First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (58 page)

              “What kind of ships?” Dietrich demanded, getting into the role. 

              The zheen chittered to himself.  “I don’t recognize the make and model, Commander Dietrich, but they’re corvette class.  Coming in at a right good clip too.  Speed four-fifty.”

              “Open a channel to the freighters,” Leicasitaj ordered.  “Put it to my chair.”  The young Severite at the communications console pressed a few controls, then turned and nodded to his captain.  The display activated showing Vincent Eamonn on one side of the screen and the older, grizzled captain of the
Silver Dawn
on the other.  “Gentlemen, we are detecting a pair of corvette warships moving in on what we believe to be an attack vector. 
Mondragon
will move to engage them and try and keep them off your backs.  Continue on ahead, but accelerate as best you can, alter vector to thirty degrees port, down twenty.  I want you to try and put some distance between your ships and theirs.”

              “Should I launch my fighters?” Vincent asked, sounding worried. 

              Leicasitaj nodded.  “Yes, Captain, but keep them in close.  They’ll need to provide close in support for your ships.  Stick together.”

              “But, Captain Leicasitaj, we’re not showing anything on sensors-…” Eamonn tried to interject.

              “Go, Captain,” the Romigani ordered, putting a note of urgency in his voice.  “
Mondragon
will do what we can.  Out.”  He cut the connection as both men looked as though they were going to argue.  “Nav, set course to engage those two ships,” he ordered.  “Helm, engage as soon as you have course, flank speed.”

              “Intercept course,” the navigator confirmed.

              “Engage at flank, aye, sir,” the pilot replied.

              Vincent watched as the escort frigate tore off in the direction of… well, nothing. 
Grania Estelle
’s sensors were focused on that spot, but they were picking up nothing.  No ships, no threat.  “Isis, alter course,” Vincent ordered.  “Put us on the vector we got from our escort.  Bring us up to max accel.”

              “Captain, I’ve been doing continuous sensor sweeps,” George reported.  “I’m not seeing a stars-damned thing on the vector Captain Leicasitaj was looking at, or on any other.  Aside from our three ships, there aren’t any other vessels within sensor range.”

              “I understand, George,” the captain replied, looking grim.  His serious demeanor was doing a very good job of hiding the acid bubbling around in his gut.  He pressed a control on his chair.  “Fighter bay, Captain.  Commander Stenlake, I need you to launch your squadron.  Once you’re outside the ship, maintain station no more than five klicks out.  There’s a hostile force out there that
Mondragon
has gone to deal with.  Two corvettes, and Captain Leicasitaj indicated that they may have hostile intent.  I need you to stick close.”

              “Understood, Captain,” the woman in command of the fighter squadron replied.  “I am scrambling fighters now.”

              Vincent took a controlled breath.  So far, things were moving along smoothly.  He was watching his sensor display, seeing
Mondragon
pushing her acceleration to the limit, and then…

              “
Mondragon
is firing her energy weapons, Captain,” George reported, confusion still infusing his voice.  “I don’t understand.  What the hell are they shooting at?”  He rubbed the back of his neck.  “Stella, can you increase sensor range and resolution?  I want to try and get a look at whatever it is that they’re fighting.”

              The AI nodded, a slight twinkle in her eye.  An actual twinkle, in fact, as part of her right eye was shining.  “Of course, George.  Increasing sensor resolution.”

              The man nodded, though his face remained confused and grim.  He was adjusting controls like mad, his eyes darting from one monitor to the other.  “Nothing.  What the hell?”

              Stella maintained her stoic posture, but that twinkle remained.  “I don’t know what to tell you, George.  I’m not showing anything on the vector the
Mondragon
is attacking.”

              Vincent rubbed his forehead, his eyes going from his displays to Stella, to George’s intensely focused visage and back to the displays again.  He sat a bit straighter.  “Isis, are we on the course provided by Captain Leicasitaj?”

              “Yes, Cap, we are,” the pilot replied, nodding.  “I’m accelerating, but I suspect the Chief Engineer is going to be calling in a short while.  I keep upping our acceleration which means…”

              She didn’t get to finish her sentence.  The comm on Vincent’s chair lit up.  With a sigh, he pressed the control and Quesh Trrgoth’s voice sounded.  “Captain, what the hell is going on up there?” the Parkani demanded.  “Why is the helm wanting more speed?  We’re heading on in system to take up orbit.  We are not carrying any precious or perishable cargoes, nothing that warrants us roaring off into the black like this.”

              “
Mondragon
saw a threat and ordered us off at max accel,” Vincent replied, pulling every scrap of his command presence around himself like a cloak.  “They’re off engaging them now.”

              There was a pause.  “Pirates?”

              Vincent shrugged, though Quesh couldn’t see him.  He glanced around and saw all of the worried looks his bridge crew was wearing, all but Stella.  She still looked stoic, but not concerned for some reason.  Vincent couldn’t figure her out.  Why wasn’t she getting nervous?  “Most likely.  Leicasitaj said something about a pair of corvette warships coming our way.  We and
Silver Dawn
turned and have been hauling ass.  If there’s anything you can do to give us more speed, that would be appreciated.”

              “I’m on it, Captain.  I can give you ten minutes at 118% on the engines, but then we’ll have to back off to seventy-five or the sublights will overheat and burn out.”

              Vincent nodded.  “I’ll take it.  Leave it to my engineer to save our bacon.”

              “Once again,” Quesh agreed, causing Vincent to smile.  “Give me thirty seconds.”

              “Isis,” Vincent said, turning to the pilot.  “Once we have the engine power, you punch it.”

              “Aye,
aye
, Captain,” she crowed.  She had her hand over the throttles, waiting for her screens to change.

              “Serinda, get
Silver Dawn
on the line,” Vincent ordered.

              “Aye, Captain.”  She pressed a few controls.  “You’re on, Captain.”

              “
Silver Dawn
, this is
Grania Estelle
.  We’re about to accelerate again in…” he checked the feeds, “fourteen seconds.  I need you to try and keep up.”

              The captain of the
Silver Dawn
was older, in his mid-seventies, but still had a youthful bounce in his step.  His face was wrinkled, he had a heavy beard and weathered skin.  “I understand, Captain.  Your chief of operations and her crackerjack engineers put some extra hitch in my giddy-up over here.  I
love
this ship!  Don’t you worry, Captain.  I’ll keep up with you.”

              Vincent suddenly felt himself being pressed back into his chair again as the ship accelerated with the extra burst from the engines.  It momentarily overcame the ship’s inertial compensators, but it wasn’t debilitating.  It was uncomfortable, feeling like a heavy weight was pressing on the chest.

              “What the hell is going on?” Vincent groaned. 
Who the hell is attacking us?

              The pressing on the chest went on for an eternity.  The two freighters roared across the system, constantly accelerating as Quesh’s timer ticked down.  Gasping for breath, Vincent turned his head in George’s direction.  “Anything on the sensors?”

              “
Mondragon
is reversing course,” George said, fighting to speak.  “They’ve stopped firing, Captain.”

              The comm panel beeped.  Eamonn checked the timer, as it ticked down to zero.  “Isis, back off the acceleration, down to seventy-five percent.”

              As the words were coming out of his mouth, the pilot eased off on the throttles, and the metal of the superstructure of the ship groaned as the stresses eased.  The great weight that had settled upon them all went away, and everyone on the bridge gulped in lungful’s of air, as though this was their first occasion ever doing so.

              Serinda raised her head.  “Incoming message from
Mondragon
.”

              “Put it on the speakers,” Vincent ordered, rolling his shoulders, trying to relax the muscles.

              “This is Leicasitaj of the
Mondragon
.  Thank you for your prompt and excellent responses in this unscheduled combat exercise.  You may return to your previous vector and slow your ships’ velocity. 
Mondragon
is resuming station.”  There was a click and the call ended.

              Vincent clenched his fist and tapped his arm on the arm of his chair, gritting his teeth in fury.  “Oh that little tentacley bastard.  And you!” he barked, pointing right at Stella’s holo image.  “You
knew!
”

              She nodded, beaming.  “Of course I knew, Captain.  I linked up with the frigate’s communications and telemetry and Captain Leicasitaj was commenting to his XO that he was going to put his crew through an impromptu exercise.  I thought it was a good idea.  And the fact that you continued to believe even when George nor I could detect any ships in the direction that
Mondragon
was firing made it all the better.”  She made a little bow.  “I’m sorry for the deception, Captain, but I think it helped out.  I think that when there is actually an attack, we’ll be ready.”

              The others chuckled slightly, sounding relieved.  Vincent sat in his chair and simply brought air into his lungs slowly, and slowly blew it back out for long moments.  Finally, he spoke.  “That was
not
funny, Stella.”

              She smiled impishly.  “Yes, Captain, it really was.”

              Vincent stewed for another moment, then cracked a small smile.  “Though I think when I meet up with the good warship captain again, I will remove one of his tentacles.”

              “Don’t you hurt him!” Stella said sharply, horrified.  “He’s trying to protect you, and it didn’t hurt anything.  In fact, checking the diagnostics, none of my components were damaged or even particularly worn by this.”

              Vincent sighed heavily.  “All right, Stella.  For you, I won’t hurt him.  But I don’t know how accommodating I’ll be if he tries to pull something like this again.”

              The AI nodded.  “I’ll let him know, Captain.”

              As they approached the habitable planet, the ships received a hail from the planet.  “Captain, I’ve got Governor Vall on the line for you,” Serinda reported. 

              Vincent nodded.  He was glad to see that Acheron Vall was still around and that he was still considered the leader here.  Whether he was actually the governor now instead of the “acting-governor” as he was the last time
Grania Estelle
had been here.  “Put him through.”  The display activated, showing the man’s smiling face.  “Governor Vall, it’s good to see you again.  Is it official now?  You’re the governor of Vanoria?”

              Acheron Vall beamed wider.  “Yes, it is.  My position was made official two weeks ago, I am now the governor of the city of Vanoria.  And I must say it makes me extremely happy to see you and your ship here in my star system.  I assume you’re here with goods to sell?”

              “Of course,” Vincent replied.  “Got a full load of goods and plenty of fuel for your reactors.”

              “I’m sure the Department of Water and Power will be happy to hear that.  We haven’t been having brownouts, but things are certainly starting to run low.  I think another few weeks and we would have been rationing power.”

              Vincent blinked, confused.  “Wait, what?  You have those three shuttles we sold you and the fuel collector in the gas giant.”

              Vall nodded.  “Yes, we do.”  He sighed, looking off to the side.  Then he looked back.  “We’re going to have to have a discussion, Captain, once you reach orbit.  And I need to get that fuel from you as soon as it is possible.”  The man had gone from ecstatic to near frantic in under a minute.

              “Is there are problem, Governor?” he asked, concerned.

              Vall sighed.  “There is, Captain, but I don’t think it’s something that we should be discussing over the comlink.  If you could please come down to the planet, we can talk about it.”  He reached over and the call ended.

              Vincent pursed his lips. 
Now what?
  “I swear,” he said to no one in particular, “if this is another test, or another joke, someone is going to be very sorry.”  He pointed a finger at the holo image of Stella.  “I mean it, Stella.”