Metal Boxes (14 page)

Stone looked around. “Does anyone know what a container of TODD
missile parts is worth?”

Watkins shook his head, “Not off the top of my head, Mister Stone. But it is listed on the manifest for sure
, if not, the commercial invoice shows the value.” The P.O. stepped to Stone’s console and scanned through the displays until he found the matching numbers. He let out a long low whistle. Finally he said, “Those missing parts cost more than this whole group will earn in a year.” His voice shook with anger.

Stone wondered for the tenth time why Vaarhoo and Watkins had been meeting in the
lieutenant’s office. Maybe the connection between Vaarhoo and Watkins had something to do with missing parts. Vaarhoo had signed off on the inspection and Watkins had been ready to blindly send the container into storage. He would have done so if he had not been stopped.

Still,
Watkins was acting a lot angrier than he should be if he was in collusion with Vaarhoo. Maybe he is a better actor than he appeared to be. Or, it could be as simple as Watkins figuring his cut of the theft had not been big enough now that he had reviewed the cost of the parts on the manifest.

Ramirez said, “Mister Stone, now we really gotta call in somebody.”

“No, Spacer Ramirez.” Stone replied. “I don’t think so. I am not ready to accuse anyone of theft of the Emperor’s goods. I don’t think we are done opening containers yet.”

“Mister Stone, Ramirez is right. We can’t handle this on our own.”
Watkins said.

“We are not on our own. We are all in this together
,” Stone said by way of a reply. “Who signed the last inspection? I’ll tell you who. It was Lieutenant Vaarhoo. I am not ready to say he did anything wrong. I mean, Petty Officer Watkins just passed the container into storage and signed off it was valid goods. P.O. Watkins, do you want to take the payroll deduction for losing the missile parts? No, you don’t. There has been too much of just passing the boxes from there to here without watching what we are doing. For all we know, it wasn’t intentional on the part of any of our people. If we continue to look, maybe we can track it back to the supplier.

“Do you all realize that is what the
processing room is for? There isn’t any reason to have a place to inspect boxes if we continually just move them past. That is what we are here for, so when someone calls for something, they open the box and they get what they need when they need it. What if we have boxes of rocks labeled munitions? What if we don’t find out until we are in the middle of a Hyrocanian attack?

“No
, we are definitely not done opening containers. We need to start with every container in this whole delivery. Where was this box of rocks headed, Petty Officer Watkins? The rest of you start finding any container that we picked up at Paramount Station.”

Stone unlocked the workstation consoles. He left the communications lock in place.

Watkins punched a few numbers on his reactivated console. “Let’s see, t3-xray10. Where in the hot-zone is that? Never mind, here is another one from the same shipment that went to the same place. I will just call it back. What the…rejected! It says I can’t call the container back.”

A spacer
shouted from across the room. She was so excited she forgot to use the communications. “T3-xray10 is a disposal storage area. That is why we can’t call it back up for review; it is already marked for destruction.”

Stone said, “So, we pick something up, pay for it and route it directly to the trash. That doesn’t sound like
a good business practice to me. However, we are authorized to review items for disposal. We just route it back here through that process. When was the last time any of us actually looked at something on the way to destruct? P.O. Watkins, you have been here the longest.”

“Mister Stone, I looked in a container on the way to destruct about five years ago. I thought tha
t since they wasn’t nobody ‘round, maybe there was something I could steal. I will admit that, but all that was in the container was spoiled chicken meat. It made me gag and I haven’t opened another box since.”

Stone nodded. “Well we are going to open some now. I want everybody to come back to the main
control room. P.O. Watkins, seal the processing room and send that box of rocks to…how about t3-roger73? That is an empty storage bay.” Without telling anyone he put a password on t3-roger73 so goods could go in, but nothing could come out without his say so. He started a subdirectory on his p.a. to start tracking bad shipments. He really hoped they would not find any others and someone had a good explanation for this box of rocks.

“Gentlemen, we have nine processing slots in the room out there. Let’s fill them all. Spacer Rojo, grab three others and go suit up
before you get here so that we don’t have to pressurize the room, we can just send in four spacers through the airlock.”

He sat back in his chair and watched the activity swirl around him. He wanted to get suited up and go open boxes, but his s
tomach hurt from having been kicked.

A spacer shouted, “Hey! I got a container from the same load with the same parts as the other. I’ll bet ten bucks I got a box of rocks
.”

Watkins glanced at Stone, and shook his head at the spacer. “Let’s not be gambling on duty.”

Stone barked a sour laugh, “I don’t know why not Petty Officer. I’ve got ten bucks that says the next bad container drops in slot three.”

Watkins grinned as bets started to flow around the room. Ramirez put a display up on the bulkhead showing who bet on which slot.

“Why three, Mister Stone? Do you know something that we don’t.” Watkins grinned at him.

Stone frowned and snarled
, “What are you accusing me of, Petty Officer?”

Watkins turned white as a sheet and the room grew quiet. “I didn’t mean nothin’
, Mister Stone. I was just jokin-”

Stone
said, “So was I. Three is just my favorite number. The only thing I know is that I have a one out of nine chance of picking the right slot. That is a…not ten percent, but crap…an eleven percent chance of being right. That will be the best odds I have had all day. But, I want everyone to remember that the best outcome would be if we don’t find any more rocks. But if we do, then I could use a few extra bucks just like the rest of you.”

Stone lost his ten dollars. A container of sand was opened in slot seven. The sand made the weight match evenly, but it was still a part of the Paramount Station order. He lost another ten dollars when
a third container filled with more sand was opened in slot two. He lost another ten dollars on a container of rocks in slot four. He would have quit then and there, but the enlisted men were getting into the spirit of searching the containers and the small pots were fueling their enthusiasm.

He knew by regulation he was required to report each of these containers to his immediate supervisor. However, since they had been signed off as officially inspected by
Lieutenant Vaarhoo, he was reluctant to take it to the man. Lieutenant Vaarhoo reported to Light Commander Maladanatti. But, Commander Maladanatti’s name appeared on two of the manifests so far. Maladanatti reported directly to the commander of tower three, Commander Stephens. His name was also on one of the containers. Stone’s name could be found on half of them discovered so far, so having your name on the manifest did not indicate guilt of theft. It was a definite indication Stone had been letting the containers slide through his watch without really doing his job. But, just because the others might not be guilty of theft did not mean they were innocent. He was very unsure of who should receive the report on these containers.

He felt he could trust Commander Wright, but she was
not in the military chain of command. Vaarhoo had said that she was a figurehead only, given the rank of full commander because of her profession. The only other officer that he knew even slightly was Lieutenant Aldamani. He seemed like a pleasant man as officers go and Stone knew he came from a military family having met his parents on Lazzaroni Station.

Both Wright and Aldamani were outside of his direct chain of command.
Senior Chief Tsosie had stressed that going outside of your chain of command would get you in more trouble than you were in before you started. He thought about his chain of command: Vaarhoo to Maladanatti to Stephens. He had gotten the shivers when he thought about marching up to the bridge at the end of this shift and reporting directly to the admiral.

Stone watched as he lost another six bets. Even when they had
opened two containers at the same time that were filled with rocks and sand, both of them still missed slot three. He was worried about losing so much of his paycheck when he suddenly chuckled to himself. He had almost forgotten that if he called up Grandpa and asked for some money he would get enough to buy the whole ship, although the Ol’ Toothless was way to big for a commercial freighter and too slow for anything else.

“Besides,” he thought, “if Allie stays mad at
me then I won’t have anyone to spend my money on anyway.”

He glanced at the running totals around the room. The spacers had started displays on how many containers were checked and how many were bad. They were pulling mainly containers from Paramount Station, but they had occasionally pulled others from the disposal and destruct area. They seemed to be finding about seven percent were bad
from the storage area. The containers picked up at Paramount Station were about three percent bad.

That was staggering, but not near as staggering as the number Watkins was tracking. The
petty officer had been keeping a running total on the value of all missing goods. The containers of rocks and sand had been specifically targeted to the higher value items. Watkins had taken to going around lower value containers and calling up the higher value items for review. The higher the totals on the cost of lost goods grew, the angrier Watkins got.

Stone chuckled to himself. Not only was Watkins mad about the value of the stolen goods, but he was
not winning any of the gambling pots either.

He was head
down over his console adding data into his spreadsheets and filing copies of documents for each container when a voice broke his concentration.

“Mister Stone, very busy I see? Trying to set a record or something?”

Stone looked up to see Senior Ensign Schultz’s chubby face. Her blonde hair and perpetual smile made her very attractive despite being very short with a tendency towards being a bit plump. She was the officer in charge of t3-whiskey first watch and was his relief. Stone jumped to his feet and came to attention.

Stone had looked forward to seeing Schultz every morning prior to beginning a relationship with Allie. Stone knew now he was really more attracted to much larger women, but he smiled back at the
Senior Ensign.

Schultz looked startled. “Great guns, Stone. What happened to your face?”

Stone spun the dial on one of the displays, turning it into a mirror. He bent down and looked at the side of his face. It has been hurting all night from being hit, but he had not bothered to look. There was a small cut that had trickled a bit of blood before drying. His right cheek around his eye was starting to turn an off red color and was definitely getting puffy.

Stone looked at Schultz and shrugged. “This just came as part of a practical session o
f job motivation and primary function focus.”

“What?” Schultz asked.

“It was meant to be a lesson in how to mind my own business, I think. Never mind, it is not important.”

Schultz replied, “Not important! You should go to sick call right away. That eye looks like it might swell shut completely.”

“Thank you, Ensign Schultz,” Stone said with a nod. “But, I have all of tonight’s work to report before I can go to sickbay.”

“I just saw the LT finish
breakfast and head up to his office. He is there now. Just video him everything you have to and go see a doctor,” Schultz said.

“Sorry, I don’t think I am going to report this to
Lieutenant Vaarhoo,” Stone replied.

“Look Stone, whatever you have going on can’t be important enough to go around your supervisor. You are only a
midshipman, but even you ought to know better than to go outside the chain of-”

“Forgive the interruption,
Ensign,” Stone said. “You are about thirty minutes early. Are you relieving me of duty for the watch change?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then Ensign, everything third watch has done is on the consoles and displays. I suggest you review them before you begin assigning first watch to their stations. It was suggested I call Lieutenant Vaarhoo much earlier and have him come down here, but I am sure an ensign will not need any advice from a mere midshipman.”

“What the blazes are you talking about, Stone? What is all of this?”
Schultz asked, the irritation in her voice becoming evident.

Stone smiled. “Have fun,
Ensign.” He turned to go, but Schultz stopped him.

She pointed at the console and said, “You have the area on communication lockdown and you put a password on the lock out.”

“Huh, what do you know about that!” Stone grinned without the slightest hint of humor. “I must be getting paranoid in my old age. The lockout will expire in about twenty-eight minutes unless you can figure out the password I used. Have a productive day, Ensign Schultz. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at change of the watch.”