A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (40 page)

Now Kaspar did shake the lupusan’s hand off his shoulder, giving the wolf a quick nod.  Hobres yipped at him and he flinched, then cursed his own weakness.  Kaspar walked out of the office, feeling as though he’d been squeezed and then wrung out.  He was emotionally completely drained and yet a feeling of exhilaration was starting to creep in.  He’d gone from worker drone/slave to someone heading his own team, working on a completely new ship, a ship that
he
designed!  Perhaps being out here in the back end of beyond wasn’t so bad after all.  He’d also have to seriously consider whether or not to thank Stickley for his timely insult session.  Had he not gotten things riled up, the supervisor would never have taken notice.  No, Kaspar decided, better to let the man stew. 

Hopefully the manager was serious about getting him a new bunk.  Once he started working on his new fighter and once the other Republic workers got wind of it, Kaspar Bhavanian might as well paint bullseyes on his front and back.  The others wouldn’t take kindly to a collaborator.  Oh, they all were pulling shifts in the shipyard, but that was different.  They had no choice in that; they worked under threat of torture and death.  Kaspar would be actively aiding what they would consider the enemy, which would not sit well at all with them.  But he didn’t care.  It was a chance to continue to break out of the doldrums and the injustices that the Navy had piled on over the years.

But now it was off to his old bunk, catch a few hours of sleep though now of course he was completely wound up.  But there was a lot of work to get started on tomorrow.

              ~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~

As it turned out, he’d been too hyped up to sleep.  He tossed and turned all night until finally one of the others in the berthing area threw a shoe at him and demanded he shut the hell up.  So Kaspar lay back on the bunk and began working out building schedules, preliminary materials requirements, what he could get away with as far as replicator time, what the workers would have to fabricate themselves, on and on.  He had a number of lists, spreadsheets planning everything out.  Kaspar had a feeling that the workers would most likely be from the warlord’s personnel, not Republic prisoners, so it would be best if he already had a firm plan in mind when he met them.  He couldn’t afford to be wishy-washy or seem as though he didn’t know what he was doing. 

Hours later when the shift started and everyone started to get up, he was exhausted from no sleep, but the same exhiliaration he’d experienced when he’d walked out the yard manager’s office was buoying his spirits.  Stopping in the mess hall, he shoveled his breakfast into his mouth without really tasting it, gulped down two cups of coffee (very bitter and oily) and started to feel better, or at least a little more awake.

Heading out of the mess hall, Kaspar ran headlong into the silvery-furred lupusan who smiled broadly at his approach.  “Good to see you too, meat,” Hobres said, his voice as close to a purr that a wolf could get.  “I didn’t realize you wanted to get so close…”  His voice was a low growl and he leered at the man.

Kaspar didn’t meet the lupusan’s eyes.  He just stared at a point behind the lupusan’s chest without actually seeing it.  “Excuse me, sir,” he said.

“I like the sound of you calling me ‘sir’,” the lupusan said, his voice very smooth.

Kaspar gritted his teeth.  “Excuse me,” he said again.  When the guard still didn’t move, he sighed.  “Please move.  I have to get to the bay to get work.”

“I want you to look me in the eye and ask me again,” the wolf ordered.  He crossed his arms over his chest.

Kaspar took a measured breath, then looked up and met the wolf’s eye.  He was leering at the human, with a big shit-eating grin on his face.  “Would you please move out of my way, sir?  I need to get to work.”

Hobres’s grin grew wider.  “Thank you.  And of course.”  He swept to the side, letting the man pass.  “Lead the way, meat.”

Kaspar’s teeth clenched so hard he was convinced they would shatter.  But he carried on, hefting his toolkit and forced himself to walk briskly but calmly.  The soft pad-pad-pad of Hobres’ feet on the deckplates followed and he couldn’t help feeling that there was about to be a knife shoved between his shoulder blades.  It was the longest walk of the engineer’s life, going from the mess hall to the workbay where there were five zheen technicians waiting.  Kaspar looked over to the lupusan, who nodded.  Hobres pulled a communicator from his belt and mumbled something into it.  Five seconds later, his HUD activated and his manual port was activated again.

He turned to the group, who were standing in a bunch and talking together in the damned hissing and clicking.  Kaspar pulled the datapad from his belt and activated the small holo projector.  “Listen up you lot!” he barked, and two of the five zheen jumped.  “This here,” he said, gesturing to the image of the starfighter, “is what we’re going to build.”

“I waz told we waz goin’ to build eh starfighter,” one of the zheen replied, interrupting Kaspar as he was about to speak.

“And it seems that you were right,” Kaspar said, frowning.  “The Yard Manager has given us two weeks and a great deal of resources, and I don’t intend to disappoint him.  Nor do you,” he told them all.  A couple of them shifted uncomfortably.

“I’ve never seen that class of fighter before,” another of the zheen commented, his buzz being translated through the t-pack. 

“That’s because it’s new,” Kaspar replied.  “The
Sparhawk
-class space superiority fighter.  Roll up your sleeves, boys.  We have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it.”

Chapter 13

Tamara looked up from the data terminal in front of her.  She had two different screens open, two different projects going at the same time.  The first was a new constructor engineering AI for the shipyard complex: Eretria Sterling had been bothering her about it for a while, sending messages almost every other day from the yard.  Seeing how much Nasir was helping with any projects that the
Samarkand
was engaged in made the envy rise in the Yard Supervisor.  And, Tamara had to admit, it was past due to have an AI overseeing and assisting there.

The other item she was working on was the coding for a new generation of replication technology for First Principles.  The industrial replicators, as well as the smaller, more portable A2s that they were leasing for civilian and government use, were fine, more than fine, really.  But as was feared from the visit by the Republic warship several months earlier, the replicators were vulnerable to an override by a high level military officer or government official.  And by override, it meant that they could alter command codes, lock Tamara or any of her people out of their own industrial base and First Principles, Inc, would effectively be out of business.

So, with Nasir’s help (at the startup at least) Tamara had been working on the next generation of proprietary replicators, as well as new command implants which did not have the overrides from Republic codes.  She of course, would be getting a set, but Tamara wanted Ka’Xarian and his people to get them as well.  Vincent Eamonn and Galina Korneyev, would of course be getting upgrades, as would Doctors Turan and Kassix, in fact all of First Principles’ command staff would.  They might even strap Eretria Sterling to a table and get her outfitted, be finished with her nonsense once and for all.

It was a delicate process and something that needed meticulous and deep programming.  It was something that should be using a team of programmers to do properly, but now, at least in the initial stages, Tamara wanted it off the books.  She’d have the AIs do a pass over the coding to clean it up and strengthen the encryption and firewalls, but she wanted it to work, first.  And in conjunction with all her other duties, this was taking far longer to complete than she would have liked. 

Better to get it done right than fast.  Though fast would be good.

She currently had Nasir and Magnus (who had lots of spare processor cycles and little to do on the relatively smoothly running Kutok mine) tearing into the core matrices of a pair of Republic-style replicators.  The encryption was heavy and layered, several degrees of difficulty greater than when the two AI’s (with Stella’s assistance) had broken the encryption on the Republic worm several months earlier.  It was Tamara’s hope that they could break the encryption to give her and those working with her ideas on encryption and function for their own models.  They wouldn’t copy the Republic designs, of course, that would be ridiculous.  The whole point of making their own machines was so that some Republic Admiral or senior politician couldn’t stop into Seylonique and shut them down.  But by cracking the coding on the Republic devices, Tamara and the others could create firewalls and other safeguards to protect against software intrusions, both from Republic personnel as well as the odd aggressive hacker here at home.

“Samair?” a voice called to her from the hatch.

Tamara looked up from her desk, turning to
Moxie-2
’s airlock, where she saw the dark-furred visage of Corajen Nymeria stepping inside the ship.  “Corajen.  Come in, please.”

Viktoriya stood up from where she’d been sitting on one of the couches, to the side of the airlock.  She’d perched herself there while Tamara was here and working.  She was reading over reports, watching surveillance vids and even skimming over a trashy romance novel but at no point was she unaware of her surroundings.  When the other lupusan stepped inside, Viktoriya’s hand went to her sidearm, but then relaxed when she identified the intruder. 

“What can I do for the Chief of Security here?” Tamara asked with a smile.

“I have some people I want to introduce to you,” the lupusan replied. 

Viktoriya was away from the couch and over to the hatch like a shot.  She did not speak, however, waiting for the chief to bring her charges aboard the ship.  Tamara looked over to her lead bodyguard, who did a quick check then looked back to her principle and nodded.  “Okay, Chief.  Bring them in.”

The wolf leaned back and waved someone through the hatch.  But instead of one person, four people entered into the ship.  There were three lupusan: a male and two females, as well as a male Severite, who was short enough to be missed among the massive wolves.  They all entered and then stood in a line facing toward the human woman.  Viktoriya stepped forward, moving to stand behind and to the left of Tamara, out of her field of vision but in easy range to jump forward to defend her if it came to that.

“Captain Tamara Samair, Serzhant Viktoriya Eristov,” Corajen said, gesturing, “Meet the newest additions to your personal security.  This is Kayla Tokarev, first among equals.” 

“Ms. Tokarev,” Tamara said, inclining her head. 

“Ma’am,” the wolf replied, her voice a raspy soprano, as she gave a slight bow.  Her fur was a mottled gold and black, with a black patch on the right side of her chin.  She, like the others, was dressed in the standard kilt that all the species who had a tail seemed to wear, and a black vest similar to the one worn by the Chief and Viktoriya.  She also had a portable computer strapped to her right wrist and more gadgets clipped to her belt.  There was a pistol strapped to her thigh, just like all the others.

“Specialty?” Tamara asked.

“I’m a pilot,” Kayla said simply.  Then she gave a wolfish grin.  “And I do computers.”

“I think we might get along fine, Ms. Tokarev.”  She nodded and then looked to the next wolf in line.

Corajen took the hint and continued.  She gestured to the other female wolf, slightly more slender than Tokarev who had similar colorations as the other female, enough to make Tamara think that they might be related.  She didn’t have the very prominent and distinctive spot on her chin; her colorations were more even.  Tamara also got the sense that this one was considered to be more of a looker than the other female wolves in the room and she knew it (and so did everyone else).  “This is Kikendra Lamont, the long-ranged shooter in our group here.”

“Ms. Lamont,” Tamara said in acknowledgement.

“Call me Kiki, Ma’am,” Lamont replied, flicking her ears.  “Everyone does.”

Tamara frowned.  “Kiki?”

The slender wolf shrugged.  “It was a nickname I got in the Army.”

Kayla chuffed a laugh.  “You’ve had that since you were a pup.”  Another shrug.

“You two know each other, I take it?”

“Yes, Ma’am, you could say that,” Kiki said nonchalantly.  “We’re sisters.  It’s the colorations in the fur.  Dead giveaway.  I changed my name after I got married… short lived as that was.”

“Is this going to be a conflict, Ms. Lamont?  If you’re supposed to be protecting me and your sister is in danger, what will you do?”  Tamara was suddenly wary of having these two on her detail knowing that.

“It isn’t a problem, Ma’am,” Kayla told her.  “We’ve been in that exact situation several times.  We both understand that the mission, or the principle, comes first.”

“I don’t know how comfortable about this I am, Chief,” Tamara said flatly, turning to face the Chief.  “In fact I do.  I’m
not
comfortable with this.”

Corajen sighed.  “I know what it looks like, Samair.  But I’ve spoken to their previous COs, gone through records…  I’ll vouch for them.”  There was a lot of weight put into her last sentence.

Tamara let out a deep sigh.  “All right.”  She looked to the sisters, who straightened at her gaze.  “Do not make me regret this decision.”

“No, Ma’am,” they said in unison, a crisp bark of acknowledgement.  If she hadn’t already known they were former military, that would have been a dead giveaway.

Tamara looked to them for a few moments longer, noticing that out of the corner of her eye, the other wolf had straightened to attention as well, but the Severite had not.  In fact, the cat was blinking in amusement and his posture was completely relaxed.  Tamara ignored him for the moment and turned to the third lupusan in line, the male.  “Forgive me, gentlemen.  Chief, who are the others?”

Corajen looked at Tamara with a stern expression for a long moment, her tail thrashing unconsciously.  But then she shook her head as though clearing it and looked back to the bodyguards.  “This is Beau Rostov, who handles the medical duties.”

“Combat medic?” Tamar asked, looking to the cat.

The Severite blinked and then grinned.  “No way, not me.  You get shot around me, I can hack the limb off, Ma’am, or I can slap a bandage on ya.  But that’s not my skill set.”

She turned to the male wolf, a huge specimen of male lupusan.  Whereas Marat had been tall and lean, Beau was tall and thickly muscled.  Tamara did not want to insult him, but he looked as though he had some bear mixed in with the wolf.  His fur was mostly gray-blue, with white-furred hands and neck, and like the others, he too wore a kilt.  But his vest was festooned with pockets which were stuffed with packets of… Tamara wasn’t sure what.  He also carried a knapsack over one shoulder, a gun on one hip and knives along a brace across his chest. 

“But it is mine, Ma’am,” the big wolf said, his voice impassive.  He had an impressive deep baritone that rivaled Magnus’.  “I will want to update my gear with Doctor Kassix but I have spoken with Chief Tyannikov and picked up a few tips.  In fact, I met the good Stargazer several years ago when he first came to this system.”  The wolf considered his next words.  “He’s an odd one, but it’s clear he knows his stuff.”

Tamara kept her face impassive at the stargazer crack, wanting to leap to her friend’s defense.  But it seemed as though Rostov was only making the one comment and even that was a title Konstantin had endured back in the old Navy days.  She herself had called him that.  He was a big boy, the old wolf, and didn’t need Tamara to defend his honor. 

“Well, I’ll speak with the doctor.  You shouldn’t have any trouble getting the supplies you need.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” Beau replied.  “I’m sure we’ll all appreciate it.”

Kayla snorted.  “I think I’ll appreciate it more if we don’t need the use of your services at all, Beau.”

“I’ll be sure to make the stitches large, just for you, Kayla,” Beau replied with an ear flick.

Corajen gave a low growl and the banter ceased.  The Severite blinked in amusement, his ears angling down.  “And the last here is Mister Katsopolis.”

He gave a deep, sweeping bow, the fingers of his right hand touching the floor.  “Combat Engineer and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Specialist, Ma’am.  Calvin Katsopolis, at your service.”

“Disposal?” Tamara asked, an eyebrow raising.  “Or employment of?”

He smiled, a wide mouthed feline smile.  “Whatever is needed, Ma’am.  Nothing moves people and objects and a room like things that go pop and go boom.”

At that statement, Tamara blinked then her eyes narrowed suspiciously.  Bringing up her HUD, she activated the optical scanners in her implants, running a scan on the petite Severite.  She tried very hard not to wince at what she found.  “Mister Katsopolis, exactly how much high explosive have you brought onto my ship?”

The cat actually had the grace to look embarrassed.  “Only about ten kilos, ma’am.  I’ve got six devices.”

She sighed, turning to Corajen.  “What sort of motley crew have you brought me here, Corajen?” she demanded.

Corajen nodded.  “They are a bit motley, Samair, I’ll admit.  But they have a good reputation and I’ve seen them in action.  So long as the cat here can keep the boom under control, and that one,” she pointed to Kiki, “Can stop goggling at herself in the mirror to keep her mind on business, I think they’ll do well.”  The female lupusan flattened her ears against her head; her sister barked a laugh.

Tamara gave a long-suffering sigh.  “I have your word on that?”  She wasn’t looking at the group of guards, but she did see them all (even the cat) straighten just a touch at that comment.  She wondered if they understood the significance of what she was asking.

Corajen nodded.  “You do, Samair.”

“That’s all I need.”  The others exchanged looks, but didn’t speak.  “All right then.  As Serzhant Eristov here will tell you, I’m usually pretty good at keeping out of trouble.  I don’t particularly like the idea of needing personal protection, but I am glad to have you all along.  Hopefully, this will just be a boring assignment for you all, one that fills your bank accounts.  I don’t go into war zones.  They tend to come to me, however, if you’ve kept up on my history,” Tamara said sourly.  Corajen chuckled and Viktoriya gave a small growl, but none of the others reacted.  “You can stand at ease,” she told them and they relaxed into a sort of parade rest.  Calvin returned to his much more relaxed pose, looking as though he might drop to the deck and sprawl out, but he refrained for the moment.

“As far as gear is concerned,” Tamara went on.  “I have access to a very large amount.  If you need something, ask.  I don’t need any of you doing illegal things or trading to get some piece of gear because you’re afraid that it’s going to attract attention.”