Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  “Easy, I'm here to help. I'll take the left race, you take the right.” He fed the commands and started easing into the trace.

  “No I, oh wow! You've done this before?” the man asked.

  “A few times. We need a liquid dynamics simulation to get this sorted out.”

  Sprite pulled up a HUD. “No joy Admiral, I can't ,I'm barely holding things together as it is,” she answered.

  “Proteus...”

  “Working Admiral. Processors fully engaged.”

  He watched as vectors were plotted on his HUD. He nodded. “Feed this to the operator too,” the Admiral ordered.

  “What the hell?” the man asked after a moment. “What the hell are all these arrows?”

  “Vectors. Tweak your side to better match them,” he answered.

  “I'm cutting the fuel now Admiral, scaling back to ten percent until you get a handle on this,” Sprite reported. He grunted.

  “Power dropping to ten percent. Initializing repairs now,” the Admiral said out loud. “Shelby let them know.”

  “Who are you?” the operator asked. “You’re not Logan that's for sure.” He chuckled. “My name is Liam by the way, Liam Kincaid.” Irons smiled.

  “John Irons. I am a sleeper like Logan. I thought I would drop in and lend a hand,” the Admiral answered. Sprite made some changes and the bottle began to stabilize.

  “Who did that?” Liam asked.

  “My AI. Don't worry about it. We're sorting things out,” the Admiral answered.

  “Admiral, I've patched a link to the database you brought along. I've refreshed the intake drivers and thrust vectoring software. Io is with me and lending a hand. We need more channels open to do this though. I don't have the bandwidth through your link to sustain both of our efforts,” Sprite reported.

  “Shelby or someone. Open a channel to the Io 11. Data line. Open bandwidth. Give them full core access. Do it now,” the Admiral ordered out loud.

  He felt a brush along his side and smiled as Io's avatar swirled into focus. “Glad to help Admiral. I can handle this if you need a break. I was bored anyway.” She held up her hands. “Sprite and Proteus have the vectors worked out. We're stepping her back up to eleven percent but I don't think we can get beyond twenty percent.” The AI shook her head. He stepped back as she took control.

  “Liam, let Io in so you can take a break. She's better suited for this than you or I,” the Admiral ordered. Liam grunted then stepped back. Io oozed into the void as he moved.

  “This is a bit trickier then the bottles I have. This hack job is nasty,” Io replied. The Admiral grunted.

  “First order of business.” He nodded to Liam. Liam nodded back then reached up and pulled his helmet off. His avatar faded then disappeared.

  “Anything below ten will normally cut ignition. Admiral if you've got a miracle you better hurry,” Io said. He nodded and logged out.

  “Admiral?” a young woman asked. He opened his eyes to see a tech looking at him.

  “Sorry, I was in the core.” He straightened, and then pulled at the hem of his coverall instinctively. “Report,” he replied.

  “I don't know what you did, but it worked. We're at reduced power though,” the woman replied, automatically falling into a professional demeanor. He nodded.

  “The only way to stop the cascade was to slow the fuel feed and get control.” He felt Sprite's efforts through his linkage. Even Defender's processing power was taxed. The nanites were tapped out. “We need a lot of parts in a short period of time.” He shook his head and looked over to Shelby who was pale.

  “That was close. I didn't realize it was that bad.” She glared at Liam. He had his helmet off and under his arm.

  “Don't blame me dear, we need as much power as we can get remember? Things just kinda sorta got away from me all at once,” he retorted. He took a bottle of water from a nearby tech and took a long drink. He was soaked in sweat.

  “Damn, I hate coming out of virtual, my body feels like crap,” he muttered then stretched. “How long was I in for?” he asked.

  “Five hours,” the nearby tech answered.

  “New personal record. Cool.” He smiled. Shelby rolled her eyes.

  “I know I know, can't hold a candle to your dad. How is he anyway?” Liam asked. “He's in the nanite regen tank,” Shelby answered. “We would have lost him if the Admiral here hadn't intervened.” She motioned to Irons.

  Several of the techs along with Liam seemed to instinctively snarl at the idea of an Admiral in their midst. “He's the real deal, from dad's time,” Shelby replied looking around. “Get over it. He's going to shake this station up and get it sorted out.” She smiled. “Isn't that right Admiral?” she asked smiling sweetly at him.

  He cleared his throat as all eyes turned on him. “Do my best. But we have a lot of work ahead of us. Are you folks up for it?” he asked. Some nodded, some looked confused or reluctant. He shook his head. “You've got to get your head in the game and focus folks. Otherwise this station is history.” He looked at the ones on the fence. One by one they nodded.

  “Right, so who was that in the core?” Liam stood, jerking his thumb behind him. “Didn't feel like a person. A real one.” He looked confused.

  The Admiral chuckled. “That Liam, was the Io 11 core, Io herself. She's lending a hand until we can get things sorted.” He tried not to snort as Liam's eyes widened comically.

  “Well, I guess I won’t ask her out for a date then.” Several of the techs chuckled at that. The Admiral smiled.

  “No, She's a lady in her own way, but she'd run rings around you.” He waved a dismissive hand. Liam laughed.

  “Admiral, we've finished the software patch job, I'm working on more fixes now. Io has compiled a repair list and has uploaded it to her fabricators. We're using the Valdez tab as the down on the first parts. The purser is still arguing with the exec over them.” Sprite sounded disgusted. He sighed.

  “Okay, sitrep, Io has bypassed her crew and is working on making parts, but we need to find a way to pay for them or they won’t come out of the ship. I've got a tab with the Valdez family, and I think we can get a few critical parts but if we're going to overhaul this beast you’re going to need to dig deep. Any ideas?” He looked around.

  Shelby held up a tablet. “I've gotten a report; Quasimodo has found a couple air cars that were slated for the museum upstairs. We're going to use them. Also Benny found a couple satellite cores that might work.” She shrugged.

  “Let the exec know. Get them to the docks for transfer; the first part should be ready...” Sprite uploaded a timer on his HUD, “...in twenty minutes. The first parts are paid for, but we've got to keep ahead of the curve or they will stop the supply. We also need more materials for them to use. Fabricator's need them.” He sighed.

  The techs nodded. “Yeah, we know, Logan taught us,” Liam replied. Shelby turned to look at him then back to the Admiral.

  “I'll need to look at the other reactors, we might be able to get another up with a few of the parts, and then it can take over while this one is shut down for an overhaul,” the Admiral told Shelby. She nodded.

  “Right, Okay Mary and Walt, you have the watch, the rest of you get me that status report on the other reactors, the status on the life support crew outside, and Sergio's status.” She looked around. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get to it! Chop chop!” She clapped her hands. Liam and the others jumped and began tapping at padds and consoles.

  “No rest for the wicked,” Liam muttered.

  “Rest when you’re dead Liam,” Shelby retorted.

  “So when do I get my AI back?” Faith's drawl made him turn to the open doorway. He shook his head.

  “I'm working on it.” He watched as she moved aside to allow a load of parts on a gravity pallet to pass by.

  “Seriously, don't you have enough AI's?” she asked. He sighed.

  “Faith honest, we're working on it. Io is the only AI capable of handling the bottle while we try to repa
ir it.” He motioned to the crew busy frantically working on a pair of robots.

  “Is it that bad?” Faith asked softly stepping up beside him. He looked at her. She gauged his look then sighed. “Bloody hell it is. I can tell from your expression. I'm not too thrilled about helping these blighters after the crap they've put us through over the years...” Several techs stiffened at that. “But I can't hold the rest of the people on this station responsible. They’re just trying to live.” She waved. Irons nodded.

  “Yeah, I sent a crew to the Valdez compound they've brought back some of my gear and we've been trying to get this sorted out. They ran into a lot of scared people on the way.” He turned aside as Proteus finished with the repairs to the optics. “Finished here.” He handed it to a tech. She fumbled it.

  “Careful!” Faith cautioned almost lunging for it.

  The tech managed to catch the optics and they sighed in relief. “The fibers are delicate,” Faith muttered as the woman rushed off determined.

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” The Admiral sighed.

  “So why the bots?” Faith asked looking over to another on a table nearby. The woman carefully held the optics over the head while another tech plugged the fiber optic and power lines in then tucked the slack cables into a recess. Slowly they lowered the optics until they were placed into the head.

  The tech checked his readouts, made a few adjustments then looked up at the woman with a smile. She turned to Faith and the Admiral and gave them a thumbs up. Faith nodded.

  “The robots are the only ones that can do the direct install work. They have to be hardened against the radiation since they've been using straight hydrogen or whatever they could get their hands on for some time now,” the Admiral explained.

  “How are you going to get them into the bottle with it on?” Faith asked turning to the nearby readouts.

  He looked over to them then snorted. “We're not. We're going to get fusion plant four back online. It went down because its control runs were slagged. From the look of things it lost plasma containment, something Io is hard at work preventing.” He exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders.

  “We've got bare life support for the next couple of hours, and then we're going to see more cascade failures throughout the station.” He waved to the techs working on his micro fusion reactor. “I lent them my micro reactor and battery, but it's a drop in a very big bucket. We've got crews trying to patch similar power plants in on every deck to buy time.” He shook his head at the success of that plan.

  “The captain has been getting a lot of calls from people trying to book passage off the station,” Faith drawled. Jen came up behind her and handed her a tablet. She looked down at it. “We've taken about sixty so far. Artsy fartsy types mostly. They're paying in advance though.” She smiled. “And through their aristocratic noses,” Faith said then placed her thumb on the tablet and handed it back to Jen with a nod. Jen saluted the Admiral with the tablet and a smile and walked off.

  “Rats leaving a sinking ship,” the Admiral muttered. Faith shook her head.

  “Other way around actually,” she smirked. “You can't blame them for trying to run from an untenable situation.” She shrugged. “Besides, it gets them out of your hair,” she smiled. He grunted in agreement.

  “First delivery complete.” She waved to the techs unloading the pallets. “I thought they had their own factories though?” she asked looking back at him. He chuckled.

  “That was a bit overstated. Sure they have one working molecular furnace, and one industrial fabricator, but they haven't had the power to use them in years.” He shook his head. “They've been doing everything they can to prop up the life support.” He waved helplessly.

  “They have some extensive machine shops, and pretty good hands on approach to hardware. They lack programming skills though.” He shook his head. “When I came in Liam over there.” He nodded his head to the operator who was testing a robot with a virtual helmet. “Was trying to control the plasma bottle with a hands on approach.” Faith sucked in a breath at that.

  He smiled. “Right; hands on. No understanding of fluid dynamics, just a layman's brute force approach. It was something that Logan tried to create in desperation.” He shook his head. Faith nodded.

  “So that's why Io is in there?” she waved. He nodded.

  “My systems do not begin to have the computing power she has at her disposal. And since you’re in dock, you don't need much of her computing power anyway.” He waved to Liam who held up the remote.

  “She's ready. We're going to get the parts into the core and do the system check while you get ready,” he said. The Admiral nodded.

  “Be right there.” He turned back to Faith.

  “If Io hadn't stepped in, what would have happened?” Faith asked as they watched the techs leave. She turned to him as he looked away then back to her.

  “Bottle failure. The plasma stream would have breached the containment chamber then shredded the area around the bottle, then worked its way through the hull until it cooled and ignition temps failed. It would have irradiated the entire station and Io...”

  Faith nodded slowly. “Or we could have gone nova. Too tight a grip on the plasma toroid would have compressed it into singularity point failure. It would have breached and escaping neutrons would have collided with other things and set off a fission reaction when it breached, blowing the station and Io into atoms.” He shrugged.

  “So I can tell the purser and captain that it's for a good cause and get them off the back. Good to know.” Faith smiled looking a little wan. “How much do you need?” she asked. He shrugged.

  “Too much. They are willing but half trained. I'm... excuse me, we’re working on it.” He nodded to a tech that smiled and made shooing motions. He chuckled. Faith smiled again.

  “Well, you best be on your way or you’re going to get it. I'll see what I can do on my end, maybe I can get them to let us supply some reserve power and life support to the station. I'll see if I can lend you a couple volunteers until you get things sorted as well.” She shrugged. He nodded.

  “Every little bit helps. Make sure it goes to life support and not the luxury decks. Thanks Faith.” He shook her hand firmly. She nodded.

  “All righty then, let's get back to work.” She motioned to her techs to move the empty pallet out.

  “Juanita has a couple work parties out clearing broken radiator and solar panels and bringing them back to Io for recycling. They are helping the two work crews Anvil has out patch what they can back together. Sergio docked twenty minutes ago Admiral,” Sprite reported. He nodded looking off into space.

  “What did he bring in this time?” he asked.

  “A thirty three ton ice ball studded with minerals. It will take time to process. He's picked up a couple platinum rocks as well, and one practically worthless iron one.” Sprite listed the data on his HUD. He pursed his lips. “If this is going to work you’re going to need a more reliable and practical fuel supply Admiral,” Sprite pointed out.

  “Yeah, I know.” He gushed a sigh. “Gas giant mining is on my to do list. But this is a priority.” He waved as a tech motioned to him. “How is Io doing?” he asked as he followed the tech.

  “Good, she's got a good handle on the fluid dynamics despite the jury rigged bottle,” Sprite reported.

  “I should, I've had enough practice with my own bottles,” Io responded through the link. Sprite's avatar smiled.

  “All right ladies; let's get this going so Io can return to her duties.” Irons nodded to a tech.

  “Shelby has a work crew rerouting life support, but she's taking the gravity plating off line in nonessential areas. It's going to get interesting when people and objects start to float,” Sprite reported. He sighed.

  “Not to mention dust and debris. The station has its own mass and some of its own natural gravity, but when we go natural things can get ugly.” He shook his head.

  “This station doesn't have enough mass to have a one g fie
ld Admiral. Far from it,” Sprite reported. He frowned. “But of course you knew that,” she responded. “Oh, I see what you mean about running into problems.” She shook her head.

  “One thing at a time,” he growled as he jacked in.

  Chapter 6

  “Admiral I need to... what are you doing?” he heard distantly. He tried to tune it out but Defender flagged an alert as someone touched him.

  “Leave me alone, I need to concentrate here,” he growled.

  “I've got this Admiral,” Liam replied. His robot waved. “You've got some nice AI here so I can set yours to gopher while I do the fine manipulation with this one.” He went back to work. The Admiral grunted irritably.

  “Okay.” He fed the AI his log off sequence and felt his mental focus return to his own body.

  Slowly he opened his eyes then moved. Proteus had already un-jacked and morphed his hand back to normal. “Oh, thanks.” He smiled as a woman handed him a cup. He took a sip and grimaced. The coffee had an overt metallic taste to it. He looked over to the female who had interrupted him.

  “Doctor, what do you need?” he asked.

  “When did you last...? Oh never mind, it's not important now.” She waved. “I'm trying to trade with your friends on the Io, but they only barter and won't give me a proper price for the antibiotics I am offering them.” She waved a tablet in disgust. “I need more nanites to repair Logan and the others!” She sighed sitting down in a nearby chair.

  “You’re trying to trade antibiotics for nanites?” he asked trying to refocus.

  She lunged back to her feet then paced. “We've got a surplus of three antibiotics and one of penicillin. Most of it is getting close to max shelf life but they don't want to give me a fair price...” She waved. He chuckled.

  “By any chance are these easily replicated or easily replaced?” he asked. She frowned. “They have medical replicators too doctor. It wouldn't surprise me if they don't need it, or are holding out for a better price. After what happened with Claudia last year...” he shrugged. She blushed.