Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (33 page)

"Cynicism
comes with time and patience," Irons said with a smile.

Enrique
snorted. "Touché'. All right, nothing we can do about it now anyway except
wait and watch." He shook his head.

"Get
me an update then. I think we need to dust off some defensive plans and see
which we can implement," the Admiral nodded to Enrique.

"What?
Oh, yeah. I have no idea how." The exec shook his head. "They led
them right here," he muttered. The Admiral grabbed the exec by the arm and
led him over to an unoccupied corner.

"Look,
can that crap. If they are pirates then they may have heard about you a long
time ago. You’re not exactly a secret remember?" He locked eyes with the
exec. After a moment of thought the exec reluctantly nodded. "They may
have planned on coming here anyway and these people may have bought us a
warning. Now we have time to do something, even if it means hiding." He
let go of the exec.

Enrique
shook his arm for a moment then nodded. "And I'm not helping things am I?”
He sighed as Irons shook his head. "Right, okay, We'll figure something
out." Enrique nodded adjusting his hem as he got his thoughts in order.

"I'm
going to go check with Logan and see how things are going in engineering, he
may have the shields overhauled," Irons said straightening and pitching
his voice so it would carry to the staff.  "I'll chat with you in a
bit," he smiled as he turned to leave. "Admiral..." He turned
back. The exec cleared his throat.  "...thanks."  Irons smiled and
nodded.

"We'll
get through this." He nodded to several of the staff then exited ops.
"Wanna take bets it's already all over the station?" he asked.

"No
need, one of the communications techs put it up on the gossip page. It's
already hit the grapevine. I give it a half hour before it hits Knox,"
Sprite reported. He grimaced. The last thing they needed was a panic. They'd
just gotten over the last crisis.

"You
realize we're going to have panic right? We're a sitting duck," Sprite
warned him. He grunted.

"Yeah,
I gathered that. I was trying to make that point to the exec but I was too
late." He sighed again. "Can you censor that blog? Or tell the exec
to relieve that motor mouth so he doesn't cause any more panic than
needed?" He looked up to the ceiling. "I'm sending him a note now.
Crap, Smithy got it first," Sprite said. "Fireworks in Ops has
commenced." The AI brought up a security feed but he waved it off.

"Their
problem. I'm not going to make it mine unless it gets out of hand." He
shook his head and turned to the doors. "Brief Logan and Shelby. I think
we need to look into the station's defenses and then look into building some
offensive punch. Hopefully we have time," he said darkly.

"Well,
the good news is if they are raiding a planet then they may take their time
there. It's not like we can run far," the AI responded.

He
groaned. "Way to motivate someone." He shook his head.

"Admiral
we have five different situations here, one it is a false alarm. Two the yacht
is a pirate. Three it is a single ship preying on other ships. Four it is a
raiding group, and they will go back to their base to unload, or five..."

 "They
finish digesting on the go and then head straight here. Lovely. I know pirates
are still around, we ran into them on Io when they picked us up, but this has a
different odor to it," Irons finished as the doors opened onto a group of
anxious people. He stiffened.

"And
here we go!" Sprite sounded both amused and annoyed.

"Folks
go about your business. There will be an announcement and call for volunteers
later." He held up his hands as the babble of voices began to grow.
"I SAID!" He straightened as the babble cut off suddenly. "Go
about your business people, we will announce something as soon as we have more
information. Let's not panic folks, we don't need it right now. Go about your
duties  We will get to the bottom of the situation and let you all know."
He nodded to them.

"We're
working on the station's defenses now and we're going to do more as soon as we
know more. Now, get moving folks." He waved. After a moment the crowd
reluctantly dispersed. He stepped out of the car and nodded to Shelby standing
nearby. "Thanks. Saved me the trouble." She shook her head.
"Lemmings, whatever they are." She exhaled noisily in disgust. He
chuckled. "One of dad's sayings." She explained.

"I
bet. Lemmings were Earth rodents that would periodically jump off cliffs and
swim out to sea and drown... or so the myth says." He shrugged. She eyed
him. "It means people following blindly. Completely without thinking. Just
following others.  Not really applicable to this situation. I prefer...
Chickens with their heads cut off." He smiled at her as they started down
the corridor.

"Chickens?
Apt. We still have some of those," She chuckled. "I'll have to
remember that one." She smiled. "We're really in deep aren't
we?" she asked quietly after she made sure no one else was in ear shot.

"Maybe,
maybe not. We'll know more when we get more. For now the best we can do is dig
in and keep a level head. If they.." he pointed his thumb over his
shoulder to the lifts, "see a sign of us panicking or fear, it will
ricochet all through the station and we'll be in a world of crap. It will make
the riots during the last crisis look tame," he said equally soft but
firm.

"I'm
going to check in with your dad and see how he's doing with the shield
overhaul. Hopefully he has some good news." He nodded to a pair of techs
as they passed.

"Fat
chance, we've got partial shields but..." He looked at her. She grimaced.
"Right, negativity. I'll go check on the reactors." She walked off.
He sighed again.

"Admiral
are you here to salvage the Firefly?" the exec asked looking at him
curiously. He had taken a quick look around before the exec had called another
conference.

"Firefly?"
The Admiral turned trying to buy time.

Sprite
pulled up a ship listing and began scrolling it. She had several hits, but
crossed them out for different reasons. After a moment she came up empty.
"I'm coming up empty," he looked at Logan.

Logan
smiled. "She's after your time Admiral, She's a Resolution class heavy
cruiser." The Admiral nodded in sudden understanding.

"I
was on the development board for her." He turned to the exec who looked
surprised.

"You...
okay, that's new. But as I was saying. Firefly? Are you going to salvage the
ship? Is that why you are here?" he asked suddenly intense.

"I'm
really not sure. This is the first I heard of it." Sprite scrolled through
the derelict ship list Io's captain had given them but again came up blank.

"No
reason you should. She was hammered hard in the war. She limped here and
crossed the hyper threshold about two hundred  million kilometers out beyond
the Oort cloud. She was totally out of fuel." Logan shook his head.
"She had had it. Most of her crew was dead. Acting Captain took the
remaining crew off in her last pinnace. They just made it to an Oort cloud
outpost before they ran out of life support." Logan looked away for a
moment. "That was around seven hundred years ago. She's been drifting ever
since." He sighed.

"So
others have tried to salvage her?" the Admiral asked. "I'm surprised
the captain didn't." Horatio shook his head.

"The
Port Admiral of the time tried to get him to, but he refused. She was torn up
he said. A transport came through and picked up the remaining crew a few months
later," the exec explained.

Logan
nodded. "Didn't stop the Port Admiral though. He tried to send a salvage
team but the ship's AI had managed to cobble together a few solar cells on the
hull for power. It used them to take out the salvage tug after warning them
off. His pissant clone tried to get me to go forty years ago but I
refused." Logan shrugged.

"The
ship won’t let anyone on her without proper ID?" the Admiral asked amused.
Logan smiled. The exec looked annoyed. "I'm surprised the ship didn't self
destruct," the Admiral mused.

"No
power for the fusion or antimatter reactors. She's got power in her capacitors,
but even her destruct packs need a jolt to fire. Her old captain didn't set
scuttling charges, he wanted to salvage her as well. I guess high command or
what was left of it wrote her off." Logan shook his head.

"Well,
we'll have to see about that won't we?" The Admiral sat back with a smile.
"If we really do have a pirate problem, she's our best bet for fighting
them off. If we can salvage a few of these other derelicts..." He tapped
the holo emitter and pulled up a star map.

"According
to the records I have, twelve ships have drifted out of the system and into the
void. We don't have the time or resources to chase them down." Their
blinking icons faded then went out. "That leaves these here, and these
here." He pointed. "This system has a lot of derelicts." He
shook his head.

"You
don't know the half of it. With the habitable planet destroyed early in the
war, some came here to salvage what they could, or to escape the war. Many were
chewed up by the minefields and belts." Logan shook his head. "Also,
we have several ships that were here for centuries like this battleship."
He pointed to it. "She's old. Battered into a wreck, She's been stripped
twice and left to drift. She should have been sun scuttled after the last time
they visited but someone talked them out of it, wanted to turn her into a
floating museum." Logan shrugged. Irons nodded.

"These
two are a no go Admiral." He pointed to two blips. Sprite automatically
listed them then pulled up what limited data she had.

"A
freighter and a passenger liner? Why?" Irons turned to Logan but the old
man’s haunted eyes told him it was bad.

"Ghost
ships. The Breslau has a hive virus on board. The White Star had an insane AI.
She went psychotic and killed her entire crew. Dad wanted to scuttle her when
she came close but he didn't have enough delta V," Shelby explained.
Horatio shivered then shook his head. The Admiral nodded feeling a shiver of
his own. Ghost ships were something every spacer dreaded.

"Could
White Star have been sabotaged?" the exec asked.

Logan
shrugged. "Maybe. But I for one am not going on her. Not with an insane
AI. She's liable to do anything or play possum till she's fixed then go psycho
again. Not worth it. Besides she's a liner. We need warships." He
shrugged. The exec nodded.

"Right
so, out of two hundred  derelicts, we've got what ten, maybe eleven
possibles?" He pointed to the blue icons. The Admiral nodded. "Good
place to start. I think Firefly is our best bet however. She's the largest and
most modern of the group. The trick is getting to her." He sighed.

"And
getting aboard," the exec replied.

"Oh,
getting her to listen will be tough, but we can handle it," the Admiral
smiled at Logan who smiled back then nodded.

"Better
you than me Admiral, she may have an officer lock." Irons studied the old
man. There wasn't a hint of fear or doubt, just sincerity.

"Right.
I'm on the lost list though, It's going to take a bit of fancy footwork to get
her to listen without turning us into debris..." he answered, rubbing his
jaw in thought.

"I'll
handle it Admiral," Sprite answered. He nodded.

"Right,
so first step, we need to get to her with enough materials to get her in system
for repairs. While we're working on that, we're going to need to continue
station repairs, the educational workshops, gas giant mining, volunteers for
the ship, parts for her, and the diplomatic efforts..." the Admiral
started to list some of the projects and they began debating them in earnest.

"Can
you give me more information on this yacht?" Irons asked as he waited in
the office. Logan was in a meeting and he was reluctant to break into it and
undermine his authority.

"She's
named the Carib Queen. I assume she is civilian since she isn't in my military
registry files," Sprite sounded testy. "Most likely a star
yacht," she finished.

"Check
with Smithy. See if the ship docked here before." He turned to check the
status of reactor four.

"Ahem,
I have it," Sprite said after a moment. "You were right, she's a
regular here. A star yacht like I said, Debonair class out of the Norway yards.
She's a three hundred series, from the dock imagery Smithy sent me she's got a
fair hyper drive. Most  likely a class two or three. Layout is for luxury, I
would estimate the crew at around eighty, with passenger space for another one
hundred  to two hundred depending on their destination and how much cabin space
they set aside for each."

Sprite
brought up the various security video files then extrapolated a 3D model.
"Based on past experience her Captain is a Captain Mayweather. Not one to
be frightened easily. Then again all I have is negotiation files to go off
of." She fast forwarded through a meeting until he waved it away.

"I
need to concentrate here." He looked at the view port as the video blinked
out. "Sorry, just trying to be thorough," Sprite apologized.