Interregnum (Children of Steel Book 2) Read online

  Cassandra looked up at me horrified. "What did you do, Raj?"

  I shook my head, "I don't want to talk about it."

  She growled and grabbed my ears, yanking my head down until we were nose to nose. "WHAT. DID. YOU. DO! Tell me, Tell me!"

  "I ate a man."

  "WHAT?!" She said shocked.

  "I ate a man, or rather I tried too."

  She stared at me. "But I ate people too."

  "Yes, well no one was forcing me, and," I looked down at the ground, "he was still alive when I started."

  "W... Why?"

  "I lost it, Cassy; it was the first combat action I saw after I was told you were dead and well...."

  I told her what had really happened when I had gotten inside the command building on that first assault.

  About the man I found destroying records, and what I did to him.

  She was hugging me when I finished, and I was crying quietly.

  "I never told anyone what I did that day, Cassy. I knew they would have just put me down on the spot, enemy or not. It was the lowest I ever sunk to."

  She hugged me, "I understand, Raj. Really, I do. And, and I can see that you got through it, and if you could get through that, well," she took a deep breath and sighed, "Well I guess, I guess I can get through this too."

  I nodded and gave her a kiss. "So what are you going to do?"

  She sighed, "I'm going to have to tell Sharazad about what they forced us to do. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to talk about it, and is too afraid to confront it. Who is losing sleep over it?

  "It's time I got help for it, and I should make sure that they get help for it too."

  I nodded and sat down on the ground, and tugged her down to join me. She made a querying noise and looked at me.

  "First, how about we just hold each other for a while and watch the sun set?"

  "The sun doesn't set for six hours, Raj," Cassandra gently chided me.

  I smiled at her, "I'll wait."

  She just shook her head and laughed, and then she sat down with me.

  When we finally made it back, we tracked down Sharazad and took her some place private and Cassandra told her.

  Sharazad didn't say anything, but pulled out her tablet, "Look at these and tell me if any of them were involved."

  Cassandra took the tablet and slowly clicked through it.

  "Yes," she said and looked up from the tablet.

  "All or some?"

  "Six of them."

  "Okay, mark those six."

  "What are you going to do?" I asked Sharazad as Cassandra marked off the ones on the tablet.

  "Talk with Bal," Sharazad said.

  "Then what?"

  "Interrogate them; see if we can find out why they were involved, and what Capitol Mines' involvement was. This could explain why they were so hot on destroying all of their data stores."

  A moment later the door opened and Balizar stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  "What's so important that you needed me here at once?" He said coming over and giving Sharazad a hug and sitting down next to her.

  "That guy Cassy mauled today?" Sharazad started.

  "Yeah? What did he do?"

  "He was one of the guys that tortured her. He and six others she identified ran one of the penal mines. One of their favorite tricks was murdering prisoners and forcing the survivors to eat the remains."

  "I see," Balizar said slowly and nodded. "Where are they now?"

  "In separate holding cells, along with the other twelve that Scott guy fingered for us."

  "Okay, give me their names and I'll take care if it."

  "Can I help, sir?" Cassandra asked.

  "It's Bal, and no, you may not."

  "But, I know what they did, I saw it. I can help you question them."

  Balizar sighed and looked at her, "Cassy, I can't spare you to work on this. There are other things I need you to do. Important things. You're one of our best black hats around, and I need you to use those skills on the system here.

  "While I'm sure these guys were deleting lots of evidence, you can be sure that there is stuff that they hid, stuff important to them, stuff we want to know."

  "Yes, Bal," Cassandra sighed.

  "I want you to go through all of their databases, and ours as well. Find every mention of their names, their faces, anything, and remove it. And make sure no one can tell it's been removed."

  Cassandra blinked, "Ours too?"

  "Yes, ours too. I'll bump your access level to make it easier. These men no longer exist, see to it."

  "Yes, Bal."

  I looked up at Balizar, he looked just as calm as he always did. "Do you need any help?" I asked him.

  "Maybe later. You two go get some sleep; you have a lot of work to do tomorrow."

  And he gave Sharazad a kiss, then got up and left the room.

  "Is he going to...?" I asked.

  "Raj?"

  "Yes, Shar?"

  "I have no idea what you're talking about, and neither do you, correct?"

  "Yes, Ma'am."

  Sharazad smiled, "Better. Anything else before I go?"

  Cassandra shook her head, and I said "no."

  "They have food over in the main cafeteria, go eat, and then check in with shuttle ops. They should have a place for you to sleep."

  We nodded and left.

  It was a twenty minute walk to the cafeteria, and there was quite a line to get inside. All of the 2nd H.I. troops took the time to shake my hand and thank me for the air support, and they pushed us to the front of the line. When the 1st H.I. people saw my wings, they didn't complain either. There were so few people flying air support and medevac, they wanted to thank us for it. So ten minutes later we had a seat and a tray full of food. Some of it was just field rations, but not all of it, some of it was actually hot.

  I found Dave and the other shuttle crews, including Carol and her WSO Jake, they were all sitting around one large table and talking.

  "Hey, Raj, Cassandra, was wondering where you two got to," Dave said as we sat down.

  "Eh, was helping Cassy with her work, what's up?"

  "Just going over the day's events. I think I found out why they all laid down on us today and pretended to be gassed."

  "They were offered a large bonus if they didn't surrender," Cassy said and started in on her food with a relish.

  "Ah, guess you heard it already. Is it true?"

  I nodded, and started to eat my own dinner. I hadn't eaten since I'd brought those snacks in to the observation room, and that had been a long time ago.

  "Yes, we had it confirmed," Cassandra said between bites, "they really didn't want to fight us by then, but the offer was pretty good, so their leaders found a way to lose and still keep their bonuses."

  "How'd they know we'd still honor it?"

  "I think it was more of a case of not wanting to die and deciding to see if they could get away with it, rather than fight to the death."

  Everyone laughed and nodded, "Yeah, once you know you've lost, what good is a bonus you won't live to spend?" Carol agreed.

  "Oh, and we got some other good news," Dave said. "Jeb and Rasha are alive and okay. Well a bit injured, but okay."

  I looked up, "I thought you said they got pasted?"

  "They did, their shuttle blew up and broke apart, but the nose held together and crashed in a pond. The mud and the water slowed them down enough to survive, and the water put out the fires. Jeb broke half the bones in his body, and Rasha a few less, but when they came too they called for help."

  I nodded, "What about Charlie and Malibu?"

  Dave sighed, "Charlie didn't make it, he was dead when they ejected. Malibu is injured, but will be okay."

  I nodded again, "Where are the Natal pukes?"

  "I think they're all back up on the Natal, getting their aircraft maintained. They took a bit of a beating."

  "Oh? How many did they lose?"

  "Four aircraft, two pilot
s."

  "Seriously?" I said looking up at Dave surprised. "Those guys are the best we have. What happened?"

  "What happened was there were fifty enemy aircraft, that's what happened," Hawse, one of the other pilots sitting at the table said. "They had five full wings here."

  "Apparently there was some kind of forces shift last month," Dave said. "And it was too late to do anything about it when we got here."

  "Well, they could have told us about it at least!" I growled.

  "They told the Natal's pilots, they just forgot to tell us."

  I shook my head, "Well, too late to complain now, that paycheck's been spent."

  We talked a while more, swapping stories about the fight that day. It was interesting hearing everyone else's point of view. They all mentioned seeing me on the deck dodging the other aircraft, as well as several missiles that had been launched at me, which lead to Dave giving a rather inspired description of what it was all like from the back seat as he held on for dear life and "screamed like a little pup" the whole time until I pulled up.

  Even Cassandra was laughing by the time he had finished. For me, it was all a blur. There was so much going on, that I never had the chance to focus on any of it. I was just trying to stay alive.

  "Any idea where we're sleeping tonight?" I asked Dave when we finally wound down.

  "Back of the shuttle. The barracks that are still livable are going to be given back to the locals, once they've been processed. They're setting up tents for the H.I. troops and support personnel."

  I nodded, "Thanks."

  Cassandra and I got up, tossed our trash and walked over to the airfield. We found her gear bag stashed in a hanger, with most of the other unclaimed gear, and then went to the shuttle. The pallets were still rigged for the wounded, so I grabbed the biggest one and we bedded down for the night.

  "Thanks, Hon," Cassandra whispered and hugged me.

  "For what?" I asked softly.

  "For understanding."

  I purred, "Cassy, I love you. Always have, always will. I know you would never do something bad. I have faith in you." I kissed her and she snuggled back.

  "How long do you think we have until Dave shows up?" She asked huskily and gave me a playful lick.

  "Long enough, I'm sure!" I snickered.

  10

  I spent the next several days flying shuttle missions, there was a lot of gear and a lot of people that needed to be moved around, and all of the shuttles were put into service to get the work done. During that time Cassandra worked in the data center, where Sharazad put her in charge of the technicians tasked to put it all back together and get it back up and running. Her job was to examine all of the available data, and see what intelligence could be gathered from it.

  On day three when we walked into the cafeteria, I was rather surprised to see it up and running normally, with hot food, and people I did not recognize behind the counters.

  When we sat down to eat I turned to one of the guys from the 2nd H.I. who I recognized, he was one of the lions, I couldn't remember his name though. "Who are they?" I asked.

  "Oh, they released all of the morpher POW's last night." he shrugged, "Guess they work for Tri-Star now, like the rest of us."

  I shrugged and looked at Cassandra.

  "Don't look at me," She said shaking her head. "I've been going through all of their data storage facilities to figure out what to keep, what we can analyze now, and what gets sent off to the labs. I've got a fairly large load of storage devices to be sent back already."

  "Find anything interesting?" I asked.

  "Well that depends on what you consider interesting. It looks like they destroyed the most sensitive information first, and the rest is mostly the kind of financial and inventory data that most corporations try to keep hidden from each other and government auditors. Apparently this was one of Capital Mines' prime data locations. Everything they had, got backed up here."

  "So why go to all that trouble?" The lion next to us asked. "I mean, the entire company just got acquired, so we'll have it all anyway."

  "They didn't know that all of the company's assets were being raided. I don't know if they've been told yet that Capital Mines no longer exists." Cassandra said.

  "Duh!" he said and smacked his own forehead, "I forgot about that. I can see why corporate would want all that information too, everyone's debts and contracts would be in there as well."

  Cassandra nodded, "I'm pretty sure we got all of that now, but I think the inventory is really the most important."

  He nodded and finished his breakfast, then got up and left, giving us a wave as he went.

  I waved back and pulled out my comp unit and started to check my messages. "So, what's your schedule today?" I said looking it over as Cassandra checked hers.

  "I got a meeting with Balizar and Sharazad to review my progress going over the data center."

  "Both? I thought that was Sharazad's job?"

  Cassandra shrugged, "Technically he's her boss as the head of security, but they work together on almost everything I've noticed."

  "Really?" I was surprised, I'd never noticed that. Then again, I didn't work directly with either of them. Cassandra worked with Sharazad constantly, as she was in her department.

  Cassandra laughed, "O.M.C.S! Old Mated Couple Syndrome! They've been together so long; I suspect that they talk about everything. Plus I get the impression that they were in the same line of work when they met."

  "Well, that would make sense," I nodded agreeing, and then I smiled, "Hey, think we'll be like that ten or more years from now?"

  Cassandra grinned, "I think we're well on our way. So what's on your schedule?"

  "I have a recon flight to do in thirty minutes; Balizar wants to look over the local area supposedly."

  "Well, I won't keep you, later, Hon."

  We hugged and then split up and went our separate ways, I wasn't worried about her safety at this point, we still had two companies of troops down here, and while they were now working along side the Astra's techs, they were all well armed.

  When I got to the shuttle, I found Balizar waiting for me, but not Dave.

  "Hi, Bal, Dave inside already?" I said looking around.

  "We don't need him for this," Balizar said. "Do me a favor and lower the ramp, then come back here and give me a hand.

  I nodded and did that as Balizar went and pulled a small truck up behind the shuttle. When I came down into the back, there were two long wrapped bundles laying on the edge of the ramp, with a weight attached to each one. Even if I didn't have a sense of smell, I could have figured it out immediately.

  "Sir?" I said looking at him surprised.

  "Come on, I got five more to move," he said and waved me over.

  I looked at him again, hesitating.

  "That's an order, Raj, we can talk once we're done here," He said rather calmly as he picked up another of the cloth-wrapped bodies and tossed it on the end of the shuttle ramp.

  I nodded and helped him with the remaining four. He threw a tarp over the line of 'bundles,' I guess to obscure them, then moved the truck out of the way and jogged back over to join me.

  "Let's go," he said and hit the switch to close the rear ramp as we walked into the small hold.

  I climbed up into the pilot's seat and got the engines fired up and started to taxi us over to the runway. Balizar came up and took the back seat a couple of minutes later.

  "Where are we going?" I asked him, as I got clearance to take off.

  "Head northeast, I want to go about twenty miles out past the shoreline."

  "Yes, sir," I said. I was a little nervous about what we were doing; it didn't take a genius to figure out just who those seven bodies where.

  It took us about a half hour to get there, from what I could see looking up into my mirrors; Balizar was working on something on his tablet.

  "We're here, Sir," I said

  "Take us down to a hundred feet, then open the rear hatch, and pitch us up eno
ugh to drop our load."

  I did what he said, and even bumped the stick a few times to be sure, then leveled us off and closed the rear hatch.

  "Sir?" I asked after we were done, "Now what?"

  "Back home of course, and knock off the 'sir' crap. Of all the people here, I know you're the least upset by this Raj."

  I sighed, "I'm trying to be good, Bal."

  "Which is why I didn't ask you to help when I interrogated them. Well, that and I don't know how objective you could be after what they put Cassy through."

  When he mentioned 'helping' I had a suddenly flashback to my time on Pharaoh. "Is that why you did it? Because of what they did to Cassy?" I asked looking up into one of the mirrors on the canopy rail, the one I kept set so I could look at Dave. Balizar was only wearing a headset, so I could see his face.

  "It was just the fact that they did it, Raj, it didn't matter that they did it to a member of our clan."

  I nodded, "Umm, can I tell Cassy about it?"

  "No, but I'm sure she'll figure it out. This is our little secret, Raj, don't tell anyone."

  "Even Shar?"

  Balizar actually laughed at that, "The best way to keep a secret is to never talk about something, even to those who know. These gentlemen never existed, they were never here, you don't know their names, so you can't even be asked about them."

  "What about the other analysts?" I asked curious.

  "They've had to process thousands of humans over the last two days; do you think any of them will remember these few?"

  "Well, Cassy did freak out on the one guy," I said.

  "Sharazad cut the video as soon as Cassy entered the room. They only heard her screaming at him, and then saw her crying as you took her away. Too many separate incidents, and nothing really to stand out. By not talking about it, they'll forget it all soon enough. Lack of sleep with do that you know."

  "Thanks for not asking me to help," I said feeling relieved.

  "Well, after what happened on Pharaoh, I thought it best."

  I started a moment, "How the hell did you find out about that?"

  Balizar just smiled at me.