Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  "Anything I can do?" Warner asked finally.

  The admiral smiled slightly. "Nothing son, not a thing. I've got what I could get. I'll make do," Irons said sitting up on his elbows to look at the holo. "How are things on your end?"

  Taylor's face worked. He could see disgust and annoyance writ all over him. "The Fu's are bridging the gap between the two groups but it's hard to stay cool knowing what's at stake. My wife really blew her stack in there. She was something else,” he smiled in pride.

  "She's a firecracker that one. I can see why you married her. Keep her safe," Irons said getting up and brushing himself off.

  "She is, I've known that for decades," Warner said with a note of admiration in his voice. "I've always loved watching her temper. From a distance you understand," he said hastily, hands up. Irons grinned. "Like a force of nature," Warner continued smiling himself. Irons nodded.

  "The good ones usually are," Irons replied. Warner smiled again in appreciation.

  "The reactor, replicators, and parts... Sprite shot me a list of what you had planned. Ambitious," Warner said. He ran a hand through his virtual hair. "A fully functional micro yard I bet, it'd take you what?"

  "A year, give or take a month. It all depends on what other support I could drum up," the admiral admitted. Prime was more advanced with more materials and equipment than Anvil but he lacked the volunteer support he had in Pyrax. With the same amount of support he could do the same thing they had done in Pyrax in half the time. Well, except for San Diego. San Diego would require resources he wasn't ready to commit to here.

  "So where were you planning on getting bodies for this? Robots? AI? Volunteers?" Warner asked.

  "My problem," Irons said putting his equipment away. He used a couple of zip ties to tie wiring harnesses together and out of the way. “Which won't be an issue since I don't see it happening anyway.”

  "Just asking admiral, no need to be rude," Warner said hands up again.

  Irons sighed, grimacing. "Sorry, didn't come out the way I wanted." He shook his head. "Yes volunteers. Bots and AI too of course."

  "Which is an ethical dilemma," Sprite said interjecting herself. "I'd like to point out that building a sentient being to do a service without compensation or control of their own destiny is slavery. It violates all the codes of AI creation and I wouldn't be a party to it admiral." She looked at him defiantly.

  He studied her for a moment, feeling a rising anger. He didn't need this... this complication. He watched the stern resolve there. "I'd resign my commission if necessary admiral," she said quietly.

  That hit him in the gut. To do so... He shied away from the thought. She was serious about this. He made himself step back from the anger of being thwarted and think about it. He knew he was still too vexed to think clearly, but he grudgingly admitted she had a point.

  "You're... right," he admitted after a moment, jaw working. "We'd work something out." His face worked for a moment. “It's hypothetical anyway so we don't need to get up in arms over it.”

  "Good to hear," Warner said, looking from one to the other. "I see it's not all worked out on your end," he said quietly.

  "Not by half," Sprite laughed, shaking her head. Apparently she was willing to let it go if he was. "Sometimes we make it up as we go along. But we try, and that's the main thing. That's the only thing we can all do, is try to make the best of what life hands us."

  "Right," Irons nodded. "When life hands you lemons make lemonade. I get it Sprite. Subtle as a sledgehammer as usual."

  "Mowa?" she asked, hand on her chest, but virtual eyes twinkling. He snorted, good humor restored.

  "I've got to go, my shift starts in five. Whatever happens, good luck admiral," Warner said nodding. His virtual image blinked out of existence.

  "A man torn... I don't envy him in the slightest," Sprite said softly.

  "Me neither. We've given him enough headaches. I'll try to make a peaceful exit."

  "Good idea," Sprite said. "Let's not burn anymore bridges than we have to."

  "True," he said and then went back to work.

  ñChapter 32

  Irons looked out the view port, studying the lean lines of the yacht. He'd renamed it Phoenix and it seemed appropriate. He had considered Prometheus, but he'd already laid the keel for the Prometheus back in Pyrax months ago. He'd even taken the time to embed a ghost phoenix in the hull's smart paint. Or at least he'd programmed a bot to do it. It looked good. A little blocky, but he wasn't an artist so it was okay with him.

  It was a beautiful ship alright. Right now it felt more like The Billy Ruffian, the ship that had taken Napoleon off into exile to Elba. Not that Napoleon could fight a naval battle. You'd have thought he would have realized having good people, tech, and applying the macro strategic lessons he'd learned on the battlefield to Naval strategy should have been...

  He grimaced, and shook his head wryly. Woolgathering again. He shook his head again, clearing it. Phoenix would be it for a while. She'd need some repairs, but they'd managed the critical ones before the ruling council had cut off his access to the station's fabricators. Warner had been apologetic about it.

  That was fine, the critical systems were functional, he had plenty of spares now, she was fully fueled, and anything he needed he could do on his own.

  He had the parts he didn't have time to install, and the larger industrial replicator tucked away inside her. He also had plenty of provisions, fuel, and material. A few more hours and he'd be off.

  He had been amused when the ruling council of Antigua, after eighteen hours of apparently acrimonious closed doors debate had tabled the issue for a later unspecified date. Just as he had figured from the beginning. Typical politicians, unable to stare reality in the face. The public hadn't weighed in on this, as far as he knew they didn't know about the shifting tide. He was glad. He didn't need the complication. If they thought by putting it off he'd cool his heels and wait they were about to realize how sadly mistaken they were going to be.

  "Kind of ironic isn't it?" Sprite asked. "Almost amusing."

  "What?" he asked disinterested. He glanced at the tablet in his hand, not really reading it.

  "I checked. After that meeting you had a while back some of the mayors have changed their priority requests. Instead of air cars and doodads to impress their constituents they are now requesting factory equipment."

  "Interesting," he said disinterested.

  She smirked. "Yes, one even went so far as to cancel their request for new combines and instead put in for a combine factory."

  "Fascinating," he said scrolling through the document.

  "Of course where they are going to get the supporting infrastructure for it all is yet to be determined. I don't think they thought of that part," she said thoughtfully. “I see a few of the electronic factory requests are near deposits of silenium and silicon. I believe existing electronic factories are there so they should make the jump easily enough. I'm not sure how it's all going to work out. From here it doesn't look likely,” she said.

  "Probably not," he said absently. He tapped the tablet controls, signing off on the document then tucked the tablet under his arm and then climbed through the hatch onto the ship.

  "They are going to need parts factories, materials, forges, the works," Sprite finally said.

  "Some of which they have already Sprite," he replied absently still not looking up or really paying attention.

  "You're not listening admiral; they need you, whether they know it now or not." She sounded almost desperate. That made him pause. “They do sir, they'll come around. In time.”

  He snorted and paused at the bridge hatch. "Need me Sprite?" He shook his head. "Yes, a pat on the head would be nice but that's not what we're here for. We're here to get galactic civilization going again, and we've done that. Time to move on."

  "You're acting like a child you know. A petulant child who can't get his own way," she said in exasperation. "Give it time admiral! They'll come around!"

&
nbsp; "Am I?" he threw the tablet through the hatch and slammed a fist against the bulkhead. "Am I? I'm getting out while the getting's good Sprite. This is one ripe target for the pirates. Perfect. Manufacturing, dense mining, dry dock slips, Blueprints and a partially educated population. And NO DEFENSES," his snarl rose to a full bull bellow.

  "True, but..."

  "But what?" he demanded glaring. "If you're about to say we can change it then you my cybernetic friend are wrong. Dead wrong. The best we're going to do is beg for the crumbs that they'll occasionally toss our way. Then when the shit hits the fan, and trust me it will, the pirates will roll over any pathetic thing I've gotten in place and then set up shop and I'll be helpless to do a damn thing about it." He shook his head. “With my luck I'll have to put up with the politicians screaming about the useless military and where you when we needed you crap.”

  "Admiral you don't know that! Not for certain! Warner..."

  He scowled. "The Warner's are two people, new on the station council with no connection to any of the old guard. They know the importance of it, but they also know that they can't divide the council. They are also tired and lack the will to continue."

  "So you'll let it all burn down? Do nothing?" Sprite asked.

  "No, I'm going to leave,” he said firmly. “Hopefully Lieandra or Kiev will get word to Pyrax before the Horathian's find out. Hopefully Horatio will shift Fuentes or something else here to ride herd on them until they see sense. I'm not sure. I doubt it. He'll be opening a can of worms on his end if he does," he shook his head, sitting down in the captain's chair harder than he intended. he grimaced for a moment and then sighed. The thought of what Horatio was probably going to have to go through; the political screaming on his end suddenly hit him. He ran his hands through his hair, thoroughly frustrated before sitting back tiredly.

  He thought about it, turning the situation over and over in his mind and then grimaced. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. "Sprite this system is ripe. It only lacks the political will to get the job done. Unfortunately we don't have it. If they have a close call then it might change. I don't know."

  "If the pirates were smart they'd ignore the planet and just pick the station clean," Sprite mused. He winced.

  "Yeah," he said softly in agreement. "That's what I would do," he said studying the controls. "How are we doing here?" Phoenix had three cybernetic cores but for some reason no AI had been loaded in any of them. Well one had, but it had committed virtual suicide when the ship had lost power. There had been a great deal of data, all message traffic that was of course encrypted. He couldn't decrypt it since he didn't have the up to date encryption key embedded in his implants. If he had he would have been able to decrypt the purely military message traffic, but over half of the messages in the bank were government related. They used a different cipher so of course he couldn't access them.

  "Mama AI is checking now. Baby is still in the oven, not quite ready for hatching," Sprite said flippantly. Her holo image appeared on the arm rest. He glanced at it. She was noticeably pregnant. It was odd because she had decided to go with a dumber AI for Phoenix since she would be tied into the system as well. He wasn't sure he liked the idea, but then again, she had been right about making AI into slaves. He'd have to watch that from now on.

  "You do have an odd sense of humor you know that?" he asked amused.

  "Comes from the people I associate with," she said with a sweet smile. "I can't put a definite time table on it admiral, but I'd say AI Phoenix will be ready in three or four standard days. Maybe five. At least the electronics side. I'd still prefer a larger crew."

  He shook his head. "I'm not going to go headhunting or recruiting or whatever you want to call it Sprite. I'm not going to shanghai people... to drag people away from their homes when things are changing so fast for the better here now. New jobs every day, new opportunities."

  "Um... Admiral this ship is for short lengths and normally has a crew of twelve with AI support. You can't be everywhere at once. We're just fortunate that it was built with a smart AI." Sprite knew she was grasping at threadbare excuses. From his bioscan he didn't buy it. Her virtual heart sank.

  "The AI was purged though," he said grimacing. Phoenix had spent her previous life as the Golden Dew Drop, running her rich owners around the quadrant before being volunteered as a courier ship. She'd run out of luck or made one too many runs without overhauls and had been stranded in the system for the past six and a half centuries.

  "We've got three, four counting Defender..." Sprite replied wincing. She still wasn't at all happy about interacting with Defender.

  The admiral nodded in response. "Four AI. Motivated AI who have their own cybernetic hides on the line so I'm not worried. If we need to spin off another AI, then we can do that."

  "Another AI?" Sprite asked, raising a virtual eyebrow. She wasn't comfortable with that idea. Not anymore at any rate.

  He nodded again. "One for the bridge, one for main engineering."

  "And where..." she started to ask. He merely smiled.

  "Seriously?" she asked after a moment, eyes wide.

  "Why not?" he replied as he shrugged. "You've done fine with the other AI. We can use Proteus as a downer AI and if necessary me. You can map my neural net and use it and Proteus as a template for an engineering AI. Or we can go with dumb AI for now. They can decide to run the ship or they can get off when we can build another core and deposit them somewhere else."

  The mere thought of that was in some ways appealing... in others appalling. First off he had no real inkling of what sort of work was involved in combining a human intellect with a diverse AI like Proteus. "Admiral..."

  "What?"

  "That's... I don't even begin to have the capacity for something of that complexity. Nor the computer reserves in the system. We can't do that when we're in hyper for one, the ship will need all its computing power to focus on that! Too..."

  "We've got time Sprite," he said shaking his head. "Plenty of time. Think about it," he said. "When they reach sentience we can give them the choice of staying on or being dropped off in a system of their choosing."

  "That fits the context but not the spirit of the AI creation laws admiral," Sprite mused.

  "Just think about it Sprite," he said tiredly. He was tired of talking about it.

  "Yes sir,” she said. After a moment she smiled again and brushed hair over her ear.

  “What?” he asked.

  She snorted. “Just reading your e-mail. You've got about a dozen requests for consultation work. Mayors and industrialists wanting your input on how to set up all those factories I mentioned.”

  He frowned. “Joy. Send them references from the Galactic Encyclopedia and get with Proteus to jot out an outline. It's all there, logistics.”

  “Hmm-mm...” She didn't sound all that convinced.

  “I'm busy Sprite. I tell you what. Jot it out, a basic thing than if you want my input let me know and I'll take a quick look. Toss in some of my lectures on logistics and manufacturing as well. Hell, give them most of what I've got on that anyway. Shoot copies to any interested parties and any colleges as well. Charge a nominal fee to cover the basics I suppose.”

  “Right,” she said nodding. “I've already filed most of your lectures with the online college. I'll give them links to them though.”

  “Good. Now if you'll excuse me, we've got work to do,” he said firmly.

  “Aye aye sir.”

  “Dismissed commander.”

  The admiral nodded to the holo of the Warner’s as he approached the airlock for the last time. Well, last time on this station for now, he mused darkly. He subtly glanced around. A few of the ruling council were around, hovering in the background. Glad to see him gone, he thought cynically.

  He didn't care. He had his launch on board, the ship was fully fueled, and he'd said good bye to a few of his favorite students a few minutes ago. He'd smiled politely while they had their going away party and had graciously acc
epted their gifts. He knew he'd really appreciate the food gifts in time; even he got tired of replicated food after a while.

  Security had been conspicuous in its absence during the party. He'd felt a little nervous, but had accepted the invitation in order to keep on good terms with the students. They after all were the future. Had it been a trap it would have gotten ugly. Fortunately the Warner's had kept a lid on things. Now it was time to hit the space lanes and see what else was out there.

  Savo had taken the day off to attend the party. It had been a bit bitter for everyone, a little painful for all but he'd attended.

  Making his good byes to Sparks, Mr. Freeze, Savo, and the others had been difficult. They were all good people. Hopefully this wouldn't get them down.

  "Admiral." he turned to Mr. Warner and nodded politely. This was one good bye he'd anticipated but had been left to the last minute. Lieutenant Taylor Warner had yet to resign his commission. Irons hadn't called him on it in this entire time. He'd never lean on the man, though he had hoped the Lieutenant and Ensign would have come forward on their own initiative to help him. "Admiral I wish you'd change your mind," he sighed. "But I know at this late a juncture you won’t." He looked at the admiral and then to his avatar wife.

  Her virtual hand wrapped around her husband's. "Give it a year admiral, they'll come around. It's euphoria and, well, stubborn stupidity," she said softly.

  "I've never been a barnacle Lieutenant Warner, Ensign Warner, I don't intend to be one now," he growled. He shook himself mentally as they straightened instinctively. He firmly got a grip on his temper. He didn't need to take out his ire on them. "I accomplished a part of my mission anyway; Civilization is taking root here once more. That I can leave in your capable hands. I'll be around. If I don't find anything near I'll be back in oh say a year or so. Eighteen months tops. Maybe things will have changed by then."

  "Thank you admiral," Warner said, he suddenly looked relieved. He unlike the admiral had spent nearly one hundred and twenty years bumming around on the Kiev. He knew Pyrax and Antigua were the best places to set up shop. “We'll leave a light on for you,” he said, smiling a little. Irons nodded.