Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (97 page)

The
new recruits also had to have some skills that compliment the other cybers and
could contribute to the well being of the station. Some were so called computer
technicians, others were economists or accountants. Sprite wasn't sure about
that since from what she'd found out Antigua had very few working computers
left on the planet. Apparently it was a fiction that the others were readily
accepting so she remained mute on the subject.

The
doctors agreed on a series of surgeries starting with nanites in the patient.
The nanites would build many of the connections that would allow them to
connect to the station net with minimally invasive surgery to their brains.
While the patients were prepped their pods were cleaned out and restored. Their
former occupants were given a brief funeral and then they were recycled.

Two
of the volunteers were former elderly mayors who were unfortunately too old to
survive the procedure. One died of a stroke during the surgery; the other heard
of this and backed out at the last minute.

As
each new cyber oriented his or herself they were courted by the others. Some
didn't know they were being courted, they were just grateful for the helping
hand in showing them how to orient themselves and handle the new situation.

Sprite
of course noted it for what it was but didn't comment. She knew it would fall
on deaf ears with the admiral. H was more concerned with restoring the station.

His
last attempt to set up a naval recruiting drive had fallen on deaf ears ground
side. He had attempted to go through the mayor's council but had been stymied.
Oh they hadn't said
no
outright, no they had done something far worse.
They stuck his proposal in limbo, tabling it for further discussion at an
unspecified date sometime in the future.

He
wasn't sure what the problem was but it bode ill for the future if it wasn't
resolved sometime soon.

Each
of the new cybers came with their own patrons and allegiances of course. Sprite
noted some of the comm. chatter and logged it. She realized quite quickly that
some of them have their own agenda. Their patrons want control of the station.

Gwen
and some of the other Kiev people had joined the council but there were only
four of them, not enough to overcome the old guard voting bloc. Gwen was
reluctant to join the council; she wanted a voice in running the station but
didn't want to put the time in to be that voice. It was frustrating for both
her and for Sprite who had to watch her fumble around. She had tried handing
off her proxy to someone she trusted on the council, eventually settling on
Averies of all people.

Over
the following week as the new cybers finished orientation they began to firm
up, take on more duties, to make more formal alliances, and to start to move to
further marginalize the admiral's influence and control of the station. Sprite
wasn't amused when she was rebuffed from the main net one morning.

“Admiral
you are required in replicator four to attend to some parts,” Kennet informed
him. Irons opened his eyes to glare in exasperation but the holo had already
winked out.

“How
rude!” Sprite said. He grunted and checked the time on his HUD. He had just
gone down an hour ago. “Don't tell me you are getting up? He didn't even say
please!” She was thoroughly pissed that the cyber had gotten through to do
that. She'd been distracted and hadn't caught him until he was already in the
apartment.

Irons
pulled the blanket up to his shoulder and got comfortable. “Screw him. I'm
going back to bed. Whatever it is it can wait until morning,” Irons growled.
He'd spent another week running all over the station covering for Gwen and
Riff, on the radio talking with the mayors trying to convince them that a
military presence was necessary... and not getting anywhere. He had been
intensely frustrated when he had been kicked off the radio for more important
matters. He needed a break. He rolled over and let his breathing drift. He let
the angst go.

Sprite
however was seething. She felt the others on the net. Kennet had bounced off
but then returned when Irons hadn't moved after fifteen minutes.

When
Replicator four called the attorney he returned to the room. This time Sprite
was there to greet him. She thought about blocking him but decided against it.
It was high time the admiral took a hand in this and saw it firsthand. “Why
hasn't he moved?”

Sprite
glared. “He's sleeping.”

“The
schedule is slipping,” Kennet said. “Tell him to attend to his duties,” he said
waving an imperious hand.

Sprite
looked incredulously at him. “Me? You want me to
order
a Fleet admiral
around? The only living Federation representative around? Like he's some
lackey
?
What are you kidding me?” she demanded, hands on her virtual hips.

“These
things need to be done,” Kennet said with a sneer.

“Ah,
they need to be done. I see,” she said, voice dripping sarcasm. “No
please
do this. Not we need you to do this. Do it. No. The answer is no. You have no
authority over the admiral or me. Get used to it.”

Kennet's
eyes flashed dangerously. “You'll regret that,” he snarled.

“I'm
regretting not disabling the audio and holo projectors in my room,” Irons
growled not looking up. “Which I'm going to do and a whole lot more if you two
don't take your spat elsewhere. I am sleeping. I will get around to it when
I
am damn good and ready and that's that.”

“That's
your final word on it?” Kennet demanded. Irons snored loudly and obnoxiously in
response.

“Leave,”
Sprite growled. “You are intruding in his personal space. I believe you are
pretty aggressive about defending one's space. I see enough of it on the net.”

“Fine,”
Kennet said with a snarl, disappearing. Sprite smirked as he left.

“That
told him,” she said turning to look down at the admiral.”

“Sprite?”
he asked.

“Yes
admiral?”

“Night
Sprite,” he said, rolling over once more.

“Oh,
um... Good night admiral,” she said more amused than subdued as her holo winked
out. She immediately reset the security links on the apartment. The little
bastard wouldn't be pulling that again anytime soon. He may have used a council
override but a Federation and military override trumped it.

"How's
that ship going?" Irons asked the next morning. He'd been curious about
derelicts. He'd hoped they'd get lucky, stumble across a navy ship like they
did in Pyrax but no such luck. So far only the one tiny yacht turned dispatch
boat had been located. He'd been particularly interested in the little ship
though for his own reasons.

It
had been a nearly two month period of hard work for the people of the station.
A seven and a half week period of blood sweat and tears getting the station
sorted out. Fortunately there hadn't been any fatalities in that period but
quite a few casualties. Fortunately the doctors were now on task with the
proper facilities and the injured were returning to the work force as quickly
as possible.

The
second generation of tugs were out there now, plying the surrounding area for
materials. Some of them were automated, a few were piloted. They were scaling
them up each generation, starting with the small scale tugs and workboats and
then building larger and larger versions as more and more material filled their
coffers. It was exponential growth at its finest.

They
had a dozen volunteer tug pilots from Kiev. Some were a bit long in the tooth
age wise, but they had all checked out with medical so he hadn't said anything.
Nothing had raised a red flag at any rate.

Some
of the younger volunteers were a bit worrisome. They didn't have the seasoning
to settle down into as dangerous a job as tug work. He'd experienced it with
the Valdez family on Anvil. Junior had tore that family's tug up just before Io
11 had docked. Fortunately Irons had taken a hand to rebuild her. The lad had
settled for a little while before making the jump to the navy.

The
teachers on the station had their work cut out for them. Fortunately they had
access to more advanced training methods, including using sleep teaching and
implant teaching. They also had some motivated students. Many of the older set
found it harder to absorb the material but were highly motivated to do so to
get the promised better jobs and authority.

Dr.
Trask had her virtual hands full getting the implant line up and running. The
first stages were easy but the actual cyber procedures were taking up an
incredible amount of time and effort from all involved. Usually one cyber was
all they could do in a week, and they needed several days to recover afterward.
Right now they had a schedule worked out, basic implants during Tuesday through
Thursday, then a Cyber on Friday and then a three day weekend off to recover.

Fortunately
Dr. Kraft was on hand to do the physical side of things. So far they only had
Ident implants in the general population and a handful of basic level one and
two implants like the Warners and Gwen had for the engineering population.
Hopefully the latest round of repairs and the classes currently ongoing would
free up more people. Some of the medics themselves had implants now but more
were needed. Each also needed to get some downtime to get the implants and then
recover and train with them. Hopefully things would work out soon.

They
had four working fusion reactors now but barely enough fuel on board for all of
them. Each reactor was running at less than fifty percent until more fuel
became available. That was a major issue with the station; power was still
being rationed and closely monitored. It caused some conflict in the station's
council.

The
station council was sorting itself out still. Some of the old guard weren't
comfortable with council duties on top of their regular routine. Some like the
Fu's abandoned any other work in favor of exclusive work on the council. If you
could call wrangling a subject to death and arguing over contract grammar work.

It
bothered Irons that all the original cybers and AI were on the board even
though most hadn't been when the station went dark. Some really didn't belong
on the board. D'red he could understand as head legal counsel, but you didn't
need ten lawyers on the station council! Eight of the twenty one old guard
cybers actually did any work. The rest were politicians and place holders.

What
also annoyed him was that many had done their level best to impede the
restoration of the station from the very beginning. Impede it or had no hand in
repairing it. But now that things were working out they insisted on having a
say in how things were run.

What
they were really doing was forming allegiances, voting blocks. Drawing the
council into parties for and against subjects and then trying to build a
consensus to achieve something. Compromise was the order of the day. Everything
he now suggested was watered down, delayed, or ignored. That was particularly
irritating sometimes.

His
dome project had been brought up twice more for votes, and each time voted
down. The Stewards had even shown up for a vote once but Fu had drawn support
from the new cybers and narrowly headed the project off. Irons wasn't sure why
he was so focused on preventing it.

Fu
and Kennet were also acting coldly to him more and more. He'd picked up on it,
their autocratic demands that he attend to something 'now right this minute'.
When he started to put his foot down two days ago they hadn't liked it. Too bad
for them.

Of
course it didn't endear him to some of the others when they got wind of it.
Also too damn bad. He needed sleep like other organics, downtime to renew his
energy. Granted he didn't need a lot of it, but he was damn well going to use
it as an excuse as much as possible to get out of being ordered around.
Kennet's little interruption had been the last straw.

He
still hadn't confronted them directly on that subject. He didn't have a strategy
in mind yet. Politics weren't his game really. He knew about them, studied
them, but he did his best to avoid them.

Of
course one method to avoid the subject all together was to dive into the
repairs. Which was what he was doing. He was just following his own agenda, not
the councils. That was another subject for rancor with the council. Well, some
of the council anyway. Some liked what he was doing but still opposed his
proposals anyway.

His
defensive plan had been reset, tabled, and was now on hold. Any attempt to make
something for the plan had been delayed by a replicator being overbooked or the
net being overtaxed or some other excuse.

Doctor
Myers had been ecstatic when the station's long range sensors had been brought
online a week ago. Myers had been more interested in the long overdue science
projects that the sensors could now provide information too, but others were
more interested in cataloging the vast number of asteroids and trying to
prioritize which were the best to recover. Irons had been happy for an entirely
different reason. One of his first priorities was to catalog the system and to
find any derelicts for recovery and salvage.