by Alan Black
Only a year had passed since the unfortunate incident at Point Alpha-Beta where, as a lowly midshipman, he’d taken command of UEN Periodontitis, leading her and her crew into combat, saving the fleet and destroying more Hyrocanian ships than he could count. He still claimed his actions weren’t anything more than a series of guesses with some good luck thrown in, and how he’d only been doing his job. That little trip resulted in him receiving a chest full of medals and a blood red stripe down his trouser legs for commanding one of the emperor’s ships in combat. That stripe caused each officer on base, from other lowly midshipmen to full commanders to glare at him with envy, jealousy, or resentment. Most, if not all of them, would never earn a combat command stripe.
The last twelve months were spent on Lazzaroni Base, doing what Master Chief Thomas called casual scut work befitting a lowly midshipman who still couldn’t do basic math calculations without dataport assistance. Endless days of supervising kitchen helpers scrubbing pots in a galley—even though the cooks and stewards had machines to do it better. Mindless workshifts watching teams of students working off demerits sweeping the garage floor—even if the mechanics and shop crew had machines to do it faster. Boring hours directing low ranking enlisted crew emptying office trash bins—although the administration technicians had machines to do it with far less grumbling. Stone’s scut work was mixed with incessant days of legal testimony, interviews, and depositions about the unfortunate incident at Point Alpha-Beta and his deliberate destruction of a large portion of one of the emperor’s spaceships.
He was thankful the military tribunal determined he wasn’t financially responsible for destroying Tower Six of the Ol’ Toothless. They found him well within regulations, even as a junior grade midshipman, for forcibly replacing an admiral and taking over as captain of UEN Periodontitis, a huge warehouse resupply ship.
They vetted every metal and ribbon he’d been awarded, including the coveted red stripe on his trousers denoting his experience as the captain of a ship during combat operations. He’d been given more awards and decorations for risking his life to save the empire’s fleet from destruction by an invading Hyrocanian force.
The navy had scrapped UEN Periodontitis as everyone expected. Her crew was reassigned, waiting reassignment, or sent to prison for theft, embezzlement, murder, and a host of other charges too long for news pundits to bother listing. Her passengers were long gone and her cargo was unloaded, verified, and shipped out to resupply the fleet. Only Marine First Lieutenant Hammermill and his platoon from his deployment on the Ol’ Toothless, remained on Lazzaroni Base. Danielle Wright had retired to marry Maggot and wait for her fortune to accumulate—riches from her part ownership of Allie’s World, the planet she and Stone had found. Major Numos and Second Lieutenant Heller were gone to points unknown, taking a tearful First Lieutenant Allie Vedrian with them.
He missed Allie most of all. He wrote to her each day, trying desperately not to sound desperate. Letters coming back were infrequent and heavily redacted, empty of anything about where she was and what she was doing. The other women on the base weren’t any consolation, although many, like PO3 Ryte threw themselves at him. None came close to Allie’s wit, intelligence, strength, or courage.
Ryte was more than pretty and had a smoking hot body—many of his fellow midshipmen went out of their way just to get a glimpse of her—but she wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. Stone liked large women, much larger than Ryte’s five feet five inch frame. Allie was still a head taller than him even though he was in the middle of a growth spurt. Though five feet seven inches at academy graduation, he now stood an amazing five feet ten inches. His height was amazing to him, although everyone else seemed to take it as a matter of course.
The delay in his reassignment due to the legal proceedings, kept him inside, even stationed planet-side on Lazzaroni Base, except for a few shuttle side trips flying from one garage hangar to another. He was thankful he wasn’t a marine who had to go outside and train in the actual open air on real dirt.
Hammermill was still with him, though no one would explain why the newly promoted first lieutenant’s platoon hadn’t been deployed with the rest of his unit. The huge marine still enjoyed drasco-sitting his pets when Stone needed to be elsewhere. He became giddy at the thought of taking the drascos along with a squad outside to play in the dirt every morning. Hammer claimed they were playing, but from the video playback Stone watched, it looked like combat training with his drascos playing the bad guys. Stone liked watching the training videos because the good guys didn’t always win.
Stone’s dataport blared, “Midshipman Stone to Commander Butcher’s office ASAP.”
He breathed into Jay and Peebee’s mouths, huffing out carbon dioxide, sharing a breath with his two most loyal friends. “Crap!” Looking into Jay’s eyes, he said again, “Crap!” Lieutenant Commander Butcher never had good news, in fact, terrible news was always on the agenda whenever he was called to go to his supervisor’s office for a face-to-face meeting. He received general bad news at officer’s call in the early morning. Run of the mill bad news came via Master Chief Thomas. His personal dataport always delivered personal bad news. He wasn’t scheduled for any legal depositions today, his drascos hadn’t broken anything important in the last few days, and he hadn’t committed any military faux pas like mutiny or murder—none he could remember, anyway.
Hammermill waved at him from a cluster of nearby marines. “I heard. I have a meeting at Marine Bureau of Personnel. I can’t watch the girls for you.”
Another marine flipped up her faceplate. “I’ll watch the drascos, sweetie.” Lance Corporal Barbara Tuttle’s grin gave Stone the shivers. He barely managed to shake his head “no thanks”. Barb was a good marine and a fun person when she wasn’t trying to get into his pants. Her six feet six inch frame was large enough to suit his tastes and she was pretty enough to model for recruiting posters with jet black hair, deep blue eyes, and the weird, sexy, front tooth gap some women get. Her body wasn’t as broad and muscular as Allie’s, but she was built like she was welded from eight inch steel cables twisted into a woman’s shape, all taut muscle and tendons under soft leather. She wasn’t shy about letting everyone know she was interested in Stone—not for his money, just for his body. Barb dabbled in sex like coin collectors dabbled in pennies, pence, and pounds or bug collectors dabbled in beetles, bees, and butterflies. She’d worked her way through all the marines on base, both permanent party and transients, and had recently started working her way through the base navy personnel. Stone was tempted—what seventeen-year-old guy wouldn’t be, except Barb scared the bejeezus out of him, not to mention what he thought Allie would do if she found out about it. No, not if, but when. Allie always seemed to know what went on everywhere in Stone’s universe.
Stone needed to get Jay and Peebee to their cage in the midshipman barracks if 1LT Hammermill couldn’t watch them. The custom built bars couldn’t keep the drascos in if they wanted out, but the symbolism of the bars made the other midshipmen relatively comfortable around the drascos when Stone left them alone in their shared dormitory. ASAP didn’t mean he had time to dawdle. Setting his destination address into his dataport caused it to broadcast a warning message through the base-wide system, making way for the drascos as he rushed to get them put away and get himself to the meeting.
Stone glanced behind him. Following along behind, none too discretely, was his babysitter Master Chief Thomas. “Damn the man!” Stone muttered. “He just won’t give me a moment to myself.”
FOUR
Stone was only a few hatches away from LCDR Butcher’s office when he received a second call to report to the base medical corps section. He was to report immediately. He was navy, so his supervisor’s ASAP call overruled other military services or civilian requirements on his time. Immediately from the medical corps meant as little to him as on the double from any marine officer when compared with his navy requirements. He had been poked and prodded by a long series of doctor
s since his return from Allie’s World and he wasn’t interested in doing it all over again. They could wait until his supervisor was done with him.
He glanced down at his shoes, hoping they were clean enough for his supervisor’s tastes, and bumped into Petty Officer Tammie Ryte—again. The bump was pleasant enough since Ryte was wonderfully soft in all of those places women are supposed to be soft, yet he was on time and any delay might make him late. He wasn’t sure how being late to ASAP was possible, but he knew Butcher thought it was more than feasible and that somehow Stone accomplished it on a regular basis. Previously, being late didn’t bother Stone, however he was beginning to get quirky about being at the right place at the right time.
Ryte snapped to attention as they were in a part of the ship frequented more by officers than not. She didn’t salute since they were inside, but she was close enough to him that throwing her shoulders back and thrusting her chest out, caused her nipples to brush against his arm. He couldn’t help but look down, although he tried not to stare. She’d changed and wore a flimsy uniform blouse. Her hard nipples strained against her uniform’s thin fabric, barely containing her breasts as they struggled to undo a row of partially closed buttons. Her uniform jacket hung in her hand, the hem dragging on the deck. It didn’t matter if she dragged her jacket through puddles of mud, the material for class A uniforms wouldn’t wrinkle or get dirty. It just looked so unprofessional.
He wanted to wonder about the jacket, instead he wondered why and what made it possible for Ryte’s nipples to always be hard. He’d looked up nipples in the station’s database. What guy hadn’t? It informed him that nipples hardened when a person was cold or when they were sexually excited. This corridor wasn’t cold.
“As you were, Petty Officer,” Stone managed to say. It felt odd to be so suddenly professional when they’d spoken like colleagues just a short while ago. However, when a small group of senior officers walked past them, it all made sense. Senior officers all seemed to love the spit, polish, and pomp surrounding military life.
“Thank you, Mister Stone. Golly, I seem to be bumping into you all over.” Ryte grinned at him. “Busy day? Maybe we could get together over lunch and you could, you know, tell me all about it? Okay?”
“Sorry, but my day is booked.”
“Well gosh, sir. That’s too bad.” Stone didn’t want to correct her. He was a midshipman and should be addressed as mister not sir. Anyone achieving the rank of PO3 should be more than well aware of the tradition. Still, sexy or not, she wasn’t the brightest light in the night sky. He let her babble on while he looked for a place to interrupt and disengage so he could get to his meeting with Butcher. “You know, I was thinking about those animal things you got. Well, it seems to me if you got a male thing, um—you know, not your thing, I mean a male animal thing, you could get some baby things and sell them. I know you don’t really need the money, but I could help you breed—” She smiled and gave him a sly wink. “Well, that too, but I mean breed your animal things and we could be partners, you know?”
Stone nodded. “Nice suggestion, Petty Officer Ryte. I’ll think about it. However, if you’ll excuse me, I do have a meeting in Lieutenant Commander Butcher’s office.”
“Really? I’m headed down to office A-316. Is that near his office? I don’t know my way around officer’s country and maybe you could, you know, like, guide me?”
Stone gave a small internal sigh. A-316 was the waiting room for a dozen officers. A pair of senior chiefs, acting as gatekeepers, staffed the room. He didn’t see how he could avoid showing her where to go, as Butcher’s office was one of the dozen offices branching off that waiting room. He simply nodded his agreement and was startled when she hooked an arm through his and began chattering away about some vid or other on the entertainment channels.
FIVE
LCDR Butcher’s angry glare slid over Stone, transforming into a smile and greeting at MCPO Thomas. Stone’s supervisor glanced at the time on his dataport and went back to reading through a series of reports displayed on his desk. There wasn’t an announced time for this meeting and clearly Butcher was impatient to begin, but he didn’t. The commander showed more patience than Stone suspected was possible, but the man ground his teeth in anger or frustration about something other than the delay.
Seated on a hard plasticrete-molded chair, Stone glanced around the room and cursed under his breath. “Dammit!” Since the call was broadcast for the meeting in Butcher’s office, MCPO Thomas managed to get a haircut, change into his class B uniform, complete with ribbons, decorations, and awards, and polish his shoes to a mirror-like gloss. The man was completely irritating whether he said anything or not. Stone still wore his everyday utilities with standard shipboard boots that couldn’t be polished, just wiped clean.
The senior chief gatekeeper in the lobby determined PO3 Ryte was called for the same meeting and sent them into Butcher’s office together. Now, she was seated in the corner smiling back at him. Earlier in the day, she’d been wearing an undersized duty uniform, yet sometime between getting the call to go to A-316 and bumping into him in the corridor, she’d managed to change to her class A uniform, resplendent with medals, braids, and shiny brass. Sitting alone in a corner, reading something on a dataport was a young, navy lieutenant senior grade. Stone didn’t know the man, yet even he wore a class B uniform with polished shoes and a shave so close it gleamed.
Stone wondered what was going on and why Ryte was here. He hadn’t had anything more than navy business with Ryte, except dodging her overt advances. She was in communications and often contacted him to hand-deliver notices from the court, navy correspondence, and notes from Allie. Family letters were routed directly to his personal dataport and all official messages were subject to review, revision, and routing through channels. Stone understood why. There was a war on, after all. However, why was she here? He hadn’t even come close to sexually harassing her, never making suggesting comments, not even leering, ogling or eyeballing her perfectly formed backside as she sashayed down a corridor in front of him, at least not so much anyone caught him at it. If anything, Ryte had harassed him. He’d never made any official complaints, as Ryte’s innuendos and advances didn’t ever measure up to Barb Tuttle’s common, blatant, and quite often public offers to give him the giggles.
Maybe Ryte had filed a harassment complaint against him. He hadn’t harassed her, he was actually trying to ignore her beyond anything not related to navy business. Ignoring her classic beauty and oozing sexuality wasn’t easy, but Allie was always on his mind. Truth be told, he might have caved into Ryte’s advances—he was a guy after all. With MCPO Thomas and 1LT Hammermill around all of the time, he couldn’t figure out how to get Ryte out of her uniform without word getting back to Allie. Making his girlfriend mad at him was something he wouldn’t do again, no matter how tempting Ryte’s wiggles, giggles, and jiggles. Maybe Ryte had grown tired of him ignoring her and filed a complaint against him as nothing more than an attempt to get his attention.
The room was quiet and warm. He kept himself from checking his dataport or the time on his personal dataport, not wanting to appear impatient with his supervisor. Stone began to realize he would have had time to change into any uniform he wanted and still be on time for whatever this meeting was about, and even bathe Jay and Peebee, relax in a steam bath, get a massage down at the gym, eat a leisurely lunch, and go see what the medical corps wanted. His eyes were beginning to droop when MCPO Thomas’s voice rasped, “Admiral on deck. Room ‘ten-hut.”
Left to his own reflexes, Stone might have groaned, grunted, and levered himself to his feet in some semblance of attention. However, his reflexes weren’t his own. His body had been taken over by the navy, infusing him with muscle memory, so he was on his feet before his mind registered the command. After months of legal wrangling, award ceremonies, and social functions, admirals held no special place in his heart. Even catching the reflection off three brass stars didn’t cause any shiver of excitement, just
a tingle of curiosity.
The admiral said, “As you were, people. Thom, I appreciate your kindness in inviting me to your briefing.” He glanced around the room, staring at Stone longer than a good-sized bowl of ice cream would last at a fat man’s convention, but he said nothing to him. His eyes slid past Ryte and the first lieutenant as if they weren’t there. He grinned at MCPO Thomas. “Percy! Good to see you again, you old fart sniffer.”
Stone almost choked on his breath, master chiefs were not as rare as vice admirals, but they were gods among the enlisted. He wasn’t surprised an admiral would call a lower rank by their first name, admirals held that right if anyone did. Calling a master chief a fart sniffer was a little over the top, but he wouldn’t argue with an admiral. What caused his momentary brain freeze was the name; who in their right mind would name a child Percy?
The master chief laughed. “Takes one to know one, boss.”
The admiral asked, “How’s Silvie?”
The master chief frowned in concentration, “Two wives ago, Admiral Temple. She left me for a commander with a larger pension.”
“What is it now, five wives?”
Butcher laughed, forgetting for a moment he was supposed to be angry about something. “Four by my count, Admiral.”
Thomas shook his head while counting on his fingers. “GayLynn, Tressa, Silvie, Bobbie, and—and—dammit, boss. What was her name? Anyway, it’s five now.”