A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  She sighed. This was a common request for warship commanders. Most of them simply were never happy with their ship’s weaponry and were always seeking to tweak things, draw just a little more efficiency, just a little more punch. Tamara shook her head. “I’m afraid not. The power distribution system on an Adder-class destroyer simply isn’t up to powering turbolasers and your standard armament. And before you ask,” she said, holding up a hand, “Yes, I could pull the standard armament, but even still, you’d be fighting a ship with a single turbolaser with a slower rate of fire than other ships of your class. Would that be worth the bigger gun?”

  “It is something to consider, at least,” he replied, unwilling to drop the matter.

  Tamara nodded. “Very well, Captain. I will get my engineering AI Nasir to look into this for you and see what he can come up with. But I must warn you, adding a heavier weapon to your ship’s arsenal might add a shot with a single hard punch, but it will reduce your ship’s overall effectiveness.”

  “I do appreciate it, Ms. Samair. That’s all I ask.” He was actually rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

  “Wouldn’t a trio of heavy lasers be better for chase armament? They’re a step down from the turbolaser, I know. But they recharge 20 percent faster and with three of them you could hit just as hard but faster.”

  But she could tell he had his mind fixated on that turbolaser. “If you could please entreat your engineering AI to look into it and if you could please send me his report? I would very much like to see that and I’m sure my engineer would as well.”

  She gave him a professional smile and then extended her hand. “But I think I’ve kept you from you command for long enough, Captain. And I thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

  “You’ll remember to contact the council about those weapons platforms?” he reminded her, shaking her hand.

  Her smile turned more genuine and Tamara could see that he warmed to her a bit more at her dazzling smile. “I won’t forget.” She sent a quick burst of information to the pilot, and a second later Moxie-2 started to accelerate away from the construction area.

  Tamara looked up as she got a page from her pilot, an hour later. “What is it, Mike?”

  “We’re pulling alongside the Grania Estelle, Ma’am,” the pilot reported. His voice sounded competent but relaxed. “Should be docking on one minute. You wanted to be informed.”

  Tamara sighed, blinking her eyes, leaning back from her monitor and stretching. “Thanks, Mike.” This was going to be the start of a conversation that was necessary, but wouldn’t be pleasant. She knew that Vincent Eamonn was very particular about his ship, but it was clear that the big bulk freighter was being under utilized. A ship like that was meant to be completing regular runs carrying bulk cargoes on safe runs, not wandering around the Cluster hauling specialty items. Oh, in more recent months, the ship had been carrying more bulk items, such as helium 3 fuel, but it was never on a completely regular route and never a full load.

  She pulled up her HUD, sending a message through the comm system to the Grania Estelle, more specifically to her Captain. [We need to meet. We have some serious things to discuss and I need to talk to you about retasking your ship.]

  It was less than a minute before she received a response. [That sounds fine. Apparently you’re not capable of just stopping over for a visit, it’s always got to be about business.]

  [We’ve got a lot of work to do to fix all the damage from that attack, Vincent,] she sent back. [You’re the one who’s usually obsessed with making a credit and I think the big girl could be used more effectively. Besides, aren’t you up for some adventure?]

  [See you soon.]

  Tamara got on the comms, sending a message to a few other players that she wanted at this meeting. It would annoy Vincent, but there were things that needed to be decided and it would be better for security sake if all those things could be discussed without having to worry about comms being intercepted. It wasn’t as though this was a huge issue, but with Curroth nearby and with the government’s dislike of her already… well, prudence was probably best in this case.

  “Tamara Samair, as I live and breathe,” Saiphirelle Hyjae growled, ears flicking in amusement. Grania Estelle’s lupusan chief of security looked to be in high spirits. The two females weren’t friends, exactly, but they’d been through a lot together, several pirate incursions, even a fight against a battlecruiser here in this very system. They were sisters in arms, comrades in battle. And, they’d shared the heart of a kill together, and that forged a bond or so the lupusan believed.

  “Saiphirelle,” Tamara replied with a nod, smiling without showing teeth. Provoking a predator, especially one as dangerous and borderline feral as Saiphirelle was never smart and even though the wolfwoman had been working with humans for years and (probably) wouldn’t take offense, Tamara decided it was better to err on the side of caution. “It’s good to see you again.” Viktoriya Eristov stepped out of the airlock just behind her and glanced around, checking for any threats. She didn’t expect any, but she wouldn’t be doing her job if she didn’t look. And for the last several days since the attack, she’d been doing the bodyguarding alone. It was something that both Corajen, Viktoriya and Tamara had wanted to rectify, though Tamara a bit less enthusiastically than the others. She didn’t relish the idea of having more armed guards following her around and watching her every move, though she was willing to admit their necessity.

  The two female lupusan sized each other up, though this wasn’t the first time they’d met. There was a moment of staring, posturing, feeling each other out, letting their auras conflict. Then they both nodded and Saiphirelle turned her back. “Well come on then,” she said, leading the way out of the corridor toward the wardroom.

  “Are the others here?” Tamara asked, following. Viktoriya padded along behind, her feet nearly silent on the metal deckplates.

  Saiphirelle glanced back but never stopped walking. “I heard that others were coming, but I wasn’t given a full brief on whom. And that really pisses me off, girl. I’m the chief of security on this ship and if there are going to be people brought on board, I need to be read into it.” She growled to herself, yipping and snapping a bit. “And I don’t know what it is that you and the Captain are cooking up and frankly don’t care. But you need to include me in shit like this, or you’re going to make me cross.”

  “Don’t threaten her, Chief,” Viktoriya warned, her voice perfectly calm and agreeable.

  Now Saiphirelle did stop, turning to face the shorter wolf. “Don’t pretend like you’re anything aboard my ship, bitch.” Tamara had to force herself to stand upright, as suddenly Saiphirelle seemed to swell and the air was sucked out of the compartment. It was strange, a very small part of Tamara’s brain was telling her, whispering to the rest of her that was screaming at her to run away in terror. It was strange that while the big scary monster seemed to grow bigger, she was hunching down into more of a fighter’s crouch.

  But Saiphirelle was hardly the only lupusan in the corridor. An instant later, there was another serious presence in the corridor, this one just as powerful and terrifying as the first. The two females squared off across from one another, with the helpless prey in between.

  Tamara gulped. How did this escalate so quickly? She thought. She had a holdout pistol up her sleeve and another in the top of her boot, but could she move quickly enough to get to them before the two females tore into one another was the question.

  The image of the teenaged-human Stella appeared on the left side of Tamara’s HUD. She had the same look as always, pigtails, with three red stripes in her hair. She gestured over her shoulder to the two wolves and sighed. Then she snapped her fingers.

  Instantly, both wolves blinked, then as if in a strange coordinated dance, both of them started swatting at something in front of their own faces, as though a swarm of bees had suddenly appeared in front of both of them. In a second the spell was broken.

  “Now, now, lad
ies,” Stella said, snapping her fingers again. Whatever had been plaguing them must have stopped because they both ceased their near panicked flailing. “None of that. You might be Tamara’s chief bodyguard and you might be chief of security, but I am the ship! I’m sorry for that, but I won’t have two grown females who should be able to control themselves better than that going crazy in my corridors. What were you thinking?”

  Saiphirelle didn’t answer, just snarled and turned away, continuing down the corridor. Viktoriya turned to Tamara. “I’m so sorry, Ma’am. I don’t know what came over me. I thought my control was better than that. I let her get to me.”

  “Don’t let that happen again, Ms. Eristov,” Tamara replied, trying to adjust to the corridor feeling normal again. Viktoriya was never a meek and submissive creature, so even now as she apologized, there was an element of deadly predator about her. Tamara found a reservoir of calm within her and tapped into it, doing whatever she could to overcome the crushing fear she’d just experienced. “I’d hate to have to dismiss you. I know it’s been hard after Ekaterina and Marat… left. But…”

  “It won’t happen again, Ma’am.” And this time she did sound just the slightest bit submissive and repentant. “I promise.”

  Tamara gave her a hard look, her heartbeat having returned to normal instead of the intense jungle drums of a few moments before. “I know it won’t.”

  “You two had better get a move on,” Stella said sourly. “The chief isn’t going to wait for you.”

  “I do know my way around this ship, Stella,” Tamara reminded the AI. “But thank you.”

  Stella smiled impishly. “They’re all big and tough, but sometimes you have to remind them who the baddest bitch in the ship really is.”

  “What did you do to them?” she asked, curious.

  “I made projections and sounds of a swarm of razorjacks, including that awful buzzing noise.” Razorjacks were ten-centimeter long insects that drank the blood of their victims through a barbed probiscus on their ‘mouth’ area and had a stinger that injected a strong paralytic to immobilize their meals. “And I put it on their HUD to make it look as though they were dive bombing their eyes and ears.” She had a self-satisfied grin on her digital face. “Quite nasty.”

  Tamara only shook her head. This was not what she had planned on a simple trip to the conference room, to have her bodyguard and the ship’s chief of security about ready to kill one another. “Come along, Viktoriya. Let’s get in there before something else happens.”

  The wolf shook herself, her eyes low. “Forgive me, ma’am. That was out of line. I shouldn’t have provoked her.”

  Tamara eyed her chief guard for a long moment. “No, Viktoriya, you shouldn’t have. And I have to say it concerns me that the female entrusted to keep me safe would pick a fight like that, and not only that, but do so in front of your principle.”

  The wolf growled, looking away. “Are you dismissing me?”

  Tamara snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re far too good at your job. But in the future, Serzhant, I expect you to be able to do your job and not pick fights with other hotheaded lupusan just because they make inappropriate comments.” She eyed her for a moment. “I trust we won’t have to have this discussion again.”

  She drew herself up to attention. “Yes, Ma’am. Thank you. It won’t happen again.”

  “Good. Let’s go, Serzhant.” Tamara smiled and then turned, leading the way to the wardroom.

  “Good, let’s get started,” Vincent said as Nazan Tariq came into the wardroom and took a seat. The wardroom wasn’t full, but there were a good number of people here. It was the largest conference room on a ship currently under control of First Principles, Inc, with perhaps a few on the Kutok mine any larger.

  Vincent Eamonn was here, of course, as were the engineers Quesh Trrgoth, Ka’Xarian and the ship’s cargo specialist Ardeth Marven. Stella was floating over the holo projector in the corner of the room. There were others from FP here as well, the general overseer of the Kutok mine Tiyaana Moreetz was here as well, having come up from the mine, bringing the lupusan Chief of Security Corajen Nymeria with her. Captain Kol Raydor was here as well as was Galina Korneyev, the CFO of the company. It was nearly all of the high level officers for the company all gathered in one place. It was a risk, considering the not quite friendly attitude toward the company from the admin council, but Tamara had ensured that there was sufficient security around the ship. All of the Kutok mine’s as well as the Grania Estelle’s fighter complements, nearly sixty starfighters, were conducting joint training exercises right near the ship. In addition, Maitland, all fixed up from the battle, as well as Persistence of Vision were enforcing a one light second exclusion zone around the mine, the construction of the new tank farm and the Grania Estelle. Lastly, the Kutok mine had the missile launchers prepped and the remaining complement of missiles ready to launch if things got truly desperate. No one was getting anywhere near that freighter or the mine while this meeting took place.

  “Thanks for coming, all of you,” Tamara said, addressing the room. They all looked to her, a few of them in surprise, as they’d assumed Vincent was going to be running the meeting. The man just smiled and waved a hand.

  “Okay, so we’re going to be talking about the future in this meeting,” Tamara told them all. “We’ve taken a hit with this attack, there’s no doubt there. FP’s security forces, especially, took a beating. The tank farm has to be rebuilt and the Samarkand has to be repaired.” She sighed. “We’ve got some work to do.”

  There was a rumble of assent from the rest of the room. “I assume you have some sort of plan to deal with all this,” Corajen said. Another rumble.

  “I have some ideas. A few things we’re going to do, and then I’m open to some suggestions on other points,” Tamara replied. There were a few puzzled looks and pleased smiles from the others; they’d been expecting orders to come down, not that they’d actually have some input into what was going to be happening.

  “First, profits,” Tamara said, nodding. “Now, we’ve been doing pretty well since the founding of the company.” She grimaced and then grinned at the looks she was getting from around the table. “All right, we’ve done phenomenally, but I think some of that was due to luck as much as anything. Finding that load of gadolinium, the arrival of the Republic destroyer and the contracts with the government to build ships for them. We were in a position to capitalize on those things, yes,” she added when Ka’Xarian buzzed a laugh, “But like I said, there was a fair amount of luck involved and we can’t count on that happening again. So,we need to start making more regular income.”

  “We’ve got that with the fuel we’re selling to Heb and to the orbital,” Galina said, her voice steady but little more than a whisper.

  Tamara nodded. “Yes, that’s correct. But, I’m thinking we can do better. Oh, we’re not going to stop either of those things. Dolcinea and Horton Gravis will keep up with the hauling of fuel within the system. We’ve got the tanker ship in the yard-“

  “Ma Mystere,” Galina put in.

  “Yes, Ma Mystere,” she answered. “So she’ll be ready in eight weeks and she’ll be taking over the Heb run from you, Captain,” she said, glancing over at Eamonn. The man blinked, then shook his head.

  “Wait, what?” he asked, confused. “When did we decide this?”

  Tamara pointed to Stella. “I spoke with Stella about it yesterday. I told you when we met before that you’d be changing your route.”

  “I remember,” Eamonn said, frowning. “I don’t remember the part where you pull my ship off of an established run, though.”

  “I’m thinking that the new run you’re going to be on will make up the difference in profits. Actually, I plan to use more of the big girl’s cargo capacity on something more profitable, not in the bits and bobs she’s been hauling for a while.” She nodded to the frowning captain and majority shareholder in First Principles, Inc. Vincent Eamonn was nominally her boss, but once he’d na
med her Chief of Operations and then had flown his ship out of the system, she generally ran her own affairs. He retained veto power over any and all decisions, but so far he hadn’t had much complaint with the choices she’d made thus far. Profits were up, infrastructure was built and they’d had enough defensive assets available to keep the pirates at bay and the gas mine safe.

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked, trying to keep the wariness out of his voice. His beloved ship had been through hell and back in recent years and he was always nervous about sending his ship somewhere potentially dangerous.

  She smirked, never a good sign. “I’m thinking you should take Grania Estelle back to Ulla-tran.”

  The rest of the room went silent. Some of the people here were pensive, considering Tamara’s words. Vincent, Quesh and Galina, however, looked alarmed. “You want to send us back into the lion’s den?”

  “I’m thinking that the good people of Ulla-tran might benefit from a big load of fuel, in return you could pick up a load of foodstuffs, machine parts and other tech, maybe some processed minerals and some other finished mechanical and electronics.” Tamara’s smile grew bigger. “And maybe a few credits.” Ardeth Marven looked thoughtful and immediately began furiously typing notes into his datapad.

  “All right,” Vincent said grudgingly. “It’s a decent idea, assuming the people in Ulla-tran are a little less aggressive than last time.”

  “You’ve got a squadron of fighters at your disposal,” Tamara replied calmly. “And if the council people and Colonel Gants are doing their jobs, they’ve secured us a trade agreement and safe passage. But I’ll tell you the same thing I told Captain Orzo on First Horizon: stay away from the fueling station, deal right with the people on the orbital.”

  Vincent grunted, but it was clear that he agreed with this idea, at least in principle. Tamara suspected there would be further discussion later, away from the rest of the crew.