New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (9 page)

She nodded. "Oh, okay,"
she replied in a small voice. They entered the lift and went up.

"So, what is a hyper
collector?" the blond guard asked.

He sighed. "It's a bussard
ram scoop collector. It uses decoupled force fields and the ship's exterior
shields to scoop free electrons from hyperspace. The higher the band, the
higher the temporal compression and the more power the ship receives."
They felt the lift jerk.

"Oh." The guard looked
over to the other.

"Did you understand any of
that?" she asked softly.

"Not a thing."

He sighed again and closed his
eyes for a moment. "Okay, look. It's a way to increase the ship's power
supply." He turned to them. The lift door opened. A girl gasped. He turned
back.

"Um, sorry, um, I'll take
the next." He waved. The girl was dressed in another maid outfit.

"Lot of maids," he
said.

“You have no idea,” a guard said.
He shook his head as the car continued.

"Bloody pirates," the
girl, Jennie muttered as she picked up a tool box. "As if we don't have
enough to fix." She waved to some of the other girls.

"Pirates are a
problem." He nodded. "Are there many?" he asked.

She looked him over. "More
and more every year," she growled as  she shook her head. "Wish I
knew where they were coming from," she sighed and shouldered past the
guard.

 "Okay, this way," she
said. He nodded and followed.

"An interesting datum."
Sprite commented. "I've got my virtual hands full Admiral, so I am going
to leave Defender in the driver's seat while I try to fix the net." The AI
commented.

"Carry on," he muttered
as he passed a pair of crew members. They looked up then stared at him.

He turned the corner and had to
dodge around another girl. "So, what are you working on?" he asked.
He'd done what he could for the hyperspace collectors. It wouldn't do much good
until they bumped up an octave or two though.

"Navigational sensors,"
she replied over her shoulder. Suddenly she pitched forward and swam in mid
air. "Shit not again!" she wind milled, dropping the case. It
floated. "Damn!" He reached her and grabbed a thrashing ankle.

"Get this a lot?" he
asked as he reeled her in. He steadied her as her feet hit the ground.

"Yeah. Too often," she
said breathing hard. One of the guards looked amused. Jennie growled.
"What are you looking at?" She reached for the tool box and failed.
It moved further into the field. "Damn." Suddenly it slammed to the
deck hard. "Awe crap." Jennie shook her head. The deck now had a
toolbox sized dent. "Great," she sighed. "Why me?"

He grabbed her hand before she
could grab the handle. "Wait." He tapped his implants. "Lets
see." He couldn't get into the net; Sprite was hogging all the bandwidth. "Okay."
He turned and studied a panel. "Nope." He looked over the next.

"What are you looking
for?" She asked. "Ah...”

He brushed aside some debris and
then raised his right hand. "This," he said. He sent the mental
signal to his hand, the ring finger morphed into a jack.

 "What the hell?" The
girl asked taken aback.

He slid the jack home into the
port. "Okay, I'm in." He accessed the deck controls. "Virus
attack, firewalls are up," Defender reported.

"I have it." In a
moment he sent a signal to the life support node, it cleared and the floating
debris clanged to the deck. "Virus," He reported. "Okay, you can
get your box now." She went over and picked it up.

"What did you do?" she
asked curious. She stepped around the zero g section carefully then grabbed her
box.

"I zapped a couple of
viruses in the node and reinitialized its firewall. Then I shut the gravity
module down and did a cold reboot," he replied, removing the jack.

"Well, whatever you did, it
worked. Think you can do it again?" she asked, hefting the box. "Hope
nothing is broken," she muttered.

"As often as it takes, but
it would be easier to train people to do it themselves," he said. He shook
his head. "Also, to get the viruses cleared out and restore the
mainframe." He gave her a look. She nodded. "Well, I am into
computers, so we shouldn't have a problem there. I didn't know about viruses
though. How can a computer catch the flu?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.
From her tone she was obviously serious. He sighed.

Obviously, she didn't know as
much as she thought. "A computer virus is a malicious set of code designed
to damage a system's software or hardware." He waved to the deck.
"Like that did." She nodded. "Some are pranks, some are to steal
information, and some are to leave back doors for hackers to attack a
system," he explained.

She nodded. "Okay, so how do
we get them out?" she asked. He sighed.

"I'm working on it,"
Sprite said distantly. He nodded.

"Working on it,"  he
said out loud.

She nodded. "Okay, this
way."

"So I hear you’re shaking
things up?" the gravelly voice isn't a surprise to him, but apparently to
the crew members near. He hid a smile and turns. The Captain is seated in a
chair, welded onto a hover pallet.

"Doing my best Ma'am, We
should have things in better shape soon," he said. He knew things were a
lot better now then before he had come on board of course.

She gave him a long look, then a
small smile that touched her eyes into a twinkle. "You do that. Carry
on," she said. He nods as she backs up with her guard and turns around.
"Oh," she said. He turns back to her as she looks at him over her
shoulder. "Do make sure you get some food and sleep sometime, you’re
wearing the guards out,"  she said with a malicious smile.

He smiled wearily. "Aye aye
Captain," he said. She nodded and then left.

He looked at the tech helping
him. "Does the Captain go everywhere in that?" he asked.

She nodded, looking a little
uncomfortable. "The Captain is pretty old now and not as spry as she once
was. And that machine can't get her into all the compartments... But she still
finds a way to check on them," she said. She has a disgusted look on her
face.

He chuckled. "Captains
always do. Common trait of command. So, let’s see if we can finish wiring
this... hand me that number twenty three coupler will you?"

After sixty three hours of being
up and about, he finally gave in to Sprite's polite insistence and the guards
discrete prompting to go to bed. He let the guard lead the way, bemused that
they were careful to keep three paces in front and behind him. He was not so
bemused when they arrived in the brig. "And what is this supposed to be
the Hilton?" he tried to glare, but a yawn escaped.

One of the guards shrugged.
"Orders,” she mumbled.

 He shrugged. "Well, a bed
is a bed I guess." He went into the cell and laid out on the bottom cot.
The guards argued about cuffing him, and then one firmly shut the door and
grabbed the other by the arm and pulled her away. He shrugged it off and let
Morpheus take him.

Defender woke him three hours and
fifty five minutes later. A strange male had entered the cell, and was holding
his wrist. Before he could stop it, the AI had dumped adrenalin into his
system. He woke fast and twitched. "Hold still," a male voice said.
He opened his eyes to look at a male in a medical smock. The smock must have
been salvaged, it was sooty, had some blood stains, and was a bit worn. The
left lapel had a doctor's name and fruit salad.  The shoulders had the classic
pauldron symbols of the medical core. He'd seen it before but hadn't really
looked at it until now. At least not this close.

"Doc, what are you
doing?" he asked politely, not moving his arm.

"Attempting to take your
pulse. Please be quiet," the man said. He twitched a look up at the
engineer, then back down. His lips moved, counting.

"I can't seem to get a
pulse," The doc commented, shifting his grip.

The engineer noted the doctor was
manacled. He cocked an eyebrow. "Well, that's because that's my artificial
arm doc. The real one is over here." He flicked his left hand up and back
while cycling his right arm's fingers through quick tool changes. The doctor
looked up startled.

 "Fascinating," he said
as he regained his composure and looked at the engineer. His face was partially
hidden by long black hair. He was clean shaven, and had brown skin.

"Why the manacles doc?"
the engineer asked sitting up. The doctor sighed.

"I was kidnapped," he
said simply. He looked over to the guard standing with her back to the cell,
but her head turned to the left, watching them out of the corner of her eye.
"It seems there were several injuries and they needed a doctor. I had a
small practice in a village near where they landed. They came and told me there
was an injury at their ship. When I got to their shuttle I was stunned and woke
up here," his deep voice was calm as he flicked his fingers to the brig.

 The engineer nodded slowly.
"Shanghaied," he said. The doctor looked confused for a moment.
"It means kidnapped. Press ganged is the naval version," he sighed as
the doctor nodded.

"I was a village healer
before, trying to make do with limited training, and limited material. Here I
have a little more to work with, but I'm a prisoner. A slave." He gave the
engineer a look. "And it seems, now so are you."

The engineer cocked an eye.
"We'll see." He got up.

"What are you doing?"
the doctor asked.

"I need to get some food and
get back to work."

The doctor's visible eye widened.
"You were on your feet for nearly three days! You should still be
asleep!"

The engineer smiled. "My
augmentation allows me to function better than those without it doc. I'm  fine.
A little stiff on the organic side..." Proteus released local nanites to
remove lactic acid in his joints..."But I'm doing better." He turned
to their jailer.

 "All right miss, we should
be getting back to work," he said. She ignored him. He stepped up to the
cell door. "Miss, time to get back to work."

She snorted giving him a sidelong
look over her shoulder. "You’re in there till the Chief tells you
otherwise." He sighed and turned his efforts inward.

"Sprite, got the brig over
ride?" He wasn't in the mood to be trapped. Less than four hours of sleep
and no caffeine had him grumpy.

"Are you sure about this
Admiral?" He flicked his right wrist to the cell door. He called up his
power reserves and slammed it hard. The ancient hinges shrieked as they
shredded. The door fell with a clang. The guard whirled, gun drawn. "Gee,
I guess I'll have to fix that." He gave her a long commanding look.
"Put it away. NOW," command voice and sub harmonics turned his voice
almost into a snarl. Her jaw was wide. She closed it, fumbled with the weapon.
He turned to the doctor, ignoring her.

"Doctor, it was nice meeting
you, I will try to expedite the repairs to sickbay so you can help the injured
and so they'll let you go," he promised. The doctor nodded, stunned.

He maneuvered around the
corridors; giving a polite nod to women he passed. A pair of guards escorting
another male in cuffs nearly ran into him at a corner. The male bumped off of
him with a "Hey watch it!" He snorted and stepped back. One of the
guards had followed him out of the brig, gaping like a fish at first, and then
settling down into a scowl.

"What's this about?" he
asked as he looked down. The male was short, about 140 centimeters tall,
wearing a green jacket cut at the midriff. He had blond hair, with two pig
tails sticking out over each eyebrow.

"None of your
business," the guard growled grabbing the male's arm and pulling him back
into motion.

The male tried to shake it off,
and then wilted. "You gotta help me! They're cruel!" Irons didn't say
anything as he turned and watched them leave.

"Okay, what was that
about?" he asked the guard behind him. She grunted.

One of the techs nearby shook her
head. "He claimed to be a rich guy, offered to pay for passage to another
system. Made himself a royal pain in the arse and had us cater to him. Turns out
he was a deadbeat. Captain refused to let him go, and is making him work for
his passage, room, and board."

He snorted. "Typical con
artist?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing
artistic about it."

He shrugged off the literal
reference. "Carry on," he nodded his head to her work area.

When he entered the mess hall he
was almost resigned to the level of chaos and apathy. Sure it was relatively
clean, the deck panels were all there, but the ceiling panels had been lost.
Bulkheads had stains on them. So did some of the tables. One was a platter of
fruit, obviously way past season.  The wall screen was shattered. One of the
guards went over and spoke softly to the cook, while the other stood by the
door. He was amused at the addition, he had noticed when she had joined his
tail, and had subtly prevented her from getting in front of him by alternating
his pace.

She was stocky, like all the
other guards, and had the typical scowl. He turned to survey the patrons. They
in turn were surveying him. Some had food, what looked like gruel or porridge.
Others had crackers and pieces of fruit. He shook his head and went to the food
replicator. "Coffee black." It didn't light up or respond. In the
quiet behind him he heard a snort and snicker.

"It doesn't work. Like a lot
of things on this ship," a voice quipped.

He turned to the voice.
"We'll see about that." He took off the panel and examined the inner
workings.

The food replicators worked by
tapping a local food material substrate, then recombined it with nanites to
form any food programmed into its memory. The substrate container had been
yanked out, a hose had breached and what looked like fungus was growing on the
back wall. He plugged his right ring finger into the access port. Data flowed
into him, he felt Sprite go into action, slamming a firewall up and slapping
down virus attacks. She entered the computer and cleaned house, then gave him a
report.