Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges

by Alan Black

  Emmons said, “That is why the piglets developed a repulsar mine. It throws an enemy into hyperspace, but it won’t kill them.”

  Stone shook his head violently. “That’s bull pucky. Throwing someone into hyperspace may just be a death sentence. I should know. Someone tried to kill me that way once. These piglets did it to me again when they threw the Rusty Hinges back into hyperspace.”

  Butcher said, “That is true. If we hadn’t quickly jumped out when we did, there is no way to know where we would have jumped out. The odds are high against us jumping into the heart of a black hole, but it could have happened, since a black hole’s massive gravity well does have a huge impact on normal space.”

  Stone said, “Just because someone doesn’t pull the trigger themselves, doesn’t mean they don’t kill.”

  Emmons walked over and put a hand on his arm. “I understand, Ensign Stone. It’s a fine distinction, but it’s one they’ve made. Rather than kill creatures that have captured and eaten thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of their people, they threw them so far away they might never get back, leaving them to die at the hands of space.”

  Butcher said, “They built a few spaceships with massive repulsar beams just in case someone or something does exactly what we did, find their way into the system without using a navigation point. Their ship’s repulsars would have sent us into hyperspace without the benefit of any jump point at either end. Who knows where or if we could have ever gotten out again.”

  Emily looked at Shorty and back at Stone. “He, like, really wants to know what we want.”

  Butcher said, “I want them to identify which jump point the Hyrocanians were using to conduct their raids. That should lead us one step closer to their fleet.”

  Shorty said, “I know that. I can show you.”

  Butcher said, “That is step one. Step two is to get them to grant us access to that nav point. We can’t move more than a nanometer without Char-tim-Lous’s repulsar warship on our tail.”

  Emily snorted in laughter, “Mama, he said tail. Humans, like for sure, don’t have no tails.” Stone didn’t bother to translate her joke.

  Butcher said, “I don’t expect them to put together a fleet to go with us.”

  Emmons said, “I can guarantee they wouldn’t do that. At this point, they don’t trust us, nor anyone coming into their system.”

  Butcher agreed. Looking around the table, he picked up another confection. Looking at it, he shook his head and put it back. “I’m too old to start getting fat now. Major, if I eat another cookie, you have my permission to slap me silly.”

  “Aye, aye, Thom. It’d be my pleasure.”

  “Don’t take too much pleasure in it, Dash,” Butcher said. “What I do want get is concession three. If we go through after the Hyrocanians and survive, can we come back through here to head home? So far, I haven’t been able to get the space corps commander steered toward that communication.”

  Shorty grabbed Butcher by the wrist. With surprising strength, he jerked the man down, bending him at the waist. He grabbed the captain’s ear, leaned close, whispered loud enough for Emily to translate, and said, “You’re being too subtle. You humans never get to the point.” He let go, spun around, and faced the space corps commander. “Listen up, you old bag of ass-wind. These humans are here to fight your enemy for you. You will let them go fight. You will give them the codes to disable the repulsar mines for when, or if, they ever come back, and you’ll allow them to pass through so they can go home.”

  The commander stood in his field and shouted back, “Pirate, if we give them the codes to the mines, they may be followed here by the Eaters, as the Eaters followed you all those years ago.”

  Stone said, “Hey, Shorty? Ask him if they can give us a code that only works for one ship at a time? That way anyone following us without a code will get repulsed.”

  Butcher nodded. “I haven’t any intention of coming back if anyone is tracking us. I won’t lead Hyrocanians back into human space.” Followed by the rest of his staff, Shorty, and Emily, the captain walked across the field where the piglets were working. They all stood along the fence rail in various poses waiting for a response. The commander was thinking, but not saying anything.

  Stone asked Emily, “Anything?”

  “No, Mama. They’re talking with each other to see if such a thing is possible.”

  Stone gestured out into the middle of the small field. A group of piglets were using axes and levers trying to work a thick tree trunk out of the ground.

  Numos said, “I could blast that out of there in a second if I had any weapons with me.”

  Stone said, “Emily, would you help them?

  “Aw, Mama. Why should I help them? Like, we aren’t doing enough for them?”

  Stone said, “For me?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “For a bar of ooze, all to yourself?” The ooze was drasco candy infused with carbon dioxide. The drascos fought over pieces like it was gold.

  Emily vaulted over the fence, tap danced across the field, not even rustling a leaf on any plant. Squatting, glaring at the tree stump, she raised her tail over her head. Slamming her bone spike deep into the stump, she grunted and jerked. The tree stump ripped out of the ground with a screech. Shaking it loose from her tail, she threw it over the fence, where it slammed to the ground away from the crops.

  The commandant asked, “What will you give me if I give you the codes to come back?”

  Butcher said, “What do you want?”

  “You have no lands to trade.”

  Stone said, “I do. I will give you — how much land do you want for the codes.”

  “Where is this land?”

  Stone said, “Allie’s World is a short space jump from here.”

  Shorty said, “You would give him land on Allie’s World? Praise harmony, I’ve seen that land, you old ass-wind. It’s better than this ancient rock-strewn weed-covered patch you call a garden. It won’t be easy to farm, but everyone knows you’re a tough old man and can tame a wild world.”

  Stone laughed when he heard the translation. Throwing insults and compliments in the same sentence might be a strange negotiation tactic, but it seemed to be working. Especially the religious reference to harmony that Stone doubted Shorty believed anymore.

  “Come on, you old gas-bag. How much land do you want? It’s just a small code.”

  “I want a field half the size of this.” He threw his arms about him, pointing at the area inside the fence. It couldn’t have been more than five acres.

  Stone shook his head. “I cannot give you that much now. However, if you give us the codes first, I will trade you ten times that much land when I come back. Before you answer, I also want a repulsar mine so humans can learn to fight their enemies without killing them and I want to keep the codes and come back to your world for trade between our peoples.”

  “Ten times? Shorty, can we trust these humans?”

  Shorty picked up a small dirt clod and threw it at the commander. The old piglet easily danced out of the way. Shorty shouted, “You thick headed rat-butt for brains. You can trust them more than they can trust you.” He stretched up and jammed a finger into Stone’s chest. “This one owns most of a whole planet. He can grant you your ten times this field and still not even know it is missing. If he says he will give you your payment, he will do so and gladly. You and your whole family can garden and farm a new world, stretching and growing beyond even your wildest dreams.”

  “Deal.”

  Shorty threw another dirt clod at the old man, “You old limp dick, mother always liked me best. And I’m going to kick your wrinkled old bottom when I come back, harmony or not.” He looked at Butcher. “We aren’t going to survive anyway, are we? I hope not, because he could always give me a big licking when we were little ones.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Stone tried to look pleasant, but keeping a smile on his face was difficult. Today was his first full off duty day in months that matched up with
Allie’s day off. They’d planned to spend it together and alone. Now he found himself dressed in his fanciest navy uniform, replete with metals, ribbons, and braid. Even though Allie was on his arm, dressed in her finest marine uniform, drinking fruity little umbrella drinks at some wealthy piglet’s farmstead was not where he’d hoped this evening would go.

  Allie said, “Come on, Stone. Lighten up. This is a first contact diplomatic event. We’re making history here and this whole shindig is done up for you. The hero of pigletville, the savior of the stolen, and the slayer of the Hyrocanian hordes.”

  “You know that isn’t how it happened. You were there. So was Dollish, Tuttle, and even Jay and Peebee.”

  “I know I was there and that I was nearly useless because of my injuries. It wasn’t me who led the charge against the Hyrocanian compound.”

  “It wasn’t me either. Major Numos was in charge.”

  “You were the one who leapt unto the Hyrocanian shuttle to stop them from using it against us.”

  “Sergeant Li carried me.”

  “You were the one who ordered the piglet’s cages opened up.”

  “But al-Julier and January did it.”

  “You led the charge into the Rusty Hinges.”

  “Shull Bit! Jay and Peebee led the charge, I was barely able to keep up to them and the marines.”

  “You stopped the killing in the Hyrocanian slaughter house.”

  “Not by myself. Corporal Tuttle and Spacer Dollish did that, too.”

  “You figured out how to get into engineering to capture Rusty Hinges.”

  “No — well, okay. I pushed a button. Big whoop! It doesn’t deserve another medal. It was a tiny button.” He looked down at the new ribbon hanging around his neck. “This metal is bigger than the button.”

  Allie laughed, “Give the piglets a break, okay? Giving metals and awards are new to them. They’ve never had a planetary hero before.”

  “Yeah, I know. That isn’t really what’s bothering me.” He grabbed her hand and walked around the back of a nearby shed. “We had more time together —” He kissed her lightly on the nose. “— when were in the same chain of command —” He kissed her gently on the point of her chin. “— and weren’t supposed to —” He grabbed her lower lip between his teeth in a tender nibble. “— be involved. Now, when we’re —” He held her face in his palms, lightly stroking her cheekbones with his thumbs. “— in different commands and can be together —” He kissed her softly on the lips. “— we can’t seem to be together.”

  Allie sighed, her warm breath invading his nostrils like a warming glow of wet, dark chocolate. “Our duties just don’t match up right now, Ensign. The harder we try the farther apart we get pulled.”

  “I’m not going to quit trying.”

  “You better not, Stone.”

  A long kiss interrupted their conversation. Allie finally said, “I really wish things would have worked out better for our leave on Peach’s Rest. I really hated sleeping alone, it sure isn’t what I had planned.”

  He held her by the shoulders and looked into her face. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about Peach’s Rest. You mentioned something about meeting another couple?” He caught a scent of licorice and mint mixed with her chocolate. He knew that wet, dark chocolate fragrance well, it woke him at night and often kept him awake. Her love was undeniable.

  Mint signaled her trustworthiness better than her words ever could, so questioning her loyalty was foolish. Licorice indicated she was hiding something from him. It was subtle, just a hint of fragrance, but the odor was there.

  She chuckled. “I thought you forgot about that.”

  “So who were they?”

  “Just a married couple on vacation. I guess for them it was a last minute holiday, but things didn’t work out like they expected. They’d hoped to meet someone there who didn’t show. So, we ate together and talked a lot while we sipped beers on the beach.”

  He tapped her on the forehead with a finger. “Listen up, marine. You said you talked about me a lot, right?”

  Allie smiled, “Of course, I like talking about my boyfriend. And they had a bunch of questions about you.”

  “Me? Why would they ask about me?”

  “Come on, Stone. You’ve been in the news more than once. You may not be a musician, or an actor, or something, but you are a celebrity and people know who you are. You’d have been swamped with requests for autographs if you’d been there.”

  Stone shook his head, staring at her as if she was crazy. “Why would anyone want my autograph?” Then he remembered Ensign Tander wanting him to sign his book. “It’s that stupid book, right?”

  Grabbing his hand, pulling him back around to the party, Allie squeezed his hand. “And yes, it’s partly that book. I even got tracked down by that squid … er, I mean Ensign Tander and signed his book. So did Hammer, but Numos almost tore his head off for even suggesting it. I think he’s still trying to get up the nerve to ask Jay and Peebee, but I know he’s gotten candid vids of them and attached them to his copy of the book.” She waved at a group of piglets and pulled away from him. Over her shoulder, she said, “I like a little kissy-face as much as the next girl, but we have to mingle.”

  Stone felt a tug at the bottom of his jacket and turned. A group of tiny piglets hovered around his feet. These were small children. No human was an expert in piglet, and he was no different than anyone else, not having a clue how old the youngsters might be. Glancing around, he could see hundreds of conversations going on between piglet and human. That was surprising because even if a human could hear a piglet, the small aliens didn’t speak Empire Standard. Shorty and Sissie could hear him and understand what he said, but piglets native to Home didn’t have any basis for understanding humans. Their only two-way communication was through a chain from any one of hundreds of piglets to one of eight drascos. Then from any one of eight drascos to a single human. And from Stone, relayed to any one of hundreds of humans. He was a communications bottleneck. However, both humans and piglets seemed to find common ground around food and drinks at the picnic.

  Rather than wait for Whizzer’s crack scientific team to find a mechanical answer to the translation problem, he squatted on his heels and held out an open hand to the youngsters. Each in turn took a finger on his open hand. They touched it, smelled it, rubbed a little dirt on it, and one tiny youngster even licked it. Giggling, they passed his hand back and forth like a new found tool.

  He poked a few petite piglet bellies with a delicate finger, tweaked a couple of noses, and pulled a few ears, to the delighted laughter of the youngsters. He couldn’t catch any fragrance coming from them to signal their thoughts or emotions. Struggling with his improved hearing, he still couldn’t catch any noise from them. Hand signals were useless as there wasn’t any frame of reference to tell whether an upright middle finger meant “You’re the best.” Or if it meant what it did to humans.

  A pair of human legs followed a peppermint scent. Stone shooed the youngsters away and said, “Lieutenant Hammermill, how’s the party going?”

  “Sedate, Ensign Stone. Not at all like the first party we attended together.” Marines fought hard, played hard, and partied harder. “I didn’t mean to interrupt the thing you had going with those little guys, I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “Fire away, Hammer.” He stood up. Even at six feet four inches, Hammermill still towered over him.

  Hammermill looked around, gesturing with his chin at dozens of groups of piglets watching the two of them. “You just scored big points with the native politicians playing “this little piggy goes to market” with a handful of junior piglets. How did you know that was the right note to hit?”

  Stone shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to score points. Didn’t you ever have to go to a picnic as a child because your parents wanted you there, even if you wanted to be somewhere else?”

  “What kid hasn’t?”

  “Sometimes you were bored to no end and you couldn
’t play because your parents made you dress up in your fancy clothes.”

  Hammermill tugged at his marine blouse, pulling it straight, even though there wasn’t a wrinkle or a speck of dust anywhere. “I grew up on cattle ranches. Most barbeques were rowdy affairs, but I went to enough of this kind of affair to know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, I was dragged to more of those than I can remember. I was just being nice to some bored youngsters. I didn’t think about making points with anyone.” Stone glanced around him. “Can I ask you a question? Why are we still here? We’ve restocked everything we were short of. We have the coordinates to the navigation point we need. We even have one of those humongous repulsar mines for the crew in munitions to reverse engineer.”

  Hammermill shrugged, “Damfino. Politics maybe. I’m just anxious to get out of here and get back to doing what a marine is trained to do.” He held up a glass of some fruity drink with a little umbrella. “These kiddie drinks are going to kill me before I get the opportunity to kill more Hyrocanians.”

  CHAPTER-TWENTY-TWO

  Stone had barely gotten to sleep when his dataport began beeping with ever increasing urgency. He let it beep as he swung his feet over the side of his bunk. It had been a long couple of shifts working with Tactical trying to get all of their weapons systems replaced with human weapons or at worst, getting the Hyrocanian weapons on-line. Sometimes ripping the old ones out was more work than it was worth, but leaving them in place often meant hours of scrapping rust off cogs, hinges or panels. He’d fallen asleep with no more effort than it took to kick off his boots. Putting them back on seemed to be more of a challenge than when he’d taken them off.

  It’d been weeks since they’d been welcomed on the piglet home world of Home. In between picnics, barbeques, dances, and meetings with their space corps, the crew of Rusty Hinges worked to bring the ship up to navy specs. The task wasn’t easy. There were still decks that hadn’t been touched except to survey and secure. Captain Butcher exhorted them to greater effort every day, determined to be as ready to meet the Hyrocanians as they could be.