Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges (25 page)

Tuttle looked up through the ladder well. “One more deck, Ensign Stone. Come on.”

Jay shouted, “
No. Mama. Bad ones down below.”

Peebee pulled up a virtual keyboard on her dataport translator and typed in a code. “Down.” Her simulated voice was barely a match for the one Stone was accustomed to hearing in his head.

Dollish said, “You’re the boss, Ensign. You have a better idea?”

Turning from the ladderway, Stone sprinted down a corridor past his team. They sped after him. Calling up the ship’s schematics, he verified he was headed the right way. The whole corridor displayed marks on the bulkheads. Each room had been cleared, sealed, and marked by marines or piglets. Stone smiled when he saw a pictograph of a drasco throwing a Hyrocanian. It was drawn at piglet height. He didn’t slow his sprint.

He spotted a group of armored piglets. “Follow me,” he shouted. He continued running, not bothering to see if they obeyed him. He didn’t even know if they were part of the piglets who’d been around humans long enough to understand Empire Standard. He did notice that Jay turned loose of her armored piglet with reluctance, almost as if she were letting go of a contest prize.

He skidded to a stop in front of a welded hatch and pounded on it. “In here. Get this hatch open.”

Tuttle said, “Aye, aye, sir. We’re on the wrong floor, Ensign, but —” She didn’t get to finish her sentence as Jay and Peebee both grabbed the hatch and yanked. The hatch warped, but held.

Stone reached a hand between his drascos. He grabbed a handle and pulled with all the might of the suit, managing to rip the handle away from the hatch.

Tuttle pushed him out of the way. “Watch him,” she admonished her fellow marines. Flexing her gauntlet covered bio-mechanical hand, she punched a hole through the hatch. Grabbing the edges of the new hole, she wrenched the hatch from its hinges.

As a group, they stormed through the hatch. Racing between their legs, dozens of armored piglets joined them. January and al-Julier stopped at the gaping hole where the hatch had been. The two marines spread wide as a large herd of unarmored piglets were herded into the room by a marine fireteam. The piglets were unarmed and without tools. Their eyes grew wide seeing others of their species in combat suits.

Peebee’s dataport voice said, “The piglets from Rusty Hinges are telling these others that they’ve been rescued by you, Mama.”

Stone listened with one ear as he scanned the deck plates around him. He took the time to reply. “We don’t have time to coddle them. Tell them we’ll get them to safety as soon as we can.”

One of the armored piglets passed along his words. In a flash, the former captives began scouring the open bay, jerking a pipe lose from here, tugging a metal bar lose there, and wrenching a long staff from somewhere else. The way the piglets swung their improvised weapons, it left no doubt that they wouldn’t be recaptured without a fight.

Stone jabbed a finger at a deck plate. “Here.” Without waiting for help, he dug his fingers into a tiny crack between the plates and pulled. The warehouse ship had not been subject to the same level of poor maintenance that Rusty Hinges had. Steel screws squealed and complained as the deck plate slowly gave way. An ever-widening gap gave Dollish room to squeeze in and get a grip. With a grunt, Dollish pulled, his suit adding strength to Stone’s. Tuttle shoved a long pipe into the gap. A pair of marines grabbed the end of the lever and pushed. The plate held. Stone dropped to his hands and knees under the pipe. Stiffening, he acted as a fulcrum with Tuttle shouting at the marines to push the end of the pipe down, not up. The thick deck plate rolled back as they worked their improvised prybar deeper and deeper into the gap. Stone grunted as a loud crack similar to weapons fire sounded when the deck plate finally peeled away.

Jay shouted, forgetting her dataport, “
Mama, I can smell them now. They’re below us.”

Peebee used her comms and declared to the room, “Down. We go down now.”

Stone glared at the hole. There were myriads of pipes, conduits, and wires running between the decks. “Engineering should be right below us. We have to get through this mess without tearing up something vital.”

An armored piglet jumped into the hole. He pointed at his chest as his voice transmitter said, “Vent runner.” He grabbed a wire and pulled it free. He tossed the long wire piece to a second piglet. The second piglet used the wire and spliced into another wire in two places, cutting between the spices. The vent runner pointed at a pipe. “Cut.”

Turning his welding torch to high, Stone slashed through the pipe. The metal melted away like water flowing downhill. Dollish leaped into the hole, yanking the pipe out of the way, throwing it to the side as Stone cut again where the piglet pointed. Point and cut. Point and cut.

In a flash, Stone cut a wide gap. He ignored the sparking ends of live wires and dripping fluids from a couple of pipes. Grinning, he didn’t think he’d cut through anything important … this time. Doing a quick mental calculation, he twisted the knob on his wrist to reset the depth of his torch. Slicing a deep groove into the bottom deck plate, he hoped it would hold until he was ready to break through.

“Stone here, Major Numos,” He glanced up. Seven marines and Dollish stared at him from the rim of the hole. Each had weapons ready. Each had fire in their eyes. Each gave him a thumbs up.

A ring of armored piglets surrounded the marines. Behind them stood a thick crowd of unarmored piglets, each armed with a stick, a pipe, or a staff. A three fingered piglet gave a thumbs up. It was a little disconcerting since it looked like getting the finger, but Stone understood the message, they were ready.

“Numos here, Ensign. What’s your status?”

“Major, I’m ready to make ingress into engineering in five, four, three —”

Numos shouted, “You’re what? Dammit, Ensign! Hammer, ready on the left. Allie, ready on the right.”

“Two.” Stone leapt straight up. His suit piston muscles took him all the way to the ceiling above. He pushed off the upper deck ceiling, shoving as hard as he could. The extra thrust and the weight of the suit sent him hurling into the hole adding momentum to his weight.

“One.” The final piece in the deck plate let go. Stone crashed through into engineering, his suit taking the thirty meter drop with no more jarring to his knees than if he’d just stood up from a perfectly designed chair.

A nanosecond later, it was raining marines. Tuttle, January, and al-Julier with the other fireteam dropped beside him. Dollish crashed to the deck shortly thereafter, not getting to his feet fast enough to stay out from under Jay and Peebee as they followed the humans.

Stone kept his voice calm. “January and al-Julier, please get those hatches open.” He jabbed fingers in the directions where Numos and the rest of the marines should be deployed.

He looked at the four-man fireteam. Not knowing their names, he addressed them as a group, “Marines, try not to damage anything that might blow the ship up.”

Without a word, the marines raced toward a knot of Hyrocanians. Most of the aliens were unarmored, but with or without protection, a fireteam of angry marines dropping into your midst was a death sentence. The Hyrocanians died quickly, though not exactly quietly.

Stone spun in a circle as piglets began dropping from the ceiling. He pointed at various systems. Piglets raced where he pointed either singly or in groups. They killed any Hyrocanians they encountered and secured the equipment, engines, or whatever Stone pointed at.

Making room for a homemade ladder and a swarm of piglets climbing down to assist, he moved away, followed by Dollish, Tuttle and his drascos. He noticed January and al-Julier were about to be pushed back from a hatch by a group of armored Hyrocanian defenders, when the marine fireteam hit the four-armed freaks in a bone crunching flanking movement, sweeping them away from the hatch before Stone could shout.

Marines led by Numos, Vedrian and Hammermill boiled into engineering. Stone moved to the spot where he thought the anti-gravity spinning discs should be, but they weren’t there. Looking around the area, he spotted them across the huge bay. Before he could direct Numos to the discs, a group of Hyrocanians attacked his small group. The aliens were armed with a few hand tools and their kitchen knives. They must have been desperate.

A Hyrocanian slammed into Stone, causing him to take a step backwards. Grabbing the enemy by the arms, he twisted sideways, using the creature’s own weight to throw it to Jay.

Jay plucked the Hyrocanian out of the air by an ankle and slammed it to the deck with a bone-shattering thump. Peebee bellowed a deep-throated roar and leapt into the middle of the Hyrocanians. She threw one to her sister, knocked another to the ground, and drove her tail spike through a third.

Stone couldn’t shoot. Even if Peebee wasn’t in the way, there were far and away too many delicate pieces of equipment that might get damaged by errant gunfire. He was about to follow Peebee into the middle of the Hyrocanian defenders when they were swept aside by a wave of marines. Hammermill led the charge, carrying the enemy away like litter on a light breeze.

Stone climbed onto a tall piece of equipment to get a view of the engineering bay. He’d barely stood up when he heard Numos’s voice crackling over the comms.

“Engineering secured, Captain Shorty. The ship is yours.”

CHAPTER FORTY

The cluster of people gathered around the bridge conference table couldn’t help but smile. They were still behind enemy lines with dozens of enemy ships surrounding them. Their way home wasn’t guaranteed. It was still a toss-up whether backtracking using the Hyrocanian database would get them back to Allie’s World.

Slipping away from the system, the human shuttle carrying all their gathered information headed for the piglets home. Everyone was hopeful the piglets code would let them into their system and then out again.

The good news outweighed the bad. They had successfully taken a second ship from the Hyrocanians. Admittedly, the ship was smaller than the Rusty Hinges and designed as a warehouse, but it was in the hands of an allied species. The alliance was unofficial, but Butcher and Shorty were happy with the arrangement. Several thousand of his people followed Captain Shorty, although the little piglet himself remained with the humans for the time being. A few hundred piglets remained on the Rusty Hinges. No one asked whether they were following the piglet pirate or feeling some sense of obligation toward their human rescuers.

CDR Nessayette had taken charge of the rescued humans and piglets now aboard the Rusty Hinges. They had recovered eight additional humans and two hundred piglets not on the warehouse ship’s manifests. Apparently, the Hyrocanians were not above skimming a few profits or fudging their warehouse supply sheets for personal gain or amusement.

The humans new camouflaged repulsar mines now blocked every jump point in the system. Apparently, the Hyrocanians had not noticed that ships occasionally left the system, but none ever entered.

The civilian scientists had hacked the computers of every ship in the system. All databases were duplicated and the team of Wyznewski and Emmons were confident they could spoof any ship, making them believe anything Butcher wanted them to believe. The only Hyrocanian computers they could not spoof were on the stationary weapons platform orbiting the planet and its attendant ground-based protector.

Captain Shorty had transferred Sissie to their new ship and installed her as the interim commander despite her objections. Sissie had given Butcher everything she thought the human ship might need, amounting to precious few items. With the gardens and orchards in full swing, they had more vegetables and fruits than they could eat. A few unintelligent creatures managed to round out their protein requirements. Shorty got Butcher to sign a draft for payment of goods transferred from his ship to the Rusty Hinges. Butcher grumbled about it, but everyone knew, including Shorty, the grumbling was just for affect.

Butcher looked at the assembled team. “Okay, people. So far so good. We’ve had our share of luck. I plan on sending a second shuttle through the jump point with any additional information we’ve gathered and duplicates of what we sent with the first shuttle.”

Stone wasn’t surprised, but Wyznewski looked shocked. The civilian scientist said, “Captain, why are we sending a shuttle and not going ourselves? The information we’ve gathered will keep the data miners happy for a year going through everything. Somewhere in this mess of data is a location of the Hyrocanian home world. I’m sure of it.”

Butcher said, “Yes. That’s why I’m sending all civilians back on that shuttle along with the information. It’ll be crowded, but safer.”

Kat replied, “Bull. I don’t know what you’ve got planned, but I’m too old to run away now. I’m staying. Whizzer?”

Wyznewski nodded reluctantly, “Yeah. What she said.”

Butcher said, “You just remember that later.” Smiling, he added. “I was prepared to send all of the human rescuees back as well, but most of them gave me the same spiel you just did. I won’t force anyone to leave, no matter how dangerous it might be to stay.

Wyznewski paled, “Dangerous?”

Butcher laughed, “Yes. Want to change your mind?”

Wyznewski looked at Emmons and then back to Butcher. He shook his head, “No. I think I’ll see this through.”

Butcher looked at the monitor on the table. Sissie looked back at him from the bridge of the ex-warehouse ship they were now calling the Freedom Wagon. “Captain Sissie, are you prepared to depart the system?”

Sissie shook her head. She typed into her dataport keyboard and her translator said, “By your leave, Captain Butcher. I would stay and fight with you.”

Seated at Butcher’s conference table, Shorty said, “Sissie, many of the people with you are non-combatants and they want to go home.”

Stone nodded in concert with Butcher. Both agreed with Shorty. The three humans he’d rescued were civilians, taken in midflight from a skiff at the edge of human space. The man and his two daughters deserved the opportunity to return to their home space. The piglets deserved no less consideration.

Sissie said, “Our captured Hyrocanian shuttles aren’t hyperspace capable. I feel sorry for the people who want to leave. I was held by the Hyrocanian too, remember? I will not abandon those I owe for my rescue.” She seemed to stare directly at Shorty. “Nor will I leave you, Pribit. You want to send these people home? So do I. You want to hurt the Hyrocanians? So do I. If you want the Freedom Wagon to go home, you come back here and take it yourself. You left me in charge and I won’t go without you, nor will I leave Ensign Stone behind while he is in danger.”

Butcher nodded at Shorty. “Good luck with that one.”

The captain glanced at his advisors. “We’ve gathered all of the information we can get. I’ll admit putting in the repulsar mines throws a kink into the plans of the Hyrocanian fleet stationed in this system, but my orders are to also do what damage we can. I think we can do more.”

Numos asked, “What’ve you got in mind, Thom?”

Butcher said, “I think we can send a flurry of mines at all enemy ships in the system. If we time it right, we can hit them simultaneously so none of them will see it coming and turn on their shields in time to save themselves.”

XO Gupta said, “That sounds doable. The timing would be tight, but a quick flurry and we let our mines drift toward the enemy. These mines are too small for anyone to see them coming. Not to mention we can use their own IFF against them. None of their ships are doing much moving around, so we should be able to anticipate where everyone will be at any given time. Their shields are currently down, so we should be able to do maximum damage with a minimum number of mines.”

From the looks on their faces Stone could see that this plan was something the Captain and the XO must have previously discussed. Butcher looked pleased, but Gupta was frowning. The XO added, “However, our best position for clear shots at every ship puts the Rusty Hinges within range of the planetary weapons platform. We can’t attack all their ships and still slip out the back door before that orbital beast turns us to dust.”

Butcher said, “So either we take out the orbiting platform or we limit our impact on their ships. Can we take out the platform?”

Gupta shook his head, “No, sir. That planetside base will tear us to shreds if we get close enough to kill its big brother and vice versa. I’ve run the simulation a hundred different ways and it always comes down to our certain destruction. Unlike their spaceship buddies, both the orbital and the planetary base have their shields up — always. They seem to be on permanent alert. We can’t get close enough to use what little firepower we have without them challenging us and opening fire.”

Wyznewski said, “We haven’t been close enough to clone their data. We can’t spoof their systems or the systems of the base located on the planet.”

Numos said, “So we can’t kill them without them killing us first?”

Butcher nodded. “That’s about the size of it. We can cut and run now, taking a few shots as we leave, but we’ll only get a few of their ships, leaving two dozen or more behind untouched. Maybe we can entice them into following us and trap them in hyperspace?”

Numos scooted his chair back, stood and began pacing. “Let’s call that plan B. I don’t like running without a fight.” He stopped, his fists clenched. “I believe my marines can take the orbital weapons platform if you can get us in there. Give us a shuttle and we can pretend to be a resupply delivery.”

Wyznewski and Emmons looked at each other and nodded.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm, Dash. But, we can’t get close enough to drop you in their lap without getting shredded like old cheese.” Butcher shook his head. “It’s clear from what Whizzer and Kat can find, they have standing orders to even shoot their own ships if they get too close without authorization. They may let a shuttle through for a delivery, but they wouldn’t expect a delivery from the Rusty Hinges.”

“But —”

Sissie interrupted Numos. “The Freedom Wagon is a warehouse ship. Resupply from us might get through.”

Butcher said, “No. Even if we get Whizzer and Kat to spoof them with orders and they let you get in close enough to send a shuttle, you can’t get close enough to the planetary base to fool them. They’ll end you once they realize their orbital big sister is under attack.”

Numos said, “Then how do we take out the planetary base? Can we hit them first?”

Gupta said, “If we hit the planet first, the ships in the system and the orbital platform will kill us. We can spoof the ships, but not the platform.”

Butcher said, “Major Numos, can you split your forces between the orbital platform and the planetary base, taking them both out?”

Numos shook his head. “It’ll take everyone I have to destroy that orbital beast from the inside without alerting every ship in the area. Spoofing only goes so far. If the Rusty Hinges starts shooting, it’s over. Once the Hyrocanians start seeing explosions on the orbital platform, they’ll figure something is seriously wrong, no matter what Kat tells them.”

Butcher spat, “Then we don’t have any way to take out the planetary base and the orbital platform without them killing us in the process?”

Stone said, “I can take the planetary base out, sir.”