Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (98 page)

She
nodded. "It's not going to help though sir." He nodded. As the
lieutenant governor of the system Enrique was caught between a rock and hard
place. And an assistant engineer, no matter how good was expendable when
politics was involved.

"So
am I in? Cause if I'm not the next stop is the merchants. I'll be a chief
engine wiper, anything to get off this damn screwed up station." Angie was
starting to slur.

Irons
nodded. "I'll give you the evening to think about it and get over the
hangover." The steward came in and swapped the alcohol with a bottle of
water. She put a second down next to Angie's hand and a small serving dish with
an analgesic pill in it.

"Most
of my staff want to come too," she slurred taking a swig. "Water.
Don't you have anything better?" she asked.

"It's
for the hangover," Irons replied sounding amused.

"What
hangover?" Angie asked.

"The
one you’re going to get when you wake up," he smiled. "Go sleep this
off Angie. Report in the morning." She nodded and tottered to her feet.

"Good
idea," she sighed moving off. She made it to the wardroom then fell face
first onto the sofa. After a moment he could hear a snore.

"What
did you give her?" Irons asked chuckling.

"Whiskey.
I think Miss Angie had hit the bottle beforehand though. I could smell it on
her breath when I served her," the steward said concerned.

Irons
nodded. "Possibly. And four glasses in a fifty kilo body probably went
straight to her blood stream," he chuckled.

"Talk
about an easy date," he sighed getting up. He picked up his cap. "I'm
going to have a chat with Enrique. If any others want to join, let me know. And
if she asks, they aren't getting priority to fix their mess. Security should
have stopped the bitch before she got there. I'll have a go at Smithy and the
watch commander as well If any of her crew show up let me know.”

"I
will sir. I believe several have already asked commander Logan however."

"Great,"
Irons sighed.

"Enrique,
what the hell were you thinking?" The Admiral said as he stormed into ops
a few minutes later and  then paused.

Logan
gave him a guilty look but he was clearly pissed. "You came down on your
own people instead of backing them. You bawled them out in front of a
witness?" Logan snarled throwing his hands up in the air. “In front of the
staff? Hell man!”

Enrique
looked away, body posture stiff and unyielding. "It's complicated."

"You're
damn right it's complicated! Half of Anvil's engineers have just jumped
ship!" Liam said. He too threw his hands up in the air. "I've half a
mind to join them! What the hell were you thinking!"

"I
was trying to be diplomatic," Enrique answered. "How bad is it?"
he asked.

"If
I poach the current engineering class I can make up some of the difference, but
we've lost most of the experienced replicator people and about fifty of my
reactor crews," Liam snarled. "There go my watch bills."

"Where
are they going to go? When they cool off they'll come back," Enrique said,
brushing lint off his arm.

"No
they won’t," the Admiral said. Enrique and the others looked at him.
Enrique stared.

"They
won’t?"

"No,
most have already gotten jobs on the merchant ships, Destiny, on Hephaestus, on
other colonies, or in the Navy," he shook his head. He looked around the
room to the watch people. They were pretending they weren't hearing.
"Perhaps this isn't the time or place to be discussing this?" he
suggested.

Liam
snarled. "I've got better things to do than bitch. Somehow I've got to
pull a watch crew together for reactor four and the replicators in less than an
hour. I've got one, repeat one!" he waved his index finger in front of
Enrique, "...person manning each now. That's because of your brown nosing
fuck up. Fix it!" he snarled and then stomped out.

"Well,
that was interesting," the Admiral sighed.

"I've
got to go to the ball," Enrique muttered and turned to leave, adjusting
his cuff link and then his tie. He murmured something to the officer on deck
then left.

"Crap,"
Logan sighed running his hand through his hair.

"Just
realized you made the same mistake he did?" the Admiral murmured, standing
beside him.

"Yeah.
I wasn't the first though, Liam beat me to it. I walked in on it and just piled
on." The Admiral nodded.

"He's
not going to be able to fix this is he?" the officer of the watch asked.

The
Admiral waited a beat before answering. Logan beat him to it though. "Not
right away. One 'oh shit' can wipe out a ton of 'that a boys'," Logan
answered. Irons couldn't help but smile at that.

"What
he means is one good screw up sticks in the minds of people a lot longer than
doing it right. He knew he was in the wrong and screwing his own people was the
worst thing he could have done. Hell, us talking to him about it... or even
talking about it now with you behind his back is also bad," he explained
to the confused officer.

"Yeah,
right. I get it," she said shaking her head. "Is Angie okay?"
she asked tentatively.

"Last
time I checked. She got hammered then passed out on my couch after signing up
in the navy," the Admiral shrugged. “Hopefully she doesn't barf on the
couch or carpet, I just had them installed six months ago,” he said darkly. She
looked startled.

"The
navy? I thought she'd go to the factory ship!" She looked surprised and
confused.

Logan
shook his head. "Billy and Mandy took Hephaestus. She doesn't want to step
on their toes since they got senior positions. She'd have to bump one of them.
The navy or a freighter was it. After the rep pissed her off, I didn't think
she'd go to another colony."

The
Admiral nodded. "We can use her. We've got our second industrial
replicator up and running and Prometheus is in the wings. I'll put her in
charge of it in Bu-ships with you," he nodded to Logan.

"That
is if she doesn't change her mind when she recovers from the hangover," he
shrugged and smiled.

Logan
grinned. “Wouldn't be the first time someone tied one on and signed up with us
then regretted it when they woke up with a migraine and foul taste in their
mouth.”

Irons
snorted. "How are we coming on the dry dock?" he asked.

"We've
got the shells finished for the first two final assembly and fitting bays. We
should be able to move in a week or two as soon as we finish running the wiring
and chasing down the usual crop of bugs," Logan answered. “I can't wait to
get the ships under construction into proper slips. It should help with safety
concerns.”

They
had finally decided to bite the bullet and make their own temporary quarters
with the docking tree and transhabs. The station and a couple of the colonies
had given them limited space, but they were scattered all over the station or
all over the inside of the colonies. Firefly had finally succeeding in making
the planetoid base San Diego, but it would take months for it to cool before
they could move in and start making it habitable.

"Maybe
I'll make her the chief of the dry dock. She's got civilian grade implants. It
wouldn’t be hard for her to adapt to military grade. I think she can keep an
eye on the reactor crew too. After all, I trained her," Logan said softly.

"Right.
That just leaves her shoes to fill here. And the damage to replicator
one," Irons said.

"Their
problem," Logan said walking out. "Let them fix it," he said
over his shoulder.

"Ouch,"
Sprite said.

"Ouch
indeed," the Admiral grunted. He cocked his head for a moment then smiled
grimly. “And I totally agree. Make a note, if anyone asks, we're busy,” he
waved as he left.

"Admiral,
I'm monitoring a backlash in your publicity profile. It is a disturbing trend.
I'm getting indications that it is a coordinated effort by multiple
parties," Sprite cautioned. Irons grimaced.

"In
what form?" he asked. He was surprised he'd be roped into this mess with
Enrique. The exec had thought it would blow over in a day or so. It had in fact
grown. He'd clamped down on it but most of his more experienced crew had either
jumped station or were ready to do so.

"Debates
on various channels have the general trend to say you’re a power hungry
dictator. There ares even several negative grass roots slander campaigns
against you and the navy. One of them states that we are drafting the
poor."

Irons
grimaced. "That's an old saw." He shook his head. Educating the
public about the military being an all volunteer organization was an ongoing
process. "And the others?"

"Well,
one is a twist on the body snatcher thing." He grimaced. "Another is
that you're poaching the best talent for the fleet and leaving incompetent
boobs in charge of the colonies." He scowled. That one hit close to home.

"We're
also catching flack over not opening access to the ships and their
replicators." He grimaced again, then ran a hand through his hair.

"I
thought we settled that. Thirty three is out there doing a tour right?" he
asked.

"Apparently,
that's not good enough. They want the entire quota of every replicator,"
Sprite responded.

"Not
going to happen. We've given up priorities with the civilian ones and fallen
back on our own in house for our own demands. I'm not retreating on that,"
he replied firmly.

"And
hence the negative publicity," Sprite responded. "I've snuck a few
civilian projects in when time, power, and materials allowed, but nothing
major," she replied. He shook his head.

"Favors?"
he asked. "You better not have been using Navy equipment to make anything
illegal or immoral," he said.

"No
Admiral, merely filling a need. Most of it is in trade." Irons grimaced
again. He hated that. She fed him a list of things. He waved it away.

"All
right, all right," he grumbled.

"Do
you have a plan?" Sprite asked.

"No.
Continue the course plotted. I'll try to up my profile a bit, but I'm not going
to dance to their tune and play their game. And Anvil's replicator one can damn
well STAY down." Enrique had waited a full shift before asking for him to
fix the replicator. Then begging. He had ignored what had come his way. Finally
the complaints had stopped.

Security
was now posted around engineering and the replicators with stern instructions
to turn away any unauthorized personnel without exception. Smithy had fielded
some protests from reps and their staff but had made sure the public knew it
was a safety measure. A few judicious movies about people getting killed by
sticking their noses where they didn't belong had shifted public opinion their
way. For now.

"You're
mixing your metaphors again Admiral," Sprite replied.

"So
sue me."

"Let's
not give them any more ideas," Sprite sighed.

Enrique
looked around the crew with a dissatisfied air. “Why are we slipping on our
production schedules? We missed a shipping date to a Vesta colony. I just got
an earful from her two representatives and her mayor.”

Liam
scowled. “What do you expect? We're down a replicator. Not to mention about a
third of our people,” he snarled. He looked tired.

“I
thought it was repairable?” Enrique asked. He was still catching flack he
realized. It wasn't his fault! He thought but then tried to set his annoyance
aside.

“When
it was purged? Hardly,” Liam shook his head. “I'm not sure if it was the dumb
bastard who broke in and tried to reprogram it, or Angie doing it out of spite
and spleen. Either way it's totaled.”

“That
bad,” Enrique frowned. A full industrial replicator? He tried hard not to wince
at that. He'd been too busy getting ready for the ball to look into the
implications. Obviously the fall out was not the only thing he had to deal with
on this issue. “How soon can we replace it?” He shook his head. Obviously he
should have looked into this sooner he thought to himself.

“In
a word never,” Liam said tossing a tool onto the table. “She's beyond our
ability to repair or replace.”

“But
the Admiral did...”

“That's
because the Admiral has the codes and plans,” Liam said.
We
don’t.”

“So
that's how he did it,” Thornby said nodding. “I get it now.”

“Ah..
can we ask him to fix this?” the communications director asked tentatively.

“Not
likely. He's busy. And since we've been pissing the Navy off by cutting them
off from support and access to the factory ship and our own replicators... can
you blame them?” Liam said shaking his head.

“Damn,”
Enrique said softly. Now he understood why the Admiral had been furious and had
not helped them fix the thing.