Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) Read Online Free PDF

was going to install them while we were on our way out,” the chimp
sighed. “Another one of those things to do while we were in transit.”
    “Oh,”
Irons grimaced. “No industrial replicators I take it?” he asked.
    “Nary
a one. Now you see my dilemma. We're screwed,” the chimp sighed. “We need
parts, some of the damage the virus did blew or fried electronics all over the
ship. Well, that virus or Sprite. Not that I'm complaining,” he finished
hastily, looking up at the overhead.
    “Ouch,”
Irons winced again. He knew what the aftermath of a cyber war could be like.
Sometimes in the battle the best way to beat an enemy was to deny them
territory, to scorch the hardware. Obviously they had enough to keep the ship
functional but he didn't want to think about how many layers of back ups they
had burned through... and how many remained.
    Come
to think of it yes he did. He did need to know, he did need to do something. He
sighed mentally.
    “So,
we need the systems and don't have them. As I said, screwed,” Bailey grimaced,
flicking a stylus away. It fell from the desk, clattered and then rolled across
the carpet.
    “Not
really,” Irons said as he reached out and took a cup and then the pot. He
poured himself a cup.
    “We
can't do squat. If a system goes down without a back up or parts... That's it,
poof!” Bailey growled. “And we've mickey moused the computer together... I'm
not sure how and why it's still working.”
    “Sprite
has a lot to do with that. She's in the net right now managing things. Proteus
was for a while, but he can only access the net when Sprite isn't or I'm jacked
in.”
    “How's
that?” the chief asked, picking up a danish and taking a bite.
    “Well,
they can use my wireless network link, but only a handful of places on the ship
can handle the bandwidth required. Main engineering for one,” the Admiral
explained. “Another deferred project.”
    “Ah,”
the chief nodded. “Electronics isn't my cup of tea, but I gather the Wi-Fi in
the guest quarters is limited?”
    “By
design. Guests shouldn't be hogging that much bandwidth,” Irons shrugged. “The
quarters are also on a fire walled system designed to keep guests from
tampering with the ships systems.”
    “Ah,”
the chief said as he nodded. “But you're doing it now?”
    Irons
nodded. “It would be a little easier if I was jacked in though.”
    “Be
my guest,” the Chief said, waving to a nearby universal port.
    “Okay,”
Irons shrugged and moved his chair over to the plug. He jacked in and turned to
see the chief watching. “What?”
    “That
never gets old,” the chief said with a smile. He looked up to the large bay
window he had, then back to the Admiral. “So they can do something?”
    “Software
mostly. Although I might be able to rebuild some of your back up systems. If
they aren't too bad.”
    “Which
is a problem,” the chief grimaced.
    “Someone
trashed them?” Irons asked, raising an eyebrow in query.
    “Oh
yeah. Got their frustrations out good and proper. Figuring that they would just
dump them into the recycle bin for the replicators and poof! Brand new,” he
grimaced at that thought.
    “And
you can't,” Irons nodded in understanding. “Is that why you were disciplining
your tech?”
    “Oh
hell no. That was the fuck up who signed for the delivery of the junk we got
instead of the parts we were supposed to get. The moron didn't even take the
time to look,” Bailey sighed, sitting back. “I can't totally blame him, we were
stretched thin. Even I didn't consider someone would do something like this.
Screw us over this bad.”
    “I
wonder how bad the rest of the cargo is,” Irons said, staring off into space.
    “You
and me both. Which I brought up with the purser. He's checking now,” Bailey
growled. “But I already checked the manifest, no replicators.”
    “Perfect,”
Irons grimaced. “I wonder where they went.” He shook his head.
    “What
the replicators?” Bailey asked.