Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (58 page)

"Maybe.
But life is full of what if's. We have to take the hand we're dealt," the
chief said as he shrugged. He winced when the doors opened and a harried
engineer came in coughing.

"Boss."

"What?"
he snarled. The man backed up, hands up. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder
back the way he had come.

"Sorry
boss. Harry wants you. Something about control runs and something about the
investigation."

"Right,"
he sighed and got off the stool. "No rest for the weary."

"Or
the wicked," Irons snarled. "At least not yet." There was
something there, a clash of distant thunder in his voice...

"We'll
catch 'em. Just don't..." The chimp grimaced a simian grimace at Irons who
was looking at him coldly. "Don't go off half cocked okay?"

"Yeah.
But if I catch the person responsible..."

"You'll
put them out the nearest airlock. If I don't get to them first. Kicking and
screaming if at all possible," the chief said nodding. "Deal!"
He turned.

"All
right, what the hell can't wait five fracking minutes!" He snarled walking
out the door.

Bryan
came out and looked at him. His smock had caught a lot of the blood and
burnt... he shook his head. He didn't want Irons to see him like this but he
was pretty sure the Admiral had seen and been through worse. Sometimes this job
well and truly sucked. He wiped his brow with one arm and then sighed, shoulders
slumped. “I'm sorry Admiral.”

“Not
your fault Bryan, you've got to work with the tools on hand.”

“Still...”
Bryan turned back to the observation window and sighed again. He waited a
moment and then clenched his hands on the rail. “Do you want to talk to her?”

“She's
not conscious,” Irons said, eyes locked on her form. A med tech was adjusting
the stasis pod nearby.

“You're
in the equipment?” Bryan asked. “What am I saying, of course you are,” he said
shaking his head. He had no intention of kicking Irons out. He owed the man far
too much. “Not that I blame you in the slightest.”

“I'll...”
Irons tightened his jaw and clenched his hands behind him for a moment. “I'll
record a message for her when she wakes.”

“I
don't blame you for not wanting...”

“I've
seen worse Doc. Believe me,” Irons turned to the medic. His eyes were distant
with remembered pain. “I've
been
worse. I'm not worried about the memory
of seeing her like this. I can deal with it. I'll be here until she's in
stasis.”

“Oh.”

After
a few moments the tech looked up and nodded. Bryan straightened and rolled his
shoulders. He turned to Irons. “Is there anything you can do? I mean...” he
indicated the Admiral's right arm.

“What
this?”

“I
heard about what you did with Chief Logan in sickbay,” Bryan said.

Irons
thoughts flashed to that brief moment. He'd been called to the Anvil sickbay by
the doctor who was desperate for help. She had shown him Logan and he had
helped repair the old man's heart and stop the blood clots before they could
kill him.

The
Admiral looked at it for a moment and then shook his head gently. Bryan's face
fell. “I can help get her stable if you need to, even repair some of her minor
damage, but she needs a trauma unit and a lot of cloned parts. That I can't
help with.”

“Oh.”
Bryan grimaced. “Sorry.”

“You
don't learn things unless you ask Bryan,” Irons said softly.

“Thanks.”
Bryan turned and backed into the door and through. He washed up in the sink and
then turned to the waiting tech and SBA's. “Okay people, let's do this.”

Irons
turned away, feeling intense guilt. The truth was he could rebuild her with his
nanites. He could set them to tearing into her, rebuilding her with the sickbay
equipment supporting his efforts. But he wasn't a medic. He wasn't sure how to
go about something like that with such extensive damage.

There
was another thing too. He couldn't reveal his true abilities. Not to Bryan, not
to anyone. Not this. A few trusted people knew he had nanites. But they didn't
know what they were capable of.  He couldn't reveal that, his orders prevented
it. He looked with sad eyes the way the medic had gone. He was torn. A part,
the human part, wanted to just throw it all away, to rush in and save her.
But... he sighed, rubbed his brow and rested his arm on the door jam and made
himself watch silently.

Irons
glanced at Bailey coming into the wardroom. The chimp hesitated at the sight of
him and then came over. “How are you doing John?” he asked quietly, taking a
seat.

“Okay.
Fine,” Irons answered distantly. He was a bit distracted, going over the
suspect list and thumbnail briefs of each. He was more determined than ever to
find whoever was responsible for this. It was personal now. Before he could
take it in his stride, it was a contract, someone put out a hit on him, or
someone had a grudge. But now... now someone he cared about, someone he'd
loved, someone he'd felt responsible for had been caught in the crossfire.

He
knew he was feeling survivor's guilt, he'd had enough training, enough
counseling to work it out and work through the steps to deal with it.

“Haven't
seen you in a while,” the chimp said. Irons returned his attention to him. “In
engineering country I mean,” he mumbled.

“I've
been a little distracted,” the Admiral admitted. He'd dealt with  the grief, or
at least channeled it into anger and then focused it into finding this
assassin. He owed it to April now. Grief was something he'd known for most of
his career. He'd.... he shied away from the thought. She wasn't dead after all.
Maybe someday...

It
had been nearly a week. Six days to try to get over it. Try and fail. It wasn't
something to get over, it was something he had to learn to cope with and move
on.

He
refocused his thoughts after a moment. They'd changed his quarters again
immediately and checked the hab areas thoroughly. The investigation had been
inconclusive of course. Not that they had any doubt what had really happened.

The
glitches preventing a shut down or rerouting of the plasma had pretty much
cinched it. They knew it had been deliberate. But unfortunately they had no
idea how it had been achieved. EPS conduits weren't supposed to be remotely
failed at specific locations like that. Or at least, so they had thought. So he
had thought. He'd never had to do this before, figure out sabotage. Investigate
it. Oh he'd repaired damage from an event, but never had to investigate it and
seen it up close like this.

“Any
news?” Irons asked after the pause lasted too long.

With
something in the EPS conduits the chief had taken the ship's drive offline to
do a thorough check. Irons could have saved him the trouble had he been
involved. There was no other problem.

Taking
the drive offline had sent them a bit off course. They were making up for it
now, they were entering high orbit of Briev. There was still no response from
the hails. Either they had been rock bombed like Agnosta or they had a really
primitive radio network. Or they just weren't listening.

“No.
I'm not expecting any. Harry and his crew are scratching their heads. I had
Everette go over the damn logs three times and they are clean. We obviously
can't get crap back from forensics with the plasma damage.”

“And
my own handiwork,” the Admiral said with a nod.

“Damage
control. At least that's how I view it. You did good. It's incredible that you
survived...” he paused and looked away as Irons jaw tightened.

“Sorry.”

“You
were saying? The techs didn't find out how it was failed at that specific
location by remote?”

“Yes.
Sprite didn't find anything?”

“Nothing
Chief,” the AI said, subdued. “I wish I had.”

Bailey
rumbled a sigh. “You and me both lady,” he mumbled. “You and me both.”

“Whoever
did this was good. Very good. The different methods...”

“You're
thinking an engineer?” Bailey said, brown eyes locked on the Admiral's. He
hated the thought, but it had to be aired. He hoped he was wrong though.

Irons
nodded slowly. “That or someone with engineering training. But that smacks of a
pro. That was a careful preplanned attack. Something extremely sophisticated
that took time to prepare. Time to get each of the individual elements in place
while we were watching and then trigger them at the right time... Which stands
out.”

“Professional?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.
Crap,” Bailey growled. He knitted his fingers together and rested his chin on
them. “So we don't know what to look for, what to watch out for, we don't have
a suspect. It could be anyone. They are smart, so they could, hell, they have
blended in.”

“Not
exactly. I have a suspect list.”

“Are
you eliminating the people without the skills to do this sort of thing?” Bailey
asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“No.”

The
simian's brow knit for a moment. After a moment he nodded as he worked through
it. “Okay, I gotta ask. Why the hell not?”

“Because
someone can play dumb,” Irons answered. “I'm pretty sure we're getting that
here. Someone who is more than who they appear to be.”

“Crap,”
Bailey sat back. “Someone with access like this means crew.”

“Not
exactly,” Irons drawled out softly, thinking.

“What
do you mean? It's got to be to...”

“It
could have been something set up in advance while Destiny was under repair
chief. Something preplanned. Or maybe the access to allow it was programmed
into the system. A lot of this was preplanned. The exile, the virus, the lack
of replicators... If they stuck a virus in someone might also have put in a
back door for our assassin or assassins to use.”

“Which
is what I am looking for right now. And coming up dry,” Sprite said.

“But
that doesn't mean anything. It could be a hard wired access. A back door we
can't see in the software. An over ride or something,” Irons answered with a
grimace. “Hell, even a remote might work. Flip a switch on a tablet and it
triggers something.”

Bailey
thought about that for a moment and then grimaced, running strong fingers over
his whiskered chin and tugging. “You have any idea how much we'd have to tear
apart? Bow to stern?”

“It's
futile to look over everything. People tend to filter out things after a while,
just looking for something out of the ordinary or broken,” the Admiral said,
taking a sip of coffee. “If it's been there since they came on board they
wouldn't know it didn't belong. It might even have been built into hardware.
Moly circuitry can be built into any electronic device. Either into the
electronics themselves or into the casing or some component. We'd never know
without the proper equipment.”

“Right.
So we'd have to tear everything apart and probe it all. While underway. Somehow
I doubt that is going to happen,” Bailey said shaking his head.

“No,
but we could take a look at the security system,” Irons said firmly.

“You
know what, that's a good idea. Great idea. Ed will scream, but I think he'll go
along with it.”

“I'd
prefer it if he didn't know, actually,” Irons said softly.

Bailey
stopped rubbing his hands together and paused. “Suspect?”

“Or
someone covering for one. I... we can't be sure. So I'd rather keep things as
close as we can. Maybe do a few covert checks here and there...”

“Gotcha.
A few glitch repairs,” Bailey said with a nod. “I don't have anything better to
do since Harry's finishing the repairs. We've about two days before we go
downside. I'm on it.”

The
Admiral opened his mouth to object but the chimp was out of the chair and half
way across the room before he could. He shrugged as he watched him go. It
wasn't like he could object. If he did everyone in the compartment would have
heard.

“You
think we can trust him?” Sprite asked.

“We
have to start with someone,” the Admiral said. “But I think I'll do a few
random checks myself. Of areas I frequent.”

“Without
anyone knowing your doing it. Wise,” Sprite said amused.

“Exactly.
Now, where were we?”

“Crewman
Dallas...”

Bailey
scowled as he walked away. He wasn't sure what to do. He knew better than to
have a chat with Chambers or the captain. He really didn't want any of them on
the Admiral's case. He stomped into main engineering and nodded.

Everette
and Harry had seen him coming and winced. The chief was on the war path. He'd
been on the war path ever since this last accident. Something had to be done
soon otherwise their shoulders and backs were going to be permanently hunched
and rounded. Or they were going to go deaf from all the screeching.