Children of Steel (55 page)

I was sitting in the small shuttle bay, which
doubled as a gym among other things, on our last day aboard when
the Exec walked in. She was human and looked to be in her early
thirties. Of course with age treatments she could have been
seventy, telling age among humans was never easy.

"Good morning Mamm," I stood up as she
entered, just to be safe.

"At ease Raj, I'm off duty," she went over to
one of the machines and started her own daily routine. I had
noticed that everybody on board the Falcon exercised regularly,
even Captain Avera.

"What do you think will happen next
Mamm?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the Astra is going to be out of it for
a while I guess and it is pretty far away from here. And now
there's all this talk of the Company finally knowing who's
responsible, I'd just like to know what's going to happen now." I
started on my next set of reps while she thought about that a
minute.

"I guess you'll probably be assigned to
another ship or group," she looked over at me, "If you've got a
good record, I suggest you see what options they'll give you as
soon as you can. We're going to be taking on troops once we dock
and I'd guess that the company is going to switch a lot of it's
people over to combat for the next few years, at least until things
settle down."

"Will they?" I asked curious. "Settle down
that is."

"Oh eventually they will," she smiled at some
thought then. "The big rush will be on at first to grab as much of
the enemy's assets as possible before somebody else does. And as
for the fanatics, well Tri-Star isn't the only company they pissed
off, just the biggest."

I thought about B Company, where my sister
Lisa was. Something like that would be worth looking into. "They
pissed me off too. Thanks for the advice Mamm, I'll look into it
after we dock."

I spent another two hours in the gym working
out after she had left, there wasn't much else to do on board and I
wanted to be sure I was in peak condition.

I didn't get to look into anything right away
once we docked. The first thing that happened was we were all
debriefed on the mission and that took a whole day. Once they had
finished with us there, I spent another day getting outfitted. The
only thing that had survived was a uniform and my armor, they were
both totally trashed and had to be replaced anyway. I did have
extra gear on the Astra, but I found out that it could be years
before it caught up with me.

So I ended up spending a hundred and thirty
eight thousand dollars on a full set of gear, uniforms and weapons.
I had grown to like the rifle that I had lost so much, that I
bought another just like it. I was shocked that it cost twice as
much as a normal one.

After taking care of all that I went back to
my room with Mist. We were all staying in the same place, nobody
having yet decided what to do with us. We were talking about our
options then, Mist wanted to go back to the Astra and was trying to
figure out how to swing it. I wouldn't have minded going back
either, but I couldn't see them paying my way and I sure couldn't
afford it!

Suddenly somebody rang at the door and I got
up and answered it. It was a company messenger and he handed me an
envelope, after checking my ID, and then split. I looked it over
and walking back towards Mist I opened it and read the letter
inside. It was a standard company notification, I started to feel
dread before I had even made it past the gobbly gook at the
top.

Company notifications were always bad news.
If something important happened, as in bad, then the company would
distribute a notification to all of its installations. The first
one you showed up at would cross index your current file and if it
wasn't in it, you got handed it at the first possible instance. The
only reason I hadn't gotten one on Nepal's death was because I was
at the scene of the incident before one went out.

It said quite simply that 'We regret to
inform you that the corporation's installation on Trundle was
raided on,' and it gave some date four months ago. It continued,
'When company forces arrived there were no survivors found. Your
sister Cassandra Rakir was among the personnel. No remains were
recovered.'

I stood there in shock, Cassandra was
gone.

I dropped the letter and just stood there. I
could hear a loud growling that I realized was me. Cassandra was
dead. My control disappeared with a snap, I roared. I looked around
for something, anything, and started to tear everything in the room
to pieces. Something moved behind me, and I whirled to see somebody
leave the room. I threw the couch at the door after them and felt a
surge of satisfaction as it splintered against the door.

It didn't take long for me to run out of
things to destroy in the room. But it wasn't enough, I needed more,
I needed to
kill
. I grabbed the door and tried to yank it
open, but it wouldn't budge. In my rage I couldn't work the lock so
I went over to the wet bar and ripped the sink off the wall, so I
could just bash it down. When I turned back to the door there were
four shapes there now.

I recognized one of them right away, it was
Marcus. I threw the sink at him and charged. The other three fanned
out but I just ignored them, I could get them later. He dodged the
sink and swung at me with a bar of some kind. I blocked it with my
arm and got him in the chest with my claw's drawing blood. Somebody
grabbed at my arm then, and I kicked them hard in the leg. I was
rewarded with a snap of bone, so I just hit them with an elbow and
turned back towards Marcus who was hitting me in the chest with the
end of his club.

I came in fast ignoring the blows, I couldn't
feel them anyway. I had a hand on his throat and was trying to get
the other one up there as well, but somebody kept blocking it.
Suddenly I felt a hard blow to the back of my head and staggered
back. I turned around to kill whoever it was and I saw
Cassandra.

"Cassy!" I said then realized it wasn't her
but Mist. For some reason this angered me even more but before I
could take a step forward someone hit me on the back of the head
again and I lost my balance. I got hit twice more before I hit the
floor, and everything just went black.

I woke up as something cold hit me in the
face. I opened my eyes and saw Mist with a bucket, now empty. I
growled and tried to reach for her, but I couldn't move. I looked
down. I was trussed up hand and foot, and tied to the fixtures in
the hall 'fresher. I started to struggle but whoever had done it
was good, I couldn't get free.

"Raj, It's Mist. Calm down dammit! Security
will be here any minute, if they see you like this they'll shoot
you on the spot!"

I ignored her and tested the ropes again, to
no avail.

"Damn," that was Marcus. "Mist, help Star
take Borus down to the infirmary before they find out about this.
Make up a good story too."

"What about Raj? I can't leave him like
this!" I could see she was upset, but it didn't make an impression
on me. After all, I had just lost Cassandra! What could she have to
compare with that? I tried the ropes again.

"Get! I'll take care of this, just go!"

She left. I stared at Marcus and growled.

"Can you hear me Raj?" he leaned on the edge
of the stall and looked down at me. I could see the blood on his
chest from where I had clawed him, I growled again.

"Good, I guess that's a yes," he showed me
the piece of paper in his hand. "Sorry about your girlfriend there,
Cassandra wasn't it?"

I tried to roar at him then, but I found that
somebody had stuck a gag in my mouth. So I growled and tried the
ropes again.

"I tied those myself, so don't bother," He
leaned down real close then, I thought about the possibility of
biting him. "Now listen real close Raj. She's dead, got that? Dead!
Some trash came along and put paid to her account. You got
that?"

It felt like salt in the wound, I thrashed
some more, but I couldn't look away from him.

"Now in about thirty seconds I'm going to
pull that gag out of your mouth and if you don't have control of
yourself I'll just let them find you here and shoot you. But before
I do I want you to think about something. Just one word.

"Revenge!"

I felt like I had been shot. Revenge, that
was what I wanted all right. To make somebody else suffer and die.
Die slowly and horribly, or just die dammit!

"Ahhh, I see that hit a nerve. You leopards
are supposed to be real big on revenge, I'd bet you'd do anything
to get it too!"

I stopped struggling and looked at him. I
made myself listen to everything he was saying.

"Good, now do you think you're going to be
able to get any revenge if they see you like this? Do you think
you'll even be able to get to where those bastards live if you keep
acting like this?" He grabbed the gag in my mouth, "If you want to
get your revenge Raj, you're going to have to gain control of
yourself, bide your time. So do you want to die here? Shot while
helplessly trussed up in the 'fresher? Or do you want to get some
revenge?" He pulled the gag out of my mouth.

My first impulse was to roar, but I stopped
it. He was right, I could feel his words singing in my ears.
"Revenge!" I growled softly, "I want revenge!"

"You got yourself under control then?"

I swallowed, "Yes, untie me. I don't want to
screw this up any worse than I already have."

He drew my knife, which I was surprised to
see still in its sheath. "Good thing you didn't grab this," he said
smiling, "or Mist would have shot you for sure!" He cut my bonds
then, and I sat up on the floor. I helped him gather up the rope,
which he tossed in the disposal.

"What'll I tell Security?" I asked him as a
feeling of panic started to replace my anger. As I calmed down I
started to realize my head hurt like crazy, and I had a couple of
broken ribs. I think my wrist was broken too, it was swelling up
pretty fast, that’s for sure.

"Tell them your intended was killed, show
them the note. Then tell them that you got so upset you didn't
think it would be safe to go down to the gym and work it off, so
you took it out on the room instead. Then you came in here to wash
up. Now if you'll excuse me, I better take cover because I hear the
storm troopers coming!"

With that he ducked into one of the stalls
and started to take a shower like he had been there for a while
now. As long as they didn't make him come out they'd never see the
blood. I got up and started for a stall myself.

"Halt!" I heard, so I did. "Don't move or
I'll shoot!" I guess these guys believed the stories about leopards
because they obviously weren't fooling. "What's going on here?"

So I told them the story Marcus had given me,
and showed them the paper. Then I asked if I could shower off
before they arrested me. They looked at me a little warily and
called it in on their handset. I got the okay, and took a real
quick shower so I could get out of there before they got suspicious
about Marcus. They did ask him a couple of questions through the
door; he just pleaded ignorance so they left him alone.

The trip down to Security was longer than I
would have liked it to be. I hurt all over at this point, and the
broken ribs were beginning to grate. When I got there I repeated my
story, and then asked if I could be excused.

"I don't think we can afford to let a
dangerous person like you to just go free!" said the human behind
the desk.

"Sir," I pleaded quietly, "All I did was
trash my room, which I'm willing to pay for. I didn't attack
anybody," I lied, "and when I finished I just went to the showers
to clean up. Yes we leopards are temperamental, and I've just
experienced a great loss. But I've got the rage out of my system
and now I just want to mourn my loss and go back to work."

He looked me over carefully; "Well your eyes
don't have that glassy look that they warn us about, and I will
admit you seem composed." he turned to the four security guards in
the room with me, "Take him down to the Med center. If they say
he's okay, you can let him go." He turned back to me then, "You'll
be fined of course, and charged for the damages to your room.
Somebody should have looked at your file before delivering that
message; it should have been done with more care so you could have
vented your anger on something less expensive and made for it.

"At least you didn't go on a rampage, I'll
give you credit for that. Take him away."

We went down to the Med center then, and the
Doc quickly cleared me, and then set about patching up my wounds.
They were curious about how I had inflicted some of them on myself,
especially the ones to the back of my head, but I pleaded ignorance
and they didn't push it.

When I finally got back to my room I looked
around at the destruction. It was pretty severe, all the furniture
was in pieces,
small
pieces, and the fixtures were all
trashed as well.

I sat down then and though about what had
happened and cried. When Mist ventured to stick her head in an hour
later, I was still crying. She came over and sat with me until I
stopped.

"You sure you want to get this close to the
maniac?" I asked trying hard to smile.

"If they had thought to check with somebody
who knows you before showing you that note this would never have
happened!" she said hotly, "That's usually required procedure,
somebody screwed up big time!"

"Thanks for getting everybody here and saving
my life, and not shooting me. I'm sorry if I hurt you."

"I could tell something was wrong as soon as
you dropped the letter," she sighed. "So I grabbed it and ran for
the door. Once I read it I knew what was up. Good thing the Tigers
were around, I don't think I could have trusted anybody not from
the Astra to keep their mouths shut."