Angrily the exec dressed them down, and then motioned their guest in. He nodded to them and entered, then turned to say something to the exec but the door closed as he continued to dress down the crew members.
“Well! That was rude!” Sprite said, sounding put out. He wasn't sure if she was put out over the room or the sudden dismissal by the exec.
“Civilians. Go figure,” he said with a shrug. He was getting used to traveling with civilians now. He had been with Destiny for months. He shook his head looking around, but not really paying attention as he tried to deal with his annoyance.
“Not our problem anyway,” he said to Sprite. Shrugging the engineer looked around again as he dropped the bag and set it down next to the bunk. He's careful to avoid the mess of bodily fluids on the sheet and floor. Whatever they had been doing they had been doing it for a while.
The quarters were small, a single. Definitely a short single. Sparse and very utilitarian. Just large enough to turn around in but small to the point of near claustrophobia. He had seen closets on other freighters that were bigger. The bunk was narrow and short; it would be interesting to fit in with his large frame. He'd have to sleep diagonally.
There were no electronics in the room, at least none powered up and functional. Sighing he turned to the flickering lights. He noted the short and nudged the bag to one side to begin work. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. Besides it was for his creature comfort anyway.
After two hours of repairing the lights, grav plates and refresher, he turned to the bed. He wrinkled his nose at the smell and spilled fluids. Some of it was dried, so they had probably been using this for a while.
He pulled off the soiled sheets, dropped them into the refresher, and then sprayed the bed with de-louser from his bag. He didn't need to really, his nanites could have handled it, but he didn't like the idea of anything crawling on him before the nanites took care of it. It would stick in his head and he'd never get to sleep. Best to be sure.
He pulled out a housekeeper robot from his bag and turned it on. The dinner plate size robot ran through its start up sequence, scanned the room and clicked in disapproval and then got down to work.
“I am still not getting anywhere with a node Admiral,” Sprite reported. She sounded a bit put out by it.
“In a bit. Let me get this sorted out then I'll take a break and jack in for you,” he said.
“Fine,” she said sounding impatient and testy. He snorted. “I think the bot doesn't like the room either,” she said after a moment.
“Yeah think?” he asked as the robot made electronic grunting sounds as it stripped years of filth off the walls. He was going to have to clean its internal bin after every wall at this rate.
He chuckled and turned to the built in dresser. He pulled the drawers out and sprayed them with the de-louse spray, and then left them open to dry.
He dumped the house keeper bot and redirected it to the bed. It clattered in annoyance but went to work.
“Someone had fun with this little guy's programming,” he commented shaking his head.
“Possibly,” Sprite said not committing to an answer. He snorted. Typical. The bot didn't really have emotions or a personality; it just used a simple program to appear like it did. In a way it was gratifying to see someone else didn't approve of the mess either.
The refresher beeped, signaling the sheets were done, so he made the bed and then cleaned himself up. He took a seat on the bed and lifted his feet as the bot made passes along the floor.
The robot finished the floor after dumping its storage bin an additional four times then moved back to the graffiti and filth covered walls. Sonic beams break up the grime, and it dripped down to the floor. Nodding, the engineer put his clothes away and then decided to rack out. It was about time to let Sprite loose on the net to see what she could see.
“Sprite charge plug?” he asked looking around the room. A karat highlighted one near the refresher. Great. He got up and pulled a cable from his bag. His nanites could form a superconductive trail from his body to the plug; he just didn't want to do that. He plugged one end of the cable in and then settled down into the bed. “There,” he said jacking it into his arm.
“Finally,” Sprite said sounding testy. “Firewall up; we've had over seventy attacks from viruses the moment you jacked in. Seventy and climbing,” she cautioned.
“Go to work. Stamp them out and get me intel. I'm going to take a nap,” he said.
“Sleeping on the job admiral?”
“Not much more for me to do here,” he said waving his free hand to the room.
“True. I'll do what I can admiral,” Sprite said. He felt Defender take over the counter intrusive duties. He nodded and closed his eyes.
Waking four hours later with a wicked headache, he made a note to check the atmosphere and do something about it. He felt his nanites release analgesics into his blood stream to end the headache.
Defender reported to him that three people had attempted to get into the shuttle. The housekeeping robot was still at work, but had completed two of the walls. He realized it was the smell of the filth from the bot that was bothering him. In an enclosed space it was pretty overpowering.
Grimacing in distaste at the smell, he turned the air exchange up to high and used his pharmaceutical storage to give him a more powerful analgesic.
“Report,” he ordered, sitting on the bed and putting his boots on. “Sprite?” he asked. He felt her return just before he unjacked.
“Huh? Sorry admiral. I didn't get much; the ship's net is a mess. Civilians,” she said with a sniff of disdain. “You'd think they'd know by now to keep their system clean if they want to stay alive,” she said in disgust.
“Some people don't know better until you teach them Sprite,” he replied.
“Well, I tried to get into main engineering but it's firewalled from the main system. I recognized some of the blocks; they were made by someone relatively competent with military training. Since I didn't want to sound any alarms I left them alone.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod.
“The same goes for the bridge functions. They're firewalled as well. The purser's files are not on the system, it appears to be a separate system.”
“Smart.”
“Most of what is on the net that I could access was life support and civilian recreational games and material.”
“Security?”
“Firewalled. But I did track down the links to this deck and this room and set up my own protective bots.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “We'll need to fab some security system for the room then since I don't plan on spending the entire trip in here,” he said.
“Agreed,” Sprite said.
He dressed, grabbed a drink of tepid water and then headed out. Out in the corridor, he set his toolkit down and began working on the flickering lights. A burly Terran crew member walked up to him, started to protest, but when he noticed the light come back on stopped his imminent protest. He shrugged and continued on his way.
“Think he'll report you?” Sprite asked.
Irons looked over his shoulder to where the crew member had disappeared to and then shrugged. “I have no idea. I don't care right now. This flickering is getting on my nerves. Can you make an appointment with the purser or chief engineer?” he asked as he tucked the wiring away.
“No since I can't get access to the net right now,” Sprite reminded him.
“Oops,” he said.
“Yeah. I highly doubt you'll get anywhere with the purser. I'm betting he or she will have their guard up in case of the usual griping about the condition of the room and ship.”
“True,” Irons said. “They've probably heard it all before.”
“Well, no, not from you. An offer to help repair things would probably be a surprise. But something tells me he or she would say thanks but no thanks,” she said.
“Still don't have a crew list?” Irons asked.
“No,” she
replied sounding peeved. “I've got a partial list. The chief engineer... current chief engineer is a Terran female named Quinna O'Mallory. Age undetermined. I've got about seventy nine other names but I can't match them to anyone right now.”
“Ouch,” Irons said. An AI hated not having the right data.
“Can we get a wireless node? Please?”
“Let me finish up here. I'll work my way to the bay.”
“Fine,” Sprite said sighing. She knew he was focused on the project in front of him. The admiral always liked to get his hands dirty.
The engineer continued down the corridor, patching the lights and grav plates to restore the corridor. He wasn't really replacing anything, his nanites could make minor repairs but he was more focused on finding the problem spots and routing around them. There were a lot of shorts. He found signs of minor electrical fires in several junction boxes. That was definitely not good.
Some of the grav plates were down, having reached their max impedance, so he had Proteus create a more balanced schematic for the other grav plates, then implemented it. It would mean a reduced gravity quotient in the hallway, but that was better than the spotty coverage they currently had now.
The housekeeping robot radioed Sprite to tell her it was finished, so he turned it loose on the corridor. Fortunately there was a functional dock for the little bot to attach itself to when it needed to dump and recharge. Sprite was making sure it wasn't attempting to connect to the ship net; there was no telling what viruses would try to get in and what they would do to the little bot.
“You know you haven't eaten since we left Destiny right admiral?” Sprite sighed. He snorted.
“I think it would be wise to eat. I can jack in to check on things while you do,” she suggested.
“Being helpful or trying to find a distraction?” Irons asked amused. He was fairly certain the suggestion of a meal was both to get him to refuel and allow her to jack in at the same time. AI did like to multitask after all.
“A bit of both,” Sprite admitted. “From what this ship looked like I don't think you will be idle for much longer admiral. It was a good idea to refuel now before events get out of hand and you no longer have time to do so,” she said.
“How long has... huh,” he said as she put a time since his last meal up on his HUD. Realizing he hadn’t eaten in fourteen hours, he found a food replicator in the middle of the hall and made repairs, splicing in parts from his toolkit until it was repaired and up and running. He made a bowl of porridge and a cup of water, and then returned to his quarters to eat. The porridge and water had a metallic taste so he tried to choke it down without losing his temper.
“Nasty?” Sprite asked.
“Definitely not mom's fried chicken,” he retorted. He dumped the bowl and cup into the refresher for recycling. “Water has a sulfur and metallic taste. Metallic taste in the porridge. I'm not sure if it's from the replicator, the piping, or whatever they are trying to pass off as base substrate.”
“Probably all of the above admiral. That line hasn't been flushed in who knows how long,” Sprite replied.
“Probably,” he said with a grimace.
Quinna O'Mallory glared at her crew. Most were cringing under that unyielding gaze. The chief was a fire cracker; damn good at her job but someone you really didn't want to cross. “I told you to get in that damn ship and get what we need.”
“We... ah... we can't. It's protected,” Barry said shaking his head. He'd tried, he honestly had. So had Leia, Ralph, and Daren. Marko had been zapped for his trouble.
“So? You're an engineer! Figure it out!” She threw her hands up in the air in disgust.
“Everything we use get's zapped. If you touch the hull it well...” he shrugged and looked at Marko who held up a bandaged hand.
“Zapped,” Quinna echoed, hands on her hips. “I'll talk to the exec. Get something to crack that shuttle's hull and get in there or we're all going to be sucking vacuum soon.”
The men blanched and then nodded, leaving as she nodded her chin to the door. “Damn it, what else can go wrong?” she demanded.
John Henry Warner the executive officer looked at the image of the admiral and frowned thoughtfully. He traced a finger over the image. If he was really an admiral why was he dressed in a coverall? He thought to himself. He looked down at his own appearance.
The crew of the ship, those who actually stood a watch or worked on the ship wore hand me down coveralls from the first crew. They were worn, stained and well... battered. Heavily patched in some cases, especially at the joints.
Of course not all had them. Some of the non Terrans had bioforms that were just too big or too involved to wear an outfit like the Terrans took for granted. They instead wore some sort of bandolier or some other marker to indicate their status.
Not all of the outfits were hand me downs, some were newly made. They couldn't save all the uniforms, spirit of space knew they tried. They had lost some when people died of course... you couldn't get some stains out. They'd repaired some, but if it was burned badly enough it was recycled.
When the crew was off duty they wore the same civilian dress as the passengers did. Some of the outfits were old of course; a few needed to be redone but were so reverently held by some that they wouldn't allow it. It amused him how much his parents preferred their old outfits over the simple colony home spun they had in their wardrobe.
Of course officers were a bit different. Their outfits were cleaner and neater. Their work uniforms were trimmed with red silk thread to accent their status. Names were embroidered on the front lapel. Rank was never really an issue, titles reserved for bridge officers or department leads like the chief engineer.
And of course her outfits were heavily stained and battered. She like every chief before her got her hands dirty on an hourly basis. Which was why she was normally banned from the bridge and formal meals. She did wash up on occasion, but she was also testy about it.
In a lot of ways a ship was a community, a small town or city. They had all the functions there, the aforementioned tailor and embroider, barbers, cooks, and cleaners. Which reminded him, he needed to get onto housekeeping. They were getting lax again.
Was this man really an admiral? An officer? He wasn't sure. He'd have to ask dad if he got the time. He knew something was going on, something the captain wasn't telling him. He'd have to find that out as well.
Irons stared at the wall, thinking deep thoughts. It seemed so surreal. Seven hundred odd years ago he was a Fleet Admiral, on his way from one classified assignment to his next when his ship had been ambushed and he'd been tucked away in a stasis pod to float adrift.
Now the Xeno war was over, the Federation was in ruins and he'd spent the past three years doing what? A year and five months on Io 11 rebuilding the tender, then a year in Pyrax rebuilding Firefly and the entire system... and then eight months trudging along in Destiny in exile. A bit less than a year traveling across what? Four star systems? He used to do that in days, and here... he sighed trying to chop the mental tirade off before he really turned the air blue. It would serve little purpose. Maybe getting it off his chest would help his mental health... but it wouldn't change anything when he was finished. Waste time really, that was all.
“Thinking deep thoughts admiral?” Sprite asked softly.
“You know me so well,” he rumbled, brushing a hand over the mattress. He lifted the table to vertical and then slid it back into its slot out of the way. With it gone it gave an extra ten or twenty centimeters of room. Big whoop.
“April?” Sprite asked.
“No,” he sighed. “Life and its little quirks. From fighting the good fight against the rampaging Xeno's to trying to pick up the pieces. Trying and generally failing.”
“Now that's not true. Every where we've gone you've made a difference.”
“But not enough Sprite, not nearly enough,” he replied angrily, getting up and then freezing. He wanted, no needed to pace but couldn't. The damn room was too sm
all.
“Admiral, Pyrax is a bright spot. We've made similar impacts. I know you. I know what you've been doing. Io 11, take that ship for example. The ship and the crew. You've rebuilt a fleet tender into a small factory ship that's going from system to system...”
“Trading. Not really rebuilding. At least not much.”
“We don't know that for sure sir,” Sprite said doggedly. “The captain would be trading her services for whatever they want or need yes. But the people that receive their services will be better off from it.”
“True. If they don't fleece them like sheep,” he growled.
“A distinct possibility I admit. But I also know you touched a lot of lives on that ship. People who are willing to follow your example and try to help others. Who knows, they might even be building another ship by now!” she said.
“True,” he grudgingly replied. He wasn't sure if they would run into them. A part of him was dreading it.
“You're only human Admiral, get used to it. Even though you are a cyborg, you're still in the end mortal.”
“So you say,” he said amused. Yes he was a cyborg, one of the few left in the universe. He was also one of the best, one of the most advanced beings in the universe. The Trinity project alone had... he shrugged the thought off.
“Come on, let's get a few more things done in here then I'll go see if I can find someone to bug about helping out here,” he growled.
“Tired of routine maintenance already?” Sprite asked amused as he jacked in. She felt a flicker of annoyance as her firewall was hammered by more viruses. “Damn it I thought I took care of these buggers,” she grumbled.
“Sounds like I'm not the only one who's tired of routine maintenance,” he said sitting back and tucking his free hand under his head. “Let me see,” he said.
Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) Page 2