Metal Boxes

by Alan Black

  Once in the corridor, he raced to the tunnel between the central tower and tower three. He toggled on the heads-up display on the helmet face shield. He called up a clock display showing how much time had passed since the general quarters announcement. He was relieved to see he was going to pass through the tunnel between the central tower and tower three with plenty of time to spare.

  Each of the seven towers clustered around the central tower was designed to operate as an independent spaceship. In the event this was not another exercise, but a real attack by the Hyrocanians, the admiral in the central tower command bridge had the option to order a tower separation. This would seal the double set of hatches at the tunnel ends triggering explosive charges. It would blow the towers free to operate as a fleet of eight ships.

  Each tower was much larger than other navy combat ships. A helmsman with average skills could park even the largest dreadnought in the hanger bay of any tower. But for all of their bulk they were less heavily armed and much less heavily armored than a medium sized battle cruiser. Tower separation was thought to be more of a retreat move because it would give the enemy eight targets to attack instead of one. The thought was that maybe some towers would run and be able to get away while their fellow towers were being blown to bits.

  Any personnel caught in the tunnels at separation would have to wait for rescue while floating in space encased in a sealed metal tube until the battle was over. For exercise purposes, rescue meant whenever the exercise was over someone would come and open the tunnel hatches.

  Stone called up the roster of the enlisted men assigned to his general quarters station. He scanned the list quickly and frowned. It was the beginning of second watch, so all of his crew was officially off duty. He saw he was going to be short handed again. Petty Officer Watkins and three others were so drunk even a massive dose of detox was not going to get them to their duty station on time. All four were headed to sickbay as required by regulations. It was not against regulations to be drunk when not on duty, but if you were called up for any reason, you were required to report to sickbay for duty there. It was duty that consisted of taking detox, throwing up and then taking more detox.

  If those four were all that were missing Stone would have been able to manage the general quarters duties effectively. But, two others were also headed to sickbay, one with a complaint of diarrhea and one claiming a bad back. Three other spacers were listed as on leave, each with approved documents signed by Lieutenant Vaarhoo. One of the remaining enlisted spacers was down checked because her combat suit had refused to activate.

  That left Stone with two spacers to man a station that required eight enlisted men and an officer to handle. His general quarters station was munitions feed station #97 and proper staffing was important. Each tower had gun, laser, maser, phaser and missile emplacements all along their length. Each weapons station had a small munitions bunker nearby. Stone’s crew was tasked with sending the right ammunition to the correct munitions bunker from the main warehouse munitions storage facilities all along tower three. As long as the towers remained conjoined he was also responsible for feeding ammunition to the central tower, although the only functional weapons emplacements were at the top and bottom of the tower. Towers two and four also received munitions feeds from his station.

  Stone wanted to curse, but held his tongue. Each spacer had, by regulations, valid reasons for not attending the general quarters call. Stone could understand not wanting to seal up inside a combat suit when you were suffering from diarrhea and sickbay was where you went to get something to stop the runs. But, it was impossible to get to sickbay, get medicated and get to a duty station on time. A combat suit would also aggravate a bad back. Even going on leave was an enlisted man’s right. Lieutenant Vaarhoo was within regulations to authorize any requested leave and nothing even remotely suggested that he was required to notify a lowly midshipman beforehand. And although Stone had personally done a combat suit inspection on all of the enlisted suits less than two days ago, he knew bad things happen at the most inconvenient times. Still, it was disheartening to have less and less men for each general quarters call.

  Stone shook his head inside the helmet. He was not ready for a test run on his plan to operate general quarters with less than eight men, but it seemed he was not going to have a chance to test his plan before implementing it. He grinned realizing even if it did not work, it was not going to make things any worse than doing general quarters call with only twenty-five percent of the needed staff. He knew the enlisted men reporting for duty were the two newest members of his staff. Both men had reported on board the Ol’ Toothless after he did.

  He raced through the tunnel. He was glad to be able to ignore the gravity shift from the central tower’s horizontal gravity to tower three’s vertical gravity matrix. The suit made it possible to leap across the threshold with only a slight disorientation. It was not at all like being thrown across the shift.

  His duty station was three decks up. Since tower three was designed as a tube within a tube within a tube there were far fewer decks than in the central tower’s office building style layout. Stone ignored the elevators as they were already jammed with suited figures waiting for the next lift.

  He reached a ladder-well leading to the decks above. It was a long ladder, leading all the way to the central tube over three and a half kilometers above. The next deck above was five hundred meters over head. It would be a long climb up, but the suit would be doing most of the work.

  Each deck was a different distance apart depending on the requirements of the warehouse units and the storage capabilities. Each deck was set at a different gravity level dependent upon the storage needs. The ladder-well was a contradiction of gravity fluctuations where a person on the ladder might encounter zero gravity for long distances, interspersed with pockets of varying heaviness.

  Stone activated the suit’s enhanced mechanics and jumped. He shot up the ladder. If he began to slow he reached out a hand or a foot pressing against a step, rail or stanchion to continue his upward leap. It almost felt as if he were moving in a gravity free zone, except he slowed far too often.

  He reached the duty station before either of the enlisted men. There was a swivel chair in the middle that rotated to view all of the stations and displays in the circular room. He assumed it was for whoever was in command. He had never sat in the chair as he had always been sort handed and had manned a console station.

  He popped open the suit, slid the helmet back on the neck hinge and slid the gloves off on the wrist pinions. With his hands free, he reached into the suit and pulled out his personal assistant. He snapped it into the console. The p.a. broadcast a primary display onto the bulkhead. He scanned through the files, quickly pulling the special packet and spreading its displays across the bulkheads in front of the consoles. After setting the displays in place he sealed up his suit and gloves, but left his helmet visor open.

  “Spacers Ramirez and Rojo, reporting for duty, Mister Stone.”

  Stone spun about and smiled at the two men. “Gentlemen, if you please, Spacer Ramirez take console four and Spacer Rojo take console six. I will stand watch at console five.”

  Both men responded together, but without confidence, “Aye, aye, Mister Stone.”

  Stone smiled wider. “Thank you, gentlemen. Please feel free to crack your helmets open, but be prepared to seal up quickly.”

  “Mister Stone, who else is coming?” Ramirez asked as he opened his visor.

  “Just us, Spacer Ramirez,” Stone smiled confidently.

  “Well, that’s it,” Ramirez stood and said. “No way can three of us run this place. We might as well go back to bed.”

  “Sit down, Spacer Ramirez. We will perform and we will perform above standard, is that understood?” He spoke calmly, but he almost smiled when he realized he had used the same cadence and tone Chief Tsosie had used on him during training.

  “Mister Stone, I don’t recognize these displays. We didn’t train on these in
warehouse school,” Spacer Rojo said.

  Stone almost shuddered at the thought that the Empire had to send men to school to teach them how to move boxes from one shelf to another. He knew his growing up on freighters had jaded his view of the work, but it was not brain science. He stepped up to Rojo and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. It was a psychological touch as Rojo could not have felt his hand through Stone’s gauntlet or Rojo’s suit.

  “Those displays are how we are going to do this today. Spacer Rojo, each of these symbols is a destination munitions bunker. The display reads the records of how much they have and how much of what ammunition type they need. Spacer Ramirez, the displays in front of you show where we have munitions stored and how much we have. Watch these numbers here…” He continued to show the two men how the displays interacted. He quickly taught each man to touch the display to direct the warehouse to pull and dispense the appropriate munitions to the appropriate bunker.

  Spacer Ramirez said, “Cool, but what about the rails in section tcw-c17?”

  “They aren’t fixed yet?” Stone asked.

  “Huh, not as far as I know, but you’re the boss. Don’t you know…Mister Stone?”

  Stone remembered Chief Tsosie said men draw confidence from their officers, so he was to be confident at all times. However, Grandpa had said sometimes you have to show your men you are human. Stone was not sure how to answer. He decided to try honesty.

  “How would I know?” he said. “Those office weenies never tell the working man a thing. When were you last down there?”

  “Two days ago, I guess,” Ramirez shrugged. “Those anti-grave rails were still twisted then. No way just the three of us can manage this and hump munitions past that screwed up spot.”

  “Even in these suits it would take all three of us to wrestle some of these munitions loads,” Stone agreed with a nod.” No sense in complaining about the maintenance guys not getting here to fix the rails yet. We will just try to route around the bad spots. Let’s-”

  “Hey, navy boy!” Stone was interrupted by a shout. He spun about to see a giant marine combat suit filling the hatchway. The suit was sealed up and the voice had blasted from speakers.

  “You lost, marine?” Stone shouted back.

  “Mister Stone, I am an Emperor’s marine. I may not know exactly where I am, but I am never lost.” The suit twisted a bit and a huge gloved hand pointed at the name stenciled across the upper right chest.

  “Lieutenant Hammermill, this is a surprise,” Stone said with a tone of confusion in his voice. “I am running short of time here, but what can I do to help, sir?”

  “Well, Mister Stone, during general quarters we marines are assigned to seal up in our combat suits and scatter around the ship. Our hope, and it is our only hope of something to do, is for the chance to repel boarders. Since we are not told where we are to scatter on the ship, it was suggested, and I won’t say who suggested it, but it was suggested that I bring a squad over here. And I do gotta say, that here is as good as anywhere. So the real question is: what can I do for you? Keep in mind that regulations state we gotta stay sealed up, but these suits the Emperor loans us are very versatile.”

  “Do you happen to have anyone who is not too ham-fisted around a display?” Stone asked.

  Hammermill was silent. Stone realized he was not thinking about the answer, but asking his squad the question on a separate communications link. Hammermill stepped back and another suit crowded the hatch. This suit was years older and banged up, with so many stickers and handwritten notes scrawled on it that it looked like an elementary school bulletin board.

  The marine spoke through the suit’s speakers. “Sir, I do recognize those displays, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble adapting.”

  Stone was startled. “Gunny? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Mister Stone. I see you have managed to mangle my program and make it work for navy applications.” Gunny took a seat at a console and scanned through the displays.

  “So, that gives one of my marines something to do, Mister Stone.” Hammermill said. “What else have you got?”

  “Well, we have a bad anti-gravity rail section that is twisted. If the marines are not adverse to a little physical labor,” Stone admitted, “we need to manually move munitions past that section, especially if we go live.”

  “Oh, I love handling ammo,” Hammermill laughed. “I got enough guys here with me to form a bucket brigade if you need it.”

  Stone made a mental note to look up bucket brigade.

  “Spacer Ramirez,” Stone ordered, “take Lieutenant Hammermill to tcw-c17 and show him the bad rails.” He watched the navy man lead the group of marines down the corridor.

  “Mister Stone?” Gunny’s voice came through his suit’s speakers as the marine sergeant was still sealed up.

  “Yes, Gunny?”

  “Do we know whether this is a real event, a paper exercise or a live fire exercise?”

  Stone shrugged and then realized that even if Gunny had been looking at him he could not have seen the movement in his suit. He said, “I don’t really know. I have been told we can feel the vibrations through the hull when the guns fire, but I haven’t been here when they let loose so I can’t say for sure. Why? Are you worried about your getting from here to where you need to be to repel boarders?”

  “No, sir. Since the Hyrocanians have a tendency to ignore hatches and punch through the hull anywhere they please, that isn’t a problem. We can’t be everywhere at once, so anywhere we are standing is as good as anywhere else.”

  “What do you mean they come through the hull anywhere?” Stone asked.

  Gunny grinned at him through his visor. “Yes sir. We haven’t been able to figure out why they cut through a hull where they do. We don’t know whether it is random chance or whether they really have something on their teenie little brains. If they can get past the shields and the guns, they just slosh that acid sludge they use that eats through the hull. Then, they pour through the gap.”

  Stone looked up at the ceiling nervously; shook himself, and then realized that the hull really was down. “Acid sludge?”

  “Don’t you worry about it none, Mister Stone,” Gunny laughed. “That sludge’ll eat though these combat suits so fast you won’t feel a thing. Besides, a few hundred Hyrocanians shouldn’t bother a man who put Lieutenant Hammermill on his butt in a bar fight.”

  “Lieutenant Hammermill?” Spacer Rojo asked. “You mean that big lieutenant that was just in here? Mister Stone whooped his ass?”

  Stone said, “Oh, don’t listen to the Gunny, Spacer Rojo. It wasn’t like that-”

  Hammermill’s voice boomed out through their suit’s speakers. “If you are going to talk about me behind my back, then change frequencies on your communications units. And Rojo, don’t listen to Mister Stone. He is just too modest for his own good. He put me on my can. I can’t deny it. In fact, if I remember right, he ended up sitting on my chest. Ain’t that right, Gunny?”

  Gunny replied, “Yes, Lieutenant. I was there and saw the whole thing. And sir, there still isn’t another marine on this ship that can do the same thing…except maybe me and I wouldn’t ever try that on an officer, sir.”

  Hammermill’s laugh boomed over the speakers. “Don’t get too comfortable there Gunny. This may not be a drill. If this is real live action and it degenerates into repelling boarders, I want you free to sync up with us on the double, got me?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Gunny replied.

  “Why did you ask whether it was real or not, Gunny?” Stone asked.

  “Well, Mister Stone. Your numbers here indicate the stock levels of various munitions bunkers, right?”

  “Yes Gunny, you can see here, here and here.” Stone pointed at the various displays. “You can see what the level was when the general quarters call began and what it is now. So, if the gun crews are firing whether real or in an exercise we can see the rate of consumption. Why?”

  Gunny pointed at another figure. �
�This is the max level of what the bunker holds, right?”

  “Yes. Why…oh, I see. They weren’t even full to begin with, right? So, why don’t we go ahead and finish the load out! Gentlemen, let’s start moving munitions to match the numbers on the display.”

  “Good thinking, Mister Stone,” Gunny said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that first.”

  Stone laughed, “Yeah, yeah. Being a comedian may have gotten you to a gunnery sergeant in the marines, but you keep that crap up with me and the navy will make you an officer.”

  Gunny replied, “Hey LT, before that happens, put me in against the first wave of Hyrocanians.”

  “That was my plan anyway, Gunny,” Hammermill answered. “We gotta get rid of you old geezers somehow to make room for the young cannon fodder on the way up the ranks.”

  “Lieutenant Hammermill, we have started moving munitions. Are you ready to hump boxes past the bad spots?” Stone asked.

  Hammermill said. “No way, navy. We are right behind you.”

  Stone spun around and saw Hammermill blocking the hatch. Hammermill moved slightly to let Ramirez into the control room. “I don’t understand.”

  Hammermill said. “This squad is a makeshift group of transient marines that were just sitting around looking for something to do. One of the guys has a secondary specialty as a rail-gun technician. He spotted the problem with the bad spot in the rails and fixed it. I left him and another jarhead down there to keep an eye on things. So I say let ‘er rip. I will get a call if there is a breakdown on the antigravity conveyers.”

  Stone pointed Ramirez to the console. “Take over for the marines, Spacer Ramirez. Let’s run the munitions to full. Don’t force it, gentlemen. Just let the system manage it.”

  Stone, Hammermill and Gunny stood watching the numbers for a minute.

  Hammermill grabbed Stone by the shoulder and pulled him back across the room and as close to the corridor as he could get without leaving the room.