Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) Read online

  That paused the argument for them to settle down and look at him. “We're still not sure they are even on board. After the last problem with inventory they, well...” he shrugged.

  “Might have been misplaced or left off or swapped with junk,” Bailey said in sudden understanding. He looked disgusted. “Forgot about that.”

  “Yeah well, I didn't,” Sprite said. “I checked. They are in your log, but I can't know if they are in the box they are supposed to be in. That you'll have to find out for yourselves.”

  “If they aren't I suppose I can program a replicator to make some,” Irons said sighing. “We're almost done with the priority list now.”

  “You can?” Ed asked. “Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot.”

  “Hey now, wow ah, I'm not that thrilled about putting anything in my body he's....” Charlie said, eyes wide as he shook his head back and forth. His fork dropped from his nerveless fingers.

  “Stow it,” Bailey growled at the purser. “You're putting stuff in your fat yap right now you ignoramus. Or did you forget he made the food replicators? The clothes on your back? Air you breath? Not to mention half the damn systems on this boat. So quit your bitching and belly aching so you can do your job.”

  The purser started to swell but the captain cut him off with a cleared throat. “That was out of line chief,” he said quietly.

  “The content or the name?” Bailey said tossing his napkin in his plate. “Content was right on the mark and you both know it. As for the name...” he shrugged. “Sticks and stones, but just for once...” He glanced at the purser. “I apologize,” he made it sound like a snide thing, in the same tone and manner the purser used all the time. Irons wasn't the only one to wince at that.

  He got up and walked to the door. “Even though you are one. Just stating the obvious,” he muttered under his breath. Irons picked it up but didn't react.

  “Dismissed,” the captain said with a sigh, shaking his head. The others followed the chimp chief engineer out quietly. So much for dessert, Irons thought with a grimace.

  Eric shot a dark look to the door as the Admiral walked in. “What's he doing here?” he snarled. He'd been looking forward to being in main engineering but did he really have to share his air with that... that...

  “Working,” Everette said not looking up. “Like you should be.” Everette tried hard not to look at the dork. Eric loved to shoot his mouth off.

  “Yeah well, he did what was needed. So what. His neck was on the line just like ours. Now he can go sit in his cabin.”

  The gangly freckled youth shook his head. “Which wouldn't help us much. Ever hear the expression many hands make light work?” Everette asked patiently, turning to the fat life support tech. It was odd, a life support tech getting fat like that. Didn't the guy know he had to climb in and out of tight enclosed spaces? Ducts weren't built for people with a gut! “Besides, the man is innocent until proven guilty. There isn't a shred of evidence saying he's a child molester, and a whole hell of a lot saying he's not.”

  “Which goes to show the lengths he'll go to cover things up,” Eric said with stubborn tenacity.

  “You really are a moron,” Everette sighed. “Fucking moron,” he growled and shook his head.

  “Oh yeah? Wanna make something of it?” Eric snarled, starting to get up. He froze as he caught sight of Chief Bailey sitting just beyond Everette. Chief Bailey looked up and came over. He slapped his palms onto Eric's shoulders, making him wince. The simian was incredibly strong. He must have pulled some of that or he would have broken both of the guy's collar bones.

  “Tell you what. Since you're so smart, you get to go clean the scrubbers. Now.” He spun the suddenly limp man around and pushed him. “Including the solid waste ones. Go. Enjoy.”

  “Right place for you and your bullshit,” the chief engineer muttered as the stunned life support tech left. Everette looked surprised. “Just do your job Everette, like everyone else here. Including him,” he nodded.

  “And Everette,” the electronics tech looked up. “Thanks.”

  The kid's face was warm. He looked like an orange Bailey thought. “I didn't do it for him boss. Or you. It's just not right.”

  “Yeah well, welcome to the real world sonny,” the chief sighed going over to the Admiral. “Welcome to the real world.”

  “You wanted to see me chief?” Irons asked, coming up behind the chimp chief engineer. He'd managed to break from the early morning habit of coming in for coffee. Apparently the chief had missed him and called him in anyway.

  “Yeah. I was wondering if you'd like to spar tonight?” the chimp asked distracted. A few of the techs around them looked up in surprise. They looked at one another and smiled.

  Irons cocked his head and then quirked an eyebrow upwards. That was an interesting development. “Sure. I didn't know you're a martial arts devotee.”

  “I packed my pink polka dot gi in the wrong duffel,” Bailey grinned.

  “Riiight,” Irons drawled chuckling. He sized the chief up with fresh eyes. This could be interesting. “After dinner sound about right?”

  “Yeah. I'll set out a mat in the classroom since Notuma's still being an ass about the dojo space. I've wanted to tap dance with someone but most of the crew are chicken. I've been told I've been getting flabby by an important person.” He patted his paunch.

  “All the donuts chief,” Everette deadpanned. The simian shot him a mock glare and the kid ducked away smiling.

  “You can't get anyone to match against?” Irons asked shooting an amused look to the computer nerd.

  “Nope.”

  “Even the chief of security? Ed?” Irons asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Bullies and sadists rarely like getting hurt themselves for some strange reason,” the chief said with a feral grin.

  “Well, going up against a chimp is not for the faint of heart chief. Even if you know martial arts. Even less so if you know he does.”

  “True, too true,” the chief grinned. “This'll be fun. Fresh meat to tie into a pretzel,” he said, eyes glinting with glee. He rubbed his hands together in a classic evil washing motion.

  “You asked for it,” Irons sighed shaking his head.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Bailey asked, eyebrow raised as he turned to Irons.

  “Well, I'm stronger than you chief,” The Admiral smiled as he paused by the hatch. “A lot stronger. And I've been doing martial arts since your great great something or other climbed out of the trees. I've got a few more knots on my belt I bet. Quite a few more.”

  “Oh shit,” the chief said as the techs around him looked at each other then started to snicker and laugh. “Oh banana spit,” he breathed as Irons walked out whistling.

  Sprite finished spinning off a bot to recompile the life support module then peeked at the spider bot progress.

  “What a mess,” she muttered to Proteus. They'd been at it for a week now and they still had thousands of items on the repair list to go.

  “We are setting it straight. It takes time.” Proteus was methodical, stripping modules apart and doing code comparisons manually instead of spinning a bot off to do the boring work.

  “It takes a nuke you mean. A nice EMP to scrub everything clean so we can start over. This patching stuff... If I had my way we'd reboot from scratch. But since we're in hyper we'll have to make the best of it,” she grimaced, noting a lot of traffic pings on node E-14. They had finally cleaned up the essential systems and gotten them sorted out. Back ups made by the Admiral, certified clean had been brought online and tested before they had shunted the load to them to repair or replace primary systems. They were just making a final sweep. Data swirled around them, moving all over the place. She had bots all over the net, reporting to her. The Admiral thought of her sometimes as a spider. The imagery was more akin to a being with a cloud of bots around her, sending signals back and forth in bright flashes of color.

  “Now what's going on over here?” she asked. “Uh oh,” she snarled
as she recognized the code tendril for what it was and then firewalled the node, isolating it from the net. “We've got another virus.”

  “Unusual. I believe we had destroyed them all?” Proteus asked, suddenly interested.

  “Well, lets find out,” she said. She caught a rabbit file trying to hide in a buffer and then tore it apart. “Well well. It's not from the virus ten days ago.”

  “No?”

  “And from the signature it's new. As in today.” She sent him a copy of her log file.

  “Interesting. The authorities should be notified.”

  “Yes. But I want to see what this amateur thought he was doing. Lets see, E-14, security cameras in the women's locker room. WHY THAT LITTLE CREEP!” she practically shrieked.

  Chief Bailey scowled as he looked at the tablet in front of him. A knock on the door made him look up. “Get in here Jerry. And close the door behind you.”

  Jerry, a skinny, pimple faced red head human male came in and closed the door. He stood nervously on the other side of the desk. The chimp might be smaller than him but he knew better than to piss the boss off. He could tear him apart easily.

  Bailey stared at him like he was something he'd scraped off the bottom of his shoe. The kid gulped nervously “Know why you're here?”

  “Ah no boss?” Jerry said, trying to look confident. He was hoping this would wind up fast, he wanted to know what his daily catch had. So far nothing much. He really wanted to get to see that blond girl. The one lady, Willis or something or other. She was a looker. He knew he was getting his priorities mixed up, but damn, since things were slowing down he could use the relaxation time. Not that it was relaxing. Seeing some of the women had his heart beating like a drum!

  “Cause you're a stupid pissant. One that should be spaced. Will be if I catch you doing something this anal again,” the Chief said tossing the tablet across the table. It spun so it was facing the hapless software tech.

  “Sir?” he gulped looking at the thing in front of him. He blanched at the sight of the coded rabbit virus he had made. “Shit,” he muttered looking up, eyes wide. Suddenly he didn't feel so good. Suddenly he really really I mean really had to pee. Badly.

  “Didn't think we'd find out? Stupid Jerry, stupid. And what for?”

  “I was just ah, looking,” Jerry said, squirming. He backed away from the desk. “Honest, I wasn't doing any damage or anything.”

  “Peeping is still a crime you fucking pervert. And making a virus is a capital one on a ship or station,” Bailey snarled. “Fucking stupid! Do you have any idea what you could have done? A virus could infect a system, replicate out of control and crash a computer network! WE JUST WENT THROUGH THAT YOU MORON!” he screamed in full primal rage. Teeth bared, hair fluffed, it was an awesome sight. The kid had courage though, he blanched but didn't faint. A passerby paused near the door, caught the bosses snarl and left fast.

  “I'm sorry!” Jerry wilted. “I didn't know!”

  “You didn't fucking well know? How couldn't you know! You're a fucking software tech it's your damn business to know! Where were you? Were you sleeping or something? What were you doing, jacking off somewhere? In your own fucking pocket universe? Spirit of space man!”

  “I... I wont do it again.” He felt miserable, felt like he was... god they weren't going to space him were they?

  “You are damn right you won't. Next time I space you,” the chief snarled. He jabbed his index finger into the kids chest. The kid looked up, eyes wide, gulping, and pale as a ghost. Good. “Without a suit. I may be merciful and wring your neck before you go out the airlock though.”

  “You... you wouldn't!” Jerry said, eyes wide, tears streaking down his face. He fell to his knees. “No, no, no, this isn't happening,” he said, shaking his head. His face fell. He shook his head back and forth babbling.

  “Damn straight it is,” Bailey snarled. “Oh stop whimpering,” he growled, getting some control over his temper. “Stupid fuck. Sprite deleted your crap. You're on my shit list for a long, long damn time.”

  Jerry looked up, tear streaked face earnest and as innocent as he could muster. “I was just... Just...” he whined. Bailey's hand flashed out and slapped the kid across the face. He rocked with the blow.

  “You want my advice kid? Keep your trap shut,” Bailey snarled. “Keep your nose short and to the grindstone. Don't fuck around like that again. Got it?”

  “Yeah I got it,” he rubbed his cheek.

  “Don't ever, ever do this again,” Bailey snarled. “Now get out of my sight and stay out till I tell you different.”

  Jerry rushed to his feet and left.

  “Well, that was fun,” he said with a sour smile. He sniffed then grimaced. “Oh hell...” He went over to where the kid was standing. There was a suspicious stain on the carpet. “Oh no you didn't,” he growled. He knelt and sniffed. He could smell the ammonia, it was pretty strong. “Oh yes he did. Great.” He called a cleaning robot over then sat back in the chair and turned the AC up. He'd definitely need air fresheners. And lots of them. At least it was piss and not shit.

  “He had it coming and more chief,” Sprite replied from his console.

  He rocked his chair then turned an eye her way. “Don't like hackers?”

  “Never did. At least the ones who make viruses,” she said and then shook her virtual head. “Damn fool. I hope putting the fear of god in him will work.”

  “It's not the fear of god, it's the fear of ME I'm more interested in putting into him. And a definite soul aching sensation to stay out of trouble. Maybe a healthy dose of paranoia as well. Keep the little fuck honest.”

  “You do have a way with words,” the AI replied with a laugh.

  “All right. Now, about these software fixes, I understand you rewrote the antivirus software. Can we do something about an AI? I mean, not like you of course, I know we can't handle something of your caliber, or at least two of you in the same net... but something better than a basic net?”

  “I'll see what I can do,” Sprite replied with a smile. She was heartened by the chief's attitude. There was hope for this civilization. “I've got crawlers and spiders all over the net reforming the index. It should speed your system up, but you really need more neural networks if you want an AI. At least a class 2 or better.”

  “A class one will work if that's the best we can get,” Bailey sighed. “I'd like more but I know where our limits are. Besides, I don't think a class 2 or higher really deserves to be stuck here running around in our tiny ship. Making runs like we're going to be stuck doing,” he said. He shook his head. “Smart AI like you deserve bigger and better things.”

  “Why thank you,” Sprite said with a smile. That changed into a wary look. “Okay, what are you buttering me up for this time?” she asked.

  “Oh you know me so well,” the chimp laughed turning to her and rubbing his hands together at her expression.

  “Can I help you?” a feline voice said behind him. Irons paused. He was in the entrance to sickbay. He didn't remember an attendance desk at the entrance on the plans though. It must have been a new addition.

  Irons turned to see a Neo cheetah standing in the office. “Sorry, I was looking for the Doc. Bryan Kelly I believe.”

  He was still getting a handle on the medic. Kelly had some skills, he had plenty of people skills and from what Sprite told him about his reading, he had an avid interest in bettering himself through education. But he had volunteered to take a ship's posting over going to school and getting a full medical degree like he apparently wanted.

  It was just as well. There were very few doctors in Pyrax. A freighter usually ran light, with the minimum crew it could get away with. That usually meant they ran with a paramedic anyway instead of a doctor. A full time doctor would be bored to tears in next to no time on a ship this size.

  “He's off shift. I'm the resident on duty. How can I help you? Admiral right?” she asked picking a white medical smock off a hook on the wall and shrugging it on. She was
a Neo cat. A cheetah. She had incredibly long thin limbs and was his height, something most Neo cats didn't achieve. Her lean frame screamed racer. She seemed vaguely familiar as well.

  “You're a medic?” Irons asked surprised.

  “Last time I checked.” She flicked her white spotted ears and smiled a tight lipped smile in amused patience. “I've got the night shift so Bryan can get some rest.” She picked up a stethoscope and stuck it in her breast pocket. “I was a medic for my gang for a long time. My name is Cheetahra. The ninetieth or something. I lost count. I know it's cliché, but that's what my parents stuck me with,” she said and then shrugged. She flexed her claws for a moment.

  “Oh,” Irons blinked again.

  “Thanks for giving me my ticket for free, but I'm working part of my passage to keep busy and for more start up money. That way I'll have more money for start up where ever I end up,” The Neo cheetah said nodding. “You and I met before. Anvil Sickbay. Briefly.”

  Suddenly it clicked. “Cat clan? Ah, Leo's pride?” he asked amused. He did remember her now. She looked a lot better than before. He could tell she had put on weight, and not fat either. Muscle mass definitely. Before her ribs had been showing and her fur had been a bit mangy and unkempt. Now she was clean and neat. Good. Very good.

  “Yes. I was,” she meowed in distaste and then shrugged. “I've been saving my money for quite a long time for this. To get away from the clan.” She patted Nara the coonie as she passed by on patrol. Bryan had several of the critters running around. Supposedly they were here for pest management and for emotional comfort. Since his experience on Io 11 he knew both roles were true. Of course it was true in his time as well.

  There he went again he thought with a pang. Separating the previous time, the Xeno war with this time. Either way it was his time. He'd have to think of something to describe to himself the separation. He didn't need to separate himself from this time period. He couldn't remain aloof and uninterested in what was going on around him.