Metal Boxes (4 page)

“No thank you, Chief. I am sure I can manage a five point seat restraint.”

Stone snapped himself in tightly, closed his eyes and tried to work math problems in his head. He had just managed to control his thinking enough that his erection was beginning to subside, when the young blonde spacer stepped aboard. She reached down and grabbed the seat restraint buckle in his lap. She gave a quick tug, making sure it was snapped into place and then moved on back down the aisle.

The
chief shouted over the murmur of voices. “Okay people, the pilot has just told me that the officer’s shuttles have started to depart. We should be right behind them. It is a short ride to the Ol’ Toothless, so let’s just relax and don’t get too rowdy.” She leaned over the seat back and tapped Stone on the shoulder. “If you need anything, Mister Stone, you just let me or the spacer know, okay?”

Stone could only nod. His erection was making it hard to think. He kn
ew what help he wanted, but he sure could not ask for that kind of help and there wasn’t anywhere on the shuttle he could be alone.

The
chief’s voice floated to him from her seat. “Oh, crap on a breadstick. Alright people. We have a slight delay. The pilot says we aren’t going anywhere for a while, so just relax.

Stone closed his eyes and tried to recite
the multiplication tables.

He
awoke with a start, hearing his name called over some loud speakers through the open hatchway. The Chief leaned over the seatback and tapped him on the shoulder. “Did you have a nice nap, Mister Stone?”

“Nap? I guess I fell asleep
,” Stone replied. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and rubbed his eyes.

The
Chief nodded. “Yes, Mister Stone, you slept right through the whole flight. We are already docked inside the shuttle bay on the Periodontitis. Now, us lowly NCO types can’t get out until you do, so I suggest you get a move on. It also sounds like someone is looking for you and that someone sounds well and truly pissed.”

C
HAPTER FOUR

“Midshipman, you can’t be as stupid as these reports indicate.” Second Lieutenant Vaarhoo spat at Stone. Vaarhoo was waiving a data pad at Stone, whipping it past his face too fast to read. “Well, are you?”

Stone tried to think of an answer.
He would sound argumentative if he answered ‘No’. He would admit to being stupid if he answered ‘Yes’. Either response would cause this mentoring session to become longer and more detailed, listing every error and mistake he had made since his last session with Lieutenant Vaarhoo. After three months of these sessions Stone had yet to discover how to respond to his supervisor’s questions. He knew the best response would be to remain silent and continue to stand at attention.

“Sir-” Stone began, against his better self-advice.

“Shut up, Stone.” Vaarhoo bellowed. “I am really tired of your excuses. These counseling sessions don’t seem to do you any good, plus they make me late for lunch.”

Stone tried to work up sympathy for Vaarhoo being late for lunch. Since he was assigned to
third watch warehouse duty, any meeting with his mentor/counselor in the middle of Vaarhoo’s day was effectively in the middle of Stone’s sleep cycle.

“I don’t understand it,
Midshipman. Third watch productivity schedules are down since you took over. You have some good crewmen on third watch. Petty Officer First Class Watkins is your senior enlisted crewman. He has been a warehouse tech on third watch for longer than I have been on this ship. If you can’t get the minimum amount of work done, then just get out of his way and let Watkins do your work for you.”

Stone stood still. This was a topic he had heard at every other counseling session.
It was a waste of time trying to explain that PO Watkins was a lazy screw-up even on those rare occasions when he was sober.

“Y
our personal studies are not improving in the least.” Vaarhoo shook his head in disgust. “This reflects very badly on me. As your tutor, your failure has an impact on my success. So, I am going to wipe every study record back to the first day you came on board. You are going to start over again.”

Stone groaned out loud the first time Vaarhoo wiped his record. The second time he just frowned. This time he just stood still, willing his face to not show any
emotion.

Vaarhoo’s tutoring sessions boiled down to
no more than giving Stone study slips and sending him to the ship’s library to review self-study lessons. Of course, all study was to be done during Stone’s off watch time. Stone realized early that Vaarhoo’s study-slips were seldom relevant to any current course of study, but the ship’s computer recorded all study material he used and the time he spent. It also reported it all back to Vaarhoo.

He
tried to pull more helpful self study lessons, but the computer reported it back to Vaarhoo causing an extra counseling session about insubordination and obedience to lawfully given instruction. Stone had to check the items on the study slips from the library and work through them whether they were relevant or not.

Vaarhoo continued
, “This evaluation on your crew’s response to the last general quarters drill is beyond failure even for you. I know you understand what is required, yet your crew failed so miserably that our entire section was in jeopardy of a non-response rating.”

Stone stood still. Even trying to explain was worse than useless. He knew his crew played a pivotal role in any
general quarters drill. It was important but it was also an easy station where all he had to do was supervise his crew as they dialed up munitions from warehouse storage and put it in transport tubes to supply gun crews as needed.

“You were unable to even supply the barest minimum of munitions to the gun crews. If the Periodontitis has been really attacked by
Hyrocanian forces we would all be dead by now and it would be your fault.”

Stone decided it was
not prudent to mention that his crew was only one of a hundred munitions feed crew stations based around the massive warehouse ship. It would even be more imprudent to mention that over half his crew of twelve had been granted leave, were on weekend passes or away at special training classes. The crewmen losses had been initiated and approved by Vaarhoo without any input from Stone. Two of the remaining crew had reported to sickbay at the start of their shift.

Stone had been left with
four ratings. Trying to explain that general quarters munitions feed station #97 could not be manned by any less than eight crewmen would not have helped Stone’s case with Vaarhoo. He kept his mouth closed while Vaarhoo ranted.

Remaining quiet seemed to be working as it appeared the
lieutenant was winding down. Stone resolved to do two things. The first was to continue to keep his mouth shut. The second was to find a way to improve his personal study scores. He knew that if Vaarhoo could not or would not teach him, he would need to find someone to help him get the right study slips. He would still have to work through what Vaarhoo gave him, but he might as well put in more study time. He didn’t have anything else to do.

Stone would have asked a fellow
midshipman for help or advice, but he had not developed any relationships close enough to trust them to ask for help. Any such conversation might sound as if he was complaining about his direct supervisor. Stone would be in worse trouble if that leaked back to Vaarhoo.

He was separated from most of the
midshipmen on the Periodontitis by a number of factors. Most of the midshipmen on board as were older than Stone. He recently celebrated his sixteenth birthday, but he was still five or six years younger than most midshipmen. He was the only midshipman assigned to his duty location on third watch. He was also so new to the ship most of the other midshipmen were attached to cliques well before he arrived on board.

On other ships in the Empire’s
navy, he might have had bunkmates he could have trusted with his troubles, but the Periodontitis was so huge and roomy that even midshipmen were afforded private rooms. He had not gotten to know any of the midshipmen living on the same corridor; mainly because they all seemed to work first watch in the central tower.

The ship was designed around a central core that looked like a tube
or cylinder with one rounded end. This tube was approximately sixteen kilometers long with a diameter almost half of its own length. The central tower housed all command and operations staff, all administrative staff, main engine crew and all maintenance staff. Thousands of navy personnel lived and worked in the central tower supplying everything from clothing to machine shops to donut shops and gymnasiums to work off the donuts.

The artificial gravity
in the central core defined the decks as if the central tower was a huge stack of giant poker chips. If the ship was standing on its end, the command and control functions would be in the top rounded end. Stone had learned the marines, while technically cargo, were housed in the bottom of the central tower, just above the shuttle and hanger bays. The four marines he met back on Lazzaroni Station were stationed as permanent crew, but were housed with their transient charges.

There were seven
additional towers of exactly the same length and diameter laying alongside the central tower. Each tower stretched length next to length with their rounded command bridges clustered at the front end and their hanger bays clustered at the back end. The only picture Stone had seen of the Ol’ Toothless looked like a bundle of eight hotdogs tied together in a bunch.

Each
tower was a massive warehouse storing everything and anything for the Empire’s military. One of the tubes was a fully functioning hospital with stored emergency medical supplies and enough equipment to build and supply dozens of hospitals. Another tower stored every version of military uniform, toothers, shoe shine kits, bath soap and other sundries necessary for human life.

E
ach tower was configured differently depending on the need. Large sections of warehousing was left without gravity or atmosphere for long term storage.

Stone was assigned to
tower three. The tower could have complete gravity and atmosphere or not, depending on what was being stored. The gravity grid was laid out so that ‘down’ was in the direction of the hull and ‘up’ was toward the center of the tube. The warehouse spaces inside tower three were sectioned, looking like dozens of tubes nested inside each other. The value of the cargo increased closer to the center of the tube.

Stone’s station was at the bottom
very near the hanger end. It was not the most glamorous job in the navy, but it was one he had done repeatedly on the Golden Boulder as part of his family’s commercial freight business.

On the Periodontitis
, the procurement department would purchase required items and arrange for the product to be delivered to navy dockyards. Receiving personnel verified each order with what was being delivered and arranged for the product to be shuttled to the appropriate warehouse. Traffic personnel verified deliveries were going to the correct warehouse and moved the items to the warehouse hatch. Stone’ crew verified that what was being shuttled in was where it was supposed to be, and put it on the correct shelf until someone needed it. When someone asked for the product, his crew pulled it out of stock, and upon verification of the right form, gave the product to the requisitioner.

The difference
in handling cargo for the navy and for commercial ships was that on commercial ships all of the functions were performed by the same people instead of using a different group for each task. Stone had grown up putting boxes on the proper shelf.

For the thousandth time Stone asked himself why time in the Empire’s
navy was supposed to help him in later life on a family freighter. He already knew how to put boxes on the shelf. He already knew how to take boxes off the shelf. He even knew how to get yelled at. His Aunt Ruth made Vaarhoo look like a rank amateur.

Stone
suddenly realized he had fuzzed out while Vaarhoo was ranting. He had no idea what Vaarhoo had been saying. It did not matter. The whole counseling session would be recorded and placed in his file so he and any future supervisors or promotion board could review it at any time.

“Do you understand me,
Midshipman Stone?” Vaarhoo shouted.

Stone knew he had
not been listening close enough to know the topic he was supposed to understand, but he also knew there was only one answer. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Good. Now get out of my office
,” Vaarhoo snarled.

Stone spun on his heel as he
was taught in basic training and marched from the lieutenant’s office. He checked the time on his personal assistant. Ship time said it was lunch time. He decided it might be a good time to grab what his stomach told him would be a midnight snack.

Stone stopped at a cluster of elevators. One deck up was the
procurement department. His finger almost pushed the up button to call for an elevator. He had been intending to stop by and present his regards to First Lieutenant Aldamani. He had promised the lieutenant’s parents back on Lazzaroni Station that he would look up their son. Good manners and navy protocol dictated that he make the effort to meet the man, as he had made contact, however slight, with the man’s family. The navy protocol guides also stated that the lower ranking officer should make every effort to present themselves when it was reasonable to assume the senior officer would be present. Whether the lower ranking officer was snubbed and ignored was entirely at the discretion of the senior officer.

So far
, Stone had managed to justify to himself about each and every visit he neglected. Once again, he decided, since it was the middle of the first watch he could assume that Aldamani was at lunch. It was not very likely he would find the man in his office, so he was free to bypass the meeting again.

He pushed the down button to call for an elevator.
He knew there was an officer’s wardroom just one deck down. Normally, Stone ate in the midshipman’s recreation area near his bunk. He was not really hungry since it was the middle of his sleep cycle. He had discovered the officer’s wardroom near Lieutenant Vaarhoo’s office served ice cream. The mid-rec area did not. Ice cream always went down easily after having to get up in the middle of a sleep cycle to get counseled by his supervisor.

Stone breathed a sigh of relief at not having to face Aldamani. He knew why he was avoiding the man. He was
not having very good luck meeting any officer on board the Ol’ Toothless. He was either studiously ignored by other officers, or as in the case of his direct supervisor, it seemed that no matter what he did, he was wrong. He knew he had already put off contacting Aldamani longer than good manners would allow. The navy didn’t say how long you could take to meet a higher ranking officer, just that you did it.

His mother would skin him alive if she heard of him deliberately being rude to a fellow officer. Dad would
not care, but Mom always got a bug up about such things. Still, Stone could not imagine how his mother would ever hear about First Lieutenant Aldamani.

The down elevator doors popped open. There were a couple of people exiting on his
deck so Stone stepped back and to the side, as regulations dictated. Both were officers, but the man outranked the woman, so Stone looked the man in the eyes and nodded his head, also exactly as regulations dictated. Both of the officers had animals of some sort on leads, ropes, leashes or whatever the things were called. He did not recognize the animals. Stone backed up another step to give the creatures room to get past him.