First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3

by KOTCHER, MICHAEL

  “What’s this I’m hearing about you building replicators?”

  She sighed. “Well, I’d hoped to have a bit more time to get all of my ravens in a row, but yes, that’s correct.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Because think of the monetary possibilities, Captain,” she said. “We lease an A2 replicator to a business for a term of no less than five years. They pay us a monthly retainer for the use of the device and allow us, on an emergency basis, a few hours a week to use it if needed, and in return, they get access to a serious industrial tool.” She pursed her lips. “You know, I hadn’t thought about it, but we could probably sell the raw materials needed to them as well.”

  Vincent blinked, startled. “Wait, an A2 replicator?”

  She nodded. “That’s the term. It’s a scaled down version, only about the size of a small console. Can’t build massive parts like the ones we’re using can, but you can break down components into smaller pieces for assembly by techs later.”

  “And how do we make sure that they don’t just sell the things to someone else?”

  “I’m having an AI built to monitor all of the A2s. That AI’s job is to keep track of all the A2s, report on whether the user is trying to make restricted tech, and keep an eye on payments. Also, if someone tries to leave the system with one or if they try to hand it off to someone else or if it gets stolen, the AI will melt it down.”

  He was nodding now. “That’s an interesting idea.”

  “It is,” she said. “And one that will make the company a hell of a lot of money. Which brings me to the next subject. I need a raise. A big one.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t all that interested in material possessions.”

  Tamara shrugged. “I don’t need a lot of stuff,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be paid proportional to my worth. I’m the Chief of Operations for the company, Vincent and I’m in the very unique position of having a good deal of the master codes for the replicator systems.”

  “You’re blackmailing me,” he said, astounded. “Honestly, Tamara, I thought better of you than this.”

  “No, Vincent, I’m not. You’re going to pay me what I’m worth. I’m running your business.”

  “Well, that’s not…” he began, but she cut him off.

  Tamara smiled. “I know I let you bully me into running Operations and then captaining the Cavalier, but that doesn’t fly anymore. You’re making me partner, effective immediately.”

  There was a low whistle in the background on his end of the transmission, quickly stifled. “Partner?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “Equal partner, Captain’s share, but I’ll settle for 40% flat percentage. Since I’m doing all the work of keeping the Samarkand on task, and overseeing the Kutok mine, and building up your security and I’m about to increase profits by at least forty percent, that’s the bare minimum of what you owe me. I want the pay bump and the commensurate title to go with it.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You want to be called ‘partner’?”

  “No,” she said, grimacing. “Captain.”

  He shook his head, confused. “What?”

  “That’s what I want. I want the bump to Captain. Since I’m steering this ship of commerce anyway, I want the title. And that’s something any merchant skipper such as yourself should be able to understand with the owner’s share reserved for the ship, or company itself.”

  “Is that all?” he asked, and Tamara noted his voice sounded rather shaken.

  “No,” she said and he winced. “I’ll be taking the first Testudo class cargo shuttle that comes off the line. I’ll be using it for my own transport when the Samarkand isn’t available. The rest of them will be for company use or for sale. And that’s another thing we can lease out, once people figure out that heading to the Kutok mine is a good idea.” Tamara straightened up. “So, Captain Eamonn, what is your answer?”

  He hesitated. “I need to think about this.”

  “Do you?” she asked. “I think it’s rather straightforward. Either you pony up or I take my Testudo and I leave. And good luck to you.”

  Vincent looked at her across the screen for a long moment. “You’re trying to get me to give up almost half my company.” Then his shoulders slumped. “Twenty-five percent,” he said finally.

  Tamara shook her head. “Forty. Vincent, you and I have a good working relationship and one that has brought a lot of change, growth and profit in the last few months. But please understand, and with all due respect,” he actually smiled when she said that, “I’m not negotiating with you here. This is something I should have done when I first took over Operations, but I was still in the employee mindset instead of a manager’s. It’s been a while for me to be truly thinking in that way again.”

  “Two and a half centuries, if memory serves,” Vincent put in.

  “Something like that. So, forty percent.”

  “Damn it, Samair. If you weren’t so damned productive I wouldn’t put up with your shit.” He glared at her and there wasn’t any amusement in his eyes. “I’m not exactly sure why I’m putting up with it at all. And I’m sure as hell wondering why you and your shit are worth 40 percent of my company.”

  “And you’re asking yourself why you need to?” she asked. Tamara shrugged, but an evil gleam was in her eye. “If you’ve decided that my terms are unacceptable, we can shake hands and part ways.”

  He growled, grinding his teeth. “You leave and suddenly I’m the one who needs to borrow replicator time from you to replace critical parts on my ship?”

  “You’d be coming to me anyway, Captain,” Tamara pointed out. “And using my replicators.”

  “They were my replicators, Tamara,” he shot back. “In fact, they still are.”

  “Of which you had very little use for until I showed up. In fact, had I not been there, those pirates back at Instow would have stolen the one that you’d rigged to make basic parts and with the other one locked down you’d probably still be endlessly circling that gas giant.”

  He let out a long breath, leaning back in his seat. He rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Where did this come from, Tamara?” he asked. “Out of nowhere, suddenly you’re demanding a raise?”

  “I realized after the battle where it all nearly fell apart that I needed to reassess my priorities,” she admitted. “And I wasn’t willing to settle for less than what I’m worth.”

  “You have proven yourself useful,” he grumbled, but it was clear that her argument had swayed him. Or perhaps it was the overhanging threat.

  She smiled sweetly. “But Captain, I am so damned useful.” She pressed a few keys, pulling a file out from her private database. “I’m sending you a copy of the contract. I just need you to initial and thumb it for approval.”

  Vincent eyed her suspiciously. “Should I have Stella check this over?” There was some stifled mirth that could be heard from the background. “Are you in on this?” he demanded, looking off camera. He grimaced. “Yes, of course you are.”

  The vid screen split, showing Eamonn on one half and Stella now on the other. “Actually, Captain, I’m not in on this, but I heartily approve. Besides, you know you’re going to go for it. Considering the amount of money she’s already made you and with these replicator and Testudo ideas, profits are going to skyrocket. But yes, I’ll look it over.” She blinked. “It’s a standard contract, Captain Eamonn, with the stipulations that Tamara has already indicated. She’s not trying to sneak something past you.”

  “No, she was very clear about what she wants.” He leaned forward and pressed something, there was a beep on the transmission.

  Tamara saw that the document had been approved and she made several copies, sending them to secure data storage in several locations. “Thank you very much, Partner,” she said. Then she nodded brusquely. “Well, now that that admin business is taken care of, I’ve got some work to be doing. How go the repairs?”

  “Nearly completed,�
� Vincent said, the sourness fading from his voice. “We should be ready to roll by this time tomorrow, according to Quesh.”

  “What kind of cargo are you carrying?” she asked. “And where are you headed?”

  “Back to Heb,” he replied. “We’ve made some contacts there and some decent profits. I think we can do better this time. We’re just going to load up on a lot of raw materials for the replicators, and we’ll head in system to the planet, see if our ground contacts have anything they want to sell.”

  “Sounds good. Let me know if you get anything good.”

  He sighed as he signed off the call, and Tamara couldn’t help but smile.

  And here it was, the first of many, Tamara hoped. The first of the Testudo cargo shuttles was coming off the line, as it were, all systems were go, her shakedown completed. Tamara sat behind the controls and marveled at the construction. At its heart, it was still just a cargo shuttle, albeit a big one, capable of carrying about eighty metric tons of cargo. Hers actually was slightly less, what with the aux reactor and the A2 replicator crammed into the cargo hold, the ship’s cargo capacity was down to about seventy-five metric tons, but even that was nothing to shake a stick at.

  It handled well, she thought as she continued with her own shakedown. The tech crew had gotten the first ride and they’d enjoyed it, but to them, this ship was just another in a long string of projects. To her, this was probably going to be her vehicle of choice to move from one company site to another, so she wanted to get a feel for the girl. It wasn’t a fighter, and she needed to stop thinking of it like one, but it did handle well. She wasn’t trying to run it through combat maneuvers, though she was sure she could get it to turn on a dime if needed.

  “I like this ship,” she said aloud, though there wasn’t anyone aboard who could hear her. She pursed her lips. “And I definitely need some company aboard this baby.” Tamara chuckled. “Another AI, probably.” Which wouldn’t be a bad idea, problems with light speed lag notwithstanding. Still, having an AI aboard the shuttle would allow her to manage her contacts better and keep up on the business needs, even if there was a several minute lag between the planet and the gas giant.

  She nodded. “All right, back to the Samarkand. We’ve got a mining station to get up and running. And then, we’re getting a construction slip built. And we’ll be making more replicators.” It’s going to be a busy month.

  “All right people,” Tamara said to the engineering crew aboard the Samarkand a short while later. She had docked her ship with the constructor ship’s portside airlock and come aboard. It wasn’t a great solution, and in fact, she’d asked Galina to send someone aboard to keep an eye on things while she was gone. Tamara made a mental note to get a caretaker for helm watch whenever she wasn’t on board. The last thing she needed was for her brand new shuttle to wander off or to rip itself loose from the Samarkand while they were docked. “We’ve got two different projects that we’re going to be working on,” she went on. “At the moment, as you all know, the Samarkand is acting as a mobile mining platform as well as a constructor ship.” Nods from the assembled mass. “But honestly, it’s hampering efficiency. With the fuel situation sorted out, at least for now, it’s time we get this girl back to building things and put the asteroid mining on a separate platform. So that’s job number one.”

  She pressed a control and a holo projector activated, bringing up an image of what she wanted. “We’re going to be building a platform that can handle about double the amount of materials as the Samarkand, though we’ll do something similar to what we did with the Kutok mine. I want to leave room for expansion.” Tamara gestured to the holo. “As you can see, this design has a central plate that we’ll build on, above and below. Above,” she pointed, “we’ll have the collection and refinery modules. And then below we’ll put in living spaces for the mining crew and a boat bay for the tugs.”

  “Not another huge installation like the Kutok mine, ma’am?” one of the techs, the young zheen Kay’grax asked.

  “No,” she agreed. “I’m thinking that if the demand for resources continues to rise, and I’m hoping it will, then instead of making the station bigger, we can build another one.”

  “Ma’am, isn’t this idea rather expensive?” Eretria asked.

  “Only a little, Ms. Sterling,” Tamara replied. “We’ll be transferring the extraction and refining tech off the ship over to the station, and expanding what we need to. That will cover some of the initial costs, but you’re right. Until we start increasing our revenue stream, the costs of this are going to come out of pocket for the company. And I intend that this is going to increase our revenue, because it will free us this ship to work on other construction projects, like the repair and construction slip that we’re going to build. But that will be after we get the mining station built.”

  “And we’re going to build more of these Testudo cargo ships?” Kay’grax asked.

  Tamara nodded, watching the crowd of engineers. Most of them seemed pleased by their boss’s revelation. They were always in the mood for new challenges, new projects… so long as the money kept coming in. None of them were doing this out of pure altruism. Her employees didn’t work on He3, and if the pay stopped, the work stopped.

  “Yes, but those are more of a fit to order sort of thing. We’d been using the Kutok mine’s shuttles to carry He3 and processed minerals to the orbital, as well as the tanker for the He3, but the shuttles were just insufficient. These Testudos will be able to carry half as much again in the way of minerals and fly about five to six percent faster.” She held up her hands as the crowd started mumbling. “I know, five percent sounds negligible. But every little bit helps. Are there any questions?”

  “I assume we’re looking at overtime, ma’am?” Hekcion asked, one of the human males who had joined up in the last month.

  She chuckled. “Yes, overtime is approved.” There were cheers from the group, and Hekcion grinned beatifically. “And probably will be until we get the mining station up and running.” More cheers. “Any other questions? No? All right then. You’ll be seeing duty assignments in the next hour or so, so everyone rack out and eat while you can. We’re getting started tomorrow at 0700, nice and early. That’s all, guys. Thank you.”

  Eretria and Kay’grax stayed behind as the welders and technicians filed out; there were nearly two hundred now, amazing considering the Samarkand had started with ten. The cavernous construction bay of the ship seemed much more crowded and busy these days. “I think the gang was more excited about the overtime than they were about the actual project, ma’am,” Eretria said with a grin. Kay’grax hissed his laughter.

  Tamara shrugged. “Probably. But most of them are here for the paycheck,” she reminded them. “But they do good work. I can’t blame them if they’re not all that concerned about building up infrastructure for both the company and the system as a whole.”

  “Ma’am, considering what just happened in the last few weeks,” Kay’grax put in, “is building more infrastructure really the smart move? Shouldn’t we be building up more defenses? I mean, we got those orbital defense turrets by the Kutok mine, and Leader Korqath is planetside looking to recruit more pilots. And I heard through rumor-net that FP is looking to actually build corvette number two.”

  “What’s your point, Kay’grax?” she asked the half-share engineman. The zheen had really stepped up in the previous months, showing his skill and his ability to think on his feet. Tamara had another round of ratings exams scheduled in a few weeks and according to her own entry into rumor-net, Tamara had discovered that he wasn’t satisfied with his current rating. He was studying for a full share Machinist rating, something she heartily approved of. If he passed the test, she’d give him the rating and they’d all be luckier for it.

  “My point, ma’am, is that if not for a healthy bowl of luck, ma’am, the attack on the Kutok mine would have succeeded. If not for divine intervention, the Leytonstone would have smashed our defenses and gotten through. I mea
n, that missile trick of yours was great, but it was only because the ship’s shields were down and her offensive and point defense fire was so light that you managed to sneak it up her kilt like that.”

  “I know,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts. “There really is only so much that can be done, I’m afraid. And you’re right, we did get extremely lucky and we lost a lot of good people in the process. Irreplaceable people, both crewing the ships and fighters as well as on the station. We do need more and better defenses. But we have to keep the money coming in and we have to continue to grow if we are going to afford more and better defenses.” She gave a gallic shrug. “I have to make choices and for the moment, freeing up the Samarkand seems the way to go forward.”

  “I know from a commercial standpoint it’s the way to go ma’am,” Eretria agreed. But then she shrugged. “But I know that you were as upset as the rest of us when the Kara and the Leytonstone attacked us. Oh, when are the fighters going to be ready from the Grania Estelle?”

  “Well, we get the first load of six tomorrow at 1200 just before they depart.” Tamara ran a hand through her hair and smiled. “I just authorized their replicators for a load of spare parts for their engines and hyperdrives. I think the good Captain Eamonn wants to get the old girl up and running at full capacity again. So they’ll transfer the new Zlk’vzn fighters over to the station by then. And then it will be up to us to flesh out the fighters.”

  “Are we going to replenish the older Sepulcre fighters? There are still seven left.”

  Tamara pursed her lips. “I haven’t decided yet. I know the new fighters are more advanced. I’ll discuss it with Korqath. He’s rather attached to those birds. There might be a few improvements that we can make that aren’t too expensive. But the Delphons get the first crack at the new fighters. Though the fact that there’s only one remaining pilot and ship means it’s something of a moot point. They will have to get new ships and pilots to reconstitute the squadron anyway.”