A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  Bhavanian as well as a number of others had been taken hostage, rounded up by pirate soldiers and incapacitated in one form or another, either by stun blasts, gas grenades or by having the muzzle of an assault rifle jammed into one’s face. Once they were secured, they’d all had implant disruptors attached and then they were loaded onto the civilian liner Following Seas and were shipped out of the system. The pirate made quite the haul in treasure, technology, munitions, hell, replicators, and even trained workers.

  It hadn’t taken long or much persuasive techniques to get the new slaves to understand the rules. After one of the able spacers, a new recruit on his first deployment, had been electrocuted to just before the point of death while they all watched, having to listen to his wails and pitiful shrieks of agony, the Republic citizens and civilian Argos contractors understood just how dire their situation was. They were brought here to… well, Bhavanian wasn’t exactly sure where here was. It was another star system, of that he was sure but as far as which one, he had no clue. None of the workers were given access to any kind of navigational data or star charts, or even just told. There was no need for them to have it. No one was stupid enough to try and hack into one of the control consoles to try and escape. The implant controls were not on the main computers, or even the secondary or tertiary mainframes here, no they were all controlled through a single processor located in the Yard Manager’s private office. And that was a place that none of the workers were ever allowed to go; a place protected by no fewer than eight guards at all times. Couldn’t have your captive workforce getting themselves free, now could you?

  It had taken a couple of weeks for Bhavanian to settle himself down. He’d been bitter, depressed, angry, many emotions over that time since his capture and the push into hard labor. But once he really got into the work, he started to actually appreciate it. He was building a heavy cruiser, for the stars sake. This was an opportunity he’d never had back in the Navy. He’d been stuck working maintenance on four different space stations, working in refuse and recycling and low level electronics and welding repair after some rather pointed remarks and a punch in the face to one of his superiors. Kaspar realized as he hefted the laser welder, reflecting on his past, that he’d been incredibly lucky not to be cashiered out of the Navy at that point. Serving six months of brig time, getting busted down to the lowest apprentice rating and being sent back to work was actually a good thing, though he didn’t know or appreciate that at the time.

  Now, after all the humiliation and degrading work and comments, and even being posted out to the Argos Cluster (the Republic’s dumping ground for embarrassments and fuck ups for over a century) he was finally out of doing shit work and he was helping to build a cruiser. Who cares that it was to be built for a warlord out in the middle of what the average Republic citizen considered the ass-end of nowhere? This was a ship of war, a thing of beauty, really and despite his position in the pecking order, Kaspar Bhavanian was happy to be a part of it.

  Sure he worked long hours, but that was business as usual in the Navy. The food was acceptable, but it wasn’t good; again, that was something he’d grown used to over the years working in the military. It was just the damned metallic disk attached to his neck. The tendrils had snaked into his head and into his brain and the surrounding tissue had long since healed, but Kaspar just had this constant itch in his neck and in what felt like his brain itself. He’d rubbed the skin around the device red and raw with his scratching, when he wasn’t wearing a suit, of course. Actually, when he was working, he barely noticed the device at all and the itch wasn’t there. It was only after the work shift (twelve to fifteen hours) was over and he was in crew berthing, laying down on his bunk that suddenly he remembered that it itched. And it was driving him crazy. The medics had checked him twice and issued him some ointment for the raw skin, but otherwise, they kept telling him it was in his head; there was nothing actually wrong. And he believed them; it just didn’t stop the stars-damned itch!

  “315 to Control,” he said over the comms.

  “Go for Control,” a zheen voice, heavy with clicking responded.

  “I’ve finished up work here. I’m just about at bingo on my suit’s atmo. I’m coming in.”

  “Understood, 315. Control out.”

  Little more than half an hour later, Kaspar was in the mess hall, seated at one of the tables, spooning the flavorless nutrient paste into his mouth. Next to his tray was a datapad, where he was working on his true passion. Oh, bringing the heavy cruiser to life was amazing and he loved the work. Kaspar was in fact, one of the only Republic captives that could say this. He was doing long hours of difficult, dangerous and tedious work, in lousy conditions with bad food and strict discipline, just like all the others, but whereas they were being ground down by this, or doing what was needed to survive, he was thriving.

  One of the other enlisted, an engineer’s mate by the name of Stickley, came over to the table and banged his tray down across from Kaspar. He plunked himself into the chair. Stickley set to his food with a will, but after a few mouthfuls, he looked up at Kaspar. “You look like you’re loving that shit,” he said.

  Kaspar shrugged, making a note on his datapad. “No worse than that garbage that they were serving back at Byra-Kae,” he said, not looking up. “Actually, it’s a little better here. They don’t try and hide the crap taste by dousing it in pepper or avocado-extract.”

  Stickley shuddered at the memory. “Thanks for reminding me, asshole.”

  “Don’t blame me because the food sucks,” Kaspar chided, typing a few more controls on the datapad.

  Stickley took a few more bites of his own meal before starting up the conversation again. “So what did they have you doing this time?” he asked.

  “Hull work, same as always,” Kaspar commented, frowning as he entered in a new detail on his datapad.

  “You’re a machinist’s mate; you’re not supposed to be working on the hull.” Finally, it seemed that Stickley couldn’t take it anymore. He reached over and took the datapad and in an instant Kaspar was on his feet. “Give that back, Stickley.”

  “Ease down, EA,” the big engineer’s mate said calmly, referring to the other man’s rank. “I’m just lookin’.” He studied the datapad. “You’re building something? Schematic designs for what? Starfighter. A starfighter design?” Stickley looked up at the other man. “Who the hell you think you’re designing this for?”

  “Right now, no one,” Kaspar said in fury, snatching the datapad away from the other man. His empty hand was clenched into a fist. “I don’t want to sit around moping, so I decided to be constructive.”

  “Constructive, yeah right,” the big man replied, mocking. “You’re designing ships while we’re all slaves to that warlord scum. Because you love this place and your new lord sooo much.”

  They were attracting the attention of the other workers. Kaspar looked around at all the faces scowling at him and glared back. He grabbed his tray, shoveled a few more spoonfuls of his dinner in his mouth and headed for the exit. He bussed his tray and was out the door of the mess hall a moment later.

  And ran straight into the shift supervisor, one of the zheen working for the Lord Verrikoth. “Sorry, sir,” Kaspar said, his gaze dropping to the deck.

  “Watch where you’re going, meatbag!” the zheen snarled. Then his antennae twitched. “You’re 315 aren’t you?”

  Kaspar flushed, keeping a tighter hold on his datapad. “Yes, sir, that is my designator.”

  The supervisor looked around him, into the mess hall where there were humans and other beings glaring back at the human in front of him. “You causing trouble, 315?”

  “I was trying to eat my food, sir,” Kaspar replied. “Another of the workers took my datapad. I took it back and then I was leaving, sir. There was no fighting.” A week earlier, under the strain of captivity, unrelenting shifts and stress of the whole situation, two welders had gotten into a fistfight and there had been injuries, as well as a couple of bro
ken bones. The overseers had been livid. They’d stormed into the mess hall, activating the shock function on all the disruptors, bringing everyone in the mess hall to their knees. Once the room was down, the majority were released and allowed to recover while the offenders were zapped for a good long while afterward. They were taken to medical and allowed to lay there for a few hours and suffer before receiving treatment. No one dared do that again, not while the disruptors were still attached. It was possible that others among the workforce (what the others called slaves) were working on trying to get them removed to break out and escape. Kaspar tried not to think about things like that.

  The zheen eyed him for a moment then hissed. “I hear you are working on designs.” It was not a question.

  “Yes, sir,” Kaspar said, bringing his eyes up slightly. “I have been working on designs for a new starfighter class.”

  The overseer looked at him for a long moment, then extended a purple-carapaced hand. Kaspar hesitated just a fraction of a second, long enough for the zheen’s mouthparts to writhe in irritation, then activated and handed over his datapad. The overseer took the pad and looked over the schematics. A moment later, as he was trying very hard not to squirm under the zheen’s presence (with those huge compound eyes, a human could never really tell where they were looking) the overseer spoke. “You made these?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where did you steal them from?” the overseer demanded, hissing.

  Kaspar flushed a deep red. “I did not steal them, sir! I’ve been designing them on my off hours. I’ve had no access to any of the computer systems except what was authorized, sir.”

  The zheen chittered to himself, not saying anything aloud. “Return to your berthing spaces,” he ordered. The zheen started to turn away.

  “Sir?” Kaspar asked, hesitantly.

  “What?”

  “May I… may I have my datapad back?”

  “I will have another issued to you at the beginning of your next shift,” he was told coldly. “No go, before you test my patience too far.”

  Kaspar nodded glumly. “Yes, sir.” But by that point, the zheen was already walking down the corridor. He turned and happened to catch the looks and the smirk from Stickley and he glowered. But he didn’t rise to the bait and just continued on down the corridor back to the berthing spaces. He sighed, did the needful and then took a sonic shower in the refresher then went back to his bunk and collapsed.

  “Damn it,” he whispered to himself. The actual designs weren’t being done piecemeal as it appeared on the displays on his datapad. Kaspar was actually designing his new ship in his head, well, on his implants, on his HUD. Then because of the device on his neck completely locking down his implants, he had to rewrite the whole thing onto his datapad. He still wasn’t quite sure why he was doing this, to be honest. He didn’t have any real intention of turning the plans over to to the warlord or his goons, but now that decision had been taken out of his hands.

  “Damn Stickley anyway,” Kaspar grumbled. All that work, painstakingly transcribing the designs over from his implant memory buffer to the datapad and now he’d have to start over. He did admit to himself, as he lay back on his bunk that he wasn’t even sure why he was mad at Stickley, but not the pirates, or even the overseer for his present situation.

  “Wake up!” a voice ordered in his face, and Kaspar jerked awake.

  He stared up into the face of the zheen overseer, who was standing beside the bunk. “Get up, meatbag.”

  Kaspar blinked, rubbing his eyes but then rolled out of the lower bunk and rose to his feet. The metal deckplate was cold on his bare feet. “Yes, sir.”

  The zheen eyed him critically for a long moment. “Get dressed.”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir.” Then Kaspar turned to his small locker, opened it and pulled out a reasonably clean shipsuit. Quickly getting into it, he zipped it up, jammed his feet into his boots and was ready to go in under a minute. “Ready, sir.”

  “Follow me,” the zheen male replied and began his walk down the corridor, Kaspar trailing along behind like a scared puppy. He led the man into the Yard Manager’s office, which, like most everything else in the shipyard, was economical for space. It was barely large enough for the manager’s desk and two chairs in front of it. It wasn’t exactly a tight squeeze, getting the two of them in there, but anyone else and they would all have been really friendly. They passed the guards on the way in, causing Kaspar’s blood pressure to spike. Five zheen, two lupusan and a very beefy human male, all armed with assault rifles and assorted small arms, not to mention blades and other implements of pain and destruction were guarding the office.

  Kaspar was roughly shoved inside and pushed into one of the seats. One of the guards (the silver-furred lupusan) had followed them in, and stood just behind and to the side of the human engineer. The wolf didn’t speak, didn’t make any threatening movements, nothing. He didn’t need to. His presence alone was enough to promote tranquility. And it wasn’t as though Kaspar was intending any mischief, not with all of the firepower around here.

  The yard manager was another zheen, his carapace a shade of purple that was nearly blue. He, like Lord Verrikoth, had dozens of scratches on his fingers, hands and arms going all the way up to his right shoulder. The old injuries had calcified, turning his carapace white in those places. But unlike his lord, the engineer did not speak the human tongue. He had a translator pack hanging around his neck, a rough device which was little more than a box with a speaker and a number of wires sticking out. Two indicators flashed at seemingly random intervals, but the device was perfectly capable of translating the zheen dialect of hisses, clicks and hums into a language that Kaspar could understand.

  The manager patted the datapad that was on his desk. “What is this here?” he demanded, the hissing and clicking of his voice overlaid by the monotone robotic voice of the translator pack.

  Kaspar tried to look calm. “I believe that is a datapad. I’m guessing it’s mine because I am here.”

  “Correct. But the designs on them. Where did you steal them from, human?” The translated voice was more firm this time, but it was still a monotone.

  “I did not steal them, sir,” he replied. He could feel sweat sliding down the back of his neck. “I made those. In my off hours, sir.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  There was a rumble from behind Kaspar and the human felt his throat close up of its own volition. There were few humans that could bear to be this close to a growling lupusan and not feel fear. But he pulled in a shaking breath and soldiered forward. “I’m sorry, sir, that you do not. But I did not steal them. Where would I steal them from? We do not build starfighters here, only the big ships. These are designs that I made on my implants. They are locked down because of this, sir,” he explained, touching the disruptor on his throat, “And I’ve been transcribing the information to that datapad by hand. Else I would access a computer screen and show you.”

  The zheen considered this for a long moment, while Kaspar fought the urge to fidget. “You have more?”

  “Well, only the one for the starfighter design, sir,” Kaspar admitted. “But I’ve got all sorts of ideas for various projects saved in my internal memory buffer.”

  “You will show me.” It was not a request. The yard manager turned to the console to the right side of his desk and entered in a few commands. An instant later there was a tone from the silvery disc on the human’s neck and his heads up display appeared in his field of vision. The indicator for a wireless connection was still glowing blood-red, meaning that he had no ability to connect with any computer or digital system remotely, but the similar icon for his manual port suddenly changed to green. He flexed his right hand unconsciously. The zheen pushed forward a separate data slate, little more than a screen with an input jack. “Upload all the schematics to this slate. I warn you,” the manager said, and the lupusan’s heavy, taloned hand rested itself on Kaspar’s left shoulder to reinforce the words, “if you a
ttempt to do anything but carry out that order, I will have you punished most severely. Hobres here has been asking me for a new plaything; something he can pull apart with his claws and teeth.”

  Kaspar couldn’t help it. He gulped and glanced over to the wolf towering over him. Hobren lifted his free hand to his mouth, putting one long finger in front of his muzzle. “Shhh…” he said, the otherwise innocent gesture made all the more frightening by its softness. He flicked his muzzle in the direction of the boss and the human’s head whipped back to the zheen.

  “No, sir. I wouldn’t.” He was shaking his head frantically and couldn’t seem to stop himself. With a slightly shaking hand he picked up the slate, pressed his thumb to the data port and ordered the release of information. The plans for the starfighter flowed onto the data slate, as well as several of his ideas for capital-class propulsion units, with tweaks on present designs to get more power, better fuel efficiency. “There, sir. Those are some of my ideas.”

  The zheen took the slate from the human and looked over the data for a few moments, letting Kaspar squirm. The hand of the lupusan on his shoulder was now lightly caressing him, his sharp claws barely touching the man’s shipsuit. A gesture that could have possibly been comforting just made Kaspar’s skin crawl and it was all he could do not to flinch away. Another quick glance up to the wolf earned him a very toothy smile, one filled with malice… and perhaps a promise. He couldn’t suppress a shudder at the thought.