Free Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) by Chris Hechtl Page B

a  new cabin that had
one.”
    “How
is that possible. I assigned you those quarters and I assure you nothing...
um...” He shot a guilty look to the captain.
    “Nothing
worked you mean?” the captain asked, eyes cold. The purser squirmed under the
captain's gaze. His eyes fell and his hands twisted in his lap. He looked like
a guilty school kid caught in a prank. After a moment he turned to look at the
Admiral.
    Irons
shrugged. “Simple. I told you, I fixed it.” He shrugged knocking his drink
back. “I am an engineer after all. It's what we do.”
    “How
is that possible?” Clarke asked. “I thought no one can do that. Something about
they self destruct when tampered with?”
    “You
just need the knowledge,” Bailey said. “Right Admiral?”
    “Something
like that. Also the access codes,” Irons smiled.
    “You
have them?” the captain asked surprised. He knew something about that from
personal experience. When he had been young and particularly stupid he had
tried to make a nice chrome blaster for himself with one of the few functional
replicators on his ship. He had watched, eager and then horrified as the
replicator self destructed. He had spent weeks in the brig on bread and water
over that. His father had strapped him within an inch of his life. He still had
the scars to this very day. He'd spent two years working every shit job on the
ship in further penance. Replicators were precious things and once they were
gone... He'd learned his lesson after that.
    “He's
the only one in the galaxy that does,” Bailey said shaking his head. “The only one. He was the one who built our replicators the first time. And the second.
And the Pyrax governor and council sent him off with his tail between his
legs.”
    “Thanks,”
Irons said giving the chimp a dirty look.
    “Hey,
no problem. What are friends for after all?” Bailey said, smiling a wide simian
smile at him. Irons snorted. If you can't take a joke... he thought.
    “You,
can… I understand you used your replicator to replace ours. I thought...” The
purser looked confused.
    “Only
a flag rank officer has the codes to do a great deal of things. Make
replicators for one is a specialty of engineering admirals like Admiral Irons,”
Sprite said from the overhead sounding decidedly smug.
    “I
thought that was you ma'am,” Clarke said looking at the overhead with the
others.
    “Nope.
It was all the Admiral. He has the codes. I just watch.” Not completely true
Irons thought, but close enough for civilians. They didn't have the need to
know on how it really worked.
    “Ah,”
the purser turned to the Admiral with new eyes. He shrugged it off.
    “I
thought system governors were also supposed to get this information?” Willis
asked after a moment of silence.
    Irons
and the others turned to her in surprise. Willis was obviously more than just a
pretty face, Irons thought. She had done some research. Interesting, Irons
thought. Irons nodded as she looked up and at him. “You're correct. And usually
that is so. You have to access the system directly and upload the codes.
Unfortunately the ruling council and the newly elected governor Paul Watson
never got the time to get implants,” he explained and then shrugged.
    “So
he doesn't have access?” the purser asked surprised.
    “Oh,
he asked for it. But we had a lot of scheduling conflicts. His and mine. Also
issues with his health apparently. And I can't just hand them to him, he has to
have implants as I just said. He didn't get the implants before I...” he
smiled, “left.”
    “Oh.”
    “I
bet that went over well,” Bailey muttered. He shook his head. “Didn't he well,
ask you to write them down or something?”
    “Yes,
but that is illegal so I didn't,” Irons said smiling. “After all a hard copy
can be accessed by anyone. That defeats the entire purpose of the security
measures. Besides, the codes rotate in a random pattern so it isn't a simple
thing. I can't go into details, that's