Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (62 page)

              Duncan nodded.  What to do now?  The forces in this system had fired on his ships without much in the way of provocation, none really.  Granted, he was a Republic Naval officer, on a Republic warship invading a sovereign system outside of the Republic.  And from what he’d seen of the Argos Cluster, there weren’t very many people here who truly liked or appreciated anything that bore a Republic flag.  Just entering the system might be considered provocation enough, considering.  And if a ship like this went active, it would certainly be a threat.  Perhaps not to the Republic, but certainly to surrounding star systems. 

              But was that his problem?  The people of Argos certainly did not like the Republic interfering in their affairs and most probably wouldn’t lift a finger to help even a neighbor, much less a Republic ship in distress.  Why should he care what the locals did to one another?  It wasn’t as though the Republic had a lot in the way of assets out here, trading partners or even friends. 

              And more importantly, he had a mission to complete and that mission did not include shooting up sovereign star systems and trashing half-finished warships. 
Legacy
and her brooding captain had not been sent to the Argos Cluster to try and restore order, kill pirates or even try to make things better for the locals.  His orders were to find that ship.  Period.  And that made up his mind for him.

              “Deploy a sensor drone, class four,” he ordered.  Class four drones were highly stealthed pieces of scanning equipment, meant for long range reconnaissance in enemy territory. 
Legacy
had two of them in its inventory.  “I want it to monitor everything that’s going on at this shipyard, keep a low profile and then beam the information to us as we’re leaving the system.  Our mission is to find that freighter, not to handle locals building warships.”  There was a light ripple of conversation on the bridge, but a bark from Kamerov silenced it. 

              “Aye, sir,” Drommen said, setting up the drone’s programming.  “Class four drone is away.  I’ve set it up to do a lazy orbit of the shipyard, to maintain a distance of one hundred klicks.  It will get pictures and passive scans of the whole area for all angles.”

              “Very good work, Mister Drommen,” Duncan said appreciatively.  “Navigation, lay in a course for the hyper limit, pass that on to the helm as soon as you have it.  Helm, set speed for two-fifty.  Comms, make sure that
Ravage
stays with us.  We’re leaving this star system.”

              “They’re just moving on,” Kufazik reported, several hours later.  “They’ve bypassed the shipyard and are heading out system.”

              “They’re what?” Skygexx asked, responding to the communication from the bridge in his quarters.  He was standing by the comm panel on his small desk, looking at the panel in utter bewilderment. 

              “They’re just leaving, sir,” Kufazik replied.  “They didn’t contact the station, they didn’t fire off any weapons, nothing.  They just cruised close enough to get into visual range but didn’t even slow down.”

              Skygexx sank down into his desk chair, antennae flaring.  “It’s got to be a trick.  They’re going to turn back.”

              “Doesn’t look that way, sir,” the sensor officer replied.  “They are accelerating for the hyper limit.”

              “What vector?” he asked.

              “Navigation is checking that, sir.  The vector they’re on could take them toward several different systems, so we don’t have an exact idea.”

              Skygexx sighed.  “Keep an eye on it,” he told them and cut the connection.  What the hell were those ships doing? 

Chapter 21

              “All right folks, you know the drill,” Vincent Eamonn said to his officers around the wardroom table.  “Weekly status reports.”  He waved to the room at large, indicating that they should start.  It had been two days since the arrival of the ships from Ulla-tran and the merchants aboard the station had taken to them like members of a besieged garrison.  The goods and equipment they were selling were small, piddling amounts, little more than a few trinkets, several hundred metric tons worth, granted, but the cargo of the ships was little more than specialty items.

              “Well, word on the cargo docks is that the convoy will be loaded back up with stuff to sell back in Ulla-tran in two days,” Corajen said, starting them off.  “I went for a walk yesterday and talked to a few people.  The locals are trying to pawn off crap that they polished up, but the stuff that came in from Ulla-tran is much better than anything they’re sending back.”

              “Didn’t they say that they came here to recruit?” Vincent asked.

              The wolf woman shrugged.  “That’s what they said, but it doesn’t look like they got too many.  I think two of the ships got loaded up with people, but the other four are buying up anything that the locals are selling.”

              Saiphirelle snorted.  “What the hell do they need people here for?  They got people at Ulla-tran.”

              “Maybe they thought that some new blood might do some good.”  Corajen shrugged again.

              “All right,” Vincent said, waving a hand.  “Stella?”

              The AI sprang to life on the holo projector over the table.  “Yes, Captain?”

              “See what you can find out about these cargoes that the UTs are loading up with, and why it is that they need people from this system.”

              She nodded, tugging on one earlobe.  “On it, Captain.”

              “Quesh, talk to me about my ship.”

              “Hull work is moving apace, Cap,” the Parkani replied.  “With Stella’s help, the hull will be fixed and buttoned up on schedule, after that it’s just getting the internals squared away, but some of that can be done while we’re in transit.  I’ve made a list and set a schedule.”

              “Excellent,” the captain said with a nod.  “And the engines?”

              “Looking good,” he answered.  He nodded to Tamara.  “Samair and her team have done good work, engines four and six are fully operational.  Samair?” he gestured to her to continue.

              “Thanks, Chief,” she said.  “Like he said, four and six are all torn down, and completely rebuilt.  They are rock solid and tested.  We’ve torn down number two, but it’ll be a couple of days for that.”

              “Very good,” the captain said, making a note on his datapad.  “What’s the estimate for the ship to be ready to go?”

              “Twenty-two days, Captain,” Stella and Quesh chorused.  They looked over each other and smiled.

              He smirked as the others chuckled.  “Very good,” he said again.  “I’ll plan accordingly and start looking into hiring cargo people and securing some stuff for our holds.”

              “Any idea where we’d be headed, Captain?” Tamara asked, feeling her spirits lift for the first time in a long time.

              The captain gave her a strange look before he answered.  “Well, Tamara, I can tell you where we aren’t going.  We are not going back to Ulla-tran.”  There were relieved looks exchanged from all those surrounding the table, and from Stella, who had seated herself cross-legged on it.  He shrugged.  “I’m not sure exactly.  It depends on what we can get for the cargo.”

              “We could fill at least one of the holds with minerals from some of the asteroids,” Ka’Xarian pointed out.  “And then use them to build things that are needed for the locals when we get to wherever we’re going.”

              Stella nodding, smiling.  “I’m thinking that might be a good idea, Captain.  I don’t know what the locals here have in the way of trade goods.  Little more than trinkets and probably very little in the way of things that are marketable.  And,” she continued, sweeping her gaze over the others, “I’m not sure they have very much in the way of goods at all.”

              “You just said that,” Quesh pointed out.

              But the AI shook her head.  “That’s not what I mean.  I’m saying that considering the crap I’ve seen that they’ve sold to the ships from Ulla’tran, I don’t think they have much.  And since they haven’t had much in the way of ships coming here in recent years, they don’t have any markets that they can sell to.  They’ve got the very occasional itinerant merchant waltzing in here but nothing regular.  They don’t have things to trade because they don’t build anything.  They don’t have anything more to trade because they’ve gotten isolationist and well… lazy.”  The others all shifted their eyes around.  “Why would anyone want to buy the garbage they have here?”

              Tamara tipped her head from side to side.  “That’s true enough.  Anything of any value is old and needs a fair amount of work to get it up to snuff.  The only reason people around here care is because what they have has been in a declining state for years now.  They don’t have any ships, other than a few shuttles to take people to and from the surface.  And why would they want them?  They’ve got everything they need right here.”

              She looked around the table.  “They don’t want your help in fixing up the
Leytonstone
, because doing that would force them to admit that this perfect little society that they’ve got for themselves here is in decline.  They don’t like outsiders because while they’re barbarians and scum, secretly they’re filled with a ravenous envy at the technology that the outsiders have, us, the UT’s, everyone.  And they hate us, because it’s all just another reminder of how far down they’ve really slid, all while they’ve been congratulating themselves on how good they have it.”

              Vincent blinked.  “That’s a lot of bold statements there, Tamara,” he said, amused, though his eyes held no humor.  They looked worried.  “They’ve been buying up anything we’ve been throwing at them.”

              She nodded.  “Of course they are, Captain,” she replied.  “But think about it.  What have you sold them?  Fuel.  Something they want, but the amounts that they’re getting are just a cup in the bucket compared to what they would need to really get the station up to one hundred percent again.  What else?  The odd spare part, some minerals that we’ve been mining.  But very little in the way of finished goods, technology.”

              “It sounds like you’re saying that a few people have figured out that their utopia isn’t quite as perfect as they’d always believed,” Ka’Xarian said slowly.  “And they’re working to get a piece of the outside world.”

              “But it’s a very small piece,” Turan spoke up.  “What we’ve done here so far, or rather, what the Captain has done, has only given them a small taste of what’s there.  But every time you try and make a serious jump forward, what do the people in charge do?”

              “They dig in their heels,” Vincent said.  He sighed, rubbing his temples with one dark hand.  “So what is your recommendation, then?”

              Tamara leaned back, ran her hands through her hair and then extended her arms out straight.  “Stars.  I don’t know.  I mean I like the idea of all the engineering projects and setting up a permanent base here.  But how much resistance are we going to expect from the locals?”

              Vincent got up from his chair, went over to the viewport and stared out.  “I think it would take some serious changes for them to accept anything we’re doing.  They’re going to need to see some serious change and some serious money coming in before they would be truly interested.”

              Stella suddenly started to look around the wardroom, as though absolutely anything was more interesting than what was going on here.  Tamara and Ka’Xarian, sitting next to one another, saw what she was doing and stared at her.  “Stella?” Tamara asked, her tone suspicious.  “Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the officers in the room?”

              The AI jerked guiltily as though she’d been stung.  “Oh, no.  It’s nothing, Tamara.”  She was waving her hands as though to ward off evil smoke spirits.

              Vincent let his head droop a bit.  He sighed.  “Go ahead, Stella.  You can tell them, since it’s obvious that you’re about ready to burst.”             

              “I don’t think that’s entirely accurate,” Stella said slowly, her holographic cheeks coloring slightly.  She tugged on one earlobe nervously and again everyone in the room marveled at how well the AI had been programmed.  She looked like a teenaged girl who had been caught with a secret and was now forced to tell. 

              “Which part?” Quesh asked.

              “The part where it will take major change or money to make any forward progress,” Stella said slowly, not making eye contact with anyone. 

              “Because…” Xar asked, drawing the word out.

              She sighed.  “Because… the captain has already secured an investor.”

              The others all looked from Stella to Eamonn.  “An investor?”

              “For what project?”

              “How much are we talking about?”

              The captain raised both hands.  “Triarch Kozen’ck wants in.  The others from that original board of… whatever the hell they were have been wringing their hands over how the ‘uppity outsiders’ have been ‘impinging’ on their ‘sovereign system.’  It’s all bullshit.”  He sighed.  “They don’t have the ships, they don’t have the trained workers, hell, they don’t really have the interest in exploiting the resources of their star system, but they will hell be damned if some jumped up freighter trash tries to come into
their
system and jump start things.  It’s as if they
like
living in decaying facilities, with fewer and fewer resources and options with next to no outside commerce.”

              “I got into the system records,” Stella said, again looking as though she was feeling guilty. 

              “Which system records, Stella?” Tamara asked soothingly.  Everyone in the room had their attention fixed on the young AI. 

              “The ones on the station.  I didn’t want to risk trying to get into the ones on the planet.”  She looked around.  ”The engineering subsystems are in really bad shape.  There’s some work being done on them, now that the supply of helium 3 fuel is being used.  The reactor was suffering more and more neutron damage every day from the seawater they had previously been using.  It looks as though the Chief Engineer and the Assistant Chief were doing what they could to hold things together, but the situation was getting bad.  But now, they’ve got the second reactor up and running on helium 3 and the first one is under the process of being torn down and ejected.  They’re running at about twenty-two point nine six percent more power than they were before due to the increase in energy from the new fuel supply.  And they have a stockpile at current consumption for about a month if we cut them off.”

              “Which we’re not going to do,” Vincent said and the others nodded.

              “Right,” Stella said, looking to the Captain.  She sighed.  “There’s a bit of a fight going on between the Engineering staff and the Admins.  Admins want nothing to do with us and wish we’d all go away and take all these newfound innovations with us.  Engineering staff loves what we’ve done and wants badly to get their hands on the stuff that we have.”

              Tamara snorted.  “Not bad for two hundred and fifty year old designs,” she commented dryly.  “It’s so sad that so little in this Cluster has advanced since the old days.”  Smiles and other signs of amusement were shared by all present.

              “Two hundred and fifty year-old designs, Tamara,” Xar commented, “But brand new components, thanks to your replicators.”

              “Captain, if the reactors fail, that’s it,” Tamara said, leaning on the table on her elbows.  “By the time either the engineers fix them or if they call in our people to try and get those reactors back online a lot of people will be dead from asphyxiation.  If there’s no power to life support a lot of people on that station will die.”

              “I know that, Tamara.”

              “Yes, Captain, but what I’m saying is, how about we start slipping a few replacement parts to the engineering staff we’re selling the He3 fuel to?”

              The captain blinked.  Then he frowned.  “I’m not going to just give away parts, Tamara.”

              She shrugged.  “Then reduce the amount of fuel you sell to cover the costs of the parts, Captain.  Speak with the engineers; they’ll give you a full breakdown of what they need.”

              “Is it on the station net, Stella?  Maybe we don’t need to ask them,” Vincent said, turning to the young AI.

              But she shook her head.  “No, Captain.  It isn’t.  Either it’s being held on a remote server or terminal somewhere, or it isn’t on their computers.”

              “I see,” he said, rubbing his chin.  “All right, I’ll talk with them, see if they’re willing to talk.”

              “Based on what I’ve seen on their security footage, the engineers are worried,” Stella said.  “They’ve been making adjustments and reconditioning parts almost every shift.  They’re keeping ahead of the fall, but they know it’s coming.”