Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  “Aye captain,” Iron replied with a nod.

  “Volunteers only,” the captain said, looking over his shoulder to Irons. “We don't know what to expect in there,” he said.

  “That's true,” Sprite said. “I can't get anything on the communications. Nothing but static,” she said.

  “So much for life,” Esmay muttered.

  “We'll have to go with full bio-contamination protocols,” Irons said as he headed for the door. “I'll need at least one medic on hand and another on standby. Also a place to quarantine until the doctor checks everyone over,” he said as he mentally started sketching out a TOE and list of possible people.

  “I'll see to it,” the exec said with a nod.

  “Inform doctor Numiria she and her understudies are to stay here. Find a willing nurse or medic,” the captain said as Irons exited the bridge. Irons grimaced at that and then nodded. A medic would do better than a doctor. A doctor really didn't have a place in this. Not unless they had to pick up the pieces. He'd rather not risk one of their three doctors in this endeavor. Hopefully their services wouldn't be needed.

  Irons found some of the volunteers on the way. People approached him as he made his way to his quarters for his suit and then to the boat bay. He's amused by how fast they had had heard the news. “Scuttlebutt doing its usual best of getting the word around,” Irons said. Most of the people were good people but not really engineers or people he was familiar with though.

  “At light speed,” Sprite echoed amused as well.

  He entered the boat bay with his gear on and paused in the entry hatch. There were over two dozen people milling about both shuttles. He'd really expected only a dozen or so people. Obviously people were interested in exploring, even at the risk it presented.

  The chimp Savo waved to him as he tried hard to scratch at an itch. His contortions have a few of the people around him moving safely out of reach of an elbow or flaying arm. More than one person was amused at the sight.

  “Damn things. I hate wearing a monkey suit,” Savo muttered as the admiral came over. He was bristling at all the attention he was getting which was only making the situation worse.

  “Why?” Gus asked, grinning. “Looks good on you,” he said.

  “Funny,” Savo said, stopping his scratching session to bare canines at the kid. Gus gulped. More than one person laughed at that. After a moment Savo seemed to settle down.

  “I'm your security chief if you're wondering,” Savo said, coming over when Irons paused near the center of the bay. Irons nodded. The chimp's suit was a general purpose design that had seen better days. However it still looked functional.

  “Suit integrity test before we board folks. That means full test and top off now and after. I want any leaks identified and repaired now, not when we're over there and can't do crap about it. So start on that,” Barry said, coming over.

  “You're on this?” Irons asked turning to the boat chief. He had been surprised that the captain had volunteered Barry's services.

  “I'll take boat two,” the big guy said, jerking his thumb to the second cargo shuttle. It was the one Irons had repaired with him at Triang. “I'd take the banana boat in honor of our resident ape, she needs a test ride, but now's not the time,” he said with a tight lipped smile to Savo. The chimp gave him a one fingered salute before using the finger to pick at his ear.

  “Besides it doesn't have the room for any cargo,” Irons said with a nod. “Do you really think you can salvage much?” he asked.

  “You never know what you'll find in a place like this. We've done it before. No problem,” Barry said with a dismissive shrug. The chimp looked up at him and then snorted softly.

  “Well, it's not really,” Barry said defensively. Then he smiled. “At least for me. I stay with the shuttle,” he said.

  “Great,” Savo said in disgust. “Real hero,” he said.

  “Someone's got to bring your furry butt over there and back you know Savo,” Barry said with a small smile.

  “Shit, you would mention that!” Savo practically shrieked, trying to claw at his ass. Barry snorted. He shook his head and looked at Irons. Savo's antics were doing wonders in getting people over the opening night jitters.

  “You know, I always wondered why they didn't make chimps bald. Same for other Neo's. It'd make shedding a thing of the past,” Barry said amused and clearly teasing.

  “A question for another time,” Irons said. “Though you could shave if you wanted to Savo,” he said to the chimp. The chimp glared and then slowly shook his head, teeth bared again. Again the one fingered salute at the suggestion, this time aimed at the admiral. People around them chuckled.

  “Oh? Well, it's just a thought,” Irons said mock sweetly. Barry chuckled. So did the rest of the group as they gathered around.

  Irons looked around. There were four other shooters, one of them he recognized as the tall Amazonian Teela. She was checking her rifle. She was cool and professional. She would be an asset Irons thought as he nodded. He looked at the other crew.

  Yvonne was head of the engineers; she would assess the equipment and see if it was salvageable. She was over with a freckled red head he recognized as an apprentice engineer. From the look of the kid he had some sort of special attachment to her.

  Franko the tall Terran male was the second in command of the techs. He was a pain in the ass but he did okay with electronics. The squat black man near Franko was Adam Dart. He was the life support tech; hopefully they could find a compartment or section that would allow him to put his skills in use.

  Al was also going, Irons noted. Al was second in command of security for the ship, which meant Savo was second in command. It looked like the big heavy worlder was riding with Barry though. He was stacking gear and checking weapons near Barry's shuttle.

  Gus was tagging along as Irons copilot. From the look on his face he was pretty eager to get his hands on the launch. The admiral hid a grimace as he watched the kid practically dancing next to his shuttle.

  “Kid looks like he's doing the pee pee dance,” Savo said nodding to Gus. Irons snorted. Savo turned to Irons with a snort. “I'm riding with you it looks. You and that little shit if he can find a potty that is. Great.”

  “Gotta love this outfit,” Sprite said. She was in good spirits as well it seemed. Irons nodded.

  “We've got most of the people,” Savo said looking around. He pointed to Franko, Adam, Yvonne, and a dozen of the others. “Crew one,” he said, waving to them with a hand. The crew one team looked up at his call and nodded.

  “Crew two Barry, Al for security, Art for engineering, Marco for life support, CJ as copilot and um... six or seven others I think.”

  “Great.”

  “It's a start,” Savo said. “Which we'll do as soon as certain people get their acts together!” he said pitching his voice so everyone in the bay could hear it. Yvonne looked over her shoulder to him waved and then continued talking to Art as she helped him suit up.

  “Now look Art, this is your first away mission. I know you're excited. Just keep a cool head no matter what happens,” Yvonne said, helping the lad into his suit. The boy was using a heavily patched orange generic suit, one that she herself had used many times before. Art was a good kid but he was a little too excited to think straight and focus.

  “I don't see why we need to wear these things,” Art muttered. He didn't like having to suit up; the damn thing stank of sweat and burnt insulation. Whoever had used it last had also gone a bit heavy on the garlic.

  “Hook the catheter and rear end up too stinky,” Yvonne ordered.

  Art made a face. The catheters were incredibly painful, they were intrusive, and he, like just about everyone else hated using the damn things. “Do I have to? Are we really going to be in this that long?” he demanded wrinkling his nose as he stared at her.

  “Yes Art,” she said patiently, averting her eyes as he made the necessary connections. He grimaced in distaste but did it with a professional albeit relu
ctant hand. She forced herself not to check, even though she badly wanted to. Technically protocol said she should but some connections you didn't buddy check, you took on faith. “We're going to be in the suits a minimum of forty eight hours. Maybe longer. Maybe a week if we're not lucky,” she explained patiently.

  “Spirit of... That long?” Art demanded, pausing and looking up at her with wide eyes.

  She tried hard not to roll her eyes. Didn't he read the brief? No, he had probably been too excited. “Yes. Quarantine.”

  “Why?” he demanded. “No one has...”

  She grimaced. “People or something are alive over there. Remember what happened last year when we merged crews? People on both sides started getting sick. A few died. Remember that? Uncle Milt?”

  Art bit his lip. Finally he looked down and nodded.

  “It turned out that the crews each had their own immunity to diseases, but when you mixed the two the other crew didn't have immunity. So we caught what they were carrying, and vice versa.”

  “Oh.”

  “So yeah, we're in the suits. If you don't want to go just say so. Mom and dad wouldn't mind you sitting this one out,” she said, hopefully.

  That hit him where he lived; boys were all about pride and proving they weren't afraid. Proving that they were men. “No way!” he said, looking up defiantly. “I'm going!”

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh and ruffled his hair. “Just be careful okay?” she asked. He nodded. “Go on then.” She ruffled his hair once more. He irritably brushed her hand aside and then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He made a disgusted face and noise and she smiled as he moved away wiping at the cheek.

  She watched him leave fondly. Barry punched the lad in the arm and then ruffled the lad's hair. Art took it better from Barry than from Yvonne though. It must be a guy thing she thought with a mental snort. Barry waved and then ushered the aboard. Barry caught her look and nodded. He'll do okay, she thought with a pang. He'll do okay, she thought, hoped... prayed.

  What Art didn't know was that he was her son. Not her brother, her son. Her flesh and blood, hers. She'd been twelve when a smooth talking piece of trash had talked her into bed over a bottle of hooch. She'd been too young. Too young and too full of what she thought was love to understand. He'd told her it would be fine. That they didn't need protection, protection was for sissies. She believed him when he had said he'd pull out before hand. She closed her eyes in all too familiar pain. She found out differently.

  Her parents had tried to argue with her about him. They saw the signs, they knew... but she'd snuck around and met him anyway. She thought she knew everything. She knew that they didn't understand, they were old and senile and she knew what she was doing. She thought... god how stupid youth can be sometimes. Always we think that we're unique, that our parents don't know anything, they were too old to understand. You don't learn until you were older that with age came a sort of wisdom from experience. Life's experiences passed down through the ages. Some learned by listening. Others had to learn the lessons over again the hard way.

  Her mother had warned her about boys like him. As had others in their family group. But she'd been attracted to his smooth charm, good looks, and bad boy reputation. The more others told her to stay away the more intrigued she's become. A sort of reverse psychology that only worked on the very naive.

  It hadn't lasted long of course. Forbidden fruit may have its allure but eventually the taste palled. When he had found out she was pregnant he'd been delighted. He'd made all the promises in the world to her. He'd calmed her distress, made her feel loved and important again when she felt dirty and betrayed. They'd talked of running away and being together when their parents had put much upon them. It hadn't lasted three months though; she'd caught him in bed with another girl, her best friend at the time Andrea. She'd been devastated.

  He'd been contemptuous of her, snarling that she'd gotten fat and getting pregnant was her fault. That she had been a dumb slut. Her father had intervened and then their fathers had come to blows. Security had been involved and with them came the captain.

  The captain had been grim with both of them. Andrea had been tested pregnant as well, devastating the girl. Since each couple was allowed one child he had tried to weasel out of it. But the captain had enforced the sterility rule. The boy had angrily demanded to leave the ship. Since they were in hyper at the time he'd been sterilized and then dropped off at their next port.

  She'd delivered Art after he'd been gone a week. She'd talked it over with her parents; she had refused to give up the child. Andrea had committed suicide when the bastard had left. Yvonne's parents had compromised with her. They would adopt Art as their own and raise him so she could have some semblance of a normal life. It had worked out. The crew knew he was adopted, Art knew he was adopted, but no one told him who his biological parents were. The crew respected her and she treasured that silence.

  Now she watched Art go out into the cold dark world and felt just a little bit of anxiety over it. Going on a derelict was not for the faint of heart. Her son's courage was commendable, but she wished he wasn't going. She wished his courage was tempered with wisdom and insight into just what they could be getting into. She sighed as Savo looked at her.

  “Nothing,” she said at his inquiring look.

  “Deep thoughts?” the chimp rumbled.

  “A little.” She looked at the other shuttle.

  “He'll be fine. He's a tough kid,” Savo said quietly.

  “Can't hide it can I?” she asked with a sideways smile. She tucked her helmet under her arm and gathered her kit up from a tray near the door.

  Savo smiled and shook his head. “From him maybe, though I'm not sure why you are. He's seventeen Yvonne; he's got a good head on his shoulders. He'll be okay,” he said.

  “I hope so,” she whispered.

  “A little late to be thinking about that now,” Savo said giving her a brown eye.

  “You're right,” she said thinking about the red head and then about what was to come. He had to try his wings out, prove himself to himself as much to the crew. “Nothing to do about it now. Let's get going,” she said, indicating the shuttle with her free hand. Together they climbed up the stairs into the waiting shuttle.

  Savo, Yvonne, Gus, Adam Dart, Derrick, Franko, and a crew of ten others boarded the launch with Irons. It was a tight fit with each of them wearing space suits and carrying gear but he managed to get them all in. Gus rode shotgun with Irons as his co-pilot. Yvonne took the shuttle's flight engineer seat.

  Franko was an electronics tech that had helped Irons out on various projects. The guy was a mouthy pain in the ass, a coaster. He had little foundation in theory, more of a plug and play guy and a why bother it's broke attitude that got under the admiral's skin. Irons wondered why he had tagged along until he'd caught a whisper between Franko and Adam about the first to get their hands on any loot they find. He sniffed in disdain over the thought of that. Typical greed.

  Derrick, the big guy was a cool customer. Quiet, a cargo guy. Big hands, gentle as a lamb to most people. He'd have his work cut out for him if they decided to bring loot back to the ship.

  Barry took cargo shuttle 2 out while another pilot took the Scarab. Barry had a small crew, just six people not including his flight crew of three. He would remain in the shuttle with his copilot and shuttle engineer. Or at least that was the plan Irons thought. Barry seemed as eager as everyone else to get into that station.

  Teela was supposed to lead the second team but it seemed Art had tagged along with them. Their task was to secure the dock and salvage anything useful in the immediate area. In an emergency they would act as a ready reserve. The Scarab was supposed to circle the station, looking for interesting bits to snag. Irons nodded as they settled down into a semblance of order. They were professional and had every outward appearance of having done this before. Good.

  Savo's wife led a crew out on the hull making repairs. She worked with O'Mallory
to plug in the two gravity emitters they had built during hyper.

  The second maintenance boat helped Petunia move the grav emitters as the away mission got underway. It is on watch for any Dutchman incident and to back up the away teams in case of need. Gus leaned over and waved to them as they pass over the group. They were too busy to wave back of course.

  “By rights the solar panels shouldn't really be doing much. The light at this distance is too diffuse to really matter,” Sprite said. They had exited the ship without incident and made their way cautiously over to the station. Sprite was feeding the crew the building map of the station. Everyone was intently studying it. Well, everyone but Derrick one of the cargo haulers. The guy was out cold and snoring up a storm.

  “Tell them that,” Irons said nodding his chin to the station. “I guess some energy is better than nothing at all. And they appear to have some energy.”

  Irons used the shuttles to circle the station several times. Barry was impatient to dock. He kept pointing out various docking ports and open shuttle bays over the radio channel over the next twenty minutes as the admiral mapped the station. Irons nodded politely but his attention wasn't on finding just the right dock. He hadn't found it, at least not yet. Finally Barry got exasperated enough to go off on him.

  The admiral listened to the rant for a minute and then waited for a pause. When Barry stopped for breath he clicked his mike. “Barry cool your jets. We'll dock when we're good and ready. Right now we're not ready. I want a detailed reading on this thing, a map of the interior or as much of it as we can get. I'm getting that now. I want to know as much about this station as I can get with my sensors before we stick our heads into the proverbial lion’s den.”

  “Roger,” Barry replied, sounding sheepish.

  “I know you're eager. Just chill a bit. We don't want to go off half cocked. I want to go in eyes open and with the best map and plan we can get from out here.”

  “Roger,” was Barry's sober reply.