Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (10 page)

              “We don’t have anything bigger, anything that could bring in hundreds or even thousands of trained people, should we find them.  Not since that bulk freighter jumped out of here a month ago,” Goris Hana pointed out.  “And running your ship on a skeleton crew is the worst kind of bad idea.”

              “I concur with that statement,” Turco said stiffly.  “A criminally bad idea because you would be in essence just handing
Adroit
over to the enemy.”  He stood and started to pace through the front section of the office.  “If we were to encounter a pirate or Republic vessel, we couldn’t stand up in a fight with them.”

              “No, I wouldn’t think you would be able to,” the toad replied.  He squinched up his face in thought, but he had long ago planned this contingency.  “Then perhaps we may need to lease a larger vessel for this sort of thing.”

              “Where?” the Marklan said angrily.  “There are no other systems that have serious shipping nearby.”

              “Seylonique does,” the toad answered, keeping his voice reasonable.  “I know for a fact that there is at least one transport vessel there that’s big enough to do the job that we want.  In fact, it passed through here just before all that nonsense went down a month ago.  The
Kara.
”

              Turco stopped and stared at the man.  “Yes, I remember the ship,” he said slowly, nodding.  “But she looked to be in good shape, from what I remember.  Surprisingly good, considering what we know about Seylonique these days.”

              “Yes, indeed.”  Goris Hana nodded sagely.  “Perhaps if you can charter something there that’s at least marginal and bring it back here for refit.  Maybe that’s something you can work into the price with the officials at Seylonique.”

              Turco frowned heavily.  “I am not a merchant, negotiating for the best pricing on a transport ship.  I am a Marklan on a warship.”

              “Yes, you are,” Hana replied.  “And that’s what I need you for.  To fly cover for the transports that are going out and the ones coming back.”

              Turco sighed.  “Flying cover,” he said slowly.  “You make it sound as though… never mind.  The exact verbiage doesn’t matter.  You’re implying that I’m not the one who will be making any deals or chartering any ships.”

              Goris Hana laced his swollen fingers together.  “No, Marklan Turco, you will not be making the deals or chartering any further ships.  I will be sending a representative with you and they will be doing all of those tasks.  Your job is simply to do what you do best: provide security and keep the other ships safe.”

              “One frigate to ride herd on six civilian freighters, and then you want to charter at least one big one.  Seven ships?”

              “Is that going to be a problem, Marklan?”

              Turco sighed.  “It certainly isn’t ideal.  Can you authorize either
Abyss
or
Torrent
to accompany
Adroit?
Having two ships would certainly make my job easier and make the convoy you’re authorizing less appetizing to the various predators out there.”

              “You’re only going to be traveling to systems within one jump from Ulla-tran,” the toad said.  “How much trouble could there be?”

              “How much trouble came into this system only a month ago, Administrator?” Turco countered.

              The fat toad grimaced.  “Point taken.  I will speak with the council and get them to free up one of those ships.”

              “Good.  Thank you, Administrator.”  He turned back and stopped pacing.  “When do we leave?”

              “How soon can
Adroit
be ready to roll?” Hana countered.

              It took two days for the frigate to be restocked with food and supplies and her fuel tanks topped off.  The team of recruiters and negotiators came aboard the
Adroit
and were shown to guest quarters.  The cargo ships, all six of them, were made ready in that time as well.  They were a motley collection of tramp freighters, meant for short-haul flights of small, high value cargoes.  Most of the ships were aged and well-worn, but still in good repair. 

The newest of the little convoy was one only picked up a few weeks previous: the
Emilia Walker.
  Her main systems had been patched, the hull breaches welded over and her shields repaired.  She was ugly, looking as though she had a bad case of pox, but she could fly and her hull was airtight.  The life support system had been overhauled and expanded, just like the others and now she was fit to carry twenty-five souls aboard.  It wouldn’t be pretty, but the ride would be in just as much relative comfort as all the other ships.  Engineering teams from the fueling station had gone over her inch by inch and were sure that her systems were sound.

Marklan Turco had his doubts about that and was concerned about the living conditions about the ships for the potential recruits.  To that end, he spoke with the recruiters, who walked the Marklan through the process, step by step, and explained his concerns. 

The recruiter laughed.  “Oh, sure, they’ll be uncomfortable as hell on the ride back.  We’re heading out to Bimawae first, then back here and then out again to Seylonique.  By then, I hope we’ll have a big ol’ transport ship to carry them in, not these tramp freighters.  Get the freighters back to doing what they were designed to do.”

“Are you sure they’re going to want to stay on once they see this ship?” Turco asked.

The man laughed again.  “That’s why we have your ship, Marklan.  We dazzle them with the prowess of this fine vessel,” he extended his arms to encompass the ship around him, “Show off your weaponry, your orderly uniforms, give a few speeches and we’ll have them lining up.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll get a ship in Bimawae that we can use.”

              “Let’s hope so,” Turco replied.  “But I’m not going to count on that.”

              An hour later the small convoy departed from the fueling station, the freighters flying two by two, with
Adroit
covering them from just above, with
Abyss
leading the way.  They flew off in a slightly wobbly formation, moving for the hyper limit.  Goris Hana watched them go from the viewport in his office until he could no longer see the glimmer of their propulsion units.  From there he turned to his console and watched the station sensor feeds as the ships headed out to the limit.  In a number of hours, the ships would be outside the range of the station’s visual sensors and could only be tracked on gravitics, but Hana would still be able to follow their progress.  For two hours, he watched the feeds as the ships flew further from the fueling station, until finally he switched off the feed and returned to his duties.

              “So, what is it that we’re doing again?” Yana Harik, the pilot on the
Emilia Walker
asked his associate.  He was running the ship easily, the autopilot engaged and the tramp freighter was easily maintaining speed and direction with the rest of the convoy.  The freighters were a motley collection of ships, no two alike, but all heading in the same direction.  It was strange, seeing the cargo holds of the ship empty and filled with racks for sleeping, with extra life support pods connected.  Right now though, all that space was just empty.  The crew of five was operating a ship that normally held a crew of ten.  But with no cargo aboard and everything operating in decent order, a larger crew wasn’t needed.  Perhaps once they picked up the passengers they were chartered for, they could perhaps get a few of them to take a shift or two as crew instead of cargo.

              Delia Blackthorne, the new captain of the
Emilia Walker
hired on by Goris Hana, sighed heavily, running a hand through her very short-cropped black hair, little more than fuzz on her dark-skinned head.  She looked over at him from her position at the sensor station.  She picked up her coffee cup but didn’t drink. 

              “Yana, how many times are we going to have this conversation?” Delia asked.  “We’re going to pick up recruits from Bimawae and bring them back here.”

              The pilot looked over at his captain.  “That’s not what I meant.  I mean why are we doing this at all?  This is a cargo ship; we should be running goods out there, not going to pick up recruits.”

              Delia shrugged.  “What does it matter, Yana?  We get paid either way.”

              “Yeah, but shares might be higher if we weren’t running empty on the way out.”

              She chuckled.  “Yeah, but this isn’t a regular run, Yana.  We’re not on commission this time.  Straight pay.”

              He rounded on her.  “But that’s what I’m saying.  We shouldn’t be doing this.”

              “Yana, we’re not talking about this anymore.  This isn’t my ship, it belongs to the government.”

              Yana only chuckled at that.  “Cap, both you and I know that’s not true.  We get to the hyper limit and we jump, but we go somewhere else.  We’re free agents.”

              “You know, Yana, it’s a wonder the company even hired you on at all,” Delia told him, sipping her coffee.  “You’re a navigator and a pilot and you don’t know how this is going to work?  They’re going to link our jump and navigation systems together.  So that individual ships
can’t
just go haring off wherever they want.”  She eyed him and his surprised look.  “You thought that they were just trusting us to follow their orders and go off and do this?”

              He looked abashed, turning back to his flight controls.  “Well, yeah.  I thought they were.”

              “Yana, you’ve ran freight before.  But convoy duty is different.  The company and the bosses want exactly what they sent us out there for.  Nothing more.  And, I don’t think they’d take too kindly to ships just flying out and leaving.  They spent money and resources patching this ship and hiring on a crew, namely us.  They’re going to want a return on their investment.”

              “But that’s what I’m saying, Cap,” he returned.  “Wouldn’t it be better to get some cargo out there and bring back some money?”

              Delia sighed.  The coffee was barely lukewarm.  “I’m not going to keep having this conversation with you, Yana.  We were hired to pick up recruits in Bimawae and then bring them back, with another trip chartered for Seylonique after that.”  She took a large gulp from her cup.  “And that is the
last
time we’re going to talk about this.  You get it, Yana?”

              “Yeah, I get it,” he grumped, checking his piloting controls again.  The ship was still on course and on target, still holding position with the rest of the convoy. 

              “Good.  This is going to be a long trip, Yana, and I don’t need you griping about the money every five minutes.  So please, keep yourself occupied and keep this ship on target.  You get me?”

              Yana was a skinny man, perhaps in his late twenties, early thirties.  He was someone who was used to sitting in the pilot’s couch with his hands on the controls.  He wasn’t a brawler or a particularly aggressive man.  One look from his boss was enough to shut him up.  Delia wasn’t known for her prowess in bar fights either, but she had a look about her, a presence that made others shut up and listen.  Probably explained her meteoric rise through the officer ranks at such a young age.  She was at least five years younger than Yana, and yet seemed much older.

              “Yeah, Cap,” he replied, nodding meekly.  “I get you.”

              Delia looked over at him and then nodded in satisfaction.  She pulled up her datapad and began to read.  Yana looked at his controls, glancing up every so often at the nearby ships.  There was nothing else in the vicinity that could be seen with the naked eye and the light from the ships’ drives were a bit mesmerizing.  He always liked to watch them fly.

              Turco sat in his command seat on the cramped bridge of
Adroit
as the small convoy of ships continued on to the hyper limit.  It felt good to be moving, to have a purpose.  For years, the system defense ships of Ulla-tran had been boring holes in the space around the planet, the orbital, the fueling station, the dockyards, but serving little purpose.  Oh, they kept the pirates at bay and made sure any merchant traffic behaved themselves, but it never seemed like the best use of his ship or his skills.  It never seemed fair to his crew, though they all seemed to like the stability that came with picket duty.  In fact, to his knowledge, none of the system defense ships had ever used their hyperdrives beyond the initial testing. 
Adroit
had never left the Ulla-tran system in the twenty-two years since her construction.  It would be good to bring her to another system.

              In fact, it felt good to be doing something away from this system in general.  For far too long, he’d been cooped up here, smothered.  When the big freighter and her friend from Seylonique arrived it seemed like a breath of fresh air, right up until the point when the systems on the stations and the pinnaces had gone to hell.  And then pirate ships showed up.  And then a Republic cruiser showed up.  And they all started fighting.  At least they’d pretty much kept to themselves, fighting only each other before jumping away.