Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (100 page)

              “So, Captain,” the leader said, sitting himself down at the wardroom table.  His rifle went on the table top, but his hand rested lazily on the butt of his sidearm in his hip holster.  Eamonn was under no illusion that he could try to jump the man.  He’d be gunned down with no effort on the pirate’s part.

              Eamonn frowned.  “You’ve been aboard my ship for a while now, and I don’t even know your name.  Or even a title or rank to call you,” he mused aloud, as though they were two spacers meeting at a conference.

              The pirate chuckled.  “Gideon Jax, Captain.  Pleased to make your acquaintance.”  His eye held a malevolent twinkle.  “If you must have a title, I suppose Armsman might be appropriate.  I and my soldiers are part of the Captain’s Guard.”  He crossed his arms over his chest.  “Now sit down, Captain.  We have need to have a discussion.”

              Vincent Eamonn knew the sound of that voice meant trouble.  He slid into his customary seat at the head of the conference table; Jax was to his left, but no one else was in the room.  He tried to project calm and serenity; he
was
the captain of the
Grania Estelle
after all.  But he couldn’t stop his hands from clenching and unclenching.

              “We need to have a talk about the industrial fabricators you have aboard this ship,” Armsman Jax said, his voice mild but dangerous.  He smiled fully as Eamonn said nothing.  “You’re not going to deny it?”

              Eamonn shrugged.  “Why should I?  Your troops are all over my ship and you’ve seen my engineering teams working on repairs.  I know you’ve been interested as to where all the spare parts were coming from, especially since you knew that all the cargo bays were empty.”

              Jax nodded.  “Yes.  So I sent a team over to them to see what they could do, but you know what they found?”

              The captain shook his head, knowing he wasn’t going to like where this was going.  “What?”

              “They found that the entire set of fabricators were locked down with security codes.”  His voice hardened to iron.  “Why would you lock them out, Captain?  Do you not trust me?”

              The captain didn’t answer.

              Suddenly, Gideon Jax was on his feet.  “Clearly, you’ve proven to me that I cannot trust you!” he roared.  “You tried to hide all this from me?  After all the growing pains we had and you still think that you can play games with me?”  His sidearm materialized in his hand; the captain didn’t even see him draw.  “Now, you’re going to spill everything about those fabricators.  I want every bit of information, I want every code, I want a full manifest of everything that you can do with those fabricators.  Because you are going to be turning them over to me.  And every
second
you make me wait, or if you lie to me, I will kill a member of your crew.  If I have to kill them all, so be it.”  He slid a datapad across the table, which came to a stop right next to the captain’s clenched fist.  Jax kept his weapon in his hand, but sat back down.  “Now, begin.”

              Tamara felt her bare feet scraping against the metal deckplates, and the pain in her toes somehow managed to pierce the fog of pain emanating from her stomach and her head.  She was still dressed in only a t-shirt and underwear.  Her head lolled, but she was dimly aware of being pulled past other members of the crew; she heard a few cries of alarm, muffled as the soldiers dragging her along either glared at or backhanded anyone who looked as though they were going to intervene.

              After an eternity of corridors, of banging her legs and knees on the knee knockers on the bottom of every hatch they pulled her through, and the constant scraping of her feet on the deck, they eventually arrived at their destination.

              The wardroom doors slid open and they went inside.  Dumping her unceremoniously on the deck, Tamara looked up to the pirate soldier leader looking down at her in disgust.  He stepped over to her and squatted down next to her, a pistol held easily in one hand.  The business end was pointed vaguely in her direction and she felt her breathing and her heart rate accelerate. 

              “What do you want from me?” she croaked, her throat raw.

              “The good captain tells me that you are the key to the industrial fabricators on this ship,” Gideon Jax replied, his voice dripping with contempt.  Tamara looked over at the captain, who refused to meet her gaze.  “He tells me that you have the access codes to be able to unlock all of the serious materiel that the machines can make.  I was concerned that you might try something stupid, like melting them down like you did the last set.”  Reaching over, he took a two-inch wide cylinder, shaped like a coin with a trio of barbed prongs on one side and pressed it into the side of her neck, hard.  Tamara screamed as the prongs dug into her flesh, and tried to thrash, but he swatted her hands away and pressed the barrel of the gun into her breastbone.  She flopped around for a few moments, but then he pressed a control on the face of the device and a powerful electric shock ran through her body.

              Tamara convulsed, every muscle in her body going completely taut, unable to scream, unable to breathe.  She was dying.  That much was clear.  Her HUD was flickering, her vision was tinged in red and then abruptly, it ended.  The electricity stopped, her whole body collapsed, completely limp.  She could do nothing but lay there and gasp like a landed fish.

              “There,” he said, matter of factly, moving back and then standing up.  “I’ll give you a minute to compose yourself and then
we
are going to have a chat.”

              Tamara swiveled her eyeballs in the direction of the captain, who had a horrified look on his face, but he still would not look at her or meet her gaze.  She could feel her limbs regaining feeling and after a moment, she groaned and pushed herself to a seated position.

              The man was smiling grimly at her.  “I know you and I have seen each other around, Ms. Samair, but we haven’t been formally introduced.  I am Armsman Gideon Jax, part of the Captain’s Guard.  Not this man,” he clarified with a smirk, indicating Vincent Eamonn at the table, “But
my
Captain.  And in case you’re curious, the device in your neck is interrupting the implants in your head.  You will no longer be able to send or receive signals via those implants unless I disable the device.”  He frowned a little.  “The good captain here informs me that those implants are how you actually interface with the fabricators, but I’m sure we can work something out until we can come up with a more permanent solution.”

              “So what do you want from me?” she asked again, glaring at him.

              “I don’t appreciate that tone or that eyeball you’re giving me, Samair,” Jax told her.  “You are not a free woman.  You’re not a member of the crew, not anymore.  Not that you ever were,” he chuckled darkly.  “No, now…  Now, you are an asset.  A possession to serve a particular purpose.” 

              Eamonn’s jaw clenched, as did his fists.  His gaze was locked on the datapad in the middle of the table. 

              “Captain Verrikoth is going to be extremely interested the treasure I found aboard this ship,” Jax commented.  “And you are going to make sure that this continues to produce treasures, Samair,” he informed her.  “And if it doesn’t, if you, the possession meant to serve a singular purpose, isn’t fulfilling the mandate I set?  Then I will throw you to my men and they will do as they like with you.” 

              Icy fear clawed her heart.  He was utterly serious, but what about Eamonn?  Why the hell was he just sitting there, letting this happen?  How could he abandon her like this?  “Captain?” she pleaded.

              “You will perform the tasks I set you, Samair,” Jax told her sternly.  “Or else your very long and painful death will serve as an example to the rest of the crew.”  He nodded to the men behind her.  “Get her up.  Take her to the brig and toss her in a cell.  I think she needs some time to reflect on her situation.”

              “Wait, no!” she started to say, but a sharp blow to the back of her neck relieved her of consciousness.

Epilogue

              Saiphirelle sat next to her sibling in the brig.  The two lupusan were sharing a cell, which was cramped, but not unbearable.  Apparently the pirate guards had decided that they couldn’t trust that the wolf women wouldn’t go tearing into them the minute their collective backs were turned.  And they were right to think that.  Every minute they were locked in the cells only increased Saiphirelle’s ire.  Even the normally even-keeled Corajen was starting to lose her cool.

              “How long are they going to keep us in here?” Saiphirelle demanded for probably the hundredth time since their incarceration.

              “As long as they mean to,” Corajen replied again.  The elder sibling was laying back on the hard bunk, examining her claws on one hand.  They’d fallen into a predictable pattern over the long days stuck in this metal box: Saiphirelle would start bellyaching about their situation, and Corajen would placate her with meaningless platitudes.  The younger sibling would stalk around their tiny cell and wear herself out and then crawl up on the top bunk and lay quiet for a while.  Then she’d hop down and the cycle would repeat.  Corajen felt it was a waste of time and energy but she knew her sibling; Saiphirelle would go absolutely insane trying to keep herself down and seated for any length of time and Corajen had no desire to come to blows with her sister when there were still plenty of real enemies to fight.

              There was a bang from behind them as the main door to the brig opened.  The brig aboard
Grania Estelle
was not huge; it was capable of holding six occupants in three cells.  The cells themselves were secured by solid metal door with two small openings, an inch-wide opening six inches wide at regular eye level, and a feed slot that opened at the bottom so that a bowl or tray could be slid inside the cell.  The rest of the door, and the walls, floor and ceiling, were solid metal, reinforced so that even the mightiest lupusan (or two) couldn’t tear through.

              Corajen remained on her bunk, but Saiphirelle flew across the tiny cell, her face pressed to the door, eyes peering through the slot.  “What is it?” the elder asked mildly, though in truth, she was craving information about the world outside this tiny room just as much.

              “Guards,” the younger rasped, her hackles starting to rise.  “And they’re dragging Tamara between them.  She looks like hell.”

              “What?” Corajen demanded, getting up.  Elbowing her sister out of the way, she took a look through.  Sure enough, there they were, two burly bastards wearing the same police-style body armor, each outfitted with a sidearm and between then was the limp form of the battered Tamara Samair.  Corajen’s sensitive nose detected the tang of Tamara’s blood and she could see that her feet and legs were festooned with scrapes and cuts.  She also had some sort of device attached to her neck and a slight trickle of blood was seeping out from under it.  The wound there wasn’t terribly serious, it looked as though whatever that circular device was it was preventing her from bleeding more seriously. 

              The guards opened up one of the cells and tossed her inside, completely uncaring, it seemed where she landed, or for that matter, how she landed.  They exited and one of them closed the door behind them, securing it.  Then the two thugs simply left, the outer door to the brig slid closed with another bang.

              “No, she doesn’t look good,” Corajen breathed, stepping away from the door.  “But there’s nothing we can do for now.  We need to come up with some kind of plan, ready to go at a moment’s notice once we get out of here.”

              Her sister, in a sober mood for the first time, nodded, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

              The mess hall was busy, as usual.  The lunch rush was in full swing, though now that they were in hyperspace, the frantic workings of the majority of the crew had slowed somewhat.  The engineering teams were still running full blast, though with first Quesh and then Tamara out of commission, there was an amount of aimlessness among the teams.  Ka’Xarian, Cookie noted, was in the process of assigning new team leaders to try and move forward with the large amount of repairs. 

              There were pirate soldiers in his mess hall, the cook noted sourly.  For the most part, the soldiers were keeping to themselves, doing little more than being a firm presence in the background.  Though judging by the looks they were starting to give the various members of the crew (mostly the female ones) Cookie guessed that the time of stalwart indifference was coming to an end.  And with Corajen and Saiphirelle in the brig, these men and zheen would have very few impediments from indulging their urges.

              This was no longer a happy ship.  Normally, the mess hall was ringing with conversations and laughter.  Now, people came in, ate, and any conversations they held were in hushed whispers and conspiratorial glances.  Crew tended to move in groups, fearful of being caught alone in any of the corridors.

              Even the Captain had been conspicuous by his absence.  The man had been known to make tours around every area of the ship, to make his presence known and to keep apprised of the inner workings of the various departments on his ship.  Not so lately.  Ever since the ship had made the jump to hyperspace, the captain never left his cabin.  He took his meals there, had meetings with Armsman Jax and the heads of his departments, but he never came out.  People wondered what was going on.  Had Jax taken over the ship?  Was the man a prisoner?  There were also whispers that he might have some other reason for being there.  It was well known that Tamara had been dragged through the corridors of the ship to the wardroom, then a few minutes later she was tossed into the brig.  The captain and the Armsman had been in there at the time.  Something had gone down then, but no one knew what.  Speculation was rampant.

              “Bad business,” Cookie muttered to himself.  He shook his head, as one of the guards started to move in his direction.  Clearing his head of the cobwebs, he refocused his attention back on the lunch service and put those other thoughts away for another time.

             
Grania Estelle
sailed on through the void between star systems, the wash of tachyons causing vibrant red splashes of color to appear on the shields.  Anyone looking through a window or through a sensor display usually found themselves slightly hypnotized by the phenomena, similar to staring into a fire.  At her current speed, it would be just over three months travel time to reach Amethyst, far longer than either she or her crew had gotten used to.

              An outside observer would see the ship, cocooned in its shield bubble, fly past at a very sedate pace and disappear from view into the deep dark.