First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (45 page)

              The shuttle accelerated way from the orbital, the pilot pouring on a few more G’s as was strictly necessary, pinning McConnell back in her seat.  “What the hell, pilot?” she demanded hoarsely.  “Slow down, this isn’t a combat maneuver.”

              “Sorry, ma’am,” the pilot replied, easing down on the throttle.  “I got a little overenthusiastic.”  The engines slowed a bit, and the pressure on McConnell’s chest eased.  “Won’t happen again.”  It was clear that there was a touch of amusement in the young woman’s voice.

              Theodosia scowled.  The shuttle was carrying a load of foodstuffs and other items for personal comfort back from the orbital: sheets, clothing, crates of spices, and several cases of antibiotics.  There was absolutely no need to go roaring out of the orbital’s parking zone at max acceleration.  Obviously, the young woman thought it was funny to make her feel even more uncomfortable.  It seemed that the admin council weren’t the only people that were not friendly toward her today.

              “See that it doesn’t,” she snarled, settling herself more comfortably in the seat.  She was seated in the small passenger area of the ship, just behind the cockpit.  The door to the control area was open, allowing easy conversation between the two of them.  Theodosia was seated in one of the four padded seats arranged in pairs on either side.  They were quite comfortable, the foam padding conforming to her body shape.  It would be a long flight, about fifty hours from the orbital to the yard at the Lagrange point and it had been determined that anyone flying that route should be comfortable.  The chairs could also recline flat and straight, converting to bunks and a curtain was available for a small degree of privacy.  The cargo was just beyond, secured to the deck.

              Theodosia could hear the pilot humming to herself as she set course for the Lagrange point.  “Orbital One transport control, this is FP Shuttle 17.  On course for the L7 point.”

              “Understood, FP 17,” a voice responded over the comms.  “Maintain course and speed until you have cleared orbital traffic zone.”

              “Acknowledged,” the pilot responded.  “FP17 out.”

              Theodosia leaned her head back against the chair, listening to the sound of the ship, the hum of the engines and the life support blowers.  “Ma’am, we’ll be leaving the traffic zone in about ten minutes.  If it’s okay with you, I’m going to turn on some music.”

              Theodosia sighed.  “That would be fine.”  She closed her eyes, allowing her thoughts to swirl around her.  There was still a lot of work to be done to get the ship ready for the long trip home.  She had managed to get a small He3 fuel collector from the FP people, something that would be absolutely essential if they were going to get all the way back to Republic space.  And with the food replicators and the recycling system up and running as they should, it meant that the only thing they would need to stop for was fuel, and perhaps some R&R on a habitable planet.  It would allow the crew to pick up some fresh food, because after months of living off replicated food, they would all be heartily sick of it-

              Her eardrums were assaulted by the loudest, most obnoxious and painful noise, which was accompanied by a woman’s voice, shrieking to the heavens in a voice so high and powerful that there was no way to determine what the words were.  Apparently the pilot was a fan of Egrenat shatter-rock.  And the only way to truly experience Egrenat shatter-rock was at horrendous levels of decibels.

              Theodosia groaned, pulling up her HUD.  She thought-clicked a few macros and in seconds her implants dulled the sound, buffering the noise that was getting into her eardrums.  It was going to be a very long flight.

              “Good to see you again, Ma’am,” Brianne said as McConnell stepped aboard the ship from the dockside hatch.  She frowned slightly, seeing the look on her commanding officer’s face.  “I’m guessing things didn’t go well.”

              McConnell snorted, leaning heavily on the cane as she hobbled along.  “No.  No, it didn’t.”  They continued slowly down the corridor, the commodore silently cursing her injury again.  The physio was progressing, but not at any great rate of speed. 

              “Did we get anything out of it?”

              “No,” she grumped.  “They just laughed me out of the room.  Pointed out that we really don’t have the ability to protect them, and it would be at least a year before we’d be able to get defensive ships here.”

              Brianne scoffed.  “At least a year is right.  And that assumes the Admiralty would be interested in reallocating assets out to the Cluster after we lost them all.  Remembering Admiral Tandred, I can’t imagine he’s going to be thrilled at throwing more resources at this place.”

              Theodosia scowled, rounding a corner.  “No, I can’t see that either.  Not unless there was some other reason to set up a base out here.  And although FP is doing a good job of building up this system, there really isn’t anything here that would make a good argument for deploying more ships.  It’s a long flight.”  She grunted.  “I mean, if the asteroid belt was rife with gadolinium, he might be more amenable.”

              “Ma’am, if the belt was rife with gadolinium, do you really think that the FP people wouldn’t have snapped up the rights to that?”

              The commodore turned her scowl on her flag captain.  “You’re right, they did.”  As Brianne’s eyes widened, she went on.  “Snap up mining rights, I mean.  I don’t know if it’s loaded with gadolinium, but if they’ve already made a few hyper-capable ships, there must be
some
amounts of it out there.”

              “Without knowing the amounts, purity or ease of extraction, we couldn’t use that as a basis to convince the Admiral.”

              “Brianne, it’s a good idea, but you and I both know that if a rich claim of gadolinium is found, there is no way that the local government is going to give it up, especially to the Republic.”

              The commander sighed heavily.  “No, ma’am, I’m sure you’re right about that.”  They reached the commodore’s cabin and the woman unlocked the door with her implants and it slid open.  She went inside and Brianne followed, the door swishing shut after her.  “So, what’s our next move?”

              Theodosia settled herself down into her chair, which was at the tiny desk.  In the last few days, she felt like she’d aged a decade.  “Honestly?  I think it’s time to pack it in, get the crew and the supplies aboard ship and get out of here.”

              Brianne nodded, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning her back against the hatch combing.  “I’m forced to agree, ma’am.  I don’t think we’re going to accomplish anything out here.”  She got a faraway look, as she checked something on her implants.  “The yard dogs say that they’ll have the ship done in four days, with three days of trials and shakedowns.  After that, we can go.”

              “One week.  Not soon enough, I think.”  Theodosia grimaced.  “All right, when is the worm supposed to hit?”

              “Eight days,” she replied without missing a beat.  “It’s going to be close.  And I don’t think it’s a good idea to be here when it does.”

              Theodosia chuckled.  “No, I think that would fall into the Very Bad Thing category.  I think we’d be hard pressed to deal with all of their defense forces, though they wouldn’t be able to hammer us all at once.  Which actually would be good for us.  But I don’t want to fight these people.  I want to get out of this system and I’m seriously considering never coming back.”

              “You’re just going to let that pirate scum go about their business as if nothing has happened?” Brianne demanded.

              “What do you want me to do, Brianne?” Theodosia thundered.  “We have one ship.  One ship, no backup and a six month trip back to the Republic.  Once we get back there, even if we get the go ahead and the resources to come back here and smash the pirate
lord
like the bug he is, by the time we could get everything together and get back here, he could be long gone.  Probably would be.”

              “So we do nothing?”  The Secaaran’s frustration was clearly overwhelming her sense of decorum.

              “No,
Commander
,” she said harshly.  “What we do is get out of this system and head back to the Republic.  There’s nothing more we can do out here.”  She frowned at the flag captain.  “I know it’s frustrating, Brianne.  Hell,
I’m
angry as hell over it.  You think I want that pirate and his ships lurking around?  It goes against everything we’ve been trained for, everything I believe in, to leave those bastards at Byra-Kae.  But we can’t do anything about them.  Samair and her people have fixed the old boy up,” Theodosia said, patting the bulkhead, “But we still can’t stand up to two light cruisers and those armed merchant ships.”

              “We could take the merchant cruisers, Commodore,” Brianne said, cracking a smile.

              “Well I surely hope you could, Brianne,” McConnell replied.  “I’d be looking for a replacement Flag Captain if you couldn’t.”  She nodded.  “All right, so we get back to getting everything together and leaving this system before they figure out that there’s a worm in the computer files we gave them.”

              “No, I don’t think we need to be here when they figure it out.”  Brianne nodded to her commanding officer, turned and exited the small stateroom.

              “Nasir?  How is the de-worming progressing?” Tamara asked, looking up at her display.  The race to finish the
Horus
had been consuming her time over the last few days, and the clock had nearly run out.  Nasir had been giving her regular updates on his and Magnus’ efforts, but it was almost time.  Tamara had called Korqath’s Aplora Squadron from the Kutok mine to do training maneuvers with full combat load-outs on their ships, and had even brought the
Maitland
in to supplement the
Cavalier
here at the yard.  She was taking no chances that the Republic people would escape unscathed.  The repairs made to
Horus
had included her broadside missile launchers, but Tamara had not provided any missiles to fill the ship’s magazines, which gave her own ships a bit of an edge.  According to techs working on
Horus
’s weapons, they reported that the destroyer did have a few missiles left in her magazines, but no where near a full complement. 

              “Excellent, ma’am,” the lupusan AI replied happily.  “We are just closing on the last subroutines now.  We’ve stripped the worm of nearly all its defenses, its vitals are laid bare.”

              “Very well,” she answered.  “Make sure you keep me in the loop.”

              “Of course, Tamara.  I will absolutely do so.”  The lupusan paused.  “In fact, I believe we are ready.”  The display shifted.  The status screens in the background all minimized, bringing up what could be security footage, taken of an outdoor scene.  The darkened clearing was back, with Magnus holding his sword which was sheathed in sparks, electricity humming up the blade and discharging.  Nasir was standing on the opposite side of the fire pit, his eyes blazing with a golden inner fire, stamping his feet and moving side to side; swaying in what could be charitably called a tribal dance.  It wasn’t one that Tamara recognized, but that didn’t much matter.  It wasn’t a real spell, or even a real dance. 

              The view shifted, rotating very slowly around the fire pit, in a slightly overhead view.  Hovering above the flames was a crystal, now riddled with spider web fractures.  Every so often a blast of lightning would shoot out from Magnus’s blade and slam into the crystal.  On the other side of the fire, waves of heat were radiating into Nasir’s side of the crystal, hitting it with a regular circular pattern the size of the lupusan’s fist.  Nothing was coming from Nasir directly; it was as though he was summoning it, causing it to happen, increasing the intensity of the pulses hammering the crystalline shell.

              Inside the crystal, Tamara could see the serpent writhing against the walls of its prison.  There was no longer any smoke inside the prison, it was just a multi-faceted container, riddled with cracks, its cargo clearly visible.  The serpent was angry and scared, from the images Tamara was seeing.  It was slithering around inside, hissing and striking at the sides of the container; trying to attack the two AI’s who were determined to destroy it.

              “Ready, Magnus?” Nasir asked, never slowing in this steps.

              The boarborn grunted, pointing his sword at the crystal.  “I am ready.”  His low, powerful voice was determined.

              Nasir, never ceasing his footwork, suddenly raised his hands to the sky, spreading his fingers, displaying his race’s terrible claws.  Then at some unspoken signal, he leapt straight up into the air landing hard and dropping down to his knees.  As his knees bent, his palms hit the dirt.  There was a
BOOM
of thunder and a huge pulse slammed into the side of the crystal.  It shattered, the pieces of clear crystal flying high into the air.  The serpent inside apparently was waiting for this, having timed its attack for the instant the crystal cage exploded.  It burst forward, lunging for Magnus’s throat, its fangs gleaming in the firelight. 

              But the warthog warrior was ready.  A powerful swing of his blade sliced the head of the serpent from the body.  Magnus pivoted his broad form to the side, and the head hit the ground at his feet, the long body slightly to the side.  Reversing his grip, the blade pointed down, the sword suddenly erupted in electricity which surged down the blade.  A mighty thrust down speared the serpent’s head and the energy coursing down the weapon obliterated it.  Wrenching the blade free from the dirt, Magnus did the same again to the body, leaving nothing behind.