Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  It was a curse in that it threw the schedule the council had set all to hell. It also made for some holes and confusion in the chain of command.

  Gwen would have been there to fix and plug things but she was one of the first to get second level implants. Her surgery had run a little long so her recovery had taken a bit longer as well. With her in sickbay Riff would normally take up the slack but he was next to his mate. In their absence the admiral had pitched in.

  At the beginning of the second month the medical staff formed an assembly line on Fridays and augmented over a hundred people including several of their own medical staff. This helped to give them the necessary confidence to take the next step beyond that. They set out a firm number though, no more than two dozen fully augmented cybers per year since the procedures involved were so tedious and risky. They also set up a strict mental screening process to go along with the physical one. More than one person was filtered out, causing some problems with their patrons.

  The new recruits also had to have some skills that compliment the other cybers and could contribute to the well being of the station. Some were so called computer technicians, others were economists or accountants. Sprite wasn't sure about that since from what she'd found out Antigua had very few working computers left on the planet. Apparently it was a fiction that the others were readily accepting so she remained mute on the subject.

  The doctors agreed on a series of surgeries starting with nanites in the patient. The nanites would build many of the connections that would allow them to connect to the station net with minimally invasive surgery to their brains. While the patients were prepped their pods were cleaned out and restored. Their former occupants were given a brief funeral and then they were recycled.

  Two of the volunteers were former elderly mayors who were unfortunately too old to survive the procedure. One died of a stroke during the surgery; the other heard of this and backed out at the last minute.

  As each new cyber oriented his or herself they were courted by the others. Some didn't know they were being courted, they were just grateful for the helping hand in showing them how to orient themselves and handle the new situation.

  Sprite of course noted it for what it was but didn't comment. She knew it would fall on deaf ears with the admiral. H was more concerned with restoring the station.

  His last attempt to set up a naval recruiting drive had fallen on deaf ears ground side. He had attempted to go through the mayor's council but had been stymied. Oh they hadn't said no outright, no they had done something far worse. They stuck his proposal in limbo, tabling it for further discussion at an unspecified date sometime in the future.

  He wasn't sure what the problem was but it bode ill for the future if it wasn't resolved sometime soon.

  Each of the new cybers came with their own patrons and allegiances of course. Sprite noted some of the comm. chatter and logged it. She realized quite quickly that some of them have their own agenda. Their patrons want control of the station.

  Gwen and some of the other Kiev people had joined the council but there were only four of them, not enough to overcome the old guard voting bloc. Gwen was reluctant to join the council; she wanted a voice in running the station but didn't want to put the time in to be that voice. It was frustrating for both her and for Sprite who had to watch her fumble around. She had tried handing off her proxy to someone she trusted on the council, eventually settling on Averies of all people.

  Over the following week as the new cybers finished orientation they began to firm up, take on more duties, to make more formal alliances, and to start to move to further marginalize the admiral's influence and control of the station. Sprite wasn't amused when she was rebuffed from the main net one morning.

  “Admiral you are required in replicator four to attend to some parts,” Kennet informed him. Irons opened his eyes to glare in exasperation but the holo had already winked out.

  “How rude!” Sprite said. He grunted and checked the time on his HUD. He had just gone down an hour ago. “Don't tell me you are getting up? He didn't even say please!” She was thoroughly pissed that the cyber had gotten through to do that. She'd been distracted and hadn't caught him until he was already in the apartment.

  Irons pulled the blanket up to his shoulder and got comfortable. “Screw him. I'm going back to bed. Whatever it is it can wait until morning,” Irons growled. He'd spent another week running all over the station covering for Gwen and Riff, on the radio talking with the mayors trying to convince them that a military presence was necessary... and not getting anywhere. He had been intensely frustrated when he had been kicked off the radio for more important matters. He needed a break. He rolled over and let his breathing drift. He let the angst go.

  Sprite however was seething. She felt the others on the net. Kennet had bounced off but then returned when Irons hadn't moved after fifteen minutes.

  When Replicator four called the attorney he returned to the room. This time Sprite was there to greet him. She thought about blocking him but decided against it. It was high time the admiral took a hand in this and saw it firsthand. “Why hasn't he moved?”

  Sprite glared. “He's sleeping.”

  “The schedule is slipping,” Kennet said. “Tell him to attend to his duties,” he said waving an imperious hand.

  Sprite looked incredulously at him. “Me? You want me to order a Fleet admiral around? The only living Federation representative around? Like he's some lackey? What are you kidding me?” she demanded, hands on her virtual hips.

  “These things need to be done,” Kennet said with a sneer.

  “Ah, they need to be done. I see,” she said, voice dripping sarcasm. “No please do this. Not we need you to do this. Do it. No. The answer is no. You have no authority over the admiral or me. Get used to it.”

  Kennet's eyes flashed dangerously. “You'll regret that,” he snarled.

  “I'm regretting not disabling the audio and holo projectors in my room,” Irons growled not looking up. “Which I'm going to do and a whole lot more if you two don't take your spat elsewhere. I am sleeping. I will get around to it when I am damn good and ready and that's that.”

  “That's your final word on it?” Kennet demanded. Irons snored loudly and obnoxiously in response.

  “Leave,” Sprite growled. “You are intruding in his personal space. I believe you are pretty aggressive about defending one's space. I see enough of it on the net.”

  “Fine,” Kennet said with a snarl, disappearing. Sprite smirked as he left.

  “That told him,” she said turning to look down at the admiral.”

  “Sprite?” he asked.

  “Yes admiral?”

  “Night Sprite,” he said, rolling over once more.

  “Oh, um... Good night admiral,” she said more amused than subdued as her holo winked out. She immediately reset the security links on the apartment. The little bastard wouldn't be pulling that again anytime soon. He may have used a council override but a Federation and military override trumped it.

  "How's that ship going?" Irons asked the next morning. He'd been curious about derelicts. He'd hoped they'd get lucky, stumble across a navy ship like they did in Pyrax but no such luck. So far only the one tiny yacht turned dispatch boat had been located. He'd been particularly interested in the little ship though for his own reasons.

  It had been a nearly two month period of hard work for the people of the station. A seven and a half week period of blood sweat and tears getting the station sorted out. Fortunately there hadn't been any fatalities in that period but quite a few casualties. Fortunately the doctors were now on task with the proper facilities and the injured were returning to the work force as quickly as possible.

  The second generation of tugs were out there now, plying the surrounding area for materials. Some of them were automated, a few were piloted. They were scaling them up each generation, starting with the small scale tugs and workboats and then building larger and larger versions as more and more material
filled their coffers. It was exponential growth at its finest.

  They had a dozen volunteer tug pilots from Kiev. Some were a bit long in the tooth age wise, but they had all checked out with medical so he hadn't said anything. Nothing had raised a red flag at any rate.

  Some of the younger volunteers were a bit worrisome. They didn't have the seasoning to settle down into as dangerous a job as tug work. He'd experienced it with the Valdez family on Anvil. Junior had tore that family's tug up just before Io 11 had docked. Fortunately Irons had taken a hand to rebuild her. The lad had settled for a little while before making the jump to the navy.

  The teachers on the station had their work cut out for them. Fortunately they had access to more advanced training methods, including using sleep teaching and implant teaching. They also had some motivated students. Many of the older set found it harder to absorb the material but were highly motivated to do so to get the promised better jobs and authority.

  Dr. Trask had her virtual hands full getting the implant line up and running. The first stages were easy but the actual cyber procedures were taking up an incredible amount of time and effort from all involved. Usually one cyber was all they could do in a week, and they needed several days to recover afterward. Right now they had a schedule worked out, basic implants during Tuesday through Thursday, then a Cyber on Friday and then a three day weekend off to recover.

  Fortunately Dr. Kraft was on hand to do the physical side of things. So far they only had Ident implants in the general population and a handful of basic level one and two implants like the Warners and Gwen had for the engineering population. Hopefully the latest round of repairs and the classes currently ongoing would free up more people. Some of the medics themselves had implants now but more were needed. Each also needed to get some downtime to get the implants and then recover and train with them. Hopefully things would work out soon.

  They had four working fusion reactors now but barely enough fuel on board for all of them. Each reactor was running at less than fifty percent until more fuel became available. That was a major issue with the station; power was still being rationed and closely monitored. It caused some conflict in the station's council.

  The station council was sorting itself out still. Some of the old guard weren't comfortable with council duties on top of their regular routine. Some like the Fu's abandoned any other work in favor of exclusive work on the council. If you could call wrangling a subject to death and arguing over contract grammar work.

  It bothered Irons that all the original cybers and AI were on the board even though most hadn't been when the station went dark. Some really didn't belong on the board. D'red he could understand as head legal counsel, but you didn't need ten lawyers on the station council! Eight of the twenty one old guard cybers actually did any work. The rest were politicians and place holders.

  What also annoyed him was that many had done their level best to impede the restoration of the station from the very beginning. Impede it or had no hand in repairing it. But now that things were working out they insisted on having a say in how things were run.

  What they were really doing was forming allegiances, voting blocks. Drawing the council into parties for and against subjects and then trying to build a consensus to achieve something. Compromise was the order of the day. Everything he now suggested was watered down, delayed, or ignored. That was particularly irritating sometimes.

  His dome project had been brought up twice more for votes, and each time voted down. The Stewards had even shown up for a vote once but Fu had drawn support from the new cybers and narrowly headed the project off. Irons wasn't sure why he was so focused on preventing it.

  Fu and Kennet were also acting coldly to him more and more. He'd picked up on it, their autocratic demands that he attend to something 'now right this minute'. When he started to put his foot down two days ago they hadn't liked it. Too bad for them.

  Of course it didn't endear him to some of the others when they got wind of it. Also too damn bad. He needed sleep like other organics, downtime to renew his energy. Granted he didn't need a lot of it, but he was damn well going to use it as an excuse as much as possible to get out of being ordered around. Kennet's little interruption had been the last straw.

  He still hadn't confronted them directly on that subject. He didn't have a strategy in mind yet. Politics weren't his game really. He knew about them, studied them, but he did his best to avoid them.

  Of course one method to avoid the subject all together was to dive into the repairs. Which was what he was doing. He was just following his own agenda, not the councils. That was another subject for rancor with the council. Well, some of the council anyway. Some liked what he was doing but still opposed his proposals anyway.

  His defensive plan had been reset, tabled, and was now on hold. Any attempt to make something for the plan had been delayed by a replicator being overbooked or the net being overtaxed or some other excuse.

  Doctor Myers had been ecstatic when the station's long range sensors had been brought online a week ago. Myers had been more interested in the long overdue science projects that the sensors could now provide information too, but others were more interested in cataloging the vast number of asteroids and trying to prioritize which were the best to recover. Irons had been happy for an entirely different reason. One of his first priorities was to catalog the system and to find any derelicts for recovery and salvage.

  So far that project hadn't panned out very well. Only one ship had been found after several days of searching, and that had been stumbled across by a tug weeks ago and then confirmed by a shuttle eight days ago before the sensors had come online. He'd dispatched an automated tug to go pick it up. Of course that had caused some problems with the council; he hadn't asked for permission and had been censured for his actions. Again.

  Sprite continued her report. He dragged his mental processes back to the here and now. "The tug docked with the DB 1701E this morning and is bringing it in now. Fortunately it's an automated tug, if an organic had been involved..."

  Irons waved a dismissive hand. He knew what she was talking about, the tug was under power and since no organics was involved it was accelerating beyond what one could live through in order to get here faster. Still it was pushing a load a hundred times its own mass. It would take at least a week to get the DB on its way back. "Yeah yeah, bored to tears. Funny."

  "I was going to say their life support would have run out a long time ago."

  "True," Irons agreed. He looked at the specs of the yacht. It was a beauty, sleek and elegant, small but fast. She mixed organic lines with simple triangular shapes. She had been owned by an Asian conglomerate who had painted her gold, a lucky color for Asians. That explained the Golden Dew Drop name.

  Built at the height of the Federation in the Sol system yards to handle a class three hyperdrive with both an antimatter and fusion reactor. She could handle the upper delta ranges with the right crew.

  He'd initially thought about using her as a courier between here and Pyrax. That was what she had been in the latter stages of the war after all. But now... now it just might have to serve as his escape valve. Things weren't going well on the station and on the planet. Politics were rearing their ugly head once more. It seemed he couldn't get away from politics and short sighted politicians.

  “Dilgarth. Why did it have to be them?” A blond human tech muttered. He shivered, not at all happy about being in the same compartment let alone the same station as a predator like a Dilgarth. He didn't care what Irons and the others said. They should all be spaced.

  “I was wondering what they were thinking. Oh well, over and done with now. I just don't understand the end game.”

  “Box and freeze them.” That was what they were doing. The guards and staff were wary of the damn things and none to gentle when they handled the bodies. They used rigger tape to secure them and then dumped them in the stasis pods as quickly as they could. The job was over now but they were still running into
a few babies here and there. Or at least there were persistent stories of babies still on the station in the ducts and in the sewers.

  “No, I mean the... when they were brought on board. I mean, pacifists with predators? Vegetarians employing carnivores? Anyone else see a problem?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “They are sentients,” the doctor said projecting her image to be in the room with them. The crowd fell silent. With her was one of the lawyers. “We thought they could control their baser urges,” she said. The attorney nodded.

  “They proved that they could before,” the lawyer said. “They did fine for years. It was only when things broke down...”

  “Still, meat eaters? Where did you get the meat?”

  “Synthetic protein like any good food replicator,” The lawyer answered. Irons couldn't remember him. The lawyer was normally withdrawn and rarely attended the daily council meetings. He had signed his proxy over to D'red and spent most of his time doing briefs or other such nonsense. He was dressed in a formal suit but had an almost caricature blank face. If he didn't know better it was like the guy was trying to be nondescript, faceless, just a machine. A cog in the greater machine. Odd.

  “Not that that didn't cause a lot of problems,” the doctor said with a frown. “They prefer their food alive.”

  “Oh.” The group shuddered all around. Most of the tribal members nodded grimly; after all they had experienced it first hand for most of their lives. One of the greatest mercies was to kill someone who had been caught or cornered by a Dilgarth pack. If you couldn't save them killing was a mercy compared to being torn apart slowly and methodically from the limbs into the center.

  “The neural implants kept them in line...”

  “Those are illegal!” Irons said, turning on them. Up until that statement he'd been largely ignoring them. Letting them ramble, after all it didn't really matter in the long run. He had started to realize he was sinking into depression and apathy, going through the motions now. He was fighting it but he was going to have to do something about it soon.