Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (59 page)

“They...
admiral they are our friends. Or were. Could you do that?” Emily asked, hand
going over her husband's arm.

The
admiral's eyes narrowed. It was a deceptively easy question to answer. They
just weren't prepared to make the hard decisions. That explained part of why
they were in such a situation in the first place. He wondered how and why they
could have become senior managers of a station this size by avoiding the hard
decisions. “Could I sit back and watch a friend go insane and take everything
they and I had built down around me? Watch them go on a killing spree for how
long? No. I would make the hard decision. Living with the decision,” Irons
looked away in pain. “That would be hard.”

“That
makes you different than us I guess,” Sid said sadly. “We... all of us are
pacifists admiral. We can't, we won't kill. No. Not now, not ever.”

“Your
friends can though.”

“Yes.
We... we try to limit the damage.”

“I'd
say killing someone is sort of hard to undo,” Sprite said dryly. “I sensed a
powerful AI in the net just now as well.” Now that they were introduced the
Berkhearts had opened a port for Sprite to access what remained of the
station's net. She was poking around as they talked.

Sid
nodded. “There are several AI in the system as well. One of which went rampant
and is allied with the insane cybers. I guess you could say we have a civil
cold war going on in here. Unfortunately the computer core is failing so...”
The man shrugged helplessly.

“I
wish we had engineers. No one does,” Emily said sadly.

“Which
makes me wonder why,” Irons said. It didn't make sense that all the engineers
died out. Not without passing
something
along to the next generation.
And what about the engineers and techs on this station? Surely they could have
kept it up and running!

Sid
sighed, shoulders slumping. His image flickered as his virtual eyes closed. “We
lost ours in the accidents. And over the years they just sort of gave up. They
tried to keep the station up but all the problems got ahead of them.”

“And
we the council made mistakes. We should have listened to them. We should have
swallowed our pride and sent a shuttle to the planet for help. We didn't and
we've paid the price,” Emily admitted.

“I'd
say the people on this station did that for you,” Irons said.

“True.
But there we are. It's hopeless without an engineer. Perhaps you are doing us a
service by killing us. Ending our misery.”

“I
am
an engineer,” Irons said.

“I
thought you were a marine?” The wife asked surprised. “You act and dress like
one,” she said. She first indicated the destruction Irons had caused and then
his armored suit.

The
admiral looked down at the suit. They really were pacifists and pathetic in
engineering if they thought this improvised suit was marine issue. “What this?
Easily fixed. The suit? No, it's something I had on hand. It's actually army
issue that I adapted,” he explained.

“Oh.
I was sure you were a marine.” She looked at her husband uncertainty.

“No,
hardly,” Irons laughed. “I know the first rule of ground combat as far as the
navy is concerned, send in the marines. In this case I didn't have any to send.
My name is John Henry Irons. Fleet admiral of the Federation Navy.” He
straightened to attention.

“Accessing...”
The man looked left and right and then his eyes widened. “Are you...”

“Where
are you getting the information?” Sprite asked.

“News
archive. That still doesn't answer my question,” Sid said.

Irons
nodded. “Yes I am
that
Irons. I was lost in a stasis survival pod up
until a few years ago. I've been bumming around the sector trying to restore
order and generally running into trouble.”

“Which
we have here. I thought... according to this you
are
an engineering
admiral,” the man said sounding excited for the first time since they met. For
the first time in apparently a long time. “But you were destroying...”

“I
lost people,” the admiral said tightly, eyes glittering.

“He
sort of lost perspective,” Sprite said as way of explanation. Irons grimaced.
The AI was right. Sort of.

“No,
I decided the shortest path in is brute force. It's the only thing the
degenerates apparently understand and respect. Fear is a great motivator to
stay the hell out of my way. Which makes me wonder, if you are in here, why
aren't you
helping
them?”

“We
do,” the wife said. She looked uncomfortable.

“We
try
to you mean,” her husband said with a sigh. “If they see or hear us
they run. The holograms I mean. They think we're ghosts.” His image flickered
again.

“Ghosts
in the machine,” Irons said with a nod. “I can relate.”

“We
do not have many projectors in the station. They tend to avoid the areas where
we can talk,” Emily replied frowning. “The others, the insane ones, they drove
them away. Terrified them.”

“They
are savages,” a Chinese male said. The two cybers turned as an Asian male and
female were projected. The quality of the projection of all of them noticeably
degraded however. Irons grimaced. The Chinese couple were dressed in
conservative Chinese mandarin outfits. Brown suits, with white hair. The male
had a flowing white beard and hair. The woman's white hair was done up in a bun
held there by a pin or some other object. For some reason their images seemed
better than the Berkhearts. He was surprised by their appearance.

“Uneducated.
They refuse to be educated. They need to be eradicated or relocated. Savages,”
Fu said stroking his beard.

“They
are people. Fallen people. We can help them if they would let us,” Emily said,
turning on Fu.

“Which
they won’t.”

“Whoa.
Just a sec. I'm getting a vibe that this is an old and well worn argument,”
Irons said holding up a hand. So much for pacifists. Fu didn't appear the type.
“One I've apparently missed. I thought this station didn't have food for so
many. I mean two or three hundred people? That you know of?”

“The
Dilgarth prey upon the others,” the mandarin said. He flicked his hand as if it
didn't matter.

“Ah.
I bet they eat vermin as well,” the admiral replied thoughtfully.

“They
are all vermin,” the mandarin said. Irons saw holographic eyes floating around
him. Apparently the other cybers were checking in now. He wasn't sure if it was
out of maudlin curiosity or what. Maybe the Berkhearts had called them? Or
perhaps they had been there all along hiding, watching, and waiting to see his
reaction?

“They
were people once. They can be again if we can get through to them,” Emily said
softly.

The
admiral nodded but shrugged. He was all for helping people if they would help
themselves. “Do they do anything for themselves? Farm? Repair things?” The
admiral asked.

Emily
shook her head sadly. “They have a large stockpile of preserved food. When...
admiral you have to understand. When we were isolated out here some of our
people went... mad.”

“I
see,” he replied thoughtfully. He had pretty much concluded that already.

“We
were also beset by pirates,” the mandarin said with a sneer. “Which
you
should have kept at bay,” he said, turning an accusing eye on the admiral.

“I
was asleep at the time,” Irons said dryly. “You survived though.”

“Yes,
no thanks to the navy.”

“The
navy isn't what it once was. It was fighting the Xeno's remember? Most of
civilization has fallen. There are small pockets but they have degraded to
early steam powered industrial technology in most star systems. I'm not sure
why.”

“Which
is something we were debating about when you first came in,” Sprite interjected.

“An
AI?” The mandarin asked, eyes coolly studying the admiral.

“Commander
Sprite. Adjunct to the admiral. With me are Defender and Proteus. We are
Trinity.” Sprite's holo appeared beside the admiral. She was in full formal
uniform. Her cover was tucked under her right arm.

“Three
in one. Interesting,” the mandarin said hand coming out of the folds of his
robe to rub him chin and goatee once more. “In a human no less. Impressive feat
of engineering.”

“What
can I say? Milspec is the best there is,” Irons said with a satisfied shrug. It
was an old dig, civilians hated that difference.

“What
is your intention here admiral?” the mandarin finally asked.

“Secure
the station. Then decide from there. The people on the Kiev 221... The people
who came with me were hoping for salvage or a new home. I was considering
more.”

“More?”

“Rebuilding
the station,” the admiral replied. He looked around to the other sets of eyes.

“Impossible,”
the mandarin said, hand going into his sleeve once more. “This station is dying.”

The
admiral frowned. “It is repairable.”

“You've
done enough damage,” the mandarin said.

“I
am an engineer. We're good at both blowing stuff up and fixing or building
things,” Irons said looking at his path. “It's what we do,” he said. He reached
out to a broken holo projector with his right hand. A mental command sent
nanites into it. After a moment the nanites withdrew and the projector came to
life stabilizing their image somewhat.

“Can
you restart the core?” The woman asked hopefully.

“The
fusion core? On which reactor or all of them do you mean? Antimatter will take
too much effort. I bet you are out of antimatter anyway,” he said eying the
Berkhearts and then the others. The cybers and AI reluctantly nodded. “I can
probably get a fusion reactor up and running in as little as a week. Possibly
sooner if I have adequate support. Fuel is another issue though.”

“Impossible,”
the mandarin said again.

Irons
gave him a cool look. “I'm pretty good at doing what others think is
impossible. That's also a creed of the engineer. Doing the impossible. Miracle
workers.”

“Admiral,
will you help us?” A whispery voice asked. The other bodies had faded out until
their eyes just showed once more. It was a little creepy.

Irons
thought about it for a brief second. The answer was simple. The question was
how they would respond.
“It's a quid pro quo situation. The question is
will you help me and help yourselves or get in my way?” he asked.

The
eyes looked at one another. “We can end this here and now if we wanted to do so,”
the mandarin said. “This station is ours, not a military installation. Leave.”
He made a brushing motion and then stroked his beard. Irons was pretty sure the
old man was all bluster. But apparently his words still carried a great deal of
weight with the others. He was some sort of leader.

“Are
you as insane as the others?” The Berkhearts demanded angrily. “What is wrong
with you? He's a fleet admiral. An
engineering
admiral.”

“Exactly.
With his help comes strings.”

“Of
course. I did say quid pro quo,” Irons said. He was laying that out right here
and now. He wanted them to go in eyes open. “Of course there could be salvage
rights but you are here so that's debatable. Or I could nationalize the
station. I'd
prefer
to work with you though.”

The
Chinese man's eyebrow lifted slightly as he looked at the others. “See? He
admits it.”

Irons
huffed for a second. “With any effort comes cost. Comes payment for services
rendered. Even humanitarian efforts like this one would be,” he waved to
indicate the station.

“And
what is the cost that you wish us to bear?”

“A
burden too much for old souls to bear I believe,” the mandarin said coldly,
straightening as he stared at Irons.

Irons
looked away, eyes off on the horizon. “To rebuild this station, the system, and
the Federation? Yes. On your own you can't do it. Be a beacon of hope for
civilization so it may finally come out of the dark ages into the light?
Possibly. Build the infrastructure needed to restart the navy? Quite possibly,
but you wouldn't be alone in that,” his voice had started quietly but had built
slowly.

Irons
turned. Where there had been four there were now two dozen or so. He nodded.
“But you are not alone. There are people here on this station. People who
wallow in the dark because they have not been educated, because they have not
been shown the light. They are ignorant, ignorant of their own potential. There
are people on Kiev who are willing to help. Who
want
to come here to
help rebuild this station. Who are interested in making it a
home
.” He
gestured to the outside and then turned.

“There
are people all over this war torn galaxy willing to learn. To grow. To rebuild
what once was. To stand up for what is right and to protect this and what
others are trying to do from those that would tear it down.”