Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (2 page)

             
Trust the system.  Ha!  Attorneys and various military officers have been telling me that for the last eleven months.  Look where that’s gotten me. 
She activated the console, looking for current status. 
I trusted the system and where did it lead me?  Straight into the arms of a guilty verdict.  I was about to lose my commission, my freedom and what remained of my reputation.  No, if I’m going to get free, I have to do it myself.
  She tapped a few more commands.  Looking at the information scrolling down the screen, she gasped.

              The Federation had apparently decided to step things up.  A full battlegroup had come into the system and was systematically taking it apart.  Five battleships, eight battlecruisers, ten heavy cruisers and a score of light cruisers and destroyers.  The Republic defenders were losing, that much was clear. 
Titan
, the Republic flagship, had suffered some serious hits, its shields failed, and was bleeding atmosphere from three large breaches in the hull. 
Titan
was dying and the circling sharks were hammering her hard.  The other Republic ships were taking damage, but giving as good as they got.  Unfortunately, the Federation ships outnumbered the Republic ones and it was taking its toll.

              She had to get out of here.  There was nothing here for her now and with the confusion of the battle, this might be the best and only opportunity to get out she might ever see.  She had trusted the system long enough.  Now, she would trust herself and make good her escape. 

              While she had thought about escape during her months of incarceration, she hadn’t been so brazen as to actually plan an escape.  Now she was kicking herself for the oversight.  She
hated
having to do things on the fly.  It was one of the reasons she had gotten out of the starfighter corps and into engineering.  As an engineer, everything needed to be planned out.  Oh, certainly, there was a degree of chaos that had to be worked with and around, no plans ever survived contact with the enemy after all.  But things were much less fluid in the engineering corps, much more planned.

             
Oh, well
, she thought. 
Nothing for it now.  Okay, I’ve got the files and a change of clothes, but now I need to get out.  And that means heading for one of the hangar bays.

              Which was a problem.  Now at battle stations, all sections of the station would be filled with people doing their duties and working at their stations.  The hangar bays, in particular, would be especially alert, looking for fighters to be coming back for refueling and rearming, or shuttles on search and rescue.  However, perhaps she could catch a ride on one of the shuttles heading to one of the big ships, perhaps a cutter or a destroyer.  From there, perhaps she might be able to hide out long enough for the ship to jump to hyperspace.  Though if the battle continued and even if it ended, the ships here most likely would be staying here for repairs and defense of the shipyards.  It was unlikely that any ships would be jumping away.

              A problem indeed.  However, the station and the shipyard were not the only places in this system that had ships.  The colony on the fourth planet of the Hudora system, the planet which the shipyards and the station orbited, had no fewer than three spaceports which would have at least a few ships capable of faster-than-light travel.  It was there that Tamara Samair needed to go.  Which meant that the next thing she needed was a shuttle, a pinnace, or some other sort of ship that could get her down to the surface of Hudora Four.

              She hustled down the corridors, turning the familiar corners and moving through the comforting passages, some of which were illuminated by steady solid lighting, but in other places were only lit with flickering glowpanels.  The station was continuing to take hits, which caused Tamara to worry slightly.  This battle was going on for far too long, in her opinion.  Men and women were dying on both sides, and precious ships and equipment were being battered and destroyed.  Normally, this would be a welcome thing, damaged ships gave engineers like Tamara and her former team gainful employment.  This of course would put serious crimps into the shipyard build schedules, what with the vessels already under construction here. 

              It only took a short while longer to reach the closest hangar bay.  So far, the confusion of the battle and her change of clothing had fooled everyone.  Security was much more lax now; engineering teams were apparently being given free reign of the station for damage control duties.  Finding those coveralls might have been the best thing she could have done, she mused. 

              This was hangar bay twenty-two, one of the civilian bays on the lower section of the station.  The station itself was two hundred levels tall, cylindrical, with administration and other offices on the top sections of the station, merchant/cargo in the middle and engineering and reactor sections at the bottom.  The spidery-looking shipyards were arrayed out around the station, all of which was in a very high orbit of Hudora Four.  This bay, however, was one of the civilian ones, not like the larger military ones on one of the higher levels.  The bay housed three shuttles, one of which was down for repairs, Tamara could see one of the Felser-228 engines in pieces on the deck and grimaced at the reduction in her options.

              She supposed she might be able to get that shuttle up and running, simply cutting that downed engine out of the loop entirely, and try to take the vessel out on one engine.  But this was what she would have called a Bad Idea, because a ship like that would draw attention.  And since there wasn’t any real reason why a ship like that would need to be used; the station wasn’t losing atmosphere, yet, a shuttle trying to land on the planet on one engine would draw a lot of notice.  And since she was a very “popular” person in this system because of her arrest and trial, having customs or planetary security particularly alert to her transport probably wouldn’t be smart.

              She hustled over to a large coil of fiber optic cable, where she could see a pair of goggles had been abandoned.  Quickly, she pulled them on.  Smiling, she saw a patch of black thermal paint on the deck that had been spilled from an earlier job.  The stuff was terrible on skin, it caused a horrendous rash if not cleaned off, but she decided some mild skin irritation was preferable to getting hauled back to prison.  Casually, she dipped her left hand into the paint, then rubbed some on her ear lobe, and then on her cheek and nose, as though she had accidently wiped her face or scratched an itch and transferred the goop there.  It would alter her looks, hopefully enough to fool anyone looking directly at her.  Wiping her hand on her pant leg, she looked around for an opportunity.

              There was a crowd of people walking up the ramp into the second shuttle, the one in the center of the bay.  They looked like dignitaries, judging by the fine clothing and worried expressions.  Apparently, they had overridden standard Navy procedures and commandeered one of the shuttles here to go down to the planet during an alert status.  Normally, procedures called for all shuttles to be locked down until the battle or crisis ended, but it seemed that someone was unable to wait.  Or, rather, someone had the necessary pull to authorize a dangerous shuttle flight back down to the planet.

              Which was perfect for Tamara’s needs.  Now, all she needed to do was get aboard that ship.  Which had its own set of problems, since everyone on that shuttle was familiar with her trial and knew her face very well.  The dirty mechanic would have to get on board the shuttle and be inconspicuous for the entire trip down to the planet, then from there Tamara could slip away into the crowd and work out how she was going to get off planet.

              She started forward, going to take a roundabout route to the shuttle, and come up the ramp into the shuttle with the flight crew.  A hand grabbed her arm and something hard was shoved into her ribs.  “I don’t think so, bitch,” a hard voice bit into her ear.

              Islington.  “Took you long enough,” she said, keeping her voice low.  Her stomach filled with ice.  Bile rose in her throat.  A glance showed a gun in his hands and another quick look at the crowd in front of her showed that no one else had noticed yet.  “I could scream.”

              “You could,” he answered, amusement in his voice.  “Then I’d shoot you and say that the gun went off accidently.  A misfire.  And of course you were trying to escape, so I’d be a hero and you’d be dead.”

              “Then why aren’t I dead?” she asked, as he started to lead her out of the hangar bay.

              “Because I and the Captain have decided we want you dead, but we don’t want the long, drawn out drama of an investigation.  Better that you should be killed in a way that won’t trace back to us.”

              That didn’t sound good.  But there was nothing she could do, he wasn’t moving that gun from her and the grip on her arm was like iron.  Tamara was never much of a fighter, she always considered hand to hand combat something the Marines were there for.  Now she was deeply regretting not getting more training.  Well,
any
training after Basic all those years ago.

              They walked out of the hangar down the corridor.  He pulled her into one of the lifts and once the door closed, he released her and gave her a shove to the far side of the lift.  He took a step away as well, putting a good distance between them.

              “Where are we going?” she demanded.

              He shrugged.  “You’ll see.”

              “The suspense is killing me.”

              One of his eyebrows shot up.  “That’s an interesting way to put it.  If the captain didn’t have such a good plan, I might oblige that comment.”

              The lift came to a halt, and when the doors opened, he gestured with his free hand, the gun never wavering.  “After you.  To the left.”

              Tamara sighed.  Stepping out, she started to go left when she felt him right behind her, again, the weapon pressing against her back.  No doubt he was using his body to shield it from view. 

              They walked for about five minutes down the main corridor, then turned into a more secluded area.  This section, and the room they were now in, was on the outermost edge of the station.  Now she was really starting to get nervous.  There wasn’t an airlock here, but she was sure if Islington really wanted to he could find some way of pitching her out into space.  Freezing to death while all of her extremities burst and her lungs turned inside out wasn’t her idea of a “good death”.  In fact, Tamara didn’t plan on dying anytime soon, despite what Islington had in mind.

              He walked her up to the inside of the outer hull, up to a hatch.  Her eyes widened in terror. 
No.  No, no, no, no, no. 
“An escape pod?” she demanded, whirling around.  “I’m not getting in there.”

              “Yes, you are.”  The lieutenant seemed very sure of that.  “You can either get in there on your own.  Or,” he lowered the gun, but still pointed it at her, “I can put a round in your thigh and
then
you can get in there.”

              Her breathing was becoming very shallow.  She did
not
want to get in that escape pod.  In there, her options would drop to nearly zero and the fact that Islington had brought her here, to
this
particular escape pod meant he had most likely tampered with it.  Or knew that there was something wrong with it, or a hundred different possibilities.  Her fists were clenching and unclenching and the smile on his face was getting bigger and nastier.

              “I will… not… get in that escape pod,” she repeated, her voice shaking.

              His smile didn’t move one inch.  The gun fired.  It felt as though someone had slugged her hard in the left leg with a length of steel pipe.  The feeling of a red hot poker stabbed into her thigh, just above the knee.  The bullet punched through and out the back of her leg.  Tamara screamed and collapsed to the deck, clutching her leg.  “You bastard!” she shrieked.

              “I did warn you,” he replied.  He tossed her his belt.  “Tie this around the wound like a tourniquet.  It’s not going to take long before you bleed out.”  Gasping, she stuffed a rag on each side of the wound, then put the belt around the wound and pulled it tight, cinching it up.  Blood had pumped from the wound, but it had slowed considerably once she put on the belt.  “Now, get up off your whining ass and get inside the pod.”

              Breathing hard, sweat pouring down her face, she pulled herself along the deck to the hatch.  Pulling herself to her feet, she grabbed the handle on the hatch.  Pressing the appropriate controls, the hatch hissed and then popped open, swinging on well-oiled hinges.  The inside of the pod looked clean, well-maintained.  It was designed to hold six people, three on a side like in some passenger cars on liner ships.  She knew that a standard pod had enough foodstuffs on board for six people for a month, medical supplies, a toolkit, duct tape, and a distress beacon which would automatically activate once the pod was launched so that rescue forces could locate the occupants.  The pod was also equipped with hibernation equipment, to put the occupants in survival sleep for months, and sometimes years if rescue was known to be a long way off.

              She turned to look back at the lieutenant.  The gun was pointed at her, unwavering.  He was apparently unconcerned about the noise the gun made when fired.  “Get inside, bitch,” he said.