Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1

by Michael Kotcher

  “Scopes are clear at the moment,” Lieutenant Tran reported. “We are detecting a vessel in orbit of Instow’s habitable moon.”

  “What kind of vessel?” he asked, seating himself in his command seat and bringing up displays.

  “Corvette, sir,” Tran told him. “Getting identification now. It’s the Fury, sir.”

  “Excellent,” Harth said. “Send them challenge and ID, inform them we need full updates on all activity in the region.”

  “Understood.” Tran nodded to the communications officer, who sent the message.

  “Attention Republic corvette Fury, this is the Republic heavy cruiser Legacy. We are approaching your position and request you maintain position until our arrival. Legacy out.”

  Reaching regular cruising speed, it took a day and a half for the heavy cruiser to make orbit of the inhabited moon. There was no real hurry; since the freighter Grania Estelle wasn’t here in Instow Harth couldn’t claim hot pursuit which meant he had no excuse to run the engines up any higher. But that actually worked out for now. Legacy had jumped straight here, bypassing other worlds in their dash to get here. The crew had been working hard for months, but stopping here at Instow would allow them some shore leave and would give Harth a chance to get a full report from Fury’s commanding officer and sensor logs.

  “Sir, Fury’s hailing us,” the comm officer reported.

  “Put me on with them.”

  The image of Captain Sykora appeared on Harth’s display. “Captain Harth, this is Captain Wallace Sykora of Fury. I’m very glad to see you here, sir. It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen any new Republic faces out here in Indie space.”

  “Captain, it’s good to see you as well. In fact,” Harth went on, “You’re precisely the man I want to speak with.”

  Clearly, Sykora wasn’t expecting that response. “Me, sir?”

  “Yes, Captain, you,” he replied, using the honorific title ‘captain’ for the lieutenant, seeing as he was the commander of his own ship. “As it turns out, we are not the first Republic face you’ve seen in the last few months.”

  Sykora looked puzzled then nodded. “Yes, sir, I understand, though technically, I didn’t see anyone. The person only transmitted on audio.”

  “I’ve listened to the recording and as yet, we have no information on who this Tamara Samair is. We checked through the datanet and so far haven’t found anyone in by that name going back a century.”

  Sykora dropped his gaze for a moment. “I’m sorry, sir. She had the right codes and the ID checked out.”

  “Relax, Mister Sykora. Admiral Tandred sent me out here to investigate and if possible track down this wayward ship.”

  “I understand, sir,” the lieutenant replied. He sighed and then plowed on, determined to get through a difficult subject. He straightened up. “What sort of disciplinary measures am I to be facing?”

  Harth had to admit, the man had a spine. He didn’t make excuses and faced his punishments. “For now, there will be no disciplinary measures. You are to retain command of the Fury and continue with your patrols. For now, I just want all your sensor data on the ship and every single entry made in your logs about the ship, the woman, the codes, any conversation you ever had about them, every single scrap of data about that encounter, I want it.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll make sure all of that data is sent over to you,” Sykora replied.

  “Please do so. Once we have the data we will be leaving. Well,” he said, hedging a bit, “I’m going to give my crew three days of leave down on Instow and then we will be leaving. That will give me the time I need to go over the information and hopefully find something about this ship or that woman.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to assist you, sir, I will.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, Captain. Because you and I are going to be in close conference for as long as Legacy is in orbit here.”

  Three days later, Harth was ordering Legacy to break orbit. He and Captain Sykora, along with Sykora’s officers and senior enlisted, had been in conference going over every piece of information there was to be found in Fury’s databanks about Tamara Samair, the Grania Estelle, the access codes and even the course the ship was traveling on. It was determined that based on their known course, they must be headed for Folston.

  Which was where Legacy was headed to now. It was highly likely that based on the damage Fury recorded, Grania Estelle might still be in Folston when Legacy arrived and if they were very lucky, they might just catch them before they could jump away for some other system. That, of course, would be ideal. If not, well, Harth reckoned he could get some information from the locals in Folston about where they had gone. A ship that big didn’t just vanish. Someone would have seen or heard something.

  As they were breaking orbit, Harth called Fury again. “Just one last thing, Captain,” he said to Sykora.

  “Yes, sir?” the junior officer replied with nothing but respect in his voice. However, it was clear from his eyes that he was wary of ‘just one last thing’ from a senior officer. He did a good job of masking it.

  “Before I left for this sector, Admiral Tandred mentioned that he had several irons in the fire out here. Do you happen to know what he meant by that?”

  To give the man credit, he knew how to maintain calm and stay collected in the face of unexpected questions from superiors. “I’m not sure, sir. He might have some projects going on out here in Indie space, but I’m not looped in on any of them if he is.”

  Harth smiled. Well spoken, Lieutenant. “I’m not trying to get you to betray any confidences, Captain,” he said instead, “but if there are any special projects going on out here, it might give me a better idea of what is going on with this woman. Perhaps a rogue officer from one of these projects?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” Sykora said, sticking to his guns.

  Now he wasn’t so amused. “There’s something going on here, isn’t there, Lieutenant?”

  “You are implying I am involved in these alleged activities, Commander,” Sykora said, refusing to back down. “But if Admiral Tandred does have something going on out here, you’d have to take it up with him.”

  “I could order you to tell me,” Harth said.

  “Even if there was anything, sir, and I’m not saying there is,” Sykora replied, “the only one who could order me to say anything would be the Admiral. I’m sorry, sir.”

  Well, you confirmed one thing for me. The Admiral is up to something out in Indie space. Which might have something to do with this mystery vessel or… it might not. But either way, something is going on. But that’s not important now. “I understand, Lieutenant. Thank you for all your help.”

  Sykora didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. “Of course, sir.” He saluted. “Good hunting, sir.”

  Harth returned the salute. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Forgive me. Thank you, Captain.” Then he cut the connection.

  During the stop at Instow, Legacy’s computer geeks had gotten into Fury’s datanet and downloaded as much as they could from the files. There were sections that they couldn’t get into, the secure sections, much to Harth’s annoyance. He was surprised to find that anyone with the kinds of encryption skills to keep his people out of any sort of files would be way out here in Independent Space.

  But that was a worry for another time. For now, they were heading for the hyper limit retracing the Grania Estelle’s route, heading for Folston.

  Wallace Sykora went back to his quarters, exhausted after the last several days. Commander Harth had been ruthless and unrelenting in his interrogations. They hadn’t really dug up any new information about the woman or her ship, but Harth was very thorough. Entering his quarters, he crashed on the bunk, laying back and allowing himself to rest for a few moments.

  But before he dropped off to sleep, he forced himself back up. There was work to do yet, he couldn’t yet allow himself to slumber. Standing up, he went over to his small table and sat down heavily into o
ne of the chairs. Taking out his datapad, he began typing out a report and a set of orders. It took about half an hour, to make sure that the wording was right.

  Once completed, he called the bridge. “Bridge, this is the Captain. At current speed, how long until Legacy reaches the hyper limit?”

  Lieutenant Vos answered. “At current speed, they won’t get there for another thirty-one hours.”

  “All right. Set a reminder to notify me when they jump. We have some new orders and a job of our own to get to.”

  “Understood, Captain. We’re cancelling our patrol?”

  “Not cancelling,” he said. “We’re just putting it on hold while we deal with these new orders, then normal patrol routes will resume. Out.” Sykora cut the connection.

  This patrol was different than other assignments he was used to. He had been honored that the Admiral had chosen him and his ship to lead the small task force out here. The squadron (designated CovRon 486) only consisted of four ships, all corvettes; Fury, Wayfarer, Red Hornet and Serpent Fang, but it was his task force. Having only four ships to cover the entire Argos Cluster of Independent space, over a hundred systems, seemed like a futile action but at least it showed that the Republic was willing to dedicate some resources to this area. A great deal of it used to be Republic space, once upon a time. Perhaps at some point it might be again, but with the heavy pirate activity in the Cluster and the amount of, well, independent thinking among the inhabited systems here made reentry into the Republic problematic, at least for now.

  CovRon 486 was only deployed out in the Argos Cluster about fifty months previous. They had operated in pairs during the first few months, but it quickly became apparent that they would be unable to provide sufficient coverage with only two groups. It wasn’t as though working individually would give them a huge amount of additional coverage, but it did allow them to show the flag a bit more. Pirate activity was lowered throughout the Cluster but only by about nine percent. Still, any reduction out here could only help. During this deployment, they had bagged seven pirate ships which ranged from modified freighters, corvettes sized vessels, and even a captured Federation destroyer. All but one of the ships had been taken back to the Republic with prize crews, who were returned several weeks later on resupply ships. This was a frustrating task with only four warships under his command. The only ship he had kept was the captured Federation destroyer, which was being outfitted at their home base. Once it was ready, Sykora was going to be transferring over.

  Home base in the Cluster was located in the Byra-Kae system, a dead system with no habitable worlds. Back in the days of the Republic an old trader station was located out here to take advantage of the system’s Jovians. There were a dozen helium 3 collectors hovering in orbit of the gas giant, with as many shuttles going back and forth from the collectors to the station and then from the station to arriving ships. Merchants came around to make deals, trade cargoes and buy fuel. When the Republic left the Cluster, the station stayed in independent hands until CovRon 486 arrived. The station itself was still owned and administrated by civilians, who allowed the Republic to use several levels for their own purposes. This had been a profitable relationship for both parties; CovRon 486 had a stable base for repair and resupply and with a pair of Republic destroyers (ships not under Sykora’s command) maintaining a permanent presence there, the locals got a secure place to do business.

  But the appearance of the Navy Reserve freighter changed things. If it was true and the Grania Estelle was a reserve vessel that meant certain contingency orders were going to take effect. If it was a fakery, then the ship needed to be hunted down and its true intentions determined. But in either case, Sykora’s orders were relatively the same. So, Fury was breaking off her normal patrol route to start meeting up with locals to determine if anyone else had heard from this ship and also to start working on some of Admiral Tandred’s ‘irons in the fire’.

  The planet Kolan-kei was not very wealthy, nor was it heavily populated. It had been colonized by settlers from the Republic about three hundred years ago by a group of humans looking to escape the rigors and heavy bureaucracy of life on an industrial world. It was a small community, concerned with farming and mining, but only for what was needed to survive. The two thousand or so colonists were not terribly interested in the outside universe, though they did host a few spacers every so often for barter.

  They dissembled their ships to create shelters, keeping few of the main components functional. After they weathered the first winter, bigger and better shelters were made from local hardwoods. They expanded slowly, extracting various ores from the nearby canyons. The metals were used in their own construction and the more rare ones, like platinum and gold, were used in trade.

  They maintained a security force, but it was little more than police and “varmint hunters” to keep the local fauna from attacking the villages. They kept up a few weapons, but little more than hunting rifles.

  They were totally unprepared for when the attack came.

  Flying down from out of the sky, starfighters opened fire on two of the community buildings in the main village. The buildings exploded and fire spread throughout the village. People began running out of the other buildings, screaming in terror. The pilots opened fire on the people as they ran, gunning some down, others simply shooting at the ground to increase the fear.

  When the five transport ships came lumbering down from orbit, there was nothing resembling resistance. Anyone who tried to take potshots at the fighters had their positions destroyed by the starfighter’s cannons. Once the transports landed, blocky, ungainly craft, their cargo doors opened, disgorging two dozen beings armed to the teeth with guns and blades.

  The invaders didn’t waste time. Anyone who resisted was shot. Anyone who didn’t was rounded up, their hands tied with heavy zipcuffs and secured aboard the transports. Once that was done, they helped themselves to anything they could find in the village. Food, clothing, and any bits of technology they found interesting were taken. Several tons of ores were brought aboard the transports as well as several dozen containers of local grains. Once they had what they wanted, they set fire to the rest.

  Seven hundred inhabitants were killed, three hundred prisoners were taken and several thousand credits worth of goods were looted. Everything else in the main village was put to the torch, which gave the raiders something pretty to look at as their ships headed back out of atmo and into space.

  An hour later, they were gone.

  At the foot of replicator one, Tamara was stacking junk components, among the last of the unused scrap that had accumulated in the holds of the bulk freighter. She was feeding them into the replicator’s raw materials bunker, readying the device for another round of parts. She was building another replicator again, this one designed for electronics. The class three replicators already working could make any of the electronics that the ship needed, but they were not dedicated machines. It would take an hour to make one circuit board whereas the e-replicator could make twenty in the same period of time. She had convinced the Captain that this was a good investment and he agreed. Even if they didn’t end up selling machined and finished components to their trading partners (which was unlikely that they wouldn’t) having this machine around to replace blown components would make repairs and maintenance much faster and more efficient.

  It would be a few hours before all the pieces were built and ready to assemble, but Tamara wanted to get started. They had another two weeks in hyperspace left before they reached the Kazyanenko system, so in the meantime the crew was keeping busy and performing their duties to pass the time. The engineering teams were making serious headway with the internal repairs on the ship. The entire hull was now sealed tight, much to everyone’s surprise and pleasure. All compartments were now accessible and thoroughly swabbed out. The cleaner bots still did the rounds, though with far less drastic effects. Now they were sent through the ship once a week to keep up with things. Apart from keeping things clean, they h
elped with discerning any microfractures in the bulkheads or the inner hull.

  It had taken her a week (with her team’s help) to get the Perdition back up to snuff. The damage to the ship was extensive and the small team had worked long hours to get their fighter escort restored to fighting form. What at first had been simply a test and a collectors’ item had become the first line of defense for the Grania Estelle. The entire crew was still congratulating Tamara on her spectacular flying. During the party, by the time she had retreated to the wardroom her back and shoulders were killing her from all the slaps and hugs of gratitude and congratulations.

  Once her fighter was again ready for combat and all systems operational, she had determined she would not be going into combat as naked as she had last time. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any designs for missiles or torpedoes in any of the databases she had access to aboard the Grania Estelle. That meant she was forced to design and build something from scrap. It was going to take a while to come up with some sort of functional design, but this time she wasn’t working alone. Her team, with Stella’s occasional input, would be working together on this project. Hopefully they might find something that could speed their project along, like schematics or even a scrapped weapon or two to work off of.

  Kazyanenko wasn’t a hugely important or technologically advanced system. It did sport a rather large gas giant, which was good because the Grania Estelle was getting low on fuel. Their lack of a fuel stop in Hecate had hurt and even though they were now running on the better helium 3, once they arrived in Kazyanenko they would be burning way into the reserves. The Captain had mused on this and decided that they would get into parking orbit around the gas giant for a few days while they dropped off the collector and waited for it to get what they needed. Tamara approved of this plan but it wasn’t her ship, the Captain didn’t need her approval. Thankfully, the Captain looked to be playing this one smarter. While it was unlikely there would be much in the way of surprises here, they hadn’t been expecting any in the last three systems, either.