Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (13 page)

              The pain wasn’t so much physical.  She kept seeing them, all those dead crewmates.  Thankfully, it was only when she closed her eyes, when she was too worn out from weariness did her mind shut down and she would slip into sleep.  And then the nightmares would be there, waiting for her.  She supposed she should feel bad for the pirates, but she didn’t.  She knew that most of them deserved their fate, but the people of the
Grania Estelle
didn’t.  They were trying to better themselves, to try to make a credit or two in a very hostile section of space, unlike the pirates who were trying to pillage and steal and kill anything in their path.

              Her HUD wasn’t being overly helpful either, which was actually something to be grateful for.  She remembered stories back in her Navy days in which people who had suffered serious emotional trauma would unconsciously access their implants, which would happily bring up images of people who had been killed or hurt, or bring up recordings of the traumatic event.  Tamara really didn’t need any reminders as her own gray matter was doing a fine job of remembering all on its own.

              Tamara picked herself up off the deck and flopped down on the bunk, turning to face the bulkhead.  The ever glowing light panels up above never allowed the cell to be dark, which wasn’t helping her mood.  She wanted very much to be in the darkness, which was on the one hand a more appropriate setting for her mood, but on the other she very much appreciated the never-ending light, as it helped, albeit only a little, to keep the nightmares at bay.

              The rest of the ship was back to a whirlwind of activity.  EVA teams were out on the hull, inspecting and cataloguing the damage that they hadn’t gotten to while back at Ulla-tran.  There had been too much of a hurry, what with the pirates, the boarding and then the arrival of the Republic cruiser to do much more than note problems, and only then only in for far as they affected basic operating.  Since at the time neither the Captain nor Armsman Jax had any intention of hanging around any longer than necessary, they only focused on getting the most basic of shield coverage over the ship and sealing up the biggest rents in the hull.  Now, however, the entire complement of bots were released out onto the hull to scour the hull while all the EVA teams worked to install the shield nodes. 

              The teams were running full tilt, but it was still slow going.  They were short-handed and not everyone could go out onto the hull.  There simply not enough engineering hardsuits available to go out in, not everyone was trained for that and some needed to stay inside and keep everything running.  It also didn’t help that the pirates were nosing about, mostly making themselves known, keeping a presence in engineering and the bridge.

              Two of the pirate fighter pilots took shuttles out to fly nearby, in case any of the crew were detached from the ship and floating free, under orders from Armsman Jax.  No one understood his sudden compassion for the crew, especially given the circumstances, but no one questioned it either.  The third shuttle was kept in the boat bay, but the pilot was hanging around in the bay ready to go if needed.  It would be unlikely, as the other two shuttles were out and about, but the Captain wanted to be prepared.

              The pirates seemed nervous, out here in the void.  All of them were old hands at working in space, but it was rare that a ship would stop in the long stretch between star systems.  For the crew of the
Grania Estelle
this was nothing new, their third time to do serious repairs and overhauls while out in the void. 

              Nine long hours later, Quesh brought his teams back inside.  There was little more than a reactor watch keeping an eye on things in Main Engineering and he needed to get his people back inside to rest and refuel.  Cookie had fired up the kitchen, not that he ever needed a reason, and greeted the work crews with a hearty fish soup and platters stacked with towers of sandwiches.  Not the most elaborate fare he’d ever provided, but the crew fell upon the food with ravenous abandon.  He didn’t receive any complaints, and would have boxed the ears of anyone stupid enough to even jest that his food was no good.

              The Captain came down to the mess while Quesh was finishing up a bowl of the fine soup.  He loaded up a tray of his own with soup and a pair of sandwiches and came and sat in front of the Parkani, who nodded in greeting, spoon in his mouth.  “Captain,” the engineer grunted.

              “Chief,” he said in reply.  He dug into his own food and the two males simply sat and ate in silence, or rather they didn’t speak while the crew around them carried on excitedly.  It was nice to see them cheering up a bit.  No one would forget the awful days they had just been through, but the hard work and the break in the tedium certainly helped to lift their spirits.

              “So,” Eamonn said after several minutes of ingestion, “Talk to me about the work.”

              “On schedule,” the Parkani said, taking another spoonful of soup.  “We’ve got three of the nodes installed, two more should be done next shift.  We’ve got three more to do after that and at that point our shields will be up to about seventy percent.  But Xar was right.  The inspections of the hull are concerning me.”

              The captain looked worried.  “Concerning you?”

              Quesh nodded.  “Yes, sir.  The damage we took has put some serious stress on a lot of the hull.  The bots have done a good job mapping them, but when we get to S-…” he stopped and looked around furtively.  The captain grimaced and waved his hand surreptitiously to indicate he needed to watch his words.  “Um, I mean to Amethyst, we need to concentrate on hull work.  That and the sublights.  My engines are trashed, Captain.  Engine One is the only one that’s even partially working and that’s a complete hack job.  We need to do a complete overhaul of all the sublight engines, the lateral sensor array, and three of the communications antennae.”

              “My poor ship,” the Captain lamented.

              Quesh cocked his head in sympathy.  “I’m working on her, Cap.  She needs a lot of work and we definitely need more hands.”  He sighed.  “I don’t want to think about replacing anyone, but I simply don’t have the luxury of that kind of grief-thinking, Cap.  Not if we want to keep this old girl running, to say nothing about fixing her up again.”

              Eamonn nodded slowly.  “Captain Verrikoth said in my last meeting with him at Ulla-tran that this was still my ship and that so long as I was delivering his cargo and following his rules, I could operate how I like.  I think that might still apply, though I’m not sure if Armsman Jax got that memo.  Or cares.  He might be thinking that this is his own private little fiefdom that he’s stewarding for his boss.”

              “That’s dangerous, Captain,” Quesh said, gesturing with his spoon.  “We can’t work like this.  I know he let you get away with this pit stop, but would he let us bring on more crew?”

              The captain shook his head.  “I don’t know, Quesh.  That’s something we’re going to have to worry about when we get to Amethyst.  For now, just keep doing what you’re doing.  Get the hyperdrive and the shields ready.  Oh, what’s our best hyperspeed going to be once this is all done?”

              The Parkani sighed.  “I know we were all hoping for and talking about Yellow, but with the structural issues, the ship just can’t get going that fast, not and cause serious stress problems.  I’d say best we can hope for is Orange level six, sir.”

              “Not even top of the Orange,” the captain griped. 

              The chief laughed.  “Captain, only six months ago we would have crowed in celebration to be going that fast.  Before Samair came on board best we could hope for was level three of Orange, remember?”

              “Amazing how quickly you get used to working and living in luxury,” Eamonn said, taking another bite of sandwich.

              Quesh chuckled in agreement.  “Yes, sir.  There are a number of structural supports and hull plates we’re going to have to check over, patch or more likely outright replace before we’re going to be able to jump any faster.”

              “Understood.”

              “And it’s going to be a bitch of a job, I’m afraid,” Quesh said, sighing in dead for the work that was ahead of him and his teams.  “Got to get to some not quite so easy to access places, sir.  But we can do it.  Might take a couple of weeks to get the structural supports done.  We’ll definitely need to grab a few more rocks for raw materials.”

              “Understood,” the captain said again.

              “Sir, I know it’s a touchy subject, but is there anything you can do about getting Samair out?” the Parkani asked, keeping eye contact with the other male, but ducking his head a bit, looking uncomfortable.  “I know she and I have had a bit of a history, but I need her.”

              The captain nodded.  “I’ll see what I can do, Chief, but I can’t make any promises.  And I owe her for everything she’s done for my ship and for this crew, I know that.”  His face darkened.  “Just keep doing what you’re doing for now.  And make sure you let your teams get
some
rest.  I know there’s a lot to be done before we can jump out of here, but let’s just say the sooner the better.”

              Quesh swiveled his gaze to the pair of pirate soldiers that were standing next to the bulkhead near the main door to the mess hall, trying to look menacing.  That effect was marred by the crew’s complete and utter lack of interest in them at all.  They were basically just looking grumpy, and the crew couldn’t care less.  It was a bald-face lie, of course, but the crew were putting up a good show of ignoring them; everyone was still a bit nervous about trigger-happy pirates with guns.

              The Captain finished his meal, bussed his dishes and left, Quesh followed a few minutes later.  The engineer for his rack, the Captain went looking for a certain pirate.

              Armsman Jax was in one of the lounges, one of his fellows there with him.  They had stripped off their armor, though both men still wore their weapons.  They were dressed more or less similar to the rest of the crew; apparently Verrikoth didn’t believe in following holovid stereotypes of what pirates should look like.  They weren’t all wearing leather dusters with skull jewelry.  In fact, aside from the armor and weapons, they looked like otherwise ordinarily dressed spacers, though the trope about tattoos seemed to be correct.  None of the thugs aboard the
Grania Estelle
seemed to be without any.  Even Jax had one on his right hand, some sort of tribal design, though it clearly went up his forearm, though it was usually covered by his sleeve.  He and his fellow seemed to be playing some sort of dice game, though as Vincent Eamonn entered the compartment, he could see from the look on Jax’s face that the Armsman’s heart really wasn’t in the game.

              He looked up as the captain entered.  “Well, you’ve got some serious stones coming in here after the performance you’ve put forth.”

              Eamonn crossed his arms over his chest.  “I’m either the Captain or I’m not.”

              Jax’s smirk wasn’t a friendly one.  “You could very easily be ‘not’, Eamonn.  Don’t push me too far.”

              “So I’m here to talk about our destination.”

              The pirate chuckled, as did his fellow, who was putting the dice into the pocket of his coveralls.  “No you’re not.  You’re getting things moving forward on the repair projects and you want me to release my prisoner from the brig.”

              “Actually, I did want to talk about getting my crew members released, yes,” Eamonn replied.  “All three of them.”

              “Well, you can forget it,” Jax said flatly.  “Those two mutts are far too much of a threat.  I release them I may as well just put them down.  Because that would be the end result.  They’d get out, they’d start attacking my men, and I’d have to kill them.  It’s that simple.  So if you want them dead, I can certainly oblige.”

              Eamonn ground his teeth, but didn’t rise to the challenge.  “No, I don’t want them dead.  But we need to talk about Moxie – er, Samair.”

              “You sweet on that bitch?” Jax demanded suspiciously.  “Got the pet name for her, always checking up on her.  I’ll bet you bedded her the first week she came on board.”

              Eamonn sighed.  “So you won’t object then, if I let her out of confinement.”

              Jax laughed.  “That woman doesn’t leave that cell until Captain Verrikoth gives the order.  She can sit in there until she rots, so long as her ability to access replicators remains unchanged.”

              “I need her,” the Captain protested.

              Jax stood, unfurling from his seat with the grace of a jungle cat.  “And I just said she can sit there until she rots.  That… woman…” it looked as though Jax was struggling to find the right adjective, “killed my soldiers.  She stays right where she is.  She cannot be trusted not to try something stupid again and you can’t afford to lose any more of your crew if she misbehaves.”  His eyes glinted with malice.

              The captain stood there and just glared at him for a long moment, but he didn’t rise to the bait.  “Fine, but I would like to discuss what we’re going to find at Amethyst.”

              The Armsman shrugged.  “Nothing, it’s a waypoint.  There’s a small station there, we’ll take on supplies, offload the fuel cargo and I’ll pick up a few replacements.”  He smiled again.  “Get my security teams back up to full strength.”