First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (89 page)

              “Put him through.”  He sat up a bit straighter.  The man’s face appeared.  “Councilor Kly, how can I assist you, sir?”

              The man’s face turned beet red.  “I am in the middle of critical and delicate negotiations right now, Captain.  I should have you arrested for wasting my time.”

              He sighed.  “I apologize for any inconvenience, Councilor.  But I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” 

              There was a five-second delay due to light lag.  “Playing dumb is not a smart move, Captain.  I can promise you that.”

              “I apologize, Councilor, again.  But if you could just tell me what it is that you mean?”

              Kly was glaring at him the whole time he was speaking, and an additional five seconds later, the man was still glaring.  Leicasitaj wasn’t particularly intimidated; humans thought they were terrible, frightening creatures, but compared to other species they were tame.  He looked like a native fish on the homeworld, a type of puffer fish that would change colors and increase in size to try and frighten off predators.  The fish didn’t have any spines or poison sacs but its size when fully inflated did tend to make predators look elsewhere for food.  That’s how the councilor looked now, as if by inflating himself he might bring the Romigani to heel.

              “Your ship is holding an amount of gadolinium.”

              He nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

              “I am ordering you to have it transferred to the
Leytonstone
.  You are to have it on a shuttle and on the way over, immediately.”

              “Understood, Councilor.  I will have it on the way to you shortly.”

              Kly didn’t answer, he just ended the call. 

              Leicasitaj sat in silence for a long moment, just thinking.  He’d just caused a lot of trouble for himself.  There was no way either Gants or Kly was going to forgive or forget this slight against their authority.  He pressed the comm control, ordering the cargo loaded onto one of the small shuttles.

              “So where do we stand, do you think?” Kly asked, flopping down onto one of the chairs.  They were in the executive suites that had been set aside for them on the orbital.  The day had been long and not entirely futile.  Everyone was in favor of this agreement, but of course it was the details that everyone was getting hung up on.  Whenever Chakrabarti and his team had managed to get one thing nailed down, the Ulla-tran team would demand something else.  There were things that the Seylonique team would not budge on, others they wanted to use as bargaining chips, and the Ulla-tran people were the same way.  It was maddening; the arguments tended to get quite heated, with various members getting up from chairs and shouting at one another.

              Kly couldn’t remember when he’d had more fun in his entire life.

              Chakrabarti shrugged.  He took a sip from the glass of scotch, sitting down on the couch.  One of the aides was wandering around the suites, a sensor wand in her hand, waving it around, looking to discover any surveillance devices that the locals might have set up in here.  So far, she’d discovered two such devices and had neutralized them. 

              “I don’t know, really.  I think we’re making progress, and the bringing in of the gadolinium certainly got their attention.”

              “We should thank Tamara Samair for having it sent along.”

              Kly grimaced.  “Arathos, please don’t bring up that woman’s name in regards to these negotiations.  I was in such a good mood.”

              “Let it go, Harmon,” Sebastian said.  “Anytime someone says her name, you fly off the handle.  I don’t want that happening here.”  Kly didn’t answer; he just nodded and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.  “Things are delicate enough as it is, I don’t need you losing your cool if one of the people in there brings her name up.  I can’t imagine why they would, but so far no one has noticed that one of the warships in our flotilla isn’t part of the Seylonique Defense Forces.”

              “Why should that matter?” Kly asked.  “It’s a Seylonique ship, that’s all that should matter.”

              “No, it isn’t.  Well, I mean it is,” Chakrabarti said.  “It’s a ship that has a Seylonique designator, but it isn’t actually one of the government military vessels.  If they discover that there’s a powerful company with a strong military presence, there might be trouble with these negotiations.”

              “Should we bring it up ourselves, then?” Arathos asked.  He was seated on another of the chairs in the room, his datapad on the coffee table in front of him.  “Bring everything out into the open.  It isn’t as though they don’t already know about First Principles.  They’ve had some of their ships come here and sell cargo, after all.  Had inspection teams go over the cargo ship.”

              “It is something to consider,” Chakrabarti replied, rubbing his chin.  “As you say, it isn’t as though they don’t know about the company.  And being up front about it will allow us to get past it.”

              “Or it’ll just mess things up more,” Kly put in.  “Give them something more to bitch about and try and squeeze concessions from.”  He turned to one of the aides nearby.  “Get me one of those, would you?” he asked, pointing to the drink in Sebastian’s hand.  The young man nodded, hustling over to the small bar.

              “Oh stop complaining,” Sebastian said sourly.  “You’re loving every second of this.  Admit it.”

              When Kly didn’t respond, Arathos spoke up.  “I’ve been watching you as much as our opposite numbers.  You are loving this.”

              “All right I am!” he snapped.  Then he couldn’t stop a smile from spreading over his face.  “And it is exhilarating.  We’re working on the first real interstellar pact, agreement, whatever that this Cluster has seen in years, decades, most likely.  This is high-stakes diplomacy!”

              “Don’t get ahead of yourself, here, Harmon,” Arathos said, nodding.  “I understand your excitement and I share it, but this is only between two star systems.  An important step, yes, but it isn’t the be all end all of the universe here.”

              “Yes, Arathos, you’re right,” Kly said placatingly, “it is only a step.  But it’s the
first
real step.  We’re the ones hammering this out.  And who knows, if we can get this settled and signed, then perhaps we can work out an arrangement with another system.”

              “Now you really are getting ahead of yourself,” Sebastian chided, then he took a sip of his drink.  “I’m all for looking to the future, but we need to keep our focus on the here and now, especially to get this pact signed.”

              Kly accepted the drink that the aide handed him.  “Thank you, Darian.”  He took a sip, made a gasp of pleasure, then took a large gulp of the liquor.  He waved his free hand.  “Ahhh.  And you’re right.  We need to get this squared away.  Maybe once that’s done, we can look into surrounding systems.”

              “Other systems?” Arathos replied, interested.

              “Yes!  An agreement between two systems is one thing, but if we can get ourselves more friends and allies, we can make a strong area of protection and commerce, a place that these pirates would be loath to approach.”  Kly had a look of such conviction that the lupusan gave a yip of laughter.

              “All right.  We’ve had a long hard day.  Who’s up for some food?  We should order in.”  Arathos turned to one of the aides.  “I think we need food and drink.  I know I’m famished after today’s events.”

              Chakrabarti chuckled, but Kly just glared at the most junior of his colleagues.  “You’re always talking about food.”

              The lupusan wasn’t fazed.  “You’re honestly going to sit there and tell me that after six hours with nothing but water, coffee and that booze there, you’re not the least bit hungry?”  He gave another small laugh.  “Because if you do, I’ll know you’re lying.”

              Kly scowled, putting a hand unconsciously to his stomach.  “All right.  I could go for a steak or something.”

              Arathos pointed at him.  “I like the way you think, Councilor Kly.  I’ll take three!”

              “I have to say, I think things are moving in the right direction,” Nikolas said, nodding to his two colleagues.  “We’ve got the issue of foreign warships hammered out.  As well as tariffs.”

              Shayenne waved that away.  “Yes, yes, that’s all wonderful.  But what we truly need to ask ourselves is: can we trust these people to abide by any terms we establish here?”

              He looked at her, a tiredness he didn’t realize he was feeling beginning to seep over him.  “Shayenne, if they had no intention of abiding by any agreement, why would they even bother with this?  And I know what you’re thinking,” he said, raising a head to stop her objection.  “You’re thinking that the whole reason they came here was to get a measure of our defenses, or industry and our responses?”

              “It
is
something we need to consider,” Koton said.  “You know it is.  We cannot simply act all blind and happy, believing that everything is perfect.  I would like very much to believe that, but we cannot simply be that naïve.  We cannot afford that.”

              Nikolas sighed and then shrugged.  “No, you’re right.  But I do want to believe the best of these people.”  At the looks of scorn he received from his colleagues he smiled sweetly.  “That’s why I have you two, to make sure that there is a healthy dose of skepticism and derision.”

              “I think things are indeed going well, Mister President,” Shayenne said.  “We’ve only been at this for a few days, but I think we won’t take much longer.  Assuming they don’t throw up any further blocks, I think we might have a tentative agreement ready for signatures in one, possibly two weeks.”

              “Good.  What’s the story about the cruiser?” Nikolas asked.

              Koton clacked his mandibles.  “The construction is nearly completed.  I spoke to the yard supervisor this morning.  They are closing up hull plating today and internals will be completed in another month.  Weapons and shields will be completed in the same time frame.”

              “So when can we potentially get the ship launched?” the president asked, sounding anxious.

              “The ship will be ready for space in a month, Mister President,” Koton replied.  “Which means that we need to have crews ready to take control, so Commodore Saroyan is getting personnel into the simulator complex, and others will be pulled from current ships to make up an experienced core of spacers for our heavy cruiser.”

              “That’s good news.  I know that having one more ship in our space defense forces won’t change everything, but having a serious hitter like that on our side will ease my troubled sleep a bit.”  Nikolas smiled.  “It’s not a match for Seylonique’s monster out there, but having a heavy cruiser added to our order of battle has got to give any pirate forces out here in the Cluster pause.”

              “Yes, Mister President, I agree.”  Shayenne said, tossing her hair.  “I know that our own space defense forces are strong enough to protect this system and having a heavy cruiser will only make us stronger.”

              He eyed her suspiciously.  “Yes, there will be a heavy cruiser added to Ulla-tran’s system defense forces, but that ship will not be used to attack outside enemies.  So you can get that look of conquest out of your eyes and off your faces.  There are pirates enough in the surrounding systems, we will not join their ranks.”

              “If necessary, we may need to send our ships out to fight any pirate menace that might be in the nearby systems,” Shayenne said, sounding pensive.  “Better that we fight them away from our home, away from our infrastructure and citizens.”

              Nikolas glowered.  “What you say makes sense, but I want a powerful weapon like that very close to home.  And we don’t even know where any of these pirates are based, what kind of firepower they have, nothing.  And I will not be sending out a ship like that away from here unless it is to administer a crushing blow.”

              Koton sat quietly for a moment, then his antennae bobbed.  “I can certainly get behind that policy, Mister President.”

              Shayenne gave her colleague a look of disgust.  “Don’t be a sycophant, Koton.  All right, yes, that is a good policy, but we have no idea where the pirates are actually based, what their objectives are…”

              “I should think that is obvious,” Koton shot back.  “They move in to steal, plunder, kill…”

              “Don’t be so dramatic, we all know what pirates are about.  But one would think there would be more to them, if they truly attacked a Republic outpost.  That sounds more like the actions of a warlord than a simple raider.”  Shayenne frowned, but then put on a pensive expression at her last statement.  “We need to be prepared for that eventuality.”

              “Of course,” the president agreed.  “This was why I authorized construction on the heavy cruiser to begin with.  Though I must admit, the news of the destruction of the Republic base at Byra-Kae does have me somewhat concerned.  If this pirate lord has the strength to actually pull that off, what hope do the rest of us have?”