Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (4 page)

“Yeah.
I can imagine,” the captain said dryly. He shot Irons an ambiguous look. “I
thought you were supposed to be in the galley?”

Bailey
shifted then raised a hand. “I pulled him. I didn't like the harmonic we've
been having and wanted an expert opinion.”

“And
got more than you bargained for,” the captain nodded. “Very well, carry on,” he
turned and walked out. The chief shrugged.

“Can
you get me the report by the end of the shift?” the chief of security asked.

“I'll
see if they can get a prelim out. A blow by blow log may take time. They are
pretty serious about making sure there aren't any more surprises lurking.”

“Yeah.
About the packages, I'm just going to go test that scanner thing we got.”

“The
bomb detector? Good idea. I'd suggest going over the ship's systems carefully.
Explosives aren't the only way to ruin a ship.”

“Oh?”
the security chief asked, eyebrow raised. Bailey grimaced.

“I
think I know where he's going. You're talking about guillotine traps, acid,
that sort of thing?” Bailey asked scowling again. Irons nodded. Bailey turned
back to the security chief. “See if someone gets cute and puts one of those
say, in an ODN trunk...”

The
chief shuddered. “Say no more. I'll have my team check it out. But I don't
think we would know what to look for.”

“Which
is where we come in,” Bailey said looking at his crew. “Wake the other shifts.
Get them here now. I want an eyeball look at every square millimeter of this
ship by the end of the shift.” He looked around as some began to move but
others were staring at him. “
NOW
PEOPLE!” he shrieked at the top of his
lungs.

Irons
and the security chief winced at the primal shriek. The engineering staff
ducked for cover then sprang into action.

Irons
came into main engineering the next morning and paused. Chief Bailey was
grimacing, exposing his teeth. His fur was fluffed and standing on end. He was
clearly not in a good mood. He pointed to the object in an engineers hands and
threw his hands about. A grinder nearby drowned out his voice for almost
everyone in the room.

“Do
you want to hear what he's saying Admiral?” Sprite asked. She sounded amused.

“No,
but I can guess,” Irons said coming over to the chief. The simian's shrieks
grew louder then stopped abruptly as he noticed the Admiral standing there.

“You
asked to see me chief?” he said, watching the Chimp. The tech he had been
chewing out looked at the Admiral with a mix of revulsion and relief.

It
had taken the concerted efforts of both AI and the crew to get the ship's
systems back on track. They'd used a lot of fuel up in the lowest octaves
before then. The system was finally stable and Proteus had patched enough of
the control runs together for the crew to take over once more, allowing Irons
to unjack and take a break.

Irons
had helped out with the repairs but then had been chased off by the chief
sometime in the middle of the third shift. Bailey himself had followed him out
to get some downtime, muttering darkly about no one making any sense until he
had some food and rest.

“Yes,”
The chief shook his head trying to get himself under control. “I've got more of
a cluster fuck,” he sighed. “My office.” He waved then turned to the hapless
tech. “I'll deal with you later. Find something to do in the meantime, sweep a
floor or something. That's all you're good for if you make cheery mistakes like
this,” he growled.

Irons
winced and then preceded the simian to the office. Irons didn't like to bawl
people out that often, he wasn't of that school. There were several different
approaches, her preferred to teach the person and lead over bawling them out.
Obviously the chimp was of the other school.

Not
that it was wrong, it was just not a leadership style that he was comfortable
with. He preferred to get the best out of people by other means. Fear worked
for some, but it usually affected moral and was a long term unhealthy
environment. Then again, some used it, effecting a bully attitude to keep their
people on their toes, and give themselves a theatrical out. He wasn't sure
about the chief though, he was every centimeter sincere in his manner.

He
tried to put it out of his mind. The bay had quieted as people looked at them.
He tried not to hunch his shoulders or look around. He stood at the open door
as the chimp passed him.

The
office was a typical one for a chief, cluttered with odd bits here and there, a
well used and stained coffee machine, a pair of stools, book case filled with
bits and manuals, some paper of all things, others chips, and a battered metal
desk and chair. The desk was covered with papers and tablets. It looked like a
couple of burnt out computer cards were serving as coasters or paper weights,
keeping the AC from blowing some of the papers around the room. If there was
any sense of order to the room Irons wasn't seeing it.

That
of course was normal as well. People were people. Most liked to keep their own
sense of order, and they differentiated between work and home. Or in this case
comfort zones, he thought in amusement.

Bailey
closed the hatch door. Irons snorted. There were rags and an extra coverall
hanging from the back of the door on hooks. Again typical.

“This
is a well and truly screwed up situation you know that?” Bailey sighed, sitting
on a stool. He reached over with a long arm and tapped the intercom. “Coffee
for two. One with two sugars. You?”

“Black
is fine,” Irons replied.

“One
black,” Bailey grimaced again. “And bring me a danish or something. I missed
breakfast.”

“Had
an early start?” Irons asked as the chief's hand lifted from the intercom. He
shot the Admiral a look. He was still dealing with the mess from that hack.
He'd been on it the moment they entered hyper. It'd taken him eighteen hours to
get over his pride and call the Admiral in, and by then it had been nearly too
late. He suppressed a yawn. He had gotten a whopping two hours sleep before
being rudely interrupted.. Forty eight hours and he'd had to take a break.

“You
could say that. Got woken up a couple of hours after I went to bed. Been on my
feet since then,” he answered dryly, trying to get the cobwebs out of his head
and focus.

“Ah.”
Irons nodded. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Well,
I was hoping you'd say that. I need to pick your brain,” Bailey chuckled at
Iron's expression. “See, we've got a problem. A couple of them. One is that I
just found out most of our part stores were a computer fabrication.”

“You're
kidding. The virus?” Irons asked.

“Or
something,” Bailey sighed, shaking his head. “I don't know how. I think I know
why, someone charged for the parts, pocketed the money, and then left us with
boxes full of scrap. They might have been tied into the sabotage ring. Who
knows,” Bailey sighed throwing his hands up in the air. “Damned if we'll ever
know. Probably all long gone by now.”

“Ouch,”
Irons said wincing.

“Yeah,
tell me about it.”

“All
the parts are gone? Trash I mean?”

“A
few of the boxes have parts on top but then crap in the ones underneath. Scrap
mostly. We're looking into it.”

“Can
you replicate more? Use the scrap for material?”

“Which
brings up one of my other headaches.” Bailey rocked back and forth for a moment
then got up in a simian snarl and slapped his desk. “Damn it all!”

There
was a knock at the door. “Chief?” a short human steward came in with a cart. He
gave the Admiral a cold look then poured the chief a cup of coffee.

“Thank
you. Leave it. Come back for it later. And drop the damn sour looks. Pass that
along now,” the chief said, settling into his chair. He picked up the coffee.

“I
take it there is a problem with the replicators? You were supposed to have two
small industrial ones and a bunch of food replicators,” the Admiral said,
dredging that up from  his own memory since Sprite was busy. Even though he had
unjacked she had stayed in the net, working through his wireless connection.
He'd need to jack in soon so the other AI could lend her a hand. “One of the
industrial replicators is supposed to go to Agnosta to help them rebuild I
think.”

Bailey
shook his head. “We've got one, count them one food replicator in the officer's
galley. The others weren't installed. They were in a crate, or were supposed to
be. The crew was going to install them while we were on our way out,” the chimp
sighed. “Another one of those things to do while we were in transit.”

“Oh,”
Irons grimaced. “No industrial replicators I take it?” he asked.

“Nary
a one. Now you see my dilemma. We're screwed,” the chimp sighed. “We need
parts, some of the damage the virus did blew or fried electronics all over the
ship. Well, that virus or Sprite. Not that I'm complaining,” he finished
hastily, looking up at the overhead.

“Ouch,”
Irons winced again. He knew what the aftermath of a cyber war could be like.
Sometimes in the battle the best way to beat an enemy was to deny them
territory, to scorch the hardware. Obviously they had enough to keep the ship
functional but he didn't want to think about how many layers of back ups they
had burned through... and how many remained.

Come
to think of it yes he did. He did need to know, he did need to do something. He
sighed mentally.

“So,
we need the systems and don't have them. As I said, screwed,” Bailey grimaced,
flicking a stylus away. It fell from the desk, clattered and then rolled across
the carpet.

“Not
really,” Irons said as he reached out and took a cup and then the pot. He
poured himself a cup.

“We
can't do squat. If a system goes down without a back up or parts... That's it,
poof!” Bailey growled. “And we've mickey moused the computer together... I'm
not sure how and why it's still working.”

“Sprite
has a lot to do with that. She's in the net right now managing things. Proteus
was for a while, but he can only access the net when Sprite isn't or I'm jacked
in.”

“How's
that?” the chief asked, picking up a danish and taking a bite.

“Well,
they can use my wireless network link, but only a handful of places on the ship
can handle the bandwidth required. Main engineering for one,” the Admiral
explained. “Another deferred project.”

“Ah,”
the chief nodded. “Electronics isn't my cup of tea, but I gather the Wi-Fi in
the guest quarters is limited?”

“By
design. Guests shouldn't be hogging that much bandwidth,” Irons shrugged. “The
quarters are also on a fire walled system designed to keep guests from
tampering with the ships systems.”

“Ah,”
the chief said as he nodded. “But you're doing it now?”

Irons
nodded. “It would be a little easier if I was jacked in though.”

“Be
my guest,” the Chief said, waving to a nearby universal port.

“Okay,”
Irons shrugged and moved his chair over to the plug. He jacked in and turned to
see the chief watching. “What?”

“That
never gets old,” the chief said with a smile. He looked up to the large bay
window he had, then back to the Admiral. “So they can do something?”

“Software
mostly. Although I might be able to rebuild some of your back up systems. If
they aren't too bad.”

“Which
is a problem,” the chief grimaced.

“Someone
trashed them?” Irons asked, raising an eyebrow in query.

“Oh
yeah. Got their frustrations out good and proper. Figuring that they would just
dump them into the recycle bin for the replicators and poof! Brand new,” he
grimaced at that thought.

“And
you can't,” Irons nodded in understanding. “Is that why you were disciplining
your tech?”

“Oh
hell no. That was the fuck up who signed for the delivery of the junk we got
instead of the parts we were supposed to get. The moron didn't even take the
time to look,” Bailey sighed, sitting back. “I can't totally blame him, we were
stretched thin. Even I didn't consider someone would do something like this.
Screw us over this bad.”

“I
wonder how bad the rest of the cargo is,” Irons said, staring off into space.

“You
and me both. Which I brought up with the purser. He's checking now,” Bailey
growled. “But I already checked the manifest, no replicators.”

“Perfect,”
Irons grimaced. “I wonder where they went.” He shook his head.

“What
the replicators?” Bailey asked. “Someone didn't make them.”

“Oh
yes they did,” Irons growled. “I did.” He shook his head as Bailey stared at
him. “I'm the only one who can. I authorized their construction. Food
replicators as well. I was jacked in the entire time.”

“Oh,”
Bailey grimaced, running a hand over his balding head “I didn't know that.”

“I'll
bet our dear friends in the ruling council didn't know that too. Or chose to
ignore it,” Irons said shaking his head.