Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1

by Michael Kotcher

  “Neither have I,” Stella admitted.

  “This is your first ship, Stella,” he retorted. “As a matter of fact, Grania Estelle is you. You are the one who will be able to fly at Green level one. With the way your core matrix is integrated into the ship’s systems, you are the ship.” The zheen paused, his antennae drooped, as though he was embarrassed. “And you’re beautiful, Stella.”

  Stella blinked and then beamed. “Thank you, Xar,” she said softly, lowering her eyes. Then her image vanished from the screen.

  With the collector back in the cargo bay and the tanks back up to a more suitable level, Grania Estelle broke orbit of the gas giant and headed in system. The first rail gun had been installed in the forward section on the port side. They hadn’t done any tests on it yet, but all the hardware was secured and the linkages were set. As they sailed closer to Kazyanenko’s inhabited world, the Captain ordered a firing test, aiming at nothing out in deep space, just to see if the weapon would even fire. Accuracy could wait until later.

  “Rail gun one is ready and active, Captain,” Stella reported. “Targeting package is online, no target available.”

  “Power levels holding steady,” George said.

  “All right, George,” the Captain said, staring at his display. “You may fire when ready.”

  The ops officer pressed the firing control and the rail gun spat out a projectile. The metal slug raced out into the void at incredible speed, exactly as it was supposed to.

  The Captain nodded in satisfaction. “Stella? Report.”

  “Looks good, Captain,” she said, her image on the holo projector looking up as though she was reading a report off of a screen. “No problems with power or control lines.”

  “All right, George, indulge yourself. Fifty shots, short bursts. Move the turret around, fire on all arcs, but make sure you’re aiming at deep space.”

  “Yes, Captain,” he replied, a small smile on his face. Two minutes later, he had burned through the number of shots.

  “Still looking good, Captain,” Stella reported. “Rail gun number one is online and ready for action.”

  “Very good work, you two,” the Captain said, nodding to Stella and turning to look back at George. They both smiled at the praise. He pressed the comm stud on his chair.

  “Engineering,” the Parkani’s voice sounded immediately.

  “Any problems with the weapon, Chief?”

  “No, Captain,” he replied immediately. “Everything checks out. Rail gun one is fully functional. Oh, we’ll need to do a few tweaks with targeting. Should’ve actually stayed at the edge of the belt to do that. No worries though. We’ll figure something out.”

  Eamonn sighed. He’d meant to stay out toward the edge of the system, near to the belt to do exactly that. In fact, he’d meant to stay out here and let the collector fill the fuel tanks all the way up. But when the first load of helium 3 came in and the fuel levels rose to sixty-five percent, he started to get that sensation of itchy feet again. He had that feeling they needed to get moving again. It wasn’t a sense of danger, more that he was getting anxious just sitting around. He knew that this was foolish, that he should top off his fuel tanks and at least get a second rail gun installed, but he just couldn’t wait.

  “Thanks, Chief. Tell your people they did good.”

  “I’ll tell them, Captain.”

  He cut the connection. “Continue on course for Kazyanenko,” he ordered. “Secure all weapons.”

  Chapter 17

  It took a good day and a half to get to the inhabited world. As they approached, they got a better view of the three ships in orbit. One of them was a big bulky vessel with large compartments, though much smaller than Grania Estelle. As they got closer, they could see that it was a hospital ship, though it had clearly seen much better days. It was a ship designed for space only, meaning that it would never enter the atmosphere of a planet and touch down. It was essentially a big rectangular box, with three engines on one end and command and living quarters attached to the other. There was another pair of smaller rectangular boxes on the top and bottom of the ship; closer inspection determined that they were boat bays. The whole thing was ungainly, slow and probably unarmed as well.

  Of course, it’s a hospital ship. It wouldn’t carry weapons, though maybe a laser cannon up front to deflect meteors. The Captain marveled at the ship, about half as large as his own vessel.

  “How many people on that hospital ship?” he asked.

  George worked his console for a moment before answering. “Hard to tell, Captain. Their reactor is putting out a lot of radiation. Life signs seem to be confined to the reactor spaces… though I’m actually reading two life forms in the command area.”

  “Kutok, hail them please,” the Captain ordered.

  “You’re on, sir.”

  “This is Vincent Eamonn of the Grania Estelle to the hospital ship in orbit of Kazyanenko. Our sensors indicate high levels of radiation emanating from your reactor. Do you require assistance?”

  They all waited while the other ship decided what to do. Meanwhile, the pilot slipped the freighter into a high equatorial orbit about a quarter of the way around the planet from the hospital ship. The other two ships in orbit were small, light freighters, similar in cargo capacity to the Emilia Walker, though they did not recognize either ship.

  “Kutok, send standard greeting hails to both of the other freighters. We’re interested in speaking, looking to share information, any pirate activity, etc, etc. You know what to do.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she replied primly. Her slender clawed fingers touched the controls with dainty precision.

  A moment later, Stella appeared on the holo projector. “Captain, Kutok is occupied, but I have the hospital ship. They’re calling back. Audio only.”

  “Does no one have video capability? Put them on, please.”

  A female voice came over the comm channel. “This is Administrator Galina Korneyev on Hospital vessel Kara. We are indeed having reactor troubles and unfortunately we’ve been able to get precious little assistance from the locals.”

  “What’s your status?” the Captain asked, leaning forward. “All we can detect is radiation.”

  “We’ve got a coolant leak in the primary feed tank. The reactor is old and damaged. It’s always been a bit leaky, sadly, but we’ve never had problems like this before.”

  “I know you must have a million things to do to hold your ship together, but is it possible we could meet? We could discuss what we can do to help.”

  Korneyev sighed. “You’re right, I do have many things all clamoring for my attention, but I believe I can spare an hour.”

  “Do you have a shuttle? I can send one over if need be.”

  “No, I can take one of our maintenance pods. None of them are in use right now. I’ll be over to your ship in short while.”

  “I look forward to seeing you. Eamonn out.” He nodded. “Get Quesh up to the boat bay. I want us both there when her pod comes in.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Kutok replied.

  Ten minutes later, the maintenance pod from Kara floated into Grania Estelle’s boat bay. Tractoring beams caught the egg-shaped craft and smoothly lowered it to the deck. The pod was little more than a cockpit and maneuvering thrusters and it was decorated on the right hand side with scorch marks. Three spindly landing legs extended out from the bottom of the pod as the ship settled down to the deck. The canopy to the pod popped open and the pilot climbed out.

  The Captain stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, the four armed Parkani standing next to him. Eamonn had added a long brown coat to his outfit, which gave him a more dashing air. Quesh, however, was still dressed in his rumpled ship suit, dirty and grease-stained. Both of them stood and waited, in comfortable silence.

  The silver-haired woman who looked up at them as she straightened, however, was not what they expected. She wasn’t human. She was lupusan, like Eamonn’s chief of security. She was shorter than Corajen, old
er, more stooped. Her fur was a brindled brown and silver, and her eyes were the color of emeralds. She was dressed in robes which charitably might have been once white, which contrasted with her piloting the maintenance craft.

  “Greetings, Administrator Korneyev,” the Captain said, stepping forward. “I’m Vincent Eamonn.”

  “Captain,” she replied, folding her clawed hands into the sleeves of her robes.

  “Welcome aboard the Grania Estelle. This is my Chief Engineer Quesh Trrgoth.” The Parkani nodded in her direction.

  “Greetings to you both,” she replied with a bow. Galina seemed unsure of how to begin. “I am more than willing to speak with you, Captain, but I’m not sure there is anything you can do. Every compartment of my ship has been contaminated with deadly radiation. My engineers are in hardsuits, trying desperately to get the reactor shut down, but they’ve been at it for over fifty hours now with no luck.” She huffed out a breath. “I might be asking that you provide us with transportation.”

  “Do you have a diagnostic readout of the damage?” Eamonn asked.

  She nodded. From an inner pocket, she removed a datacard and handed it to him. He, in turn, handed it to Quesh who scanned it with his datapad. Frowning, the Parkani looked over the information scrolling on the pad’s screen. “Yeah, this is bad. You’re going to have to dump the reactor altogether.”

  Galina looked down. “This is dire news, though not unexpected. But it means my ship is junk.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Administrator,” Quesh disagreed. “Oh, it will take a while to get the core shut down and jettisoned from the ship. And then it will take even longer to decon the whole ship.”

  “Decon?” she asked, her ears flattening, looking confused.

  “Sorry, Madam Administrator,” Quesh replied. “I meant decontaminate. We can start making more of the blue goop to take care of that. Once the rad levels come back down, we can work on replacing the reactor.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “Replacing? From where? The Republic?”

  The Captain smiled. “Oh no, Madam Administrator. We’ve got our own ways of doing things. The problem is, we don’t work for free. We’ll have to talk about payment.”

  Now it was her time to smile, flicking her ears in amusement. “I’m the commander of a hospital ship, Captain, not a currency barge. I don’t have anything you’d want.”

  “On the contrary,” he replied. “You’re the commander of a medical ship. I’m sure there are plenty of things we would want. And besides, you must be represented by someone. They could pay for your repairs.”

  “We’re 569 days out of Seylonique,” she answered. “We’ve been stuck here in Kazyanenko for nearly two months. The Council in Seylonique are really the ones you want to be talking to about payment. With all the radiation, any goods I might have had aboard Kara are surely ruined. Other than that, I only have sick and injured people down on the planet’s surface. People that I need to get to medical attention that the locals really can’t handle.”

  “That might be something else we can offer,” he temporized. “I’ll have to speak with my ship’s doctor, see what he says. Though knowing him, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help.”

  She just stared at him. “You would do this?” Galina’s tone was still carrying a healthy dose of skepticism.

  Eamonn nodded. “I would, though as I said before, it isn’t solely out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “You seek to rob a desperate woman.”

  “I seek to make at least some money out of this,” he replied. “I have a ship, a decently stocked sickbay and replicator support, all things that you desperately need.”

  “How do I even know you can deliver on any of these things you claim?”

  “A fair question,” he acknowledged. “It might be best to show you. Come on, I’ll give you the nickel tour of Grania Estelle. If after that time, you still don’t believe me, no harm done and I won’t bother you anymore. Does that sound fair?”

  Galina’s ears had flattened back to her head again in suspicion. “I get the feeling I’m being set up.”

  He shrugged. “Come. Quesh, since they seem to be having reactor problems, perhaps giving her a quick tour of the engineering spaces, and more specifically our shiny new reactor, is in order?”

  “I think that is an excellent idea, Captain,” the big engineer replied.

  An hour later, Galina Korneyev was starting to feel the first stirrings of hope. After a tour of the ship’s engineering spaces, she had been startled and impressed at how clean and efficient everything seemed to run. And upon seeing the ship’s reactor, she agreed with the Captain’s assessment; it was shiny and new. When she had asked if they had purchased it from the Republic, he laughed, but didn’t answer. He had led her out of the engineering spaces and up a few decks to what he called “the compartment for replicator one”. She wasn’t really sure what she had expected. Everyone had heard of replicators and those select and lucky few who had them guarded them jealously. She saw the bay and the large machine as well as one of the crew feeding parts into the machine to be broken down. A few minutes later, the device beeped and the main door to the constructor matrix opened, disgorging a section of plasma conduit. She goggled at this. He hadn’t been lying. He did have what would be needed to fix her ship.

  Now the problem was trying to scrape up enough money or trade goods to purchase his services. And this was a serious issue. She hadn’t been lying either when she said the radiation had contaminated everything. Even with this… blue goop the engineer had talked about, she was uncertain that the ship could really be decontaminated, but she had hope. But even if they could, she had nothing to give. What little of the medicine stocks she had left were down on the planet and were needed for her patients. What could they possibly ask of her that she could hope to give?

  Finally, the tour ended and they brought her to his conference room. Quesh didn’t follow, saying he had business in engineering, but that he would upload the information to Stella, whoever that was. The Captain sat at the head of the table in the room, gesturing for her to take a seat. She did, adjusting her tail and sitting on the padded seat.

  “So, I know that the repairs are going to be extensive, but I think for the moment we should focus on the reactor and full decontamination. I imagine if we can get those two things sorted out then you’ll be able to get underway.”

  Galina nodded. “I imagine you’re right, Captain, but even that will be very expensive. I don’t have the resources to pay you. And I don’t have the authority to commit Seylonique to any kind of financial arrangement.”

  Eamonn sighed. He genuinely wanted to help. But as he told her, and as he and Tamara had toasted to at the party, he wanted to start making money. He wasn’t a heartless man and he knew the worth of the Kara and what she and her crew did, but there was only so far he was willing to go.

  “Assuming if you did get the repairs you needed, where would your next port of call be?” he asked instead.

  She paused to consider, then flicked her ears. “Our supplies are so low, it would be best to head back home.”

  “Seylonique.”

  She smiled. “You’re being obvious now, Captain.”

  “Forgive me,” he said, nodding. “I was actually just thinking out loud. Seylonique is only three jumps from here. I had actually intended on stopping there anyway. We could go together, fly as a convoy.”

  Her ears flicked again in amusement. “And what do you plan to do once you get there?”

  “I would speak with your people on Seylonique,” the Captain told her. “I would hope that seeing the repairs and overhauls we made to the Kara that they would be overcome with boundless joy and generosity and would compensate me accordingly. Perhaps even request other such repairs and overhauls to their other ships or facilities.”

  Galina considered this for a long moment. If his claims were true then she knew the owners and other council members would certainly be interested in h
is services. In fact, they’d be falling all over themselves to get him to repair their aged and somewhat decrepit fleet. She found herself nodding. “I think that might work. And if we’re working together, we might be able to keep each other out of trouble.”

  He chuckled at that. “What you really mean is I can keep you out of trouble.”

  She gave a one shoulder shrug, a surprisingly human gesture. “If you like. I can’t guarantee anything once we get to Seylonique, Captain. I can say that the council members will be very interested in what you have to say and to any services you might be able to offer. I hope that means they will… how did you put it? Compensate you appropriately.”

  He nodded. That was probably the best offer he was going to get under the circumstances. Still, she had a point. Working as a pair would provide a degree of safety, though it might also turn them into more of a target. Still, if he wanted to get paid, this was what would need to be done. Then there was another problem.

  “What is the Kara’s best hyperspeed?”

  “Not great,” she admitted. “Red level three on our best day. With all the reactor problems we’ve been having, it’s probably more like Red two.”

  He sighed. “Well, we’ll have to work on that as well. Grania Estelle is considerably faster than that and I have no intention of bumbling about in the Red levels for months just to get to the next system. I have an appointment in Ulla-Tran in four months. I’m afraid you’ll be coming with us and then we can turn toward Seylonique.”

  “That is acceptable, Captain.”

  “All right then, Administrator,” he said, nodding. “Let’s talk about what needs to be done and then I will send over my teams to get started.”