Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (58 page)

around
the compartment before it embedded into a hull plate. Boy did I get
reamed." He shook his head blushing. Irons chuckled.

"Right,
I bet your chief really took his time too right? Said something about how it
could have killed someone or destroyed the ship?" Irons asked.

Logan
nodded. "She."

Irons
laughed. "Yeah, it's worse somehow when you get reamed." He looked
around. “But you never ever forget it.”

"You
see there are different ways of teaching as well. Some learn best with
encouragement, discipline, and initiative. Others have to have someone standing
over them with a stick screaming."

Logan
grimaced. "I had a couple officers like that," he shuddered.
"Nasty." The bridge watch looked around to each other then nodded.

"Right
now we can't get a live fire exercise in, so we're playing sims."

"But
that sim wasn't realistic, I mean, we didn't see those ships in the Intel
feed!" Dan replied spreading his hands.

"What
if it was wrong?" Irons asked.

"Wrong?
I can't see how..." Dan said slowly.

"I
do. You mean if they didn't get it all, if a ship was occluded by a planet or
on the other side of the system," Harris answered looking over to Dan. Dan
nodded reluctantly.

"It's
always better to train as realistic as possible, and to throw as much at you as
you know, or better than what the enemy has. It's easier to expect trouble than
to fly in all fat dumb and happy and get torched." Irons locked eyes with
Harris.

Harris
flushed. "Right, my frontal charge. It really was stupid," he
muttered,  shoulders hunched. Irons nodded.

"Yeah,
I expect better. I'll get better right?" he ordered. Harris straightened
and nodded. "Right. That's all for this morning. Call the relief and get
some lunch, hot wash on the exercise at thirteen hundred. Be prepared for an in
depth critique," he smiled grimly. Janice gulped.

"I
don't see what you have to worry about, you weren't in the hot seat,"
Harris muttered to her as they left.

"You'd
be surprised," she muttered. "Some people can find fault with
anything you do." She shrugged.

Irons
waited until the new watch was settled then sat back in the captain's couch.
Logan sat across from him. "They're trying," he sighed. “They are
getting familiar with their implants and the ships systems.”

"I
know they are. And they are getting better. They know their families and
futures are riding on this, so I'm trying not to push too hard to fast. I don't
want to break morale," Irons replied. Logan nodded.

"Good
point, glad you've got that in mind. I'm going to check engineering, Shelby
should be done with her exercise too. Lunch?" he asked. Irons nodded.
"Works, I'll meet you in your wardroom Admiral." Logan left.

"They
really are getting better Admiral. That possum trick was sneaky," Firefly
said. Irons looked over to the AI avatar then smiled.

"Worked
didn't it?" he asked.

"That
it did. I'll keep it in mind when you’re in the hot seat," Firefly warned.
Irons laughed.

“I
don't see why we're here. I mean. It's well, redundant. A waste of time,” a
tech said, swiping the side of a graser with a hand. “The AI can do what we're
doing ten, hell a hundred times faster than we can dream even if we're linked
in,” she said grimacing.

Her
partner nodded then looked up as a shadow fell on them. His eyes widened and he
jumped to his feet. “Attention on deck!” he said.

The
woman turned irritably then her own eyes widened. Hastily she got to her feet.
“Sorry sir,” she mumbled.

“What
for?” Irons asked, nodding politely as he looked at the mount then around the
room. “Griping is a universal trait among soldiers, sailors, and civilians. We
just have a better handle on it than the civilians.” He smiled as he jacked
into the mount for a moment. He was making his rounds as they made their way to
the first set of derelicts. He  had set up a routine of checking things as the
crew shook down. It had been a week and they were still learning. But since all
of them were born spacers some things were going better then others.

“Yes
sir, ah, about what I was saying...” the woman started to say, face cheeks
flushed.

“The
reason is as you said redundant. That's the point actually,” he smiled looking
them over. “You see, yes an AI, and the sub computers in the mounts can do a
hell of a lot, and yes, a hell of a lot faster than us. But there is a limit on
the amount they can multitask at any given time. In a battle the ship's AI
needs all its mental resources to focus on the fight, not the individual sub
systems,” he waved to indicate the room.

“Also
if we have an engineering casualty or battle damage that knocks out our control
of the things from the bridge it's up to you the gun crews to manually do the
job. That's what we mean by local control. You have your own sensors and
systems so you can still see if the ship's sensor feeds are down. This way you
can still hit something.”

“Oh,”
the man nodded.

“Also...
well, some of these things are hinky,” Irons said as he rapidly scanned the
system read outs on his HUD. All seemed well.

“Hinky?”
the woman asked, turning. “Ah sir?” she added.

Irons
nodded. “Right. Hinky. As in prone to problems. Software problems, hardware
problems, targeting, you name it. Which is where you also come in. You’re the
people on the scene. You have to recognize the signs of a problem before they
come to fruition and knock them down so they don't endanger the mission or the
ship.”

“Problems
sir?” the man asked. Irons checked his IFF. His name was gunners third mate
Jeffery Talon. He smiled.

“Well,
for hardware there is always a hiccup to look out for and prevent.”

“Hiccup?”
the woman asked. He snorted.

“I
take it your new at this?” he asked.

“Ah
yes sir, just assigned this morning.” His IFF reported she was Gunnery third
mate Selena Kessel.

Irons
nodded. “Right well miss Kessel, a hiccup is an intermittent loss of
containment in the plasma bottle due to either an energy spike or drop off.
Earlier model energy weapon mounts had a direct feed from the EPS to the mount.
Now we've got the capacitor mounts that store a charge here and can discharge
at a variable rate. That allows us to keep the mount from doing nasty things
like exploding” Irons said unjacking and turning.

“Oh,”
the woman said paling and then returning to attention.

Irons
nodded, walking to the door. “Fortunately that problem has been minimized as
much as possible. But you never know so do keep an eye on things and don't
slack off.” The woman gulped.

“Ah,
no sir.”

“Don't
worry, you will get some training and some exercises to get you up to speed
shortly,” he smiled as they looked at each other.

“It's
not that hard a job when the gun isn't firing. Manual firing is a pain in the
butt though, you've got to deal with our ship moving along with the enemy's...
and be careful to not hit a friendly if they are in the area. But we'll start
you on a learning curve to get you up to speed. Don't worry.” The two looked
anything but calm. He shrugged.

“It's
a posting that needs to be filled. Then of course there is the other thing.” He
turned waving to the mount. “You get to fire a really big weapon. How many
people get to do blow stuff up in their lives?” se said smile turning into a
grin.

The
two gun bunnies looked at each other then shrugged. Kessel smiled tentatively.
“I guess not many sir. Thank you sir.”

“Carry
on,” Irons said waving.

"It
worked didn't it?" Harris demanded.

"Yeah
it did," Dan said grudgingly.

Irons
smiled. They had come a long way in a week, the last sim had shown improvement
even he hadn't expected. Harris's latest sim had been brutal, but he'd pulled
off a nice twist. They were refining their defensive strategy as the situation
changed.

"They
have learned discipline and are beginning to learn to adapt and change,"
Sprite said softly.

He
spread his hands apart and gave a slight nod. "That they are," he
murmured.

"Still
some rough edges. Mayweather's crew is rusty," Firefly said. "They
missed two maneuvers." The AI pointed them out. Maya had been a surprising
and welcome addition to their small but growing task force.

Mayweather
had transferred to the Maya after Captain Jensen had stood down due to health
reasons several days ago. Seventy years as a ship’s captain without rejuv and
with constant exposure to radiation and hazards it was to be expected. Since he
was also one of the rare individuals who had pre-existing brain damage and couldn't
receive implants, it had made the decision a little easier.

Of
course the old man had to get the last word in, growling about trying to teach
an old dog new tricks. His exec Mr. Senet had so far worked out but the first
two days had been an interesting teething experience. Senet had not been happy
about turning over the reins of command to some outsider, no matter her
training.

Maya
was a gunship. One of a few that were known to be still flying. The ship was
old and battered. Time, lack of repairs, and heavy use had not been kind to
anything in this system. They were trying to make repairs but it would be a
while before they were back within shouting distance of their factory specs.
Also none of their crews had any implants which also slowed and delayed their
response time. At least not until they could be rotated through Firefly.

Factors
like that taken into consideration, Mayweather hadn't done too shabby against
Harris at all.

"You
should cut them a little slack, they only just got their ship flying," Dan
replied. "I mean, they've been up and fully operational what, a whole
twenty four hours?" He looked over to the clock. "Okay call it twenty
five," he shrugged.

"It's
going to take time for them to work up. Fortunately we've got time for
now," Irons nodded. "We're on borrowed time though, but every moment
the enemy delays gives us more time to prepare. But the moment they cross the
hyper threshold time is up. If they are caught out then we will be in
trouble," he scowled.

Harris
nodded. "Like the minefield, and recovering the ships," he waved to
indicate Firefly.

"Exactly."

"Do
you think we can salvage more?" Janice asked. Irons gave her a look.

"I'd
like to, the more the merrier, but we'd be stretching ourselves thin crew wise.
Besides, most of the ships we have are all that are armed. Only one other ship
has responded to Firefly's Paul Revere call, the Fuentes. But she's a light
destroyer that's been battered into a wreck. "

“I
am guiding it to Anvil now. But her ETA is five months. She's outside the Oort
cloud approximately fifty thousand AU out and coming in on her RCS system
only.”

“Oh.
Ouch. Can we go meet her?” Janice asked turning to the admiral.

“No,”
Firefly pulled up a map of the system. “She's exactly opposite the jump point
here below the ecliptic plane.” A red circle glowed and then blinked. A blue
one on the other side blinked. A caption read 'Firefly'. “To get there we'd
have to either cross the system or go out and do a micro jump around. Either
way we would be out of position when the enemy arrives.”

“Oh.
Good point,” Dan nodded. “But what about other ships?”

“Unfortunately
the other ships so far detected are either too badly damaged to be of any use,
or are of civilian design. They are also power drained so we have no way of
moving them on their own, and no way of knowing what their condition is until
we get there.” The Admiral shook his head. “Which is no use for us.”

"Then
again platform redundancy Admiral. Or we could use them for supply or as a fire
ship," Harris interjected picking up a tablet. Irons studied him then
smiled.

"Yes,
that is important in most situations. But we still can't use them in this
situation. We're spread thin enough as it is. However the other colonies and
Anvil can use them to supply us. Anvil has several candidates in mind."

"What
about the ships the other colonies have picked up? That tanker?" Dan
asked. Irons shook his head. Unfortunately most of the ships that could be
salvaged or rebuilt from those still in use were civilian in design. Warships
tended to get a bad case of dead and broken into small pieces when they met
unfortunate ends. The price they paid for staying in the furnace, Irons thought
with a pang of regret.

"No,
she's nice, but not usable for us. Oh she can help out in logistics, but I
can't see much use for her," he sighed. “We're fully fueled now.”

Harris
looked thoughtful. "What about a water spray?" he asked looking
mischievous. Irons sucked in a breath then blew it out in an explosive guffaw.

Dan
looked surprised then laughed as well. "I like it! But having her as a
fire ship is risky. Her crew wouldn't go for it," he shrugged. Irons
nodded.