“Can you make the seven day time frame?”
Tamara sighed again. “I guess I’ll have to, won’t I? Any word on when Quesh will be back?”
The Parkani was still out. Apparently the multiple stun blasts that he took to take him down, not to mention the six or so more that the soldiers pumped into him to make sure he stayed down, had done some neurological damage to the four-armed engineer. “He’s in the regen tank right now, though I think Turan is optimistic. I can’t imagine he’ll be out of there and back to work before the seven days is up though. And I don’t want to rush Turan.”
“No, I don’t either,” Tamara replied, resigned. “If it was scars or something, I’m sure Quesh would be sneaking out of sickbay in a day. But neurological problems are something different.” They couldn’t have the big male unable to work, especially if he’d lost feeling in his extremities or started shaking uncontrollably. Might even require surgery. But that was a doctor’s realm. She wasn’t terribly familiar with the ins and outs of human physiology, to say nothing of that of a Parkani, but it was far more complicated and scary than anything she ever dealt with in the cockpit or on the Engineering deck. Better to leave such things to people more suited. “All right, I’ll get on it, Captain. Samair out.”
The next six days were a maelstrom of activity. The entire engineering department, minus Quesh, who under Turan’s very stern eye was recovering in sickbay. The butcher’s bill had been high, far too many had already died, and the Guura was determined not to lose another. He’d been livid when he’d returned to his clean, ordered sickbay and found it a ransacked mess. But he didn’t have time to turn the walls a deeper shade of bluish gray than he was, he had patients to save.
George Miller had taken Quesh’s place in the regen tank. Three surgeries and two complete blood cleanses had saved his life. However, he was far from out of the woods. Turan was going to have to let him stay in the tank for a three more hours and then operate on him again, possibly in the tank of things went badly. He’d been injected with a nanite solution which was working on his belly wound, but it was slow going. He would be days in treatment and weeks further in recovery, but from a wound like that and the amount of time he’d had to sit and wait for treatment, the fact that he might pull through was a minor miracle.
Getting the portside damage patched up so that they would transfer shield nodes over was a slow process. Anyone who had any kind of EVA experience, no matter what department they were from originally had been drafted to help. Twenty-five people were on the outside of the hull, with plasma cutters slicing away at the peeled edges of hull where Ganges had shot up the weapons and shield nodes. It was a slow, tedious process, because once the hull sections were fixed, then came the task of either repairing or replacing the control lines and power conduits. Hours were spent out on the hull as the exhausted crew repaired one section after another.
Tamara wanted to be out on the hull, but she and her team were inside the ship, trying to nail down all of the “repairs” that Verrikoth’s engineers had been working on when they had abruptly left. If she hadn’t known better, and truth be told she didn’t, she would have sworn that all these so called repairs were actually full blown sabotage. Everything from power distribution junctions, communications busses, data transfer modules and more had been pulled out to be worked on. Most of them had no need to even be looked at, much less fixed. A simple diagnostic from any of the nearby terminals would have shown the workers anything they needed to know. It was possible, Tamara reasoned as she and her team attempted to put everything back together, that either Verrikoth’s techs had very little in the way of actual experience in these matters, or were intending to pull all of these systems out for transport over to Meghna and Kerala. Maybe the gear on Grania Estelle was better than what was on the warships. That civilian gear based on replicated parts from two-hundred and fifty plus year designs might actually be better than what was being used on military ships here in the Cluster spoke volumes as to how far things had fallen. But, the flip side to that coin was that if Grania Estelle’s gear was better, it started to give a more favorable outlook to getting out of this mess. Sure, Ganges and her sister ships could easily outfight a lumbering bulk freighter, but against a properly built warship if what Tamara suspected was true, they’d be very hard pressed.
It was something to keep in mind. Of course, right now, under the thumb of pirates, it would be highly unlikely that she would have the opportunity to build a warship to take them on with, but it might be something doable for the future. A project she would keep tucked away for now.
Three days into the seven day deadline, they were finally getting the first of the shield nodes moved over to the port side. “Xar, how are we looking?” Tamara asked from the main control console in engineering.
“Seating the node now, another hour to make all the control connections and then we’ll be ready to power up,” he replied, his voice sounding pleased. “I’m happy with the way it’s fitting in, we should be good.”
“Glad to hear it,” Tamara replied. “I know we’re all running on empty. We’ve got three more of these to do in the next four days.”
“I know. We’re all going to be absolutely dead by the time we’re done.”
She ran her hands through her short hair, uncaring about the dirt she’d just run through it. “I know. And I’m also wanting to look to get Engine Four back up. It’s the least damaged of the disabled ones and I think we can get it running at about fifty percent.”
“That’ll be good,” the zheen said. “I’m used to having a good deal of thrust in the old girl. Being back down to one engine, well, sucks.”
Tamara laughed. “You’ve been hanging around me too much. I’ve spoiled you.”
“Yes, Tamara, you have. If I wasn’t already mated…” he drawled good-naturedly.
“Oh, and if I was just a century younger, I’d give you a run for your money, Xar. Get back to work. Call me when you’re ready to power up.”
“Copy that.”
“Moxie! Where are we?” the Captain bellowed as he walked into Main Engineering. Crewmen scrambled to get out of his way; no one wanted to cross the Captain when he was in this kind of mood.
“Captain, good to see you,” she grumbled, wiping her forehead. As he approached, Eamonn noticed that she looked exhausted. In fact, everyone in Engineering did. Bloodshot eyes seemed to have been issued out to all the workers here. About a quarter of the diagnostic screens showed items in the red, but he didn’t look too closely, not really knowing what everything was indicating. “I’ve got the second shield node installed, we’re just tuning it now.”
“So where does that leave us?” he asked again.
She sighed, running her dirty hands through her greasy hair. “Once this node is up, we’ll have full shield coverage. But, we’re back down to thirty-four percent, because of all the power problems and movement of all the other generator nodes. We’ll be up to Red Six once we jump.”
The captain put his hand to his forehead, rubbing his temples with his long fingers. “Back down to Red level six? You’re killing me, Moxie.”
“I’m killing you?” she demanded as her thin veneer of patience snapped. “You and your Lord are the ones killing me and my teams! We’ve done three weeks of work in six days. Six! You don’t like the way my teams are doing things, we’ll stop right now.”
“Don’t push me, Moxie,” he warned. “I know you and your teams have been killing themselves for the last six days and I do appreciate it. And if we had a choice, I would give you more time, but I don’t. I do not have a choice.”
She took a long deep breath, stamping down hard on her frustration. “I know, Captain. I’m just used to being able to operate under a reasonable time frame. It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to work on a very short one like this. Not since before my big sleep.” Tamara shook her head. “But I don’t think we can keep going at this pace much longer. I have to check over the hyperdrive to make sure tha
t’s still working. Diagnostics on the computer say it is, but I want to physically check it over for any problems.”
“Yes, do that,” Eamonn said, sourly. “The last thing I need is for the drives to not spin up when we get to the hyper limit with four or more warships with us.”
Tamara blinked several times, trying to get the fatigue out. “I’m on it, Captain. Give you a progress report in a few hours.”
“Commander, I’ve noticed something odd in the last few days,” the sensor operator said as Tyler walked over past the man’s station.
“What is it?” Tyler asked. Any time his sensor operator went out of his way to get his attention, it was usually something he’d want to know, even if he didn’t necessarily wanted to hear it.
“There are three ships that are holding at about two light minutes away, but they’re keeping their distance.”
“What kind of ships? More merchants?”
The officer shook his head. “No, sir. They look like warships. One of them is big enough to be a frigate size, though it’s still not as large as Ganges. The other two are corvettes, though they look to be of different designs.”
Three warships. Smaller than the ones in his flotilla, but faster than his own ships, especially now that Ravage was assigned to protect and watchdog the Captain’s newest acquisition. They might be able to race in, fire off a few missiles and turbolasers and then dash away before Ganges and the other light cruisers could adequately respond. Light cruisers were best of both worlds, in Tyler’s opinion. They were big enough to trash lighter ships, but fast and maneuverable enough to keep those same smaller ships honest and dance around much bigger ships. Of course, if offered the opportunity, he would of course take command of a heavy cruiser or battlecruiser.
“What are they doing out there?”
The sensor officer just shrugged. “They’re part of the system defense forces. As far as I can tell, sir, they’re just out there loitering. I think they’re just keeping any eye on us, but they’re not advancing. They were coming after us hell bent for leather when we took Target One. But after that, they pulled back and have just been holding position relative to us.”
“I’ve detected over twenty transmissions between the frigate and the orbital, Commander,” the comm officer piped up. “Haven’t cracked their encryption, but I imagine it’s just status reports on us based on the frequency. They’re transmitting at regular intervals.”
Tyler nodded. “Keep an eye on them, Sensors,” he ordered. “Comms, if you can crack their communication encryption, I’d like a report on what they’re saying, even if it is just routine updates.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Goris Hana had thrown a full-on temper tantrum when he heard that the interlopers in his star system had “nicked” the Grania Estelle. He didn’t care that his own ships had been no match for the freighter’s computer viruses, or that the proper warships had been too far away to intervene in the fighting. And when they had gotten into range, the ships were outclassed. Perhaps in a desperate fight to try and protect the system the defense ships might have taken on the outsiders and done well, but they wouldn’t be able to win.
Of course, he knew this, but he hadn’t been willing to listen. He shouted and fired his weapon, though thankfully he hadn’t hit anyone. The XO had barely managed to avoid getting shot by diving behind the communications console, and it took over three hours to make repairs and get the systems back up. When he’d been showered in sparks, Hana snapped out of his rage, ordered them to “carry on” and stormed out of Operations.
The XO, glad to have his boss leave his domain, ordered the frigate and corvettes to hang back and stay out of weapons range of the cruisers and their prizes. They were to maintain surveillance of those ships and report everything back. They were only to act if those ships moved to attack the fueling station or any of the rest of the real estate in the system. The merchant conversions had arrived at the fueling station within hours of their arrival, looking to load up on fuel. He was surprised that they offered to pay for the fuel, which was completely unexpected. When a number of warships showed up in a system and captured a big freighter, the XO simply figured that his fueling station would be next.
“It’s a pleasure to be doing business with you, Captain,” he said a few hours later when a zheen, presumably the leader of this expedition, called in to the fueling station. “I have to say I’m surprised that you’re wanting to actually do business.”
“And why iz that, good ssir?” Verrikoth asked. His tone was light, but the XO was skilled enough to see the danger there.
So he opted for the truth. “Honestly, with your warships here in system and with the ruckus that got stirred up not too far from here, I assumed we were in for more of the same. But as I said, it’s a pleasant surprise. You’re getting a good product and you’re paying fair rates.” The rates Verrikoth were paying were a bit lower than the XO would have liked, truth be told, but they were fair.
But the zheen nodded, the dangerous vibe vanishing. “I do have a bit of an aggresssive way of doing buzinesss, but I do want to continue to do buzinesss with local ssysstemz. I have disscovered that ssimply taking what you want haz the unwanted sside effect of alienating everyone around you. I want to be able to work with the people of Ulla-tran in the future.”
“I appreciate that, Captain. I do appreciate that very much,” the XO replied, beaming. “If you’re interested, we could talk about setting up some sort of long-term arrangement for fuel.”
The zheen nodded. “I would like that, ssir. The next time I am back thiss way I will be in need of a good deal of fuel for my sshipss.”
The XO rubbed his hands together as the two of them settled in for some business. In the end, they worked out an arrangement for a good deal of fuel, something that both sides were happy with. Verrikoth sketched a two fingered salute before signing off. The XO slumped back in his chair, bewildered. “A reasonable pirate?” he asked. “What’s happening to the world?”
Vincent Eamonn was sitting in his quarters, a beer in a glass on his small table. It had been a long day. He’d just come from sickbay, getting updates from the haggard-looking Turan and visiting all of his injured crewmen, even if they weren’t awake. He’d put his people through a lot lately and they’d sacrificed a lot. A few of them, like George, Saiphirelle and Quesh were in rough shape, but were slowly recovering. The lupusan was doing the best, most of her wounds were of the blunt force variety from the beating she’d taken from the soldiers. The nanite injections that Turan had given her were working their magic and she as several days away from being back on her feet. It would be a good two weeks before she’d be 100% again, but he knew from experience that she’d be bitching and threatening the orderlies in probably four days. Turan would probably release her from sickbay in five and let her back on light duty in ten.
Quesh was another story. He’d suffered serious nerve damage from the repeated stun blasts and was under serious treatment to repair his neural pathways. Turan was pulling out all the stops for the Chief Engineer, even going so far as to dip into a few experimental techniques. So far they were working, but the recovery was agonizingly slow. And also the problem was once the Parkani had woken up, he was in excruciating pain. Another issue was that the treatment was slowed by any painkillers Turan used to try and help, but it was simply too much, even for the tough as nails Parkani. He’d had to reduce treatments to about thirty-five percent of maximum, which increased the time by a matter of weeks. He’d be at least a month in sickbay before he’d be back on his feet, and probably another week or two before he’d be recovered enough to get back to work. But there was nothing to be done and Quesh was in too much pain to really argue. Slowing the treatments and trying out some light painkillers helped to ease the pain, but it was never gone. His whole body would occasionally tense up and he would have uncontrollable muscle spasms as neural pathways were repaired. The big male was frustrated beyond belief but there was nothing that could be done.
He either had to take the pain at this level, or they would have to reduce the treatments further, which would drastically increase his healing time. But the big engineer was a trooper, he hardly complained once the Guura had laid the whole situation out for him.
And finally, George Miller. The man was recovering, in fact, he was spending most of his time in the regen tank, though Turan believed that today would be the last day for that. The nanite injections were doing their job and the wound was almost completely healed. The problems of infections and sepsis had been the biggest worries but the dunks in the tank had kept them at bay and finally cleared them up. He’d be another week and then back on the bridge, which made Eamonn very happy.
The chime at his door sounded and he sighed, closing his eyes. Never a break. He opened his eyes and stood, walked over to the hatch and keyed it open. Moxie was standing there, looking absolutely wretched. She clearly still hadn’t slept, her ship suit was rumpled and filthy; her hands, arms and face were also covered with grease and dirt. Her hand was against the outside doorjam, keeping herself upright.
“Moxie, it’s late. What could possibly be so important that it couldn’t wait until the morning?” he asked. Then his stomach turned to ice. “There isn’t a problem with the hyperdrive, is there?” he demanded. That would be all they needed at this point. They’d barely made Verrikoth’s deadline as it was.
“No, Captain, there isn’t,” she answered, rather monosyllabically. Her voice was much more gravelly than he was used to, probably due to her lack of sleep.
“What do you want, Moxie?” he asked again. “I’m tired, I know you’re tired.”
“We need to have a discussion, Captain and I don’t think we should wait.”
He sighed and stepped back from the hatch. He waved her inside and closed the hatch behind her. Tamara flopped down on the very end of his bed, and he sat down back in his chair, swiveling around in the chair to be able to see her.
Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 Page 72