Read Metal Boxes - Trapped Outside for Free Online

encountered one male; a huge, angry, mindless, beast bent on killing. Stone didn’t want to ever repeat that meeting.
    Yet, his drascos were far beyond the size he thought they should be. He had to remind himself, they were still only a little over a year old and he didn’t have any clue how big they would get, except for his memories and Doctor Wright’s videos of their mother and her size. Those videos were proving more irrelevant by the day.
    Their growth couldn’t be due just to the competition. Marines were tough competition, but their native planet, Allie’s World, was a nightmare, where all plants and animals were covered in spikes, thorns, claws, fangs, and needles. A casual stroll through the jungle would shred a human. Native animals needed tough skins to survive. His drascos also wore human-made armor protecting their most vital parts, including covering those tender soft spots, from inadvertent contact. Their home planet was beyond tough, and should have made Jay and Peebee’s birth mother grow larger than she had if growth was determined solely by competition.
    He admitted he also overfed the girls, giving them carbon dioxide infused vegetation whenever they were hungry. Their replicators had long since synthesized the golden ooze bars the girls loved and gobbled down like candy with abandon at any opportunity. They exercised at least once a day and didn’t appear fat. Mass or weight wasn’t the only change; they were taller and longer than their mother had been.
    Menendez said, “Doctor Triplett advises you to separate yourself from those drascos to avoid any continued exposure. I concur, however—”
    Stone interrupted, “However, this has been suggested before and has been overruled as being just guess work. I already have their DNA in my system.”
    Menendez said, “I was going to say, this free floating alien DNA isn’t the biggest issue we face. Some moron of a medical corpsman thought the way to fix your issue would be to upgrade your military nanites.”
    Stone smiled. “Doctor Menendez, I’ve never felt better.” His new enhanced nanites coursed through his system, keeping him healthy, even healing scrapes, scratches, or cuts faster than drasco spit ever did. He could pack on muscle without much exercise. Ice cream no longer settled around his middle. He no longer grew tired in the middle of an afternoon, an abundance of energy constantly coursed through his body, and yet he slept at night more soundly than ever before.
    Triplett said something under her breath about stupid military mindset; both Stone and Menendez ignored the comment. Academics and researchers were often dismissive of the military and looked at them as substandard. It didn’t matter that the officer ranks of all three military branches were populated by men and women with advanced degrees. Their rampant contempt for anyone resorting to physical force for any reason was more than evident on most educational campuses.
    Menendez said, “Ensign Stone, how you feel isn’t the problem! The corpsman gave you a full treatment of marine combat nanites, the best the empire has to offer. They should simply overwrite your navy nanites, flushing the less enhanced nanites out of your system. However, something has interfered with the programmed flush. The nanites have combined in your system. The marine nanites have subverted the navy ones to their own uses and instead of attacking the drasco DNA as they should any invading virus, they have begun to combine and mutate.”
    No one had mentioned this to Stone before. He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I’m going to mutate into some kind of marine drasco?”
    Menendez shook her head. “Don’t be silly. DNA doesn’t work that way, neither will a broad spectrum nanite. All we know is that you should be sick or already dead.”

SEVEN
     
    Stone gave a little internal shiver as LCDR Butcher shouted at him for the umpteenth time since leaving Lazzaroni Station. He should be