Metal Boxes - Trapped Outside (26 page)

Private January said, “She’s my fault, Major. I should’ve been watching her more closely. It’s just that she spent so much time with her pants around her ankles. I mean there are only so many times I can watch an old lady take a dump.”

Stone said, “Don’t worry about it, January. I doubt she really had diarrhea. I think she was pretending just to make you tired of watching her so she could sneak off.”

A suited four-armed figure leaped for the hovering Hyrocanian shuttle, turning in midair and catching the antigravity field, landing on its feet. It disappeared through a dilating hatch. Another and another suited Hyrocanian jumped up to escape the swarming crabs. The fourth Hyrocanian to jump was followed by a crab, and then a dozen crabs and then a hundred. Hatches dilated, cycling open and closed as crabs swarmed into and through the floating structure.

The shuttle wobbled a bit and steadied as crabs packed it. They flowed through it like water through a sieve only to drop back to the ground, shuffling through the swarm until they found their proper place in the formation. The crab swarm reformed, leaving only small pockets of hiding Hyrocanians, those smart enough to hide and not shoot back. There was a little shuffling along the crab rows and columns as they adjusted to gaps, making room for this size or that, but the assembly was eerily silent as they fed and realigned.

The creek passed through the far wall, leaving the compound through a second grate, just as it had entered. The effluent was designed to carry garbage and waste out of the compound. The crabs centered on the wide creek and without a dance or any apparent signal, proceeded over the far wall, continuing their march.

Stone slapped Li on the chest with a flat hand. “Sergeant, get me to that Hyrocanian shuttle.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Li draped Stone over his shoulder and bounced towards the Hyrocanian compound, leaving Stone’s stomach somewhere behind. Being carried and bouncing was difficult, but Stone realized hanging upside down with the sergeant’s shoulder digging into his gut was the true recipe for nausea.

Li landed at the edge of the minefield on his first jump, took two steps, and leapt into the compound. From his upside-down vantage point, Stone could see al-Julier and January a step behind them, followed by Numos, Ryte, and Wyznewski, all being carried in upright fashion by their respective marine protectors.

Stone and Li landed in the middle of the compound just about the time the last of the small crabs slithered over the far wall disappearing into the jungle. The crabs had only left a few knots of Hyrocanians behind amidst a clutter of bones, metal, clothing, and other inedibles. Li’s timing matched Hammermill and Janson’s assault from the left and right flanks. Stone saw Hammermill leap on a suited Hyrocanian, twist a long slender blade from the creature’s grasp, and drive it through the enemy’s faceplate. With an amplified roar, Hammermill dove into the middle of an unsuited pack of Hyrocanians who had been hiding from the crab swarm. There were too many for Hammermill and he was swarmed under.

Stone lost sight of Hammermill as Li jumped toward the hovering Hyrocanian shuttle. The marine sergeant twisted in mid-air and came down feet first on a flat spot. January landed a second later, crashing to her hands and knees with al-Julier landing on his back. Both rolled to their feet, weapons ready, in a flash.

Li laughed, “Amateurs! Someone needs practice moving across gravity shifts.” He unceremoniously dumped Stone to his feet.

Stone shook his head trying to clear his inner ear. Bouncing around upside down on a marine’s shoulder was bad enough, but now it looked and felt like he was still upside down while gravity had reversed and the planet hung twenty feet over his head. No, even though he felt right-side up, his eyes told him he wasn’t. He’s spent his life on ships and stations, moving from one gravity field to the next, but human convention was that up always tried to match up. That was only polite, however, Hyrocanians didn’t seem to share the same sensibilities.

Li said, “Sir, mission accomplished. I got you onto the shuttle. Now I suppose you want to get inside the damned thing?”

THIRTY-FIVE

Stone nodded. He’d seen Hyrocanians disappear through dilating hatches, followed by crabs flowing into and out of those same hatchways, they just had to find a way in before any remaining Hyrocanians decided to depart for their mothership or someone turned on some automated defense system and blew them to pieces.

Li stepped toward a discolored portion of the shuttle surface. Stone hadn’t noticed the color difference before. Li’s motion tripped some sensor and the hatchway opened. Li motioned al-Julier and January through the door. He then grabbed Stone by the collar and followed his two marines into the shuttle.

This wasn’t the first time Stone had been on an enemy vessel, although he was willing to admit he wasn’t any kind of expert. He didn’t know which end was the bow and which was aft, that is, if Hyrocanians bothered to designate the front and the rear. They had dropped into a wide hallway. Littered about were the remains of crabs, hard-shelled backs and sharp spikes from the ends of their spiderlike legs. Also scattered about were the bones of Hyrocanians, mostly skulls and socketed shoulder joints along with a few other bits and pieces the crabs hadn’t been able to eat. Blood of all kinds was splashed on the walls and puddled on the floor.

Without one of those maps saying “you are here”, Stone simply pointed to the right and said, “Let’s try that way.” He was about to walk past a hatch when Li grabbed him and yanked him back. “Sorry, Ensign Stone, we have to check everything as we go. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get trapped in a tight corridor with the enemy at my back and my front.”

Stone nodded, “Please take charge, Sergeant Li. Just get me to a control room as fast as you can. I’d like to see if we can keep this shuttle from departing to parts unknown with us still inside.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” He wiggled a finger at January and stood with his weapon at the ready as she tripped the motion sensor on the door. January and Li rushed into the room, al-Julier watching both directions in the corridor at the same time.

Stone heard a whine, a clack, and a snapping noise from inside the room. He shouldered his rifle and followed Li. January stood over a dead four-armed freak, a single hole cratered its face between its piggy eyes. Why or even how the crabs had missed this compartment was a mystery. Maybe the hatch’s motion sensor was too high for their bodies to trip it or maybe they just missed it. Inside were rows and rows of pens filled with odd little creatures, the most predominant type was the small two-legged piglet he’d seen the Hyrocanians eating on the video.

Stone pointed at the piglets. “Turn some of them loose. Just in case there are many Hyrocanian left, let’s see if a little confusion helps.” In a flash, hundreds of little piglets ran out of the room, swarming up and down the corridor, squealing in panic.

Back in the corridor, al-Julier led the way, opening hatches, glancing inside and moving on. Stone, as the only unsuited member of his shuttle invasion team, was constantly pressed between two suited marines, with Li or January physically restraining him from leaping ahead.

The small team turned a sharp corner and stopped. Five of the four-armed freaks had trapped a few piglets, encircling them. The Hyrocanians stood with their mouths open, gaping at the humans, their hands full of piglet parts. Al-Julier asked, “Ensign Stone, are we taking prisoners?”

Stone shook his head, “Not until—”

Private al-Julier didn’t wait for Stone to finish, spraying the Hyrocanians with heavy, tumbling slugs. The noise and the sudden freedom sent the remaining piglets shrieking and scurrying off in all directions.

January waded through the mess on the floor and peeked into a hatchway. She signaled Stone and Li. “I think this is what you’re looking for, Ensign Stone.”

The empty room looked like a control room. Several seats were arranged around a console with a series of lights and buttons. There were four seats, but only one console. The seats were arranged so three of the seats watched over the shoulder of the person or thing sitting at the console. For all Stone could tell, this unit was the waste disposal module, but they hadn’t seen anything else resembling a command center. He sat in the seat at the console, surprised at how comfortable the chair was compared to a human design. The Hyrocanians had such flabby backsides overstuffed chairs certainly would be the order of the day. He looked at the other chairs, each one more overstuffed than the last one. It appeared the fatter a Hyrocanian became, the most important they were and the more important they became, the more overstuffed their chairs were.

Staring at the lights and buttons didn’t give him a sense of how anything functioned. He glanced over his shoulder, Li had positioned his marines at the door to secure their location. He shrugged to himself. He had asked to be here. No, he’d ordered it. He didn’t know what to do and was certain pushing buttons at random wasn’t a bright idea. There weren’t any markings near the buttons, no diagrams, no pictures, or writing of any kind. There was just a row of sixteen buttons, four sets of four. Over the row of buttons was a row of sixteen white lights. Above the row of white lights was a row of sixteen colored lights, not red, green, yellow, or even in the order of a rainbow, just lights as if every time a colored light burned out, someone replaced it with another colored light, disregarding any color scheme. It looked as if they hadn’t even used the same type of bulb, mixing and matching whatever was available. All of the white lights were lit.

As Stone checked for hidden panels or recessed levers, he saw a white light go out and a corresponding colored light flicker on. He felt a slight vibration in his feet and without giving it much thought, he punched the button below the colored light. The vibration quit, the colored light blinked out and the white light came back on.

Li, now standing at his shoulder, said, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Stone smiled, “Of course, Sergeant. That’s why I needed to get on the shuttle. I’m humanity’s foremost expert on Hyrocanian controls.”

Li smiled back, “Like fun, sir. Just don’t blow us up.” He settled back into the middle chair. The chair took his marine combat suit as if the weight was nothing more than what its original design called for.

“I wouldn’t think of it.” The white light blinked out and the colored light popped on again. Stone pushed the button again, stopping the vibration in the floor. “Someone is trying to access the shuttle controls by remote. I can stop them from taking control, but I can’t stop them from trying.” Blink-vibration-push! Blink-vibration-push! The same light and the same button blinked off and on each time.

“Well, hello there.” A voice rang out from the corridor.

Private January snorted and stepped back from the hatchway. Dr. Wyznewski strode into the room. He was grinning from ear to ear. He had a huge Hyrocanian skull under his arm and carried a crab shell like a gladiator’s shield. He dropped into a chair next to Li. His human body was dwarfed by the marine’s combat suit. He sighed with contentment and wiggled his butt. “I don’t care what you say about Hyrocanians, they can sure make a comfy chair.”

Blink-vibration-push!

Whizzer said, “The major has things pretty well in hand, down below. I thought I would come up here and see what exciting things you were stirring up. By the way, who let the pigs out?”

Li pointed at Stone. Whizzer laughed, “I thought as much.”

Stone said, “I’m trying not to do anything exciting just yet.”

Whizzer said, “Yeah, I figured that much out already, too. Why don’t you just tape that button down?”

Li shrugged, dug into a bin on his suit, and tossed a roll of duct tape to Stone. The blinking and vibration stopped in short order. The white button on the far left blinked off and its corresponding colored light blinked on. Stone taped that button down as well. Then he taped all of the buttons down and threw the tape back to Li. If keeping the buttons white meant keeping the status quo, he was all for it. Having the shuttle remotely operated and flown back to the main ship before they were ready wasn’t his idea of a good idea.

Heavy feet pounded through the corridor. Gunfire echoed off the walls. Stone was on his feet, but Li waved him back down. “Relax, Ensign Stone.” He pointed at his ear. “Major Numos has ended radio silence. I guess he figured the Hyrocanians know we’re here, so why bother. He and Agent Ryte will be along shortly. He asks that you keep a short leash on Whizzer. Something about the man poking his nose in places it doesn’t belong. He’s just waiting for Lieutenant Hammermill to finish sweeping all four shuttle sections clear.”

Stone remembered watching a shuttle separate into its component parts. The four flat pieces wrapped around a central shuttle that held enemy personnel and materials. “What about the inside piece?” he asked.

Wyznewski answered. “Numos is having any connecting corridors sealed off. They only found one on this level, so the assumption is that if they can close those corridors off quick enough they can trap any remaining Hyrocanians in the middle.”

A pop and sizzle spun Stone back around to face the button display. The tape had held and all of the buttons were white, but a large section of the console was no longer a blank grey metal nothing. It displayed an angry looking Hyrocanian. The four-armed freak began screeching at Stone. Stone realized he had never seen a Hyrocanian that didn’t look angry. This one was a huge creature with slick ooze dripping from the rolls of fat on its face with eyes almost buried beneath overstuffed cheeks. If Hyrocanians raised their rank and status by being fat, this one must be an admiral. Stone wondered which came first, the rank or the fat. Maybe they were promoted and then became fat since they held a higher place in the food line. Its face wobbled in anger as it yowled at Stone and slapped the row of buttons on its command console. It continued to jab the same series of buttons.

Stone watched as a long-bladed knife appeared on one edge of the monitor. It swept across the screen only slowing as it decapitated the Hyrocanian. Blood splatter replaced the view of the huge Hyrocanian until a suited hand using a pair of gaudy colored pants wiped the blood free and Lieutenant Hammermill’s face appeared. “Hello?”

Stone replied, “Hello, Hammer. Are you all right?” He remembered seeing Hammermill buried under a pile of unsuited Hyrocanians. It’d looked bad, but he should have trusted the Hammer not to be injured in such a trivial enemy engagement.

“Hey there, Ensign Stone. Some party, huh? Well, if you’ll excuse me, there is someone here who wants to talk to you.”

Tammie Ryte’s face replaced Hammermill’s. “Hammer just took over the last control room. Numos is still trying to seal the corridors to the shuttle core. We appreciate your keeping us from blasting back to the mothership.”

Stone wanted to say he hadn’t really done much except push a few buttons, but maybe that was all it took. He asked, “Agent Ryte, what buttons are lit up in front of you?”

She said, “They are all white except the third one from the left.”

Stone thought for a moment and then untaped the first button. Nothing happened, so he pushed the button. Still nothing happened, but Ryte had a startled look on her face. “Oh. There you are. I thought we just had sound, but whatever you did gave me a picture. I see you have Whizzer with you.”

Stone nodded. “We’re secure here. This is just a guess, but I think you’re in the central command center. That was the biggest Hyrocanian I’ve ever seen.”

“You saw him?” She glanced at her feet, avoiding stepping on the body. “Yeah, he was a bit of a porker.”

“The fatter they are the higher their rank.”

Ryte nodded, “Good assumption.”

“You said the only button you pushed that changed from white to red was the third button. I pushed the first one on my end. That gave you the visual on me, right? The first button on my end gives me a visual connection to the shuttle commander. The first button is for central command—the top guy. You are number one on my console. The Hyrocanian admiral doesn’t need a button to see himself, so the buttons on your console begin with the first button showing shuttle component number two.” He pushed it a few more times, blinking off and on the view from his console. “See? You said the only button lit up with color was the third one. That is me. I’m in the bottom part of the pyramid, so shuttle piece number four.”

Ryte reached forward and pushed the button off and on a few times, blanking the video off and on. “How do you get shuttle piece number four from the third button? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does. I don’t need a button to turn on a monitor to watch myself, neither do you. There are five parts to the shuttle , so it only needs four buttons to give visuals to the other four sections.”

Ryte asked “What about sound?”

Stone shrugged, “It’s probably hardwired. If so, then you have sound hardwired from your central control to the mothership. I wouldn’t worry about that for now, they don’t speak Empire Standard any more than we speak Hyrocanian.”

Wyznewski interrupted, “Working on it.” Stone turned to see him hold up and wiggle Triplett’s dataport. It had bloodstains on it, but the scientist didn’t seem to care as he dug through information Triplett had stored.

Ryte said, “Be careful, Whizzer. Even though she’s dead, it’s still her personal information and I can’t be privy to it because she still has a right not to incriminate herself and I don’t have a warrant to search her data.”