New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (2 page)

"Let’s hear it. Did they
leave the top hatch covered?" he asked.

"No, top hatch has a strut
thirty centimeters in front and to the port of it, but you should be able to
get out. Bringing up audio now."

"So, what do you think is in
it? Burmite? Telerite? Human? T'clock? Xenos?" a female voice was asking.
He could hear footfalls as they got out and moved to the bay hatch.

"No idea, we'll see. Captain
said to keep it on ice till we get out of this jam." Another voice answered.

"Shandra! Get to the
bridge!" A rough scratchy voice called out over speakers.

The second voice sighed.
"Looks like we have trouble. Get to engineering, see what you can
do." The second voice, most likely an officer ordered. The footfalls
double timed it to the hatch and out. He waited, listening as the hatch closed.

"Any sign of a watch?"
he asked at a whisper, and then smiled grimly. As if they could hear him inside
the pod.

"No Admiral, and judging
from the state of decay, I would say definitely civilian." Sprite was
showing her usual distaste for all things civilian. He chuckled.

"All right Sprite, open
sesame." The top hatch opened, light spilled in. He had his eyes closed,
but it still was blindingly bright after the confining darkness in the pod. He
reached out and grabbed the outside rim of the hatch then pulled. Slowly he
pulled his body until his head and shoulders were out of the hatch. The top
hatch was for entry; you grabbed an overhead bar and jumped in, sliding into
the life pod. Here he reversed it.

He reached out with his
artificial hand and grabbed the nearby landing strut, got a good grip then
pulled himself out. He winced as his boots hit the deck with a thud.
"Boosting sensory abilities to combat norms." Defender, all business.

"Accessing the suit,
altering skin to hull coloration." He gave a short acknowledgment.  The
life pod hatch closed behind him. With any luck they wouldn't know he was out.
He instinctively scanned the bay, crawling under the craft, then out from under
it and into a crouch beside its hatch. "There's a computer interface to
your port on the schematics."

Quickly and quietly he turned and
followed Sprite's arrows to the computer panel. The screen was dark, wiring was
hanging out of different panels, and one panel was chard. He felt around with
his artificial hand until he found the universal port. "Got it.
Interfacing now. Hold still."

He felt the AI lock his arm as
the tip of his ring finger converted into an access link. "We have a hot
link, viruses detected! Firewall up!" He sighed.

"Do they know we are
here?" Defender beat him to asking the obvious.

"No, they're civilian
viruses," Sprite answered. He could almost see her wrinkle her virtual
nose in distaste.

"Admiral this mainframe is
saturated with viruses! It is a wonder they can function! Some idiot turned the
antivirus software off, and the firewalls!" She sounded positively gleeful
at that lucky break. "I'm in. Do you want the bad news, or very bad
news?"

He sighed. "Give it to me,
just the high points of this situation."

"The ship was salvaged
twelve years ago."

"Salvaged?" he asked.

"Aye Admiral, salvaged.
Civilian crew, mostly women. They've been running the ship as a free trader.
The AI was destroyed by her Fleet Captain when she was critically damaged and
left to drift."

He cocked his head thinking the
scenario through. "Plausible. Continue."

She sighed, "Admiral, you’re
not going to like this. The Federation... It's gone."

He sighed. He'd deal with that
later. "Damn. Save the data, we don't have time now. What about that other
ship?"

"Pirate ship. Apparently
they were making a stop at an asteroid colony and were ambushed. They took
damage to their hyperdrive and were running for time to fix it. Ran through the
Charybdis junction edge in hopes of getting to the outer zone for a soft alpha
jump but ran into another pirate that had been positioned to catch them."

"Whoever is on the other
side is good. I don't like that," he said, and then sighed. "Damage
to the drive repairable?"

"I can't tell from this
interface, I can't access the bridge or security system, there is a primitive
civilian firewall around each, breaching it would alert them."

"Don't," he said. He
shook his head.

"How did you know about the
drive damage?" he asked.

"Unguarded talk between crew
members near open microphones. Apparently the Chief engineer was severely
injured when an em discharge fried the jury rigged copper cable."

"Did you say copper?"
Stunned disbelief at such a primitive fix.

"Aye Admiral, copper, not
very pure, jacketed around and used in place of a superconductor that had maxed
impedance."

He shook his head in wonder.
"I bet they were having all sorts of issues with it." He looked up in
thought. Usage of copper changed the perspective on technology. He'd have to
think of the implications on the large view later, right now he needed to focus
on the here and now.

"Admiral, we need to get out
of this bay. I don't think taking the shuttle to the pirate is a viable
escape." Defender hauled him back from the brink of his engineering
daydream.

"Your assessment?" he
asked.

"Recommended course of
action is to ally with present crew, repair the drive and get out of the area
to buy time to reassess the situation," Defender said. He nodded; after
all, he had come to the same conclusion.

"All right Sprite, recharge
me, then kill those viruses and do what software repair you can."
"Recharge already done, virus inoculation commencing. Do you think they'll
notice?" she asked. He shook his head.

"I doubt it; they're most
likely focused on the external threat," he said and then paused in
thought. "Can we use a substitute cable? What about from the
replicators?"

Sprite brought up the schematic
of the replicators. "Unfortunately as you can see the cables are short,
and between a support spar and bulkhead. No way to access them without a
gravity collar to lift the replicators or plasma torch to cut through the
hull."

He grimaced. "Okay, so
that's out, any other ideas?" He watched as Sprite brought up a list, and
then automatically began to weed and discard items. "Wait hold it, the
plasma weapons, why not that?" he asked.

She brought up the indicated one.
"To do that would alert the crew to our presence and take away their last
weapon."

He winced. He didn't like it but
they didn't have a choice. "No choice, I already discarded trying to
splice something or scavenge the shuttles."

He turned and looked around the
bay as Sprite detached his hand and returned it to normal. Junk littered the
sides and corners. Shuttles and cargo littered the deck. Some cargo was hanging
from nets. "What about the cargo?" he asked, looking around.

"Scanning. No cargo manifest
in the mainframe. Accessing. Found it. It was on an external device.
Primitive." He waited. "No, cargo is mostly trade goods, foods,
primitive tools, raw metals and material, some seeds, chemicals, and
beads."

"Civilization has fallen
that far?" he asked as he made his way to the hatch.

"Civilization stopped six
hundred and ninety two years ago Admiral," she answered him quietly. He
stopped with a jerk, and then sighed. "Damn....Damn." He shook his
head.

"Anyone at the hatch?"
he asked as they stepped up to it.

"Yes Admiral, one
guard." They felt the ship buck and shudder. "That was a hit, shields
are down. Most likely the stern," Sprite answered him before the question
was asked. He nodded as she highlighted a maintenance tube hatch. He turned to
it.

He exited near the weapons, glad
there was no guard. "Admiral, have you thought about how you’re going to
detach it if they are firing weapons? Or move it to the hyperdrive?"

He sighed. "Good points. Can
you access a wireless node?"

"Yes Admiral, I'm in. I left
a back door and was monitoring things." Sprite answered.

"All right, order a crew
member to get a grav cart and work crew here. Then bypass the fire controls and
drop this thing into local fire control only. Lock the bridge control
out." He went to work, opening the hatch, checking the chamber within, and
then moving quickly to the panel Sprite indicated. Proteus rebooted fast, and
began reconfiguring his arm. "Work crew on their way. Are you sure about
this?" He felt the ship shudder. "Yeah, too late anyway."
Proteus reported the cable was serviceable, but near max impedance.

He pulled the coupler off and
removed the cover plate to the thick cable below. "Work crew is at the
outer hatch." He turned and exited the hatch. He took the women, dressed
in gaudy revealing costumes in one glance. They looked shocked, one had her jaw
open and was backing up, a blond in a coverall and tank top was shaking.

“Molly what do we do?” One
whispered.

"What are you waiting for an
engraved invite? Get in here and help!" he used command voice to compel
them. Startled they obeyed.

He snapped out orders to pull the
secondary bypass, drain the cable, and then pull it out. "All right, we're
going to get this thing down to engineering and replace the broken hyperdrive
cable." Sprite highlighted the leader, the blond with the top of her
coverall knotted around her waist. "Molly right?" he asked. She
nodded, adjusting her glasses. "All right, call down to engineering, have
them pull the old cable carefully. We need to get this one installed
fast."

She nodded, coming to a decision.
"You heard the man, get to work!" She waved to one of the women to
maneuver the gravity cart under the cable.

He pulled the shunt leads, and
then motioned them to move. The ship shuddered; he reached out and steadied the
brunette. "You okay miss?" he asked. She nodded, then looked up and
got a wary look. "Molly, get this to engineering, I am going to go ahead
and get things moving faster. We're near the hyper threshold. The Captain will
need the hyperdrive up ASAP." Molly nodded, not even looking up.

He sprinted down the passage. He
ducked hanging wiring, wincing as one wire caught his shoulder and sparked.
"Sprite, Proteus, get into the net, see how they're handling damage
control and help them where ever possible," he ordered. He felt the AI's
shift as data began to flow to his wireless access nodes.

“That plasma conduit is about to
burst. Thermal is going through the roof.” Proteus alerted him as he passed a
crew member working on it frantically.

“Lock it down, bypass it and
drain it fast!” he gave the order, and then turned to view the exposed conduit.
The girl didn't even look up. His vision shifted to thermal viewing, he noted
the skyrocketing temperatures and went into action. He twisted and pulled the
girl down instinctively covering her. She squeaked, and then screamed as the
seal ruptured and plasma streamed out. Defender slapped his shields up just in
time. His shields took the brunt of the damage. Proteus locked the plasma
conduit down through the computer.

He looked up when the high
pitched squeal and crackles slowed. Plasma had burned the upper bulkhead,
melting into it and tearing wiring and conduit. Drops had pitted and burned the
floor around them.

 “Thanks. Can I get up now?” The
girl asked. He smiled as he got up and helped her to her feet with a hand.

“We better get back to work.” He
turned and started off at a jog to main engineering, leaving her gaping behind
him.

"Guards at the
entrance," Defender alerted him.

"No time for subtlety get
that door open for me." He sprinted around the corner, and before the
startled guards could react, through the still opening doors and into main
engineering. "Help them with the cable!" he called back over his
shoulder. Main engineering was chaos, not the controlled chaos of a well run
ship, but utter hysteria. He took a look around as one guard stepped up behind
him.

The other was trying to call on
her comm, but Defender was scrambling it. He reached out and steadied a woman
as she stumbled around a piece of debris. "Easy there miss." She
didn't even look up as she staggered on.

"Help the work crew get that
cable through the hatch," he called over his shoulder again.

"She is about to strike
you!" Defender warned. Instinctively he twisted to the side as Defender
brought his shields up. The butt of the gun clipped his shoulder. His right arm
grabbed the gun and twisted, natural limbs no match for his bionic one. She
gasped as he snatched the gun out of her hands.

"BELAY THAT! WE DON"T
HAVE TIME FOR THIS CRAP!" he bellowed at full augmented volume. Main
engineering sounds abruptly stopped. He turned to glare at the compartment.
"As you were, get that cable off the hyperdrive and out of the way
NOW!" The women looked at him in shock then bolted, command voice working
wonders. A sense of order quickly began to get into the chaos. He turned to the
stunned guard.

"I gave you an order miss.
Get that cable in here NOW!" He tossed her the rifle, and then moved to
the hyperdrive. Molly and her work crew were near the hatch. He approached the
work crew and looked the cable over. The copper was obvious; they hadn't even
taken the precaution of jacketing it with an insulator. It was severely
scorched and the ends molten and burned. Bits of what looked like flesh were on
one end.

"Do you have it off
yet?" he asked the work party.

 "One end, but the other end
is stuck.”

 "Get clear then." He
yanked the detached end, and tossed it to the side. A woman dodged it. He took
a look at the other end as Molly approached. "Molly, get one end attached
there. He pointed to the free port. "We'll get this end off while you’re working
on that." She nodded and motioned her crew to get the cable off and the
end up. They grunted as they muscled the heavy cable up. "Sprite, get into
the computer, cut power to that shunt so they don't get fried," he ordered
quietly. Sprite signaled okay with an audio trill. He nodded.