Children of Steel (20 page)

"Then keep an eye on my sister, she's
definitely crazy in my book." Fran started to scratch behind my
ears, and I started to relax.

"Raj, what would Cassandra say if she saw you
now?" Lisa said.

I cracked an eye, and could see her grinning
evilly.

"She'd tell you to behave, or she'd tell
everyone what
you
really hate!" I glanced at Jemaal, "Is she
at least any good in bed? I'd hate to think she puts you through
hell for nothing."

I could see Lisa squirm a little then.

"Oh, I haven't been to bed with your sister
yet." he smiled, "I refuse to put up with her little games."

"Yep that'll really make her mad," I smiled
then made my own little dig, "especially when it's obvious she
really wants you."

"Raj!" Lisa said, and started to get up, "I
refuse to take this abuse!"

I swept her legs out from under her, with one
of my own. Fran was laughing quietly.

"Behave Lisa, you started it," I said and
then I turned to Jemaal. "I know my sister, believe me, and she
likes people who are wise to her little games."

"Really? I have to admit she's very nice,
except for her attempts at manipulation and the snide remarks,"
said Jemaal. “But she is a good soldier.”

Lisa was looking daggers at me by now. She
wouldn't try to leave again because she knew I wasn't going to let
her, and she didn't want anybody else to see that.

"She does need a strong influence; we were
all agreed on that back at the crèche."

"Humph! So they got you to beat on me!" she
glared.

"What did you expect from a bunch of children
Lisa? You know I always used brute force over brains." I admitted
painfully.

"Still do too!" she retorted.

"I stick with what works!" I grinned, "But if
you and Jemaal go and have a drink, I'll let you go."

"Do I have a choice?" she asked

I just smiled back at her.

"What about me?" Bristled Jemaal, "I don't
wish to have your sister forced to be with me."

"I'm just forcing her to talk to you for a
while; the rest is up to you. I like you and I keep hoping somebody
will teach her to be nice; especially since recently I’ve started
to find out what eventually happens to people who aren't." I stared
at Lisa as I said the last.

"Still looking out for us aren't you?" she
said softly, then turned to Jemaal, "He's right, I really do like
you. Let’s go get a drink and talk."

They both got up and I closed my eyes and
enjoyed Fran's scratching my ears and back.

"You really put her in her place, but she
deserves it," said Fran.

"Do you think I was too rough on her?"

"Heck no. She's been skating on thin ice with
a few of the girls. She's popular enough with the ones in your age
group and younger. But some of the older hands wouldn't have
anything to do with her, except she really is an excellent
soldier."

"She does have a tendency to bring out the
worst in me, that's for sure. But I do worry about her."

"Self appointed family head huh?" she started
rubbing my neck.

"Ohh that feels good. Yep, I was the head
from the time I was two. I watched out for everyone and never let
anybody harm my family."

"Sounds very noble," she smiled.

"Stupid actually, do you know how many times
I got beat up? Including when I had to defend that one?"

"That one doesn't need defending," laughed
Fran quietly. "Your sister is very good at defending herself,
believe me."

"I just wish I knew more about finesse. I
guess I really need experience. I always used to rely on my sister
Cassandra for advice."

"You're young yet. Heck, I'm young yet.
Experience takes time."

It was getting late, and people had been
leaving for a few minutes now, I noticed that Lisa and Jemaal were
talking in earnest. Lisa's anger was always a mercurial thing, gone
as fast as it came.

"Could I interest you in the comforts of my
quarters tonight?"

"I thought you'd never ask." she smiled
warmly.

"Then what would you have done?" I
teased.

"Asked you myself, what else?" she
replied.

I always liked practical people. We went back
to my cabin, where all thoughts of my sister were forgotten. In the
morning we spent a little while just relaxing and talking.

"What are my WSO's chances at getting your
pilot into bed?"

"Storm? Pretty good actually, she was
supposed to meet him this evening I believe."

"I wish I knew how he did it."

"Why? I gather you're busy enough." she
grinned wickedly at me, lying on top of my stomach.

"My sister did mention that several people
had their sights set on me." I grinned back.

"Oh?" she looked a little abashed.

"And that you were threatening mayhem if
anybody got in your way!" I laughed.

"That little ..." she fumed.

"Why get mad? After chasing you on the flight
deck, did you think I was going to stop last night?"

"I certainly didn't think so," she admitted,
"but nobody likes to have the game given away."

"Well for all her faults, she is my
sister."

"Okay, I'll forgive her," she smiled
again.

"But I am curious, what does Storm see in
Rudy? Maybe I'm narrow minded, but I really don't see anything
attractive about Possums."

"He's got a way with words, he's a real
charmer. Women like to be told nice things just as much as you men
do. Anyway he's not that bad looking, though I do prefer a furry
tail myself." She started playing with mine then.

"That's the way I feel too." I started
playing with hers also. "Well, I hope he's successful."

Over the next few weeks, I had quite a few
more liaisons with Fran. My fears of abandonment by the other girls
were never realized, even though they weren't around as often. By
the time Breakout was near, things had settled down and the mission
roster had been finalized. On the first two runs I'd be piloting an
assault shuttle, but as pilots got rotated, I would end up having a
turn at piloting one of the regular shuttles on my third run.

The plan was fairly simple. The assault
shuttles would make two low altitude drops. During the first the
regular shuttles would deploy the fighter aircraft in the upper
atmosphere. On the third run, the Assault ships would start landing
at the secured LZ's, and heavier armored troops would be
deployed.

I would be coming in again with the fourth
wave, flying one of the regular shuttles. It would be loaded with a
lot of the heavy artillery and some troops. The equipment was
mostly field pieces, and two armored ground effects vehicles.

Then it was back to the Assault shuttles to
fly in the sixth and seventh waves. After that it would be ground
support sorties, which would eventually be resupplied from the
ground base, once it was secure. It was hoped that we could quickly
overrun any defenses and make it a quick fight. But they had nearly
two months to dig in and we probably wouldn't have surprise on our
side, or so I thought.

I was talking about this with Terease and
Banner at Dinner.

"We actually have a fairly decent chance at
surprise Raj," said Banner.

"But what about our breakout flash? They have
to see that, and this ship isn't exactly invisible either."

"The Captain has plotted for us to breakout
with one of the system's other planets between us and them. We were
fortunate in that the positions of the planets are so favorable.
Furthermore, we will be able to use that planet for gravity braking
and should be there in five days."

"I thought breakout close to a planetary body
was impossible." I said surprised.

"We aren't going to be that close to the
planet," said Terease. "That was the reason we picked up so much
velocity before the jump, so we could close fast on the first
planet. But we're still going to be too close to be totally
safe."

"Safe how?" I asked.

"Well, The drive will probably be damaged and
need repair before we can jump again. We brought spares for just
that reason." she said soothingly.

"But if the Helmsman or the Captain have
screwed up on the breakout point, we could have a serious problem,"
supplied Banner. Not helping my appetite either, I might add.

"How long will the repairs take?" I asked
Terease.

"Several weeks at least, maybe longer. It
depends on how close we are to the planet."

"This mining operation must be pretty
important, this sounds like a really expensive operation," I said
to both of them. "And what's to keep them from seeing us as we
approach the planet?"

"Tri-Star feels it's bad for business to let
such things happen. Also it is a pretty profitable mine, that's why
someone wants it," said Banner. "As for seeing us, we're hoping
that they won't be expecting us yet, and that they don't have good
enough equipment. But remember, other companies have installations
on the planet as well, so we hope to keep them from knowing who we
really are."

There was a little more to it than that, such
as after using the ship rockets to brake us, the Captain had the
ship turned so that the hot end was facing away from our objective
as we came out from behind the planet. Then we would travel without
navigation lights, active radar, or anything else that might give
us away. We would use the gravity well of the planet, as well as
the rockets, to brake into a final orbit once we arrived.

Throughout the five days this took, everybody
was nervous and anxious. There were quite a few small fights;
however they broke up as quickly as they started. But when the
firearm's lockers were opened and the sidearms passed out,
everybody knew it was time for the real thing and settled down
completely.

I checked over all of my equipment carefully.
My rifle, pistol, and armor were all in excellent condition.
Probably because they had never been used. The rifle I wouldn't be
needing, and the armor I couldn't wear in the assault ships, as it
wouldn't fit under my vac suit, or over it for that matter. But I
could wear it in the regular shuttle, and considering its lack of
armor, I would.

The side arm was completely functional, but
it felt strange to be carrying it around. I checked my personal
survival kit, (it served as a seat pack in the assault ships, and
usually held my armor too). Then spent the last night nervous as
hell, until Herza showed up and spent it with me. I was surprised
to find out she was nervous too, even if only a little. I didn't
mind her keeping me awake though, as I couldn't have slept
anyway.

That morning I skipped breakfast and went
straight to the hanger. I gave the shuttle a quick walk around and
then went to get my gear. After suiting up I sat in the flight room
and waited for the others to show. It didn't take long, everybody
was early that day. Whether they were nervous like me, or eager, I
couldn't tell and really didn't care.

I listened carefully to the briefing. The
first item was the weather. It was clear, sunny and in the
eighties, no rain expected and no clouds either.

I'd been hoping for clouds, they helped
screen from long range imaging sensors. The lack of rain was good,
no mud. The rest really wasn't much of a player.

The next thing was photo intelligence
gathered from the first pass over the drop points. It was going on
at this very moment and we watched a live video feed from the
Bridge. I was surprised to hear Katrine's voice giving the real
time analysis. As I watched, two drop zones were moved and
hopefully all of the anti-aircraft sights were located. Maps were
printed out, and then we spent five minutes going over our
part.

That was it, we walked out to the shuttles,
checked to make sure the troops were loaded, did the start engines
checklist, the pre-launch checklist, the launch checklist, and
suddenly, I found myself doing the post-launch checks. We were
off.

I found my leader and formed up in loose
trail. When he flashed his lights, I did my countdown, fired the
motors and started the re-entry. I watched the temperature gauges,
my leader, and kept one eye on the Master Threat light. I glanced
back at Rudy at one point and smiled when I saw the feather
sticking off the side of his helmet.

We kept radio silence all the way in of
course. We finally leveled off at one thousand feet over the ocean,
doing about mach 3. I moved up closer on my lead and went to
fingertip formation. We then engaged the Terrain Following Radar
and performed a letdown to one hundred feet and prepared for
groundfall.

As we crossed the beach I could see some of
the passive systems were beginning to pick up data, but nothing was
on to us yet. We had slowed to mach 1.2 at that point and would
slow down to about five hundred knots when we dropped the troops. I
knew from experience how that hurt, but there really wasn't much
help for it. At least the parachutes were designed for it.

My INS system started to beep as we
approached the drop point; I clicked the intercom and notified the
Lieutenant in the back.

"Sixty seconds to drop, prepare to drop in
sixty seconds."

"Roger that. Drop in sixty." He sounded like
he was ordering pretzels at the bar. At least I had remembered to
sound calm myself.

I could hear him ordering everybody to hook
up and prepare to jump over the bleed from the intercom. The way it
works is that they all hook up to each other, in a long string.
You're separated by about fifty feet of rope. At the command to
jump the first man tosses a drogue chute out the hatch, then one at
a time everybody is literally yanked out the back. The last man is
hooked to the shuttle's bulkhead, as he goes out the rope yanks
free of the shuttle, setting off a light on my display, and
triggering the pyrotechnic charge used to deploy each trooper's
chute.