Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane

by Chris Hechtl

  The Wandering Engineer 6:

  Pirates Bane

  By Chris Hechtl

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. The exception are the volunteers who graciously gave me the go ahead to use (and abuse) their names as red shirts. Any resemblance to other people is purely coincidental or in parody.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.

  Copyright 2013 by Chris Hechtl

  ASIN:

  BN#:

  Cover art Copyright 2013 by Chris Hechtl

  Edited/Proofed by: Gord Archer, Jacob Larson, Thomas Burrows, Brandon Bynum, Poon Yee, Jory Gray, and Ulrich Schlegel

  Special thanks to Ulrich for the hyperspace tables and calculations!

  Dedicated to the growing number of fans out there. Thank you!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Author's afterward

  Dramatic personnel:

  Appendix and Resources:

  Sneak Peek:

  Author's note:

  Yes! Here it is, the beginning of the end. (Yeah, well, sort of) The following starts (or slightly alters) the ending week or so in Plague Planet. You may also wish to read the sideline stories Jethro Goes to War and Jethro: First to Fight to keep from feeling totally lost. :)

  Now, on with the story! Enjoy!

  ACT I

  Chapter 1

  Federation Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons, Engineering Admiral and last known surviving flag officer of the Federation decided to make a long jump from the Epsilon Triangula five system toward Bek. He had meticulously planned the jump, eschewing crossing through the normal route of Gaston, to Pyrax to Beta 101a1 in favor of a nearly unheard of long jump from Epsilon Triangula to the Beta 100 omega system adjacent to Beta 101a1. If it worked it would be a five-month journey. It would be hard on man and machine, but doable. He would also be better off, since B101a1 had no gas giants or resources to exploit, while B100 omega had a few gas giants and sparse resources. Once he set up shop in Omega he would spend a month siphoning off sufficient fuel from the gas giant for the next leg of his journey while also making any necessary repairs or upgrades as he could.

  Had he gone the other, safer route he would have taken four months, but he might have been caught up in the tangled mess in Pyrax. He was still avoiding it for his own reasons. It wasn't just the painful memory and aftertaste that bothered him, it was the simple fact that he didn't want to get tangled in the rat's nest of political intrigue. He may have friends in the system, technically most were subordinates, and in some ways he was abandoning them, but he also needed to keep an eye on the long view.

  He had recovered Phoenix in Antigua just prior to his self-imposed exile from that system. She was a good ship, a former corporate courier yacht turned naval courier during the war.

  Lieutenant Commander Sprite, the Admiral's Chief of staff and central AI had fashioned Phoenix AI and brought it online during their transit south from Antigua to Epsilon.

  Epsilon... the Admiral's lips pursed in thought. It was another tangled mess, but one that was slowly straightening itself out. Which was another thing, another reason for his absence. Sometimes the best thing to do was to have a hands off approach, let people work out their own problems. Many resented the interference from an outsider he thought.

  He took a quick internal review. Proteus, his nanite AI, was monitoring the engineering systems of the ship along with his own cybernetics. Lieutenant Defender, a dumb AI, was in charge of the Admiral's personal security as well as monitoring the Admiral for signs of treason. He was both shield and sword in one. The AI preferred a dark knight persona, rebuffing others and normally keeping to itself.

  Sprite on the other hand was almost human. She had a human form, pixie like, but still human, albeit pale and with green hair. She was lively, sometimes logical, and sometimes emotional. She certainly kept him on his toes! Which was probably a good thing.

  Rounding out his AI crew, at least for the semi smart AI, was Phoenix, the AI that used the ship they were in as its body. Phoenix had a simple stock human male jig form for now, though the avatar was evolving as the AI matured. Experience was sometimes the best teacher, Irons thought, glad the AI had settled on a male personality. They'd decided to give the AI the time he needed to grow into his role as a ship's AI. That had helped a great deal on the trip down from Antigua. But it meant the Admiral and his AI trinity manned the ship's stations most of the time. Now Phoenix was chafing, eager to take on new roles and expand his abilities.

  The trip out was shaping up to be a long one. The Admiral loved ships, he loved engineering, but there was such a thing called too much of a good thing. Fortunately Phoenix the ship was in good order, he, Phoenix, and Proteus saw to that. Any issue was jumped on quickly.

  Irons was used to living in uniform, but Sprite had insisted he take at least several hours a day off for mental health time. He spent a lot of time with the cheetah cubs Dorah from the Io 11 had given him. They were a rambunctious pair, lovable with their simplistic view of things, and their antics did make him crack a smile and the occasional guffaw from time to time.

  That was normally how it was with babies, their inquisitive nature and their zest for life made him feel alive again. Less bogged down by the crushing responsibilities and heavy duties he had.

  Sprite had come up with a list of common names. He had named the alpha of the sisters Blaze, and her quiet introverted sister Goldie. Both names tied in to their golden pelts while also tied them to the ship.

  One of the issues he did have with them was their interest in his little truck garden. Sprite had surprised him by sneaking in seeds, soil, fertilizer, and seedlings in the inventory before they had left. He had overlooked such a simple thing, focusing on parts, supplies and fuel, along with tons of fresh food. When they had departed Epsilon orbit the AI had surprised him with the package.

  He knew the importance of greens, not just for diet, but also for morale and to help scrub the air. There was something to be said about looking at plants, they seemed to break up the sterile confines of the ship quite nicely. He had to admit, it had been a chore to get it all set up, but worth it now that things were sprouting.

  “Is that a smile?” Sprite teased. “Did you really crack a smile?”

  The Admiral exhaled noisily and then shrugged sheepishly.

  “I take it my small efforts to change the atmosphere and add a little color to this drab gray interior, no offense Phoenix, has improved your morale?”

  “If you mean my efforts in doing the work for your little project...” the Admiral teased right back, ducking his head.

  “Right,” the AI drawled. “I did the hard work of finding the plants and materials and sneaking them on the shuttle. All under your nose, which by the way wasn't as easy as you thought it was. You just had to implement it. A nice simple project something for you to do and get y
our hands dirty with. It has kept you busy for a while now and improved the life support. I think it's a... proper role reversal for once isn't it?”

  The Admiral paused and cocked his head. “Something like that,” he finally admitted. “Trust a female to want to change things,” he murmured.

  “What was that; sir?” Sprite growled, eyes flashing on his HUD. He knew she was mocking him but her tone said angry woman alert.

  The Admiral chuckled. “Nothing, nothing Sprite,” he replied, hands up in surrender.

  The AI looked at him for a long moment. “I thought not,” she said. He smirked like a mischievous kid getting away with something. She shook her head in exasperation.

  “You two sound like an old married couple,” Phoenix teased. The Admiral sniffed as he finished watering the herb rack.

  He'd set up the seedlings and seeds in small plastic pots in areas that were kept lit a lot, such as the bridge and main corridor. Most hung along the walls from pieces of plastic wire from the ceiling. That way they were both accessible, but out of the way. And they tended to brighten the room up a bit.

  Areas that didn't get a lot of light, such as the latrine received a few shelves of mushrooms and other plants that did well in little light.

  Food replicators were fine, but most of the dishes were bland. He didn't mind bland, but every now and then he wanted something different, a past favorite or craving. And throwing a little dill or oregano or rosemary into the mix didn't hurt. It had taken weeks before the plants had gotten large enough to trim, but he'd stepped on his impatience and let them grow out until they were ready.

  The brats had discovered the plants a few days after he had set up his small spice rack and had added shelves to the walls in the galley. The dangling pots were enticing, but fortunately, out of reach. The shelves however weren't. Where Blaze went, Goldie inevitably tried to follow. He had caught them trying to climb them, or jump from a counter to the lowest shelf. He'd learned to shut the galley door when he wasn't within.

  Fortunately Sprite had had the foresight to exclude plants that were poisonous to the cubs, or warned him so he could tuck them away in a cubby or place them within plastic containers so the cubs couldn't get into.

  When he cleaned out a closet he placed dwarf wheat, radishes, strawberries, lettuce, mimulus, and brassica on shelves within, with a UV lamp and solar lamp. The solar lamp was specifically built to replicate the sunlight that the plants like the gene engineered strawberries would need. The UV lamp alone lacked the ability to encourage growth with those and a few of the other plants. After the second month he'd started popping by the strawberry plants to pick a couple off as a snack.

  The cubs normally cuddled with him in his quarters when he slept, or cuddled with him on the flight couch when he was on duty. Their rumbling purr was soothing. But they also had a natural inclination to roam and get into mischief. Their occasional play fights and ambushes were quite fun to watch. He had thought he'd planned for their mischief, but knew they'd find some way to get around his planning.

  He'd remembered that after cleaning up the mess they had made of his mini lemon tree. He had also remembered the distant lessons he had had when his family had had pets. For one, that a spritzer bottle was good for more than just watering the plants. A squirt when the cubs were getting too nosy made them scat fast, which was amusing... and sometimes messy when they ran into things in their scramble to escape his preemptive strike.

  Unfortunately that only helped when he was around to do the spritzing. The plants hanging he didn't have to worry about, most were where the little monsters couldn't jump on to and get into. But others were lower, on a rack he had set up. So, he rigged a robot with a spritzer and assigned Defender to guard his plants. The AI had been a bit put out, but he'd taken the task without formal protest.

  The Admiral had run through the fresh food in a month. That was the downside of fresh food lacking preservatives it spoiled quickly. The cats had helped of course, eating bits of chicken or beef that he mixed into their food.

  When the duo was asleep he tended to talk with the AI when off duty. He had taught Phoenix to play games. Now they played a lot of chess or strategy games.

  Sprite spent a lot of time explaining to the new AI movies and videos. Unfortunately Phoenix was lacking social experience, a critical component of his development. To compensate the AI was viewing media files, but that lead to lists of questions. Sometimes the Admiral was brought into the discussions, which helped keep boredom at bay and gave the growing AI a new perspective to consider.

  <----*----*----*---->

  Carefully, the Admiral ran a check on their hyper log and estimated travel, and then checked the projected course. It was crude, but the best they had on hand.

  They had lingered in Epsilon's space, drifting outside the system as Phoenix and Sprite had correlated the data from the ship's sensors. For a week they had probed the space along their projected flight path, using every sensor in the ship's arsenal right down to cameras reconfigured as telescopes to map out the path. Then they had exhaustively compared the data to the petabytes of star charts of the sector, aligning everything while taking into account seven centuries of interstellar drift and planetary body movement.

  Finally, they had thrown their charts into a simulator Sprite had coded from the Admiral's files. The simulator took each mass and projected its mass shadow and its effects in hyperspace. It wasn't exact, but it would hopefully give them a rough bearing on markers along their course. One of the biggest was a white dwarf. It would serve as a North Star in their navigation for the first part of their journey. Without that mass shadow as a waypoint, the ship's odometer, and the other six major and nineteen minor markers along their intended course they would be hopelessly lost within days of transit time.

  All seemed well so far; they had four months of transit time remaining, but so far so good. The Admiral nodded and then ran a system's check. The nodes were still stiff; the constant up and down through the octaves and bands was putting stress on them. The force nodes on the hull projected not only the particle shields, but also worked with the hyperdrive to bend or warp space around the ship so it could enter hyper. Subtle variations in the nodes strength and positioning changed their fields, allowing the ship to surf the slipstream of hyperspace like a boogie boarder or surfer.

  Before the jump the Admiral had worked on overhauling and fine-tuning the hyper drive while the AI worked on mapping their course. Fine tuning the drive was tedious, and it had competed with the computer resources for a short time before Sprite got exasperated and set the sims and tuning software to run when she and Phoenix each had their down time.

  Normally only an explorer ship, or a colony ship from the dark days of colonization would take a chance on an unproven course. Cruisers and ships with sufficient computer support or a class 1 hyper-navigator could handle the jump easily. They weren't quite going where no one had gone before, but what they were doing was something no one had done in centuries. That is if they got there in one piece. That had yet to be determined.

  The power situation wasn't grave yet, but it was aggravating. They were getting about eighty percent of the minimum they had projected for the jump. They could see pockets of dense energy far off their chosen course. In order to gather the free-floating electrons or pick up the grav sheer with the ship's small hyper collectors they would have to wander off course. Since they had little waypoints to navigate with in the first place that wasn't an option.

  Transitioning up and down the bands was draining their power reserves faster than the little ship's hyper collectors could replenish them. They had no choice, the AI could only navigate the ship in the lower bands of hyperspace.

  The Admiral gradually increased his helm time in the higher bands. Several times they found a harmonic or variation in a sensor reading would curtail their trip up through the bands. But as they ironed out the issues one by one he found more and more time in the upper bands. Manning the helm was tedious and exh
austing in the upper bands for someone without augmentation. With implants he could man the helm for much longer, effectively increasing his endurance by a factor of 10, but even he needed rest.

  Sprite tried to help by taking control of a robot to bring him food or in taking the helm while he ate. Unfortunately the AI lacked the skills and mindset to handle the helm at high speed.

  Irons had considered an IV drip but then discarded the idea. He wasn't going down that path; he wasn't going to meld himself to the ship like a cyber. If he had to get up due to an emergency it would be in the way, and if he became too fatigued it could be deadly for him and the ship.

  <----*----*----*---->

  Every week one of them did inventory. The rotating duty wasn't just an onerous chore; it was a mental distraction that allowed them to focus on something for a period of time.

  They also attempted to find new ways to conserve fuel and power in their spare time. Most of the ideas failed once they brought them up, the systems on the ship were necessary and you couldn't skimp on them without affecting the ship's function and safety. They did cut back on life support; with the Admiral's implants he didn't need a normal shirtsleeve temperature of 68F. They dropped it to near 32 before the threat of freezing and condensation on components shedding excess heat forced them to bump the temperature back up.

  One thing that did make a small impact was dropping the light level. The cats could see in the dark, as could the Admiral. However his skin required some UV light, and living in the dark tended to affect his mood.

  The Admiral hit on the idea of replicating additional heat exchangers to help pull away waste heat and convert it into recovered electrical energy. It took away from the heating of the habitable portions of the ship, and using the replicators to make them was a high front end investment, but hopefully the long term investment would pay for itself over time.