First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (42 page)

              “No, nor did I,” McConnell replied.  “More likely she’s a Federation officer.  Or I suppose she might be Republic, but she was on some sort of black ops program, though why they’d send her out to the Cluster is beyond me.”

              “Ma’am, they have replicators,” Brianne pointed out.  “They were of an older design, but I recognized the markings.  They’re Republic devices.  And if they’ve been getting the premium parts from them that they must be to get all of this up and running, then she’d have to be one of ours.  And of reasonably high rank too, to have access to the level of parts and equipment needed to build warships and reactors and such.”

              McConnell nodded.  “So, Eamonn got himself a tamed Republic officer.”

              “Tamed?  She didn’t seem all that tamed to me, ma’am,” the commander retorted.  “In fact, I think she was as determined to rake us over the coals as well as possible.”

              The commodore nodded again.  “That’s true enough, but she’s a yard manager, Chief of Operations.  She’s the one responsible for building and maintaining all the real estate and the ships around here.  I think she’s determined to build the best fleet possible, be it cargo or military.”

              “She’s got the two corvettes we saw plus whatever she might be building in those dry-docks.  We’ve seen more than a few shuttles, tugs and other ships out here, as well as that tanker.”

              “They’ve managed to build up quite an impressive operation here,” McConnell said, sounding resigned.

              “I know that tone, ma’am,” Brianne replied harshly, turning to look at her.  “I know what you’re thinking and you can’t be serious.  You can’t really be thinking that you’re going to hand over all the data that they’re requesting?  The Admiralty would skin you, skin the
both
of us alive if you do that.”

              “I know, Commander,” she said.  “But what’s the alternative?  What is our alternative?”

              “I agree to your terms, Ms. Samair,” Theodosia said a few minutes later, by comms.  The small party of officers and guards from FP had retreated from the
Horus
back over to the yard and the captain had gone all the way back to his ship.  “I’ll give you a full download of all the data you’re asking for and then you can get started on my ship.”

              Tamara nodded.  “I’m glad to hear that, Commodore.  If you could please upload the data onto a portable, I’ll send someone to collect it.  Once I have it in hand, my teams will be able to get started on refits to your ship.  Though I think we might want to relocate the crew while we’re doing it.  Perhaps some liberty?”

              Theodosia looked at her suspiciously, but then nodded.  “I don’t suppose you have any good place to visit, Ms. Samair?”

              “Well, I’m sure we can come up with something,” she replied.  “But I very much want to get started on that ship of yours, and get you up and running again.”

              “Wanting us gone so soon?” the commodore replied ruefully.

              Tamara smiled.  “I know what’s going through that head of yours, Commodore, mirrored, I’m sure by the thoughts in Commander Crgann’s mind.  You don’t want to be here.  You don’t want to have your ship overrun by civilian contractors.  You want to be back in space, either taking the fight to Verrikoth and his forces, or at least making the long trip back to the Republic.”  She shrugged.  “So, I want to get your ship repaired as quickly as possible to free up my people for other jobs.”

              “Very well, Ms. Samair, but where would you be sending my crew?” Crgann asked.  “I’ve seen the stations you have out here and there’s enough room for your crews but I can’t see that there’s enough for my people as well, though my engineering teams and a few others will be rotating through.  I’m afraid I cannot entirely keep my own people away.”

              Tamara nodded.  “Of course, Commander.  I completely agree.  My people have never worked on a Republic warship before but I don’t envision any major problems.”

              “How long do you think?” Brianne asked, crossing her arms over her chest. 

              Tamara considered that, then checked her datapad.  “Assuming no serious problems, I think we can have it done and ready to go within two months.”

              “Two months?”  Both officers looked to be a bit shocked by that.

              “We’re going to have to tear down a few sections, Commander,” she replied reasonably.  “It’s going to take some time.  I’ll do my best to speed things up and shave time off wherever I can, but two months right now is my best estimate.”

              The Secaaran sighed heavily, glaring at Tamara through the vid pickup.  “All right, two months.  I’ll have the download ready for you within the hour.”

              Tamara nodded.  “Thank you very much, Commander.  I’ll be waiting for your call.”

              “This is a hell of a score, Tamara,” Vincent crowed, several hours later.  He, Tamara and Eretria were seated in the office aboard the
Samarkand
, looking through the data files they’d received from the Republic.  “All those specs for a warship, as well as the medical database and all the rest?  I love it!”

              “We got a good deal on this,” Tamara agreed.

              “It’s not going to make us any money though,” the other woman pointed out.  “I mean, yes, I’m drooling over all of this as much as you are, but there are no credits flowing into the coffers because of this deal.”

              “Not right away, no,” Vincent acknowledged.  “But think of the upgrades and such that we can sell.”

              Eretria didn’t look convinced, but the nature of the deal wasn’t her problem.  So long as the payment vouchers and paychecks kept clearing, she didn’t mind.  “All right then.  I’m going to assemble my teams and get Nasir to send workbots over and we’ll get started on fixing the old boy up.”  She got to her feet, nodded and Tamara waved her off.  Once she left, Tamara went back to skimming through the piles of technical data.

              “Tamara, I believe I’ve discovered something.”  Nasir appeared on the holo projector.

              She looked up and Vincent turned to look at him.  It wasn’t really necessary; Nasir was the ship’s AI, but organics tended to want to look at an image of the AI when they spoke.  “What’s that, Nasir?”

              “I’ve been running through the data files you have there,” he gestured toward the display.  “And it appears the Republic Commodore, or perhaps Commander Crgann, has decided that they don’t want us to be able to keep these data files.”

              Tamara frowned.  “What makes you say that?”

              “The self-destruct worm I found buried deep in the coding,” he replied simply.  “It’s set to activate sixty days from now, and to self-replicate into any files we copy.”

              Vincent slapped the arm of his chair.  “Those bastards!  Trying to screw us over!”

              The AI flicked his ears in amusement.  “Well, with your permission, Stella, Magnus and I will look it over.  Perhaps we can de-worm the files.”  Magnus was the new AI over on the Kutok mine, acting for security as well as the main systems AI, like Stella was to the
Grania Estelle
.  He had taken on the form of a large warthog, but with a more humanoid body.  His form was well-muscled and barrel-chested but with spines running down his furred arms and legs, his feet cloven.  He had large tusks that curved up from his lower lip.  It should give him a bit of a lisp, if he was an organic, but as an AI, Magnus had decided to remove the lisp, giving himself an extremely deep and gravelly timbre to his voice. He dressed in a set of leather armor that covered his torso and ended in a leather kilt that covered his upper legs, with the FP galactic spiral stitched in black on his chest.  A heavy sword was sheathed over his back and every so often he would draw the weapon and pose with it, or make slashes in the air.  The light lag between the two locations would be a bit much, but Tamara was sure between the three AIs they would be able to work something out.

              “Before I get started with the others on that, Stella has something to tell you, Tamara,” Nasir said, bowing and as he did so holographic image disappeared, his lupusan form to be replaced by the image of Stella’s teenage human girl form. 

              “Great news!” she said, actually hopping from one foot to another.  “I found information about the disruptor the pirates hooked up to your neck!”  Tamara sat bolt upright and even Vincent looked more attentive.  “What?  It’s in the Republic medical files.  Well, it’s actually an addendum to the files that deal with implants.”

              “Okay…” Tamara allowed the word to stretch out.

              “Sorry,” the young AI said, hanging her head a bit, but the smile never left her lips.  In fact, her grin grew wider.  “Well, I wasn’t actually able to find an exact match for the device Jax put on you.  I think that he or Verrikoth’s people must have modified it, but the closest match to it is a 636 disabler, meant for the Republic military, specifically the military police.  They use them on criminals and prisoners when it becomes necessary to subdue them without actually burning the implants out.”

              “Burn them out?” Vincent asked, confused.  “Like with a cutting torch?”

              Tamara shuddered.  “Well that’s one way, but that’s usually after the subject is already dead.  No, there’s a nanite solution that’s injected, similar to Combat Heal, only instead of repairing wounds, it eats up the neuro implants.  At least, that’s what they did back in the old days.  If you were dishonorably discharged, your class one implant was left alone; you needed that for banking and personal identification and such.  But the class twos and above would be eliminated so that you couldn’t use them to get into any mischief, or access military hardware or computers.”

              “Makes sense,” the captain said, nodding.  “So this device blocks the wireless transmitter and receiver on implants?”

              “Actually,” Stella answered, “it’s selectable.  It can be set to block wireless, as well as to shut down the manual port,” she gestured and Tamara unconsciously clenched her right hand.  “And finally, it can be used to completely disable the implants, effectively shutting them down without breaking them.  So I guess we’re lucky, if you can call it that, that Jax only set it to level one when he attached it.”

              “Yeah, it could have been a lot worse,” she said dourly.  “Could have been a lot better, too.”  She rubbed her eyes with one hand.  “So, does that mean you’ve determined how to get this thing off?”

              Stella shrugged.  “Well, we’re narrowing it down.  I’m going to have a consult with Turan in a little bit and then I think between the three of us, you included Tamara, should be able to get that thing off and get you back to normal.”

              “I certainly would like that,” she replied with feeling.  “All right, get with Turan and then back to me.  Let’s see what we can find out.  And send me the links for the disruptor.  Maybe it’s as simple as just sending a signal to the device to shut it down.”

              Vincent only shrugged, but Stella looked doubtful.  “Go,” Tamara said, making shooing motions with her hands.  “Lots of work to do.”

              The AI smiled again and then pretended to curtsey, then vanished. 

              “Well, finally, something to look forward to,” Vincent said, nodding.

              “A reason for hope, at least,” Tamara agreed.  “Might even be back to normal functionality on these by the time we get started on the destroyer.”  She tapped her temple.  Then Tamara sighed.  “It’s great getting the tech base upgrades,” she said, looking over at the captain, who had straightened himself out to be facing her desk properly again.  “But Eretria’s right.  We aren’t making any money on this job.  And it’s a
lot
of hours to be putting my teams through.  With overtime and all that, and the metals and fuel that we aren’t going to be compensated for.”

              “And the fact that the lovely Navy officers are trying their damndest to screw us over on the payment we
did
agree with…” Vincent commented darkly.  “I’m almost sorry I found them in the first place.”

              She nodded.  “We certainly can’t do restorations like this too many more times.  In fact, I think we might need to hold off.”  Then she smirked.  “Unless of course, you happen upon a hull that we could salvage.  Without a crew in it, begging for help.”

              His smile matched hers.  “I know we don’t always agree on everything, Tamara, but I think I could get behind that.”  He stood.  “All right.  I gotta get back to the old girl and crack the whip over Quesh and his teams to get that refit done.  I need to load up on fuel and metal and then jump back for Heb.”

              “Well,” Tamara said, “Not counting the amount that we’re losing in restoring the
Horus
, we now have more than enough to finish our third defensive ship.”

              He sank back into the chair.  “The escort frigate?  Did we ever come up with a name for that?”

              She nodded.  “Kay’grax named it. 
Mondragon
.”