Ghosts from the Past (The Wandering engineer Book 7)

by Chris Hechtl

  “I found the name in the database several times. That and a few other names that have come up. Old Nelly for one. There are different categories for ship names in the Horathian ship database. Apparently they have been keeping track of shipping ... or something more.”

  "Interesting," he said. "But hardly newsworthy if they were a recent capture. I pity the crew." He grimaced. “Crews plural. Sorry.”

  "That's just it, Admiral, I've been cross referencing material from the various intelligence reports. Both with interviews with the pirates and with their databases. The pirates aren't very forthcoming of course, but the computer databases mentioned those two ships as well as another."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. A Barnacle Bill, a small freighter. She passed through Antigua and jumped out according to the traffic log Firefly had. It joined the Horathian fleet in Protodon."

  "Joined the fleet?" Irons asked carefully. After a moment he rubbed his jaw. "I don't like the sound of that."

  "Nor do I. Apparently when the Barnacle Bill arrived they changed plans. The fleet had originally been scheduled to go to Kathy's World to … pacify and … deal with that population, and then go on from there south to link up with the fleet at B100 omega and then invade Pyrax."

  "But that didn't happen."

  "No it didn't. A sudden change in plans, one interview from a Horathian rating let slip." She flashed the dialog snipped on his HUD. "The invasion of Protodon was canceled within twenty-four hours by Admiral Cartwright," she said, flashing another snippet and highlighted a portion. "The invasion was cut off during the drop, and the forces were recalled. The pirates didn't capture the ship; she joined up with them," she flashed another snippet from another interview.

  “And this has to do with Prinz Zir how again?” He asked carefully, wrinkling his nose. He didn't like where this was leading.

  “She's mentioned in the same database, Admiral. In my opinion she is a spy ship. They go around the sector looking for targets then pass it on to the Horathian warships who then move in. Prinz Zir saw an opportunity to try to kill you or take out the population so they dropped those sleepers in our lap. And you know the results from there,” she said.

  “But no other mention of them?”

  “Not in the interview manuscripts I have access to.”

  "We need to interview these people ourselves," Irons said definitively. He drummed his fingers on the table.

  "Admiral, with all due respect, you've got more important things to do with your time. As do I. Leave it to the experts."

  "That's the problem, Sprite; there are no experts. They are learning their jobs. The best way to learn is by someone showing them how it's done, not reading it and then trying to do it yourself. You know that."

  "Yes, on-the-job learning. They may miss a few things, but they are getting better. And when they do they go back. This intelligence lieutenant, Lieutenant Lake that Captain Mayweather left behind, is a tough cookie. Smart and thorough, which is probably why Commander Montgomery bumped her up to Lieutenant JG so quickly. She may have picked up more, Admiral."

  "Okay," he said slowly. It wasn't like he could do anything right now. All of the Horathian prisoners had been sent to Pyrax with Firefly on the converted liner. He frowned and made a note to have Commander Montgomery look into the matter further at his earliest opportunity.

  "Delegate, Admiral, I know you've had trouble doing that lately," Sprite said succulently.

  He sighed, resigned to her winning the round. "Fine. But I want a hands-on interview with each of them. If not by me than I want you to sit in on some of them and ask questions as soon as we get to Antigua."

  Sprite blinked in surprise. "Me?" she asked. He wasn't sure if the surprise was genuine or not. She'd done a good job at imitating the human mannerism though. She had matured into a very ... almost human person he thought.

  "Um, you know what, you are right, you aren't suited for that role, but,” he thought for a moment then settled on the obvious choice, “… Defender is.”

  The security AI responded, blinking to existence on his HUD. "Lieutenant, I have an assignment for you. I want you to go over what the Commander has uncovered, come up with a list of questions, scenarios, and other things, and go over them with the Intel officer. Sit in on the interviews with our people as well as those in Antigua, and get me more hard data."

  "Admiral, I am a security AI not an intelligence AI," Defender objected.

  "And you'll be securing my peace of mind. Get on it, that's an order," Irons growled. “You did just fine interviewing people to sign up with the Fleet; this shouldn't be any different.”

  “He's definitely paranoid enough to do the job. I bet the report will be either brief or filled with qualifiers,” Sprite said with a chuckle.

  "You honestly think they were more than they appeared?" Defender asked. “I will need resources. Additional memory, processing cycles ...” the Admiral waved an impatient hand to cut off the list.

  "Well, let's look at the facts. Let's take Prinz Zir. They aren't known in this area, but now they come here. They are a medium freighter not interested in trade or profit. I'm sighting the Epsilon encounter. Also, again, Epsilon encounter, they trade six stasis pods with people for port fees and fuel. No other trade attempts, minimum communication," Sprite said to the security AI.

  "Okay," Defender rumbled. “Circumstantial, but suspicious.”

  The Admiral frowned. Sprite was right, that stunk to high heaven. Those pods had been filled with disease. Why would they just drop them off? They hadn't even attempted to open them ... He shook his head as Sprite continued.

  "I concur with the Commander's suspicions, Admiral," Defender stated. "That is suspicious."

  "Then look into it, Lieutenant."

  "Aye aye, Admiral."

  “In the meantime, Commander,” Irons said, eying Sprite. “I don't need you or anyone else running to me with any little tidbit you found.” She seemed to deflate slightly. “Put it together with other bits and we'll do a weekly brief or one every other day, time permitting. Come up with a digest and I'll read it when I have the time. I don't need niggling details right now; they are distracting. Keep it simple but keep the links in case I want more information. You know better,” he scolded mildly.

  “Aye aye, Admiral.”

  “Dismissed the pair of you. Get back to whatever you were doing,” he ordered.

  Chapter 2

  “Report,” Admiral Irons said mildly as he came onto the bridge carrying a cup of coffee. Wiring was dangling in various places. A couple of techs were flat on their backs working.

  “Admiral on the deck! Sir, you have the bridge,” Lobsterman said formally.

  “At ease. As you were people,” the admiral said, taking the hot seat. He racked his cup in the cup holder and glanced at the screens as they came up. He rested his left hand on the arm rest, and the chair jacked into his implants to give him a more in depth look at the log and ship's systems and course.

  “Good morning, Admiral,” Lobsterman said. Irons glanced at his holographic emitter, but the device was down and in pieces again. “We're getting there,” the AI said.

  “Yes, we are. One step at a time. Sometimes we have to take a step back to regain perspective before we can take another step forward. But we are getting there,” Irons said. The ship was running well, they still had a kick in reactor 3 and a sine wave in two of the port grav emitters. Engineering had managed to repair the force emitters on deck 3 while he'd been asleep; that was good. They hadn't gotten much else done though, which was annoying.

  “We are holding course, sir, eight days estimated to break out,” Lobsterman reported. Irons took a sip of his coffee and noted one of the techs peeking at him. He raised an eyebrow, and the tech went back to work. The admiral's enhanced vision kicked in, allowing him to see through the station to see what the tech was doing. From the look of it, he was tracing a frayed ODN cable down and running new cable. Not something Irons liked to do but necessary. The
rating had spliced two of the cables back together; that was good. The splice was holding, and he hadn't overheated it into a blob, which was good too. As he studied the repair, he sent a mental command through his implants to Proteus.

  The engineering AI kicked into gear and sent a series of bots through the ship's net to the station to inquire about its status. Lobsterman stepped in the way briefly, throwing up a firewall before he stepped aside.

  “You know, you could ask,” Lobsterman murmured.

  “Senior officers rarely do. Secondary system?”

  “Tactical is still down,” the AI said, clearly disgusted with the situation. “We have been focusing on the other systems, but since we have the time Admiral, I thought we should get some work done on tactical. You know, just in case we run into something in B100 omega.”

  “Spoiling for a fight, Ensign?” Irons asked, smiling at the nearest camera.

  “No sir. Okay, I admit, maybe a little.”

  “You'll get your chance to earn your spurs, son. Just have patience. For now, let's focus on what needs to be done.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Lobsterman replied, sounding a little petulant. “Should I order them to just button it up for now?”

  “No, finish what they've got started. It's opened up now. It's silly to have to tear it apart all over again,” the admiral replied. He opened a window using his fingers to direct a mouse on his HUD, then clicked on the icon to the ship's AI inviting him in. Defender briefly threw a firewall up before his red eyes flared, and he stepped aside.

  “Thank you, sir,” Lobsterman said, putting up a head shot of his current avatar. He looked like a teenager, male, brown hair, nondescript face, silver skin, but the yellow slicker looked a bit wet.

  “Ensign, do you have to take a nap?”

  “No, I don't think so, sir,” the AI stated, again sounding petulant.

  “It's understandable, son; you are still growing, and the downtime is needed to integrate your new experiences and thoughts into your software and memory. Have you started a regular cycle?”

  “Not yet, sir. I'm still as you say, growing and learning.”

  “Okay. Then if you don't need the downtime, see what you can do about running diagnostics with the techs to speed their progress along.”

  The AI's avatar made a face. “I was hoping you'd ask me to run some tactical simulations, sir.”

  Irons pursed his lips then shook his head. The AI's gold eyes fell. “Like I said, you'll get your chance. For now, focus on getting the ship's systems online and back to 100 percent.”

  “I'll be as good as new?”

  “If we all put enough effort into it, yes. Better if we throw in some things I know about, but that is for later. For now, get a bot up to run diagnostics with Proteus and then run a sweep of the ship. When was your last one?”

  “Before I came on duty. My full attention was needed here, sir.”

  “Then you can do that next.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Irons nodded as he felt the AI withdraw. The window closed in a blink. He picked the cup of coffee up and took another sip. Not bad. At least it didn't taste like used motor oil anymore.

  “When you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself,” he murmured, checking the list of repairs. It was still a long one and growing ever longer as they found more and more things to repair or replace. Eight more days and they'd really start pulling the ship apart. By the time they were done, she'd be as close to reborn as he could get her outside a yard dock.

  Three months ago Maine had been in the possession of the Horathian pirates. She had been salvaged and had been renamed the Queen Adrianne under the command of a Rear Admiral Javier Rico as flagship of his small fleet. They had been charged with taking Pyrax and the surrounding area while other Horathian fleets captured systems north of them.

  Rico had been a pretty decent opponent. He'd sent the Arboth class destroyer Bounty to B100 omega, the neighboring system to act as a forward picket in case ships came through that area. Bounty had acted as her own flagship of a detachment of vessels sent to take Hidoshi's World, a nearby star system while she remained behind to pick off unarmed freighters.

  She'd done a pretty good job of it, capturing six ships before Admiral Irons had arrived on the scene in his ship, the Phoenix. He'd taken his small yacht to the system after a long jump from Epsilon Triangula. He'd intended to go to Bek to find out if the star system and its inhabitants still existed, but Bounty had put a crimp in his plans. She had used a remote platform to take Phoenix's systems down, not that he could have run since they'd been on fumes. He'd allowed himself to be captured long enough to get to the brig and organize a mutiny.

  They'd captured the ship as well as the freighters Bounty had been using as prison barges. Then they'd torn the ships apart to rebuild them. Along the way they'd captured several pirates, including a resupply convoy from the pirate fleet in B101a1 and another small convoy returning from the conquest of Hidoshi's World. He'd sent some of the ships back with a group of marines to retake the planet, then sent civilians who wanted no part of the coming battle north to hide if they could.

  He and a selection of repaired ships had gone to B101a1 and to battle. He'd intended to fight an ambush, get in, do as much damage as he could, and then get out; more of a spoiler raid than the actual slug fest it had degenerated into. He'd gotten in over his head; the viruses that the AI had unleashed on the pirate ships had made him want to do more damage. They'd made him think he had the edge even though he had been the underdog. He freely admitted that Firefly's timely arrival had saved their bacon. Taking a destroyer in against a crippled battlecruiser had been suicidal. He shook his head, putting the thought aside.

  He'd been time lost for the past, what, seven years? Just about he thought with a pang. Seven years since Io 11 had found him in Senka and brought him to Pyrax. That trip had allowed him to make some small contacts with the planets they'd passed ... while also making him come to grips with how far the Federation had fallen.

  When you were that low, the only way out was up. He'd salvaged Firefly, fought a battle with the locals there, then went on to set up a fleet base and growing yard in Pyrax before he'd been chased out of there. Once he'd left he'd went on a tour of nearby systems until he'd wound up in Antigua. He'd thought he'd found what he'd been looking for there, but in the end he'd let the politicians chase him out once again. He'd had a few adventures with Phoenix, even stopping a Xeno plague and setting up a medical naval base in Epsilon Triangula before his fateful jump.

  Now this. The future was looking bright. Firefly had brought word that the politicians in Antigua had realized the error of their ways ... a pirate invasion tended to do that sometimes, and they'd formally requested him to return and help them rebuild. His lips puckered in a bitter smile. It was a wonder what the prospect of a good hanging could do to a politician's thought processes. Just about nothing else could get through their dense heads.

  He was going back all right, but this time on his own terms with a fleet at his back. A small fleet, but one he could take elsewhere if needed. Carnegie was critical to his future plans if Antigua didn't work out. The factory ship's industrial replicators had all been rebuilt or refurbished in B101a1. They were moving forward, one step at a time. He needed to reestablish the fleet, to get it back online and growing. To get the Federation, galactic civilization back on track. He had to swallow his pride though. Horath was a lot more dangerous than anyone had assumed.

  He took another sip of coffee, then downed the remainder. “Sir, diagnostics complete,” Proteus reported. Irons nodded. Perhaps it was a good thing that Lobsterman had jumped the gun. He was right in a way; they needed to have a functional tactical station, if only to begin training the crew on its use.

  “Did you get a parts list going?”

  “I did, but we don't have all the materials necessary to make the repairs. A minimum list has been set up as an alternative,” Proteus reported. Irons grimaced
. That was another problem; they could work on only so many systems and had only so many parts or materials to do it.

  “Get the parts in the replicator queue. Unless they'll take away from the stuff already in the schedule,” Irons said.

  “Already done. Most are simple parts, Admiral. If you jack into the station I may be able to make some repairs with the nanites,” Proteus said.

  Irons grimaced. He was of two minds about doing that. On the one hand, it was good; they needed to get the station going. But on the other, he didn't want to be the indispensable man. Having the crew learn how to repair the components, to diagnose problems and fix them was important to their training and development. He couldn't hold their hand forever.

  “If we get it done, then we can assign Miss Torres and Mister Hazal to other duties since they are such skilled technicians,” Lobsterman suggested hopefully, interjecting his thoughts into what Irons thought was a private conversation.

  “Yeah, sure, fine. We'll get it done,” he said, relenting. “Just don't tattle to the commander. She's already on my case about moonlighting as it is,” he said as he got up out of the chair.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Midshipman Mia Tormell shook her head. She'd come on shift as a navigator, really a place holder since she barely knew what she was doing. She still wasn't sure what she was doing here or her good fortune in being selected as an officer.

  Really, it was Shandra's fault she was here at all. The two of them had landed together in the slave hold after their respective ships had been taken. Mia's father had been the captain; he hadn't even lived to see her to the slave pens. She'd been spared since she'd been trained on various jobs on the bridge. That hadn't spared her from being tormented and raped, but it had spared her from being tortured and killed like her little sister and mother.

  Shandra had taken her under her wing in the pen. They'd looked out for each other, covered for each other, and at one brief point had been lovers. It hadn't lasted more than a few hours, just time to get some solace in each other's arms after Shandra's last living relative, her uncle Bert, had been spaced.