Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges Read Free Page A

the reason for this visit, nor questioned the lack of reason. Both men knew it wasn’t a career-enhancing move to question something the emperor did, said, or even thought.
    No one had openly questioned an emperor since Emperor Selligman two hundred years ago — a maniac who had to be deposed by the military and a new emperor placed on the throne. Crazy was crazy whether the loony was an emperor or not. Everyone says that power corrupts, but few people mention that power can also drive a man or woman insane beyond redemption.
    After Emperor Selligman, Empress Shin Zhu added behaviorists and psychologists to the emperor’s college to review all potential candidates for humanity’s top leader — and to keep an eye on her. Shin Tzu had personally executed Selligman for his excesses and after a few years she abdicated and installed the next candidate when her own college determined she was succumbing to post-traumatic stress syndrome.
    Although she determined he had to die, she hadn’t been able to order anyone to kill the ex-emperor, so she ended his life by her own hand. The trauma of personally killing Selligman caused her to hesitate in ordering anyone to do tasks that might get them killed. Not a good mental state for the commander-in-chief of humanity’s military forces.
    No one knew for sure, but the rumor said Shin Zhu was a gentle soul still residing in a little mountain cabin on a backwater planet in the Regulus sector. She was comfortable, but isolated in her retirement, still unable to bear the thought of a security guard risking his life to save hers.
    Stone shivered, remembering those history lessons. He’d met Emperor Alberto Garza a few times when he was younger, before joining the navy. The man seemed to be a nice guy, unless you beat him at tennis. Still, those were social occasions with a lot of family around, the emperor having married some distant cousin. Stone wondered how the emperor would react if Stone did something other than claim victory when the man hit a double fault. Personal snits were one thing; professional anger was something else and something he didn’t want to tempt.
    Stone shifted from one foot to the other. Acting in his capacity as governor he was in full dress uniform. The heat from the plasticrete tarmac was cooking the bottom of his feet and the humidity was high, as it always was on their island retreat. The island was big, huge by island standards with almost ten thousand square kilometers of land — but not large enough to dissipate the ocean’s humidity.
    “Quit fidgeting, Ensign,” Temple snapped.
    “Yes, Admiral.” Stone froze. Even though he knew he couldn’t stand still much longer, his body and muscles reacted to the admiral’s command. His training kicked in and his body became motionless. He blinked, but his eyes focused on a hilltop across the landing pad, did not flicker to the left or the right. They were cemented into a static glare. He continued to breathe, with his breaths so shallow his ribcage barely registered the change.
    Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and he could feel some insect crawling up a trouser leg, yet he didn’t move. He smiled inwardly. His toughened skin had its benefits. Not only did it keep him from being impaled by a mutant sea creature, it meant he could feel the bug on his leg and the running sweat, but they didn’t tickle.
    “Dammit,” Temple snorted, shifting from one foot to the other. He looked over his shoulder and snapped. “Butcher, where is that shuttle of yours? I thought they were supposed to be here already?”
    CDR Thomas Butcher started to speak, but interrupted himself, “Sir, they — there they are.”
    A shuttle dropped from the clouds, settling on the tarmac with a gust of breeze. The landing didn’t stir any dust. The admiral had ordered the tarmac swept clean and washed so the emperor’s representative wouldn’t get the bottom of their shoes dirty. The enlisted team had grumbled about the duty,