Metal Boxes (10 page)

Stone calmed himself, took a deep breath and said, “Grandma was telling me that someone might try giving me special favors in hopes it would get them a good job after their
navy career was over. I mean, the Stone Freight Company does hire ship’s captains from outside of the family. We run a lot more ships through a lot more freight lanes than we have family. So, if the admiral is getting ready to retire he may be thinking that he can use me to springboard onto a civilian ship.”

Wright nodded. “I can see th
e logic. However, if the old man was trying to get on your good side, why would he stick you on third watch warehouse duty? Surely he could come up with something a little sweeter or easier. Why not put you directly on his staff?”

Stone said, “Well, actually the warehouse is pretty easy for me. That is doing all of the same stuff that I grew up with on freighters. The hours aren’t the best and
Lieutenant…” Stone stopped speaking. He realized he was about to complain about a superior officer to senior officer. That was something Senior Chief Tsosie had insisted was a fast way out of the navy.

Wright waited, saying nothing.

Stone shrugged. “I can guess Admiral Shalako didn’t want to appear to show too much favoritism too fast.”

“I don’t know
,” Wright shook her head. “Farms and warehouses are both under his command. It would be the same for him if you were with me or with Commander Stephens. Well, never mind, you don’t get a transfer, plus I seem to have messed things up between you and Allie.”

“It is not your fault, Commander Wright
,” Stone said. “I should have been more upfront with Allie. I guess I am not very good with girls.”

Wright laughed. “Even if you were good with girls it wouldn’t help you with
Lieutenant Vedrian. She is a woman, Mister Stone. She quit being a girl a long time ago.”

“So what do I do?”

“Give her some time, give her some space, give her some flowers and then apologize until you are blue in the face. In the meantime…” She paused and tapped open the communications tab on her personal assistant unit. “Skippy, shag your sorry can into the office.” She looked back at Stone. “You can continue your math lessons here. Plus, you get to work on being outside. No arguments, Mister Stone. You need to learn how to handle open spaces as much as you need to conjugate a fraction, or whatever it is you are learning.”

Skippy banged through the door. “You called,
boss?”

Wright nodded, “I want you to take up tutoring Mister Stone on his math. You could use a refresher yourself since you aren’t all that whoopee at math. Plus, you are going to need to work with him on getting across
from the tunnel opening to the office.”

“Ah,
boss,” Skippy laughed.” It has been a hoot to watch the lady marine drag his sorry butt over here and back. She isn’t going to…oh, sorry Mister Stone, none of my business.”

“I am serious, Skippy
,” Wright said. “Math and angoraphobia are serious matters.”

Skippy laughed again. “Commander Wright, I believe that angoraphobia is the fear of sweaters made from goat hair. You, of all of the people on this ship, should know that. Agoraphobia is the fear of open spaces. It is not uncommon among people raised on stations and ships. My math may not be good, but I remember from my psychology class at
university that the best method for treating agoraphobia is systematic desensitization.”

“Sir, I am willing to try anything if it helps, but that sounds like it hurts
,” Stone said.

Skippy laughed
. “It just means we do a little bit of outside a little bit at a time. In the meantime, I will just have to hold your hand getting you back and forth from the office to the tunnel hatches.”

“Yes,
sir. Just so long as you wash your hands first,” Stone nodded with a grin. “I am not afraid of germs, but I know what else you do around here and I know where your hands have been.”

Wright was about to speak when all three of their communications units began to blare the alarm for
general quarters. She reached up to shut off her personal assistant.

“General
quarters, gentlemen. Skippy, get him to and through the tunnel hatch if you have to carry him, then get to your station. I have to get to the tower one command bridge.”

“
Aye, aye, sir.” Both men responded.

Stone did
not remember the short trip across the grassy lawn. He just crashed to the deck after being tossed across the artificial gravity shift. Tower one farms had the ‘down’ along its vertical shell. The tunnel leading to the central tower was designed with the ‘down’ being the horizontal deck. Crashing to the deck was the easiest way to make the transition. Most of the time it felt like jumping into a hole and landing with your feet on the side, only the side of the hole had become the bottom of the hole. Stone could have made the switch without thinking having grown up on a freighter with shifting gravities. Somehow being carried and tossed through an open hatch seemed to affect his normal grace.

Stone scrambled to his feet, breath
ing a sigh of relief at having a normal ceiling over his head. He rushed along the tunnel and into the central tower. Fortunately, he was only a few decks above the midshipmen’s recreation area. That had to be his first stop.

He ignored the elevators, knowing they would be crammed with people moving up. He waited for an opening in the drop-chute and jumped.

Gravity pulled him down. He counted the decks as they whizzed past. A quick push against the chute stabilizer bar at the right time sent him flying out into the correct corridor. He hit the deck with his feet churning and his knees slightly bent as he had been doing since he could walk, making the shift from the drop-chute to deck with ease. He cursed at himself for being able to do such a simple maneuver like exiting a drop-chute but being unable to walk across a fifty meter swath of grass.

The
midshipmen’s recreation room bulkhead was lined with combat suits. The huge room was bustling with midshipmen in all stages of dress and undress, climbing over each other in an effort to don their combat suit. The suits on either side of Stone’s suit were already gone, so he had clear space to slip in, seal up and head for the hatch.

Once in the corridor, he raced to the tunnel between the
central tower and tower three. He toggled on the heads-up display on the helmet face shield. He called up a clock display showing how much time had passed since the general quarters announcement. He was relieved to see he was going to pass through the tunnel between the central tower and tower three with plenty of time to spare.

Each of the seven towers clustered around the
central tower was designed to operate as an independent spaceship. In the event this was not another exercise, but a real attack by the Hyrocanians, the admiral in the central tower command bridge had the option to order a tower separation. This would seal the double set of hatches at the tunnel ends triggering explosive charges. It would blow the towers free to operate as a fleet of eight ships.

Each
tower was much larger than other navy combat ships. A helmsman with average skills could park even the largest dreadnought in the hanger bay of any tower. But for all of their bulk they were less heavily armed and much less heavily armored than a medium sized battle cruiser. Tower separation was thought to be more of a retreat move because it would give the enemy eight targets to attack instead of one. The thought was that maybe some towers would run and be able to get away while their fellow towers were being blown to bits.

Any personnel caught in the tunnels at separation would have to wait for rescue while floating in space encased in a sealed metal tube until the battle was over. For exercise purposes, rescue meant whenever the exercise was over
someone would come and open the tunnel hatches.

Stone called up the roster of the enlisted men assigned to his
general quarters station. He scanned the list quickly and frowned. It was the beginning of second watch, so all of his crew was officially off duty. He saw he was going to be short handed again. Petty Officer Watkins and three others were so drunk even a massive dose of detox was not going to get them to their duty station on time. All four were headed to sickbay as required by regulations. It was not against regulations to be drunk when not on duty, but if you were called up for any reason, you were required to report to sickbay for duty there. It was duty that consisted of taking detox, throwing up and then taking more detox.

If those four were all that were missing
Stone would have been able to manage the general quarters duties effectively. But, two others were also headed to sickbay, one with a complaint of diarrhea and one claiming a bad back. Three other spacers were listed as on leave, each with approved documents signed by Lieutenant Vaarhoo. One of the remaining enlisted spacers was down checked because her combat suit had refused to activate.

That left Stone with two spacers to man a station that required eight enlisted men and an of
ficer to handle. His general quarters station was munitions feed station #97 and proper staffing was important. Each tower had gun, laser, maser, phaser and missile emplacements all along their length. Each weapons station had a small munitions bunker nearby. Stone’s crew was tasked with sending the right ammunition to the correct munitions bunker from the main warehouse munitions storage facilities all along tower three. As long as the towers remained conjoined he was also responsible for feeding ammunition to the central tower, although the only functional weapons emplacements were at the top and bottom of the tower. Towers two and four also received munitions feeds from his station.

Stone wanted to curse, but held his tongue. Each spacer had, by regulations, valid reasons for not attending the
general quarters call. Stone could understand not wanting to seal up inside a combat suit when you were suffering from diarrhea and sickbay was where you went to get something to stop the runs. But, it was impossible to get to sickbay, get medicated and get to a duty station on time. A combat suit would also aggravate a bad back. Even going on leave was an enlisted man’s right. Lieutenant Vaarhoo was within regulations to authorize any requested leave and nothing even remotely suggested that he was required to notify a lowly midshipman beforehand. And although Stone had personally done a combat suit inspection on all of the enlisted suits less than two days ago, he knew bad things happen at the most inconvenient times. Still, it was disheartening to have less and less men for each general quarters call.

Stone shook his head inside the helmet. He was
not ready for a test run on his plan to operate general quarters with less than eight men, but it seemed he was not going to have a chance to test his plan before implementing it. He grinned realizing even if it did not work, it was not going to make things any worse than doing general quarters call with only twenty-five percent of the needed staff. He knew the enlisted men reporting for duty were the two newest members of his staff. Both men had reported on board the Ol’ Toothless after he did.

He raced through the tunnel. He was glad to be able to ignore the gravity shift from the
central tower’s horizontal gravity to tower three’s vertical gravity matrix. The suit made it possible to leap across the threshold with only a slight disorientation. It was not at all like being thrown across the shift.

His duty station was three decks up. Since
tower three was designed as a tube within a tube within a tube there were far fewer decks than in the central tower’s office building style layout. Stone ignored the elevators as they were already jammed with suited figures waiting for the next lift.

He reached a ladder-well leading to the decks above. It was a long ladder, leading all the way to the central tube over t
hree and a half kilometers above. The next deck above was five hundred meters over head. It would be a long climb up, but the suit would be doing most of the work.

Each deck was a different distance apart depending on the requirements of the warehouse units and the storage capabilities.
Each deck was set at a different gravity level dependent upon the storage needs. The ladder-well was a contradiction of gravity fluctuations where a person on the ladder might encounter zero gravity for long distances, interspersed with pockets of varying heaviness.

Stone activated the
suit’s enhanced mechanics and jumped. He shot up the ladder. If he began to slow he reached out a hand or a foot pressing against a step, rail or stanchion to continue his upward leap. It almost felt as if he were moving in a gravity free zone, except he slowed far too often.

He reached the duty station before either of the enlisted
men. There was a swivel chair in the middle that rotated to view all of the stations and displays in the circular room. He assumed it was for whoever was in command. He had never sat in the chair as he had always been sort handed and had manned a console station.

He popped open the suit
, slid the helmet back on the neck hinge and slid the gloves off on the wrist pinions. With his hands free, he reached into the suit and pulled out his personal assistant. He snapped it into the console. The p.a. broadcast a primary display onto the bulkhead. He scanned through the files, quickly pulling the special packet and spreading its displays across the bulkheads in front of the consoles. After setting the displays in place he sealed up his suit and gloves, but left his helmet visor open.