Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  “I like the steady work. Kiev is getting boring,” Sparks said. Freeze looked over to the other man. Sparks was looking at a pair of wires he was busy twisting together. He snorted softly.

  “Yeah, it's gotten dull. I think we did too good a job fixing the ship,” Freeze admitted. Which was true, both had risen to the challenge unlike some people. They'd actually enjoyed learning new things and he had liked that the ship had responded so well to the repairs. It was brighter, cleaner, and the air and water was great. He kept telling himself that the station could be the same with a bit of work. Okay, a lot of work.

  “Yup, time to let the kids keep it together while we move on to bigger and better things,” Sparks drawled. Freeze started in on the screws for the motor housing. The blade looked fine, not nicked or anything, he could probably get away with just replacing the motor. It was a plastic coated fan; it had a black stripe on the blades that let someone know the fan was active. The black stripe on each of the blades formed a circle when they spun.

  “Well, bigger anyway. Not exactly better,” Freeze grunted, pulling the motor housing off. He studied the inside and then pulled the wire plugs and then unbolted the motor and tossed it aside after a casual look.

  “Fried?” Sparks asked.

  “You know it,” Freeze grunted.

  “Figures. I'm running into all sorts of crappy shit here. I mean not to code crap.”

  “I've seen it too,” Freeze grunted, pulling a replacement motor from his bag and then wiring it in. “HAC ducts not taped at the junctions, holes, all sorts of crap.”

  “Figures.”

  “Lowest bidder?” Freeze asked.

  “Probably. You'd think a factory satellite would invest in a little extra quality control and inspection,” Sparks commented, tucking the wiring into the junction box and then locking the cover plate down. “That's done,” he said. “I think there is a short somewhere.”

  “Might of been what fried the motor,” Freeze said noncommittally.

  “Maybe,” Sparks said. He pulled a line tracer out and plugged it into the junction box port and then started pinging. Then he pulled a wand out to trace the ping through the bulkhead. The ping would resonate through the wiring, allowing him to see it with the wand. If it ran into something he'd know when the green light turned red.

  “Done,” Freeze said, putting the fan back in place and plugging it in.

  “Got something,” Sparks said. He was one hundred and sixty centimeters tall, tall enough to just reach the bottom of the angled overhead panel if he stood on his booted toes. The panel arched up to the ceiling, making you feel like you were in a cave. Some of the angled panels had vents, others had cameras or sensors. Fortunately this one was clean.

  He liked to tease Freeze about these panels but this morning he skipped it. Freeze had to use a step ladder to get to the overhead panels. Of course Sparks had a hell of a time bending over to get to the panels along the deck. It hurt his back if he had to bend over for more than a minute or two. Getting up and down from the deck was also a pain. He pulled the clips holding the panel in and then the panel.

  Unfortunately when he did the rat’s nest of wiring behind the bulkhead slipped from where a Denubian rat had tucked it up into the cubby and down onto the duct Freeze had his hand on. Wires stripped by the hungry teeth of the rat touched bare metal and a jolt of energy ripped down the metal duct.

  Freeze froze in place and then shook a bit. Sparks heard angry buzzing, a screaming alarm, and looked down at his belt and then over to his partner. “SHIT!” he bellowed, turning and using the panel in his hands to knock Freeze away from the duct. When his hand broke contact with the duct his shaking stopped and he crumpled.

  “Damn it man,” Sparks swore, laying his partner out. He reached for his mike. “Medical emergency, level nineteen sector um, eight beta. We're half way down from the lift junction. Electrocution. Get someone here stat!” he screamed.

  “Roger,” an unfamiliar voice answered right away.

  Sparks was too busy to listen; he checked the man's hand. It was burned but not too badly. Freeze had been shocked, but not by a large amount, not enough kill him right off. But a milliamp was enough to stop a Terran heart. He felt for a pulse and didn't find one. “Shit!” he started CPR.

  “Don't make me kiss you bro,” he said in between reps. He grimaced. It was more important to keep the blood flowing right now. Freeze's heart had most likely stopped. He was pushing and grunting, focusing on his efforts. He didn't stop when he heard the soft lift chime and then pounding feet behind him coming their way.

  “Get in here! No pulse!” he snarled.

  “Move!” the paramedic said, pushing him aside to slap a sensor on Freeze's chest. The box dissolved the clothing underneath it and then went to work, pumping nanites into his blood stream. The nanites went to his heart, pumping shocks into it to get it going again.

  “He's been electrocuted,” Sparks said, using the back of his hand to rub at his sweaty brow.

  “Shit,” the medic said as others rushed in. Sparks found himself moving to the outside of the growing crowd of people and robots. A Naga moved in with a hover stretcher. It coiled under it and started handing off equipment.

  “He's in defib. Oxygen's applied. Get him moving,” the lead paramedic said, lifting Freeze's body with the others onto the stretcher. They were moving fast Sparks realized, they had him cleared and on their way to the lift in under two minutes.

  “Anthony,” a familiar voice said. He turned at the hand on his shoulder. His eyes met Joe, his super. “What the hell happened?” Joe demanded.

  “Shit happened. I pulled a panel and I guess something fell and shorted the duct he was touching,” he said indicating the duct. There were bits of burnt skin on the duct. He winced. “Careful!” he said as his portly boss reached for it. Joe changed his mind and pulled a wand. He pointed it at the duct and it screamed. He grunted.

  “Shit,” he muttered. They could both see the medics hustling the HAC tech into the lift. They watched until the doors closed and then Sparks slumped as it all hit him.

  “Well, that sucked,” Joe said, staring at the doors. He could now hear the angry buzzing of wires shorting themselves in the walls.

  “Tell me about it,” Sparks muttered.

  “At least you got the CPR going.”

  “Yeah. Thank the admiral for that. If I hadn't attended the class...” he shook his head. It was too early to think of his partner living. But he did owe Irons a drink and an apology. He hadn't liked the idea of taking CPR. He knew Freeze knew it, but that was because he had helped Ezri train. It was how they met; she'd needed a practice dummy for CPR Freeze liked to say. He grimaced. Who was going to tell Ezri?

  “I need to call Ezri. She needs to know before they show up there,” Sparks said coming to a decision.

  “It's being handled,” Joe said, resting a hand on his arm again. “We'll deal with it. Let's get this sorted out. Control,” he leaned his head over to the mike clipped to his shoulder. “Control inform nurse Ezri of the situation. Mark this section as a hazard until further notice,” he ordered.

  “Roger,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  “Who's that?” Sparks asked, pulling out a mirror on a stick to look into the hole. He grimaced when he spotted the nest of wiring. “New guy?”

  “That's a cyber,” Joe said. “I'll lend you a hand. What was Freeze doing?” he asked indicating the mess left behind.

  “Motor swap,” Sparks said, indicating the fan nearby. He winced. The new fan motor was cooked as well. That sucked. That meant he'd have to do it all over again.

  “Just started?” Joe asked, kneeling to look at it.

  “No just finishing. The short fried it again,” Sparks replied with a snarl. He touched his mike as his boss looked at him in concern. “Control cut power to this section for now.”

  “This is control, we can't.”

  “Then tell me where the damn box is and I'll do it myself!” Sparks snarled,
turning and stomping to the lift doors.

  “Anthony, chill,” Joe said getting up and dusting his hands off. He knew Sparks was off because his partner and best friend was down. He could understand it. “One thing at a time,” he said.

  “Yeah well, that's what I'm trying to do. I can't clear that mess until it's safe,” Sparks rumbled, hunting for the box.

  “Oh,” Joe said and then looked back at the short. It was pretty dark in there, no way was he going to stick his hand in there with live wires. “Yeah. Good idea,” he said and nodded.

  “Should blow the whole thing up. Start over fresh,” Sparks muttered.

  “Too much of a hassle,” Joe said shaking his head. “But I feel yah.”

  The engineers and volunteers repaired the power and basic control runs to the smelters, and used the limited ice from in and outside the station and surplus water in the station to restock the life support and fuel supplies. It took a few days to get the gunk cleaned out and the system purged but when it came online they had plenty of material to feed to the replicators. At least in the short term until the onboard stocks ran dry.

  It didn't take long to realize they were going to quickly run out of material for the smelters however. A meeting is called to discuss the problem.

  “What are we going to do about it?” Sid Berkheart asked. The meeting was in the old council room on the station. Captain Chambers and his exec were attending virtually. Captain Chambers had made it clear he had no intention of setting foot on the station; he had a ship to run after all. The Warners, the admiral, and both Riff and Gwen were attending physically.

  Obviously the chairs weren't built for Taurens, both were groaning dangerously under the weight load. Riff didn't care; he was too tired to care. He had been on his feet for seemingly days or weeks and even though his tail was going to sleep he didn't care, he liked taking a load off his hooves for once. He glanced at his mate. Gwen was sitting very still. Gwen didn't want to look like an idiot on her ass if the damn thing let go though.

  The room was dark, only half the lights had been working when the meeting had been called. Since the room wasn't really needed it wasn't on anyone's priority list. A few of the small lights on the walls were working. They didn't really help much; all they did was light up the dusty paintings on the walls. She didn't mind the lighting really, the paintings were all impressionistic, mountains and water colors that didn't appeal to her at all. She just wished the overhead lighting was more balanced. Right now all the lights were over half the room.

  She toyed with the idea of getting up and fixing the problem. She could, Irons would probably pitch in, she could cajole or threaten Riff into helping... but it would send a mixed message to the others.

  Even with only half the room lit it was still lit enough with the holograms. Each of the cybers who wanted to attend was in a virtual chair around the gloss black mahogany table. She had seen them before but they seemed more real now, less of an apparition. She'd found out that they had cut back on their graphic processors in order to retask many of the features for other things. Now that the computers were getting sorted out they had more processing and memory to add detail to themselves and their outfits. That explained why even when they added memory and processors the system seemed to suck it up immediately. Buffer over runs were a constant headache.

  Most of the glowing cybers were dressed in various formal wear. She wasn't really impressed with it; they looked drab in shades of gray. The only two that really stood out were the Asian Fu's. The male was dressed in some sort of white and black robe with a wide black sash belt while his wife wore a red kimono trimmed in gold.

  “So what are we going to do?” Riff asked tiredly. He'd been excited about getting smelters up and running until he had realized they needed something to break down and smelt. That had him a little put out.

  Each of the smelters were really molecular furnaces. You loaded them up with material and they used nanites and energy fields to tear them apart into their component molecules, and then siphoned them off to various holding tanks.

  Which was another issue. Half the storage tanks and holds had been compromised by the pirates. Ripped open was more likely, a few were completely useless. Some of the holding tanks had been designed to keep their contents superheated and therefore liquid, so when the power stopped their contents cooled and solidified. Even the plumbing was gunked up with the stuff and would have to be replaced. They had plenty of solid copper, tin, and silicon but very little of the materials they really needed.

  “We can feed it the material from the station that we don't need,” Emily said. Others around the room nodded at that logic. Some of the lawyers looked ready to object but the lead one D'red waved an antenna and signaled reluctant agreement with his upper arms.

  “The wreckage outside,” Sprite replied with a nod.

  Emily nodded. “And all the broken bits of equipment and material inside. That will save using a replicator to break them down.”

  “How are we on the lines to the replicators?” Sid asked.

  “We've got issues. I'm working on work arounds but it's tough,” Riff admitted. He looked at Gwen uncertainly.

  “What he means is I keep pulling his people off the project to repair life support or power lines nearby,” Gwen admitted. Riff snorted. She turned a glare his way. “Which is admittedly more important than a pipe.”

  “Not just a pipe. It's a feed trunk to the replicators,” he responded with equal heat.

  “All right,” Irons said. “I take it you are diverting the feed as well?” he asked, looking at Gwen. Reluctantly she nodded. “You realize you are cutting our own throats? We need material to get to the replicators. Catch twenty two Gwen.”

  “I know that,” she said testily, waving a hand. “I know. Believe me I know. What I'm trying to do is focus on the essentials.”

  “I know. But if you want materials to repair the essentials then you need to allow others to get their jobs done as well,” Sid said patiently.

  “That's a nice way of slapping my hand,” she murmured in response. Captain Chambers looked away, clearly bored and uninterested.

  “Can we use the ship?” D'red asked.

  “What about it?” Irons like the others turned to the normally quiet attorney. “I believe they have holds with material but they are committed to contracts on the planet.”

  “Can we bid for them?” the attorney asked. Irons pursed his lips. “What about the ship itself?”

  “What the Kiev?” Gwen asked in surprise. Mr. Warner seemed to elbow his captain. Chambers turned with a dirty look. Mr. Warner nodded his chin to the holographic board as if to say pay attention.

  “Sure,”

  “What would you do with her services?” The admiral asked.

  “Well, we could melt it down...”

  “No way!” Captain Chambers said, turning. He hadn't been paying enough attention until Mr. Warner had elbowed him. “You aren't getting my ship! It's bad enough you've got some of my crew!”

  “They can leave when they wish captain,” Doctor Myers murmured. “They aren't under contract.”

  “They aren't?” the lawyer asked, surprised and dismayed.

  “No. It's something to be fixed later,” Mr. Fu replied patiently. “I am curious, what figure would allow you to part company with your ship captain?” he asked, turning his attention to Chambers.

  “It's not for sale,” Chambers growled. “For any price.”

  “What about if we built you a new ship?” Irons asked. The others stared at him. “Just suggesting,” he said, holding a hand out to show he wasn't making it as an order.

  “No,” Chambers said, looking at the exec. Mr. Warner pursed his lips.

  “Well, that leaves the shuttles. Can we...”

  “NO!”

  “No, wait, hang on a second,” Irons said, holding up his hand again. “I meant to say can we rent a few to go out and wrangle some rocks? I'd do it you understand but if I did I'd be away from the stat
ion and the replicators for long stretches of time. That would...”

  “Throw our fragile building schedules all to hell,” Emily finished for him. “No, that's out,” she turned to the captain with a smile.

  “I'll think about it,” he said grudgingly. She smiled a little more. “Hey I said I'd think about it, I didn't say I'd commit. Send me a contract and I'll go over it. I don't even know if Barry will go for it.”

  “Volunteers only,” Irons replied with a knowing nod. “Wrangling rocks isn't for the faint of heart.” He wasn't comfortable sending out greenhorns on such a project but he realized he couldn't do it. He had to take chances somewhere and apparently this was one of those times and places.

  Captain Chambers nodded his way. “There speaks the voice of experience. I'll see if Barry is interested. In the meantime I suggest you work with what you've got. We had to do so for centuries. If you have to pull feed lines from other replicators then do so. You can always scrap the broken bits and melt them down for reuse to replace what you've taken later.”

  Irons looked at a few other the others. There were grudging nodded from the engineers. The bureaucrats were looking decidedly uncomfortable with the idea. “I think we can do that. Same for some of the corridors. But we don't need everything repaired right away. We're losing focus.”

  “Agreed,” Gwen said with a wince. “I'll talk to my people.”

  “I think that would be wise,” Fu said quietly, stroking his beard. “On to other matters. The educational initiatives. I believe they should be lessened for the moment in order to focus on more important matters...”

  Warner expected the rant as the channel closed. He didn't have long to wait, Chambers was in a foul mood. He got up out of his chair and turned, pacing the cabin like a caged tiger. “Can you believe the nerve of that guy?”

  “I think he spoke without thinking,” Warner said diplomatically. Which was probably true he reflected. The lawyer had spoken without thinking. What had surprised him was that the admiral had thrown in some support for the asinine idea.