A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  The man and the she-wolf exchanged glances. “Oh, he’s your pilot? I thought you’d fly your own ship. Or do you keep him around for… other reasons?”

  “He flies my ship,” Tamara said primly. “It frees me up to concoct the elaborate schemes to make both of you lose your hair and fur and make you both develop ulcers.” She said it in the same tone she would have when discussing an inventory report. The looks on their faces were slightly worried. Tamara laughed out loud. “Your faces! Do you really think so little of me?” she demanded, a huge grin still on her face. “I don’t go out of my way to stress you out. There are just plans that need exploiting and they can’t always wait for agreement in committee.”

  “No, I think you really are trying my fur fall out,” Galina said, flicking her ears and smiling fondly. A predator’s smile, but then, she was a predator.

  Tamara just shrugged noncommittally. “Don’t break my ship, Vincent.”

  He cackled. “Get to finally check out your flying pleasure palace.”

  “It’s comfortable and it suits my needs. Though it is getting a bit cramped with all the bodyguards on board as well.” She pursed her lips. “I might need to think about getting a bigger ride.”

  “Oh you poor dear!” Vincent teased. “You own private office with guards and a chauffer! Must be pure hell.”

  “All right, clearly this meeting is over, Mister ‘I Own a Bulk Freighter’. Go meet Captain Radha. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled with your hysterical jokes.”

  “She might be overcome, star struck by your utter majesty,” Galina quipped.

  Vincent stood, haughtily drawing himself to his full height. “Excellent. I’m glad someone who is rising in authority in this company recognizes who is in charge.” He swept from the office, needing only a long cloak or cape to properly sell the illusion of wounded dignity.

  “Lieutenant, I’ve got a cluster of ships that just came into range,” the wolf at sensors reported. “They’re being led by a warship.”

  “What about the other ships?” Bek asked, looking up from the tactical sim he’d been running. He pressed a control, pulling up a sensor display.

  “Freighters, sir. Looks like nine of them.”

  “What the hell?” the wolf demanded. A convoy of ships coming here to Esselon-Moor? No one smart ever came here, unless they wanted to do business but even then, the only ones who wanted to do business were other pirate factions. But it wasn’t as though the Argos Cluster was a festering hub of pirate activity, with raiders plundering all one hundred systems. And now, since the fight at Seylonique, no one outside of the Dog Soldiers had come to this star system. The only one strong enough to even consider coming here was the Warlord Verrikoth but even he was steering clear.

  Then one of the ship icons cleared and a beacon ID popped. “Joren, check me. The freighter, second from the front of the convoy, is that TC2741?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. It’s confirmed. That’s our ship.” The wolf frowned. “Wait, sir, there’s another one.”

  “Another one of ours?”

  “No, sir. Middle of the pack. The warship.”

  “What about it?”

  The wolf yipped. “It’s a destroyer, sir. But it’s a design that’s familiar. We have a match for that design in Illuyanka’s database. It’s the same sort of ship that we fought back in Seylonique. That destroyer that attacked us with the swarm of fighters.”

  “A Republic ship?” Bek started stabbing at controls in his haste. He brought up the image of the enemy ship from the fight. He checked the ever increasing amount of sensor data from the live feed. “No, it’s not showing an ID beacon. What the hell is going on here?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Joren replied, puzzled. “But TC2741 is in that group. If a Seylonique ship had captured her, why would they bring a whole convoy here?”

  “That is an excellent question,” Bek said. He pressed a control on his console. Illuyanka was still in marginal shape. A lot of the damage from the fight was being patched and the ship was far from one hundred percent. The light cruiser still outgunned the incoming destroyer, but her speed, maneuverability and armor (albeit normally thin anyway) were all compromised. It would be touch and go if the destroyer tried to make a fight of it. None of this makes sense! “General Typhon, please report to the bridge. We have a situation here.” He waited for the general’s reply.

  “I’m on my way,” Typhon said and the connection was cut.

  “Comms,” Bek ordered. “Hail TC2741. See if we can get Lieutenant Braelock on the line, make sense out of all this.”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when the wolf at comms spoke up. “Sir, incoming message from TC2741. It’s Lieutenant Braelock.”

  Bek nodded. “Good. We’ll get some answers. Let’s hear it.”

  The shaggy, white-furred elder lupusan’s face appeared on the main display. “This is Lieutenant Blaelock. Do not fire. We are returning in convoy with our numerous prizes.” He paused dramatically and then grinned. “You heard me correctly. All of these are prize vessels, including the Republic-style destroyer. There is a story here, General, and I promise you we will explain it all once we get in range. However, we have flown a long way and our supplies are low. In addition, the soldiers and our crewmembers are stretched thin and we have a lot of prisoners. Please send additional security teams to help with us deal with them. Blaelock, out.”

  Bek stared at the place on the bulkhead where the virtual display had floated in pure astonishment. “So, Blaelock and Major Nezerek go out with a hundred Grenadiers and come back with eight freighters and a destroyer? I think the General will be pleased.”

  An instant later, the male himself arrived on the bridge. “Report!” Typhon barked.

  “Sir!” Bek replied, standing from the tactical station. “TC2741 has returned. Lieutenant Blaelock states that all went well and that he is returning with a number of prize vessels. Including a Republic destroyer.”

  “What?” Typhon asked, amazed. “There are Republic ships out here?”

  Bek shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, General. And the Lieutenant didn’t explain. But we have a large convoy of ships coming in. Nine freighters and that destroyer.”

  “Cast us off from the dock,” Typhon ordered, moving around the bridge to seat himself in the command chair. The wolves had constructed a small docking station in orbit of the habitable planet of Esselon-Moor. Nothing elaborate, but it made the task of shipping supplies up from the surface and captured swag down to the settlement much easier. “I want to be out in open space when we meet those ships coming in. With Byvennot out of the system, this ship is our only defense if this turns out to be some sort of trick.”

  Bek jumped and immediately slid back into his seat. “Of course, sir. I apologize, I should have thought of that.”

  Typhon waved a hand. “Not now. Just get us out into space. Comms, inform the assault transport of out intentions. I want to have four shuttles, fully loaded, ready to launch on my order.” A hundred and fifty Grenadiers should be more than sufficient to handle any tricks. He pressed a control, bringing up Braelock’s message and he replayed it for himself. Typhon narrowed his eyes, and triggered his implants to run a scan over the message. There were no hidden codes or threads and he didn’t detect signs of duress from either the elder lieutenant or anywhere in the background.

  “Message sent, General,” the comms officer said.

  “Good, now send a hail to TC2741,” he ordered, settling more comfortably into the command seat. “Tell Lieutenant Braelock to send a full report on his activities. I want to know exactly what he’s been up to, why all of those ships were at Heb and a full casualty list.”

  “Understood, General.”

  Bek watched the repartee between the General and the other bridge officers. It was a good, comforting feeling. Of course, he was feeling just a bit jealous. He was a tactical officer, a Navy officer, not a ground pounder like much of the Dog Soldier division. As such, despite the prestige
of being on the flagship, he didn’t get to participate in the boarding actions the way Major Nezerek or even Lieutenant Braelock did. It was the life and the role I signed up for. And I think over the years it’s been a good choice. The general needs someone of skill and intelligence to do this job and I’m sure as hell not going to turn it over to anyone else just to participate in a couple of boarding actions against some freighters.

  “Incoming message from the destroyer, General,” the wolf seated at communications reported. “It’s from Major Nezerek.”

  “You’ve confirmed that?” Typhon demanded.

  “Yes, sir. It’s confirmed as the Major’s ID codes,” the specialist replied.

  “Send the message to my display.” He pressed a control and the display activated. The major’s face appeared, showing obvious happiness.

  “General, this has been an impressive haul. I’m pleased to report the capture of eight freighters, this destroyer and one other warship, a corvette, but the corvette had already sustained significant damage to its hyperdrive, so we left it behind in Bimawae. But we left a team aboard along with the engineering crew to make basic repairs to the drives. The ship can be salvaged, sir and I left one of the prize freighters behind with as many of our people as we could spare to crew the freighter and provide security on the corvette.”

  Typhon put a long-fingered hand to the side of his head. An impressive accomplishment. “Two more warships for my fleet? Excellent.”

  Several hours later, they got into real-time communications range and a proper conversation could take place. “What the hell happened out there, Nezerek?” Typhon demanded from a seat in his ready room. “What the hell were you doing in Bimawae? I sent you to Heb.”

  The major nodded. “Yes, General, you did. And we did go there. We arrived there to see that Seylonique has set up a picket in Heb, we don’t know the details of the deployment, but we did see three, possibly four corvettes there.”

  “Four covettes,” Typhon repeated. Then he nodded. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t hang around there then.”

  “Yes, sir. But we arrived just in time to see those ships fighting with one of our ships, the Byvennot.”

  “Three or four corvettes against one of ours.” The general didn’t sound happy. “And the result?”

  The major stiffened. “General, I regret to report the loss of the corvette Byvennot, sir, with all hands.” He looked down. “There wasn’t anything we could do. By the time we arrived the battle was almost over.” He gave a succinct recap of the battle, ending with, “But they died valiantly, sir.”

  “But for no gain,” Typhon replied. “And in the process, they’ve given those fools a victory. A sense of security that they can defeat my ships without losing any of theirs.” He growled in frustration. Then he shook his head, shook it heavily as though he was getting water off of him. “But that’s that. There’s nothing that can be done for it now.”

  Nezerek hesitated for a long moment. Then he broke the awkward silence. “I apologize for going so far afield, sir,” the major said, drawing himself back up, formally. “I know my orders were to collect supplies in Heb, but with the enemy corvettes there and the loss of Byvennot…”

  Typhon waved it away. “You did well, Major and you know it. I’ll admit I’m not happy that you went so far away, but the sheer number of prize vessels you’ve returned with more than compensates for that. I understand your casualties were very light.”

  Nezerek nodded. “Yes, sir. Five dead, only four more injured. We held a service for the dead already, but if you need to have another…”

  “No, that’s fine,” Typhon said. Losing any of his troops was always a blow, but in this case, Nezerek had done very well. With only a company of soldiers he’d brought in an unbelievable number of prize vessels, including one of those hated destroyers. It was a twin of the one they’d fought in Seylonique. “What is the status of that destroyer?”

  “In good shape, General. The only real problem is the lack of crew. We don’t have enough proper crew to run her. My soldiers are doing all right, but there’s a lot of on the job training that we’ve had to work with.”

  “Understood. I’ll transfer some crew over from Illuyanka once we’re in range and we’ll offload a score or so of prisoners.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. About the prisoners?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, as near as we’ve been able to determine, none of them are outfitted with neuro implants. Not even the officers. And it’s compromised their ability to run the ship properly.”

  “I’ll bet it has,” Typhon agreed. “Really? None of them?” The extra neuro implants he’d brought from the Federation were in short supply. All of his old soldiers, the original division, those who were still alive, had implants. A number of wolves recruited over the years, as well as offspring of his troops had received implants from that stockpile. The supply of those implants was near depleted, which made the plans for a raid in to the Federation all the more pressing. With supply levels as they were, the next generation of pups would have to go without. “Have you had an opportunity to crack into the databases on that ship?”

  Nezerek nodded, grinning. “Yes, General. The fools didn’t even think to lock down their database.” He shook his head, ears folding to lay flat. “These rubes are so inept.”

  Typhon yipped. “Makes it all the better for us. What have you found?”

  The major’s tone turned serious again. “Well, a lot was simply confirmation of intel. They have a decent level of infrastructure and their Navy is growing slowly but steadily. However, it consists almost exclusively of light units and destroyers, with their battlecruiser as the flagship. Aside from that one BC though, they have nothing larger than a ship like this here.” He waved to indicate the ship.

  “A properly led force of light units can be devastating, Nezerek. You know that,” the general chided.

  “I do, General. But their Navy is young and unbloodied.”

  “Unbloodied!” Typhon snorted. “They fought us at Seylonique. They lost, but they still fought us there.” If not for that smarmy bug cutting and running, we could have won that fight.

  “Yes, sir,” the major replied. “But from what I’ve been able to uncover, what we fought at Seylonique was an independent defense force. We never actually engaged their Navy at all.”

  “An independent defense force?” The general demanded then calmed. “And you say that their Navy is new and inexperienced?”

  He nodded. “Yes, General. Also, a portion of their ships are away from home. A corvette and this destroyer, which won’t be going home,” he smirked. “Also the four more corvettes we saw in Heb. That’s a lot of hulls to send away, sir.”

  “It is,” he agreed. “And you wouldn’t send six ships out of the system unless you thought you were secure at home. Perhaps we can do something to upset that.”

  It took less than a day to return to Esselon-Moor and then to offload the various prisoners. The destroyer captain, however, filled Typhon with disgust when he met him. It was the same feeling Major Nezerek had experienced when he’d begun his own interrogations. Medics had kept the wretch alive, but in the three weeks since the capture of his ship, he’d lost a considerable amount of weight. His fur was graying with stress and was coming out in clumps. The beatings and other methods of torture had stopped, but the captain had remained confined to quarters, barely fed and genuinely neglected during the whole trip here.

  “So what do you have to say for yourself?” Typhon demanded, looking in on the wolf, interrupting his sleep.

  The haggard lupusan looked up at this newest tormentor dully. It was as though he couldn’t make sense of his surroundings and was confused by it all. The medics were giving him twice daily injections of drugs that kept him pliable, though long term use tended to cause irreversible damage to the neural tissue. Not that Typhon cared very much for the wretch’s welfare.

  The wolf, such as he was, looked at Typhon, a demeanor of b
efuddlement on his features, but there was a tiny spark of defiance in his eyes. He did not answer the general’s question.

  “Some spirit left, I see!” the general declared with a laugh, then stepped into the cabin, his fist raised. The former captain flinched and cowered away from the blow.

  “No hurt. D-don’t hurt m-mmeee.” The wolf’s face was terrified, he had an arm up to try and protect his head. His voice sounded high and squeaky. He was trying to fight through the drugs with some limited success.

  “Can he answer questions?” Typhon asked the medic trailing behind him.

  The corpsman shrugged, consulting his medkit. “He’s still pretty pumped up on the cocktail of drugs keeping him like this. I have a shot I can administer that’ll clear his head, but the side affects of it combined with all the other crap in his system might fry his livers.”

  Typhon shrugged it off as inconsequential. “Do it. I want a round of questions asked and I want him clear headed.”

  “Yes, sir,” the wolf replied, moving forward. He jabbed a hypo into the carotid artery of the hapless captive. “Should take about eight to ten minutes to kick in.”

  The general waited impatiently, but within half that time he could tell the new shot was taking effect. The prisoner’s posture was straighter, the dull look in his eyes had faded. It was obvious he was trying to hide the clarity his mind now enjoyed but it was also just as obvious he couldn’t hide it.

  “Good. Now that you’re back with us, I want to know everything that you know about the battlecruiser in Seylonique,” Typhon ordered the other wolf. “You’re going to tell me, rest assured. This one here,” he gestured to the medic, who was looking grim, “has a hypo filled with sulfuric acid to inject into your veins, if you prefer the hard way.” The prisoner shuddered, shaking his head frantically. “Good. Now talk.”

  “Wha-at do you w-want to know?” the other lupusan asked, his mouth moving as if it was filled with caramel.

  “Who commands it? What is the armament? The crew complement? Best sublight speed? The communications frequencies and encryption codes?”