Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges

by Alan Black

  Butcher said, “I know, XO. It’s a crappy job, but —”

  Everyone on the bridge finished with him in unison “— someone has to do it.”

  Butcher continued, “You have the packet?”

  Everyone aboard had recorded a last message home, just in case. “I carried it onto the shuttle myself, Captain.”

  “Good. You can give mine back to me at breakfast after the insertion.”

  The XO said, “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Butcher said, “Communications, are you sync’d up with Whizzer?”

  “Comms, sir. We are in sync. We can broadcast video and sound direct from his console.”

  “Tactical, are we a go?”

  “Tactical, sir. We are a go. Weapons are online and hot. LT Vera has us steady at fifty-seven percent. That’s not high, sir, but she’s pulled off miracles getting us that ready. I do want to renew my objection to making this jump without shields up or camouflage.”

  Butcher looked at Emmons.

  She looked back and shook her head vehemently.

  He said, “Sorry, Tactical. It feels wrong to me too, but Doctor Emmons insists that a Hyrocanian wouldn’t jump into his own system with shields up and camouflage active. Our chief behaviorist claims it would offend other ship commanders.”

  Emmons said, “The Hyrocanian command structure is still unclear, but we have more than one example in our files and from our own observations that offending a senior officer can get you killed without repercussions from the higher commander.”

  Stone remembered watching a fat Hyrocanian kill a smaller one without compunction or cause. He doubted a higher ranking officer had to wait to be offended before striking to kill. Still, he agreed with tactical, jumping into an enemy camp without shields made him feel naked. It was a dream he had all too often of showing up as a midshipman cadet for a formation without his trousers.

  Butcher made a few more calls around the bridge. Everyone was a go. That wasn’t a surprise as everyone was ready an hour ago. He looked at the conference table. “Major Numos, marines ready?”

  Numos nodded, “Yes, sir, always are. LT Vedrian reports we’re good to go whether we need to repel boarders or we need to board another vessel.”

  “Shorty, anything you want to add at the last minute?”

  Shorty shrugged. Ell didn’t need to interpret the gesture.

  Butcher looked at Stone, “Ensign, any final suggestions?”

  “No, Captain.” Stone wished he had something to suggest or report. He felt useless just sitting and waiting.

  Butcher said, “Navigation, time to jump?”

  “Nav, sir. Time to jump is fifteen minutes.”

  The fifteen minutes creeped by much slower than hyperspace time distortion or the theory of relativity could explain. It was a quiet fifteen minutes, interrupted only when Ell loudly passed gas and Whizzer pretended to gag on the noxious fumes.

  “Nav, sir. Jump pending.”

  Butcher nodded, “On your mark, Nav. Everyone on your toes.”

  Stone had been on his toes for so long he felt like an overworked ballerina. His fingers gripped the chair arms with white-knuckled intensity. He glared at the little display on the table. All it showed him was gray. He glanced at the main bridge display. It showed gray. His eyeballs snapped back, returning his glare to the table monitor; it was still gray. Gray. Gray. Black with stars strewn across empty darkness.

  Butcher asked, “Comms?”

  “Comms, sir. Nothing. Not even on standard ship-to-ship bands. Spinning the dial now, sir.”

  “Tactical?”

  “Tactical, sir. Nothing. No mines. No ships guarding the navigation point. I don’t think they expect anyone but Hyrocanians.”

  Butcher sighed. “Okay, people. Let’s start feeding data to my display. Start with planets and moons, then I want the location of all Hyrocanian ships and bases quicker than asap.”

  A chorus of “Aye, aye, Captain” rang across the bridge.

  Butcher said, “Helm, let’s move up above the elliptic relative to our present position. Nothing is coming through this nav point behind us, but no ship’s master deliberately sits in front of an open door. I think —”

  An exceedingly obese and harsh looking Hyrocanian face popped onto the main bridge monitor. Whizzer’s console translated in real time.”

  “Admiral Grebnetzell, where have you been? How did you get back through that jump point? Explain yourself now or submit to feasting.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The main bridge monitor split down the middle. The angry looking Hyrocanian officer glared out one side and the other side filled with an equally angry looking Hyrocanian officer, although this one was slightly less rotund.

  Wyznewski punched a few quick buttons and the thinner Hyrocanian said, “Sir, Admiral Grebnetzell is dead.”

  “I hope the anal retentive cretin didn’t get the pleasure of dying at the hands of his food?”

  Wyznewski’s avatar replied, “No. I killed him for getting us lost in hyperspace.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Wyznewski and I promoted myself to Admiral.”

  Stone was worried the Hyrocanians were going to be upset at the self-promotion and he’d argued with Wyznewski and Emmons about it. They insisted they didn’t understand Hyrocanian ranks enough to adopt another rank and they believed Hyrocanians advanced through murder and one-upmanship.

  The Hyrocanian appeared to be fuming, but said, “What kind of name is Wyznewski?”

  Wyznewski’s avatar replied, “Communications are fuzzy, Admiral —”.

  Emmons prodded him with an elbow. She pointed at a display next to her. Their systems facial recognition must have found the on-screen Admiral in the Hyrocanian database.

  Wyznewski added, “Admiral Kut. We have many damaged systems. Report … sketch … soon … overloading engines, imminent explosion, sir. Report to you soonest.” He shut down his side of the communications. “Outgoing communications are off.”

  Butcher said, “Comms off.”

  Stone said, “No, sir. Sorry, Captain. Let’s leave the incoming comms open. Grandpa always said eavesdropping isn’t polite, but I do think this might be a fine opportunity to disobey Grandpa.”

  “Comms, sir. Ensign Stone has a good point. Recording now. Listen to this.” The communications officer turned up the volume. They could hear more than one conversation going on around the Hyrocanian bridge. “As long as they forget to shut off their outgoing calls, who knows what we might pick up.”

  To prove his point, a thinner Hyrocanian plopped into the seat recently vacated by Admiral Kut. It either ignored the open comms in front of it or didn’t care they were open. It looked at a Hyrocanian on its left speaking to a Hyrocanian out of visual range. “Did you see Kut? I swear the old bastard is losing weight.”

  The reply was quick, “Yes, but his hearing is still as sharp as his penis. You will be labnet feed if he hears you talking about him behind his back.”

  “That’s just the point, you fat crack. His back is shrinking. He looks almost like a teenage girl! Disgusting.”

  The voice came back, “What’s with three-six-twenty-seven-twelve?” A stubby hand came into view and tapped the monitor.

  The Hyrocanian shrugged. “How in the world of late lunches should I know? They’ve been gone down the asshole of this solar system. Everyone else who’s gone there disappeared like they did. Now they’re back. I’m not a mind reader.”

  “You couldn’t read your own mind if someone else wrote it down for you. Did you see that skinny looking leftover loser they got in charge?”

  “Made me hungry just to look at him. Speaking of hungry…”

  Butcher said, “Keep it running, Comms. Feed it to Whizzer, Emmons and their team for analysis with constant updates fed to the shuttle in case they have to bug out.” He slipped out of his chair and walked over to stand behind Stone. “Nice call, Ensign. You seem to have a right devious mind. Why you might even make
a good politician someday if your navy career doesn’t work out.” He chuckled at his own joke. “Okay people. Let’s get every communications tech we’ve got on this ship looking for and recording any signal we can find.”

  Numos asked, “Stay on general quarters, Captain?”

  Butcher nodded, “Let’s not relax just yet, Major. We still don’t know what’s out there.”

  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.