Ghosts from the Past (The Wandering engineer Book 7)

by Chris Hechtl

  “It wasn't your fault, Admiral,” Rasha said softly. “Quite the opposite. And I shudder to think what they would have done if you'd been here and Firefly hadn't arrived,” she murmured.

  “Entirely too true unfortunately,” the doctor said. “We're still a bit of a mess on the station. We're down two of the industrial replicators you fixed plus a bunch of other stuff, though we've made good on a few of the other departments,” she said.

  “Life support being the big one,” Taylor said as he continued to look at the admiral. The admiral returned the steady gaze with his own. Taylor saw what he wanted to see there, resolution, purpose, the admiral wasn't certain what, but he finally nodded and his craggy face cracked in a half smile. “I'm also sorry to say some of your investment got trashed,” he said.

  The Admiral waved that off with a chuckle. “Nothing that can't be fixed or replaced,” the admiral said. “Taylor, Rasha, I am sorry for your loss. More than you can ever know,” he murmured.

  Megan sucked in a breath and glanced at the two cybers. Both of them nodded. “We knew it would happen sometime, that we might outlive him. The kids. But this is hard, Admiral.”

  “I know,” the admiral said as Rasha closed her eyes in pain. “I'm sorry.”

  “We know, Admiral. Thank you,” Taylor said, patting his wife's virtual hand. She squeezed it in return.

  They chatted briefly before Taylor grimaced. “I'm getting pinged by the council. It seems they want to have a talk with you as well. Admiral, think you can handle some business?”

  “I think we can,” the admiral said cautiously. He nodded as he straightened. He felt Proteus direct his nanites to clean him up a bit more, most likely under Sprite's urging he thought. The rest of the station's council soon joined into the virtual meeting after a moment, each fading into being around him.

  He recognized a few of them right off. Averies was there, as was Yan Fu, the Stewards, The Berkhearts, Meyers, five of the AI, but the rest were new or he just didn't recognize. Sprite hovered names on his HUD but he ignored them.

  Sid and Emily Berkheart grinned at the sight of him. Sid gave him a thumbs-up. Somehow he felt a little better. He knew they were in his corner now. Or they were at least glad to see him. Averies and Meyers both nodded politely to him. Yan looked quiet and subdued, but there was just a hint of relief in his manner.

  “My, the gang's all here,” Sprite murmured, appearing in her day uniform beside the admiral. They took the time to nod to each of the council members. Irons noted there were a few new faces and a few missing old ones. A couple he was glad they were gone. He wouldn't have missed Yan Fu, but apparently he'd resigned as head of the council in favor of his wife of all people. Hishina's ID tag had a lieutenant's rank above it. That made the admiral blink in surprise. Apparently she'd hidden that from him during their previous time together.

  “We heard you had been boarded,” Sprite said. She smiled politely to the other AI, exchanging data briefly with them on a secondary channel. “It's good to see you still around,” she said politely. She felt a bit of annoyance as Defender buffered the information briefly before turning it over to her. She did a quick scan of the contents then tucked it away for later review.

  “You can thank Captain Mayweather and her crew. And her marines,” Rasha said simply. The admiral like a few of the others nodded.

  Captain Mayweather and Firefly had done a bang up job, disabling two destroyers, the Cutlass and the Viper while destroying one Arboth destroyer the Sirius. She had shattered eight frigates, disabled and captured four more, and had gone on to hammer twelve corvettes into wreckage, lobotomized two, and broke two more into air bleeding wrecks. Twenty-seven of the twenty-nine gunships had been turned into balls of wreckage by Firefly and her fighters.

  During the enemies hasty retreat, the Heavy cruiser had captured another ten freighters of various sizes, one yacht, one converted factory ship the Ramona Remora, and nine converted troop transports. The Horathian tanker had blown up, self-destructed to prevent its capture when fighters had disabled her engines according to the report. Only two corvettes had managed to escape to Triang.

  All for two fighters lost, one damaged as well as twenty dead sailors on Firefly, and thirty-seven injured. Then there were the several dozen dead marines who had fought valiantly to retake Antigua Prime before the occupying pirates could destroy her.

  They had seen the four captured frigates had been on station with Hecate. Four Apollo class corvettes were covering the Senka jump point. That left the two gunships to cover the B-459c jump point with what appeared to be another asteroid fortress. A third fortress was being towed to the B-450a jump point by a cluster of tugs.

  The two battered tin cans were in orbit of Antigua Prime. The Cutlass was a beast from a previous era. It couldn't be the Cutlass; that ship had been sent to the breakers long ago. Apparently the Horathians had just kept the class name as her ship's name. No one had bothered to look up her original name after she had been captured either.

  Viper was another Antelope class light destroyer. According to CIC she appeared to be in marginally better shape than Cutlass.

  According to the report he'd read six of the captured freighters had been sent unescorted to Pyrax. They had been labeled Convoy 1 alpha. Horatio and the Pyrax crew had done a remarkable turnaround in Pyrax, doing an overhaul of the ships while unloading and reloading them. They'd then returned them to Antigua with equipment and naval personnel to begin to repair the other captured ships. All six had been fully manned by the time they had departed Pyrax in Convoy 1 baker.

  The six ships had made the regular run along with additional ships sent by Horatio. They did a fast turnaround in Antigua, barely staying seventy-two hours before they had departed again. By the time they had returned to Agnosta Horatio had started to use the ship's he had been using to run regular supply runs to Agnosta to stockpile loads for the next step. Several of the converted freighters had been tasked taking on the stockpiled cargo from the orbital cargo depots along with material and personnel from Agnosta or shipped in from Pyrax.

  Hecate had run as an escort to Convoy 2 baker with orders to relieve Fuentes and have her return as the escort to Convoy 3A. The convoy had been made up of three of the original six ships along with three of the damaged converted troop transports. The other ship's crews were given an extended leave while their ships were serviced in Antigua.

  Xavier had been sent back with only four of the freighters. Apparently two had required more extensive refits. That had explained why the Astra class had been outfitted as a transport Irons thought with a shrug.

  Irons shook his head. Apparently Horatio had considered the system secure enough with the warship's that were there to warrant recalling Fuentes. The crews had done their best to make up the damage, but their hands had been tied on a lot of the damage.

  Each of the ships had started with only a skeleton crew from Firefly and Antigua volunteers on board. Each of the convoys had swapped out the volunteers with trained professionals. The volunteers had been sent to Pyrax to put a polish on their hands on training. As they got a handle on the ship's repairs the crew compliments were brought up to full or near full.

  Cutlass and her consort had only a third of their weapons. They also barely had a functional sublight drive. Their hulls were buttoned up though. They also had full compliments on board. The admiral nodded.

  “So, what is this about?”

  “We wanted to tell you, we support you and anything you wish to accomplish here,” Hishina murmured. The admiral raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. “And yes,” her eyes cut to Averies and then Meyers. “Some of us wanted to ... negotiate with you.”

  “I see,” he murmured thoughtfully. “I'm not interested in manufacturing civilian components if that is what you are afraid of,” he said.

  “That isn't it at all. We need to negotiate licensing with you to manufacture materials and equipment here on our station,” the Veraxin lawyer stated.

  “So we
'll need a contract. And even when Governor Randall creates an industrial board, we'll need to keep that contract open.”

  “The question is, what do you want in return? We know you are going to get the navy going here, and of course restart the Federation ...” Averies said.

  The admiral's eyes cut to Hishina. She had her hands in her lap, quite content to let the others drive the conversation. That told him right there that they were behind it. He nodded.

  “Well, first off,” he said, voice cooling slightly as he caught their eyes. “Don't frack with me,” he growled. “No more pacifistic bullshit. No games, we either work together or don't.”

  “Wouldn't dream of it, Admiral,” Averies said.

  “I know you need a profit. But without me it's just junk,” the admiral said. “And I know that we both know I won't need you once the yard and industrial infrastructure supporting it is up.” Meyers shot a restraining look to a fat man, Albert something. Also to a female who was looking decidedly nonplussed by the admiral's blunt approach.

  “We need each other,” Meyers said, nodding as he returned his attention to the admiral. “Got that. We won't gouge you, Admiral. We'll charge you at 10 percent above cost. Cost is to include the raw material cost, shipping to the station, storage fees, security, and others that we may need to negotiate in further detail later,” he stated, apparently reading from a prepared list. He glanced at the Veraxin attorney. The bug clacked in approval.

  The admiral rubbed his jaw. “Barter I take it? Quid pro quo?” Meyers nodded again. “I think we can work something out, but to be honest I was thinking five, but ...”

  “We can do seven,” Albert said hastily.

  “Okay, I'll vig to that,” the admiral agreed, eyes cutting momentarily to the large man. “Work out the details with Commander Sprite.” He turned to look at Hishina, and then her husband.

  Hishina nodded. Her husband made a brushing motion. To the admiral's surprise Yan Fu even cracked a smile. “Understood. It's good to have you back, Admiral.”

  “I'm not back for long. Not unless I know things have changed. That's an entirely different conversation. Or series of conversations,” Irons warned.

  That sent a slight alarm through the council. “I certainly hope you will stay, Admiral,” Doctor Trask murmured.

  Irons grunted but didn't commit to that. He thought for a moment and then decided what the hell, he might as well throw them a bone. He was curious if it would lead anywhere. It might help smooth over some ruffled feathers and make them more appreciative of his endeavors down the road. “A suggestion,” he said holding up a finger “Just a suggestion,” he said.

  “Shoot,” Rasha Warner said with a smile.

  “We're listening, Admiral,” Sid said with a nod.

  “We just dumped a turnkey upgrade and some other goodies on a handful of planets on our way here. Triang for instance. If you alerted your consumer electronics division that we recently gave Triang a network of communications and weather satellites, then they could oh, I don't know, maybe make a couple million tablets and cell phones and other devices to sell there,” he said mildly.

  Rasha blinked and then nodded. She couldn't help but glance at the others. The Veraxin chittered for a moment, indicating first level humor.

  “We will certainly take that under advisement, Admiral. Our marketing department thanks you,” the attorney said.

  “Why scratch our back, Admiral?” Rachael Steward asked suspiciously.

  “Why not? Who said I can't help the people on the planet while also helping you?” The admiral replied with a flick of his hand. “I like killing two birds with one stone. Or in this case, hitting as many as I can get.”

  “Distributing communications, education, getting people interested in cohesive civilization, a power grid, utilities, plus running it all,” Rasha murmured thoughtfully. The admiral's eyes cut to her avatar and then he nodded slowly. “Efficient,” the woman said, eyes lighting. She turned to the others. “There is a lot of market potential here, and like the admiral said, we'd be helping them.”

  “Helping them become better customers,” Averies cackled. The admiral shrugged.

  “And better targets for the pirates,” Taylor said with a frown.

  “I'm working on that,” the admiral replied. “Commander Sprite can send each of you an update on our travels. I think your marketing department can pick them apart to look for other similar opportunities there. Epsilon Triangula for one. But,” he paused, eyes twinkling. “As I said, I'm working on the security issue. That is my field after all. If you are willing to help I think we can defend not only this star system but the others around it and eventually retake this sector and beyond,” he said.

  “Here here,” Sid said with a nod. He started clapping and the other members of the council joined in.

  The admiral sat back, basking slightly in the glow of approval. It was a small start, but one he could build off of.

  Chapter 18

  The admiral studied the readings of the yard area with approval. He had sent along orders to have Horatio ship in parts to rebuild the ships in the system to the best he could while also laying the stage for the future shipyard. He'd also left orders to have him contract the Yard Dogs to create additional new slips and facilities. Apparently Horatio and his deputy in the star system had done so, but there had been a bit of slippage in the original orders Firefly had carried. Factoring in the distances involved, limited ability of both sides, other commitments, and the time delays in communication that was probably inevitable he thought.

  Still, they had achieved a lot. The Yard Dogs had cleaned up the damage to their own manufacturing and made good on a lot of the exterior repairs to the station. They had also lent a hand in the repairs to the captured ships, opening their building slip to a ship when it was available. The eight support ships all lacked functional hyperdrives or other critical parts that only the admiral could manufacture, as did most of the warships in the system. He would soon rectify that problem he thought.

  Horatio had sent along orders to get the yard started in the first convoy, but no funding or plan to go with it apparently. He had given First Lieutenant Andrea Panski the option to build space depots to house parts and manufacturing equipment. She had apparently gone that route initially, while also juggling the repairs to the various ships in the system and overseeing the day to day operations as well. The lady had definitely been overworked and underpaid he thought with a wry twist of his lips.

  Horatio had recently started to send in automated and manned tugs to support the shipyard, but they had all been old and the crews had been green. He'd favored the Pyrax yard over Antigua. In a way the admiral couldn't blame him.

  In lieu of other payment the Yard Dogs and stationers had traded and bartered for their services. Now that the admiral was on site they could work out a better deal. That would mean immense contracts for both groups. It was already turning into a big shot in the arm for the local economy, and definitely a massive boost to its space industry. Eventually that would percolate out to the neighboring systems he thought.

  Apparently one of the Lieutenant's projects hadn't panned out, he noted as he read the report. She had directed the initial construction of a military space hospital despite the offers to house the complex on Antigua Prime. She'd been right to reject that, the admiral thought with a nod of approval.

  Apparently though her plans had been derailed when the planetary government had gotten wind of the hospital's design. They had instead offered basing rights for the navy and the marines on a series of islands off the coast of the main continent, not far from the Eternia Island.

  The admiral's lips puckered when he caught the sour note. Apparently they were still working out the details however. The long range discussions with Horatio were difficult to say the least. The time one way was another problem. The admiral had a fix for that however. Not only would he take over the discussion, he'd delegate as much as he could to Commander Sprite he thought wit
h a mental grin. But he had other plans to cut down on the time it took to communicate with Pyrax and the other star systems. He should have done it a long time ago he thought with a pang or remorse.

  The high point was right there he noted, turning his attention to one of the structures that Horatio had shipped in. The components for each of them had taken up the cargo space of three colliers but that was fine. Horatio had shipped on only the parts that the star system couldn't make, expecting the locals to expand on it from there. The lieutenant had delegated the construction of the other components for the project evenly between Antigua Prime and the Yard Dogs.

  Apparently the dogs had been savvy enough to subcontract some of the minor components out to small outfits in the system as well as ground side industry. Getting it up had cost more than it would have cost to have built it in the first place in orbit, but that was fine. It got the people involved interested in expanding the space industry while making economic and other ties to the space industries involved. He nodded. Someone over there had been on their game with that one.

  So, he now had two very empty, but very potentially critical space stations near the growing naval base. One was a copy of the ansible space platform he had started in Pyrax years ago. The other was an ansible manufacturing facility. There Prime had the leg up on him since the space station had a broken but repairable particle splitter to create the muons and split them for use. He nodded. If the stationers were willing to work with him on it, that was fine. He'd subcontract the work to them after repairing their particle splitter. He made another note to Sprite to work on the negotiations on that project.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Toni Chambers got the news of the arrival of the Admiral just as she got an e-mail. She was shocked it had come from him; if it wasn't personal, she fully intended to use it for a news report. Every reporter was jockeying for a story with the admiral. Since she was one of the few who knew the man personally she was on the inside track for that. She was delighted by the personal she opened the e-mail. As her eyes began to scan the document she stiffened.