A Matter of Honor (Privateer Tales Book 9) (18 page)

"These are old-fashioned computers," Merrie explained. "They're not powerful enough to load a founder's AI on them, but they're surprisingly useful. The bad thing is they take up a lot of space. Even better, the AI in my engineering console can communicate with them, albeit slowly."

"How is all of this useful?" Gian asked, looking at the morass of equipment.

"Not all of it is. I've been experimenting with different ideas. What I wanted to show you, however, was this." Merrie sat down in a chair and pulled back a cloth revealing a thin panel with two joysticks and a keyboard. "Take a look at this."

The panel was blank, but before anyone complained, a video image of the ground in front of the gate appeared on the panel.

"How are you doing that?" Gian asked.

"Completely old-school, Captain," she answered. "Pretty great, right?"

"I'm not sure…" he started. The image flipped to a view outside of the southwest gate, where the farmers were working in the field.

"How many of these do you have?" he asked.

"Just two, but practically, you could install them anywhere," she said. "The maker machine can manufacture ten of these in fifteen minutes. The best thing is that they communicate with each other so you just need to have them within a tenth of a kilometer of each other."

"Don't misunderstand, this
is
excellent technology," Shem said. "I just don't understand how we will find the Ophie with them."

"That's because I love an audience," Merrie said, grinning widely.

"I don't understand," Shem said.

"You will."

Merrie typed a command on the keyboard and the display changed back to the front gate. She then grabbed the joysticks and pushed forward on the left stick and lightly tipped the right stick over to the left. The image changed as the camera appeared to raise up and tip slightly to the side.

"What are you doing?" Shem asked.

"Just hold your pants. I've a limit to my multitasking," Merrie said.

She leveled out the image by re-centering the right stick and the camera continued to gain elevation as she pushed forward on the left stick. With a tip of the left control, the image swung around until it looked back into the settlement and then, astonishingly, it advanced along the main street of Yishuv, turning back toward the west, sailing over the tops of the small homes.

Eliora was the first to verbalize it. "It's coming back to the tannery?"

"Yup. That's why I left the big door open. I haven't exactly mastered it yet," Merrie said.

A buzzing sound at the open door accentuated her point and they all looked out to see a small device fly through the door.

"What is it?" Gian asked.

"They called them quadcopters, because of the four props," Merrie said, lowering the device to the table in front of them.

"You can fly this up to the Ophie camp?" Gian asked.

"That's what we're going to find out," Merrie said. "I'd have tried already, but I have no idea where they are."

"It's not hard," Shem said. "They're up the mountain, behind us, we're just not sure how far. What kind of range does this have?"

"We'll see," she said. "With no assistive technology, we're limited to half a kilometer, but I have something that I think will fix that. The problem is, the communication network I'm using has a limited range, but I had the engineering AI design a repeater that we can launch from the quad. If it works, all we need to do is salt the route with repeaters to extend our range."

"What do you need from us?" Gian asked.

"Directions," Merrie started the drone's props back up and sailed it out the door.

Shem had already given her instructions to head up the mountain to the north, so she gained altitude and sailed over the wall of the settlement.

"Eliora, watch that gauge, right there. When it gets to about halfway, tell me. That's how good our signal is. I can only carry twenty repeaters, so we'll have to make multiple trips. I'll just be happy if the launch system works," she said.

"What happens if it doesn't?" Eliora asked.

"Patrols will need to install them and I don't think we want to do that."

Three hundred meters into the trip they all watched in anticipation as the signal strength gauge dropped to half. Merrie slowly lowered the drone into the forest, painstakingly found an opening in the canopy, and even more carefully nudged her way up to the first tree.

"Here goes nothing," Merrie said, thumbing a red button on the side of the joystick.

For a moment, everything seemed to have gone perfectly. The gauge returned to a hundred percent and the screen remained stable. Then, their view tilted and went black.

"What happened?" Shem asked.

"Frak. I have no idea," she said.

Deep
Space

"Liam, something's wrong with the main head," Ada said. "There's a greenish fluid coming out of the shower."

I sighed and poked my head up from the hole in the floor of the bridge.

"You might want to check that out," Nick grinned up at me from where he lay on the floor of the tween deck.

"Crap. It was working earlier," I said, looking hopefully to Ada who was standing at the back of the bridge.

She and Tabby were whispering and giggling. I pushed my hands down on the bridge deck and lifted myself out of the hole.

We'd been working for the last forty hours to patch up
Hotspur
. Moon Rastof had taken responsibility for repairing our starboard engine. We were holding O2 and had linked up our atmo scrubbers and regenerator with
Cape
. Their air was now clean. With
Hotspur
bearing the burden, they had set to work on resetting their algae field. Rastof assured me the
Cape's
systems would be operational within another ten hours.

I took the lift to the berth deck and walked around to Marny and Nick's bunk room.

"Heya, Cap," Marny said as I looked into the room where she lay on the bed, still face down.

"You doing alright in here?" I asked.

We'd been lucky the
Cape
had been nearby after combat, as Marny's back had been severely injured. The large cruiser's combat medical tank had laminated nano-steel plates onto the bones of her back, repaired the damaged tissue, and lay down fresh synthetic skin over the wound. Without it, Marny would have been disabled - at least until we'd been able to afford the surgery.

"I'm good, just a little bored," Marny said, trying to sound cheerful.

"Wish you were up and going. Apparently, we have something broken in the black water processing system," I said. "I could use the help."

"I would if I could. I hate lying here," she said.

"When did the surgeon say you'd be up?"

"Tomorrow. That is if I promise to take it easy," she said. "And I have to keep this darn wrap on my back." The medical patch she was wrapped in was filled with repair materials the medical nanobots required to finish their job. The fact she was down for so long was a testament to just how much damage she'd sustained.

"Okay, glad you're going to be up and about," I said.

The main head was right next to Marny and Nick's room. Sure enough, a foul odor and green slime was seeping up from its drain. I turned on the water and was grateful to see clear water sprinkling down. I could deal with a drain blockage, but black water in the potable line would require a refit which would be next to impossible this far from civilization.

Trace blockage to first cleanout
.

The AI overlaid my vision using the HUD to show that a cleanout was accessible just beneath the head as long as I was willing to dive into the bilge. I resignedly gathered a bucket, tools, rags and gloves to pull over my vac-suit's gloves. I'd had trouble getting the smell out of the suit the last time, so I'd stowed gloves for just this eventuality.

Quickest way to the bilge was through an access panel in Ada's bunk room, just around the corner at the aft of the berth deck. I set the bucket down and pulled the panel up. A waft of sour smell assaulted my nose and I instinctively shut my suit's visor.

A noise in front of me, deep in the bilge caused me to nearly jump out of my skin.

Auxiliary illumination
.

Forward, I saw a leg across the keel - the long steel beam running down the center of the ship along the bottom. The rest of the person's body was out of sight, but the foot jiggled slightly.

"Jonathan?" I asked.

"Yes, Master Liam." His voice sounded through my headset.

"What are you doing down here?"

"I'm working on the fold-space drive, as we discussed," he said.

"In the bilge?"

"Yes."

I wasn't yet used to his relatively terse answers.

"We're having problems with the waste system. It's backing up. Nothing you're doing, is it?" I asked.

"No. But I did notice an alert on the ship's status," he said. "I assumed you would be monitoring it."

"You're right, we normally do. We've been repairing other systems, I guess, and I hadn't seen it yet."

"I understand. Are you requesting my assistance?" he asked.

"No," I said with a deep sigh. "The waste and septic have, unfortunately, become something of a specialty for me."

"Very well."

I made my way along the keel and looked over to where Jonathan was working. He was attaching thick plates to the keel with a welder and it appeared that he'd re-tasked the small critter defense bots we'd taken on in Lèger Nuage to help him.

I turned to port and located the waste pipe that drained the main head. We'd been using the main head for better than a day, which meant the blockage probably wasn't directly below, otherwise we'd have backed up immediately.

Trace blockage, starting at head drain
. I requested.

My HUD illuminated the gravity assist tubing that moved waste through the septic system. As expected, it was red directly beneath both the shower and toilet fixtures. I had to shimmy behind one of the ribs of the ship. As I did, the problem became immediately obvious. We'd taken a previously undiscovered strike to the hull. An I-Beam had pierced the armored hull and stopped once it came into contact with the keel. The damage to the septic field had become the least of my concerns.

"All hands. We have a potential loss of pressure in the bilge."

"What's up, Liam," Nick asked over the comm.

"Looks like debris from
Mastodon
pierced the hull. I don't have eyes on the impact site just now, but I'd like everyone to keep their face shields up," I said.

"Understood."

"Jonathan, you okay if I seal us in down here? We might lose atmo," I said.

"Thank you for the warning. We'll be okay. And I renew my offer of assistance."

"I'll get some tools, then take you up on that," I said.

I made my way back to the entry hatch leading to the aft bunk room and jumped up onto the berth deck. I'd need tools to remove the obstruction, so I grabbed another welder/cutter, a jack and a toolkit. Once I was back in the hole, I pulled the panel closed behind me and sealed it.

"Marny, are you suited up?" I asked.

"I thought we were done with all that, Cap," Marny said. I could hear the pain killers in her voice.

"She's good, Liam. How long will we be at risk?" Tabby asked. Nick must have sent her down to help Marny back into her vac-suit.

"Shouldn't be too long. I closed us in down here," I said. "I'll let you know as soon as we're solid."

Jonathan had reoriented himself by the time I got back. He'd positioned himself forward of the I-beam and was inspecting where it had come in contact with the keel.

"We'll need to repair this once we have access to a shipyard," Jonathan gestured to the keel, which looked fine to me.

"What are you seeing?"

"Micro fractures in the crystalline structure. It is safe for normal operation, but combat maneuvers would be dangerous," he said.

"Great. This trip just gets more expensive," I said. I looked down the length of the beam and saw where it had pierced the hull and foam sealer had deployed.

"We think you haven't talked to Nick extensively," he said.

"I'm not following. Help me get this jack wedged in here. Maybe we can free this beam and push it out," I said.

"Very well."

We placed the hydraulic jack against the keel and slid the lip of it under the end of the beam.

"I'll break the foam while you apply pressure," I said, leaving Jonathan with the jack.

The foam was rigid but brittle. A few sharp raps with a hammer and the plug holding the atmo in the bilge popped out, never to be seen again. Atmo whistled through the hole.

"It's moving, Master Liam," Jonathan said.

"Seriously… please just call me Liam," I said. The beam shuddered as the jack pushed.

I moved back along the length of the beam using the hammer, attempting to free it from the septic system it had plowed through.

"It's moving, Captain," Jonathan said.

I sighed. It was an improvement, I supposed. The beam had moved several centimeters, but we had meters to go.

"Keep it coming," I said. "How much travel does that jack have?"

"Another twenty centimeters."

"Wait one."

I grabbed a temporary hull patch kit and worked my way back down the beam. Now that the beam was moving, the interior pressure would work to force it out. Before I could get there, however, the beam started moving by itself.

"Captain, it's moving independently," Jonathan warned.

"That's good. I'll guide it out," I said.

All hands, we're decompressing the bilge
.

I didn't think anyone was in danger. I'd sealed us in, but better safe than sorry.

I pushed on the beam to help unstick it and was careful to position myself so I wouldn't get caught by the beam if it decided to make a hasty exit. Fortunately, the hole was perfectly beam-sized and I was able to work it out slowly until it got to the last two meters when the pressure overcame the friction and it disappeared from sight.

With the beam no longer blocking the breach in our hull, the remaining atmosphere was free to escape. I'd been expecting the rush and allowed myself to be sucked toward the hole, pushing the hull patch kit in front of me. My AI inflated the kit as a sphere and I guided it into place. Upon contact, it adhered to the surrounding hull and deflated.

"Thank you, Jonathan," I said.

"You are welcome. Do you require further assistance?"

"No. How is the fold-space generator coming along?"

"I am working on the final installation," he said.

"Did Anino share with you how he thought this would go after we found
Cape of Good Hope
? It seems like he'd have more of a plan than just jump out here and see how it goes," I said.

"Yes, Master Anino made extensive plans with many different contingencies. Perhaps it would be better to have this conversation with your entire crew."

"Sure. But just so I know, did one of his plans include getting murdered by Tullas?" I asked.

"Master Anino often talked of his own death and many of us feel he sought it out."

"He was suicidal?"

"Not by what we understand to be the classical definition. He saw value in his own life, but he also believed that his own life's value was diminished if he was unwilling to risk it for the good of those people he felt he'd let down. It is what drew him to you and your crew."

"I'm not following what drew him to us?"

"Your willingness to take great risks for the benefit of others."

"That's crazy. If I'd have known everything we were going to run into at the start, I don't think we'd have taken this job," I said.

"That was something we discussed with Master Anino at length. It was his belief that you would find a way to survive, just as you did with the Sephelodon."

"We survived by pure luck. If
Cape
hadn't intervened when she did, we'd have been goners," I said.

"And yet, you survived. Please understand, the very idea of luck is offensive to silicate based life forms such as ourselves. But, there is something about your crew that consistently defies logic at critical junctures. To borrow an idiom that is equally nonsensical and applicable, you and your crew appear to make your own luck."

It was a strange thing for him to say. I'd have liked to have gotten into it more deeply, but the fact of the matter was, I had other things that needed my immediate attention.

"That's a lot to think about," I said and turned to look at the ruined portion of the septic system.

"Indeed," Jonathan replied and turned back to the project he'd been working on. I was impressed that he understood I was ending the conversation, although working with Anino had probably been good training.

Create prioritized queue of replacement parts for septic field
.

A list popped onto my HUD. With our small replicator, it would take over twenty hours to manufacture acceptable, temporary parts.

Establish comm with Engineer Rastof
.

"Moonie here. How can I help, Captain?"

"What kind of replicator availability do you have?"

"Two Class-C sitting idle and nothing high priority on the D," he said. "Send me your list."

My AI, overhearing the conversation, split the work into the four queues and blinked a request for approval from me to transmit its recommendations. I nodded approval and it was transmitted.