Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  “Forgiven if not forgotten,” Hera said softly. Her eyes turned to Irons who cocked his head then nodded slowly. Right now he'd take what he could get from that statement.

  “I'll take that in the spirit it was given I suppose,” he turned to the Security chief. “Is there anything else?”

  “Well, if she isn't doing it...” Chambers said as he grimaced. “But she did want to. She was paid to kill you,” he said looking at the Admiral.

  “Which she admits to but never acted upon,” Irons shrugged. “Nor had any intention to do so. I believe her sincerity.” He didn't mention he had been monitoring her life signs through the hospital equipment as well as his implants and therefore knew she had been telling the truth. “I'm not going to press charges. There is no point. We've both suffered enough. It's time to build a better future.”

  “Agreed,” Hera said looking surprised. She looked down to Asia who blinked.

  “And now I'm triply indebted to you for your third gift Admiral. I don't know what to say,” she shrugged helplessly, claws coming out again.

  He shrugged. “No harm, no foul. I'm fine, the ship is fine, and you didn't go through with it. You stated you have no intention of following through with it. I think it's settled. Don't you?” he asked as he turned to the chief.

  “A man in... hell If I were in your shoes...” the chief shook his head. “But I'm not. You're a wonder, I'll give you that.”

  “Thank you Admiral,” Asia said nodding. “I hope someday you will be able to return to Pyrax.”

  He froze then grimaced. “I am more interested in getting the Federation back. If my leaving helps bring that about in the long run... Then so be it,” he sighed. “It is a small price to pay.”

  “But it hurts anyway,” she said, eyes on him. He nodded. “Good.” He grimaced. “To live is to know pain. Deal with it in your own way,” she said softly, locking eyes with his. He held his gaze but after a moment her eyelids fluttered. She waved a hand in a weak dismissive motion.

  “Yes, yes, my patient needs her rest,” the medic said as he waved to them. “That's enough for now. Go.”

  “Admiral if she didn't set the accidents up, who did?” Sprite asked as he turned away. “Discounting the possibility that this act was deliberate in order to throw us off her track... She couldn't have set up two of them, she wasn't in the vicinity at the time and they were clearly incidents of opportunity over something preplanned. Members of her own pride might have, but with her so close would they have made her a martyr?”

  He shook his head. He'd already come to his own conclusions. “No. Highly unlikely. I can't rule out the possibility, but I'm betting it's a remote one. Did you see her vitals? She was telling the absolute truth.”

  “We have little to base that on Admiral.”

  “Did you compare it to her vitals taken on Anvil?”

  Sprite paused before answering. She had but hadn't been happy about the results. The margin of error was over ten percent, not something an AI liked at all. To an AI anything over a two percent margin of error was little more than a guess. Guesses were for organics. “Yes. And I can see where this is going. You're correct. But how did you know?” She checked. No, he hadn't run a comparison with the files. He hadn't had the time to find and bring them up. Besides, she would have noticed it and helped him if he had tried.

  “I remembered her vitals.”

  “You...” Sprite was clearly taken aback by that statement.

  “Not the specific numbers, but I had a general idea. She didn't show any signs of agitation either. I'm fairly certain her group didn't know about the deal, and I'm betting she was telling the truth, she backed out when she did. I'd say she didn't even put any plan in motion even if she had one. She knew better.”

  “Cheating a cheater?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Thin, but all we have to go on Admiral.”

  “Can you go through the suspects and narrow them down from that? By those who were close by when each happened?”

  “That would mean accessing the ship's security net. Which I can't do. Lock out. That was put in yesterday. I can monitor you, but I can't get anyone else unless there is an incident...” she paused. “I've been well...” She sounded sheepish. Irons shook his head, knowing her too well.

  “You've been hacking. I know. I approve. Go with it,” he said patiently.

  She cleared her virtual throat again and then nodded. “Okay then. Well, I suppose I could. I did leave a back door.”

  “No, no, we're just going to have to figure this out the old fashioned way.”

  “Dare I ask how?” Sprite asked.

  “By laying a trap.”

  “How...”

  “If I were to leave the ship...” he suggested.

  She caught on right away. “Then they would have to sabotage your shuttle. We've taken steps to prevent that. But that leaves other means. If the announcement is done at the last minute the assassin will have to act fast, possibly exposing themselves.”

  “Exactly,” Irons said nodding. He whistled softly as he went down the corridor. “If she or he can't take the time to see if it's a trap then they might fall right in. We'll have to wait for the right opportunity. I can't just do this willy nilly, Everyone knows I'm going to keep moving and not just retire on some mudball.”

  “Right.”

  Chapter 19

  Irons looked at the growing class and smiled internally. The crew had stumbled onto one of the military's favorite pastimes, classes. Training could be fun, it was definitely interesting and sometimes lively. On a ship people became bored, they became rusty. Military ships needed to keep their edge, so they constantly trained. That kept the boredom down to a minimum and let them learn from their mistakes... or make new ones.

  Ships and stations also had classes to learn new skills. This kept the crews supple and interested in bettering themselves and others. It also allowed them to cross train in other posts to cover them in case of accident, being short handed, or battle.

  He was teaching a few regular classes now, most of the students were advanced, more of a study group than a real class sometimes. The topics rambled from one interest to the next sometimes, not following any sort of lesson plan. Which apparently was the way some liked it.

  They discussed AI some more. The Admiral pointed out that one of the reasons AI hadn’t moved on or set up their own societies was because they have only a limited ability to innovate independently. “And that's not our fault,” Irons said giving Sprite's avatar a look.

  “Old argument?” an amused tech asked. Irons snorted as Sprite opened her mouth.

  “You could say that,” she replied turning to the blue haired tech. The tech had some sort of circuitry tatoo on both arms wrapping around them and up under his red shirt. Since he was off duty he didn't have to wear engineering's gray overalls. “But he is correct. For the most part.” She shot the Admiral a look.

  “For once,” he joked, amused.

  “Sure. I'll go along with that,” Sprite smiled sweetly. He mock glowered. She shrugged it off and then turned to the others. “You see as we learn, we build indexes. We absorb information and creating index files with spider bots is our way of managing it. But eventually, the information becomes too complex. The index needs sub indexes. That slows our thought processes... which will eventually lead to an AI going catatonic. Not a pleasant thought,” her avatar shuddered.

  “Part of the problem is that AI make too many connections. Everything. Every sense, every millisecond cross referenced hundreds of times to dozens of sub indexes,” Irons said. “A lot of the information is either out of date or inconsequential. Most organics filter that out over time, but not smart AI. But back to the innovation thing,” he shrugged. “It's hard to say why. Humans and other organics have a... spark of genius.”

  “Or insanity,” Sprite replied dryly.

  “Sometimes that's true,” he said with a snort and then shrugged again. “But we have a way of thi
nking that is hard to replicate in an AI. Believe me we tried,” he grimaced. “We've built software models of our neural chemistry. Right down to chemical and electrical signals..” He shook his head. “It didn't help. There was no spark there. Nothing new, no insight. Little or no creativity.”

  “Which is a bit confusing,” Sprite replied. “There are organics who transferred their consciousness to an electronic... in a way transcending the physical at death. They are class 6 and 7 AI. But...” she grimaced. “They are shadows of their former selves,” she admitted reluctantly. “Or were, I don't know if any survived the war.”

  “So we do have a soul,” Irons replied shrugging. “Or something we just can't explain. Something. The spark of life.” He shrugged again.

  “But some AI can create. In a limited way,” Sprite replied. “By using a design template Proteus can design a project for the Admiral.”

  “Correct,” Irons nodded. “But that isn't innovation. I tell Proteus what I want, it accesses the design files, opens a relevant template, then fills in the blanks with off the shelf modules scaled to the specs I want. It then runs it through a sim program to test it a few dozen times.”

  “So in a way, it is innovating. In a way,” Sprite said, giving him a cool look.

  “Thus the root of our argument,” Irons smiled. “Is what I have Proteus do considered true innovation?”

  “No,” a tech said. “If you're giving it the idea then it accesses a template that's nothing new. You are thinking of it. It's just filling in the blanks.”

  Sprite grimaced. “But...”

  “But me no buts,” Irons smiled. “Think about it logically. Lets try an example.” He held out his right arm. “Proteus. Demo mode. Lets try a ship.”

  The silvery blob that served as Proteus' avatar formed next to Sprite. She looked down at it.

  “Lets see. Shuttle craft.” A holo appeared of a shuttle outline, then another with a list of subsystems in a shuttle.

  “Lets go with a basic modern Fleet launch for the frame, civilian grade systems.” Under the hull and architecture fleet launch silhouettes appeared. Civilian systems filled in the blanks for the sub systems. “Um.. lets see 50, no 100 person capacity, local, atmo, um, fusion drive,” he said.

  The launch changed to an extended version, elongating to almost pinnace size. Then it morphed into an atmospheric design. Subsystems related to atmospheric flight were listed and then minimized.

  The drive file opened, changed to a fusion drive. The engines highlighted, and changed from a class 1 to a class 3. Irons smiled.

  “See there Proteus is anticipating my reaction based on previous experience with me. Correct?”

  “Yes Admiral.”

  “Do you have enough information?”

  “Do you have a set range? Communications? Fuel capacity? Life support?”

  “Normal for class,” he answered.

  “Preliminary design sketch completed Admiral, do you wish to review it?”

  Irons nodded. The silhouette filled in to a 3d holo of a launch. It rotated a full 360 then spun on it's Y axis 360, then sections of the hull were cut away. After a minute the display ended with the launch being taken apart into sub assemblies.

  “Even sub assemblies. If we take this far enough Proteus can write a program to replicate the parts and assemble them. It has each sub assembly broken down in one terrabyte system files. They can be scaled to fit any application.”

  “Isn't that innovation? No wait, you said a template,” the girl frowned.

  “Yes,” Irons nodded. “Spread sheet work order by priority,” he ordered. The spreadsheets formed and then indexed automatically.

  “But how does it do the individual sub systems. Life support for example.”

  “That's just it. Each subsystem is a standardized system. Proteus just scales it to the desired need. There isn't anything new about it. No new drive, no revolutionary communicators, no micro hyperdrive,” he answered, looking at the students. “I'm not asking Proteus to think of anything new.”

  “A micro hyperdrive is not possible with the craft selected. However if you scale up to a pinnace and drop the crew capacity to 4 then it becomes possible,” Proteus reported.

  Irons nodded looking at the holo of the avatar then to the group. He shrugged.

  “Interesting,” Bailey commented then nodded to each of the AI. “Thank you for your time. We've got some work to do tomorrow, so I'm for bed.”

  “Yes it is getting late,” Irons sighed.

  “I'd like a copy of that though Admiral. It might come in handy some day. Who knows, maybe we can build it as a side project,” Bailey said catching a few eager looks from the group.

  “Could we really?” a young woman squealed, bouncing up and down.

  “Really, really. But you have to eat all your vegetables and go to bed on time,” Bailey teased grinning at the young woman.

  She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at her boss. “Funny boss. A riot. Laugh a minute. I want in. Boy, something like that would be wicked cool to do.”

  “And working on a starship isn't enough for you?”

  “I hear it palls after a while,” she said grinning at him.

  “Funnnny,” he drawled in reply as some of the group snickered.

  “Building something with my own two hands though. Something we can use. Or sell...” she grinned.

  “Yeah,” Bailey snorted then nodded. “I know just the feeling you're talking about. He turned to the Admiral. “So how about it?” he asked.

  “Sure. Most well run crews pick side projects to work on to keep busy and to keep their skills up to date. It also lets them learn new things and gives them something productive to keep them both occupied and something they can sell,” he said. Bailey rolled his eyes at him. He shook his head. “Sorry, TMI, I know. The plans and general templates will be on in the mainframe. I'll upload the work order and spreadsheets and I'll even throw you a bone and have Sprite do some sims to make sure she's a solid design.”

  “Hey! How'd I get involved in this!” the AI protested. Irons looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “All right,

  all right. I'll have to run the sims when most of the crew is down and the Destiny AI isn't too busy doing routine maintenance though.”

  “Cool.”

  April schooled her face as she walked down the companionway. Ever since the last attack the Admiral had been a little distant with her. She was pretty sure he was trying to keep her at bay to keep her safe. It hurt but she understood his reasoning.

  She had to admit to herself she hadn't expected their relationship to last. She'd expected a one night fling really. What Irons hadn't realized was that she'd had it in for him since before they had left Pyrax.

  It wasn't just his rugged good looks and charm. It wasn't the sad looks he sometimes had and tried to hide. It wasn't the uniform, though his ass did look good in it, she thought with a fleeting smile.

  She hadn't expected the chiseled body of an ancient Greek god either though she should have. Sure she was into older men and he was appealing because he was a celebrity and old but again, not quite on the mark.

  She'd known he was sophisticated and had experience. A lot of bed experience. She'd always been charmed by older more sophisticated partners. Male or female. She liked it that her lover wasn't a greenhorn, bumbling around, unsure what to do. The Admiral combined the best traits of both actually, the wisdom of an older partner, well versed in bed, but also the youth and energy of... hell, ten, no a hundred men in bed! She smirked a little, slowing her pace. She shifted the tablet under her arm and looked over her shoulder. Yes her camera bot was still following. Good.

  Goddess of space she was glad that thing hadn't been on when she and Irons had been together. On any of the numerous times. She was a little fearful of what she was going to say to the boss when he found out. Willis had rather snidely made the same comment yesterday.

  Her thoughts returned to Irons again as she put the fear of the futur
e away. After all, it was the future, and she would deal with it then. Irons... she smiled.

  No, it was his giving nature that had first charmed her, like probably half the women in Pyrax. His personality, his open heart and get it done attitude. He had a charm about him, an aura that had to be felt. Like he challenged those around him to be better than themselves by showing how giving he was. It was humbling.

  She hadn't seen his dark side, though she'd seen recordings of it of course. He could be a frightful bastard when he wanted to be, cold and dangerous. Again, appealing to some, not really to her.

  The implants... she admitted that the implants and the AI had thrown her for a while. She'd been determined to at least meet him and get an interview on the trip. He didn't know that his playing hard to get on the first leg of their journey had turned a casual crush into something a bit more. Something that had been hard to dampen with professional ethics.

  And now this. Her journalistic instincts told her she was onto something. She had been with the Neo's but it had obviously turned out to be a dead end. He hadn't said as much. In fact he hadn't been sharing his side of the investigation with her at all. Sometimes that bothered her. She realized why of course. The only way they could get back together and move on was to catch this damn assassin. To scoop them. She was on the trail, she could feel it.

  She'd realized something was off about some of the crew and especially the delegates. She'd narrowed her focus to Mayfair and Willis briefly.

  Mayfair had a sour attitude toward the Admiral, most likely due to the patronage of someone that had been behind his exile. She wasn't very bright, she'd picked up on that. She pretended to be sophisticated but it was obvious after the first interview that the woman was completely out of her element.