Children of Steel (65 page)

“I don’t recall much talking going on last
night,” she laughed. “But I wanted to ask you about something.”

“Oh?” I grunted pushing the bar up.
“What?”

“Namely,” And she hopped up on to the bench
and put a foot on the bar as it came down, then pressed all her
weight down on it, “
what in the hell were you thinking when you
pulled that crazy stunt at that base?
"

And then she put her other foot on top of the
bar, balancing on top of it with a hand against the wall and
pinning me under it, pushing it down to the stops, which was just
barely at my neck. I could still breathe, but it wasn’t
comfortable. I growled.

“Don’t give me any of that shit! I told you
no more stunts and you go pull an even bigger one than last time! I
don’t need any heroes in this outfit, I need good competent
soldiers!”

I braced my feet on the floor and growled
louder grabbing the bar tight and started to push.

“You aren’t getting up until you answer me!”
she growled back.

I growled louder and pushed harder. The bar
started to inch up slowly.

“Answer me!”

“You,” I gasped and pushed another couple of
inches. “Are,” a few more, “pissing,” more, “me.” And then I shoved
it all the way up and locked my elbows, “OFF!”

She glared down at me from on top of the bar
unfazed, “Like I’m not? I ordered you to behave, and you
didn’t.”

“You ordered me not to do anything stupid,
not to behave!” I growled panting; it was a lot of weight.

“And attacking that base wasn’t stupid?”

“Get off the damn bar if you want to have a
conversation!” I growled louder, I wasn’t sure if I could get out
from under the bar before it came crashing back down and I was
starting to get angry, very angry. I could almost see myself
tearing the bench from the floor and beating her with it. But I
didn’t want to lose it again, I didn’t want to hurt my friends, I
didn’t want to rage at her, I didn’t want to lose control and I
would be damned if I was going to give into my anger one more time!
I wasn’t going to lose it this time no matter the cost; I wasn’t
going to ever lose it again!

“Answer me dammit!”

I came to a decision.

“On the count of three I’m going to let the
bar go. If you’re still on it the extra weight will probably crush
the stops and kill me. Your choice.”

“You wouldn’t!” She snarled.

“One”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Two.” I closed my eyes and forced my hands
to open.

“Raj!”

“Three!”

I let go and grit my teeth. I heard a loud
groan and opened my eyes. Aruba had hooked her feet under the bar
and was trying to move it into the locks, holding on to the top of
the machine with her hands.

Now that the extra weight was off I reached
up and was able move the bar back to the locks for her then slid
off the bench as she panted.

“I can’t believe you’d do that.” She said
staring at me and sliding down to the floor.

“What other choice did I have? Lose my temper
and pound on you until there was a grease spot on the floor?” I
sighed and sat down on the end of the bench. “That’s no way to
treat someone I care about."

I took a deep breath then and pushed back
against my anger, calming myself and feeling it drain away.

“How about just doing what I tell you
to?”

I looked at her, “It’s not going to happen
Aruba, if I see a chance and I think I can get away with it, I’m
going to take it. Every time. I’m not going to try and kill myself;
I don’t have a death wish. But I’m not going to play it safe.”

“Why Raj? You’re a good soldier, you have
leadership potential, you’re even fairly bright.”

So I told her about Cassandra then, and told
her of my need for revenge. And then I asked her to never bring it
up again, it was still too painful.

She agreed and I finished my workout then hit
the shower. I did look at the bright side however, for the first
time of all of my battles with my temper, I had finally vanquished
it. I didn’t walk away mad, I wasn’t grumbling, I wasn’t even
carrying a petty grudge; I had just walked away. And for me that
was by no means a small victory.

The mood on the Falcon was happy as we headed
out for jump space. We’d engaged in the first major action of the
war, and we’d won. True the losses weren’t light; they’d lost a lot
of people when the nuke had gone off, several hundred from what I
gathered. But the counterstrike had wiped out thousands and both
Tri-Star and Hudson Trinity were going to make sure that the word
spread around on that, so next time the enemy commanders wouldn’t
be so quick on the trigger, or at least maybe their subordinates
wouldn’t go along. Assuming of course that they valued the lives of
their own civilian population. You never knew with fanatics.

We jumped then for our next strike. In the
month we’d been taking the planet company intelligence had come up
with some good information from one of the bases we had taken. They
wanted us to act on it before it became too old.

“Okay everyone,” Captain Johnson began once
we were safely into jump space. “Our next target is an airless moon
in an undeveloped system. The planet it circles is barren and dead,
and there are two gas giants further out in the system. We’ve
managed to confirm the identity of the system with data in our own
survey records. It hasn’t been visited by anyone that we know of in
fifty years.

“The purpose of this base is trans-shipping
people and supplies to and from the movement’s home world. We’re
fairly sure that they have one at this point by the way.”

He paused and let that sink in for a
moment.

“So the goal of this mission is to take this
base and see if we can learn the location of the home world. That
location is kept highly secret, we’ve not been able to find it in
any of the databanks we’ve captured, or from any of the people
we’ve interrogated. Those who we suspect have the information have
suicided in every case.”

He turned to the display on the wall, which
had a small moon on it, along with some other information.

“Now according to the intelligence we were
able to liberate, the moon’s primary defense is stealth. So there
shouldn’t be any warships on station. The system is heavily covered
with sensors to detect incoming vessels, so working our way in will
take some time. On the bright side, our intel types tell me that
there shouldn’t be any serious defenses either. They did uncover
some information on the base’s layout and construction, the
location of the base’s hangers, and they are fairly confident that
the number of personnel stationed there is small, most likely under
a hundred.

“The plan is to go in stealthy, bring us as
close as we think we can get without being detected, then move over
the surface on foot until we’re on top of their entrances. Then we
storm them with overwhelming strength and superior firepower. Our
goal is to take the base intact and try to gain as much
intelligence data as possible. We’ve taken on four intelligence
specialists for this mission; you may have seen them around though
they’ve been birthed up front with the ship’s company. They’ll be
going in with us. So please don’t let them get shot, I promised
we’d take good care of them!” He smiled and a few chuckles ran
through the Block.

“Okay, now you know the basics. I’ll be
sitting down with the Lieutenant and the squad leaders to work out
the details tonight. We’ll work up the assignments next and you can
start training.”

“Dismissed.”

I didn’t have to take part in the planning,
as I still held the second spot in the squad. So I spent the next
work period inspecting my squad’s gear and cleaning or repairing my
own. When the next work period came I sat down with John to go over
what our squad’s duties would be, what our part of the plan was,
and what things we felt we needed to train for or practice. On a
ship as small as a frigate practice space was at a premium. The
hanger cum assembly room cum gym wasn’t terribly large so only one
unit could practice anything in there at a time. However the ship’s
passageways weren’t that much different than a base’s often were,
and we got the Captain to turn the gravity down to what we expected
the moon’s to be while we practiced.

That last bit was always interesting, gravity
had to be the same throughout the ship, so if they turned it down
for us, they turned it down for everybody. And if you were in the
midst of something and the gravity suddenly changed it could get
interesting, or fun. At least they always warned us before they
turned it back up. Otherwise someone could have gotten hurt.

It took us three weeks to get to the base,
and once there the Captain brought the ship out of jump well
outside the system, farther out than I’d ever heard of being done
normally. It took us another two and a half weeks to move in close
to the moon, and several times we had to run shuttles out to have
our technicians play games with one of the sensors we had to sneak
by.

In the time we were there we witnessed one
ship arrive, and it and another one departing in opposition
directions a week later.

When the time came we loaded up into two drop
ships, they’d identified a number of possible entrances, and after
we landed we’d split up into four teams. We picked the three
entrances most likely to be closest to the command center for the
first three teams. The fourth was going to attack the hanger; the
shuttles would blow a hole in the hanger doors once they were in
position.

The hanger structure was under the surface of
the moon, with the doors camouflaged to look like the surface.
Fortunately we’d been able to pinpoint its location when the ships
that had left earlier exited the hanger.

The landing came off without a hitch; we
managed to touch down about a mile out without any signs of being
detected.

It took us about a half hour to all get into
our positions. At the appointed time the first three groups blew
their assigned entrances to the base and a shuttle flew overhead
and put a missile into the hanger bay doors, blowing a nice hole in
one. Aruba was leading her unit and John’s into the hanger, so of
course that’s where I was. The Captain was leading the other three
into the main complex.

We quickly scrambled across the door and
looked down into the hole. Atmosphere was streaming out so John
tossed a rope in and I repelled down it head first as fast as I
could with the rest of the unit following in quick succession.

I scanned around for signs of anybody moving,
but the hanger appeared deserted. It was a good hundred feet to the
floor and when I got with in twenty feet of it I let go of the rope
and swung around to land on my feet.

“No hostiles,” I called out as the rest of
the group landed and we spread out, Aruba and our one intel expert
looking around and comparing what they saw with some maps they
had.

“This doesn’t match up at all,” She said.
“Everyone, spread out in halves and search.

We split up then and headed to the four
walls. Just then the alarms came on; there was still enough
atmosphere in the hanger to hear them.

“Got an exit!” I head John call.

“Got one here too!” Marko called and I headed
his way.

“Tobias, join up with John. Track it down
John, I’ll take Raj’s half.” She ordered.

“Roger that.”

I looked into the exit Marko had found.
Straight, long, lots of service conduits, and no branches. It must
go someplace. I looked at my inertial tracker while I waited for
Aruba to catch up with her half and the intel person, a red fox by
the name Riala. The passageway led away from where we suspected the
command center was.

“By two’s, use your scopes, that’s a long
hallway.”

I nodded and pointed to Marko and we led the
way, Hess and Tobias next, then Aruba and Will, with Riala bringing
up the rear. There was an airtight door behind us so we were in
atmosphere now.

We got about halfway down the hallway when I
saw the door at the other end open up through my scope as we moved
down it. Several armed and armored soldiers started through it
coming up short as they saw us.

“Down!” I called as Marko and I opened up on
full auto, burning out our clips as we tried to put as many rounds
through the opened door as possible before it slammed shut
again.

As soon as the enemy soldiers in the hallway
were down I got up and sprinted for the door, Marko hot on my
heels. They got the door shut and bolted before we made it there
however.

“Hess, the door. Raj, Marko, back.” Aruba
ordered.

We turned and sprinted back twenty feet than
dove to the deck, at which point Hess fired at the door with his
grenade launcher, using one of the breaching grenades we all used
for storming bases.

The floor shook and I could feel the blast on
the soles of my feet as I rolled around and peered through the
smoke, moving in a crouch with my gun held ready as we moved
forward to the doorway again.

It was another hanger, and it was open, and a
very large ship was leaving.

“Oh
shit
,” Aruba growled and hit the
emergency com the officers carried.

“Pan, Pan, Pan, we have a Frigate launching!
Repeat, we have a Frigate launching. Do you copy?”

None of use heard a reply.

“Must be the ground. Raj, clear a path, I
want to get out into that hanger and try again.”

I nodded and pointed to Marko and Hess to go
right, waving the other two in Aruba’s half to take the left as I
moved forward towards the equipment in the center of the
hanger.

We encountered resistance immediately, from a
number of places at once. I dove flat and slid into the equipment
before me scanning for the sources. There were five of them, well
spread out and behind cover.