Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  The Wandering engineer 5

  Plague Planet

  Chris “Jekyll” Hechtl

  Copyright:

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are fictional. Some may be parodies. Some characters are with permission. Any resemblance of some characters and places to others are strictly in the mind of the reader. :)

  Copyright Chris Hechtl 2013 All rights reserved.

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

  Cover art by Chris Hechtl 2013 All rights reserved.

  Proof Read and Copy Edited by: Gord Archer, Jacob Larson, Brandon Bynum, Thomas Burrows

  Dedication:

  Special thanks to my family for their patience, my proof readers/ Copy editors and you dear readers for hanging in there.

  Author's note:

  The events of this book are several months after book 4 Ghost Station and in parallel to Jethro 2 First to Fight.

  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

  Epilogue:

  Author's note:

  Dramatic Personnel:

  Appendix:

  Sneak Peek:

  ACT I

  Chapter 1

  After leaving Antigua Prime station the Admiral crossed the system to the B450a jump point to the galactic south of the sector. The warp chain was an empty one for two jump points, B450a was a white dwarf, B449b was a binary system with no habitable planets. Neither system had a Jovian gas giant so they hadn't attracted any interest by corporations to set up refueling stations before the war.

  In their maiden trip out, Phoenix had matured into a class two dumb AI, and from there into a class one smart AI. There had been a lot of teething issues; the first jump the admiral hadn't gotten any sleep at all for nine days. When they had finally exited hyper he'd dropped into an exhausted slumber.

  In desperation to cover all the posts Sprite had bent her ethics a bit and wrote software for the dumb bots, class point five smart bots to handle the day to day running of the ship. They were extremely limited, lacking any social programming, but they got the job done when the attention of the smart AIs and the admiral were needed elsewhere.

  Their lack of learning ability was a serious hindrance though, they lacked imagination and flexibility. The first week of using them had been fraught with constant issues as they continuously updated their databases after one mishap or another.

  By the time they had crossed B450a he was ready to accept the AI and bots as crew. He didn't trust Phoenix to navigate the delta band as he had, so they made the crossing to B449b in the slower beta band, adding weeks to their journey.

  Phoenix the ship, formally the “Golden Dew Drop, NCC-1701E” had been a corporate yacht and then a re-purposed fleet courier during the latter stages of the Xeno war before she'd become a derelict in the outer edges of the Antigua star system some seven hundred years ago.

  She was small; really all drive with some luxury frills for her passengers. Normally she had a crew of thirty organics and AI, and could handle up to twenty passengers in various levels of luxury. He'd pulled most of the crew quarters in order to fill their empty spaces with industrial replicators, storage, an expanded sickbay, and a backup micro fusion reactor originally designed for a tug since Phoenix hadn't had one.

  He'd kept the captain's quarters for himself, along with a couple bunk rooms in case he picked up passengers or potential crew in the future. He'd even kept the hot tub, though he'd done away with the small pool and extra refreshers. Two was all the ship really needed anyway.

  Still, Phoenix would never be a purpose built naval vessel and he knew it. He'd added mil-spec hardware wherever possible but hadn't had the time to do a keel up rebuild before he left Antigua.

  Even if he had, there wouldn't have been much space to add much more. Weapons for instance were a wishful thing. The ship was just too tiny to have any on-board. He'd compensated by overhauling her hull, shields and engines. She was now blistering fast in sublight, with the shields of a destroyer. He hadn't had enough material to completely armor her skin, but he had managed to cover her vitals and he'd also added a layer of smart paint on top of that. Unpowered it looked like flat battleship gray hexagonal panels on the ship. Powered up it would give the ship some stealth ability.

  The ship looked like a bird of prey, he liked having the flat gray and black top with navy gray underneath, it added a sense of style to the ship that the solid gold had somehow lacked. There was such a thing as too much ostentation and glitter after all. Unfortunately he'd run low on supplies, much of the underside and the engines were still a dull gold.

  The bulb on her nose that housed her gravitics array and main sensor array seemed to make her look like a real water born animal, beautiful, and sleek. She was triangular in shape, but with a nice curve to her hull. Nestled between her four nacelles were her sublight engines. A pair of powerful Smythe engines he'd turned into hybrids in order to juice up their power curve.

  Of course adding more power didn't come without cost. At full power the sublight engines ran through the small fuel supply in half their usual time. He'd also had to beef up the superstructure in order to keep up with the strain... and overhaul the inertial dampeners. About the only thing left stock on the ship now was the life support system and captain's cabin.

  One thing he wanted to do was rebuild her tiny shuttle bay. He had just enough room for an MMU and his fleet launch and no more, not even a tiny hull bot. Getting in and out of the shuttle was a pain. Servicing the little shuttle was incredibly difficult. Many of the bots couldn't do it, and he had been forced to crawl under her a few times, and crawl on top of her with less than three centimeters between his body and the ceiling. Replacing parts had been extremely difficult. In the end he'd ended up waiting until he'd arrived in Epsilon space, then suiting up in his skin suit and opening the bay doors in order to get the job done.

  Still Phoenix wasn't what he wanted, but for now she was what he needed. The distinction had been made plain to him on the first jump. A larger ship would have required even more crew... he had to admit even he was running a bit ragged with Phoenix and the never ending chores that needed to be done to keep her running smoothly while in flight.

  Hopefully he would be able to retire her soon or at least turn her over to another crew... if his hunch panned out.

  It had taken several months jumping between and then passing through the two empty systems, but the AI had it down now. He had been tempted to take the secondary jump from B449b to the cul-de-sac system of New Andreas, but had changed his mind. He had no intel on the system; apparently no one had bothered to go to it in centuries. That alone said a lot, so he passed it by as well.

  Instead he'd continued his journey, heading south through the system. But there he'd been forced to make a choice. Initially he'd planned on going to the B448c system. It would be quicker journey, but their lengthy crossing and lack of refueling in the past two jumps made him leery about crossing yet another empty system to get to their intended destinatio
n without some sort of reserve in the tanks. He was an engineer, caution was in his blood.

  He'd decided with a little regret to change his plans and reluctantly set course to the Centennial jump point instead of the empty B448c system he'd originally planned on jumping too.

  B448c was an empty system, a side chain routing around Centennial to Epsilon Triangula his intended destination. But his need for fuel and a possible safe place after exiting hyper... not to mention social contact drove him to change course.

  Centennial had been a risk, he knew that they had been terrified of the pirates and might remember him. When he made the stop in Centennial to refuel he had been on high alert. But the planet was torn up even more than before, no one had responded to his hails. He had been forced to use his shuttle to land near a northern lake and ferry bladders of hydrogen up to his ship. The echoing quiet of the planet disturbed him. Wherever the people were... if they were still alive... he shook his head. Living in a cave fearing the sky was no way to live.

  He'd left a micro satellite in orbit and another in the outer edge of the system. The satellites would keep tabs on any ships that did come through and visit the system. Hopefully a friendly ship would come by sometime to strip them of that essential data.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  In Gaston he'd planned a stay for a month but it turned into six weeks, he couldn't hide how grateful he had been to hear the warm female voice on the other end of the radio. He'd discovered much to his dismay that several freighters had passed through from Pyrax since his exile, the last one only a week after he arrived with word of his troubles and a reward for his return to Pyrax. He'd been working on a care package while helping the colony. He'd used the shuttle to clear some of the orbital junk, picking through the materials and bringing them on-board to use as raw material for his replicators. He'd kept mute when the freighter had passed on its way up the chain to Centennial.

  He'd had a hell of a time setting the record straight with the colony leaders. The Mayor hadn't liked it, but his recordings had helped him. Also the testimony of Jerry Smyth the blacksmith, Mcvine the Relgarth, the elderly T'clock queen Rosepetal, Miss Fera Pine, and the Delgado family helped tip the balance in his favor. The Delgado's in particular remembered the admiral and his generosity the last time he'd visited on Io 11.

  Irons left a copy of the holo of confessions with the Delgado's, and with miss Pine who seemed to have a crush on him since their last encounter, along with T'clock clan for safe keeping. He knew they would try to keep his name clear. A budding reporter also asked for a copy so after listening to Sprite's cautious advice he had allowed her to make a copy as well as a copy of some of the other events in his recent history. She'd even talked him into giving the reporter a series of microcomputers.

  It was a busy month, he'd made up for the months of shipboard rations and lack of human contact by upgrading the local doctors, giving them a copy of every medical text he had. He was frequently invited to eat; he graciously accepted them when he had time. He also took the time to teach Jerry the blacksmith how to make surgical tools. They were simple things, forceps, retractors, and other things, but they were a start. He also handed the blacksmith a small replicator and solar blanket and taught him how to use it. Jerry had ended up working with the Relgarth and T'clock on starting a factory. He wished them well on the project.

  While making his rounds he bumped into a woman on the street, she turned out to be the local chemist and pharmacist. She had been tasked by the doctors to come up with some outlandish chemical compounds with no formula or understanding on how to bring them into being. He handed the distraught woman a flash chip with a micro-computer. It had a copy of his chemistry texts as well as useful other things like a copy of his Encyclopedia Galactica. The mini-comps were becoming incredibly handy he realized. He now made them by the hundreds to hand out.

  Hopefully the little computer would help teach the mostly self-taught local chemist the basics of more advanced chemistry. Sprite even dug out formulas for various things like anesthetics, plastics, and other things, most of them out of a high school chemistry book she had downloaded in their recent travels.

  He visited the Sweet Meat bar on Fifth avenue again; he was amused by how it hadn't changed much in his absence. He'd come there briefly just before he'd left on Io 11, meeting one of the security girls from Io 11 for a promised drink before they'd lifted for Pyrax.

  When he realized what an opportunity Gaston was he took an extra two weeks to gather additional small Aten asteroids. He ran the replicators full out, even the one on the little shuttle. He churned out tons of material for the colony as well as tons for something else.

  They hadn't quibbled about providing him water for fuel and manufacturing once he gave them the first shipments of equipment and supplies. He did offer to pay, but they'd waved that offer off with a smile. He did toss in water pumps, solar panels, and a filtration system to help them there too. Hopefully the system would also help any passing ship as well.

  When he was ready he'd hired an intermediary to handle a shipment of goods to Commander Logan and the navy in Pyrax. The materials were stored in a series of wooden warehouses near the edge of the space port. There were several hundred tons of materials there, precious parts all carefully cataloged and stored.

  He'd set it up to run on the next ship passing through on its way to Pyrax, but had been careful not to leave anything behind that was classified or illegal to ship by civilian hands. There was no ammunition, no weapons or military grade replicators. It wasn't that he didn't trust them, after all he'd shipped some of that with the Lieandra and Kiev 221, it was that he wasn't going to be there to broker the deal and thus couldn't feel out the captain for his or her honesty. Also he didn't want military grade hardware sitting on the ground where a passing pirate might come around and pick it up.

  He'd been careful to caution Mr. Fenly about the shipment, even explaining about the self-destruct and how it worked. He had even demonstrated it with a small tablet. The fat man older man had stared and licked his lips as he watched the simple device explode in a shower of sparks and then melt into a steaming puddle of plastic goo.

  If anyone attempted to open or use the parts the built in self-destruct packages would melt them into slag. He'd also put in for a bonus for Mr. Fenly and the captain of the ship if it went through okay. He'd been careful to pick out Fenly, he had a reputation of honesty and integrity to go along with his grit and seemingly sour no nonsense attitude. He was well respected by all, some grudgingly. The Delgado family and Jerry both vouched for him. Hopefully things would work out.

  He hadn't shipped military grade replicators or weapons but he had tucked in small but critical items that he knew the Pyrax group couldn't make for themselves. Things like hyperdrive and reactor components, as well as a copy of the shipping manifest, some software, his various travel journals, copies of his updated databases, and orders to get a ship to Antigua as quickly as possible. Hopefully they would help out.

  If the captain did a good job he'd left a healthy incentive, one he'd made certain Fenly knew about so he could pass along. The ship would receive an overhaul and refueling at the Navy expense in Pyrax. That should make certain the packages arrived safe and when word got around to other freighters of the bonus they would be eager for business with the Navy. That should go a long ways to help spread good relations with the various freighter captains.

  All in all his entire six week stop in Gaston had been productive but not what he considered in the best long term interests of the Federation.

  He had to stop in Epsilon because, he was about out of fuel and the long periods of being alone were getting to him. Sure he had his AI and smart bots but it wasn't enough. Being cooped up with the same beings for that long a period wasn't doing his mental health or his patience any favors. Fortunately he could and would barter his replicator services to get more fuel and material. Not to mention bartering his own skills, keys, and abilities to pay for his port an
d landing fees.

  The battered world had a large population, which had managed to hang onto a decent tech base, near twentieth century tech level according to the brief Sprite gave him. Epsilon Triangula had been on Sprite's beta list of possible new core worlds after they'd picked up more information about it.

  The colony world had twenty times the population of Pyrax, but it lacked any form of space architecture or interest in space. Like a lot of grounders they had an anathema to space travel. To some the Xeno war, the viruses, the pirates, and such were just a sign that nothing good ever came from the sky. It was a sad sign of affairs when people toiled and worked with such a limiting vision.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  He'd wondered about the name. Epsilon Triangula was an odd star system name. The planet usually went by Epsilon. Old systems discovered by human astronomers before human star flight were usually named using the ancient Greek alphabet. Some in the Bruin sector had been renamed because the Taurens had not only seen them, they'd visited them first. A few were named for Veraxin explorers, but Veraxins in the early days weren't known for taking on missions of exploration.

  He'd had to look it up in the Encyclopedia. Fortunately someone had left an entry about the name. The Jason, one of the earliest hyperspace exploration ships had discovered the system and named the planet out of a bit of amusement. He could understand that in theory, explorers tended to run through their famous and inspiring name list rather quickly. But Epsilon Triangula?

  It turned out that they had named it not for what the words meant, but for the letters. E.T. A joke about Extra Terrestrial. Apparently future settlers who bought the rights to the system and terraformed it never bothered to change the name. That showed their lack of imagination.

  The planet had been heavily terraformed using asteroids and nano air exchangers over a period of fifty years or so. The asteroids and comets had given the planet a jump start, battering her a bit, he could still see some of the massive craters, but they had done the job. They'd even managed to move the planet from the outer most edges of the Goldilocks zone and into the deeper habitable zone. The comets had added additional water and other gaseous materials to the atmosphere to thicken it and give the nano terraformers something to work with.