Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges

by Alan Black

  Whizzer said, “It works for that half of the acid sludge, but that mild solution won’t work if he gets covered in the other half. That stuff is a lot more corrosive.”

  Emmons nodded. “In that case, we use this other sprayer.”

  Whizzer said, “But what if he gets covered in both?”

  Stone spoke before Emmons could reply. “In that case, you hit the big red button on the wall, slam the door closed, run like hell, and send a letter of condolence to my family.”

  Emmons looked up at him. Her long blonde hair shook as she gave her head a little shake. He still hadn’t been able to tell if her hair color was natural, genetically altered or if she used something out of a box. Not that it mattered, it looked pretty.

  She said, “Interesting response, young man.” Pulling out an ancient style spiral notebook and pencil, she jotted down a few notes.

  Stone said, “Quit that.”

  “Quit what?” Emmons asked.

  “I know you are a behaviorist, but aren’t you here to advise us on Hyrocanian behavior, not study me?”

  Whizzer grinned, “Kat knows Hyrocanian behavior, but it’s only a sideline.”

  Emmons nodded. “I am primarily a human behaviorist and your behavior interests me.”

  Stone said, “My behavior interests me too, but when you jot things down in your notebook it makes me think I’m some kind of lab rat you’re studying for some report.”

  Emmons said, “I do write reports on you. And on Whizzer, and Spacer Dollish, The Hammer of God, and a dozen other people I’ve met since we got trapped on Allie’s World and you saved all our lives. Writing reports is what I do, that’s how I justify my tiny salary as a scientist.”

  “Okay, but — no. Who?” Stone was baffled.

  Whizzer asked. “Which who?”

  Stone answered, “You said you write reports on — and I quote — The Hammer of God.”

  Emmons and Whizzer laughed.

  Emmons finally said, “That’s just my personal little joke. Sorry. I’m supposed to write reports on a few specific people for various entities. One is First Lieutenant Theo Hammermill. Marine higher ups think he has potential for long-term promotion and advancement up the ranks. They’ve asked my opinion, so —”

  “Hammer I get; short for Hammermill,” Stone interrupted. “Why is he the Hammer of God?”

  Emmons said, “Theo is from an Old Earth language called Greek. It means God. Seems appropriate since he kind of looks like a Greek god. Ares maybe, the god of war?”

  Whizzer made a bad attempt at flexing his muscles. “What about me?”

  Emmons laughed. “I sleep with you, you old coot. You’d be gone in a heartbeat if Theo Hammer came to call.”

  A voice shouted. “Are you clear?”

  Stone shouted back, “Yes, LT. The kink is clear and the area sprayed down.”

  Vera peeked around the corner. “Danged foolish thing, banging on that feed chain when it’s filled with acid.”

  Stone replied, “Just so long as the two bulb types don’t get mixed, you’re okay.”

  “That’s what Spacer Dollish said.”

  “What? Dollish? He’s who told you I had experience with this thing?”

  “Sure,” Vera replied. “He said it was your turn to pound on the ammunition feed chain.”

  “Well, I’m going to have to have a talk with him.”

  “No, you don’t. That man makes the best carnitas I’ve had since I left home. I don’t care what anyone else says, as far as I’m concerned, you’re much more expendable than he is.”

  Stone asked, “Do we really need the shuttle weapons, Lieutenant?”

  Vera shook her head. “We don’t know, Ensign Stone. That’s the point.”

  Whizzer said, “There’s a lot we don’t know at this point. We’ve managed to glean and interpret data from the Hyrocanian navigation computer about their jump into Allie’s World. However, we don’t know what they were doing. It looks like they jumped from somewhere else, did an immediate second jump, and landed in our backyard.”

  Stone said, “A double jump? What does that mean?”

  Whizzer shook his head. “It’s not my field of expertise. My team broke the codes and strangled it for the interpretations. Why any rational thinking being would jump, then jump again right away is unknown at this point. Captain Butcher thinks that it may be an empty system with two close navigation points that allowed the Hyrocanians to jump from a controlled system, then double jump to reach us, but he’s only guessing as their reasoning is still unknown.”

  Vera said, “Too many unknowns. Without knowing what we’ll find, we don’t know what we need to deal with it. So, we want all of our tools in some sort of working order. Having said that, are we clear?” She pointed at the acid sludge feeder chain.

  Stone nodded. “You should be able to put the belt in reverse to clear the ammunition before tearing this down to rebuild.”

  Vera shook her head. “We don’t have enough time to do a complete rebuild. We’ve only got another couple of weeks in hyperspace before we jump into Hyrocanian space. All we have time for is to shore up this flooring and reconfigure that chair where the acid ate through. I don’t pity the Hyrocanians one little bit, but the guy they had in that chair got a lap full of his own acid sludge.”

  Stone grinned, “That wasn’t a Hyrocanian, Lieutenant Vera. That was me in the chair. Dollish manned the ammo feed chain. I suggest you put an acid resistant hood over the trigger puller.”

  “Stupid effin weapons system,” Vera cursed under her breath.

  Whizzer said, “I haven’t heard anyone lately accuse the Hyrocanians of any great intelligence.”

  Vera looked at the three. “I’m surprised that the idiots who designed and used this crap didn’t kill themselves off long before they ever ran into humans. It’ll probably kill us all just trying to repair their messes.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Stone stripped off his utility uniform. It had been a long day, a long night, and another long day. Things were shaping up, but they were all going to be tired when they finally jumped from hyperspace into a Hyrocanian owned system. He threw the uniform in the direction of the hatch to his bedroom. It landed in a crumpled pile and lay there.

  He stared at it as if offended that it hadn’t opened the hatch on its own and found its own way into the uniform recycling hamper. The uniform was perfectly clean and fresh smelling, even though he hadn’t taken it off for days. Sissie picked it up and carried it into his cabin to hang it up in the closet. In his skivvies, Stone stepped across a well-manicured lawn to an overhead watering system nozzle. Reaching down into a recessed cup in the grass he slapped the water handle and stood in a torrential downpour.

  His shower system was a tad bit unconventional, but so were his entire living quarters. Wiping the water out of his eyes, he looked through the jungle of untamed foliage. With the exception of Shorty and Sissie, the piglets were working double overtime to clean up the hydroponics and gardening bay they all shared.

  Shorty and Sissie had resumed their duties as his aides and he’d given up trying to convince them they didn’t need to cater to him anymore. He used an old shack at the edge of the hydroponics bay for his cabin and he was delighted the piglets were helping him. He’d spent the past two weeks working to get Rusty Hinges’s weapons operational and the piglets made the old tool shed livable for him.

  The drascos and piglets made camps all around the huge bay. Almost two kilometers by two kilometers made for a huge overgrown jungle. Under the Hyrocanian’s oversight, the main hatches had rusted shut, and the hydroponics and gardens had grown wild.

  The piglets had cleared dozens of acres with the drascos help. Plowing, planting, and watering enough land to feed them all, plus twice the number of humans on board. The piglets with vent runner skills had cleared the life support tubes of clogging vines and dead leaves, sending fresh oxygen throughout Rusty Hinges. The piglets were also putting a dent in the hordes of rat-like crea
tures infesting the ship. Stone thought the rats smelled horrid when cooked, but the piglets enjoyed barbecuing them.

  He saw Charlotte, Emily, and Anne across the bay working with the piglets. They were yanking down a row of half dead trees covered in some type of vine. Their size made them easy to spot, even from a kilometer and a half away. Peebee, Ell, Tee, and Bea weren’t in sight, they were probably off with the marines in some training seminar. Jay lay in the grass at the edge of the small meadow, soaking up the rain.

  Stone said, “You can go help tear those out if you want? I know you’d rather do that than hang around with me.”

  Jay snorted. “There isn’t anywhere I would rather be than be with my Mama. There are lots of trees to tear down.” She rolled over onto her back, letting the rain soak her belly. “I can tear down trees later.”

  Stone could tell that no matter what she said, she was anxious to be doing something instead of babysitting him. “I don’t need security anymore, Jay. I can take care of myself.”

  “You always could, Mama. But you might need me to talk to Shorty for you.”

  Stone looked over at the two piglets standing by, waiting for him to need something. Shorty held a bar of soap and Sissie stood with a towel much too big for her to carry. He pointed at the soap and Shorty tossed it to him.

  He said, “See? Shorty and I have an understanding. We don’t need to talk.” But it reminded him that he wanted to look into getting the piglets and the drascos some kind of dataport they could type into for speech conversion. Both alien species easily heard humans speaking and understood Empire Standard, but human hearing had a limited frequency range and Stone, even with his enhanced hearing could only hear the drascos.

  Jay wonked in pleasure. “You would be the first human I’ve ever met who doesn’t need to talk.”

  Stone laughed, “That’s like the sweater calling the sheep fluffy.”

  “What’s a sheep, Mama?”

  “Never mind. It just means that all of my girls chatter on more than I ever do.”

  Jay wonked. “That is because we are more human than others of us.”

  The water running down his body was room temperature and it felt wonderful against his skin. He wondered if he could find a chair and just sit in the warm rain. Finding a chair wasn’t hard. There was an excess of equipment all over the ship. Every third cabin, bay, or corridor had jammed, locked, or rusted shut hatches. Behind each hatch was a myriad of strange and not so strange items. The military had finally opened every room, securing it for inspection, but no one had been able to catalog even part of what treasure might be buried in any room. However, Stone realized that every chair he’d ever seen on the ship had been welded onto the deck plates.

  Stone closed his eyes, finally relaxing, almost asleep on his feet. “Maybe a chair isn’t such a good idea. I might just fall asleep out here.”

  “Shorty wants to know if you want him to get you a chair. He says he can either find one or they can build you one.”

  Stone shook his head. “Tell him thank you, but no.” He stripped off his skivvies, tossing them to Shorty. The piglet wandered off with them. Stone was sure they would come back dry and fresh smelling. He scrubbed with the soap, letting the rain rinse the suds away. “If I had a chair, I would likely fall asleep right here; naked. It might be embarrassing to be caught naked …” His voice faded away. He was planning on saying that he didn’t want to be caught naked outside, then he realized he wasn’t outside, there was a decent ceiling overhead.

  Besides, no one except his drascos and the piglets had entered his personal jungle since Dollish led the aliens here. “It might be nice if I did have company. I’ll bet Allie would like this type of rain shower.” Like most couples, they’d showered together, but most military designed showers were designed for one person and didn’t leave the two of them much room to experiment. “It is a bit open here, but neither of us are particularly shy.”

  “We would make sure you weren’t interrupted when you did your sex thing, Mama.”

  “Has Corporal Tuttle been letting you watch her have sex again?”

  Jay shook her head no. “The marines are too busy to have sex, even Barb.” Jay looked at Stone and flapped a wing in his direction. “Or even Allie. Barb says they have too many new marines and need … inter — something. Mama, I forgot her word.”

  “Integrate?”

  “Yes, Mama. Integrate. Are we integrate?”

  “She just means that they need to learn to work as a team. We are a team, Jay. Me, you, and Peebee, all of your daughters, and the piglets. We work together.”

  Jay asked. “Why can’t we help you with your navy work now?”

  “It’s for the navy to do. You help me everywhere else. Maybe you and the piglets can build me a gazebo or something. Maybe with a place for fresh towels and soap so that Shorty and Sissie don’t have to cater to me.” He tossed the soap off to the side.

  Jay said, “Sissie says that Shorty has already made plans to add a shower room to your cabin. He wants to know if you want them to stop gardening and build it first.”

  “No. I would like something nicer.” He looked over at the piglet. “Shorty, you are to decide what you want done in here first.” He shut the water off, and took the towel from Sissie. A gazebo might provide a little privacy when Allie does finally get time to come and visit.

  Thinking about Allie, he spoke aloud, more to himself than Jay or the piglets. “What did Allie mean about the couple she met on Peach’s Rest? Did I hear her wrong or was she implying something when she said I like them?”

  Jay shrugged her massive shoulders, rustling her wings. “I can help you with talking to Shorty, but I can’t help you with Allie. You should ask her, not me.”

  “I will, but I haven’t seen her since she said it.”

  Jay looked at Sissie and then back at Stone. “Sissie says Allie is sleeping now. She will go bring her here if you want.”

  “No let her sleep. I need to do that too.”

  “Good. You sleep. I will go tear up some trees.”

  Stone stopped. He could hear his dataport buzzing from the cabin. In quick order, Shorty ran out of the old tool shed and handed the device to him. He made sure the video pick up was blocked and tapped it open. “Ensign Senior Grade Stone here.”

  An image of Master Chief Thomas popped up. “Sir, you’ve — Ensign, is your dataport broken? Your comms isn’t transmitting a picture.”

  “I was in the shower, Master Chief.”

  “With your dataport?”

  “No, Master Chief. It was just nearby.”

  “Ensign, I realize you don’t have much experience being an officer on a navy warship, even one as decrepit as this old p.o.s.”

  “Actually, I don’t have any.” Although Stone had earned the coveted red stripe on his trousers denoting commanding a navy ship in combat, he’d only been assigned to a warehouse ship and taken transport on an explorer class vessel. That was the extent of his experience.

  The master chief nodded. “Leave your visual on. It’s a security measure. That way the caller can see if you are in distress or under duress.”

  Stone unblocked the visual. “Yes, Mast —”

  “Good grief, Ensign. Angle the vid pick up, would you? You aren’t the first navy ensign I’ve seen naked, but I would rather not repeat the incident.”

  Stone sighed. “Yes, Master Chief. What can I do for you?”

  “Officer’s call in thirty mikes. Get a move on, sir. The captain is on the warpath about something.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  For the first time in a long time, Stone was not the last person to arrive at the captain’s office for officer’s call. He managed to get there in time to walk past the plethora of higher ranking officers waiting in the corridor for the junior officers to arrive and seat themselves first. Navy tradition dictated that the lowest ranking person enter first and take their seat. All would stand again upon the arrival of the highest ranking officer. As governo
r, Stone had done away with that protocol, but once again, he realized he wasn’t in charge anymore.

  Taking a seat to the left of the highest ranking EJG, he nodded to the ESG taking her seat just to his left. She plopped into her seat a fraction of a second after his butt hit his chair and she nodded to the ESG seating himself on her left. Thinking about foolish traditions, Stone realized this one might have an intended benefit.

  Rusty Hinges was a navy combat vessel. They were a Q-Ship on an intelligence gathering mission, but the captain obviously expected to need weapons, or wanted them should the need arise. Even on a ship this big, combat meant that people died. Command personnel shifted. He’d been assigned as a low ranking midshipman on the UEN Periodontitis, but he’d jumped up to command, replacing a corrupt admiral. The investigators found other criminals on the vast warehouse ship. Re-integrating the innocent officers into the active ranks was easy because they had time to study everyone’s rank and date of promotion to determine position reassignment.

  He glanced down the line of officers. LTJG Vera was just seating herself, nodding to the next highest ranking lieutenant. She was Stone’s direct supervisor. If she was taken out, he would step into her position. That was easy. If there were some disaster that wiped out a long string of officers, the officer just to his left would take command of the ship, just as the lower ranking officer to his right would take command of the ship if Stone died. Stone shook his head. He didn’t have any plans to die, but he was glad the navy had a tradition in place to smooth violent transitions.

  He checked his schedule on his dataport. This meeting wasn’t on the schedule so Captain Butcher must have something on his mind. The master chief said he was on the warpath, so somebody’s backside was going to be caught in the wringer.

  He didn’t think it was his.

  Trying to remember everything since their last officer’s call, he couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. That didn’t mean Ell, Anne, or Tee hadn’t done something girlishly silly. He wasn’t worried about the piglets. As vent runners and rat catchers, they were much more helpful than they were underfoot. However, he realized he would much rather be the chewer than the chewee at any chewing out session.