Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (21 page)

The
Tauren was big, easily filling the companionway even without having a box
tucked under each arm. He had blond fur on the top of his head. He chuffed as
he passed Irons.

“Yo
Torg!” A tech called just as he passed. Irons sucked in his gut as the Tauren
turned and looked back the way he had come.

“Don't
forget to torque down the...”

“Yeah
yeah, I know,” He rumbled waving a hand. “To spec. Yes, I know. I won't snap
the bolts. I'm not Riff.”

“Just
so you know,” the tech answered sounding concerned. Torg snorted again, great
nostrils dilating and then turned.

“What
are you looking at?” he rumbled, looking down at Irons.

“Just
waiting for you to get out of the way,” Irons replied.

“Watch
yourself little man,” the Tauren rumbled and then stomped off. His hooves made
clanging sounds on the deck.

“Well!
That was interesting,” Sprite said.  For some reason she sounded pleased. He
wasn't sure if it was her perverse sense of humor kicking in or not.

“So?”

“He's
a Tauren admiral,” Sprite said unnecessarily as he continued on to the drive
room.

“Yes
I know. Hard to miss. Again so?”

“So
there is a bolo out on his species admiral.”

Irons
slowed his headlong stride a bit. “Come again?”

“I've
flagged the encounter,” Sprite replied absently.

“Why
the Be On the Look Out?” Irons asked patiently.

“Admiral,
there was a Tauren Marine who lost his entire clan in Pyrax. The Port a prince
massacre remember? There had been some talk that he was the last of his species
and a bolo had been put out.”

“Oh,”
Iron said and then nodded, looking on to where the Tauren had disappeared.
“Glad there is another. He's a he though I think.”

“Was
that sarcasm in your voice? You know that it only takes a genetic sample from a
couple of sources and a good geneticist can extract the female strands and bind
them together. Or just clone them.”

“Yes
Sprite, I did know that. Make a note. E-mail this Torg too. Let him know about
the marine in Pyrax.”

“Done
and done.”

“I
think there is more than one though,” he said pausing at an intersection. Down
about ten meters away was a work crew working on a section of the companionway.
One of them was a Tauren, smaller than the first. “I'm guessing that's Riff?”
he asked.

“Sensor
readings are that he is a she Admiral,” Sprite informed him. “All the better
for their species,” she said sounding smug.

“Good,”
Irons replied with a nod. “How's it going there?” he asked, raising a hand to
wave. The work crew looked up and nodded politely.

“I
was wondering if I could speak with you for a moment ma'am,” he said, turning
his attention on the Tauren.

“I'm
kind of busy here,” she said looking at him warily.

“This
won’t take long.” He quickly sketched out the bolo and asked a few questions.
She kept an eye on the crew but told him that there were over a dozen Taurens
on Kiev. He nodded and talked with the Tauren as her crew finished up.

He
noted that the crew had been rerouting plasma conduits and pulling old patch
jobs. O'Mallory nodded to him in passing. The tech behind her had coils of
power cables on a hovercart. Apparently the junction had been offline so they
had been forced to run power cables along the inside of the companionway to
critical equipment. Now that the repairs were complete the bypass was no longer
needed. “Good. Now the hatches in this section could be used in case of a
breach.” O'Mallory looked smug as she looked around.

“Been
a while since this has been fixed chief?” Irons asked.

“A
bit. What's everyone standing around for?” she asked, hands on her hips. The
crew locked up their tools and started loading up to move on.

“My
fault chief. I stopped to talk with the young lady here,” Irons said,
indicating the female Tauren. “Miss I didn't catch your name?” he asked
politely.

The
cow turned to him and snorted. “Gwen. I'm... look I'm a little busy here with
my crew. We can talk after my shift if you can find me,” she said with a wave
of her hand and nod to the chief.

“By
all means. I apologize for the distraction,” Irons replied getting out of their
way.

When
they were gone the chief turned an inquiring eye his way. He shrugged. “What
was that about?” she asked.

“Pyrax
put a bolo out on Taurens. Sprite flagged the Taurens down so I stopped to get
some information.”

“Bolo?”

“Be
On the Look Out. The Pyrax clan was decimated in an accident after a major
solar flare. One survivor. We thought the species was near extinction.”

“Oh.”
She paused and then her eyes widened. “OH!” she said, catching on. He nodded
sober.

“Right.
So it's good to see them,” the admiral said.

“I
see,” she said nodding. She looked down the way the Tauren had left. “They are
great techs. Just about all of them are technically proficient.”

Irons
smiled. “They are tinkerers at heart. They were one of the rare space fairing
species before the founding of the Federation.”

“Really?”
she asked sounding slightly disinterested. Irons felt a pang. Obviously they
hadn't kept up some of their history. He wondered if they even cared.

“Yes.
Taurens achieved space flight thousands of years before we Terrans did. I've
uploaded the galactic encyclopedia to the ship net. I can flag some entries for
you chief.”

She
waved a dismissive hand. “Pass, I was just curious. How goes the hyperdrive?”

“I'm
replicating parts. I've torn her down; her governor was just about worn out.
You're lucky,” he said. He had been on his way to work on the hyper sensors
while waiting on parts. Dividing his time was annoying. He had to go from one
end of the ship to the other, back and forth wasting his time.

She
shuddered. “I'd been afraid of that. She has been unstable lately. The crew
thought it was the octaves.”

The
admiral shook his head. “No. Wear and tear and metal fatigue. Also just plain
age. There was a short at one point. Someone did an okay patch job around the
damage cutting out the isolimeter for the upper bands. I'm replicating that
part now.”

“Huh,”
she grunted.

“I'm
working on the sensors now. I'd like to overhaul the shields and hyper
collectors before we leave the system.”

“So
would I,” O'Mallory sighed. “But the captain is dead set on holding to the
deadline no matter what.”

“Well,
if not this time than next. If we can find a nice rock with the right
concentrations of metal in it maybe we can wrangle it in. That would go a long
ways to restoring your metal stocks and allow the replicator to use new
material.”

O'Mallory
looked thoughtful. That wasn't the first time the admiral had made that
suggestion to her but it was becoming more and more appealing as they tried to
labor under the stupid restrictions. “I'll have the bridge look into that,”
O'Mallory said with a nod. “Maybe Barry and his Scarab can go out and snatch
one for us.”

“Good,”
Irons said with a nod. “I've got to check in with him in a bit. I'm making a
stop through engineering then the replicator then Barry after lunch.”

“Cool.
Keep up the good work admiral,” she said, smiling and moving on. Irons watched
her go and then went back to what he was doing.

Irons
was up to his elbows helping Barry in the boat bay when the captain and his
entourage came in after lunch. Kiev has a complement of eight aerospace capable
shuttles of various sizes and four maintenance boats. She also had a pair of
battered orbital transfer platforms and a pair of stripped down space shuttles.
One was an old yellow school bus. There were a couple of space bots but they
were little more than frames. Their sensors, power supplies, and electronics
had been scavenged long ago. One was missing it's motors and one arm. He'd have
to do something about that later.

The
crew had spent the past seven centuries stripping the birds one by one to keep
the remaining ships flying. Barry had told him that at one point they had had a
baker's dozen of ascraft before they had traded the nearly useless frames to
Pyrax as scrap in a desperate move to keep the ship flying with parts they had
received in return.

The
admiral had been amused by Barry's wistful but bitter look when he had
described the old ships. The man definitely loved ascraft of practically any
size and shape. A collector in some ways, each of the craft were unique models.
Which of course made maintenance and repair a problem. This would be the fourth
ascraft. They hadn't had three running at the same time for nearly forty years.
It had been nearly two
centuries
since they had had four working
shuttles.

Barry
looked over his shoulder at the captain and then back to Irons. Irons had felt
and seen them come in on his sensory implants but had so far ignored it.
Barry's wary look was also ignored as he finished running a diagnostic on the
drive they had just finished repairing.

“Looks
good Barry. Give it a couple of hours of burn in and then do a thorough diagnostic
to be sure. There might be wear on the turbines. Don't mind the bluing, that's
normal,” he said, dusting his hands off on each before pulling out a rag.

“Scorches
too. I know the drill,” Barry said with a nod as Irons straightened. He looked
over his shoulder to the Captain and Veraxin ops officer and then back to the
boat bay officer. The captain and ops officer were staring at the various
ships. Work had been narrowed down to the ones they could easily repair with
the minimum amount of parts and labor. He and Barry were both hoping to get the
remainder flight ready in hyper. Or at least that was their plan anyway. The
parts restriction put a crimp on that plan.

“Think
they're here to see what's going on?” Barry asked quietly.

“If
I could only be so lucky,” Irons replied equally quietly and then sighed. He
turned, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Another
shuttle ready to go Barry?” Hir’ruk asked ignoring Irons.

Barry
nodded. “Just about. We're going to run the avionics test in an hour then do a
flight test around the ship.”

“Clear
it with the bridge,” the captain rumbled. “Ahead of time,” he ordered.

“Of
course sir,” Barry said soberly, trying hard not to roll his eyes. He knew
procedure. He wasn't a shave tail.

“Just
what's your game?” the captain asked as they climbed off the shuttle and then
onto the nearby ladder. Barry looked at the captain warily.

“No
game. Just helping out,” the admiral replied.

“No
one is that much of a kiss ass,” Hir'ruk said waving his antenna.

“It's
for my comfort too,” Irons said with a smile as he climbed down the stairs
behind Barry. When he was off the last tread the tech standing nearby hit the
lock release with his foot and then wheeled the portable stairs clear.

“Really.
Fixing that is for your comfort?” the Veraxin asked sarcastically.

“Well,”
Irons looked back to the ascraft and then back to the officers and shrugged.
“To be honest I'm a sucker for ascraft too. When I was a kid I loved tinkering
with them. I never grew out of it I guess. Probably never will.”

“I
haven't,” Barry admitted wiping his hands on his own rag and then cleaning his
tools as he put them away.

“I
thought you were working on the hyperdrive?” the captain finally asked.

“I
did. I'm waiting on parts being replicated,” the admiral explained.

“Oh.”

“I
can multitask,” the admiral said with a shrug. “I like to keep busy too. There
is only so much time before Kiev breaks orbit so I'll do what I can with that
time.”

“Who
asked you?” Hir'ruk demanded.

“The
chief. If you want me to stop just say so. I'll stop here and now,” Irons said,
eyes narrowing. “Of course your hyperdrive is in pieces right now and you'd
spend the rest of eternity orbiting Triang but that's your choice.”

“No
one's asking you to stop,” the captain admitted. “We'd just like to know where
you are going with all this. And why.”

Irons
sighed. “Captain, no offense but I've told you. I am an engineer. I like to
keep busy. Secondly, no thirdly I like to repair things. It's part of my
nature. Fourth I don't like the idea of bumbling around in a ship that's well,
no offense, falling apart. Fifth I also don't like the idea of taking five or
six months in hyper to go a couple of parsecs.”

“If
you don't like the transit time you could always debark and wait for another
ship,” Hir'ruk said suggestively.

“I'm
a spacer,” Irons replied with a smile. “Sitting on the ground twiddling my
thumbs waiting for the next ship to come along isn't my style. I'd be chewing
the bulkheads of my ship in less than an hour,” he replied with a small smile.