Children of Steel (64 page)

I turned my head and looked at him.

“What makes you think I’ll just go charging
into anything?”

“Like I said, I’ve been doing this a long
time. I’ve seen your type before; consequences don’t ever enter
into your mind. When you’re only dealing with two people,
consequences aren’t important. But when you’ve got a couple
hundred, consequences start to matter.”

“Like the difference between a shuttle and
starship.”

“Exactly.”

I nodded, “I got you Sergeant.”

“Good.”

“So why are you and I having this
conversation and not the Captain?”

“The Captain isn’t exactly comfortable with
someone who isn’t exactly in his chain of command. He’s never had
to work with someone from another corporation either.”

“And you have?”

“More or less, the lower your rank, the less
you care about those kinds of things.”

I nodded, “You know, I’ve never spent any
real time with someone from any of the other corps either. Well at
least not in this kind of situation.”

“Yeah I know what you mean. Kind of goes
against the grain. But this is shaping up to be a long haul, so I’m
sure we’re all gonna have to get used to it.”

I had the feeling that there was more than a
little truth in that.

We got into position by nightfall and dug in
for the evening on the outskirts of one of the major towns. The
rules for engagement with the towns were pretty strict; any
bloodbaths would definitely meet with sanctions from the Earth
government. So each of the towns would be surrounded, isolated, and
taken carefully in an attempt to keep civilian casualties at a
minimum.

I met that night with the Captain and filled
him in on what I knew about the town, which wasn’t much. The place
was big enough to make it hard for three animen to go sneaking into
and around. But we had scouted the farms and the edges of the town
and I gave him all the information I could about those. The updated
maps that he was getting from orbit were pretty high definition, so
he wasn’t lacking for information about the lay of the land.

That morning we advanced on the town. The
fighting at the border was tough, the town’s people put up a pretty
stiff resistance. But they didn’t have the weapons or the armor
that we had, or the experience. Their losses were pretty heavy
after the first few hours of fighting. After that they pulled back
into the buildings inside. That’s when the fighting got nasty for
us, moving building to building, clearing out floors; it was time
consuming and dangerous work. Most of the people surrendered
without a fight, a few put up a little, but some gave their all.
And that made the job both dangerous and difficult. It took us four
days to make the town more or less safe.

I sat down with the Sergeant I’d been working
with since I started with the group. We’d gotten in the habit of
eating together and exchanging notes about our experiences.

“Doesn’t look like your corp’s any better on
the rations than mine,” he chuckled.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they came from
the same place.”

“Got that right. So tell me,” he said looking
up from his food pack. “You’ve been here for a while; ever get to
find out what these people here are like normally?”

I snorted, “Hell no, didn’t want to get seen.
Besides I already know what they’re like,” I growled.

“What? The way they’ve been fighting us?
That’s to be expected, we’re invading their homes after all.”

I shook my head, “No. They took one of our
complexes last year. I was part of the action to take the place
back. They executed my brother when he surrender and tortured my
sister, almost to death, when she wouldn’t be a sex toy.” I snarled
out the last bit, and looked down at the ground taking a moment to
let the anger go.

“I’d heard rumors about what they did at some
of the places they took. Never met anyone who saw it first hand
though.” He sighed and took a drink from his canteen, “So you think
these folks are cut from the same cloth?”

“Guilt by association.” I growled and went
back to eating my food, opening a third ration pack. “All I know is
they hate us enough to slaughter and torture anyone that gets in
their way, even other humans.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that type before. They think
humanity is so superior and special, and then they see us, and see
their own failings reflected in us, and suddenly they realize that
they’re not so special. Kind of freaks them out.”

“Why? It’s not like we’re like them!”

“Oh we’re way too much like them, more than
they can stand!” He chuckled.

“You know, I had this same conversation with
another person a while back, so I asked one of the company’s
geneticists about it. He said we’ve got very little human stock in
us, that it all came from our animal ancestors.”

The Sergeant snickered at that and tossed his
now empty ration pack with the others.

“Yeah, they say that, but it’s not exactly
the truth.”

“What do you mean?” I asked curious, looking
up at him from my eating.

“Well, yeah only some of the physical genetic
material in us is human. And a big chunk is animal, from whatever
stock we’re based on. But the rest? The biggest chunk? Well the
parts might have come from the animal stock, but it’s been
re-arranged to
human
patterns.”

I blinked at him, “I don’t know if I
follow.”

“That portion of your gene’s is exactly like
those in a human. The only reason they didn’t use human material
for that part of you is because it’s cheaper to use the animal
portion. Also, legally, if more than half of your physical genes
come from a human,
regardless
of the pattern, you’re human.
So they have to use animal DNA.”

“So why didn’t he tell me that then?” I
asked, a little confused, dinner forgotten.

“They’re not supposed to talk about it I
guess. Also from what I understand the number of differences
between your original genes and what they reshape them to isn’t as
big a difference as humans want to admit, or are comfortable
knowing.”

“So how do you know all this?”

He shrugged, “Been doing this job for forty
years now, I get bored in my off time, so I do a little research
here and there, a little hacking now and then.”

“So why tell me this?” I looked around, the
others had left us alone and our voices weren’t pitched to carry.
Soldiers learn pretty quickly when it’s not wise to snoop on the
conversations of their superiors.

“Who else can I tell?” he chuckled. “If I
tell the officers, they might get bent out of shape, figure I’m
being subversive. The enlisted? They’re still young and stupid,
they’d blab. Some of the other NCO’s know, we’ve talked about it
before. As for you,” he grinned, “who are you going to tell? You
don’t work for Hudson, so if you run your mouth when you get home
it’s your worry, not mine.”

I thought about that and remembered my food,
and started to eat again.

“Think they’d psych a guy for going on about
that kind of thing?” I asked between bites.

“Maybe, I don’t know. Probably depends on how
you were taking it. Maybe if you were a cull.”

I finished my ration pack and debated a
fourth one, I was still a little hungry, but I didn’t want to bog
myself down with too much food.

“What the heck is a cull?”

“They don’t have that term over in
Tri-Star?”

“Obviously, so what’s it mean?”

“You know how some folks can’t deal with life
too well? The one’s that have to be ‘put down’, disposed of?”

I nodded, my hunger forgotten suddenly as I
thought about my own close escape. “It’s not a topic considered
safe to talk about, everyone considers it bad luck.”

“Yeah well, not all culls are accidental.
Some of them are planned.” He had lowered his voice so I had to
lean forward to hear him, obviously this wasn’t a safe subject to
talk about. “You see, some sequences lead to more aggressive
behavior than others. I’ve hacked a lot of papers on the subject;
one of my brothers was a cull.”

I nodded, not saying anything.

“The aggressiveness makes for good soldiers,
but just as often they flip out and have to be killed.”

“So why do it?” I asked shocked, “If it only
works half the time? That’s pretty wasteful, not to mention
expensive.”

“Because culling serves as a strong object
lesson to the rest of us. We all see what happens to anybody who
starts to engage in wild or erratic behavior, to those who don’t
fit in, or who can’t control themselves.”

I felt a strange tingling in my hands, and
suddenly noticed I’d clenched my fists so tightly that my claws had
dug into my palms. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been
holding. “How often do they do this?”

He shrugged, “Hard to say, I think it depends
on the company. My brother was the only cull in my crèche group; he
was about five when they got him. He had a violent temper, and
turned it on anyone nearby, including me. But remember not all of
them get killed, a lot make it to adulthood.”

“So why tell me?” I asked again.

“Because the corporations usually keep track
of the culls, the ones that haven’t been put down yet. They make
good soldiers, but there’s always that chance.”

“You think I’m one, don’t you?” I
whispered.

He nodded, “Yeah, you’ve been like a machine
when we’re out there fighting. I can tell you’ve got a lot of anger
and hate driving you, but you’ve got it focused on the task at
hand.”

“So, I should be in the clear, right?”

“You’re a pretty good kid, it’s nice to see
you didn’t go down the path my brother did. But what happens when
they’re all gone Warrant? What then?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far
ahead.”

“Well surely there has to be someone out
there it’s worth thinking about it for.”

“Not anymore,” I sighed and hung my head
closing my eyes.

“Just because they’re not here anymore,
doesn’t mean you still can’t do it for them,” he said getting up.
“I need to make the rounds, talk to you later."

I just nodded and sat there, trying not to
cry as I thought about what he’d just said. I’d lost my reason’s to
go on past my revenge. Or had I? Cassy would want me to; I’d be a
fool to think otherwise, even for a second. And then there was
Herza. And my cubs. Hell, even Helena.

I shook my head and took a couple of deep
breaths to get myself under control. He was right, part of me
wanted to rage against what he said, to yell out that I had no
reasons no one to do it for. But that would be a lie, both to her
memory and to myself. I’d have my revenge, I’d kill every last
bastard that they’d let me kill. But after that maybe I still had a
life, maybe I still had people who loved me and needed me. I
couldn’t let them or Cassandra down, could I? Maybe I
could
go on.

The next week was pretty rough. The other
major bases didn’t fall as easily as the first one had, the
toughest of them held out for almost seven days until the defending
commander set off a tac nuke. The response from orbit was pretty
harsh and left a three mile wide crater where the base had
been.

That didn’t slow down any of the fighting
around the towns and villages we had to take, but at least no one
went to the nuclear option again. The town next to that base was
destroyed along with the base, killing the families of everyone who
worked or was stationed there. None of the remaining people were
stupid enough to want to see their families incinerated. They knew
the corporations had to play by rules, even if they didn’t. But
they at least recognized that if they uncorked the genie again,
they’d be exterminated from orbit with no chance of surrender or
rescue.

Two days after my conversation with the
Sergeant I was returned to my unit. We had a new job now, to help
pacify the smaller outlying towns. Even after the fall of the other
bases and the one being vaporized, some of them still put up one
hell of a fight. In some towns we faced men, women, and even
children armed with clubs and knives.

What made it tough was that we were under
orders not to shoot them down unless it looked like there was no
other option. So we ended up having to go in with rifles slung and
use batons, shock rods, tear gas, sleeping gas, and the other
typical riot gear. It was hard work and we all picked up a lot of
minor wounds in the process. If you get close enough to hit
someone, they can hit you back. And hysterical people don’t go down
as easily when you do hit them. At least there were no fatalities
on our side. I didn’t count how many we caused, I know I killed
more than a few, but I wasn’t trying to.

It took a month to take the planet. Pacifying
it would probably take many more, but at least that wasn’t my
concern. By the end of the month garrison units started to show up,
along with engineers and other supporting units. Rumor was that the
place was going to be turned into one big prison camp. That sounded
a bit strange to me, but we shipped out a few days later so I
didn’t get to find out.

“Man is it great to be back home,” I sighed
as I lay back on the weight bench and started in on my first
set.

“I think you missed that thing more than you
missed me,” Aruba grumbled walking over. We had the ‘gym’ to
ourselves still; most of the block was enjoying the rare
opportunity of being allowed to sleep late.

I grinned and pressed the bar to the top,
after almost three months of not having a gym available I was
tempted to tell her I did.

“You know this is the first time we’ve been
able to talk alone since you got back to the Block?” She said
coming over to stand by me.

“What about last night?” I grunted letting
the bar down.