Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (23 page)

“We
don't have that kind of time Admiral. We're losing decks!” Liam shook his head.
The Admiral's jaw tightened. “Shelby!” He looked over to her. “Do something!”
He indicated the Admiral.

“I
am. I'm praying. He's right Liam, we can't risk it. We need a stable bottle, we
can't rush it and be forced to scram it.” She shook her head. “We'd be screwed
if that happened. No, like dad said, slow and steady is the only way to get
ahead.” She looked over to the Admiral then back to the feed.

“And
while we drag our feet people are dying!” Liam waved.

“You
don't think I don't know that?” the Admiral asked softly. Liam looked at him
then away. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to wait.” The Admiral sighed.
“But not here. Not now.” Liam looked up confused.

“What
do you mean?” he asked. The Admiral smiled. “One down, four to go of course.”
Liam's eyes were wide. “You’re crazy! We don't, I mean, we can't. Shelby! Tell
him!” He waved frantically to the Admiral.

Shelby
shook her head. “What do you mean Admiral?” She looked at him.

“Well,
all of us do not need to be here waiting with baited breath to see if this
stabilizes into a clean feed. Io is monitoring it now as are Sara and Yuri.” He
waved to each of the crew. “We have another crew working on reactor three, I'm
going to eat, then see what we can do to get that reactor online as well.” He
carefully and slowly got up.

Shelby
nodded. “Don't you think you should rest Admiral?” she asked concerned. He
chuckled.

“I
took a twenty minute nap in there. It was refreshing.” He shrugged feeling like
crap but not about to admit it. She looked like she didn't believe him.
“Coming?” he challenged, looking from her to Liam.

“Your
all nuts,” Liam muttered. “Where are we going to get the fuel?” he asked. The
Admiral chuckled. “Leave that to the Valdez family. They are nothing if not
highly motivated. Once we get things sorted out, you can restart the molecular
furnace and the fuel refinery and start pulling deuterium out of the hydrogen.
That will make things a bit easier in there,” he waved to the window. Liam
looked out then nodded.

“One
step at a time,” Irons said. “Coming?” hHe asked putting action to words.
Shelby hastily followed. Liam cursed but followed with the other techs.

“So
what are we doing? We don't have enough parts right?” Liam grumped. “I cleaned
the control runs out, but it's going to take a lot longer than the twenty hours
we have left for Io to make the emitters.” The Admiral was staring off into
space as they looked at the reactor. “Admiral? I'm talking here!” Liam waved a
hand in front of his face.

“Sorry,
I was in the computer. I was checking the log. Yuri bumped the reactor up to
two percent. Holding steady. Io had to adjust a few emitters to dampen a
building wave pattern; hopefully the dampening doesn't cause another one to
form.” He shook his head.

“How?”
Liam asked staring. “How can you know that? You’re not jacked in right?” He
turned to Shelby. She was looking at the Admiral.

He
tapped his skull. “Wireless implant. I can Wi-Fi with the best of them.” He
chuckled at the looks on their faces.

“I
can remote access any net that has a wireless router.” He pointed to a router
in the ceiling. “That lets me in to check the computers. Logan was using his
own IFF as well didn't he tell you?” He looked around to the others.

Shelby
shook her head. “No I didn't know dad could do that. He told me he had to jack
in.” She looked at him in disbelief. “I set up the encrypted link for you...”
she looked confused. Irons smiled.

“Well
he did for complex things, but his IFF is wireless. He hacked his own IFF to
let him get into the net. Crude, but effective. It let him get a limited amount
of data. Most of it was in burst form. I found his mods and his notes in the
database,” he smiled.

“For
a guy who said he wasn't much of a software guru, he did okay,” the Admiral
nodded to Shelby. She hid her own smile.

“Yeah,
dad was always groaning about his limits. I don't think he has ever realized
how much we envy him. And now you.” She looked at him. The Admiral sighed.

“I
want one. Seriously. We get out of this mess, that's my price for helping. I
want implants. No more of this VR crap,” Liam hefted his helmet. “I am so tired
of the migraines anyway,” he muttered.

“Amen
to that.” Shelby nodded.

“One
thing at a time,” the Admiral sighed as he lay back on the battered, tape
covered couch. Techs were swarming the room. The control room had been picked
over for parts over the centuries. Now with a minimum of new parts from Io they
were trying to get the minimum controls up. The good news was that with all the
new stuff they didn't have to worry about something old and broken being in the
mix. Almost everything was fresh and new and just needed to be tuned and broken
in.

“I'm
in.” He said as his jack feed came up.

“Me
too.” Liam called.

“All
right, now that we know the drill, I'll get started on bringing in the emitters
while you do the control runs right Admiral?” Liam asked. The Admiral grunted.

“Copy
that. I've got my AI working as a gopher and fine work now.” He indicated the
two robots that were already at work.

“How...
damn, you’re quick.” Liam muttered.

“Admiral,
Io reports reactor's four bottle is stable. She's ironed out a few glitches but
so far so good.” The Admiral checked his HUD clock.

“Two
hours... So, ten percent?” He asked.

“Actually,
thirteen.” Sprite responded.

“Thirteen?
Did I miss something?” He asked concerned.

“No,
well yes. Io started speeding up the activation after the last round didn't
hiccup. So far so good.” She replied. He sighed. “Boss I know you're not happy
about going outside procedure, but Io is right, she can't be here forever and
the system seems stable...” He held up a virtual hand.

“Stop.”

Sprite
froze. “Any sign of instability?” He asked after a moment to get his anger
under control. He knew he was tired, and popping off would be a natural
release, but would serve no purpose.

“No,
Not in the past thirty two point five minutes. We have a Boolean wave in reactor
six though. It's forming and it's getting harder and harder to stop it. Each
time she squashes one two more start.” She brought up the feed on the HUD.

“Damn.”
He sighed studying the HUD. He felt fatigue; he knew his reflexes were getting
clogged by lack of sleep.

“Admiral
you need to rest. We're ahead of schedule with reactor four; this one is not
going to be done anytime soon...” He held up his hand again. “Shutting up now.”
Sprite replied. He chuckled.

“Right.
Okay, yes I know I need to rest. How is the station life support?” He tried to
check manually but fumbled the coding sequence.

“Here”
Sprite fed him the data. “That last riot killed over four hundred people and
sent nearly that many to sickbay. We've had two cascades since, one wiped out
an entire sector. It looks like the security force locked the people in...
Either that or the doors failed. It doesn't matter anymore; there aren't any
more life signs in that sector.” She reported.

“Damn.
Not fast enough.” He sighed.

“Well,
the good news is the station is populated more than even I estimated.” Sprite
reported. He glowered at her avatar.

“You’re
kidding me.” He growled.

“No,
we've been getting people coming out of the... well, out of every nook and
cranny imaginable, and a few that shouldn't be.” She shook her head. “Head
count is nearly nineteen thousand eight hundred and eighty three right now.”
She reported sober.

“So,
that throws our time estimates off for cascades by what factor?” He asked. “Um,
a factor of three point two?” Sprite suggested. He snarled.

“Three?”
He looked away.

“Yes,
I know not good. On the other hand, it's a larger labor force for your next
phase...” She said hopefully.

He
groaned. “One thing at a time.” He shook his head.

“Sergio
has come back with two more rocks. Jorge has finished testing the second tug
and is on his first run. His wife is pissed.” Sprite reported dryly. He
snorted.

“Deidra
has fixed a few leaks in the hull, one that has leaked for nearly a century.
Juanita has a crew of volunteers from the Io out helping as well.” Sprite
reported. “They've patched and bypassed several plasma conduits, and even
managed to tie in seventy four square meters of solar panels back into the
grid.” She waved her hands and a holo of the station appeared with the repairs highlighted.
“They have crews working here, here, here, and here trying to get more of the
station's panels online.” She reported. He nodded.

“Shelby
is running plasma conduit to reactor four. They apparently tore out a lot after
it was scrammed. She's trying to get it sorted and tied into the central
control net now.” Sprite reported. “She's running into problems though, there
are a lot of radiation exposure, burns, and some pin hole leaks.”

“Have
Io step up the reactor by double. … No triple my time line. One percent every
five minutes unless she sees signs of instability or has a problem. Tell her to
do it in increments, don't throw each increase at the system all at once. If
she has to take the whole five minutes to do the percent then give it a minute
or two to stabilize if necessary. Have there been any problems beyond that
injector sensor glitch?” He asked.

“No,
well, nothing serious.” Io appeared on his HUD. I'm pushing things now Admiral,
my own bottles, hyper drives, crew, and now this? I'm glad you completely
rebuilt my AI core or I would have tapped out a long time ago.” She shook her
head clearly amused but looking frazzled.

“I
think you need to sort out your own house as far as the computer is concerned,
I can't keep this up forever. The captain gave me an extra twelve hours
Admiral, that's twenty nine hours from now and we have to leave. No if ands or
buts.” She shrugged helplessly.

“Right.
Okay we're working on it. Sprite is still hip deep doing code surgery but it
will take time and the AI can't get into this net. We may need a separate AI
here. The step up?” He asked.

“Already
implemented. We're up to fifteen percent. Holding steady. I have one emitter
that is a bit slow though, I think either its electronics are addled, or it's
almost at max impedance. I wish we had had the time to replace it.” She
reported. He sighed.

“Log
it. We're almost up here. Liam's replaced the injector feeds, Mary rebuilt the
exhaust taps, and Proteus and I are handling the control runs. As soon as we
get the last replacement emitters we should repeat the seeding method and get
this reactor online.” He waved to indicate the reactor. Io looked around. As
did Sprite.

“Great
another one.” Io sighed. She looked at Sprite.

“Don't
look at me! I'm not an engineering AI remember?” She waved to Proteus's avatar
busy in the robot nearby. “He is. He's tapped out anyway. Your right, we're
going to need to work on the computer support. Or at least fake it until we get
something better up. I have a copy of some of your fusion drivers; maybe we can
spin off a bot for the reactor management? Or one each?” She asked. Io looked
thoughtful.

“Discuss
it amongst yourselves and the other AI and get back to me. Fab the parts once
you have a list. If you have to, involve Shelby or one or more of the computer
techs for hardware integration and support. Handle it.” The Admiral waved.

“Aye
aye.” Both AI winked out. He returned to work.

“I'm
surprised the crew of the Io haven't realized you gave Io herself a reserve
commission.” Sprite said sounding amused.

“How
so?”

“Well,
you'd think they'd realize after your lectures that they shouldn't be able to
build a lot of this without you in the net.” Sprite replied sounding patient.

“Never
under estimate willful blindness.” The Admiral smiled tiredly. “Besides, I'm
not so sure they don't know. I bet Jen or Faith or even the Captain suspect
something.” He rolled his shoulders.

“Entirely
possible. Shall we get back to it?” Sprite asked.

“Let’s.”
He sighed. “I've got a meeting with the exec in an hour. Let's see what we can
work out for the next ten then I need a nap.” He yawned.

“First
smart thing you've said all week Admiral.” Sprite chuckled.

“How
are we doing?” The exec asked as the Admiral strode onto the bridge. He nodded
to the exec. Faith was standing near the doctor holding a tablet.

“We've
delivered the last two loads; I hear the reactor is up to forty five percent
and climbing. We've even got the other reactor nearly rebuilt.” Faith smiled
wearily. “Your power problem isn't licked by a long shot but you have a
fighting chance now.” She smiled and bobbed a nod to the Admiral. “Good to see
you Admiral. You certainly know how to keep a lady busy.” She teased. The
Admiral chuckled.