Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (11 page)

He
hadn't liked it but it had allowed the ship to maneuver into a more stable
orbit and it mollified the captain to ease up on his hard deadline. At least
for now.

He
had been at it for two hours, and was half finished. Three more orders of parts
had arrived, and he had had to re-task the fifth robot to installing them. The
pencil was good for that, it had small manipulators perfect for getting in and
out of tight areas, and it had enough fine motor control to handle the
sensitive sensors without damaging them.

He
pulled up the diagnostics and ran a check. They had installed nine of the
emitters, with six more to go. Sprite had scared up another pair of bots, these
were from the shuttles. They weren't very good but they helped in repairing the
EPS conduits. Right now every hand was vital. He had dozens of hands all
working on various parts of the ship's power train at the same time. There were
the five bots in the reactor and the four out on EPS duty. His two cleaner bots
were moving ahead of the EPS bots, scanning and probing for breaches and
logging them for later repair.

The
fuel lines were repaired, but the plasma vents and siphons were still stuck
open. The backup coolant valves were also welded shut and would most likely
need to be replaced. He checked the power reserves and sucked in his breath. In
less than two hours the life support would shut down. His shuttle was sucking
up fuel fast.  In an hour it would need to be refueled. Running on straight
hydrogen would drop its power efficiency by eighty percent. Not good.

“Sprite.
Cut...”

“Power
to all life support except the Co2 scrubbers. I know. On it,” she answered
sounding harried. He had the AI cut power to gravity, heat, and light emitters
on most of the decks, and re-tasked the robots to patch the shuttle power
network into the ship’s conduits, routing around shorts that were robbing them
of power. Every watt counted now.

“How
are we doing in there?” O'Mallory asked. He ignored her for a minute as the
bots muscled the next emitter into place and then started to hook up the
control runs.

“Better.
Ten pairs installed, we're hooking up the control runs to number ten now. I'm
swapping the bots so I can use the larger ones to handle the next step while
the smaller ones do the final connections. Assembly line,” he said in short
hand.

“Assembly
line?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in thought. She turned to a view screen
and watched the feed. One bot was bolting number ten down while two bots were plugging
in control runs. A second pair of larger bots including the large Hideyoshi
Mantobot were moving to the lock to pick up emitter number eleven. The yellow
pencil bot was installing sensors and running control runs ahead of the others.
It's manipulators were a blur, moving back and forth making connections with
what she hoped was precision.

“How
can you handle so many at the same time?” she asked.

“Practice.
And I'm not all alone. Sprite may be handling software repairs but Proteus is
in here with me as well as controlling the bots working on system repairs now,”
Irons answered.

“Proteus?”

“One
of my other AI's. Look chief not to be rude but I'm kind of busy here...”

“Oh
sorry,” she said as he twitched a hand. She backed off and turned away. “I
wanted you to know we're down to canned air and we're even tapping the EVA
suits. We're going to have to shut down your replicators now.”

“Damn.
Okay,” he said absently, pulling number eleven out of the lock and into the
reactor chamber. He pivoted it gently and then lined it up for installation.

An
hour and a half later the repairs were complete. He pulled the other bots out
and tucked them into the storage alcoves. The Mantobot was too large however.
Grimacing he opened the exterior hatch and ejected the thing. If they had the
facilities they could decontaminate the damn thing. He wasn't sure if it was
worth the effort though, the bot was a pain in the ass to use. He vowed to make
them another as he watched it tumble up the tube and into space. Okay maybe not
a Mantobot though, something that actually was easy to use and abuse.

“Good
bye, thanks and good riddance. Chief we're running start up tests now. Time to
get the seed and start warm up.”

“Injectors
are priming now Admiral. We've cleared the kink in the fuel line, thanks for
pointing it out,” she said. He nodded absently. Proteus had pointed it out, as
well as numerous small fuel leaks in their system. All were now patched. He
felt the systems aligning, felt the chamber warming.

“Seed
is extracted from the reactor and it is in transit admiral,” Proteus informed
him. He raised an eyebrow. That was quick.

“I
anticipated the request,” Sprite said before he could ask.

“Oh,”
he said.

“Barry
is following along at a respectful distance. We should be seeing it in a minute
five sir.”

“Good
enough. Chamber status?” he asked, eyes still closed as he watched the implant
feeds. He grunted at the display. It wasn't spec, but it would have to do. They
were out of time.

When
the bot carrying the seed got there it bobbed and went straight for the chamber
door. The airlock opened and a crew member nearby looked up nervously then got
out of the way as the bot floated in and then shut the door.

“What
about the bot?” O'Mallory asked.

“I'll
have to eject it. No choice. There isn't any room and it's not built for the
radiation,” Irons replied.

“Ouch,”
she said.

“I'll
make another,” Irons said as the seed floated free of its container. He watched
the bot eject itself and then turned his attention on the injector and sensor
feed.

“Seed
has been picked up by the emitters. Flattening.”

“Don't
let it string out to a ribbon. Keep it bottled to keep it warm,” Irons ordered.
If they let the surface area get too large it would lose heat too fast.

“Noted.”

“Fuel
injection beginning. Lasers are online and chamber is prewarmed. Firing... we
have initial ignition but it flamed out.”

“Prewarm
the fuel,” he ordered. They should have done that from the beginning he thought
with an irritated kick at himself for not checking. “Any bugs?”

“Minor
and self correcting now Admiral,” Proteus reported.

O'Mallory
felt like a spectator as she and her crew watched the readouts on the rebuilt
screens. “Come on baby light,” she muttered softly. “Please please light...”

“Second
attempt. Fuel is breaking alignment. We have a ribbon.”

“Damn.”

“Emitter
nine is kicking. Compensating,” Proteus reported.

“Noted.
Ignition temperatures?”

“Life
support is offline. Ignition temperatures at forty million degrees Kelvin and
climbing at ten million degrees per minute.”

“Understood.
Wait for firing until we're up to one hundred million,” Irons replied. One
hundred million degrees Kelvin was the standard temperature to achieve ignition
temperatures.

“Pinch
is sustained. We have a ball and ribbon. Minor oscillation detected.”

“Let's
try not to make it worse. Try not to overcompensate,” Irons said patiently.
Proteus wasn't really the AI for a job like this. It was a repair and design
AI, not a ship AI. Right now though the AI was all they had.

“Ignition
temperatures achieved. Firing lasers. We have ignition,” Proteus reported.

Irons
grunted as the lasers fired on the ball of seed plasma. It flared into a
miniature sun and then spread along the ribbon until it met itself.

He
ignored the cheers in the room as Proteus eased the injectors up a bit and the
fuel increased. “Tap the stream!” The chief cried.

“Belay
that!” Irons bellowed. “You do that now and you'll strip her and she'll flame
out. We need to get a good ball going before you can do that. Just a little
longer. Five minutes until we've got a surplus and it's self sustaining,” Irons
said.

“Roger,”
O'Mallory grunted.

“Just
a little more chief. Patience,” he said quietly.

“I
gathered that,” she said, eyes on the screen. “We're getting reports of people
falling ill all over the ship admiral.”

“My
shuttle is...” he checked. Yes the shuttles were back on task, some of the life
support had been restored to the critical decks. Obviously not enough. “It's
working on it,” he said.

“Not
enough. It's a launch.”

“I
know. Believe me I know. I'm going to have to tear it's systems down and
rebuild the reactor after this,” he sighed.

“Somehow
I think you'll enjoy it,” O'Mallory replied, lips twitching in a small smile.
Irons looked up at her and then smiled a little himself.

“True,”
he said with a shrug and a self depreciating chuckle.

“I'll
help,” she said. A few people in the room echoed that. He nodded.

“Teamwork,”
he said. “Chief status on the plasma conduits? We're going to be dumping some
plasma soon so we don't want a breach.”

“Not
on my watch,” she said as she turned to her crew. “Check and then check again.
Give me a status report.”

“Reactor
output is at nine percent and climbing steadily. We've got a stable bottle
chief.”

“Will
wonders never cease,” O'Mallory muttered. Irons snorted softly. The reactor was
a stacked double torus; each torus had twenty four paired emitters. Fuel was
injected in the center, squeezed and superheated into a fusion reaction then
the resulting helium plasma was siphoned off the top and bottom. It was a
classic Tokomak generation ninety arrangement, civilian grade of course. The
fact that it was stable was a testimony to the crew. Or would have been without
the unseen presence of Proteus managing the bottle.

Sprite
was working on a subroutine, collecting data from Proteus and creating a series
of control systems for the bottle. It wouldn't be as good as a dedicated AI
watching over the bottle, but it would serve the purpose for most applications.

 When
the repairs were made the engineer took a break to rest and noticed additional
guards and the captain. Defender brought up the audio of the conversation. “I
want him off my ship. Now. Preferably spaced,” the captain said coldly but
quietly. Irons frowned but continued to study the readouts.

“Cap
after all he's done? Destiny is right, he's an asset!” O'Mallory said in
despair.

“Let
them deal with him then,” the captain growled.

“They
can't. They are almost to the jump point and out of range. By the time we get a
call through to them it would be too late. Besides, he wants to go on to
Antigua.”

“We
have a duty to carry him Cap. He held up his end of the bargain.” O'Mallory
glanced his way. “I say he more than held up his end of the bargain.”

“I...”

“Cap
there is more. He's my godfather,” Warner said gently but firmly. O'Mallory's
eyes went wide as the captain turned on the exec. “Yes, that's right. My
parents named me after him,” he indicated the still seated Admiral. “He did a
great deal for my family. I owe him.
We
owe him. We pay our debts. I pay
my debts.”

The
captain went to retort but was interrupted by the hatch opening. He turned and
paused when his wife and daughter pass through. Behind him were the rest of the
ship's senior officers and half of the ship's council. He pursed his lips,
easily reading his wife.

Cora
ran her hand through her curly blond hair and looked around in confusion. Her
daughter Toni pointed to the unfamiliar man seated at a console.

The
captain watched as his daughter and wife made their way with stately grace over
to Irons and bowed. Irons looked up amused. The two ladies were obviously
mother and daughter from the way the older woman seemed to hover over the teen.
Both were lookers but for some reason they didn't look alike. The mother was
thin, built like a china doll with short curly Shirley Temple hair. The teen
was more closely aligned with Terran normal, about one hundred and fifty
centimeters; she towered over her mother by a good twenty centimeters. While
her mother's skin was china white her's was much more of a golden hue. Her hair
was blond at the roots but with black tips and streaks. Either it was a dye job
or she had the genetic change that allowed her hair to change color every year.
That had been a big fad back in the mid twenty first century apparently.

“On
behalf of this ship and it's passengers I'd like to thank you for saving our
lives Admiral,” she said proffering a fine delicately boned hand.

Irons
stood and took the hand and shook it gently. “Thank you ma'am. It is part of my
duty to help ships in distress ma'am,” he said bowing over it slightly.

“Even
if you are on the ship?” she asked, cocking her head and smiling a little.

“Especially
then ma'am,” he said with a snort. She laughed softly as their hands
disengaged.

“My
name is Cora, Cora Chambers. I am the captain's wife and in charge of our
passengers. I apologize for not meeting you sooner but I was otherwise
engaged.”