Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (86 page)

“Well,
that sucked,” Joe said, staring at the doors. He could now hear the angry
buzzing of wires shorting themselves in the walls.

“Tell
me about it,” Sparks muttered.

“At
least you got the CPR going.”

“Yeah.
Thank the admiral for that. If I hadn't attended the class...” he shook his
head. It was too early to think of his partner living. But he did owe Irons a
drink and an apology. He hadn't liked the idea of taking CPR. He knew Freeze
knew it, but that was because he had helped Ezri train. It was how they met;
she'd needed a practice dummy for CPR Freeze liked to say. He grimaced. Who was
going to tell Ezri?

“I
need to call Ezri. She needs to know before they show up there,” Sparks said
coming to a decision.

“It's
being handled,” Joe said, resting a hand on his arm again. “We'll deal with it.
Let's get this sorted out. Control,” he leaned his head over to the mike
clipped to his shoulder. “Control inform nurse Ezri of the situation. Mark this
section as a hazard until further notice,” he ordered.

“Roger,”
an unfamiliar voice said.

“Who's
that?” Sparks asked, pulling out a mirror on a stick to look into the hole. He
grimaced when he spotted the nest of wiring. “New guy?”

“That's
a cyber,” Joe said. “I'll lend you a hand. What was Freeze doing?” he asked
indicating the mess left behind.

“Motor
swap,” Sparks said, indicating the fan nearby. He winced. The new fan motor was
cooked as well. That sucked. That meant he'd have to do it all over again.

“Just
started?” Joe asked, kneeling to look at it.

“No
just finishing. The short fried it again,” Sparks replied with a snarl. He
touched his mike as his boss looked at him in concern. “Control cut power to
this section for now.”

“This
is control, we can't.”

“Then
tell me where the damn box is and I'll do it myself!” Sparks snarled, turning
and stomping to the lift doors.

“Anthony,
chill,” Joe said getting up and dusting his hands off. He knew Sparks was off
because his partner and best friend was down. He could understand it. “One
thing at a time,” he said.

“Yeah
well, that's what I'm trying to do. I can't clear that mess until it's safe,”
Sparks rumbled, hunting for the box.

“Oh,”
Joe said and then looked back at the short. It was pretty dark in there, no way
was he going to stick his hand in there with live wires. “Yeah. Good idea,” he
said and nodded.

“Should
blow the whole thing up. Start over fresh,” Sparks muttered.

“Too
much of a hassle,” Joe said shaking his head. “But I feel yah.”

The
engineers and volunteers repaired the power and basic control runs to the
smelters, and used the limited ice from in and outside the station and surplus
water in the station to restock the life support and fuel supplies. It took a
few days to get the gunk cleaned out and the system purged but when it came online
they had plenty of material to feed to the replicators. At least in the short
term until the onboard stocks ran dry.

It
didn't take long to realize they were going to quickly run out of material for
the smelters however. A meeting is called to discuss the problem.

“What
are we going to do about it?” Sid Berkheart asked. The meeting was in the old
council room on the station. Captain Chambers and his exec were attending
virtually. Captain Chambers had made it clear he had no intention of setting
foot on the station; he had a ship to run after all. The Warners, the admiral,
and both Riff and Gwen were attending physically.

Obviously
the chairs weren't built for Taurens, both were groaning dangerously under the
weight load. Riff didn't care; he was too tired to care. He had been on his
feet for seemingly days or weeks and even though his tail was going to sleep he
didn't care, he liked taking a load off his hooves for once. He glanced at his
mate. Gwen was sitting very still. Gwen didn't want to look like an idiot on
her ass if the damn thing let go though.

The
room was dark, only half the lights had been working when the meeting had been
called. Since the room wasn't really needed it wasn't on anyone's priority
list. A few of the small lights on the walls were working. They didn't really
help much; all they did was light up the dusty paintings on the walls. She
didn't mind the lighting really, the paintings were all impressionistic,
mountains and water colors that didn't appeal to her at all. She just wished the
overhead lighting was more balanced. Right now all the lights were over half
the room.

She
toyed with the idea of getting up and fixing the problem. She could, Irons
would probably pitch in, she could cajole or threaten Riff into helping... but
it would send a mixed message to the others.

Even
with only half the room lit it was still lit enough with the holograms. Each of
the cybers who wanted to attend was in a virtual chair around the gloss black
mahogany table. She had seen them before but they seemed more real now, less of
an apparition. She'd found out that they had cut back on their graphic
processors in order to retask many of the features for other things. Now that
the computers were getting sorted out they had more processing and memory to
add detail to themselves and their outfits. That explained why even when they
added memory and processors the system seemed to suck it up immediately. Buffer
over runs were a constant headache.

Most
of the glowing cybers were dressed in various formal wear. She wasn't really
impressed with it; they looked drab in shades of gray. The only two that really
stood out were the Asian Fu's. The male was dressed in some sort of white and
black robe with a wide black sash belt while his wife wore a red kimono trimmed
in gold.

“So
what are we going to do?” Riff asked tiredly. He'd been excited about getting
smelters up and running until he had realized they needed something to break
down and smelt. That had him a little put out.

Each
of the smelters were really molecular furnaces. You loaded them up with
material and they used nanites and energy fields to tear them apart into their
component molecules, and then siphoned them off to various holding tanks.

Which
was another issue. Half the storage tanks and holds had been compromised by the
pirates. Ripped open was more likely, a few were completely useless. Some of
the holding tanks had been designed to keep their contents superheated and
therefore liquid, so when the power stopped their contents cooled and
solidified. Even the plumbing was gunked up with the stuff and would have to be
replaced. They had plenty of solid copper, tin, and silicon but very little of
the materials they really needed.

“We
can feed it the material from the station that we don't need,” Emily said. Others
around the room nodded at that logic. Some of the lawyers looked ready to
object but the lead one D'red waved an antenna and signaled reluctant agreement
with his upper arms.

“The
wreckage outside,” Sprite replied with a nod.

Emily
nodded. “And all the broken bits of equipment and material inside. That will
save using a replicator to break them down.”

“How
are we on the lines to the replicators?” Sid asked.

“We've
got issues. I'm working on work arounds but it's tough,” Riff admitted. He
looked at Gwen uncertainly.

“What
he means is I keep pulling his people off the project to repair life support or
power lines nearby,” Gwen admitted. Riff snorted. She turned a glare his way.
“Which is admittedly more important than a pipe.”

“Not
just a pipe. It's a feed trunk to the replicators,” he responded with equal
heat.

“All
right,” Irons said. “I take it you are diverting the feed as well?” he asked,
looking at Gwen. Reluctantly she nodded. “You realize you are cutting our own
throats? We need material to get to the replicators. Catch twenty two Gwen.”

“I
know that,” she said testily, waving a hand. “I know. Believe me I know. What
I'm trying to do is focus on the essentials.”

“I
know. But if you want materials to repair the essentials then you need to allow
others to get their jobs done as well,” Sid said patiently.

“That's
a nice way of slapping my hand,” she murmured in response. Captain Chambers
looked away, clearly bored and uninterested.

“Can
we use the ship?” D'red asked.

“What
about it?” Irons like the others turned to the normally quiet attorney. “I
believe they have holds with material but they are committed to contracts on
the planet.”

“Can
we bid for them?” the attorney asked. Irons pursed his lips. “What about the
ship itself?”

“What
the Kiev?” Gwen asked in surprise. Mr. Warner seemed to elbow his captain.
Chambers turned with a dirty look. Mr. Warner nodded his chin to the
holographic board as if to say pay attention.

“Sure,”

“What
would you do with her services?” The admiral asked.

“Well,
we could melt it down...”

“No
way!” Captain Chambers said, turning. He hadn't been paying enough attention
until Mr. Warner had elbowed him. “You aren't getting my ship! It's bad enough
you've got some of my crew!”

“They
can leave when they wish captain,” Doctor Myers murmured. “They aren't under
contract.”

“They
aren't?” the lawyer asked, surprised and dismayed.

“No.
It's something to be fixed later,” Mr. Fu replied patiently. “I am curious,
what figure would allow you to part company with your ship captain?” he asked,
turning his attention to Chambers.

“It's
not for sale,” Chambers growled. “For any price.”

“What
about if we built you a new ship?” Irons asked. The others stared at him. “Just
suggesting,” he said, holding a hand out to show he wasn't making it as an
order.

“No,”
Chambers said, looking at the exec. Mr. Warner pursed his lips.

“Well,
that leaves the shuttles. Can we...”

“NO!”

“No,
wait, hang on a second,” Irons said, holding up his hand again. “I
meant
to say can we rent a few to go out and wrangle some rocks? I'd do it you
understand but if I did I'd be away from the station and the replicators for
long stretches of time. That would...”

“Throw
our fragile building schedules all to hell,” Emily finished for him. “No,
that's out,” she turned to the captain with a smile.

“I'll
think about it,” he said grudgingly. She smiled a little more. “Hey I said I'd
think about it, I didn't say I'd commit. Send me a contract and I'll go over
it. I don't even know if Barry will go for it.”

“Volunteers
only,” Irons replied with a knowing nod. “Wrangling rocks isn't for the faint
of heart.” He wasn't comfortable sending out greenhorns on such a project but
he realized he couldn't do it. He had to take chances somewhere and apparently
this was one of those times and places.

Captain
Chambers nodded his way. “There speaks the voice of experience. I'll see if
Barry is interested. In the meantime I suggest you work with what you've got.
We had to do so for centuries. If you have to pull feed lines from other
replicators then do so. You can always scrap the broken bits and melt them down
for reuse to replace what you've taken later.”

Irons
looked at a few other the others. There were grudging nodded from the
engineers. The bureaucrats were looking decidedly uncomfortable with the idea.
“I think we can do that. Same for some of the corridors. But we don't need
everything repaired right away. We're losing focus.”

“Agreed,”
Gwen said with a wince. “I'll talk to my people.”

“I
think that would be wise,” Fu said quietly, stroking his beard. “On to other
matters. The educational initiatives. I believe they should be lessened for the
moment in order to focus on more important matters...”

Warner
expected the rant as the channel closed. He didn't have long to wait, Chambers
was in a foul mood. He got up out of his chair and turned, pacing the cabin
like a caged tiger. “Can you believe the nerve of that guy?”

“I
think he spoke without thinking,” Warner said diplomatically. Which was
probably true he reflected. The lawyer had spoken without thinking. What had
surprised him was that the admiral had thrown in some support for the asinine
idea.

“What
gets me is that they aren't real. Not in our way. It's like everyone else
doesn't really matter to them unless it's to benefit them. Did you see the look
on that guy's face when he was told our people aren't working with a contract?”

Warner
snorted. “Which will probably be remedied soon,” Warner replied, getting up. He
headed over to the coffee pot with his cup. It was stained with coffee. He dumped
the cold dregs into the recycler and then rinsed the cup out before pouring
himself a new cup. “I can't wait to see the look on some of our eager
volunteers when he started to pester them about it.”

Chambers
snorted, pausing in his pacing to reflect on that. After a long moment he
smiled a little. “Yeah, that's not going to go over well. Gwen's smart enough
to go over whatever he hands her before signing it.”