First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3

by KOTCHER, MICHAEL

  “You’re making a great deal of sense, Nasir,” Tamara said. “And I’m proud of how devious your mind is.”

  He gave her a very predatory smile. “I’m working with you ladies and for the company. These people tried to hurt us, steal from us, and even went so far as to assault and kill people in company employ. I believe some justice is deserved for them.”

  “I completely agree, Nasir,” Galina said. She turned to Tamara. “Don’t you need to get going? I thought you had a meeting to get to with your lawyers.”

  Tamara chuckled. “All right, all right. I’m going. He’s a person, you know! Not some fantasy toy.”

  Galina gave her a very flat look, but Eretria actually laughed. Nasir just stood there and managed to look young and impressionable and yet strong and imperious at the same time. Tamara shook her head and chuckled again, then headed out of the compartment.

  Chapter 6

  Once she was within five light-seconds from the orbital, Tamara placed a call to the law offices, and luckily was immediately transferred to Xorik Kay’s private line. “Commander Samair, I’m glad to hear from you. I received your previous message and I’ve already begun looking into this. I’ve spoken with Ms. Suriaya and confirmed what she told you. I’ve also reviewed the contract and confirmed that she, in fact, is not in breach of it.”

  Tamara grimaced. “I wasn’t worried over whether she was in breach of contract, Mister Kay. I assumed that she was telling the truth from the stress in her voice on the message. And once I get there, I can ping the device and see if she was lying to me, just hiding it to try and get a free lunch out of me.”

  But Kay didn’t look fazed. “I assumed she was telling the truth as well, Commander. But I needed to confirm her story, especially if this needs to go to court.”

  She sighed. “I’m paying you a huge retainer to take care of this, Mister Kay. I don’t want this to be dragged through court for a decade just to have it end because one side decides that they’re too sick of pursuing it. I want this taken care of now.”

  “Yes, I can appreciate that, Commander,” the man replied, his voice extremely patient. He probably dealt with angry clients demanding outrageous things all the time. “But there is only so much that the firm can do, no matter how much money you are paying us.”

  “The government came in and clearly tried to get my customer to breach contract. When they refused, they flat out stole FP property.”

  “And then your failsafes destroyed that property, Commander Samair,” he replied. “There is no further evidence.”

  “Wrong,” Tamara replied, annoyed by the short delay in the conversation. It was less than a five-second delay due to light speed lag, but it still irritated her. “Suriaya sent me another message on my way in. She said that her own security systems recorded everything. I’ve reviewed the footage. It clearly shows that as soon as the government people loaded up the A2 on their air skimmer, the self-destruct kicked in.”

  Xorik Kay frowned. “I’ll need to review the footage, of course, but I think all that would show is that they took the device and it self-destructed.”

  “Yes,” Tamara said, impatiently. She glared at the man’s image on the display. “That’s what I just said.”

  He shook his head, looking like a teacher speaking to a dull pupil. “Yes, Commander you did. But the government people will contest this, saying that it wasn’t their actions that caused this, it was Ms. Suriaya’s. That they had attempted to negotiate with her, so they, yes, took the device, but then when they had returned to the orbital or wherever they were going, they would have contacted you to renegotiate terms, set up a new contract with you.”

  Tamara sighed, putting a hand to her head, rubbing her temples. “All right. Yes, you’re probably right. In fact, I’m sure that you probably are. So what do we do about it?”

  “Legally? We can probably sue for theft of property. It’ll get dicey though, when they rightly point out that they no longer have the device.”

  “But it was their actions that caused it to self-destruct! It’s right there in the contract I have with Suriaya. It’s not even fine print, I came right out and told her what would happen if the device was stolen. If it was transferred outside her working space without a certain code entered by her, then the device would self-destruct.”

  Xorik was nodding. “Good, I can work with that. That would give good motive for Ms. Suriaya not to destroy the device on their own. It would go toward the government agents’ motive. It would show that in any case, they are working to disrupt and hurt FP’s business.”

  “What about going public with this? If I went to the press and told them everything?”

  The lawyer grimaced. Then he sighed. “I can’t say that I’m thrilled about that idea. Adding the press to what is already a stressful situation will very probably make it much worse.”

  “But if I can get the truth out, showing a systematic attack on company assets, first the station and my ships and now devices that I’m leasing to legitimate companies, it could drum up popular support,” Tamara reasoned.

  Xorik frowned, but nodded acknowledging the point. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can stop you.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  He nodded. “When are you going to hold the press conference?”

  “I want to speak with Suriaya first,” she said. “After that, I’ll call the press about this. In fact, call them now and tell them that the day I land, I’m going to be speaking to them.”

  He pursed his lips. “Actually, ma’am, I think it might be better to hold off until you get here. If you telegraph your intentions, the government will certainly get wind of it and attempt to block you. They might hold a press conference of their own and try and discredit you. After that, no matter what you say it would just sound like denial and attempting to attack them for saying things about you. You’ll lose your impact.”

  She nodded. “All right. But be ready for me. I’ll contact you as soon as I touch down. Samair, out.”

  The press conference had been absolute hell. While the reporters were more than willing to listen to her story, as well as hear dirt on the admins and the other government goons, they bombarded her with questions about any and everything.

  “Tamara! Tamara! Is it true that you’re dating the Chairman of EIC?”

  “Ms. Samair! Are you moving to buy out E3 Systems?”

  “Explain these replicators you’ve been leasing? Are you looking to eliminate the lower-class workers?”

  “Is it true that you’ve been building a secret fleet to over throw the government?”

  “I understand you’ve been working to get teams to work on the Leytonstone!”

  “Ma’am, any truth to the rumors that you’re going to be posing nude for the new Semmingon vid-film?”

  On and on. It took a great deal of effort to keep them focused on the primary topics. They were greatly interested in the blatant theft of company property by the government, but as Xorik Kay had intimated, the reporters quickly got distracted by the self-destruct routines. They started asking about the destruct sequence. How did it work? Why was it even part of the device’s operating system? Wasn’t she concerned about the potential for injury or loss of life? Would the devices explode? Was she placing bombs in various small businesses? Why would she be targeting small businesses and places on the orbital for assassination? Was she trying to bring down the economy? What were her overall plans here?

  Eventually, she again managed to get things on track, indicating her intentions to get to the bottom of this and if necessary, she would be bringing legal actions against the government, bringing the authorities in to help clear up this matter of blatant theft and destruction of her company’s property. Over the next few hours, various news stories found their way onto vid, print and net media and for the most part they kept on topic. However, an annoying number of stories featured questions about whether Tamara would be posing nude for an upcoming vid film.

  “Th
is is ridiculous!” Tamara fumed, later that day. She was back in her ship, flying to Suriaya’s compound. Once the news had broken about the theft, four more of Tamara’s customers had contacted her, indicating that they too had been robbed of their A2s and that the devices had melted down as well. She used the comm system of the Testudo to try and ping the devices but received no return signal. Which meant that the customers were indeed telling the truth. This actually gave her some peace of mind because the last thing she needed were customers that were trying to do the same thing as the government, i.e. stealing company replicators. She’d brought two of the A2s with her, intending to get one to Suriaya, sign a new contract and even offer her a slight discount, but now, with the others coming forward indicating their losses, she needed the devices to build more. It took a bit longer using the A2s than it would have using full industrial replicators on the Samarkand or the Kutok mine, but in the end she had five of the micro-replicators in the cargo hold of her ship and was exhausted. The devices didn’t require much work to put together, but assembling three of them in one go was rather tiring. That coupled with the stress she’d been under in the last week certainly didn’t help.

  But her arrival at Suriaya’s compound was a welcome one. “Tamara!” the other woman bellowed, standing just off to the side as the Testudo touched down and the cargo door opened. “Glad you didn’t forget about me, your first client.”

  Tamara laughed. “I could never forget about you, Suriaya. I brought you a shiny, new A2 replicator to replace the one that the government thugs stole.”

  She nodded, rubbing her hands together. “You see? This is why I like working with FP, Tamara. It’s the personal touch. I can’t think of any other company where the COO would drop everything and bring out replacements. I think you can expect that my tiny little venture will continue doing business with FP.”

  “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that,” Tamara said, nodding. The two women went into the cargo bay where Suriaya picked up the A2, hefted the meter square box onto one shoulder and walked back down the ramp. Walking to her primary workshop, she gently lowered the device onto one of the workbenches.

  “I’ll move it later.” Tamara nodded in agreement. She held out a datapad and Suriaya took it. Looking it over, she saw the updated contract then nodded in satisfaction with the terms. She thumbed her authorization and handed it back. “I do appreciate the reduction in rates.”

  Tamara tipped her head to the side in acknowledgement. “I didn’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate your loyalty or the hardship with all the nonsense that happened. And I’m afraid you might be called to testify when the lawsuit goes through.”

  Suriaya looked at her in admiration. “You’re actually going to sue the government?”

  “Well, the actual perpetrators, sure. But I’ve spoken to the police over the comms. Once I’m done delivering the rest of the A2s to my other customers I’m going to the authorities and see if they’ll assist.”

  The round engineer grimaced. “They haven’t been all that helpful in my recollection.”

  She shrugged. “Well, it’s a chance I’ll have to take. If nothing else, I’ll keep hammering away at them through the media.”

  “Oh, so you are going to be naked in the new Semmigon flick?” Suriaya looked at her with a critical eye. “Well, you do have the body for it,” she decided.

  Tamara sighed.

  The comm panel on Kozen’ck’s desk beeped. He looked away from the document he was reading, an impressive feat what with his compound eyes. He pressed the control. “Yes?”

  His assistant answered. “Sorry to disturb you, Triarch. But I have Commander Samair here to see you. I don’t show her on the schedule.” His voice lowered. “Should I send her away?”

  Before he could answer, he could hear Samair’s voice in the background. “No, you’d better not send me away. I need to speak with the Triarch and you are going to let me in there.”

  “No, wait!” came the assistant’s voice. “Stop, you can’t go in there!”

  The door to the office suddenly opened and Tamara burst in, the assistant right behind her. “Sir, I’m sorry. I tried to stop her…”

  Kozen’ck waved one hand. “It’s all right, Horace. Hold all but emergency calls for me, please?”

  Horace gave the woman an ugly look and then slipped out of the office, quietly closing the door behind him. Tamara didn’t even notice, her arms crossed under breasts, staring at the zheen politician sitting with a somewhat agitated look on his face.

  “How can I assist you today, Commander Samair?” he asked, his voice sounding falsely cheerful.

  “How can you assist me?” she replied, incredulous. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Your government goons show up at my customers’ places of business and steal the devices that they are leasing from me and you have the balls to ask me how you can help?” Her voice rose nearly to a shout.

  His antennae twitched. “Please don’t shout, Commander. We can discuss this like civilized beings.” He gestured to the seat before his desk. “Please sit.”

  Tamara stood there for a moment longer, fuming. Then, slipping a hand in her pocket, she moved forward and sat down in the offered seat. Without needing to even flick his eyes to the side, Kozen’ck glanced at the security feed on one of his displays. It indicated that she was armed with a small pistol up her left sleeve, another in her left boot, a datapad on her belt and a communicator in her pocket, which she was holding tightly in her hand. She wasn’t going anywhere near her weapons, which made him relax somewhat.

  “I want to know what the hell you and your admin council have against my company, Triarch,” she spat. “What precisely is the problem?” He started to speak, but she cut him off. “And don’t feed me the lines about how you don’t know anything about it. One of your goons slipped up and told one of my customers that orders to seize the A2 replicators came from the admin council on the orbital. I have it recorded and I have multiple copies.”

  His antennae unconsciously stiffened straight, giving away his guilt. Someone who hadn’t spent as much time around zheen as she had might not have noticed, but she did. “Commander, why would you believe that the admin council was out to steal your replicators?”

  She shook her head, her jaw clenching. “Don’t bullshit me. Government suits show up at five of my clients’ places of business within days of me delivering the devices to them and the admin council knows nothing about this?”

  “I’m saying that things would have gone so much easier if the clients of yours had simply taken the deals we offered them,” he explained. “We need them far more than those small business owners do.”

  Tamara gaped at him, actually stunned by his honest answer. “So instead of coming to me and commissioning some, you decide that you’re just going to take them from the citizens?”

  He spoke very calmly. “It was decided that in the interest of planetary security, that these devices were better off under council control than under that of the individuals.”

  “Planetary security?” she demanded. “What does that mean? You want to build weapons?”

  He nodded. “Among other things.”

  Then she got it. “You want them to fix up the Leytonstone,” she guessed. “Makes sense. I mean, that must have been embarrassing when my company security forces trounced your ship of the line. Especially after all the hard work you’d put into getting her fixed up.” She leaned back a bit in the chair, getting more comfortable. Then she squinted at him for a moment, as though she was realizing something. “Of course, I don’t think that you had anything to do with the launching of that ship nor its attack on FP assets. It seems to me that if you had been part of it, you would have waited a bit longer to get more of the ship’s systems online. That seems like slipshod work and I’ve seen that you don’t work that way.”

  He buzzed at her. “Tamara, I honestly have no idea who actually ordered the attack. I know that Colonel Gants commanded the Leytonstone in the
action and that only he, Captain Ferrod of the Kara and Glacis Ghovorak, commander of the mercenary company knew who the orders came from. Everyone else simply assumed that the story they’d been fed about insurgents on the Kutok mine was true. They actually thought they were defending the star system.”

  “But they all thought the government was the one issuing the orders,” Tamara pressed, gesturing with her free hand. “They might not have known who the specific individuals were that gave the order, but they knew that it was coming from official sources.”

  He bristled. “I did not order anything of the sort. Those were not official orders!”

  She shrugged. “From the people on the lower levels of the ladder, like the crews of the Leytonstone and the Kara or the soldiers in the mercenary company, that wouldn’t matter at all.” She hesitated a moment. “And neither did the press.”

  He clacked his mandibles lightly in aggravation. “And in the end, Tamara, what does that accomplish? Nothing. You rile the people up a bit, the press asks some embarrassing questions, we fire a few low and mid-level staffers to show that we are serious about cracking down on this incident. And after that, things return to normal.”

  “I would raise hell in the press.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure you would. But in the end it would accomplish little. The citizens are already starting to get bored with these allegations and with this story in general. People died on both sides and it was a tragedy. But in the end, you defended your territory and have even recovered your losses and even expanded your business. Let it go.”

  “What happened to you, Kozen’ck?” she asked. “You used to be one of FP strongest supporters.”

  “I still am,” he replied. “But when you started threatening the council, you changed the rules. I was more than willing to shield you and your company from the council, and help you out behind the scenes. We all made a lot of profit on that. But now you’ve openly attacked the council in the press and in the court of public opinion. I can’t allow that to stand.”