Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (7 page)

“Um...
sure,” Barry said, checking with his boss. The chief gave him a nod to the
door. He nodded in return and took off at a trot. “Run you twit! Double time!”
The chief snarled. His receding footfalls picked up in pace. Irons nodded.

The
crew began assembling the parts into sub assemblies as he tapped the robots to
disassemble the broken fuel controls. The reaction chamber was nearly drained
of plasma, and from the look on her face the chief was worried about getting it
started again.

“I'm
not worried about a restart chief if that's what's got you concerned. If we
have to I can sample some of the plasma you still have in your EPS conduits or
from my shuttle's reactor. We did that on Anvil to jump start her reactors.”

“You
did?” she asked dubiously. She was starting to sweat, brushing her black bangs
out of her eyes irritably.

“Yes.
I'll tell you about it later,” he said as a crew came in with another load of
parts. Some were obviously being pulled from secondary systems or from salvage.
He winced. They didn't have a lot of time to check them over either.

He
absently watched the captain and exec through his feed to the computer as he
pulled up a start up simulation. He grimaced in thought, even with the three
reactor emitters he had traded to them; they were still down below minimum safe
containment. He pulled up the cargo manifest and took a look. They had
scavenged every emitter from all but two shuttles to keep the reactor going. He
noted they had plenty of raw materials for most of what was needed and sighed.

He
turned to the chief and asked her to get a shipment of the supplies to the
shuttle bay. Alarmed she started to protest, until he cut her off by telling
her he needed it to replicate new emitters. “You were serious?” she asked. He
nodded. “So you can make more?”

“I
made the ones I gave you just before coming here. I made them when you told me
you needed them. They aren't even a day old.” he said amused. Taken aback, she
stepped back and gave him a long look. He shrugged and motioned her to get
moving. Shaking it off, she buckled down and got back to work.

“I'm
going to get the robots to try to fix each other. Then we'll get onto the
repairs,” he said. She nodded.

He
let Proteus do the diagnostics and initial repairs. Proteus checked each of the
other bots; one had been too close to the ribbon and had been melted.
Apparently not all of it's exterior had been carbon carbon coated.

“Cheap,”
he observed with a grimace. Proteus had tagged the bot as salvage. It was using
the one good bot to tear it apart. The second bot was taking the parts and
plugging them into a third bot that was missing its sensors and an arm.
Hopefully he would have three functional robots soon. Even a semi-functional
robot would help here. Every little bit helped.

“We're
ready with the first load you sent over,” O'Mallory said.

“Okay.
We've got to get the old parts out. I can't just stack them against the walls;
they'll get in the way.”

“Um...”
she looked around.

“There's
a secondary lock. It feeds to a chamber that goes through the outer hull to the
exterior of the ship. That's why it's there.”

“Um...”

“I'll
handle it,” Irons said. He could feel his nanites all through the board in
front of him. Proteus had sent a finger of nanites along the electronic runs to
the reactor chamber and was trying to make what repairs it could. Unfortunately
it was losing about ten percent of the nanites it sent in every minute. He
winced. He could make more, but at this rate he'd be out soon.

When
the third robot came online he used it to start jettisoning the materials. They
were so irradiated it wasn't worth attempting to salvage them. Proteus sent the
first pair of bots after another bot, trying to repair it.

About
half way through the jettisoning of the scrap Barry returned, bumping into a
stanchion with the cart loaded with parts. The guy straightened the load out
and pushed it off to the lock.

“First
load of material is in the shuttle admiral. I've left the lock open. A group of
people are feeding the parts and running the finished ones to engineering,”
Sprite informed him. She brought up a window view of the bay but he waved it
off. It was a distraction and he needed to focus. He had to trust them as much
as they trusted him now.

The
engineer finished with the robots after an hour, then had the crew load the
parts in the chamber, along with the new emitters and other parts. They
hesitated to comply until the chief angrily told them to hurry.

He
wished that some of the parts had been for the bots, a few more on the job
would speed the process along. He still had bot three shifting trash. Proteus
had a fourth bot online, but its sensors were mostly fried. They had to use
another nearby bot as its eyes until new ones could be added.

He
sets robots one and two to replacing the parts, then to begin removing the
broken and jury rigged emitters further away. The captain and exec return at
about that time and grimly watched as he worked at the task.

“O'Mallory
we need more materials for the replicator. Carbon for one. As pure as you can
get it,” he said off hand to her. “Are they ready?” he turned and asked.

“They
will be at the bay in five minutes,” she informed him, glancing his way and
brushing her sweat soaked bangs out of her eyes. Nodding absently, the engineer
got up and stretched before moving to the door.

“I've
got to go there to initialize the keys. Reactor parts...”

“Are
key authorized. Got it. Get going,” she replied waving to the door.

A
pair of guards started to pull their weapons until the engineer paused to lock
eyes with the nearest one. The man froze in his tracks. “Son, you do not want
to do that. Not only do we not have time for that nonsense, but I'm not in any
mood,” he said quietly, menacingly. His voice had dropped an octave with enough
subsonics in it to make the guy's hair stand on end. He had noticed that his
duffel and stunner had disappeared from where he had laid them down. Right now
he didn't care about them; he'd either get them back or replicate replacements.

He
looked over his shoulder. “Tell them to stand down or be
broken
down. I
don't care which,” Irons said looking at the officers.

The
other guards and exec step forward menacingly until O'Mallory waved them off.
“We don’t have
time
for this shit!” She glared at them at a full bellow.
She waved to the engineer to get going, and he chuckled in response. Suddenly
the captain chuckled and nodded to the chief. Irons moved out at a trot with
Barry and a crew of techs and guards on his heels.

Half
way there he spotted his bags and stunner being held by a teenage Terran of
indeterminate sex. He grabbed the bag by the shoulder sling on the run and
yanked the pistol out of the kid’s hands. “Thanks for hanging on to these,” he
said over his shoulder. He heard Barry's snort behind him but didn't turn to
look.

The
engineer made his way to the shuttle bay under guard and met a team of harried
workers carrying loads of raw and semi-processed metal ingots. He grimaced at
the manual labor, and took up a one hundred and twenty kilo ingot with his
cybernetic arm. The workmen protested but stopped when he causally held it and
entered the bay.

He
pulled up the interface to the shuttle and shut down the security system, and
then uploaded the schematics for the emitters to the replicator. Entering his
ship, he tossed his bags to the side and gently sets the ingot into the
replicator feed. It began breaking down the metal immediately so he turned to
the guard. He motioned her out of his ship and then had the work crew start
passing him ingots. He had already started a second set of emitters when he
entered the ship, so they would be complete within a half hour. He filled the
feed bin and then stacked the ingots nearby.

Noting
the crew standing around, he sorted them out, getting them organized into teams
to move the junk in the bay. “Barry,” he said looking for the guy who had
followed him in.

“Yo!”
The guy said, waving.

“Barry
have them sort the stuff into four categories. Salvageable, plastic, metal, and
electronic. We'll break it down from there. Whatever is junk we'll feed to my
replicator. That'll save time running all over the ship looking for crap.”

“Okay,”
Barry said waving to his crew.

Irons
went back into the shuttle and went over to the food replicator. He ordered up
a cup of coffee and then scrolled through the parts list and started queuing up
plastic and minor electronic parts.

“What
are you doing?” a gal said, coming in and panting while she hauled an ingot. He
took it from her with his right hand took a sip of coffee from his cup in his
left and then set the ingot down next to the replicator feed.

“Minor
parts can be replicated by a food replicator like this one,” he replied
absently. She was staring at him wide eyed.

She
seemed to get a hold of herself, breaking her awed reverie. “Oh, I didn't know
that,” she said, looking at the replicator as it finished a tray of parts. He
took the tray out and fed a block of plastic in. He tapped the enter button and
it glowed to life. After a minute it was almost gone. He looked over to the
woman who was looking the piece over. He recognized it as an insulator shroud.
“I didn't know they could do this,” she said turning the piece over and over.

“Well,
mine is military grade so it can do a bit more. But any food replicator can do
plastic as long as it has sufficient power, material, and the blueprint in
memory.”

“Oh.”

“You
haven't had one make a bowl or cup?” he asked, indicating the cup in his hand.
She looked at it and then blinked.

“Um,
no, uh, we usually just stick a bowl or something in it.”

“Martha!
What's the hold up?!” Barry called.

“Coming!”
she said turning and moving out. “Sorry,” she said over her shoulder and then
she was gone. Irons snorted softly and finished his coffee. Something told him
it was going to be another marathon session.

When
he noticed that they were trying to use manual labor to clean the bay he shook
his head and then informed them he was cutting the gravity field so they can
work easier. Several protested, but he ignored it and turned the field off. The
crew began to float, drifting about with cries of dismay. He turned to them and
ordered them to move the parts to the sides of the bay. As they work he coached
them and the guards on how to move and work in free-fall. He accessed the
shuttle and ordered it to release a pair of repair robots and a house keeping
robot to work on the bay. Amazed, some of the crew stop to watch the machines
begin to clean and repair the bay.

As
they moved the debris he took note of what was there, and then had them move
several parts not worth salvaging to piles beside his shuttle so he can melt
them down.
“Admiral the first load has been processed. The first tray was finished. Time
for more material please,”
Proteus informed him.

Noticing
a trio of rather green young women trying to keep from getting sick he had them
enter the ship with him. As they come to the airlock he reached out and grabbed
each and reoriented them to enter on their feet. They land and then sighed in
relief. He snorted.

The
first pair of parts were complete so he had a pair of them take them to
engineering. He showed the last woman how to feed the replicator, and she
watched with wide eyes as the replicator began on the second pair of emitters.
They needed a dozen more pairs. “We're on a time crunch, every second counts.
It took nearly an hour to make that one part. I think we may have to go with
what we've got if the power situation doesn't improve,” he said as he grimaced.

He
nodded to Barry who was trying to hook up a power cable from the wall to the
shuttle. “Here?” Barry asked, pointing to an auxiliary panel. Irons nodded as
Proteus opened the panel. “Plug it in and we'll get the power going.”

“Admiral
ah... won't you run out here?” the girl asked. He looked over to her. She was a
teen, scared, but determined. She had striped blond and black hair and yellow
irises. He shook his head as Barry clicked the cable into place and then locked
it down. The lights dimmed as he turned and gave his partner a thumbs up.

“I've
stepped the reactor up to one hundred and twenty percent. I can do it for about
twenty hours without a problem but I've got to keep a close eye on the bottle
and after this is over I'll have to do a tear down and rebuild it.”

“Oh.”
She blinked uncertainly.

“Do
you need fuel admiral?” Barry asked leaning in to the airlock.

“No,
not yet. In about ten hours I will,” Irons said turning to him as he pulled a
tray from the food replicator. He handed it to the woman. “Hand this off.
Another will be ready in about four minutes,” he said. She nodded and moved
off.

“My
ship uses Deuterium and helium three. I'm good for a short while,” Irons
replied. He wished he had a supply of antimatter. He'd love to have an
antimatter reactor right about now. Of course the reactor was an oversized
paperweight without fuel.