship instead of docking. Though I gotta say you are really pissing off the big bosses because of that. They were thinking they could be taking you for a ride with docking fees, air fees, power fees, and hell, if you bother them for long enough they could send in boarders.”

  “That was my understanding as well,” he agreed. “Which is why I’ve kept my ship away from the orbital. But the problem is I don’t have the upfront capital to simply purchase a second ship.”

  The man looked confused. “Well I feel for you both, but I don’t understand how you think I can help you with that.”

  “Well, in order to make any sort of profit I need to be able to sell to the station, or to the planet below.” Vincent sighed. “And the station authorities are not too keen on working with me.”

  “There are some of the locals that would be willing to buy…” he began.

  But Vincent cut him off. “Not in anywhere near the numbers I would need to make this all worthwhile.”

  The burly engineer crossed his arms over his chest, looking off at the bulkhead. “All right, so what is your ultimate plan here?”

  “Build some support infrastructure and eventually base my operations out from here and eventually make this system a hub for trading again. For that we’re going to need fuel, hence the gas mine.”

  Miklos’s smile was radiant. “I cannot wait to see how you pull that off,” he said.

  Tamara grinned. “You give a girl some space to work and the proper resources, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  “But, I need the ship for that and I don’t have the money to buy it. I was thinking of selling minerals that we get from rocks in the asteroid belt, but no one on the orbital is willing to play ball.” He sighed. “All right. I’ve now said that exact sentence over four hundred times to twenty different people and the answer has not changed. Which means I need to stop asking it and start asking different questions. Mister Jollin?” He looked up, addressing the engineer directly.

  “Captain?” Miklos looked.

  “Who do you know down on the planet’s surface who would like to get in on the ground floor on an amazing business opportunity?”

  The shuttle set down on the surface of the habitable world, just outside of one of the smaller cities. The city was located in the hinterlands, near to the southern pole on one of the middle sized continents. Tamara stood, adjusting her heavy jacket and pulling on her gloves she looped the strap for her knapsack over her shoulder, across her chest. This area was known for blistering winds and occasional snowfall, and like most spacers, Tamara was really unsuited for harsh conditions. Compared to the locals, she knew that her clothing was far thicker and more insulated, but she didn’t care. This place seemed sleepy by comparison to other dirtside cities she’d seen, even in just the few months since she’d awoken in this time.

  She stepped down off the ramp, with Corajen following along right behind her, the Captain and two more of Grania Estelle’s security company following along just behind them. Before them, at the edge of town less than a hundred meters from where they had landed, lay a row of prefabbed buildings, garages, small apartments, all of which looked shabby and run down. Like everything else in this system, the buildings were neglected, spotted with corrosion and let off a faint whiff of rot. Or in the case of this area, not so faint.

  “What’s the name of this dump?” Corajen asked, her ears flat to her head, her nose twitching on the end of her muzzle. The lupusan had spurned heavier clothing, knowing that her own thick pelt could easily keep her warm. Her fur had fluffed out slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was armed with her carbine, and with various blades tucked away, as well as a pair of Tamara’s slimmer grenades clipped to her belt. A pistol hung from a shoulder holster, but with the carbine in her hands, it was unlikely that any of the other weapons would be needed.

  “Endricar,” Vincent replied, looking around. “We’re supposed to find a woman named Suriaya. She owns a small machine shop around here.”

  “A small machine shop? What the hell? Why are we wasting our time with a small fry like this?” Corajen demanded.

  “This is the person Miklos told us to meet with,” Tamara reminded her.

  “So?”

  “So, I want to meet with her,” Tamara replied.

  “I do as well,” Vincent put in. “If Miklos is this hot to trot about us meeting this woman, then I believe it’s a good idea.”

  They headed into the town and Tamara tried to keep from stepping in the every large puddle of muddy water in the middle of the road leading between two of the buil
dings. She stepped to the outside of it and managed to avoid most of the water as she did so. Eamonn laughed at her but she ignored him.

  Coming around the front of the buildings, the group could see that they were just as ramshackle and dirty from this direction as they were from the rear. There were a number of half-fished projects lying in piles all over. “This looks like your cargo bays when I first came aboard Grania Estelle,” Tamara commented, wrinkling her nose a bit.

  Vincent frowned. “It does a bit.”

  “Who the hell is that?” a voice demanded from inside one of the buildings, a garage. You mocking the sanctity of my establishment?” The speaking voice had changed to more of a bellow.

  “Just observing the amount of what appear to be discarded projects front of your shop,” Tamara replied, raising her voice a little. Corajen was still relaxed, though the engineer had noted that her hand had tightened slightly on the grip of her carbine.

  “How dare you!” the voice said angrily. It was a deeper voice, but a female one.

  Activating her HUD, Tamara scanned into the darkened interior of the ship, through the open doors. The shop wasn’t large, but it was big enough to house a pair of small shuttlepods or one of Grania Estelle’s cargo shuttles inside with plenty of room to work. There was a second workshop in the adjacent building, filled with various pieces of equipment for casting, stamping components as well as a full blown machine shop. Her enhanced vision provided by her implants allowed her to see the equipment, as well as a portly figure advancing from the first building.

  The figure emerged from the darkness of the shop. It was clearly a woman, round, dirty, wearing a grubby coverall. Her arms were thick and well-muscled though her left hand was encased in metal, a cybernetic replacement. She had another enhancement around her left eye, a horseshoe of coppery metal that ringed her eye, the open end facing the bridge of her nose.

  “What the hell did you say about my shop?” the woman demanded.

  “I said,” Tamara replied calmly, putting her hands on her hips, trying to look confident in a heavy jacket and gloves, compared to this woman in front of her who was just radiating heat. “I said, that there looks to be a lot of unfinished projects just piled up outside here.”