Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (5 page)

“I'm
trying to cover for you the best I can admiral, I can spoof a camera if we're
near, but not all,” Sprite cautioned.

“I
know. Do your best,” he replied.

Sprite
informed him the direct path was cut off. She pulled up the ship schematic and
gave him alternate routes on his HUD in different colors. He stepped into an
alcove when his sensors reported the exec coming, and smiled at the shocked
tones when the exec and crew noticed the cleaned and repaired corridor.

“What
the hell's going on here? Who did this? Are we in the right corridor? Did we
make a wrong turn?” First mate John Warner demanded, looking around in
confusion.

“No,
we are where we're supposed to be sir...” the guard said.

“Oh
I've so got to talk to O'Mallory about this; maybe she had someone do it? Why?
Why the hell now?”

O'Mallory
was having her own troubles as she got a report that the reactor was having
trouble. They had stepped it back another increment to try to keep the bottle
stable but it was barely keeping ignition temperatures now. They had planned on
doing that anyway so they could install the new parts once they were checked
out. She had been shocked and pleasantly surprised when all of them had without
a problem.

That
however had taken a couple of hours to complete. Most of life support was now
thrown onto the jury rigged secondary systems by now. Of course most of those
systems were super conductor batteries, all well past their impedance and
projected working lifetimes. Oh there were a few solar cells on the hull, but
nowhere near enough for all the bodies on this ship.

“O'Mallory
did you send a crew to fix this hallway?” Warner demanded, cutting off her
thoughts.

“What
are you talking about?” she asked, slowing and then stopping.

“Someone
did a bang up job in here. I don't know why,” the exec replied. “If you didn't
do it, who did?”

“Jerry
said that admiral guy was fixing stuff in the hallway a while ago,” Marko said
behind O'Mallory. She turned on him with a scowl.

“What
did you just say?” she demanded.

“I
said that um,” he looked a little sheepish. “That Jerry saw that admiral guy
doing stuff in the hallway outside his quarters. Fixing stuff you know?”

“And
you didn't report this why? Why the hell didn't Jerry for that matter?”
O'Mallory rounded on the hapless tech.

“Cause
we didn't think it was a problem. The guy wasn't breaking anything hell! He was
fixing
it! What's wrong with that?” he demanded.

“Apparently
this guy knows his way around a wrench,” Leia said grimacing.

“Apparently
so,” Warner snarled. “I'm at his quarters. The guards were locked inside. He
somehow picked the lock and stunned one and then he had Hadji drag his partner
into the room.”

“Great,
so he's on the loose?” O'Mallory demanded, rubbing her temples. Could this day
get any worse?

Irons
monitored the communication from the exec to the chief, and chuckled at her
confusion. The exec entered the room and ordered the guards out, and reported
to the bridge that the admiral was loose and armed.
The engineer
grimaced and ordered Defender to lock the ship down.

“Admiral
I'm not even sure that is possible. Or advisable,” Sprite said as she felt
Defender's efforts through their joint link. Since the Admiral was out of his
room and on the move Defender was using the Fleet Launch to invade the ship's
systems remotely.

He
heard the slamming doors and felt the gravity fall off. The lights flicker and
shut off, and he felt the panic on the communication’s channels before they too
shut down.

Sprite
watched engineering go into panic as the bottle began to fluctuate
uncontrollably. “As I was saying admiral, it was not advisable. Cascade bottle
failure is imminent.” The AI informed him the reactor’s harmonic was beginning
to destabilize containment and he grimaced.

“Oops,”
he said trying to think. He didn't want to kill hundreds of people. Not if he
could help it. After a minute he came to a reluctant decision. “Sprite, open a
channel to the bridge.”

“Are
you sure admiral?” Sprite asked as he paused.

“Just
do it before I change my mind,” he growled.

“Okay...”
Sprite opened a channel to the bridge and waited for the captain to stop
cursing.

“Things
not going as planned captain?” Irons asked amused.

“Who
the hell is this?” the captain snarled, looking around his bridge.

“Admiral
Irons. Your guest. Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons, Federation Navy. It seems
you have a serious situation. One we both have had a hand in causing. The
question is where do we go from here?” he asked.

The
captain paused, looking around. He wasn't sure what to do. He'd heard that
Irons was some sort of jumped up officer but he'd thought it was some sort of
ploy, a con artist using it to get around the galaxy. Now he wasn't sure.

“Sprite
course to main engineering,” Irons said.

“Sprite?”
The captain asked, clearly confused.

“My
AI Captain. Sprite is a smart AI assigned to me before I went into stasis.”

“Okay...”

“I
suggest Chief O'Mallory cut nonessential services and evacuate decks that have
problems with plasma leaks or overloaded life support. I'm on my way to main
engineering.”

The
captain looked at the security chief who was scowling down at his board and
pressing buttons. He looked up and shrugged. Q’Bert was a good Naga but not
very good with computers.

“Can
you help?” The captain asked looking up at the ceiling. He felt bleak, like his
whole world was coming down around him. Which in a way it was, he'd spent his
entire life on Kiev, he'd been born in her sickbay fifty years ago and from the
look of things he was liable to die here. Soon.

“I'm
certainly going to try Captain. I suggest you set up a Goth plan, a Go To Hell
Plan. Essentially evacuating the ship to the planet with whatever shuttle craft
you have.”

“I...”
the captain looked down and wiped at his sweaty brow. The heat exchangers were
already offline. “I'm not sure we can do that. I know we can't. We only have
one functional shuttle other than well, yours and well...”

“You
may want to stage your people now. Evacuate the non-essentials,” Irons said,
moving warily though a group of people. Most stepped aside.

“I...
there is no way we can evacuate seven
thousand
people Admiral. I... the
shuttle can't handle that. Not in the time we have left.”

“
Seven
?”
Irons asked surprised, slowing to a halt. A bulk carrier was only rated for a
hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty. Seven
thousand
though? Where the
hell were they putting them all? He wondered. Where were they getting the life
support?

“Checking
files. Yes admiral, the crew in the main section is one hundred twenty however
the cargo holds have been converted into habitats. I am estimating around six
thousand plus individuals in there,” Sprite reported.

“Who
was that?” The captain asked.

“My
AI. Commander Sprite, Captain Chambers of the Kiev. Captain, Sprite.” He'd deal
with her little oversight later.

“Pleased,”
Sprite said dryly. “I take it the time for, as the admiral pithily loves to put
it, 'dicking around' is over captain?” she asked.

“Yes.
For the time being.”

“Truce,”
Irons said shaking his head. Here he was the wronged party and the captain
sounded like an ass. Like he was pulling teeth. He'd heard and experienced
stiff necked captains but this one was a piece of work.

“What
can you do?” O'Mallory asked. Irons snorted. Trust Sprite to have tied the
chief engineer into the conversation. From her position indicated on his HUD,
O'Mallory had changed course for main engineering. “You're an admiral no
offense. I mean...”

“I'm
an
engineering
admiral chief,” Irons said. “With AI support and access
to a small military grade replicator and database of parts. I just finished
rebuilding Anvil space station, the star freighter Destiny, not to mention the
Io 11 and building a start up yard in Pyrax. I can handle a bulk carrier easily
Chief. I can do it in my sleep.”

“Oh,”
O'Mallory said eyes wide, eyebrows up near her hairline. “If you say so,” she
said dubiously.

“Chief
I've been an engineer for a hundred and four years. I may have been on ice in
stasis for seven hundred and thirteen years but that doesn't mean I'm rusty.
Besides, I'm all you've got now,” he said with a tight lipped smile.

“True,”
she said grudgingly.

“We
need your ship. We need...”

“Yes
you need
my
help. No you're not getting my ship or her parts,” Irons
replied firmly, answering the captain and trying to cut off his attitude. He
squeezed through a partially closed airlock door and entered the main corridor
to engineering. It was heavily patched. He winced at the view. The corridor had
been breached more than once.

“Chief,
please let your crew know we're coming. I'll need unrestricted access to your
computer and your reactor. Sprite's been tearing into your nonessential
systems, cleaning out the viruses and fixing what she can, but she couldn't
access the core systems from my cabin.”

“You...”
the captain froze and looked at the ops tech. The Veraxin looked up and nodded.

“I
had wondered why the systems were running smoother,” the Veraxin chittered.
“Now we apparently know.”

“Thanks,”
O’Mallory said dryly. She wasn't sure about letting this admiral character
connect to her computer net but what choice did she have?

“Yvonne
give admiral Irons full access. Jerry get someone to clear those parts. We'll
need them,” she ordered.

“Chief
your reactor is about to lose it badly. A scram needs to be initiated now,”
Sprite informed them. Irons winced.

“Yvonne
what the hell's going on in there???!!” O'Mallory snarled, leaping over a box
and then pushing a pair of people aside. “Make a hole! Get the hell out of the
way!” She snarled, now moving at a run, ducking cables and picking her way
along the corridor.

“Irons
I'm sorry. We need your parts. We need your launch. There isn't a choice here.
We're trying to survive,” the captain said. Irons grimaced. The captain sounded
self righteous. In a way the man was right, he was responsible for his ship and
those on it. But Irons was responsible for the bigger picture.

“So
am I captain. I have as much a right to survive as you do. I know you're
responsible for others but so am I. I will take whatever measures to protect
myself and Federation property as needed. Now, if the pissing contest is over
I've got work to do.” Sprite put a timer on his HUD. “I've got about a ten
minute window to scram your reactor before it destabilizes and breaches. If you
want to help keep your people out of my way,” he snarled.

“He's
right captain,” O'Mallory said, sounding shaken. She'd paused to squeeze
through the half open lock door and glanced down at her tablet. Her tablet was
set to repeat the main read outs from main engineering. “We've got ten minutes
maybe fifteen.”

“Then
by all means go.”

“Admiral
without the reactor we won't have enough power for life support. We're about to
cut the power to the sleepers,” O'Mallory said.

“Sleepers?”
Irons asked.

“Stasis
pods. Anyone with a major injury or radiation poisoning was put into stasis
over the years. We've got nearly nine hundred in stasis. They...”

“We're
going to have to cut power to them. I've ordered it,” the Veraxin ops officer
said. “However it will take some time to do.”

“That's
a lot of people you're sentencing to death! Family!” O'Mallory snarled.

“Never
mind. I get the idea,” Irons said holding up a hand. They really didn't have
time for a long conversation. “Chief can your people scram the reactor?” he
asked.

“I'm...
yes,” she finally said. She tried hard not to let her emotions get to her.

“Fine.
Tell them to do it. I'm going to my shuttle. Get the crew there to find some
cables. I'll tap my fusion reactor to help power life support. Do you have a
critical parts list for your reactor?” he asked.

“Um...”

“Get
it and get it to me. Sprite will watch the net. Put it up in the public net and
flag it for her and she'll put the replicator to work on some of it right away.
I'll need materials though.”

“Um...”
She cocked her head in confusion slowing down her headlong run. “I can get you
some in a few minutes admiral,” she said with a shrug. They didn't have a
choice they had to trust the man. He could easily jump into the shuttle and
leave, but something told her he wouldn't.

“Reactor
shutting down in five... four... three... we have flame out... cooling now.”
Yvonne reported over the intercom. The lights dimmed. Irons heard a few gasps.
More than one person started whimpering as the lights flickered and then went
out. A few emergency lights here and there popped on, but they were weak.