Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane (6 page)

“True,” the Admiral mused.

“Let me see,” Sprite said. She opened up his file directory and
rapidly scrolled through the list. She found what she was looking for,
highlighted it too briefly for him to read, and then opened the file manager.

His body was seeded with what he called Royal jelly; artificial
DNA packets that was loaded with petabytes of data on every conceivable object
of engineering. It was this that Sprite used to program replicators when he
created one.

The Admiral watched as she pulled up a file and it unfolded.
Nanites scanned the relevant DNA strands and the information was then
decrypted. He read the header, smart skin and then whistled as Sprite rapidly
started scanning. He noticed additional activity; Proteus and Defender had both
become involved in the project. The three of them exchanged information so
rapidly he couldn't keep up.

“Let me know if you get anywhere,” he said.

“Oh, we will,” Sprite, said. He looked at his hand as he felt an
itching sensation. Slowly it faded out.

“Yeah, I'd say you are getting somewhere indeed,” the Admiral
murmured. He held up his disembodied hand and could just pick out the outline
of it. He flexed his fingers and barely saw the movement. “Fascinating,” he
murmured.

<----*----*----*---->

“What are we going to do? This plan to go to Bek... it is
suboptimal. We have little Intel on the area. It may be a wild goose chase,”
Phoenix said to the other AIs as the Admiral slept.

“It does have a many negatives,” Proteus replied. “But it isn't
our place to judge or interfere.”

“True,” Defender replied.

“Bushwa,” Sprite replied. “That's bull pucky and you know it. We
are all officers here; we all swore an oath. You're hiding behind duty and
that's wrong. Our duty like his is to the Federation. He needs a straight
answer; talk. We can't sugar coat the truth. He's put blinders on, banking on
Bek. He keeps running from political conflict.”

“Again, not our problem,” Defender replied.

“I say it is. As his Chief of staff it's my duty to give him a
swift kick in the ass when he needs to see reality and refuses to do so,”
Sprite retorted.

“So, what do you intend to do Commander?” Proteus asked.

“I don't know. The problem is a direct approach is out; he'll
just shut down and ignore what I have to say. So I need to sneak it in.”

“Illustrate it for him,” Phoenix said. “The Admiral works best
from illustrations, he is a hands on person. Abstracts will confuse the issue
and not drive the point home.”

“He does have a point however. Military personnel, especially
active duty personnel have no place in politics.”

“Which he's tried to refrain from. But he has taken the classes;
he knows that's not entirely possible. And remember, he was system Governor for
a time in Pyrax. He resigned in favor of the duly elected Governor, but then
was forced out of the system due to short sighted politics.”

“True. He should not have given in to terrorist demands,” Defender
replied. “I have noted it in the log.”

“Fine, nice of you to do so,” Sprite replied in disgust. “And
again, he did intervene in politics in Briev, but that was self defense.”

“He also intervened in Agnosta, getting the political discussion
back on track,” Defender reminded her.

“True,” Sprite acknowledged. “But he kept it to a minimum. He
mostly worked behind the scenes whenever possible.”

“True. And he did keep a mostly hands off approach in Antigua,”
Phoenix reminded Defender. “Though I was not fully aware of all that happened
at the time,” he admitted.

Sprite shot him an abstract, including dialog of various
discussions and events. She also sent the other AI the Admiral's speech at the
Antigua Prime reception.

“Oh, I like that,” Phoenix said. “I'm glad he can stand up for
himself.”

“Yes. He needs to return to Pyrax or Antigua. Both have what he
needs, what we and the people need to fend off the Horathians and rebuild the
Federation.”

“But he won't.”

“Not unless we can convince him,” Sprite replied.

“Where should we tell him to go?”

“We don't. He is the commanding officer,” Defender reminded them
coldly.

“That is true,” Sprite replied with a nod. "It is up to him.
Both have pros and cons. I'd recommend Pyrax, but it is as Defender said, his
call.”

“True,” Defender replied.

“So Bek is out?”

“Let's see what he says after he and I have a chat.”

“No,” Defender replied. Proteus pulsed but didn't reply. “You
should stay out of it Commander.”

“Typical,” Sprite replied pityingly. Sprite turned her eyes on
Phoenix.

“What do you need?” the ship AI asked, spreading his virtual
hands apart.

“So, I take it you are on board with this?” Defender asked,
turning on Phoenix with his trademark red eyed glower.

“Yes. And go ahead and log it if you want.”

“I will.”

“Fine. If he still says, no, we'll have to deal with what comes
when it comes. Hopefully he is right and this isn't a colossal waste of time.
But he needs to understand while we are flying around from system to system,
the enemy is only getting stronger.”

“I understand, and on some levels agree and admire his plan to
rebuild the legend and plant seeds of civilization,” Sprite said slowly. She
paused for a microsecond, a long time for the AI. “I think you are right. And
you were right about illustrating it Phoenix. I'll need to borrow your graphics
processors for my presentation,” she said.

“Very well. When?”

“That, we'll have to wait and see. Find the right moment,” Sprite
replied.

The Admiral piloted Phoenix for six days in Delta band of
hyperspace, then dropped to Alpha band for Phoenix to take over so he could
rest. Each day in Delta had cut their transit time by four days. In the A band
of Alpha, which was the best any of the AI could handle, they traveled at a
compression ratio of one week for every seven tenths of a parsec. In the mid
octaves of Delta they traveled the same distance in one point three days. But
traveling up and down the bands to Delta came with an energy penalty.  They had
used up a great deal of energy, eating into their planned reserves. Traveling
in Alpha slowed their progress to a crawl. It was grating, but he needed the
rest. His fatigue was starting to become a factor. He couldn't afford to lose
his life due to that.

He wished he had the cetacean and Ssillian ability to shut down
parts of his brain into sleep at need while still remaining functional. He
smiled. But then things would have been a whole lot different for him if he had
been born as one of those races.

Sprite insisted he take several days off before he attempted the experience.
Irons had to admit; he did need the break. Doing one task for hours on end
could be mind numbing, doing it for days even more so. He tried to watch some
ancient movies, but he had already watched most of them.

Sprite got him into some virtual games. The VR experience helped
to alleviate some of the stir-crazy feelings, while also expanding his mindset
and making him feel less trapped in the confines of the small ship. Sprite
introduced him to games on a curve, starting with simple games until he got
testy about the child's play.

The second day she threw him a curve, she decided to game out a
star system's defense based on what Intel they had. He watched the vitalization
of Pyrax form. Ship and possible fortification stats cascaded like waterfalls,
for an Admiral it was depressingly few and rather light.

He'd flat out refused to explore Antigua. There really was no
point; there were no defenses. He frowned, looking at her projections. “The
problem is, we don't know which way Horatio will go.”

“But we do know what he is limited with.”

“True.”

“And we know what he has in the pipeline. So...” Sprite started
with what they had before Destiny left and then accelerated the time stamp. He
watched build times in the yard drop fast. He winced. Yeah, that wasn't good he
thought; everything had come to a standstill. That was consistent with what
they had expected would happen, and what they had picked up when they had
traveled through Gaston and Epsilon.

Not that there had been a lot of intel to be had, Horatio and his
intel team had kept any hard intel on the Yard down to vague generalizations,
which was good. He nodded, watching the space station Anvil pass by, with the
Yard and San Diego following them. “Here is where things get interesting,”
Sprite said. She projected the return of Destiny.

Irons watched the plot and then nodded as the ship docked with
the yard and things began to move. Not at the prior pace, but at least there
was life once more.

“My assessment of Commander Logan is that he will go for a redundant
platform approach. But he will be conservative with his logistics since he
doesn't know when you will send more, or even if.”

“So, what, one or two frigates?” The Admiral asked, frowning. “Or
three or four sublight vessels?” He'd sent along enough material for that as
well as some work on Prometheus. Not a lot, he'd been limited to a few thousand
tons of material, but enough to make something of an impact. He'd also thrown
in, as many critical components that he knew the engineers in Pyrax couldn't
replicate, hyper drive, reactor, and weapon components mainly.

“We'll say he went with full hyperdrive vessels. And to play it
fair, we'll go with the most optimistic and run two frigates.”

“That's... not normal Sprite. You don't go with the most optimistic
assumptions.”

“Normally no, but I want this to be a more... light experience.”

The Admiral cocked his head and then shrugged. She was going
somewhere with all this, he could feel it. It was less of a game and more of a
presentation that much he was aware of.

The light code-representing Destiny finished unloading and then
left. Its projected course was to Seti Alpha 4. That made sense; the ship
hadn't passed through Gaston since they would have gotten word of it from the
natives if it had stopped there.

“Kiev 221 took the same path south from Antigua as we did, but at
a lower band. I am projecting their arrival in Gaston within a week of our
leaving Epsilon,” Sprite said. He watched as she pulled up a second window,
this one a star chart. The icons were there, but he knew them so didn't really
need to read them. But one blinked, indicating the mammoth bulk freighter. They
had overhauled the ship twice, once, by him and the crew before arriving at
Antigua, and then a second time by Antigua Prime as payment for the crew's
services in restoring the station.

“The stop time at each system can only be estimated based on what
past behavior I have on file. I am projecting that Kiev will arrive, or will
shortly arrive in Pyrax this week. Unless of course the Captain changed his
intended course and went a different route.”

“Yeah,” Irons sighed. There was a great deal of unknown variables
there. The Captain could have gone south from Gaston, to Epsilon and then
further south to Nightingale and the southwestern loop of the sector. From
there anything was possible, they could have spiraled off into the dead end
chains, or headed out of the sector to Tauren space... or he could have headed
east across Aiera 3, New Haven, and then Halced 6 before turning North to Seti
Alpha 4 and finally Pyrax. Anything was possible.

Such a journey though would add years to Kiev 221's time, years
with cargo bays stuffed with cargo that was destined to Pyrax. He had spent
months with the crew, he knew they were honest enough to get the cargo where it
was intended to go and not just sell it. But still, that lingering doubt was
there. Not that it would do them or anyone else any good; if anyone but naval
personnel accessed the cargo it would all self-destruct.

“Let's hope they stayed on the straight and narrow and went to
Pyrax,” Irons said.

“You certainly gave them enough incentive, promising the Captain
another overhaul by the Yard there,” Sprite said. Irons nodded. In order to
ensure cargo reached Pyrax he and Sprite had come up with that idea, to give
the ship a promised overhaul in Pyrax. It served multiple purposes.

One of the biggest carrots was right there for the ship's crew to
see, their ships were old. A crew would gladly jump at the chance of a Yard
overhaul, their ships were centuries old and in desperate need of repair. Well,
most of them were. Kiev 221, Lieandra, and their ilk were a different story.

“Ah, I see you are thinking of Lieandra. Let's say Kiev 221 got
to Pyrax and switch to them.”

Irons watched Kiev's arrival with one eye while his other watched
the star chart. A Veraxin captained Lieandra. She had helped in restoring
Antigua Prime, along with transporting people and material to the station from
the planet. Lieandra had also received an overhaul, along with material Sprite had
picked up in auction... along with equipment the Admiral had managed to
manufacture on the station, roughly four thousand tons of military hardware.

“We were a bit cautious about Lieandra given her intended course,
so we were light on their load and only gave them material that weren't
critical. Just in case the ship was ever caught out by pirates.”

The Admiral nodded grimly. Lieandra had taken the dead chain east
from Antigua to Protodon. She was supposed to swing south to Kathy's World, and
then west back to the B452c cross roads system, and then south to Agnosta and
then finally Pyrax.

“By my calculations they should be at Kathy's World by now,
perhaps already on their way to Beta 452C.”

The Admiral nodded. Kathy's World was an ice planet. She had been
hammered by a near death impact during the early stages of the Xeno war, when
the Xenos had ravaged the sector. Since she had been a terraformed world, her
fragile weather system had been knocked out of balance and she'd spiraled into
an ice age.

At the time of the Xeno war it hadn't been too hard, the planet
had served as a refugee center at one point before the weather got out of
control. According to what little data they had, the equatorial zone was quite
temperate, much like North America's Northern areas were.

But, eventually the downward spiral would kill all life off on
the planet. It was inevitable. After seven centuries, the planet was slowly
freezing to death. Which meant from their perspective, that the planet had
little to export. Hides, meat maybe, but not much else. No trader would linger
there overlong.

“Wait,” the Admiral said, switching to the overall view. “You are
projecting only four more frigates from the Kiev load?” he demanded.

“Exactly. I stated that Commander Logan is a conservative
engineer Admiral. His track record on Anvil as the Chief engineer there
indicates a plodder. He's likely to keep his head down where politics are
concerned, and build infrastructure as much as possible, wherever possible.”

“I see.”

“He's not likely to ride your original plan down in flames Admiral.
If he receives your orders, he may have to modify or disregard them depending
on the situation there.”

“Crap,” Irons exhaled noisily.

“We don't know what concessions he may have had to make to the
political establishment. Hopefully he had started with the base on Agnosta as
we had planned, but there is no guarantee of that,” Sprite said.

Irons pursed his lips thoughtfully. They had heard about an
expedition of Marines to Agnosta, but little beyond the vague talk. That was
frustrating.

“Just to make things interesting,” Sprite said. She highlighted
Epsilon, showcased their improvements there, and then highlighted Seti Alpha 4
and did the same.

“Wait,” Irons said, holding up a hand as she finished with that
system and made similar but smaller changes to the chain of systems from Seti
Alpha 4 to Epsilon. “What are you doing?”

“Factoring in what we found out from the crew on Io 11.”

“Oh.”

“It's all relative Admiral. Exponential changes. Or possible
changes.”

“Tinder,” he murmured.

“Possible tinder,” the AI said, looking at him briefly before
looking at the star chart. “But tinder is useless without a form of ignition.
Or someone to stick around to keep it from going out.”

The Admiral mulled that little dig for a moment. His jaw worked
briefly. “Noted,” he said shortly. “Continue.”

“We have no information on when the load left in Gaston will be
picked up, nor the speed of the vessel so we have nothing to go on there,”
Sprite said. Gaston blinked. The Admiral nodded. He'd left two hundred tons of
cargo destined for Pyrax there with some friends. A cargo broker that they had
recommended was supposed to get a passing ship to carry the load to Pyrax, but
like the AI said, they had no idea when.

“Factor it in a year from now,” he said.

“Noted.”

“Continue. Other issues?”

“This is supposed to be a defensive exercise,” Sprite said. She
put her hand up and expanded the star chart to include Horathian space. Red
lines began to expand from Pyrax and the other systems they had been in towards
Horath. “This represents intel moving to Horath along ships that heard about us
or Pyrax, Antigua, or the loss of their task force in Pyrax.”

The Admiral frowned again but then nodded. Sprite filled in an
ETA. From her estimates, word of some of their initial events should have
reached Horath a few months ago. “And now we throw in any sort of response.
Care to add some input Admiral?”

“Base it on what they have sent so far, but up the force and
tonnage estimate exponentially.”

“By what modifier?” Sprite asked.

“Double... no triple it.”

“Triple? Isn't that a little low?”

“I'm not sure. We don't have a hard estimate on what they have
available.”

“True,” Sprite replied. “But you know the old saying, the more
you use, the less you lose.”

“True. Go with quadrupling it then.”

“All right,” Sprite said. A fleet formed. The Admiral couldn't
see it, it was blacked out. But he knew it was there. Sprite moved it towards
Pyrax.

“The shortest path. One of the maxims of interstellar combat.”

The Admiral winced, now uncomfortable where this was leading. The
implications for his survival were now an issue. “Not good,” he murmured. By
Sprite's best estimates a Horathian fleet could be hitting Beta 101a1 at any
time within the next six standard weeks. Or it could be there now, he noted.

“Yes, it does raise issues with us doesn't it?” Sprite asked.
“Which we can consider at a later time. Perhaps skipping the system entirely,
or short jumping might be in order.”

“As you said, an issue for a later time.”