First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3

by KOTCHER, MICHAEL

  “Your council has actually attacked FP ships and a station, and has stolen company merchandise, causing its destruction! And because you got your feelings hurt in the ‘court of public opinion’ as you say, now suddenly we can’t work together?” Tamara raged. “And since the citizens are fickle and easily bored, as you say, I should just roll over and accept this situation?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “If you want to continue to do business in this system, you will.”

  “I see.” She sat and looked at him for a long moment, fury etched on her face. “Very well. I’ll see myself out.”

  He watched her leave and then pressed a control on his desk. A second later, Horace entered the office. “Yes, sir?”

  “Have security monitor Commander Samair. Make sure she gets back to her ship without incident.”

  The assistant nodded and slipped out of the office. Kozen’ck pounded a fist against the table. Going to war with FP and Tamara Samair had not been his intent. Now it was too late.

  A half hour later, he received a frantic call from his assistant, telling him to switch on the video display. “This is Vanessa Marchant with S-Int News. Recapping our top story,” the reporter was saying, “A video was released to S-Int News only a few moments ago. In this video, you can clearly see Triarch Kozen’ck is admitting to the admin council’s involvement in the attack on First Principles, Incorporated’s facilities last month. Here is an excerpt from that meeting.”

  The video began playing, the camera angle pointed straight at the zheen’s face as he spoke. The conversation he’d just had with Tamara Samair was repeated, ending with: “And since the citizens are fickle and easily bored, as you say, I should just roll over and accept this situation?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “If you want to continue to do business in this system, you will.”

  Vanessa came back on the vid. “Members of our audience, you heard it here first. The Triarch of the administrative council is openly admitting that a prominent company would need to accept the attacks on them by government forces as the price of doing business. This raises some disturbing questions about council policy, as well as how we the people should respond to this very serious situation.” She touched her right ear, as though listening to someone on an earbud. “I’m being told we have one of the senior partners for the law firm Kay, Jo’zenit and Simpson on the line. Mister Kay, do you have a statement?”

  “I do, Vanessa. I and all of the partners and associates at our firm are outraged at this. I cannot believe that the leader of the admin council would be a party to these heinous crimes. People died during the attacks on the Kutok mine, there was a huge amount of property damage, and with the theft of the devices by government agents there is a loss of reputation and possibly business for First Principles. My firm will be pursuing this to the highest level. We will not allow this to stand.”

  “You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. Corruption and abuse of power at the highest levels here on the orbital station with repercussions that I’m sure will continue to echo through the corridors of the orbital. I’m Vanessa Marchant for S-Int News.”

  Kozen’ck put his head in his hands as despair flooded through him. The vultures wouldn’t be circling, they’d be diving in to strip flesh off the corpse after this. How could I have been so careless? How could I have been so stupid as to admit those things to her? And how is it that the system didn’t alert me to a recording device?

  The comm sounded and he sat up, activating it. “What?”

  “Sir, I’m sorry. I have Admin Kly on the line for you.”

  And so it begins. “Put him through.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “So I don’t know what just happened,” Kly was saying later, “But I like it. I like it a lot.”

  Hyacinth Cresswell snorted. “What the hell possessed that bug to run his mouthparts like that? I cannot believe this.”

  Kly stretched his arms out. “I don’t care. But his days as the Triarch are numbered, you mark my words.” He grinned. “This couldn’t have worked out any better if we’d planned it.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He frowned. “We need to get our hands on more of these replicators that FP is leasing out. Simply taking them won’t work,” he admitted. “But Chief Jollin is singing the praises of those devices and work on the orbital has been moving at ten times the pace. The technicians and maintenance workers are actually excited to be working. We’ve actually got people that are getting off their asses and doing their jobs. We’ve actually had people expressing interest in opening up training centers and providing training.” He put a hand to his forehead.

  “All right, I agree, getting more of these things going is a priority,” Cresswell said. “But this golden opportunity just fell into our laps to get rid of that bug. He gave it to us!”

  Kly snorted. “You realize that we owe this golden opportunity to that company bitch?”

  Cresswell grimaced. “Maybe we should send her a fruit basket.”

  He laughed. “Maybe we should.”

  “Tamara, I am confused,” Nasir was saying over the comms as her ship sailed through the black back to the Kutok mine. “You say that the Triarch was your most stalwart ally, and yet you went out of your way to discredit him in the media.”

  “I know that he wasn’t the one who authorized the attack, but he was involved in the thefts of replicators. I know it.”

  “He said as much?” the lupusan AI asked.

  “No,” she replied. “I’m sending you a copy of the recordings from my HUD. I’m sure you can break down what his words and body language indicate.”

  Nasir nodded. “Yes, I see it. I believe you are correct, the Triarch did not have anything to do with the attacks. Of course, you and I can see it, but I doubt anyone else would believe it. And more than likely it would not hold up in a court of law.”

  Tamara shook her head. “No, probably not. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to call him on being party to trying to steal company property.” She sighed. “But in the end, other than perhaps having a regime change, there isn’t a whole lot that I can do about it in the long run. Yeah, I can have the lawyers go and do their thing, but I think in the end there really isn’t much more I can do.”

  “But why not? There are legal avenues you can pursue,” Nasir objected, tipping his head to the side. “I have reviewed the legal codes for the system and there are things you can do for compensation.”

  She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I’m not sure it’s actually worth it. I’ve already made one enemy out of an ally on the admin council. One of my investors, actually. So I’ll continue the investigation with the attack on the Kutok mine, but I think I’m going to let the theft of the property go.”

  “Just like that?” Nasir asked.

  “No, not just like that. I’m going to lay down the law with the council and let them know that if they do it again I’m going to cut their fuel deliveries.”

  Nasir laid his ears back. “You would cause that much grief over the A2 replicators?”

  She nodded. “It isn’t about the devices themselves. I have to show them that I’m not just going to roll over and let them make their way with me or the company. They have their laws and I’m happy to abide, but I’m not just going to let them run roughshod over the company simply because they’re the government.”

  “And if they decide to call your bluff?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Who said anything about bluffing? I will cut the fuel and it will stay cut off until they fold.”

  “And what about the population of the orbital that might suffer because of it?”

  “I don’t want them to die, but I’m also not going to let the council use them as hostages.”

  “You think that they would? That seems awfully cold-hearted of them,” Nasir said. He eyed her. “And of you.”

  “I know. And like I said, I don’t want any of them to die. So I’d withhold the fuel fro
m the orbital directly, but then I’d sell it to smaller vendors, like Suriaya, who can then sell it to the orbital for probably a five percent increase in cost,” she said with a smile. “That way, I get to keep the moral high ground, my customers get a profit and a chance to stick it to the council and no one on the orbital dies because the fuel bunkers run dry.”

  Nasir huffed a laugh. “It is a rather cutthroat way of doing business.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not doing this to be nice, Nasir,” she told him. “And I would have been content to be a good little COO and try to make everyone happy, but they attacked us. And for no better reason than because I was disrupting their cozy little empire.”

  “Perhaps the better move might have been to leave,” he pointed out.

  “Maybe,” Tamara replied. “But that’s not really my style. And it certainly isn’t good for business.”

  “Ma’am, we need to talk about the docking slip,” Eretria said, coming into Tamara’s office.

  She looked up from the schedule she was reading. Nasir floated on the holo projector next to the desk. “Eretria, we’ve been working together for months now. Is it possible that you could actually call me by something other than my title or ‘ma’am’?”

  The engineer gave a faint smile. “Oh, I could, Tamara, but then I’d be accused of being too familiar with my boss. So I think I’ll stick with ma’am. And you could order me to call you by your name, but this isn’t the military. I’m a civilian employee.”

  “She does have you there, Tamara,” Nasir said, grinning and flicking his ears in amusement.

  “Oh hush,” she told the AI. She sighed. She gestured for her to sit. “All right, Eretria. What is the problem with the docking slip?”

  “Well, nothing, technically,” Eretria went on, sitting down in the chair. “It’s what we’re doing with it.”

  Tamara frowned. “I’m confused. We’re using it to build another fuel tender to help us transport He3 to the orbital.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we are,” she said. “But I think we need to start building a warship.”

  Tamara grinned. “Really? A warship? And what kind of warship were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that we need a ship that can work as escort to our company freighters,” Eretria said. “Something like this.” She pressed a command on her datapad, sending the information to Tamara’s desk display.

  Tamara looked at the design, which looked to be a variant on the escort-frigate design, similar to the ones that the convoy from Ulla-tran were using. “Well, I like your thinking, but right now, we only have one actual ship plying the spacelanes. I don’t know if we need another ship.”

  Eretria blinked in surprise. “Really, ma’am? After all the times you’ve told us about the pirate attack in Ulla-tran? You don’t think having a ship there to watch your back might not have been a good thing?”

  Tamara closed her eyes. “I hate it when people use my own arguments against me. Okay, so since you’ve so neatly trapped me into this, the next question comes up. How do we afford this? I agree with this in principle, but money wise, we’ve got a lot of things we’re working on. And I’m not going to bankrupt the company building a ship three times the size of Cavalier and four times the expense without enough bankroll coming in.”

  “I don’t suppose a loan is out of the question?” she asked.

  Tamara shook her head. “Oh, maybe for startup costs, but not enough to fund the whole construction.”

  “Well, what about Ganner and Saiorse? I know they have the capital.”

  Tamara tipped her head from side to side. “Well, I don’t know about that, and they’d have to invest pretty much everything into the project. I’m fairly certain they wouldn’t go for that. We’re talking about several billion credits in loans here. I mean, FP is a very good customer of theirs, but they’re not going to go for that.”

  She sighed. “No, probably not. I really do think this is a good idea ma’am.”

  “I agree. I think in order to do it, I’d have to get a loan from the government, but now that I’ve just gone and pissed off the council and possibly gotten the Triarch removed from office, I doubt they’re going to want to help me out.”

  “How much could we do without a loan?”

  Tamara sighed. “Nasir?”

  “Well looking over the plans that Supervisor Sterling provided and knowing your insistence on quality, Tamara,” Nasir said, “And while keeping the company operating with current financial strictures, I believe we could get about sixty percent of the escort frigate completed before we would have to halt construction.”

  “Sixty percent?”

  Nasir nodded. “Assuming no other sources of capital become available.”

  “I’ll have to get with investors. See who I can find to tap for sources of money.” She chuckled. “I mean, we’ve been making so much through conventional sources, selling refined minerals, fuel and now the A2 replicators, and all of those are only getting started. But I think it would be a while before we start seeing a real influx of credits from that. We’re only going to be selling them by word of mouth.”

  Nasir was the one to laugh now. “Tamara, you don’t think that once the right people hear about the A2s that you’re leasing that word won’t get around at the speed of light? People will be falling all over themselves to get these from the company.”

  “I think he’s right, ma’am,” Eretria said.

  “I agree, he is. But even if we move five hundred thousand units, that won’t be enough to continue operations and finish the remainder of the ship,” Tamara pointed out. “I’ll get on the line with Captain Eamonn when he gets back and the two of us will see about scaring up some money for this. In the meantime,” she said, looking to Eretria, “You, Ms. Sterling are going to round the yard teams up and get the fuel tender done. Because we’re not starting anything without that.”

  “We should be ready for trials in three weeks, ma’am. We’ve only just gotten the frame laid.”

  “Understood,” Tamara said, looking to her display and checking a few things. “We’ve got four more orders of replicators to make and by then, the mining station will be up and running.”

  “Really, ma’am? I don’t think it will be quite up to snuff at that point,” she replied, looking at plans on her own datapad.

  Tamara nodded. “It will, because while your teams are going to be working on the fueling tender,” she said, pointing at her, “You will be leading the ship teams on getting the mining station online. I can have a whip replicated if that’s what you need.”

  Eretria barked a laugh. “Well thank you, ma’am. I think that would be great.” She gave a feral smile. “The gift that keeps on giving.”

  “Oh no,” Nasir said, shaking his head. “You’ve created a monster, Tamara.”

  Tamara smirked. “I think I did. Finally get some work out of the lazy slackers on this ship.”

  Both women laughed. The AI just looked confused.

  “We’re clear of the hyper limit, Captain,” Isis said, checking her controls. The hum reduced as the hyperdrive cycled down.

  “Sensors are clear in the immediate area, Captain,” George Miller reported from his station at Ops.

  “Clear for five light minutes.”

  “Very well,” Vincent said from his command seat. “Helm, take us in system, speed one-fifty.” He pressed a control on the arm of his seat. “Turan, this is the Captain.”

  An instant later, the long-necked, amphibious Guura doctor answered. “Yes, Captain? Turan here.”

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve exited hyperspace and are on our way in system. We should be in orbit of the habitable world, assuming no problems, within fifty-two hours. When we were here the last time they were having all sorts of problems with the radiation exposure from the nuclear reactors.”

  “I remember, Captain. I’ve had Quesh synthesizing his blue compound for the last week. I’ve got a quarter of bay eight filled with drums of the stuff.”
>
  “I’d wondered why the ship seemed a little unbalanced,” Isis muttered.

  Vincent smirked. “I’ll speak with Ardeth about getting the load trimmed out.” Isis waved over her shoulder. “Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  “Understood and thank you, Captain. I’m hoping that the doctors here have gotten a handle on things, but it’s only been three months. I’m sure they’re still going to need all the help they can get. I wish we could have brought more medical assistants from Seylonique. Damn, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Well, between you, Stella and Tamara, you managed to stockpile a goodly amount of medical supplies and equipment. In fact, you filled all of cargo bay six and half of two. I’ve never seen that many medical supplies on my ship. I’m sure it will be a help.”

  “I know, but it won’t be as much as I would like.”

  “You can’t cure all the Cluster’s ills, Turan,” Vincent said gently.

  “Who the hell came up with that rule?” the Guura demanded lightly, then cut the connection.

  Vincent pressed another control. “Quesh, are you there?”

  “Here, Captain,” the Parkani’s voice came over the comms.

  “Secure the hyperdrive,” he ordered. “We’re on our way in system and should be making orbit at the habitable planet in fifty-two hours.”

  “Already done, Captain. I was keeping an eye on the bridge feeds. Hyperdrive secured, I’ve reduced shield strength to cruising strength and sublights are good to go.”

  Vincent checked his displays and the Chief Engineer was as good as his word. The hyperdrive was powered down, sublights were powered up and Isis was bringing them up to the speed of one-fifty he’d ordered. The ship was slowly building up acceleration and delta-v, moving on a long, curving vector toward the habitable planet.

  “Very well, thank you. I want you and your engineering teams on standby, Quesh. I don’t know what the situation is there on the planet, but I want to have the new power plant ready to shuttle down.”

  “We’ll be ready, Captain. Engineering out.”