A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  “A desert?” He was covering the rear, his weapon up to his shoulder, pointed down the corridor. “Really? I would have thought you were going to say a nice wood, or maybe the jungle or something.”

  “Nah,” she said. “The desert. Nice and arid, beautiful landscapes, blowing winds.” Ekaterina took a deep, satisfied breath.

  “Forgive me, but that is just crazy.” He actually seemed to be calming himself.

  They moved along the corridor and managed to avoid being seen. That company they’d seen wasn’t in this direction, but Ekaterina was sure that they wouldn’t be too far behind. “We need to move.” They reached the door to the control room and she pressed Tamara’s entry device to the keypad. Three soft beeps and the latch clunked. She stuffed the lockbox into a pocket, hefted her weapon and pulled the hatch open. Silent as darkness, the two lupusan slipped inside.

  It was a similar room to that in the first bay, but it overlooked a smaller hangar. This one only contained eight of the assault shuttles. There were soldiers down there, but it seemed as though there were fewer in this bay than there should have. Perhaps they were in the ships? Ekaterina couldn’t tell and her implants didn’t detect more than a score of them. They were clustered near the front of the bay, toward the inside of the ship. And the stairs from the control room led down to the outer edge of the bay, near to the main hangar doors. They’d be exposed on their tromp down the steps to the deck, but there was nothing they could do about it. And with the ship on high alert, it was unlikely they’d be able to make it back to the main bay to link back up with the cargo shuttle and get out.

  “How are we getting out of here?” Konnair asked. “We can’t get back to the cargo shuttle from here.”

  “No,” Ekaterina replied with a grin. She pointed. “We’re going to trash that bay and make off with one of theirs.”

  Konnair’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? Are you a pilot?”

  She shrugged. “Either that or we’d have to take the ship.” She gestured in a wide arc, indicating the assault transport as a whole.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s not meant to be,” she said, moving to the door leading in. “And to answer your question, yes, Serzhant Eristov did put me through some training.”

  “Right,” he said, not sounding convinced. “All right, I don’t have a better idea. Lead the way.”

  She clapped him on the upper arm. “Smartest thing you’ve said this whole time, Deputy.” She opened the inner door and started down the stairs, moving with a lazy confidence, as though she had every right to be there. It was the best camouflage, anyway and Konnair did his best to follow suit. They made it to the deck without incident and with a nod from Ekaterina they split up, moving through the bay, slipping the charges onto the shuttles. A quick peek through some of the armorglass ports showed that the shuttles were mostly full up. All but one of the two in the center, that one had only the pilot and copilot on board.

  She pointed at that particular shuttle and Konnair gulped. Then he nodded in response, following where she led. Four of the soldiers milling about near the inner bulkhead of the bay saw them moving in the direction of the shuttle and started walking in their direction, swaggering and brandishing their weapons. Ekaterina nodded to them in acknowledgement but didn’t slow and didn’t respond to them otherwise. She reached the side hatch to the shuttle and pressed the lockbox to the control panel. Crossing her mental fingers, she waited a second, but Samair’s magic box didn’t let her down. The door slid open and without a word, the two stepped inside.

  Bracing herself for a platoon of soldiers she hadn’t seen, Ekaterina was pleasantly surprised to find it empty. She moved quickly to the cockpit. Konnair hung back, staying near the door to the passenger area.

  The pilot in the left hand seat, with mottled silver and brown fur, turned to see who had entered. Ekaterina struck. She lashed out with the butt of her assault rifle, smashing the pilot in the muzzle, releasing a terrible cracking sound. The male howled in pain, gripping the mashed muzzle that was fountaining blood, falling back in the pilot’s crash seat. She reversed the stroke, swinging the stock around like a club, trying to hit the copilot.

  The other pilot was just quick enough, however, dodging his head to the side just in time for the hard metal stock to thump into the headrest. He fumbled with his pistol, but the restraining harnesses were making it difficult to get it free. Her claws made swift ruin of his throat, and she pushed his head forward to keep him from bleeding too much on the piloting controls. Another gouge and the pilot soon joined his companion in death.

  “Come help me here,” she beckoned to Konnair.

  “Trouble! Get back here!”

  She turned just as the sound of four growling throats reached her ears. She ducked and turned, her rifle at the ready.

  “What the…” one of the pirates, with golden fur with ugly red scars on his muzzle. “What do you think you’re doing?” Then the smell of blood hit his nostrils. “What the hell is going on in there?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Konnair said, trying to block the entry. He was a big wolf, though not as tall as Marat, but he was easily able to get in front of and cover the door.

  The gold wolf snarled. “Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that, pup? You’re on my hangar deck!”

  Ekaterina growled to herself. Konnair was standing in her line of fire. Damn it. Step back, Konnair. Then she remembered. [Step back, Konnair. One step!] She commed.

  The deputy’s ears laid back but he obeyed, taking one step back from the door. The big golden lupusan stepped up, into the hatchway, an ugly look on his ugly face. He poked one claw into Konnair’s chest as he moved closer. She fired, taking the top of his head off, blood painting the inner sides of the hatch. Konnair gave him a hard shove and he flew out into the hangar. Slapping the control, the door slid shut, cutting off the shouts of the raiders outside.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Konnair shouted.

  “Yes! Now get up here and help me get this mug out of the pilot’s chair!” she demanded, unstrapping the pilot from the seat. Konnair had barely turned around when the door slid back open and the three raiders were rushing inside. One second later, he was grappling for his life, trying to keep a brindled red and brown furred wolf’s claws and teeth from shredding him.

  Ekaterina cursed, grabbed the pilot’s corpse by the lapels and yanked, hauling the dead weight out of the seat. Konnair and the other wolf were down on the deck of the shuttle now, roaring and struggling, with the pirate on top and his buddies laughing and jeering. One of them turned and saw her. With a great heave, Ekaterina pulled the dead pilot out and dropped him on the deck. Leaping forward she tackled the closest one, her jaws clamping down on the pirate’s throat. He didn’t even have time to properly scream or struggle as she tore a chunk of flesh out, getting showered in his blood as it pumped out. She smashed one of her rock-like fists into his skull and he went still.

  Konnair screamed in pain as the wolf he was wrestling with tore a bite out of his shoulder. Ekaterina sprang up to try and help, but the third wolf struck her with the butt of his rifle. He reversed the weapon, ready to pump her full of lead but Ekaterina was quicker. Her knife was in her hand; she twisted from the deck and stabbed it into his groin. He shrieked and flailed and she rolled toward him and the gun went off, peppering the deck with bullets in the space she’d just left. Three more times she stabbed him, and blood gushed down his legs and onto his skinsuit. He flailed a bit spraying bullets and blood on the bulkheads of the shuttle. Ekaterina lunged and her knife sank into his chest, once, twice, a third time. The wolf toppled and Ekaterina rolled to the side to avoid being crushed.

  “Help!” Konnair grunted, doing his best to hold the pirate off him, but it was clear he was fighting a losing battle.

  One smooth movement, Ekaterina was on her feet. She pulled her sidearm pistol out and shot the pirate in the back of the head. Luckily, the bullet missed Konnair’s h
ead, but the blood and brains that misted out didn’t. He coughed and shouted as the body suddenly went limp on top of him.

  “Get up!” she told him. She hustled to the door and closed the hatch, this time pressing another control to seal the hatch. “More coming. We’ve gotta go!” Jumping over the dead pilot, she hopped down into the pilot’s seat. A quick scan of the controls saw that the ship already had its preflight and the systems were on standby. She took a deep, steadying breath. “This shouldn’t be too hard. Get up here, Konnair! Now!”

  After a moment, the deputy got himself up off the deck and clambered into the cockpit. He pulled a vial of combat heal from his pocket and jabbed it into his neck, wincing as he did so. The deputy was not looking too steady on his feet, from her quick glance over her shoulder. The shoulder where he’d been bitten was ragged and his skinsuit was tattered. The blood was flowing a bit less, it seemed the combat heal was starting to work, but it would be a while before he was fixed up.

  “The ship’s ready, but we need a way to get them to open the doors,” she said.

  “They’re not going to do that,” he replied weakly, leaning on the back of the copilot seat. He head drooped a bit and at that moment there came a hammering on the hatch. “They’re going to get in here before those doors even open anyway.”

  “Only one thing to do then,” she said with a smirk. Pulling the detonators out of her pockets, she thumbed the activator on the first one. There was a rumble from deep in the ship.

  In the damaged main bay, twelve explosives detonated simultaneously. They had been strategically placed not to obliterate the various shuttles they were attached to but to disable them. In the depressurized bay, no sound could be heard but the sensors went crazy. The various shuttles lost power, lost engines and were damaged further by flying debris. The pirates aboard those shuttles were bounced around, screaming and roaring with terror at the unexpected explosions. Hits on the assault transport they could sort of tune out; it was part of the game, after all. And when the shuttles were in motion, taking fire was expected. But direct hits on the shuttles when they were still in the bay? Terrifying.

  She scanned the console again. “Where the hell is it?” Ekaterina demanded. “There has to be something. I know there is.”

  “What are you looking for?” Konnair asked, raising his head. He was still on his feet, but he was breathing heavily. His eyes didn’t look too focused.

  “The door opener.” She was sweeping her eyes over the controls. “Come on, it’s got to be here.”

  “I told you,” he said. “The doors get opened from outside the shuttle. Either from the control room we left or from outside the bay. You can’t open the doors from in here.” The hammering had stopped. “And it sounds like our… friends outside are going to cut their way in pretty soon.”

  “Aha! Found it!” Ekaterina said, pressing a control on the panel. Several lights switched on. “Hang on!” She pressed another control on the console and there was a thump and a shiver through the hull of the assault shuttle. The hangar doors before the shuttle exploded and the air immediately began rushing out of the hole in the doors. She pressed the control again and another blast widened the hole more. Jamming the throttles forward, the engines roared through the last of the air in the bay, flinging the pirates trying to break into the rear main hatch against the far bulkhead. The shuttle accelerated and tore out of the bay and into space.

  Konnair shouted in pain as he was flung backward, unable to maintain his grip on the copilot’s seat, bouncing on the shuttle’s deck plates and stopping as he crashed into one of the jump seats for the troops.

  Ekaterina pressed the activators on the other two detonators as the shuttle continued to accelerate away from the assault transport, but they were too far away from the ship to tell whether it worked, and Ekaterina wasn’t paying too much attention to the sensors. At least not the aft ones.

  “Whoa, there’s a cruiser about six kilometers off starboard,” Ekaterina reported. If she was a human, this would be the part where she would start to sweat.

  “General, I’m reading activity on the transport,” the sensor operator reported.

  “What kind of activity?” Typhon demanded.

  “Interior explosions in three sections,” the wolf replied. “Multiple explosions. And, whoa!”

  Typhon turned to his own display. There was another explosion from one of the aft bays which had breached the hangar doors. A second later one of the assault shuttles came racing out of the breach, accelerating as hard as its engines could push.

  “It’s one of ours, General,” the wolf at sensors said.

  The black furred general growled. “I can see that, idiot. But there’s explosions coming from my ship and suddenly a shuttle gets launched, right after we shoot down a cargo shuttle loitering where it shouldn’t be. Bek!”

  “Locking on,” the tactical officer reported, concentrating on his displays. “Ready.”

  “Fire.”

  “I think we might actually make it!” Ekaterina crowed, feeling her heart rate starting to lower to a more manageable level. One of the indicators on the console started blinking. She barely had time to realize what was happening before the heavy laser salvo struck the shuttle. The first one pierced the aft hull, the follow up shots tore the ship apart and punctured the reactor. Ekaterina had not raised the shuttle’s shields, not that they would have helped much against a full volley of the light cruiser’s weapons. The resulting explosion reduced what was left of the shuttle and its occupants to an expanding ball of dust.

  “Target destroyed, General.”

  Typhon nodded. “Very well. Get on comms with the transport. Figure out what the hell just happened.”

  “Sir, communications on the transport are still down…” the she-wolf at Illuyanka’s communications console said.

  “Then get a team in a shuttle to get over to that ship and fix them!” he bellowed. “You! Personally! Move!”

  The wolf got to her feet, saluted, then beckoned her relief over the console. Then she trotted off the bridge. Typhon turned back to his displays. The local starfighters were holding back for some reason. Their last corvette was certainly staying clear, though still within the battlespace. The locals had clearly been cowed by the power of this fleet and while the fighters had proven their valor and their ability (curse them), the fact that they were now hanging back meant something. Either they had received orders from their commanders to hold off their attack, or perhaps their stocks of missiles were running low. Nemesis had taken some damage from their concentrated strike, but had lost less than ten percent of her combat capability. His own ship hadn’t taken much damage from their defensive platforms. Ganges had taken some hits, but was still combat capable. And the locals had used up nearly everything they had. There were no other ships in the combat area, and what was here could not hope to stand up to them. There was nothing holding them back from launching assault shuttles down to the gas mine and taking the facility.

  There was still that small concern of the battlecruiser that was supposed to reside here in Seylonique. There’d been no sign of it, so far, but Typhon had seen the reports provided by Verrikoth’s advance scouts. And they’d only been in system for a few hours so it was possible that the fleet had simply gotten lucky and caught the battlecruiser completely out of position. If it had been in orbit of the habitable planet, it would have taken them days to get here, and in that time, the fleet would have what they want and would be long gone.

  “How long until the cargo ships are loaded up with the He3 fuel?”

  “One moment, sir.” The new wolf at comms, a male this time, sent a message to the ships. It took about a minute to get a response back. “Another eight minutes, General. And then the last ship will be full up.”

  “Good. Once we get the transport back up, we’ll be launching shuttles down to the gas mine. I want those cargo ships away from the mine and here where we can protect them.” He clenched a fist. “We’ve already lost too
much on this easy raid. I will not lose those cargo ships.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have Byvennot move up with us here. I want them to be close to HT 626 and provide what protection they can.”

  “Yes, sir, sending to Byvennot now.” The wolf sent the message, then turned back. “The corvette will be with us in six minutes.” He listened for a moment. “A shuttle just launched from bay two. It’s the team with the comms techs to fix HT 626’s array.”

  “Good,” he growled. “The sooner they get me a status report the sooner we can start sending shuttles down to the gas mine. I want all of their tech goods and a few holds full of slaves.” There was a round of chuckles from the bridge crew. He stood from his chair and began to pace. “And when they get their comms back up, I want a full damage report and estimated time of repair, and casualty count. And then get those shuttles launched as soon as possible. I think I’ve had quite enough of this system for now. I’ll feel a lot better once that gas mine is in my hands.”

  “My Lord, the cargo ships are just about full up with fuel,” Jensen Tyler reported, a smile on his face. “Five more minutes on the last one and then Ganges will be ready to escort them back in.”

  “Very well,” the zheen replied. “Ssend to all sshipss: prepare to move out. Once the cargo sshipss are loaded up, we’ll recover fighterz and the remaining gunboat, and then we are leaving thiss ssysstem.”

  “Understood, my Lord,” Tyler said with a nod. He gestured to one of the comms operator who turned to his console and began sending the messages. “I’m concerned that as soon as we reel in our fighter screen, the local starfighters will attack us again.” Sokann and the remaining five Muon fighters of his Zg’chiss squadron were flying combat space patrol around Nemesis, to assist in shooting down another concentrated missile strike.

  Verrikoth considered. “Yesss. Their fighterz have proven annoyingly effective. And I sshare that concern, Commander. We will leave Commander Ssokann and hiz pilotz out to cover uss until we are far enough away from the battlessspace that their fighterz cannot purssue.”