Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (6 page)

BOOK: Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)
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His
sensors reported the chief was coming up behind him. Warily he turned to her.
He motioned the guards back with the weapon, as she approached. She looked at
the stunner in his hands and slowed but didn't stop. The guards hung back,
clearly at a loss on what to do. He's surprised by that.

He
looked around with his enhanced vision and nodded to O'Mallory as she entered
behind him. “Sprite sitrep?” he asked.

“Main
power is down admiral. Kiev only had what charged plasma and battery power it
had on hand to power the ship. Solar is out.”

“Oh?”

“Too
diffuse. We're also in the shadow of the planet for the next few minutes.”

“Lovely.
Chief,” he turned and nodded to her. “Can you get me that list and start
clearing the way to the reactor? I'll need that material as well.”

“Your
little ship can't power everything and replicate parts too admiral,” O'Mallory
said uncertainly. He shook his head.

“Essential
services only. Bare minimum. Tell everyone not to eat, eating uses up oxygen.
Don't open and close any airlocks. Cut life support to any space not occupied.
Cut power to the grav emitters. Cut the heat exchangers or dial them back on
the sunny side. Cut back on the pressure if possible. Try to remain calm and
keep a cool head. Tell them to keep a clear path from the bay to the reactor.”

“All
right,” she said nodding. Barry came in behind her. “Barry go with him,” she
nodded to Barry.

“We
trusting him?” Barry asked as he looked at the admiral.

“I
think we don't have a choice,” O'Mallory said, looking Irons up and down. He
cocked his head. “I saw what you did in the corridor, good work for such a
short time and little to work with.”

“Corridor?”
Barry asked, clearly confused.

“Corridor
outside his quarters. Quarters cleaned up too I suppose?” O'Mallory asked.

“Of
course,” Irons said turning to return the way he had come. “I wasn't going to
live in a pigsty if I could help it. Ship shape and bristol fashion is a navy
tradition,” Irons said with a half smile.

“I
see,” O'Mallory said, nodding again. “Warner won't give you any shit. At least
he'd better not. I haven't a clue on how to get the reactor back up. We've only
had a flame out twice in... Well...”

“I
better get going. Let the reactor core cool. Do what you can with what you've
got. Get me that list. Start with essentials but don't limit it if you have to.
Get me that material now.”

Yvonne
came up the tube and paused looking at them. She looked at Irons and then to
her boss. “Boss what do we do?” she asked near tears.

“We
roll up our sleeves and get to work,” Irons growled. He handed over his work
bag. “Tools and a cleaning bot inside. Put the bot to work cleaning. It will
flag areas that need repair. Make sure it's bin is cleaned out when it needs
it. Do you have a reactor bot?”

“One,”
O'Mallory said with a grimace. Yes one elderly broken down reactor bot left. It
barely functioned and was a bitch to control.

“Then
we'll have to build or repair another. One is suboptimal for repairs. Get the
parts I gave you going. Get the parts they were going to replace out. Start
working on that.”

“We
need a lot more of those force emitters,” she said. “Control runs are okay but
we've got a lot of problems with...”

“Heat
damage?” he asked. She nodded. “Carbon-Carbon can only deflect heat for so long
before it begins to ablate under the plasma. Get a wifi link up so Sprite and
Proteus can get in and help.” He turned. “I'm on my way.”

“Proteus?”
she asked, turning back to him. He paused at the lock door and smiled. “My
engineering AI. You really didn't think I just had one did you?” he asked
amused. She blinked at him in shock. He did a quick morph, letting his right
fingers flex and change into various tools and then back.

The
crew and O'Mallory's eyes instinctively locked onto the motion then widened in
shock and surprise at the sight. “Yeah...” she drawled, eyes narrowed. “Okay,
you’re the real deal. No one has implants like that.”

“Told
you so,” Irons said. Sprite chuckled from the speaker. He glanced at it.

“Admiral
we've got a partial list. I've got small parts going in the replicator now. I
need your authorization keys to...”

“Going
I'm going,” he said shaking his head. He used a hand to stabilize himself as he
stepped over the comber and into the corridor. “Fast track them Sprite. Full
tray. Stack them if you can. We're going,” he said nodding to the others.

“Admiral
we've got a problem,” Sprite reported.

“Oh?”
He paused. He hadn't gotten far up the tube.

“It
seems they didn't power down in time. There is some plasma in the chamber and
they are losing containment.”

She
fed him the readouts on his HUD and he grimaced. The reactor watch made a
mistake and he winced when he sensed its tumbling stability. There was no
longer time to get to the bay and off the ship. He turned and rushed past the
guards and O'Mallory. He motioned her to follow and they run for engineering. “What's
going on?” O'Mallory asked.

“Instability
in the core. A plasma string was left behind and it's wobbling all over the
place. The watch can't handle it. It's chewing through your repairs.”

“Shit!”
she snarled picking up the pace. He was still a couple of meters ahead of her.
People dodged out of their way.

They
work out what they need to do as they enter engineering. She swung into action,
issuing orders as the admiral turned to the reactor controls. He shoved a tech
out of the way and plugged his implants in, and had his AI scram the reactor.
The reactor pulsed, and plasma began to build as a fuel valve to the emitters
stuck open.

O'Mallory
immediately ordered her team to open the backup valve as Irons tapped the
robots in the chamber and sets them to work. O'Mallory had been right, only one
robot was functional; the other had been locked down to an implant override...
He wasn't sure why and he didn't have time to think about it now. A quick pulse
from his implants had unlocked it.

 Stunned
techs look in disbelief as the robots flash into action. O'Mallory turned to
look at him. His body was etched in concentration, and his fingers flew on the
virtual keypads. She turned. She could see the jack connecting him to the
computer and nodded. She turned and berated the crew back into motion. The fuel
valve was frozen open, welded by the intense heat of an artificial sun.

“O'Mallory
if you can't get it there don't waste your time. Tell your team to shut the
fuel down upstream,” he ordered with a flicker of attention her way.
O'Mallory's face set as she parsed out the logic of the order and then she gave
him a choppy nod.

“Do
it,” she said passing on the order. The engineers complied and in a few minutes
the fuel trickled and then stopped.

The
engineer sighed in relief and turned to the AI to check on their progress.
Proteus had the bottle's imbalance under control and was working it into a
stable slowing pattern. The force beams were only catching a bit of the plasma
as the ribbon passed near a collector, but each time it destabilized the ribbon
a bit.

Proteus
hadn't waited for orders. It had dived in and was busy balancing the surviving
emitters in the chamber, and reported half were either jury rigged parts from
hover carts and shuttles, or was at max impedance.

Sprite
was disgusted about the engineering system. For once it was clean of viruses,
but it wasn't optimized and the memory had a lot of errors in it. “A diagnostic
and defrag would help. There are banks of ram and rom that are just trash,” she
muttered getting to work. He pulled up a general schematic and grimaced in
thought as he watched the AI fill in the blanks. A lot of sections were red or
yellow.

Proteus
had a TOE database going, Sprite was adding to it as fast as he was. Most of
the things Sprite was adding to the Table of Organization and Equipment were
not critical however.  Those that weren't were going on a secondary list.

Quinna
leaned into his field of view. He turned and explained as the AI highlighted
the faulty emitters. “It will be at least an hour before the reactor chamber
was drained, but they had managed to contain the damage. I've got the remaining
pair of robots set up to scan the damage,” he explained, flicking the next
order through his link and then turned to face her. Her face tightened in
concern and bleak helplessness. He pointed out the structural damage and how
the emitters had been unbalanced and caused the overload.

“Do
you have those parts I sent?” he asked.

“We
were about to install them.”

“All
right. We'll have to do a partial rebuild. I'm not sure how far we can go. It
depends on your emergency reserves. We obviously can't do a complete tear down
and rebuild or replace right now,” he said dryly.

She
cocked an eyebrow at him. “How did you get the parts?” she asked.

“I'm
an engineering admiral chief; I've got the keys to everything and just about
anything built into my implants. Which means I can replicate the parts you need
as long as they aren't too big for my replicator. And as long as I've got power
and materials.”

“Ah,”
she said, finally understanding what he had been trying to get through to her.
Suddenly she realized there was a distinct chance of survival. She turned as
they heard feet approaching. Irons knew who it was and turned his head to look
over his shoulder. O'Mallory's face tightened even more. He snorted and
returned his attention to the chief.

“What
we need to do is yank out as much as we can and plug in new as quickly as we
can get it replicated.”

“What
about testing it?” she asked.

He
shook his head. “Normally I would and I'd definitely recommend it in most
circumstances unfortunately we're in a bit of a time crunch. You're going to
have to take what I give you on faith Chief.” He shrugged and spread his hands.
She looked at his shiny right arm, how it was doing things to the board even
though he moved it. She nodded.

“Of
course if you've got some of this stuff it will go faster and easier,” he said.

“Show
me,” she said.

The
exec, captain, and a group of guards arrived as he finished his explanation. He
ignored them as he pulled up a repair list for O'Mallory. She began following
the list with her finger line by line, as he explained.

She
listed for him what parts they had on hand, and what they did’t. The captain
and exec stepped up to glare at the Admiral. He turned to them and sighed,
noting the weapons. The chief ordered the crew to get some of the parts, and
then absently asked him how to get around the stuck valves. He turned to her
and explained as Sprite accessed their cargo manifest.
She didn't find
the parts, but she did find two that might work if they were modified. He
explained the situation to O'Mallory, letting her know what they were and
where, and the chief sent a crew to get them.

Taken
aback by their discussion, the captain crossed his arms and waited, fuming. The
exec pulled him to the side and started whispering, and the engineer pulled up
his audio sensors. This was a conversation he needed to hear, it affected his
future after all. “Captain I think we need to reconsider how we're going to
treat this situation. Admiral Irons is a sleeper. He's the real deal sir.”

“I
don't give a damn who or what he is. I want my ship fixed. Get into his shuttle
and get the parts. That's an order.”

“Sir.
You need to reconsider that. He's obviously
not
going to allow that. But
he
is
helping us. We can't afford to jeopardize that right now sir,”
O'Malory's eyes implored him not to push this any further.

The
captain glared at her. Before he could repeat the order the exec started
talking fast. The exec described to the captain the changes in the corridor and
room, and had him go with him to see, leaving the confused guards behind.

The
engineer watched as the crew brought in the parts needed. When they had a small
pile he inspected them carefully and then he patched those that were still
functional into the computer. With the reactor down, they only have enough
reserves for a dozen more hours before the life support systems failed totally.
With a little bit of work and a lot of luck they might be able to double or
triple that estimate.

“Layered
Carbon-carbon is a pain in the ass to make. The nanites have to fuse it to the
parts in layers and that takes time. If you rush it the bonds could be half
ass, meaning there could be breaches.”

“Yeah,”
O'Mallory said nodding. It was hard to focus on her work instead of watching
Iron's arm as bits of it seemed to morph on their own accord to repair the
systems around him.

“Admiral
the first load of parts is ready. I've used the launch's bot to move the trays
out of the hatch. However the replicator needs more materials,” Sprite informed
him.

“You
heard that?” he asked. “Barry,” he said pointing to the guy who had followed
him in. Barry nodded. “Go to the shuttle bay and get the parts and bring them
back here. Use the hover pallet I brought. Find more materials for the
replicator. Hell use the stuff in the bay if you have to. I don't care. But the
purer the material the better. If you have to pull up deck plate do it. But
it's better if you've got it on hand. If its raw ingots that's even better.”

BOOK: Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)
3.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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