Metal Boxes (29 page)

Before Stone could interrupt him
, Maggot held up a warning hand. “That is all old history. We need to take care of you two. The Periodontitis reported you as having been killed in a pod accident in hyperspace or murdered, depending on who tells the story.

“I took the report from
Admiral Shalako. I could have passed the news through channels, but I knew James and Ruth were here. I have known your Aunt Ruth almost as long as your mother. So I came and reported your death to them. Together we composed a message to your parents and your grandparents. I filed all the appropriate documents and tagged them for the Periodontitis’ investigation file. That was three weeks ago. I just received confirmation of message receipt from your grandfather.”

“Then Mom and Dad think I am dead?”
Stone asked.

Maggot
nodded, “Son, everybody thinks you are dead. And I mean everybody. I would like to keep it that way until I get your side of the story. I am not sure it is possible with the parade you two performed coming up Brickman’s corridor.”

“Signore Storovitch
, someone tried to kill us,” Wright responded. “If it were known we was still alive then they might try again. We decided…no! I decided the more conspicuous we are the harder it would be to make us just disappear again.”

Maggot
said, “Commander, I am not criticizing your actions. Still, if it had been me, I might have called for help.”

Wright shot back. “Call who?
Should we have called the Empire’s Military Investigative Service? We made that call. You were not there, you’re still not there; you are still out to lunch. And for all we knew you are involved with whoever tried to kill us. Who else was there? The Stone family? Tried that, but Midshipman Stone is dead, remember. The call was refused.”

Maggot
held up his hands in surrender. “I give. You are right. It was the phone call that alerted us to your presence on the station. The auto answer system shut you down but instead of a call going to station security authorities, I had a patch shunting all calls using either of your names to my p.a. We did a quick vid check and saw your march around the corridor.”

Stone raised his hand for attention. “Signore St
or…Maggot, may I ask why you are here with my family?”

“He is a guest in my home,
young man,” Aunt Ruth said. “He is a very old friend of mine and both of your parents. He is always welcome and that is not to be questioned.”

Stone shook his head, “
No, Quad. Someone tried to kill me. Nothing and no one outside of me, my family and Commander Wright is without question. No. And I will pull family rank if I have to.”

“He is right
, Ruth,” Maggot said. “If I were in his position I wouldn’t even trust family. But then I don’t trust my family anyway. Mister Stone, I was here to request, beg, and or plead for a ride to Lazzaroni Station. Your grandfather has called for a gathering of all of the family for your funeral. I wanted to be there. Ruth invited me to stay for lunch.”

Stone turned pale. “My…?”

“Yes, Mister Stone,” Maggot nodded. “Your funeral, that is what they give people who are dead. Commander Wright, I understand, as of the last I heard, your mother had not announced any plans for your memorial service.”

Wright said with a grin, “I am sorry for that. I would have liked to go. Can we get a message to Mom say
ing I am still alive?”

“Commander, I will send a message myself if you insist
,” Maggot said.

Wright said, “Insist?
Oh, right. You still want to try and keep it a secret that we are still alive. No, I won’t insist. Instead send her a belated birthday message from Trudy.”

“Trudy?”
Maggot asked.

Wright nodded
, “Yep. Trudy was my favorite goat. Mom and I used to laugh about me treating Trudy as if she were my sister. It is kind of like a family code. Trust me Mom will know it is from me.”

Brenda dropped a tray of sandwiches on table and sat at her mother
’s feet.

Maggot
spoke into his p.a. for a minute. “I have done as you have requested. I really need to get your side of what was going on. We need to see if we can flush out whoever is behind your attempted murder before they find out you are still alive.”

“Not likely they don’t know
,” Aunt Ruth snorted. “Those goons outside the hanger door weren’t your typical mugger types. They were sent by someone.”

Maggot
nodded. “That means it is someone on the station, whatever is going on is not limited to the Periodontitis. The ship is at the heart of what is going on. However, the shipside part of the conspiracy may not know you two have been resurrected from the grave.”

Stone reached forward
, grabbed a sandwich and winced slightly having forgotten about his cut and bruised hands. They were comfortably numb until he grabbed something. He ignored the pain and with a sigh shoved the sandwich into his mouth. It was liverwurst with mayo on rye bread. He hated liverwurst with mayo on rye bread, but it was the best sandwich he had eaten in weeks.

“Freeze
, you moron,” Brenda shouted.

Everyone froze.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Brenda leapt to Stone’s side. “What is wrong with your hands?”

“Just the aftermath of working hard for a living
, “Stone said with a shrug, speaking around a mouthful of sandwich. “You ought to try it some time.”

“Shut up
, idiot,” Brenda said. “Don’t you know to put something on cuts like these? Who knows what infections might be setting in?”

Stone grinned
at his cousin. “Nice bedside manner, Doc Cinco. There wasn’t anything on the planet to put on these cuts except drasco spit.” He meant to just gesture to the drascos sitting next to him, but his hand got too close to Peebee. She grabbed his hand with her mouth and held it there. “See? Drasco spit.”

Brenda grimace
d, “That is disgusting. You stay here until I go get a medkit. You too, Commander. You both need deep medscans.”

Aunt Ruth
shook her head in resignation. “She is going to be a terror when she really gets some real medical training.”

Stone
asked, “Well, what were we talking about before Brenda jumped in…oh yeah…we already knew people other than navy personnel were involved in the thefts on the Periodontitis.” He explained about finding the sand and rocks in shipping containers on third watch leading to their ‘murder’.

“Well, that dovetails into the investigation I have already been running against the Periodontitis
,” Maggot replied. “It would take more than a few people to manage such theft. It would take more than the buyer and the seller. You would need people in accounts payable, in procurement, in receiving, in warehousing and in disposal. Now all we need is proof, some documentation. I could have squeezed the people the navy grabbed for your murders, but I didn’t have the holding facility for both of them without using station security facilities and I don’t trust anyone on this station right now. I need to send a message to Tamvor Station to have the E.M.I.S. agents grab them up at the Periodontitis’ next stop.”

Stone looked at Wright
, then he looked at Maggot. “They caught them?”

The
E.M.I.S. agent nodded. “Yes, Mister Stone. I have the report here. They nabbed a couple of marines named, let’s see… First Lieutenant Vedrian and a Second Lieutenant Hammermill.”

“What!?”
Both Stone and Wright shouted.

“No way
, Maggot,” Stone said. “Aunt Ruth, I know Allie. There is no way she did this. She’s…” his voice trailed off.

“I agree with Mister Stone
,” Wright said. “First Lieutenant Allie Vedrian is my friend and she is Mister Stone’s girlfriend.”

Stone blushed.

Maggot called up Allie’s service video and set it to broadcast. Her hologram appeared in the middle of the room. Allie was dressed in full dress blues and receiving the Emperor’s Cross for Combat Gallantry. The dress uniform did not do anything to hide her physique.

Maggot
whistled softly.

“I agree
,” Aunt Ruth said. “Nice catch, Trey. However, your youthful hormones aside, are you sure she wasn’t just using you. No offense, but sometimes you young boys don’t think with your brains.”

“I am not a young boy
,” Wright answered instead of Stone. “Allie is my friend. I trust her.”

“Okay
,” Maggot nodded. “We will set it aside for now. What about this other marine, Hammermill?”

“H
ammer is my friend,” Stone said. “He has been there for me, helped me. I can’t believe he would try to kill me.”

“Okay, I will buy that for now
,” Maggot said thoughtfully. “It may be someone on the Periodontitis is looking for a patsy or a fall guy. The initial reports said Hammermill enlisted Vedrian’s help to get rid of Mister Stone because Hammermill was jealous. According to the reports I got, Commander Wright and Lieutenant Hammermill were having an affair and Midshipman Stone had come between them.”

Wright laughed. “Come on
, Agent Storovitch. Call up Hammermill’s service video.”

Second
Lieutenant Hammermill’s hologram sprang into existence in middle of the room. He was standing drenched in mud and gore on the middle of some battlefield. His massive muscles flexed across his neck and arms as he worked excess adrenalin out of his system. He noticed the camera taking his vid. He gave the cameraman a wide grin. It was a flash of bright white teeth. Then he gave the cameraman a universal single digit salute. The vid froze as Hammermill twisted at some small noise, his shirt flying open to show rippling muscles tensing for combat. Nothing in the video explained why the marine was fighting without his combat armor.

Brenda stepped into the room. She gave a quiet low whistle
that was almost an echo of Maggot’s earlier tuneless whistle of appreciation. “I think I will join the marines.” She moved to sit on the deck next to Stone’s feet. She took the hand not in Peebee’s mouth and began to slather a salve on his palm making tsking noises.

Wright nodded
, “I agree, Signorina Stone.” She stood up and walked next to Hammermill’s video. “I would climb into bed with this stack of manliness in a nanosecond, but…” She had a look on her face defying anyone to vocalize the obvious mismatch. “You don’t have to say it. Hammer could have anyone on the Ol’ Toothless he wanted. He is a nice guy; I am just not in his class.”

Both Allie and H
ammermill’s holograms faded from view. It felt as if they had just left the room.

She held up a hand to stop Stone from speaking. “I know what I look like Mister Stone. I am pretty enough in my own way plus I am old enough to be his mother…well, maybe an older sister.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. What I do buy is Allie would have been willing to rip the head off anybody who went after Mister Stone! And from what I know, where Vedrian leads Hammermill follows.”

“It sounds like someone locked them up to shut them up
,” Aunt Ruth said.

Maggot
nodded. “Okay. How do we prove it. So far all we have is Mister Stone’s word about the phony shipments and about what went on.”

Stone said, “Um…what about my
p.a.? I have it all recorded.”

Maggot
looked stunned, “You recorded what? You had your p.a. record the attack on you and Commander Wright?”

Stone shook his head. “No
, Agent Storovitch. I have my whole time aboard the Ol’ Toothless rerecorded from day one.”

“Of course you did
,” Aunt Ruth grinned. “Grandpa’s rules: record everything now. You can wipe what you don’t need later.”

Stone, Aunt Ruth and Brenda said in unison. “In twenty years or so.”

“Everything?” Maggot asked.

Stone nodded along with Aunt Ruth and Brenda. He said
, “It is a family habit. Besides look at me, Maggot. If the Hammer wanted to kill me he wouldn’t need to shove me into a pod and push it into hyperspace.”

The living room grew very quiet as Aunt Ruth, Brenda and
Maggot realized the two people with them had survived hyperspace in a non-hyperspace capable ship.

Maggot
cleared his throat. “That in itself is another whole investigation. Let me see your p.a.?”

“
It won’t work,” Wright shook her head. “They wiped it when they killed us.”

Stone shrugged, “Wel
l Commander, that is not strictly true. They did wipe all of the memory they could see but there is a backup memory system bulkheaded off. I can’t get at it. Aunt Ruth can or Brenda for that matter. They have the family’s unlock codes in their p.a.s.”

Wright said, “You didn’t tell me that
, Mister Stone.”

“I apologize
, Commander Wright. These are prototype models by a company the family owns. They are kind of a family secret.”

Brenda said, “Until now. Give it here
, Trey.”

Stone
dropped the personal assistant into her hands. She snapped a line from her p.a. into a port on his p.a., spoke a quick command, glanced at the small display and winced. “Sorry, Trey, but I don’t think Grandpa’s rules should include taking this into the toilet with you. Come on, couz. There are some things you should wipe…no pun intended.”

She tossed Stone’s
p.a. to Maggot. “Memory has been restored.”

“Not that we were relying on this
,” Stone said. “I am sure Grandpa has downloaded my last days on the Ol’ Toothless by now.”

“You e-mailed back up to the Golden Boulder?”
Aunt Ruth asked.

“Of course. It won’t have the attack on Commander Wright and
me, but it has almost everything else up to that point. I had just e-mailed a letter to Dad and Mom in the elevator on the way up to see Commander Wright. I attached an updated backup as a matter of habit. The message would have sat in a queue in the Periodontitis’ communications stream to be broadcast the minute they did a hyperjump into normal space.”

“
Unless whoever is in charge thought to wipe your message from the queue,” Maggot said. “Still, if it did go your dad and mom will have access to this data?”

Stone nodded, “They probably knew I was in trouble before I turned up dead.”

“Oh crap!” Maggot said. “I don’t think they know what they unleashed with your dad.”

“My
dad?” Stone said in surprise.

Both A
unt Ruth and Maggot nodded.

Aunt Ruth said, “Your
dad is likely to take the Periodontitis apart weld by weld and ask questions later. It looks like you have a couple of tough marine friends. Your Dad is much more dangerous.”

“That means we are just going to have to work faster
,” Maggot said. “How do I access your data, Mister Stone?”

“Access granted
,” Stone spoke as if to the air in general. He said. “I suggest you just back up through the last twenty-four hours. That will give you most of the relevant data. One question first: are Commander Wright and I dead?”

Brenda snorted but
Maggot nodded. “Officially no,” he said, “you two were dead for quite some time, but according to navy regulations you were resurrected when you called into my office.”

“
Well, that will have to do,” Stone said. “What about that pod we came in on? It is navy property?”

Maggot
replied with a question. “No. Why?”

“Never mind why, Agent
,” Stone said. “How did the navy write it off?”

Maggot
checked his p.a. “The official report has it lost in hyperspace transit. I still want to know why.”

Stone said, “I
will tell you if you tell me why you have such a minor equipment loss report in your p.a. memory instead of having to request the data from a navy database.”

“I have a couple of real stupid low
-level criminals who always seem to have way too much money every time the Periodontitis leaves port. That tells me something is going on, so I started checking around. There is too much money flowing around that ship. The first rule of criminal investigations is ‘follow the money’.”

“Aunt Ruth, we
need to get that old pod from hanger thirty-six into one of your holding bays,” Stone said. “Commander Wright and I have laid salvage claim to it.”

“Are you sure it is worth the
effort?” Aunt Ruth asked.

Stone pulled his hand out of Peebee’s mouth. He flexed his fingers and held up one finger. “First: Commander
Wright and I made not one, not two, but three hyperspace jumps in a beat up old navy escape pod without a hyperspace jump capable engine. That doesn’t count a conversion back to sub-light and then back again to hyperspace capable. The diagrams and engine modification specifications are in Commander Wright’s p.a. and they are scrawled on the bulkhead of the engine compartment. Not to mention the engine is worth more than this whole back water station. Agreed?”

“Yes Trey, I
agree. We need to contain that knowledge to the family,” Aunt Ruth said.

“Yes
. However, it is knowledge jointly owned by the Stone-Wright Partnership,” Stone said.

“We are senior?” Aunt Ruth asked.

Wright grinned. “Yes Signora Stone, you are 65% owners. I only get 25% according to Mister Stone.”

“The other 10% goes to Alberto?” Aunt Ruth asked.

“Who?” Wright asked.

“Alberto
,” Aunt Ruth said in an offhand manner. “You know, the Emperor.”

Wright looked stunned. “You call the Emperor by his first name?”

“Well, I did when we used to date before I got married to James,” Aunt Ruth laughed. “He never said to stop so why not? He is a real person not some kind of deity. And since we are in business together you should call me Ruth, okay?”

Wright looked at Stone in amazement, “She calls the Emperor by his first name?”

Stone shrugged, “I wouldn’t try it unless he says it is okay, but yeah like she said, he is a real person.”