A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  Katrag grunted. “Your priority is to get the goods and hit that mining station, not to waste time with my ship. I was the idiot who couldn’t get my ship out of the way fast enough. You shouldn’t be wasting your time with me; you should get on with the raid on that station.” It was clear that the Leader was bitter about what just happened and the proper response Skygexx should be taking.

  “We will,” Skygexx assured him. “Once the personnel and equipment are transferred over, I’ll leave you to it and ‘get on with the raid’.”

  “You’d better hope your ship’s firepower isn’t needed before you can get there,” Katrag warned. “Because if it is and Lord Verrikoth find out you’ve been wasting time with me instead of hitting that mining station, it could be both our carapaces.” He hissed. “It would be both of our carapaces.”

  Skygexx’s antennae twitched nervously. Katrag was certainly right about that. For all his talk about not wanting to waste his forces on this raid, Lord Verrikoth was not known for his charitable nature, nor of his willingness to forgive what he considered dereliction. Stopping to aid a wounded comrade like this in the middle of a job was never considered a high priority. “That’s why this is going to be a speedy transfer. I’ll have my people ready to go, lined up outside the airlock. I just need someone on your end ready to receive them.”

  The other zheen paused, clearly thinking about it. “All right. I’ll have someone there, ready for you. What’s your time to docking?”

  “Helm?” Skygexx asked.

  “Six minutes, Commander.”

  “I heard,” Katrag replied. “I’ll be ready. Skale out.” And the call ended.

  Skygexx hummed to himself, more of a sigh (if he was human). He sat for a moment, thinking, wondering if this was truly the best way to go here. Then he waved his antennae. He was already committed to this maneuver. He pressed the comm stud on the arm of his chair.

  “Sickbay,” the voice came back.

  “It’s the Commander. I want a pair of medics and two medipacks down to the portside airlock immediately. They’ll be going over to the Skale to help with the wounded.”

  “Understood, Commander. I’d better get to it.”

  Skygexx cut the connection. Then he got on the line with engineering, ordering the chief to get an engineering team together to go over to the corvette to assist in damage control and getting the ship’s engines and reactor back online.

  Twenty minutes later, the destroyer was undocking from the corvette, moving in to assist the two freighters in attacking the station.

  Silvio Koolidge put a hand to his forehead in near panic. How the hell could this be happening? This was a mining station in a safe star system, with plenty of defense ships. No one was supposed to be coming here. No one was supposed to be attacking, no, destroying his two defensive platforms! Of course he’d heard about the pirates, everyone who worked for FP had. And he’d scoffed at the idea that there might be a threat to Seylonique, what with the flotilla of defensive ships built by FP as well as the ones controlled by the government. And then of course there was the battlecruiser, the Leytonstone. Because of that ship, Seylonique had been kept safe for decades.

  But the Leytonstone wasn’t here in the system now. She was light years away, in the nearby system of Ulla-tran, the lead ship in the trade delegation the government had sent six weeks ago. Of course, several other warships had been pulled to make the trip; someone’s bright idea. It probably made sense, if he was honest with himself, but now, of course, with pirate warships bearing down on his mining station, he wasn’t feeling very charitable or honest. His nice, safe system wasn’t so safe anymore.

  “Boss, those two freighters are closing on us,” one of his workers called from his station in the command center.

  “Katie?” Silvio asked, turning to his communications specialist.

  The middle-aged woman nodded. “Yeah, Boss, they’re hailing. And they don’t sound all sweet and happy, either.”

  Silvio grimaced. Glancing around the command center, he could see the fear. The FP warships were busy dealing with the main fleet, and the asteroid mining station didn’t have any starfighter support. Now that the weapon platforms were trashed, there was nothing they could do to stop the invaders.

  “Muster all the security forces in the forward areas, in the areas where they are probably going to dock.” He didn’t have a lot of faith that the twenty rent-a-cops armed with stunner pistols would be able to hold back a boarding force of bloodthirsty pirates. The station’s security was used to break up fights, keep the peace. They weren’t trained for this.

  “All right, put the pirate through,” Silvio said, gesturing to the display.

  Katie pressed a control and the display lit up, bringing up the visage of an ebony-skinned human male. He looked like what Silvio would have called a stereotypical pirate, despite the fact that very few of the company’s employees had ever actually seen a pirate before. His shipsuit was blood red with leather shoulder pads, a bandolier with a brace of knives was slung over one shoulder. Only the man’s head and shoulders were visible on the display, but Silvio was certain that the man probably had a gun of some sort in a hip holster as well as another blade. He had small gold hoop earrings through his lobes and a strange tattoo over his right eye, what looked like a glowing blue lightning bolt.

  “This is the vessel Cierre to mining station.” The man’s voice was heavily accented, but a dialect that no one in the command center recognized it. “You will stand down your weapons and surrender.” He gave a wicked grin, one that sent chills down the station master’s spine. “If you do this… some of you may live. Do it not… well, I certainly would appreciate it.” He cut the connection, not even waiting for Silvio to reply.

  They all turned from their consoles and looked to Silvio. I don’t have any answers! the panicked part of his brain raged. I don’t know what to do! Don’t look at me. I’m an administrator, not a military officer.

  “What are we going to do?” Katie asked, breaking the spell.

  Silvio could feel his control slipping. “What are the ships doing?”

  “One of them is approaching the main docking bay, Boss,” one of the operators reported, his voice shaking. He bit his lip to try and control it.

  “What about the other one?”

  “It’s moving out toward the mineral stockpiles we have beaconed and floating nearby.” The man’s voice had steadied out. At least only one of the ships was coming in toward them.

  All those metals! Silvio despaired. “At least we brought the gadolinium inside.”

  “You’re worried about that?!” Tevvis, one of the Severite operators shrieked, blinking furiously in his panic. He stabbed one clawed and furry finger at the sensor display. “That ship there is closing on us, with a bunch of hardened, vicious killers on board and what you’re worried about is a cargo hold of gadolinium? We need to get out of here! We need to stop them.”

  “How?” Silvio demanded, his calm snapping. “How the hell are we supposed to stop them? Or better yet, how are we supposed to get out of here?”

  “Shuttles!” Tevvis shot back. “There are four of them parked in the number three cargo hold. We can get everyone down there and be out into space in ten minutes!”

  “And be right in the line of fire for those pirates!” one of the others cried. “We’d have to fly right past that big freighter right there,” he pointed, “And they’d shoot us down without even blinking.”

  “It’s better than sitting here, waiting to die!” the Severite shouted. He jumped down from his station and scampered off, racing through the hatch and out of the command center. Three of the operations techs got up and after a guilty look at Silvio, they tore off down the corridor after him.

  “No!” Silvio shouted, but it was too late, they were already gone.

  “He’s on his communicator,” Katie said, her voice sounding hollow.

  “Telling the others to leave.” Silvio’s anger was boiling off, leaving a cal
mer resignation. “Let them go. It isn’t as though we could really stop them.”

  “What about the emergency bulkheads?” one of the others asked. “I mean, we slam them all shut. That could keep things buttoned up for a time.”

  “But what about the pirates?” Katie asked, looking at the other operator. “If they find their way is blocked, they’ll start cutting through those bulkheads.”

  “And that will take time!” the other operator insisted, getting to his feet.

  “Time to do what?” she demanded. “If it’s taking too long, those pirates out there will just start blasting.” She pointed in the general direction of the two pirate warships which, strangely, were not advancing on the station.

  Silvio had one hand on his head, walking, almost staggering around in distress. He looked at one of the now vacant consoles and saw that the freighter was almost to the docking bay. Internal cameras showed the bulk of the security force clustered outside the bay, their stunner pistols held at the ready. “They’re going to be slaughtered.”

  “So are we, Boss,” Katie replied. “Or taken as slaves.”

  He clutched at his head, pulled at his thinning hair. “How is this happening?” he wailed.

  Once Cierre docked with the station, the main cargo doors opened and armed boarders spilled out. The bay was aired up, but it wouldn’t have mattered, as the boarders were wearing head bags and breather masks. They wouldn’t survive long out in the vacuum of space, but in an unaired docking bay, they’d be fine. It didn’t matter, as it turned out, as it didn’t even occur to the station security force to blast the air out of the bay.

  Getting to the main door leading into the station, one of the thugs pressed the control to open it, and it slid open to the sound of hydraulics. The boarders exchanged glances, confused at the easy entry before the leader barked an order at them, and they rushed through the door.

  The security force missed the golden opportunity to ambush them. They were ready and waiting, their stunners pointed, but none of them fired. No one could say, exactly what it was they were waiting for. But then it was too late. One of the deputies fired his stunner, catching one of the boarders, a zheen, square in the face. The insectoid crashed to the deck plating, unconscious. The others raised their weapons and fired but in a ragged progression, no real concentrated fire.

  The boarders cut them to shreds. Assault rifles opened up, chattering noisily in the confined metal corridor. A pair of plasma grenades were tossed at the couple of bits of small cover that two of the deputies were trying to hide behind, blasting it to ragged bits and scorching the metal. In just under twenty seconds, all twenty of the deputies were dead.

  “Move it!” the leader called and they all hustled forward. They stopped briefly to ensure the deputies were dead, using their blades when necessary and pulled the bodies to the sides of the corridor to clear the area. They also stripped any access data cards, communicators and weapons that were still functional, dumping it all into a duffel.

  The operations crew watched in horror as the entire security contingent was butchered without a single casualty on the invaders’ side. Before blasting it out, one of the zheen invaders looked up toward a security camera and hissed.

  “We’re going to die,” Katie said, putting her head on one hand, leaning on the console. “That’s it.”

  “We’re not done yet,” Silvio said soothingly. “We can still beat this.”

  The other operations workers stared at him as though he was speaking another language. “Are you insane?” one of the men snapped, panic etched on his features. “We can’t get out of this. We’re dead! They’re going to kill us? Screw this. I’m out of here. I should have left with the others, not stay around to get slaughtered.” The man was up and out of his seat and running.

  “We need to get out of here,” Katie demanded, getting to her feet.

  “No!” he cried, turning to face her. “We have to stay and try and protect this station!”

  “Are you kidding me, Silvio?” she said, using his given name. “We have no chance of doing that. Those soldiers are going just kill everyone.” She turned to the other workers here in the command center. “Get the escape pods,” Katie ordered.

  “You don’t have the authority to give that order,” Silvio bristled, grabbing her arm.

  The woman shook him off and snarled at him. “You’re a fool. Fine, stay here and die.” With that, she joined the others hustling for the pods in the next compartment.

  He just watched them go, standing dumbfounded in the middle of Operations.

  “Captain,” Kufazik reported from sensors. “I’ve got five escape pods launching from the mining station. “No, seven. Ten. Eighteen.”

  “Toward us?”

  The zheen consulted his display. “Two of them are. The rest of them are on a vector in system, heading in the general direction of the habitable planet. It’ll be a long time before they get there, though.”

  Skygexx considered. “Disengage from Skale,” he ordered. “Then move us off and close on those pods. Get the tractors warmed up. I think we have a few prisoners to snag.” It wouldn’t be many, he knew, but if he could even grab five or six technicians off those pods, they would be worth their weight in gold.

  “Sir, I’m showing two shuttles departing the main bay,” Kufazik said loudly. “They’re moving to try and evade.”

  Skygexx hissed in amusement, his antennae curling and extending. “Comms, hail them. Demand their immediate surrender, or we will shoot them down. Tactical, lock weapons.”

  Hekai nodded. He pressed a few controls. “Done, Captain.”

  “To the shuttles attempting to flee, this is Ironhide. You will immediately strike your shields, stop and heave to, or you will be fired upon. You have no chance of escape.” The zheen at comms sounded confident, almost smug. It was a sentiment Skygexx shared. This was a glorious day.

  “Don’t fire! This is Shuttle 15, we are powering down. Stars, please do not fire!” came the frantic reply from one of the shuttles. Skygexx noted that one of the icons for the shuttles was slowing and then came to a stop on his display. The other was still racing frantically in system, clearly deluded in their hope of escape.

  “Order them to maintain position,” Skygexx told the comm-tech. “And inform them if they try and get… cute, I believe is the word, we will destroy them.” He looked to Hekai at Tactical. “Hekai, shoot down that second shuttle.”

  The zheen nodded, clacking his mandibles. “Aye, Captain!” He pressed a control and all of Ironhide’s rail guns opened up. A storm of metal raced after the fleeing shuttle, pounding the shields which popped like a soap bubble. Another salvo breached the hull and the shuttle spun out of control, its systems dark, spiraling off into the system.

  “They’re dead,” Hekai said simply.

  “Move us into position near that first shuttle,” Skygexx ordered. The pilot nodded and the destroyer eased over. Hekai maintained his weapons’ lock on the little ship, until they closed the distance. “Lock on to them with a tractoring beam and bring the ship in tight. Have a boarding team ready.” He checked the display, seeing that the tractors had already caught the two escape pods, and had brought them to rest not far away. “Then get those pods and reel them in. Make sure we have some of the lads armed and waiting for our new… guests.”

  Some of the bridge crew hissed in amusement. “Yes, sir. I’ll inform the assault crew.” The comm-tech said and turned to his console. Then he looked up. “Sir, I have an incoming transmission from Leader Aldys.”

  “Put him through on the main display.”

  The face of Cierre’s captain appeared, a slight smirk on his lips. “I have secured the mining station. There isn’t a whole lot there that we’re going to want, aside from a few bunkers of refined minerals, but I do have seventy-two of their workers and techs captured. But a few managed to escape on the shuttles and escape pods.” In the background of the vid pickup, Skygexx could see armed boarding parties on displays behin
d Aldys’s head. They were holding in what appeared to be the station’s command center, with one prisoner on his knees with his hands on his head.

  “We’ve captured two of the pods,” Skygexx replied, “As well as one of the shuttles. The other shuttle I’m afraid is a total write-off.”

  Aldys grinned. “I see. Well, there are a number of bits and bobs, but I think the real treasure on this station is the workforce. I’ll have my people make another sweep, but I think we’ll be heading out to assist with the pickup of the refined minerals out there.”

  “Very well. Once we collect the pods and secure the shuttle, we’ll be moving to assist Skale with emergency repairs.”

  “Should we blow the mining platform?”

  Skygexx considered this. “No. If we just blow it up then the locals will lose some of those workers, maybe all of them. The ones we can’t pick up. But I don’t want to make things too easy. If the mining station is still up and running full blast, then once we leave, they’ll be rebuilt in a matter of weeks. Six months from now, their construction yard will be pumping out warships. It will make coming back here that much harder the next time.” He gave a slight buzz of resignation. “But if we force them to have to fix the station, they won’t have the capability of making those warships. They’ll be too busy with this.” His antennae bobbed. “Break the molecular furnaces, the processors, the computers. But do not blow the reactors or the life support systems. I want those workers to have a place to come back to.”

  The man sneered. “You care so much about those poor, beleaguered workers?”

  Skygaxx hissed. “Do not insult me, Captain. We’re hauling aboard a number of them to bring back for Lord Verrikoth’s workforce. I’m not keeping them alive because I’m some sort of... humanitarian. Lord Verrikoth wants to come back to this system for another raid and he’ll want to fill his ships with more swag. He’ll need those workers to process the minerals for him.”