Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (75 page)

              “Look, Taja, I’m not in the mood for…” he stopped, when he saw that the young woman was not in fact standing in the hatchway.

              “Not in the mood for what, Captain?” Corajen asked, folding her arms over her chest.

              He sighed.  “What do you want?” he asked, leaning on the door jam.

              “To talk with you.  To find out what our plans are.  And what you intend on doing with the crew of the
Emilia Walker
.”  She stared at him pointedly.  “May I come in?  Or are we going to have this conversation out here in the corridor for all to hear?”

              He stepped back from the hatch and went back to his chair.  The lupusan followed, closing the metal door behind her and heard the latch clack shut.  He gestured to the other chair and she took it, eyeing the drink back in his hand.  He sipped it, but her sharp eyes could tell that he wasn’t really tasting it.  It was more of an ingrained habit.  A drink was in your hand, you imbibed.

              “What do you want?” he repeated when she was settled.

              “I want to know what’s going on, Captain,” Corajen told him.  “Are we going after
Emilia Walker
?  Because I think that ship has sailed, to use a cute phrase.  Ka’Xarian reported in that the locals grabbed the ship about an hour ago and brought it in to the fueling station.  The engineer also reported that three people from the
Walker
’s crew were brought aboard station and taken to the infirmary under heavy guard.  The ship itself is in a parking orbit near the station and what looked like an engineering team was sent out for evaluation and repairs.  We might be able to get the ship back, and that’s very tenuous from what I hear, but we don’t have the boarding parties capable of getting those crewmen.”

              Eamonn snorted, then sipped his drink again.  He grimaced at the lukewarm taste and set it down.  “I thought you were a one-female army.”

              She preened slightly at the compliment.  “I am, but that wouldn’t be enough.  Even with everyone from Security with me and even if we were armed to the teeth, we wouldn’t be able to get clear.  There are just too many people on board that station.  And I suspect they probably have double the amount of security officers as we do.  They know the territory.  It’s just a bad situation.  A bad situation that I don’t think we can win.”

              The captain laid his head back, staring at the ceiling, letting out a long breath.  “This isn’t what I wanted.”

              “You wanted to be the knight on the stallion, riding to the defense of the weak.”

              “Thanks.  But I would trade the stallion for the
Grania Estelle
any day.” 

              She smirked at him, showing a little fang.  “That’s actually part of the problem, Captain,” Corajen pointed out.  She patted the bulkhead fondly.  “I love the old bitch, but she’s not built for that type of mission.  They’d tear us up and we’d still fail.”

              But he was shaking his head.  “We wouldn’t fail.  We could get through.”

              “But to what purpose?  One or two good shots to the engines and we’re done.  It would be weeks of repair and rebuild in a hostile system.”

              He was on his feet, pacing around the compartment.  “But we need to
do
something!” he demanded.  “We can’t just sit here.”

              “Why do you care so much?” the lupusan asked, genuinely curious.  She didn’t seem the least bit threatened or perturbed that the man was stalking around like a caged animal.  Though the predator in her couldn’t help tracking his movements by sight, sound and smell.  “They aren’t our crew.  Hell, we barely knew them.  Just another freighter crew.”  She eyed him.  “Is it because they owe us?”

              He stopped and gaped at her.  “What?”

              She started to nod, slowly.  “That’s it, isn’t it?  They owe us for all those parts and labor from the wrench teams and you’re upset about not getting what we’re due.”

              His incredulous look turned irritated.  “That isn’t it.  That isn’t it at all.”

              She chuckled.  “Captain, you’re not known for your altruism.”

              “That’s because I don’t shout it to the heavens, ‘Look at me!  Look at how good a person I really am!’ like a lot of those hypocrites do,” he countered.  “I try to help out where I can.”

              “Then why?” she asked again.  “It isn’t likely that
Emilia Walker
could ever really pay us back for the services rendered, even if they joined up in full partnership with us.  Are you trying to buy them out?”

              “No,” he growled, turning away, leaning one hand against the bulkhead.  She didn’t push, knowing he’d speak when he was ready. 

              “Captain, what are you thinking?” she asked after several long moments had stretched out without him speaking.

              “It was that damned engineer,” he muttered, but her sharp ears easily caught it.

              “Who, Quesh?” Corajen asked, genuinely confused.

              He turned back to her, a look of irritation on his face.  “No, not Quesh.  You’re being deliberately thick.  Moxie.”

              “Samair?” the lupusan asked, her ears flicking as her confusion level rose.  “How does she work into this?”

              The captain began to pace, running his hands over his scalp.  “She changed everything.  When she came here, the ship was barely holding together and in some cases was actually falling apart.”

              “Right, and you worked out a deal with her to fix us up.”

              He nodded.  “And my ship came back to life.  Sections that no one had even
seen
in years were rebuilt, refurbished.  We have full shields, an upgraded reactor, more weapons, hell, I can even fill the cargo holds.”

              “And how does that relate to our current situation?”  He sighed.  “What?” she asked.

              “Hope.”

              “Hope?”

              “Yes, hope,” he snapped.  “For the very first time, we were up and running.  We weren’t just barely surviving, skating by on luck and not a little skill.  We were moving.  Hauling.  We were even making money.  Lots of it.”

              Corajen flicked her ears again.  “Still are, if memory serves.”

              He grunted.  “And then she so easily talked Vosteros into accepting our help and then bullied him and me into joining forces.”

              “I’m sorry, so you’re trying to save Vosteros and his ship because Samair bullied you into it?” she asked, smiling.

              “No,” he replied, glaring at her.  “I’d given Vosteros my word we would help him.”

              “So?”

              “So, my word is actually good, which is why I rarely give it.”

              “So it’s a pride thing?”  She snorted.  “Men.  Typical male bullshit.”

              “If you’re just going to insult me, you can leave,” he grumped.

              Corajen grinned evilly.  “Oh, I’d love to see you make me.”  They locked gazes until she yawned and looked away after a moment. 

              “I suppose there was a degree of pride,” he conceded after some thought.  “But it was more than that.  They came here, to this system, because of us.  Because of me.”

              Finally, the lupusan nodded.  “I understand.  They came here because you said to come.  And now the locals have them.”

              “I can’t just leave them, Cora.  I can’t.”

              Corajen sighed, shifting her position in the chair.  “I get where you’re coming from.”

              “But George was right, damn him,” he growled.  “The big girl can’t stand against the defense ships.”

              “So where does that leave us?”

              “I don’t know,” the captain admitted.  “But I think we need to have more heads working on this than just yours and mine.”

              “So long as there are no suicide charges,” she warned.

              He nodded.  “I don’t want to die, either.  But I won’t just turn away and leave knowing I did nothing.”

              The wardroom was full for the first time in a long while.  All the department heads where here.  Stella was sitting cross-legged on the table, just over the holo projector, checking her fingernails, a thunderous expression on her face.  She had been determined to charge to the rescue of the
Emilia Walker
.

              “All right,” the captain began, addressing the room at large.  “I will not be taking the ship in and trying to make a daring rescue against all odds.”  There were collective sighs of relief at this.  After the initial euphoria from the Captain’s bold announcement had faded, the fear had set in.  The grumbling and the whispers had quickly followed.

              “But neither am I about the leave the
Emilia Walker
and her crew to rot.  We’re going to do what we can to get them back.  I want ideas.”  He gestured for the others to speak.  “The floor is yours.”

              He looked around, but no one was willing to be first.  The captain saw that both George and Kutok had decided to attend.  He had not made attendance compulsory, despite the tradition on a ship that a summons from the Captain constituted an absolute imperative.  He had asked them to attend and made sure that they understood it wasn’t an order.  And still they came anyway.

              Quesh sighed, laying all four hands on the table.  “Well, we can’t take the ship in, but what about a shuttle?” he asked, breaking the ice.

              Eamonn straightened; Stella perked up a bit, though the expression on her face had turned sour.  “That sounds promising,” he said.  “What can we do with one of the shuttles?”

              Quesh and Tamara exchanged glances.  “Well, Captain,” the chief began, “it’s a shuttle, not a battlecruiser, so there
is
a limit.  But we can upgrade the armor, shields and power systems.”

              “Make it more like a combat dropship or an assault shuttle,” Tamara agreed.  “Could probably hook up some weapons too.”

              “We’d lose about a third of the cargo space,” Quesh admitted.

              “Might even be as much as half,” Tamara disagreed.

              The Parkani nodded.  “Fine.  But we could still fit all of your security people on board.”  He looked over at Corajen, who was across the table.

              She nodded back.  “We’d need specs.  I’d want to know exactly how much room it had, what the exits were like, etc,” she said, ticking points off on her fingers. 

              The chief nodded in agreement.  “We’ll mock something up for you this afternoon.”

              Tamara looked around and then spoke.  “But that wouldn’t solve the underlying problem.”  She locked gazes with George, who had leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.

              “Do enlighten us,” the captain replied, letting out a long breath.

              She frowned at Eamonn, but continued.  “They’re going to see us launching that shuttle.  And unless we can secure the
Emilia Walker
’s crew and escape to the hyper limit before they can catch us, we’d still get attacked by the system defense forces.”  Tamara sighed.  “And we can’t win that fight.”

              “So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do,” Corajen replied.  It would have been easy to make that statement sound angry, but it was just a statement of fact.

              “I’m saying,” Tamara said calmly.  “That there’s going to be very little we can do that won’t lead the locals straight back to the
Grania Estelle
and the very combat situation we are trying to avoid.”

              “So we do nothing then?” Saiphirelle demanded.  “I thought we were going to help, not cower here in fear of what
might
happen.”

              “We can’t stand up to the defense ships here, Saiphirelle,” Tamara shot back.  “I’m sorry, but we can’t.  And nothing we can slap together in a few days is going to do the trick either.”

              “What would?” the snarling lupusan asked, ignoring the look and the growl she was getting from her sister the security chief. 

              Quesh and Tamara exchanged another glance.  Tamara shrugged.  “A squadron of starfighters,” the Parkani said, looking up at the overhead, at the ducts and the pipes.  “Maybe four or five assault shuttles.  A purpose-built warship or two.”

              “None of which we have,” George spoke up.

              Murmurs spread around the room as people recognized the predicament.

              But Saiphirelle wasn’t finished.  “But Stella thinks we can do this.”  She pointed a clawed finger at the AI, who nodded.

              “Stella is a child!” George roared, slapping a hand on the table.  The AI looked as though she would murder him and was about to speak, but he cut her off.  “I’m sorry, Stella, but you are.  You’ve been in only one combat engagement and that was against forces not as strong as these.  And even then we barely escaped!”  He glared at the lupusan.  “And you know it.  You were the one who attached the bomb to the load of gadolinium when
Ganges
was chasing us.”