Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  “Better than ever captain, we made a record profit. We even made back our port fees, and the port fees for the next two visits were thrown in!” the purser grinned. “I am not happy about some of our passengers. A lot of them are deadbeats, but they managed to scrape up the minimum cover charge to get them to our next port of call. Once we dump them off there, they are someone else's problem.” She shrugged. The captain grunted again.

  “We're fully stocked, I actually ran out of cargo room yesterday,” the purser admitted. “I think the Admiral is right, now that we have a fully functional ship, it might be a good idea to expand. Maybe another ship? Or a fleet of freighters?” She eyed the captain with a sly look.

  The captain chuckled. “One thing at a time Vanessa,” she waved it off and turned back to the holo of the station.

  “Goddess protect you Io 11, thank you and good luck. We hope to see you soon,” the station's communicator called. The captain grunted.

  “If they are saying that then things were really dire. Or he finally got around to teaching them some manners,” she shrugged.

  “One thousand kilometer range achieved. Captain wedge is coming up at half power. Locked onto the gas giant for maneuver.” The helms woman said interrupting her musing thoughts.

  “Very well, put us on course for the hyper limit and the Janus jump point. Half speed. I want a course ready by that time,” she eyed the navigator who nodded with a smile.

  “Already set up. Io is updating it as we go.” She went back to looking at her console.

  “Good luck and goddess keep you Admiral,” the purser muttered.

  The Admiral got up and stretched. He had managed another thirty minute cat nap while his AI and the engineers finished the final installation of parts in the fusion reactor core. “Core three will be ready to seed in an hour Admiral; we're running the final diagnostic checks now. I understand the CPO is awake again,” Sprite hinted. Irons smiled.

  “Am I needed again to keep him in sickbay?” he asked.

  “No Admiral, they transferred him to his own quarters again an hour ago. I've been monitoring him for the doctor. She's overloaded. Most of the people Io's sickbay took on were released as walking wounded. She's got a call out for all hands on deck,” Sprite reported.

  “Meet Logan in his quarters?” Irons asked. He picked up a cup of cold coffee and downed it in a gulp. His hands were a bit shaky.

  “No need, he'll meet you in his office Admiral,” Sprite informed him. She sounded a little distracted. The AI's were taxed to their limits. Irons grunted and got up.

  “No, tell him I'll be at his quarters in a few minutes.” He stretched then waved to a weary Mary as he left.

  “Too late Admiral, he's in his office,” Sprite reported. He sighed and changed course.

  “Damn stubborn old man,” Irons muttered. Sprite laughed.

  “Now that is a definite case of the pot calling the kettle black!” she smirked on his HUD.

  “Sprite?” he muttered.

  “Shut up?” she asked, smile widening into a shit eating grin.

  “Right,” he sighed.

  "Admiral, I know some of your record..." Irons turned to look at the old man with a raised eyebrow. "I did a stint as a yeoman for Vice Admiral Hennessey for a couple months. He cracked a few jokes about your Greek chorus in my hearing...” The old man shrugged. Irons sighed.

  "That is a blatant breach of security Admiral." Defender reported coldly. If the AI had been a smart AI like Sprite it would have been seething.

  "Stating the obvious again? Besides, Hennessey is beyond the veil," Sprite replied. Irons nodded. "So you know about the Trinity project?" The old man nodded.

  "I can see one AI, but three? Isn't that overkill sir? Why not just have one AI that can do all the jobs?" the old man asked as he sat back. Irons nodded.

  "The answer is multitasking."

  The old man's eyes widened then he nodded slowly. "Each of my AI are specialized. Sprite acts as my staff and chief programmer. Defender is much more limited, it acts as my security watch dog. And Proteus..." He smiled.

  "Multi threading cluster AI. I know. My sister did a paper on it when I was twelve. I am surprised they managed to get it to work, she sure couldn't!" The old man laughed. Irons did too.

  "Yeah well, it's complicated. The hive mind isn't just in the nanites, there is no way parallel processing and artificial neural networks could communicate in real time over my entire body without messing up my nervous system or every piece of electronics for meters around." The Admiral sat back and picked up a cup. "I can't get into the details, it's still classified, but it works. I am living proof." He saluted the old man with his cup then took a sip.

  The old man nodded. "So Proteus manages your nanites? Why not have Defender or Sprite do it?" he asked.

  "Admiral if I may?" Sprite asked.

  "Sure." He felt her send data to the desk holo projector.

  A hologram sprang to life. It stabilized into a ball of light, then into a construct of a female face. "The reason is multitasking. The Admiral pointed it out earlier. You organics can multi task to a certain degree, I believe the pithy saying is walk and chew gum at the same time?" Sprite smiled. The old man nodded staring at her image. "Well, we can do that and much more, but even we have our limitations. Each of our programs are specialized with only slight overlap of each others fields. Proteus builds and repairs things, I manage things, and Defender protects us." Her image zoomed out into her full figure. She shrugged.

  "It works. It took a few years to get the bugs out, but now that we've settled in we got our collective acts together," she winked.

  The old man chuckled. "It has been so long since I talked with a smart AI." He shook his head. "A pleasure to finally converse with you Sprite." He bowed to her. She nodded regally back. Her image divided into three, Defender projected his dark knight persona while Proteus projected a silver blob. "All of you. It is a pleasure." The old man nodded again.

  "Feeling a bit cooped up?" the Admiral commented.

  "Just a bit. The civilian AI is... stupid. And civilian. It is nice to talk with someone else for a change," Sprite smiled. The Admiral nodded.

  "You recognize our presence is classified under section twelve article thirteen subsection B of the intelligence act of 2541 right?" Defender's red glowing eye slit stared at the old man.

  He nodded. "I do. And no, I will not breach that trust unless it is imperative to do so." The old man held up his hand as he swore.

  Defender stared at him then swirled out. "Very well." Sprite's image moved over. She looked up.

  "Just a bit paranoid are we?" she sighed and returned her attention to the humans. "Defender and Proteus are limited AI, I am a prototype micro smart AI," she smiled. “Most of my systems are compressed and when I'm in the Admiral only my core functions are online. Being in another network gives me a chance to, as you organics say, stretch my legs properly.”

  "She is also a lieutenant commander. She's one of the best AI I have ever worked with," the Admiral admitted.

  "Why thank you Admiral, I didn't know you cared." Sprite's outfit morphed into a dress then she curtsied. She swirled the dress for a moment, then it morphed back into her silver skin suit once more.

  "Quite lively are you? Do you keep the Admiral on his toes?" the old man smiled.

  "We aim to please," she laughed. The Admiral chuckled as well.

  "That she does. I try to keep her busy out of self defense," he waved. "Speaking of which, we need more info on the station computers, have you managed to make any progress?" he asked turning to business.

  "Yes Admiral, I spun off an entire security suite after reworking the one in the core, spirit of space is that the thing was senile! I had to dump and restart from the backups again!" She shook her head. "I've taken almost complete control of Smithy's network now. I am working on revising the archive and I have security bots scouring the system even as we speak. They kill or isolate the viruses and shoot Defender and I a
list every minute. We should have this system decontaminated in another shift." She brushed her fingers over her arm like she was dusting herself off.

  "It's not military grade, but we'll manage," she nodded as she finished.

  "Good to hear. You’re compiling a table database right?"

  Sprite nodded. "It's going in parallel with the security issue, but it is a bit slower. We should have a handle on the core systems by next shift. Peripherals are a different story." She shrugged. "Since some of them are intermittent, and a few are plug-and-play, it is a little harder to quantify."

  “Defender has the new and improved firewall up so it is helping us keep a log," she reported.

  "I'm glad someone took a broom to the viruses. I've tried but I was never a natural programmer," the old man ran his hand through his hair ruefully. "When I couldn't get Smithy to fix the security suite, he complained to the Port Admiral and the damn Port Admiral locked me out..." he sighed looking down then looked up. "I severed the engineering computers and created our own network here. It has a clone of my personal implant security suite to keep it clean. I still get some annoyances from people who plug in an infected peripheral from time to time though." He sighed shaking his head.

  "We're working on it. We started with engineering, it was a lot easier to fix. Now that the reactor cores have been reworked we can reset the links to the station command center." Sprite raised her hands and then she and Proteus disappeared as a station schematic grew in their place. "Areas in red are unoccupied due to breach or hazard. Areas in yellow have overloaded life support," Sprite reported. Most of the occupied decks were shades of yellow.

  Irons sighed. "Yeah, I caught that earlier." He shook his head. The old man grunted.

  "Yes, I've known for years we've been over taxing our life support. Nothing I can do. This place isn't a planet. Some of our major imports are activated carbon, limestone, and calcium carbonate for the life support." He sighed in frustration clenching and unclenching his hands.

  The Admiral nodded watching him. "Now I know why you aged so fast." He shook his head as the old man chuckled.

  "Yeah, well, I think the kids had something to do with that too." His daughter came in and waved.

  "Sure, blame it on us!" she smiled as she kissed her father's grainy cheek. "Hi pops." She leaned back to look into his eyes.

  "Shelby how are things in engineering?" he asked.

  She grimaced. "Not good, we're still in trouble. Life support on deck eighteen is out. And the assholes in admin want to cut the life support to the low income district on any deck below fifteen," she snarled as she sat down. The Admiral stared.

  "Cut life support to where?" he asked. She shook her head.

  "The low rent district. The scum as they call it." She jerked her thumb up to indicate the people above. "Never mind that they are people, people who do the dirty work on the station," she snarled slamming her fist onto the table. "They made their loot off of them, lord it over them, now they want to suffocate them!" she snarled.

  Irons shook his head. They had no idea what sort of hornet's nest that would provoke. Most of the people who were there would become desperate. Desperate people took insane risks and did stupid things. More rioting was the last thing they needed.

  Her father looked around. "Honey dial it down, your making a scene," he whispered urgently. She looked around to the others looking at her and then visibly tried to get control of her temper.

  The Admiral handed her a cup. "Coffee?" he asked. She looked at it.

  "Where did you..." she asked surprised. Her father chuckled.

  "Let's just say your dear old dad isn't the only one with a magical touch when it comes to fixing things dear," he chuckled as she stared. She took a wary sip.

  "Oh wow! Bitter!" she exclaimed. He chuckled and handed her a spoon then a pair of ceramic ramekins.

  "That is how it is supposed to taste actually. Cream and sugar." He set them down in front of her. “Now that we've got power I diverted some so we could keep a clear head.”

  "Oh, don't mind if I do." She helped herself then set the spoon down and took a sip. "Now that's more like it." She sat back with a satisfied sigh. Her father patted her arm.

  "My little girl always did have a sweet tooth," Logan said as he chuckled.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Shelby growled looking over her father's shoulder. The Admiral and Logan turned to see a meter long robotic wasp floating down the corridor. Enrique the exec had called a meeting in ops.

  “Security drone,” her father answered watching it warily.

  “Security drone?” his daughter asked. The drone darted back and forth, and then stopped to hover in front of them. Its optics zoomed in and out. The weapons under the main body pivoted on actuators, and then pointed away. Fins on its under body moved back and forth, as did the cylinders serving as wings. “Force emitters?” Shelby asked softly. A moment later the robot turned and left. They heard approaching footfalls and turned to see the exec approaching.

  “Who the hell activated that thing?” Shelby waved to the departed drone. “As if we need crap like that! The power for it to stay flying could power half a deck!” She snarled. Enrique spread his hands apart helplessly.

  “I had nothing to do with it. Honest. Smithy did it.” He shrugged his shoulders as his hands dropped to his sides.

  “Keep that thing out of engineering and away from my work parties,” Shelby growled.

  “Smithy?” the Admiral asked softly. He opened a link to the mainframe.

  “Sorry Admiral. Orders,” Smithy responded. He watched as the senile AI tried to throw up a firewall to lock him out. It fell apart in seconds.

  “Conflicting orders with your charter and core programming.” The Admiral shook his head as the AI tried to restore the firewall. “You are wasting your time it won’t work. I am in now,” he waved and the rebuilt firewall dissolved. “You need me remember?” He looked at the AI avatar. The avatar tried to look away.

  “I'm encoded to him Admiral. As long as he is on the station I am bound to protect and serve him,” the AI said softly. The Admiral sighed.

  “There isn't room on this station for the two of us you mean?” He meant it only half joking. He knew his preference.

  “Something like that. At least Sprite has deleted that self destruct command,” the AI responded.

  “Well, I am not going anywhere until another ship comes into the system. And that may not be for weeks, or months. Deal with it.” The Admiral gave in to using his command overrides. Sprite swirled in beside him.

  “It is wise to listen Smithy, he doesn't give second chances often.” She eyed the AI. “I am still working on repairing your kernel remember?” she asked. The station AI nodded.

  “I know. I will try to defer things as long as possible.” He swirled out. The Admiral sighed.

  “What?” Shelby asked, grabbing his arm. He refocused.

  “Smithy is getting paranoid about me and the repairs to the station. He feels we are both a threat to the Port Admiral.” He shrugged.

  “Which in a way you are, since we are succeeding where he failed. So we can't trust him.” She shrugged. “I never did anyway.” She looked over to her dad who nodded. “I guess we stay in engineering then,” she said threading her arm through her dad's. “Coming?” She turned looking at the Admiral.

  Enrique cleared his throat. “I'll meet you there in a bit,” the Admiral said then waved for them to go on without him. She studied him for a moment then shrugged.

  “Suit yourself.” She escorted her dad off.

  “You wanted to speak to me about something?” He turned to the Exec.

  Chapter 9

  It took two weeks of intense effort to get the other five reactors repaired. By the time they were, the station's fuel supply was down to dregs again despite an all out effort by the Valdez family. Seven hundred years of mining had simply stripped the surrounding space of anything usable.

  To keep from over taxing any on
e reactor each of them were at twenty percent power. The combination was just enough to keep the station's life support fully functional.

  Without the threat of doom hanging over their heads most of the station's citizens were slowly calming down and things were getting back to normal. Irons had no intention of letting them go back to sitting on their asses for long though.

  “We need more fuel. So, how do we get it?” Shelby sat next to her father in the conference room. The Admiral had insisted that Logan remain at the head of the table as head of the station engineering. However Logan made it clear he would defer to the Admiral's judgment.

  The Admiral shook his head, toying with a stylus. “I take it diplomatic efforts didn't get anywhere?” he asked looking from one to the other. They both shook their heads.

  “Enrique tried, but it's hopeless. The Port Admiral has burned the other colonies in trade agreements so often that they won't do anything even if they did have fuel to spare,” Shelby replied acidly.

  “It's not just that.” Logan gave his daughter a restraining look then looked at the Admiral. “You must understand, seven hundred years, the wear on equipment... skills lost...” He shook his head wearily. “Most of the other colonies are small jury rigged things, or buried on the moons of the gas giants. They can live troglodyte and we can't talk to them,” he sighed.

  “Did word of the repairs get out?” the Admiral asked.

  “Yes, most heard an Admiral was responsible and put that with the Port Admiral and ignored it as propaganda.” Shelby shook her head. She tapped her stylus on the desk. “Until that jerk is out of here we're stuck with his crap and legacy hanging around our necks.” She sat back abruptly tossing the stylus down onto the desk. Several of her fellow assistant engineers nodded or murmured agreement.

  “Trust me, I think by the time another ship arrives the Port Admiral will be more than willing to vacate the premises,” Irons replied.

  “With the station repaired?” Shelby asked in disbelief. He smiled.