by Alan Black
Dollish said, “I got it taken care of, Boss. There’s room for all of them at your place. You don’t worry about it. You’ve got an officer’s call to get to —”
Stone’s dataport interrupted the spacer, “Ensign Stone, report to Captain Butcher’s office. On the double.”
Running through the corridors, dodging spacers, marines, and civilians alike felt wrong, but “on the double” required nothing less. He waved at a few people he knew, although he was surprised at how many people were aboard that he didn’t recognize. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere and doing something. Two fireteams of marines led by 1LT Allie Vedrian passed him running full tilt in the opposite direction. They reversed course and surrounded him. Grunting and chanting in typical leatherneck fashion, they encouraged him to fall into step with them.
Stone was stunned. He hadn’t known Allie was back from Peach’s Rest. He’d sent her a flurry of urgent messages, but hadn’t received a response. She grinned at him and winked with her good eye. Her marine issue eye glinted in the overhead lights, the pale iris dilating as it recorded and downloaded his image for her later review. Unlike many military personnel, Allie had elected to retain the scar running from her eyebrow, across her cheek, and down to her chin. The thin jagged line seemed to change color depending on her mood. Today it looked positively festive.
“Pick up the pace, Ensign,” Allie shouted. “Come on, boy! Run it.”
Stone’s enhanced military-grade nanites kept his body in tiptop condition, but a couple of years doing desk duty had his muscle memory lapsing.
Allie shouted, “Point runners out.”
Stone thought they were running full out, at a sprint, but two marines, a married couple named al-Julier, raced ahead of the group, shouting “Clear a path!” and “Make a hole!”
The marines moved faster, their feet hitting the deck in a pounding rhythm. Following the al-Juliers, and ignoring the elevators, CPL Barb Tuttle hit a hatch with a broad shoulder, slamming it open against a bulkhead, and they took a wide ladder down six decks. Stone took the steps four at a time, but the marines simply vaulted down landing to landing.
His dataport announced his arrival at Captain Butcher’s office hatch. The marines didn’t slow their run. Tuttle waved good-bye to him with her new bio-mechanical hand as they continued their run.
Allie’s voice faded into the distance “See you later, lover!” as they sprinted around a corridor curve.
The hatch was propped open and Master Chief Thomas was standing as if he was watching a parade flow past. “Love to make an entrance don’t you, Ensign?”
Stone said, “Good morning, Master Chief. Actually, running with the marines wasn’t my idea.”
“It never is, sir. Best hustle on in. The rest of the officers are waiting on you.”
Stone ran across the open space to where dozens of officers were sitting in concentric semi-circles in front of Captain Butcher. Like all such meetings, the officers were seated by rank. All it took to find his new seat was a quick glance. He was no longer an ensign junior grade. His two-day-old ensign senior grade tabs shined with a glow that dared anyone to question his right to a chair in front of half a dozen EJGs. An empty chair was waiting for him at the bottom end of the ESG ranks.
He smiled to himself. Since he was no longer governor, he didn’t have to sit up front where everyone stared at him.
Butcher said, “Well, we’re finally all here. Welcome Ensign Stone. With his addition, we have a full ship’s compliment and we’re ready to begin operations.”
Everyone turned to stare at Stone.
Butcher continued. “We comprise the navy officer staff of the Rusty Hinges. I’ve met with each of you individually, but I want to welcome you all as a group. For a ship of this size, we will be operating with minimal staff. Our key staff are: Lieutenant Commander Gupta, XO and first watch officer, Lieutenant Commander Li, second watch officer, and Lieutenant Senior Grade Missimaya, third watch officer.” Each officer rose in turn and waved or nodded at the assembly.
“Major Dashell Numos is in command of our marine company.” He gestured at another officer, “Our Chief Engineer is Lieutenant Commander Graciella Zuvela.” Continuing on, he listed officers for quartermaster, intelligence, astrogation, etc. Stone only perked up when Butcher introduced Lieutenant Junior Grade Vera in charge of tactical and weapons. She would be his direct supervisor.
Butcher shook his head. “We’ve been saddled with a dozen civilian scientists for our first mission. They’re led — sort of — by Doctor Wyznewski. I’ll say Whizzer runs a loose shop, so give the civilians some leeway if you have to deal with them.
“Speaking of leeway, with Ensign Stone signing on, we also have eight drascos aboard. They can be a surprise if you haven’t met them. Give them leeway in the corridors or their rough epidermis will peel a few layers off your skin. Don’t worry, they’re intelligent, sometimes I think more so than Whizzer and his bunch.
“As most of you know we also have a couple of dozen vent runners — piglet-type alien creatures.” He glanced at Stone and with an exasperated voice said, “What, Ensign Stone? You have that constipated look you get when you’ve got something to say.”
Stone stood to attention, “Sir, I need to report that approximately five hundred piglets came up from Allie’s World with me.”
“Five … well, ain’t that a kick in the head! Okay, Ensign Stone, you’re now responsible for them. See if you can get them housing, keep them busy, and out from under foot.”
Stone wondered where Dollish had taken them. The spacer seemed to know what to do, so he kept his mouth shut and sat back down.”
Butcher took a deep breath. “Down to the real business. Every person on this ship volunteered for duty aboard Rusty Hinges on blind faith, not knowing what the navy has in store for us. The prevailing scuttlebutt is that we’re going on a media tour, propping up the population’s flagging approval for the war against the Hyrocanians, giving tours and interviews. That is false. We’re going to be the navy’s Q-Ship.”
Stone caught his breath. A few of the lower ranks around him looked confused.
Butcher said, “For those not familiar with Q-Ships, they were, or rather, now are merchant ships with hidden weapons sent out to catch pirates, acting as their own bait. We will not be hunting pirates. We’re going to jump through the navigation point the Hyrocanians used to infiltrate this system. We’re to hunt the enemy, seek to find his home planet, destroy his shipping where we can, and if we can’t fight, we’ll try to infiltrate his fleet in disguise to gather intelligence. It’s the navy’s plan that we do this and report back without getting killed.”
CHAPTER NINE
Stone said, “Be careful with those. You could get us killed before we enter Hyrocanian space.”
A small team of enlisted crew was yanking mines out from various piles scattered around the open bay and dumping them into a cart. A couple of the men had gotten lazy. Moving mines from one place to another was monotonous, but the men were doing everything short of throwing the basketball-sized munitions.
Stone picked up a mine. The Hyrocanians had stolen the mine design from humans, but they hadn’t bothered to copy them exactly. The explosive could be set to blow up if fired from a shotgun barrel cannon or when it came in range of a spacecraft if tethered to a stationary point in space. The mine would arm itself once it reached a certain speed and a specific distance when fired from a cannon. Like human mines, it could attach itself to a ship or the shield of a ship. If it managed to reach a ship, it exploded. If it glommed onto a ship’s shield, it would stick there until joined by others, then explode in a massive blast of radiation soaking an enemy vessel. All assuming that one side or the other hadn’t interdicted the mine with an IFF signal.
He rolled the mine around in his hands, holding it up for his team to view. “We all know human mines won’t go off—no matter how roughly handled — until armed by a weapons technician, right?”
“Yes sir,”
was the chorused response.
“You learned about these mines both in basic training and in your munitions school, right?”
Before the spacers could answer, a petty officer second class spoke. “Yes, Ensign Stone. I don’t know about these other knuckleheads, but I had a whole section in both places on the proper handling of explosives.”
Stone smiled at the woman. She was a quite a few years older than he was and probably had four or five times his years in service. Yet, he was theoretically in charge. “Thank you, Petty Officer Juarez. I’ve actually dispensed more of these against the enemy than I could count in a lifetime.” Thinking back to his time commanding the UEN Periodontitis, he wasn’t sure how many billions he’d spilled against the Hyrocanian fleet during the incident at Point Alpha-Beta. “This is the first time I’ve had to hump them from one place to another inside a ship.”
“Yeah, why is that — um, sir?” a spacer asked. “If the Hyrocanian’s are smart enough to steal our designs, why aren’t they smart enough to store their munitions close to the guns that need them?”
Another spacer nodded. “Yeah! If they were smarter, then we wouldn’t have to manually pick them up and move them.”
Juarez sighed, “Listen up, you goobers. I will personally ask the captain to let you interrogate the next Hyrocanian we run across, but until then, pay attention. I don’t want to die because you’re goofing around or your hand starts shaking from too much jungle juice last night.”
Stone said, “My point in holding this explosive up is to ask you where the safety switch is. Anybody know?”
The room was silent as everyone looked at Juarez. She sighed, “On human mines, there is a red dot on the top. It’s there for simple orientation purposes, so we know which way is up. A small panel on the bottom can be manually accessed to reach the safety switches, or they can be remotely accessed by code.”
“Outstanding, Petty Officer,” Stone said.
The woman nodded as if the compliment meant little.
“Okay, the rest of you, what is different about these mines and why you shouldn’t be chucking them around like last year’s dirty laundry? No answers?” He pointed at a spacer third class. The man was holding the mine in one hand, propped up on his hip. “You. Go ahead and open the safety protocol access panel.”
The man sputtered, “I don’t remember much from tech school about mines, but I do remember that we were told to never open the panel. Get a repair tech if it needs to be opened.”
“Excellent memory. I’ve read exactly the same thing. We’re going to make an exception because of Petty Officer Juarez’s expertise. Go ahead and open the panel.”
The man spun the mine in his hand. “There ain’t no red dot. How can we tell where the panel is without the red dot?”
“Everyone look at the mine in your hands. Find the panel.” He stood watching as everyone on the team scrambled around, turning mines this way and that way looking for the panel, everyone except PO2 Juarez.
“Petty Officer, you’re not looking.”
“Waste of time, Ensign.”
“Really? Would you care to share with the rest of the team why it is a waste of time to look for the access panel to the safety switches on a Hyrocanian manufactured mine?”
Juarez shrugged, “Because there ain’t none, sir.”
Stone grinned. “Exactly. The biggest change the Hyrocanian’s made in their design was to eliminate the safety switches and protocols.”
The spacer holding a mine with one hand paled. “There ain’t …” His voice trailed away as the mine slipped from his hand, clanging on the deck.
Stone closed his eyes and gave a little shiver. He opened his eyes and glared around the room. “There aren’t any safeties on these explosives. We don’t know for sure if, when, or what will set them off.” His voice rose to a bellow. “So, stop dropping them and stop throwing them around.”
He caught the odor of wet, dark chocolate over his shoulder and knew Allie was behind him. Preparations for getting under way and navigating through the jump point had kept them both so busy they hadn’t said more than a dozen words to each other.
Taking a step backward without looking, he bumped into her — hard. She didn’t budge and he didn’t move away. It wasn’t the type of contact he wanted with his girlfriend. He wanted to grab her, wrestle her to the ground, and kiss her into submission. The problem with that was that if he grabbed her, she was liable to kick his butt.
Stone said, “Petty Officer Juarez, please take control of this pack of hooligans. We have to get this bay clear and get all of our munitions to the bay next to aft cannon eleven. And I will feed the next one of you who drops a mine to my drascos for supper.”
Juarez replied, “Aye, aye, sir.”
Trusting the petty officer to manage the munitions, Stone spun in place, not moving away from Allie. Standing face-to-face, they were little more than a whisker apart. He was actually about two inches taller than her six feet two, but he looked deep into her eyes.
The iris in Allie’s artificial eye spun, shifting color and the pupil dilated, adjusting to his proximity, recording every minute muscle twitch and his pupil response, feeding data about his excitement at seeing her directly to her brain. Her other eye, the natural one, seemed to bore into his soul, flaying open his heart.
“How may I be of service, Lieutenant Vedrian?” He heard a snort from behind him. “Something to say, Juarez?”
“Come on, Ensign Stone. There isn’t a creature on this ship with a working brain who doesn’t know you two are a couple.”
Stone continued to stare at Allie, but he spoke to Juarez. “Do you have a problem, Petty Officer?”
“Oh no, sir. I think it’s a good thing, but you’re standing in the hatchway. So if you’re going to be playing kissy-face, please go somewhere else so us working stiffs can get these mines moved.”
“Aye, aye, Petty Officer.” Stone knew an order when he heard one, even if spoken by a mid-ranking enlisted.
He grabbed Allie by an elbow and directed her back into the corridor. Once a team pushed a cartload of mines out of the hatch and around a corner, the corridor was empty. He took the occasion to kiss Allie, long and soft.
She sighed, “That was what I needed. My batteries were running low and I needed a recharge.” She placed a flat palm on his chest and backed up to arms length. “I’m free for a couple of hours, but I have duty at sixteen hundred hours. You?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can get away until oh-three-hundred tomorrow morning.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re avoiding me.” At the panicked look on his face, she laughed, “I’m only teasing, boy.”
Stone said, “Good. I want some free time, but Rusty Hinges is a huge ship and the navy hasn’t been slack in their attempts to retrofit it for human use.”
“They have done some incredible things since we first came aboard.”
“Engineering is a shining marvel of upgrades. Communications is a seamlessly secured wireless system. The bridge is an amazing example of military perfection. However, our tactical weapons positions are still a tangle of rust, broken equipment, patched and repatched systems.”
“I’m not an expert at Hyrocanian weapons systems, but if we meet the enemy soon, we might as well throw rocks at them.”
Stone laughed, “We’ve been there. The ship’s shotgun-style mine throwers work, but barely. None of the dozens of barrels on cannon eleven will fire more than five or six times without jamming. Of course, that was dry firing them.” They were in hyperspace having transited through the jump point and no one wanted to fire active munitions into the gray. No one knew what would happen. “We have plenty of mines, both the ones in storage scattered around the ship, plus those scooped up from around the Brickman’s Station jump point. But the big problem is they were stored all around the ship.”
She laughed, “I can see that.”
“There are feeder tubes from every
storeroom to the various gun emplacements, but the tube from this one is jammed tight. The vent runners are working to get it cleared without blowing us all up.”
“I would appreciate not getting blown up.”
“Me too.”
She gave him another quick kiss. “I was hoping that we could have time together on Peach’s Rest, getting you away from your job as governor. Now you’re not in charge, but busier than ever.”
“I’m sorry about Peach’s Rest. I —”
“Don’t worry about it. I had a good time anyway. I met a real nice couple there. We got along great and we talked about you a lot until I got orders from Major Numos to return. We had fun and I’m sure you like them. Well, gotta go.”
She was gone before he could reply, racing down the corridor at marine top speed. He realized he hadn’t seen a marine on board moving at any pace slower than a sprint since …
He stopped.
“Wait!” he thought. “What did she mean by that? She didn’t say that she thought I would like them, but that I did like them.”
He was about to call her on her dataport when his buzzed open and LTJG Vera’s face popped into view, hovering in mid-air. “Ensign Stone, we have a situation in the shuttle bay. I’ve been told that you have experience with the acid sludge throwers in the Hyrocanian shuttle. Please get your ass down here. We’ve got this shi — stuff leaking all over the place.”
CHAPTER TEN
Stone grabbed the long breaker bar. Leaning into it, he twisted and pulled. The acid sludge feeder belt slipped back onto its cog and chunked forward a few beats until it stopped. Releasing the pinched belt broke free a damaged acid bulb. It gushed slime all over him. Backing away from the machine, he stood still while a spacer sprayed him with a concoction of purified water and baking soda. It bubbled, but rinsed off the acid sludge.
Doctor Kat Emmons grinned and poked Doctor Emiliano Wyznewski in the chest with a sharp finger. “Told you it would work. Mother always gave Dad a glass of this stuff whenever he had heartburn. She said it was better than the over-the-counter medicine — not to mention cheaper.”
