Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges (30 page)

Waving her daughters back, Peebee flattened her body to the deck and stuck her long neck down the hole. She swiveled her neck in a circle. Coming back up, she shrugged, reached across, and tapped Stone’s map display, turning the bay from red to green.

Stone tapped the map. “Shorty, here’s a map update. Check that red room on the top deck. Your people missed it.” He wasn’t worried about the base being combat ready, all it would take was a few specific twitches in proper sequence of the correct fingers and the charges Shorty’s team had placed around the weapons storage areas and the whole base would blow, taking everyone and everything with it, littering the planet’s landscape with more debris than the enemy had already scattered about.

Those twitches would be a last resort or something he would do from kilometers away.

Twitch.

Boom.

But, not yet.

Checking every nook and cranny on the base might yield intelligence of unknown value. To Shorty, every hidey-hole might contain something worth stealing, so, Stone was sure the piglet would look everywhere he could.

Bea shouted,
“Look, Mama!”
She held a string of some gems.
“These spilled out of this box. Can I keep them?”

Looting was against UEN regulations, but the drascos weren’t officially marines or navy. They weren’t even mercenaries, since they weren’t getting paid. Stone shrugged. “If it’s all right with Peebee, then it’s okay with me.”

Bea said,
“These are pretty. I want to give them to Anne. She’s hurt and these pretty things might make her feel better.”

Peebee wonked in excitement. She and her daughters dove into the scattered piles of goods, digging through this and that, bundling up goods to take with them.

Re-checking the map, Stone saw that the base was changing from red to green almost as fast as the map could update the color. The base was large, but not so huge that swarming through it would take long. A glitter in a pile of goods around a large bunk caught his eye. A bag of data crystals lay scattered in the mix.

Looting was one thing. Gathering intelligence was something else.

Stone scooped the crystals up, noting that some of the crystals were human configurations, some were Hyrocanian, a couple were designed in piglet style, and a few were shaped like none he’d ever seen before. He didn’t know if they had readers that could access them. Stuffing the crystals in a thigh bin, he walked to the bay’s hatch.

Even though the corridor was marked green on his base map, with a sigh, he put his helmet back on and stuck his head out, looking both directions.

“Let’s go, girls. Let’s go find Jay and her daughters.” He doubted Peebee and her girls needed the map to locate their relatives. Stone could have found them by their fragrance, instead he used his eyes and map reading skills to move from deck to deck.

Peebee and her girls dashed forward, disappearing through an open, wide hatch. Stone heard a loud wonking chorus as the drascos gathered with their family. As a counterpoint, he heard a drasco crying. Even from a distance, he could tell it was Anne.

The injured drasco wrenched at his heart and he tried not to be thankful that the only serious drasco injury had happened to one of the younger girls. They might all be in serious trouble if Jay or Peebee had been killed. The resultant hormonal change from female to rampaging male would be as dangerous as the planted explosives scattered around the base.

He wanted to rush in to check on Anne, but he stood at the hatch. Waving and directing teams of piglets into the warehouse bay, he scanned as far as he could see in all directions. His map showed every bay and space as green, but that didn’t mean there weren’t enemy combatants hiding who could throw a wrench in the works.

Most of the piglets were carrying bundles of goods. A series of luggage carts scooted down the corridor at high speed. Shorty stood on the top of the lead cart pointing the way. Injured piglets clung to the tops and sides. The carts themselves were filled to overflowing with booty.

Stone didn’t want to count. He knew they’d lost piglets in the fight. The surprise was that there weren’t any drasco fatalities. He was saddened to see as many injured as there were, but try as he might, he was more than glad there hadn’t been any human fatalities.

The stream of piglets dribbled to a halt. The corridor was clear.

Stone said, “Jay and Peebee. Get Anne on a cart for transfer to the shuttle.”

He wondered where the shuttle was. They’d been here for hours and hours. Glancing at the time, he was shocked at how little time had passed.

Shorty shouted, “Shuttle inbound. Docking in thirty minutes.”

Stone pointed at a pair of armed piglets. He pointed at their eyes and then to the corridor. The two little creatures jumped into position and took over his duties watching their six. He turned for the first time and looked into the warehouse.

Jay and Peebee were lifting Anne onto a cart. A string of jewels hung from the injured drasco’s neck, glittering in contrast to the subdued colors on her chest plate. Piglets were racing in a dozen directions, checking this cart and that, looking at injured and loot with equal care. All around the swirling activity were creatures, large and small. Screeching, moaning, clucking, and bleating, the animals had gotten loose from their pens and were running, jumping, or just standing. Dozens of food pens were open and dozens more were still closed.

Stone hoped the shuttle had room for all of them.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Stone stood on the shuttle bridge watching the Hyrocanian planetary base as the piglet pilot backed them away. His helmet was off, but he’d kept his suit on during the transfer from the warehouse bay into the shuttle. Loading the shuttle had taken far longer than the assault itself, but it was worth it. Shorty had the shuttle stuffed with enough goods and animals to make all the piglets rich.

He delayed calling the Rusty Hinges. CDR Butcher knew he’d succeeded because the base hadn’t done anything to help the orbital weapons platform. He didn’t know how successful the marines had been, but the orbital platform hadn’t sent any help to the base either.

He asked, “Can we bring up any long range views on the monitor?”

The piglet shook his head, imitating a human response.

Shorty said, “Not long range enough. We can ask for a relay from the Rusty Hinges or the Freedom Wagon if you want.”

Stone replied, “No. I imagine they’re busy right about now. Please send Commander Butcher a pick up request.

“Yes, Boss. Sent and received.”

Stone looked at the view of the base below them. From this angle it looked like any square metal box built by any race. It could have been anything from storage to an old apartment building. He squeezed his fingers.

A few puffs of debris blew from the building. Instead of the huge explosion he expected, the base wrinkled, crumpled, and folded into itself. It shrank down as if something was sucking all of the air out of it. The base disappeared in a whirl of dust, sucking in much of the trash scattered across the little valley. The dust settled as the base sank into a deep crater.

The ground around the base heaved, twitched, and finally let loose in a geyser of flame. A series of smaller explosions twisted the geyser into a ball of expanding light, heat, and debris.

Shorty looked up at Stone. “Well, Boss. That was a waste of a perfectly good building.”

“Nothing that you couldn’t rebuild if you wanted to move into this particular neighborhood.”

“No thanks, Boss. Planets bore me. I like living in space.”

“Well, you have your own spaceship now. The Freedom Wagon is a pretty nice place to live in.”

“We still have a few pockets of Hyrocanian vermin we have to sweep clean, but it’s in much better shape than the Rusty Hinges.”

“Plus, you and Sissie have a bunch of your people who want to go home.”

Shorty shrugged. “That is assuming we can exit this system and that old fart of a brother gave us the correct code to allow us past their repulsars.”

The monitor blinked, switching from the yellowish atmosphere of the planet to the black of space. The shuttle pilot put them into a stationary orbit around the planet and looked up expectantly at Stone and Shorty.

“Now what, Boss?”

Stone said, “The Rusty Hinges should have seen the planet base blow up. So, they know we’ve succeeded. They’ll time a pass by the planet to pick us up at the same time they pick up the marines shuttle.”

“You’re assuming that either of our ships survived their engagement with the Hyrocanian ships in the system.”

Stone nodded. There was a big chance that the coordinated mine and missile attack against all Hyrocanian shipping had failed. They hadn’t expected to get a clean sweep, but Butcher had taken his shots and moved his ship hoping that any surviving enemy ship wouldn’t suspect their Q-Ship of the attack. If Rusty Hinges had been discovered to be the shooter, any remaining Hyrocanian ships would have blown their ride home to space dust.

The three-pronged attack on the Hyrocanians in this system was a long shot. However, attacking and destroying as much enemy shipping as possible had been Butcher’s understanding of his orders. Gathering information and leaving was an option and Stone doubted anyone would blame Butcher if that had been his decision. No one expected the Rusty Hinges to take on dozens of Hyrocanian ships singlehanded. No one except Butcher and his crew of volunteers. The Rusty Hinges was reconfigured as a Q-Ship for this exact purpose. Butcher would have blamed himself for not trying, even if no one else would. Stone agreed, even if that meant he was never going home.

If Rusty Hinges was destroyed, Freedom Wagon as their only pick up. Shorty’s new spaceship might get them to the piglet home world, but no one had discussed whether he would use his ship to return stranded humans back to Allie’s world. If the Rusty Hinges was gone, the only stranded humans would be Stone and any marines who survived their attack on the orbital weapons platform.

“Can we get a view of the orbital weapons platform?”

There was a slight delay as Shorty queried the pilot and responded back. “No, Boss. Not from here. Our orbit will bring us around in about —”

A voice shouted from the monitor as the picture changed from the black of space into an obese Hyrocanian. They didn’t have the translator software loaded into the shuttle’s systems, but Stone didn’t doubt the creature was spouting obscenities.

He asked, “Is that thing speaking directly at us?”

Shorty said, “No, Boss. It is a system-wide push. Any idea what it’s saying?”

Stone shrugged, “No, Shorty. He could be demanding our surrender or asking us over to be lunch.”

“Wouldn’t those be the same thing?”

Before Stone could reply, the screen changed again. A haggard looking CDR Butcher replaced the Hyrocanian. The man’s hair was sticking up at odd angles and dark circles had taken up residence under his eyes. Even his lips looked chapped and dry. He was smiling.

“The enemy is hot on our tail, but we’re coming for you. Don’t broadcast your location. We only killed or damaged about seventy-five percent of the ships in the system with our initial attack. We managed to take down another two before they figured out who we were.”

Stone did a quick count. When his team left the Rusty Hinges, there were twenty-six enemy ships in the system. Seventy-five percent meant eliminating or damaging twenty ships. That left six enemy ships, give or take a few, depending on whether some weren’t damaged too badly to pursue the humans. The Freedom Wagon had weapons, but it was a warehouse ship and had little to no chance against a Hyrocanian ship of the line. That left the Rusty Hinges in a six-to-one odds battle.

But Butcher was smiling. “We’re coming in hot, people. The plan is to pick you up on the fly. Send us a coded location beacon and head —” He looked over his shoulder and repeated some coordinates. “— head there at top speed. We’ll open the shuttle hangar hatch and scoop you up on our way past. Oh, and brace for impact.”

Stone put a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Do it. Let’s kick this boat in the butt. Get us moving as fast as you can.”

Shorty looked up at Stone. “Human pilots can pick up a shuttle at top speed?” He looked surprised and in awe of human piloting skill. His face fell when Stone answered.

“Nope. Never happen.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Everyone aboard the shuttle braced as well as they could. The piglets climbed back into their combat suits, hoping they would provide some cushion. Stone’s suit would protect him from being rattled around too much, but the drascos and animals they’d taken from the planetary base were sure to be tossed around, assuming the Rusty Hinges could manage to capture a moving shuttle. Stone made a mental note to find out why humans hadn’t made an effective tractor beam.

Tractor beams were still science fiction fodder, just like time travel. So far, no scientist had been able to get either to work. There were reports of tractor beams that could grab a coffee cup on a workbench and drag it across the tabletop. There was even some success in a stationary base grabbing an unmoving skiff and towing it from one place to another. No one had been successful tractoring a moving shuttle to a faster moving spacecraft any more than anyone had succeeded in doing more than shifting a few mice a couple of years into the future.

Stone plotted their heading. They were racing toward the navigation jump point that would take them to the piglet home world. They would escape into hyperspace if the Rusty Hinges could pick them up on the fly. If not, they would eventually be discovered and captured by the pursuing enemy ships. They couldn’t jump as Hyrocanian shuttles didn’t have hyperspace capable engines and as much as he thought about it, he couldn’t fathom how to retrofit the Hyrocanian shuttle engines to jump back and forth like he’d once done to a UEN built engine.

Stone was sure he and Shorty could play hide and seek with the Hyrocanians for a while, but the shuttle wasn’t meant for long term survival. He looked down at the little piglet. Shorty must have been thinking the same thing. Stone shook his head when Shorty smiled a bit. He could image the little pirate planning to board another enemy vessel.

Attacking another ship had little chance of success since their element of surprise had long since expired. Going out fighting was better than the possible alternatives, like drifting into empty space between systems, surrendering to be some fat slob’s afternoon snack, or slamming into an enemy warship at ramming speed. Dying wasn’t just dying. Sometimes it mattered how you went.

First, there was nothing on the monitor.

Then, as if by magic, the Rusty Hinges filled the screen, the huge hangar bay hatch open like the hungry maw of some giant space creature.

Faster than an eye could react, the shuttle slammed into the forward bulkhead of the shuttle bay. It started to bounce back, but slammed into a second shuttle and jerked to a halt. Stone clambered to his feet, reaching back to pick up Shorty, who’d fallen underneath Stone.

Bouncing out of the room, he shouted over his shoulder, “Shorty, check on everyone. I’ve got to get to the bridge.” Sprinting out of the shuttle’s control room, he raced down the corridor and through a dilating hatch. He was concerned about his drascos and the piglets, but he was more upset at not knowing about Allie. Had she been wounded or worse in the attack on the weapons platform? Was the Rusty Hinges going to be able to pick up the marines or did Butcher have to abandon them to save his ship? Where was she? The bridge was the only place he knew he would find answers.

Fortunately, the anti-gravity on the shuttle was still working. He popped onto the surface at the top end of a long downward sloping side. To him it felt as if he was running on a flat surface while the ship’s shuttle hangar was twisted at an odd angle. Almost without thinking, he registered the twisted foward bulkhead of the hangar his shuttle had just rammed.

The metal had given way to the shuttle’s abrupt crash. The shuttle’s anti-gravity system had protected it from serious damage, but one point of the tetrahedron pyramid was crumpled. Stone reached the end of the shuttle’s side and vaulted toward the hangar deck. Twisting in midair, he somersaulted to align his feet downward. He popped the catch on his helmet, allowing it to hang down his back. His feet hit the deck and he turned, spotting a second shuttle in the bay. The Rusty Hinges had three shuttles. They’d kept one, one had carried the marines, and Stone’s team had taken one. This shuttle was blackened by an explosion and a wide rip exposed a couple of interior decks. Firemen and damage control were struggling to contain the fires.

“Stone!” He spun around at the sound of Allie’s voice. Their bounces toward each other ended in a heavy metal clash as their suits took the impact. His lips sought hers with no less force.

When he could breathe again, he looked at her. Her helmet dangled behind her like his did down his back, but her faceplate was cracked and resealed with duct tape. Her suit was charred and bent. She was laughing.

Stone grimaced, “Never again, Love.”

“Bullshit, Stone. Every chance we get.”

“I didn’t mean the kissing. I meant going into battle without you.”

She laughed, “That’s what I meant too, you goof. That’s what you get when you love a marine.”

Numos’s voice cut off his response. “Enough kissy-face, Vedrian. Tend to our wounded.” He jammed his finger at the torn shuttle. “Have Hammer get the fire under control, keep him busy. Get his mind off Rainne. Find al-Julier, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Get me a personnel report asap. Set up a morgue for Lieutenant Escamilla and the rest of the dead.”

Dead marines were probably in body bags, already cremated to ashes. However, setting up a place for friends and loved ones to say goodbye was standard marine procedure. Stone knew enough to know their morgue would be in a bar. The marines had lost 2LT Rainne Escamilla and from the sounds of it, al-Julier had lost his wife, P1C Emma al-Julier, nee January. Those deaths would be hard on the company as a whole, but more so for the people who loved those marines.

“Sir.” Allie twisted out of Stone’s grasp and leapt up into the damaged marine shuttle. She was gone before he could utter a word.

She was a marine and did what marines do. Finding her alive had been a jolt of electric shock to his body. His lips still tingled from the excitement. Maybe she was right. Going to war separately was hard, but coming together later was intense.

“Stone,” Numos shouted. “Get your head out, boy. We’re not done yet.” The major was peeling himself out of his combat suit with record speed. Tuttle was crouched behind him using a cutting torch to cut him out of his suit. A gash from the suit’s shoulder slid all the way down to the buttocks area. Fluids were leaking out of the gash, but there didn’t appear to be any blood.

“Get out of your suit, Ensign Stone. Report to the bridge, on the double.” Numos pushed his way clear of the broken combat suit, turned and rushed away.

Tuttle looked up at him from her knees. She grinned and winked at him. “Been trying to get that man out of his pants for years.” Wiggling the cutting torch, she asked, “Need help?”

Stone hit the emergency escape button on his suit. It fell away from him in pieces with a clatter, falling to the deck. He turned and raced toward the bridge.

Numos was sprinting ahead of him. Stone’s enhanced reflexes and speed enabled him to catch up to the man quickly. Even with his marine enhanced combat nanites, Numos was favoring his left knee. Without asking, Stone scooped the man up, swung him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and continued on at full speed.

Numos grunted, but didn’t say anything until they reached the bridge hatch where Stone set him down.

All the major said was, “Shit!”

Stone nodded his agreement. He didn’t know he could run that fast carrying a person on his shoulders. He thought the major’s sentiment was quite appropriate.

The navy security man guarding the bridge hatch looked startled at their rapid appearance. He kept both hands on his rifle while he kicked the hatch open for the two officers. Stone followed Numos onto the bridge and closed the hatch behind him.

His nose wrinkled at the stench. He smelled a mixture of human waste and rancid grease. Not the rancid grease scent that indicated hostility, but the actual odor of half-eaten greasy food left lying around for a few days. The odor of human waste wafted from a porta-potty set up in the corner. A chief petty officer was sitting on the toilet. She grunted and hung her head wearily as if sitting on a toilet in an open room was a relaxing time out.

Unwashed sleeping bodies lay scattered about wherever there was spare space. MCPO Thomas, disheveled and rumpled, levered himself up from his seat at the conference table.

“Sir.” He gestured for the major to take his chair.

Numos shook his head as did Stone when Thomas offered his seat to him. The master chief gratefully dropped back into the chair. He continued to stare at the monitor while working some equations on his dataport screen.

Butcher grinned at the two men. He grabbed Numos by the hand and pumped it vigorously. Stone offered his hand, but the commander grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him. Pulling away, Butcher finally said, “We couldn’t have pulled this off any better if we’d planned it.”

Numos smiled at the sarcasm.

Butcher laughed. “A three pronged attack that almost went off without a hitch. Let’s say we were 89.75 percent successful. Oh, first, I want to apologize for picking your shuttles up.”

Stone said, “No apology necessary, sir. It was rough, but —”

Butcher laughed harder. “Oh, not that. Wasn’t that really fun though? Two such pickups in a row is good for the record books. What I mean is picking you up at all. You’d probably live longer if we’d left you on the shuttles.”

Numos asked, his voice more startled than when Stone had carried him through the corridors at a full sprint, “What?”

“Oh hell, gentlemen. We’re just a few minutes short of the Hyrocanians blowing our asses out of space.”