Stepping off the shuttle in the landing bay of Ganges, the group of soldiers escorted their prisoner to one of the secure conference rooms. The interior of Ganges was similar to the outside, it was patched together with mismatched components. It looked somewhat modular in design, perhaps built in different star systems or different parts of one star system and then transported to the dry dock in Hecate for final assembly. In fact, that would explain a lot of things, though it wouldn’t explain who had financed all of this. Serinda may have been right all those months ago that the ship wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, but it was certainly powerful. Compared to what else was in the Cluster nowadays, Ganges alone would have been able to dominate the local forces. But two other cruisers, a corvette and a handful of modified merchant ships? There would be very little that the commander of such a flotilla couldn’t do.
“Sit,” the leader told him, shoving the man had in the center of the back. Eamonn stumbled, but he went over to the table and sat, deliberately choosing one of the chairs on the left side of the table. He didn’t want to put his back to the door (and the soldiers) but he didn’t want to be at the far end of the rectangular table right in front of the door either. He groaned as he settled himself into the hard metal chair, shifting his weight to try and find a comfortable position.
He raised his bound wrists. “Can we take these off now, please?”
The zheen let out a hissing laughter. “That will not happen.”
“I’m sitting in a chair on your ship, genius,” Eamonn said, his temper rising. “What is it you expect me to be able to do here?”
But the insectoid just shook his head. “I have no orders to do that, and I will not be removing them until I do.”
“Where do you think I’m going to try to go?” the human persisted.
Another hiss. “I know exactly where you are going. You are going nowhere. As you say, you are now aboard our ship and you are under guard.”
The door opened behind the leader and he stepped to the side, allowing room for someone to enter. Another zheen, accompanied by a graying human entered the conference room. The leader nodded deferentially to the two newcomers, and moved off to the side of the room, the other two soldiers going to the far side of the room from him. The battle-scarred zheen who entered clearly carried an air of authority with him, as well as one of a dangerous predator.
Eamonn’s face split in a smile. “Commander Jensen Tyler, sir! It’s so very good to see you well.”
The commander’s face went beet red with anger. “You sit there and joke, you clearly are more of a fool than I originally thought.”
“No, I’m just very glad to see that your brand new cruiser didn’t get all banged up in our little encounter.”
“Unlike the other two of my cruizerz,” Verrikoth said, his voice strangely free of anger. He held out a hand to silence the human commander who looked as though he was about to have an aneurysm. “Meghna and Kerala will require ssome time for repairz. Far longer than I cared to sspend, if I am honesst.”
Eamonn shrugged, rubbing one hand on his brown-skinned face. “Sorry to inconvenience you,” he replied, a trace of bitterness in his voice.
But the zheen surprised him, by laughing, that same sort of hissing laugh that the leader had done earlier. “Inconvenienss. Yess, you have cauzed me a good deal of inconvenienss. But I now have a new sship in my growing fleet.”
“A bulk freighter among your fast warships would only slow you down,” Eamonn pointed out. “Grania Estelle would only be a liability.”
Verrikoth shrugged. “Not true. A freighter az large az that sship would be a great asset. True, it would be foolish to tie my fleet down to ssuch a sslow vessel. That iz why I would detail Ravage to act as a permanent esscort sship. That would keep the freighter ssafe, and my fleet well ssupplied.”
“I love my ship,” the captain told him, “But a bulk freighter is very good at transporting exactly what the name implies. Yes, we could load up on a variety of things, but my ship is really not meant to supply a fleet. A base, perhaps, if you’ve got active contracts with a group of planets.”
“That would be acceptable,” the zheen replied. “I have no dezire to bring my new sship into a war zone.”
“You sound like you’re interviewing me for a job,” Eamonn replied. “You want to hire me?”
“I need a crew to operate the sship,” Verrikoth admitted.
“You just attacked my ship, chopped it up and then sent armed boarding parties to chop my crew up further. I think only because I surrendered are any of my people still alive.”
“Oh, sstop whining,” Verrikoth spat. “If I was sso inclined I would kill you right now and your crew with you. You work for me, you get paid. You get to fix up your ship, you get to hire on more crew and I get my goods sshipped to and from my basez in the Clusster. No one will touch your sship because it iz under my protection. Everybody winz.”
Vincent Eamonn could see the chasm yawning at his feet. It did sound good, to finally have steady runs, to know that money would be coming in. To never have to worry about pirates simply because of the label on his ID tag. But there would be more to it, a hidden cost. Perhaps one that wasn’t even that hidden.
“So assuming I accept,” Eamonn replied, “Grania Estelle is a wreck right now. She won’t be going anywhere for a while. And I get the feeling you have pressing business elsewhere.”
Tyler bristled at this, but the zheen, both Verrikoth and the soldier standing at Eamonn’s back hissed with laughter. “It sseemz you are quite clever.”
“It’s all about knowing your audience,” he said confidently, swallowing the bitter taste of bile in his throat for even considering this. “Equally important in any form of business, be it trade or battle.”
Verrikoth’s antennae bobbed up and down in a nod. “I like you, human. You are clever and you think well on your feet. Commander Tyler does not agree with that assessment, it seems.”
“I don’t see why Commander Tyler has any reason to complain about me,” Eamonn drawled.
Tyler spluttered in rage, his fists clenching, but the zheen forestalled him with a raised hand. “How do you figure that? He tellz me that you tried to ssteal a load of gadolinium conssigned to Hecate.”
“That’s true,” Eamonn admitted and Tyler’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “The consignment part, anyway. We picked up the load in Folston, and renegotiated the contract with the locals there. They’d give us the load at a ten percent discount, but they would waive the massive late fees since we weren’t the original shipper. I turned up in Hecate and the locals refused to honor the contract. I got wind that they were going to board the ship and take it, most likely helping themselves to whatever else in my holds they wanted as well. So I decided to leave. They then decided the best way to handle this was to launch fighters and disable my ship.” He grinned, a feral look. “I fought back. The locals got upset at my shooting down their fighters and contacted the Commander here aboard this ship to chase us down and finish the job. In the end, he got his shipment and I exited the system. As I said before, I’m unsure what he’s so upset about. He got his shipment at no charge while I made no profit on that run and had to spend time, resources and man-hours to repair the damage.” He looked at the fuming military officer. “People should be grateful when a sweet deal like that falls into their laps.”
A vein in Tyler’s neck pulsed and the man looked as though he would leap the table and throttle the merchant captain. But Verrikoth’s look was speculative. “I believe, Captain Eamonn that we could work well together.”
He knew enough of zheen body language to read the pirate captain before him. He was confident. He did, in fact, hold all the cards, it was only a matter of whether he would allow Eamonn to live. And he knew that Eamonn was aware of this. So the captain was faced with a choice. He could accept the offer and work with a pirate or he could stand on his newfound honor and ideals and die nobly.
Eamonn nodded slowly. “I’d like to know
the name of my employer,” he said. “I don’t like to work for someone I don’t know.”
“Sir, may I have a word with you in private?” Tyler asked, his voice strained.
“Yess, Commander you may,” Verrikoth replied. “To you, captain, I agree. I do not like ssurprizez. I am Verrikoth.” He gestured to the guard. “He’ll no longer need those. Captain Eamonn now workss for me. Esscort him back to hiz sship and let him get to work. I want Grania Esstelle to be up and running in sshort order.”
Eamonn nodded and stood as the zheen guard came over and removed the restraints. The captain winced as the feeling came back to his hands. He rubbed his wrists. “Good to be working with you, Captain Verrikoth.”
The zheen and his companion had started to turn away to leave, and he stopped and turned back. “For me, Captain Eamonn,” he corrected, his voice imparting the dire warning. “For me.”
Eamonn nodded in complete understanding.
Chapter 29
“All right everyone calm down!” Tamara shouted, holding her hands up over her head to signal quiet. Ka’Xarian and both of their engineering teams stood just behind her as she addressed the crew. Taja stood opposite Xar, on Tamara’s left, wholeheartedly supporting the engineer’s role as leader. Things hadn’t changed much in the hour or so since the pirates had taken the Captain away, the one notable exception being that they had found an exposed scrap of metal that was sharp enough and thin enough to cut the plastic bindings off the wrists of the crew. The heavier metal ones would require a key, or some sort of proper cutting tool, which meant that the lupusan sisters would be bound for a while longer.
Turan didn’t have time to deal with any “leadership foolishness” as he called it, he had patients to try and save. Their captors had left them alone in the cargo bay, deaf to all of Turan’s pleas for medical assistance or access to sickbay. It seemed that if any of the crew were to die, it would suit the pirates just as well, that many fewer they would have to deal with later.
“We’re trapped in here!” someone yelled, fear evident.
“Only for the moment,” Tamara replied. “I’ve got a few ideas, but none of them are going to amount to anything if we all panic.”
“You’re not the captain!” the same voice came back.
“She’s in charge!” Xar bellowed.
“Says who?” The murmurings in the crowd increased at this sentiment.
“The captain left her in charge!” Taja yelled, adding her voice to the din. “We’re still alive, so shut up and listen to her!”
“Not because of her!” someone else yelled from the safety of the crowd.
Tamara just threw back her head and laughed, hands on her hips. The crowd in front looked angry that she would dare to act this way in such a dire situation. When she calmed down enough, she looked at them, sweeping her gaze over the ones that she could see. “I’m hearing a lot of complaints from people hiding in the back. No one coming forward. But you know what? You’re right. I’m not the captain. He did leave me in charge, but since you seem perfectly content to ignore that, fine.” She waved her hands, as though shooing them away. “Go. Kill yourselves. I’m not going to try and stop you anymore. I’ve got a few people that seem to want to try and band together and save this ship, but the rest of you… Just go. Save me the time and effort of trying to get you to fall in line. I’m trying to find a way to help Turan and get us out of here and back into the ship proper. If you can’t or won’t help, then I don’t want you.” She touched Ka’Xarian and Taja on their shoulders and then turned away, showing the crowd her back.
“What are they doing?” Tamara asked the two in an undertone, not looking back.
“They’re breaking up into groups,” the zheen replied, his large compound eyes able to see the group without turning his head too much. “About a third of them are hanging back, but the rest seem to be coming in our direction.”
“Good. Taja, go over to them, keep them calm. I’ll be over in a few minutes. Xar, have somebody keep an eye on the malcontents.” She nodded and the two of them walked off. Tamara turned and looked upward, as though she was examining the ceiling of the cargo bay. In actuality, she was accessing her HUD and using her implants to get into Grania Estelle’s computer network. Stella was carefully keeping herself walled off and Tamara didn’t want to disturb her. So far the AI was doing very well at keeping to the “shadows” of the mainframe, basically only keeping the fusion reactor stable, but staying out of all the other systems. But Tamara didn’t need Stella’s help in this case. After months of working on the ship and its computer systems, she’d built herself all sorts of back doors in case she needed to access them. In case of a situation just like this one.
Tamara used her implants to access the ship’s internal cameras and did a quick survey of the ship. It wasn’t damage so much that she was looking for, though she mentally catalogued what she saw for later. What she was looking for was a headcount; the number of invaders aboard the ship. For the most part they were zheen or human, about a sixty-forty split, her implants helpfully informed her. Going through every compartment (that had cameras) she got herself a firm number. Eighty-nine. A damning number. There was no way they could take on eighty-nine invaders, only four less than the whole crew complement, and that was including all the wounded.
But a closer inspection revealed that only about forty were the heavily armed boarders, the rest were technicians meant to keep the ship’s systems running. It looked as though they were beginning to tear out the blown components on the port side and another team was working on the sublight engines. One of the main propulsion units was still online, and it looked as though they were getting a second close to test-firing. Checking the external feeds, she also saw another ten on the outside of the hull in EVA suits doing damage assessment on the hull. It looked as though they were clearing away the worst of the battle damage and checking out the shield nodes on the starboard side to move to the now unshielded port side. They weren’t looking to build more, just to extend shield coverage over the whole ship, to allow the ship to jump to hyperspace. Tamara approved of this, but that wasn’t her problem right now. Right now she was trying to figure out how to get everyone out of this giant mess.
“What do we got?” Xar asked.
“Eighty-nine in the ship, ten more out on the hull,” she replied, grimacing.
The zheen hissed. “Well that’s just wonderful. How many of them are troopers?”
“About forty,” she admitted, “but from what I could see, it looks like just about all of them have a sidearm of some sort. I don’t think we’d get very far, especially with our heavy hitters out of the game.” Tamara gestured to where Corajen sat, miserable, still shackled next to her unconscious sister. They didn’t have anything to get those manacles off of her and she couldn’t fight with them on.
“What can we do?” the zheen asked, clearly concerned. “You know we’ll support you.”
Tamara chuckled, looking back down again, putting one hand on the purple carapace of Ka’Xarian’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your support I was worried about, my friend. It’s what to do. Simply charging out into the corridor isn’t going to do anything. I can override the lockouts and get us out of the bay here, but then what? The hallway’s got six guards there, they’d cut us down without a second thought. I can get into the engineering feeds and cause some mayhem there, but what’s the point? The minute someone figures out what’s going on, they either vent the bay,” she jerked a thumb to the huge external bay doors, “or the soldiers just come in the door and hose us down with bullets.”
“We can’t wait,” the zheen argued. He pointed. “Turan’s patients are dying.”
Tamara glared at him. “Yes, Xar, I know that.”
He bowed his head a little. “Sorry. I know you do.” He buzzed loudly. “I’m just so frustrated at this.”
She nodded, releasing his shoulder. “I know. I am too. Hell, we all are. One minute we’re bumbling along, hauling the mail, the next w
e’re fighting pirates and losing the ship.” She sighed, running one grimy hand through her hair. She grimaced at the hand, but there was nothing she could do about the grease she’d just smeared into her hair. Xar hissed at her in laughter. Tamara glared at him, but her eyes twinkled in shared mirth.
“I just don’t know, Xar,” she said. “I don’t really know if there’s anything we can do until the pirate bosses decide what to do with us all. Nothing that won’t get us all shot anyway.” A red light flashed on her HUD. “Hold on. Another shuttle incoming.”
The zheen growled. “Great, more troops. Maybe they’re going to stop messing around and just kill us all.”
Tamara laughed. “I’m not really sure what I’m hoping for at this point.”
Twenty minutes later, the bay doors opened and a single figure walked through. All heads turned to look as Captain Vincent Eamonn entered. Taja broke through the crowd and ran to him, flinging herself into his arms, locking her arms around his neck. He chuckled and squeezed her tight. “Glad to have you back,” she whispered into his neck.
“Missed you too,” he replied, setting her back down. She reluctantly let him go and turned back to the others.
“Good to see you, Captain,” Tamara told him, walking up with Ka’Xarian at her back.
“You too, Moxie. Get everybody up. We’re back in business.” His face was a blank mask, his tone flat. “Later. I’ll talk to senior staff in a few hours. Right now, you and the techs get to engineering and get up to speed down there. You,” he turned to Taja, “get some people to help Turan get all the wounded to sickbay. And for goodness sake, get those chains off of Corajen before she hurts herself.”
Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 Page 70