Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (88 page)

"Thanks
again." The teachers moved off. Irons nodded as Sprite came over to him
looking torn. He wasn't sure if she was trying to look mischievous or contrite.

"Spit
the canary feathers out of your mouth, we've got work to do," he mock
growled.

"Aye
aye Admiral. You have to admit that was fun. And work too," Sprite said.
As he exited the lecture hall her avatar faded out.

"Work
too?" he asked.

"Inspiring
the next generation," she answered simply. He nodded.

"Four
and a half months and not a sign. I keep waiting for the other shoe to
drop," Mayweather sighed sitting back on her couch.

"How
so?" Firefly asked.

"We
haven't picked up anything more on the pirates. And we haven't had any traffic
at all," Mayweather answered.

"I
believe the Carib Queen may have had something to do with that," Firefly
responded. Mayweather scowled.

"How
so?" she asked quietly.

"They
probably spread word far and wide of our pending doom and gloom at the hands of
the pirates. I can't blame them, and in a way it is a public service, to spread
a warning to keep others from getting attacked," Firefly responded.

“True.
But that only explains jumps coming from the direction she went. And the
direction the pirates came from. Not the other two jump points,” she replied.

“That
is true. However someone may have crossed to those points and warned them.”

"Oh.
Well, I guess my sister does have a use after all," Mayweather answered.
“Even if it is running scared and screaming at the top of her lungs.” Firefly
cocked his head.

"Maybe,
it is a bit of a pain though. We're going to have to set the picture straight
soon enough. Transit time for ships in the alpha or beta bands will make the
word spread slowly," he waved to the freighter. "Destiny is almost
ready. Her first space trial is going smoothly with only one hiccup so
far."

"The
hyper drive?" Janice asked.

"The
Admiral insisted on a complete overhaul of all major systems. She'll pull class
two now like she did in her prime. High beta band," Firefly responded.
"Her navigational suite has been rebuilt as well. That was the main
problem, there was an interface problem between the sensors and the navigational
suite. They're working the bugs out now. Most of the non critical systems will
be rebuilt by her crew in hyper."

"And
giving her new crew time to settle down and coalesce into a unit,"
Mayweather nodded.

"That
too. Do you regret not being aboard her captain?" the AI asked innocently.
Mayweather shook her head.

"Not
on your life." The bridge crew chuckled softly. “I didn't think we'd be
wrangling asteroids though.” She shook her head.

Mayweather
scowled as she passed another asteroid with a marker on it. "At least
they're starting to mark them," Shelby muttered. The captain grunted.

"That's
because without the marker and registration they don't have a leg to stand on.
Judge Hershey and Judge Farley both nipped that in the bud." She studied
the read out. "All right, if they want to stake out their claims, we can
too. Let's go hunting here." She tapped an untapped section of the inner
belt.

"Changing
course. Projected time to location one hundred twelve point three hours at half
impulse," Firefly reported. She nodded sitting back.

"Have
engineering make up some of those markers," she said looking over to
Shelby.

"How
many?" she asked typing in the order then looking up.

"How
many can they make in one hundred and twelve hours?" Mayweather asked with
a predatory smile. Shelby slowly returned it.

"I'm
glad you insisted we build that replicator Admiral," Logan sighed sitting
back. They had just finished dinner and were relaxing.

"That
bad?" Shelby asked. Firefly had just finished wrangling a half a dozen
megaton sized asteroids back to the station. The raw material was being sucked
down into the molecular furnaces as fast as it could be shaved off.

"Bad
enough. Be glad you don't have any more frame damage in any of the ships."
Logan shook his head. "You did good. Firefly's restocked up to the gills,
we're offloading some of the excess she managed to make while out and about.
Hopefully we can do that again." He shrugged. “Firefly towed back a couple
of megatons of unprocessed ore. It'll be a day or two before we can fully
process it.”

"How
bad is it dad?" Shelby asked. “With the industrial group I mean.” She knew
all about Firefly, after all, she'd been there.

"Well,
we've made good on the frame and skin of Fuentes. Her drive is still iffy. I'd
rather do a full up rebuild or swap like commander Vargess wants. We may have
to if drive four is still hinky after her next trial," he shrugged as the
steward cleaned up around them.

"Fortunately
the smaller replicators can fix her electronics and gear now that we don't have
large scale support," he scowled. "Pulling Hephaestus away to rebuild
the outer Oort colonies has really gummed up the works." His daughter
nodded.

"We'll
get there. The Bismark's AI core just came online this morning. She's young,
but she looks stable. We'll have to table rebuilding the hyper drive and
noncritical parts for later," he shrugged.

"What
about the Wendigo?" Shelby asked. Bismark was the old battleship. Wendigo
was their latest prize. She was a light frigate they'd found out near the inner
belt. She'd been chewed up by some of the belt, and her crash landing on an
asteroid, but she had been salvaged anyway. Her father smiled.

"She's
all right. Your prize crew did a bang up job getting her basic systems online.
She's a bit harder to fix, but we'll get it done." The Admiral grimaced
then nodded.

"I
heard that the Ssislli wants to restart the navigator's guild?" Shelby
asked looking at the Admiral. He shrugged.

"Doc
has taken tissue samples but she's right he can't sit around waiting to die
forever. He may be the last of his species but if he wants to do something
constructive, I'm all for it," the Admiral shrugged.

"Tissue
samples? Whatever for?" Shelby asked looking from the Admiral to the
doctor.

"Well,
It's like this," she closed her communications link and smiled.
"There is a chance. A slim chance," she used her fingers to measure
off a centimeter gap, "that we could clone him. If we can address the date
problem in each clone and gender swap, maybe add a couple variations by using 
his recessive genes then we might... I stress might.. Be able to resurrect his
species."

“She's
downplaying it because she doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up,” the Admiral
said dryly.

“And
here I thought she was doing it to make herself out as more of a miracle worker
when she succeeds,” Sprite said internally to him. He snorted.

Shelby
goggled at the doctor in astonishment.

"Are
you kidding! That's amazing! Can it really work? Why didn't I hear about this
sooner?" she demanded. The doctor shrugged.

"Because
of patient confidentiality?" she smiled. "Except he exempted the
project to see if we can get broader support." She shook her head.
"No, it's such a slim chance that we're not sure it will work, or if it
does work, for how long. We have such a narrow amount of base material to work
with you have to understand," she sighed. "It's not really my field.
I'm more of a generalist not a geneticist like doctor Martel."

"Nice
one Doc," Logan laughed. Shelby shook her head.

"So,
what you're saying is that it has a small chance it will work? But you’re going
to try?" she looked at the Admiral. "Why?"

"Because
he deserves the chance. His species deserves a second chance," he said
softly. She nodded.

"So
you’re worried about a copy of a copy? Junk DNA?" she asked the doctor.
She nodded.

"Right,
the more times you copy a copy the more junk and errors crop up. We can screen
for them, but eventually they will start causing problems. In the past it was
called inbreeding," she grimaced. “The wider the gene pool the less risk
we have of that problem cropping up in the first couple of generations.”

"I've
got a couple of budding geneticists working on it. They're students really, so
it will be years before we see anything at all," she smiled. "They're
motivated though. Resurrecting a species will make their careers," she
chuckled.

"What
did you mean by turning on recessive genes to give some variation?" Logan
asked. "Is that one of your methods to combat inbreeding and lack of
material?"

The
doctor nodded. "It's one we've highlighted. Right now they need to walk
before they can run though. We haven't even figured out how to create an ova or
embryo of his species yet. Or the proper method of incubation," she sighed
shaking her head. “I honestly thought we had it but it didn't pan out.”

“Rome
wasn't built in a day Doc. If it was easy anyone could do it,” Logan replied.

“Could
have fooled me with what's going on around this system,” the Doc retorted.

"I
think that's enough talk of birds and the bees. At least for me. I've got to
check on the unloading and see if we can get back out there and wrangle more
asteroids before they all disappear." Shelby got up and leaned over. She
kissed her dad on the cheek. "Night daddy." He smiled.

"Night
kiddo."

"Admiral,
do you have another reason? I remember what you told the midshipman about not
letting the Xeno's win. But is that the other reason or is there another?” she
asked. He looked at her for a moment and she blushed. “No, that’s below me. I
am sorry." The doctor shook her head. "My, look at the time. I better
get some rest. I've got a test to administer in the morning then surgery in the
afternoon. Good night gentlemen," the Doc waved as she left.

"I
think we've been stood up," Logan chuckled. Irons chuckled with him.

"I'm
sure we can figure something to do. Care for a night cap?" Irons asked.

"Sure.
Admiral, I had an idea."

The
Admiral smiled. "Shoot."

"All
right." Irons felt a link connection then a file entered his in box.

"A
proposal?" he asked opening it on his HUD.

Sprite
scanned it then smiled. "I like it."

"You
would," Irons answered then waved at Logan's confusion. "Sprite. She
approves." She fed him bullet points. He frowned then nodded.

"You
want to make a second reactor and our own gas giant platforms? Interesting.
That would keep our logistics away from meddling politicians and take some of
the heat and pressure off the Valdez clan." He scrolled down.

"I
think we can make it work Admiral. The sticking point is getting this built and
in place without the politicians screaming about it and trying to poach it for
their own ends."

"You
know they’re going to try anyway," the Admiral said sourly.

"And
you can oh so politely smack them on the hand and tell them to put their grabby
hands where the monkey put the peanut," Logan replied with a smile.

"I
think you've corrupted him Admiral," Sprite said with a laugh.

"One
of us has at any rate," Irons shook his head laughing as well. Logan
looked concerned. He held up his hands as the laughter faded. "I agree I
agree. I like it. Get on it with the resources you have. My launch is on
Firefly with my micro replicator, they have their own small craft now, I'll
transfer it here to Anvil then we can use it for additional parts."

He
shrugged at Logan's grimace. "It's a tiny thing Admiral."

"Drop
in the bucket I know, but every little bit helps. I've built replicators into
the launch actually, even expanded it. My database too," he smiled. Logan
nodded.

"Well,
I guess we could use it for the electronics. That would free up the larger
replicators for the reactor core parts and platform parts," Logan mused
rubbing his chin. Irons nodded.

"Grab
Angie and some of the others involved in the original platform project. I'd say
grab a few students but it may be better to do this with crew that have already
been vetted. See if we can get Harris involved since Sun-Yat is here now.
Firefly too."

Horatio
nodded draining his drink. "I'll get it out Admiral."

Irons
smiled. "It's a great idea Horatio. It should get us back on track. If we
manage it right we might even be able to use the reactor and scaffold as the
core of a real  shipyard."

"Now
that's an idea," Logan said smiling suddenly. "Think we could throw
in a tank farm and munitions depot too?" he asked suddenly looking
thoughtful. Irons cocked his head.

"Oh
not with metal tanks Admiral, not at first. I was thinking about flex plastic 
and fabric tanks. We could reprogram textile replicators to make some
bladders," Logan said rubbing his jaw in thought.