Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges (13 page)

“
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.

Stone had been asked more than once why the navy hadn’t done a complete overhaul before sending them out.

He always passed along Butcher’s answer when he’d asked the same question, “Two reasons. Allie’s World doesn’t have complete overhaul facilities. Sending Rusty Hinges to Lazzaroni Station would increase the likelihood that word might get back to the enemy that we were building a Q-Ship. Further, strategic considerations always outweigh our tactical issues. High command and the emperor himself wants this war ended as soon as it can be. That’s why we’re pressing on rather than taking the opportunity to head home. We must find the Hyrocanian home world or at least find what they might be using as a base within a few jumps of human space.”

It all made sense until he had to pull his boots back on in the middle of a sleep cycle. The dataport beeping reached a painful decibel before he finally shut it off and answered, “Ensign Stone here.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Ensign. This is main deck hatch security. We have a problem down here.”

Stone clicked on the video display. He saw a chief petty officer he recognized, but didn’t know by name. Behind him stood a fireteam of armed marines, braced at the ready. He doubted the marines were necessary to repel boarders. The native piglets were so bent on harmony that they steadfastly refused to take the last biscuit at a buffet, leaving it in hopes it would bless the next person more than it would have blessed them. Attacking an armed ship would have been out of character. It wouldn’t be out of character for their own piglet pirate and a few of his mates, but those few dozen piglets had open access to the ship.

Still, Numos had assigned teams of marines at every entrance on round the clock watch, more to give them something to do than real security. Stone could see on the faces of the marines that they hated busywork as much as he did.

“What watch is it, Chief?”

“Third watch, sir.”

“Did you call third watch commander?”

“Yes, sir. Major Numos is on his way. He said to call you to the hatch and have you bring one of your dragons.”

“Drascos, Chief. Dragons are mythical Old Earth creatures. These are drascos, intelligent creatures from Allie’s World.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stone could hear the “whatever” tone in the man’s voice. He decided to ignore it. “I’ll be down on the double.”

He stepped over Peebee who was lying stretched out in front of the door to his shed. She rolled her eyes up at him without moving her head. “Peebee, do you want to come with me?” Jay was stretched out in the grass, asleep on her back with her feet stuck in the air. None of the daughters were anywhere in sight.

“Where are we going, Mama?”
she asked.

“Just down a couple of decks to the main hatch.”

“Should I call my girls?”

“Where are Tee, Ell, and Bea?”

“Hammer and Rainne are running night training on ship to ship boarding. Hammer is attacking, so my girls joined his team. Rainne is defending so Emily, Anne, and Charlotte are with them. Hammer will win with my girls.”

Jay rolled over as they walked past. Shaking like a wet dog, a shiver beginning at her head rolled down her neck, across her body and ended with a little tail quiver.
“He won’t win. My girls are better defenders than your daughters are at attacking.”
Following along behind Stone and Peebee she added,
“Hammer is hampered with drascos on his team. He has to use shuttles to breach the hull. He can’t jump and scatter. Ell, Tee, and Bea don’t have space suits.”

Peebee nodded.
“We don’t breathe like humans. We can breathe lots of stuff, but we have to have something to breathe. We could hold our breath long enough to jump and breach a hull, but Tee and Ell can only hold their breath for four or five minutes. But once they shuttle across, they will be tough for Rainne to stop.”

Jay rumpled, hooted and finally wonked her disapproval.
“No. Charlotte is the one to watch. Emily is smarter than she let’s on. If they work together, they can beat your daughters.”

Peebee spun her head around, but didn’t stop walking next to Stone.
“Want to bet?”

“Deal. A full bar of ooze.”

Peebee wonked excitedly as they crowded into a ladderway, taking the steps down three or four at a time.
“Deal, but only for which team of drascos comes out on top. Hammer will win the exercise.”

Jay wonked,
“Of course, Hammer will win. No one can beat our Hammer.”

Once on the right deck, Stone picked up his pace. Instead of a stately walk, he sprinted down the corridor. He could smell the humans long before he reached the hatch. The lemony scent of concern was easy to pick up. The fragrance of grapefruit and lime was absent. There was concern, but no fear.

Skidding to a stop at the rear of the assembled marine security fireteam, he was hit from behind when Peebee didn’t stop fast enough. Neither did Jay and they sprawled into a pile at the feet of the marines. The fireteam of four was facing the main hatch. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they blocked the main corridor access to the ship. Their weapons were held at the ready, but Stone could see from his position on the floor that they held their weapons lightly as if unconcerned about whatever the chief petty officer had called about.

Corporal Tuttle turned, laughed, and held out her bio-mechanical hand. Stone grabbed the hand, using it as a brace to pull himself to his feet.

“Graceful, Ensign. Really awe inspiring to the troops!”

Stone shook his head and slapped her on the shoulder with good humor. “Thank you, Barb. We’ve been working on that move for months.”

“I got some moves you could practice on.” She leered at him and gave a comical wiggle of her eyebrows. “Sir.”

“Thanks, Corporal. I’ll see what Allie thinks about that.”

“I’ll ask if you don’t. Maybe she’ll give me a note that it’s okay to practice a little slap and tickle on her boyfriend.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in close.

“You’ll have to get that note countersigned by me, Barb.”

She grabbed her heart in feigned pain. “Oh, you’re going to kill me, sir. I know you two have an exclusive thing going, but if you’re that stuck, why haven’t you made an honest woman of her?”

“That’s a question for a later time.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Tuttle sighed, “Why a different time? This little dust up ain’t nothing to get concerned about.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the direction of the hatch. “Somebody, and I ain’t saying who, just got a bug up his butt about something. Shorty and some of his team are there and they ain’t in any rush, Boss.”

Stone turned to Jay and Peebee. “Why don’t you girls go on and talk to Shorty. See what’s going on.” He turned back to Tuttle. “My life isn’t that easy, Barb.”

“It never is, sir.”

“Really, what can I do? You know about my family.”

Tuttle snorted. “Your family or your money? Look, sir, you know by now that LT Vedrian isn’t after your money. If that worries you, use the pre-nup. Hell, she’s already gotten one written up and signed. If you’re worried about your family, so what? Your parents like her, so who else matters?”

“What do you mean my parents like her?”

“Oh, she didn’t tell you? Well, ain’t my place to say, sir.”

“I could order you to tell me.”

Tuttle gave his shoulder a little shove, sending him toward the hatch. “It’s strange that you still think that. Why do you think I’m still a corporal?”

Before moving more than a few steps, he turned and said, “I thought you’re still a corporal because of your extra-curricular activities as the unofficial morale NCO.”

“Get on with you now, sir, before you embarrass me in front of my own team.”

The three marines with her laughed as if it was impossible to be embarrassed by anything their corporal could do.

Stone turned back and said, “Chief, what is the issue that’s so difficult to handle that you had to get me out of a nice warm bed?”

“Ensign Stone, these aliens want to bring equipment aboard that doesn’t have a manifest.”

Stone rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Manifest? What kind of ship do you think we’re on?”

“Navy, sir. Human navy.”

Stone said, “Chief, we’re navy, but look around you. You’ve got marines at your back standing security watch on a captured Hyrocanian ship.”

“Yes, sir, about that. Isn’t it a violation of regulations to have a marine officer as a watch commander on a navy ship?”

“Chief, that is the point I’m trying to make. This ship isn’t your typical navy ship. We have navy, marines, drascos, and piglets on a bastardized Hyrocanian ship. Our plan is to pretend to be an enemy ship and get close enough to them to obtain valid intelligence.”

“Sir, I understand that. The sniffer alarms went off when these creatures tried to bring their cargo on board. Lieutenant Missimaya was telling a bunch of us the other day that we’re all going to get court-marshaled for sharing human tech with an alien species. That is, if the aliens don’t kill us in our sleep first, sir.”

“What did your sniffers find?”

“Traces of explosives, sir.

“Traces, Chief?”

“Not enough to be a bomb or anything, but enough to set off the alarms. Maybe they’re bringing on a device, but plan on getting the explosives from our own armory. You know those creepy little aliens are all over the ship. They get into everything, running through the vents. Lieutenant Missimaya said they could use the vents to take over the ship, sir.”

Stone left the chief standing at the main hatch and walked up to Shorty. “May I see what you’re bringing aboard?”

Shorty shrugged.
“Sure, Boss. We never said he couldn’t.”
He pointed one of his three tiny fingers at the chief. He gestured for some of his team to open the crates they were attempting to dolly into the hatch.
“He said we’ve got to have a manifest. I’ve wiped my ass with more manifests than that toad has ever seen. I’m a pirate these days, remember? I don’t do paperwork.”
Jay translated and managed to get a tone of disgust to match his words.
“Your doorman hates us because we aren’t human. He doesn’t like your drascos any better.”

Stone thought back to his first navy assignment. “I’m not saying paperwork is a bad thing, but I had a batch once that almost got me killed, but without it, people would have continued robbing and stealing.”

Shorty pointed a finger at his own chest.
“Rob and steal? Pirate, remember?”
He shook his head.
“We could have gotten this equipment on the ship without anyone ever knowing it was here. We’re not trying to hide anything bringing it through the main hatch. This is equipment we need, considering where we are going.”

The sides of the first crate fell open. Stone gawked at the racks of piglet sized combat suits. They were obviously designed after a marine combat suit. They would double the size of a piglet, with weapons bristling from every angle. They didn’t appear to have a camouflage element like the marines, but the suits were a flat black that would work well in the dark of space or in a dimly lit ship.

Numos walked past Stone. Stone hadn’t heard him approach. “Are these causing the issue, Ensign Stone? They appear to be nothing more than EVA suits.”

“Major, the automated sniffers detected explosives.”

Shorty replied through Jay,
“Well, we did test fire them. Wouldn’t you?”

Numos nodded, “I wouldn’t get into a suit that hadn’t been put through its paces.”

“Exactly.”
Shorty said
. “We have the equipment and base components to build our ammunition, but our jump into Hyrocanian space will take about three months, so we plan on making our own supplies as we go.”

Numos looked at Stone, “Ensign?”

“Sir, apparently the sniffers picked up explosive residue on the suits. I see no reason not to allow our allies to pass with their equipment intact, but I would like a demonstration of their suit capabilities as soon as possible.”