Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1

by Michael Kotcher

  She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck. "A prudent thought." Tamara looked at him, her eyes a bit bleary. "Well, I agree with you. We need to get at least the bow sensors up to snuff. I'm sorry, Captain, but your precious Grania Estelle is almost completely blind. I don't think the ability to see what was happening would have really helped during our... fun... with the pirates. But it certainly would help with early detection."

  "And we've been sitting here for quite a while."

  "And will be for quite a while longer. We're getting the engines up, but technically, we could break orbit once the cargoes are all taken care of. But the hyperdrive is still down, as are the shields. Without those two systems, we're not going anywhere."

  "How long?" the captain asked, a little worried.

  Tamara snorted. "A while. Probably about a month to get everything up to decent levels. I know you all got used to a rather serious level of quaking at entry and breakout, but I'd like to get the hyperdrive well-tuned before we attempt a jump. And we're going nowhere without shields and sensors."

  "How long to get the bow sensors up?" he asked, getting back to the original reason for summoning her back.

  She yawned, an action so big she thought that her jaw would crack. The captain chuckled. "Sorry, Captain, I need a nap before we do anything."

  "Fine, get four hours, then get with the Chief about this. I really don't like sitting around blind."

  Tamara grinned at him. "Captain, when I got here, you were almost as blind as you are now. In fact, with the addition of the Perdition fighter, your sensors are actually a little bit better than they were before. Do you even know what it's like to be able to see out into the Deep Dark?" she teased.

  "Actually, yes. It wasn't until the last five years or so that the systems go so bad. But you're right, they've never actually been very good. What's the best range we could get?"

  She stifled a yawn, putting a fist in front of her mouth. "Sorry, Captain. Gravitic sensors for detecting faster than light traces and neutrinos? They'd probably be good for about ten light minutes in any particular direction. I think I might could be persuaded to provide you with milspec level equipment for that." The captain goggled at her. "What? There would be a bit of quid pro quo, mind you, but if we can get better sensors in here, you can hopefully keep anyone from sneaking up on you."

  "But military spec?" His jaw clicked shut. "I can't imagine it."

  Tamara smiled. "I'll get you squared away, Captain, don't worry. And I'll make sure to get Quesh the right spares and info to keep them up and running. I can work with the gravitics and get them in with milspec parts. But the standard sensors won't be anywhere near as good," she warned, the smile slipping. "The ship really isn't configured for military sensors and we kind of need to be able to see now. So to get them up and running in the shortest amount of time, you'll have to settle for civilian grade."

  "And the range? If we use civilian grade?"

  "About a hundred thousand kilometers, give or take. Fine grade resolution, about ten thousand. But far better than the kilometer or two than you've all come to be used to." She yawned again. "Sorry, Captain."

  He sighed ruefully. "Go, get your four hours rack time and then I expect you working with the Chief."

  Four hours went by incredibly fast. Tamara quickly found herself out of her quarters and walking down the passageway before she quite realized what was happening. Checking herself as she rounded a corner she felt a great wave of relief to see that she was dressed in her ship suit. She was still feeling greasy and dirty, because she hadn’t taken the time to shower, but she didn’t care. The four hours had been rejuvenating, she supposed, because she felt she had some energy again, but her brain wasn’t quite functioning properly. It was as if her body was moving, but her mind was set on autopilot, and it wasn’t really seeing or hearing anything going on around her.

  “Make a hole!” someone behind her barked. Instantly, Tamara found herself leaping to the side to flatten herself against the bulkhead. A group of three technicians, and two women from the cargo division, were trundling past, carrying a long metallic beam between the five of them on a hover pallet. One of the cargo workers nodded to Tamara as they passed, but the rest were concentrating on getting the soon to be installed structural support beam steady.

  Once they were clear, Tamara shook her head to clear the fuzziness (only partial success) and continued on to the engineering spaces. Quesh was there, standing in front of one of the rebuilt control consoles. It was of an older design, even from Tamara’s perspective, but from the looks of it, Quesh had done a good job of getting it together and hooking it up. She shouldn’t be surprised.

  “It’s about time you got up,” he groused as she walked in. He turned to her, holding out one of his arms, a coffee mug in his hand.

  “Oh, you blessed male!” she gushed, taking it from him. “Real coffee!”

  He nodded. “Taja managed to get it for us. I haven’t had it in months. Had to make do with red leaf tea.”

  “Ha!” she barked, sipping the rich steamy liquid. It was black and very strong, but that didn’t matter. She had been so long without the drink that it was almost a physical pain to have a mug of it back in her hands again. She hadn’t been allowed any drinks aside from water in the brig and there wasn’t any to be found aboard the Grania Estelle, either. The food replicator she was building didn’t have a proper coffee recipe, so she had been forced to make do without. “Oh, it’s so good. Quesh, I truly hope that you find happiness with an insatiable female who caters to your every whim.” She took another sip as the Parkani smiled.

  “I appreciate the thought, Samair,” he said, as the other nearby techs laughed at her enthusiasm, “But I don’t think the Captain would appreciate me stealing his ship. She’s the only insatiable female I need.”

  “Your loss,” she said, continuing to drink. It was hot, but she didn’t care. “Is there any more? Because Captain wants us working on the bow sensors today one cup is not going to be enough.”

  Quesh snickered and nodded. “Cookie can set you up. Coffee shrine is in the mess hall.”

  “Thanks. I get another cup later. So, what have you already started?”

  The Parkani glanced back at her. “Smart. Xar’s already outside with two teams. They’re pulling the number one and two main sensor array right now. Once that’s done, they’ll bring the parts to cargo bay four.” He picked up his communicator and flipped it open. “Xar, its Quesh. Report.”

  The zheen’s voice cracked over the comms. “Quesh, its Xar. Number one array is disassembled and being loaded into the shuttle. Bryione is going to fly it back into bay four, then come back and pick up number two array.”

  “Good work, Xar. Have Bryione call in when she’s delivered the first round.”

  “Well, this is a total shambles,” Tamara was saying a short while later. Cargo Bay Four was now filled with the equipment that had been pulled from the number one sensor array. A lot of it was worn, patched, spliced, and there were scorch marks on more than one section of the disassembled array. “I’m actually impressed that you lot were able to keep this thing running at all, with all this damage and jury rigged repairs.”

  “We did the best with what we had,” Quesh told her, starting to get angry. “We didn’t have all your fancy Navy resources.”

  “There’s no reason to get angry,” Tamara said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. I’ve told you before, Quesh, many times how impressed I was with your work.”

  “No more comments like that, Samair,” he said. “I’m really tired of being thought of as some tiny operator who needs the big bad Republic Navy girl to save his ship.”

  “Now wait a minute,” she protested.

  “No, Samair, no.” They both turned to face each other, but the big engineer crossed both sets of arms. “Ever since you’ve come aboard, you’ve been criticizing my work and my teams and my ship. Now for the most part, you’ve been right, I’m sad to say. We were light on tra
ining, light on spares and sinking fast. But it’s your damned superior attitude. I won’t have it.”

  Tamara looked at him. He was serious. His pride was hurt, probably had been for a long time. He was a good man, a good engineer and he had held his ship together as best he could with what he’d had to work with. It was a testament to his skills that he had kept the Grania Estelle running as long as he had. But he had been presiding over a failing ship, with dwindling resources as the ship’s profit margins slowly dried up. Then in came Tamara, showing him up, and showing him up. Granted, he couldn’t fix the replicator and even if he could, he couldn’t unlock the tech that she could, which probably stung.

  But she had her own pride. It didn’t matter that he was right, it didn’t matter that they both needed each other. She’d been pushed too far for too long and while the crew of the Grania Estelle had taken her in and were good people, there was only so much she would put up with.

  “You…” she hissed, “would be dead without me! Your replicators would be frozen solid. You wouldn’t even have one of them and oh, let’s not forget, you’d be stuck, hovering here in orbit until you had to give up and go down to the planet.” Her own arms were crossed over her chest and her legs were spread apart, in a fighting stance, the front of her body angled slightly away from him. He wasn’t a fighter, but she had gone through basic training and then some more combat training when she went into flight school. She knew a few things.

  “Dead?” the Parkani asked, his voice low. “Dead? Who would be dead? You. We picked you up in that dying escape pod. Another few days, possibly a month at best, you would have suffocated when the power failed. The captain set up a good deal with you and we all benefited. But don’t you think for one moment you would have lasted without us.”

  Aside from the twitter of the computer systems, the drone of the equipment and the whine of the blowers, engineering had gone completely silent. All of the workers were either staring at the two combatants in horror, or were desperately trying to remain invisible. No one dared step forward and try to intervene.

  But for some reason, Tamara’s mouth wouldn’t stop. Her brain was frantically stomping on the brakes, but that order was not getting to her lips. “And so because you made a mutually beneficial decision, I’m suddenly I’m to be treated like a low-level engine wiper?” She knew that was completely unfair and irrational of her to say, but the words kept pouring out.

  “Get out of here, little girl,” Quesh growled. “Before you get hurt and the Captain has to take me to task.”

  She stood there, fuming, hands clenching and unclenching. There was an insistent beep coming from one of the consoles and one of the techs gingerly pressed the button.

  “This is Bryione in cargo bay four. I’ve landed and I’m waiting for a team to get down here and unload.”

  Quesh blinked, one minute ready to commit murder, the next a consummate professional. “Copy, Bryione. I’ve got a team on their way to you now.” He nodded to Starkey, who was standing near the main hatch, just behind Tamara. The man scampered off, taking four people with him. The Parkani turned his white hot glare on Tamara. She had been wrong. He hadn’t calmed down one iota, he just hadn’t let his fight with her interfere with his job. “So, what’s it going to be? You going to show me and mine the respect we deserve and stop acting so damned superior? Or are you out of here?”

  Tamara could hear booted feet in the passage behind her, approaching the room. She opened her mouth to speak, but a voice interrupted her. “What in the hell is going on here?”

  Quesh spoke before anyone else could. “Nothing, Captain. Sorry for the disruption. Just a little disagreement, but I think that’s been all sorted out.” He looked to Tamara, who simply stood there.

  The captain turned to her, his angry gaze turning from his chief engineer to his passenger. “Well?”

  She swallowed hard, forcing her hysterical, angry words back down her through to drown in the bubbling acid in her stomach. “Yeah.” Her face immediately brightened. “Yes. It’s all fine, Captain. I’m sorry for what I said, Chief. I’ll get down to bay four and help out Starkey.”

  “Thanks, Samair. That boy might make a right mess of things without someone there to keep an eye on him.” But his glare had not diminished in intensity.

  Tamara left, heading off down the passage toward cargo bay four. The captain turned to his chief engineer. She couldn’t hear what was being said as she was walking away, but she was sure she wouldn’t like it.

  What the hell was that? Yes, I may have sounded a bit condescending and I suppose I might have deserved what Quesh said to me, but I shouldn’t have to put up with that. They need me. They can’t fix up this ship without me, my replicator codes and hell, my experience. Quesh is pretty good at his job, but he’d be a second-shift lieutenant back at the shipyard.

  Tamara stopped and mentally checked herself. She leaned one hand against the bulkhead. But I’m not at the shipyard anymore. This isn’t my turf, not my command. This is Captain Eamonn’s ship. These are Chief Trrgoth’s crews. What is the matter with me?

  Straightening up, she took a few deep breaths to try and settle her nerves. Her chest was tightening and it was a serious effort to get a full breath. Turning, she changed directions, heading away from bay four and toward sick bay.

  Chapter 8

  Sick bay was far less crowded nowadays. Only two patients were still being held here, holdovers from the raid on the ship, rotating through regeneration therapy. Their wounds had been horrible, one man was shot multiple times in the chest, puncturing his liver, stomach and lung and had been barely clinging to life when Turan had got to work on him. The other, a woman, had been raped and beaten, her throat nearly crushed. Both of them were recovering physically from their wounds, and Turan had been doing his best to try and talk with them about it. Neither was really willing to open up, the woman, Sylvia, especially had withdrawn into herself. She had spoken to no one, though on one occasion when Ka’Xarian had come to visit her, she had gripped his hand in a crushing grip. His antennae had flared in a flash of pain, but he hadn’t said anything. The two of them had just sat in silence for a long while before the zheen had to return to work.

  The good doctor was doing his rounds, seeing to the two patients before returning to his small desk. The Guura was quite pleased with the way things were going, though the toll had been considerable. Even one death in his sickbay was intolerable to him, but in his heart he knew that he wasn’t perfect. He knew that people under his care would die, especially if the ship was attacked again.

  He rubbed his forearms as he sat, trying to fend off his weariness. He did truly need to get to bed, but he was loathe to leave if either of his patients needed him. His assistant could handle any of the myriad of bumps and cuts that the crew managed to accumulate during the course of a day. He started to rise, knowing that dropping from exhaustion wouldn’t help his patients any. He was walking to the main hatch of the sickbay when he nearly collided with someone.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor,” a woman’s voice said. It took a moment to get his bearings.

  “Oh, Tamara!” Turan exclaimed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.” He looked at her, taking her all in. “You’ll forgive me, but you look terrible. What is it?”

  She looked extremely uncomfortable. “Do you…” She hesitated. “Do you have somewhere we can talk?”

  Inwardly, he sighed. He was exhausted, but it was clear that she needed help. Who was he to turn her down? “Of course. We can go into my office.” She followed along behind, a bit meekly, he noted. He led her through the sickbay into his very cramped office. It was so tight there was barely any room for the small desk and two chairs. He sat behind the desk and gestured her to sit in the chair. “Now,” he said, folding his hands on top of one another on the desk. “How can I help?”

  Tamara stayed silent for a long moment, but he didn’t push. He waited patiently and eventually he spoke. “This is very difficult for me. But I need to
know what’s going on with me.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ve been having trouble sleeping, nightmares and just now I got into a huge fight with Chief Trrgoth in front of the entire engineering team. The Captain had to intervene in the end.” She sighed. “It was so bad I was afraid I might deck him.”

  Turan chuckled. “I don’t think that would have turned out so well for you, he has a remarkably dense head. Though I admit the look on his face if you slugged him would have been priceless. But I suspect you would have broken your hand. Parkanis, especially one as active as Quesh are very tough.” He smiled gently at her with his small mouth. “What was the fight about?”

  She lowered her gaze. “I was commenting on how impressed I was at how well Quesh and his crew had kept the ship running as well and for how long they had until I came along. I was genuinely impressed. He took it wrong and perhaps I was sounding a bit condescending, and the fight escalated from there.”

  Turan nodded, a knowing twinkle in his eyes. “Yes, he can be a bit prideful.”

  She looked up at him. “But I just lost it, Doctor. And I forgot.”

  His head bent to one side in question. “You forgot?”

  Tamara nodded. “Yes. I completely forgot that this was the Grania Estelle. While he was thundering away at me for being a condescending bitch, I’m hammering back at him for questioning my competence and my skills. But it wasn’t so much what I said, it was what I was feeling.” She hesitated.

  “And what were you feeling?”

  Her eyes blazed again. “I felt like I was standing in one of the command rooms on Hudora Station. And that he was some ship driver questioning me and my teams aboard the shipyard. I completely lost track of where I was. And I knew I should shut up about the whole thing, admit my mistake and move on, but my mouth just wouldn’t stop.”

  “How long has it been since you talked with anyone?” he asked gently.