A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  “Moving on,” she said. “First Horizon will continue on the route between Heb, Ulla-tran, and Bimawae. Our in-system ships will continue bringing goods to the orbital and the planet here in system for sale.”

  “What about the moon base for the gas giant that got proposed before the attack?” Tiyaana asked.

  “Still in negotiations,” Galina replied, nodding slightly. “But I believe that the plan is still in place. We are simply waiting for the contracts to be signed and the funding to be secured.”

  “Who’s going to be doing the work on that base?” the mine’s operations’ manager wondered.

  “The idea is for five different companies to share the labor and the costs,” Galina told her, as well as the room at large; everyone seemed to be interested. “We’ve started preliminary drafting of designs for the base with R3 systems and Vulcan Industries. But even if the contracts and the funding were to be secured tomorrow, it would be months in the planning and development stages and probably a year and a half in construction.”

  “The mining from the moon should be rich, if the asteroid belt is any indication,” Ardeth mused, making another note on his datapad.

  “Preliminary scans and core samples have shown rich veins of various strategic ores,” Stella piped up from the corner, where her image floated above the holo projector. “We’ll be hauling out material for a long time.”

  “Hopefully hauling it out for sale,” Quesh muttered. The others chuckled, Stella winked at him.

  “With the increase in mining, we’re going to need another industrial furnace,” Tamara said, getting nods from the engineer, but blinks of astonishment from Raydor and Tariq. “A problem, boys?”

  “I’ve seen that industrial furnace, Ma’am,” Nazan commented, opening his hands, palms out. “It’s huge and it has to process thousands of tons of ores per day.”

  Quesh chuckled. “Oh, a lot more than that, my friend.”

  “That’s my point,” Nazan pressed. “If it’s already processing tens or hundreds of thousands of tons of ore, why do we need another one?”

  “Because we’re expanding our operations,” Tamara interjected, causing more nods, gasps and groans of frustration. “We’re adding another construction slip for the shipyard and we’ve already got more orders for ships: both for FP and for the Navy. We need the processed metals and other trace elements.”

  “More ships?” Kol Raydor asked. He held up his hands. “Hey, I’m all for keeping this system and this company safe. But who are we going to get to crew more ships? We just lost a lot of crews in that fight we just had.”

  “We’ll have to recruit,” Tamara replied and Galina nodded. “If not from here then from Ulla-tran perhaps, or Heb. We were able to train people from a planet of fishermen to be engineers, I think we can manage.” There were chuckles from around the table. “Some of the crews from Cavalier managed to get off the ship and have decided to stay on.” Everyone looked over to Nazan, who nodded in confirmation. “And yes, I’ve already got Ms. Sterling working on new ships, corvettes to replace the ones destroyed in the battle.”

  “For now, Persistence of Vision and the rest of the new corvettes are going to be stationed here in close vicinity of the Kutok mine. As our new ships roll off the line and get crewed, they’ll be stationed here too. We can’t leave the mine undefended again.” She held up a hand to forestall protests. “I’m not saying it wasn’t defended, but we needed your ship there sooner, Captain,” she said to Raydor. “Having the extra firepower available would have turned the battle. We got very lucky that it seems all the pirate captain wanted was the fuel and the processed minerals.” Her face darkened. “And some of our people.”

  “Are we going after them?” Kol Raydor asked, his own face grim. The others looked to Tamara and Vincent with a mix of expressions.

  The two exchanged looks before she turned to address his question. Then Tamara shook her head. “Stars knows I want to, Captain, but our forces can’t possibly stand up against the pirate flotilla they’ve got left. Even if all they have is what left here, what we’ve got is decidedly outclassed. A heavy cruiser and two light cruisers, a destroyer, two corvettes and a handful of fighters against Persistence of Vision, our frigates Mondragon, Tsesuko, our corvette Maitland and nearly four squadrons of fighters? The fighters close the gap, to be sure,” Tamara nodded in acknowledgement. “But those of you who have watched the sensor footage saw how well the heavy cruiser’s point defense held off Korqath’s alpha strike,” she said.

  Stella cleared her throat, or at least, she made the sound and her image brought her holographic hand up to her holographic mouth. “One vision strike,” she corrected.

  Now all of them were looking at the AI’s image. “Excuse me?” Vincent asked.

  “Tamara’s term was incorrect,” she said. “Leader Korqath is calling that attack where all the Aploras and Twin Novas fired missiles at once at the pirate heavy cruiser a ‘one vision strike’ based on his cry on the open comm channel.” Vincent didn’t answer, but just shook his head, smiling slightly.

  “Anyway,” Tamara said, bringing the focus of the meeting back on task. “Even the light cruisers did a decent job of shooting down the missiles from our defense platforms. They were hurt, certainly, but they also managed to take them all out. We’re going to have to do something about that for the next time they come here. Which brings me to the other reason we aren’t going out after them.”

  “We have no idea where they are,” Quesh rumbled. “And unless you’re going to be sending ships all over the place, we’re not going to find them. They might be one system away from here and we might never find it.”

  “Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration-…” Stella began.

  Tamara cut her off. “All right, we’re getting away from the point here. The point is, for now, we’re not going anywhere. We need to keep the bulk of our assets here in the system in case, stars forbid, the pirates come back. We’ll be a little better off once the Leytonstone and the rest of the task force gets back here, but until the new construction on the warships is completed and the ships are crewed, I certainly won’t feel comfortable taking a day off.” There were looks exchanged and nods.

  “Now,” Tamara went on. “We’ve got a large order of ships from the government: one of the Republic-class destroyers and three of our frigates. They’re apparently looking to field a few more of our classes of ships. That’s of course in addition to the company’s own order, which is another destroyer, three more corvettes and l want one more frigate.” The assembled people in the wardroom chuckled. Nasir flicked his ears in amusement, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Girls and their toys,” Vincent sniggered.

  “As I understand, Tamara,” Galina interjected, over the nervous laughter from the others, “The government is considering three more corvettes as well. From us, I mean. Though as I understand, they’ve decided to wait until the delegation returns from Ulla-tran before they make a final decision. But I think I saw in one of the news reports and heard from a source close to the council that they’re considering it.”

  “More work for us,” Ka’Xarian said with a happy buzz. “Well, for the company I mean.” Vincent frowned at that statement, but the zheen didn’t notice.

  “Well, it’s funny you should say that, Xar,” Tamara said, trying to keep her face straight. This was going to seriously annoy and possibly anger a few people here. “Because I’m going to need your talents here in Seylonique, not wandering the spacelanes.”

  The Assistant Chief Engineer’s antennae waved in surprise. “You’re pulling me from Grania Estelle?”

  Tamara nodded, gesturing to the ship’s captain. “I’ve discussed it with Captain Eamonn and we’re transferring half the engineering department from the bulk freighter over to the shipyard. Up until now, you’ve needed a much larger contingent aboard the ship because you had so much in the way of repairs and maintenance to keep ahead of. But now with Stella’s upgrades and a healthy
new addition of worker bots that are being delivered in two days, we can keep the ship running at proper efficiency with half the techs as before.” She smiled at him. “I’ll need you to work with Eretria Sterling. I’m not bumping her from her position of Yard Supervisor, but I’ll be adding a new position in Research and Development. But before you and your teams get too involved in R&D, you and your team be working to get this latest round of ships up and running.

  Xar looked stricken. He turned his head (though it wasn’t strictly necessary with his large compound eyes) to look back and forth between his captain and Tamara. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I don’t want to leave the ship; it’s my home. But getting to work in R&D? Building the Zlk’vzn’s was so much fun. I would love to do something like that again.”

  “Good, because that’s what you’ll be doing,” Tamara replied. “You and your team.” Vincent, still grimacing, nodded. “Look, this ship is special. I know that. I served on her for a long while, from back in Hudora to Hecate to Ulla-tran and then here. She’s been slowly dying, restored, then trashed, then restored again. I know that’s she’s been ridden very hard. But she’s the very first ship in First Principles’ fleet, be that commercial or our defensive fleet. I don’t want to leave this ship short-handed.” Quesh looked annoyed and Eamonn looked thunderous, but neither of them spoke up. Tamara sighed, then relented. “I’ll see what I can do to find a few people to hire on as replacements, but we need Xar and his people over there ASAP.”

  Vincent spread his hands and then let out a breath. “We’ll talk about it more after the meeting, but in principle, I agree.”

  “So long as it’s your…” Stella said, grinning. They all looked to her. “First principle?”

  Vincent couldn’t help but chuckle at the pun.

  “What about the nearby systems?” Kol Raydor asked, drawing back everyone’s attention.

  Tamara blinked, exchanged glances with Stella and then Vincent and then looked back to the destroyer captain. “All right, Captain, I’ll bite. What about the nearby systems?”

  Kol seemed slightly uncomfortable with all eyes on him, but he soldiered on. “Well, I know there have been some problems from the government here, and you’ve commented a few times now on getting the crew we need for these ships. Well, we’ve sent Grania Estelle here to Heb a few times, why not set up a base there? They’ve got a gas giant that’s got decent particulate saturation, I’m sure we could set up fueling ops there.”

  “Mineral wealth in the system isn’t great,” Quesh commented, checking a datapad. “The belt is pretty far from the planet, and from the initial surveys that we got from Grania Estelle and Mondragon, the mineral wealth is sparse. Not worth the effort. If we’re going to do this, we’d need to ship things in from Seylonique.”

  Galina tipped her head to to the side in thought. “Might be feasible. Get the locals in Heb to buy things from us until they can get some of their own industry going.”

  Vincent’s expression was clearly torn. He liked the arguments he was hearing, but he sighed and shook his head. “No. Or, rather, not yet.” He gestured to Tamara.

  She grimaced then gave a rueful twist of her lips. “All right,” she said. Make me the bad guy. “Right now we have very limited defensive assets. Tsesuko, Persistence of Vision and Maitland are all the big ships we have until Leicasitaj gets back with Mondragon. Yes, Captain Greer is out here with Curroth,” Tamara said with a wry smile and the others snorted or shook their heads. “But honestly, I don’t know what kind of officer he is, or what kind of warrior.”

  “I do,” Kol Raydor replied. “He’s a blowhard and an ass kisser who is very popular with his bosses. His skills fall to the ability to impress them without actually having done anything. He’s very experienced in taking credit for his underlings’ work, and so long as he thinks that he’s in charge or he’s got the people in charge backing him, he’s an arrogant shit. As you’ve seen.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Well, Captain,” Kol said, addressing the owner, “He and I served together. We both did a tour in the wet navy about fifteen years ago, served as midshipmen on a missile cruiser. One of the only ones the government ever built. That’s when I discovered his talents.” His face was like granite, anger showed plainly, but nothing else. He was completely closed off. “And when your company started this building craze and the government got in on it, I knew it would be only a matter of time before he got himself command of one of the new space warships.”

  “If he’s as good at kissing ass as you say, how did Colonel Gants stay in command of the Leytonstone?” Vincent asked.

  “Because Gants can actually back up his arrogance,” Kol replied. “He’s loyal to the system, he loves that ship and he’s good at what he does.”

  “He’s not that good,” Vincent commented, and Tiyaana nodded in agreement. “I mean our forces beat his beloved battlecruiser with one corvette, a handful of subpar fighters and some bombs in a shuttle.”

  But Kol shook his head. “Attacking the Kutok mine with the battlecruiser in the shape it was, well, was a mistake.”

  Stella chuckled. “I’ll say.”

  But the destroyer captain shook his head again. “That’s not what I mean. I mean that when the plan for the attack on the mine came down, scuttlebutt was that Gants tried to scrap it. He tried to push for more time to get the ship overhauled, but the council overruled him.” Kol grinned, looking over to Tamara. “From what I hear, Ma’am, they really don’t like you.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t accept the job to be liked. Though it would be nice, considering all the good we’re doing.” She gave a wry smile. “But that’s neither here nor there. I am interested in sending an expedition to try and set up shop in another system, somewhere preferably away from the pirate threat.”

  “What were you thinking, Samair?” Quesh folded both pairs of arms over his chest.

  “Kazyanenko, maybe. Though truth be told, I think Instow would be best.” At the looks of both puzzlement and surprise from the collected people. “What?” she demanded. “They had a pretty rich asteroid field and the inhabited moon orbited a gas giant. As I recall, the particle density of He3 was good. The people in the smaller town were nice. Labor pool isn’t as big as here or in Ulla-tran,” Tamara said, pursing her lips, “but the nearby system of Folston had a large population andd were more than happy to see us in the Grania Estelle. Imagine a full-fledged repair ship, or a freighter stuffed with replicators and spare parts?”

  There were some excited grins and looks shared between some of the other members of the meetings. But Tamara shook her head, waving one hand in negation. “Don’t get too excited, we’re not going to be sending any ships that far away without support and we don’t have the ship to spare for something like that. Not now, anyway.” There were looks of disappointment, but Xar, Quesh and Tiyaana were scribbling notes onto their datapads. It would appear that the trio was going to do whatever was necessary to make that day closer.

  “Nasir,” Tamara said, turning to the holographic projection of the lupusan engineering AI. “What is the status of Maitland?”

  The wolf clasped his hands before him. “The battle damage has been repaired. The ship is ready for action, Tamara.” He laid his ears back against his head. “I could get the captain on the line…”

  But Tamara shook her head. “I’ll get the full brief from Captain Vikashev later. Actually,” she said, reconsidering. “Captain, if you could get him on the line?” she aked Vincent. He nodded and gestured to Stella, who snapped her fingers. A burst of holographic sparkles erupted from her fingers and a second later one of the large monitors activated, bringing up the face of Captain Alexsei Vikashev. He was a lupusan, like a good fraction of the population here in Seylonique; whose fur was a brindled black and gray, with gold eyes. Unlike many of his rather burly brethren, however, he was rather thin, almost scrawny. But no one questioned his competence, as he’d fought his ship well in the previous action, Mait
land being the only one of the corvettes to survive the conflict.

  “Captain Eamonn,” he said in greeting, his voice a rich tenor, again, incongruous with many of his race. “Ms Samair. Everyone,” he said with a chuckle at the assembled personages in the wardroom. “How can I help you? No one is coming anywhere near your ship, Captain, if that’s what you’re calling about.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Tamara replied with a slight smile. “But no, we’re not concerned about that. I know you and the others are doing a fine job of maintaining security for the moment. No, the reason I’m calling-“ Vincent cleared his throat and she gave him a look- “The reason we’re calling is because we have a job for you and your ship.”

  “Another one?” Vikashev asked, flicking his ears in amusement. “And this is something that needs everyone’s approval?”

  The various parties shifted a bit, though Kol Raydor remained cool and relaxed. Command level decisions that might affect the whole company typically weren’t discussed in such a forum. Normally, the boss came to you or your department and then held the brainstorming session, or issued orders, right there. “I apologize, Captain, for not bringing you in on this sooner but I only just made this decision a short time ago.”

  “And what decision would that be, Ms. Samair?” the corvette captain asked, looking slightly suspicious.

  “Once we’re done with this meeting, Captain Eamonn and I will be speaking with you privately and in more detail, but Maitland is going on a trip.”

  “A trip, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” Tamara said, looking to the others in the room for a quick moment, before turning back to the lupusan. “I’m sending you and your ship to Byra-Kae.” That set off a firestorm in the room.

  “What?”

  “Whoa!”

  “You just said we needed everyone here!”

  “All right, all right!” Tamara said, raising her voice. Everyone quieted. “Yes, I did just say that we need all our ships here and we can’t afford to send a full blown expedition to another system just yet. But I think we need to send one to Byra-Kae. We need to get a good eye on what Verrikoth is doing there.” Looking at the horrified looks on the faces of the assembled officers and VIPs, she turned to Kol Raydor. “Captain, your ship is currently the strongest hyperspace capable asset FP has and I wish that I could give this assignment to you. But after the disaster we just barely avoided here, I can’t afford to pull Persistence of Vision from the Kutok mine until a great deal more of the defenses are completed.”