Chronicles of Athena Lee (16 page)

Midshipman Jacobs stopped me. “Excuse me Ma'am?” At my nod, he continued, “I would like to thank you. From all of us, you saved our lives over on the Happy. Then there is all of this” He made a sweeping motion around the bay.’ My promotion, the changes in engineering, all of it.”

“Mr Jacobs, I was just doing my job. Your promotion was for a job well done. You can thank the Captain for making things a little better for all of us. Ok?”

“Yes, Ma'am. I will”, he beamed up at me.

“Good. So, status?”

“All of the consoles, panels, and conduits have been checked and re-certified. The engine take-down is complete and teams are working their way through the list of ship repairs from other areas.”

“Excellent Jacobs. Tell your team thank you from me. You have been here longer than me. Any idea how it got this bad?

He scratched his face and glanced at the floor. “When Commander Woody was in charge engineering ran like clockwork. You could eat off the floor it was kept so clean.”

“What happened to him?”

Chuckling at my expression he replied, “Nothing bad. We had an I.G. Inspection and the Admiral in charge was so impressed with his work that he transferred him to the flagship. It's the navy. That is what happens sometimes.”

“So let me guess. Commander Arthur transferred in and things went downhill.”

“The commander had been on a light cruiser, the Madoff, I think. He came highly recommended.”

“I'll ask the XO about it all. Keep to the schedule. If anything urgent comes up and you need me I will be in a meeting with Commander Wang.” Smiling I proceeded to the bridge.

The Captain and the XO were happy to see me. “Lieutenant, how are things in engineering?”

“Captain, everything is proceeding smoothly so far. I did have a few questions, though.”

At his nod I continued. “To be blunt sir, did you know how messed up it was down there? I'm sorry If I am out of line sir.”

“To be honest with you lieutenant, not until recently. The former commander was a good bullshit artist. He had come highly recommended to me and I had given him free reign to run his section as he liked.”

“I questioned the crew down there today and got the low down.”

“Chief Engineer Woody was a wonder. He deserved the transfer and the promotion that came with it. It seems that the former commander may have been 'foisted' off on me to get rid of him. We are checking into that.”

“Sir, that I can easily believe. His office was a mess. The logs show almost no work was getting done. I'm not sure what he or his officers were doing but it wasn't working. We found 20 pages of interdepartmental repairs that need doing. My people are working the backlog as we speak. The logs for engineering are messed up too. We are re-certifying every part and system as we go. Can security get into his personal logs to see if there is anything that I might not be seeing? I can get in but you won't like how.”

The Captain and the XO both glanced at me questioningly. “The security techs are all concentrating on the logs of the pirate ships at the moment. You say that you can get in? How?”

“Did either of you sirs read my whole file?” Bracing myself I thought here it comes.

“Was there mention of my AI in my file? The navy and Admiral Kane are both aware of it, him.”

“AI? What AI? Wait, you have an AI?” Both officers were sitting up straight reassessing me. The Captain pulled out a tablet obviously skimming through my file.

“Hold on Peter, the lieutenant is correct. We both missed it. It is in the classified section of her file.” The captain continued to read. “Lieutenant, you may be the solution we have been looking for. The intelligence section has been unable to break into the pirates computers. We can get into some of it but the navigation data is hidden. Can your AI break in?”

In my link I heard “To infinity..” I had to wince, he was so loud I missed whatever else he said. He then continued “Sure thing Athena working on it now.”

The Captain looked concerned, he had seen my wince. “Everything OK there Lee?”

“Yes sir. He can be a bit loud sometimes. He is working on it now. This is good as he tends to get bored easily. When that happens he gets into mischief.” At the XO's look, I quickly corrected myself. “Nothing bad, not really, sometimes its like having an all knowing 8 yr old in your head. He messes with people and sends reports or vid to authorities, little things like that. He has saved my life more than once now.”

“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!”

I leaned over the table, “Captain if I may?” At his nod I activated the wall screen.

Chapter 11

Projected up on the screen of the conference room was a map of one of the patrol areas. Plotted lines showed the progress of a ship. Up to a point in space.

Activating the speaker I asked. “Wilson, why does the map end in uncharted space? Is that all that was on there?”

Wilson's voice held a touch of a twangy accent that I had heard at the Capitol planet, Texas. Uh oh, he was role-playing again. “Your thirst for...”

I cut him off. “Wilson cut the BS and tell us please.”

His voice changed to a youthful sounding one. “ You really are no fun. The information that you want is not in the computer. They never entered it and wiped flight logs regularly. There is mention in one of the owner's daily logs about a 'lost colony' and profit. That point in space is really far out for a lost colony though. There are no historical records of any kind that point to that area of space as having any early colonies.”

“Find anything else in there?”

“Sure lots of things. Records of ships that they took, contacts on planets, banking information; lots of things. One of the owners was a Lothario and taped his encounters. Athena, are you as flexible as some of ..” I stopped him right there and turned off the speaker. My face was now bright red.

The men were very obviously trying not to laugh at me.

“That is how Wilson can be.” I said “He did send those records he found to the intelligence team, including the dirty movies. He's right about the colony though. I have been researching the Ghost Ships of Terra for a while. All the early ships had early model fighter's attached to them.”

“Those old stories? Those are space tales. Ghost stories to scare new spacers.”

“I'm not so sure about that sir. I have a friend back on New Reno. He was a pilot on one of the last colony ships to leave Earth. He may know about lost ships in this area.” The Captain, nodding his head, turning to regard me.

“I take it you know Sam then? He doesn't tell his story to many.”

The XO looked back and forth between us. “Uh, there is a colony ship pilot still alive? How is that even possible?” Wang's jaw was hanging so wide it was about to fall off.

“You would have to ask him yourself XO. It's not a huge secret but Sam value's his privacy. I'm surprised he spoke to you about it, lieutenant.”

“Sir, I needed a couple of power sources that I couldn't build myself for a project I was working on. He has a couple of original Starfuries in his warehouse. The back-up weapon system power supplies were the right size. We got to talking about ships and it just came up. The Starfury fighter was equipped with War Shot. Only the early first or second wave of colony ships had those particular fighters.”

“Ah, yes, I have heard from Commander Todd about those quarters of yours. I didn't believe him at the time but you will have to show us sometime. We will let intelligence research the fighter issue.”

“Is this something that I should know?” The XO looked at me.

The Captain answered for me. “She has a maintenance shop set up inside her cabin.” He looked at me appraisingly. “Do you get any sleep at all?”

“I like to stay busy.”

Checking the time, the Captain turned to me and said “We all need to get back to work. Keep us informed on repairs, Lee. Good work. Dismissed.”

As I walked back to engineering, I talked to Wilson. “Did you research Sam's background for me?”

“Yes Athena, I did. He has been careful. Little or no computer records about his history. If we had access to Earth, yes. But no one has that. The local government is aware of him and his origins. There are rumors of other pilots but nothing definite. He has owned his business since the New Reno was built 75 years ago. He's telling the truth, at least about his age.”

“Remind me to touch base with him about our pirates. He may know something about a colony ship way out here.” Wilson signaled his agreement.

Returning to engineering I found a cluster of security troops along with intelligence boxing up Commander Arthur's things. Seeing me, Midshipman Ellery walked over.

“Ma'am, doing inventory we discovered a hidden area behind the storage racks. When we removed the wall section, we uncovered an illegal alcohol still and several crates that look like drugs. I informed the security officer of our discovery. He requested verifying vid to exonerate us. We gave them everything that they asked for.”

“Good job, Ellery. Just one more nail in their coffins. Did you inform the captain or the XO?” She shook her head no. “Don't worry I will take care of that for you. So, where are we on the repair list?”

Chapter 12

Engineering was finally working like a well oiled machine. Without the snobby and overbearing Chief Engineer the crew were much more friendly and sociable. The backlog of repair requests were down to reasonable levels due to my people’s hard work. I finally found some time to work on my own projects. The power supply fit in my droid. I dismantled the other unit with the intent of copying the design. My link chimed at me. The XO needed to see me in conference room one, as soon as possible.

   
The conference room was full when I arrived. The meeting had already started. The navigation and intelligence officers were staring at a galactic map on the screen and arguing about something. Everyone else was bent down, the table strewn with hard copy reports and star maps, trying to hear what the Captain was saying. The sound of the door opening made the Captain look up and see me.

“Good. Lieutenant Lee, join us please. Lieutenant Morgan, slide over so Lee can sit down.” I sat down at the table next to the captain. “Morgan here, is our pirate expert from the intelligence group on New Reno.”

The lanky looking junior officer was eyeing me with confusion. Most likely wondering why an engineering lieutenant would be invited to this meeting.

“Lieutenant Lee is our acting-Chief Engineer.” This elicited a very surprised look on Morgan's face. “It was her AI that broke the code on the Gilmore G's computer. Athena, were you able to finish that research that you told me about on the colony ships?”

Captain Gorshin obviously, didn't want me to mention Sam to the intelligence lieutenant. “Yes sir. There are no records of any scout or colony ship ever exploring this region of space. Several of the really early ones were headed in this direction when they were lost. There is no historical record of anyone finding or seeing wreckage from an Earth ship out here. However, that power generator we found came from a first wave ship. Only one other like it is known to exist out here, it's in the Colonization Museum on New Earth.”

“So maybe these pirates found a Ghost ship and bit off more than they could chew? Is that what we are thinking?” The lack of answers was frustrating the Captain, the strain of it showed on his face. He sat forward and rubbed his eyes. “Here is what we are going to do. Commander Freeman?” One of the officers debating the star map came over to the table. “Commander, start plotting a course that follows what we have from the pirate data. They left a trail of breadcrumbs, let’s follow it. Get with Commander Dunne, he should know about potential trouble spots. We need to find this colony or wreckage. Lieutenant Lee, start putting a team together. Whatever we find, we will need tech help. I need an expert and you’re what I've got at the moment. Dismissed.”

Back in engineering I studied the list of repairs that my team was doing. My people had done a week’s worth of repair in just two days! Amazing. A sudden thought came to me and I pulled up the training schedule for engineering. After thoroughly reading, I decided that we all needed a refresher and some more training. I sent a note to Commander Todd, the training officer.

The next day we started a revised training program. There was a strong chance that this ship would take part in a battle soon. My people were not at all ready for that. Our recent rescue demonstrated that while they could think on their feet, the engineering staff lacked basic shipboard rescue and repair skills. With help from the quartermaster we cleared a section of the hold and began training.