Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (90 page)

              No one was trying to argue with an angry zheen carrying a heavy blaster rifle.  The freighter crew had no weapons and they were all still restrained.  It took a moment, but the Captain elbowed his way to the front.  “What do you want?” he yelled back at the soldiers.

              “Where is the Captain of this ship?” the zheen replied.

              “I’m the Captain,” Eamonn told him flatly.  Several of his crew stood at his back and shoulders, trying to present a unified front.  More than a few, however, sidled away, afraid to draw too much attention to themselves.  Tamara stepped up right beside him, he glanced over at her, but quickly back to the soldiers in the entryway.  She was looking at them, not him, determination on her face.  “I’ve got wounded here that need immediate medical attention.”

              The zheen emitted a high pitched, trilling hiss.  “I could end their suffering right now, if that would make you feel better,
Captain
.”  He hefted his weapon suggestively.

              “I’m serious,” Eamonn demanded.  “My crewmembers will die if they and my doctor cannot access the equipment in sickbay.”

              “I am serious as well,
Captain
,” the zheen replied, mockingly.  The laughter stopped.  “If your crewmen will not survive, then so be it.  I have no orders to save anyone.  In fact, I
do
have orders to put down any further resistance.  So if these dying crewmen are going to be a problem for you and you make it a problem for
me
…”  He trailed off.  “Then I will make it so there is no problem.  Do I need to demonstrate my seriousness?”

              “No you do not,” Eamonn ground out, the muscles in his jaw clenching. 

              “Now, you are coming with me.”

              Eamonn started.  “No I’m not.  I’m staying right here.”

              The zheen buzzed again, his antennae straightening slowly.  “Yes, Captain, you are.  Or I start shooting.”  He aimed his blaster rifle straight at Eamonn’s chest.  “Now.”

              The captain nodded.  “Moxie, take charge.  Corajen’s out, Quesh is out, and George is out.  That leaves you.”  He started walking forward, not waiting for an answer.

              “Aye, aye, Captain,” Tamara replied.  “Good luck.”

              “Moxie is in charge,” the captain yelled as he walked forward to the doors, where the soldiers closed in around him, keeping a respectful distance.  “Be back soon!”

              The murmurs among the crew rose to a crescendo as the Captain was lead out of the cargo bay, the doors closing behind him and his “protectors.”              Several of the nearby crewmen turned to Tamara, concern and worry all over their faces.

              “What do we do, Tamara?” Mairi asked.  She was the closest, having followed right behind when Tamara had fought her way through the crowd to stand by the Captain. 

              Tamara chuckled.  “The very first thing we do,” she said, pausing for effect, looking out at everyone staring back at her, “Is get these damned restraints off.”  The others laughed nervously, grateful to at least have some small amount of direction.  The plastic zip ties were tough, designed to resist breaking, normally would require snips or some sort of blade to remove them.  “See if there’s any exposed or rough surfaces,” she ordered.  “Everyone not working with the Doctor, please look around and find something to cut off these bindings.”  They all started moving, which was good, it would keep their minds off their situation, the condition of the ship and the thousand other things that might paralyze them.

              Stepping off the shuttle in the landing bay of
Ganges
, the group of soldiers escorted their prisoner to one of the secure conference rooms.  The interior of
Ganges
was similar to the outside, it was patched together with mismatched components.  It looked somewhat modular in design, perhaps built in different star systems or different parts of one star system and then transported to the dry dock in Hecate for final assembly.  In fact, that would explain a lot of things, though it wouldn’t explain who had financed all of this.  Serinda may have been right all those months ago that the ship wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, but it was certainly powerful.  Compared to what else was in the Cluster nowadays,
Ganges
alone would have been able to dominate the local forces.  But two other cruisers, a corvette and a handful of modified merchant ships?  There would be very little that the commander of such a flotilla couldn’t do.

              “Sit,” the leader told him, shoving the man had in the center of the back.  Eamonn stumbled, but he went over to the table and sat, deliberately choosing one of the chairs on the left side of the table.  He didn’t want to put his back to the door (and the soldiers) but he didn’t want to be at the far end of the rectangular table right in front of the door either.  He groaned as he settled himself into the hard metal chair, shifting his weight to try and find a comfortable position.

              He raised his bound wrists.  “Can we take these off now, please?”

              The zheen let out a hissing laughter.  “That will not happen.”

              “I’m sitting in a chair on your ship, genius,” Eamonn said, his temper rising.  “What is it you expect me to be able to do here?”

              But the insectoid just shook his head.  “I have no orders to do that, and I will not be removing them until I do.”

              “Where do you think I’m going to try to go?” the human persisted.

              Another hiss.  “I know exactly where you are going.  You are going nowhere.  As you say, you are now aboard our ship and you are under guard.”

              The door opened behind the leader and he stepped to the side, allowing room for someone to enter.  Another zheen, accompanied by a graying human entered the conference room.  The leader nodded deferentially to the two newcomers, and moved off to the side of the room, the other two soldiers going to the far side of the room from him.  The battle-scarred zheen who entered clearly carried an air of authority with him, as well as one of a dangerous predator. 

              Eamonn’s face split in a smile.  “Commander Jensen Tyler, sir!  It’s so very good to see you well.”

              The commander’s face went beet red with anger.  “You sit there and joke, you clearly are more of a fool than I originally thought.”

              “No, I’m just very glad to see that your brand new cruiser didn’t get all banged up in our little encounter.”

              “Unlike the other two of my cruizerz,” Verrikoth said, his voice strangely free of anger.  He held out a hand to silence the human commander who looked as though he was about to have an aneurysm.  “
Meghna
and
Kerala
will require ssome time for repairz.  Far longer than I cared to sspend, if I am honesst.”

              Eamonn shrugged, rubbing one hand on his brown-skinned face.  “Sorry to inconvenience you,” he replied, a trace of bitterness in his voice.

              But the zheen surprised him, by laughing, that same sort of hissing laugh that the leader had done earlier.  “Inconvenienss.  Yess, you have cauzed me a good deal of inconvenienss.  But I now have a new sship in my growing fleet.”

              “A bulk freighter among your fast warships would only slow you down,” Eamonn pointed out.  “
Grania Estelle
would only be a liability.”

              Verrikoth shrugged.  “Not true.  A freighter az large az that sship would be a great asset.  True, it would be foolish to tie my fleet down to ssuch a sslow vessel.  That iz why I would detail
Ravage
to act as a permanent esscort sship.  That would keep the freighter ssafe, and my fleet well ssupplied.”

              “I love my ship,” the captain told him, “But a bulk freighter is very good at transporting exactly what the name implies.  Yes, we could load up on a variety of things, but my ship is really not meant to supply a fleet.  A base, perhaps, if you’ve got active contracts with a group of planets.”

              “That would be acceptable,” the zheen replied.  “I have no dezire to bring my new sship into a war zone.”

              “You sound like you’re interviewing me for a job,” Eamonn replied.  “You want to hire me?”

              “I need a crew to operate the sship,” Verrikoth admitted. 

              “You just attacked my ship, chopped it up and then sent armed boarding parties to chop my crew up further.  I think only because I surrendered are any of my people still alive.”

              “Oh, sstop whining,” Verrikoth spat.  “If I was sso inclined I would kill you right now and your crew with you.  You work for me, you get paid.  You get to fix up your ship, you get to hire on more crew and I get my goods sshipped to and from my basez in the Clusster.  No one will touch your sship because it iz under my protection.  Everybody winz.”

              Vincent Eamonn could see the chasm yawning at his feet.  It did sound good, to finally have steady runs, to know that money would be coming in.  To never have to worry about pirates simply because of the label on his ID tag.  But there would be more to it, a hidden cost.  Perhaps one that wasn’t even that hidden.

              “So assuming I accept,” Eamonn replied, “
Grania Estelle
is a wreck right now.  She won’t be going anywhere for a while.  And I get the feeling you have pressing business elsewhere.”

              Tyler bristled at this, but the zheen, both Verrikoth and the soldier standing at Eamonn’s back hissed with laughter.  “It sseemz you are quite clever.”

              “It’s all about knowing your audience,” he said confidently, swallowing the bitter taste of bile in his throat for even considering this.  “Equally important in any form of business, be it trade or battle.”

              Verrikoth’s antennae bobbed up and down in a nod.  “I like you, human.  You are clever and you think well on your feet.  Commander Tyler does not agree with that assessment, it seems.”

              “I don’t see why Commander Tyler has any reason to complain about me,” Eamonn drawled.

              Tyler spluttered in rage, his fists clenching, but the zheen forestalled him with a raised hand.  “How do you figure that?  He tellz me that you tried to ssteal a load of gadolinium conssigned to Hecate.”

              “That’s true,” Eamonn admitted and Tyler’s eyebrows raised in surprise.  “The consignment part, anyway.  We picked up the load in Folston, and renegotiated the contract with the locals there.  They’d give us the load at a ten percent discount, but they would waive the massive late fees since we weren’t the original shipper.  I turned up in Hecate and the locals refused to honor the contract.  I got wind that they were going to board the ship and take it, most likely helping themselves to whatever else in my holds they wanted as well.  So I decided to leave.  They then decided the best way to handle this was to launch fighters and disable my ship.”  He grinned, a feral look.  “I fought back.  The locals got upset at my shooting down their fighters and contacted the Commander here aboard this ship to chase us down and finish the job.  In the end, he got his shipment and I exited the system.  As I said before, I’m unsure what he’s so upset about.  He got his shipment at
no
charge while I made no profit on that run and had to spend time, resources and man-hours to repair the damage.”  He looked at the fuming military officer.  “People should be grateful when a sweet deal like that falls into their laps.”

              A vein in Tyler’s neck pulsed and the man looked as though he would leap the table and throttle the merchant captain.  But Verrikoth’s look was speculative.  “I believe, Captain Eamonn that we could work well together.”

              He knew enough of zheen body language to read the pirate captain before him.  He was confident.  He did, in fact, hold all the cards, it was only a matter of whether he would allow Eamonn to live.  And he knew that Eamonn was aware of this.  So the captain was faced with a choice.  He could accept the offer and work with a pirate or he could stand on his newfound honor and ideals and die nobly.

              Eamonn nodded slowly.  “I’d like to know the name of my employer,” he said.  “I don’t like to work for someone I don’t know.”

              “Sir, may I have a word with you in private?” Tyler asked, his voice strained.

              “Yess, Commander you may,” Verrikoth replied.  “To you, captain, I agree.  I do not like ssurprizez.  I am Verrikoth.”  He gestured to the guard.  “He’ll no longer need those.  Captain Eamonn now workss for me.  Esscort him back to hiz sship and let him get to work.  I want
Grania Esstelle
to be up and running in sshort order.” 

              Eamonn nodded and stood as the zheen guard came over and removed the restraints.  The captain winced as the feeling came back to his hands.  He rubbed his wrists.  “Good to be working with you, Captain Verrikoth.”

              The zheen and his companion had started to turn away to leave, and he stopped and turned back.  “For me, Captain Eamonn,” he corrected, his voice imparting the dire warning.  “For me.”