Children of Steel (40 page)

As he looked in shock at his buddy, whom he
had just given a really nasty jolt to, I broke his arm and several
of his ribs for good measure. I then looked at the three remaining
ones who had gathered themselves for another attack. They had lost
their cattle prods, so I just charged right in kicking and
punching.

I really enjoyed just beating the living crap
out of them, the sound of cracking and breaking bones was music to
my ears. I really didn't feel any of their hits, I was so worked
up, and just kept going until nobody was left standing, making sure
I gave them each a few scars to remember me by.

Surveying the damage, I noticed the one who
had gotten shocked by his buddy was starting to move again and so
was Mr. Vanderzyc. I gave myself a quick once over, no broken
bones, no cuts, just some bruises. I wasn't surprised to see that
my shirt was ruined, it had two burned spots in it from the
electrical shocks and was splattered with somebody's blood. At
least the blood wasn't mine.

I grabbed a chair from an empty table, and
went back to join my friend's.

"Pretty impressive Raj," said Joshua.

Gabe and Dave just gave me knowing looks,
they knew how much I worked out and practiced.

I gave him a big smile, and looked at Mr.
Vanderzyc who was holding his arm and getting up off the floor.

"Next time I'm gonna kill you," he said
looking around at his friends.

For some reason that did it, up to now I’d
been angry, but I hadn’t really lost my temper. I got back up,
walked over to him and quickly grabbed his arm and gave it a hard
pull. I could feel it pop back into the socket as he screamed. I
waited till he calmed down a little and looked at him.

"Feel better?" I asked softly, and was
surprised when he nodded. "Good!" I said, and punched him in the
face, hard. He went back a couple of feet and hit the wall and slid
down to the ground, out cold. I turned to the one remaining one,
who stood there aghast.

"Never threaten a leopard!" I told him, "he
just might believe you!" and I went back to my seat.

"Was that really necessary Raj?" Joshua asked
me.

"You heard him," I said taking a few deep
breaths to calm myself down, "and I believe him. When he comes too,
maybe he'll learn to be a little more careful about what he
says."

"Maybe he'll just be that much more careful
about planning his next attack," replied Joshua. "You definitely
gave him the incentive, that's for sure."

I hadn't thought about that, "Do you really
think so?" I asked concerned now that the adrenaline was starting
to wear off and my anger was subsiding. "I'll admit that I do have
a tendency to get carried away."

"I wouldn't worry about it Raj," put in Dave,
"We'll be gone from here by the time he feels like fighting
again."

"And as for his bothering Kathy again, I'll
have my lawyers get after him for what he did tonight." Joshua gave
us a lazy smile, "After all, I can't have my guests being attacked
even if some of them enjoy it!" He laughed then and everybody else
joined in.

"Can I help it if I enjoy fighting?" I
protested weakly, "It's what I do for a living."

"We just wish you'd stop taking your work
home with you," Kathy said dryly, and everybody started laughing
all over again.

The police arrived next and after a quick
private conversation with Joshua, they ignored us, somewhat to my
surprise. We got up and left at that point, as they started
dragging the still unconscious bodies out.

"Good Lord Raj," said Fran watching as we
walked outside, "how hard did you hit them anyway?"

"Just as hard as I could!" I grumbled
quietly.

The trip back was uneventful and conversation
resumed as if the fight had never happened. Kathy was pretty quiet
the whole way back however. Once back, everybody headed for their
respective bedrooms. I went to the bathroom to clean up and tossed
the ruined shirt in the garbage. When I came back to the room,
Kathy was sitting staring quietly out the window. I knelt down
behind her and put my arms around her.

"Mad at me?" I asked cautiously.

"Why should I be mad at you Raj?" she asked
quietly.

"Well, I did punch your father's lights out
for one," I admitted quietly.

"No that's not it," she reached back and
scratched under my chin. "It's the fact that he showed up at all.
All his life he's treated me like I was a burden to him, told me I
was just a worthless woman, and I had better remember my place.
That he was sorry he had me, that it was all my mother's fault and
anything else he could think of to belittle me.

"Then after trying to fill me full of hate
and fear for so many years he comes to try to take me back there.
Like I was his property, chattel to be punished for misbehaving!
Damn it! I'm an adult now, and he has no claim to me anymore! I'd
just wish he'd leave me alone."

She was crying quietly now and I held her for
awhile. I really didn't know what to say. After all, I
was
property, somebody's chattel or rather some corporation's. But then
they valued me, treated me well, gave me praise and took good care
of me for the most part.

"You want me to kill him for you?" I finally
asked. He reminded me so much of the scum from Arboral I didn’t
think my conscious would bother me too much if I did.

"Raj!" she turned and looked at my in the
moonlight, "are you serious?"

"Sure, why not? I could get into his bedroom
late one night, he'd never feel a thing. Nobody would know who
either." I shrugged, I didn’t think it would be all that hard.

"No Raj," she started stroking the side of my
face, "That wouldn't be right."

I couldn't see why not, and said so. "What's
not right about it? It's clear to everybody he doesn't mean you
well."

She sighed, "People don't just go around
killing each other Raj. Trust me, it's wrong. But it was sweet of
you to offer." she gave me a kiss then, and we gently made
love.

Later, she fell asleep within the circle of
my arms and I suddenly wondered, what I would have done if she had
said yes?

The rest of the weekend passed without
incident. I did get to see quite a bit of the farm, as Karen took
us on an aerial tour of most of it. We had a picnic the next day,
and I was surprised to find my shirt had been replaced by the next
night. Other than that, we just spent a lot of time enjoying the
outdoors.

After we had dropped the girls off Monday, we
headed back to the plant and checked our messages. I spent the rest
of the day writing my reply to Cassandra's letter, and getting a
larger copy made of her picture to replace the older one I had on
ship. I ended up at Martial that night once again with Herza.

I did Herza proud by winning all my fights,
but then I was beating her regularly nowadays, so I didn't expect
to find anybody who could beat me in a place like this anymore.

On Tuesday the Clan went to the resort we had
been at last time, and spent a whole week there. I really enjoyed
just being away from everything and even spent two days alone in
the forest. There's something to be said for occasional solitude
after living years on a ship where there wasn’t any.

It was Wednesday when we got back into town
and I just basically enjoyed the sights and spent the remaining few
days seeing Kathy. We even doubled once with her roommate Meg and
her boyfriend Charley. He brought along some sparring gear and
managed to talk me into going a few rounds, during which I taught
him not to do so ever again. When I wanted to quit after only a
couple of minutes he quickly agreed.

"I told him about the bar fight, but he
didn't believe me," whispered Kathy.

"He will next time," I whispered back, "I
just hope I didn't leave him with an axe to grind."

"He'll get over it," she smiled.

That Sunday we started reloading, and five
days later we broke orbit.

We had loaded another troop module at
Hobson’s Choice only this time they hadn’t made any secret of it.
The attack at Arboral hadn’t been the only one since then, though
it was the only successful invasion and occupation of any of
Tri-Star’s holdings. A few other places had been raided, and one
other Corporation suffered as severe a hit as our Timpleton complex
had. So we were bringing security reinforcements to a number of
places that were considered to be at risk. It was hoped an obvious
display of strength would make them consider other targets.

“It’s not going to work,” Dave said as we sat
around playing cards.

“Why not?” Gabe asked upping the bid.

“They’re not operating on a profit motive,
more like a revenge based one. If a target gets harder to hit that
they want, they’ll just bring in a bigger force.”

I nodded and folded a lousy pair of twos.
“Balizar said about the same thing last night.”

“But what about hitting someone less defended
instead?” Gabe asked.

“I don’t think they’re picking their targets
based solely on monetary impact,” Dave said matching the bid.
“Rudy?”

“I’m in,” he anted up. “And I agree with
Dave, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
This is just the testing phase.”

I dealt the next round of cards, besides
Dave, Gabe, and Rudy, Thomas and Jeb were playing as well.

“Kind of like sparring with a new opponent,”
I put in, “Still your bet Jeb.”

“Still five creds, and yeah I agree too.”

“So why are the Corps not going after these
guys?” Gabe asked raising the bet again.

“Because it still hasn’t hit them just what
they’re dealing with,” Dave said seeing the bet once again. “I
don’t think the corps have ever had a common foe before, usually
they’re fighting each other.”

“And then they’re used to playing by the
rules,” Rudy said upping the bet.

Thomas folded and leaned back as Jeb matched
the bet followed by Dave.

“And these guys definitely are not.” Gabe
said as he matched the bet. “Read them and weep!” he said and
turned his cards over.

“I’ll cry later,” Rudy chuckled and showed a
full house to Gabe’s three of a kind.

“Damn, what next?” Gabe grumbled and General
Quarters sounded.

We scrambled for our shuttles running like
madmen, hoping into the cockpits and firing up the systems. I
plugged into the bridge and called for a status report.

“We have multiple hostiles incoming at four
hundred miles,” Katrine’s voice started. “Radar makes it as ten
inbound shuttles, bearing and state data uploading now.”

I looked at my threat display and watched as
it came to life.

“All shuttles, clear to start engines!”

I watched as the bay door opened, the air
boiling out of the bay immediately in a great gust taking a few
playing cards with it.

I started my engines and prepared for
launch.

“One ready!” I called.

“Two ready!” I heard Gabe on the radio.

“Three ready!” Jeb called next.

“Launching!” Came the reply and I ran the
throttles on the rockets up to fifty percent as we got kicked out
into space.

“Damn, I can’t believe this, we’re only a day
out of Hobson’s!” I said to Rudy as we armed our missiles.

“Yeah, worse yet Jeb and Gabe are slinging
ship killers and only four LRGM’s a piece.”

“Damn, I hadn’t thought about that. I wonder
where the hell these guys popped out of?”

“Probably floated in from that asteroid belt
back there. Must have fired their engines when the Astra’s radar
locked on them.”

I nodded and checked in with my wingmen.

“Alpha flight, report!”

“Two’s in.” Gabe called.

“Three’s in.” Jeb called right after.

“Profile Foxtrot X-ray,”

“Two copies.”

“Three copies.”

“Kind of risky, isn’t it?” Rudy asked,
“Leading with the ship killers.”

“They’re worthless in a dogfight, might as
well burn them up right away and just hope to get lucky.”

“Good point. I hope Bravo flight gets out
here quick.”

I nodded, of course with the shuttle bay now
a vacuum Bravo flight would have to suit up before they could man
their shuttles and launch. It would be a good ten minutes at
least.

I keyed the radio, “Alpha flight,
launch!”

“Two!”

“Three!”

A moment later four SK’s streaked by me under
maximum thrust.

“Let’s see how they respond to twenty
megatons of fun,” Rudy chuckled from behind me.

We were twenty miles from them when Dave and
Thomas detonated their missiles.

“Nice shooting!” Rudy commented over the
radio to our wingmen as the front four shuttles were destroyed in
the blast.

“Guess they didn’t think about that?” I
chuckled as the remaining six split into two groups of three.

“Amateurs,” Rudy chuckled.

“Alpha flight,” I said keying the mike, “Lead
will take the first element, you have the second.”

“Two, roger!”

“Three, roger!”

“Good hunting Raj!” I heard Gabe call over
the radio as he pealed off to my starboard side and I turned to
port. Now came the tricky part, if we didn’t want to just fly past
them in a flash we had to change course and vector, so in effect
they’d be coming up at us from behind. By splitting to either side
we’d have them between us unless they split up. This gave the
advantage to them as we traded our velocity advantage to a lower
potential versus theirs. I didn’t like it, but we were only a
hundred and twenty miles from the Astra and that was way too close
for comfort.

I ran the throttles to Max to lower my
relative velocity as much as possible.

“They’re not splitting to engage,” Rudy
said.

“That’s odd,” I said keeping the throttle at
full mil, “staying bunched up like that just gives us an
advantage.”