New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (12 page)

The Captain nodded. "Get on
it," she ordered. Her usual gravelly voice had a fond tone. "They
really are working miracles down there aren't they?" she smiled softly as
the door closed behind Molly. She was blushing.

"Blast!" Molly heard
the thunk and looked over. "Oh damn." She came over to see Jennie
clutching at her forehead. Blood gushed. "Darn it," Jennie sucked in
a shuddering breath.

"Just lean back and hold
it." Molly replied. She looked around and spotted one of Trish's life
support girls. "Can you get some help here? Pass me that first aid kit on
the wall." She pointed to it. The girl nodded and rushed over. She came
back with the box.

"Oh my god is she going to
die?" She clutched at the first aid kit.

"No silly she isn't going to
die!" Molly grabbed the kit.

"But all that blood!"
The girl trembled and looked away.  She gulped.

"Head wounds bleed a lot. Go
call sickbay and let them know Miss klutzy is going to need stitches
again," Molly ordered.

Jennie glared as the girl rushed
off. "Miss klutzy? Oh you’re asking for it." She leaned forward.

"I said lay back
silly," Molly pulled Jennie's hand away.

She sprayed the wound it foamed
up nicely and the bleeding stopped. "There," she said. She tossed the
sprayer into the kit then helped Jennie to her feet. "All better, let’s
just get the doc to fix you up for good." Jennie shook her head then
stumbled. "Just a scratch,” she said. Molly deftly caught her.

"No, I think we need to
check you out a bit," Molly said. Jennie grinned.

 Mindy came in at a run.
"Where?" The girls near the door pointed. Mindy ran over and looked
concerned. "Oh my! All this blood! What did you do?" She peered into
Jennie's eyes.

"Molly bopped me,"
Jennie said with a straight face.

Mindy gasped and turned on Molly.
"You didn't!"

Molly shook her head.
"That's right, I didn't. She hit her head on the console." She helped
Jennie over to the chair.

"I like it better my
way," Jennie sighed as she let herself be guided. "Okay, I guess we
better get a chair..." Mindy rushed off.

Molly groaned. "Thanks, your
version will be all over the ship in an hour." She sat down next to
Jennie. Jennie smiled.

“I'm glad the Admiral insisted we
install those first aid kits,” Molly muttered.

“Yeah, Trish and I took the time
to go over it with him earlier,” Jen nodded.

“So, other than the bump, how are
things going?” Mindy asked...

“Good, we've gotten up into A
note of hyper, balanced the shield nodes and frequency adjustments, we're
looking better and better every day,” Jen smiled at the pixie. She grinned. 
Things were looking up, they had shaved another two weeks off their ETA and
were about fifteen weeks out.

“What's A note?” Her eyebrows
knit and she frowned after a moment. “Oh, it's a … well; it's a layer in the
band of hyper that's really good. Something we've wanted to get into for
years,” Jen explained.

Mindy looked excited. “Really!”
She bounced. “I can't wait to tell Dorah, oh this is so neat!” Molly rolled her
eyes. She helped Jen into the hover chair.

“I'll just get back to work
now...” Molly replied, making her fast exit.

Jen sighed, now in the not so
tender clutches of the demented nurse. “So, we're going faster?” Mindy leaned
over the chair and gushed.

Jen sighed. “Yes, now drive,” She
leaned back hoping she didn't barf from the girl's driving.

"Is this the same bridge?
the Captain asked as her chair exited her private lift. The normal grime had
been cleaned since she had been off shift. "How did you do it this
fast?" She turned to the grinning girls. One of them, Shandra, pointed
behind the Captain. Curious she turned to see a hovering robot. It emitted a
blue beam and sizzling sound.

As it scanned a bulkhead small
dots of dirt glowed, then began to disintegrate into dust. "Amazing,” she
murmured as she shook her head. “And the wiring?" she asked.

The girl turned to the port and
pointed. "It took a couple hours, but it's all repaired and tucked up
where they belong," Shandra grinned.

 The squeaking made the Captain
wince. “Can we get someone from engineering to oil this chair?” she said
testily.

Kendra looked up. “Okay.”

“That is if you can catch
someone,” the Captain observed wryly.

“What the? Admiral!” He ducked as
two naked women shrieked and tried to cover themselves. “Uh, sorry ladies, I
need to run a cable through that bulkhead,” he turned his back, blushing. The
girls were built nicely, despite some odd scars on the pale red haired girl.

“Well, next time knock,” one of
them said testily.

The guards choked back a laugh.
”So what are you doing in here anyway?” one guard asked.

“Sun bathing.” one of the girls
said tartly as she shouldered on her blouse. The other pulled on her skirt.

“Sunbathing?” he asked.

“Yeah. See?” One of the girls pointed
to the holographic sun.

“Um, you know that's a display
right? There isn't a sun. We're in hyper after all. No UV to sunbathe,” he
tried to hide his amusement.

The girls paused in dressing.
“Um. Ah, we didn't know that.” They returned to dressing. “We usually do it in
the greenhouse, but it's occluded...and a bit busy,” the blond said. She
shifted her dress. “You can look now.” He looked and shook his head.

“This will only take a moment or
two,” he said. He entered the room and pulled at the cable sticking out of a
pipe. He pulled the line until the slack ended. “Okay.” He ran it along the
bulkhead and then fed it into another hole. He went back and clipped the cable
into holders along the bulkhead. “Okay. Here we go,” he said. He finished the
last, and then checked over the room. “Okay, I think I'm done.”

He went to the exit then paused.
“If you want to sunbathe, you can ask for some UV lights. Or a sunbathing
machine. There were two on the rec deck, ask if they've been repaired. If not,
put in for it,” he suggested.

The blond nodded. “Thanks.” He
smiled. “Now get out,” she growled. She began to pull off her clothes. Hastily
he exited. The guards chuckled.

"And you are?" he asks
politely as he turned. He freezes, amused and exasperated at the pixie before
him. She was rail thin, young, terribly young, and dressed in a scandalous
outfit. It looked like an adult entrainment version of a nurse's outfit,
complete with black opera gloves and miniskirt. The top was brief and low cut.
A little much for the girl in it. She had a nurse's cap on top of her raven
haired head, hair done up in two pigtails. She carried a clipboard and stylus.

"I'm Mindy the nurse silly!
Who are you?" He winced at her high pitched voice.

"I'm the engineer. Um...that
is a different um, outfit," he cleared his throat.

"What this?" She looked
down at her outfit then gave a shrug. "It goes with the job. You’re late
for your physical," she burbled. She gave him an impish smile then dashed
off. He shook his head, bemused. It was like he was in an asylum, run by the
inmates.

"Knock knock," he said,
entering the sickbay. The lights had been repaired, but wiring was still
hanging from ceiling, and panels were missing from some walls. He stumbled
around a missing floor plate. "Oh! Watch that!" the nurse girl
called, looking up from where she was laying on a biobed. She was face down,
legs kicking back and forth while she flicked through a tablet.

He stared, then coughed and
looked around. "Doc?" Defender pulled up a motion track to his left.
He turned in the indicated direction, and caught sight of doc as he stretched,
coming out of an office.

"Yes? Oh! It's you,"
the doctor said. He nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets.

The girl got up, suddenly bubbly
and bouncing around. "Is it our turn now?" She was excited, bouncing
around the room with frantic teenage energy. He snorted. "You said you had
patients doctor?" He gave the cool doctor a polite nod.

"This way," the doctor
waved in the indicated direction.

"Yes, it's so sad that mommy
and our friends are in there, in between life and death," the girl said.
The girl twirled around them.

 The guard sighed. Doc turned,
gave her a look, and she rolled her eyes. "Mindy, why don't you check the
inventory list so we can let the engineer know what we need," the doctor
called.

The nurse froze, and then
guiltily looked to them. "Awe doc!" He sighed.

"NOW Mindy," he
ordered.

She groaned theatrically. "I
never get any fun," she pouted.  She huffed and stomped off. The engineer
shook his head.

"You have your hands full I
see," he said dryly. The doctor sighed.

"We have nine patients in
cryostasis. All with life threatening or critical health problems," he
said, pointing  to tubes. "These two were injured when a plasma conduit
burst. They are burned on ninety percent of their bodies. The Captain insisted
they get them into stasis, apparently they saved her life," he said. The
admiral nodded.

"This one is Faith, the
Chief engineer, or at least the last one to hold the title," he said. He
gave the engineer a sidelong look. "She was hurt just prior to you coming
aboard from an EM discharge... I think they said it came from that copper cable
powering the hyperdrive,” he said. The Admiral nodded. “Moving on....This young
lady was injured when a piece of machinery got loose and crushed her against
the bulkhead." He sighed. “This is Clarissa, the former doctor and Mindy’s
mother.” He patted the tube. “Another unfortunate victim of a plasma conduit
burst, although the damage was more from steam then the plasma.”

"These other four," he
waved to them. "Well, three are accident victims, and one actually paid
the Captain for the privilege," he said.

The Admiral looked at the doctor.
"Paid?" he asked on cue.

The doctor nodded. "Yes, it
seems he has a life threatening disease and paid her to keep him in stasis
until someone can cure him," the doctor said and then shrugged.

"I was taken aboard when the
doctor was injured," his calm voice suddenly rang with suppressed emotion.
The guards couldn't hear it, it was almost subsonic. Defender pointed it out
silently to him.

He nodded. "Well, let’s see
if we can get things sorted out on the ship so you can go home," Irons
said quietly. The doctor gave him a long look then slowly nodded.

He looked over to the cryopods.
"Clarissa, excuse me, Doctor Clarissa was injured in an accident."
Mindy came over and looked down. "Mom was hit in the face with steam when
a plasma conduit blew up," she said, one hand on the tube. She looked up.
"But we're going to fix her up soon right doc?"

She twirled around. "Then I
can show her all the new stuff we have!" Doc and the Admiral watched her
play for a moment. "She got a face full of steam, the Captain and Chief
got her into the stasis pod, but I'm not sure if I can save her," the doctor
said. He looked bleak.

"Her face, with most of the
soft tissue is gone. Eyes, lips, nose, ears..." He shivered. "Lungs,
tongue, mouth, and esophagus all were seared. Some of her internal organs
cooked too." He shook his head. "It may have been kinder to let her
go," he murmured. The Admiral shook his head.

"I have had worse and
survived doc. So can she. If she's strong, she'll pull through," he said.
The doctor looked him over for a moment. "Maybe, but you had a fully
trained team of doctors and a hospital, not this." He waved to the
sickbay.

The Admiral nodded. "Maybe
so, but we have to work with the tools we're given," he said firmly. Then
he smiled. "Or make new ones."

The doctor chuckled at that.
"All right, let’s get to work then.”

"What are you doing?"
He looked down to see a small blue haired girl looking up at the box. She had
squeezed in between him and the bulkhead.

"I am running diagnostics on
this computer," he said keeping a firm lid on his temper.

She looked it over. "What's
a computer?" She wrinkled her nose in confusion as if it was distasteful.

He cleared his throat in
surprise. "A computer is an electronic device. It's the brain of the
ship," he explained, taking her question as a literal expression of
ignorance. She looked at it again.

"Oh. What's that?" She
suddenly reached to grab something. He intercepted her hand with the back of
his.

"That's optical ram. It...
Here." He pulled the bad stick and handed it to her. She grinned in
delight. "See the edge with the glass like lines?" She fumbled it,
and then twisted it around and around. "No, here." He touched the
correct edge. "These are the connections to the rest of the
computer." She ran her finger along the edge. "You have to be
careful; touching the wrong part can kill it," he warned her.

She froze, and then looked up
guiltily. "I didn't break it did I?"

He shook his head. "No, that
was already broke." A guard leaned over. He looked at her. "See, this
is ram. This,” he opened the panel door as wide as it could then pointed. “This
is the motherboard. This is the CPU; it has a fan and heat sink on it to keep
it cool. This is the ROM, and these are the data lines to the rest of the
network."

The girl looked intrigued.
"Do you think I could learn how to fix things like that?" she asked.

He nodded. "Of course! You
just have to learn." He waved to the box.

"How did you learn?"
she asked. She looked at him with bright innocent eyes.

"I went to school and
learned."

He hid a smile as she grimaced as
she looked beyond him. "I gotta go. Thanks for showing me." She
handed him the part and ducked around him and skipped off. He snorted.