Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (23 page)

“Now
that's a better welcome,” Lance murmured. Keith merely nodded.

“Hey
guys, want to give me a hand with the luggage?” Hunk asked, trying to open the
cargo compartments. Lance glanced his way, rolled his eyes and then came over.
“I'm a big guy and all but this is a bit much even for me!” he said amused and
annoyed at the same time. Hunk was the cargo master on this drop. He was a big
heavy worlder, a nice guy but he was starting to put on weight.

The
guards Bert and Ernie spread out on either side of the stairs, automatically
dividing the area into zones for each of them to watch. Keith nodded at their
well practiced drill and then took his sunglasses off to pick off a tiny bug.
“We haven't been here five minutes and I'm already getting bugged,” he
muttered. “Hate being ground side. All dirt, pollen, crap.”

“Dem's
the breaks boss man. Wanna get things rolling here? After all, the faster we
unload the sooner we hit the sky.”

“Not
soon enough for me,” Keith said, turning but watching the knot of people. They
were hugging crying and laughing. The woman Maggie had her hands around a large
man, holding him to her side. He had an arm resting over her shoulders. The
girl Aurora was laughing and hugging a giant bearded red head. Pity, the blond
had been quite the looker.

“Come
on man!” Lance said, struggling to get the hoist over a rock. “This'd be a hell
of a lot easier on concrete!” he growled, fish tailing the push pull under the
hoist.

“Yeah
yeah. Looks like we're on our own for a little while folks. Let's see what we
can do.”

“How
are they doing down there?” Irons asked Sprite as he studied the readouts on
the drive. He'd wanted to re-tune the drive, hell maybe even do a full rebuild.
Bailey hadn't been happy about the lengthy time it would have taken however and
nixed the idea in favor of a basic diagnostic and tune up. The captain had
backed him as well.

He
could see the tactical reasoning behind it, they didn't want to be caught with
the drive inoperable, but it really needed a tear down. Who ever had done the
tune up in Pyrax should be fired.

Then
again, they were learning their jobs there too. Education, especially in
hyperdrive mechanics was a new concept for the people there to learn and
absorb, let alone practice. Still, there were quite a few short cuts here.
Someone had gotten sloppy in quality control.

“Accessing.
I am in the shuttle's systems now.” Her voice had a curious echo she effected
when part of her was in a system some distance away. “Judging from the sensors
on the shuttle things are going better now. There is an impromptu family
reunion going on off the starboard nose of the ship. The crew of the shuttle
are busy unloading the shuttle. Or trying to do so, they are on a dirt strip
and it's going slow.”

“Trying
to get push pulls to travel on dirt? Yeah, I can imagine,” he snorted. They
probably didn't have any mechanical help too. Something to think about down the
road.

“I
wonder if we can get them to pour some concrete? At least an apron for
unloading. The purser's loading schedule just went out the airlock at this
rate,” Sprite said, sounding amused.

“Probably,”
Irons replied distractedly. He narrowed his eyes and Proteus pointed out micro
fractures in the casing. They hadn't been at it long and judging from these
alone things were going to get interesting. Bailey wasn't going to be happy at
all but they really needed to do a full tear down.

“Well,
if it's going to go slow, I guess we could put the extra time to good use,” he
muttered, rubbing a thumb over a minute crack.

“Which
is a very good idea.”

“Right.”

“I
want to get this done as soon as possible, but too much is riding on it for a
rush job obviously,” he sighed.

“I
think I can help. Proteus is busy working on the software end of things. He
isn't really suited to it though. I can lend a hand.”

Irons
frowned. “Only if I'm jacked in. Which I'm not. I need that hand for work.” He
held his right index finger over the crack. nanites swarmed down into the crack
and began the laborious process of knitting it back together one molecule at a
time. “This is going to take a while.” The good news was that it would be
literally as good as new when he finished. The bad news was that if he didn't
get to the root of the problem then they'd have the same problem all over again
shortly.

“Oh,”
Sprite said, sounding a little put out. He grimaced and looked around.
“Everette.”

The
young man looked up. “Yes Admiral?”

“Toss
me that data cable will you?”

“A
cable?” The young man looked uncertain, one hand on the cable.

“I
need to jack in.”

“Um...”
the kid looked confused but picked up the cable slowly and came over with it.

“Thanks.”
he used his left hand as he plugged one end into the port on his right shoulder
and then plugged the other end of the cord into a jack port on the drive. He
felt the stream of data flowing immediately. Defender threw a firewall up,
constraining the flow a little. “Better?”

“It's
narrow, but I can manage,” Sprite said. He nodded and looked up to see the kid
still hovering nearby.

He
turned to the young man. “Sprite needed extra bandwidth to work but I need my
hand free.” he pointed to his right hand with his now free hand. The young man
slowly nodded in understanding.

“How's
it coming?”

“Slow.
We've got micro fractures in the casing. I'm concerned about the innards. I'll
know more when we do a tear down. So far I'm not liking what I'm seeing.”

“Why
such concern about fractures? Tiny ones?”

The
Admiral frowned. The lad was more of a software geek than hardware apparently.
Well, it was never the wrong time to learn about some things. “Tiny ones grow
into big ones. Big ones allow things to break off or out of their mounts and do
all sorts of nasty things. They let all sorts of things in too, contaminants.
Bad things. Things we don't want to think about or ever have happen.”

“Ah.”
The kid gulped and paled a little. Irons hid a smile at that. He'd been sure
the kid couldn't get any paler. He was a spacer born and bred despite the big
ears, gangly appearance and freckles. “Carry on then, sorry I interrupted.”

“I
intend to, and no problem.  Thanks.” Irons waved as Everette moved off looking
a little dazed.

Bailey
grimaced as the kid paramedic settled into a chair in the galley. “Not going
down I take it?” he asked nursing his beer. Now that things were settling down
ground side and half the cargo had been unloaded the captain had authorized
planetary shore leave. The purser had spent nearly two shifts negotiating it.
The first group had left on the morning shuttle. A second group was getting
ready to go on the afternoon shuttle now.

It
sucked, he was just getting into the rebuild and his people were hurrying off
to go downside to suck up the beer and see the sights. What sights were left of
course. The pirates had taken out a lot of the cities and towns.

He
couldn't blame them in a way, they had been cooped up in the ship for a long
time. Apparently things were going smoothly ground side. Smoothly enough for
the crew to be allowed into town.

Charlie
hadn't been happy about the financial arrangements. Once the people ground side
had twigged about things they had asked about it. He'd thought that since they
were giving them all that equipment and supplies they'd write off any bills for
shore leave. Obviously he'd thought wrong. The people down there were just as
cynical and heartless as he was apparently; Bailey thought with a smirk.

They'd
even charged for the damn runway. It had taken a couple of days to get sorted
out, but they now had a rough pad to take off from and land on. One better than
just dirt according to the pilots.

At
least Irons had gotten his way. He'd wanted the time to tear down that drive
right down to the last bolt and then rebuild it from scratch. He was getting
his wish, he thought sourly. They'd been unloading for four days and had just
started to make a dent in the gear going down. Finally.

Most
of the people of the colony were living in caves now. They had been ecstatic
about the pirates getting their just deserts and seeing their families again,
but only a dozen or so were interested in coming out and rebuilding. At least
right now. More would or should come out as the situation filtered into their
birdbrains that it was now safe.

A
lot of the stuff that was going down would help with that. Temporary shelters
and buildings. Food replicators, even a couple of industrial replicators that
had Charlie throwing all sorts of fits. It had certainly been a challenge for
the cargo master to get them in the shuttles! And they were now down, or would
be as soon as the shuttle landed.

“No.
I'm still getting used to the idea of going down to a planet. Maybe when we
come back.”

“If
we make orbit. The skipper may want to just cross the system and jump for
Pyrax. Better get your licks in when you can kid,” the chimp said with a snort.
He was actually hoping the kid would go. Let him sow his oats. This one
deserved the time off, he was a good kid, a hard worker. So far none of the bad
lazy habits of his fellows had rubbed off on him... Yet.

“Maybe.
I hope not. We can help these people. I know it.”

“You
probably should go down. You are a medic after all. Trained by the best.”

“Oh,
but I'm just a paramedic. Not a doctor,” Bryan said shaking his head. “Besides,
they have the dentist, what's his name.”

“Yeah,
he's such a good doctor he spent the entire trip here in his room with his nose
shoved in one book or another. I don't think he came out much except for meals.
You think he's going to be a help down there?”

“Um...”

“Kid,
don't knock it. You've got more training than anyone down there, I guarantee
it. Remember, they've been chewed up by the pirates.”

“I
know. I've been consulting with a few people about it over the link.”

“Oh,”
the chimp sighed, finishing his beer. “Where were you trained again?”

“The
college. Oh, when I was a kid I was into medicine too. My aunt took me with
her. She was our sector midwife. I was on the lower decks so most of us didn't
have access to the doctors,” Bryan said and grimaced. “Except the monthly free
clinic, and that got so swamped it was almost impossible to get help.”

“Ah,”
Bailey nodded.

“Aunt
Alice got me hooked when I helped her deliver a set of Tarq kits by C section.
You don't get over that,” he shook his head, remembering the terror of the
moment, and the awe that followed. Holding a small life in his hands, feeling
the multiple hearts beat in his hand. “Realizing a life was on the line.”

“Yeah,
I can imagine,” Bailey smiled slightly. “I get the same feeling being a chief
engineer.”

“Huh,”
Bryan grunted, and then took a pull of beer.

“So
you got into the college program? Fast work to be a paramedic so quick.”

“Actually,
I already knew most of it. Well, half of it. I was fast tracked because of it.
The written test was a hassle I'd rather never repeat,” he grimaced, hands on
either side of his beer.

“Yeah,”
Bailey drawled. “Just be glad kid, I learned on the job. The hard way.”

“So
how did you get into engineering?” Bryan asked looking up.

“Turning
the tables eh kid?” Bailey said chuckling. “The answer is simple. Destiny got
caught by pirates.”

“Oh,”
the paramedic blinked then blushed. “I didn't know you were on board.”

“Yeah.
Me, Clarke, and Charlie the purser, and a couple of my guys and gals in engineering.
We're all that's left of the original crew.” Bailey reached out and snagged a
beer stein from a waiter's tray. She gave him a dirty look then continued on.

He
took a pull then sighed softly. “What happened?” Bryan asked. “If you don't
want to talk about it, it's okay,” he held up his hands as he said that.

“No,
it's not okay. It sucked,” Bailey shook his head. “There we were, minding our
own bees wax, about to shift cargo down to Protodon and the next thing I know
we were being boarded.” He shook his head and then took another pull.

“Found
out later we got caught by a pirate, that destroyer. The Damocles. Captain at
the time didn't have any choice but to surrender. Not that it did him any
good,” he grimaced. “He went out the airlock first thing.”

“Oh.”
Most of the room had quieted as the Chimp talked. Bryan looked around then
returned his attention to the simian.

“We
lost most of the officers in a couple of days. A few people suicided like our
old chief. Mr. Destrius.” He hefted the stein in salute then took a chug. “Damn
good man. Couldn't hack seeing his daughter get raped and shorn like sheep
before they dropped her out an airlock with a pulser dart in her head.”