EV/EVO Chronicles: The Mechanic

The robots whirled around the engine. It was almost completely dismantled. Galve surveyed the work from his small vehicle. The six screens showed different angles of the robots' work.
It was the most boring part of his work. No, he corrected himself: It was the next most boring part. The most boring was to put the things together again. Not that he had any real funny things to do. All in total, he had a lot of boring subjects stapled on each other. A boring job, to put it concisely.

He was the one who had to put together the maimed ships when their owners had tried to outsmart pirates. Or when they foolishly enought played hide-and-seek among the asteroid belts. Or like the present ship, trying to save some credits by buying cheap fuel on some backwater station. Instead the owner had to pay good money to get the engine flushed, the corrosion damages noted and most parts replaced.
They never learned.
The robots were done. He could see the fault of the enginge in six different angels on his screens. But he had to get up there and inspect in for real. The company policy stipulated that.
Commanding the robots to stand back, he stepped out of the vehicle. The enormous space of the dock lied heavy and cold on his shoulders. Stepping up on the platform and securing the gate, he made it rise upwards. Coming to an halt at the engine, he could take a close look. Yep, it was the same engine as on the screens in the car. And yep, the same problem. Punching some codes on the wrist-computer, he confirmed the preliminary diagnosis. Peaking at the engines serialnumber, he punched that one into the computer as well.
The colour of the serialnumber and the plate that it was printed on, was designed not to show up on the robots monitors. The thought was to force the mechanic to take his time to take a real look, instead of doing it all remotely.
OK. Let's get back down and wrap this up. The spare parts were already ordered – he'd seen this thing before, so he'd sent an request even before he'd seen the dismantled engine.

As the platform sank to the ground again, he closed his eyes. How tired he was. As far as he could remember, he'd been tired ever after beeing kicked out of the freight-masters university. A few slips coupled with a few side-steps in a effort to get a better degree had put him in a hot spot.
The university board had looked down on him from their chairs in the formal room and expelled him from the university for cheating. His name would never appear in the ranks of freight-masters.
Hungry for a job, he'd accepted the invitation of the small ship-yard at the station. Later he found out that they usually sucked up every student from the university, who didn't fullfill their studies. It was cheap labour, and mostly well trained.
Four years he'd slaved there. Learning every nut and bolt of the most common ships. His freight-master-studies had given him the big picture about the ships, but he was required to focus on the small details in his present job.
After four years he'd fled the station. He was tired of seeing spank new freigh-captains parade through the space-port after their finals. He loathed them as much as he loathed himself. They were young, smart and freight-captains. He was nothing of it.

The thump when the platform reached ground awoke him from thoughts. Letting the vehicle follow the path to the mechanics quarters, he tried to give himself a pat on the back. Perhaps he wasn't a freight-captain, but he was a very good mechanic. He did possess a rare combination of intuitive feeling for what the problem was and the analytical powers that was needed to diagnose the problem.

Checking the computer at the quarters showed that a couple of the spare parts weren't in stock. His request had been sent on to another dealer. It would take a few hours to get an estimate when he could get the things. Might as well take the day off. Sending a message to the boss, attaching the diagnosis and the request for parts, he punched out of the system.
He took the tube towards the city. The compartments was rather empty at this time of day. Almost falling asleep in one of the seats, he recalled his first reactions when he came to the station. It was a feeling of relief. The people wore dirty, scratched suits. They were quicker to take action and solve problems, than to start bragging and arguing.
When he signed off from the freight-ship he'd taken hire on, to get away from the university-station, the officer had told him that he made a mistake. Two years later Galve knew that on the contrary – he'd finaly made a right decision. He felt at home. The atmosphere suited him perfectly.

A problem of no small size
Getting of the sub, he took the elevator up to his favourite bar. Galve gambled a little on the machine that was inset in the counter. He usually never won anything. Not today either.
Two men entered and cast a casual glance around the room. Strangely enough they didn't take one of the many vacant tables. Instead they came to the bar and leaned on the counter close to Galve.
One of them put a creditcard on the counter for the bartender.
A third man entered. He to came to the counter, but on the other side of Galve. He motioned for the bartender and got a drink.

One of the two men left his place and went to the lonely man. A silent but heated discussion evolved. Galve didn't listen actively, but he heard them mention money a couple of times. The other man left his place and teamed up with the other ones. The discussion rose a couple of levels. Galve could no longer resist to listen.
”I've told you. I have no money for you yet. You'll get all your money, but you have to wait a little while longer.”
”You've had enough time. Your time is up. We'd agreed that you'd pay now, right? So pay up.”
”You don't understand, I can't pay you right now. I don't have any money.”

As they raised their voices, Galve cast an glance in the polished stainless-steel wall behind the counter. The lonely man was red in the face, the other two looking grim.
”Then you'll pay in blood,” one of them said and drew a knife. Galve was surprised to find that he thought about how they managed to get the weapon through the security-corridor to the bar. But perhaps it was a high-density plastic or carbon-alloy.
Knifes was rather ordinary weapons in the space-ports. Guns and other weapons was easy to spot in the automatic surveillance-equipment that was stationed all over the place.
In the next instant, the lonely man staggered against the counter, one hand against the chest where he'd been stabbed. He lurched towards Galve and grabbed at him, when he fell. Galve tried to stay upright, but the sudden weight pulled him down.
Blood smeared over his hands and clothes. The mans' grip faded and unseeing eyes looked at Galve.
”You killed him...” Galve rose and backed away from the corpse and the two men. Without a word both of them turned and walked through the room to the exit. Amazingly enough the door opened for them and they stepped into the security-corridor and was gone.
”What? You didn't stop them..?” he shouted to the bartender who'd appeared.
”Stopped who? You're still here, aren't you? You murderer,” the man said coldly as the wall of bulletproof glass rose behind the counter. Now all the doors to the room would be locked.

Galve protested to the unhearing bartender. In the back of his head he knew that he was in deep trouble. Hired murders that got away by putting the blame on innocent bystanders. What judge would buy that story?
He needed to have some time to think, he needed to get away. Pulling his creditcard from the pocket, he punched it to show his total amount of credits. It wasn't much, but perhaps enough to buy him time. He put the card to the glass-wall and made begging motions to the bartender.
The man thought a few moments and then nodded. He pointed towards the end of the counter where there was a small service-door. Galve climbed through it. The bartender stod at some distance and had a broken bottle in his hand. ”Put down the card and get out of here. I'll testify that you managed to get hold of me before the wall rose, so you have nothing on me. Remember that if you're ever caught.”

Running through the corridor, Galve made quick plans. He had to talk to a lawer. And explain what he'd done – or not done. But first get away from here. But he couldn't take a cab – that could be easily traced.
Turning an corner he bumpted into a man in a colorful overall. Perfect – a delivery-man. ”Please, you must help me.”
The delivery-man stared disbelieving at Galve, who displayed a bloody shirt. ”Get out of here, or I'll call the cops.”
”No, no - you must help me. I've been framed by murderers. You must believe me. Please.” The man hesitated just for an instant.
”No,” he said again.
”But please, you must help me get away from the murderers. Please.” His pleading seemed to make effect.
”OK, get into the back. And don't move. I'll take you to the space-port.”
The ride was as uneventful as Galve could ever wish for. The delivery-man popped his head into the back of the van at one time and said: ”You know, I'm taking an high risk here. It will cost you.” Galve just had agreed.

A deal i struck
The vehicle came to a stop and the delivery-man popped in again. ”OK, how much money do you have?” Galve had to confess ”Eh, none. I had to pay to get out of the bar.”
”What? You have no money? You mean that I risked my job and neck for nothing?”
”No, no, of course you'll get paid. But I have to get the money first and...” He was interupted.
”So, you'll just walk away from here and later send me the money. Yeah, fat chance buddy.” The man continued: ”I have a better idea. I'll sell you.”
”What?”
”I'll sell you. They talked about the murder on the news. They mentioned that you're a mechanic. I can sell you to the pirates, you'll fetch a good price.”
The concept was mind-bugling Galve, but he had agreed. It really was the only way, he argued with himself. The pirates would get him of the station and away from the manhunt.
They met a shady-looking person at the docking-area. He and the delivery-man had haggled about the price for a while. Galve hadn't participated, he had a strange feeling of beeing besides himself. Like he was watching an holovid.
The delivery-man left without hardly saying good-bye. Galve was hauled along the corridors by the shady man and deposited in an small room. ”Wait here.” The door was locked and Galve was all alone. He'd lost his pocket-vid-player somewhere during the escape, so he had nothing to do. Strangely enough he found himself thinking about the disassembled engine – he'd never get to the boring part and reassemble it. Eventually he slept for a while.

Another man awoke him. He battered him with a lot of questions about his training, what kind of ships he'd been working on and other things. ”OK, we'll get you off this planet. In return you'll do some manteinence work on a few ships we've got. Deal?”
By now Galve was ready to accept anything. ”Yes. Yes, what ever. Get me out of here.”
That evening he was taken onboard a freighter, hidden among an shipment of tourists. His false ID worked mainly because the inspector had been bribed in advance.

After an in-flight rendevouz with another ship, he found himself in the company of an middle-aged man. He never told his name. But he seemed to know very much about Galve. ”So. How would you like an challenge? Would you like to build a service- and repair-station for our ships?”
The man outlined the plan. The pirates was heavily battered by military forces, they needed a new repair-station, to keep their ships afloat. They had choosen a decent system to set up shop.
Galve had been flabbegasted. He – building an outpost for the pirates? The very idea made him sick. The pirates made their demands known in no uncertain way. Galve had no way out of it.
”But, I need tools and somewhere to be. And machinery and lot of other things. It's not possible,” he concluded.
”Make it possible” was the only answer he got. And then he'd been dropped of on a makeshift station in the target-system. A lot of people was already at work. Constructing habitation-sectors and fuel-stations.
They worked with a fevour that Galve hardly seen before. He was brought in by the very atmosphere of the operation.

A job well done
And he did make the most of the situation. Scavaging captured ships for spare parts, constructing harnesses to keep the ships at bay and programming diagnostic software. Putting in requests for industrial robots with the pirates leaders, netted him an entire shipment of mining-equipment. The crude robots in the shipment could be refined to be useful as repair- and mainteinace-robots.
Still, a lot of work had to be done by hand. But he actually felt enlivened by the hard work. Things that had taken robots five minutes at the station, took him an hour of sweaty, hard work. But it was a joy to take apart the ships by hand.

As the makeshift repair-shop and the station as a whole grew, Galve began to understand the width of the operation. The sole enmassement of spare parts indicated that the pirates reconed that they'd bring in a lot of wounded ships. Between shifts he wondered what they were up to. And he wondered where his own loyalty was.
He'd never felt so alive and active before. All the problems he had to solve stimulated him. Sure, he made a lot of mistakes, but they were allowed as long as he got the real job done.
At the same time he thougth about all the havoc the pirates reaped. He could remember all the scarred ships that he himself had been repairing after pirates attacks. But he drowned all thoughts in work and more work. He performed at the peak of his capacity.

He was awoken in the middle of night by an internal call. There was an important ship coming in. Could he take a look at the fuel-injection for the braking-boosters? By routine he accepted, but almost immediately regretted it. Wasn't he allowed any sleep at all?
Tucking into the suit, he decided to take his time with this one. They would regret that they disturbed him with small stuff.

The ship was tethered with power-, air- and sewage-lines when he arrived. The crew had apperently not left the ship, since the airlocks still was closed and unconnected. Connecting to the ships computer-system, he downloaded the diagnostics and ran it through his own computer after giving the agreed passwords. Looked like they did have a problem with the correction-boosters. They wasted a lot of fuel, way above the specs. Hailing the ship, he tried to get hold of the captain. He wanted to know if they'd been buying cheap fuel or perhaps captured some from boarded ships. Perhaps even refitted the ship at some lousy repair-station.
No answer to the hail. His irritation grew. Did or didn't they want him to fix their cursed ship? With the connection he held to the ships system, he tried to open an internal communication-channel with the captain.
Nobody answered on the channel. That was strange. Someone must be onboard. Running a diagnostic for the comsystem revealed that there was a couple of active channels onboard. Listening in on them randomly, he tried to find one where he could ask about the captain. As far as he could gather all the channels held the same information, it was like an internal conference-call.
Since he was just trying to locate an open channel, he didn't at first listen to what was said. But when he did, he felt a cold shiver run along his spine.
A voice was outlining an breathtaking plan – an joint pirates-attack against several stations, in safe space. The voice checked of time and places, naming stations and known weaknesses in the defences.
Realizing what he was listening to, Galve closed the channel quickly. Steadying his shaking hands by disassembling on of the booster-rockets, he tried to forget what he'd just heard.

It dawned on him that the information he now possessed had a price – his own head. A joint attack-force by pirates of that size was unheard of. It would sweep through defenseless systems like the proverbial grashoppers. Well, as long as the military didn't raise the security-levels. If they did, then the pirates' would run into serious problems.
Another shiver ran through his body, when he thought about what would happen if the pirates ever found out that he knew about their plans.
Taking a deep breath the forced the thoughts out of his mind, and concentrated on the work at hand.

The memory of what he heard didn't leave him alone. He had to decide what to do. Stay and play along, pretending not to know anything. Or try to sneak away and inform the military. Both plans had their drawbacks.
It wasn't sure that the military would listen to him, not without hard evidence. On the other hand it could prove lethal to stay around. If the military launched a counter-attack, he could be caught in the cross-fire.
If the pirated decided that he was expandable, it too could mean the end of him. Not to mention if they understood that he'd heard their plans. That would spell a quick end.
Put like that – the dangers of staying outweighted those of trying to get away. So he had to try to escape.

A plan for survival
A plan for escape formed and he began working on it. Rigging the bombs was simple. Enought fuel to make an nice bonfire took only hours to scrape together. More explosive stuff was hard to get by. The weapon-systems of the ships was strickly of limits for him. He'd seen the weapon-technicians a few times, but never spoken to them. He had to rely on low-velocity explosives made from fuel. The timer was built of spare electronics. Nothing fancy, but effective none the less.
The big problem was to get hold of an ship. Even though he was surrounded by ships to days end, none of them was working. As soon as they were ready, the pilots engaged the engines and left. Nobody wanted to stay stationary one moment longer than necessary.

Luck smiled at him for once. A small pirate-ship lingered into the station not many days after his decision to flee. The internal diagnostics flashed red all over the engine- and fuel-parts. Multiple massive faults. It would take some time to get it fixed. The pilot cursed and cursed, but had to accept. But when Galve ran his own diagnostics, they only showed some minor problems with the fuelsystem.
It was a common problem with pirate-ships, that nobody seemed to take care to clean the sensors. Normaly the owners had much more urgent things to put time and effort into. The ships internal diagnostics were only a matter of clogged probes. The ship was almost in top-condition, he only had to take care of the fuel-injection-system.
Galve didn't tell anybody. He kept the internal diagnostic-readouts visible and hid his own documents.

Trying to decide when the best time to make the run was difficult. People was active all the time. The station never really slept. Security was as tight as a nutbolt in an airlock. Ships coming and going around the clock.
Perhaps he just had to toss a coin and hope for the best. Trying to assemble curage wasn't easy. Sometimes he just hoped that he'd dreamt about the things he'd heard. But he knew that it was a grim reality.

One night he just decided it was time to leave. The station buzzed with activity, perhaps he could hide in the general acitivity.

Making one last check of the bombs, he strolled through the repair-shop that he'd so cumbersomly assembled. He was proud of his work.
As he left the area, he kept his fingers crossed. Openingen the hatch to the ship he hoped that nobody would notice him. From the chair he locked down everything and feed the computer his course. But first he had to get out of the dock. While going through the take-off-checklist, his pulse quickened.
Any moment now, someone would notice the activity and wonder what was going on. The engines was ready, the course set. Normaly he'd contact the traffic-leader to ask for an vector. But that would be plain stupid.
Instead he waited.
The explosions was not impressive. The thudding sound that transplanted through the station was at first the only evidence that something had happened. But the effects followed suite, as the bombs had been keyed to detonate in sequence. An entire section of the station pulled loose, and curved around it's own axis to smash throught the main hub.
He was quite proud of that. It had taken some time to calculate, but it worked better than he'd hoped for.

Relying mainly on correction-boosters, he steered out from the collapsing station. He was in a safe sector. The shrapnels and other parts fanned out behind him. Around him a few ships tried to get away from the havoc. Most of the had been slightly damaged by the explosions and the debris. Hopefully none of them were keen on taking up persuit.
Fueling the main boosters, he got away from system center and pushed jump. He left the place he'd called home for almost 18 months in a flash.

Some weeks later...
The security officers had been assembled for many hours in the bowels of the UE military vessel. The debate still raged about what to do with Galve.
”Two and a half freaking years of planning and diligent work, blown to pieces by a cursed mechanic. He wrecked our moles' only way into the higher levels of the pirates society. I say we court-marshal him.”
Others disagreed. ”He did what we all would do, if we got half a chance. He's as close to hero as they come.”
The main problem was that the assembled group, the section for anti-subversive activities, had been well aware of the pirates' efforts to establish an repair-station. It was actually left alone by military forces, by intent. The idea was to pave the way for one of the military moles. Being a closeknitted community, it was difficult to plant infiltrators into the pirates society. The now aborted mission could have been the first success in many years.
Instead the entire operation was blown to pieces by Galve. The contact with the mole was lost, nobody knew for sure if he still lived. The military had swept the system, with out finding his dead body among the debris.

”Wait a minute! How about this idea: We make Galve into our mole.” Disagreeing murmurs greeted the exclamation.
”Listen to me: Let's plaster his face all over the holovid-screens in the universe, proclaiming him beeing an hero. Then, leak an story about how we planted him in the midst of a pirates' nest and blew it to pieces – that's a story that people would love, right? That way we'll protect our real mole, right? And at the same time we'd ease the pirates' fears of beeing infiltrated, lowering their defences, right?”
Some of the people nodded their heads. Others still shook them. The senior officers spoke up. ”It could work. Let's add another thing: We'll get him to a safe place, and let a few select people know about it. There is someone leaking information to the pirates, outside this group. This could be a way of finding out who.” More nods, but also some protests.
”That would be murder. We'd put this civilian on a shooting-range. It's outrageous.” The protests were quickly killed.
”He put himself at risk for the revenge of pirates when he blew up that station. Actually we're going to protect him the best we can, so he'll be quite safe. Agreed then?”
All hands rose into the air and so was the decision made. It was never written down in official documents.

At the center of attention
In the following months Galve found himself to be the black hole of media-coverage. Everyone seemed to be sucked towards him. He'd retold his story countless times sunken into deep sofas, perched on chairs and even standing in the bar where he'd been conned into working for the pirates.
Oh, yes. It turned out that there had been no murder. It was all staged to lure him into the hands of the delivery-man and then into the fold of pirates. The military police had explained that it was a commonly used trick to shanghai decent traders.
As soon as the victims started to run from the scene of the crime they were in the net of the pirates. That's why Galve had lost his pocket-vid – he'd been pickpocked so he wouldn't be able to watch news. That was also why he was locked up all alone in a room. And it also explained why they wanted to get him of the planet as soon as possible.

One thing that did irritate him was that the reporters seemed to think that he was some kind of super-agent for the military security forces. He denied it every time it came to the surface, but they never seemed to believe him.
Even the military found it irritating. They even had to dispatch a couple of body-guards to protect him. ”You're at even greater danger if the pirates believes that you're affiliated with our activites,” the officer had told him.

Trying to get back to his old job had proved difficult. It no longer felt stimulating. More than once he'd missed the hard work at the pirates' station. And the freedom he'd enjoyed during the tenure there.

But piece by piece he got back to his old life and habits. After a while he could faithfuly say that everything was back to normal. Except for an nagging feeling that someone, somewhere pointed a rifle towards his head.

End.

Nice one, Heidel. Your stories seem to employ the central theme of a protagonist caught up in events beyond his control, used as a pawn by forces that don't particularly care about his welfare. My only real quibble has to do with the damage done to the station in Galve's escape: I'm assuming that a few people died, but Galve doesn't seem terribly concerned. Fair enough, I guess, but shouldn't he feel at least a little guilty?

Other than that, it's a very good piece. Thanks!

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PlanetPhil
world keeps turning

PlanetPhil,

Your're quite perceptive. It's always nice to write for perceptive people. And your're right about the explosion - I had planned to do an two-piece of the text, but banged it together a little to fast in the end, and lost details in the process.

This was probably my last chronicle for the EV/EVO-area.

Heidel

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Quote

Originally posted by Heidel:
**This was probably my last chronicle for the EV/EVO-area.
**

That's our loss. :frown:

I hope you keep writing, irrespective of the type of story. You're pretty good at it.

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PlanetPhil
world keeps turning