A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (53 page)

The pirates departed the planet’s atmosphere and continued out of the system, not sending a single transmission.

The shrill beeping of the alarm jerked Malachai Gants back to consciousness.  His cabin was dark, only the glow of the chronometer’s panel numbers illuminating the compartment.  There was a groan from next to him as he leaned over and slapped the control to shut it off.  For one panicked instant, Gants couldn’t place the voice and the very slight headache reminded him he’d dipped into that bottle of Reserve 212 whiskey he’d been saving.  Had he gone to bed with a woman in his crew?

“Stars, my head hurts,” the woman said.  His eyes managed to pick out the details of her face in the dark and he could feel her naked body against his.  “What time is it?” she groaned and the memory came flooding back to him.  Eretria Sterling.  It was their fourth dinner date and they were drinking and swapping stories and just enjoying each other’s company.  And a passionate night later and here they were.

“0500,” he answered and, greatly daring, put her arm around her and tried to pull her closer.  She obliged, but groaned again. 

“Don’t talk so loud,” she whispered, her voice little more than a croak.

“Lights,” he ordered softly.  “Lowest illumination.”  A very dim glow came from the overhead light panel, bathing the room in soft golden light.

Eretria grunted and buried her face in the colonel’s shoulder.  “You ass,” she snarled, her voice muffled.  “Did you really need to turn that on?”

After a second’s thought and with the throbbing in his own head to confirm the hangover, he gave a wry chuckle.  “Yeah, it seemed a good idea at the time.”  He made sure that his voice was pitched low.  Without jostling her too much, Gants reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a detox pill and a cup of water his steward Perkins had thoughtfully left out.  “Here,” he said, nudging her shoulder.

Eretria brought out her face, cracked an eyelid and then darted her head forward and snatched the pill from between his two fingers with her lips.  Then with a somewhat shaky hand, she took the cup, brought it to her lips and drained it.  “Thank you.”  She flopped back down, boneless onto her side, head on his shoulder.

Malachai took the cup back and grabbed the other pill from the nightstand and swallowed it.  He knew he’d feel better in a few minutes.  They lay there together like that for a few moments when finally he sighed.  “I really do need to get up, Eretria.  I have an exercise to run in an hour.”

“I run these shipyards, my good colonel,” she replied curtly, her voice sounding less like a croak.  “So I decide if any work gets done around here, bub.”

“Perkins will probably have breakfast ready in a half hour,” he warned.  “And let me tell you, that man runs a very tight ship.  He will not allow his colonel to make him look bad by lying in bed all day, no matter how much he might approve of his company.”

She sighed ruefully, but he could feel the smile on her face at the compliment.  She snuggled closer and wrapped an arm over his chest.  “It was a very good night,” Eretria stated softly, almost timidly.

“A very good night,” he agreed, giving her a small squeeze.  “We should have another one sometime soon.”

He felt her nod.  “Yes, we should.”

“Do you want the shower first, or shall I?”

“Such a gallant officer, asking a lady her preference,” Eretria teased.  She raised herself up on one elbow and looked him in the face, a wicked gleam in her eyes.  “We could share.”

Gants laughed aloud.  “You clearly didn’t notice the shower when you were in the refresher earlier.”

He felt her go still.  “One of those showers the size of a torpedo tube?”

“Arguably smaller.”

The engineer playfully swatted him on the chest.  “I think, Colonel, that we’ve found the very next upgrade for this ship.  A better shower.”

He nodded eagerly.  “As commanding officer of the battlecruiser
Leytonstone
, I officially sign off on whatever work and expense is necessary to see it done.”

“I’ll get Apogee right on it.”  She leaned forward, kissed his lips, then rolled off him, sprang off the bed and scampered across the compartment into the refresher.  “Too slow!” Eretria cackled gleefully.

Malachai Gants laughed. 
Thank you, Perkins, for resetting my alarm for thirty minutes earlier.
  He quickly got up, tossed the covers aside, and went to the refresher, just as Eretria cried, indignantly, “Hey, you liar!  This shower could fit a shuttlecraft in it!”

Now it was his turn to cackle in glee.

“Damn it,” Gants swore quietly.  The most recent sim wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d hope.  Oh, it was clear that his people were were learning from their mistakes but once they managed a bit of cleverness, any semblance of unity or cohesiveness went out the window.  Battles tended to turn into a mob of ships simply having at one another.  Now, of course this was going to happen on occasion, but it was possible for ships to fight as a unit and Gants would be damned if his people weren’t going to learn how to do it.  He’d pitted
Equinox
and three corvettes against
Curroth
and two corvettes, with
Equinox
as the attacker group. 
Curroth
was to defend the simulated shipyard complex.

Greer had bunched his ships together and pulled in tight to the station, trying to stay between the attackers and their target.  This seemed like a decent enough plan until
Equinox
and her fellows unleashed a salvo of missiles, then immediately broke course for an open section of the shipyards.  This left Greer with three bad options: chase the ships and let the station get hit by the missiles, deal with the missiles and let
Equinox
and her group close to energy range with the station, or split his forces and find himself too weak to deal with either.

It looked as though
Equinox
was going to take the win, but Greer decided on a fourth option.  He maintained his position to fend off the missiles and launched a salvo of his own on a vector that would intercept the attacking force.  That spoiled the firing pass, forcing the attackers to break off.  Minor damage occurred on both sides with no clear victor, but it was only one maneuver.  In the end, there was no clear winner, with both flotillas “wrecked” in the simulation.  The shipyard did end up taking minor damage but not enough to destroy or cripple it.  So, technically, the win went to Greer, but only by the slimmest of margins.

Gants sent the all-clear signal, ending the sim, then ordered a full report and hot wash of the exercise in thirty minutes.  Things didn’t turn out as smooth as he would have liked, but it was clear that the Navy ships were starting to get better.  They were all making things up as they went, no one had any formal training and it showed.  For now he would have to settle for a well-intentioned mob armed with heavy weapons instead of the well-trained group of professionals.  A real battle would separate the wheat from the chaff, showing the crews and the officers what they were all made of. 
If only we’d had ships at the gas mine when the pirates showed up!
he despaired.

              He wanted to change things up though.  Put his ship captains and crews in a truly different situation or perhaps answer that question that was festering on everyone’s mind: could the Navy have actually done better during the battle in the Outer System?  Could they, like they all boasted, have actually changed the outcome of that battle, driven the pirates away, losing fewer ships and industrial real estate?

              Eyes lighting up with an evil glint, the colonel turned to his communications officer.  “Comms, put out a call on the station to Tamara Samair.  Once you get her, transfer the call to my ready room.”

              “Aye, Colonel,” the young woman replied. 

              Five minutes later, he had her on the line, her face floating before him on the display.  She looked as professional as always, but Gants thought he detected a slight hardnes around her eyes, as though she was expecting more bad news.  Perhaps Samair thought he was going to berate her about the repairs on his ship.

              “Colonel, I hear that the most recent exercise is over.  How can I help you today?”  Her voice was calm and professional, just as he expected.

              “I need your help with training, Samair,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.  She blinked in surprise.  “I’d like to set up a training sim consisting of two destroyer task groups with corvette support, actually, I want to use the Navy forces that are currently in the space here in the Lagrange point.  But the big change is that I don’t want to face my people off against one another.  I want the opposing force to consist of the same ships that were involved in the attack on the outer system.  All the same pirate ships.”

              Tamara raised an eyebrow.  “You want to answer the big question?” she asked, a touch of acid in her voice.

              “Is that such a bad thing?” he replied.  “At some point, Navy ships are going to square off against the pirate lord and I want my people to have some experience, even if it was just in simulation.  Don’t you agree?”

              She sighed.  “Yes.”  Her tone still carried a drop of acid in it.  Clearly she didn’t like the idea of the Navy getting their day.  If the Navy
did
in fact turn the tide and sweep the pirates from the battlespace with the ease that they claimed, then her own stock in the public eye would drop precipitously.  It wouldn’t mean anything, this sim.  Fighting against a simulated opponent, with nothing actually on the line, no danger of death and the knowledge, deep down that this isn’t real; one’s actions might be different.  But of course, no one would actually see it that way.

              But there was no way to avoid it.  An exercise could be programmed to the specifications that Gants wanted, so there wasn’t really a reason not to put it forth for use.  And he was right, at some point, the Navy
would
inevitably face off against Verrikoth’s forces and not putting them into a simulation to test their mettle because Tamara’s and her company’s public image might get tarnished was the worst kind of stupidity. 

              Tamara leaned back in her chair and nodded slowly.  “Well, since a number of FP’s ships are hanging around near the yards, would you mind if
Cavalier
,
Coronado
,
Darvano
and
Tsesuko
join the party?  We’re all defending this star system, after all.”

              The colonel pursed his lips.  Having more ships on the defender side, in theory, could only be a good thing.  It would make the job easier, going a bit further to close the gap in firepower between the pirates’ cruisers and the lighter units of the defenders.  But the biggest problem was one of control.  Technically, he was the senior Navy officer in the outer system.  There were other “senior” officers back on the planet, but none of them had seen space or even a warship in years, aside from on a screen.  They left the day-to-day affairs to Gants to run, though occasionally the newsies and even the admin council would go to them to consult on particular thorny issues… but usually when they only wanted to be told what they wanted to hear.  He was in control of the Navy ships here around the shipyards and he could be reasonably sure that they would carry out his orders.  The FP, ships and crews, however, were
supposed
to defer command to the Navy in a time of crisis, but after their own battle against the pirates, and with one of the captains from that battle restored to health and to command of one of the ships, would he and the others be willing to accept Gants’s authority?

              “I would be happy to have them along,” he said, seeing her face light up.  He held up a hand.  “But,” he went on, “we need to have an understanding.  I know that your people are the ones who have the greater amount of experience here.  I know that one of your captains… Tariq, is it?  Personally commanded a ship in that battle.  But if they’re going to join the fleet – the simulation,” he corrected, “Then they need to understand that they are subject to my orders.”

              Tamara nodded.  “There’s nothing wrong with that.  I’ll make sure they understand.”

              “Thank you.”

              “Excellent.  I’ll get things set up for, say, 12 hours from now?”

              Gants squinted at the woman on the other side of the communications channel.  “You’re up to something I’m not going to like, aren’t you?”  Now it was his voice that had the ounce of acid in it.

              The engineer turned businesswoman tutted at him.  “Colonel, you asked me to be up to something.  No backing out now.  Besides, when have I ever done anything you actually liked?  12 hours.  I’ll get back to you.”  She cut the connection.

              He nodded, agreeing with her last point.  Standing, he exited the ready room and stepped out onto the bridge.  He looked around to the officers.  “We’re going to have another group exercise in twelve hours.  I want to get this debrief and hot wash done.  I’m getting the feeling that we’re going to need the rest.”

              He got a chorus of acknowledgements and the officers began to leave the bridge and head to the conference room.  Gants stopped his second in command.  “Sir?”