Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (66 page)

              “You mean the
Leytonstone
.”

              “I mean an actual space defense force,” Vincent countered.  “That one ship is certainly impressive, but even if it was fully operational and fully outfitted it can’t adequately defend the system.  Not by itself.  Which means that more ships are needed.  More assets.  It’s the price that needs to be paid, Triarch.  If you want more wealth to start coming into your accounts, then you need to defend it.  Anonymity will only protect you for a short time.  If the ships from Ulla-tran decide to come back, they’re going to see what we’re working on and the secret will be out.  And right now, those two frigate warships that they brought could destroy everything that you’ve already built in this system, Triarch.  You know that already.  Your colleagues know that.  And they seem to think that this attitude of sticking their heads in the sand is going to protect them.  ‘It’s always worked before’ is the mantra that they keep repeating.  I’ve seen what the pirate lord Verrikoth already has and if he decides to come here, you’re in trouble.  We’re all in trouble.”

              “You’re not making your case, Captain,” Kozen’ck pointed out.  “In fact, you’re making a much stronger case to stop all this and go back to what was.”

              Vincent shrugged.  “I suppose you could try,” he admitted.  “But we’ve already jump started several businesses on the surface and I have my operations officer working on hunting up several more.  The engineers are already clamoring for more help, with fuel and parts.  You think that you can put that genie back in the bottle?”

              Kozen’ck buzzed a sigh.  “All right.  I’ll speak with the others and I’ll see what I can do.”

              Vincent nodded, not really satisfied, but knowing that there wasn’t much more he could get out of the zheen.  “Thank you, Triarch.  And the money?”

              Another buzz.  He looked off screen at something outside the display’s pickup.  Vincent’s datapad beeped.  Picking it up from the wardroom table, he glanced at its display.  A feed from Ganner and Saiorse popped up, showing a deposit in his main account there for the requested seven million credits.  “Thank you, Triarch.”

              The zheen looked straight at the pickup, his antennae perfectly straight, his expression serious.  “Don’t make me regret this, Captain Eamonn.”  And then he cut the connection.

              Vincent leaned back in his chair, blowing out a long breath and scrubbing his hands over his face.  Then he sat back straight.  He flipped open his communicator and entered in a code.

              Tamara’s voice spoke.  “Samair here.”

              “Tamara, it’s Vincent.  We’re good to go.  I have the funding we need.  Let’s get you a ship.”

              Tamara and her team of engineers walked through the airlock and into the entry tube heading to the
Samarkand
.  Kay’grax was buzzing with excitement, as he led the hover pallet full of spare parts and tools down the tube.  Eretria Sterling was just behind him, pressing a control on her datapad, which she hooked into her tool belt.  Once she pressed it, ten flying saucers followed her down, as she led the cleaner bots onto the ship.  Others piled in behind, twelve in all, all of them bringing tools, parts, and crates full of various supplies, everything from medical items to foodstuffs.  Tamara brought up the rear of the engineering group, with Corajen being the last to board.  Tamara was leading the most important pallet of all of them, a brand new class-five replicator.  Without it, this ship would be going nowhere.  They would have entered through the lower cargo bay on the
Samarkand
, but there was an issue with the cargo doors on the freighter, which froze when they were half open.  The shuttle was unable to fit through the opening and with the doors open, the bay was depressurized, so they couldn’t enter through that way.  Pulling alongside the ship, they mated the boarding tube from the shuttle’s personnel hatch to the
Samarkand
’s forward airlock.

              “All right,” Tamara called.  “Eretria, take your people to the lower bay, suit up and get to work on those doors.  I want to get the shuttle aboard asap.”

              “Copy that, ma’am,” Eretria replied.  Taking out her datapad, she pressed a few controls and the cleaner bots all went whizzing off, humming contentedly, working their magic on the ship.  She wrinkled her nose at the appearance of the ship.  Thankfully, the ship didn’t stink, but there was a musty smell, a green smell, one that indicated the environmental plant was getting close to failure.  Eretria nodded to the two techs working with her, who headed off toward the ladder leading to the lower decks. 

              “Kay’grax, you and Folsky over to Environmental.  I want you to check out the plant down there, get it ship shape,” she ordered.

              “On it, Commander,” Kay’grax said, sketching out a sloppy salute.  The two zheen flounced off down the corridor in the direction of Environmental.

              “And we,” she said to the others, “are off to Main Engineering.  I want to get the reactor flushed and online right away.” 

              Corajen stood in the corridor for another moment before turning and heading back down the tube back to the shuttle.  She’d only be in the way for the moment and Tamara needed to be able to move freely.  The lupusan took one last look around, then sealed the hatch behind her.  There was a hissing noise as the tube depressurized and then retracted.

              “All right, head over to the bay,” Corajen called up to the cockpit.  “I want to be there and ready when they get the doors fixed.”

              The next thirty days were a whirlwind of activity.  It took two of those days to get the main reactor and power conduits of the
Samarkand
flushed out and replaced as needed.  Once the power came up, things started to move much more quickly.  The swarm of cleaner bots attacked the berthing spaces and in only a few hours were ready for living in.  They dealt with the nasty mattresses, and a purchase order down to one of the shops on the station had a new order of bunk mattresses in the ship an hour after the spaces were cleared.  Environmental was next, but Kay’grax and Folsky made quick work of that.  They had to yank out all the algae matrices and junk them and it took several hours of elbow grease to get the scrubbers clean.  After that, Kay’grax introduced new algae and within twelve hours, new colonies were already blooming.  It took another day before the Environmental plant was actually scrubbing the CO2 out of the air, but the team had brought portable air scrubbers to use until the mains were online.

              The
Samarkand
took shape quickly, as the team got through repairs in record time.  The main engine was in fair shape and would take some work to get up and running at full capacity, but for now it would suit their needs.  Right now, Tamara was more concerned about getting the ship to operational capacity so they could get started on their work than she was about making sure that everything was running at full steam.  Shields were back up to sixty percent, with sensors and maneuvering thrusters all within acceptable range.  The hull was all buttoned up and the computer systems were being worked on.

              Once the ship was back up and running, Tamara placed a call to Galina Korneyev.  “Good lady Galina,” Tamara said boisterously. 

              “Commander Samair,” the lupusan replied evenly.  “It’s been a while since we last spoke.  How can I help you today?”

              “Docking port 167, Hub Three.  Come on down.  I think you’ll be interested in what you find.”  And Tamara cut the connection.

              An hour later, the elder lupusan arrived at the docking port where Corajen was waiting for her.  “Administrator Galina,” Corajen said respectfully.  “It’s good to see you again.”

              “And you, Corajen,” Galina replied, bowing slightly.   “Any idea why I am here?”             

              Corajen chuckled.  “I know exactly why you’re here.  But I wouldn’t want to steal Samair’s thunder.  She’ll be out in a second.  I commed her when I first saw you coming up.”

              Right on cue, Tamara exited through the docking port with a smile on her face.  “Ms. Korneyev,” she said, coming to a stop just outside.  She bowed.  “It’s good to see you, thank you for coming down.”

              “I assume you’re bringing me down here because you have a ship?”

              “You assume correctly,” Tamara replied.  She gestured toward the lock.  “If you’ll follow me please?”

              They entered the ship and the tour began.  Galina said little, looking at everything and nodding a lot.  She did comment that the ship looked very clean.  Tamara smiled and pointed out the floating cleaner bots that were making another sweep of the ship.  They went through the engineering spaces, where the techs were making tweaks to the reactor and swapping out one of the control consoles. 

              “So what’s going on here?” the lupusan asked, pointing.

              “Well, the reactor is operating at over ninety percent and the techs are just performing final checks,” she explained.  “That console was acting a bit twitchy and the hardware on that was pretty old and outdated, so we’re replacing it with a new one.”

              Galina nodded.  “Very prudent.  These spaces are all immaculate.”

              “Thank you,” Tamara replied.  “If you’ll step this way, we’ll check out Environmental.”

              The rest of the tour took two hours, while the two females checked out the rest of the compartments.  The lower cargo doors had been repaired, allowing it to be converted into a boat bay.  The shuttle was parked in the bay and Tamara intended on having the tugs transferred over before
Grania Estelle
departed for other star systems.

              “I’m impressed,” Galina admitted.  “Aside from the few things that you already indicated, this ship is in excellent shape.  You’ve done a lot of work in a short period of time.  You have much to be proud of, Commander.”             

              “Thank you,” Tamara said modestly.  “I have good people.  I’m thinking of bumping Ms. Sterling up to Spec one, as she seems to be able to handle the workload and the responsibility.  But otherwise the ship is in decent shape.  The main engine still needs some work, but that’s something we can work on while we’re out there.  Shields aren’t at full capacity, only about sixty percent and the hyperdrive is down.”

              “Why do you not have the faster than light drive operational?” Galina asked.

              “Because for now, we don’t need it,” Tamara answered.  “We’re primarily going to be an in system craft, Galina.  It would be useful to have it available, I’ll admit, but it isn’t necessary.  I’ll get some of the gadolinium the Captain has stored and get it fixed up, but to be honest, this ship isn’t going to be able to out fly or out fight a pirate squadron.”

              “What kind of weapons does the ship have?”

              Tamara laughed.  “Only one laser cannon on a ventral turret.  Not meant for much more than popping the occasional meteor that gets too close.  Can’t expect that to do much to defend the ship.”

              Galina shrugged.  “I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said.  “The
Kara
didn’t have any weapons, either.  I don’t need them.  I was a hospital administrator, not someone looking to pick a fight.”

              “Good,” Tamara replied.  “Because you won’t be winning many on the
Samarkand
.  She’s a construction and repair ship, we don’t even want her to be carrying cargo.  I’m converting all the cargo spaces into repair bays.  We might have a small amount of cargo carrying capacity, but only to bring back into the system or to hold parts that we need.  The bulk of it is going to be used by my construction teams.”

              “What exactly do you need me for then?” Galina asked, confused.  “You seem to be well in control of things.”

              “Of the engineering teams, sure.  And yes, I could captain this ship.  But I’m going to be busy on the gas mine and the mining excavation projects to be concerning myself with the day to day operations of running this ship.  That’s why I need you.”

              Galina nodded.  “That makes sense.  But what am I to do for crew?  A ship this size needs a crew of twenty to twenty-five but it looks as though all of your technicians are going to be busy with your other projects.”

              “Yes, that’s correct.  But I was thinking that since the station admins dumped the commander of the
Kara
, then there might be a few crewmembers of that ship looking for jobs as well?  If, of course, you would be willing to work with them.”

              The lupusan brightened.  “You would be willing to hire all of them on?”

              “I am, but you’d better keep a tight rein on all of them.  I need this ship to be kept running smoothly and I can’t have a load of shenanigans,” Tamara said sternly.

              Galina gave her a look.  “Of course not.  My crew was very professional.  The only reason my old ship got the way it was because of the lack of proper equipment and experience in upkeep.”

              “I will be keeping an eye on things, Galina,” Tamara reminded her.  “I’m making you Captain of this ship, but I’m in charge of operations in this system.  That means if I see problems with this ship, I will bring them to you and I will expect you to fix them.  If you need help, ask.  Do not try to hide things from me.  I
will
find out.”