Metal Boxes - Trapped Outside

by Alan Black

  In a few weeks, a Stone Freight company ship, the Iridium Rock, was scheduled to arrive with his cousins Vance and Marvin, planetary exploitation experts. He’d sent a message for them to plan on dropping off their people and equipment, then transporting the injured and dead marines back to Brickman’s Station, the closest transport hub, for final transport back to Lazzaroni Base. In the meantime, Stone could send all of his medical team and their supplies down to help the medical corpsmen assigned to the marine company on the ground.

  Beyond that, he didn’t see what difference it mattered who went first. He just couldn’t see why anyone would be eager—except marines—to go to a planet so dangerous that over twenty marines had already been hurt or killed. The news that marines had died was startling. He and Danielle Wright had spent a month on Allie’s World and come away with only scratches, bruises, and scrapes. Still, they’d only been trying to survive their time, not pacify the planet and build permanent structures.

  Thomas was right. He was micromanaging the load out. “I’m going to number the shuttle departures. Shuttle one will be the large Vasco de Gama freight shuttle and will take Master Chief Thomas as the senior navy NCO in charge of the navy ground contingent. With him in shuttle one and on the smaller shuttle two will be all medical personnel, equipment, and supplies to immediately help the wounded marines on the ground. Doctor Menendez will determine the order of the medical corps in those first two shuttles. Shuttles three and four are the small Vasco de Gama shuttles. Shuttles five through eight are the even smaller marine shuttles.

  “Shuttles three, ten, eleven, and twelve will carry all navy personnel and equipment. Thomas will decide the remaining order of who goes in which shuttle for the navy. Shuttle four through nine will transport civilian specialists. Doctor Triplett will assign all civilians to their departure order.” Dr. Mohamed started to complain. “No, Doctor. You don’t have veto authority over Doctor Triplett. It’s her ball of string to untangle. However, I suggest Master Chief Thomas and Doctor Menendez find room on shuttle one for Dr. Mohamed, so he can begin to survey his assigned space and direct his incoming people and equipment.”

  Stone waved a hand at Hammermill, stopping an interruption. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Hammermill, even though the marines have taken serious injuries, they’ve reported through Commander Butcher that our landing zone and base area are secure. You’ll take shuttles, thirteen through fifteen. You’ll decide how to divide up your marines and their equipment. Even though we can do this in fifteen loads, I’m going to take shuttle number sixteen with the drascos. They may be used to riding in a shuttle, but we’re bringing them back to their home planet for the first time and I don’t know how they’ll react.” He could see no one in the group believed the drascos were his real reason for going last.

  Stone shook his head. “We can only load and launch four shuttles at a time, so once the first four are gone, the four marine shuttles from Allie’s World can dock, load and depart, while shuttles one through four land and unload. Each shuttle load will need to be prepped and standing by for quick transition to the ground. Master Chief Thomas, Doctor Triplett, Doctor Menendez, and Lieutenant Hammermill will deliver their organization charts for each shuttle to me no later than sixteen hundred hours today.”

  He sighed, he didn’t like being in command of people who outranked him. There weren’t any midshipmen on this deployment, so there weren’t any officers below him in rank. He was going to be in charge of a marine contingent including 1LT Hammermill and three other officers. He was also saddled with LCDR Butcher on the Vasco de Gama and his two officers. He may outrank MCPO Thomas on an organization chart, but a person didn’t get to his exalted NCO status without higher educational degrees and more than twice the time in the service than Stone had been alive. He was also in command of the medical corps, full of officers, doctors, and nurses. Even Mohamed and Triplett, while civilians, were experts in their fields with more collective education than Stone could hope to achieving.

  He shook his head wondering how he kept getting himself into these kinds of situations where he was in charge of people with more experience than him. He’d been put in command of the Ol’ Toothless when it was discovered she was infested with a ring of thieves. That little episode put him in the middle of the Hyrocanian War and almost got him killed—more than once. He imagined now would be a good time to go back to supervising pot washers.

  NINE

  Stone jumped sideways through the open shuttle door, slamming into the garage wall. He rebounded, but kept to his feet. Jay and Peebee’s rush to get out of the small shuttle would’ve trampled him, scraping skin and bruising muscles if he hadn’t gotten out of their way. He thanked the divine powers for the marines who’d already built a secure compound, and for the shuttle pilot deciding to debark all passengers inside a large bay.

  Through the open garage door, he could see the dual purpose inner circle parade ground and courtyard covered in reddish green grass and greenish red bushes. He was on Allie’s World again. He refused to follow Jay and Peebee’s rush to get outside. The drascos rolled in the grass, ripped plants out of the ground to chew them whole, and made huge piles of poop. They wonked and huffed loudly, racing round the ranks of marines in formation until Hammermill stepped out of formation and shouted at them to settle down. They dropped to the ground at the command and lay panting with excitement at the rows of men and women in their marine combat suits, standing at parade rest. The drascos looked at the rows of suited marines as if they were sizing up a new pile of chew toys, their tails thumping the ground in excitement.

  Hammermill’s platoon was the only marine unit not suited up, having just arrived from the ship in orbit.

  Civilian and navy personnel were rushing out of doors and other shuttle hangars. The navy formed ranks and the civilians clustered in groups. He could see a few in each group nervously glancing skyward. Stone wondered what the formation was for, but he couldn’t hide from it. Whatever was happening, he would have to go outside and join the formation. He could see Corporal Tuttle rushing from a shuttle bay, the last marine contingent landing on the planet, urging the remainder of Hammermill’s platoon into the formation. MCPO Thomas stood at the head of the small navy group, not urging anyone, leaving lower ranking NCOs to chivvy their people into a proper formation. PO3 Ryte stood in the ranks ignoring the pushing and shoving going on around her as the navy formed up. Dr. Mohamed, having been on the first shuttle down, stood with Dr. Triplett and the rest of the civilian planetary exploitation team, not bothering with any formation, just clustered together discussing whatever such people discussed, barely acknowledging the formations around them.

  Taking a deep breath, feeling all the muscles in his body tense, Stone took aim at the navy formation and purposefully marched in their direction. Three steps from the grass at the edge of a hangar, a voice blared from a speaker somewhere, “Commander on the ground. Formation, a-ten-hut!” Stone froze, snapping to attention.

  A suited trio of marines broke from their places at the head of the platoons, met in the middle of the parade ground, formed into a row three abreast and marched straight at him. Their faceplates snapped up exactly ten meters from him and he looked up at the smiling faces of Maj Numos, 2LT Heller, and most importantly, 1LT Allie Vedrian.

  He ached to leap to her and hug her, but he was standing at attention. Then it occurred to him—this formation was for him. He hadn’t expected a change of command ceremony. He should have. He grinned back at them. He thought of these three officers plus 1LT Hammermill as his marines. Sure, they were ultimately the Emperor’s marines, but they’d had his back more than once.

  Trying to think what he was supposed to say, nothing came to him. He shrugged and said, “It’s more than nice to see you. What now?”

  Allie snorted at his confusion and winked at him. Heller rolled his eyes as if to say, “what else could we expect”. Numos said, “Just say, ‘Ensign Stone accepts command of Allie’s World, Base Able, and all orb
ital defenses’, Governor.”

  Stone repeated the phrase. Numos must have set his suit’s audio system to pick up his voice and broadcast it to everyone on the parade ground.

  The next words Numos said were not broadcast, but spoken so only the four of them could hear it. “You’re in command, Ensign. Do you wish to make any comments?”

  He winced at the thought of making an impromptu speech. “No, Major. Certainly not.” In his short time in the military he’d stood at attention in more formations than he could count while some officer or another droned on about an old command he was leaving, the new command she was taking over, a fellow officer taking retirement, all of the things they expected to do in retirement, and how this promotion, award, medal or recognition ceremony was so well deserved. He never wanted to end a ceremony as quickly as he wanted this one finished.

  Numos said, “Command formation, about face.” The three marines spun around to face the parade ground formation. He and Allie took a giant step backward to flank Stone. Though Stone was working hard to grow taller, squeezed between the two huge marine combat suits made him look like he was surrounded by mountains.

  Heller broadcast. “Formation, dis-missed.” The ranks broke like dry leaves in a high wind.

  Jay and Peebee took the announcement as a sign to jump into the middle of their new chew toys, scattering marines in all directions. Jay spun and attacked a suited marine, wonking happily. The marine, not used to domesticated drascos, ducked, spun, grabbed Jay’s front leg and threw her fifteen feet. She hit the ground, digging a long furrow into the dirt. Jumping up before the dust settled, she spun around, ready to rush back. The marine leapt toward Jay, the suit muscles driving upward. In mid-air, a quick snap hand and the marine unsheathed a two-foot serrated knife.

  Half a dozen voices shouted, “She’s a pet.”, “No weapons.”, “Belay that.”, “Stop!”, “As you were.”, and “No!” The voices collided in a babel of noise, barely discernible.

  TEN

  Stone sat at the head of the conference table waiting for his command staff to arrive. He hated staff meetings, but the Iridium Rock would arrive tomorrow with more people and he wanted to make sure they were ready for the personnel influx. The base was designed to hold more than twice the number of people they already had plus what was coming, so there was room for everyone. He hoped this transition would go smoother than the last one and certainly much smoother than his first visit to Allie’s World.

  He glanced out the window overlooking the parade ground. Jay lay in the shade gnawing on a tree trunk, going at it like a two-year-old child on a peppermint stick. Peebee lay in the sun, stretched out on her back, belly to the sun, snoozing in the warmth. Both drascos were tired after a hard morning of play with a full platoon of marines.

  At first, the marines of Allie’s world were hesitant around his drascos. Their only contact with drascos had been the wild variety offered by the planet. Local female drascos were only dangerous when cornered or when their young were threatened. Male drascos required calling in artillery. 1LT Hammermill vouched for Jay and Peebee and before long, the platoons were competing to see who played with his drascos.

  The local marines, not having known them as babies, played harder than Hammermill’s platoon. As hard as they played, no one had found the drasco’s breaking point, or even how to hurt them without using weapons. The fauna experts with Dr. Triplett’s team poked and prodded his drascos—being careful not to poke any sensitive areas.

  Triplett tried to continue her conversation from the doctor’s office back on Lazzaroni Base and take ownership of Jay and Peebee. There was a long discussion about what to do with a pet who bites. The civilians wanted to euthanize Peebee and perform an autopsy for biting Dr. Emmons on Lazzaroni. Stone thought that was their plan from the beginning, even to the extent of having one of the researchers deliberately provoke Peebee into biting. The marines sided with Stone declaring the behaviorist should be euthanized and autopsied for prodding Peebee in places she didn’t like being poked. The civilians dropped the conversation when the marines gave them a freshly killed, wild drasco to autopsy and compare against existing autopsy recordings.

  Stone sighed. Being in charge of this conglomeration wasn’t easy. If it had been all marines, all navy or even all medical corps it would be easier. Even if everyone were all military it would have been doable. The marines were there for base protection and did things one way. The navy provided support and did things another way. The military medical staff wanted to do everything another way. Three branches of the military fighting over protocol and resources was bad enough, but the Emperor had also saddled him with the oversight of a ship in orbit and a gaggle of civilian scientists.

  Tomorrow he would get a new set of civilians. Heading the incoming personnel group were his cousins, Vance and Marvin. He had verified the family connection through his family database, as he barely remembered the men. They were brothers and his mother’s second cousins, so the relationship was close enough to know them, yet they were older by twenty years. They were interested in the planet from a profit standpoint. Their only interest in the scientific studies of Allie’s World was how it affected the bottom line. Their whole staff was focused on how to exploit the planet. Was it ripe for colonization? Was it best used for mining and manufacturing? Was farming and ranching feasible? Which of the hundred types of planetary uses would best serve their family coffers? And almost as important, what profit could be squeezed from the other planetary bodies in this system?

  Stone did have a vested interest in profit. However, as the Emperor’s appointed governor, he had to keep in mind his responsibility for ensuring both minor partners received the maximum benefit from their participation. Danielle Wright owned twenty-five percent of the planet. Whatever they did, she would be richer than she ever dreamed possible. The Emperor owned ten percent of the planet. He wasn’t a business novice, nor were any of his financial advisers. He had already invested significant funds for planetary pacification. After all, the navy ship in orbit above was his. The marines who flew shuttle flights overhead and walked the defensive parapets were his. The navy providing support, from EJG Blackmon Perry Stone in command to PO3 Tammie Ryte in communications to S3C Dollish the lowest pot washer in the galley, was his. The medical staff and the smallest bottle of aspirin had been sent at the Emperor’s expense. He paid the civilian scientists, so their discoveries and delays couldn’t be dismissed. Stone smiled knowing the Emperor would be reimbursed for the tiniest expense at the first glimpse of profit. The quickest profit would come when the scientists discovered something to pique the Emperor’s interest so he’d buy out his other partners.

  He nodded at Thomas as the master chief slipped into the chair at the foot of the conference table. The man continued to dog his every step. Except for Stone, Thomas was the highest-ranking navy person on the planet. As the governor, Stone had assigned him to manage the day-to-day activities of all support personnel. Protocol said the room should fill from lowest rank to the highest with Stone, as the commander arriving last, forcing everyone already seated to stand for him. As the only enlisted person on Stone’s staff, Thomas should have arrived at the conference room first.

  Protocol be damned. Stone suppressed a smile at having beaten the NCO to the table. He was an ensign. Lingering in the corridor, staring at dust motes for amusement while waiting for a marine major to be seated, then forcing the man to jump to his feet as he walked into the room, seemed foolish. Dr. Mohamed never bothered with protocol, even sending Dr. Triplett in his stead more often than not. LCDR Butcher usually remained on the Vasco de Gama and hologrammed in on signal by Thomas. Since he wasn’t on site, snapping to attention wasn’t required.

  A second member of his staff slid into the room, LTSG Dr. Menendez of the military medical corps must have been standing nearby waiting until Thomas arrived and was seated. The woman looked surprised to see Stone already there. Nodding and finding her seat on Stone’s right with her back to the
window, she dug through reports on her dataport keeping her head down to cover her confusion.

  Stone pulled up a message from Thomas. He expected it to be a quick note on following meeting protocol to keep people like Menendez from being confused. He was wrong, the note simply said, “interesting”. An attachment from PO3 Ryte about hearing an unusual signal over comms was clipped to the message.

  He read Ryte’s report. During routine signal sweeps, she had picked up blips from an unidentified signal. She ran it through all known samples looking for a match, but she hadn’t found anything at the time of the report. The signal didn’t appear to match up with any base or ship activity and the Vasco de Gama reported clear space around the planet. The signal wasn’t human in origin, nor did it match any signal captured from known alien species. The Hyrocanians were still pursuing hostilities against humans, but so far they were a long way from Allie’s World. No other alien race offered anything more than profitable commerce, trade, and polite—if not genial—diplomatic relations.

  Allie’s World was well inside human controlled space. Stone wasn’t an expert in hyperspace despite having traveled through the gray more times than he could count. Normal routes from point A to point B always took the same time to travel, yet if it took the same time to go from point C to point D, the distances weren’t the same. Even when the distances were the same, different jump points produced different travel times in the gray. Even the common term “jump point” was a misnomer. They were really navigation points since a ship could jump into hyperspace from anywhere and jump out again any time they wanted. Precise navigation points controlled the jump so a ship didn’t end up exiting hyperspace inside a sun or in an unexplored part of the galaxy. The shortest times in hyperspace within human controlled space were well mapped on everyone’s navigation charts. The shortest transit time routes were busy while a few known long transit time routes were rarely used.