Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (66 page)

He
also thought about going to an airlock, exiting the station and then making his
way around the exterior. It was tempting but no, the diversion would take
almost as long just in cycling through the locks as it would getting their on
foot.

When
he was in sight of the shuttle lock he snagged a couple of other pieces of
scrap and then went into the shuttle. Sprite accessed the lock controls as he
approached the door. He felt the communications handshake. He also felt
someone, a trace of someone looking over his no, her shoulder. He didn't like
that.

“I
know, we've got company,” she muttered to him. “Price you pay. Bet they are
curious to see if we're going or not,” she said.

“We're
not. At least not yet.”

He
entered the shuttle and popped the lid of the replicator with a hand. He set
the scrap inside and then sent a signal to Proteus to release some of the
nanites. When Proteus was finished he closed the lid. It would take about five
minutes for the nanite seed to feed on the block of material to grow and
restore the replicator. Once that was done it would devour the remaining scrap.

“Admiral
I suggest you eat. It's been eighteen hours since we've entered the station and
over thirty since you last ate.”

“Good
point,” Irons said, tapping at the controls. He watched the replicator glow,
slowly coming back to life then he turned to the food replicator. He sent a
mental signal to his suit to dissolve his helmet as he typed at the controls,
ordering a platter of energy bars and an energy drink.

“What
no coffee?” Sprite teased. “What are you making?”

“I'm
making IO boards and some processor chips,” he said.

“No
memory? We need memory,” she said.

“It's
on my to do list. But if I can get you more processors?” he asked. He'd noted a
bank of processors that were in good order but cut off from the main net.

“I'd
gladly accept them and then ask where is the memory?” Sprite asked, puckering
her lips in an impish smile.

“Everyone's
a comedian,” he growled, taking the power bar and biting into it. He sighed and
sat in the chair as he masticated in peace.

“I
ah... can't carry the data with me admiral,” Sprite said.

He
swallowed. “You mean you want me to access the ship's net. Are you sure their
end can handle it?” he asked, taking a drink.

“No,
that's why I asked for memory. I was going to wait to send myself the files
until we had it installed...”

“We
meaning me. Or at least Proteus,” he said dryly. She spread her virtual hands
on his HUD. “Fine.” He took another bite. “A memory module it is. I'll have to
get more scrap. And I want to fix the life support in the admin too. And fix
some stuff on the way back.”

“Why?”

“To
make it easier to get back and forth of course,” he said. She sighed. So, her
return was going to be delayed. Great.

Irons
finished the first bar off, dusted his hands off and then checked the
replicator. He pulled the tray and then dropped in the second helping of scrap
then went out for more.

He
spent a good half hour replicating parts until he had quite the load. He looked
at it and frowned.

“Out
smarted yourself again?” she teased. He snorted irritably.

“You're
a fine one to talk,” he said.

“Sure,
just gripe at the being with a fix to your little peccadillo,” she said with a
smirk. He growled. Her smile widened a little and then she shrugged. “There is
a hover pallet jack outside this compartment down the corridor and in the third
room on the left.”

“Functional?”
he asked.

“Is
that ever going to stop you?” she asked, raising a virtual eyebrow.

“Not
for long,” Irons replied getting up and moving off in the indicated direction.
He recovered the jack and cart and returned with it in short order. Of course
it was loaded down with scrap when they returned.

“What's
that for?” she asked.

“Well,”
he said putting the first load in. “It occurred to me that we need more help.
Since I can't scare any organic help up right away, I figured a couple of
robots might do the job.”

“Oh,”
Sprite said as he tapped at the controls. A repair bot began to form. It was of
course military issue. Hardy and durable, perfect for this environment.
Hopefully it would last longer than the recon robots. All three had bought it
in their little first adventure on the station.

When
the first bot is finished he removed it and then set it up to let its twin out
when it's finished building. “I'm going to have these two work on improving the
path here,” he said.

“Which
is why you added replicated parts for doors and life support to the list I
suppose,” Sprite said.

“Correct,”
Irons said. He filled a back pack with food and small items and then pushed the
hover pallet out of the shuttle. He waited until the lock closed and locked
behind him before moving on.

They
of course had to stop along the way, unloading and using some of the parts. It
was worth the time though, at least in his eyes. She didn't complain when he
repaired a few communication lines and even a remote access node for her.

When
they arrived in admin she dived right into the net. She'd left her shadow
inside the net. It reported she'd lost half her bots. She snarled and released
a bot to clone itself a few hundred times and then sent it off to crawl in
other directions. Then she turned back to the dumb AI.

“All
done? That was longer than expected,” Averies said with a hint of reproach in
his voice.

“Sorry,
fleshies, what can I say,” she said with a virtual shrug. He chuckled again.
She found his presence both an intrusion and somehow comforting at the same
time.

“Just
let me know if I'm butting in,” he said.

“No,
you're fine,” she said, opening the communication's link to the shuttle as the
admiral started plugging in the storage memory for her. Good.

“I've
got some tools here. Tools and modules. We can clone some and... damn it that's
mine! Leave it be!” she snarled, slamming a firewall up in between an intruder
and her flash memory module.

“Oh,
sorry,” the dumb AI responded. She snarled as she looked it over. It had
deleted and overwritten some of her repairs with its own presence, bloating
itself even larger than before.

“You
know what? I'm taking you offline. You need a tune up in the worst way.
Attitude adjustment for one. You'll thank me for it later,” she said, sending
the key codes to shut the AI down.

“Just
like that?” Averies asked, surprised.

“Just
like that. It's a dumb AI. You get used to it,” Sprite said firmly. She wasn't
up for any more nonsense.

Fortunately
the AI were the same make as Smithy and since she had the changes she had done
with him logged, it was easier to repair their cores when they were taken
offline. Even the stubborn strings were easy to repair once she worked out the
methodology.

Each
was better optimized to handle the station management functions than she was so
she reluctantly brought them online when she was finished. It took all of an
hour to get the AI sorted out and back online.

With
the hardware repairs the admiral was making to some of the computer systems
there was a small fraction of more memory space available. Still not enough
though she decided.

“Better,”
Averies said. “Not enough but much better,” he said, virtual hands releasing
one of the AI. The AI finished its POST check and then went about its business.

“It's
a start you mean,” Sprite said slightly vexed. What did they want a miracle?
Like the admiral said, engineers were miracle workers, but even miracles took
time! Time and a whole lot of effort on someone’s part to pull off properly.
She shook her virtual head at the thought. She was becoming more organic...
more human every day. The admiral was certainly rubbing off on her. She'd have
to look into that later.

“What's
next?” Averies asked, slightly amused.

“I'll
let you know,” she said dryly.

“Any
word?” O'Mallory asked. George looked up and then shrugged at her expression.

“Depends
on what you're asking about. I haven't heard anything about Yvonne if that's
who you're asking about,” he said.

Quinna
grimaced. Yvonne was taking Art's death hard. She hadn't known Art was her son.
Not until George had told her when the captain had reported the news of his
death and the death of the others over the ship net. It had come as somewhat of
a shock to her. If she had known would she of done anything differently? That
haunted her. She bet it haunted Yvonne too.

She'd
paid her respects last shift to Yvonne's parents. The doctor had issued Yvonne
a sedative so she could sleep and deal with the grief in her own way. She'd paid
her respects and then left the area quickly feeling guilty about feeling relief
at not having to face Yvonne so soon.

She
shook herself. She needed to focus. With Yvonne out and her people on the hull
she was pulling eighteen hour shifts until they left the system. “No, the hull.
Sitrep?”

George
shrugged. “Coming along. We can't do anything else about the pods but we've
been pulling hull plate and replacing and patching things. It's going well.
We've also replaced our long range sensors. Irons replicated some of them just
before we exited from scraps he'd saved up. That's helped out a bit.”

Quinna
nodded. “Any word from the admiral?”

“He's
in control of the station now and is working on repairing the administration.
His AI reported that he'll be ready for volunteers at anytime. I think the
captain's holding out on that though.”

“Oh.”

“We've
got the sublight drive down so we're not going anywhere chief,” George gave
O'Mallory a look. She smiled a little. That had taken a bit of careful timing
to pull off. She needed Irons back to handle some replicator jobs though; they
were starting to fall behind on her schedule.

“I've
got about two hundred volunteers asking to go over to the station. Most without
suits. I'm fielding calls every few minutes; I had to get Darlene to handle
them. It's crazy. Even with everything that happened they still want to go,”
George said, shaking his head.

O'Mallory
cocked her head. “Really?”

“Yeah.
I get a call every couple of hours from some. The Warners are particularly
interested in going.”

“They
were friends of the admiral,” Quinna murmured as George pulled up the list on
his screen and scrolled through the long list of names. “Do you have them
broken down by specialty or anything?” she asked. A few names she recognized.
Some were related to those lost. Hopefully they wanted a fresh start not
revenge for their lost loved ones.

George
shook his head. “Just tossing names onto the list,” George said with a shrug.
“I've been sort of busy with everything else going on,” he said sheepishly.

“Fine,”
she said looking it over and pursing her lips. She leaned forward, studying the
names and tracing a finger over a few she knew. A couple like the Taurens were
a surprise. Gwen, Torg, and Riff... why the hell did they want to go?

“Why
do so many Taurens want to go?” she finally asked when she couldn't think of an
answer.

“I'm
not sure. I...” George shrugged helplessly. “Ask them.”

“I'll
do that. Find out why people are so interested in going. Get...” She frowned
and looked around. “Get with Gwen or… are these people sleepers?” she asked
pointing to a couple of unfamiliar names.

“Yup,”
George answered. “Some of them aren't natural spacers. The older set were on a
cruise liner. A few have put in to be put off on Antigua when we get there.”

“Interesting.
That will make life support happy, or happier I should say,” she murmured.

“Yeah
think?”

“You'd
think the Taurens would want to go ground side,” she murmured.

“That's
prejudice speaking chief,” George said with a smile. “Now, me? I'm happy as a
spacer. Spacer brat born and bred,” he said, making a show of stretching his
arms over and behind his head and then knitting his fingers together behind his
head. She pursed her lips and watched as he propped his feet up on the console
and tipped his chair back.

“Feet
off the console,” she said, lifting his boots up and pushing. He went over
backwards with a whoop. She smiled as he groaned, rubbing his head.

“You
did that on purpose,” he accused.

“Of
course,” she said with a grin, looking down at him. “I've told you...”

“Not
to mark up the console with my dirty feet. Yeah yeah,” he said, getting up and
then righting his chair. “Meany,” he grumbled.

“You
have only yourself to blame Georgie porgie,” she said with a teasing smile. He
rolled his eyes. She tapped the instant message link and then Gwen's name. A
moment later her video image popped up in a window.