Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (100 page)

“He
couldn't use her anyway. Chad needs a stable hand there. She's more likely to
be exposed to the dark on a regular basis in the shuttle and workpod crews,”
Irons replied.

“A
bit of the hair of the dog that bit you Admiral?” Sprite asked.

“Maybe.
When she's stable and given a clean bill of health. Some people who have gone
Dutchman or can't handle it at first do eventually stabilize to become semi
functional in space. But I think a transfer is in order. You said she can
handle the book part of things?”

“Yes
Admiral.”

“Think
she can handle a maintenance billet?”

“If
she recovers sir,” Sergio nodded. “She's good with people.” He grimaced.

“It's
not your fault son,” Irons said. “It's no one's fault.”

“I
pushed her too hard,” he replied. “Too damn hard, too damn fast.”

“Better
to find out now than when it really counts. The last thing you or any of us
would have needed was a full bore panic attack during combat,” Sprite replied.

“Can
we get her a billet on a capital ship?”

“Unfortunately
none are available. We're full up,” Sprite reported. “Funny, I wasn't sure we'd
ever get there.” Her eyes flickered. She turned to the Admiral. “The doctor
reports she's stable and responding to the sonic treatment. Her heart has
extensive damage from the cardiac event. She'll need a week to recover.”

“All
right. See if we've got any maintenance billets available. Running a flight
wing's logistics group is the best she's going to get for now.”

“Or
in this case a shuttle and work pod wing,” Sprite replied. “Damocles has an
opening for a couple of postings if we let a couple people transfer who want to
get onto the Bismark or to the yard. Let’s see what she says when she's more...
coherent.”

“Right.”
Sergio nodded then paled a little. “Who tells her?” he asked.

“I
will if you want lieutenant,” Sprite replied.

“Thank
you ma'am but... I think it had better come from me,” Sergio said giving the
Admiral a look. “She deserves to hear it straight from me than from someone
else.”

“All
right. Have your yeoman cut the orders for transfer. Sprite will get it sorted
by the end of the watch.”

“Already
done,” Sprite said smugly. “Isn't it great to have people around who know what
they’re doing?”

“That's
one way of looking at it,” he nodded to Sergio. “How is the family doing?”

“Mama
is a bit put out now that we've relocated the modules to the shipyard core. She
thought we'd be last but the marines are since their class is a few weeks away
from graduation,” he shrugged.

“She'll
get over it. Or won’t,” Irons glanced at Sprite. “I think we can arrange some
leave time soon after the next training rotation.”

“Consider
it done,” Sprite said nodding.

“All
right then,” Irons nodded. “Carry on Lieutenant.”

Sergio
snapped to attention, saluted then left. Irons stared at the bulkhead for a
moment then sighed.

“He's
doing okay,” Sprite said softly. Her avatar sat down on the edge of his desk.
“This wasn't his fault.”

“Nope.
Wasn't my train of thought at all. Lajoy was what? First in her class?”

“Yes.
She's... Yes. One of the best of the new crop actually.”

“Pity,”
he grimaced. “How many does that make?”

“Current
fighter wing strength is... four squadrons with the current manning table. That
is if we ever get more than two fighter squadrons for them to man. Production
keeps falling behind when it is bumped for priority projects. They really need
their own factories and assembly centers.”

“We're
working on it. One thing at a time. Just remember, it's easier and cheaper to
fix things if they bang it up in a sim rather than in real life.”

Sprite
winced. “Point.” She shook her head. “About that all up exercise. I think Dan
needs some work on his relativity compensation. Perhaps a real world exercise
will help him put it into perspective?”

“We'll
see. He does still need work though.”

Logan
grinned with pride at the sight of the shipyard. In seven short months since
they started the project they had worked miracles. In another year things would
really begin to change and this would seem like baby steps.

He
chuckled at the thought. It was odd. A century of doing dead end work, nursing
elderly dying fusion reactors while trying to teach people how to make bricks
without straw or water. Now this.

“How's
it going?” Shelby asked, coming over to him. He turned and nodded politely to
his daughter. This was turning into a weekly or monthly thing, these meetings.
They were in a public viewing place so he couldn't hug her. Firefly was in dock
for a couple of days while she dropped off her latest asteroid captures and
picked up cargo and people going out.  “I heard we're laying new keels?”

“Yes.”
He looked back to the view port. Out there the Admiral was suited up. It was a
short ceremony for the cameras now that the word was out that for the first
time since the Xeno war someone was building a starship. “Prometheus, Hecate,
Farragut, and Kincaid,” he said pointing to the frame of each ship. Hecate was
ahead of the others in completion time. There had been some problems with
Farrgut and Kincaid that had slowed them down.

“Prometheus?”
Shelby asked, wrinkling her nose. “Odd name for a warship.”

“Greek
Titan of fire and forethought. Benefactor of man He brought fire from the
heavens to man but for his generosity the other gods punished him by torturing
him for the rest of eternity.”

“Again,
odd,” Shelby shook her head.

“She's
not a warship, she's a factory ship. Technically a Cabeiri Epsilon class tender
like Io 11. We're keeping Hephaestus thirty three here in Pyrax for a while.
The new governor elect insisted, despite thirty three being an inducted navy
vessel. The Admiral bowed to that demand for once. Something about diplomacy or
letting them think they won this round I think he said. So we, the navy that
is...” he turned to her with a smile which she returned, “...decided to send
out a different ambassador of our own. Prometheus will be that ambassador.
She'll be a small fully stocked factory ship, built along the same lines as the
Io 11. She'll go along the path the pirates took and try to fix up the colonies
and sort them out into a defensive line.”

“Isn't
that a little, ah dangerous?” Shelby asked, looking concerned. “She'll be a big
ripe target for the pirates all on her own.”

“Which
is why we're building the others. The others are escorts and a supply ship. Hecate
and Farragut are convoy escort frigate-corvettes. They are the first of four.
The other four will be follow ons we'll build time permitting as soon as these
are done and working up. I was hoping Prometheus was further along. I'd love
for her to be sitting there making stuff for us while doing her running up
exercises and waiting for the other ships to be finished,” he smiled. She
smiled back.

“Kincaid
is a supply ship with a bit of extra tankage to supply the fleet with fuel when
needed. All the ships are Federation navy, so we're building them from the keel
up with military grade gear and weapons.”

“That
is if we ever get her done,” Shelby said smiling and shaking her head. It
seemed like there were a thousand and one projects sprouting up all over the
system. Activity was frantic. Space was starting to get crowded. They had even
had to institute traffic rules last week to curtail the near accidents that had
been going on with some of the more fractious civilian pilots.

“Oh
we will,” her father turned back to the port. Robotic arms were already
bringing in parts from storage bays. An EVA tech and a robot guided them into
place then tacked the modules together. The carefully choreographed ballet was
moving into full swing as other workers started to pick up the pace.

“We
were having so many problems with repairing the Bismark that we went ahead with
these three while our designers and the Admiral go over her plans again and try
to iron out the problems.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.
Personally I'd rather we started with a Ninja class.”

“Ninja?”
she asked amused.

“It's
a small frigate-corvette. Tiny thing. Spy ship. Cloaking device, packed with
sensors and communications gear and little else,” he explained.

“Oh.”

“No
guns, just layers and layers of stealth. But that's the problem. We don't
happen to have the plans for a cloak, or the neutrino and tacheyon dampers, or
the special smart skin they have. Or the baffle designs for their engines. So,
that's out. For now.” He shook his head in annoyance.

“Yeah,”
Shelby said shaking her own head. It was just as well, she didn't think anyone
would want to try to sneak around a hostile system in a tiny unarmed floating
target.

“The
tricky part with this is coordinating everything. We need to keep things
flowing smoothly which means schedules and loads of planning ahead of time. We
don't want things to back up at one point for too long. We don't want crowding
but we also don't want people sitting idle waiting for parts. That ripples down
the line making a mess.” He shook his head. Already he spotted a few problems.
He started to call it in but he heard the radio traffic from the shift
supervisor. Zek was already on the problem.

“He's
a god send,” he murmured.

“Who?”
Shelby asked. She came over and nodded her chin as a work pod went by.

“Zek.
He's good. Very good. His knowledge of a shipyard's inner workings is just like
the Admiral's, but from a different perspective. He still wants a ship billet
though.”

“Ah.
Well, I can look into something on Firefly when we have an opening.” She shook
her head. She didn't want to give up her present chief engineer, he'd just
settled down into the job. “The way we're turning over people that won't be a
problem.” It felt odd, just as she would get used to people they would move on
to other posts, other opportunities. The Admiral was cycling people through
Firefly and the other units in the fleet quickly, getting them experience while
trying to keep their core crews intact to keep  day to day ship functions
stable.

“Nah,
I was thinking of sending him out on Prometheus. As chief engineer or XO. Have
to run it by the Admiral though. That is, when she's ready,” Logan said
smiling.

“Interesting.
Also an incentive for him to get her finished as soon as possible,” Shelby said
nodding. She turned her back to the view, crossed her arms and leaned against
the rail. “Are you going to send a medical contingent on this expedition?” she
asked.

“Come
to think of it, I don't remember much on that score. We've got a lot of
corpsmen, sick berth attendants, orderlies, assistant and full nurses, and
paramedics of varying degrees, but we've still only got a couple good doctors.
One of the sleepers was on track to become a nurse She's become one of
Thornby's best doctors with a bit of encouragement and prodding.”

“I
didn't know that. Where did you... never mind,” Shelby shook her head. Her
father tended to wander when he didn't have a project in front of him.

“Thornby
told me when she and I had lunch the other day,” he replied. She smiled.

“But
you mentioned medics,” Logan said looking thoughtful. He watched the ballet
outside for a few seconds as he accessed the files. “No, just the usual medical
personnel on each ship. Why?”

“I'd
suggest a much larger one. Maybe adding another ship if you could, or expanding
Kincaid,” Shelby said. “I seem to recall we had a lot of medical problems even
with Doc and her free clinics. Imagine what it's like out there,” she said
turning back to the view port.

“Come
to think of it, that's a very good idea. It would spark some good will,” Irons
said coming into the view port. They turned and came to attention.

“At
ease,” he nodded to them. Logan smiled. “Grooming your daughter to take over
for you again Horatio?” Irons teased. He was still in his skin suit.

“Hardly.
Handling this and the paperwork that goes with it? I'd rather be cleaning
toilets or fuel injectors. Anything is better than this... chaos.”

“It
only looks that way. On the ragged edge of chaos, but there is a method and
rhythm to it,” Irons said nodding to Logan. He nodded back turning to his
daughter.

“See,
we've got ships under refit on one side of the station, while this side has the
new construction. The refit side has its own traffic patterns, most of it is
bringing stores in to resupply the ships.”

“And
here you've got everything going in,” she said smiling.

“Well,
not exactly. Here we've got a series of chambers. Each chamber builds a sub
assembly then passes it along to the main dock to assemble together into the
vessel. Once she's got her basics done we move her to another docking slip to
do her final fitting out, testing and debugging while this one builds the next
ship.”