Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  "Oh?" she asked.

  "They usually have some sort of regatta or space race every year. This particular year some young firebrands got them all fired up and they got it into their heads to put flowers into our guns. Literally."

  "I believe they got the idea from Vietnam war protests from old earth," Sprite replied.

  "Whatever," Irons said with a growl. "Vacuum packed flowers inside a barrel. He snorted. "We didn't let them get close of course."

  "So the local media went on and on about how we were backing away, giving ground. How the strength of their convictions were overcoming the warmongers' resolve. That whipped them into a frenzy," Sprite said.

  "And about that time we'd maneuvered away from the orbitals as a distraction when a Xeno pirate task force jumped in," Irons said. Several people sat up at this. A few got up and came closer.

  Irons looked around. "What happened? did the civilians panic and run?" a crewman asked.

  "Some did," Sprite said with a shrug. "The smart ones anyway. The really dumb ones went to the Xenos sending hails welcoming them." Even April winced at that one.

  "What happened?" a man asked.

  "We, the navy that is got it's act together right off. We called in reinforcements and pulled our people off the orbitals. They were partially evacuated anyway. The media was saying that if we were gone the Xenos would leave them unharmed. That our presence was the reason they were here."

  "I got a call from the local senator who flat out ordered me to withdraw. I told him to stuff it," Irons replied with a snort.

  "I bet that didn't go over well."

  "No," Sprite said rolling her eyes. "He was a little angry."

  "Who the senator or the Admiral?" April asked.

  "Both."

  "Can we continue?" Irons asked testily. Both females turned to him, glowering. "The ships that got close to the Xenos were grabbed by tractors. I realized right away that they were using them as shields."

  Some people grimaced. "About that time I started getting frantic calls from the hostages as well as the local authorities to save them,” he shook his head. “You should have seen this one news anchor's face. She went from ranting about the evil demonic Navy to bitching about us not doing our jobs, to begging for help mid-sentence. She looked like she was going to have a stroke on camera. She started breaking down and bawling after a few seconds. It made the rounds for a while,” he said smiling. A general chuckle went around the room.

  "You'd be surprised how the fear of death makes someone concentrate," Sprite said with a chuckle.

  "Right," the Admiral nodded.

  "What did you do?"

  "What could I do?" Irons asked suddenly sober. "I had a choice, fight and kill the enemy and hostages to keep them from bombing the planet, or sit there and watch them bomb it."

  "Sacrifice a few to save the many," Miss Willis said softly.

  "Something like that," Irons said shooting her a glance. He hadn't noticed her until now. He wasn't sure if any in the room could really understand the difficulty in such a simple statement. Like a lot of things it was easier said then done.

  "Unfortunately most of my forces were support units. I only had a light escort force," he shook his head and grimaced.

  "What happened?"

  "I blocked them from going to the planet," Irons said looking down. "Anyway I could. They used the yachts as shields. I set up a fallback under fire when we couldn't get through."

  "The planet?" April asked softly.

  "Oh it's still there," Sprite said with a sniff. "At least it was. It's a cinder though. I checked when we were on Io11. No, while the Admiral was retreating a fleet task force jumped in to the edge of the system. They got the word and had a decent Ssislli on board and did a micro jump."

  "Kind of funny that they arrived in the nick of time like that," someone said with a grimace.

  "You're right. They were a pursuit force, tasked with running the pirates to ground. The Admiral, Admiral Kerr guessed right and got there to save the day and garner the glory."

  "And you got the shaft?" April asked.

  "No, but he was reprimanded for retreating under fire, being insubordinate to the constitutional representatives on the scene, and removing the fleet base," Sprite said shaking her head. "At least by the media and the people of Mir. Not one apology or thank you. They had a field day with his killing the hostages. It was obviously heartless since they were about to be saved by Admiral Kerr."

  "Who we didn't know was coming. Otherwise I..." Irons snarled, clenching the arm rests of the chair.

  "You would have done the same thing and you know it," Sprite said testily. "If you hadn't slowed them down they would have gotten in range of the planet a half hour before the Admiral got there. He would have been listening to the planet die, helpless to do anything at all."

  "So what happened? I thought you said it's a cinder now?" April asked.

  "Oh it is," Sprite said with a head shake. "Remember those nanites I talked about? Well one of the hostages got away. As it turned out, they let her go, after they infested her with nanites of course. Sort of a back up plan I suppose. One of the Xenos' favorite tactics during the war. Seed people with delayed activation nanites or bio-weapons then let them run. When they got to a planet or refugee center... tick tick tick..." She tapped a finger on the top of the table then pantomimed an explosion.

  "We can do without the effects Sprite," Irons said dryly.

  April shuddered. "Thank you."

  "The interesting thing is the senators from Mir were in the senate when Mir was destroyed. They condemned the senseless deaths of course. Martyrs for peace," Sprite snorted. "Senator Woodstock tried to set up a memorial but was stripped of his seat when it was clear there were no survivors."

  "Why?" April asked.

  "He no longer had a constituency to represent. but he was also a major problem in the senate. He kept having hearings on the war, dragging things out, and holding up funding and laws at every opportunity. He pulled every trick in the book to hamstring us. Us the military I mean. He loved to do some dirty crap. Recalled senior officers for grueling bull sessions about their conduct in a particular battle in front of the cameras was one of his favorites. Making sure the bullies of the military were properly watched over," Sprite said sounding disgusted.

  "Laying it on a bit thick there," April said dryly.

  "No it's true. I got to go through one once or twice," Irons replied with a grimace. "The subpoenas were a major headache. They kept pulling people away, making holes in our chain of command. Holes we really didn't need during a war. The transit time back and forth was stupid." He shook his head.

  "Why not use an ansible?" a crewman asked.

  "It isn't allowed for a senate hearing," Sprite replied. “Which made the senators of the Mir faction love it. Warmonger dogs being called to heel. It was a mess. I was so glad he got his." She shook her virtual head. "I just wish we could have seen it."

  "Yeah well, we had work to do," Irons sighed. "Speaking of which, the chief is paging me. Got to go," he got up and waved as he made his exit.

  “I thought you said the replicator computers have most parts in their databases?” Everette asked. Their usual class had jumped around into topics far and wide. Leave it to the electronics tech to try to steer them back to areas he was comfortable about. Most likely he had an agenda going on.

  Irons looked over to Bailey. The chimp pursed his lips. He'd asked a simple thing, to learn more about replicators.

  “Most is the operative word,” Sprite said. “We can't hold everything you know. Besides, I believe the Admiral is doing this to show you how.”

  “Correct. I wanted to teach you how to replicate a part if you don't have it in the memory. We're using the sensors in the replicator and the nanites to scan this, a gravitational sensor. Then we can replicate it. As long as it's not on the proscribed list,” he added.

  "Is that how they got the Nova bomb?" Everette asked, watching the replicator sca
n the part it didn't have in it's database.

  “They being the Xenos you mean?” Sprite asked. She was obviously uncomfortable with the line of questioning. They were treading dangerously close to military secrets.

  "You'd be surprised what nanites can do," Irons said as he shook his head. "But the biggest problem is showing an enemy something. Once they know it is possible half the hard work is done. Showing someone something is possible gets them half way there to replicating it themselves and finding a possible counter to it."

  "Example?" Everette asked. Irons had known that was coming though. One of the favorite things the class did was ask him to cite a source or example.

  "Terran World war one," Irons shook his head. "During the first world war on Earth the allies used tanks in small numbers, really dribs and drabs instead of en mass. Because of that their enemy, the Germans were able to overcome their shock of the new weapon and had the time to devise counter weapons."

  "Oh."

  "But in this case, the Xenos saw what happened, and given the theory could reverse engineer the idea. If they picked up a Nova bomb that would have made it simpler and shaved time off that. But there were failsafes to prevent that from happening."

  "How..."

  "Most weapons have self destructs built into their circuitry. But some just burn the secret systems out, and keep the weapon or system from exploding in case there are allied survivors near."

  "Which is where nanites come back into the conversation," Sprite responded.

  "Exactly," Irons nodded.

  "Still not following you."

  "Well, I said we can do a lot with nanites right? Well one thing is you can use sensors, and even nanites to take something apart. Molecule by molecule then build copies."

  They blinked then looked pale. He nodded. "Right. So even if they didn't get the critical parts, they got enough of a bite to advance their own weapons development by an order of magnitude."

  "Crap. But that's all supposition, we still don't know if they got a working copy of a Nova bomb. They could have stolen the plans or just reverse engineered it from seeing it happen."

  "Both are also possibilities that have to be kept in mind. I would think the engineering data on the Nova bomb would have been safeguarded however," Irons replied. Sprite nodded.

  "At the very least any unauthorized access would have led it to blow itself up."

  "But that still leaves the non critical info dumps. The basic specs of the weapon that we use to brief people unfamiliar with the weapon design. That data is a bit less secure. If that had fallen into enemy hands it could have helped them,” he said and then scowled. “and then of course there are the dumps to the politicians and then the media. Once the basic idea is out it will hit the public and people will clamor to know how it works and why it works the way it does. If the military didn't stonewall on the concepts then some bright professor type would get into the act and speculate. Even if they were wrong just explaining the concepts and breaking down what works and what doesn't to the public, reveals it to the Xenos.”

  “I have a holo of a Nova bomb, and exploded holo view on my wall,” one of the young men said. Everette looked at him. So did Irons. He closed his eyes.

  “With predictable results,” Sprite sighed.

  “Yeah,” he breathed. He shook himself.

  "As fun as this discussion is, it's a moot point now. We're reconstructing history with suppositions. We need to focus on the here and now," Bailey growled.

  Irons nodded. "Right... Moving on..."

  Chapter 21

  He had to hide his amusement and annoyance when April insisted on doing background interviews with him again. It was one way to get to know one another, him giving up some of his past, her giving him an insight into her mind from the questions she asked and her reactions to his answers.

  He would have preferred doing it less... socially though. Oh a date wouldn't be all that bad if it had been structured as a date. This however wasn't. She'd tucked them into a corner of the galley to do the interviews. Many of the patrons had arrayed themselves around to watch.

  There wasn't much else to do, Engineering was running well, so well Bailey had kicked him out so he could, quote, keep his people busy. Hence their present occupation. He wasn't comfortable doing it with an audience, but she'd insisted on it. Most were quiet. A few pretended to ignore them.

  Intellectually he understood why. This way the could have witnesses to the interviews so no one could make accusations of bias. They also could state that there hadn't been any rehearsing or editing. Also so some of the 'guests' could participate on an ad hoc basis. It also served to put his face out there so they could better get to know him.

  He still didn't have to like it though.

  “Lets start at the beginning shall we?” she asked, taking a different tack that morning. She had her hair pulled back in a tight and rather short pony tail.

  “I wasn't born into this uniform you know,” he chuckles. “I started out as a spacers' brat. Graduated at twelve and moved into engineering trade college.”

  “Really? That young?” April asked, clearly amused.

  “The educational system in my time was first rate. You started in the womb and didn't stop ever. My family were natural engineers so we tended to tinker with our hands too so it really got me going in that field right off,” he said with a smile. She gave him a nod.

  “I got an eight year degree in three. I was leaning toward a military career when I got talked into doing a "three day cruise," to help a captain out. That turned nasty,” he scowled in remembered pain.

  “What happened?” she asked softly.

  He looked down into his drink. “What happened?” he looked up. “Well, in a word, I got shanghaied,” he sighed as her eyes widened. “I signed a single cruise contract. A couple of jumps to the nearest major shipping world. The captain snowballed me on before I got wind of the ship's reputation,” he grimaced. “I should have known better, always, always do your homework about a ship before getting on her. Dad told me that over and over. I... was stupid,” he sighed. “Too trusting. I hit it off with the guy right off. Him and his assistant. And the money he was dangling was just too irresistible to pass up.”

  “Too good to be true?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Huh.”

  “I found out the ship was short handed when I had to run double shifts right out of port. No one said a damn thing to me before we left, they wanted the help that bad. Morale was bad, the place stunk, the captain kept the bridge and officer's country clean, but the enlisted and engineering spaces were dumps. I got a habitual dislike of squalor there,” he snorted. It was a simple thing to have a bot clean. But for some reason the officers kept the bots that were supposed to clean the rest of the ship off to conserve power.

  “I'll bet.”

  “The captain lived it up on the bridge, nice shiny uniform, mistress, four star fresh food. The enlisted got e-rats. When we got into port I was put on watch for the entire shore leave, when it came time to leave I had my bags packed but the security robot blocked me from leaving,” he snarled. “It turned out the chief engineer and two of his assistants had jumped ship while in port. I didn't blame them one bit. The captain called me in, told me he needed me for one more cruise and was exercising his retention ability in the contract. I was livid. Almost punched him then and there. Wish I had, despite the threat of being spaced.” Her eyes went wide at that.

  “He wouldn't!” she said shocked.

  “He could have. He was the captain. The captain's word is law and assaulting an officer can be construed as mutiny. If we'd been underway he could have sentenced me on the spot. Most likely he wouldn't have, but he would have made my life miserable. Which I fortunately remembered in time to head my temper off.”

  He glowered at a bulkhead for a few moments. “So how did you get off?” she finally asked.

  He sighed. “About eight cruises in we got boarded for inspection. I and
a few others ambushed the inspectors. We made a big stink. The officer assigned to escort the inspector wasn't happy about it. When he tried to get security involved, well, it made our case for us. The inspector escorted us off. I checked my account and found the good captain hadn't paid me for my services the entire time I'd been on board. I was broke.”

  He sighed. “I called my uncle Jacques, who was in system visiting his grand daughter. She happened to be the lieutenant governor. I filed suit against the captain and the ship, he counter sued and put a lean on me for breach of contract and poor performance,” he growled.

  “The others who escaped put in complaints. Apparently there were a lot of complaints against the ship and captain. That got brought up in court. The ship was fined heavily. So heavily they seized her and sold her for scrap and then paid us.” She blinked at that. He shook his head.

  “Oh we were paid all right.” Her face fell as she realized his tone hadn't changed. “I had to find something to do while the court case ran it's course, working the dock for a month.” He grimaced, remembering the crap he'd gone through there. “In the end we were paid, but the lawyers ate up a lot of the money.” She winced at that. His lips curled in a snarl again. “I hate lawyers. Hidden fees. Five hundred credits an hour, working lunches, weekend working vacations...” He exhaled deeply and took a sip of his drink.

  “I couldn't save any money for a passenger ticket, I was determined to work my passage. When I went to get a berth to return home, I was blackballed. The good captain had put a huge black mark on me. I was forced to go to the local naval recruiter. It was my only avenue off that blasted station,” He shrugged.

  “And the rest is history?” she asked amused.

  “Nope, not even close,” he said, shaking his head again. “Even the Navy wouldn't take me as an officer with that mark... except as enlisted,” he sighed. "Problems with authority, improperly trained," he scowled. “Even though I showed the recruiter the suit and judgment and my own degree I only just squeaked in to basic enlisted. No sign on bonus or anything. I got hosed.”