Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (45 page)

“Oh,”
The doctor said looking at Irons.

He
shook his head and smiled slightly. “Sorry, doc, you're not the first. Not by a
long shot.”

“I
knew that,” she said wrinkling her nose. Still her tail drooped a little.

“I
believe the doctors on Io 11 were the first this century as far as I know,”
Irons said.

“What
about Destiny?” Light Touch asked.

“What
about them? Oh wait for implants? Yes, some had full implants, some had the
basic level one Ident implants. A few had refused for various reasons. Most of
them were passengers,” he replied and then shrugged.

“Oh.”

“It
takes time to get over prejudices. Ignorance is the leading cause of prejudice.
Work on it. The best way is with education. Knowledge.”

“Oh.”

“Well,”
he stretched. “I've got to be going. Let me know if you need me again,” he
said.

“We
will. Thank you admiral,” Numiria said. The others echoed the sentiment as
Irons left.

In
the exam room the lieutenant opened his eyes slowly. He had one hell of a
migraine but he had something he had to do. He turned his head and smiled. He
could see his lovely wife beside him. Beyond her were her medical read outs. He
puzzled out the blips and lines for a moment. Everything seemed fine. All were
okay apparently. Good. He reached out and touched her hand over the gap in
between them. He felt her hand twitch and then it slowly gripped his. He smiled
and laid back, closing his eyes and letting himself drift once more.

Twenty
days to break out Barry tore into the yellow bus. It was a planetary school bus
at one time, Kiev had picked it up from the ship they had rescued but it had
been scavenged a long time ago for parts for cargo shuttles. He'd had a hell of
a time convincing the captain of the time to let him take it on. He'd always
loved ascraft and O'Mallory had signed off on the project grudgingly since they
could always use it for parts. Now there was an interest in getting it and everything
else running again.

The
bus was cool, really a purpose built vessel, which was why it was sidelined.
The bus was designed to haul about two hundred kids to and from orbit with
minimum cargo. Now after the Xeno war that really wasn't done. Getting up and
down from orbit meant hauling cargo and fuel, not kids.

“Why
are we doing this again?” Gus asked, sullenly standing nearby as he passed
Barry parts or tools.

“Cause
its cool,” Barry said, not looking up from the avionics. “Just keep doing what
you're doing kid.”

“Seems
like a waste,” Gus said. He was still in a growth spurt, covered in acne and
the bane of his mother and teacher. They'd sicked him on Barry to get him out
of their collective hair. Barry wasn't sure what he was going to do with the
kid. He was uncoordinated, still awkward and clumsy. He had a good heart
though, and he had a cool head. He did make the damnedest mistakes though.

“Nah,
it's cool. Think about it. Banana boat. Drop everyone who wants shore leave all
at once. Or in two trips,” Bert said, waving a spanner. “Or three.” They had
thousands of people onboard. Normally less than a hundred went ground side when
they entered port.

“Can
we run animals in it? Maybe planet hop? One side to another?” Gus asked.

“What
one of those grungy buses we saw on the video the other day?” Bert asked.

“No,
I was thinking more along the lines of leasing it out. Maybe day excursions for
grounders who want to see what space is like,” Barry said, looking up from the
avionics. “But your ideas are good too.”

“Cool,”
Bert said with a nod. “I still like my idea though.” He was another teen, young
and a little inexperienced but eager to learn the trade. There were dozens of
people who were interested in shuttles but not many had the patience. Art had
tried his hand at piloting but had flunked after the third try. Now they were
running the kids through virtual sims. Hopefully that would weed out the wanna
bees from the serious players. Unfortunately they didn't have one for
engineers.

“Which
is possible. But not until we get this baby back in space. Which we can't do
while we're sitting on our asses talking about it,” Barry said testily.

“All
right all right, I get the point,” Gus sighed. “Back to work.”

“We've
got that other maintenance boat, plus the other shuttles to tear into and
refurb. I want as many done as possible before we get to Antigua,” Barry said.

“That's
a little tight boss, we've got what? Twenty one days left?” Bert said.

“Twenty.”

“Okay,
Twenty. Still kind of tight.”

“Dude!
Could we sell one?” Gus asked suddenly. Barry scowled. He spread his hands
apart. “Just saying Barry, man, I know you love em and all...”

“I...
we damn well better not. I've put a lot of blood and sweat into rebuilding
these things,” Barry growled looking uncomfortable.

“Yeah,”
Gus said with a nod. “Me too.”

“Delivery!”
Fara said, coming in pushing a hover pallet loaded with parts.

Barry
used the girls to help him fabricate parts on the sligh. He tried to do it
without calling in the admiral just to see how far they can go. It was frustrating
though when he has to call Irons in. Irons nodded when he came by, but he was
distracted. He was on a time crunch so he just logged in to get the parts going
and then headed for the door. “Sorry, talk later, late for a class!” he said
with a wave, leaving at a jog.

“Well!”
a female tech said. “I... how rude!” she called out. She'd done her hair just
for him. Irons waved but kept going. Barry chuckled. Most of the girls were now
actively flirting with the admiral, or at least trying to. They lingered over
how he was so mature and 'distinguished' along with his rugged good looks. He
seemed oblivious to their advances. Of course he got into projects so much he
was always distracted. His rare periods of time off seemed random.

That
was what the general consensus was. Barry knew better. He'd heard that the
admiral had a girl on Destiny, or he should think
had
. He'd heard that
something bad had happened to her, so bad she'd been put in stasis and returned
to Pyrax.

“He's
a busy man. Let's see if we can work on the other shuttles then while this
thing bakes,” Gus said in disgust. Barry glanced at him. Most of the teenage
males were just now getting into girls and weren't happy about the girls all
making goo goo eyes at the admiral. He snorted and waved to the kid.

“Let's
see what we can do while that's off and running. Ladies,” he said with a nod as
they exited the replicator room.

The
admiral explained force field emitter tech to an avid class at the beginning of
his lecture. The class tended to jump around a bit, covering various topics of
interest. It was a lively class but easy for the uninitiated to get lost in. It
did keep one on their toes though. Now they were exploring energy storage
methods and force based equipment. The discussion quickly went from the basics
to more advanced concepts which is a pleasant surprise to him.

"See,
when you create a field you've got a blank slate right? Well, it has some edge
issues but we'll focus on the main field," he said tapping the flat
surface. The field rippled, absorbing the kinetic energy of his touch. One of
the things his students loved about the admiral's teaching methods was that he
was not only hands on; he regularly made props for them to actually touch and
experience. Not just holographic files. Though the holograms made exploded
views of pieces of hardware much easier to see and understand.

Now
that they had a dedicated classroom things were easier to explain. Learning on
the job was okay in some instances but sometimes it was easier to pass on
knowledge in a more structured and less... dangerous environment. The classroom
was a part of the block of five other classrooms for the school. The school was
old school, mixing kids of various ages. Even adults took some classes
apparently, or at least attended them to keep busy. Some acted as teaching
assistants as well.

"Now
if the field like this is a one, on, and if you make holes for offs..." he
said demonstrating with the field.

"You
get a digital signal!" an excited student said catching on.

"Binary
correct," Irons said nodding to the student. The young Veraxin chittered.

"Its
how they figured out energy based equipment methods. The theory has been in
place since science fiction postulated the idea over a millennia ago."

"But
any science you can't understand is tantamount to magic..." the Veraxin
said nodding.

"Where'd
you here that?" Irons asked amused.

"Ah,
in my reading."

He
nodded. "Well, you're right. The end concepts were there, but not the
technique on how to do it. Not the nuts and bolts. But once we had it, we build
up off one module at a time. This borrows from coding and technological
evolution."

"Ah,
yes I think I see."

"Well
I don't," Sara a testy student said tossing her stylus down. "I'm
lost,” she said in disgust, frowning. The admiral glanced at her and then
nodded.

"Okay,
well, let's have an example. Let’s say you want to make an energy based
computer program. You first can write the program in binary... one module at a
time," the admiral explained. He drew a series of slashes on the holographic
board.

"Say
you're working on a ship. Break it down to energy based systems controlling a
deck," the Veraxin chittered.

The
admiral nodded. "Good idea. So you break it down into the simplest
components. Open and close hatches. Lights, fans, and so on." As he said
this modules of code flashed on the holo and then formed into a block. The
blocks joined others in a hierarchy.

The
tech who had complained she was lost nodded in understanding. Sara had seen
some coding a few months ago. "I see. Why not just use physical systems
though?"

"We're
using this as an example bear with us a moment," the admiral said. “It
will become clear in a moment,” he said with a smile. He turned back to the
board. "Now, once you get the modules together you start stacking and
grouping them into clusters. Once you know how to do the basics people add more
and more until..."

The
holo flashed and then showed a working deck with people walking around.

"If
we continue we could do an entire ship," he said.

"But
again, why..." Sara asked doggedly. She rubbed at her temples.

The
admiral flashed a smile. "Why use a force field. Right getting to that.
Well, there are advantages and disadvantages to both,” he said turning to the
class. “A physical system is a dedicated system that will work unless power is
interrupted. The same goes for the energy based system. But the energy based
system loses data when it goes down if it used an energy state ram
buffer."

"Ah,"
the Veraxin nodded, upper shoulders slumping.

"Which
is why they aren't used in ships much. At least not warships. We need redundant
systems that can take a beating. That can hold up if we get a spike of power,
and something we can easily rip out and repair without rebuilding the system.
An energy system can adapt, it can be reprogrammed, but it's fallible."

"It's
only as good as its weakest link. Without the emitters, the physical emitters
generating the energy they are nothing," Sara said in sudden
understanding.

The
admiral nodded. “Correct." He shook his head, crossing his arms and
leaning back against the desk behind him. "I like the idea, don't get me
wrong, it does have some applications. You gain a lot because there is
virtually no weight, just the emitters. But you need to generate power to
create the fields, and it takes less than ten percent of that power to run the
psychical equivalent."

"Efficiency."

"Correct.
But as I said, energy systems do have their uses. You can set up temporary
buffers to store information in an emergency, or temporary systems. Even entire
control systems are possible if you can't rebuild the actual system. I haven't
tried it, but I've heard the theory brooded about a bit."

"Interesting,"
Sara said thoughtfully.

"The
other thing is you can use the energy systems to model a physical system for
virtual testing. That makes rapid prototyping easier for some. Some of the
research and development companies had gone that route about a century before
the Xeno war," the admiral explained. The military hadn't bothered with
such things. You could simulate a system in a computer net without making a
force field version of it. That had been in practice for over a thousand years
after all. It was simple and much more efficient.

"Fascinating.
But I bet they lost a lot if they lost power," The Veraxin said.