Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  "Not that one Admiral, it's down for maintenance, take the other around the trunk, port side," Sprite informed him. He nodded to a passing couple then followed the directions quietly.

  "Admiral can you please come to Ops? We have a situation developing," Smithy called over the overhead.

  "He sounds anxious. This is interesting. It is a bit early for the command staff meeting. Let me check.... Damn, yes it is. Admiral long range sensors detected a hyper trace several hours ago, we're receiving a mayday now." He nodded as he tapped the lift controls and stopped the lift. "Redirecting lift now," Sprite informed him.

  "Give me a sitrep Sprite." He looked at the cleaned car and then relaxed against the handrail and closed his eyes. The data began to flow onto his HUD.

  "We don't have much, Logan just finished rebuilding the long range sensors yesterday. They were running a tracking exercise when they picked up the hyper wake at the Agnosta jump point several hours ago. The exec had them localize the wake as part of the exercise. A moment ago the station received a mayday on the same bearing as the incoming ship." Sprite fed him a map of the system with the starship's emergence and course to the station.

  "Anything in the mayday?" he asked.

  "They are out of fuel. Apparently they were going to Agnosta but were chased out by pirates. They just barely made it here." He grunted at that. Running out of fuel and left to drift was a nightmare for any spacer.

  "Pirates?" he asked.

  "Several. The captain claims a pirate fleet. The captain sounds terrified. They used up their fuel coming here, that's why they came in so far out. They are under power but they don't have enough to get all the way here." He nodded at that as the lift stopped and the doors opened.

  "Excuse me," he stepped around the guard and nodded to Enrique.

  "Admiral we've got a situation..." Enrique said waving him over. The Admiral held up a hand.

  "Sprite informed me in the lift. Anything beyond the first transmission?" he asked.

  "No, They are babbling over and over about pirates and damage. They won’t receive anything from us for another five hours," the exec said, sounding disgusted.

  "Can we redirect Sergio to the ship? Have him get them in with the fuel he has?" the Admiral asked.

  "Maybe." The exec looked down suddenly. "She's a star yacht, so maybe. Let me check." He turned to a crew member and started to murmur to her.

  "Admiral we need that fuel," Smithy said. Irons turned to the holo avatar. Over the past week the avatar had begun to fill out from its wizened, shrunken form. It was starting to look more like it did in its prime. Still grizzled and bent, but muscle was peeking through here and there.

  "I know that, but we have enough for several weeks and we can get more. They can't," Irons pointed to the yacht. "Besides, they have what we need." He looked at the plot.

  "What is that?" the AI asked.

  "You of all beings on this station should know the answer to that question. Information. We need it. Badly. We need to know what happened, and if the pirates are coming here." His voice carried enough to shock the ops staff into silence. Suddenly he was the center of attention for the full staff. He nodded.

  "Right, Do we have a timetable from them? What about Sergio?" He looked over to the exec.

  "Sergio is on the other side of the planet. we can't get him yet. He may have already received the... hold it getting something." He held his hand up to his earwig. He grimaced then shook his head. "Looks like you,re getting your wish Admiral, Sergio got the message before we did and is already in transit. He's going to dock with them in eleven and a half hours." Enrique shook his head. "Damn kids," he sighed. "Always got to play the hero." He grimaced.

  "Cynicism comes with time and patience," Irons said with a smile.

  Enrique snorted. "Touché'. All right, nothing we can do about it now anyway except wait and watch." He shook his head.

  "Get me an update then. I think we need to dust off some defensive plans and see which we can implement," the Admiral nodded to Enrique.

  "What? Oh, yeah. I have no idea how." The exec shook his head. "They led them right here," he muttered. The Admiral grabbed the exec by the arm and led him over to an unoccupied corner.

  "Look, can that crap. If they are pirates then they may have heard about you a long time ago. You’re not exactly a secret remember?" He locked eyes with the exec. After a moment of thought the exec reluctantly nodded. "They may have planned on coming here anyway and these people may have bought us a warning. Now we have time to do something, even if it means hiding." He let go of the exec.

  Enrique shook his arm for a moment then nodded. "And I'm not helping things am I?” He sighed as Irons shook his head. "Right, okay, We'll figure something out." Enrique nodded adjusting his hem as he got his thoughts in order.

  "I'm going to go check with Logan and see how things are going in engineering, he may have the shields overhauled," Irons said straightening and pitching his voice so it would carry to the staff. "I'll chat with you in a bit," he smiled as he turned to leave. "Admiral..." He turned back. The exec cleared his throat. "...thanks." Irons smiled and nodded.

  "We'll get through this." He nodded to several of the staff then exited ops. "Wanna take bets it's already all over the station?" he asked.

  "No need, one of the communications techs put it up on the gossip page. It's already hit the grapevine. I give it a half hour before it hits Knox," Sprite reported. He grimaced. The last thing they needed was a panic. They'd just gotten over the last crisis.

  "You realize we're going to have panic right? We're a sitting duck," Sprite warned him. He grunted.

  "Yeah, I gathered that. I was trying to make that point to the exec but I was too late." He sighed again. "Can you censor that blog? Or tell the exec to relieve that motor mouth so he doesn't cause any more panic than needed?" He looked up to the ceiling. "I'm sending him a note now. Crap, Smithy got it first," Sprite said. "Fireworks in Ops has commenced." The AI brought up a security feed but he waved it off.

  "Their problem. I'm not going to make it mine unless it gets out of hand." He shook his head and turned to the doors. "Brief Logan and Shelby. I think we need to look into the station's defenses and then look into building some offensive punch. Hopefully we have time," he said darkly.

  "Well, the good news is if they are raiding a planet then they may take their time there. It's not like we can run far," the AI responded.

  He groaned. "Way to motivate someone." He shook his head.

  "Admiral we have five different situations here, one it is a false alarm. Two the yacht is a pirate. Three it is a single ship preying on other ships. Four it is a raiding group, and they will go back to their base to unload, or five..."

  "They finish digesting on the go and then head straight here. Lovely. I know pirates are still around, we ran into them on Io when they picked us up, but this has a different odor to it," Irons finished as the doors opened onto a group of anxious people. He stiffened.

  "And here we go!" Sprite sounded both amused and annoyed.

  "Folks go about your business. There will be an announcement and call for volunteers later." He held up his hands as the babble of voices began to grow. "I SAID!" He straightened as the babble cut off suddenly. "Go about your business people, we will announce something as soon as we have more information. Let's not panic folks, we don't need it right now. Go about your duties We will get to the bottom of the situation and let you all know." He nodded to them.

  "We're working on the station's defenses now and we're going to do more as soon as we know more. Now, get moving folks." He waved. After a moment the crowd reluctantly dispersed. He stepped out of the car and nodded to Shelby standing nearby. "Thanks. Saved me the trouble." She shook her head. "Lemmings, whatever they are." She exhaled noisily in disgust. He chuckled. "One of dad's sayings." She explained.

  "I bet. Lemmings were Earth rodents that would periodically jump off cliffs and swim out to sea and drown... or so the myth says." He shr
ugged. She eyed him. "It means people following blindly. Completely without thinking. Just following others. Not really applicable to this situation. I prefer... Chickens with their heads cut off." He smiled at her as they started down the corridor.

  "Chickens? Apt. We still have some of those," She chuckled. "I'll have to remember that one." She smiled. "We're really in deep aren't we?" she asked quietly after she made sure no one else was in ear shot.

  "Maybe, maybe not. We'll know more when we get more. For now the best we can do is dig in and keep a level head. If they.." he pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the lifts, "see a sign of us panicking or fear, it will ricochet all through the station and we'll be in a world of crap. It will make the riots during the last crisis look tame," he said equally soft but firm.

  "I'm going to check in with your dad and see how he's doing with the shield overhaul. Hopefully he has some good news." He nodded to a pair of techs as they passed.

  "Fat chance, we've got partial shields but..." He looked at her. She grimaced. "Right, negativity. I'll go check on the reactors." She walked off. He sighed again.

  "Admiral are you here to salvage the Firefly?" the exec asked looking at him curiously. He had taken a quick look around before the exec had called another conference.

  "Firefly?" The Admiral turned trying to buy time.

  Sprite pulled up a ship listing and began scrolling it. She had several hits, but crossed them out for different reasons. After a moment she came up empty. "I'm coming up empty," he looked at Logan.

  Logan smiled. "She's after your time Admiral, She's a Resolution class heavy cruiser." The Admiral nodded in sudden understanding.

  "I was on the development board for her." He turned to the exec who looked surprised.

  "You... okay, that's new. But as I was saying. Firefly? Are you going to salvage the ship? Is that why you are here?" he asked suddenly intense.

  "I'm really not sure. This is the first I heard of it." Sprite scrolled through the derelict ship list Io's captain had given them but again came up blank.

  "No reason you should. She was hammered hard in the war. She limped here and crossed the hyper threshold about two hundred million kilometers out beyond the Oort cloud. She was totally out of fuel." Logan shook his head. "She had had it. Most of her crew was dead. Acting Captain took the remaining crew off in her last pinnace. They just made it to an Oort cloud outpost before they ran out of life support." Logan looked away for a moment. "That was around seven hundred years ago. She's been drifting ever since." He sighed.

  "So others have tried to salvage her?" the Admiral asked. "I'm surprised the captain didn't." Horatio shook his head.

  "The Port Admiral of the time tried to get him to, but he refused. She was torn up he said. A transport came through and picked up the remaining crew a few months later," the exec explained.

  Logan nodded. "Didn't stop the Port Admiral though. He tried to send a salvage team but the ship's AI had managed to cobble together a few solar cells on the hull for power. It used them to take out the salvage tug after warning them off. His pissant clone tried to get me to go forty years ago but I refused." Logan shrugged.

  "The ship won’t let anyone on her without proper ID?" the Admiral asked amused. Logan smiled. The exec looked annoyed. "I'm surprised the ship didn't self destruct," the Admiral mused.

  "No power for the fusion or antimatter reactors. She's got power in her capacitors, but even her destruct packs need a jolt to fire. Her old captain didn't set scuttling charges, he wanted to salvage her as well. I guess high command or what was left of it wrote her off." Logan shook his head.

  "Well, we'll have to see about that won't we?" The Admiral sat back with a smile. "If we really do have a pirate problem, she's our best bet for fighting them off. If we can salvage a few of these other derelicts..." He tapped the holo emitter and pulled up a star map.

  "According to the records I have, twelve ships have drifted out of the system and into the void. We don't have the time or resources to chase them down." Their blinking icons faded then went out. "That leaves these here, and these here." He pointed. "This system has a lot of derelicts." He shook his head.

  "You don't know the half of it. With the habitable planet destroyed early in the war, some came here to salvage what they could, or to escape the war. Many were chewed up by the minefields and belts." Logan shook his head. "Also, we have several ships that were here for centuries like this battleship." He pointed to it. "She's old. Battered into a wreck, She's been stripped twice and left to drift. She should have been sun scuttled after the last time they visited but someone talked them out of it, wanted to turn her into a floating museum." Logan shrugged. Irons nodded.

  "These two are a no go Admiral." He pointed to two blips. Sprite automatically listed them then pulled up what limited data she had.

  "A freighter and a passenger liner? Why?" Irons turned to Logan but the old man’s haunted eyes told him it was bad.

  "Ghost ships. The Breslau has a hive virus on board. The White Star had an insane AI. She went psychotic and killed her entire crew. Dad wanted to scuttle her when she came close but he didn't have enough delta V," Shelby explained. Horatio shivered then shook his head. The Admiral nodded feeling a shiver of his own. Ghost ships were something every spacer dreaded.

  "Could White Star have been sabotaged?" the exec asked.

  Logan shrugged. "Maybe. But I for one am not going on her. Not with an insane AI. She's liable to do anything or play possum till she's fixed then go psycho again. Not worth it. Besides she's a liner. We need warships." He shrugged. The exec nodded.

  "Right so, out of two hundred derelicts, we've got what ten, maybe eleven possibles?" He pointed to the blue icons. The Admiral nodded. "Good place to start. I think Firefly is our best bet however. She's the largest and most modern of the group. The trick is getting to her." He sighed.

  "And getting aboard," the exec replied.

  "Oh, getting her to listen will be tough, but we can handle it," the Admiral smiled at Logan who smiled back then nodded.

  "Better you than me Admiral, she may have an officer lock." Irons studied the old man. There wasn't a hint of fear or doubt, just sincerity.

  "Right. I'm on the lost list though, It's going to take a bit of fancy footwork to get her to listen without turning us into debris..." he answered, rubbing his jaw in thought.

  "I'll handle it Admiral," Sprite answered. He nodded.

  "Right, so first step, we need to get to her with enough materials to get her in system for repairs. While we're working on that, we're going to need to continue station repairs, the educational workshops, gas giant mining, volunteers for the ship, parts for her, and the diplomatic efforts..." the Admiral started to list some of the projects and they began debating them in earnest.

  "Can you give me more information on this yacht?" Irons asked as he waited in the office. Logan was in a meeting and he was reluctant to break into it and undermine his authority.

  "She's named the Carib Queen. I assume she is civilian since she isn't in my military registry files," Sprite sounded testy. "Most likely a star yacht," she finished.

  "Check with Smithy. See if the ship docked here before." He turned to check the status of reactor four.

  "Ahem, I have it," Sprite said after a moment. "You were right, she's a regular here. A star yacht like I said, Debonair class out of the Norway yards. She's a three hundred series, from the dock imagery Smithy sent me she's got a fair hyper drive. Most likely a class two or three. Layout is for luxury, I would estimate the crew at around eighty, with passenger space for another one hundred to two hundred depending on their destination and how much cabin space they set aside for each."

  Sprite brought up the various security video files then extrapolated a 3D model. "Based on past experience her Captain is a Captain Mayweather. Not one to be frightened easily. Then again all I have is negotiation files to go off of." She fast forwarded through a meeting until he waved it away.

  "I need t
o concentrate here." He looked at the view port as the video blinked out. "Sorry, just trying to be thorough," Sprite apologized.

  "Scan it on your own and give me the highlights later. I need to think. We're going to need a ship, possibly more than one. That rumor about Firefly is our best bet." He sighed. It was one hell of a long shot. Then again, if it paid off it would be a spectacular addition.

  "Can we get within range of her?" Sprite asked.

  “Getting attached to my hide?" Irons teased.

  "Something like that, since I happen to be occupying it too at the moment," Sprite answered. "You think the Launch is our best bet? Firefly is reported to be across the system from us. It's not ready, and doesn't have the range. We'd have to hitch a ride," Sprite reported. She pulled up a map of the system and highlighted the probable last known position of Firefly and then overlaid the range of the launch from Anvil. It fell short.

  "Even the Valdez tugs can't reach it." The AI laid another line showing how far the tugs could push the launch. "If we ran them in series we might, but it would be a one way trip for one of the tugs." She ran that plan and he shrugged it off.

  "Yeah, I get it. SO we need a longer range craft. A full system tug or pinnace." He exhaled trying to think.

  "I'll look into it and get back to you," Sprite said as the door opened. Logan came in and tossed his cane in the corner.

  "I see you've heard Admiral, if you're here to ask about the shields..." Logan shook his head wearily. "Won't stop an angry gnat for long, we just don't have the materials." Logan sighed as he tapped the replicator. "Coffee? Or do you want something stronger?" he asked.

  "No... On second thought, yes, Coffee, I think it's going to be one of those days," Irons replied. Logan gave him a knowing look and widening smile.

  "Yeah, it looks that way," he chuckled. "Wanna bet the rats will try deserting on the ship first chance they get?" He pointed up to the ceiling as he handed the Admiral the steaming mug. Irons chuckled.