A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  So directly after that meeting, Typhon had begun planning and prep for his getaway. He gathered together his officers from the Grenadiers, all of whom had similar feelings toward the powers that be and they came up with a plan for leaving. None of them felt as though this was desertion: no, the Federation had abandoned them long ago. They went to the troops, all of whom wholeheartedly approved of the idea of leaving.

  Typhon and his officers and soldiers then loaded up full holds of supplies, food, gear, weapons and ammunitions, fuel, into Illuyanka and HT 626 and left. Typhon cut himself some orders for the two ships to go to Felken, which was in the “northwestern” quadrant of the Federation, to put down a small uprising there. In reality, both ships made their way “southeast” away from the Federation and out into the frontier of the Argos Cluster. It was hardly a frontier, but since the end of the war and the withdrawal from the Cluster by all Republic forces, it was a lawless, damaged place, perfect for a pair of ships that wanted to disappear.

  He smiled at the memory. By the time anyone realized that Illuyanka and her companion never actually showed up in Felken, and in fact had never been seen since leaving headquarters, over a year had passed and the trail had gone completely cold. He’d been very careful on that trip, staying off the main hyperspace routes, stopping in quiet or dead systems to refuel in gas giants using a portable helium 3 collector.

  Once he arrived in Argos, he set up shop in one temporary headquarters after another, raiding the occasional planet and eventually bringing his flotilla to what it had been before this raid here in Seylonique. But in all that time, a quarter of a millennium, he had been in charge. He was the General, he gave orders and others followed them. No one ever told him what to do. And now, the bug was swanning around, acting like he was this mighty warlord. Acting as though he was in command of Typhon and his wolves. And even when his heavy cruiser could have helped, could have wrecked that damned destroyer and tore those fighter squadrons to bits! Now, Illuyanka was battered and he looked like a fool who couldn’t follow orders. Damn that bug!

  He couldn’t let it go. After losing all those soldiers and the damage his ships had taken, not to mention the losses of two of his corvettes, he couldn’t let it go. Accessing his implants, he started doing some calculations, and accessed the ship’s sensors. He was looking for something and within a moment he found what he’d wanted.

  He pressed a control. “Bridge, this is Typhon.”

  “General,” Bek’s voice answered.

  “Send a communication to the rest of my ships. Not the fleet as a whole, only the ships under my banner.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “All ships are to diverge from the fleet, on a heading two-one-four. They’re to head straight for the hyper limit, diverting only for navigation issues. They are not to respond to Verrikoth’s orders unless they come from me.”

  There was a very slight pause, one that Typhon must have imagined because then Bek was speaking. “Yes, General. I’m sending it now.”

  “Very good.”

  “Is there anything else sir?”

  “Get with the damage control crew; find out the state of the tractoring emitters. And our forward weapons.”

  “Yes, sir. I have the preliminary report here…”

  He nodded, though Bek couldn’t see. “Yes, I’ve read it. I want an update. If the techs aren’t working on them, I want them to reprioritize those two systems. Life support and propulsion are the only two systems that have a higher tasking.”

  “Understood, sir,” the tactical officer said. “I will get with them and report back as soon as I have the information.”

  “Faster is better, Bek.”

  He could hear the wolf nodding. “I’m on it, General.”

  Typhon ended the connection, then went back to his calculations. They were rough and he would need them refined, heavily, if his plan was to work. But if things went right, then he could have a shot at vengeance against the locals and against Verrikoth at the same time.

  Bek was as good as his word. Almost four minutes had passed and he was calling back to Typhon’s stateroom. “I have that information you wanted, General.”

  Typhon nodded at the tactical officer’s image on his display. “Well?”

  “The starboard side tractor emitter is functioning properly, but with our structural damage, sir, it’s only operating at just over seventy percent capacity. The port side emitter is completely shot, General. It’s going to require a full teardown and rebuild.”

  The general grunted. That complicated things. “Very well. And the weapons?”

  “Both the bow turbolasers are online and active, sir,” Bek said, his chest puffing out a bit. “Targeting systems are being recalibrated as we speak, sir. I’ll have the guns ready to thread a needle in half an hour.”

  Typhon chuckled. “Very good, Bek. It’s going to take nearly three hours to do what I want anyway, and I’m going to test your marksmanship before we’re done. I expect results.”

  The other wolf nodded. “You’ll have them, sir.”

  “Good. I’m on my way up to the bridge.”

  “Commander! General Typhon’s ships are breaking formation with the fleet,” the sensor operator called from his station. “They’re diverging from our course by twelve degrees. Eighteen. They’re holding on that vector, Commander. They haven’t increased speed,” the zheen replied, anticipating the next question. “They’re just headed out system, continuing on a course for the hyper limit.”

  “What?” Jensen Tyler demanded, turning. “Did they send any word?”

  “Not to us, sir,” the comms officer replied. “There was some message traffic between the General’s ships a few moments ago. But it was all encrypted, nothing in the clear.”

  “I’ll inform my Lord,” Jensen said. “Keep an ear out. Call me immediately if anything changes!” he said loudly to the bridge.

  ~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~

  Verrikoth watched his display as Illuyanka altered course and headed away from the fleet, away from Typhon’s own ships. The light cruiser was still damaged and the pirate lord was interested to see what it was that the general thought he was doing. His ship was tearing off, hell for leather on a course perpendicular to the rest of the fleet. Doing an extrapolation of his own (he was determined he would never become one of those leaders that required the lowest yeoman in the bowels of engineering to do even the most simple of tasks for him) he determined that unless Typhon made any course changes, he was headed out for the asteroid belt. The light cruiser’s course would take it nowhere near the mining station on the edge of the belt, so he had no idea what was going on.

  “Approaching the target asteroid now, General,” the helmsman reported.

  “Closing to tractoring range. Ready to lock on at your command,” Bek said.

  “All right, I want this nice and smooth,” the general ordered. “Bek, get a nice firm grip on that rock. Semela, on my order, very low acceleration. This old girl,” he patted the arm of the command chair, “has got a lot of damage and I don’t want the tractoring beam tearing us apart.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “Ready, sir.”

  He gestured. “Then proceed.”

  It was very slow going, but the crew showed their skill and dedication to the job. Once they realized what it was that Typhon wanted, they set to the tasks with a will. The ship grabbed a hold of the asteroid, a rock roughly shaped like a kidney bean, about two kilometers in length, two-thirds of one in width. Illuyanka’s tractoring emitter latched on to one of the ends and slowly, slowly, began dragging the massive rock out of its previous orbit in the system’s asteroid belt. Minutes passed and the ship and the asteroid continued to accelerate.

  “All right, it’s been more than an hour, I think that’s fast enough,” the general replied. They were closing in on the gas giant again, and the destroyer was looking belligerent. Like a bouncer ready to toss a drunk out of a bar, the destroyer had placed itself in Illuyanka’s path
, though above and to port. “Release the tractoring beam. Helm, drop us down the z-axis; slow us once we’re clear and let the rock pass right over us. Keep the rock between us and the destroyer for now.”

  There was a chorus of acknowledgements from the various bridge officers, but the sensor officer kept his eyes glued to the displays. “Sir, that destroyer is holding position. They’re not coming at us; they’re staying between us and the gas giant.”

  Typhon nodded, checking the display. “That’s fine. We’re not going to engage the destroyer. Bek, keep a hand on the controls, though. If they come after us, I want you to hammer them.”

  “Understood, General.” Bek was confident and after the sucker punch Typhon (and Bek) had allowed to slip through the defenses last time, he knew that the tactical officer would be dying for some payback. But, the wolf was solid and he wouldn’t allow his desire for revenge affect his judgment… too much. Not enough that he would disobey orders or jump the gun.

  The light cruiser flipped end for end, rolling down below the rock, and her main propulsion units fired, arresting her momentum. The asteroid seemed to shoot ahead, as though it had somehow accelerated.

  “Helm, bring us around. Bek, lock on target.”

  “Captain,” the sensor officer aboard Persistence of Vision called. “The cruiser is decelerating hard. Well, as hard as the structural damage will allow anyway.”

  “I see it, Leytenant,” Kol Raydor said, rubbing his chair absently. “Ready weapons, target that ship. They’re clearly trying to lob the asteroid at the gas mine. Once we deal with that ship, we’ll have plenty of time to nudge the rock out of the way before it hits the mine.” Just can’t let time get away from me. They really got that thing moving.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “They think they’re being clever,” Kol said. “I grant you, it’s a good plan, but they’d have to deal with us in order for it to work. And I don’t know if they’re in good enough shape to handle us. And if Leader Korqath can get his ships involved…”

  “Sir, the light cruiser is coming around.”

  “Helm, standby for evasive. If they lock onto us with their weapons, go into immediate maneuvers,” he ordered. “Don’t wait for my order.”

  They’re out of position for a good shot at us, even with that heavy chase armament. Meanwhile, I’m in position for an excellent shot, once they close the range. So what the hell is that cruiser doing?

  “Locked on, General,” Bek reported.

  Typhon took another deep breath, then nodded. “Fire.”

  Illuyanka’s bow turbolasers opened up, beams of coherent light slamming into the asteroid in very carefully selected and calculated points. More and more shots pumped out until the ship had fired an even score. Small chunks were torn off, small clouds of particulates, but the asteroid itself held mostly together. Large cracks had formed in the surface of the kidney-bean shaped rock, but it hadn’t really broken, not yet. Another salvo of turbolaser fire lanced out and hammered the asteroid.

  And it shattered.

  “How many pieces?” Typhon asked, his voice calm.

  The tactical officer studied the readout. “Looks like eighteen bigger pieces, but two hundred or more shards. The smaller bits range in size from a few meters to… well… larger, sir.”

  Typhon waved that away. “That’s fine, Bek. Nice shooting. How badly did they disperse?”

  “Minimal dispersion, General. Though there will be some that are completely off-target. I think we’re looking at somewhere around eighty-percent that will still be on target.”

  He nodded. “Excellent. Helm, reverse course. Take us away from this vector and bring us to link up with the rest of our ships.” Perhaps it was not the greatest act of vengeance, but it would certainly give the local filth here something to think about. And it was something that they couldn’t afford to ignore.

  “What the hell?” Kol demanded. They saw the asteroid shatter into numerous pieces after the cruiser fired on it. “They’re shooting it?”

  “One dangerous object suddenly becomes many,” Wotan answered, frowning. “I am running vector calculations right now, sir.”

  “Good. Tactical, ready tractoring beam,” the captain ordered.

  “Sir, we’re not going to get everything,” the tactical watch-stander replied. “Even if we dove straight into that mess. There’s just too much.”

  “Much of the debris and smaller rocks will burn up in the atmosphere, Captain. But there are a good number of them that might still be able to hit the station.”

  “Get the station on the line, have them launch all the tugs and shuttles they can. And recall all of the shuttles and tugs not on search and rescue to help.” He looked to Wotan’s image on the holo emitter. “Estimated time to impact?”

  “Three hours, eleven minutes, until they hit the atmosphere of the gas giant, Captain.”

  “Sir, the cruiser is reversing course, accelerating out system,” the specialist at sensors said.

  “I see it,” Kol replied, clenching a fist. “But we can’t worry about them now. Helm, bring us in closer. Tactical, ready the tractoring beam. Grab the closest big chunk and lock on as soon as we’re close enough.” This is going to be close. Persistence of Vision had some pulling capability, but it was more in line with towing disabled starships, not pulling dense rocks, but needs must and all that.

  As the ship moved in close to the distance and with a press of a few keys, the beam activated, connecting the ship with the chunk of asteroid. The beam itself was invisible, nothing but a cone of force stretching out from the ship to the rock. A moment later, the ship changed course, slowly pulling on the rock, trying to edge it out of position.

  Kol frowned, watching as the ship strained against its tether. This was taking longer than he’d expected. “Tactical, the beam is locked on tight?”

  The operator nodded. “Yes, Captain. We’ve got a good, solid lock on the center of mass. I don’t want it to spin, we want to pull it clear.”

  “Any movement?”

  “No change in vector so far, sir.” The operator frowned, pressing a few other controls.

  “Helm,” Kol said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the helm. “Increase speed, bring it up slowly. I want to give it another good yank.”

  “Aye, sir,” the pilot said calmly, entering in the commands and increasing power to the engines.

  “My tractoring system really wasn’t intended for objects of this size and mass, Captain,” Wotan said, his otherwise strong voice sounding strangely self-effacing and apologetic. Normally the AI spoke and acted like a confident warrior. This was an odd change.

  “Not your fault, Wotan,” the captain assured him. “I’m trying this slowly. We need to do this methodically. I don’t want to pull one rock out of formation just to have it slam into another piece of real estate, or burn out your emitter on the first pass. It’s just going to take some time.”

  “We don’t have much,” the AI reminded him. Then he blinked his eyes, an unnecessary gesture as the AI didn’t need to keep his holographic eyes moist. “Captain, I’m showing a number of shuttles and tugs coming this way, from various vectors.”

  “How long until they get here?”

  “We are moving as well, Captain, as you know. The first two tugs will be arriving in forty-six minutes, the other five, all Testudo shuttles, twenty minutes after that.”

  “Wait, the Testudos have tractoring beams?” Kol asked. “I don’t remember reading that on their specs.”

  Wotan shook his head. “No, sir, but they do have two magnetic grapplers that can be retrofitted with hooks if need be. They won’t be able to pull the bigger pieces like we or the tugs can,” the AI warned, “but they should be able to work on the smaller pieces. And there are a lot of those. And the sensors are showing a large concentration of iron in the makeup of this asteroid.”

  “Can’t we just shoot them, sir?” the tactical officer asked, not looking up from his station. “The smaller stuff, I mean,
sir. The big ones I know, we have to move out of the way, but the rest of it, just open up with our energy weapons and have the starfighters and any other armed ships move in and try and pulverize it all. We won’t be able to catch all of the shards and pull them out of the way, sir, not in the timeframe we have.”

  Kol nodded. “It’s an option to consider. But as you said, we have to deal with the bigger chunks first. Helm, status?”

  “We’re getting some movement, sir,” the pilot said with a very tight-lipped smile. “We’re pulling the first big rock out of the dangerous vector.”

  “Good. So it won’t hit anything else once we pull it completely clear of the vector for the gas giant?”

  The pilot shook his head. “No, sir. It’ll just keep flying away, hurtling off into the deep dark, eventually.”

  “Sir, another six minutes on this and we’ll have brought this piece out of the danger vector for the gas mine.” The sensor watch stander sounded very sure.

  “Understood. Helm, you heard him. Once we’ve gotten this one clear, release the tractoring beam and bring us back around to grab the next one.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Kol turned to the comms watch. “Comms, send a message to Leader Korqath, or whoever’s in charge up here, I know some of the fighters have headed back to the station. Request assistance. And send a message to the gas mine as well. Request that they launch everything up here to assist. Tugs, shuttles, fighters, everything.”

  “Sending now, Captain.”

  Kol turned to look at his displays, watching the icon of Persistence of Vision as it slowly pulled the icon for the asteroid chunk away from the others. Time was passing and with every second, this mess was riding closer to the gas mine. According to sensor extrapolations, a large portion of this debris had a very high probability of striking the gas mining station. It was going to take a lot of fast work and luck to save them.