I have been trying to render fluids across the network and ran into a problem where the fluid cache isn't being read across the network. After doing a search on this board, Duncan mentioned in a post that Maya has a bug where it has a problem with underscores in the file names. After I eliminated the underscores in the scene file name AND the underscore in the fluid cache data file name, network render worked. Here are the steps to what worked for me, hopefully it's a good workaround for you too..
For network render of fluids
Requirement: fluids need to be cached in order to be rendered across the network.
Problem: a bug in Maya where underscores in the name of the fluid cache is not read across the network.
Solution:
1. Create fluid cache
2. save the scene file WITHOUT underscores in the name
3. select fluid
4. go to cache_fluidShape tab
5. under Fluid Cache Properties open the browsing folder and look at the fluid cache data, it should say something like filename.mb_fluidShape1.mcfp. Rename the file so it has no underscores. So: filename.mbfluidShape1.mcfp
6. Select that newly renamed file and click ASSIGN
7. Save the scene again
8. For some reason, the underscore will appear in the filename again in the field. It's okay.
Now it should render across network