Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (21 page)

“They were popular back in my time.  Figured they would come in handy.”

“You know, you smart girls cover your assets well,” Corajen replied.  “I think I might need a lesson or two in dirty tricks.”

Tamara laughed.  She banked her turn, flying to pace the shuttle.  “Be happy to host a class.  Is everyone all right?”

The wolf woman sobered.  “Taja took a rock to the shoulder.  No one else was hurt.”

“She all right?”

“She’ll be fine.  Might be bruised.  Doc Turan’s going to look at it when we get back to the ship.”

Tamara let out a long breath.  This was not good.  Very not good.  “Well, that didn’t work, but we need to try again.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Corajen said.  “Maybe the Captain might have some ideas.”

The mess hall was crowded.  The Captain wanted as many faces here as possible as the situation was growing desperate.  Taja was in sickbay, under sedation, but Turan reported that she would make a full recovery.  The rock had severely bruised the bones in her shoulder, but eventually she would regain full use of her arm again.  Until then, she’d be wearing a sling and have to make do.

“All right folks, the situation is bad,” he started off as the room quieted.  “We need ideas.  I don’t care who they come from, or how stupid, short-sighted, moronic or inadequate they might be.  We’ve tried talking to the locals.  That didn’t work.  We tried landing and trying to work something out face to face.  That really didn’t work, though I think if we could speak with someone without Consul Barnabus interfering, we might get somewhere.”

Corajen nodded at that.  “I agree, Captain.  He was certainly stirring up the crowd against us.”

The others nodded.  The ones who had been on the surface shuddered.  The sound and the fury of that enraged crowd had been terrifying, even for the security force.  If not for the prep work by Tamara and Corajen, they might all have been killed.

The Captain turned to Tamara.  “What about the replicators?  Can those help out situation?”

She shook her head, exhaling noisily.  “Captain, I’m sorry, but we’ve been over this.  These are industrial replicators.  They’re designed to break down components and raw materials into their base elements and then a nanite constructor farm reassembles them into the components you want.  But it isn’t designed to make food.  The closest it can get is plastics and other polymers.”  She shrugged.  “But you can’t eat that.”

He nodded sourly.  The others were looking at her as though this situation was somehow her fault.  “What about food replicators?  You built us a second industrial replicator.  Can you build us a food one?”  There was an undercurrent of hope in his voice, one that was reflected in the eyes of everyone in the room.

Tamara pursed her lips.  “Yes,” she said very slowly, but then held up a hand as someone cheered.  “But there are serious problems.  Yes, I can make other replicators using the ones on board the
Grania Estelle
.  But the replicators can only build with the raw materials on hand and whatever specs they have stored in their firmware and software systems.  Replicator One didn’t have designs for a food replicator in its database.  Neither am I finding anything like that in the ship’s databanks.  I brought a whole host of engineering programs, but I didn’t think to grab one to build a food replicator when I was escaping from jail.”  A few people chuckled, a couple of others were looking at her darkly.  “I’ve started the software coding to try and build one, but it’s going to take a while.  I’ve never actually built one from scratch before, so I have to go carefully.  But I think by the time I have the software for that sort of thing worked out, we all might have starved to death.”

“It’s the same sort of thing,” one of the techs complained.  “You get some sort of food substrate, proteins, fruits, vegetables, get the nanites to break them down and then reassemble them.”

She nodded, smiling.  “Yes, you are absolutely correct.  The problem is that we need more substrate.  Which is the exact same problem we have right now.  A food replicator could make food, or in the very least a nutrient paste or bar that could provide us with sustenance.  But, just like the industrial replicators, it requires raw materials to work of which we are preciously low.  The Chief and I,” she gestured, “have been working on the waste extraction systems to try and get a recycling program for that going, but that’s another system I didn’t think to grab plans for.  The
Grania Estelle
was designed with a very basic refuse recycling system and it’s horribly inefficient.  Not to mention degraded and damaged.  Anyone who’s had the joy of working in that section can tell you that for the most part, once the refuse is dumped down there, only about ten percent of it is recycled and that bit is really only for the water.  The rest is simply jettisoned.  Right now we’re working on it, but a food replicator is not going to be the savior in this situation.”

There was a silence in the mess hall as they all processed that information.  “What about leaving this system for greener pastures?”

Quesh cleared his throat.  “Well, we’ve got the sublight engines back up, three of them, and with the latest water rock we’ve gotten back, our fuel reserves are adequate to get us to the hyper limit here and from the limit to a planet in another star system.  But it’s just a matter of damage, Captain.”  He sighed, using one had to rub his neck.  “Those damned pirates hit us hard and in some very bad places.  I
think
we can patch up the hyperdrive in about five days and get enough shield coverage to physically make a jump, but that’s a very big if.  And we’d be jumping at bare minimum levels.  We’d be slow as hell and flying with no backups.”  Everyone paled a little at that.  Working on the
Grania Estelle
was an interesting and sometimes dangerous job, but flying in hyperspace with bare minimum shield coverage was insane.  If the slightest weak spot opened in the shields, the stresses would rip the freighter apart.  “And if what Cookie tells me is true, we don’t have the supplies to
make
it to another system even if we were ready to go right now.”

“Cookie?” the Captain asked, turning to him.

The chef nodded sadly.  “I’m sorry, Captain.  The Chief is right.  Even cutting rations again, we just don’t have enough.  And the less we all eat, the more it’s going to affect performance, as you know, which means less we can do.  And there would be no guarantees the situation would be any better elsewhere.”

“What about stasis pods?” George Miller asked.  Everyone turned to him, Tamara with a look of respect, but tinged with horror.  “If we reduce the number of crew we need to feed, temporarily, it might give us more options.”

“We don’t have any pods,” Quesh said, shaking his head.

“Yes, we do, Chief,” Ka’Xarian replied.  He gestured to Tamara.  “We have her escape pod.  It’s still in the cargo bay.  We haven’t touched it since she got out.”

All eyes turned back to her.  She shrugged, but then nodded slowly.  “Well, it
would
work.  We would need to make some repairs, the life support was almost completely depleted when you picked me up.  But the max it could hold is six people.”

“That would be six fewer people we would have to feed while we sort this situation out,” Xar pointed out.

“True, but I’ll be damned if you think I’m getting in that thing again,” she retorted, shuddering.  “Never again if I can help it.”

“I would call for volunteers,” the Captain said, his eyes sweeping the crowd.  “People who are not on the engineering or medical teams.  That means anyone from cargo or deck divisions.”  No one raised their hands.  “I will make it an order if I need to.”  No one spoke up, though furtive glances were exchanged.

“I’ll look into it, Captain,” Tamara said.  “I’ll need to check out if we can even make it viable.  I will tell you all that it doesn’t hurt.  Once the systems are activated, you fall asleep and then… nothing.  You’re asleep until the pod is deactivated.  And we would be keeping the pod in the cargo bay.  No one would be going out into space.  And no one would be sleeping for as long as I did.  Two weeks to a month, perhaps a bit more, but that would be it.”  They didn’t seem convinced.

The Captain seemed buoyed by this idea.  “Get started on that once we’re done here.” 

“Aye, Captain,” Tamara replied.

“But that won’t fix the problem.  Any ideas?  Anyone?”

“What about the other towns?” Serinda asked.  “We know that Instow has three.  So far we’ve only dealt with Terminus.  What about Agron and Rexag?”

“Out of the mouths of bridge officers,” Quesh rumbled, his voice easily carrying over the mess hall.  Serinda blushed.

“All right, Serinda, once we’re done here, get back to the bridge and try and contact someone at either of those towns.  I think that’s going to be our best option.  There’s got to be
someone
who will be willing to talk to us.”

“All right, Captain, I’ve done a full diagnostic on the pod.” Tamara turned to the man standing just behind her as she climbed back out.  “I can tell you that it needs a good cleaning, and there are a few circuit boards that need replacing.  The life support needs charging.  Give me about six hours or so, and it’ll be ready to roll.”

“Get on it, then, Moxie,” he said.  “I’ll speak with the crew and look for volunteers.”

She grinned at him, hefting her toolkit.  “When they balk, and they will, tell them that
I
managed in there for two hundred and forty-eight years.  And no one can say I didn’t survive.  And if they have problems with my engineering work, direct them to look over the work I’ve done since I came aboard.”

He smiled back.  “I will.”

The repairs to the pod only took four hours, actually, which freed Tamara up for other projects.  The Captain spoke with the crew, but so far no one was coming forward.  Both Quesh and Ka’Xarian independently did diagnostics and checks of the pod’s systems and confirmed they were sound.  This helped to lift the spirits of those who might be called to go in, but still, no one was willing to go in.  When asked, it wasn’t that they were afraid that the technology wouldn’t work, Tamara had proven that it did (and even when damaged).  No, they were afraid that something terrible would happen to the rest of the crew, to the ship, and they would remain in the pod, slumbering while no one remained to wake them.

There was little anyone could really say to that.

Tamara returned to her work on the coding for the food replicators.  The concept was the same for this as it was for an industrial replicator, add raw materials to be broken down, have the nanite constructors rearrange the molecular structure of that raw material into edible food.  The basic programming was completed, but now it was only able to make a nutrient mush that was mildly edible.  It was filled with everything the body needed, but it had the consistency of slushy snow and tasted like plain tofu.  Making things that were fancy (and tasty) was a priority for later.  Feed the crew first, then worry about winning culinary awards later.  She had it installed in the mess hall, but as she had said in the meeting, this was only part of the battle.  They would need to overhaul and upgrade the recycling system in order to make the replicator really a viable answer to their food problem.  But she hadn’t given up and was continuing on that in her free time.  This would potentially be something that the AI could work on when it was completed.

The Captain, meanwhile decided that it was time to contact one of the other towns.  Twelve hours after the shuttle and her escort returned to
Grania Estelle
, he placed a call to the town of Agron, which wasn’t as impressive as Terminus, but was located on the far side of Instow from the capital city and in its southern hemisphere. 

“This is the
Grania Estelle
to the offices of trade in Agron,” Serinda said, holding one hand up to her headset.  “We are seeking to do business in trade.  Please respond on this channel.”

The bridge crew were trying to maintain their professional calm and aloofness, but it was clear that everyone was hanging on to every one of the young woman’s words.  The Captain was the only one who should have been actively listening to what she was saying, but every now and then someone would glance up at her from their station, then shift guilty looks at the Captain and then back down at their own stations.  The Captain didn’t mind, though. 

“No response so far, Captain,” she reported after a minute had passed.

He nodded.  “Keep trying.”

Serinda was halfway through her third recitation of her greeting when an indicator light on her console popped on.  “I’ve got someone, Captain.”

“Well put them on,” he said impatiently.

“This is Consul Farris of Agron to the
Grania Estelle
.  I understand you are looking for trade opportunities.  We’ve never worked with you before on your passes through the system, though I am willing to talk.”

“Put me on, Serinda,” the Captain ordered, a smile touching the corner of his lips.  She glanced over and gave him the thumbs up.  “This is Captain Vincent Eamonn of the
Grania Estelle
.  I’m glad to be able to speak with you.  As stated, we are here to work out some trades for mutual benefit.”