Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  The girl looked up with a grim expression. “She's beautiful!” she said defending the battered craft.

  “She a wreck. Junior really trashed the reactor and engine. Damn, he burned out power couplers, aw crap! Tell me he didn't!” O'Reilly swore softly as he examined the rear engine thrusters. “Damn him! He did, dumb punk ran her on full afterburners after we told him and told him not to!” The sandy haired man shook his head. No wonder she barely made it home! He fried half her systems!”

  Irons winced. If the boy had run her at full afterburner they were talking about a complete overhaul. Most likely her coolant system was slagged. He sighed.

  “You can play with the tug later. I think it's high time for bed,” Senora Valdez came in and waved. “Mickal you've got a shift in five hours. Admiral, you've been on your feet for a while, time you get some rest and start fresh in the morning.” The Admiral was about to protest but O'Reilly shook his head, hand on his arm.

  “Don't mate, you won’t get anywhere but more tired. She's a stubborn one, and once she up and puts her mind to something, best go along with it.” The girl nodded with a smile. Both Valdez women crossed their arms and gave the men pointed hurry up expressions.

  O'Reilly raised his arms in surrender. “I'm going, I'm going,” he chuckled and left.

  “Honestly ladies, I can handle it. I've got plenty of stamina, and the situation is critical.” The Admiral tried to get them to leave off but both took him by the arm.

  “That may be, but I promised Jorge he would be here when you got to work, and since he's in bed....” The women dragged him into the main living quarters.

  “All right then, I'll just take a walk about the station.”

  The girl shook her head. “Are you nuts? On graveyard? If you don't get your throat slit by the underground gangs your liable to be pinched and tossed out the nearest airlock by the guard!” He looked at her disbelieving.

  “You’re serious?” he asked surprised. She nodded.

  “Admiral, my understanding of the culture of this place leads me to believe she is telling the trut,.” Sprite reported. He sighed. “Besides, you do need some rest, and I can chomp some bytes while you do,” Sprite wheedled.

  “All right, you talked me into it.” He gave in with good grace and let them hustle him into the tiny room. The door closed behind him with a click. He stretched out on the small bunk and closed his eyes.

  “Ah Admiral?” Sprite asked. He sighed.

  “Yes?” ,e asked Sprite.

  “You mind plugging me in? I can't find a wireless node.” She reported. He sighed.

  He got up and checked the terminal. It was dead. He pulled it aside and found the ODN cable. He attached a shunt from his kit, then a cable to his jack. He really didn't need to, Proteus could have modified the jack with his nanites, but he didn't want to waste the time and energy when he didn't need to. “That better?” he asked. He also plugged into the micro reactor to recharge. He wasn't comfortable using the family's power if they are in a power crisis.

  “Much, thank you Admiral,” Sprite replied sounding distant and distracted.

  “Glad to help.” He sighed as he laid out again, trying to be mindful of the plastic tethers.

  He thought about sleep, and then put the thought aside. He pulled up a schematic of the system then zoomed out to the Oort cloud. The map was from his files. He accessed the information the captain of the Io11 had provided and overlaid it. He grimaced. The system now had three belts, two where planets once were. Most of the system's infrastructure had been smashed. He browsed the files Sprite had grabbed from Anvil's files and found another map. He pulled it up and stacked it on top of the other two then collapsed the stack into one.

  There were over two dozen identified colonies. Several were small outposts in the Oort cloud. Some were non Terran. There were two on moons of the second gas giant. Both were troglodyte. He made a note for Sprite to get more info on each, including trade and traffic patterns then moved on. He saved the file then opened the station map.

  “Crap.” He winced as the map unfolded and overtaxed his optical graphic processors. He scaled the map down to manageable proportions then sighed in relief.

  “Buffer overrun. Graphic processors in you are not designed to handle that level of data Admiral,” Defender reported.

  He sighed. “Yeah, I know.” He spun the image then zoomed in.

  Sprite had data codes on each section. As he examined the reactors more data on their deck popped up as links. He smiled then returned his attention to the reactors. For some reason the only data on file was the basic tourist data from the net. The computer had no access to the reactors. He frowned. “Curious.” He checked the upper decks. The sickbay was near the top deck, occupying a ring directly below the command deck. Below sickbay were several decks labeled luxury. One area on deck eleven was even labeled as a casino. That must have been where the customs agent had tried to direct him to earlier.

  He clicked a link and a window popped open. The video was a live feed from the local security camera near the door. He impatiently closed the link. “Curiouser and curiouser. This place is screwed up.” He sighed as he pulled up the information on the Valdez compound.

  The data on the tug he glanced over then set aside. The data was at best based on his own observations, he already knew it. The stock information was next to useless. She had been severely modified over time so nothing would be to spec. He checked the logs of the family junk pile Sprite had compiled.

  After nearly a half hour of browsing the known list he signed off. It was interesting really, the family had been collecting junk either on the station through trade or salvage for possibly centuries. Much of what Sprite had listed in the spread sheet was only the top layer closest to where he had been standing. If you added in the past one hundred years or so below and behind that, it was quite a haul. Some of the data was sketchy at best, with just a weak transponder link to identify the object. He sighed and rolled over, letting slumber finally take him.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning he woke after his customary four hours of sleep, but spent an hour digesting reports from Sprite while he tapped the power net to recharge his implants.

  “So you can't get into engineering or the luxury suites at all?” he asked, going over the AI's report. She had mapped out areas in the mainframe that were jealously guarded by what she called a senile civilian AI. He shook his head and grimaced.

  “Not without tripping every alarm that overloaded AI has. It's so senile I am afraid of what it would do, it could send bots after me and wreck something important.” She shook her virtual head. “It has the home field advantage here; it was built into the network. It may have retreated to the critical systems areas, but I am not going to push it unless I have to,” she reported. He grunted.

  “Did you get any more information on the station itself?” he asked. Data scrolled across his field of view, then her virtual image.

  “Oh loads, but its eight centuries of junk and debris. It's going to take a dedicated librarian AI to sort out this mess. There is crap... Let's just say organics aren't the only pack rats in the universe.” She sighed. He chuckled.

  “Yeah, I can imagine,” he replied.

  “Then again, since you created us, it's not exactly our fault,” she said smiling. “Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree in other words?” he said getting dressed. “Something like that Admiral. By my calculations the family should be getting up right about...” He heard a soft thunk in the living quarters. “Now,” she said rather smugly. He chuckled again.

  “That sounds like O’Reilly; he has a bounce shift and should be heading off soon. Mrs. Valdez is in the refresher now; she should be getting ready for her shift in the greenhouses as soon as she chases the kids off to school,” Sprite reported.

  “They have a school here?” he asked looking up.

  “Rudimentary one Admiral, circa eighteenth or nineteenth century Earth. It is as much a day care and child labor
camp as it is a place of learning. The basics are taught, reading, writing and arithmetic I believe you call it. During periods like harvesting and planting, they have no schooling at all.” Sprite brought up a timetable and showed it to him as he stretched. He wasn't happy about seeing the kids cleaning air ducts. That wasn't kosher in his book.

  “Right. So they rely on manual labor as much as mechanical labor even on a space station. That also means they are not afraid of work and getting their hands dirty. Good to know,” he nodded as he pushed the key to open the door. It didn't budge.

  “Locked in,” Sprite reported. “Mechanical lock outside the mainframe.”

  “Jack in Admiral and I can get us out,” Proteus replied. Defender sent a concurrent thought.

  “That may not be wise; it may alarm our host’s Admiral,” Sprite reported.

  The Admiral shrugged. “No helping it, I'm not going to be a prisoner. I had fifteen months of that on Io.” He placed his right hand up to the keypad. Proteus sent tendrils of nanites out into the cracks around the buttons, entering the electronics. After a moment the door opened.

  “Did you log the things the living quarters need?” he asked looking back and forth. O'Reilly was already gone.

  “Judging from the external tanks under it, the food replicator has been jury rigged into creating different pastes and water. Without a closer look I would say either the electronics or software has faults. Lights, heat, gravity, and ultrasonics are also in need of various stages of repair I can list them...” Proteus trailed off.

  The Admiral smiled. The AI knew when to give details, and when not to. “Pass for now. One thing at a time. Obviously coffee is not going to be one of them.” He looked longingly at the food replicator then shook his head.

  “I want a closer look at that tug, I need to get into her systems and get a handle on what we are up against.” He turned down the hall not even bothering with the lights. His visual implants picked up the ambient light from the living room, giving him more than enough to navigate.

  Entering the bay he took a quick look then climbed up to the cab. He ran his hand along the side, feeling the craters. “She's been through a lot. Shields are out from the feel, I think this one is an asteroid hit.” His left hand rested on a patch.

  “Confirmed, Admiral, this hull doesn't have pressure integrity. Some of those patches leak. There are cracks as well,” Proteus reported. He nodded.

  “I thought I'd find you here.” Jorge's gravelly voice made him turn.

  “Just trying to earn my keep,” the Admiral replied. Jorge chuckled softly. Junior came in and palmed the lights on. His father blinked at the sudden change in light.

  The Admiral noted Junior putting away his stunner. “I could have sworn I locked that door...” Junior said softly.

  “You did,” the Admiral replied. Junior looked up at him. “I'm an engineer. Don't worry about it.” The Admiral waved his right hand. He sent a mental command and Proteus morphed his hand into a torch.

  Jorge looked away as he morphed the hand back. “I'm going to jack in and see what I can get off the computer,” he told Jorge who nodded. The wounded man was clutching his crutch and sweating. The Admiral nodded to Junior, then jerked his head to Jorge then over to a crate. Junior nodded slowly.

  “Come on Papa; let's get you sitting so Mama won’t yell.” He escorted his father over to the crate as the Admiral palmed the lock and climbed inside.

  “Our family has relied on that tug for generations to keep us out of debt and to give us a home,” Jorge explained rather loudly. The Admiral grunted as he checked the cockpit. It was clean, most likely because dirt in null gee did nasty things to people and electronics. Even an eyelash could blind someone under acceleration. There was a lot of wiring, and only minimum controls hooked up. Most of her controls were jury rigged from other things. The joystick was from a fighter he noted. From the lack of wear, it looked like a new addition.

  “I was hurt... in an accident,” Jorge continued his explanation. “Sergio here has been flying and repairing the tug.”

  “Obviously no Wi-Fi,” he observed dryly. Proteus identified an ODN cable and placed a carat over it on his HUD. He nodded. “Right. Go to it,” the Admiral replied taking the indicated fiber optic line with his right hand. His nanite AI automatically linked it to his network through his nanites while Defender threw a firewall up.

  “I'm in. There is a lot of software damage and electronics out. Also some software conflicts,” the Admiral reported out loud. Jorge grunted.

  “Repairs initiated Admiral. Diagnostic scan in progress. Error, viruses in the navigational ram buffer. Sectors two hundred and twelve through twenty five corrupted. Non essential data has over written the navigational suite and the virus is a rabbit,” Sprite reported. He grunted.

  “Let me see...” he ordered. Sprite fed him an image. He sighed. “Looks like someone overwrote your navigational software with porn. It was infested with a virus which has corrupted some of your systems,” the Admiral reported, looking out at Jorge and Junior. Jorge was glaring at his son. Junior was looking anywhere but at his father. The Admiral tried not to laugh or sigh.

  “Boys will be boys I suppose. Idiots ruled by their hormones till they LEARN TO GROW UP,” Jorge growled, holding his glare before returning his gaze to the Admiral. He chuckled.

  “That they will sir, in any time period.” The Admiral smiled wearily.

  “I've backed up what I can and wiped the software suite, it's a total write off Admiral. I am rebooting from the firmware now. Some of the drivers are conflicting. Admiral, half the electronics are non functional. We need a full rebuild to sort this out properly,” Sprite reported. He nodded.

  “The software has been dumped and I am reloading the drivers now, but the ones that work conflict with one another. We need to do a complete rebuild to get it right,” the Admiral reported.

  “How long?” Jorge replied, wary. “We need to get back into space before the rent comes due.” He sighed.

  The Admiral nodded. “I will see what I can do.”

  “List all electronics detected, flag the ones in need of replacement. We'll replicate those while we can,” he said softly to Proteus.

  “Noted Admiral.”

  “Shall we begin interior repairs?” the AI asked.

  “No.” He checked the flight logs Sprite had salvaged. “Someone hard wired the engine for afterburner. The coolant system is toast,” he reported. Jorge groaned.

  The Admiral looked out again. The wounded man was trying to write with an electronic pad. “I knew you did something stupid. Damn it! Why the hell couldn't you listen?!” the patriarch snarled sounding despondent. The Admiral un-jacked and climbed out of the cab making Jorge break off his rant.

  Irons checked the engine over, watching as Sprite and Proteus logged items to repair or replace. He softly mentioned a few parts as well. The thruster was mangled, it had been thoroughly patched, but the constant overload of the afterburner had cooked the ceramic coating off and worn down the rim. It looked like something had chewed on it. Plasma exhaust had a tendency of doing that when the electromagnetic superconducting shields were out.

  Jorge was still trying to keep his cool. The teenager had given up being defiant and assumed a submissive but resentful pose. The Admiral shook his head.

  “Well, she's definitely beat up pretty bad. We're looking at a lot of repairs. Almost a complete rebuild from the frame up.” He shook his head. “I've got a partial list to go off of, I'm cross checking it with the list of materials from the junk pile...” He trailed off as Sprite took the hint and did the cross check. She flashed a dozen items onto his HUD. “And it looks like eleven; no twelve items may be compatible. Most are minor, broken valves, hoses, cracked spar, shorted breakers... still twelve is okay out of a list of...” Junior looked up with hope in his eyes. “Out of over three hundred and thirty one. It is sure to go up from there. The plasma field injectors will need a rebuild, and if the firing chamber is breached.
..” The Admiral finished with a shrug. The boy was crestfallen again.

  “Mama said to remind you breakfast is almost ready!” the pig tailed girl called from the door. Jorge waved his crutch and she ran off.

  “I can get my replicator working on some of the electronics while we eat,” Irons waved to Jorge. Jorge nodded. Irons climbed back into the cab and with practiced efficiency his implants tore out most of the broken or damaged flight controls. He handed them down to a dumb struck Junior.

  “You’re going to remake them?” The young man asked. “Like new?” He looked at one. “What's wrong with this one?” He turned it over and over.

  “Firmware was corrupted by the rabbit virus. It needs a new chip and some minor repairs to its UART optical jack,” the Admiral replied as he pulled the last board.

  “Okay that's it, let’s go.”

  Junior followed him as he led the way down the hall through the busy living quarters and into his room. Junior looked around. “Don't get used to it.” He growled softly. The Admiral ignored that as he set his load down on the floor then pulled out his micro battery.

  “What's that?” the teen asked.

  “Superconductor battery. The replicator draws a higher voltage then the wall current can dish out. So I have to use this to step up the power. I will recharge it later. I have a micro fusion reactor to do that since you’re in a power crunch.” He plugged the battery into the replicator then fed in each of the parts. He jacked in and waved to the young man. “You can set them down here. I will get to them in a bit.” He waved. The young man hesitated.

  “Junior! Wash up and eat! Your shift is in twenty minutes young man!” his mother called. The young man hastily set the electronics down then rushed out of the room. The Admiral chuckled softly. “You too Admiral!” He looked up with a grimace. It had been fifteen months and nearly seven hundred and thirteen years since he had a human keeper. It looked like Mrs. Valdez had chosen to adopt the role. He shook his head.