Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (85 page)

              “Sensors are coming back up,” the operations watch stander called out. 

              “Excellent,” Hana replied, clumping his heavy booted feet over to that station and staring at the readouts.  “What the hell?”  He saw the feeds and displays showing the new arrivals, and that the big freighter had moved in on an approach vector toward the station, but now it seemed to be turning to dive down, straight relative to the system ecliptic.  “Where the hell do those bastards think they’re going?  Are communications up?” he bellowed to his exec.

              The long-suffering officer nodded.  “Yes, sir.  But short range only.  We can’t send a signal to the orbital yet.”

              “That’s fine.  Divert the defense ships to go after that freighter.”  He grinned.

              “Why?” the exec asked.

              The toad turned on him, raising his gun.  “You only need to worry about following my orders,” he told him.  “Don’t you worry about the why.”

              The exec raised his hands.  “Very good, sir.  No whys.  But what are the defense ships’ orders once they catch up?”

              “They are to force the freighter to return back to the station, by any means necessary.  If they refuse to stop, disable their engines.”  Administrator Hana stroked his jowls with his free hand, lowering the gun.  “Where are we on detaining their crew?”

              The exec shook his head.  “Security intercepted them in the hangar bay, apparently they broke into the holding room and got the three survivors from that light freighter.  They shot their way out of the hangar, though the security team indicated that they managed to cause some damage to the shuttle’s propulsion.”

              The toad brightened.  “Then we can grab them?”

              The exec shook his head again.  “No, sir.  I’m sorry.  It looks as though the bulk freighter came in at just the right moment, the shuttle landed aboard and then the big ship made their turn.  They’re accelerating toward the hyper limit.”

              Hana growled.  “Are they going to make it before the pinnaces catch them?”

              The comm watch officer was already issuing orders.  “The defense ships are en route.  They should catch them in less than fifty minutes.”

              “Good.  Make sure that they do.”

              “Captain, the defense pinnaces are turning toward us and accelerating,” Stella reported. 

              George nodded in confirmation.  “I’m seeing them too, Captain.  They’re moving to intercept.”

              The captain frowned.  “Lucky us.  We couldn’t have been less popular the last time we were here.  They were in a hurry to get rid of us.  Now it seems that everyone wants us to stay.”  He sighed.  “Not sure how I feel about that.”

              The officers exchanged glances, worry plain on all their faces, but no one replied to his rhetorical question.  The hatch to the bridge opened and Tamara stepped inside.  “Permission to enter the bridge?”

              “Get in here,” the captain ordered, not taking his eyes from the controls. 

              “You wanted to see me?”

              He nodded.  “Yes.  I want to know if you have any tricks you can throw out at our ever increasing number of followers.”

              She pursed her lips in thought.  Stella appeared on the holo at the front of the bridge and looked over at her.  “Well, opening fire is certainly not an option.  We don’t really have the firepower to hurt any of them, except maybe the pinnaces, but if any of those proper warships get near us, we’re toast.”

              He frowned at her.  “Yes, thanks, I determined that on my own.”

              Tamara nodded, smiling slightly.  “Sorry, I was just thinking out loud.  There isn’t really much more we can do, Captain.  I mean we can try another cyber attack, like the one Xar’s team managed on the station, but that’s iffy.  It worked because the station’s crew wasn’t prepared for it and they didn’t know that it was his team that had done it.  We don’t really know the hardware and software on those warships, so I don’t know if the malware we have would work on them.  I know it
will
work on the pinnaces, but the only problem is, we’d have to send it to them by radio communication.”

              “So?”

              “So, if we do that, then everyone will know that it was us who did it.  And if it doesn’t work, or doesn’t disable them completely enough, they’ll probably shoot us down,” she pointed out.

              “As opposed to now,” he shot back.  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Moxie, but the ships coming after us probably aren’t doing so because they want to have us invite them in for tea.”

              She nodded.  “All right, Captain.  I’ll get with Stella and the Chief and see what we can do.  In the very least we might be able to whittle the number of ships chasing us down a little.”

              “Better than nothing,” he agreed.  “Get on it and report back.  And do it fast, Moxie.  They are closing in on us rather quickly for my tastes.”

              “
Grania Estelle
is turning, sir,” the sensor watch reported. 

              Tyler and Verrikoth moved to the control station.  “Yess.  Order
Ajax
,
Cierre
,
Nocturne
and
Ssquire
to break off purssuit and head to the fueling sstation.  They will get with the sstation authoritiez and ssecure our fuel ssupply.  The rest of the flotilla will continue after Commander Tyler’z wayward sship.”

              The comm officer relayed the orders and in seconds, four of the ships broke from the formation, their vectors curving around to take them to the fueling station.  The remaining ships were continuing on course.  But now those ships, the cruisers and the corvette were arcing around as well to an intercept with the freighter.  It seemed as though the captain of the
Grania Estelle
thought that he could sprint to the hyper limit and Verrikoth’s ships either couldn’t catch him or would give up the pursuit.  The zheen looked over at his flag captain.  It was clear that Commander Tyler was not going to let this go.  And there was no reason
to
let it go.  His ships were fast and powerful, more than a match for an aging bulk freighter.  It couldn’t escape.  His ships would cut them off long before they reached the hyper limit.

              “Sir, I’ve got more ships coming out from the fueling station,” the sensor watch reported, pointing at the indicators on the display.  “They look small, pinnace-sized.  They’re moving fast, on vectors to intercept the
Grania Estelle
.”

              “Stop calling that ship by name,” Tyler hissed.  “I don’t ever want to hear that name again.”  The officer looked up at the commander in fear.  “You call it Target One from now on, do you understand?”

              “Yes, Commander.  Sorry, sir.”  The man tried to look contrite.

              Tyler nodded.  “Just don’t do it again.  Can you bring up sensor readings on those small ships?”

              The man obliged.  He was right, the attack ships were larger than starfighters and the power readings on them indicated legs long enough to move around the system easily without frequent refueling stops.  He’d seen ships similar to this in other industrialized systems, where governments wanted ships to handle local policing of freighters and such with enough weapons to be able to keep everyone in line. 

              “Will they get to the Target One before we will?”

              “They’ll reach them before we will, sir,” the sensor officer answered.  “But we’ll be in weapons range before they can dock with them.”

              “Good.  Continue on course and speak with engineering about getting us more speed.”

              Tamara’s fingers flew over the keyboard at her station in engineering.  She had isolated it from the rest of the ship’s network, physically uncoupling the connections to the rest of the ship so that there would be no accidents.  Stella was reviewing and adding her own little tricks to the special package.  Finally, she stopped, then hit three more controls and let the program run.  The other engineering crew were working around her at their own consoles, maintaining the ship’s systems at full thrust.

              “Looking good,” Stella admitted.  “Though I’m begging you to please be careful with that, Tamara.  I don’t need to have that spreading out through my systems.”

              “You’re such a worry wart,” Tamara teased her.  “What happened to the gung-ho creation that advocated charging headlong to save the prisoners aboard the
Emilia Walker
?”

              “She’s had time to reconsider,” Stella admitted.  “I thought it over, reviewed the sensor readings and then realized that they were right.  I got overconfident because of the upgrades and repairs.  And I saw the other ship, the
Emilia Walker
getting attacked and I just… snapped.”  She hung her head and stopped talking.  Tamara looked up from the screen at her.

              “Are you okay?” she asked the AI.

              “I don’t know what happened to me, Tamara,” Stella said, sounding miserable.  “I risked everything.  The lives of the crew, the ship, everything.  And for what?  What have we accomplished?”

“Well, you got the Captain to move the ship close enough to the fueling station fast enough that we were in exactly the right position to grab Xar and his team.  We might not have gotten there in time if you hadn’t.”

“I know, and I feel good about that, but what about the crew?  They nearly all hate the Captain now.  I’ve driven a huge wedge between Taja and the Captain.  And who will trust me now?  They’ll think I’m a defective program, not worthy of serving with, and certainly not one they can trust.”

“All right, calm down, Stella,” Tamara told her.  “Once this is done, I’m going to run a full series of diagnostics, all right?  I don’t think there’s anything wrong, but I’ll check.  I want to keep working with you.”

Stella’s face looked stricken.  “You think I’ve snapped?  That my code is defective?”

“Relax, Stella,” Tamara soothed.  “It’s just a checkup.  That’s all.  You were checking up on me, now it’s my turn for you.”  The AI was clearly still worried.  “Please calm down, Stella.  Do you think that if I thought there was any kind of problem with you I’d be playing with this malware program instead of looking at your core matrix?”

“But do you trust me, Tamara?”

She looked over at Stella’s image, appearing so weak and vulnerable.  She looked like the little lost teenager she appeared to be.  Tamara couldn’t help but marvel at her handiwork.  Of course, now was not really the most opportune time for the ship’s AI to decide to have an emotional breakdown, what with two different groups chasing after them, looking to kill them or capture them.

“I trust you, Stella.  I wouldn’t work with you if I didn’t.  Now I really need you to calm down and focus.”  Tamara checked the coding as it scrolled by.  “Run one more test on this.  Looks okay to me, but I need to be sure.”

The AI sniffed, a very organic gesture, but then she straightened.  “Right, of course.  Scanning now.”  Thirty-five seconds later, the AI blinked.  “Looks good.  Ready to transmit.”

Tamara activated her comms.  “Captain, the malware is ready to transmit at your command.  I recommend you let Stella do it, because I don’t want any accidents.”

“I completely agree.  Good work, Moxie, Stella.  Send it.”

“Opening a channel to the pinnaces,” Stella announced.  “Sending transmissions.”

Goris Hana stared at the display, quivering with excitement.  His pinnaces were almost in range of that bulk freighter.  The pilots were ready to open fire on the
Grania Estelle
’s engines and then he could have that big bitch brought in.  And then he would get some answers and some damned satisfaction. 

“I think I’m going to keep the hull,” he muttered to himself.  “Make an excellent storage vessel, hell, I think I might even get her fixed up so we could make hauls to nearby systems.”  He nodded as he made the decision.  “Yes.  If they don’t shoot it up too much, I think that’s what I’m going to do with her.”

But then the display flickered.  “Damn it!  Are the systems acting up again?” he demanded.  His gun was back in his meaty paw again. 

The ops crew recoiled in fear.  “No, sir, they’re not.  We’re still up and running.”

“Then why is that screen flickering?” he bellowed, waving the gun in the air. 

“It’s happening on the other end,” the sensor operator replied, his voice unsteady.  “Whatever is happening is on the other side.  On the ships.”

“Now what is that?” Hana asked, pointing at the cluster of signatures that were approaching. 

“Ships, sir,” the man replied, doing an admirable job of keeping his voice and tone steady.  “Eight of them, sir.  Four of them look like freighters, they’re breaking off from the others and heading in our direction.  The others look more like proper warships; a corvette and three cruisers.  They’re going after the freighter, sir.”