Metal Boxes (11 page)

“Spacers Ramirez and Rojo, reporting for duty, Mister Stone.”

Stone spun about and smiled at the two men. “Gentlemen, if you please, Spacer Ramirez take console four and Spacer Rojo take console six. I will stand watch at console five.”

Both men responded together, but without confidence, “
Aye, aye, Mister Stone.”

Stone smiled wider. “Thank you,
gentlemen. Please feel free to crack your helmets open, but be prepared to seal up quickly.”

“Mister Stone, who else is
coming?” Ramirez asked as he opened his visor.

“Just us,
Spacer Ramirez,” Stone smiled confidently.

“Well, that’s it
,” Ramirez stood and said. “No way can three of us run this place. We might as well go back to bed.”

“Sit down,
Spacer Ramirez. We will perform and we will perform above standard, is that understood?” He spoke calmly, but he almost smiled when he realized he had used the same cadence and tone Chief Tsosie had used on him during training.

“Mister Stone, I don’t recognize these displays. We didn’t train on these in warehouse school
,” Spacer Rojo said.

Stone almost shuddered at the thought that the Empire had to send men to school to teach them how to move boxes from one shelf to another. He knew his growing up on freighters had jaded his view of the work
, but it was not brain science. He stepped up to Rojo and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. It was a psychological touch as Rojo could not have felt his hand through Stone’s gauntlet or Rojo’s suit.

“Those displays are how we are going to do this today. Spacer Rojo, each of these symbols is a destination munitions bunker. The display reads the records of how much they have and how much of what ammunition
type they need. Spacer Ramirez, the displays in front of you show where we have munitions stored and how much we have. Watch these numbers here…” He continued to show the two men how the displays interacted. He quickly taught each man to touch the display to direct the warehouse to pull and dispense the appropriate munitions to the appropriate bunker.

Spacer Ramirez said, “Cool, but what about the rails in
section tcw-c17?”

“They aren’t fixed yet?” Stone asked.

“Huh, not as far as I know, but you’re the boss. Don’t you know…Mister Stone?”

Stone remembered Chief Tsosie said men draw confidence from their officers, so he was to be confident at all times. However, Grandpa had said sometimes you have to show your men you are human. Stone was
not sure how to answer. He decided to try honesty.

“How would I know?
” he said. “Those office weenies never tell the working man a thing. When were you last down there?”

“Two days ago, I guess
,” Ramirez shrugged. “Those anti-grave rails were still twisted then. No way just the three of us can manage this and hump munitions past that screwed up spot.”

“Even in these suits it would take all three of us to wrestle some of these
munitions loads,” Stone agreed with a nod.” No sense in complaining about the maintenance guys not getting here to fix the rails yet. We will just try to route around the bad spots. Let’s-”

“Hey,
navy boy!” Stone was interrupted by a shout. He spun about to see a giant marine combat suit filling the hatchway. The suit was sealed up and the voice had blasted from speakers.

“You lost,
marine?” Stone shouted back.

“Mister Stone, I am an Emperor’s
marine. I may not know exactly where I am, but I am never lost.” The suit twisted a bit and a huge gloved hand pointed at the name stenciled across the upper right chest.

“
Lieutenant Hammermill, this is a surprise,” Stone said with a tone of confusion in his voice. “I am running short of time here, but what can I do to help, sir?”

“Well, Mister Stone, during
general quarters we marines are assigned to seal up in our combat suits and scatter around the ship. Our hope, and it is our only hope of something to do, is for the chance to repel boarders. Since we are not told where we are to scatter on the ship, it was suggested, and I won’t say who suggested it, but it was suggested that I bring a squad over here. And I do gotta say, that here is as good as anywhere. So the real question is: what can I do for you? Keep in mind that regulations state we gotta stay sealed up, but these suits the Emperor loans us are very versatile.”

“Do you happen to have anyone who is not too ham-fisted around a display?”
Stone asked.

Hammermill was silent. Stone realized he was
not thinking about the answer, but asking his squad the question on a separate communications link. Hammermill stepped back and another suit crowded the hatch. This suit was years older and banged up, with so many stickers and handwritten notes scrawled on it that it looked like an elementary school bulletin board.

The
marine spoke through the suit’s speakers. “Sir, I do recognize those displays, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble adapting.”

Stone was startled. “Gunny? Is that you?”

“Yes, Mister Stone. I see you have managed to mangle my program and make it work for navy applications.” Gunny took a seat at a console and scanned through the displays.

“So
, that gives one of my marines something to do, Mister Stone.” Hammermill said. “What else have you got?”

“Well, we ha
ve a bad anti-gravity rail section that is twisted. If the marines are not adverse to a little physical labor,” Stone admitted, “we need to manually move munitions past that section, especially if we go live.”

“Oh, I love handling ammo
,” Hammermill laughed. “I got enough guys here with me to form a bucket brigade if you need it.”

Stone made a mental note to look up bucket brigade.

“Spacer Ramirez,” Stone ordered, “take Lieutenant Hammermill to tcw-c17 and show him the bad rails.” He watched the navy man lead the group of marines down the corridor.

“
Mister Stone?” Gunny’s voice came through his suit’s speakers as the marine sergeant was still sealed up.

“Yes, Gunny?”

“Do we know whether this is a real event, a paper exercise or a live fire exercise?”

Stone shrugged and then realized that even if Gunny had been looking at him he could
not have seen the movement in his suit. He said, “I don’t really know. I have been told we can feel the vibrations through the hull when the guns fire, but I haven’t been here when they let loose so I can’t say for sure. Why? Are you worried about your getting from here to where you need to be to repel boarders?”

“No
, sir. Since the Hyrocanians have a tendency to ignore hatches and punch through the hull anywhere they please, that isn’t a problem. We can’t be everywhere at once, so anywhere we are standing is as good as anywhere else.”

“What do you mean they come through the hull any
where?” Stone asked.

Gunny grinned at him
through his visor. “Yes sir. We haven’t been able to figure out why they cut through a hull where they do. We don’t know whether it is random chance or whether they really have something on their teenie little brains. If they can get past the shields and the guns, they just slosh that acid sludge they use that eats through the hull. Then, they pour through the gap.”

Stone looked up
at the ceiling nervously; shook himself, and then realized that the hull really was down. “Acid sludge?”

“Don’t you worry about it none, Mister Stone
,” Gunny laughed. “That sludge’ll eat though these combat suits so fast you won’t feel a thing. Besides, a few hundred Hyrocanians shouldn’t bother a man who put Lieutenant Hammermill on his butt in a bar fight.”

“
Lieutenant Hammermill?” Spacer Rojo asked. “You mean that big lieutenant that was just in here? Mister Stone whooped his ass?”

Stone said, “Oh, don’t listen to the Gunny, Spacer Rojo. It wasn’t like that-”

Hammermill’s voice boomed out through their suit’s speakers. “If you are going to talk about me behind my back, then change frequencies on your communications units. And Rojo, don’t listen to Mister Stone. He is just too modest for his own good. He put me on my can. I can’t deny it. In fact, if I remember right, he ended up sitting on my chest. Ain’t that right, Gunny?”

Gunny replied, “Yes,
Lieutenant. I was there and saw the whole thing. And sir, there still isn’t another marine on this ship that can do the same thing…except maybe me and I wouldn’t ever try that on an officer, sir.”

Hammermill’s laugh
boomed over the speakers. “Don’t get too comfortable there Gunny. This may not be a drill. If this is real live action and it degenerates into repelling boarders, I want you free to sync up with us on the double, got me?”

“
Aye, aye, sir,” Gunny replied.

“Why did you ask whether it was real or not, Gunny?”
Stone asked.

“Well, Mister Stone. Your numbers here indicate the stock levels of various munitions bunkers, right?”

“Yes Gunny, you can see here, here and here.” Stone pointed at the various displays. “You can see what the level was when the general quarters call began and what it is now. So, if the gun crews are firing whether real or in an exercise we can see the rate of consumption. Why?”

Gunny pointed at another figure. “This is the max level of what the bunker holds, right?”

“Yes. Why…oh, I see. They weren’t even full to begin with, right? So, why don’t we go ahead and finish the load out! Gentlemen, let’s start moving munitions to match the numbers on the display.”

“Good thinking, Mister Stone
,” Gunny said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that first.”

Stone laughed, “Yeah, yeah. Being a
comedian may have gotten you to a gunnery sergeant in the marines, but you keep that crap up with me and the navy will make you an officer.”

Gunny replied, “Hey LT, before that happens, put me in against the first wave of
Hyrocanians.”

“That was my plan anyway, Gunny
,” Hammermill answered. “We gotta get rid of you old geezers somehow to make room for the young cannon fodder on the way up the ranks.”

“
Lieutenant Hammermill, we have started moving munitions. Are you ready to hump boxes past the bad spots?” Stone asked.

Hammermill said. “No way,
navy. We are right behind you.”

Stone spun around and saw Hammer
mill blocking the hatch. Hammermill moved slightly to let Ramirez into the control room. “I don’t understand.”

Hammermill said. “This squad is a makeshift group of transient
marines that were just sitting around looking for something to do. One of the guys has a secondary specialty as a rail-gun technician. He spotted the problem with the bad spot in the rails and fixed it. I left him and another jarhead down there to keep an eye on things. So I say let ‘er rip. I will get a call if there is a breakdown on the antigravity conveyers.”

Stone pointed Ramirez to the console. “Take over for the
marines, Spacer Ramirez. Let’s run the munitions to full. Don’t force it, gentlemen. Just let the system manage it.”

Stone, Hammermill and Gunny stood watching the numbers for a minute.

Hammermill grabbed Stone by the shoulder and pulled him back across the room and as close to the corridor as he could get without leaving the room.

“Hey! What gives,
Lieutenant? I can’t leave this area. It is my duty station.”

Hammermill cracked open his
visor so that he could speak directly to Stone. He said, “I know, Mister Stone. You haven’t left your station. You are still in the hatchway and can see everything going on in there. And I told Gunny on a marine secure link to keep an eye on your two guys.”

Stone shook his head. “I don’t-”

“Keep your voice down, Stone,” Hammermill interrupted. “This is just between you and me.”

Stone did
not understand, but he nodded and said quietly, “Okay, Hammer. Just between us. What gives?”

“My rail-gun tech used a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo, but it all boiled down that the null
spots in your anti-gravity conveyer weren’t normal wear and tear damage. He said it looked deliberate.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Stone was startled. He shouted, “Deliberate!”

Hammermill shook his head slightly. “Keep it down, Stone. We don’t know if either of your people were involved, so I wouldn’t let them know that you know. But, now you can keep your eyes open. Maybe review any security videos to see who, if anyone, was in the area.”

Stone’s voice almost croaked
with high emotion while trying to keep the volume down. “Sabotage? Hammer, are you sure? I find that hard to believe. These guys are not a crack outfit, but I can’t imagine them deliberately damaging the ship.”

Hammermill shook his head. “That is what my guy says, but he said it looked more like someone was just trying to slow things down, not actually do any permanent damage.”

“But we run munitions across those rails. If we don’t feed the guns fast enough then we could lose the ship,” Stone said.

Hammermill
held up a hand and listened to a communication through his suit that Stone could not hear. He nodded to Gunny.

“Hammer, is something wrong?” Stone asked.

“I don’t know yet, Stone.” Hammermill shook his head. “I just got a call from Hellboy. He says the guns in his area have begun firing. He has a call into Major Numos to see if he can find out what is going on. Gunny confirms the gun emplacements are showing ammo use.” He slammed his face shield down.

Stone almost leapt back to the consoles. “Rojo, report.”

“Mister Stone, according to these displays the munitions are being transferred to the bunkers without mishap,” Rojo answered.

“Spacer Rojo, I mean are the ship’s guns firing?”
Stone asked.

Rojo shook his head. “I don’t know, Mister Stone. How am I supposed to know?”

Gunny stepped forward and pointed a massive finger at a display in front of Rojo. “See the number there, navy? You see this too, Ramirez? The whole column of numbers tells you the guns are expending ammo. We can’t tell if they are firing the guns or flushing the ammo down the toilet, but we can tell they are drawing stuff from their on-site bunkers.”

“I see that, but this number says the amount of ammo in the bunker is increasing
,” Rojo replied.

Gunny looked over at Stone and Hammer. Even though he was still completely sealed in his combat suit with the face shield down, he seemed to be saying, “What are you gonna do?”

Stone scanned the numbers on the displays. “Gentlemen, it appears you are filling their bunkers faster than they can fire. Keep up the good work.”

Rojo grinned, but Ramirez looked puzzled.

“What if we send them too much?” Ramirez asked.

Stone applauded, his suit gloves clanging loudly. “Very good question, Spacer. The system is designed to quit filling the bunkers when they can’t take any more. If the program does mess up, then we just bring it back and store it here again. Plus
, this program should automatically report all of the expendables sent to the bunkers so the procurement department can order more.”

“Well,
why are we here if the computers do everything for us?” Ramirez asked, frustration evident in his voice.

“We are here because no system runs without making mistakes
,” Stone answered. “No automated system can be designed to adapt to every unexpected or random event. We are here to watch and correct those mistakes.”

Rojo said, “It looks like the shooting is stopping or at least-”

Every communications unit in the room blared, interrupting Rojo. “End of live fire exercise. Secure all stations and stand down from general quarters.”

“Well, Spacer Rojo. It looks like you called
it before they did. Great work!” Stone said. “Good work to both of you.” He turned to the marines. “And thanks to the marines. We couldn’t have done this without-”

Stone’s communications unit interrupted him. “Mister Stone, report to
Lieutenant Vaarhoo’s office as soon as possible; duty uniform is required.” He wanted to properly thank the marines, but they were gone. Both spacers were looking at him expectantly.

“Gentlemen, this system should handle most of the required after action work. It has already sent many of those reports up the chain of command for us. What hasn’t been done can be done later. I should be able to get it done on
third watch in…” He checked the time piece on the console. “About two hours from now.”

He was surprised. The
general quarters exercise had taken longer than he remembered, but everything had gone so smoothly the time had flown by. There was not a whole lot of time before he was officially on duty for third shift. If Lieutenant Vaarhoo did not take too much time, he should be able to eat breakfast before reporting for duty; or was it lunch; or maybe lupper; or whatever it was called at this time of the day.

Rojo interrupted his thoughts. “Mister Stone, how did we do on the exercise? When will they tell you our score?”

Every spacer on his crew knew that his or her general quarter scores had been getting progressively worse. He had tried not to make a big deal of it other than to encourage them to make every general quarters call they possibly could. Still, everyone knew the better you did during the exercise, the better it reflected on your duty reports and the better it would be when getting promoted or assigned to your next duty station.

“We have to wait until the system finishes calculating and transferring all of the data before we can shut down power to the consoles
,” Stone said. “It should take another couple of minutes. The last thing these new displays are designed to report is our score. I am going to wait until things shut down before changing and heading up to see the LT. You two are welcome to wait or you can get out of here.”

“I would like to stay. I would really like to see how we did
,” Rojo said.

“Nah, not me
,” Ramirez said. “I can find out later what score we got. I have dreams to get back to. Are you sure you should wait, Mister Stone? I heard your comm-call that Lieutenant Vaarhoo said to change and get up to him asap.”

“Thanks for watching out for me,
” Stone smiled. “But ‘asap’ means as soon as I can, but it is doesn’t mean ‘on the double’. I still have to shut down here. Both of you can take tonight off. I will cover you and put you in the roster as excused absence on my authority. Great job, guys. Thanks. I mean it. Really good!”

Stone and Rojo watched Ramirez race out of the room and down the corridor. They turned their attention to the consoles and watched the displays begin to blink out. Each one shutting down automatically as it reached the end of its function and reporting.

“Can I ask a question Mister Stone?” Rojo spoke.

“Sure, Spacer Rojo. Fire away.”

“How come they don’t train us on programs like this in warehouse school? And how come we didn’t use this the last time?”

“I just finished putting this program together. I didn’t even have time to test it.” When Stone saw Rojo glance at him in amazement he added, “I didn’t write the thing. I borrowed the basic programming from a
marine I know. I just made some minor adjustments to make it fit what we need it for. Honestly, I can’t be the first person to put something together like this, so I don’t know why the navy doesn’t use something similar.”

“Well, Mister Stone, it looks like we gave it a pretty good test today.”

Stone grinned. “We did at that, didn’t we? So, now I need to take this program, write a few forms and send it up the chain of command for navy approval and then we can use it all of the time. Even other stations can adapt it to their needs. It is really a pretty easy program to modify. Heck, my folks work on a merchant freighter. I have already sent them a copy of the program for them to use.”

Rojo grinned back. ”Good thing you already sent a copy to your family. Once the
navy get’s a hold of it they will classify it as a secret or something so nobody gets to use-”

A small chime drew their attention to the last display hovering on the bulkhead above the consoles. Everything else had shut down.

Rojo whistled. “Boy howdy…sorry, Mister Stone, I mean, that is some score!”

“Spacer Rojo, I think I agree
,” Stone nodded his head in amazement. “However, it must be a glitch in the programming. I mean, we did well, but if the system calculates as 100% being perfect, how do we get to be better than perfect?”

Rojo just shrugged. “I don’t know, Mister Stone.”

Stone shrugged back. “I suppose I will find out from Lieutenant Vaarhoo. Let’s shut these consoles down, turn the lights out and get out of here.”

He was a
stonished at a score of 157%. He knew it had to be a glitch, but it was still nice to see some sort of victory after months of bad scores. His whole navy career was one bad score after another. He kept a happy glow about him as he changed into his duty uniform and took the elevator up to Vaarhoo’s office. He did not even mind getting directed to wait for the lieutenant.

While he waited
, Stone took out his personal assistant. He did not know if he wanted to call up the inventory program he had just run for the general quarters and look for the glitch that gave him a better than perfect score. He decided he wanted to live with 157% for a while longer, so he called up the math program he was working on and began to retrace the mistakes he had made earlier.

He glanced up in time to see Petty Officer Watkins come into the office and get ushered into Vaarhoo’s office without delay. He almost asked the
spacer at the admit desk why he was made to wait when an enlisted man got to go in first, but decided it must be Lieutenant Vaarhoo’s choice.

It was
not very long before Watkins came out of the office and hustled off without even glancing in Stone’s direction. Watkins should have at least acknowledged Stones presence, but there wasn’t any way to prove Watkins had even seen him, so Stone went back to his math.

He had barely started again when the
spacer called to usher him into Vaarhoo’s office.

Before he could even report Vaarhoo shouted, “What do you think you are doing, Stone? No. Don’t answer. I will tell you what you are doing. Screwing up is what you are doing. I thought you were just a little slow, but you really take first prize.”

Stone stammered, “Sir, I don’t-”

“Shut up, Stone
,” Vaarhoo snapped. “I told you to keep quiet and I mean it.”

Stone gave a mental sigh and remembered his promise to keep his mouth closed around his supervisor.

“First: you get my can in a crack by trying to go around me to get a transfer to a different tower. Any request for transfer must, and I repeat must, have my authorization. I didn’t give it and I won’t. I am not in the habit of passing off problem midshipmen to other officers, not even to the farms in tower one. Plus, you tried to use Commander Wright to do it. Apparently you did not know that she is in command of tower one by name only. She is an animal doctor, not real navy. Second Commander Tatamount is the actual military commander of tower one.”

Stone knew he had
not asked for a transfer. Commander Wright asked for him by name. Whatever her position, she was a superior officer and could ask for anyone she wanted. Even a junior ensign could ask for his transfer, if the junior ensign wanted him.

“
Second: you used unauthorized personnel during a general quarters call. You had marines, damn it, marines manning navy stations. What were you thinking? No. Don’t say anything. I know that you weren’t thinking. Marines! You had marines sitting at consoles.” Vaarhoo swiveled his head back and forth as if trying to shake something completely disgusting off his nose.

Stone was thinking those
marines had been better than the majority of personnel the navy had assigned to his crew. Still, he did have to agree he had used marines when he needed more hands. But, he had not ordered them to help; they had volunteered.

“Th
ird: you authorized non-navy personnel to repair navy equipment. More marines! Now we have to get an emergency crew down there to re-fix whatever that grunt screwed up. Your relationship with that marine first lieutenant must be affecting your thinking.”

Stone almost frowned, but kept his face neutral. He was beginning to wonder how
Lieutenant Vaarhoo knew so much. Especially about what went on during the general quarters call. It had ended less than an hour ago. Stone knew Vaarhoo’s general quarters station was a maser emplacement amidships in tower three. During a live fire exercise he should have been too busy to watch and observe Stone’s crew over the ship’s video system.

“Four
th: and I don’t even know what to make of this, you used an unauthorized program and you gave that program access to the ship’s warehouse systems. Who knows what kind of alterations the program made to our operational system? If we lose one iota of data, I will personally see you broken down to spacer third class.”

Stone wondered briefly if Watkins could have told Vaarhoo
, but the petty officer had been in sickbay not at his duty station during general quarters. He knew it could have been Rojo or Ramirez, but he did not see how either one of them could have gotten to Vaarhoo quicker than he had. Ramirez had left earlier, but not nearly early enough to reach the lieutenant’s office without Stone having seen him. Maybe one of the two spacers had sent a communications message to Vaarhoo, except that most spacers were not in the habit of blatantly snitching on officers to superior officers.