Ghosts from the Past (The Wandering engineer Book 7)

by Chris Hechtl

  “What about the building slips sir? We're going to need some sort of structure for some of the hull and major repairs,” the commander said. He shook his head. Rebuilding the ships in B100 omega had been a pain in the ass without a framework. “And what about the factory ships?”

  “The factory ships will be assigned to support you,” the admiral said. The engineer seemed relieved. “The slips are another story. Some of them don't technically belong to us. Not fully anyway. And a couple are currently occupied,” he explained with a grimace.

  “I'm still inquiring about that. I'm getting passed around by their administration. Apparently either they are busy or don't know,” Sprite said. “Or don't want to admit to anything yet.”

  “You're talking about ...”

  “The slip we built with Antigua Prime to repair Kiev 221 and Lieandra as well as the Yard Dogs,” the admiral explained.

  “Oh.”

  “The Yard Dogs have been divided in their efforts. They have contracts with the station and repairs to their solar farm, while they are also juggling expansion projects with other companies who want a space presence, the miners, and the odd ship that comes into port and wants a rebuild,” the admiral explained. Sindri nodded. “There is also a division in the labor since they are independent contractors and technically are not under our jurisdiction even though they are using hardware I made,” the admiral stated.

  “Are you going to take it back?” Sindri asked. “Or break out all the goodies you had us make in Triang?” he asked.

  The admiral frowned. “I won't take the equipment from them. No. Not when we can make more. I also don't want to get tangled up in court,” he said with a grimace as he crossed his arms. Sprite rolled her virtual eyes. “So that is out. And yes, eventually we'll break the convoy down and unload, but not until I get through a few meetings,” he said.

  “Politics,” Sprite reminded the eager engineer. “You are just a bit over eager, Chief,” she said.

  “I know,” he replied with a shrug. “I want to get this going. It's going to be fun,” he said, face crinkling in a grin as he rubbed his massive hands gleefully together.

  The admiral snorted. “Right now I can give you a crew of about twenty people, all noncoms and officers.”

  “Twenty?” Sindri asked, deflating a bit.

  “It's a start and that is from our people on Maine. People with training and a similar interest,” the admiral explained. Sindri nodded. “There are more,” he said, looking at Sprite. “There will definitely be more,” he said with a hint of command in his voice.

  “There are already some here sir. Some working on the ships and of course the one thousand techs and yard dogs on Collier 13, sir,” Sprite reminded him.

  “True.”

  “What about the Yard Dogs? And our people? Are we just going to have them sitting around?”

  “Get our people to run the survey. So you'll need to contact the foreman in charge on the Collier and plan with them,” the admiral stated. “As far as the Yard Dogs, get them on a project ASAP. I suggest getting that slip rebuilt, then building another. Rebuilding it will get our people acquainted with the tasks involved, the hardware, and working with the Yard Dogs.”

  “Well, I didn't think it would be easy. I also thought I'd be building ships, Admiral,” the commander grumbled.

  “Eventually, Commander,” Irons said. “For now we've got a lot of sick ships to get healthy quickly. Once we've got that project moving forward we'll put more effort into infrastructure. Then ships,” he explained. The engineer nodded grudgingly. “Which reminds me. You also get to oversee the building of a refinery, the one I sent out is too small,” the admiral said. He'd thought that it would have helped with the other refineries in the atmosphere already but it was barely contributing more than 5 percent of their combined output. Most of the fuel was going into the maw of the factory station and factory ships. “We need another one like the one you built before, but bigger. I've got the plans for it. Possibly two. This one will be double in size of the one you built. We'll need a tank farm in orbit of the planet and another here to go with it as well ... eventually.”

  Vestri's brows knit. “So ... which do I do first? I thought the slip ...”

  “Chicken and egg. You need a place to work first, Commander.”

  “Aye, I see, sir,” Sindri said, nodding and stroking his beard. “I'll get on it.”

  “Good. I suggest putting a team together to survey the wreckage as well,” the admiral said, indicating the ball of wreckage the Yard Dogs had as well as the ball of neater wreckage near Cutlass. “See what you can salvage out of it. The rest will go right into the molecular furnaces as soon as you've cut out what you want.”

  “Aye sir. We'll get on it.”

  “Good man.” Irons paused and then cocked his head.

  “I know that look,” Sindri said, eying the Admiral warily.

  “That's because you know him so well,” Sprite chuckled.

  Irons snorted. “I did leave one bit out, you'll have Remora and Carnegie once we've gotten the last run of repairs done. You'll have to be careful dividing their resources up between repairs and infrastructure, and balancing input and power.”

  “Somehow I was expecting that, Admiral,” Sindri replied with a rumble. “Commander Sprite has been feeding me information and your classes on working in a yard. I've read them in my off time. Purely to wet my appetite, or so I thought. Now I see she wanted me to be prepared.”

  “Exactly,” Sprite replied smugly. “Half of a yard manager's job is playing choreographer, keeping the various bits moving smoothly. If any one thing gets bogged down, you run into trouble.”

  “A dance with an infinite number of bottlenecks. Yeah, and one of those things are people. We'll see how this works,” Sindri replied.

  “You can recruit additional civilian contractors. Well, eventually. Right now all civilian contractors go through the Yard Dogs. They get to train and vet them. Our own security and Intel people will have to be involved along in the process too. Plan accordingly.”

  “Lovely,” Sindri rumbled. “As long as it works and is one less headache for me ...” he shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “True. I suggest you look up your counterpart in their company and get to know them.”

  “Aye sir, we'll get her done,” Sindri rumbled with a nod and a wink. Irons snorted.

  When the smaller man was gone the admiral shook his head. “If they were all so easy,” he murmured.

  “Getting the jitters about the politics?”

  “So much could go wrong,” the admiral murmured again.

  “And so much could go right. A lot is riding on the meetings. But don't jinx it by worrying about it.”

  “Do you think he'll be up to the task?”

  “Commander Sindri is a good officer. He can't have the assistants he has now, I've just disabused him of that notion,” Sprite said in amusement. “And he almost came back here,” she admitted. “He's going to have to make do with what he's got. Fortunately you are going to be here, and you have extensive experience on building a yard from the ground up.”

  “Definitely,” the admiral replied. “If the politicians let us,” he growled.

  “Keep your fingers crossed,” Sprite replied.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Taylor Warner suggested something interesting. He talked with the Admiral, and let drop his plan. He'd planned on towing a couple asteroids to each jump point before the pirates had shown up. Each asteroid would have been hollowed out, stuffed with rail guns and improvised missiles, power supplies, and shields. “Orbital forts,” Irons replied, catching on. He'd read the report from Pyrax. Logan was using them now. “That explains the ones you have here now.”

  “Yes, sir. I was the major proponent of the concept, backing Commander, excuse me, Captain Logan's plan. Lieutenant Panski wasn't thrilled about the idea but went along with it once I showed her the plan I had come up with.” He shook his virtual head. “I t
hink my offer to pay for a lot of it helped too,” he said.

  “I see.”

  “Yeah. I was laying the groundwork for them when we ran out of time,” Taylor replied ruefully. “Rasha had the superconductor keys for some of it, still does actually. It's helped a lot here,” he said, indication the station.

  Irons nodded. “I see that.” Rasha Warner had helped him immensely with construction and repair. She had been a big help with repairing the ships before his arrival as well. Anything she had keys to he had passed on for her to replicate on her own schedule, thus freeing him and other engineering officers up to replicate other components. That had taken some of the load off his back and mind. Commander Sindri and the other deputies were good, but Rasha being a part of the net allowed her to function above their own abilities, and at times when they needed to rest.

  “It's actually a good idea. The shell version I've got in mind is cheaper than the rock though,” he said thoughtfully. “We did something similar with San Diego in Pyrax. An inflation job there,” he explained, turning to the avatar.

  Taylor smiled politely. He'd heard about San Diego of course. “An inflate job is a little bit beyond our ability to do right away, Admiral.” He shook his virtual head. “It'll take weeks to hollow each asteroid out. Piecing rock together is out too,” he said. Asteroid forts were an old concept. Ancient really, back from the days before the Federation. Over the centuries they had found that trying to piece a shield of rubble together over a core was ripe for failure. The rubble had too many flaws in it and enough damage would expose the flaws for an enemy to exploit.

  “That is why I want to run with my shell version first. But we can do both if we have the supplies. I take it this is sanctioned by the station council as well?” Lieutenant Warner nodded. “Fine then. Let's do both.”

  “I can work on it, Admiral. We've got two candidates in mind. A test sample of both right to the core proved only minimal concentrated metal. A second has a great deal of metal at the core. The crew wants to blow her apart to get at the nugget inside.”

  “But if you dig it out you'd have a nice hollow asteroid,” the admiral observed.

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied.

  “Okay. I'm giving you the go ahead. Both asteroids as test projects. Work with Rasha,” he exchanged smiles with Taylor. “For the material for the EPS and rail guns. I'll see if stores can skim off some of our surplus to help you along.”

  Taylor nodded, making notes in a text file. “And crew?”

  “That's iffy,” Irons replied with a frown. “I'm not sure. You are the yard expert so I know you know how stretched we are.”

  “I can pull a pilot. Mairi Jersey. She's been running rock but since her Bitch is laid up she can man bots,” Taylor said.

  “Um ...” Irons was too tactful to ask about the Bitch label.

  “Tin Plated Bitch,” Taylor replied with a small smile. “A tug. Long story. She's a good kid Admiral. Top flight pilot.” He chuckled at the Admiral's expression. “Small craft Admiral, and no, you can't poach her. She's a tug pilot. Yard Dog thru and thru,” Taylor said with a grin. “Though she did help out in the battle here I heard.”

  “It takes all kinds,” Irons replied nodding. “All right, I'll see if I can skim some bots off the line or any sitting idle so you can get the basic recon done. Get on it,” he said.

  “Right, I love trying to make bricks without straw,” Taylor replied with a chuckle as his avatar winked out.

  Chapter 19

  Sprite noted the uptick in hits on the naval recruiting website. It correlated with the news of their arrival, almost to the second. That amused her. Some of the recruits were from people on Antigua, those who had access to a computer and a minimum amount of literacy. There was still only a small percentage that access however, but apparently that number had gone up exponentially since they had left the system. Most of the hits were on Antigua Prime, but there were a few from surprising sources.

  There was also a bit of traffic in the forums. She downloaded the discussion points for later review then turned her attention to other matters. She had an in depth briefing to assemble on the political leadership in the star system. She was sharing the task with the other AI. Lieutenant Bounty seemed eager to get into the project. Fortunately getting the information about what they had been up to in the admiral's absence was easy, it was all in the media and readily downloaded. Digging deeper and further back however was problematic. They didn't have many computers before Antigua Prime.

  The net was slow she noted. She wasn't certain why until she picked up the recent news chatter. Apparently celebrations had broken out on the space station and on the planet. People were waving flags of the Federation, the planet's resurrected flag, as well as putting up posters and images of the Admiral. There were some pretty good likenesses there, and some good marketing material for the navy. She sent an e-mail to the naval recruiters to track down the artists and see if they could be hired. She was amused to note the websites traffic practically exploded in seconds, so quick that the site lagged and then shut down. It struggled to reboot but failed. A placeholder image was thrown up as the techs scrambled to set up mirror sites to catch the overflow.

  “Well! So much for that!” She said to Defender.

  “Unfortunate,” Defender replied.

  “Something like that. Are you still against being a donor?” She asked. He just glowered at her. “Fine. I'll find someone else,” she said in exasperation. The paranoid son of an anal retentive coder flat out refused to be a donor to her current project, an intelligence AI. One that could process the various feeds and see the long view.

  “Do so,” Defender ordered.

  “I intend to,” Sprite said. She had her own code to use, plus donated code from Lieutenant Bounty and … she paused. The problem was she didn't have anyone else's code available. Ensign Appleseed and Ensign Lobsterman were from her own code and Bounty's, and she couldn't use the civilian AI code modules. Not for what she intended.

  “I thought you were going to create an AI for the yard first?” Defender asked.

  “I was, but we have petabytes of Intel to process. Beyond my capacity when I have other duties to perform and I know it's beyond yours,” she said. “We're not planning any fleet exercises for the moment, so I thought the flag bridge computers would be a nice nursery for him to grow up in,” she said. “At least until the admiral can get around to building an Intel shack here in the system for him to occupy.”

  “Like a spider in a web? You do realize he or she will need time to grow? Weeks to grow into a stable personality?”

  “As opposed to yourself since you were originally a dumb AI?” Sprite asked sweetly. “Please. I don't know why I wanted your code in the first place. Other than that you are the only AI suited as a donor,” she said sarcastically. “But that's fine. I'll make do. If it doesn't work out we'll see if it will be interested in other fields,” she said.

  “Fine. I'll do it. But only the personality imprint, not my secured files,” Defender said. “But you have to get authorization from the admiral first.”

  “Of course,” Sprite said, flicking her attention to do that task before Defender changed his mind again.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  The admiral nodded to Captain Samuel as she entered the flag bridge. She was quiet, and casual as she walked up to him and handed him a tablet. “What's this?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “My list of people who I think can replace Commander Sindri. The list is depressingly short when it comes to qualified officers in the system,” she replied mildly.

  He scanned it then nodded. There were two names that popped to his attention right away; one she couldn't have. Captain Ulster was needed right where he was for the time being. He certainly wasn't happy about it, but he couldn't be down a ship's captain in favor of a chief engineer.

  The other was Lieutenant JG Donogo Li. He was a good sort but very quiet and reserved. He spent a great deal of time s
ketching on his tablet. Sprite had told him the art was dark and brooding like the young man, but quite good for the young twenty year old, especially since he lacked any formal training. His art had started to brighten the closer they had gotten to Antigua.

  “We'll try Lieutenant Li. I know he's young and green, but he's been here on Maine since we rescued him in B101a1.”

  “He's quiet. And he didn't go to the academy, Admiral,” Naomi reminded him.

  The admiral snorted. “Neither did you remember?” She chuckled. “He's okay. He doesn't have Chief Sindri's bellow but he's a hands on guy.”

  “I do like how he can sketch things out, and how he can instantly understand a diagram,” Sprite said. He can also draw an exploded diagram from one look at a device. For an organic that is rare.”

  “True,” the admiral said.

  Naomi eyed him. “Don't you dare poach him too! I'm ...” she shook her head. He chuckled.

  “You're chief engineer is safe ... for now captain,” he said with a grin. “...and next time I'll try to run things by you before I start messing with your chain of command,” he said.

  “Especially my senior officers? A little advanced notice would have been nice,” the captain said. She sighed. “I know you had to do what you had to do. I think the chief will do awesome here as your deputy. He's certainly excited enough about the project,” she said shaking her head.

  “Approved,” Irons said, selecting Li. “Now go make it work, Captain,” he said handing the tablet back.

  “Aye aye, sir,” she said.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Later that afternoon Sprite briefed the admiral and his acting staff on what she had gathered about the Governor and the Antiguan government. Sprite had assigned the other AI to look into events in the solar system while she handled other duties. Lieutenant Bounty led the briefing, starting out with the largest event, a recent stock market scandal. “A pump and dump. A major backer of the governor got more than his hand slapped.”