New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (7 page)

"Damn." He took a long
swig then looked around. "Where's my suit?"

“Right here Admiral.” He looked
over to Tara who held it up. “I was going to try to use it, but I think it is
damaged.” She fingered the right shoulder hole.

“Give it here.” She tossed it to
him. He chugged the water, tossed the cup to Tara then shucked the coverall and
tried to make a record getting into the suit. He ignored the gasps and blushing
girls.

As he stood he could feel the
seam closing around his right shoulder. He pulled the hood up and watched the
visor close.

“You’re good Admiral,” Sprite
reported. He nodded.

“Good luck,” Tara said as he
thumbed the door open. She grimaced and backpedaled. The heat must be
blistering.

“Okay, let's see,” he said. He
noticed Molly had managed to remove all the heat exchanges and even get one in
properly. “Sprite, get me a link to main engineering, tell them to back flush
the heat exchange system with fresh coolant in two minutes.”

“Admiral, I got one fixed, but
the other is stuck. Stupid bolt hole is stripped,” Molly grunted. “Damn fools.
Piece of junk.” He stepped around a heat exchanger.

“Can you work on another while I
re-tap it?” he asked. She nodded, moving immediately for the third exchange.

“It's getting hot in here! What
are you doing?” They heard over the suit comms.

Molly grimaced. “We're doing the
best we can, just bear with us. It isn't a picnic in here you know.” He
chuckled. Proteus traced the coolant lines, and then placed a karat around a
crimped line. “Crimped coolant line by your feet, watch it.” She looked down,
and then carefully stepped over it. She set the exchange down, then reached
over and straightened the line. “Best we can do.”

He felt Proteus change his finger
to a re-tap bore then take control of his arm. He moved forward, letting the AI
reach in and bore the hole out. With his free hand he checked the fittings of
the nearby exchange unit, finding one loose he hand tightened it. “Sprite open
a channel to fabrication.” “Channel open Admiral,” Sprite reported.

“Fabrication 1, this is the
Admiral, I want four new coolant lines, two meters long, um,” he paused, unsure
of the specs. Proteus helpfully fed him the part number on his HUD. “Part
number is uploading to you now.” He waited a moment.

“Who, what?”

He sighed. “Sprite...”

“Got it Admiral, current part on
hold, emergency bypass, they are working on it now,” she reported, not waiting
a beat. She'd clearly sprung into action when the humans had hesitated. He
nodded.

“Fabrication, make sure someone
runs those lines to us FAST,” Molly called.

“You get that?” he asked.

“We got it, Dorah will run it.
Gotta do something to keep her out of my hair...” the woman muttered as she
closed the circuit.

“Coolant on the move.” Proteus
reported a minute later.

“Lock that one down fast Molly,
coolant is coming,” he said.

She nodded and tightened her
wrench. “Okay this one is done, but the fourth...” she said unsure. She turned
to see coolant spilling out of the cables. “Great!”

Proteus retracted his hand. He
checked, the hole was ready. “Okay.” He spun and grabbed the exchange unit and
carefully put it in place. “Got this one too.” He looked over to her setting
hers down on the bolts. She had a problem lining up the holes though.

“Okay, now the fun part.” He
picked up a line and felt it trying to snake out of his hands. Fluid gushed out
all over him, and the unit. “Crap.” He managed to get the coupler to the male
end of the unit then lock it down. “That's one.” He tightened the head until
the dripping stopped.

“Finally!” Molly sighed in relief
as she got the holes lined up and set her unit down. “Damn what a pain! Always
happens when you’re in a hurry!”

He chuckled as he picked up the
exhaust line and screwed it on. The line immediately went taught, and then
sprang a leak. “I was afraid of that,” he sighed as the pin hole leak sprayed
fluid.

“Where are those hoses?” Molly
called irritably. The door opened and Tara tossed them in. “Good.” She grabbed
one and started attaching it. “How are we going to do this?” she asked, kicking
the shredded line gushing fluid at her feet.

“One thing at a time,” he said
pointing. He checked the stats. “Temperature has leveled off.”

"Molly when are you going to
fix the air conditioning? It's sweltering on the bridge!" Shandra called
over the inter ship net.

"I'm on it. We had a bit of
a mix up in the wiring; we're getting it sorted out now," Molly replied.
"Preferably before we pass out Molly," The Captain growled. "Why
me," she muttered as the nurse came in and put an ice pack on her brow.

 “Honestly, all those repairs and
they can’t get that done?” Shandra grumped as she looked over her control
board.

“We're on it!” Molly sing songed.

“Oops, left the channel open,”
Sparks said with a blush as she flicked the control.

“Well that was interesting!”
Molly sat in the corridor, leaning against a bulkhead. She had her helmet off
and was shaking. “I need a stiff drink and some sack time,” she sighed leaning
back. “Damn that was scary,” she said, mopping at her brow. The Admiral
chuckled.

“What's next?” she asked looking
up at him. He stood looking at the crew in suits cleaning up the mess in the
room. The temperature had quickly dropped to normal levels.

“Well, I am going to shuck this
suit again, and then check things over here, then check the electronics on this
deck, look for any damage.” He looked down at her. She was clearly done in, but
still trying to rally.

“You get some rest, you look
about done in. I won’t need rest for a couple of shifts,” he said.

She smiled.  He hadn't gotten any
downtime yet. “Must be nice,” she muttered then yawned. “Okay, you talked me
into it,” she said. He chuckled.

He checked in to the replicator
during graveyard shift. A sleepy young woman looked up as he and the guards
entered. "Can I help you sir?" She was tentative and a little awed.

"I was just checking in, I
thought I should upgrade my tool kit."

She nodded. "I heard Molly
and Jennie were doing that last shift as well." She was sitting at a stool
in front of the controls. "Do you think we'll have the other replicator
fixed soon?"

He stepped up beside her and
looked over the controls. "Maybe. I haven't taken a look at each of
them." There was a part under construction; it was going to be completed
in twenty minutes. He looked over to her, then turned and lounged against the
console.

"Replicators?  You mean
there are more than two?" She squeaked eyes wide.

He shrugged. "There are four
large industrial replicators, eight medium general purpose ones, and six specialty
replicators. There are also four in the sickbay. Then of course there are food
replicators in the galley and quarters," he explained off hand.

She gasped eyes wide. "All
those? Where are we going to store all the stuff we make?" She waved her
hands. "We don't have the room as it is!"

He shrugged. "Well, this
ship class has a lot of cargo space. From what I've heard there's still cargo
holds that are unused because they were breached. We'll fix them."

She shook her head, clearly
overwhelmed. "Wow! I didn't think it was ever possible to fix that sort of
stuff! So we can make parts to do that?"

He nodded and pointed at the
tank. "That's what it's doing now. It's making parts. I believe that's an
EPS T junction."

She nodded. "Nera said it
was for deck three," she said. She looked it over, and then studied the
controls. "I wish I knew how to use this, I'm just babysitting the
machine," she said plaintively.

He smiled. "It'll come with
time. Look, see here?"

He turned to the console.
"This is the matrix view. These..." He pointed to another display.
"These are your axis view cameras. This...” He pointed to another panel.
"This is your material Queue list. Over here are your power controls, your
raw material stats, heat, and a link to the parts database."

She nodded. "What's
this?" she asked pointing to big red button. He brushed her hand aside
before she punched the button. “

That's the emergency stop.” He
pointed to another group of controls. “These are your communication
controls."

She nodded. "I figured that
part out." She glanced over the console again and then looked up.
"Thanks." She gave him an impish grin.

"Right now we have a long
list and a limited supply of raw material so we have to prioritize what we want."
He scrolled up and down the list. "Once we get more material and the other
replicators on line we can parse this file to each machine, so we'll be making
more things faster."

She nodded, and then paused.
"What about power?" she asked as she looked over to him. "We
won’t have enough for everything!"

He nodded. She was clearly
catching on. "Good point. That's why we'll do things in stages, and
rebuilding the fusion reactor core is a priority."

She nodded relieved and then
checked the controls. "Almost done here," she said as she checked the
status bar. "Do you want the basic tools?"

He jacked in to the port.
"Actually, I have most of them here."

Her eyes were wide. She looked at
his hand, then back to him. "Wha, how?"

"Implant. I have an
artificial arm." He gave her the standard lecture on his implants as the
replicator finished his toolkit.

“Mister Admiral, I have some
lunch here in the office if you want to take a break?” He looked over to the
young woman Brie.

“Yeah, that might be a good
idea.” He got up and wiped his hands off on a rag.

"Brei, there's still a pump
making a tip-pity tock sound in the garden." They looked over to the small
woman standing nearby.

"Jeez Kess, can't I finish
my lunch?" Brie asked, tossing down her napkin. The small woman blushed.
She had short blond hair that just covered a pair of elven ears. She hid her
hands; the Admiral caught a glimpse of long fingers and spots on her arms.

 "I'm sorry, I'll come back
later." Kess ducked her head and turned to leave.

He grabbed her arm. She froze.
"No, sit with us for a moment." He pulled her to a chair. Reluctantly
she sat. "Okay, so a pump is making a weird sound. Which one is it?"

She blushed. "I'm not sure,
I can never get a handle on the machines, I'm better with plants," she
said softly. She looked up to him. He caught her small smile and nodded. She
had a slight lipse; most likely because of her gene sculpt ancestry.

He nodded. "Okay, we can go
over the parts so it'll be easier." Brie shook her head taking a bite. She
chewed and swallowed.

"Don't bother, Kess is a
genius with plants, but can't work a can opener to save her life." Kess
blushed at that but nodded.

He looked over the wiring
closet's door and shook his head. Someone had drilled through the lock on it.
"Cute," He grunted. The compartment part of the main computer bus, so
it had to be protected. Obviously the key had been lost... Or someone had been
in a hurry to fix something. He mentally shrugged and opened the door. A rat’s
nest of wiring sprang out. He sighed. "Great."

"Oh it’s not so bad."
Proteus answered his sigh. True enough, computer cables were fiber optic, and
power lines were electrical. They each had their own gauge. "The problem
is that it looks like someone ripped wiring from other things to patch
things." He looked at the back of the door, soot and smudges marked it in
different spots.

"That's not good either.
Ground my arm, I'm going in," he ordered. Proteus grounded the exterior
skin of his arm, protecting his body from a short.

“Need some help?” An eager young
lady said next to him. He smiled. He had been at the repair for an hour, but
had run out of cleats and plastic zip ties. “Yeah, now that you mention it. I
have the wiring sorted out, just need to get things rewired and better organized.”

She looked into the trunk. “Wow!
It looks so neat and organized!”

He snorted.  He had used color
coded zip ties where ever possible. “Only way to do it right.” She nodded. “I
replicated a bundle of plastic color coded zip ties; they help to keep things
organized. You may want to get some for yourself.” She looked confused.

"So, how did the Captain
find this ship?" he asked the tech as she soldered a low voltage power
line.

"We're from New
Dublin,"  she said but didn't go on for a moment. He nodded to encourage
her. "From what the Captain pieced together from the logs, this ship got
hit with a mine exiting hyper and limped into the system. At the time the
system had been hard hit. They lost communications and life support, as well as
half their crew. They died before they could fix the damage." She looked
up to his face, then back down to her work. "Captain found the ship while
prospecting." She cleared her throat. "Do you know about New
Dublin?"

He cocked his head as Sprite
brought up his limited data. "New Dublin...Irish colony, settled in 2338,
eight planets, single star, two asteroid belts..."

She shook her head. "six
now."

"What? six what?" he
asked, pausing in confusion.

"Planets," she answered
curtly.

He sighed. "Okay. So some of
the people survived in the belt and space colonies?" he asked.

She nodded. "But they took
in refugees, and a virus hit. Cooked a lot of stuff, and rewrote our DNA. The
population is now eighty percent female," she said. He cocked an eyebrow
at this. "Most of the leaders are still male; they set up a hard line
government. They treat women as slaves," she snarled. She looked up at him
hard and challenging.