Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  The engineer smiled and asked his AI to go to holo mode and give them a lecture on AI. Behind the kids the holo sprang to life in a fountain of light. Fireworks popped behind them, startling all of them to spin about. The fireworks spun faster and faster. They ooohed and awed as the lights dimmed. The display formed a torus that formed into a glowing ball. After a moment a pixie stretched as the glow faded. Irons smiled. Sprite always loved to play the pixie for the kids. Sprite introduced herself to the startled kids, and then began telling them about AI. Smiling, the exec escorted the engineer out.

  “So that's your AI?” Warner asked.

  “One of them anyway. I can't go very far for long. She's using up a lot of bandwidth. Actually, both of them are,” he grimaced. Proteus had boosted his transceiver to its max level to squeeze as much bandwidth out as possible. However there was an increase in noise from having the gain up so high. Apparently the wifi links hadn't been installed yet. He'd have to talk with O'Mallory to get that done.

  “Hopefully this won't take long Admiral,” Warner said with a cautious nod. He turned his head to see O'Mallory heading out with the load of parts. He really wanted to go with O'Mallory, this could wait, but something itched at his psyche. Something told him, told his gut that this was important enough a diversion to allow.

  Irons nodded to a crew member installing a remote wifi repeater box. Apparently Sprite had slipped a few in to help the AI's with their bandwidth problems. He couldn't blame them. Hopefully this wouldn't take long so he would be able to jack in soon. The lights were dim in the corridors, He didn't have a problem but the exec wasn't happy. He could feel a chill in the air; they had cut the air flow, not a good sign. They were on the shaded side of the ship, but he was pretty sure the sunny side was heating up fast. They'd have to make this side trip a quick one.

  “What's this about?” he asked.

  The exec ducked through a hatch and looked back briefly. Irons noted the pair of goggles on his face. The exec was wearing primitive night vision goggles. Smart. “I want you to see the people you're trying to save. Some in particular,” was Warner's cryptic reply.

  Irons thought about it briefly for a moment and then shrugged.

  They made their way to the habitats, and the exec explained as they went that the first forward pair of cargo pods were converted into habitats. “There are over seven thousand, four hundred and ninety three humans, a dozen or so Neo's most of them canines, and about two hundred and fifty nine of seven of the more common but different alien species made their home on this ship.”

  Nodding, the engineer accessed the system and pulled up a status report. Sprite and Proteus sent him a quick paragraph with stats then refocused on what they were doing.

  The work on the reactor was going slow; the crew wasn’t as efficient as he was with the robots. He made a note to get down there when they finished here. The exec entered a clean area and he turned as he opened a door. An ocelot colored Talasian passed out of the room and the exec stepped back.

  Intrigued, the engineer nodded to the Talasian. The Talasians have a broad but flat head, like a triangle hammer head. The eyes were a meter apart, and had two sets of eyelids that protected cat like eyes. They walked like unmodified Terran primates, on all fours in a sort of knuckle walk. Talasians were often mistaken as someone's pet even when they wore a work belt with tools. It was only when they sat upright or spoke that ignorant people realized their mistake.

  Talasians were avid spacers, even though they looked like they would be more comfortable down in the dirt. Unfortunately they didn't have the mental ability to hyper-navigate or the discipline to handle working in a mixed crew. Or at least that's what the text books said at any rate. Obviously that was in error, he thought with a wry twist of his lips as he nodded politely in passing. Apparently adversity in such times bred strange compromises.

  Amused, the engineer stepped into the room and felt like he was stepping back into time. The quarters were neat and tidy, but the walls were covered in holo prints of warships. The holographic images tended to look like they were leaping off the wall. It was all a visual illusion of course, all a matter of the right film, no power required. Two older people motioned at them to come over and the exec stepped over.

  Both of the elderly people were in rockers, the woman was wearing a knitted brown shawl and had an afghan in her lap. She smiled, but her green eyes were distant. The old man however had a sharp glint in his blue eyes. He had a military hair cut, thin black hair but touched with silver. He was heavily wrinkled with age. His golden skin had spots all over, a sure sign of excessive UV and radiation exposure. As the exec started to make his introductions the old man gasped and froze in shock. Alarmed everyone turned to him as he stood and saluted shaking.

  With a raised eyebrow the engineer returned the salute. “It's good to see you again admiral. Very good. Lieutenant jg Taylor Warner sir. I've... we've missed you.” The admiral felt shock as the old man introduced him to the frail blonde woman in the chair.

  “Dad, please sit. Before you fall dad. Please.” The exec asked his father. There was a hint of concern in the exec's voice. Irons nodded as the last name finally registered. Taylor Warner sank back into his chair with a sigh of relief. His son followed suit after a moment.

  Irons was still grappling with the mental shock of meeting someone he'd known. He'd given up on meeting anyone from his time until he'd run into Logan. The chances... the odds of anyone surviving the war until this time period... let alone someone who had served under him... He shook his head at the enormity of chance and how the universe works in such strange ways.

  The engineer took a seat and then listened as the old man told of how the admiral had saved him as a child, then sponsored him for fleet prep school and the academy. He went on about how the admiral taught one of his classes, and the admiral felt a flood of memories wash over him. He smiled fondly as the frail man told of how he had served under the admiral as an ensign, and how he had been injured saving his scrawny neck from a plasma breach.

  “Twice you saved my life admiral. My family owes you a debt,” Warner said with a nod. “I'm glad you're here. We can never repay you for what you've done sir, but...” he sighed. “Did my son tell you we named him for you sir?” Irons blinked and looked at the exec. The exec looked stricken and then slowly nodded. The engineer tried to wave it off, but the frail man insisted.

  He cleared his throat and then cocked his head. “How did you two survive the war? I mean stasis pod of course...”

  Warner senior sat back with a sigh. “I severed on two ships sir. I was on the Majestic, a liner turned fleet transport, when it was attacked while exiting hyper. The captain gave the order to abandon. Seven hundred and eleven years ago.” Irons winced at that. It was one thing to be in a warship fighting desperately to survive and failing. Quite another to do it from the decks of a relatively unarmed transport.

  “Rasha,” Warner reached out and gripped her hand gently. He rubbed his thumb over her hand gently. “Ensign Scott at the time...” he coughed and then sighed. “She and I were the only people to get off in an escape pod. Oh other pods got off but the damn Xeno's hunted them down. We managed to head off to deep space and then shut down everything.”

  “You used the transport as a cover?” Irons asked, imagining the scene. The Warners nodded in unison. He nodded as well.

  “We waited until the aliens backed off before turning the air back on. Nearly ran it too long. Co2 was building up to high levels.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Finally the Xeno's left when another ship hypered in. We...” He looked at his wife with what looked like a guilty look. “We wanted to warn them but we didn't. We knew that by the time they received our warning it would be too late anyway,” he said, voice trailing off.

  Irons nodded. “I know,” he said quietly.

  “Yes well, we... when the Xeno's were far enough out we programmed the pod and went into stasis. A little over a century and a half ago our pod was
recovered by this ship.”

  “And you stayed?” Irons asked.

  “Nowhere else to go. The Federation was gone,” Warner said mouth sour. Irons nodded.

  “I know. The galaxy is a messed up place right now. We're working on it,” Irons said. Warner's eyes widened and then he slowly nodded.

  “If anyone can bootstrap us back to what it once was, it's you sir,” Taylor said. His hand shook as he pointed a gnarled hand to the admiral. Life and time had not been kind to him. To either of them.

  “Not without your help son. You and others like you,” Irons nodded to those in the room. Warner junior sat up straighter at that.

  “Have you been awake long?” Taylor asked.

  “Not long. Three years. I was picked up by the crew of the Io 11 a... well, a salvaged fleet tender.” He looked pained. Warner senior nodded.

  In return Irons explained to them some of his travels, and how some other sleepers were rebuilding Pyrax. The Warner's were interested, and amused that he ran into Logan there.

  The exec noticed a nurse coming and nodded to the engineer catching his attention. The old man followed their gaze and then swore bitterly until the engineer smiled in amusement. “We'll talk again. That I promise,” He told him. “Right now I'm needed in engineering. We've got to get that reactor up and running,” he said. He'd kept tabs on the progress while they had talked. Sprite was about finished with the easy software repairs. Apparently O'Mallory had tied in the power plants from the ship's two remaining shuttle craft as well as everything that had an independent power supply to extend the time line. Fortunately for now it was working.

  Nodding in sudden understanding, Warner senior brusquely told his son to take care of the engineer. “I mean it junior. The admiral here is a friend. I'll be watching,” he growled.

  “Yes dad,” Warner Junior said soberly. He shot Irons a look. Irons shrugged. Smiling politely, the two waved good bye and exited.

  “Thank you for that,” The engineer said quietly as they moved down the corridor. The lights flickered and then cut by half. He felt the gravity emitters cut out. Great.

  “I forgot. I'm sorry. I should be the one thanking you. If you hadn't been who you are, if you hadn't been there for my dad I would never have been born. I owe you. He's shown more life today then he has in years,” the exec said and then shook his head. “Dad is right. You're an honorable man and we've treated you horribly. I'm sorry sir. I'll do my best to fix it,” he vowed meeting the admiral's gaze with his own steady determination. The engineer nodded and they went to engineering.

  “Progress report chief. Tell me we're getting somewhere with all this.”

  O'Mallory didn't flinch as she heard the captain's strident demand behind her. She kept pushing the emitter, lifting the bottom edge with a hover pallet and muscling it through the narrow port and into the corridor beyond. She nodded to Torg, the Tauren chief of the work party to take it from there before she turned to address the captain.

  “We're getting there. It's well, hard.”

  “Really,” he said dryly.

  She spread her hands apart in supplication. “We have to tear out all our fixes over the past seven centuries to plug in new captain. We're working on it.” She winced at the sound of something metal clattering to the deck. Engineering had some gravity but not full one Terran standard G right now. She'd toyed with the idea of shutting it down to conserve power... it would make it easier to move equipment but it'd be a hassle with people getting zero G sick and with crap floating around they didn't need something flying around and shorting something out. Or someone flying around and hitting something and shorting it out.

  “Chief if you can't get this under control I'm going to have to make some hard decisions.”

  She was actually surprised he hadn't by now. Chambers could and normally was a hard ass. Something had held him back, possibly Cora his wife. “Cap we're working on it. I think we're about ready for the admiral again.”

  “I'm here,” Irons said nodding. He made his way to the controls. They were looking a little better than they had been. The cleaner bot had finished with the control room and apparently O'Mallory had plugged in a lot of the parts they had sent in. Good.

  The captain looked at him but ignored his presence. “I'm serious O'Mallory. You've got to get main power back in an hour or I'm going to have to sacrifice the sleepers.”

  “Cap! You can't do that!” Warner said aghast.

  The captain turned on his exec with narrowed eyes. His face was set in stone as work around them slowed and then stopped. “I can and I will Mister Warner. My duty is to the living. To the ship as a whole. We have got to have power to maneuver. To survive.”

  “We're working on it,” Irons said taking a seat and jacking in.

  “We'll get it done cap, just... just give us a little more time,” O'Mallory said, glancing at Irons.

  “You've run out. We've run out.”

  Warner turned to glare at the audience. “Get to work people,” he growled. “We've got a miracle to perform.”

  “I'll be with Mister Hir'ruk and doctor Numiria working on how best to disconnect the stasis pods. You've got your hour. If I can't maneuver by then I'll take steps. Get it done,” the captain said and then stalked out.

  “Shit,” O'Mallory breathed looking at the others.

  In engineering he tapped the robot controls and took stock. They had managed to repair one emitter, but were going too slow with the install of the newly built ones. They had just finished clearing out the jury rigged bits that had been in place and restored the control lines back to stock.

  A big problem was that the emitters were so large and cumbersome. Replacing an emitter was usually a chore for a yard, not something you did in the spur of the moment. Normally a yard would pull the skin off, rip the reactor open and rebuild it. Here they were trying to muscle the emitters through the tiny maintenance lock and into the chamber. A lock not really built to handle the size of a main line emitter. He really didn't want to think about the radiation exposure the crew doing that chore were exposing themselves too.

  Then of course there was the gear. Ancient gear that had seen better days. Constant use and abuse had forced the on board firmware to adapt as parts of the systems failed. The VR gear jury rigged into the system was just too cumbersome to use in haste. He signaled the users to stop, then flipped his implants on and linked with the robots as they wearily complied. The latest batch of parts had arrived from his shuttle, and he tasked one robot to begin installing them as he used the other to set up the next emitter. The third robot was tasked to clean and repair the plasma siphons, so he left it alone for now and fed all his concentration on the work. Bot four was almost useless. He set it to mirror bot two and then got down to work.

  O'Mallory glanced at the admiral. He was frozen, a peaceful almost Zen like look on his face, sitting back into the chair. Wires ran from his arm and legs to ports in the reactor controls. The man was his namesake, Iron. It bothered her a little to see manipulators moving about on the board, clearing and repairing it. Some of the repairs seemed to happen on their own. She was pretty sure Irons was using nanites. She didn't want to panic her crew though so she kept the observation to herself.

  Proteus informed him his shuttle robots had completed some of the bay repairs and were recharging. He set them up to work on the plasma conduits and corridors to the critical ship systems, and then got back to work. Things were finally starting to come together.

  The captain's deadline had come and gone an hour ago. Fortunately he'd tapped the reserves to give them a minimum RCS capability. Most of the reserves were capacitors in the RCS pods themselves, designed to hold a charge in case of an emergency and main power was cut off. Exactly this situation.

  He hadn't liked it but it had allowed the ship to maneuver into a more stable orbit and it mollified the captain to ease up on his hard deadline. At least for now.

  He had been at it for two hours, and was half finished. Three more o
rders of parts had arrived, and he had had to re-task the fifth robot to installing them. The pencil was good for that, it had small manipulators perfect for getting in and out of tight areas, and it had enough fine motor control to handle the sensitive sensors without damaging them.

  He pulled up the diagnostics and ran a check. They had installed nine of the emitters, with six more to go. Sprite had scared up another pair of bots, these were from the shuttles. They weren't very good but they helped in repairing the EPS conduits. Right now every hand was vital. He had dozens of hands all working on various parts of the ship's power train at the same time. There were the five bots in the reactor and the four out on EPS duty. His two cleaner bots were moving ahead of the EPS bots, scanning and probing for breaches and logging them for later repair.

  The fuel lines were repaired, but the plasma vents and siphons were still stuck open. The backup coolant valves were also welded shut and would most likely need to be replaced. He checked the power reserves and sucked in his breath. In less than two hours the life support would shut down. His shuttle was sucking up fuel fast. In an hour it would need to be refueled. Running on straight hydrogen would drop its power efficiency by eighty percent. Not good.

  “Sprite. Cut...”

  “Power to all life support except the Co2 scrubbers. I know. On it,” she answered sounding harried. He had the AI cut power to gravity, heat, and light emitters on most of the decks, and re-tasked the robots to patch the shuttle power network into the ship’s conduits, routing around shorts that were robbing them of power. Every watt counted now.

  “How are we doing in there?” O'Mallory asked. He ignored her for a minute as the bots muscled the next emitter into place and then started to hook up the control runs.