First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 (67 page)

The captain of the cargo ship pursed her lips, worry starting to form.  “Should I be concerned?  Does this sort of thing happen here often?”

Gabrielle sighed.  “Unfortunately, it’s more common than any of us would like.  But, so long as you’re working with reputable companies, and you keep a close eye on your dockside, either by cameras or by having someone keeping an eye out, you should be fine.”

Lujayne looked to Ernie, who nodded.  The engineer pulled out his datapad and began furiously typing.  “Well, that’s disturbing.  But, I think that might be something I can worry about later.  And especially if I’m going to be on a regular run here, I think I’ll have to hammer out a group of buyers that I can trust.”

Gabrielle nodded.  “Of course.  I understand.  And I hope that means that our companies will be doing a lot of business together.  Now, may I see the cargo?”

She nodded.  “Of course.  Right this way,” she said, gesturing.  Turning, she led the trio into the cargo hold, Ernie stayed where he was, still typing away, distractedly muttering to himself.  Every few moments, he glanced up, checked the surrounding area, not allowing himself to be too engrossed in whatever it was that he was doing.

It didn’t take long.  Gabrielle and her two associates inspected the cargo, popped open two random crates to check the parts inside.  “These look good,” the zheen said, running a scanner over the contents of one of the crates.  “Very good, actually.  Do you have more where these came from?”

Lujayne nodded and then swept her arm out, indicating the rest of the bay.

But the zheen chittered a negative.  “I meant do you have more parts of this quality back in Seylonique?”

“Yes.  I can have more made,” she said.  “Just give me whatever specs you require and the next time I’m here I’ll get them to you.  Price to be negotiated, of course.”

Gabrielle smirked.  “Of course.  When can you start unloading?”

“As soon as the agreed payment clears my account at Crown Lily,” Lujayne said.  “The very minute that happens, I can have my guys in here and get all this unloaded for you.”

“You don’t trust us?” the other woman asked, her tone stiffening.

Lujayne shrugged.  “Ms. Detann, this is our first job together.  I want things to go smoothly.  And according to the agreement we both signed on the station-net, those are the rules.  Besides, I want to make sure that this load of parts is just the first of many.”

Gabrielle gritted her teeth for a moment, then nodded.  “Of course.  I apologize for my thoughtlessness.  Do you have the account I’m to transfer the funds to?”

She nodded, handing her a slip of flimsi with the numbers on them.  A few keystrokes on her datapad and Gabrielle handed it back.  There were a few beeps from the device and then Lujayne’s beeped.  She checked it and nodded.  The money had been transferred.  “Excellent.  All right, let’s get this unloaded.”

Nazan Tariq sat on the bridge of
Cavalier
and gave another look at the sensor display.  There were a fair number of ships moving in this system, more than he was used to from back home in Seylonique, shuttles, cargo ships, tugs and various defense ships.  It was more than a little nerve-wracking to be sitting here in a system that wasn’t home, being the only one of two that could defend itself of the two Seylonique vessels here.  His own sense of paranoia was slowly growing, but there was nothing definable that should be causing it.  None of the warships were moving in any aggressive or suspicious manner.  It was the sitting here in parking orbit, doing nothing but waiting while the cargo crew was doing their thing on the orbital.  It had been an interminably long day and according to the status update he’d just received, it was going to be several days more.  They were unloading cargo, which would take the rest of this day and half the next.  Then she would be looking for a new cargo to bring back, and that would take several hours.  He sighed.  Tariq wasn’t sure what it was about this system that was bothering him, but the longer his ship was parked out in front of the orbital, the more his nervousness was ramping up.

He forced himself to calm down.  He didn’t want his nerves and his attitude to affect the bridge crew.  The last thing he needed was for morale to take a hit, so for now, he tried to project an air of confidence and calm and so far it seemed to be working.  The others on the bridge were attending to their duties and so far he hadn’t noticed any grumbling.  For the most part, in fact, it seemed that his crew was pleased with this assignment.  They weren’t getting a chance to get off the ship, not on this trip, unfortunately, but even that didn’t seem to bother them.  They were all enthusiastic in seeing another space-faring star system; to see how someone else did things, looking at all the similarities and differences.

Nazan pulled up the sensor feed again, and his eye wandered around the display, not really finding much of interest.  He found himself watching the icon for one of the local corvettes, which was flying in a very wide orbit of the planet, a few thousand kilometers inside
Cavalier
’s sensor range.  He pulled up the image that the sensors had recorded when the ship was within visual range.  The Ulla-tran ship was blockier than
Cavalier
, which had the stubby, sweeping wings.  The Ulla-tran ship had an axe-head shaped bow, a rectangular hull and a hammerhead stern section with a trio of sublight engines.  The ship seemed to be armed with a traditional mix of heavy lasers, blaster cannons and rail guns.  It seemed though, while
Cavalier
also was equipped with missile launchers, the Ulla-tran ship had none.  The place along the main hull of the ship where
Cavalier
’s launchers were, the Ulla-tran ship had a quartet of medium lasers on each side.  It would be a better armament, frankly, for a ship that would be away from home base and resupply, though the ship might run through fuel faster. 

Nazan frowned.  It would be quite the intelligence coup if he could bring back detailed scans of a foreign star nation’s defense ship.  It wouldn’t be as good as full schematics, but he knew that Ms. Samair would be
very
interested in any new ideas or designs that he might be able to bring back.  He entered in a few commands, indicating that he wanted more intense scans of any of the defensive ships that moved into range.  Any data he could bring back would be worth it.  He smiled to himself.  Now there really was something to keep his mind off the paranoia and tedium of this assignment.

“All right,” Lujayne said, gesturing for the loading crews from the station to bring the cargo aboard.  “Get this stuff loaded up.  We’re going to be making a short hop over to the system’s shipyard facility, drop this off, then back here to pick up the cargo to head back to Seylonique.”

“Wait, two cargoes, Captain?” Trudy asked, sounding confused.

Lujayne shrugged, smiling.  “Hey, the locals want this load of conduits and electronics brought over to the shipyard and they’re willing to pay.  That’s all I need to know.”

“
Cavalier
, this is
First Horizon
,” came the incoming transaction, three shifts later.

“Go ahead,
First Horizon
,” the comms officer replied.

“Captain wants you to know that we’re in the middle of undock and we’re setting course for the shipyard.  She wanted to know if there was any particular course you wanted us to take, or just the shortest?”

“Wait one,” he replied.  He pressed the hold key and turned in his chair.  “Captain Tariq?  I’ve got
First Horizon
on the line.”

He looked up from the report he was reading.  “Yes?”

“They’re undocking from the station and are heading over to the shipyard for their delivery.  They want to know if there’s any particular course you want them to take to get there.”

Nazan nodded in approval.  He hadn’t expected them to be so sensible as to ask his opinion about these things.  Pressing a control, he saw that the shortest route between the orbital station and the shipyard already had two cargo ships and two shuttles moving along it.  “Have them go up above the ecliptic by ten degrees.  It’s a bit of a longer route, but it will keep us out of the way of the other ships.”

“Understood, sir,” the comms officer said, turning back to his console, relaying the message.

Nazan turned away from the communication station and looked to his navigator.  “Lieutenant Teiges, set a course for the shipyard complex, but take us up ten degrees above the straight flow of traffic.”

“On it, Captain,” the lieutenant replied, getting to work on a course.

“Wait,
you
brought the stuff over from the orbital?” Senior Kazor Malan demanded of Lujayne over the comm channel.

“Yes,” she replied.  “We’re moving in to dock with the shipyard now, we’ll need to get payment transferred to our account and then I’ll be more than happy to get the conduits and crates of electronics unloaded.”

The man stared at her.  “But you’re not from here.  Why are you delivering a priority shipment of parts from the orbital?  Why isn’t one of the local ships doing it?”

Lujayne shrugged.  “I can’t answer that.  I saw the cargoes were available on the boards so I grabbed it.  It’s just a quick forty-hour hop across the system and here we are.”

Senior Kazor gave a look and then shrugged himself.  “Whatever, so long as it’s here.  How long until you’re docked?”

She checked the chrono.  “About ninety minutes.”

“Good, I’ll have the money ready, but I’ll want to inspect the cargo first,” he warned.

“Of course.  We’ll be ready.”

When the ship docked and the engines were secured, Lujayne found a team of about six workers waiting at the docking berth, on the other side of the hatch.  Ernie had three of his people ready, and the cargo handlers were moving up behind them.  She popped the personnel hatch, which slid easily to the side.  The engineer stepped out first.  “How can I help you?”

“I’m Senior Kazor Malan,” the swarthy male in the front of the group replied.  He was well-built, short, with powerful arms and clearly well-calloused hands.  “I’m here to collect the cargoes your ship was delivering.”  He gestured to the gang of shipsuited individuals behind him, all the light gray with blue stripes on the legs.

“I’m Ernie Velasquez,” he said in response.  “I’m Engineering First on board this ship.  Captain should be out in just a minute.”

Lujayne took this as her cue, and ordered the two cargo handlers to open the main hold door.  Once it was open enough, she stepped out of the passenger lock.  She extended a hand to the Senior.  “Senior Malan,” she said warmly.  “I’m Captain Orzo.”

He shook her hand firmly, and she winced at the power in his grip.  “Captain.  I’m happy to see these parts.  If we could carry on with the inspection?”  He raised his eyebrows and pulled a hand scanner from his belt.

“Of course.  This way.”  She led him and two of his people inside, Ernie remained out dockside with the others. 

There was barely any room to breathe in the holds, the cargo was packed in very tight, wrapped up in protective liner to keep it from getting damaged, all strapped down.  The shipyard workers quickly assessed the cargo, nodding in approval.  It took less than twenty minutes for Malan to be satisfied.  He held out a datapad, showing the amount of credits to be transferred to her account at Crown Lily and one press of a thumb to authorize it and they were paid.  “My people outside have a few loaders we can use to speed this along.”

“Excellent, because that conduit is very dense and bulky,” Lujayne replied.  “I don’t think we could get them very far working only by hand.”  They set to work.

“I have to say, Captain, you’ve impressed me,” Tariq said a few hours later.  He was seated in his tiny office just off the bridge, on a whisker laser comm with
First Horizon.
  He could see that Lujayne Orzo was seated in some sort of office or ready room as well, or at least she wasn’t on the bridge of her ship.

“Oh?” she asked, a smile crossing her lips.  She was sipping from what looked like a fruit drink pouch. 

“Yes.  I’m impressed you managed to make
another
paid cargo run from the shipyard to the orbital station.  How did you manage to find that?”

Lujayne laughed.  “I got lucky.  Senior Malan had a pair of capital scale ion cannons that they wanted transferred to the orbital for some reason,” she said with a shrug.  “Thankfully, we were able to disassemble them enough to cram them into the holds so, back we go.  But, from there, we’re going to load up on some cargo that we can sell back in Seylonique and maybe restock the galley and get new algae cultures for the Environmental tanks.”

“Got it all figured out, do you?” he asked, grinning.

“Shouldn’t I?” she said.  “I’m the captain of this ship.”

“How long do you think it’s going to take?”

“We’ve got another ten hours before we reach the orbital, then however long it takes to locate, buy and load up more cargo.  I’m also thinking of giving my crew a full day off.  Give every shift a rest.”  She nodded, more to herself than to him.  “They’ve been working hard, I wouldn’t want to think that they’re prisoners aboard the ship.”