Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1

by Michael Kotcher

  Raising the small woman up, he held her over the gaping hole and then thrust his arms down, pushing her gently into the boat bay. She cried out, flailing her limbs as she “fell” into the boat bay. Her sense of orientation was off because while she felt as though she was falling “down”, looking at the bay properly, she was flying sideways across the bay. The path she was moving through had no hand holds, and the shuttle was several meters to her left. The far bulkhead loomed closer until she hit. Mairi bent her knees, absorbing the shock and then rebounded slightly. Her hand snaked out and grasped the handle at the bulkhead, arresting her bounce back “up” toward the hole. Pulling herself back to the bulkhead, she maneuvered herself to be standing up properly, feet on the deck, and magnetized her boots again.

  “Easy peasy!” she called.

  Tamara gave her a thumb’s up down the hole, which gave strange perspective issues as both sides looked to the other as though they were laying down. “Secure the line so we can climb down.”

  Attaching the hook to the anchor, Mairi magnetized it to the bulkhead behind her. Giving it a slight tug, she felt it go taut. “All set. Come on in.”

  Within minutes, the others had easily floated inside. Locking down to the deck, they immediately went to the shuttle. The rest of the boat bay was nearly empty due to the pair of explosive decompressions that had occurred, but the shuttle itself was relatively intact. There was a great deal of blackened plasma scoring on the upper right edge of the long boxy shuttle. A deep furrow of sheared metal also went down the same side, though this was further down near the deck, which ran up to near to the top. Apparently something sharp had been yanked out through into the void, slicing though the fuselage. The cylindrical drive pods attached on the bottom of both sides looked intact, though upon closer inspection, Tamara noticed that the pods didn’t match. One was a bland cylinder, the other was slightly more bulbous, as though they were salvaged from different ships.

  “Well, the external damage doesn’t look too bad,” Tamara said, giving it a critical eye. “I’ll feel better once I get inside and start the diagnostics.” She turned to the others. “Get the kit unpacked. I’ll be a few minutes inside, and then I want that breach patched up.”

  The ramp to the shuttle unlatched, but it didn’t lower. Is the power drained? Tamara scanned the door, it and the shuttle registered normal power readings. What the hell is wrong with this ramp? She reached up and pulled slightly on the ramp. Not only did it move, but it slipped easily past her fingers and clanged on the deck, bouncing back up again. She grabbed hold of it before it could crush her fingers and gently pulled it down until it rested on the deck. “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

  Rory turned and smiled at her. “Oh that? The ramp always does that. The lowering hydraulics have been busted for a long time.”

  Tamara sighed and walked inside the shuttle. The slapdash manner in which this crew used to work never ceased to amaze her. And now, here she was, doing the same thing. There wasn’t time or power or resources to do a proper rebuild on this shuttle; that would have to wait until later. So long as the little vessel could get the job done, that’s all that mattered.

  Sitting down in the pilot’s couch, she flipped a few switches, bringing the little ship online. Pressing a control, the hatch to the inner four-seat compartment slid shut and with a hissing of air, it sealed and pressurized. One minute later, the gauges all read good seal and that atmo was in the green. Working a switch on her suit’s neck, she detached her helmet, shutting off her suit’s life support and breathed in the shuttle’s air. It had a metallic tang to it and a bit of a moldy funk. Clearly the shuttle hadn’t been properly serviced in a while. She wrinkled her nose, but said nothing.

  Bringing up diagnostics, she ran through the gamut of them. “Okay, port engine looks good, starboard’s a bit… wonky, I guess. Looks like it’s from another vehicle entirely. Tamara to Mairi, has this shuttle used cannibalized parts from another ship?”

  “Yeah. The captain got us a wreck of a series 340 transport pod about six months back. We had to pull parts from that to service this one. Replaced the starboard engine and a few of the internal electronics.” There was a pause. “Can we start on the external repairs?”

  Tamara checked the display. It was showing the damage, highlighted in red on the otherwise gray wire diagram of the shuttle. It looked like a wound, which cut into the aft cargo section right up to the cockpit bulkhead. “Yeah, get started. Start by patching up closest to the cockpit and work your way back. It’s pretty close to the forward section and I won’t want to risk a breach.”

  “So what are you going to be doing, inside and warm?” Pip sounded a bit put out.

  “It stinks in here,” she replied. “Believe me, it’s not all champagne and caviar in here.”

  “So what are you doing in there?” Rory asked.

  “I’m cleaning up all the software issues in here. I’m amazed at how many viruses and corrupted programs I keep finding on this ship,” she commented pointedly. “I have a few cleaner subroutines going on right now. I’m also working to patch the guidance system which amazes me even more than the viruses. How the hell all of you managed to fly this crate, I’ll never understand.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Mairi replied, chuckling. “Get to work in there.”

  Two hours later, the repairs were completed. “Get in here,” Tamara ordered. The others grabbed their kit and hustled aboard. “Seal the rear hatch,” she told them over the comms. A few moments later, the displays in the cockpit showed a good seal. They also showed that the angry red scar on the side of the shuttle was gone, and while it wasn’t a clean, smooth patch, it was perfectly functional. Activating the flight controls, she eased the boxy ship up off the deck and flew it smoothly out the gaping hole in the door.

  She keyed her comms. “Shuttle One to Big Mama, we are free flying.”

  Tamara heard chuckles over the line, both from her own team in the shuttle cargo bay and from the bridge crew. “Moxie, I like you and you’ve proven yourself to be an asset. But don’t you dare insult my ship ever again.” The Captain was good natured, but that last statement was not joking.

  “Sorry, Captain.” More chuckles. “We’re heading over to the damaged fuel lines. Once I get the stuck plate off, Rory and Pip will deal with that while Mairi and I will be heading in system.”

  “Find us what we need, Moxie,” the Captain ordered.

  “We’re on it, Captain.”

  Quesh looked up at his diagnostic feeds. Engineering was a complete shambles. The place had never been entirely spic and span, but it had been clean and well run. As well run as a place could be running on never enough parts, cannibalized components and half-trained crews. But after the firefight, whole consoles had to be torn out and salvaged with whatever could be used. One of the displays, which was still active, was hanging by its own wiring, and whoever needed it would have to pick it up from off the console and then set it down once they’d read it. The entire engineering space was a mess of cables and wires, which for the moment and for expediency’s sake, were stretched out across the floor, linking bulkheads, forcing everyone to have to slow down to get through without tripping and tearing them out of their connections. The place stank of burnt electronics and unwashed bodies. Everyone had been up and frantically patching systems since the raid, stopping only to eat and then were back to work.

  The engines were not in good shape, but then he’d known that going into this mess. The two functioning drive pods, two and six, had been smashed by the pirate’s fire, and were now completely inoperable. A few replicated parts and a dangerous spacewalk later and engine one was coming back online for the first time in eighteen years. One of the crew had gone spinning off out into the void when the bolt he was trying to pry loose stuck and then suddenly released and his tether snapped. If not for his buddy’s very quick reflexes, grabbing the tech’s wrist in a viselike grip, the man would have flown free. Perhaps the shuttle might have been able
to get him, but it was something everyone was glad they hadn’t needed to test. Once Tamara’s team was finished with their splicing and replacing of fuel lines, they would be able to get underway.

  And this was not a moment too soon. Fuel reserves were dropping past critical levels, and the crew had resorted to as many energy saving procedures as they could. Entire sections of the ship were sealed off, life support shut off there, lights and all other systems that drew power were either shut off or powered down as low as possible.

  Reconnecting the new power junction to the feeds for engine one, he hauled himself again to his feet. Checking the display, he saw that the feeds looked good. They were in the yellow, not green, but it was an improvement. A marked improvement. Once the fuel lines were repaired, he could start looking at the engine proper, trying to tune it. Strictly speaking, there wasn’t much that actually needed tuning, but engine one was the best out of the lot. If the engine wasn’t properly tuned and calibrated, when it was engaged, it might vibrate which could cause it to unseat, which could break connecting bolts, control cables, fuel lines, could possibly even damage the engine itself. And that would be a catastrophe, because the rest of the engines would require days if not weeks of work and parts. Two resources the power-starved Grania Estelle did not have. All of which meant that one Quesh Trrgoth needed to make sure that this one engine would work and work properly the first time.

  He sighed, stretched his aching back and returned to his work.

  It was the work of minutes to use the shuttle to yank the hull plate free of the damaged section, leaving it to float a few meters away from the ship, but close enough that they could retrieve it later. Pip and Rory debarked the shuttle, bringing with them the gear and parts to get this section repaired. Seeing that they were all squared away, Tamara backed the shuttle gently away from the hull of the freighter, using a couple of brisk puffs on the shuttle’s maneuvering jets. Using no other engine power, letting inertia do the work, the shuttle drifted away from the Grania Estelle until it was about half a kilometer from the hull.

  “Grania Estelle, this is Shuttle One. We’re off. I’m heading out toward the asteroid belt. We’ll be grabbing a good rock and we’ll be back soonest.”

  The Captain answered. “We copy, Shuttle One. Good hunting and get back here as soon as you can.”

  “Understood. Shuttle One, out.” Tamara cut the circuit and engaged the shuttle’s main engines. Angling away from the freighter, she pulled up the shuttle’s navigation suite. The edge of the system’s asteroid belt was about seven light minutes from the hyper limit. It was a job of about ten hours to make that trip one way, so this was going to be a very long, rather tiresome trip. Then of course, they would have to select and then grab a particular rock and then haul it back. The shuttle would be completely on empty by that point, so it was going to be an interesting trip.

  “Right,” she said, locking in the course. “I’m going to grab a nap. I’m absolutely wrecked. Can you keep an eye on things for a few hours? Then we’ll switch and you can sleep.”

  “Why you first?” Mairi demanded.

  “Because I thought of it first,” she pointed out. The other woman crossed her arms over her chest in disagreement. “Fine, you go first. I’m too tired to argue.” Mairi smiled. “But don’t worry. I will be waking you up in four hours.” Tamara looked her companion straight in the eye as she said this. The other woman groaned but nodded, then headed into the cargo section, pulled down a section of the bulkhead which doubled as a bunk. Laying down, she was asleep within minutes.

  Tamara watched her enviously, but with a small sigh, turned back to her instruments.

  In the end, she let Mairi sleep for over six hours. In that time, as the asteroid belt grew ever closer, she began to try and scan the various rocks within what she considered the range of the shuttle. There was much to find here. As in years past, from Tamara’s admittedly dim memory of the star system, Instow was a resource-rich system, and with its proximity to Hudora and its shipyards and industrial nodes, there was once a prosperous mining industry here. Apparently, with the destruction of Hudora two and a half centuries ago, the system had completely withered on the vine. Perhaps the Federation had done some follow-up attacks that had trashed the infrastructure here. Perhaps pirates had come in years later and looted the system and killed a number of the inhabitants. Perhaps without the hub system of Hudora next door, the economy of Instow simply dried up and people departed to greener pastures. She might even find out if they could bring the Grania Estelle in to the habitable moon.

  From what little she had gleaned from the Perdition’s sensors during the raid (the shuttle’s sensors were almost as bad as the ones on the Grania Estelle; there wasn’t time or materials to spare to upgrade them for this mission), had determined that the system was so far empty of artificial structures. Aside from the crippled bulk freighter (and perhaps a trio of pirate vessels) there were no ships in system, no artificial satellites, nothing. Clearly, the locals wouldn’t object (or be able to object) to the crew of the freighter getting their materials from the asteroid belt.

  Looking at the display, her eyes kept falling on the gas giant, for which the habitable moon orbited. “I wonder…” Tamara muttered to herself. One of the many big problems on the Grania Estelle was that they were using straight seawater as a power source. That caused multiple issues within the ship’s reactor, since the water had impurities in it, which over time would gum up the mechanism, which would cause conduits and other such tubes to fail. Also, by using extracting the straight hydrogen from the seawater for fuel it greatly lessened the reactor’s power ratio and heightened its radiation emissions. Tossing in jury rigged sections of the fusion bottles made out of parts never designed for the role or the load and a computer that wasn’t up to the task of handling that challenge and yes, there was trouble rapidly coming to a boil.

  Which meant that, again, the crew (and Tamara was gracious enough to throw in her own hat with that lot) would need a better source of fuel, such as deuterium or helium 3. And as her eyes continued to look at the gas giant, a slow smile began to spread over her face. Pulling out her datapad, she set to work designing a collector that could pick up and siphon out the materials needed. A helium 3 collector.

  It took about four hours to come up with something and she tried to keep it as simple as possible. It was a very utilitarian design, drawing from her memories of similar devices she had seen and used back during her Navy days. It consisted of a collector device which would suck in the materials and inflate several large bladders after being filtered through a series of force fields and other filtration systems. The bladders would also serve as buoyancy devices to keep the collector in the higher layers of the Jovian’s atmosphere. Once it was full, the collector could simply wait to be emptied. And if the scans were to be believed, the atmosphere was made up of a dense concentration of particles, which meant that the collector would fill very quickly.

  Of course, that meant a full teardown and rebuild of the ship’s reactor. It was on the list, at least. Tamara sighed. There was so much work to be done on that ship. Then she brightened. “It sounds like fun. And a lot of work.” Satisfied for the moment, she accessed her implants, setting an alert to wake her in an hour and closed her eyes.

  “Tamara. Tamara!” A voice penetrated the blackness. “Tamara!”

  She awoke with a start, her breath was coming in tiny rapid gasps. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Her implants indicated that two minutes were left before the time was up to wake her. It took her a long few seconds to realize where she was, what was happening. A hand was on her shoulder, shaking her.

  “Are you all right?”

  She blinked, turning to the sound of the voice. It her a long moment to determine it was Mairi. Her breathing began to slow and the constant pulsing in her chest also began to lessen in intensity. Her implants were showing displays on her HUD that her vitals were gradually returning to normal from the danger range.


  “Hey, you with me? Can you hear me?” Mairi’s voice was getting more worried.

  Tamara nodded. “What is it?”

  The young woman looked at her with her eyebrows raised. “What is it? You were screaming.”

  Tamara blinked. “I was?” A quick check of her implants, showing the readouts of her biometrics indicated that her stress levels were well over critical. It would certainly explain the screaming and the rest. “I think I had a nightmare.”

  The other woman nodded. “I should say so. Woke me up.”

  Tamara’s hands began to shake slightly and she clenched her fists. “Sorry.”

  “You want to talk about it?” Concern was covering her face.

  Tamara shook her head. “I don’t really remember. I didn’t even know there was a problem. I set my implants to alert me when an hour had passed and then I was going to wake you up. I closed my eyes…” She let out a very deep breath, trying to control her shivering. She felt cold, as though she’d been splashed with a bucket of frigid water.

  “You’re not all right,” Mairi concluded. “Get out of the pilot’s seat. I’m taking us back.”

  “No!” Tamara nearly shouted. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.” She shook her head, sitting up straighter. “We can’t go back. We need the rocks that are out here. I don’t think the ship can make it back if we don’t succeed.”

  Mairi stood over her, looking skeptical. “I’m fine, Mairi. It was just a nightmare. I’ve been going all out for two days now, I’m sorry I scared you.”

  Still, the young woman didn’t budge. “Fine. How long until we’re there?”

  Tamara checked her displays. “Three hours, forty-six minutes.”

  “You will get some sleep on the way back.” It wasn’t a request.

  Tamara nodded. “Of course. I’m not going to be sleeping now for a while. Not after that.”