Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges

by Alan Black

  Stone asked, “No offense? Lieutenant Missimaya, how do you figure that isn’t offensive to an enlisted man?”

  Missimaya snapped, “Watch your tone, Ensign.”

  “Yes sir. I meant no offense.” No one at the table could miss the sarcasm in his voice. He glanced up as the captain’s steward slid a tray in front of Butcher. The steward back stepped and took a seat at a nearby table. Stone hoped he could remember to commend the man on his observation skills noting that this table was going to rapidly dissolve into a place for anything but a quiet meal.

  Butcher snapped at Stone, “Ensign. Do you agree with your superior officer Lieutenant Missimaya that navy and marine personnel shouldn’t mix?” His tone sounded like Doctor Wyznewski when the scientist was trying to trap Stone with a trick question.

  “No sir. I disagree.”

  Missimaya said, “You think marines are as good as navy?” The man sounded surprised.

  “No, Lieutenant. I disagree that you’re a superior officer. You are a higher ranking officer, but not better.” The man sputtered as Butcher chuckled. Stone waved Missimaya quiet when the man tried to respond. “A man won’t follow you because you have a higher rank and have lorded your position over him. He will follow you because you have earned his trust. How can a man learn to trust you when he doesn’t know you? My relationship with marines has saved my life more than once because they know me. Spacer First Class Timothy Oliphant Dollish makes me special meals because he knows me. Even the piglets do what I ask, not because I order them to, but because they know me.”

  Butcher nodded, “Lieutenant Missimaya, that sounds like something you could learn from Ensign Stone.”

  Stone said, “Thank you, Captain, but I learned that from a marine. And I’ll tell you this, sir, marine officers aren’t just trumped up enlisted. They start as enlisted and move up through the ranks to become an officer once they’ve proven themselves.”

  Missimaya sniffed his disapproval. “I think your personal,” he looked pointedly at Butcher, “and ill-advised relationship with a marine officer has colored your judgment. Don’t you agree, Captain?”

  “No, I don’t, Lieutenant. I know Lieutenant Vedrian. You obviously do not. Not only is she an outstanding marine, she is intelligent, creative, and witty. As to ill-advised relationships — on my home planet your sexual relationship with both of these gentlemen would get you stoned on the village square as a sodomite. I left home because of their narrow minded laws and have tried ever since to let people be in their personal life.” He spun on Stone. “Except your Corporal Tuttle, can’t you get her to at least be a bit more discrete?”

  Stone shook his head, “I would, sir, but she isn’t mine anymore. I’ll speak to Allie — Lieutenant Vedrian, her platoon commander, and see what we can do. Besides, I don’t think we can control Tuttle without a muzzle and a leash — and I’m afraid she’d like that.”

  Missimaya sputtered, “Be that as it may, Captain. Ensign Senior Grade Stone is younger than his rank would indicate. It would be in his best interest and the interest of his family, to protect him from an obvious gold-digger who’s just out for his —”

  “Enough,” Stone roared. “Your comments have gone beyond bounds. One more personal insult and I will … I will …” His voice faded away as he realized he wasn’t the governor of all he surveyed anymore. The cafeteria had suddenly become quiet. Everyone’s eyes flicked toward Stone, Missimaya and the captain, although a scant few actually turned to face them.

  “You’ll what?” Missimaya sneered. “I’m a superior officer, whether you accept that or not. Even with the captain here, you can’t do anything. Everyone knows you were a favorite of the emperor, but you’re not now. Everyone knows you screwed up the exploitation of the Allie’s World system. That’s why the emperor fired you and sent you on this failure of a mission on this piece of crap old ship.”

  Butcher looked at Stone, “Yes, Ensign Stone. What will you do if Lieutenant Senior Grade Missimaya continues to personally insult you?”

  “Sir, I don’t care if he insults me all day long. But if he insults Lieutenant Vedrian or my friend Tim Dollish, I will file a formal complaint of abuse.”

  Missimaya laughed. “You may be a rich kid, but my family isn’t without resources or influence. No one would endorse such a complaint.”

  Butcher looked at Stone. “He is correct in that his family does have influence. I believe his great grandfather is still an advisor at the emperor’s court. He’s been there through the last emperor and this one too, right?” Missimaya nodded as if he were somehow more powerful for the recognition of his great grandfather’s accomplishments. “However, the lieutenant is wrong is one regard. I would endorse Ensign Stone’s formal complaint.

  Missimaya said, “That is your prerogative, but just a warning, Captain. An attack on me will be seen as an attack on all of my family. I can guarantee it will be the end of your career.”

  Butcher laughed, “Of course it will. My career has been on the skids for years. Besides what makes you think we’re going to live through this voyage? Look around you, Lieutenant. We’re stuck in the middle of so far away from nowhere that we don’t even know what direction to go. Instead of trying to work together to find a way to get home, you’re working toward segregation and division.”

  Standing, Butcher’s voice lost his laughing tone, “You may never see another human face except those around you for the rest of your life and your first thought is to piss them off?” He walked around the table behind Missimaya. “I don’t give a fart in a whirlwind about your family, or his —” He jabbed a finger at Stone — “or even his” — jabbing a finger at Dollish. “I care about what they can do to help us survive. And one more thing: Spacer Dollish, you’re middle name is Oliphant? What the hell is that all about?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dollish grunted, but kept his face toward his bowl.

  Butcher said, “Never mind, Tim.” He raised his voice so that everyone who was struggling to eavesdrop could actually hear without the struggle. “This is an all ranks dining facility. As of now, there are no reserved tables or segregated seating.”

  Missimaya stood, “Sir, then I will be taking my meals in my cabin. I refuse to eat with riff raff.”

  Butcher nodded, “That’s your prerogative, Lieutenant. However, you will come here to collect your meals. No one will deliver food to you.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You’re not an invalid or too busy to fetch your own meals.”

  Missimaya turned to go, but Butcher stopped him. “One more thing — officer, enlisted and civilian will carry their own dishes to the cleaning stations.”

  The lieutenant, followed by one of his boyfriends, grabbed their dishes. They turned to look at the other officer with them. He shook his head and nodded at the captain. The two men threw their dishes at the cleaning station with bad grace, missing the cans.

  Dollish raised a tentative hand, “Sir?”

  Butcher asked, “What, Oliphant?”

  Dollish looked at Stone, “Thanks for that, Boss. Anyway, what about aliens? We were ordered not to prepare anything for the vent runners or the drascos.”

  “They’re as much a part of this crew as humans. They’re equal partners. In fact, someone see if you can get some booster seats in here for our piglet friends.”

  There was a smattering of applause that grew louder as Missimaya and his friend left the dining hall. A couple of engineers spoke into their dataports and before long, the main hatches were pushed back and a dozen vent runners entered the hall, crowding around various tables to be with their human friends. Although the humans couldn’t talk to the piglets, the little aliens didn’t have any trouble hearing and understanding their human counterparts.

  The whole situation reminded Stone again that it was beyond time to bring up the suggestion of giving dataports to the piglets. One way communication was frustrating, time consuming, and foolish. The piglets and drascos may be alien sp
ecies, but they were clearly allies.

  The piglets flooding the dining facility were vent runners, recognizable by the tiny vests they wore filled with a variety of tools. Shorty and Sissie walked across the chow hall and to his surprise were applauded and patted on the back by a variety of humans glad to have them back in their company. The pair climbed into the chairs vacated by Missimaya and his companion, putting their shoulder bags on the seat to boost them up to table height.

  The piglets were followed into the chow hall by eight drascos. Jay and Peebee headed for Stone’s table, while their daughters raced straight for the marines and began rough housing until Escamilla yelled at her marine’s to settle down. She did not yell at the drascos.

  Jay stopped at the table, raised herself up to her full height and wonked loudly. “I hate this room, Mama. The bad aliens killed some of us here.”

  Peebee lay down and buried her head under her wings. “It makes me sad.”

  Butcher asked, “What’s with Jay and Peebee?”

  Stone didn’t want to publicly announce that he was able to talk to the drascos. As governor, their communications were an easy to keep secret. It proved to be useful on more than one occasion when someone spoke freely in front of Jay or Peebee, not suspecting they could repeat their words back to him.

  He was saved from responding by Dollish when the spacer said, “Captain, they don’t like this bay. They were with us when we fought the Hyrocanians in here.”

  Missimaya’s remaining companion sputtered, “You were part of the assault team? I didn’t know that. Then you fought them hand to hand in this very room?”

  Dollish shrugged. “It wasn’t so much hand to hand as it was clubs and knives, sir. Marines and navy, officer and enlisted, human and drasco, sir. Piglets and civilians, too. Jay and Peebee tried to rescue some other drascos the Hyrocanians were planning to eat alive. The other drascos died. Jay and Peebee get sad when they think about it.”

  The man asked, “How do you know they’re sad? They look angry to me.”

  Dollish said, “They’re my friends, sir. I just know them.”

  Stone patted his pockets. “If I had some candy, I might give them a piece.”

  Shorty pulled out a small bar of Allie’s World solidified tree sap and tossed it to Stone.

  “Thank you. How did you…?”

  Dollish said, “I managed to bring along some of my replicator recipes from back on Allie’s World. It’s pretty easy to make. Here, Boss.” He pulled a knife from a pocket and cut the bar in half.

  Sissie spoke. The humans at the table could see she was speaking, but no sound escaped her mouth.

  Peebee said, “Mama, Sissie wants to know if it’s okay if she goes and gets something for her and Shorty to eat. It’s okay, isn’t it?” Both Peebee and Jay stared at him with anticipation.

  Stone was trying to figure out how to phrase the answer when Dollish said, “You might as well fess up, Boss.”

  Butcher said, “What’s going on, Ensign Stone? Why does everyone at this table know something is happening besides me?”

  Stone sighed. He didn’t see any way around it. “Captain Butcher, the truth is, I can communicate with the drascos. Not just talk to them, but converse with them.”

  Dollish laughed, “It’s about time you admitted that. Some of us have known it for a long time.”

  Butcher looked shocked. “Well, I didn’t know it.”

  Dollish said, “I’m sorry, sir. I assumed that Governor Stone would say something if he thought you should know.”

  Butcher said, “Well, as Ensign Stone, not Governor, he should have spoken up before now. What other secrets are you not telling me?”

  Stone said, “Sir, I can’t talk to the piglets, but the drascos can and they interpret for me. Yes, Sissie. You can get anything from the food line you want.”

  Even Dollish looked surprised, but the looks of amazement changed when everyone saw the look of amusement on the piglets faces. They’d obviously been enjoying the deception.

  Stone said, “Sir, a while back it was suggested that we give dataports to the piglets for communications. They can type onto a keyboard and voice recognition software can broadcast their messages to us. It should speed up a lot of things all across the ship.”

  Butcher nodded, “It sounds like a good idea, except for the fact that officially they’re still a non-aligned alien species. Giving them tech would violate navy regulations. I’ll take it under advisement, but until then, we’ll get by as is.”

  Stone decided it was best to change the subject before Butcher realized he’d been subject to Jay and Peebee presence in more than one secret conversation. “Sir, any news on the computer finding star matches?”

  Butcher shook his head, but glared at Stone. “We’re not done talking about your secret communications, Ensign Stone. The computer has located our position, but we don’t have any charted navigation jump points close enough to even do our grandchildren any good. The computer has found a couple of systems a few months away. They may or may not have usable jump points. We won’t know until we go there to investigate. Even if we find navigation points, we may not know where they’ll take us or how long to stay in hyperspace.”

  Stone asked, “Any luck on identifying the system that rejected us?”

  Butcher nodded, “We’ve located it about three months travel from here.” He tapped open his dataport and called up a display of the system. The view wasn’t much as they only had one frame of high speed video before they were repulsed back into hyperspace. “Matching our tele-optics with the video picture gives us a pretty good view of that system.”

  In the middle of the picture was the planet behind the repulsar mine. Four rocky undersized moons surrounded the blue and green planet. The picture was too indistinct to see any signs of civilization, although everyone agreed it had to be occupied by a technological society.

  Stone said, “Well, sir, we know there are jump points in that system.”

  Butcher agreed. “That is true. However, the jump point we used is protected by some kind of weapon that throws us into hyperspace at random. Even if we spend three months driving through normal space and sneak into this system without a hyperspace wake, we still can’t use the navigation point. Accessing the nav point may get us thrown back into hyperspace in a worse mess than we are now.”

  “Sir, what could be worse? We don’t have a way to get home.”

  Butler shook his head. “We can’t go home anyway. There is a mission to finish first and — what now?”

  Jay was dancing from foot to foot in excited anticipation. “Mama? Mama? Mama?”

  “What is it, Jay?”

  Jay blurted, “Shorty says he knows that system and he thinks he can get the people there to let us use a … a … he called it a tunnel, or a long hole thing — Mama, is that right? I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Stone stepped out of his shower gazebo, draping a robe around him. His private garden had turned into an after-hours park. In the past three months, the piglets had manicured the entire hydroponics deck to perfection. Not even a blade of grass was out of place. The vegetable gardens were producing foodstuffs at a prodigious rate. A grove of trees had been found in a back corner and, when cleared, they began producing bushels of fruit. The fruit looked weird, but tasted good, except the yellow ones that tasted like brussels sprouts.

  The piglets still lived in their little village on the far side of the bay. They were now working on cleaning another unused hydroponics bay a few decks down. There were never more than a few piglets around during the day, but humans by the dozen used the bay for recreation, thus requiring his using a robe between his new shower gazebo and the old tool shed he used as a bedroom.

  He sighed. Sitting on a little bench, under what looked remarkably like a blue spruce fern, were 1LT Hammermill and 2LT Escamilla. They were holding hands, neither looking embarrassed at being caught engaging in a public display of affection. Neither was in uniform, unles
s someone counted Hammermill’s overly garish flowered shirt as a uniform of some kind. Stone raised a questioning eyebrow.

  Hammermill laughed and held their clasped hands in the air as if in triumph. “Come on, Stone. You’re the last one to question a little PDA. After a couple of years of avoiding each other, you and Allie finally gave up fighting it and became a couple.”

  Escamilla shook her head. “Don’t think I’ve quit fighting you, Hammer. A little hand holding is as far as you are going to get today.”

  Hammermill smiled. “I’m glad you think so. Still, I didn’t file an official statement of relationship intent for nothing.”

  Stone asked, “An official statement of what?”

  Hammermill answered, “An official statement of relationship intent. You know, when you tell your commander that you intend to pursue a relationship with someone in the same command.”

  Stone shook his head. “No. I didn’t know. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Hammer, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Hammermill shrugged. “I thought you knew. LT Vedrian filed her paperwork back on the Periodontitis. It keeps you from getting into trouble when dating someone in your command.”

  “I thought that was frowned upon no matter what the circumstances.”

  Escamilla said, “It takes two forms. One from each party involved. If you didn’t file reciprocal documents, Allie couldn’t pursue you.”

  Hammermill laughed, “Lot of good that did you. What Allie wants, Allie gets!”

  Stone said, “But, we wasted so much time —”

  Hammermill shook his head, “Allie didn’t think so. It doesn’t look like a waste to me. You two have been a couple for about four years now, right?”

  Stone snorted. “Not a chance. We danced around each other for the first couple of years. Now you tell me we could have been together from day one if I’d have filed the right forms?”