New Dawn (Wandering Engineer)
Read New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) Online
Authors: Chris Hechtl
New
Dawn:
Book
1 of the Wandering Engineer Series
By
Chris “Jekyll” Hechtl
This is a work of fiction. All
the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. The exception
is Dr. Bowyer who graciously gave his permission to use his name and his work
in my books. Any resemblance to other people is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including
the right to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.
Copyright 2009 by Chris Hechtl
B&N ISBN: 2940011946936
Amazon AISN: B009HB1VNS
Revised 7/2012
2nd revision, proofread by Jacob
Larson 3/2013
Cover
art Copyright 2009 by Chris Hechtl
Dedication:
Since
this is one of my first published books I'd like to dedicate it to my family
and Mrs. Phillips.
Both
in their own ways encouraged me to follow my dreams where ever they may take
me.
Author's
Note:
I
realize there are quite a few editing errors in this. I apologize for them. I
will continue to endeavor to correct them time permitting.
Special
thanks to Jacob Larson for proofreading this, and to you the readers for giving
me a try.
The Wandering Engineer: New Dawn
1
He awoke tired and angry. It
never was a good thing to go to sleep angry, and going into cryostasis angry
just aggravated the problem. He couldn't help it.
It wasn't that he was helpless in
a life pod that had angered him. No, such rare situations were woven into his
training. No it was the sheer helpless fury of the last moments of the battle
that left him angry. She had been a good ship, but no match for the trio of
Xenophobe light cruisers that had ambushed her on the edge of the hyper zone. Still
she had managed to take out 2 of her ambushers before the mounting damage had
forced the Captain and AI to call to abandon.
He had sprinted through the dim
shattered corridors to a pod in less than a minute. The pod's ejection had
momentarily disoriented him. Sprite had tapped into the pod's controls to spin
it up and away from the remaining xenophobe ship.
Helpless he watched the sensor
feed as the ship's pods were picked off one by one. The enemy was merciless, no
quarter asked or given. The ship had made one last ditch valiant effort,
engines flared to life on overload, emergency thrusters burning with reckless
abandon to keep her on course with the enemy ship. Wreckage tangled her bow,
her shields were down and the flanks were torn and bleeding parts, as well as
bodies. The enemy ship pounded her with her guns, trying to kill her. It tried
to open the range but it was too late. The Captain's cry of vengeance for his
lost crew echoes the comm channels, and then ended abruptly with sick finality
as the ships exploded.
“The enemy has taken the system
Admiral; we are headed for deep space to avoid them.” Sprite quietly informed
him as she brought up the strategic visual guide. He watched eyes tearing as a
task force of enemy ships pounded the planet with antimatter bombs. It cracked,
lava fountaining into its atmosphere as they breached the crust. “Damn.” He
muttered darkly.
“There is an enemy picket ship on
course for the ship; I am trying to adjust our heading away.” Sprite
highlighted the ship. “Eta two hours. We will need to be dark before we get
into its sensor cone.” Angrily he nodded, hands automatically beginning the
stasis prep procedures.
Some people called it the death
of sleep, or little death. He didn't care. When he awoke Sprite booted, automatically
running post and interfacing with the life pod. The pod's micro AI had detected
a nearby fleet ship and had pinged it. It was now approaching. He checked his
internal chronometer. “Damn, is that right Sprite?”
“I detect no error Admiral. We
have been in stasis for approximately seven hundred and thirteen years Terran
standard.”
He sighed, feeling the anger wash
away. “Great, just great. Guess the war is over huh?” Sprite didn't answer,
that was obviously a rhetorical comment.
The life pod was tiny and
cramped, a three meter long coffin. At the bottom was the kick engine, already
out of fuel. He checked Sprite's report. The life pod was seriously depleted;
he probably had less than a year left in it. “All right, show me what's going
on outside.” He closed his eyes as she fed information to his neural and
optical implants.
The tiny life pod lidar screen
popped to life. “According to my readouts a ship is near, tentatively
identified as a transport.” He grunted as he looked over the readings. The
lidar was of course limited to light speed time lag, so the sensory data was
old. Still, Sprite had updated it with a running estimated plot.
“From their plotted course they
should be approaching within twenty thousand kilometers within two hours
Admiral.” He grunted.
“Will they detect us?” he asked.
“Most likely they already have.
Our lidar sweep should have pinged their sensors.” He grunted an
acknowledgment. “Admiral there is something odd about that ship. I recognize
it.”
He felt a thrill. “How can that be
odd?”
“After seven hundred and thirteen
years, I would think ships of our time would have been replaced.” He nodded.
“Friend or foe?” he asked the
inevitable question.
“IFF reports Friend. Fleet.” He
felt a wash of relief but it dispelled quickly with curiosity.
“Ship is tentatively identified
as a fleet repair and supply ship, classified tender. War book has a ninety
three percent match with the Cabeiri class.” Sprite brought the ship's design
specs up, and a rotating three dimensional view of the ship.
“Second contact, following the
first.” He turned his attention to the highlighted plot. “Scatter from the
lidar caught motion in their wake Admiral.” A micro camera on the hull of the
life pod zoomed into the indicated area. “No match in our database.” The
enhanced video was fed directly to his implants. Sprite highlighted the motion,
and then overlaid the lidar scan.
“If I was a casino AI I would say
that that's a pirate,” she said. He nodded.
“Yeah, blackened hull, and
following the Fleet tender. Any indication they know it's there?” He checked
the back plot.
“No Admiral. Wait, the tender is
changing course. They are now on course for us and picking up speed.”
The unknown tentatively
identified as Tango one is matching the course change. “Ping the Tender; let
them know we are here, and that they have a shadow,” he ordered, feeling dread.
All sorts of scenarios played through his head, none of them very pleasant.
The ship could be pirates, or
local patrol. The tender for that matter could be pirated, or in civilian
hands. He reached out with his communications implants, but only got a faint
handshake echo, but it dropped within a microsecond.
“Admiral, the tender is battered
and aged, it's a wonder she can still fly.” He checked Sprite's updated
report, whistling silently at the battered hull. That was odd, and wrong, the
built in replicators on the ship could rebuild it with raw materials, or with
its own broken parts.
“Something is definitely wrong
here,” she said after a few minutes. He felt a buck. “They have launched a
shuttle craft; it has attached itself via magnetic grapple. Exterior sensors
are now off line.”
“Damn,” he sighed, watching the
blinking plot. That buck meant it had been a high speed capture, anything less
and the built in inertial dampers would have filtered it out.
“Why didn't we see them launch?”
he asked, feeling a headache coming on.
“They launched from the port bay.
The shuttle is a civilian model, human design. It has a classic lifting body
design, so most likely it's atmospheric,” Sprite said, flashing the specs on
his HUD. He gave a short choppy nod. He sent mental commands to ease the
headache, but Sprite had already beaten him to it. He sighed as he felt the
analgesic take effect.
“The tractor and shuttle drive
are interfering with the life pod systems... Switching to internal life
support.” He felt the air in his mask stop, then restart. He had about twelve
hours of recyclable air in his skin suit and internal supply.
“Based on their trajectory they
should be returning to the ship in about seven minutes. Time to come up with a
plan?” she asked pointedly. He smiled.
“Not a whole lot we can do as
cargo right now. We need more intel. Is that ship still part of the fleet? Or
was it sold as surplus? Is it a pirate?” Sprite took a moment before answering.
“Admiral, the usage of a civilian
craft gives it an eighty percent probability of being in civilian hands.
Whether those hands are law abiding or not there is insufficient evidence to
draw a conclusion one way or another.” He felt the mental query as Defender;
his AI security suite came fully on line. Sprite squirted her log to it, and
then it reacted.
“What about the second contact?”
Defender asked. Defender was built as a dedicated security AI, designed to
protect the safety of the Admiral and any information he may have. Unlike
Sprite, a full class 4 AI, Defender was a class 1 dumb AI, with all its
limitations.
“The unknown has a fifty percent
chance of being hostile,” Sprite answered.
“Escape and evade?” Defender
asked.
“Not an option at this time.
Really. You need to improve your algorithms if you didn't see that...” Sprite
began an age old argument.
“Enough.” The Admiral ordered
frustrated. “Escape and evasion are not presently possible, we will know if
those tactics will need to be employed later. My current plan is to play
possum, let them bring us aboard and once we get a clear signal out, try to
interface with their computers to get more intel.”
Both AI signaled agreement
silently. “I will not be able to bring up a full shield within this enclosure.”
Defender commented. “Power reserves are at fifty nine percent and falling. I do
not recommend prolonged hand to hand combat under those conditions.”
“Accessing deck plans.” Sprite
found the basic plans and then opened it for all three to review. “Based on
their launch from the port bay, there is an eighty point three percent
probability they will return to it. The ship's boat bays are large, with up to
twenty craft in each,” Sprite was highlighting different points on the map.
“We can use them for cover.”
Defender added approvingly.
“If they are there.” Sprite
returned.
He felt a little relief that his
third AI Proteus was not on line. Proteus was a class 1 AI built into his right
arm prosthetics and nanites. It shared the memory core with Sprite and
Defender. Since it was a dedicated engineering AI, he only booted it when
needed.
He let the AIs go back and forth
drawing options as he focused on the motion and extrapolated course. If they
were any good they should be making the turn to the bay right about...now. He
watched the inertial sump readings as it absorbed the turns change in inertia
and smoothed out the gravitational pull to compensate. That left the landing.
“Okay, almost show time.” The AI
brought up their plans, vague, but something to work off of. For the most part
they would have to improvise. “Proteus boot complete.”
"Two minutes to estimated
touchdown. Releasing nano scavengers now." Proteus reported. He could feel
the muscle aches ease as the nanites scavenged the lactic acids from his
muscles. "Shield boot complete, power reserves holding at 57%." He
felt a bump as the craft landed.
"They left us attached
Admiral. Audio sensors report sounds of the crew leaving the shuttle. So much
for a post flight check," the AI sniffed in disdain at that.