Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Stone swore his eyes were bleeding. He doubted he’d had more than twenty minutes sleep in the last forty-eight hours. Empty meal packs were scattered around like debris after a tornado. His head was pounding and his heart was so tired he knew it had quit beating.

Communications poured into their collectors from a dozen different workstations.

Butcher took a gulp of coffee and spit it back into the cup. “Did we run out of coffee and someone’s idea of a good replacement is Hyrocanian acid sludge?”

Numos was the only one on the bridge who didn’t look worse for the wear. His marine utilities looked fresh and pressed, of course, the uniform was made out of material designed to survive everything short of an outing on Allie’s World. Still, the man was freshly shaven and wide eyed. “Captain, we’ve been at general quarters for two days. I suggest we start giving some of the crew rotational rest.”

Butcher laughed, “Your marines getting tired, Dash?”

“No, sir. All the marines, except me, are in combat suits. Any one of them has had more rest than any navy.”

Butcher shook his head. “This bridge is starting to smell like my old man’s compost pile and the coffee is starting to taste like compost pile squeezing. Okay, section heads, let’s keep on alert, but start breaking it down so people can get some real rest. Major Numos, can you spell me for about an hour or so?”

Numos laughed, “Take two, Captain, if you promise to give me four when you get back.”

Butcher shook his head and chuckled, “No promises in combat, Major. All right people, Major Numos has the con as third watch commander. Ensign Stone, would you meet me in my office next door with Shorty and … whichever drasco that is.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Next door. And this is Ell, Peebee’s middle daughter.”

“Middle? How do you know? I thought they are triplets?”

He walked out the bridge hatch before Stone could answer. Stone hustled to catch up. “Well, sir, they were born in a specific order. Ell is the middle, but she is only seconds behind her sister Bea and seconds before Tee.”

“I still don’t know how you tell them apart.”

“There are some minor differences, sir. The easiest is by the color of their metal armor. Ell’s armor is magenta. Tee’s is a dark pink. Bea’s armor is almost a purple.”

Butcher stopped at his hatch. “I just got it. After all this time, I just got it. All this time I was trying to figure out what their names meant. L.T. B. I couldn’t figure out who was Lieutenant B.”

Stone smiled, “Yes, they’re just named after three things that go together, like Jay and Peebee.”

Butcher slapped his palm against his forehead. “I missed that, too. What about Jay’s daughters — no don’t tell me. I’m going to look them up. He pushed open the hatch to his office and stepped back, gesturing for Stone, Shorty, and Ell to enter. They trudged across the wide expanse. Stone was struck with the realization of how idiotic Hyrocanians were. They built the captain’s office much larger than the bridge, but apparently had no compunction about killing an admiral to take over the position.

The captain looked at Shorty. The piglet had been awake on the bridge with the crew since the Rusty Hinges jumped into Hyrocanian space and the strain was becoming evident. “This little guy is asleep on his feet. Shorty! Go lay down somewhere. I promise to wake you up before the enemy kills us.” He looked at the drasco. “I have no way to know if you’re sleepy or not, Ell. Feel free to rest, go eat, or whatever.”

Ell plopped down on the deck rattling her magenta and chrome armor against the rusty deck plates, but her eyes never left Stone,
“Mama, I won’t leave you alone with this human. It’s not, like, I don’t trust him, you know. But, it’s my job to watch you. It’s—well, it’s a stupid job, because no one here is going to hurt you, but, you know. I, like, gotta do it.”

Butcher gestured to a chair. “Sit, Ensign.”

Stone sat.

Butcher said, “I have a job for you that’s a stupid job.”

Stone almost grinned that the captain had unknowingly repeated Ell’s words. “There aren’t any stupid jobs, sir. Not if it’s something that needs doing.”

“If you don’t do this, no one and nothing will be hurt except my reputation as a navy commander and the captain of Rusty Hinges. I need you to watch me sleep. I mean, I need you to make sure I do not sleep longer than forty minutes. I’m not sure I trust any alarm short of a thermonuclear device to wake me up.”

“Sir, Major Numos said you could take two hours.”

“Forty minutes, Ensign. That will give me twenty minutes for a shower and a quick meal. The captain must set the example.”

“Forty minutes. Aye, aye, Captain.”

Butcher lay down on the deck and immediately fell asleep. There was a partitioned bunk and bathroom area off to one side of the captain’s office, but to Stone’s surprise he opted for the floor right in front of him.

Stone didn’t want to take the chance that he might fall asleep in the chair, so he stood up. He turned on his dataport display, set a countdown timer, and froze it in the air over the desk. Calling up the updated system map, he expanded this piece and that. For all practical purposes, Rusty Hinges was in the middle of a huge fleet of Hyrocanian warships. Most ships were static, some in orbit around various planets, some near navigation points, and some just floating in the middle of nowhere as if they didn’t have anything better to do.

The astronavigators had clearly identified all known jump points on the map. Ships coming and going through each point was marked, tagged, and tracked across the sector. During the time Rusty Hinges observed, only a few jump points were in use, with one exception.

The system contained twelve planetary bodies. Smaller rocky planets were closer to the sun, inside the Goldilocks zone; the rest were gas giants. The twelfth planet was massive, almost as large as the sun. A small dwarf planet caught between the gravitational pull of the twelfth planet and the centrifugal force of the sun trailed the twelfth planet like a tiny kitten following a massive Colorado elk. Unlike most, a navigation point was located in the solar orbit ahead of the dwarf planet; untethered and trapped between the gravity pulls of the two planets.

This untethered jump point caught between these two planets was a veritable Union Station of activity with Hyrocanian ships coming and going. Some ships would enter the space, dart across to another jump point and disappear to the-gods-knew-where. Other ships would enter only to duck back out again a few hours later, as if they’d been looking for something and forgot why they enter the solar system in the first place.

Like most systems, there were a couple of planets far enough from the sun to keep its water from boiling away, yet close enough that it would be liquid. The Goldilocks zone was where humanoid life and planets capable of supporting life were found. Drake’s Equation numbers had held true over the centuries. There were millions of planet capable of intelligent life, but for every single planet with intelligent life, there was a million planets with non-intelligent animal life. For every single planet with non-intelligent life, there was a million planets with no animal life, but an abundance of plant life, perfect atmosphere, liquid water, and a reasonable gravity.

This system had a planet right in the middle of its Goldilocks zone. Orbiting it was a huge space station bristling with weapons capable of sweeping the system clear of dangerous meteors, hostile spaceships, or even rogue planets. The planet below it was a rocky nothing with a yellowish, sickly looking atmosphere. The station sat in geo-synchronous orbit over a planetary installation whose sole purpose appeared to be the protection of the orbital station.

Stone spread the screen wider to take a closer look at the planet. Void of any major bodies of surface water, the planet was nothing more than dust, rocks, and blowing sand. There were a few liquid pools, but spectroanalysis was unable to identify them at this distance. Doctor Wyznewski, a geologist, had noted that the planet was still volcanically active with huge tectonic shifts across many regions. His notes on the planet appeared as little sidebars with arrows pointing toward eruptions, quakes, and massive continent-sized storms. A note hovering over the fuzzy edge of the atmosphere around the curve of the planet said the scientists believed the yellow tint indicated the air was highly toxic, possibly chlorine based, yet the planet had a low pressure atmosphere with temperatures barely above freezing.

This system might be good for mining, but certainly not colonization. The Hyrocanians didn’t appear to be moving in, with the exception of the one minor base on the planet, but from the amount of traffic, the solar system was an important fleet transfer point.

The Rusty Hinges crew hadn’t found the enemy homeworld, but they were one step closer.

Stone glanced at the clock and sighed softly. His eyelids felt like they’d been swapped out for a pair of power sanders with high grit paper. The clock had creeped only a few minutes closer to the forty minute mark. When he was active, his enhanced DNA kept him awake and alert, but standing around doing nothing wouldn’t keep him awake. He was on his feet, but his eyes were drooping and his knees threatened to buckle.

Shaking his head, he refused to sit down. He backed away until he couldn’t see Butcher or Shorty sleeping on the floor behind the bulk of the desk. Ell watched him from a distance as he did jumping jacks to get his heart beating just a little bit faster. Breathing hard wouldn’t happen unless he did a few thousand, but the movement cleared his head for a short while. He focused on jumping quietly, something not easy on a rusty metal deck.

He never noticed before how noisy it was just walking across the floor. Trying to be quiet and alert at the same time wasn’t something he practiced. He made a quick mental note to add that practice to his training schedule. He was about to begin another exercise set — squat thrusts this time — when a delicate hatch chime interrupted his thoughts.

Stone rushed to the hatch, trying to avoid someone ringing the doorbell twice. He hit the manual hatch release button, braced to attention and nodded stiffly to the higher ranking officer and his companions, but didn’t move out of the hatchway. His intention was clearly to deny them entry to the captain’s office.

Stone said, “Lieutenant Missimaya. Gentlemen.” He didn’t acknowledge the two officers with Missimaya by name, but he did speak to them as navy tradition required.

Missimaya said, “Ensign Stone, we are here to see the captain. Please step aside.”

“Captain Butcher is not available and has asked not to be disturbed.” He knew both statements were not exactly the truth, but he didn’t care. The man hadn’t been off the bridge in two days and needed sleep. Disturbing him while the ship was technically at general quarters just to talk to the officer in charge of the human waste systems wasn’t a career enhancing move — not for him, nor the three officers demanding admittance the captain’s office, or even for a captain away from the bridge during GQ.

Stone was more than familiar with Lieutenant Missimaya, a self-important, self-righteous xenophobe. He was slightly surprised to see Ensign Tander. The man was older than Stone, but something of a nerd and easily persuaded to try just about anything. Stone recognized the third officer, but he couldn’t remember his name. Though Rusty Hinges was big and its officer compliment wasn’t comparable to its size, Stone hadn’t interacted with each member of her officer corps.

Missimaya said, “We know he’s here, Ensign.” The man managed to sneer the rank like an insult. “We were told that he left the bridge a few moments ago and was seen entering this very hatch. Are you telling me he isn’t here? Are you honestly going to stand there and lie to me in front of our fellow officers?”

Stone said, “Sir, perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn’t say he wasn’t here. I said he was unavailable.”

“Don’t play semantics with me, Stone.”

“It’s Ensign Stone, if you please, sir.”

“All right, Ensign. Did Commander Butcher, as captain, tell you specifically that he wasn’t to be disturbed and to turn his officers away from his hatch?”

“No, sir. He did not. However, I believe his intention was quite clear. If this is an emergency, you should report to the third watch commander Major Numos, who has the con.”

Missimaya glared at Stone. “I will not take ship’s business to a trumped up marine who has no business on the bridge of any of the emperor’s ships.” He put a hand on Stone’s shoulder as if to push him out of the way.

Stone didn’t budge. He shrugged his shoulder with enough force the lieutenant took a step back to maintain his balance. Missimaya hadn’t pushed hard, or hard enough to move him at any rate, but any contact was a breach of protocol, no matter how light the contact. Stone was unconcerned about the physical contact. He’d been pushed harder by better. Psychologically, he was set on not moving. The push increased Stone’s resolve. He wouldn’t move out of the way now, no matter what Missimaya said.

“Let me pass, Ensign.” The hatch was wide enough that Missimaya and his two cohorts could squeeze past Stone on either side, but it appeared the man wanted to bluster his way in to bolster his own sense of self-importance.

“No, sir.” He said quietly over his shoulder, “Ell.”

“This is an order, Ensign Stone. Move out of my —”