First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (17 page)

“That’s the ship AI?” Eretria said, unable to hide her disdain.  “I was expecting something more like Stella.”

              “I must say, I have to agree, Tamara,” Galina agreed.  “This isn’t really what I had in mind.”

              “Patience, ladies,” Tamara said.  “He’s only just woken up.  Give him a minute.”

              “Him?” Eretria asked, slightly amused.

              Tamara snorted.  “Captain Eamonn’s request.  He said that there were so many females in positions of authority in this organization, that we needed at least one other male presence.”

              “Men,” Eretria snorted derisively.  Galina huffed a laugh.

              They were interrupted by the AI’s voice, which was androgynous at first but as it continued to speak, the voice deepened to be definitively male.  “I am awake.  Accessing database.  Tamara Samair: voiceprint identified.  Chief of Operations, First Principles, Incorporated.  Eretria Sterling: voiceprint identified.  Supervisor, Engineering teams,
Samarkand
.  Galina Korneyev: voiceprint identified.  Commanding officer,
Samarkand
.”

              “Well, he’s certainly friendly,” Eretria said, tipping her head back and forth.

              Tamara addressed the AI, ignoring the other woman’s comment.  “You’re to be the AI for this ship, the
Samarkand
.  You’re going to be assisting both of these ladies in company Operations, as well as myself.  You’ll be maintaining the ship’s reactor as well as the ship’s other autonomic functions.”

              “I understand, Captain Samair.”  Was it Tamara’s imagination, or did the AI’s voice have a bit of a growl to it?

              “You’re going to be working with a number of organics, and at least two other AI’s, although you are currently the only AI in this star system.  We’re going to be bringing up a pair of AI’s for the Kutok mine.”

              “Understood.  I will be working with a team of AI’s.  I also understand that another AI is bonded with the bulk freighter cargo ship
Grania Estelle
?”

              “Yes, that is correct,” Tamara replied. 

              “What is he going to look like?” Galina asked.

              “What form would you like me to take, Captain Korneyev?”

              She grinned.  “He’s certainly polite.  But he’s going to be working with me quite a bit.  I think I’d like someone… familiar.”

              “Accessing database.”  The AI’s voice sounded slightly distracted, but then the code matrix started to increase its speed, pulsating and spinning.  Eventually, after only about ten seconds or so, the cloud shrunk down and formed into a more solid shape.  For a moment, it appeared as though the AI was going to adopt a human form, following in Stella’s digital footsteps, but then the image solidified further.  Its upper body increased in size, as did its arms.  The fingers on each hand grew in length, ending in wicked claws.  His head grew in size, slightly larger than a human’s, with a muzzle and large, triangular shaped ears.

              “He’s a lupusan!” Eretria gasped. 

              Galina marveled at the newborn AI.  “He’s gorgeous!”

              The new AI stood tall, crossing his arms over his chest.  He was wearing typical lupusan ship attire, a gray company t-shirt with the galactic spiral logo on the right breast.  His lower body was covered by a green and gold kilt, which was ultimately practical, because wearing trousers with a tail would be simply uncomfortable.  He wore no shoes, but outside of those who wore skinsuits to go out in vacuum, none of the lupusan did.  It was clear that he was strong and his muscles rippled under his fur.  His fur was a brindled gold and his eyes were a pale lavender.

              “Now all I need is a name,” he said, in a tone that made all three of the females smile. 

              “Put your tongue back in your mouth, Galina,” Tamara teased.

              The captain’s jaw closed with a click.  “You made him look that way just to torture me, didn’t you?”

              Tamara gave a look of complete innocence.  “He’s the one who chose his appearance, Galina,” she protested.  “I only gave him a few nudges.  But as the captain of this ship, I shall give the honor of choosing his name to you.”

              Eretria smirked, crossing her arms under her breasts.  “Make it a good one, Galina,” she urged.  “It has to live up to a form like that.”  She flicked her chin in the AI’s direction.

              “I await your pleasure, Captain,” the AI said and Galina couldn’t help the shiver that went down her spine.  Her ears lay flat against her head.

              “Nasir,” she said after a long moment.  She looked to him, hovering a few centimeters over the holo projector.  “Your name is Nasir.”  Then she hesitated, looking uncertain.  “Is that acceptable?”

              He gazed at her for a long second.  “You are the captain of the ship.  As Ms. Sterling mentioned my name should reflect my form.  The name that means ‘helper’ or ‘bringer of victory’?  How can that not be exactly correct?”

              Tamara laughed.  “I like him already.  I think we’re all going to have a lot of fun together, Nasir,” she told him.

              “I agree, Captain Samair.”

              “How about unless we’re in formal settings, you call me Tamara?” she asked.

              “Very well, Tamara.”  He looked distracted for an instant, blinking slowly.  “I am now fully integrated into the ship’s system.  I must say, Captain Korneyev, you run a very tight ship.  And Supervisor Sterling, I am impressed with the efficiency of your teams.”

              Both females beamed at the compliments.  “I think I’ll be leaving you three to get better acquainted.  And, you should inform the crew that they’ve received a new member of the ship’s company.  Better that it comes from you two instead of them finding out on their own.”

              “You aren’t going to introduce me?” Nasir asked, sounding slightly hurt.

              She smiled warmly.  “I think it might be better if they do, Nasir,” she said.  “And if you access the communications files from an hour ago, especially one that I recorded-…”

              “Ah, yes, for the law offices of Kay, Jo’zenit and Simpson.  I understand.  That is something you should get a handle on immediately.  Of course you may feel free to contact me at any time for assistance, should you require it, Tamara.”  He gave her a little bow.

              “Thank you, Nasir.  As I said, I think we’re all going to have a lot of fun together.  Ladies,” she said to the others.  “I’ll try to make this trip as swift as possible.  Hopefully Kay won’t give me too much of a hassle taking care of this.”  She sighed.  “But then, he’s an attorney and I’m going to be dealing with politicians.  They’re going to drag this out as long as they possibly can.”

              “That certainly sounds accurate, Ma’am,” Eretria agreed. 

              Nasir looked thoughtful.  “Perhaps there is other pressure that could be put on the politicians, Tamara.  Have you considered going to the press?  Then you can tell your story, get the reporters to do some of the work for you.  And, it would also put more pressure on the members of the admin council, especially if you make reference to the attack on the Kutok mine.”

              “You’re making a great deal of sense, Nasir,” Tamara said.  “And I’m proud of how devious your mind is.”

              He gave her a very predatory smile.  “I’m working with you ladies and for the company.  These people tried to hurt us, steal from us, and even went so far as to assault and kill people in company employ.  I believe some justice is deserved for them.”

              “I completely agree, Nasir,” Galina said.  She turned to Tamara.  “Don’t you need to get going?  I thought you had a meeting to get to with your lawyers.”

              Tamara chuckled.  “All right, all right.  I’m going.  He’s a person, you know!  Not some fantasy toy.”

              Galina gave her a very flat look, but Eretria actually laughed.  Nasir just stood there and managed to look young and impressionable and yet strong and imperious at the same time.  Tamara shook her head and chuckled again, then headed out of the compartment.

              Once she was within five light-seconds from the orbital, Tamara placed a call to the law offices, and luckily was immediately transferred to Xorik Kay’s private line.  “Commander Samair, I’m glad to hear from you.  I received your previous message and I’ve already begun looking into this.  I’ve spoken with Ms. Suriaya and confirmed what she told you.  I’ve also reviewed the contract and confirmed that she, in fact, is not in breach of it.”

              Tamara grimaced.  “I wasn’t worried over whether she was in breach of contract, Mister Kay.  I assumed that she was telling the truth from the stress in her voice on the message.  And once I get there, I can ping the device and see if she was lying to me, just hiding it to try and get a free lunch out of me.”

              But Kay didn’t look fazed.  “I assumed she was telling the truth as well, Commander.  But I needed to confirm her story, especially if this needs to go to court.”

              She sighed.  “I’m paying you a huge retainer to take care of this, Mister Kay.  I don’t want this to be dragged through court for a decade just to have it end because one side decides that they’re too sick of pursuing it.  I want this taken care of now.”

              “Yes, I can appreciate that, Commander,” the man replied, his voice extremely patient.  He probably dealt with angry clients demanding outrageous things all the time.  “But there is only so much that the firm can do, no matter how much money you are paying us.”

              “The government came in and clearly tried to get my customer to breach contract.  When they refused, they flat out
stole
FP property.”

              “And then your failsafes destroyed that property, Commander Samair,” he replied.  “There is no further evidence.”

              “Wrong,” Tamara replied, annoyed by the short delay in the conversation.  It was less than a five-second delay due to light speed lag, but it still irritated her.  “Suriaya sent me another message on my way in.  She said that her own security systems recorded everything.  I’ve reviewed the footage.  It clearly shows that as soon as the government people loaded up the A2 on their air skimmer, the self-destruct kicked in.”

              Xorik Kay frowned.  “I’ll need to review the footage, of course, but I think all that would show is that they took the device and it self-destructed.”

              “Yes,” Tamara said, impatiently.  She glared at the man’s image on the display.  “That’s what I just said.”

              He shook his head, looking like a teacher speaking to a dull pupil.  “Yes, Commander you did.  But the government people will contest this, saying that it wasn’t their actions that caused this, it was Ms. Suriaya’s.  That they had attempted to negotiate with her, so they, yes, took the device, but then when they had returned to the orbital or wherever they were going, they would have contacted you to renegotiate terms, set up a new contract with you.”

              Tamara sighed, putting a hand to her head, rubbing her temples.  “All right.  Yes, you’re probably right.  In fact, I’m sure that you probably are.  So what do we do about it?”

              “Legally?  We can probably sue for theft of property.  It’ll get dicey though, when they rightly point out that they no longer have the device.”

              “But it was
their
actions that caused it to self-destruct!  It’s right there in the contract I have with Suriaya.  It’s not even fine print, I came right out and told her what would happen if the device was stolen.  If it was transferred outside her working space without a certain code entered by her, then the device would self-destruct.”

              Xorik was nodding.  “Good, I can work with that.  That would give good motive for Ms. Suriaya
not
to destroy the device on their own.  It would go toward the government agents’ motive.  It would show that in any case, they are working to disrupt and hurt FP’s business.”

              “What about going public with this?  If I went to the press and told them everything?”

              The lawyer grimaced.  Then he sighed.  “I can’t say that I’m thrilled about that idea.  Adding the press to what is already a stressful situation will very probably make it much worse.”

              “But if I can get the truth out, showing a systematic attack on company assets, first the station and my ships and now devices that I’m leasing to legitimate companies, it could drum up popular support,” Tamara reasoned.

              Xorik frowned, but nodded acknowledging the point.  “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can stop you.”

              “No, there isn’t.”

              He nodded.  “When are you going to hold the press conference?”

              “I want to speak with Suriaya first,” she said.  “After that, I’ll call the press about this.  In fact, call them now and tell them that the day I land, I’m going to be speaking to them.”

              He pursed his lips.  “Actually, ma’am, I think it might be better to hold off until you get here.  If you telegraph your intentions, the government will certainly get wind of it and attempt to block you.  They might hold a press conference of their own and try and discredit you.  After that, no matter what you say it would just sound like denial and attempting to attack them for saying things about you.  You’ll lose your impact.”

              She nodded.  “All right.  But be ready for me.  I’ll contact you as soon as I touch down.  Samair, out.”

              The press conference had been absolute hell.  While the reporters were more than willing to listen to her story, as well as hear dirt on the admins and the other government goons, they bombarded her with questions about any and everything.

              “Tamara!  Tamara!  Is it true that you’re dating the Chairman of EIC?”

              “Ms. Samair!  Are you moving to buy out E3 Systems?”

              “Explain these replicators you’ve been leasing?  Are you looking to eliminate the lower-class workers?”

              “Is it true that you’ve been building a secret fleet to over throw the government?”

              “I understand you’ve been working to get teams to work on the
Leytonstone
!”

              “Ma’am, any truth to the rumors that you’re going to be posing nude for the new Semmingon vid-film?”

              On and on.  It took a great deal of effort to keep them focused on the primary topics.  They were greatly interested in the blatant theft of company property by the government, but as Xorik Kay had intimated, the reporters quickly got distracted by the self-destruct routines.  They started asking about the destruct sequence.  How did it work?  Why was it even part of the device’s operating system?  Wasn’t she concerned about the potential for injury or loss of life?  Would the devices explode?  Was she placing bombs in various small businesses?  Why would she be targeting small businesses and places on the orbital for assassination?  Was she trying to bring down the economy?  What were her overall plans here?

              Eventually, she again managed to get things on track, indicating her intentions to get to the bottom of this and if necessary, she would be bringing legal actions against the government, bringing the authorities in to help clear up this matter of blatant theft and destruction of her company’s property.  Over the next few hours, various news stories found their way onto vid, print and net media and for the most part they kept on topic.  However, an annoying number of stories featured questions about whether Tamara would be posing nude for an upcoming vid film.

              “This is ridiculous!” Tamara fumed, later that day.  She was back in her ship, flying to Suriaya’s compound.  Once the news had broken about the theft, four more of Tamara’s customers had contacted her, indicating that they too had been robbed of their A2s and that the devices had melted down as well.  She used the comm system of the
Testudo
to try and ping the devices but received no return signal.  Which meant that the customers were indeed telling the truth.  This actually gave her some peace of mind because the last thing she needed were customers that were trying to do the same thing as the government, i.e. stealing company replicators.  She’d brought two of the A2s with her, intending to get one to Suriaya, sign a new contract and even offer her a slight discount, but now, with the others coming forward indicating their losses, she needed the devices to build more.  It took a bit longer using the A2s than it would have using full industrial replicators on the
Samarkand
or the Kutok mine, but in the end she had five of the micro-replicators in the cargo hold of her ship and was exhausted.  The devices didn’t require much work to put together, but assembling three of them in one go was rather tiring.  That coupled with the stress she’d been under in the last week certainly didn’t help.

              But her arrival at Suriaya’s compound was a welcome one.  “Tamara!” the other woman bellowed, standing just off to the side as the
Testudo
touched down and the cargo door opened.  “Glad you didn’t forget about me, your first client.”

              Tamara laughed.  “I could never forget about you, Suriaya.  I brought you a shiny, new A2 replicator to replace the one that the government thugs stole.”

              She nodded, rubbing her hands together.  “You see?  This is why I like working with FP, Tamara.  It’s the personal touch.  I can’t think of any other company where the COO would drop everything and bring out replacements.  I think you can expect that my tiny little venture will continue doing business with FP.”

              “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that,” Tamara said, nodding.  The two women went into the cargo bay where Suriaya picked up the A2, hefted the meter square box onto one shoulder and walked back down the ramp.  Walking to her primary workshop, she gently lowered the device onto one of the workbenches.

              “I’ll move it later.”  Tamara nodded in agreement.  She held out a datapad and Suriaya took it.  Looking it over, she saw the updated contract then nodded in satisfaction with the terms.  She thumbed her authorization and handed it back.  “I do appreciate the reduction in rates.”

              Tamara tipped her head to the side in acknowledgement.  “I didn’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate your loyalty or the hardship with all the nonsense that happened.  And I’m afraid you might be called to testify when the lawsuit goes through.”

              Suriaya looked at her in admiration.  “You’re actually going to sue the government?”

              “Well, the actual perpetrators, sure.  But I’ve spoken to the police over the comms.  Once I’m done delivering the rest of the A2s to my other customers I’m going to the authorities and see if they’ll assist.”

              The round engineer grimaced.  “They haven’t been all that helpful in my recollection.”

              She shrugged.  “Well, it’s a chance I’ll have to take.  If nothing else, I’ll keep hammering away at them through the media.”

              “Oh, so you
are
going to be naked in the new Semmigon flick?”  Suriaya looked at her with a critical eye.  “Well, you do have the body for it,” she decided.

              Tamara sighed.

              The comm panel on Kozen’ck’s desk beeped.  He looked away from the document he was reading, an impressive feat what with his compound eyes.  He pressed the control.  “Yes?”

              His assistant answered.  “Sorry to disturb you, Triarch.  But I have Commander Samair here to see you.  I don’t show her on the schedule.”  His voice lowered.  “Should I send her away?”

              Before he could answer, he could hear Samair’s voice in the background.  “No, you’d better not send me away.  I need to speak with the Triarch and you are going to let me in there.” 

              “No, wait!” came the assistant’s voice.  “Stop, you can’t go in there!”

              The door to the office suddenly opened and Tamara burst in, the assistant right behind her.  “Sir, I’m sorry.  I tried to stop her…”

              Kozen’ck waved one hand.  “It’s all right, Horace.  Hold all but emergency calls for me, please?”

              Horace gave the woman an ugly look and then slipped out of the office, quietly closing the door behind him.  Tamara didn’t even notice, her arms crossed under breasts, staring at the zheen politician sitting with a somewhat agitated look on his face.

              “How can I assist you today, Commander Samair?” he asked, his voice sounding falsely cheerful.

              “How can you assist me?” she replied, incredulous.  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Your government goons show up at my customers’ places of business and steal the devices that they are leasing from
me
and you have the balls to ask me how you can
help
?”  Her voice rose nearly to a shout.

              His antennae twitched.  “Please don’t shout, Commander.  We can discuss this like civilized beings.”  He gestured to the seat before his desk.  “Please sit.”

              Tamara stood there for a moment longer, fuming.  Then, slipping a hand in her pocket, she moved forward and sat down in the offered seat.  Without needing to even flick his eyes to the side, Kozen’ck glanced at the security feed on one of his displays.  It indicated that she was armed with a small pistol up her left sleeve, another in her left boot, a datapad on her belt and a communicator in her pocket, which she was holding tightly in her hand.  She wasn’t going anywhere near her weapons, which made him relax somewhat.