Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  Sid and Emily Berkheart: Directors of Human resources.

  Doctor Megan Trask: Head of the medical department.

  Ron and Rachael Steward: Neo bears, 1 grizzly, 1 half human half black bear. Life Support managers. They like Averies trained themselves to run and repair what they could after the station went dark. They usually give their council proxy to the Fu's to vote since they are so busy.

  Doctor Templeton Myers: Head of science and R&D.

  Ribber: Gashg gardener. Signed over his proxy to Yan Fu before resigning from the council. He is a pacifist, preferring to attend to his garden over dealing with people.

  The Warners, 1st Lt Taylor Warner and ensign Rasha Warner: Sleepers awakened over 100 years ago. Their son is the exec of Kiev 221. Both have been placed in the reserves and are currently the system naval commanders.

  AI:

  The muses: all class one dumb AI

  Clio: historian/researcher. repurposed to manage the first fusion reactor.

  Euterpe and Terpsichore: Music and Dance: air heads, entertainment coordinators and directors

  Thalia: Muse of comedy: recovered. Rebuilt.

  Urania: Astronomy: science. Found and recovered. Brought online. Assistant to doctor Myers in science and teaching.

  Mnemosyne: Memory computer management Smart AI. Took a lot of her higher functions down to keep system running. Did permanent damage to herself. She has to be reintegrated as each fragment is recovered. She is an experimental civilian AI.

  Tribal leaders:

  Romeo: Terran male.

  Y'ru: Veraxin, old but wise.

  Juliet: Terran female. Genie descendant.

  Sheriff Derrango: Curly handle bar mustache, old, silver hair, beady eyes. Laid back attitude. Has a wife, kids, and grand kids.

  Deputy Barney Fife: Nervous gangly 1st deputy. Terrible shot, very by the book person. The Sheriff frequently uses him as a foil to get others to accept his directives.

  General Staff On the station:

  Savo and Petunia: Primate neo chimp security officer and Neo gorilla space worker. Transferred from Kiev 221

  Howi and Shari: Tribal members. Neo chimps. Both have become welders on the station.

  Sparks and Regina: 40's something couple transferred from Kiev 221. Sparks is an electrician, Regina is a SBA training to be a nurse.

  Mr. Freeze and Ezri: Freeze is a lifetime friend of Sparks. Partner, HAC tech. Ezri is his wife; she is a RN and surgical nurse. 1 adult child left on Kiev 221.

  Ralphie and Alice: 50's couple bartenders from Kiev 221. Adult son left in charge of bar on Kiev 221. Own Ralphie's bar and grill and Alice's nail salon.

  Gwen, Riff, and Torg: Tauren engineers who transferred to the station from Kiev 221.

  Doctor Kraft: Sleeper from Kiev, specializing in implant surgeries. Dr. Kraft is old, a former teacher of implant tech.

  Antiguans:

  Governor elect mayor Jeff Randall and his wife Sandra: Politically charismatic couple set on changing their world. 2 daughters, Ramona/Kylie, age six and four.

  ñAppendix

  My bog:

  http://cyberforge3d.blogspot.com/

  Interesting web comics:

  http://www.schlockmercenary.com/

  http://www.vexxarr.com/Index.php

  http://www.sluggy.com/

  And I can't forget my friend Mechmaster's Dalek comic:

  http://www.mechmaster.co.uk/cg-lair/daleks_page1.htm

  My cousin's blog:

  http://bossymoksie.wordpress.com/

  Some of the material references I used:

  http://anthro-glamour.deviantart.com/gallery/

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracellular_matrix

  http://www.google.com/patents/US5489304

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_chess

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_proverbs

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-Eaters

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon#Exile_on_Saint_Helena

  http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881991.html

  ñSneak Peek

  Here is an sneak peek at the upcoming sequel to Jethro goes to war titled “Jethro, First to Fight.” Expect it late 2013 or early 2014 if not sooner! I'm a quarter done writing it already!

  The next day Valenko's team participated in a practice extraction op. The squad they were covering was on its way across a variety of terrain, most of it forest. First lieutenant Myers was a prickly human, by the book and not experienced in ground combat. The squad has a few wounded and it's a tricky op to participate in. Their coordination has to be spot on, and the bear is pretty sure the other platoons were more interested in pounding his team flat rather than winning the scenario.

  It's a complex scenario, one he's pretty sure will tax all the systems and people involved before it is done. To make it interesting he decided right off to change a few things. Time to teach a few people about not only thinking outside the box but staying the hell out of the box all together.

  The dropship was a heavy marine ascraft, one designed for planetary ops. They didn't have many in the inventory just yet but it was on their TOE so they trained for it until their squadron could be delivered some, hopefully next week. She was a Prejudice class VTOL, a manta shaped beast painted in smart camo that adapted to the forest colors. Her wingtips had nacelle engine pods that swiveled down as she went into a hover, or horizontal for normal flight. She could handle reentry but she was small.

  A prejudice class ascraft was a utilitarian bird; she had clamps on her underside that held a pod or a military vehicle. Right now she had a pod that could hold two squads of lightly armed marines... if they were friendly. In the case of the Neo's currently on board... very friendly.

  There was a door leading to the cockpit pod on one end and the boarding ramp on the other. The dropship had a crew of four, two pilots, a crew chief and an engineer. The engineer sometimes doubled as a door gunner if things got to hot.

  She was definitely different than the birds they rode in during boot. Those birds had been ancient civilian conscripts the navy had picked up. Only one craft had been a military bird, one from Fuentes that Major Forth had tapped as his personal craft.

  He was of two minds about the prejudice. It lacked the size and legs to really move gear, but it's ability to multitask was both an asset and a burden. Her ability to multitask was probably why the powers that be were focused on using her design. She couldn't do every job perfectly but she could haul freight, people, or vehicles and do a fast turnaround to another task. She shared a lot of common parts with other similar craft and had a reputation as a hardy craft that was easy to maintain. She could also refuel in flight which was great.

  Of course if you didn't have the right pod the people she carried would be just a bit put out over how they'd be carried. You couldn't change missions on the fly either. He didn't picture hanging onto the underside of the thing as a good idea.

  Right from the beginning he dropped his snipers in to cover the extraction before moving in with the dropship. Jethro and his two apprentice snipers were dropped several kilometers out from the extraction point, they rappelled down to the tree canopy rapid fire in under ten seconds. It would be a short walk for them to the LZ, in this case an open meadow in the middle of a virtual poplar and spruce forest. The opposing force would be looking and listening for the dropship, not for a group of people on the ground. The dropship would hold off, backing off to move in an orbit around the primary LZ and wait.

  A second prejudice was orbiting in a figure eight in a staging pattern one hundred clicks out. He was tempted to pull the ship, to have it go orbital and then drop on the site but that would light it up like a sp
ot light to any thermal sensors on the ground.

  He was fairly certain that the second bird was a flying coffin. Who ever had set this up had probably set it up with the idea of trapping the team on the ground in order to force their hand, to grind them down with no escape. The best way to deal with that was to one change the canned flight path of the prejudice holding, and two fight on their own battlefield. He put a call in to the second prejudice as the plan formed in his mind. It would be tricky to execute but he was fairly certain it would work.

  The lion private Kovu was still coming along when it came to moving quietly in the bush

  Jethro thought as they creeped forward. He had taken the time to put on camo paint on the flight out like all the others. His short cut black mane was greased with brown and green, as they walked he occasionally snatched twigs and small branches off trees and bushes and added them to his camouflage. He'd picked that up in his training with Jethro.

  Jethro nodded in approval. Fonz was smaller than Kovu but he looked like he was doing okay as their rear guard. They were running light so hopefully he’d be able to keep up, Jethro thought darkly. Hell, hopefully his two fellow snipers wouldn’t get too excited and pop off before they were ready! They knew the consequences of that, Valenko would tear strips out of them, at least he hoped they realized that. Hell better know that the Neobear would only get what was left after them when he was finished with them! But his ass was riding right along with them right now so they better not frack up.

  Kovu still had an attitude problem, he was definitely no Letanga but he was coming along. Jethro was glad that Valenko had insisted on the time chop for realism sake. It had given them plenty of time to prepare even though the pilots had complained.

  Private Fonz wasn't so bad in the bush for a human. That was surprising to Jethro; Fonz had never been off his small asteroid colony before he'd joined up. He was a good sniper, bit of a hip goof off duty but he settled down nicely in action. Or at least in the sims. He still had to face the real furnace though.

  When Fonz had replaced Miles it had been a bit of a see saw with Asazi. Most of the others had concluded Fonz was in for a broken jaw, or at least a broken nose. He'd surprised them all by cracking her up by showing her an image of him before he'd joined up. She'd cracked up and then passed the image on to the others. Jethro had to admit the guy had changed. He'd gone from a black mullet and long sideburns to a no nonsense marine buzz cut. Now he had to live up to his new “rep”.

  Jethro knew the op orders but he also knew that whoever the opposition team leader was they were probably out for blood. Most likely camped around the perimeter of the meadow on the south side of it, facing the incoming team. When the team came in they'd wait and use them as bait until the dropship arrived.

  Or they'd wait until the dropship dropped its security and then ambush them. Or wait until the entire group was in the bag and then let loose. There were a lot of different ways things could play. Well, they could if Valenko had been bothered to follow the book to the letter at any rate.

  He picked a nice thick oak, one with some nice branches about two hundred meters up. Climbing it was dead easy; doing it quietly from the south side with all his gear so no one could see him on the other side wasn't so easy.

  When the team was set they double clicked their radios to call in the dropship. Valenko rested his paw on the pilot's shoulder and leaned over. “Just bring her in a bit, enough for the whoever is waiting there to hear your engines. Then wait.”

  “Wait?” the pilot asked, looking up at him dubiously. Didn't the damn bear know they were a sitting duck for anyone with a plasma gun or SAM?

  “Yes. Just a bit for the all clear,” Valenko rumbled. The pilot nodded. He had no intention of screwing with the bear.

  Jethro smirked as he caught sight of rustling ahead of him. Whoever was waiting could hear the engines as he did but had pretty good camo on. Thermals were useless. He tracked the motion by eye, glad there wasn't any wind at the moment. When he was certain of their positions he nodded slightly and sent them to his teammates through a wire link.

  Jethro spotted the predicted ambush before it happened and called it in. There were two dozen of them by his count. He left Kovu and Fonz as over watch with his gear and then headed out hunting. The dropship pulled back to secondary recovery lz.

  His real task was to draw the hounds into chasing him. For this he was the hare, and Kovu and Fonzerelli would slip past the hounds and hunters when he distracted them. He'd draw the hunters off buying time for the others to meet up hopefully.

  “There is no secondary LZ! This is it!” The retreating lieutenant snarled. He was thoroughly confused. This was supposed to be a simple shoot and scoot, get to the LZ and then pack it in. He didn't know why they bothered with such scenarios, they should just do the basic op and then quit. Doing an insert, op, and then extract may be realistic but it was damn tiring. Now throw in Valenko's little monkey wrench... What the hell was going on? What was the bear playing at?

  “Trust me; the selected LZ is too hot. No go. Repeat, No go,” Valenko rumbled. He closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't want to remain on the radio for much longer; it would draw the attention of the hunters. “Little eyes and ears are involved.”

  “Roger,” the lieutenant replied, feeling a little put out but suddenly relieved. He didn't want to be the one to screw the pooch, walk into an ambush all fat dumb and tired. Sure Valenko was responsible for LZ security but his people would get caught up in the works if things went south. Valenko shot him a set of coordinates embedded in an encrypted message. Myers opened the file and checked them. The indicated coordinates were west of the first LZ, about two clicks off his course. “That's in the deep forest. That's no clearing!” he snarled back.

  “It will be when my people get done. They'll rappel down and clear a zone,” Valenko replied soothingly, praying that the other team hadn't hacked their communications. If they had this asshole would blow it for all of them.

  “Roger.” There was a brief pause and then, “smart,” the lieutenant said grudgingly.

  “I figure the major has the other clearings covered. Do the unexpected,” Valenko rumbled. Myers double clicked in response to that.

  Myers turned to his people and waved. Sergeant Minachelli shot him a look. Myers was still new to the hand signal thing. Quietly Minachelli made his way over to his boss and leaned close. Myers whispered his changed orders in the sergeant's ear and then waited for a response.

  Minachelli straightened and then looked him in the eye. After a moment the heavy worlder just shrugged and made hand signs to the others to stop. He pointed the blade of his hand in the new direction and then waited for the point to adjust. Then he signaled to move out.

  The retreating squad was pissed but humped the extra clicks. It wasn't like they had any choice after all. They were never aware they were being stalked by enemy squads. Not until nearly to extraction when a rear guard blew a sensor pod away to keep them from being followed. After that Myers changed direction and double timed it out of the area.

  Sergio, Valenko, Asazi, and Ox rappelled down to the newly designated landing zone and cut down trees. The dropship moved off to the western sun to keep their location a secret. Valenko watched the two heavy weapons marines take on the virtual trees and winced. Ox had no finesse, he was all business. When one metric ton of enhanced Tauren at full charge met a virtual poplar the tree didn't just break it shattered. Timber didn't even cover it.

  Sergio's technique was a bit more varied. With smaller trees the Liger ripped them out of the ground and then threw them aside. With larger trees he either climbed them until they bent and then snapped them or he gripped them with gloved hand paws, digging his claws in to the bark and his toe claws into the ground and just ripped them in half. No explosives necessary.

  “Damn!”

  “What?” Valenko asked, looking at Sergio as he shook a paw and then tried to pick something out of it.

  “Got a splinter!�
�

  “How the hell could you get a splinter here?” the bear demanded.

  “Don't ask me!”

  “Sometimes this place is a little too real if you ask me,” Asazi said. She went over and used her slightly smaller fingers to pull the splinter out of the Liger's paw and then flicked it away.

  Valenko looked over to Asazi. The Terran woman just shrugged and went back to watching her zone. He snorted looking at the other two. Damn it looked like fun. He made a mental note to figure out something faster before pulling on virtual gloves and getting his paws dirty. He couldn't let the others have all the fun after all.

  They used the trees as cover for the outer perimeter. Stacked in piles the trees and their tops make a good screen. Not that wood would stand up for more than a half second against rail guns and plasma weapons, that wasn't their intended purpose.

  The spotter and co sniper made the perimeter just before they picked up the flashed IFF of the incoming retreating squad. Good. He waved to the sniper team to set up and then sent a burst signal for the dropship to return. The snipers nodded and kept moving, not even slowing their pace. They had made good time to make it here ahead of the storm. He listened, turning his head as the birds and animal life quieted. Yes, the dropship was incoming.

  The dropship's engines screamed as it came in, kicking up dust and making the virtual plant life dance as it came down to land. It's boarding ramp in the rear dropped. The pilot had been smart, he'd come in and positioned himself facing his extraction course with is door facing the incoming squad and the enemy. The door gunner was setting up. Valenko smiled. If he was right the gunner wouldn't be needed for more than show.