Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  The engineer watched as the crew brought in the parts needed. When they had a small pile he inspected them carefully and then he patched those that were still functional into the computer. With the reactor down, they only have enough reserves for a dozen more hours before the life support systems failed totally. With a little bit of work and a lot of luck they might be able to double or triple that estimate.

  “Layered Carbon-carbon is a pain in the ass to make. The nanites have to fuse it to the parts in layers and that takes time. If you rush it the bonds could be half ass, meaning there could be breaches.”

  “Yeah,” O'Mallory said nodding. It was hard to focus on her work instead of watching Iron's arm as bits of it seemed to morph on their own accord to repair the systems around him.

  “Admiral the first load of parts is ready. I've used the launch's bot to move the trays out of the hatch. However the replicator needs more materials,” Sprite informed him.

  “You heard that?” he asked. “Barry,” he said pointing to the guy who had followed him in. Barry nodded. “Go to the shuttle bay and get the parts and bring them back here. Use the hover pallet I brought. Find more materials for the replicator. Hell use the stuff in the bay if you have to. I don't care. But the purer the material the better. If you have to pull up deck plate do it. But it's better if you've got it on hand. If its raw ingots that's even better.”

  “Um... sure,” Barry said, checking with his boss. The chief gave him a nod to the door. He nodded in return and took off at a trot. “Run you twit! Double time!” The chief snarled. His receding footfalls picked up in pace. Irons nodded.

  The crew began assembling the parts into sub assemblies as he tapped the robots to disassemble the broken fuel controls. The reaction chamber was nearly drained of plasma, and from the look on her face the chief was worried about getting it started again.

  “I'm not worried about a restart chief if that's what's got you concerned. If we have to I can sample some of the plasma you still have in your EPS conduits or from my shuttle's reactor. We did that on Anvil to jump start her reactors.”

  “You did?” she asked dubiously. She was starting to sweat, brushing her black bangs out of her eyes irritably.

  “Yes. I'll tell you about it later,” he said as a crew came in with another load of parts. Some were obviously being pulled from secondary systems or from salvage. He winced. They didn't have a lot of time to check them over either.

  He absently watched the captain and exec through his feed to the computer as he pulled up a start up simulation. He grimaced in thought, even with the three reactor emitters he had traded to them; they were still down below minimum safe containment. He pulled up the cargo manifest and took a look. They had scavenged every emitter from all but two shuttles to keep the reactor going. He noted they had plenty of raw materials for most of what was needed and sighed.

  He turned to the chief and asked her to get a shipment of the supplies to the shuttle bay. Alarmed she started to protest, until he cut her off by telling her he needed it to replicate new emitters. “You were serious?” she asked. He nodded. “So you can make more?”

  “I made the ones I gave you just before coming here. I made them when you told me you needed them. They aren't even a day old.” he said amused. Taken aback, she stepped back and gave him a long look. He shrugged and motioned her to get moving. Shaking it off, she buckled down and got back to work.

  “I'm going to get the robots to try to fix each other. Then we'll get onto the repairs,” he said. She nodded.

  He let Proteus do the diagnostics and initial repairs. Proteus checked each of the other bots; one had been too close to the ribbon and had been melted. Apparently not all of it's exterior had been carbon carbon coated.

  “Cheap,” he observed with a grimace. Proteus had tagged the bot as salvage. It was using the one good bot to tear it apart. The second bot was taking the parts and plugging them into a third bot that was missing its sensors and an arm. Hopefully he would have three functional robots soon. Even a semi-functional robot would help here. Every little bit helped.

  “We're ready with the first load you sent over,” O'Mallory said.

  “Okay. We've got to get the old parts out. I can't just stack them against the walls; they'll get in the way.”

  “Um...” she looked around.

  “There's a secondary lock. It feeds to a chamber that goes through the outer hull to the exterior of the ship. That's why it's there.”

  “Um...”

  “I'll handle it,” Irons said. He could feel his nanites all through the board in front of him. Proteus had sent a finger of nanites along the electronic runs to the reactor chamber and was trying to make what repairs it could. Unfortunately it was losing about ten percent of the nanites it sent in every minute. He winced. He could make more, but at this rate he'd be out soon.

  When the third robot came online he used it to start jettisoning the materials. They were so irradiated it wasn't worth attempting to salvage them. Proteus sent the first pair of bots after another bot, trying to repair it.

  About half way through the jettisoning of the scrap Barry returned, bumping into a stanchion with the cart loaded with parts. The guy straightened the load out and pushed it off to the lock.

  “First load of material is in the shuttle admiral. I've left the lock open. A group of people are feeding the parts and running the finished ones to engineering,” Sprite informed him. She brought up a window view of the bay but he waved it off. It was a distraction and he needed to focus. He had to trust them as much as they trusted him now.

  The engineer finished with the robots after an hour, then had the crew load the parts in the chamber, along with the new emitters and other parts. They hesitated to comply until the chief angrily told them to hurry.

  He wished that some of the parts had been for the bots, a few more on the job would speed the process along. He still had bot three shifting trash. Proteus had a fourth bot online, but its sensors were mostly fried. They had to use another nearby bot as its eyes until new ones could be added.

  He sets robots one and two to replacing the parts, then to begin removing the broken and jury rigged emitters further away. The captain and exec return at about that time and grimly watched as he worked at the task.

  “O'Mallory we need more materials for the replicator. Carbon for one. As pure as you can get it,” he said off hand to her. “Are they ready?” he turned and asked.

  “They will be at the bay in five minutes,” she informed him, glancing his way and brushing her sweat soaked bangs out of her eyes. Nodding absently, the engineer got up and stretched before moving to the door.

  “I've got to go there to initialize the keys. Reactor parts...”

  “Are key authorized. Got it. Get going,” she replied waving to the door.

  A pair of guards started to pull their weapons until the engineer paused to lock eyes with the nearest one. The man froze in his tracks. “Son, you do not want to do that. Not only do we not have time for that nonsense, but I'm not in any mood,” he said quietly, menacingly. His voice had dropped an octave with enough subsonics in it to make the guy's hair stand on end. He had noticed that his duffel and stunner had disappeared from where he had laid them down. Right now he didn't care about them; he'd either get them back or replicate replacements.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Tell them to stand down or be broken down. I don't care which,” Irons said looking at the officers.

  The other guards and exec step forward menacingly until O'Mallory waved them off. “We don’t have time for this shit!” She glared at them at a full bellow. She waved to the engineer to get going, and he chuckled in response. Suddenly the captain chuckled and nodded to the chief. Irons moved out at a trot with Barry and a crew of techs and guards on his heels.

  Half way there he spotted his bags and stunner being held by a teenage Terran of indeterminate sex. He grabbed the bag by the shoulder sling on the run and yanked the pistol out of the kid’s hands
. “Thanks for hanging on to these,” he said over his shoulder. He heard Barry's snort behind him but didn't turn to look.

  The engineer made his way to the shuttle bay under guard and met a team of harried workers carrying loads of raw and semi-processed metal ingots. He grimaced at the manual labor, and took up a one hundred and twenty kilo ingot with his cybernetic arm. The workmen protested but stopped when he causally held it and entered the bay.

  He pulled up the interface to the shuttle and shut down the security system, and then uploaded the schematics for the emitters to the replicator. Entering his ship, he tossed his bags to the side and gently sets the ingot into the replicator feed. It began breaking down the metal immediately so he turned to the guard. He motioned her out of his ship and then had the work crew start passing him ingots. He had already started a second set of emitters when he entered the ship, so they would be complete within a half hour. He filled the feed bin and then stacked the ingots nearby.

  Noting the crew standing around, he sorted them out, getting them organized into teams to move the junk in the bay. “Barry,” he said looking for the guy who had followed him in.

  “Yo!” The guy said, waving.

  “Barry have them sort the stuff into four categories. Salvageable, plastic, metal, and electronic. We'll break it down from there. Whatever is junk we'll feed to my replicator. That'll save time running all over the ship looking for crap.”

  “Okay,” Barry said waving to his crew.

  Irons went back into the shuttle and went over to the food replicator. He ordered up a cup of coffee and then scrolled through the parts list and started queuing up plastic and minor electronic parts.

  “What are you doing?” a gal said, coming in and panting while she hauled an ingot. He took it from her with his right hand took a sip of coffee from his cup in his left and then set the ingot down next to the replicator feed.

  “Minor parts can be replicated by a food replicator like this one,” he replied absently. She was staring at him wide eyed.

  She seemed to get a hold of herself, breaking her awed reverie. “Oh, I didn't know that,” she said, looking at the replicator as it finished a tray of parts. He took the tray out and fed a block of plastic in. He tapped the enter button and it glowed to life. After a minute it was almost gone. He looked over to the woman who was looking the piece over. He recognized it as an insulator shroud. “I didn't know they could do this,” she said turning the piece over and over.

  “Well, mine is military grade so it can do a bit more. But any food replicator can do plastic as long as it has sufficient power, material, and the blueprint in memory.”

  “Oh.”

  “You haven't had one make a bowl or cup?” he asked, indicating the cup in his hand. She looked at it and then blinked.

  “Um, no, uh, we usually just stick a bowl or something in it.”

  “Martha! What's the hold up?!” Barry called.

  “Coming!” she said turning and moving out. “Sorry,” she said over her shoulder and then she was gone. Irons snorted softly and finished his coffee. Something told him it was going to be another marathon session.

  When he noticed that they were trying to use manual labor to clean the bay he shook his head and then informed them he was cutting the gravity field so they can work easier. Several protested, but he ignored it and turned the field off. The crew began to float, drifting about with cries of dismay. He turned to them and ordered them to move the parts to the sides of the bay. As they work he coached them and the guards on how to move and work in free-fall. He accessed the shuttle and ordered it to release a pair of repair robots and a house keeping robot to work on the bay. Amazed, some of the crew stop to watch the machines begin to clean and repair the bay.

  As they moved the debris he took note of what was there, and then had them move several parts not worth salvaging to piles beside his shuttle so he can melt them down.

  “Admiral the first load has been processed. The first tray was finished. Time for more material please,” Proteus informed him.

  Noticing a trio of rather green young women trying to keep from getting sick he had them enter the ship with him. As they come to the airlock he reached out and grabbed each and reoriented them to enter on their feet. They land and then sighed in relief. He snorted.

  The first pair of parts were complete so he had a pair of them take them to engineering. He showed the last woman how to feed the replicator, and she watched with wide eyes as the replicator began on the second pair of emitters. They needed a dozen more pairs. “We're on a time crunch, every second counts. It took nearly an hour to make that one part. I think we may have to go with what we've got if the power situation doesn't improve,” he said as he grimaced.

  He nodded to Barry who was trying to hook up a power cable from the wall to the shuttle. “Here?” Barry asked, pointing to an auxiliary panel. Irons nodded as Proteus opened the panel. “Plug it in and we'll get the power going.”

  “Admiral ah... won't you run out here?” the girl asked. He looked over to her. She was a teen, scared, but determined. She had striped blond and black hair and yellow irises. He shook his head as Barry clicked the cable into place and then locked it down. The lights dimmed as he turned and gave his partner a thumbs up.

  “I've stepped the reactor up to one hundred and twenty percent. I can do it for about twenty hours without a problem but I've got to keep a close eye on the bottle and after this is over I'll have to do a tear down and rebuild it.”

  “Oh.” She blinked uncertainly.

  “Do you need fuel admiral?” Barry asked leaning in to the airlock.

  “No, not yet. In about ten hours I will,” Irons said turning to him as he pulled a tray from the food replicator. He handed it to the woman. “Hand this off. Another will be ready in about four minutes,” he said. She nodded and moved off.

  “My ship uses Deuterium and helium three. I'm good for a short while,” Irons replied. He wished he had a supply of antimatter. He'd love to have an antimatter reactor right about now. Of course the reactor was an oversized paperweight without fuel.

  “I'm Barry by the way. Barry Stent. I'm the well, I guess you could say I'm the shuttle mechanic, chief pilot, and, um... chief of the boat bay,” Barry rubbed at the back of his head self consciously. Irons snorted.

  “Boat bay or flight engineer?” Irons asked. Barry shrugged. He had broad shoulders, big callused hands and a goatee. He had a steady hand and was holding in there pretty well. Irons nodded again.

  “Well Barry, once we get this mess sorted I'll see if I can lend you a hand with your birds. If that is you don't mind,” he said with a smile.

  Barry blinked and then grinned. Irons snorted. The guy had a snaggle tooth grin; a few teeth on his right side were missing. Either he was fond of sweets or he'd been in one hell of a bar fight.

  “Admiral any word on the parts?” The chief's voice echoed in the bay. Work around them slowed or stopped. Barry grimaced.

  Irons looked up. Sprite had opened a channel for him immediately. “I've sent one pair off now Chief.”

  “So that's where my work crew is? All of them?”

  “Actually no, I, or should I say Barry has most of them organized into teams and they are sorting material to feed to the replicators. I've borrowed a couple of the ladies to run small parts to you as well.”

  “Oh.” He heard sounds on the other end and then snorted. “So I see,” she said. “Martha just came in with a bag full of stuff. Plastic? Why are you doing that? It's not a priority Irons, we need the replicator focused on the emitters!”

  “The industrial one is chief. I'm using my food replicator to make plastic and electronics for you. They don't have a long life expectancy but they should do in a pinch until we can get better ones going,” he replied.

  There was a long pause and he felt like she was looking the parts over. After a moment she grunted. “Huh. Okay then,” she said.

  “We'll have the next pair of emitters off to you in
a...” he paused. Proteus put a clock up on his HUD. “About fifty minutes. Expect a pair to be finished every hour or so.”

  “Thank you,” she said surprised.

  “The biggest pain in the ass is getting the parts in and out of the shuttle. We're working on it Chief. We'll get it done,” he said.

  “Carry on,” she said gruffly cutting the link.

  ñChapter 3

  After two hours he had the food replicator make a platter of sandwiches and drinks then pulled out the shuttle's little house keeping robot and carried it out to the airlock of the shuttle. He released it into the air, and watched it start up and then get to work. The work crew were almost finished so he handed the woman named Martha a sandwich and then turned to the crew. They finished moving the last part and he warned them he was turning the gravity field back on.

  Hastily the crew finished up what they were doing and then got down to the deck and reoriented properly. He nodded as Barry gave him a thumbs up. He accessed his link and turned the field back on at low power. It took a minute for the emitters to spin up. He deliberately kept the field strength down; they couldn't afford to use too much power. It would be about a third of a G, enough to work in but saving in power which was critical right now.

  “Sprite send a memo to ops to...”

  “Cut power to gravity. Got it,” she said. She sounded harried. He grimaced. Sprite was using the shuttle's communications to access the ship so she could do what she could from here. Proteus and Defender where trying to piggy back on her signal but she didn't leave a lot of bandwidth free for them.

  Dust and small debris kicked up by the crew and robots pitter patter to the floor like rain drops as the field spun up. Shaking his head, the engineer sat down in the airlock and called the crew over. He handed out drinks and sandwiches and they eat. He thanked them for the hard work, and they nodded in response. The woman feeding the ingots reported another pair of emitters were ready and he had a pair of crew members carry them to engineering. A pair of workers paused near the door with a load of material as the emitters were muscled out one by one onto a waiting hover pallet.