New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (48 page)

"She looks like a Moth
class. I don't blame you for being a little gun shy Captain. Perhaps we should
hail them?" he asked. He turned to her. She cocked an eyebrow.

"What good would that do?
They could just say they're legit," she said.

He nodded. "But, I could
jack into their system by piggybacking your call and take a look in their
net," he replied. She cleared her throat looking slightly shocked.

The Chief stifled a gasp.
"You can do that?" she asked. She had recently returned to limited
duty that morning.

He smiled. "Of course."

"By you, you mean me of
course Admiral," Sprite said quietly.

He shrugged. "I'll have to
be jacked in though."

The Captain waved to the console
nearby. "By all means," she said.

He nodded and jacked in.
"I'm in,” he said out loud. "Ready?" he asked Sprite quietly.

"As I'll ever be. Once more
unto the breech and all that," she said exasperated.

He looked up to the Captain.
"Piggyback program is ready," he said.

She nodded. "All right,
Jane, open a channel," she ordered, indicating the girl with a gnarled
finger.

Jane flicked a couple switches
then looked up. "Live mike in three... two... one..." She nodded.

"This is the Captain of the
Io 11 calling unknown ship," the captain said. She waited.
"Hello??" Jane Nexi hit the mute then looked up. "There is a
time lag Captain, they are still four light minutes away," she explained.

The Captain nodded. "All
right, send it," she said.

Nexi looked over to the Admiral
who was staring off to the bulkhead. "Sending now." She flipped the
switch.

It was like losing a part of
himself, Sprite was there, and then she spun off an echo program to spike the
unknown’s computer. "On its way," he confirmed. "Captain, I
recommend we do a turn over and cease acceleration until we get a response one
way or another," he said. He continued to stare off, concentrating on the
signal. A countdown was on his HUD indicating when they would receive a return
signal.

He checked the ship's systems.
"Make it so," he heard distantly. The voice sounded distant and
unimportant to him. He watched the HUD as the helms woman cut the acceleration
then neatly flipped the ship end over end to face the way they had come.

"Maneuver complete
Captain."

"Excellent."

He felt a tingle as the countdown
reached zero. "Receiving transmission.

"Captain of the Io 11 this
is Captain Bright of the free trader Pelican. We were a bit concerned about you
as well. Good to hear from you." He felt the return of the echo and its
data dump.

"Admiral, their computer
security is civilian grade, but not bad. Still, no match for me of
course," Sprite said smugly.

"And?" he asked
quietly.

"They're legit. A freighter,
no weapons. Viruses all over their network though," she said with a
disgusted look. He sighed in relief.

"Captain, they're a legit
freighter, no weapons detected," he reported.

She nodded. "Good to
know."

"Captain, there's a second
transmission packet incoming," Nexi reported.

"Play it."

"This is the Avalon 4 colony
to Io 11. I understand you’re concerned about your visitors. I vouch for them
Captain," the scratchy female voice didn't even identify themselves.

The Captain smiled. "All
right Alice, if you say so. Any friend of yours is a friend of ours...Even if
they're a competitor."

A few minutes later they received
a laughing response. "Good! We can have an auction! Bidding war!" the
woman said.

The captain snorted. Some of the
crew looked relieved. The Captain eyed the engineer. "Thank you
Admiral." He unjacked and took it as a dismissal.

He and his consorts exited the
lift to a babble of girls. The guards took lead, brushing through the throng of
girls eagerly asking questions. "Is it true there's another ship? Is it a
pirate? Are you going to leave on it Admiral? You’re not going to leave us are
you?” the girls asked, some concerned, others curious.

He shook his head and held up his
hands. "Ladies!" They quieted. "Thank you. The Captain will make
an address when she's ready," he said. A few ahhed at this in
disappointment.

"Speaking of which..."
Sprite alerted him. He pointed up. A few looked up just in time.

"This is the Captain
speaking." They all looked up to the speaker. "We've just spoken with
a ship in orbit of the colony; it's been confirmed to be a trader. We're still
on to make landfall. That's all."  He smiled. "See?" He made his
way through the throng as it parted and began to break up.

"Move along people! Get back
to your stations... Nothing to see here," the guards encouraged. He shook
his head.

The guards kept giving him looks.
He noted one and looked up. "What? You’re starting to make me
nervous." He gave the girl a long look.

She squirmed. "Um, well,
we're wondering if you were going to leave," she asked.

He picked up a coupler.
"Leave?" he echoed.

She nodded. "On the other
ship. The Chief told us to keep you here though." She looked concerned.

He shrugged. "Well, I'm not
done yet with the repairs. It's a thought though," he said and then
shrugged.

"Looks like you need an
impact wrench to get that bolt loose Admiral," Jennie said, looking over
his shoulder. He looked up and smiled. "Here I can lend you mine...” Her
eyes twinkled for a moment as she leaned over to her kit. They were making good
time to orbit, they were about two and a half days out. The engineers wanted to
get as much done with the engines as possible the moment they were no longer
needed. Hence all the prep they were doing right now.

"No need," he said. He
held up his middle finger and watched it morph into a socket.

"Oh, I forgot about that.
One man walking tool kit and machine shop," she said. He chuckled.
"How do you get that?" one of the nearby girls asked.

He looked over. "You get
your arms and legs blown off," he said. He heard the gasp as he locked
onto the bolt. A sharp grunt of grinding noise from his finger and the bolt was
turning freely. "I was injured in a battle. I had the choice of a clone
replacement, or artificial. There was a long line for clone replacement
parts...so I opted to play guinea pig," he said. He pulled the bolt free
then looked up to see the girls staring at him. He shrugged. "Seemed like
a good idea at the time."

One of the girls nodded. "Um
okay... but, what's a Guinea pig?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. He
chuckled and leaned over to the next bolt.

"Prepare for docking."
He felt the ship twitch as the OMS kicked slightly, aligning the two vessels
minutely. "Alignment confirmed. Docking commencing." The ship shifted
again, and then stopped. "Docking complete," the overhead squelched
for a moment. "All hear this, security to the docking port prepare to
receive visitors." He looked over to the guards; they were already moving
to obey. He nodded.

Sometime later he ran into a
group being escorted by a guard. "You have some ship, and it's so clean!
And functional!" pure envy dripped from the short balding man in the
rumpled coverall. The Purser nodded.

"That's because of the
Admiral here and our engineering staff," Jennie replied, waving to him.

The Chief looked over to her and
glared. "Admiral?" the male asked, he looked thoroughly confused.

"Yes, we found him in a life
pod a few months ago. We were chased out of the system by pirates and stumbled
upon him by accident," Jennie continued on blithely ignoring the Chief's
dagger eyes. Irons mouth twisted in a tight smile. It had been nine months ago
actually.

"It's nice to meet you
Admiral," the man said and held held out his hand.

The Admiral set down the panel he
had been holding and shook his proffered hand. "Nice to meet you as well
mister...?"

"Oh, sorry, this is Captain
Andros Bright of the Pelican," Vanessa replied smoothly.

He nodded. "Pleasure to meet
you Captain."

The Captain nodded eagerly.
"Say, do you know how to repair a Smythe series six plasma engine?"
he asked and then waved. "Mine has a hiccup every few micro seconds that
makes the ship shiver and buck," he shook his head. "Can't seem to
get a handle on it," he sighed.

The Admiral slowly nodded.
"It sounds like either a computer problem or contamination on your
electric grid."

Jennie nodded. "Or a clogged
fuel injector," she said. The classes were coming in handy.

He nodded. "Possible. You’re
using straight sea water?" he asked.

He turned to the Captain. He
nodded. "Why yes!" He sighed.

Irons grimaced. "Best that
your current ships can handle I suppose. But it has a lot of particles that
tend to clog up the works after building up in the fuel lines over time."
He shook his head. "I can't really say much more without seeing it."
He placed the panel back onto the wall. "Finished here. I'm about to go
off shift, if you'd like me to take a look, I can spare a couple hours..."
he said suggestively.

The Captain brightened.
"Thank you!"

Captain Bright nodded eagerly and
practically bounced. "Our gravity is out on deck three too; can you do something
about that?" he asked. The man smacked the Admiral on the shoulder.

"Well, I can take a look if
there's time. If you need parts you'll need to contact the purser and Miss
Jennie here to arrange for a trade." He waved to Jennie and bowed over his
hand. She blushed.

"Jennie?" the captain
asked turning.

He nodded. "Miss Jennie here
is the assistant chief engineer. The young woman you met earlier is the acting
chief engineer."

 The Chief was looking
nonplussed. "I thought you were the Chief?" the Captain asked.

 "Oh, no, I'm a passenger,
just working my passage," he replied and then shrugged. "Let me see
what I can do," he said.

The Captain nodded. "Garth
here...” He waved to a stocky man with a scar on his face.  "Garth can
show you to the ship," he said as he nodded to his assistant. The Chief
leaned over and whispered to a guard. She followed them as they left.

It took a few minutes to get to
the Pelican's engineering core. "All right, let’s see." He looked
around.

A burly man shouldering a wrench
looked him over with disdain. "And what do you think you’re doing
here?" he snarled.

"Your Captain asked me to
diagnose your engine problem." He nodded to the controls. "With your
Chief's permission...?" Irons asked politely.

The man snarled. Garth came
forward. The man back down sullenly. "Over there," he finally said.
He pointed with the wrench.

"All right. I'm going to
need to jack in." He examined the jack, and then morphed his hand.

Garth and the burly man gasped.
"What the hell are you?"

He jacked in. "A cyborg from
your past," Irons replied.

He felt Sprite's handshake
protocol, and firewalls slam up. "Initiating antivirus procedures,"
she said, he echoed it out loud.

"Anti virus? What are you
talking about?" the man said, grabbing his left arm.

"Your computer is infected
with viruses, I'm cleaning them out. The viruses are damaging your electronics
and systems," Irons explained. He shook the hand off, concentrating on
Sprite's work.

"Shields ready Captain,
defensive protocols on line," Defender responded.

"Done. Virus quarantine,
purge, and inoculation completed. I'm copying the ship's logs and interesting
files to the Io for later study. I'm rerouting the software around the damaged
systems Admiral. It'll take me a few minutes," Sprite reported a few
minutes later.

He nodded. "All right, the
viruses have been killed, I'm working on fixing the software damage and then
I'll access your drives diagnostics," he said out loud for the Pelican
crew's benefit. He checked the field strength of their shields. Less than ten
percent, hyperdrive was barely Alpha D band. "Your hyperdrive is out of
alignment with your sensors."

Sprite squirted him the
diagnostics for the ship engines. He opened the file and a virus attacked. "Oops,
guess I missed one," Sprite responded, killing it. "All right, try
again," she said.

He grimaced. "Okay, if there
aren't any more nasty surprises..." he said it bitingly.

"Sorry," she said
again. He checked the file, eyes scanning it quickly.

"Well, you have all three
problems it looks like. Clogged fuel lines and fuel injector ports, depolarized
electric grid, and electronic ignition wiring problem. It looks like a faulty
or damaged wiring harness...port side, along the aft bulkhead," he reported.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight Garth scrambling for a pen to
write on a nearby clipboard.

"I can't do anything from in
here for that. The deck three gravity...hmmm... yeah, impedance reached in over
half the grid. The rest was overloaded in a power surge. It looks like an EPS
conduit upstream breached out and when the blockage was stopped the flow wasn't
turned down, the overflow hit deck three's lines and overloaded the life
support systems on the deck. Some system recovery, but the power surge made the
electronics that returned spotty at best," he reported.

He looked over to the Chief.
"I would suggest a complete overhaul of the deck life support." The
Chief looked bleak. "And where can we get parts? No one but Pyrax makes
them?!" he grimaced. "Well, you can make up a shopping list and ask
your Captain to trade for them with the Io 11." He looked over to Garth.

"How, you have the
parts?" Garth asked, tapping the desk.

"Some in stores possibly,
but most will have to be replicated," Irons replied. He turned his
attention back to the net, ignoring the look the two shared between each other.