Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (3 page)

BOOK: Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)
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“Not
much more for me to do here,” he said waving his free hand to the room.

“True.
I'll do what I can admiral,” Sprite said. He felt Defender take over the
counter intrusive duties. He nodded and closed his eyes.

 

Waking
four hours later with a wicked headache, he made a note to check the atmosphere
and do something about it. He felt his nanites release analgesics into his
blood stream to end the headache.

Defender
reported to him that three people had attempted to get into the shuttle. The
housekeeping robot was still at work, but had completed two of the walls. He
realized it was the smell of the filth from the bot that was bothering him. In
an enclosed space it was pretty overpowering.

 Grimacing
in distaste at the smell, he turned the air exchange up to high and used his
pharmaceutical storage to give him a more powerful analgesic.

“Report,”
he ordered, sitting on the bed and putting his boots on. “Sprite?” he asked. He
felt her return just before he unjacked.

“Huh?
Sorry admiral. I didn't get much; the ship's net is a mess. Civilians,” she
said with a sniff of disdain. “You'd think they'd know by now to keep their
system clean if they want to stay alive,” she said in disgust.

“Some
people don't know better until you teach them Sprite,” he replied.

“Well,
I tried to get into main engineering but it's firewalled from the main system.
I recognized some of the blocks; they were made by someone relatively competent
with military training. Since I didn't want to sound any alarms I left them
alone.”

“Okay,”
he said with a nod.

“The
same goes for the bridge functions. They're firewalled as well. The purser's
files are not on the system, it appears to be a separate system.”

“Smart.”

“Most
of what is on the net that I could access was life support and civilian
recreational games and material.”

“Security?”

“Firewalled.
But I did track down the links to this deck and this room and set up my own
protective bots.”

“Okay,”
he said with a nod. “We'll need to fab some security system for the room then
since I don't plan on spending the entire trip in here,” he said.

“Agreed,”
Sprite said.

 

He
dressed, grabbed a drink of tepid water and then headed out. Out in the
corridor, he set his toolkit down and began working on the flickering lights. A
burly Terran crew member walked up to him, started to protest, but when he
noticed the light come back on stopped his imminent protest. He shrugged and
continued on his way.

“Think
he'll report you?” Sprite asked.

Irons
looked over his shoulder to where the crew member had disappeared to and then
shrugged. “I have no idea. I don't care right now. This flickering is getting
on my nerves. Can you make an appointment with the purser or chief engineer?”
he asked as he tucked the wiring away.

“No
since I can't get access to the net right now,” Sprite reminded him.

“Oops,”
he said.

“Yeah.
I highly doubt you'll get anywhere with the purser. I'm betting he or she will
have their guard up in case of the usual griping about the condition of the
room and ship.”

“True,”
Irons said. “They've probably heard it all before.”

“Well,
no, not from you. An offer to help repair things would probably be a surprise.
But something tells me he or she would say thanks but no thanks,” she said.

“Still
don't have a crew list?” Irons asked.

“No,”
she replied sounding peeved. “I've got a partial list. The chief engineer...
current chief engineer is a Terran female named Quinna O'Mallory. Age
undetermined. I've got about seventy nine other names but I can't match them to
anyone right now.”

“Ouch,”
Irons said. An AI hated not having the right data.

“Can
we get a wireless node? Please?”

“Let
me finish up here. I'll work my way to the bay.”

“Fine,”
Sprite said sighing. She knew he was focused on the project in front of him.
The admiral always liked to get his hands dirty.

The
engineer continued down the corridor, patching the lights and grav plates to
restore the corridor. He wasn't really replacing anything, his nanites could
make minor repairs but he was more focused on finding the problem spots and
routing around them. There were a lot of shorts. He found signs of minor
electrical fires in several junction boxes. That was definitely not good.

Some
of the grav plates were down, having reached their max impedance, so he had
Proteus create a more balanced schematic for the other grav plates, then
implemented it. It would mean a reduced gravity quotient in the hallway, but
that was better than the spotty coverage they currently had now.

The
housekeeping robot radioed Sprite to tell her it was finished, so he turned it
loose on the corridor. Fortunately there was a functional dock for the little
bot to attach itself to when it needed to dump and recharge.  Sprite was making
sure it wasn't attempting to connect to the ship net; there was no telling what
viruses would try to get in and what they would do to the little bot.

“You
know you haven't eaten since we left Destiny right admiral?” Sprite sighed. He
snorted.

“I
think it would be wise to eat. I can jack in to check on things while you do,”
she suggested.

“Being
helpful or trying to find a distraction?” Irons asked amused. He was fairly
certain the suggestion of a meal was both to get him to refuel and allow her to
jack in at the same time. AI did like to multitask after all.

“A
bit of both,” Sprite admitted. “From what this ship looked like I don't think
you will be idle for much longer admiral. It was a good idea to refuel now
before events get out of hand and you no longer have time to do so,” she said.

 “How
long has... huh,” he said as she put a time since his last meal up on his HUD.
Realizing he hadn’t eaten in fourteen hours, he found a food replicator in the
middle of the hall and made repairs, splicing in parts from his toolkit until
it was repaired and up and running. He made a bowl of porridge and a cup of
water, and then returned to his quarters to eat. The porridge and water had a
metallic taste so he tried to choke it down without losing his temper.

“Nasty?”
Sprite asked.

“Definitely
not mom's fried chicken,” he retorted. He dumped the bowl and cup into the
refresher for recycling. “Water has a sulfur and metallic taste. Metallic taste
in the porridge. I'm not sure if it's from the replicator, the piping, or
whatever they are trying to pass off as base substrate.”

“Probably
all of the above admiral. That line hasn't been flushed in who knows how long,”
Sprite replied.

“Probably,”
he said with a grimace.

 

Quinna
O'Mallory glared at her crew. Most were cringing under that unyielding gaze.
The chief was a fire cracker; damn good at her job but someone you really
didn't want to cross. “I told you to get in that damn ship and get what we
need.”

“We...
ah... we can't. It's protected,” Barry said shaking his head. He'd tried, he
honestly had. So had Leia, Ralph, and Daren. Marko had been zapped for his
trouble.

“So?
You're an engineer! Figure it out!” She threw her hands up in the air in
disgust.

“Everything
we use get's zapped. If you touch the hull it well...” he shrugged and looked
at Marko who held up a bandaged hand.

“Zapped,”
Quinna echoed, hands on her hips. “I'll talk to the exec. Get something to
crack that shuttle's hull and get in there or we're all going to be sucking
vacuum soon.”

The
men blanched and then nodded, leaving as she nodded her chin to the door. “Damn
it, what else can go wrong?” she demanded.

 

John
Henry Warner the executive officer looked at the image of the admiral and
frowned thoughtfully. He traced a finger over the image. If he was really an
admiral why was he dressed in a coverall? He thought to himself. He looked down
at his own appearance.

The
crew of the ship, those who actually stood a watch or worked on the ship wore
hand me down coveralls from the first crew. They were worn, stained and well...
battered. Heavily patched in some cases, especially at the joints.

Of
course not all had them. Some of the non Terrans had bioforms that were just
too big or too involved to wear an outfit like the Terrans took for granted.
They instead wore some sort of bandolier or some other marker to indicate their
status.

Not
all of the outfits were hand me downs, some were newly made. They couldn't save
all the uniforms, spirit of space knew they tried. They had lost some when
people died of course... you couldn't get some stains out. They'd repaired
some, but if it was burned badly enough it was recycled.

When
the crew was off duty they wore the same civilian dress as the passengers did.
Some of the outfits were old of course; a few needed to be redone but were so
reverently held by some that they wouldn't allow it. It amused him how much his
parents preferred their old outfits over the simple colony home spun they had
in their wardrobe.

Of
course officers were a bit different. Their outfits were cleaner and neater.
Their work uniforms were trimmed with red silk thread to accent their status.
Names were embroidered on the front lapel. Rank was never really an issue,
titles reserved for bridge officers or department leads like the chief
engineer.

And
of course her outfits were heavily stained and battered. She like every chief
before her got her hands dirty on an hourly basis. Which was why she was
normally banned from the bridge and formal meals. She did wash up on occasion,
but she was also testy about it.

In
a lot of ways a ship was a community, a small town or city. They had all the
functions there, the aforementioned tailor and embroider, barbers, cooks, and
cleaners. Which reminded him, he needed to get onto housekeeping. They were
getting lax again.

Was
this man really an admiral? An officer? He wasn't sure. He'd have to ask dad if
he got the time. He knew something was going on, something the captain wasn't
telling him. He'd have to find that out as well.

 

Irons
stared at the wall, thinking deep thoughts. It seemed so surreal. Seven hundred
odd years ago he was a Fleet Admiral, on his way from one classified assignment
to his next when his ship had been ambushed and he'd been tucked away in a
stasis pod to float adrift.

Now
the Xeno war was over, the Federation was in ruins and he'd spent the past
three years doing what? A year and five months on Io 11 rebuilding the tender,
then a year in Pyrax rebuilding Firefly and the entire system... and then eight
months trudging along in Destiny in exile. A bit less than a year traveling
across what? Four star systems? He used to do that in days, and here... he
sighed trying to chop the mental tirade off before he really turned the air
blue. It would serve little purpose. Maybe getting it off his chest would help
his mental health... but it wouldn't change anything when he was finished.
Waste time really, that was all.

“Thinking
deep thoughts admiral?” Sprite asked softly.

“You
know me so well,” he rumbled, brushing a hand over the mattress. He lifted the
table to vertical and then slid it back into its slot out of the way. With it
gone it gave an extra ten or twenty centimeters of room. Big whoop.

“April?”
Sprite asked.

“No,”
he sighed. “Life and its little quirks. From fighting the good fight against
the rampaging Xeno's to trying to pick up the pieces. Trying and generally
failing.”

“Now
that's not true. Every where we've gone you've made a difference.”

“But
not enough Sprite, not nearly enough,” he replied angrily, getting up and then
freezing. He wanted, no needed to pace but couldn't. The damn room was too
small.

“Admiral,
Pyrax is a bright spot. We've made similar impacts. I know you. I know what
you've been doing. Io 11, take that ship for example. The ship and the crew.
You've rebuilt a fleet tender into a small factory ship that's going from
system to system...”

“Trading.
Not really rebuilding. At least not much.”

“We
don't know that for sure sir,” Sprite said doggedly. “The captain would be
trading her services for whatever they want or need yes. But the people that
receive their services will be better off from it.”

“True.
If they don't fleece them like sheep,” he growled.

“A
distinct possibility I admit. But I also know you touched a lot of lives on
that ship. People who are willing to follow your example and try to help
others. Who knows, they might even be building another ship by now!” she said.

“True,”
he grudgingly replied. He wasn't sure if they would run into them. A part of
him was dreading it.

“You're
only human Admiral, get used to it. Even though you are a cyborg, you're still
in the end mortal.”

BOOK: Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)
6.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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