New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (18 page)

"Still reading thermal hot
spots... Give it a minute or two longer," she said. He nodded and turned
to the others.

"Head count?" he asked.

Molly shook her head. "I
think...” She looked around uncertain. "Yeah, we're missing Cindy, but
everyone else is here. She went the other way," she said. He nodded.

"Sprite?" he asked
softly. He watched as Molly took a breath.

"She's okay, on the other
side of the fire doors down the corridor," Sprite reported. He sighed in
relief.

"She's safe," he said
out loud. He nodded to the guards. "Good work." They shrugged. He
turned to the controls.

"How much longer?"
Molly asked.

"Are we trapped? We're
trapped aren't we?" Mindy's voice had a hysterical edge. He gave her a
cool look.

Molly patted her hand
reassuringly. "We're fine."

Jennie didn't look reassured, but
gulped as the Admiral nodded to her. He returned his attention to the controls.
"Okay... No more thermal spots detected. I rerouted power and data around
that compartment as well," Sprite reported.

"Good. Okay." He tapped
the controls. The O2 levels began to rise.

"Looks like we'll need to
replace the CO2 scrubbers on this deck sooner than expected," he said as
he shook his head.

Jennie grinned. "That'll set
Trisha off."

He chuckled, "yeah. That and
the soot stains."

"Admiral, the doctor and a
team are on the other side of the emergency doors," Sprite reported. He
nodded.

"Okay," he said. He
tapped the controls. It was more for show, Sprite did the real work.
"Doors released. Emergency crew is here." The door opened and the doc
came in. The relief crew had masks and towed a fire fighting kit.

"Who's bad?" the doctor
asked through the mask. The doc stopped to look at the soot stained Admiral.
"Admiral you’re not even wearing a mask!"

The Admiral waved a hand.
"No problem, see to the others."

The doc looked confused, but
obeyed after a moment. "Okay." He kept sneaking glances at the
Admiral who turned his back.

"Report," the chief
said coming in. She had a full mask on. "What happened?"

Frie took a deep breath then
waved. "Over here chief." In a few moments she outlined what had
happened.

The chief nodded. "Good
work." She left without a look at the Admiral. He shrugged at the outraged
look on many faces.

"Don't worry about it. I
need a shower more than thanks anyway," he said as he left.

“Admiral, as much as I want the
ship completely repaired, I'm going to have to scale you back some,” The
Captain's announcement had been expected. He sighed and nodded.

“Okay, we're about done with what
we can do with the stock pile or raw material on hand. I take it you want us to
slow down and work on routine repairs and only one to one rebuild
replacements?”

The Captain's brows knit. “one to
one?” she asked. He nodded.

“Cut the damaged part out of the
loop, remove it, rebuild it, and then put it back in,” he explained. She
nodded. “Yes, that may work for non essential systems,” she replied. The ops
officer cleared her throat. “As long as we have the power available.”

He nodded. “We still have the
hover pallets to fix,” Vanessa, the purser grumped. “I don't see why now,
you've taken half of our feedstock. Just what are you planning to do to replace
it all? Refined metal doesn't just float around you know!” she harped.

He chuckled. “Actually it does,”
he smiled, getting an idea.

“We'll talk about it later; I
have an appointment with Dorah and the kids,” the captain growled. The Captain
waved them out. “Go on, shoo, stay out of trouble.” The Admiral wasn't the only
one to chuckle as they exited.

Gia watched the engineer as he
calibrated the hover pallet. The engineering crew had been forced to scale back
some of their repair efforts until new material could be acquired. Frie looked
over to her and shrugged. Gia cleared her throat. "So what did you mean
about that Heavy worlder comment the other day?"

He looked up and frowned.
"From your build, and that of Frie over there, you look like you're
descendant of heavy worlders."

Gia's brows knit. "Because
we're short?"

He shook his head. "No,
well, yes, that's part of it, but also because of your build. You’re stocky,
with massive muscles," he explained.

Frie frowned dangerously.
"So what?"

He looked over to her. "So,
I thought you were a descendant of heavy worlders, either through genetic
engineering or natural selection."

She cocked her head. "What
do you mean?" she asked, confused. He grunted.

"Well, when humanity first
began to colonize the stars, we found many worlds that were in the Goldilocks
zone, but had too much, or too little gravity." He locked down the cover
plate. "Okay, this one is done." He got up and cleaned his hands.

"My ancestress was a gene
sculpted," Gia replied quietly.

Frie looked over to her.
"You sure?"

Gia nodded. "Great gram was
a scientist during the Xeno war. She was in a G shielded base when they hit the
Himalaya colony," she said quietly. He accessed the Galactica database and
did a search. Quickly he absorbed the short entry paragraph.

"The planet is a high G one,
one of the highest. With the colonists living on the mountains right?" he
asked.

She nodded. "I guess so. But
there was some sort of moss or lichen that grew on the lower slopes. Down below
the colonies. It had some medicinal uses so they set up a base with artificial
gravity," she said. He nodded.

"I don't get it," Frie
replied confused.

"They used artificial
gravity to cancel out the higher gravity of the planet. Or at least cut it down
to bearable strength," Irons explained.

Gia nodded. "The base was in
a sheltered valley, under an overhang cell of rock. When the Xeno’s came, they
wiped out the towns, colonies, everything," she said, her eyes were filled
with hatred.

"Grandam turned the power
plant off and cut the gravity down to just bearable levels to hide. Several couldn't
stand it and died," she shook her head at the loss. "When they were
sure the Xeno’s had left, or when they couldn't stand it anymore, they used the
escape vehicles and some makeshift equipment to hike back up the
mountain."

He patted her arm. "forty
eight people were there. They went back several times to scavenge what they
could. Eventually a wandering independent freighter came by hoping for
salvage," she said as she  smiled. "What they found was grandam. She
traded what moss and gear they had for transport off that rock. Thirty five of
them made it off," she said but then her face cleared. "And here I
am!"

The Admiral nodded. "I'm
glad you kept your roots and know some of your history," he said quietly.
She nodded. "Okay, why don't we go catch some lunch and I'll see what I
have in my files about heavy worlders," he said.

He gathered up his tools and then
stood. "You wouldn't happen to know your ancestors’ name would you?"
Gia asked as she smiled. "Doctor Gia Brown."

He entered that into the search
engine. Her name and a brief bio came up. "Hmm, she was a prominent
scientist. I can see you in her," he said, comparing the thumbnail image
to Gia.

Gia and Frie stopped and turned.
"You knew her?" Gia asked suddenly intent.

He shook his head. "No, but
I have her bio, and holo image," he said.

Gia looked excited. "I want
to see!"

He waved. "Well, there's a
screen in the galley now that we fixed it," he said.

She smiled. "Well, don't
just stand there, come on!" He chuckled as he followed.

"All right doctor, I've
found five medical texts in the files, including a high school health course,
biochem course, and an introductory to xenobiology," The Admiral said,
sitting down.

The doctor sighed. "I have
found dozens of crystals with medical information, but it's all gibberish to
me," he said as he shook his head.

"Well, I have a medical
dictionary program, some files from the Encyclopedia Galactica, as well as a
basic first aid program in my implants I can upload. With that, the other
programs in the main frame, and what files we can recover from those..."
Irons shrugged. He indicated the crystals on the doctor's desk. "We should
have a basic course lined up for you. We can tailor it for the nurses and sick
berth attendants too."

The doctor nodded. "Good
good...wait, sick berth attendants?" he asked.  He looked up confused.
Irons smiled. "They're like paramedics. They reach the injured first. They
also act as orderlies and nurses in sickbay," he explained.

The doctor sat back. “Mindy won’t
like it, competition."

He waved to indicate the dancing
girl on the other side of the glass. "Too bad," the Admiral replied,
smiling.

"Oh, I didn't mean I was
against it," the doctor chuckled. "She gets rather full of herself
from time to time. I think dropping her a peg or two may be worth it."

He shrugged. "Okay, so we
have the basic first aid course sorted out and we can look this over to see
what to add." He tapped the tablet the Admiral had set in front of him.
"Where should we start?" the doctor asked. The doctor looked up
stretching and placing his hands behind his head.

"Oh, you could start with
the guards, they could use the training," the Admiral indicated the
guards.

"You'll have to clear it
with the Chief first. Then move on to engineering. I'll try to get some
volunteers to you for your first class as well," Irons said as the doctor
looked thoughtfully at the gaurds.

He nodded. "I had a few
ladies asking if they could learn..." The doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Maybe they could join as well."

The Admiral nodded. "The
basic course is just that, the basics of first aide to stabilize the injured so
someone with more training..." He indicated the doctor. "Can arrive
and assess the situation. Those that show an aptitude could be encouraged for
further study," he said.

The doctor nodded. "Yes,
that should work. Not everyone has a strong stomach for medicine," he
sighed. "My father was a doctor, I learned my bed side patient manner from
him, but he was a terror when blood flowed," he shook his head in memory.

"A general practitioner, but
not a trauma medic?" Irons asked and then nodded.

"Well, he did okay in the
barnyard, but I think his empathy shorted him out when it came to humans,"
the doctor replied.

The Admiral sat back.
"Barnyard?" he asked softly.

The doctor chuckled.
"Doctors are rare." He shrugged. "We had to do what we could for
all our patients, sentient or otherwise."

The Admiral nodded in sudden
understanding. "What ever works. Okay." He got up. "I've got to
get back to work, let me know when you've finished reviewing that," he
said as he nodded to the tablet. "Thanks for this again." The doctor
waved the tablet. He set it down and started to scroll through it. "Basic
first aid?” he asked softly as he shook his head. “This is more than the health
course!" he looked up awed.

The Admiral shrugged. "I
don't like the terminology of doctors, so I took the liberty of adding a
dictionary, the rest was built in." He waved as he left.

“We have a week to go until break
out. I can't believe we're moving this fast!” Shandra looked bemused. “I've got
most of my girls used to the speed; getting them up to handling beta shouldn't
be too hard, the Admiral is working on expanding the simulator program.”

The Captain nodded. “And this
tank?” she asked indicating the cylinder. She set the tablet down. Shandra
grinned. “Oh, that's to make it easier to fly the ship in the higher bands
since we don't have implants. It will take a suit to go with it though.” She frowned.

“Virtual reality?” the morale
officer asked. “Are you going to need the goggles? I only have so many,” she
asked warily.

“Were going to replicate
everything from scratch so don't worry about it,” Shandra waved it off. “Here,”
she said. She punched in the display in front of her seat. A virtual keyboard
appeared.

 “When did that happen?” Jen
asked intrigued.

“The other day, I saw the Admiral
working on it and came to watch before my shift started,” Shandra said. She
tapped the controls and an image appeared on the face of the table. “This stop
is going to be short according to the flight plan, no more than a week.”

The Captain nodded. “I don't want
to stick around for long in case those pirates come looking for us,” she said
and then shivered.

“Yeah, good idea,” Kendra
drawled. She flushed when the Captain gave her a quelling look. 

“I understand the Admiral has
been sleeping in the guard’s quarters?” the Captain gave the Chief a long look.

“We're working things out,” the
chief looked away.

“Surely we can do better than
this Vanessa,” the Captain drawled.

Jen gave the purser a look.
“Agreed. It is after all, the least we can do.” She glared.

Tsunade looked up. “Yes, it falls
in my purview too, mistreating the Admiral is starting to effect morale,” she
said. She caught the chief's glare and flushed.

"Hey look at what I
found!" Mindy came in, dancing with a jacket covered in straps around her.
She had straps dangling from the ends of the sleeves and around the waist.
"Isn't it neat? All the shiny buckles!" She admired them for a
moment. "But I can't get my hands through the sleeves!" she said
putting words to action.

The Admiral looked up and snorted
at the sight of the girl. "That's a straight jacket." He turned and
reached behind the machine he was repairing. "Okay doc, try it now,"
he said.

The doctor looked at Mindy for a
moment and then clicked the on button. "Okay, green light. Booting."
He looked back at Mindy. She was fumbling with the jacket, buckling the front.