"So why bother doing it?"
Molly looked over to the engineer. He nodded to her. "Because it's important. Eventually the supports will fail without repair, most likely when the ship is under thrust," Molly replied. Shandra and the pilot turned pale.
"Not good," Shandra sucked in a breath.
"Bad," the pilot added.
"Did any of the engineering staff get some downtime?" the purser asked.
The moral officer looked up. She checked her notes for a moment. "Now that you mention it...not many, maybe one or two," she said. She drawled looking over to Molly and the others. "Didn't want to see the sites?"
Molly looked over a little bleary. "Huh?" she asked stupidly. The Admiral flipped his hand.
"We had a heavy schedule in a short time window. We managed to get a lot accomplished in that time," Irons said. Jennie leaned back and pursed her lips. "But not as much as I was hoping," he said. Molly gushed a sigh and nodded. "Small steps remember."
"We can get into Beta band now Captain," he finished. He turned and nodded to her.
Shandra smiled. "That means we'll be at our next port ten times faster!"
The purser looked startled. "Really?"
Shandra and the ops officer nodded enthusiastically, grinning. "We'll get as many parts replicated for the next time in subspace as we can in the meantime," Molly said, nodding to the Admiral.
"Actually, you three and your teams are going to get some rest," the Captain gave the trio a long look.
"Oh but Captain, there's so much to do!" Molly protested.
"But me no buts, you all need some downtime. One full rotation," the captain ordered. She locked eyes with each of them One by one until they reluctantly nodded. "I think the people who got some downtime can cover for you while you rest," the captain said. Jennie tried to stifle a yawn. "See, you do need rest." The moral officer looked concerned.
"I remember an old saying; Rome wasn't built in a day," the purser commented, smiling.
Molly slumped. "Aye aye." The Captain snorted.
"Captain, we're ready for transit," Shandra looked at her station then over to the Captain. She was nervous, but the Captain just nodded sagely. "All right, let’s go." She had just the right amount of excitement in her voice she judged. She knew she needed to project confidence, the poor girl was nervous enough as it is. Shandra gave the ops tech a smile and hit the button.
The field in front began to elongate, and then flash as they entered hyper. "Alpha band, transiting ....C......D...E...F....G....A.....B.... Here we go! Beta band threshold," Shandra said. They had flashed through Alpha remarkably fast. Usually each transition took hours! The ship trembled with turbulence. "Adjusting...got it." The ride smoothed.
"Breakthrough! We're in the Beta band!" Shandra grinned as she checked the readouts.
"Power supply is steady. I see what he meant about the threshold, the reserve dipped a lot!" Kendra the ops officer pulled up the display.
"Should we back off?" the Captain asked concerned.
"No, I was just observing Captain," the girl blushed. “Energy reserves returning to normal now.”
The Captain noticed that a lot of the crew now sported cut down uniforms or in the case of the engineering staff, coveralls. They still had their own touches, Shandra for instance had a red scarf around her neck, but the uniforms were becoming more and more prevalent.
"All right, let’s see what she can do," she murmured. She tapped her hand on the display. It lit and she looked down in surprise. A hologram appeared in front of her.
"Yes? Oh! It’s you Captain!" Molly grinned. "Enjoying the speed?"
The Captain cleared her throat. "I was just checking in, how are things going down there?" she wasn't about to admit it had been an accident. Molly didn't notice.
"We're doing great Captain! We'll be at the next colony in a tenth of the time at this rate! And we're using less power to boot!" She grinned.
The Captain nodded. "But I thought we're using more power to get into hyper?" she asked. She looked over to Shandra.
"To get in we are Captain, but we're picking up more particles with the bussard scoops too. Also we're in hyper for less time, so we of course save energy in the long run," the navigator explained.
The Captain nodded. "That's good to hear," she said. She waved to Molly who was looking down at her console. "Molly, how soon can we get into the Gamma bands?" Molly looked up and adjusted her glasses.
"Well we just got here; we'll need to run a full ship wide diagnostic to make sure there aren't any bugs." She was flicking through the reports. "I'm more concerned about the power and the stress on the frame from those vibrations... We'll need to check things out to make sure we didn't pop a seal somewhere. I really can't recommend it this trip Captain," she said sounding a little disappointed.
The Captain nodded. "Get to it then," her gravelly voice cleared. She looked down and closed the channel. "So, he kept his word," she murmured.
"Is that what I think it is?" he pointed to a purple and yellow four legged monstrosity running down the corridor. It jumped over a knee knocker then darted to the right down another passage.
The nurse came around in pursuit, holding a pair of electric sheers. "Sorry, excuse me have you seen Mister Whiskers?" she asked. He pointed to the left. "Oh thank you," she said, running off giggling. Tara sighed. "I feel sorry for that cat."
He nodded. "Me too."
She snorted. "Glad you told her the wrong way. You’re all right." He gave a small smile over his shoulder.
"I'm a sucker for a lost cause," he said. Jennie giggled.
"Um mister engineer sir?" He turned to the red headed Dorah. The girl was fourteen or fifteen, with long flowing red hair. She was a bit of an air head and hung out with Mindy.
"Yes?"
She tapped the tips of her fingers together. "Um, I was wondering, could you show me your implants again?" she gushed. He grunted.
His sensors could pick up other girls peeking around the corners. "Okay." He looked up to them and suppressed a smile as one of them ducked out of sight. "Sure. If you ladies would like to see as well why don't you come out?" he projected to them. Almost reluctantly a few came out, then a torrent of eager techs. He chuckled softly.
"All right now, when I was injured the first time, I received an artificial eye.” He pointed to his eye and made it dilate in and out, and even turn into a slit. The group oohed and ahed. "Later, my right arm, side and legs were injured." He flexed his right hand, and then rolled up the coverall's sleeve. "These are my tools." He flicked the commands one by one to deploy different tools from the forearms.
"They can do various things," he said. He spread his fingers wide. "Each of my fingers can morph into a set of tools too." He started with the index finger, morphing it into a welder, multi tester, plasma torch. Then his middle finger turned into a set of pliers, wire cutter, and then back. "My ring finger turns into a port so I can jack into computers," he said. The finger turned into a jack, then back. He held his hand up.
"Neat huh?" Some of them looked shocked. "I have some other implants as well, stuff to help me breath better, hear better, and even artificial organs," he explained.
Mindy looked up at this. "Like lungs and stuff?"
He snorted. "Yes, I have one cyborg lung, and one kidney. Also implants in various organs so I can consciously monitor or control them."
A pixie blue haired girl bounced up and down. "Why?" she asked. He smiled.
"So I can handle different environments and so I can keep from getting hurt again," he said. She nodded. "Now, I have to get some more work done, why don't you ladies check in with the moral officer, see if she can pull up some information on cyborg implants for you to look over?" he asked them politely but firmly. A few awed in disappointment, but most started to turn and walk away. He smiled at Dorah. "They put you up to it?" he asked.
She gave him her best innocent look. He snorted. "Get along little lady." She scampered with the rest, skipping with
Mindy.
"Are you going to see the game tonight?" a guard asked another as he worked nearby.
The Admiral paused to listen. "Game?" he sub vocalized to Sprite.
"There's a weekly null g handball game scheduled tonight at 1700," she replied. He nodded.
The women walked by his ladder. "Do you think the Chief's team will win again?"
It took a moment to pull his attention back onto his current work. Rerouting plasma conduits was a dangerous job, one he really needed to focus on with his full attention. He felt a bump on his ladder. "Oh, excuse me. Sorry," she said again. He ground his teeth.
"Perhaps this job could be tabled until the crew is occupied or asleep?" Proteus commented, noting his rising anxiety levels. "If that had happened while you were doing delicate work...." the AI left the sentence hanging. He grimaced.
"Good point," he growled. He climbed down the ladder and took a look around. The guards were on either end of the corridor. "Pack it in ladies; we will come back to it when there are fewer interruptions." One of the women scowled, but the other nodded as she dodged a trio of women jogging. "Good idea," she said.
The gravity plate in the corridor was good; it just had the power lines disconnected. He fitted the connector together and heard a sigh behind him. The guards weren't too happy about being here, away from the game. That had been the third long sigh, and the grumbling was going to start soon.
He watched his sensor feed as the plate powered up and ran post. It found a fault, but he got up anyway. He went over to the bulkhead communication's panel and turned it on. He flipped through the channels for a moment. "Sprite, give me the camera feeds for the game here," he sub vocalized. The LCD screen split into quarters and the game from different views came up. One of the images was upside down and a bit snowy from interference or damage.
"Compensating. Best I can do Admiral," she said after a minute.
The sound came up as the last camera image flipped. One of the guards looked up and over to him. "What are you doing?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Might as well check the game out while the computer boots." He went over and checked the gravity plate. He was amused to see the guards edging over so they could get a look at the screen. One of them clenched her fist, shaking it a bit, obviously suppressing a cheer. He smirked, problem solved.
A few minutes with the tester and he set it down. He disconnected the power line and made a note in his log. "All right, this panel's computer is broken. The ram is showing a fault and it looks like a hardware issue. Going to have to replace it."
He looked up and snorted. The guards weren't paying attention to him; they were both glued to the game. One of them glanced over. "Huh? Oh, okay," she said. She gave him a look, and then reluctantly tried to keep her attention on him.
He shrugged. "Since I can't get this done, I'm going to go fix that plasma conduit, then that water leak in the deck three wardroom," he said. He gathered his tool kit, replaced the deck's floor panel and looked up. "You coming?"
"Yeah, in a sec." one guard said, distractedly "Go on, get it in there...YEAH! SCORE!" They patted each other on the back. One of them thumbed the panel off and indicated him. They practically jogged to the work site, and then the moment he set up they turned the panel on.
“How did you get that channel?” one of them asked, looking over his shoulder to him.
“One moment.” He stepped down from the ladder and over to the display. “Select camera views, then game,” he said, glad Sprite was ahead of him and putting the directions on his HUD for him. He clicked each, and the game came up.
“What about sound?” the other asked.
“Oh, that's because someone played with the volume,” he replied. He clicked mute and the sounds blasted at full volume. “Oops!” He hastily flicked the volume control down. “There, that's better,” he said. The guards sighed in relief, looking around guiltily. There was some action on the display, one politely elbowed him aside. He chuckled and went back to work.
Chapter 7
There was a weird sound from the compartment next door. He could hear whimpering, and scrapping. He checked it out, and found a trio of Chihuahua dogs in the compartment. The moment they saw him they began to yap. "Oh it's you!" He looked over to Dorah. "Aren't they cute?" she asked. She petted one of the little yappers. It stopped and sniffed her over, then turned and glared at him.
"Oh just adorable." He said with sarcasm.
"The Captain picked them up on a station. She's hoping to breed them and sell them to other colonies." Jennie came in. "I doubt it'll work, you can't get anything out of them, they're just yapping manure makers," she grumbled as she stepped around them. One of them bit at her pant leg. "LET go!" she jerked her leg, and the little runt let go with a cough.
"Great, see you made him cough!" Dorah cuddled the dog. "HIM? Look what he did to my pants!" Jennie snarled. The engineer grabbed her elbow and escorted her out.
“So, you have dogs, cats... A regular traveling circus.” He commented to Jennie as they walked down the corridor. She reached up to a low support strut and ducked under it. “Huh? Oh the animals.” She sighed. “Yes, we have them, and a couple rabbits, goats, and a few pigs as well.” He looked behind her. She shrugged. “Remember, we trade with farm colonies. We take what we can get.” He nodded.
“Besides, the Captain said it helps them a little too.” He looked back, and then thought about it. “Breeding?” She nodded as he looked to her for conformation. “Yeah, she said on her first circuit she ran into another trade ship that told her about it. How it helps the colonies with their limited gene pool.” He smiled at her blush and turned around the next corner.
Sprite dodged a security bot, and then pulled out of the net. "Did you have to teach them computer security?" she grumped.
He smiled. "I only taught them a little to use the systems, why, run into trouble?" She sent a nasty buzz to his ear.
"Well, your students are getting better, I'll give them that. Almost got caught," she growled. He cocked his head.
"Well, if you do, tell them you're me."
She projected her face into the HUD, and then shook her head back and forth. "Won't work, no one is that stupid admiral," she replied.
He snorted. "Technically you're me, in a way; just don't get caught in the net when I'm not connected."
Her image pulsed, her version of a shrug. "May work. They're still new to computers," she finally admitted.
He looked around the empty compartment for a moment. “You could also set up a cloak so they won’t see you at all. Set it up so the system won’t show your presence.” He waited as she ran that through her program.
“That might work for a little while; I'm not sure for how long. If I'm discovered it could cause diplomatic problems later,” she said.
He nodded. “Like I said before, don't get caught. Get the back door set up.”
"I noted in the log that you're making software repairs while also making hardware repairs. How's this possible?" Molly asked.
He turned to Molly and smiled. "I multi task,” he said off the cuff. She had a blank look. "I can walk and chew gum at the same time."
"But how can you access the network if you’re not connected?" she asked. She looked confused.
"Well, there's a wireless network too," he drawled it out, stalling for time. "I can do minor software repairs on it, but if it takes a lot of concentration, or a password, I have to jack in," he explained. She nodded.
"Well, you understand the ship doesn't have a sentient AI right? When the ship was adrift the last act of the Captain was to lobotomize the ship's AI, and wipe the navigational database," he said.
She nodded. "That's why the Captain, I mean our Captain, had to upload a civilian navigation program," she said. He nodded. It was of course a lot more complicated than that but she didn't need to worry about it now.
"Yes, but the civilian versions aren't as effective as military grade, and aren't designed to be used with this hardware. A
lso, things have changed since the file was written eight hundred years ago."
Shandra bounced a bit. "Yes, there's stellar drift, not to mention all the damage from the war," she said, adding her two credits to the conversation.
Molly cocked her head, and then nodded. "Okay, but what about how the ship's computer is reacting now?" She pointed to the console. "It's running much better now, almost alive."
He smiled. "Well, for one thing we've been making repairs to a lot of the hardware." She grunted. "For another I've been cleaning out the viruses and reorganizing things. I've even cobbled together a ship's AI from the hard back up files and my own resources," he said.
Shandra shook her head. "I'm not sure if I like a smart computer."
He shrugged. "As we make repairs, they become necessary. The crew can't even begin to handle all the functions on this ship, there's too much to do, and a lot of it has to be done in microseconds, far faster than a human can handle."
Molly nodded. "That's right, like the hyperdrive! And the power cores! We can't balance them manually; we have to let the computer do it." She snapped her fingers and tapped her foot on the deck. Shandra rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I guess so."
“Admiral, what are you doing about the port engine feed? We still have a crimped fuel line in between frames A36 and A37.” He finished the weld then looked up.
“Hand me part 13j23e please,” he asked. Shandra looked confused. “The box next to you.”
She looked down. “Oh, Okay.” She handed it to him and he plugged it in then screwed it down to the deck.
“Okay, to answer your question, we may have to bypass the crimp as a temporary fix, then yank the crimped line and recycle it.”
She looked confused. “But we can't get to it.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it would mean pulling the entire hull section apart. The other method is to do the bypass, drain the old line, and then flood it with specialized micro robots.”
New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) Page 23