New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (31 page)

"Power supply is steady. I
see what he meant about the threshold, the reserve dipped a lot!" Kendra
the ops officer pulled up the display.

"Should we back off?"
the Captain asked concerned.

"No, I was just observing
Captain," the girl blushed.  “Energy reserves returning to normal now.”

The Captain noticed that a lot of
the crew now sported cut down uniforms or in the case of the engineering staff,
coveralls. They still had their own touches, Shandra for instance had a red
scarf around her neck, but the uniforms were becoming more and more prevalent.

"All right, let’s see what
she can do," she murmured. She tapped her hand on the display. It lit and
she looked down in surprise. A hologram appeared in front of her.

"Yes? Oh! It’s you
Captain!" Molly grinned. "Enjoying the speed?"

The Captain cleared her throat.
"I was just checking in, how are things going down there?" she wasn't
about to admit it had been an accident. Molly didn't notice.

"We're doing great Captain!
We'll be at the next colony in a tenth of the time at this rate! And we're
using less power to boot!" She grinned.

The Captain nodded. "But I
thought we're using more power to get into hyper?" she asked. She looked
over to Shandra.

"To get in we are Captain,
but we're picking up more particles with the bussard scoops too. Also we're in
hyper for less time, so we of course save energy in the long run," the
navigator explained.

The Captain nodded. "That's
good to hear," she said. She waved to Molly who was looking down at her
console. "Molly, how soon can we get into the Gamma bands?" Molly
looked up and adjusted her glasses.

"Well we just got here;
we'll need to run a full ship wide diagnostic to make sure there aren't any
bugs." She was flicking through the reports. "I'm more concerned
about the power and the stress on the frame from those vibrations...  We'll
need to check things out to make sure we didn't pop a seal somewhere. I really
can't recommend it this trip Captain," she said sounding a little
disappointed.

The Captain nodded. "Get to
it then," her gravelly voice cleared. She looked down and closed the
channel. "So, he kept his word," she murmured.

"Is that what I think it
is?" he pointed to a purple and yellow four legged monstrosity running
down the corridor. It jumped over a knee knocker then darted to the right down
another passage.

The nurse came around in pursuit,
holding a pair of electric sheers. "Sorry, excuse me have you seen Mister
Whiskers?" she asked. He pointed to the left. "Oh thank you,"
she said, running off giggling. Tara sighed. "I feel sorry for that
cat."

 He nodded. "Me too."

She snorted. "Glad you told
her the wrong way. You’re all right." He gave a small smile over his
shoulder.

"I'm a sucker for a lost
cause," he said. Jennie giggled.

"Um mister engineer
sir?" He turned to the red headed Dorah. The girl was fourteen or fifteen,
with long flowing red hair. She was a bit of an air head and hung out with
Mindy.

"Yes?"

She tapped the tips of her fingers
together. "Um, I was wondering, could you show me your implants
again?" she gushed. He grunted.

His sensors could pick up other
girls peeking around the corners. "Okay." He looked up to them and
suppressed a smile as one of them ducked out of sight. "Sure. If you
ladies would like to see as well why don't you come out?" he projected to
them. Almost reluctantly a few came out, then a torrent of eager techs. He
chuckled softly.

"All right now, when I was
injured the first time, I received an artificial eye.” He pointed to his eye
and made it dilate in and out, and even turn into a slit. The group oohed and
ahed. "Later, my right arm, side and legs were injured." He flexed
his right hand, and then rolled up the coverall's sleeve. "These are my
tools." He flicked the commands one by one to deploy different tools from
the forearms.

"They can do various
things," he said. He spread his fingers wide. "Each of my fingers can
morph into a set of tools too." He started with the index finger, morphing
it into a welder, multi tester, plasma torch. Then his middle finger turned
into a set of pliers, wire cutter, and then back. "My ring finger turns
into a port so I can jack into computers," he said. The finger turned into
a jack, then back. He held his hand up.

"Neat huh?" Some of
them looked shocked. "I have some other implants as well, stuff to help me
breath better, hear better, and even artificial organs," he explained.

Mindy looked up at this.
"Like lungs and stuff?"

He snorted. "Yes, I have one
cyborg lung, and one kidney. Also implants in various organs so I can
consciously monitor or control them."

A pixie blue haired girl bounced
up and down. "Why?" she asked. He smiled.

"So I can handle different
environments and so I can keep from getting hurt again," he said. She
nodded. "Now, I have to get some more work done, why don't you ladies
check in with the moral officer, see if she can pull up some information on
cyborg implants for you to look over?" he asked them politely but firmly.
A few awed in disappointment, but most started to turn and walk away. He smiled
at Dorah. "They put you up to it?" he asked.

She gave him her best innocent
look. He snorted. "Get along little lady." She scampered with the
rest, skipping with Mindy.

"Are you going to see the
game tonight?" a guard asked another as he worked nearby.

The Admiral paused to listen.
"Game?" he sub vocalized to Sprite.

"There's a weekly null g
handball game scheduled tonight at 1700," she replied. He nodded.

The women walked by his ladder.
"Do you think the Chief's team will win again?"

It took a moment to pull his
attention back onto his current work. Rerouting plasma conduits was a dangerous
job, one he really needed to focus on with his full attention. He felt a bump
on his ladder. "Oh, excuse me. Sorry," she said again. He ground his
teeth.

"Perhaps this job could be
tabled until the crew is occupied or asleep?" Proteus commented, noting
his rising anxiety levels. "If that had happened while you were doing
delicate work...." the AI left the sentence hanging. He grimaced.

"Good point," he
growled. He climbed down the ladder and took a look around. The guards were on
either end of the corridor. "Pack it in ladies; we will come back to it
when there are fewer interruptions." One of the women scowled, but the
other nodded as she dodged a trio of women jogging. "Good idea," she
said.

The gravity plate in the corridor
was good; it just had the power lines disconnected. He fitted the connector
together and heard a sigh behind him. The guards weren't too happy about being
here, away from the game. That had been the third long sigh, and the grumbling
was going to start soon.

He watched his sensor feed as the
plate powered up and ran post. It found a fault, but he got up anyway. He went
over to the bulkhead communication's panel and turned it on. He flipped through
the channels for a moment. "Sprite, give me the camera feeds for the game
here," he sub vocalized. The LCD screen split into quarters and the game
from different views came up. One of the images was upside down and a bit snowy
from interference or damage.

"Compensating. Best I can do
Admiral," she said after a minute.

The sound came up as the last
camera image flipped. One of the guards looked up and over to him. "What
are you doing?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Might as well
check the game out while the computer boots." He went over and checked the
gravity plate. He was amused to see the guards edging over so they could get a
look at the screen. One of them clenched her fist, shaking it a bit, obviously
suppressing a cheer. He smirked, problem solved.

A few minutes with the tester and
he set it down. He disconnected the power line and made a note in his log.
"All right, this panel's computer is broken. The ram is showing a fault
and it looks like a hardware issue. Going to have to replace it."

He looked up and snorted. The
guards weren't paying attention to him; they were both glued to the game. One
of them glanced over. "Huh? Oh, okay," she said. She gave him a look,
and then reluctantly tried to keep her attention on him.

He shrugged. "Since I can't
get this done, I'm going to go fix that plasma conduit, then that water leak in
the deck three wardroom," he said. He gathered his tool kit, replaced the
deck's floor panel and looked up. "You coming?"

"Yeah, in a sec." one
guard said, distractedly "Go on, get it in there...YEAH! SCORE!" They
patted each other on the back. One of them thumbed the panel off and indicated
him. They practically jogged to the work site, and then the moment he set up
they turned the panel on.

“How did you get that channel?”
one of them asked, looking over his shoulder to him.

 “One moment.” He stepped down
from the ladder and over to the display. “Select camera views, then game,” he
said, glad Sprite was ahead of him and putting the directions on his HUD for
him. He clicked each, and the game came up.

“What about sound?” the other
asked.

“Oh, that's because someone
played with the volume,” he replied. He clicked mute and the sounds blasted at
full volume. “Oops!” He hastily flicked the volume control down. “There, that's
better,” he said. The guards sighed in relief, looking around guiltily. There
was some action on the display, one politely elbowed him aside. He chuckled and
went back to work.

There was a weird sound from the
compartment next door. He could hear whimpering, and scrapping. He checked it
out, and found a trio of Chihuahua dogs in the compartment. The moment they saw
him they began to yap. "Oh it's you!" He looked over to Dorah.
"Aren't they cute?" she asked. She petted one of the little yappers.
It stopped and sniffed her over, then turned and glared at him.

"Oh just adorable." He
said with sarcasm.

"The Captain picked them up
on a station. She's hoping to breed them and sell them to other colonies."
Jennie came in. "I doubt it'll work, you can't get anything out of them,
they're just yapping manure makers," she grumbled as she stepped around
them. One of them bit at her pant leg. "LET go!" she jerked her leg,
and the little runt let go with a cough.

"Great, see you made him
cough!" Dorah cuddled the dog. "HIM? Look what he did to my
pants!" Jennie snarled. The engineer grabbed her elbow and escorted her
out.

“So, you have dogs, cats... A
regular traveling circus.” He commented to Jennie as they walked down the
corridor. She reached up to a low support strut and ducked under it. “Huh? Oh
the animals.” She sighed. “Yes, we have them, and a couple rabbits, goats, and
a few pigs as well.” He looked behind her. She shrugged. “Remember, we trade
with farm colonies. We take what we can get.” He nodded.

“Besides, the Captain said it
helps them a little too.” He looked back, and then thought about it.
“Breeding?” She nodded as he looked to her for conformation. “Yeah, she said on
her first circuit she ran into another trade ship that told her about it. How
it helps the colonies with their limited gene pool.” He smiled at her blush and
turned around the next corner.

Sprite dodged a security bot, and
then pulled out of the net. "Did you have to teach them computer
security?" she grumped.

He smiled. "I only taught
them a little to use the systems, why, run into trouble?" She sent a nasty
buzz to his ear.

"Well, your students are
getting better, I'll give them that. Almost got caught," she growled. He
cocked his head.

"Well, if you do, tell them
you're me."

She projected her face into the
HUD, and then shook her head back and forth. "Won't work, no one is that
stupid admiral," she replied.

He snorted. "Technically
you're me, in a way; just don't get caught in the net when I'm not
connected."

Her image pulsed, her version of
a shrug. "May work. They're still new to computers," she finally
admitted.

He looked around the empty
compartment for a moment. “You could also set up a cloak so they won’t see you
at all. Set it up so the system won’t show your presence.” He waited as she ran
that through her program.

“That might work for a little
while; I'm not sure for how long. If I'm discovered it could cause diplomatic
problems later,” she said.

He nodded. “Like I said before,
don't get caught. Get the back door set up.”

"I noted in the log that
you're making software repairs while also making hardware repairs. How's this
possible?" Molly asked.

He turned to Molly and smiled.
"I multi task,” he said off the cuff. She had a blank look. "I can
walk and chew gum at the same time."

"But how can you access the
network if you’re not connected?" she asked. She looked confused.

"Well, there's a wireless network
too," he drawled it out, stalling for time. "I can do minor software
repairs on it, but if it takes a lot of concentration, or a password, I have to
jack in," he explained. She nodded.

"Well, you understand the
ship doesn't have a sentient AI right? When the ship was adrift the last act of
the Captain was to lobotomize the ship's AI, and wipe the navigational
database," he said.

She nodded. "That's why the
Captain, I mean our Captain, had to upload a civilian navigation program,"
she said. He nodded. It was of course a lot more complicated than that but she
didn't need to worry about it now.

"Yes, but the civilian
versions aren't as effective as military grade, and aren't designed to be used
with this hardware. Also, things have changed since the file was written eight
hundred years ago."