First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (19 page)

              “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 from 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.”

              Vincent looked at the report on his screen.  Two of the cargo bays were loaded up with parts for the power plant, a helium 3 fueled reactor.  On the
Grania Estelle
’s last trip here to the Heb system, they had discovered the locals here were using a nuclear reactor in their primary city, but the radiation shielding had been insufficient and it was leaking radioactive waste into the surrounding soil.  The local population had been rife with cancers and other radiation-related sicknesses and the death rate was high.  When the ship had arrived, eager to trade, the locals had treated them as godsends.  The reactor had been broken down and radiation cleanup initiated. 

              They’d stayed on a month longer than Vincent had originally intended, helping with the cleanup and working to replace the power grid.  They didn’t stay long enough to build a new power plant, but Vincent had promised to help out the next time they were here, and had provided a few smaller He3 reactors, a collector for the local gas giant as well as a shuttle to bring back the He3 fuel.  They also left plans for a proper He3 power plant and some tools, but they couldn’t stay to rebuild it.  They had departed the system hoping that by the time they’d returned the locals had made a good dent in the construction.

             
Well, they didn’t the proper facilities to make the parts for that reactor,
Vincent mused,
so I can’t imagine that they would have made much progress.
 
Well, hopefully, they’ll be willing and able to purchase the parts we’re bringing them now.

              The long trip in was quickly over, but during that time, Ka’Xarian and his team maintained the watch sections while Quesh and the third shift team set about making two more shuttles for the locals to purchase.  They would need them for making trips to the Jovian for fuel, and having two additional shuttles would greatly assist with the unloading of all the cargoes destined for the people here.