Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  Irons smiled. "No problem. I was a bit surprised by the turn out, but I am glad you laid in the holo suite beforehand. That really helped."

  The woman nodded. "Your AI requested it. Thanks Sprite," she looked up and around. Sprite was over with another group. She turned and waved then went back to her conversation. Irons chuckled.

  “I'll try to remember to have a virtual tour of the ships on hand for your students to experience soon. If you have any interesting contests let me know. Perhaps we can arrange something like a real tour for the winners and runner ups.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Gee that'd be spar!” she said then blushed and cleared her throat. He chuckled softly.

  "Well, I have a meeting, thank you Admiral for a wonderful lecture. You really inspired them. We'll upload this to the other colonies and keep it on file for our records," another teacher said coming in and patting his shoulder. They shook hands.

  Irons chuckled. "No problem. Glad I could help. I'll see if we can do this again sometime," he cocked his head to his assistant who shrugged.

  "Thanks again." The teachers moved off. Irons nodded as Sprite came over to him looking torn. He wasn't sure if she was trying to look mischievous or contrite.

  "Spit the canary feathers out of your mouth, we've got work to do," he mock growled.

  "Aye aye Admiral. You have to admit that was fun. And work too," Sprite said. As he exited the lecture hall her avatar faded out.

  "Work too?" he asked.

  "Inspiring the next generation," she answered simply. He nodded.

  Chapter 28

  "Four and a half months and not a sign. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop," Mayweather sighed sitting back on her couch.

  "How so?" Firefly asked.

  "We haven't picked up anything more on the pirates. And we haven't had any traffic at all," Mayweather answered.

  "I believe the Carib Queen may have had something to do with that," Firefly responded. Mayweather scowled.

  "How so?" she asked quietly.

  "They probably spread word far and wide of our pending doom and gloom at the hands of the pirates. I can't blame them, and in a way it is a public service, to spread a warning to keep others from getting attacked," Firefly responded.

  “True. But that only explains jumps coming from the direction she went. And the direction the pirates came from. Not the other two jump points,” she replied.

  “That is true. However someone may have crossed to those points and warned them.”

  "Oh. Well, I guess my sister does have a use after all," Mayweather answered. “Even if it is running scared and screaming at the top of her lungs.” Firefly cocked his head.

  "Maybe, it is a bit of a pain though. We're going to have to set the picture straight soon enough. Transit time for ships in the alpha or beta bands will make the word spread slowly," he waved to the freighter. "Destiny is almost ready. Her first space trial is going smoothly with only one hiccup so far."

  "The hyper drive?" Janice asked.

  "The Admiral insisted on a complete overhaul of all major systems. She'll pull class two now like she did in her prime. High beta band," Firefly responded. "Her navigational suite has been rebuilt as well. That was the main problem, there was an interface problem between the sensors and the navigational suite. They're working the bugs out now. Most of the non critical systems will be rebuilt by her crew in hyper."

  "And giving her new crew time to settle down and coalesce into a unit," Mayweather nodded.

  "That too. Do you regret not being aboard her captain?" the AI asked innocently. Mayweather shook her head.

  "Not on your life." The bridge crew chuckled softly. “I didn't think we'd be wrangling asteroids though.” She shook her head.

  Mayweather scowled as she passed another asteroid with a marker on it. "At least they're starting to mark them," Shelby muttered. The captain grunted.

  "That's because without the marker and registration they don't have a leg to stand on. Judge Hershey and Judge Farley both nipped that in the bud." She studied the read out. "All right, if they want to stake out their claims, we can too. Let's go hunting here." She tapped an untapped section of the inner belt.

  "Changing course. Projected time to location one hundred twelve point three hours at half impulse," Firefly reported. She nodded sitting back.

  "Have engineering make up some of those markers," she said looking over to Shelby.

  "How many?" she asked typing in the order then looking up.

  "How many can they make in one hundred and twelve hours?" Mayweather asked with a predatory smile. Shelby slowly returned it.

  "I'm glad you insisted we build that replicator Admiral," Logan sighed sitting back. They had just finished dinner and were relaxing.

  "That bad?" Shelby asked. Firefly had just finished wrangling a half a dozen megaton sized asteroids back to the station. The raw material was being sucked down into the molecular furnaces as fast as it could be shaved off.

  "Bad enough. Be glad you don't have any more frame damage in any of the ships." Logan shook his head. "You did good. Firefly's restocked up to the gills, we're offloading some of the excess she managed to make while out and about. Hopefully we can do that again." He shrugged. “Firefly towed back a couple of megatons of unprocessed ore. It'll be a day or two before we can fully process it.”

  "How bad is it dad?" Shelby asked. “With the industrial group I mean.” She knew all about Firefly, after all, she'd been there.

  "Well, we've made good on the frame and skin of Fuentes. Her drive is still iffy. I'd rather do a full up rebuild or swap like commander Vargess wants. We may have to if drive four is still hinky after her next trial," he shrugged as the steward cleaned up around them.

  "Fortunately the smaller replicators can fix her electronics and gear now that we don't have large scale support," he scowled. "Pulling Hephaestus away to rebuild the outer Oort colonies has really gummed up the works." His daughter nodded.

  "We'll get there. The Bismark's AI core just came online this morning. She's young, but she looks stable. We'll have to table rebuilding the hyper drive and noncritical parts for later," he shrugged.

  "What about the Wendigo?" Shelby asked. Bismark was the old battleship. Wendigo was their latest prize. She was a light frigate they'd found out near the inner belt. She'd been chewed up by some of the belt, and her crash landing on an asteroid, but she had been salvaged anyway. Her father smiled.

  "She's all right. Your prize crew did a bang up job getting her basic systems online. She's a bit harder to fix, but we'll get it done." The Admiral grimaced then nodded.

  "I heard that the Ssislli wants to restart the navigator's guild?" Shelby asked looking at the Admiral. He shrugged.

  "Doc has taken tissue samples but she's right he can't sit around waiting to die forever. He may be the last of his species but if he wants to do something constructive, I'm all for it," the Admiral shrugged.

  "Tissue samples? Whatever for?" Shelby asked looking from the Admiral to the doctor.

  "Well, It's like this," she closed her communications link and smiled. "There is a chance. A slim chance," she used her fingers to measure off a centimeter gap, "that we could clone him. If we can address the date problem in each clone and gender swap, maybe add a couple variations by using his recessive genes then we might... I stress might.. Be able to resurrect his species."

  “She's downplaying it because she doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up,” the Admiral said dryly.

  “And here I thought she was doing it to make herself out as more of a miracle worker when she succeeds,” Sprite said internally to him. He snorted.

  Shelby goggled at the doctor in astonishment.

  "Are you kidding! That's amazing! Can it really work? Why didn't I hear about this sooner?" she demanded. The doctor shrugged.

  "Because of patient confidentiality?" she smiled. "Except he exempted the project to see if we can get broader support." She shook her head. "No, it's such a slim chance tha
t we're not sure it will work, or if it does work, for how long. We have such a narrow amount of base material to work with you have to understand," she sighed. "It's not really my field. I'm more of a generalist not a geneticist like doctor Martel."

  "Nice one Doc," Logan laughed. Shelby shook her head.

  "So, what you're saying is that it has a small chance it will work? But you’re going to try?" she looked at the Admiral. "Why?"

  "Because he deserves the chance. His species deserves a second chance," he said softly. She nodded.

  "So you’re worried about a copy of a copy? Junk DNA?" she asked the doctor. She nodded.

  "Right, the more times you copy a copy the more junk and errors crop up. We can screen for them, but eventually they will start causing problems. In the past it was called inbreeding," she grimaced. “The wider the gene pool the less risk we have of that problem cropping up in the first couple of generations.”

  "I've got a couple of budding geneticists working on it. They're students really, so it will be years before we see anything at all," she smiled. "They're motivated though. Resurrecting a species will make their careers," she chuckled.

  "What did you mean by turning on recessive genes to give some variation?" Logan asked. "Is that one of your methods to combat inbreeding and lack of material?"

  The doctor nodded. "It's one we've highlighted. Right now they need to walk before they can run though. We haven't even figured out how to create an ova or embryo of his species yet. Or the proper method of incubation," she sighed shaking her head. “I honestly thought we had it but it didn't pan out.”

  “Rome wasn't built in a day Doc. If it was easy anyone could do it,” Logan replied.

  “Could have fooled me with what's going on around this system,” the Doc retorted.

  "I think that's enough talk of birds and the bees. At least for me. I've got to check on the unloading and see if we can get back out there and wrangle more asteroids before they all disappear." Shelby got up and leaned over. She kissed her dad on the cheek. "Night daddy." He smiled.

  "Night kiddo."

  "Admiral, do you have another reason? I remember what you told the midshipman about not letting the Xeno's win. But is that the other reason or is there another?” she asked. He looked at her for a moment and she blushed. “No, that’s below me. I am sorry." The doctor shook her head. "My, look at the time. I better get some rest. I've got a test to administer in the morning then surgery in the afternoon. Good night gentlemen," the Doc waved as she left.

  "I think we've been stood up," Logan chuckled. Irons chuckled with him.

  "I'm sure we can figure something to do. Care for a night cap?" Irons asked.

  "Sure. Admiral, I had an idea."

  The Admiral smiled. "Shoot."

  "All right." Irons felt a link connection then a file entered his in box.

  "A proposal?" he asked opening it on his HUD.

  Sprite scanned it then smiled. "I like it."

  "You would," Irons answered then waved at Logan's confusion. "Sprite. She approves." She fed him bullet points. He frowned then nodded.

  "You want to make a second reactor and our own gas giant platforms? Interesting. That would keep our logistics away from meddling politicians and take some of the heat and pressure off the Valdez clan." He scrolled down.

  "I think we can make it work Admiral. The sticking point is getting this built and in place without the politicians screaming about it and trying to poach it for their own ends."

  "You know they’re going to try anyway," the Admiral said sourly.

  "And you can oh so politely smack them on the hand and tell them to put their grabby hands where the monkey put the peanut," Logan replied with a smile.

  "I think you've corrupted him Admiral," Sprite said with a laugh.

  "One of us has at any rate," Irons shook his head laughing as well. Logan looked concerned. He held up his hands as the laughter faded. "I agree I agree. I like it. Get on it with the resources you have. My launch is on Firefly with my micro replicator, they have their own small craft now, I'll transfer it here to Anvil then we can use it for additional parts."

  He shrugged at Logan's grimace. "It's a tiny thing Admiral."

  "Drop in the bucket I know, but every little bit helps. I've built replicators into the launch actually, even expanded it. My database too," he smiled. Logan nodded.

  "Well, I guess we could use it for the electronics. That would free up the larger replicators for the reactor core parts and platform parts," Logan mused rubbing his chin. Irons nodded.

  "Grab Angie and some of the others involved in the original platform project. I'd say grab a few students but it may be better to do this with crew that have already been vetted. See if we can get Harris involved since Sun-Yat is here now. Firefly too."

  Horatio nodded draining his drink. "I'll get it out Admiral."

  Irons smiled. "It's a great idea Horatio. It should get us back on track. If we manage it right we might even be able to use the reactor and scaffold as the core of a real shipyard."

  "Now that's an idea," Logan said smiling suddenly. "Think we could throw in a tank farm and munitions depot too?" he asked suddenly looking thoughtful. Irons cocked his head.

  "Oh not with metal tanks Admiral, not at first. I was thinking about flex plastic and fabric tanks. We could reprogram textile replicators to make some bladders," Logan said rubbing his jaw in thought.

  "We'd have to shield them, insulate them against sun exposure. We could hollow out a rock or two for the munitions depot. Keep the munitions as modular parts instead of whole systems," Irons said slowly getting into the idea. He nodded. "Add it to your list."

  Logan laughed. "Well, we'll get complaints about working them to death soon Admiral." He got up. "I'd better get going before I come up with any more hair brained schemes."

  The Admiral chuckled waving his hand in a shooing motion. "Go on then. I'm going to check a few things then I'll squirt you some blueprints to look at tomorrow."

  Logan bowed. "Aye aye Admiral. Good night."

  "Night," Irons replied absently as he stared off, studying the ideas on his HUD. Sprite was already tagging plans from his database and cross referencing materials and blueprints. He sighed.

  "What?" Sprite asked.

  "This is great. It feels like... a fresh start," he smiled.

  "Maybe for you. It's a boat load of work for me," Sprite answered. His smile turned into a feral grin. “Gee thanks,” she said dryly.

  Lieutenant Purple Blossom hopped up onto the desk and sat down on a stack of tablets. She grimaced. "You need a seat up here you know that?" she asked. He laughed. "I'm serious. Not a bar stool either. A recliner. Say, my size," she cocked her head at him, whiskers bobbing as her tail flicked. He chuckled.

  "And how would I get you or your dad out of it when I needed the desk space?" he asked going along with the idea.

  "Point," she replied.

  "So what do you need?" he asked.

  "Well actually, I'm not here for you sir, no offense, I'm here for your alter ego."

  He looked confused then nodded. "Sprite?"

  "Here Admiral. Oh hello Lieutenant Purple Blossom. Ready?" the AI avatar projected herself on the nearest tablet. It happened to be the one the Elf was sitting on. She got up hastily and then chuckled as she turned to view it.

  "All right you two, what's up?" the Admiral asked, sitting back. He needed a break anyway.

  "We're working on the college syllabus and I'm using your notes to streamline some of the advanced course requirements with miss assistant engineer here," Sprite nodded to the elf.

  "Okay, have at it," he pointed to his wardroom. "Over there please." The Elf nodded, picked up the tablet and then jumped down and moved off. Irons chuckled then shook his head and went back to work with a smile.

  "Do we really have to study the difference between a spoke and a sub header of a spoke and how it relates to brainstorming?" a tech asked looking at her tablet in disgust.

>   "What's the problem here?" a chief asked.

  "Oh ah, we're discussing our communication's class chief. We're in brainstorming and writing. We're trying to figure out how it applies to this," she waved to the mess of cables. The chief looked blank.

  "Spoke and sub header?" he rubbed his chin. He didn't know what the heck they were talking about. Which wasn't surprising. Six months and they were still trying to get a handle on things.

  "Any ideas?" the tech asked hopefully.

  "Haven't a clue."

  "Thought not," she said dispirited. He shook his head.

  "Carry on." He moved off muttering about smart aleck kids.

  "So how did she catch you? Lasso? Bear trap? Or did she just trip and sit on you?" Liam asked Vargess as they sat with a beer. Liam had moved up to chief engineer of the station now that Shelby and Logan had moved on to bigger and better things. He wasn't sure if he should be cursing them or not. Being chief sucked. He got very little sleep and a lot of headaches. Having implants was nice though. It had made the past six months or so barely tolerable. He was pretty sure he had a handle on the routine now.

  This was his first day off since he started. He was looking forward to the downtime. And some of the girls were starting to flock to him. That he didn't mind at all.

  "What do you mean?" Vargess asked with a chuckle.

  "Captain Mayweather. Come on, spit it out, did she use some black magic or something? Beat you into submission with a club? Personally I bet the bear trap," he smiled as he took a pull of his beer.

  "Yeah come on honey, which is it?" Mayweather asked coming up behind Vargess. He looked over his shoulder but she was already wrapping her arms around his neck. Liam chuckled.

  "Um, ah, I plead the fifth?" Vargess stuttered, trying to play for time.

  She intercepted his beer and took a pull. "Nope. No pleading the fifth in the military or with me," she replied smugly.

  "Help help?" Vargess asked sounding desperate. Liam laughed then grimaced. "Damn, That's Purple Blossom. Gee, I've got to go." He tossed the empty bottle onto the pile of others then got up.