Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (5 page)

“So
you can make more?” Bailey asked.

“With
a replicator,” Irons shrugged.

“And
it takes one to make one,” the chief sighed. “And we don't have one. Great.
Perfect.”

“I
didn't say that. You don't,” Irons smiled to the startled chief. “But I do.”

“You...”
Bailey sat straight. His brown eyes gleamed and his shoulders looked like a
heavy weight had just been lifted from them. “You've got one? Where?” He looked
at the arm. Irons chuckled.

“In
my shuttle of course. I have a small military grade industrial replicator and a
food replicator there. I also fixed the food replicator that was in my room.”

“Ah,”
the chief gushed out and nodded in sudden understanding. “Can you ah... I know
we haven't treated you well...”

“I'll
get on it Chief,” Irons said nodding. “But I'll have to do it from my shuttle.
Which means access to the boat bay. I'll also need the raw materials, and
power. A lot of power. Megawatts.”

Bailey's
lips pursed. Power was at a premium right now. The lower octaves meant no hyper
collectors, so they were burning fuel. “Oh. What about the plans?”

“They
are built into the replicator database. Most industrial replicators have a quad
of hard memory for such things.”

“Oh,”
the chief blinked. “I didn't know that.”

“Which
is one of the reasons they are restricted access,” Irons said with a shrug. “If
just anyone can make anything... well..”

“Yeah.
Okay, I get it. But you're okay with it?”

“Sure,”
Irons shrugged. “I'm a passenger on this ship as well chief. I don't want her
to get lost or have something happen just because I'm in a rough spot. I'm
rather attached to my hide.”

“You
and me both,” the chief laughed feeling relief for the first time in hours.
“All right, let's do it,” he said slapping his hands together. He nodded as the
Admiral unjacked.

“I'll
go to my ship.”

“I'll
clear the way with Ed and the captain and get the power and parts on the move.
Thanks Admiral.”

“Sure,”
Irons said, nodding. He left.

“Sure.
They like you when they need you. When they have their... how did you put it?
Hides are on the line?” Sprite said acidly. He shrugged, ignoring the looks in
the bay and corridors as he made his way to the shuttle bay.

“What
ever. We're not going to be here forever.”

“Might
as well seem that way. And working under a cloud in a hostile environment for a
prolonged period isn't healthy Admiral. Too many things can happen.”

“How
many have that attitude by the way?” he asked, feeling a perverse need to know
and not really wanting to hear the answer. He knew he needed to though.

“Too
many. Despite the evidence I made them watch.”

“It
could be resentment over being forced to watch it you know.”

“True.
I haven't undertaken a study to see where the crew's loyalties lie. Do you want
me to check that out?”

“Not
now. We've got more important things to deal with.”

“True.”

“Right,”
Irons nodded. “So a little good will can't hurt.”
“As long as they don't resent you for it,” Sprite cautioned.

“Bitch,
bitch. Can't have it both ways,” he sighed. He knew she was playing devil's
advocate but it was getting annoying. “I'll do what I can, where I can and do
it to the best of my ability. That's all I can ask of myself or others.”

“If
you say so Admiral. I suggest you limit the usage to you alone and only
critical parts and systems,” she cautioned.

“Now
you're getting paranoid. But yeah, I'm not happy about having to do something
twice, and not at all happy about being used,” he sighed. “It does make me
wonder what the hell happened to those replicators and all those parts. Who got
them.”

“Wont
they be surprised when they try to use them for something they aren't supposed
to and they go belly up,” Sprite replied with a mischievous tone.

“Now
you're thinking,” Irons smiled. “But I think we should make a note. Pass it on
to the IG office to investigate,” he said quietly as he nodded to the guard a
the entrance to the boat bay. The guard touched her ear bud then nodded and
moved aside. “But first things first.” Irons turned as footfalls came behind him.
A pair of techs came running with coils of cable.

“This
way folks,” he waved as the door opened. “Lets see if we can fix this.”

Irons
rested on the couch, letting his mind wander a bit as he waited for the tray to
finish. He looked at the clock again. Twelve more minutes. Great. At least the
kids who had been with him had taken a break.

They
weren't all bad, but they were green. Green yet hard and in some ways brittle.
Partially educated, which was a problem. All to be expected in this time
period.

Two
years and seven centuries ago he'd been fighting for the Federation against the
Xenos. Both civilizations were locked in mortal combat with each other, both
knew that there could be only one victor. The fallen would be vanquished, his
star systems wiped away as if they'd never existed. No one would remember them.

He'd
been in transit when his ship had been ambushed in the Senka system, a couple
of jumps up the chain from here. He'd been lucky to have made it into a stasis
pod. Lucky... yeah, he snorted softly. Some wouldn't really call it luck.

While
he had slept civilization had obliterated itself. Both sides had thrown their
best and brightest at the other and watched in growing rage as they were
consumed and then their stars were torn apart. Hell weapons of every sort had
been used, the stuff of nightmares. Nanotech, planet busters and finally Nova
bombs.

That
was his own personal hell, his own contribution to the destruction of a once
thriving civilization. The Nova bomb hadn't been his concept but it had come to
fruition by the sweat of his brow and the brows of many of the scientists and
engineers who had served under him.

And
they had used it. In their desperation the Federation had used the damn thing,
wiping out entire star systems, lowering itself to the Xenos' level. After all,
how could they not? There was no way to win a war of survival by fighting on
the defensive and giving your opponent all the advantages. He'd understood
that. He hadn't liked it, he hadn't liked what it was costing them... but he
had understood it.

He'd
awoken to a dsytopian, post apocalyptic hell. What was left after the core
systems had been annihilated by the gravitational fury of a star's death throws
was the dregs. The battered survivors who were scattered and alone in their
misery. The best and brightest had died in the war. Most of the surviving star
systems had been leveled in the fighting before the Nova bombs had been used.

Most
of the survivors had learned a cruel lesson afterward. The technology that
sustained them needed people like him, people with the keys to keep itself
functional and self sustaining. In other words without people like him, people
who had been used up in the war, there was no one left to rebuild.

He'd
been shocked by that. That not one engineer with the keys had survived. None of
the system governors had the keys either apparently. Their own losses had
broken the thin chain.

The
keys had been tightly restricted to protect society. Now that rightful paranoia
had been societies undoing. Without the keys the survivors were left to scratch
an existence out of their surroundings with whatever they had available. They
got to watch as their equipment slowly died under the load over time.

Most
of the planets had fallen back into a dark age, fallen back to a bare
existence. Many of the colonies hadn't been prepared for it. Skills had been
lost. Basic skills like survival and farming. Medicine had been in short
supply. Thousands with other skills had died from starvation and from the
various plagues that had cropped up over the centuries.

But
some had clawed their way up through the darkness towards the light. They
weren't quite there, most weren't even at the early steam level of technology
yet. But they were getting there. Slowly.

The
women who had saved him, the crew of the Io 11 had been a pain in the ass at
first. It had been amusing and a little bewildering to view them, dressed in
rather provocative clothing and trying to manage a ship with only on the job
training. Most could barely read! Some had no ability to read and were doing
menial tasks as they tried to cope. 

He'd
had a hell of a time integrating with them, mainly due to his gender.
Apparently most of them were refugees from the New Dublin system. New Dublin
had established a draconian parochial society, one that considered women as
chattel slaves to be used and abused by any male however they wanted. The
captain had gathered them up after finding the derelict Io 11 and restored the
ship to semi functional status so they could make an escape from the system.
They'd spent the past few years bumming around the sector as a tramp freighter.

He'd
been picked up because they had saw the potential of selling him to the highest
bidder. The skills of sleepers were highly valuable. The crew's morals left a lot
to be desired apparently, they didn't really care how they did something, just
as long as it benefited them. He had woken and thwarted those plans.
Fortunately for all involved pirates were trying to kill them at the time. His
efforts to save them had saved the ship, endearing him into their limited good
graces.

He'd
spent the time on board repairing the ship and training the crew. At first it
had been out of an interest in taking over. Io 11 had been a fleet tender after
all, she was a fleet ship. She belonged with fleet and should be returned to
service. But as he'd gotten to know the little community on the ship an
alternative plan had presented itself.

He'd
repaired her hyperdrive just to further endear himself to the captain and her
crew and to keep from tearing his hair out as they bumbled along at the lowest
octaves of the alpha band. It had been maddening trying to get anything done at
that speed.

Sprite
and the other AI had lent their own vast knowledge and skills to rebuilding the
ship and restoring her to her past glory. On the way the crew had been infected
with some of his thoughts and actions. His generosity, not just with them but
with planets they had visited had rubbed off a little here and there.

He
hadn't been the only male on board, there had been three others. He'd found out
that two of the young men had been shanghaied, the doctor and a junior pilot.
Another had been a wandering con artist who had been enslaved by the captain
and served as a jester of sorts.

Sprite
had for the first time spawned a child of her own. He was proud of her for it.
Io would do well with the crew. The smart AI would help run the ship and
hopefully be able to complete some of his plan. She would hopefully keep them
on the straight and narrow now. Hopefully.

They
had left him in Pyrax after helping him get the Anvil station up and running
again. Last he had heard they were heading to the doctor's home world to drop
him off along with the hospital equipment and supplies they had replicated for
him in payment for his services.

Sometimes
he wondered how they had made out. He hadn't heard from them since they had
left Anvil. Hopefully they were all right. Hell, hopefully Io was all right.
That ship was a piece of his plan.

When
he had restored the ship he'd also restored her massive industrial replicators.
As a fleet tender the ship had been designed to supply a ship or fleet with
whatever it required. Everything from spare parts to munitions to hospital
services. But the industrial replicators could also be used to build other
things, like satellites, shuttle craft, space station components, or even
entire shipyards and starships. The idea had apparently appealed to the crew
when he had presented it to them.

One
of the things he hoped Io would accomplish in her journey was to help restore
some of the systems she visited. To pass on some knowledge and to better the
lives of the people living in what was pretty much the dark ages. Most were in
crude huts or dying space habitats with little or no hope for the future.

With
a little luck and of course a healthy does of compensation he hoped the crew
would be able to change some of that. He smiled a little. It was a hope, his
hope. Right now the only one he had.

His
face twisted a little. That last wasn't quite true. Not completely. When he'd
arrived in Pyrax he'd spent a great deal of time cleaning up and repairing
Anvil... after he'd been forced to take it over to fight off the pirates of
course.

Firefly
and the other ships they had found had been lucky breaks. Firefly had pretty
much leveled the playing field against the pirates on her own. The other ships
had turned what could have been a hard fought battle into a rout. He'd lost a
few people but none of the ships had been destroyed. Damaged, but not
destroyed. Along the way they had managed to capture the pirate fleet as well.