Children of Steel (60 page)

The lab was on an airless moon off of some
gas giant in an otherwise unsettled system. Now Tri-Star really
didn't care about the drugs, this was just payback for attacking
several of their ships and installations. Like the Captain had
said, going after this target was a sure guarantee of economic loss
to the Masong people, and due to the nature of the product they
wouldn't be able to use their government connections to raise a
fuss.

Due to this attack being on an airless moon I
would have to be prepared to face exposure to total vacuum. This
meant I had to buy some new gear. My vacuum suit wouldn't stand up
to combat of course, and an armored one would be way to
constricting. What I did get was a tight rubberized pressure suit
with an armored helmet. They were nicknamed 'skin suits' by humans,
and I could easily wear my regular armor over it.

The only real draw back to the skin suit was
they took about an hour to get into, especially if you had a tail.
I had my suit made with one, most people with tails did. Not only
is a tail a useful balancing tool in combat. But in low gravity or
weightless conditions it could allow you to easily change
directions. Monkeys of course had added benefits being able to grab
things with theirs. But it was a pain to get into and the tail sock
added a good ten minutes to the dressing time. They looked funny
too.

The cost of the skin suit wasn't cheap
either, that was another drawback. Thankfully it had an adjustable
function that allowed you to control heat lost, which was a
necessity when you had on a permanent fur coat beneath it. In my
case I also had to buy a lightweight air conditioned vest, or I
could overheat in twenty minutes, that was also expensive. The
total cost of the whole outfit was eighty thousand credits and it
was custom fit, so I wouldn't be able to resell it either.

"Damn, I really hate putting this thing on!"
I said to Aruba as she helped me get dressed, "and they make my
tail look like a rat's."

"You'll get over it," she smiled. We had both
had a lot of fun putting her inside of hers.

We were still living in the same quarters and
spent a lot of our time together. She still had liaisons with other
people on the crew of course, I myself had checked out a large
percentage of the female population by now as well. But we still
preferred each other most of the time. In her position her choices
were more limited of course, I was the only person under her
command that she slept with. It made one or two people suspicious
at first, but as she never granted me special favors, (actually she
tended to dump on me because I was in the 'trouble' squad and we
did
cause trouble!) nobody complained. I also had a tendency
to break the skulls of anybody who insinuated otherwise.

I think people actually got a kick out of
seeing me beat up on her every once in a while, which I did only
when she was off duty. Of course she beat up on me almost as often,
she was one tough Leopard and could easily have given Herza a run
for her money, I think everybody enjoyed that even more.

As for the ship Championship, it had changed
hands twice at this point, but it was still between John and
myself. We had both become good friends, and squad five was
becoming a very tight unit. Hess and Marko were still causing
trouble of course; most of it was just mischief from boredom. I
even covered for them a few times on some of their more amusing
stunts. But about once a month they'd go a little too far and I'd
have to take them to task for it. Of course I'd be in trouble too
for not stopping them ahead of time, so I didn't complain when the
'Lieutenant' took me to task. Though sometimes I think she enjoyed
be able to read the riot act to the biggest and meanest person in
the ship, knowing that I would just stand there meekly and take my
lumps.

We finished getting me in my suit then and
headed out to join the rest of the Block.

This assault was going to be a little
different on more than just the lack of air. The drop ships had
been stripped of anything valuable and were going to be left
behind. The plan was simple, we would come in low and fast, then
brake to a controlled crash on top of the complex. The inside of
the drop ships were a maze of shock webbing to protect everybody
and the pilot's job was to pick a spot where there wouldn't be too
much damage to the ship, but where the complex could be easily
breached.

Of course the Falcon's usual pilots wouldn't
be flying this one way trip, the backups would. That meant that I
would have the pleasure, and the responsibility, of not killing
everyone. The Lieutenant would be up front with me of course,
helping to find the best spot to 'land'.

The drop ship itself is a fairly simple and
clean design; it's nothing more than a tube with engines and a
fairly stupid computer. They carry no weapons at all and have very
little ECM either, their whole purpose being to make a fast pass
over a target while spewing troops out the back. Or picking up said
troops later on from pacified areas. They could take a couple hits
without disintegrating on the spot, but that was due to the lack of
anything more than special composites in the construction. They
were actually fairly stealthy due to the low metal content and
their shape. They also carried very little fuel on this trip so
when we did crash land, we wouldn’t have to worry about
explosion.

It felt good to be flying again, the Falcon
let us off and we drifted in towards the far side of the moon. Once
we were below the horizon we started engines and entered an orbit
that was about two hundred feet above the surface. As we came back
over the horizon and neared our objective, I flipped us over and
fired the engines on full throttle. Riding down on the rockets in a
classic braking maneuver, we had about ten seconds to pick the best
spot.

Intelligence had provided us with some likely
looking landmarks and we found one of them almost immediately, it
was the dome for the hydroponics section and I landed us right on
it. Or rather crashed us right through it, it buckled as we hit. We
weren't exactly going slow and it was only made of a clear plastic
glass compound. The ship fell in and I probably could have kept it
on its tail if the fuel hadn't run out about then. We landed on our
side, which wasn't too bad, and I flipped the toggles that blew all
the emergency access hatches off. Within thirty seconds everybody
was out of the ship.

Everybody but me that was, the nose had ended
up in a sludge vat of some kind, so I had to crawl back towards the
Lieutenant's seat and use her exit. But I caught up soon
enough.

We spread out and ran roughshod through the
place after that. The security detachment was fairly small; the
rest had been caught with only a minute of warning before we showed
up. Our tactic of exposing rooms to vacuum had a positive effect
too. Much of the staff was forced to retreat to emergency airlock
shelters, which could be held by one trooper with a grenade. They
would quickly get the point and surrender.

I did get into a few heavy firefights before
it was all over, the security detachment may have been small, but
they had all the key positions fortified and four of those they
managed to get to before us. Knocking them out was a tough job, and
I had several patches on my skin suit before it was all over. Those
were due to my diving into one just as they were closing the door.
I was lucky that there were only three of them inside, but I still
got wounded before I managed to kill one and beat the other two
unconscious.

This stunt did not set well with Aruba of
course, and the rest of the crew had their growing belief of both
my insanity and invincibility confirmed once more. We did lose
another four troopers, bringing our total number down to forty
seven, but the number of seriously wounded was only two this time.
My wounds were mostly superficial.

Once the place was secured, the prisoners
were escorted to their quarters and that whole wing was kept under
guard. We then carefully looted all of the drugs and all of the
expensive equipment as well. I even got a laser detector for
myself, after finding a bunch in the armory. I pocketed a few more
for my friends and directed Hess and Marko to only take three a
piece, leaving the rest for another squad.

After this was done, we set charges and blew
up all the labs, leaving only enough of the structure intact for
the three hundred personnel that were still alive to survive. There
was some discussion about taking the most important people for
ransom, but both Captain Johnson and the Falcon's Captain were
afraid that if we took the most important people, nobody would come
back for the rest.

Then we piled into four of their shuttles,
destroyed the rest, and flew back to the Falcon. It took us about
five sleepless days all told, and when we got back to the ship
everyone slept for the next two.

"Are you off duty?" I asked Aruba several
days later while we were lying in bed.

"Of course, why?"

"Sure now?"

"Yes I'm sure, what are you up too?" She
propped herself up on an elbow and looked at me.

"Here, this is for you," I reached down to
the floor and grabbed the box I had set there earlier.

"Oh?" she said curious, "What's this?"

"Open it and find out."

She opened it up and pulled out the gear I
had grabbed back at the lab. "Raj! Where did you get this? These
thing's cost a fortune!"

"Where do you think I got it?" I smiled.

"But you're supposed to turn in any equipment
you find! Personal raiding's illegal!"

"That's why I didn't give it to the
Lieutenant," I smiled. "If nobody shows them until after we come
back from leave, nobody can prove a thing."

"But it's still against the rules Raj!" she
said exasperated.

"Look, I checked it for booby traps and
everything. It's safe. As for the rules, check out Captain
Johnson's equipment when we get back from leave."

"Why?"

"I gave him one of the other ones I grabbed,
what do you think?" I smiled craftily at her. "Nobody is going to
say anything about us grabbing combat gear, especially not if we
leave all the good stuff for the company, so calm down and don't
worry about it."

She thought about it a moment. "Thanks for
thinking of me," she gave me a kiss then, "and I won't tell the
'Lieutenant' either!"

Planet fall came about three weeks later at a
place called Shopton on a planet called Mikarus Three. Everybody
hit the planet almost immediately, not having to unload any cargo
was nice, and we were all given a three week leave. Dave told me
later it didn't cost them as much to keep us at a base as it did to
keep us in space. So leaves would probably be long ones, until new
orders came in.

I did take up on the local fight bar scene
again. I brought my half squad with me, more to keep them out of
trouble of course and when I went again the next week, I dragged
John along as well. It seems he had heard about it from Marko and
Hess and wanted to check it out for himself.

It was here that my gear from the Astra
finally caught up with me. It was nice to have my stereo back, I
hadn't seen it in over a year. I also got one of my balisong knives
and a dozen of my throwing stars, as well as my old Vac suit and my
extra rifle. The rest of my stuff had been destroyed back on
Woodstock in the stampede. My shipboard account was transferred at
this time too, along with two letters from Herza, one that had been
sent to me at the Astra.

The first letter was from over five months
ago, shortly after I had signed on the Falcon. It said she was
doing fine, told me where she was assigned, which was on Lyceum of
all places! I wondered how she swung that? The final and most
important part had to do with my children, yes plural, she had two.
I was now a father and had both a male and a female kit, and she
had even included pictures!

That lead to a lot of mixed feelings, but
happiness turned out to be the winner in the end, that and no small
amount of pride of course. I hoped that I would one day get to see
them with my own eyes too. I then opened up the next one, it had
been sent directly to the Falcon, and was only two months old.

'Dear Raj,' It began, 'I heard from Mist
about what happened to you, and I want you to know I'm sorry about
it. Please don't go off the deep end on us, you've got a family now
plus a lot of friends. Also' she continued bluntly, 'I've got dibs
on you now! So you better take care of yourself until I can
collect!'

She did go on to mention that Mist had made
it back to the Astra, and that Balizar, Sharazad, Terease, Banner,
and Lyle were all doing fine and were still assigned there. It
didn't go too much further into detail, you were charged by the
word on these letters and I know it had probably cost a week's pay.
Two, I revised when I saw the more recent pictures of the kits that
she had included.

Her offer made me stop and think though; when
this campaign was over I'd have to give it some serious
consideration. Then I went and celebrated the birth of my kits by
going and getting the championship back from John, who was getting
too complacent anyway.

I was insufferable for the entire week as I
kept showing my kit's pictures to everybody around, whether they
wanted to see them or not. In the later case I often held them down
until they made appreciative noises. Aruba, acting as the
Lieutenant finally put an end to this behavior, by threatening to
confiscate the photos if I didn't knock it off.

"From the way you're acting, you'd think
nobody ever had a kid before Raj."

"Hey, they're my first! What do you expect?"
I protested.

"That you don't act like an idiot. If there's
one thing I can't stand it's the way new parents always go around
gloating about their kids." She grumbled, "And coming from you it's
down right sickening!"