Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (8 page)

And then she saw them.  Igraine.  Rhys.  Viktor.  Paidric.  Pip.  And Mairi.  All of them, her whole team, gone.  Dead.  Singled out to punish her.  The grief rushed through her and just consumed everything.  She sobbed uncontrollably, unabashedly.  Tamara didn’t notice when the guards laughed at her pain or even when they turned and walked out, leaving her bound to her chair.

It was hours before the guards came back and released her.  With a pair of bolt cutters, they cut the chain from the regen tube and unclasped the manacle on her right hand.  By this time, Tamara was simply wrung out and didn’t offer the slightest protest.  They roughly pulled her up from the seat and she let them.  They frog marched her to the cell and pushed her inside, once in, Tamara allowed the momentum to carry her to the bunk where she simply collapsed on the thin mattress.  After a moment of struggling, not being able to use her left hand, she pulled the threadbare blanket over her and she snuggled up against the wall as best she could for comfort.  In seconds, darkness overtook her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

              Corajen was peering out through the slot in the cell door as the pirates came back in, escorting a very frazzled looking Tamara Samair into the nearby cell.  Her sibling, Saiphirelle, was doing pull ups hanging from the edge of the top bunk, her legs curled up tight, trying to work as many muscles as she could in the confined space.  It was better than pacing.

              “She looks like hell,” the lupusan said, her ears lying flat against her head.  She squinted.  “Looks like she broke her arm too.  Tamara’s wearing one of those regen tubes on her left arm.  Didn’t have that when she left.”

              Saiphirelle grunted, didn’t slow her exercise.  “Girl’s got some spirit,” she said, pulling up for one last time.  She grunted and then dropped down to the deck.  “Proud of her.”

              Corajen laughed.  “I don’t think that she’d think of it that way.”

              The younger lupusan shrugged.  “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I’m not proud of her.  Throwing down with the pirates.”

              Her sister glanced back at her.  “Could just be that Jax and his bully boys have been beating on her.  She might not have been able to fight at all.”

              But Saiphirelle shook her head, flicked her ears.  “She’s still on her feet, isn’t she?”  Corajen nodded.  Saiphirelle nodded back.  “Then she’s doin’ good!  Hasn’t let those bastards break her yet.”

              Corajen looked back out the slot, watched as the guards locked her back in the cell.  They weren’t particularly brutal with her this time, just a shove and then closed the cell door behind her.  They laughed to themselves about “bitch getting what she deserved,” and disappeared out of the brig.

              “Wonder what that meant?” Saiphirelle asked.  Her ears were every bit as sensitive as Corajen’s, sadly the guards were not particularly chatty on this round.  They’d been stuck in this damned box for weeks with no word about what was happening outside.  It was maddening, especially for a pair of females who had been people of action.  This enforced isolation from the rest of the ship was killing them, not to mention the cramped space.  They needed room to move and there simply wasn’t any in this tiny box.

              “Not sure,” Corajen said, looking out the slot for a moment longer.  Finally, she turned away, elbowing her sibling out of the way to take her place at the edge of the bunk.  Grabbing hold, the lupusan began her own set of pull ups.  “We need to get out of here,” she said.

              Saiphirelle’s mouth curled in a grin.  “It’s about damned time you decided to start thinking that way.  What finally changed your mind?” she asked, curiosity oozing out of her.

              Corajen grunted, continuing her workout.  When she reached fifty, she slowed, not stopping, making each pull up harder.  But she spoke, sounding barely winded.  “You’re right, they haven’t broken Samair yet.  But if she’s that beat up, after they started trusting her again means one of two things: either they’re just sadistic bastards who like to beat up on those weaker than themselves…”

              “Always a possibility.”

              “Or,” Corajen went on, ignoring her sister, “something serious changed.  And I think that Samair did something.  Something big and bad that earned her that beating.  But the big guy in charge is smart enough to know that killing her is a mistake, because of her replicator access.”  She grunted, as now she was starting to get winded.  “And I highly doubt he’s stupid enough to let her out or start trusting her again after whatever it was that happened.”

              “Sounds about right.”  Saiphirelle leaned against the bulkhead opposite, crossing her arms over her chest.  “And we definitely need to get the hell out of here.”

              Corajen let her legs drop, releasing the bunk frame.  She turned to her sister.  “Any ideas?”

Chapter 3

              Commander Duncan Harth checked the display above his desk in his small office.  He’d been checking the status of repairs on the corvette
Ravage
for the last three hours, chafing at the delay.  His engineers had been crawling over the hull of the warship for two straight weeks, repairing the damage his own ship had inflicted on the smaller vessel.  It had taken five days for the heavy cruiser
Legacy
’s engineering teams to repair the damage to the heavy cruiser, while a small team had transferred over to
Ravage
to get main systems restored. 

              The pirates had escaped, most of them anyway.  The pirate flotilla of warships had jumped to hyperspace on a vector that would move them close to Byra-Kae, the system holding the Republic Outpost in the Argos Cluster.  If they didn’t change course mid-flight, they could be at Byra-Kae in a matter of weeks. 

              The bulk freighter, the
Grania Estelle
, his target over these last months had also jumped away, but in a different direction from the pirate gang.  They were on a vector that would take them to a world known as Amethyst, whatever that was.  No one from the Republic, aside from those currently stationed here, had been out this way in decades.  Being assigned to the Argos Cluster was typically termed punishment duty and Harth had volunteered his ship and his crew for this job.

              So far it had been a resounding failure.  They’d been chasing the bulk freighter, this enigma of a Naval Reserve vessel and its equally mysterious Commander Tamara Samair for months, and finally caught up with them here, in the Ulla-tran system.  But by then, this new crisis had developed with the
Grania Estelle
take over by pirates, and then the two groups splitting off.  Neither of them could be allowed to get away; Harth’s primary orders were to chase down and catch the freighter, but the pirate flotilla acting with impunity out here could not be allowed to stand.  For the most part, no one in the Republic cared about what happened here in the Argos Cluster, it was remote and too small and unimportant to matter.  What with the current tensions along the border with the Federation back home and the still recovering economies of the planets of the Republic, wasting resources to swat pirates in a grouping of stars not even part of the Republic just seemed ridiculous.

              But the Republic did maintain a small outpost here.  And according to what the Marine computer geeks could siphon out of
Ravage’
s mainframe and other systems, the pirates were moving for a strike there.  His standing orders to defend the Republic and her worlds clearly took precedence.  But he was torn.  He was so close to
Grania Estelle
.  His own ship was swift, her hyperdrive could push all the way into the blue level of the hyperspace rainbow if they went all out, and even if he took a more conservative pace with his engines and fuel levels by dropping down into the green, the bulk freighter could never hope to outrun them. 
Ravage
, once her engines and shields were back up could get into the high yellow level of speed, which would be more than enough for the two ships to jump to Amethyst ahead of
Grania Estelle
and have a warm welcome waiting for the freighter once she finally arrived.  Based on projections made by examining the sensor scans of the freighter and the damage she’d taken, the ship would be lucky to make Red level seven.

              And ever since the encounter, his thoughts just kept spinning round and round.  He couldn’t decide on an objective.  Both were equally important and while he had two ships now under his command, with his executive officer Lieutenant Tran having transferred over to
Ravage
to act as her Captain and with the good Ensign Foster to act as his executive officer, he couldn’t risk operating independently.  Harth trusted Tran and he trusted his engineers, but the repair of
Ravage
was a rush job and he was concerned that a goodly number of the fixes they’d implemented wouldn’t hold up to serious strain, especially if the ship went into a combat situation.

              Of course, if the fixes were that bad, he shouldn’t really been going
anywhere
until he could get the corvette fixed up properly.  The only problem with that was that the only shipyard anywhere nearby was here in Ulla-tran, and Harth did
not
trust the locals.  Though it was possible that their engineers were competent, their leaders were corrupt and criminal.  And it was clear that the locals weren’t thrilled to have Republic ships in their system, not that Harth could blame them on that front.  A small battle took place at the edge of their star system and they were just supposed to accept it.  Harth knew that he’d be upset about that sort of thing happening if it was in
his
home system. 

              The locals had parked a trio of ships at a comfortable distance of about two light minutes from
Legacy’s
position and had held there, sending transmissions and reports back to the orbital station at the planet as well as the fueling station in orbit of the nearby gas giant.  The ships consisted of a frigate, a warship slightly smaller than a destroyer, but still a potent vessel, and two corvettes.  They hadn’t advanced, not even during the weeks of repairs.

              He tapped his fingers on the desk.  “Enough of this.”  He shut off the display and stood up.  Adjusting his uniform jacket, he strode from the office.  Walking down the corridor, he headed for the bridge.  There wasn’t much to do at this point, but he could file reports from the displays on the bridge just as easily as he could from his office.  There wasn’t anything critical that he was concerned that the bridge crew could see.

              As he strode onto the bridge, the Marine guard at the hatch straightened to attention.  “Captain on the bridge!” he announced. 

              “As you were,” Harth replied and waved them all back to their consoles.  “Mister Kamerov, report.”

              “No change in the situation outside, Captain,”
Legacy
’s new executive officer replied.  He was a burly man from a high gravity world, short and stocky with thick corded muscles and the husky voice common to all those of that type of environment.  “Frigate and his pals are keeping to their two light-minute exclusion zone.  No other traffic coming this way, though we have noticed a few ships and shuttles moving from the orbital to the fueling station.”  He nodded to the sensor officer.  “Ensign Droven?”

              “Yes, sir,” the young domak male answered.  He was of a reptilian race, similar to that of a turtle, though his heavy carapace on his back was much smaller, about roughly a meter in size, as though he was carrying a shield on his back.  His arms and legs were humanoid, though a bit stubbier than his human counterparts.  It would make him waddle a bit when he walked and his ability to form any martial arts was limited, but he wasn’t one for a whole lot of physical activity.  He didn’t wear a standard uniform like the human members of the crew, but more of a surcoat that was belted around the waist, the same colors, gray with red piping, as the standard Navy uniform.  “Main power stabilized on the fueling station and it looks as though they finally ironed out the kinks in whatever their problem was.  The pinnaces have been towed back in, though I’m sure the crews didn’t survive such a long time out in space with no power.”

              Harth nodded.  “Anything else?”

              The domak shook his bald gray pate slowly from side to side.  His skin was of leathery consistency, not of scales and was a drab gray in color.  His face was also very turtle-like, with a large beak and round, black eyes.  “Nothing else of any interest, Captain,” he said in his slow drawl.  “As the XO said, the frigate and the escorts have been holding position well away from us.  No other ships in the system are doing anything that appears suspicious.”

              “Good,” Harth replied.  “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.  We’ve got enough problems on our plates without having to concern ourselves with pushy locals.”

              “We
are
in their system, sir,” Droven said meekly.  “We did fight a battle here in their territory.”

              Harth chuckled and patted the domak on the shoulder.  “Yes, Ensign, yes we are.  And yes, I probably would be pissed if someone showed up in my backyard and started fighting with each other.  It looks like there was a hell of a ruckus stirred up here even before we got here.  I imagine the locals want us gone and the sooner the better.”

              “Yes, sir,” Droven replied.

              “Carry on, Ensign,” Harth said, turning away.  The domak went back to his displays.  He nodded to his XO, who stepped away from the sensor console and moved across the heavy cruiser’s small bridge.  “XO, I want your honest opinion.”

              “Of course, sir,” Kamerov said immediately.

              Harth nodded, trying to find the words and then finally decided to be blunt.  “What do you think our duty is here?  Continue our mission and chase down the freighter, or abandon our mission and go after the pirate flotilla?”

              Kamerov sighed heavily.  “You really know how to ask, Captain.”  He looked uncomfortable.  “I’m not really sure it’s my place to question, sir.”

              “You’re not questioning,” the commander replied, crossing his arms over his chest.  “You’re carrying out an order of mine and you’re answering a direct question.  I want your opinion on our options.”

              The lieutenant sighed again.  “Yes, sir.  Then in that case, we go after the freighter, sir.  We continue on our mission.”

              Harth nodded, more in acknowledgement than in agreement.  “And the outpost at Byra-Kae?”

              Kamerov looked uncomfortable.  “Sir, I know it’s a problem, especially if a pirate has command of such serious hardware.  But there should already be forces at the outpost to stand against them.  Corvettes and destroyers and the like.  Should be enough to hold them off.  Those merchant conversions had some armament, yes, but they’re no match for any proper built warships.”

              The commander nodded, searching the XO’s face, reading the man as well as the words.  “I tend to agree with you.  Those merchant ships might be enough to damage or even take out one of the destroyers there if they managed surprise, but wouldn’t be capable enough to be a serious threat.  One good sensor sweep from the ships there or the fixed sensors and defenses and any surprise would be lost.”

              “The cruisers are a concern, sir,” Kamerov acknowledged, clasping his hands behind his back.  “And if we didn’t have the
Grania Estelle
to chase down and capture, I would recommend we jump for Byra-Kae with all best speed to try and beat the pirates there.  But we do have a mission and it is important.  The Admiral approved your request to come out here.”

              “You’re right, he did,” Harth said.  “I show that the
Ravage
will be ready to go in the next six hours.  So I have until then to decide.”

              Kamerov frowned, confused.  “Sir, I’m surprised at your indecision.  I thought you’d already decided and you just wanted to make sure that I was on board.”

              So, it seemed that Kamerov was clever as well as capable.  Harth only smiled.  “Privilege of command, Lieutenant.  I have to maintain at least a small amount of mystique with my lofty rank and status.”

              He nodded.  “Yes, sir.  Sorry, sir.”

              “Don’t be sorry,” he chided, smiling slightly to take the sting out of the words.  “I asked you a question because I wanted your answer.”

              “Of course, sir,” Kamerov replied, smiling himself.

              “We’re going after the freighter,” Harth decided in that moment.  He’d been waffling for two weeks now.  “We have a mission to complete.”

              Six hours later, the report from acting-Captain Tran came in from
Ravage
.  “We’re ready to go, sir,” the officer reported from the bridge of his new command.

              “Things are all set?  I don’t want any engineering casualties halfway to Amethyst,” Harth warned.

              Tran shook his head.  “No, sir.  Everything looks good.  It’s a lot of patch jobs, but we took on a whole load of spare parts from
Legacy
twelve hours ago.  I’ll have my crew continue with repairs as we go.  Shouldn’t have any problems.”

              Harth pursed his lips.  According to the status feeds on his display floating in front of his command chair on
Legacy’s
bridge,
Ravage
had all critical systems in the green.  A few of those were marginal, but still green.  “What’s your best hyperspeed?”

              “We should be able to reach and maintain Yellow level four, Captain,” Tran replied immediately, obviously anticipating the question. 

              A bit slower than Harth had expected, but it should still be enough to reach Amethyst about twenty or so hours before
Grania Estelle,
assuming the freighter’s best speed would be Red level seven.  And that was a very good guess, going by
Legacy
’s sensor readings just as the bulk freighter jumped away.