Ghosts from the Past (The Wandering engineer Book 7)

by Chris Hechtl

  “We all lost a lot. There are people here who lost their species yet they are doing their damnedest here. I've got two Ssilli left in the galaxy. They are helping out where they can while Doctor Thornby and others try to resurrect their species. They know it is a long shot but they are trying anyway.”

  “There is a Malekian too. And six species on this station that are thought to be extinct in the outer galaxy, Admiral,” Sprite interjected. “Please help us to help them and others like them,” she implored.

  “I'll ... try,” Jarol said roughly. He looked away, his face drawn and puffy. “Damn it's hard though. How do you do it?” He turned back to John.

  “You know me, Jarol,” Irons said, spreading his hands apart. “Hell, you know what they did to me yet here I am. I didn't break then, I'll be damned if I'll break now,” he said. He shook his head. This time it was his turn to look away for a long moment.

  “One day, one project at a time,” John finally said. He turned back to Jarol. “That is my secret. There is so much to do you sort of loose what's been lost. I focus on what we're going to get. The future,” Admiral Irons said.

  “Okay. So ... what's next?”

  “We've got a lot of problems. We've got to get the situation under control in this sector. To do that we need to secure the bottlenecks while assembling a fleet to smash Horath and rebuild morale and civilization here. Then use it all as a springboard for the rest of the Federation.”

  “And the Xenos?”

  “No sign of them. We have little intelligence outside of the sector. What we do have is either old or second and third hand from freighters that come in from outside the sector.”

  “Back to the control issue ... where?”

  “Here,” the admiral stated, putting his right hand out flat. A hologram appeared over it, this one a star map of the sector.

  “We know they have the eastern half of the sector. That includes Protodon,” the admiral said. A red karat formed around the star system. “We need to secure Protodon, Kathy's World, Centennial, B101a1, Senka, and Bek. Those are the initial priority systems,” the admiral stated. “Once they are secure we consolidate and move from there.

  Jarol nodded. “You've thought about this for a while,” he said.

  “Yes I have. It's been a rough couple of years,” John admitted. “Damn I am glad you are here,” he said. He caught Jarol looking at a female nurse behind him. He turned in surprise. The nurse smiled shyly and brushed her hair back over her ear. She blushed a bit. The admiral's enhanced sensors told him the girl was attracted to one or both of them.

  “You miss your family?” Jarol asked, looking at Irons. His eyes kept moving slightly though to the young brunette.

  “I will always miss them. I'll never forget them, even though it hurts to talk about them,” John admitted. “And to be honest, I've started another relationship,” he said uncomfortably, tugging on his ear. “I'm not moving on just ... letting the dead rest.”

  “Oh?”

  “A red head. Reporter. It's ... messy. Complicated.”

  “Dealing with a red headed reporter usually is,” Jarol said wryly. He looked at the nurse. The girl shot him a smile. He winked, suddenly buoyed by her charm. She came over, checked his vitals, then patted him on the arm. Her fingers lingered slightly on his arm before she walked off. “I'm glad there is still life out there. That we can seize it.”

  “Where there is life there is hope,” Sprite said softly as both flag officers watched the nurse depart.

  “Thank you, Commander. Thank you for reminding me of that,” Jarol said, getting to his feet. “Put me to work, Admiral,” he said, coming to attention.

  “Glad to have you aboard, Admiral,” Irons said. He waved off the salute and instead stuck out his hand. Jarol glanced at it then reached out and took it. They shook hands, then gripped forearms.

  “With all of us here the Horathian's don't stand a chance.”

  “Damn right. Let's get started.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  The admiral watched the bustle of people around OPS and nodded in approval. They'd hit their stride pretty quickly and he was proud of them. The new and the old were coming together. Not quite as a well-oiled machine, but close. Most of the sleepers were treating the people he brought in with proper military decorum and respect. The crew from Xavier were in awe of the sleepers.

  “I am so glad we didn't come here first. Coming in with smurfs would have been a nightmare,” the admiral said, shaking his head.

  “I beg your pardon, Admiral!” A voice said in rich disapproval. He looked down to see a bewildered and confused elf. “That is rather racist sir! Unbecoming of an officer of your reputation,” the elf scolded.

  “It's a slightly derogatory term for new naval recruits, enlisted or officers,” Sprite interjected before the admiral could get his foot any deeper in his mouth. “He means recruit apprentices,” she said, eying the admiral.

  “Indeed. No offense,” the admiral said with a slight bow. “My apologies.”

  The elf eyed him, cocking his head then slowly nodded as he stroked his chin fur. “None taken I suppose, Admiral. Question, my kind ...”

  “Are around,” the admiral replied with a tight lipped smile. He could see from the elf's vital signs that he was registering relief. “There are officers and enlisted elves in the navy and marines. I do know several officers in the navy, one is on Firefly as the senior tactical officer,” he said. The elf nodded. “I don't know of many in the corps though,” he admitted.

  “A few. A squad of them was wiped out fighting on Antigua Prime,” Sprite said. “Sorry,” she said when she saw the elf flinch.

  “They fought valiantly to protect the civilians,” the admiral said. The elf nodded slowly. He closed his eyes for a moment then looked up to the admiral once more.

  “Thank you sir.”

  “Where there is life there is hope. And now that you and the others are here to help train and protect these people, we're one step closer to a better tomorrow. Remember that.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  As the admiral's chief of staff Sprite analyzed the message traffic intended for him. Some of the messages for the admiral were updates on changes in tech, some were personal messages, some updates from the admiralty on Intel and news. Several of the messages were magazines which was amusing to her. Sprite added it to what they knew about the history of the Xeno war. The personal messages were plotted by origin header. Learn last known whereabouts of friends and family of the admiral were of paramount to his personal attention. Tech updates and patches were logged for later review.

  Once she delved deeper, the AI found a secret message embedded in the computer's communication server. It was addressed to the admiral from the President of the Federation. “Admiral, you need to see this,” Sprite said.

  When the admiral saw the header he grunted. “Play it,” he said, entering his keys to activate and decrypt the message.

  “I'd say it is good to see you again John, but I'm dead. I know that because you are playing this message,” the President said. “I don't have a lot of time but we need to cover a few things. I'm ordering an upload of everything we've got into Lemnos's computer database. Everything we can.”

  “That explains the mountains of data they got in just before the ansible terminated admiral,” Sprite said.

  “Hush.”

  “John, I am honored by what you are trying to do. What you are doing, restoring the Federation. Thank the gods of space for you,” the president said, closing his eyes in pain. “One of my greatest fears was that the Xeno's would win. That the spark of life would be extinguished in this galaxy forever. No matter how valiant the navy has fought, they can't protect us all. They can't be everywhere. But your survival and the survival of pockets of worlds proves life will find a way to survive despite the odds.”

  His eyes opened to stare into the admiral's. “Don't let them win,” he growled. “That's an orde
r.”

  “Yes, sir,” the admiral murmured.

  The President paused, then slowly nodded. He seemed to settle himself before continuing. The admiral saw a plot near the edge of the screen. The President looked at it, then tapped at his tablet for a moment. Finally he set it down.

  “John, by now you already know about your promotion to Fleet Admiral several years ago,” the President said, tapping at the tablet. “You are going to be the senior most officer in the military in your time. Antigua is as good a place as any to set up, but you've got your work cut out for you,” he said shaking his head. “In order to facilitate what you are trying to do I am making your appointment as chief naval officer and acting president of the Federation an order until a new executive is elected by a vote of the entire New Federation to replace you ... or you chose to step down and retire. As what will most likely be my last executive order, I am also hereby granting you permanent immunity from local and Federal prosecution, Admiral.” He paused as the admiral sucked in a breath in shock. “For anything you have done in the past and anything you will find necessary to do in the future. Use that knowledge wisely and cautiously.”

  “Mister President, home fleet is ...” the president waved the off camera aide to silence.

  “Our time is nearly finished. I know that. But our hope is that you shall bring hope and the light back. That your distant seed will spring from the ashes of our civilization to form another one. Like a phoenix, civilization shall rise from the ashes of war again with your help. Nurture it. Don't give up, even when it seems dark. We're counting on you, Admiral,” he said.

  After a moment he cleared his throat and checked his tablet. “I checked. There is unfortunately no news on your family Admiral. You already know about your daughter,” he said shaking his head. “I'm sorry. We're uploading their last known locations to this facility for you to look into. It will at least give you a starting point. I know it isn't much, but it is a start.”

  “Sir! They are punching a hole to the star! We need to move!”

  “Not yet!” The president hissed, snarling at a secret service agent. “Be still,” he barked. The neochimp froze. The president turned back to the camera.

  “I'm sorry about that, Admiral,” he said simply.

  “Each generation hopes to better the lives of the ones that come after it. You are our hope Admiral. Which is why we have done what we've done to help you in the best way we can. I've uploaded every key code as well as every secret we have in this message. Use them wisely. All our hopes and dreams now rest on your shoulders. Please do your best John, we're counting on you. Our children and our children's children are counting on you. Long live the Federation.”

  “Mister President, they've broken through the last defenses to Sol! We need to evacuate now!”

  The president looked off to his left then shook his head subtly. He knew it was already too late. “Long live the Federation,” he said, standing at attention. He saluted the camera then the feed went crazy with distortion.

  “Long live the Federation,” Irons replied softly as he pushed the stop button.

  “So, no pressure,” Sprite quipped.

  “Sprite,” he sighed shaking his head. He closed his eyes.

  “Admiral, did you notice something odd?”

  “Odd?”

  “Yes. The time stamp ...”

  “What about it?” he asked, scrubbing his face with his hands then opening his eyes.

  “It's from after we were lost. A little more than a year after we were lost. Thirteen months and six days to be exact,” Sprite said carefully.

  Admiral Irons’ eyes flew wide in surprise over that news then narrowed in intense speculation. “That ... that's impossible! How ... I thought he meant when we were working on things here ... I ...”

  “The President alluded several times to knowledge of the future, Admiral. I'm not certain how, but ...”

  “All our hopes and dreams, counting on ... no. It can't be!” John insisted.

  “Whatever it is, Admiral, it's there for us to see. Now what do we do about it?”

  “We do our best,” the Admiral said, straightening. “As he said.”

  “I thought as much.”

  Chapter 34

  The Watcher identified a possible course of action; however, it was stymied on several fronts. Its host didn't have the access codes required to do the tasks that needed to be done. In order to insure success it had to secure the host's position at the top of the chain of command. To do that some of the organics would have to be destroyed. To do that it without being caught would be ... difficult. It had to be move cautiously in order to insure success.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Admiral Jarol Halsey did his best. He knew his best wasn't good enough at the moment, but he was trying, not simply going through the motions. He sensed the relief from the other sleepers at seeing him back at his post, and for the first couple of days he kept moving for their sake. He knew the importance of putting on a brave front, to lead by example. The ready smiles and buck-up attitude was a sight better than the deep miasma of depression that had clogged the atmosphere of the station before. Seeing new faces helped a lot.

  Still, the attending Veraxin physician gave him some antidepressants in his pharmacopeia to take. He didn't want to, there was something to be said about someone who had to be medicated to be on duty. Those who weren't all there shouldn't be in command. But Admiral Irons backed him, so he gave them a try. They helped initially, at least until he got his feet under him and let his mind catch up with the fact that the war really was over ... and that some life had survived it.

  Much to his own surprise, he started dating the Xavier nurse Amanda. It had started out as friends, really a chance for him to talk to someone, to get all the hurt and pain off his chest. To have a sympathetic ear ... Feeling good for once. It wasn't wrong to feel that way, to feel good about surviving. He recognized the survivor's guilt, his training helped with that.

  Simple thing though, just talking over coffee helped. It was too soon since his Kelly had died, but it helped to find a sympathetic ear. Her smile seemed to take the weight off his shoulders. It made life worth living again.

  He was careful to make sure she was outside of his chain of command. He also made certain their interactions while on duty were strictly professional. She was a good listener; she seemed to hang on his every word. She also liked to take walks like he did. He had at first thought she'd liked him due to his rank and past but that was only a part of it. He soon found out she liked him because he was 'ruggedly handsome' and 'older but wiser'. He wasn't sure what to make of that.

  She promised to show him Antigua. The love for her small home town of Boysenberry. She was so full of life, so full of purpose. He could sit there and listen to her for hours, much to her embarrassment. To hear that a world, that several worlds, dozens, possibly hundreds of worlds had survived was a vast relief to him. The photos she had shown him, of family gatherings, a snowball fight with her brothers, Antigua Prime … it all felt good. Admiral Irons was right. Where there was life there was hope.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Once they were settled in Admiral Irons turned the reactivation process over to the chief and Admiral Halsey while he focused on the big picture. When he realized he was going around in circles and repeating himself he took the time and reviewed some of the new tech and ship designs the team had worked on prior to going into sleep. There might be something there, something they could use to offset their force imbalance. A qualitative neutralizer, though he knew everything was untested and therefore suspect. Still, it paid to do a check.

  He started with the smallest ships. They had apparently been directed to start there as well, there were dozens of variant ship designs for everything from gunships to corvettes.

  The apparent most popular design was a bioship. He frowned studying it closely. He was of two minds with that idea. An organic ship? He's seen them, a few worked, but they were hard to mai
ntain. First, they competed with the crew for resources. Sure they were self-repairing up to a point, but the biological components were susceptible to radiation and mutation, along with age.

  The theory was that the ship's organic structure would be a natural link to the crew through their implants. The organics were a Frankenstein of plant and animal, a bit like a Vesuvian but hardened to better handle the extremes of space.

  It would recycle the waste from the crew, which was a problem, that waste was needed to close the loop on the crew's life support. Waste was recycled, water processed, filtered and restored, and solid waste was dried and then broken down into its components to be reused by the food replicators.

  So, the ship using that waste to sustain itself put it into direct competition there. Secondly, the ship was supposed to gain some energy from sunlight through photo synthesis. Cells on the hull would convert the light into sugars for the organics to feed on or store. Since the sun's rays were pretty diffuse on the outer edges of the solar system, gaining energy through that method seemed ... implausible at best. Inefficient definitely, though the theory sounded nice on paper.

  The third source of material was heat. Heat from the engines, the reactor, and the crew. Excess heat that was normally recovered by heat exchangers was now being used by the ship. That lessened the ship's power budget.

  The other problem was the smart skin. Chrometophores had trouble functioning in the void since they were organic cells with water in them. The water tended to freeze. Smart nanopaint was a better option he mused. With the solar cells on the hull as well, the chromatophore cells were useless. You couldn't have both, stealth and power, though it looked like someone had attempted to solve that problem with petals that covered the cells like a flower when the ship went into cloak.

  It was also vulnerable to excess energy discharge. The organic hull's nerve endings fried when it took on too much energy from a graser or hyper collector.

  The ship was fast in sublight, nearly point nine c, but slow in hyper. Also short legged, with just five parsecs on her range chart. That barely qualified her for one short ranged jump before she ran out of fuel.