Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane by Chris Hechtl Page A

to
bed.”
    “You mean stasis. Great,” Sprite said, making a face.
    “I don't need them getting underfoot. And I don't need them
clawing and peeing over my room right now. No thank you,” Irons replied in a
carefully controlled voice.
    “True,” Sprite replied with a hint of mirth. “Repairing your suit
did keep Proteus busy for a minute or two.”
    “Which was power we need to conserve. Besides, putting the
fuzzballs to bed will save on food and life support as well.”
    “And now that you've talked yourself into it?” Sprite asked,
smiling at him.
    He sighed and got up out of his chair. “Now I've got to go do it.
Which will not be easy. Nor will your ribbing help.”
    “I know, but it's more fun that way,” Sprite said as the Admiral
made his way to his cabin.
    He slowed enough to snort. He had to watch his pace, Phoenix had
already reduced power to the gravity and he nearly rebounded off the ceiling as
he walked. “Cute.”
     

Chapter
5
     
    One of the things that sucked about the nearly empty system was
the lack of options when it came to the available gas giants to mine. There
were two, both Jovians, which meant a high radiation level. That sucked. The
rest of the planets in the system, all two of them, were rocks. There was a reason
the system was a crossroads and not inhabited.
    The radiation though, that might be an issue. It didn't matter to
Irons or Phoenix, both he and the ship could put up a particle shield, but the
refinery platform couldn't handle a heavy load, which was an issue. It would
have a very short shelf life and would be prone to errors like this one. He
hadn't even gotten it fully deployed yet and it was giving him conniptions.
    There were better designs for its electronics, specially hardened
against radiation, with layers of shielding. There was even a design with its
own shield generators. But those used material he didn't have available
unfortunately. They were also a bit too large for the replicators he had on
Phoenix.
    The other issue was the radiation and high-density particles and
micro-meteors in the system cut his sensor range and resolution down to under
three hundred thousand kilometers. Phoenix was reliant on Lidar and that was
giving the AI fits with all the material floating around.
    The Admiral was starting to regret not going through Pyrax. If
he'd gone through Gaston, it would have taken oh; six weeks back to that
system, then another four to Pyrax. Cross that system and see what was going
on, maybe put a helping word in to Logan, then another seven-week jump to Beta
101a. But he'd be on fumes, unless he tanked up in Pyrax. And he seriously
didn't want to be on fumes in that system. If Sprite was right, the Horathian's
were stacking up stuff to hit Pyrax there now. The Beta jump point to Pyrax was
a rough one, but if the Horathian's had gotten wind of what had happened to
their fleet by now... and had something positioned near enough... he winced.
    Perhaps it would be safer for him to head to Hidoshi's World, or
up chain to Kathy's World. He frowned. No, Hidoshi's World was agrarian, and Kathy's
World was an ice planet; again, nothing there for him. Protodon was agrarian,
and there was little up there except Antigua. He didn't want to go crawling
back there with his tail tucked between his legs. He needed options. Better
options than the ones currently on the table. But first things first, he
thought, snapping his mind back to the here and now.
    Which was why he was puttering around here, drifting in space
trying to get the balloon platform off.
    <----*----*----*---->
    In orbit of the gas giant Murphy reared its ugly head while
deploying the gas giant refinery. The compact assembly of balloons, struts,
chemical works and micro-fusion reactor was being hinky. First the routine
checkup had thrown up a software flag. Sprite was on that. But then the booster
had failed a check of its fuel injector. The Admiral had ordered it back
flushed, but when that failed to solve