Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges

by Alan Black

  The Hyrocanian shrank slightly. “No offense, great one. But, your ship is drifting.”

  Stone reached around Emmons, put a hand over the microphone, and said to Butcher, “Captain?”

  Before the captain could speak, an ensign first grade said, “Helm correcting now, sir. Ship responding per normal. Engines appear undamaged.”

  Stone said, “Doctor Emmons, ask the Hyrocanians to standby.”

  The avatar spat at the other ship. “We do not have any problems. Everything is perfect. Do not doubt my word. Do nothing while we investigate your malfunctioning sensors.” Everyone looked at Emmons as she basically put the other ship on hold. “What? Their command structure will not tolerate failure. Any admiral admitting any failure would be tantamount to offering his body up for a buffet. I believe their military culture is based upon a Hyrocanian succeeding or be eaten.”

  Stone said, “How long can we keep them on hold?”

  Emmons shrugged. “Our admiral avatar is fatter than their captain. I can’t guarantee it, but we should be able to keep them doing nothing until someone bigger shows up.”

  Butcher said, “Damage control?”

  “Damage control, sir. We’re getting reports from all over the ship, but nothing definite, yet. The explosion was internal.”

  Butcher looked around at the gathered crowd of officers. “XO, sound the fire alarms. Everyone else not at a workstation, get out and find out what happened. Report to the XO. Shorty, please get your vent runners scouring this ship. Something blew and we need to find out what went wrong and we need to find out quickly.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Stone sent Jay racing away with Shorty in her hands. Wonking loudly, she called for Peebee and their daughters to come help. Corridors cleared as she ran, her wings flapping, holding Shorty so her rough hide didn’t scrape all the skin off his body. She raced toward their quarters on the hydroponics deck.

  XO Gupta pulled a screen up in front of him. Gathering incoming damage reports from various locations he shouted numbers at people and they sprinted away. He pointed Stone in the direction of the main hatch and sent him off. A nearby ladderway would take Stone down a few decks where he could access a cross corridor, then run back up another ladderway to reach the corridor to the main hatch.

  Stone shouted into his dataport comms as he ran. “Main hatch, report. Do you have damage?” There was no response. He ran faster, dodging around clusters of spacers and marines running in other directions. The farther he ran, the more people he saw in combat suits or emergency EVA suits. His suit was up in his quarters and he wanted to go get it, but he’d been ordered to check on possible damage first. Hoping there weren’t any hull breaches, his mind did a little stutter step as he had a flash of inspiration. Maybe a little damage at the main hatch would be a good thing.

  His nose started to complain the closer he got to the main hatch. It was an odor every human knew, but his delicate sense of smell was ratcheting the intensity of the odor to almost unbearable levels. He’d hoped he could catch the fragrance of anyone on main hatch duty, but the stench was overpowering all others. Nevertheless, he ran as fast as he could along the last stretch of corridor, pushing his way through the next to the last hatch before reaching the main hatch receiving area.

  Stone tried to come to a quick stop, but his feet slid on a thick layer of human excrement. Human waste covered every inch of the last few feet of the corridor, from the deck to the ceiling and both bulkheads. The last set of large double hatches before reaching the open area were twisted on their hinges and hung like balls of wadded paper. Feces dripped from the ceiling to splash back to the deck. Sliding through the open hatch, waving his arms to keep his balance, he came to a stop in the main area.

  Someone should have been on duty. Two crewmen were on duty at the main hatch except when the ship was in hyperspace, per navy regulations. All he saw were piles of dung. The captain had ordered everything moved from the receiving area into various bays, but there were still small clusters of goods that hadn’t been moved. Somewhere under the dooty may be an injured spacer, unable to move or call for help.

  Stone ignored the piles, dancing his way across the deck carefully skirting a gaping hole in the middle of the deck and a series of twisted, damaged piping poking up through the deck. Inspecting the main hatch and the hull, he was relieved to see there wasn’t any evidence of a leak. Any rupture in the hatch or hull around the hatch would suck the sewage into space. Instead, the feces dripped along the bulkhead, sliding down to the deck.

  Stone tapped his dataport for comms. “XO Gupta. We have damage at the main hatch. There was an explosion of some kind under the deck, maybe the deck below. I need help looking for possible injured, sir.”

  Gupta said, “Can you specify the damage, Ensign?”

  “We’re in deep shit here, XO.”

  Gupta replied, “I understand the seriousness, young man —”

  “No, sir. I mean literally. I think we had a methane backup in the waste system and something caused an explosion. Whoever designed this snafu’d ship ran the toilet waste system pipes under the deck plates near the main hatch. Something blew a hole in the pipes. We’re covered here, sir.” Slowly turning in a circle to give the XO a clear look at the main hatch area, Stone flashed a video of the damage.

  The XO said, “Oh, crap!”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “Help is on the way, Ensign. I’ll be there shortly with a medical team. We should have a spacer and a petty officer on duty down there. See if you can find them.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Looking now.” He backed to a bulkhead and started a spiral search pattern, poking at any pile of dung big enough to be a human. “XO, this explosion couldn’t have just been internal if the ship was pushed off course. We must have a breach somewhere. Is there a waste system expulsion sphincter near the main hatch?”

  “Ensign, are you asking me if the ship has a butthole near the main hatch?” It was obvious the man was trying not to laugh, his stern face struggling to reflect the seriousness of the damage.

  “Um, yes, sir.”

  “Checking schematics now.”

  Stone halted as a pair of dung piles raised up from the deck. He moved closer. “Take it easy, people. Help is on the way.” Trying to tear off a piece of his uniform would be useless. They weren’t designed to tear. Instead, he used a reasonably clean sleeve and wiped it delicately across a spacer’s face, trying to clear the eyes, nose, and mouth. He used his other sleeve and wiped it across the other person’s face. “Hold on, you two. We’ll get you cleaned up and checked out soon. Were you the only two at the main hatch at the time of the explosion?”

  The shorter of the two human-shaped dung piles nodded. Spitting in disgust, a woman said, “PO Jakesson, sir. Just Bob and I were down here. What happened?”

  Stone ignored her question, “PO, are you injured?”

  Jakesson shook her head. The action sprayed feces in all directions. “Negative, um …” She wiped a dung covered hand across Stone’s shoulder, trying to clear his rank tab, but it was covered in human waste and she only made it worse. She must have finally noticed the red combat command stripe on his trousers and figured out who he was. “Um … Ensign Stone. Bob, you okay?”

  Bob shrugged.

  Jakesson asked again, “Sir, what happened?”

  Stone said, “Just what it looks like Petty Officer. This is one of the few times in history when we got hit by a shit storm — literally. Methane must have backed up in some piping under the deck causing the explosion. We’ll investigate how this happened later.”

  The Petty Officer nodded, “Yes, sir. Can we shower first?” Without waiting for an answer, she slogged through the mess until she reached the twisted deck plates. Staring down into the gaping hole, she asked “What kind of idiot designs a ship with the plumbing laid right under the main deck hatch? Where was all this shit being pumped to?”

  XO Gupta called from the last clean spot near the main hatch
deck. “We’re checking into that, Petty Officer. The medical team can hose you down enough that you don’t track this mess across the rest of our decks. Then you and Spacer Jibran are relieved of duty. Go get showered and take the rest of your shift off.”

  Stone began making a dataport recording of the torn deck plates from every angle, even reaching down to try for video between decks. “XO, it doesn’t look like the deck below has been damaged, but I can’t tell how far the damage goes between decks. The pipes are really mangled.”

  Gupta nodded. “Damage control is on the way. They’ll install some temporary bulkheads and deck plates, seal the area, hose it down and flush the waste out into space.”

  “Wait, sir. I have an idea. Leaving this like it is might be a good —”

  A warning klaxon interrupted him. His dataport flashed an emergency screen a few feet in front of him. “Tactical, here. Red Alert. Shields up.”

  Butcher’s voice overrode the tactical officer’s call. “Tactical?”

  “Tactical, Captain. The warehouse ship’s shuttle hatch opened. I hit shields as a precaution, sir. Nothing happened. Their shuttle hatch remains open. We’re constantly scanning for a possible shuttle attack.”

  “Nothing came out?” Butcher asked.

  “Tactical, Captain. Nothing, but —.”

  Stone interrupted. “Captain Butcher, can you send me a direct feed from tactical? Let me take a look.” Everyone was familiar with his ability to talk to the drascos, but few people were aware of his heightened sense of smell and enhanced vision. These were secrets shared with only a few close friends, mainly those who’d survived the wilds of Allie’s World with him. Butcher was one of those few.

  Butcher said, “Do it, Tactical.”

  A view of the warehouse ship popped onto Stone’s screen. The shuttle bay was open and empty space surrounded the ship. Stone tried to move the view but it was a static display.

  “Please give me a three-sixty view around the Rusty Hinges, sir.”

  The screen exploded into a ball around Stone’s head. “There, sir.” Using a finger, he highlighted the Hyrocanian shuttle. “They’re camouflaged, but circling around us.”

  “Tactical, Captain. Our weapons are hot.”

  Butcher said, “Easy on the trigger, son. What do you think, Ensign Stone?”

  “I think they weren’t satisfied about why we were hanging around and why we started to drift before correcting.”

  Stone’s screen was still in a circle around him. Butcher and the tactical officer’s faces were inset in windows. A third window popped open and Doctor Emmons joined the conference. Stone could feel XO Gupta over his shoulder, watching from behind.

  Emmons said, “I concur, Thom. The Hyrocanian mindset would be to search for any weakness. Their admiral may be probing for a way to force a transfer to a larger combat ship and get off the warehouse ship. It might be able to exploit a weakness if it can spot one.”

  Butcher said, “Doctor Emmons, prepare a message from our Admiral Wyznewski telling the admiral we are fine and in working order.”

  Stone said, “Sir, I think we should tell them we did have a problem. Here’s what I think we should do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Stone was back at the main hatch. This time he wore his combat suit and wasn’t standing in piles of human excrement. Dried feces still littered the walls and ceiling, but the deck had been scraped clean — sort of. Although the stench was palpable, Stone wouldn’t have been able to smell anything if he closed his faceplate. He could have the suit filter out certain odors, but he didn’t trust his new suit as much as he trusted his own nose. Only his face was visible with the faceplate open.

  Stone’s new suit wasn’t exactly navy issue or even a modified marine combat suit. His grandfather had hired a private company to design and build a special combat suit for him during his time as governor. The suit was as strong as a marine’s suit, but not as bulky. It had extended capabilities but still met navy suit standards. Somehow, his grandfather had managed to get the suit outfitted with classified marine camouflage settings.

  A platoon of marines lined the main hatch bulkheads, each sealed in their combat suits, weapons ready, and fingers twitching on the trigger guards. He grinned in the direction of Allie’s suit. She waved back.

  “Keep it focused, Ensign Stone. Allie’s voice boomed through their suit’s internal platoon comms frequency.

  “Aye, aye, LT.” He almost chuckled when Corporal Tuttle slapped Allie on the back of her helmet.

  Allie rubbed the back of her helmet, although she would have barely felt the contact.

  Tuttle said, “I told you that we should have let Hammer’s platoon have this job instead of us. You’re just way too much of a distraction to that boy.”

  Allie said, “Good. Let’s keep it that way, Tuttle. And Corporal, staying focused means you too.”

  “Roger that, boss lady.”

  Allie asked, “Stone, anything yet —”

  Before she could finish, a hiss and clank filled the air. Stone glanced behind him spotting Shorty crouching down, hidden behind a small crate. The piglet was naked as the day Stone first saw him.

  Shorty nodded, giving Stone as much of a go ahead signal as he was going to get.

  Stone hit the main hatch override button, allowing the Hyrocanians on the other side to begin opening the hatch from their side. At the first opening crack, Stone leaned in and took a deep whiff.

  He slid his helmet closed and said, “Lieutenant Vedrian. Hold please. I think the Hyrocanian’s are going with scenario B. There are only a few unarmored aliens on the other side of the hatch. They’re bringing their human captives to us.”

  He stepped back from the hatch as it cycled open a few inches at a time. Scenario B was their best bet. It was certainly better than scenario A where the Hyrocanians simply flooded the Rusty Hinges in an all out assault. Doctor Emmons hadn’t thought that scenario likely because their Rusty Hinges avatar was sending messages hinting at only minor internal damage resulting in the drastic loss of living foodstuffs. It demanded every human and piglet it could.

  He called to the bridge using his suit comms. “Captain, we’re going with scenario B. Whizzer send your coded messages.”

  Wyznewski’s voice shook with excitement. “Kat.”

  Emmons voice replied, “Messages sent. We’re overriding comms on the shuttle and the warehouse ship. No one else in their fleet will know anything we don’t want them to know. You have a clear window for scenario B, Blackmon.”

  Stone really wished she wouldn’t use his first name. Even Trey was more comfortable than the old family moniker his parents stuck him with. Before he could say anything, Butcher’s voice flooded their comms.

  Butcher said, “Keep it tight, Ensign. Let’s see if we can get our people off that ship without any incident.”

  Any scenario they’d thought of from A through G might be deadly to Shorty. The little guy was unarmed. If he was spotted, he might become an impromptu Hyrocanian snack before Stone could react, but Shorty had volunteered and couldn’t be persuaded to be anywhere else.

  The first two Hyrocanians through the hatch were armed. Their usually ugly faces twisted in apparent disgust at the dried feces on the bulkheads and ceiling. They backed up slightly and began pushing a small knot of humans through the hatch. They probably expected other Hyrocanians to be at the dock to herd the foodstuffs to their new cages. They seemed reluctant to enter the Rusty Hinges. Stone doubted if they cared that it meant letting the humans roam free on the ship. The attitude was one he’d run onto among humans more than once — it wasn’t their ship and therefore, it wasn’t their problem.

  Stone wanted to greet the humans, to welcome them to safety, hand them something to cover their nakedness and give them a good meal, but he stayed buttoned up in his suit. He counted. His HUD marking each person, photographing them, and sending every small scrap of physical description to the bridge computers for immediate processing and iden
tification.

  The Hyrocanians prodded the human captives forward, pushing them away from the shuttle’s hatch and into the Rusty Hinges. Most of the humans looked too numb to be concerned about the smell of the ship they were being sent to. Stone was sure they knew they were being transferred as foodstuffs.

  He spotted LCDR Dorothy Nessayette. She looked around, curiosity evident in her eyes, as was a sharp edge of frustration and fury. She stopped to dig a calloused toe at the edge of the hastily replaced deck plates, shaking her head in obvious criticism over the sloppy job.

  Stone said, “Twenty-three. Hammer, if you please?” He kept his voice low, although the Hyrocanians and humans wouldn’t have heard him if he shouted. His external microphones picked up a pounding noise. Clang, clang, clang. Clang claaaang. Clang clang claaaang clang. Clang.

  Nessayette’s face shot up, her head turning.

  The old morse code signal began again. “S.A.F.E.”

  She said, “Look alive people. Heads up. Those four-armed freaks haven’t licked us yet.”

  Stone chuckled at her pun, intended or not, but remained closed up. The humans were just the first part of their expected delivery. Nessayette shoved her people into a semblance of order and marched them down the corridor out of the main hatch receiving area. He thought they were in trouble when he saw the last three rescuees stop moving before turning the last corner. They froze in surprise.

  Stone flipped open a channel to see the corridor from Hammermill’s point of view. The humans were being welcomed by a platoon of marines who were scooping them up and carrying them full tilt down the corridor to safety. Once they realized what was happening, many of the naked humans ran leaping into the open arms of the marines.

  Hammermill kicked on his camouflage and leaped into the corridor, pulling the last few to safety despite their startled reactions. There were muffled cries of excitement. The Hyrocanians didn’t appear to register the gleeful calls as anything other than the usual screeches of terror from their foodstuffs.