New Dawn (Wandering Engineer)

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New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) Page 18

by Hechtl, Chris


  He shook his head, letting it wash off. "Call coming in, guess who?" Sprite asked.

  He chuckled. "No bets. Put it through," he said. The moral officer's nasally whine started in right away.

  "Admiral, I seem to be having trouble with my computer..." The purser cut in as well with a similar complaint.

  "Ladies please! I'm very busy; we have a lot scheduled over the next month until breakout. Now, I will schedule your repairs for... a week from now." He hid a smile from the nearby techs at their screech of indignation.

  "A week!!" The purser almost shrieked.

  "Well, since I had to take time from my busy schedule for that date you arranged, I've fallen behind on other duties, so it's going to take time to get things sorted out...and since neither of your systems are a priority, they can wait," he left an edge to that last bit. He waited as he heard them breath.

  "Fine," the purser snarled.

  "I'll talk to the Captain; maybe we can get alternate space..." The moral officer said.

  "Oh, no, sorry, maybe a minimum site, but storage space is limited now, we are in hyper and the computers need all their resources to stay on course... you don't want us hitting anything right?" he asked. They both exclaimed no.

  He smiled. "Well then ladies, I'll see you in a week," he said.

  Sprite cut the connection. "Think they'll figure it out?"

  He shrugged. "Don't know, don't care." He pulled a panel. "It should keep them out of my hair for a little while though..." he said as he started tracing control runs.

  "So, what build are you on?" he asked as he checked Sprite's status report.

  "four point three as you well know. This current mess will probably make me spawn a new patch and reincarnation soon," she sighed. "Just what I need." Sprite was a smart AI, but her limited space meant she actually dreaded evolving. He chuckled. "I've had to clone some of my code for the ship's AI and network. I'm not a code slicer though; I don't have your organics imagination. I will put up a report for you to view," she said all business. An icon blinked in his mail queue.

  He nodded. "Okay."

  "Got any ideas on how to pay back the purser and moral officer for the date from Hades?" Sprite asked.

  He chuckled. "Oh yes, in fact I do, all this water has given me some ideas..." he chuckled evilly. Sprite's virtual image blinked. "I detest your wicked ways... let’s hear it!" she smirked.

  So did he...”Well I was thinking dunk tank..."

  "So, since the crew is in such a need of a moral building effort, I thought it best that we have a bit of a fair, with the two of you serving in the dunk tank," he said as he laid out his plan to the staff.

  The moral officer and purser blinked. "A fair sounds good...wait, dunk tank? Out of the question!" the purser said.

  He smiled. "You do owe me remember?" he dropped his voice into a purr. They blinked again.

  "But but...” Vanessa sputtered.

  His smile became wicked. "And of course the Captain has already approved it. In fact she will be the first one to throw a ball..."

  The moral officer visibly deflated. "Great. Just great," she muttered then glared. "I suppose you think this is revenge?" she demanded.

  He smiled and spread his hands apart. "Well, idle hands do make for a devil's playground...or so I hear. Since you two are so hell bent on managing my schedule and trying to turn me into a gigolo, I thought I would...extract a penance," he smiled.

  The purser glared but couldn't hold it as his cool commanding gaze fell on her. "You have to pay for your pleasures," he said reminding her. She flinched. Capitalism was her stock in trade. "I'll let you know the details later," he said. He waved as he left the compartment.

  "That was evil," Tara said behind him.

  He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "You think?" She chuckled softly. "Paybacks a bitch..." he said softly.

  "Hi, uh doc, can we get implants too?" The doctor looked up startled at the girls flocking around him in his office.

  Jennie came in behind them. "What'd I miss?" she asked, noting the taboo.

  “Why would you want implants? Wouldn't they hurt?" Mindy asked, bouncing up and leaning over to stare into Trish's eyes.

  Trish shrugged. "I don't know that, but they seem to help the Admiral do a lot." She looked over to her two companions who nodded. "I think... I mean..." She shrugged helplessly.

  The doctor shook his head. “Even if I could, I wouldn't cut off perfectly healthy limbs,” he said firmly.

  The girls looked crestfallen. “Thanks for the honest answer,” Jen replied, ushering the girls out.

  “Hey there's a problem with power on deck three,” a tech reported. The girl looked up and glared at the ops officer. She didn't look up.

  “What seems to be the problem?” the Captain asked.

  “Someone didn't balance the loads right,” Nexi reported, making a significant emphasis on someone.

  The Captain cocked an eyebrow, and then turned to the ops officer. “Kendra?” Kendra didn't respond. The com officer reached over and slapped her shoulder.

  “Ow! What!” she growled and looked over irritably. “What do you want?” she glared.

  The comm officer looked over her counter to the display. “Instant messaging and mail?” the comm officer asked. Kendra glared.

  The Captain cleared her throat. “Kendra. What is going on with the power?” The girl looked down and then grimaced. She checked and gasped.

  “Oh sorry,” she said chastened.

  The Captain sighed. “All right, new rule, no checking your mail or messaging on duty unless it's duty related.” The girls turned and looked at the Captain. Several made motions to protest. She gripped her armrests and leaned forward. “Is that clear?” she put vitriol in that last statement. The girls nodded hastily and returned to work.

  “Way to go Kendra,” someone hissed.

  "I still don't see why you haven't fixed the weapons," the Chief snarled.

  He gave her a look. "I can't. You’re a civilian ship remember?"

  She shrugged. "So? What does that have to do with it?" He sighed patiently.

  "I can't give civilians weapons or classified technology, it's against the law," he explained. He turned to the open panel and leaned in, clipping leads to the wiring inside. He heard her say something, but waited to come out. "What was that?" he asked politely.

  "I said, there is no law, the Federation is dead," she was smug when she said it, almost calculating the hurt it would inflict he thought.

  He gave her a cool look. "The Federation is not dead, not so long as I live," he said softly.

  He could hear the dance music down the corridor. One of the guards looked nonplussed; another interested, but then sighed. "I'm on duty damn it," she muttered under her breath.

  He shook his head. "I have to fix the head over here and it's tight quarters. I would suggest one of you stand outside, it's going to be a while though," he said and waved.

  The girls looked at each other. The girl who wanted to check out the party gave the other an imploring look. The other sighed. "Go."

  She turned and put her back to the wall by the head hatch. The Admiral flicked the occupied sign on, and then entered as he heard the girl's "YES!" and quick steps away.

  He chuckled. "Admiral, is that wise? To encourage dereliction of duty?" Sprite asked.

  He shrugged. "They're civilians. Besides, the less audience, the better," he replied. He looked the room over, and then set in to work.

  He finished early, but instead of coming out he sat on the toilet seat and accessed the ship's net via his wireless LAN. "So, how are things going? His first act was to check the ship's status. Even though he wasn't in charge some habits were hard to break. He had no intentions to break that one of course. "Everything is going well Admiral, I have recompiled the deck one systems and I have them defragging their idle systems now," Sprite reported.

  She projected a network map on his HUD. There were dozens of geometric shapes, each interconnected
with lines of various colors. He knew from previous experience blackened nodes and lines were lines out of contact or dead. Nearly half the net was still down; it was a testament to the crew and the designers of the ship that it could still fly.

  "You, yes you!" a familiar voice snarled. He turned to see the purser striding up to him. She was scowling. "Did you have to take all of it?" she demanded. He caught a glint of teeth out of the corner of his eye; one of the guards was smiling. "Sure, take the shipment meant for the Senka colony, it isn't like we are going back there with that pirate around, but you took all the metal ore stockpiled!" she flung her hands up in the air, waving them around.

  "Now we don't have anything to trade for!" she said. She waved at the tablet with the back of her hand. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to get goods to trade?" He cocked his head.

  "Well, you..."

  "I'm not finished!" She stomped her foot then ran her free hand through her hair. She took a deep breath. "Look, I know these repairs are nice, but we need goods to trade too! We're a trader get it?" He cocked his head.

  "You finished?" he asked when she wound down. Her eyes glittered. He held up a restraining hand.

  "No, you spoke your piece, my turn," that last part came out stern. Her eyes widened slightly. "You're right, we have been taking a lot of the ore, and most of the damaged or ruined parts on board. BUT," he held up a hand as she began to swell. "BUT we are about to replace it with asteroid ore," he said, letting that bombshell drop. It had it's intended effect of course. She let out her breath in a gush, eyes suddenly gleaming.

  "Also, we... meaning you," he bowed and motioned to her with his left hand. "Can offer replicator services to the colony when we get there. We can make parts for them, charging them for the services," he explained.

  She suddenly smiled catching on at last. The smile turned into a mischievous grin. "I like it. But what will we make the parts from?" she asked. She cocked her head. "And how much to charge?" she stared off at the bulkhead.

  "We can use some of the ore from the belt to start, and if you will take a suggestion..."

  She looked down at him again. "You could charge the weight of the part in the same amount of material, plus whatever cost you want to tack on for making it, power, transport, and such," he said.

  Her eyes gleamed. "I like it. Good idea." She turned, tossing her long hair back. "I'll just check with the Captain then see if we can call them and get a list of what they would like..." He waved.

  "Good luck!" he called. He turned to see the smirking guards. Their faces froze, and then turned into a poker face. A few of the techs looked up and smiled. "All right ladies, I believe we have a class to get too..."

  "We'll be emerging from hyperspace in three... two.... one...NOW!" Shandra called exultantly. The forward screen rippled then flashed bright, then cleared with a vision of space.

  "Report," the Captain ordered looking over to the navigator's station.

  "Checking now," Shandra replied.

  The ops officer looked over her console then up to the Captain. "All systems are stable Captain," she reported. The Captain grunted.

  "First sensor reports in, no tachyon or neutrinos detected," the sensor tech said. She nodded.

  "And those are?" she asked as she sat back in her chair.

  "Oh, sorry Captain, they're FTL particles. Tachyons are used in communications; neutrinos are emitted by fusion reactors," the tech reported. "No recent plasma travel detected either Captain; the system is clean as far as we can see." She tapped out a sequence and the plot replaced the stars on the forward view screen.

  "We've jumped into the local jump point. I've plotted a course," Shandra said looking up. The course plot dotted out to the inhabited planet. "I've made a slight deviation so we can swing by the asteroid belt. It should only add a day to our transit time," she reported. She looked up to the Captain who nodded in approval.

  "Good work," she said. It would have taken them hours to do all that before. The girls looked relieved. "I understand the engineer wants to go rock hunting?" she asked.

  She turned to the ops officer who nodded. "Yes Captain, the engineer said we could feed the rock into the replicator to restock our supplies, and make new parts," she said. She was excited but a little dubious. The Captain grunted again.

  "We should be passing a small cluster of rocks off the starboard side in an hour Captain," Shandra said, and then looked up. "We could pick a few up to test things."

  The ops officer nodded enthusiastically. "Good idea! The sooner we get material, the sooner they can make parts to overhaul the systems," she grinned.

  The Captain nodded. "Make it so. I'll go check in with our shuttle pilots and make sure they're up for this," she ordered. Shandra nodded.

  “Syntia's world this is the Io 11 calling in,” Nexi looked over her board and frowned. “I know he said they fixed the communicator but come on...” She tapped in the controls.

  “Anything?” The Captain's gravelly voice cut into her muttering.

  “Nothing yet Captain.” She looked up and turned to face the Captain. “Wait, getting something,.” she said as she heard something on her earwig. Her hand went to her headset. She turned and tapped a control, then turned a retro stat. “Okay, I'm receiving a weak signal, it's the colony,” she sniffed in distaste. “Cheap junk.”

  The Captain chuckled softly. “And to think we had the same level of equipment last time we were here! I think we sold them that, what did you call it? Cheap junk?” she asked and then chuckled at the girls expression.

  Nexi blushed. “Sorry Captain.”

  “Oh don't worry, we won’t be here long. Syntia's colony is a dirt poor agro world; they just started digging themselves out of the caves they were living in,” she said. She shook her head.

  “It must really suck to be stuck ground side,” Lessa commented, running her hand through her hair.

  “Yes, well, I can just imagine them toiling in the soil, looking up and wondering what life is like up here,” the captain said and then smiled. “It isn't all tea and biscuits you know,” she said.

  The steward opened the door and came out bearing a tray. “Well, sometimes it is,” the Captain chuckled, taking the proffered cup and leaning back.

  "Subspace impulse engines, the hyperdrive, weapons, Shield nodes, the hull, and the reactors are the only major systems we haven't overhauled," Molly reported. She gave a reluctant shrug. "Of course that's hard to do when they're in use. We'll do what we can while in orbit Captain."

  The Captain nodded sagely. "We should be there for a week. Does that sound about right?" She turned to the purser who nodded.

  "Negotiations should be completed the first day, it's transporting the materials to the space port and to and from the ship that'll take up the time."

  She nodded to the pilot. The pilot smiled. "We've made a start at overhauling the shuttle, and the engineer," She waved to him. "Has even repaired the second cargo shuttle," she said sounding happy. The purser looked up with interest.

  Molly nodded excited. "We can move a lot more goods Captain, in a lot less time."

  "What's up?" Jennie asked as the engineer pulled his skin suit out of his bag.

  "What are you doing with that?" the guard asked.

  "Okay ladies, I'm going out there," he pointed to the airlock. "I'm going to go to the port side and see if I can fix the rip in the Port fuel tank." He stepped behind a wall to change into the suit. "You can come with me if you want; there are two pairs of skin suits in the locker over by the airlock," he said. The guard pulled out her communicator and stepped aside so she could talk.

  "I'm going," Jennie said, from the tone of her voice she sounded excited.

  The guard followed him out the lock. "Go slow; remember what I told you before. Get a hand hold and lock in your safety line there," he cautioned and then pointed. She fumbled the clip, and then got it attached. She turned fast to look around. "Easy!" She over compensated and began to spin. Her spin sent her into a
tumble, her tether unwinding as she moved away from the craft. She started panting in her suit over the comm.

  "You're okay, you just moved a little too fast. Grab the line and pull yourself in." He reached her line and began to pull her line. "You feel that? That's me, I'm pulling you in." He switched channels. "Jennie, we have a little hiccup here, wait a few minutes," he called in.

  "What? What happened?" she asked suddenly. He sighed.

  "Just a minor control issue."

  The guard began to gibber a little. "It's so big, so black, I can't stand it, I can't...I gotta get in..." her voice took on a hysterical edge.

  He pulled her to him, and then grabbed her arm. "Easy girl, you feel me there?"

  She began to thrash, screaming in panic. Jennie called over the radio demanding to know what was going on. The guard thrashed, slamming the tool kit into his side. He felt the suit try to absorb the shock, but gasped as the energy momentarily paralyzed his diaphragm. Sprite sent an electric surge to the muscles and dumped O2 from his reserves directly into his blood stream. "Easy now, I gotcha, I gotcha." The woman was sobbing now, shaking in the suit. "Close your eyes now." He pulled her to face the airlock hatch. She thrashed a bit more.

  “I can't breathe!” she gasped. He could hear her ragged panting. He knew from experience her hysteria had induced hyperventilation, breathing so hard her body couldn't absorb oxygen.

  “Just calm down, you're panicking. Calm your breathing, listen to my voice. AND STOP THRASHING,” the last came out as a bark after her flailing fist struck his helmet.

  "Oh my Goddess!" the guard said, and then locked up into a catatonic state. He took a look and then checked her stats. She was catatonic all right, sensory overload, and air deprivation. He pulled her back into the airlock.

  The lock cycled and Jennie gasped as the door opened. "What happened what's wrong?" she demanded. He pulled the guard out, and Jennie noting her flaccid state lent a hand.

 

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