First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (59 page)

              She raised her hands.  “I promise you, Captain, I don’t know anything about this.  But I will find out.”

              “Good, do that.  George, are we in range for some close scans of the city?”

              The man nodded.  “Yes, Captain, we are.  Beginning sensor sweeps.  What am I looking for?”

              Vincent shrugged, considering.  “I’m not sure, really.  But with the governor talking about fuel problems, I’d start there.  Check on the shuttles, see if you can find them.  They’re probably in a hangar or something, but it’s a place to start.  If he’s complaining that there isn’t enough fuel in the tanks then there are only two reasons: either there’s a problem with the shuttles or there’s a problem with the collector.”  He nodded, pressing a control.  “Engineering, Bridge.”

              “Quesh here, Captain,” the Parkani’s gruff voice answered.  “You aren’t about to tell me that I need to increase engine power again, are you?  Because this is not a good time for that.”

              “No, Quesh.  We’re coming up into standard orbit over Vanoria, and we’re going to be sending down cargo shuttles in a bit.  No, what I need is for you to get a small team together and take one of the shuttles out to the fueling collector we left here.”

              “The collector?  Why?”

              “The local governor made comment that there was a fuel problem here and that our load is desperately needed.  We sold them enough the last time and with the collector they should have had enough of a reserve to make it at least another month.”

              “You’re right,” the Parkani replied after a moment’s thought.  “They should have.  I’ll get a team out there on shuttle three in a few minutes.”

              “Good.  If there’s any damage, fix it.  If the fuel bladders are full, transfer the fuel over to the shuttle, and once your team is finished, bring the fuel back.”

              “On it, Captain.  Anything else?”

              “Yeah, tell them to be safe.”  He ended the call.  “Serinda, tell Ardeth to get the cargo division ready.  We should be reaching orbit in less than half an hour, I want him and his ready to start loading up the shuttles to bring down the goods to sell.  And talk to Korqath too.  I want him to have some of his pilots to fly Combat Aerospace Patrol around the freighters in orbit and also to have four of his fighters escort the shuttles when they go down.”  He pressed another control while Serinda started making her call.  “Security, Bridge.”

              “Go for Security,” Saiphirelle’s voice came back.

              “Sai, it’s the Captain.  We’re going to be sending down cargo shuttles in the next few minutes,” he told her, nodding.  There was a plan now.  “I’m not expecting much in the way of trouble from the locals, but I want to be prepared.”

              “How prepared are we talking about, Captain?” the lupusan asked, sounding as though she was getting up from the desk and moving around.

              He let out a long breath.  “Go whole hog, Sai.  Armor, full weapons, grenades, all of it.  We are not going to take any chances, though I would prefer if you didn’t do a full breach when they land.  If things are particularly bad, just abort the landing and get back up to the ship.”

              “Understood.  I’ll take care of our people, Captain, don’t you worry yourself about it.”  She sounded very confident about that.  And she had the track record to back that up, Vincent knew.  He took a deep breath and just hoped that she wouldn’t start shooting with only the slightest provocation.

              “Good.  Gear up.”  He cut the connection.  Saiphirelle was smart, tough and resourceful.  She’d do what needed to be done to take care of the cargo, the shuttles and most importantly, the crew.  He hoped upon hope that her sense of duty and protection would not give her the idea to strike first and deal with the fallout later.

              “Captain, I’ve got something,” Ykzann called out from
Mondragon
’s sensor station. 

              “What is it?” Leicasitaj asked, looking up from his display.

              The zheen chittered to himself for a moment.  “There’s a ship parked on the surface,
not
one of the company shuttles.”

              His facial tentacles started to writhe.  “What kind of ship?  A warship?”

              “Doesn’t look like it, no, sir,” the zheen replied.  “Looks like a cargo ship, roughly about the size of
Silver Dawn,
but it’s clearly not in as pristine shape.  Looks like this one has seen some use.  It’s parked outside the city of Vanoria on the southern edge, next to a big warehouse.”

              “A cargo ship?” Leicasitaj said slowly.  “Is it broadcasting a beacon ID?”

              Another chitter.  “No sir.  It’s powered down at the moment, but it isn’t in our database registry.”

              The Romigani gave out a gurgling sigh.  “No, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  We got that database from
Grania Estelle
and while they have been all over this Cluster, they haven’t met every ship flying.  It’s possible it’s just another independent operator who came here to do business, either with the local government or some small business.  Either way, it’s a good thing, I suppose,” he mused.  “If it’s more than just ships from Seylonique coming this way, can only help with trade and moving goods and credits.  I’m sure Captain Eamonn will be pleased about this.”

              “You sure about that, sir?” Garidhak asked from Tactical.  “He is a merchant skipper, after all.  How well does he take to competition?”

              “Well, I don’t really know,” Leicasitaj admitted.  “But I can’t imagine he’d be too upset about having another tradeship moving through this part of the Cluster.  More tradeships means more trade, which means more businesses making and moving goods.  All of which means trade and profit.  Which I know the good Captain
will
be interested in.”

              “Chief, do you have a minute?” Stella asked, appearing on one of the Main Engineering displays. 

Quesh looked up from his work, recoiling slightly from her face being in his display.  He sighed.  “Stella, I really hate it when you do that.”

She smiled.  “Well Chief, I don’t have a physical body to make footsteps on the deck plates, so unless you want me to start coughing a lot until you answer me, this is the best I got.”

“What do you need, Stella?”

“There’s a strange signal that we’re picking up on the edge of our sensor range that I’ve never seen before.  I’ve had George analyzing it but we’re not really getting anywhere.”  She pursed her lips.  “I’m thinking this signal looks familiar, but I can’t place it with anything in the ship’s databanks.”

He nodded.  “Let me see it,” the engineer said.  “Not really sure that I’m necessarily going to recognize anything…”  He checked the signal information and frowned.  “Well, this looks like a burst transmission from a satellite.”

“A satellite?” Stella asked.  “But there aren’t any satellites near us.”

Quesh shrugged both sets of shoulders.  “There has to be.  Based on this data, it has to be within five hundred thousand kilometers.”

“But I’ve had George run the finest grain scans possible and we can’t find anything.”  Stella actually looked genuinely upset, and Quesh had to hide a smile.  AI’s, he’d quickly discovered, especially
this
AI, hated puzzles that had no answer.  It itched and festered and the AI couldn’t help but try to scratch.

He nodded.  “I’ll run it through a few analyzer subroutines,” Quesh told her.  “See what I can come up with.”  Then an idea came to him.  “Get in touch with
Mondragon
.  She certainly isn’t as big as we are, but her sensors are a bit more powerful.  Milspec.”

She beamed.  “Great idea!  I will.”  Then she frowned.  “It is only a frigate, though.  Sensors aren’t nearly as good as they would be on a battlecruiser or heavy cruiser.”

“And since we’re plum out of those,” he noted sardonically, “You and the engineers and sensor techs on the warships are just going to have to muddle along the best that you can.  I’ll run these,” he said, gesturing to the display then he pointed one finger at her.  “And you get in touch with
Mondragon
and get to work on the problem that way.  Hopefully it will turn out to be nothing, but maybe you’ll find something.”  And he gave her a look.  “Andy you better keep the Captain in the loop about this, Stella.  I mean it.  He’s going to want to know.”

She nodded.  “Of course, Chief.”

“Stella…”

She held up hands in mock surrender.  “I
will
!”

“Good.  Now git.”  He waved his hands in a shooing motion.  She saluted, smiled and vanished from the display.  He shook his head and then set to work.

“The AI over on the
Grania Estelle
was right, sir,” Ykzann reported after having done a few intense scans with
Mondragon
’s sensors.  “There
is
a very faint signal being transmitted, and we’re almost on top of it.  It isn’t on a frequency we normally monitor, which is why we missed it.  But I’ve incorporated it into our standard sensor sweeps, so we won’t have that issue again.”

Leicasitaj nodded.  “Very well.  Have you been able to isolate it?”

“Yes, sir.  It’s about eighty thousand kilometers off starboard and at a vector about two degrees above us,” the zheen said.  “I’m feeding the vector to the helm, sir.”

“Helm, change course,” the Romigani ordered.  “If there is something along this vector, I want to find it.  There shouldn’t be any satellites in this system, unless Captain Eamonn left them here.”

“According to Stella on the
Grania Estelle
, sir,” Ykzann put in, “They did drop a comm sat in orbit on their first trip here, but no others.  Anything we find, someone else put here.”

“And the fact that we can’t see anything but only detected a faint trace means that someone went to a lot of trouble to keep it hidden,” Leicasitaj replied.  “And that worries me.”  He sat himself a bit more comfortably in his command seat.  “Sensors, make sure you’re running continuous sweeps, as many frequencies as possible.  Stay linked up to
Grania Estelle
and make sure you share your data, as well as their sensors.  Ours might be more powerful, but theirs picked up the pulse in the first place.”

“Aye, sir,” Ykzann said, waving his antennae. 

“We’ve got ships incoming, Leader,” the tech sitting at sensors said, sitting up straighter, taking his feet down off the console.

“What?  How many?” Leader Mogrin asked, sitting up.  Unlike most of his crew, who were zheen, Mogrin was human, something that his crew would normally deride him for.  But after his first day in command and when the chief tactical officer shot his mandibles off about how weak and soft humans were, Mogrin rushed him, wrapped one of his burly hands around the zheen’s neck and then used the other to tear open the tactical officer’s thorax.  After that, no one dared defy their new commander. 

“Three, Leader,” Xoxix answered.  “One warship, looks about half again as large as
Sessilan
, and two larger vessels.  Look to be cargo ships, according to the spysat.  One really big one, and one much smaller.”

“Give me more than that,” Mogrin snapped.

The zheen looked contrite.  “Sorry, Leader.  The big cargo ship is about a kilometer in length, probably a bulk hauler; the smaller one is a medium freighter of some type.  Unknown configuration on both.”  He chittered to himself for a moment.  “Check that.  The bulk freighter is in the data banks; it was uploaded from
Ganges
when Lord Verrikoth captured this ship.  The bulk freighter is positively ID’d as
Grania Estelle
.  It was under the command of Armsman Gideon Jax, and was supposed to be on its way to Amethyst.  Actually, the Armsman was directed to take the ship there some months ago.”

“Are they sending out proper beacon and recognition ID?” Mogrin asked, checking his own monitor. 
Sessilan
was a captured Republic ship, a Ramza-class corvette.  The design wasn’t new, twenty-seven years, but the ship itself was:
Sessilan
was only six years old.  And although the battle with the Republic heavy cruiser hadn’t been the most uplifting of ventures, Lord Verrikoth had managed to pull a victory out of what might have been a crushing defeat.  They’d lost a light cruiser, but they’d managed to save three Republic vessels and a lot of swag from the trading station, before they trashed it.  Now his ship was all fixed up from the battle and he and his crew were dying for some action.

“No, Leader,” Xoxix reported.  “They’re broadcasting their ship names, and two of them, the warship and the bulk freighter are both showing IDs as belonging to something called ‘First Principles’.”

Mogrin frowned.  “Tell
Toroj
to hold position,” he ordered.  “Whisker laser only, we don’t want to spook our prey.  Are those ships giving any indication they’ve detected us?”  The two pirate ships, the corvette and the cutter, were tucked behind one of the moons of the fourth planet, using the spysat to keep an eye on things.  The sat was sheathed in the best stealth coating the Republic replicators could make, something that Mogrin wished he could cover all of
Sessilan
’s hull with.  It would make his job a lot easier.