A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4

by Michael Kotcher

  Stone-faced, the PA entered in another code and began to speak into the phone. Acheron sat back in the seat. His people would complain about his apparent cowardice but he was actually working to save their lives. The last thing they needed in their open and vulnerable skies was another of the warlord’s ships. They had nothing to defend against firebombs from orbit. Even stealing the small ship couldn’t make an appreciable difference.

  He prayed he was making the right decision.

  Within two hours, the toughs had departed the bar, heading back to their ship. They’d had a rowdy three hours and were staggering drunk back up the hill. There they spent over forty minutes falling over, crawling on their bellies and stumbling to their feet to reach the ship. The spotters watched them, but none of the Heb citizens made one move to alert or hinder them.

  In a move that shocked everyone, the thugs actually paid for their drinks, even if what they paid was only about half of what the drinks cost. Still, the fact that they paid anything and hadn’t trashed the establishment was far more remuneration than the proprietor had expected and he even went so far as to call it a good night.

  The toughs piled aboard their ship and within minutes of the door sealing shut behind them, it’s engines roared to life, lifting the craft up off the ground. Seconds later, the small vessel screamed into the sky, but not before passing low over the city, no doubt a calculated move to inspire fear in the populace. The cutter flew less than two hundred meters above the ground, a distance so low it seemed as though someone reaching out of a top floor window could have reached out and touched it, though that was clearly impossible. The cutter wasn’t traveling quite fast enough to blast out all the window glass in the area, but the bellow of the engines was certainly enough to terrify young childred and startly anyone else who heard it.

  The pirates departed the planet’s atmosphere and continued out of the system, not sending a single transmission.

  The shrill beeping of the alarm jerked Malachai Gants back to consciousness. His cabin was dark, only the glow of the chronometer’s panel numbers illuminating the compartment. There was a groan from next to him as he leaned over and slapped the control to shut it off. For one panicked instant, Gants couldn’t place the voice and the very slight headache reminded him he’d dipped into that bottle of Reserve 212 whiskey he’d been saving. Had he gone to bed with a woman in his crew?

  “Stars, my head hurts,” the woman said. His eyes managed to pick out the details of her face in the dark and he could feel her naked body against his. “What time is it?” she groaned and the memory came flooding back to him. Eretria Sterling. It was their fourth dinner date and they were drinking and swapping stories and just enjoying each other’s company. And a passionate night later and here they were.

  “0500,” he answered and, greatly daring, put her arm around her and tried to pull her closer. She obliged, but groaned again.

  “Don’t talk so loud,” she whispered, her voice little more than a croak.

  “Lights,” he ordered softly. “Lowest illumination.” A very dim glow came from the overhead light panel, bathing the room in soft golden light.

  Eretria grunted and buried her face in the colonel’s shoulder. “You ass,” she snarled, her voice muffled. “Did you really need to turn that on?”

  After a second’s thought and with the throbbing in his own head to confirm the hangover, he gave a wry chuckle. “Yeah, it seemed a good idea at the time.” He made sure that his voice was pitched low. Without jostling her too much, Gants reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a detox pill and a cup of water his steward Perkins had thoughtfully left out. “Here,” he said, nudging her shoulder.

  Eretria brought out her face, cracked an eyelid and then darted her head forward and snatched the pill from between his two fingers with her lips. Then with a somewhat shaky hand, she took the cup, brought it to her lips and drained it. “Thank you.” She flopped back down, boneless onto her side, head on his shoulder.

  Malachai took the cup back and grabbed the other pill from the nightstand and swallowed it. He knew he’d feel better in a few minutes. They lay there together like that for a few moments when finally he sighed. “I really do need to get up, Eretria. I have an exercise to run in an hour.”

  “I run these shipyards, my good colonel,” she replied curtly, her voice sounding less like a croak. “So I decide if any work gets done around here, bub.”

  “Perkins will probably have breakfast ready in a half hour,” he warned. “And let me tell you, that man runs a very tight ship. He will not allow his colonel to make him look bad by lying in bed all day, no matter how much he might approve of his company.”

  She sighed ruefully, but he could feel the smile on her face at the compliment. She snuggled closer and wrapped an arm over his chest. “It was a very good night,” Eretria stated softly, almost timidly.

  “A very good night,” he agreed, giving her a small squeeze. “We should have another one sometime soon.”

  He felt her nod. “Yes, we should.”

  “Do you want the shower first, or shall I?”

  “Such a gallant officer, asking a lady her preference,” Eretria teased. She raised herself up on one elbow and looked him in the face, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “We could share.”

  Gants laughed aloud. “You clearly didn’t notice the shower when you were in the refresher earlier.”

  He felt her go still. “One of those showers the size of a torpedo tube?”

  “Arguably smaller.”

  The engineer playfully swatted him on the chest. “I think, Colonel, that we’ve found the very next upgrade for this ship. A better shower.”

  He nodded eagerly. “As commanding officer of the battlecruiser Leytonstone, I officially sign off on whatever work and expense is necessary to see it done.”

  “I’ll get Apogee right on it.” She leaned forward, kissed his lips, then rolled off him, sprang off the bed and scampered across the compartment into the refresher. “Too slow!” Eretria cackled gleefully.

  Malachai Gants laughed. Thank you, Perkins, for resetting my alarm for thirty minutes earlier. He quickly got up, tossed the covers aside, and went to the refresher, just as Eretria cried, indignantly, “Hey, you liar! This shower could fit a shuttlecraft in it!”

  Now it was his turn to cackle in glee.

  “Damn it,” Gants swore quietly. The most recent sim wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d hope. Oh, it was clear that his people were were learning from their mistakes but once they managed a bit of cleverness, any semblance of unity or cohesiveness went out the window. Battles tended to turn into a mob of ships simply having at one another. Now, of course this was going to happen on occasion, but it was possible for ships to fight as a unit and Gants would be damned if his people weren’t going to learn how to do it. He’d pitted Equinox and three corvettes against Curroth and two corvettes, with Equinox as the attacker group. Curroth was to defend the simulated shipyard complex.

  Greer had bunched his ships together and pulled in tight to the station, trying to stay between the attackers and their target. This seemed like a decent enough plan until Equinox and her fellows unleashed a salvo of missiles, then immediately broke course for an open section of the shipyards. This left Greer with three bad options: chase the ships and let the station get hit by the missiles, deal with the missiles and let Equinox and her group close to energy range with the station, or split his forces and find himself too weak to deal with either.

  It looked as though Equinox was going to take the win, but Greer decided on a fourth option. He maintained his position to fend off the missiles and launched a salvo of his own on a vector that would intercept the attacking force. That spoiled the firing pass, forcing the attackers to break off. Minor damage occurred on both sides with no clear victor, but it was only one maneuver. In the end, there was no clear winner, with both flotillas “wrecked” in the simulation. The shipyard did end up taking minor damage but not enough to destroy or cripple it. So,
technically, the win went to Greer, but only by the slimmest of margins.

  Gants sent the all-clear signal, ending the sim, then ordered a full report and hot wash of the exercise in thirty minutes. Things didn’t turn out as smooth as he would have liked, but it was clear that the Navy ships were starting to get better. They were all making things up as they went, no one had any formal training and it showed. For now he would have to settle for a well-intentioned mob armed with heavy weapons instead of the well-trained group of professionals. A real battle would separate the wheat from the chaff, showing the crews and the officers what they were all made of. If only we’d had ships at the gas mine when the pirates showed up! he despaired.

  He wanted to change things up though. Put his ship captains and crews in a truly different situation or perhaps answer that question that was festering on everyone’s mind: could the Navy have actually done better during the battle in the Outer System? Could they, like they all boasted, have actually changed the outcome of that battle, driven the pirates away, losing fewer ships and industrial real estate?

  Eyes lighting up with an evil glint, the colonel turned to his communications officer. “Comms, put out a call on the station to Tamara Samair. Once you get her, transfer the call to my ready room.”

  “Aye, Colonel,” the young woman replied.

  Five minutes later, he had her on the line, her face floating before him on the display. She looked as professional as always, but Gants thought he detected a slight hardnes around her eyes, as though she was expecting more bad news. Perhaps Samair thought he was going to berate her about the repairs on his ship.

  “Colonel, I hear that the most recent exercise is over. How can I help you today?” Her voice was calm and professional, just as he expected.

  “I need your help with training, Samair,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. She blinked in surprise. “I’d like to set up a training sim consisting of two destroyer task groups with corvette support, actually, I want to use the Navy forces that are currently in the space here in the Lagrange point. But the big change is that I don’t want to face my people off against one another. I want the opposing force to consist of the same ships that were involved in the attack on the outer system. All the same pirate ships.”

  Tamara raised an eyebrow. “You want to answer the big question?” she asked, a touch of acid in her voice.

  “Is that such a bad thing?” he replied. “At some point, Navy ships are going to square off against the pirate lord and I want my people to have some experience, even if it was just in simulation. Don’t you agree?”

  She sighed. “Yes.” Her tone still carried a drop of acid in it. Clearly she didn’t like the idea of the Navy getting their day. If the Navy did in fact turn the tide and sweep the pirates from the battlespace with the ease that they claimed, then her own stock in the public eye would drop precipitously. It wouldn’t mean anything, this sim. Fighting against a simulated opponent, with nothing actually on the line, no danger of death and the knowledge, deep down that this isn’t real; one’s actions might be different. But of course, no one would actually see it that way.

  But there was no way to avoid it. An exercise could be programmed to the specifications that Gants wanted, so there wasn’t really a reason not to put it forth for use. And he was right, at some point, the Navy would inevitably face off against Verrikoth’s forces and not putting them into a simulation to test their mettle because Tamara’s and her company’s public image might get tarnished was the worst kind of stupidity.

  Tamara leaned back in her chair and nodded slowly. “Well, since a number of FP’s ships are hanging around near the yards, would you mind if Cavalier, Coronado, Darvano and Tsesuko join the party? We’re all defending this star system, after all.”

  The colonel pursed his lips. Having more ships on the defender side, in theory, could only be a good thing. It would make the job easier, going a bit further to close the gap in firepower between the pirates’ cruisers and the lighter units of the defenders. But the biggest problem was one of control. Technically, he was the senior Navy officer in the outer system. There were other “senior” officers back on the planet, but none of them had seen space or even a warship in years, aside from on a screen. They left the day-to-day affairs to Gants to run, though occasionally the newsies and even the admin council would go to them to consult on particular thorny issues… but usually when they only wanted to be told what they wanted to hear. He was in control of the Navy ships here around the shipyards and he could be reasonably sure that they would carry out his orders. The FP, ships and crews, however, were supposed to defer command to the Navy in a time of crisis, but after their own battle against the pirates, and with one of the captains from that battle restored to health and to command of one of the ships, would he and the others be willing to accept Gants’s authority?

  “I would be happy to have them along,” he said, seeing her face light up. He held up a hand. “But,” he went on, “we need to have an understanding. I know that your people are the ones who have the greater amount of experience here. I know that one of your captains… Tariq, is it? Personally commanded a ship in that battle. But if they’re going to join the fleet – the simulation,” he corrected, “Then they need to understand that they are subject to my orders.”

  Tamara nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll make sure they understand.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Excellent. I’ll get things set up for, say, 12 hours from now?”

  Gants squinted at the woman on the other side of the communications channel. “You’re up to something I’m not going to like, aren’t you?” Now it was his voice that had the ounce of acid in it.

  The engineer turned businesswoman tutted at him. “Colonel, you asked me to be up to something. No backing out now. Besides, when have I ever done anything you actually liked? 12 hours. I’ll get back to you.” She cut the connection.

  He nodded, agreeing with her last point. Standing, he exited the ready room and stepped out onto the bridge. He looked around to the officers. “We’re going to have another group exercise in twelve hours. I want to get this debrief and hot wash done. I’m getting the feeling that we’re going to need the rest.”

  He got a chorus of acknowledgements and the officers began to leave the bridge and head to the conference room. Gants stopped his second in command. “Sir?”

  “Get with the sensor team, no, send a message to Equinox or Curroth.” Gants corrected himself. “Scan nearby space. Let me know if any ships are moving toward the shipyard that will be within easy communications range within twelve hours. I have a feeling some nasty surprises will be coming our way in the fleet exercise.”

  Paxton was confused. “Sir? In the fleet exercise? Aren’t you running it?”

  Gants shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m going to be part of the defender force. We’re going to be running a sim against the pirate forces that were in the recent battle. Navy and FP ships against the pirates.”

  “Then I’m still confused, sir. Where is this sim coming from?”

  Malachai sighed. “Samair. I’m getting her to make up the simulation and then we get to play in it.” He set his jaw. He was determined that they would be able to work together.

  “The big question,” Paxton said, nodding.

  “In part. Adding our own ships with four FP ships will make things a bit different right off the bat. The pirates might, probably will, act differently because they see a stronger defender force than was actually there for the battle. But, we’re still the weaker force. I want to see how well our people can stack up.”

  Paxton frowned. “And you’re trusting her to make up a simulation?”

  He shrugged. “She has the most accurate data. Yes, she probably did send over everything she has on the attack, but I’m sure she can do what I asked.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I don’t like that we have to work with her on this. I wish we could do it on our own. But she has the da
ta and the experience and we need that.”

  “And you don’t think that she’s going to stack the deck to try and make us look bad?”

  “Either I trust her or I don’t. And I do trust that she is going to up the difficulty a bit, but she’ll try and be subtle about it. I don’t think she’s going to drop a squadron of cruisers or a dozen more corvettes or anything so blatant. But I want you, hell I want all of us to be ready.”

  “For the simulation. For the exercise,” Paxton said.

  Gants shook his head. “No, I mean for when we tangle with the pirates again. Because since they left under their own volition, making off with a large amount of swag, you can be sure that they’ll be back for more next time.”

  The commander considered the other man’s words. “Yes, sir.” Then he nodded. “I’ll get those sensor scans for you. I don’t know exactly what it is that you’re expecting me to find, but I’ll find any ships coming out way that could be a crashing the party.” Then he brightened. “Are we going to get the big girl into the action?” he asked hopefully.

  Gants shook his head. “No, not yet. I’d like to, but the techs are running diagnostics and most of the ship’s computer systems are still down. You know that. I can’t just power things up for a wargame. I don’t want to jostle anyone’s elbows. Not yet anyway.”

  Additional problems were plaguing the battlecruiser’s power and cooling systems, which had again pushed back the repair estimates. Even with the AI support and the army of technicians crawling throughout the ship, the yard hands estimated at least another two months of work. He chafed at the delay, but understood that there was only so much that could be done. Much of the ship had been opened up as techs and bots ripped out the old, well-used power grid and installed the new one. Because of that, most of the ship was offline, with barely enough power and computer processing available for life support and communications. Gants’ request for scans would have to be relayed to Curroth and Equinox because Leytonstone’s sensors were down.