Interregnum (Children of Steel Book 2) Page 18

  I shrugged and headed back up forward myself, the ship was already emptying out, and being docked to the station meant you could just catch one of the regular shuttle flights down, rather than have to wait for one of the Astra's shuttles.

  "Hey, Hon," Cassandra said when I got back from the shower. "Get dressed; we're all heading down in a few minutes."

  I grabbed the shorts she handed me and put them on, then took the shirt.

  "Here, I packed for you," she handed me my half packed duffle bag and picked up her own smaller one.

  "Who is 'we' and where are we going?" I asked following her out of the cabin.

  "The whole clan. Balizar is taking us all out to a resort to unwind for a few days."

  I smiled, "That sounds good. How long are we getting leave for?"

  "Two weeks," Cassandra purred and leaned into me as we walked. I put my arm around her.

  "Wow, that's a pretty long leave."

  "I think the riot had a little something to do with that. That was a company paid trip, so we are getting a company paid leave, with a hazard clause."

  "Well, we haven't had a good leave since we left Hobson's, which was what, a year ago?

  "More, thirteen months."

  "Huh," I said, and then greeted the rest of the clan, as we met by the main boarding hatch.

  "Are they going to leave the Astra docked here?" I asked as we were signed out by the deck officer.

  "I think so, nothing else is due in, and the space dock here is pretty large." Balizar said as we walked down the gangway tube to the station.

  "Are we really getting two weeks leave?" I was still a bit surprised by that.

  "Sure are. Let's hit the Standards and Practices briefing."

  "I thought this was a company planet?" Mist said.

  "There are a lot of other companies doing business here, so they require it now."

  We all followed Balizar who led us into a room, where an otter in a Tri-Star uniform greeted us.

  "Welcome to the standards and practices brief for Iverly Three. There are currently six other corporations doing business here, under contract to Tri-Star, so do not get into any conflicts with any of their employees. Weapons are allowed, you can pretty much haul around whatever you want. But if you pull a weapon on someone without cause, don't expect to live much longer than it takes everyone around you to draw and shoot. All of the locals are armed, we don't care if you are as well, but as strangers we recommend that you don't carry anything bigger than a knife until you understand how things work here."

  "Why is everyone armed?" Mist asked.

  "Holdover from the war, Iverly was hit pretty hard early on, and it took a lot of work to win it back. Then they tried two more times to try and hit us, so it was just more practical for everyone to keep their weapons with them at all times, and well, it's become the custom. Also, if you get out into the wilds a ways, there are some predators one must be wary of, and in the smaller mining operations, they can wander in from time to time."

  He spent a few more minutes going over a few minor points, and showed us pictures of the things to watch out for.

  "One last thing, if you don't know it already, the planetary manager is an animan, like us. So while there isn't any real prejudice going around, sometimes you'll be held to a higher standard."

  "How is that not prejudice?" Lyle asked curious.

  "People think of PM Koen as almost a god around here," the otter sighed. "At least those who were here during the war, and immediately after."

  "Oh? Why's that?"

  "He led the resistance, the stories they tell are, well, I wasn't here then, I only shipped out here a year ago. But they're pretty hard to believe, but don't let anyone down there hear you say that, unless you want either a lecture or a fight."

  "They're that touchy about it?" Mist asked.

  "More like proud. Guy is supposed to be some sort of genius, and it's hard to argue with the success of the installation here. The population is growing by leaps and bounds, and the company is pouring a lot of money into it.

  "Any questions?"

  Nobody had any, so we went and caught a shuttle down to the planet.

  "How did an ani end up as the planetary manager?" Lyle asked looking around at the rest of us as the shuttle started down.

  "Everyone else who would have been qualified for the job was dead," Balizar said. "I read the report, it was pretty bad here, Keon did such a good job at rallying the troops that the company rep on the spot made the call to put him in charge. Obviously he made the right call."

  "Obviously," Lyle agreed.

  I watched the cabin display as we flew down to the planet. We got a good view of the local area as we approached, there was a lot of construction going on, more than I think I'd ever seen before.

  "I wonder how many people they have emigrating here a year," I said as we landed.

  "With all that construction, it has to be a lot," Mist said.

  "They're also very lax on breeding here," Sharazad said. "The PM pretty much approves all the requests he gets, so the population is really growing pretty fast. I think they're projecting to be over one million by the end of the decade."

  "That's pretty impressive."

  The shuttle stopped and we got our things and disembarked, going down the portable stairway onto the tarmac and walking over to the terminal. We were handed maps of the facility, told where the company quarters for visiting employees like ourselves was located, then directed to ground transportation rather quickly.

  Everyone was polite, friendly, and professional. I saw animen of all types around, more as we left the terminal building and walked over to the garage for the ground transportation.

  There were also quite a few motivational posters that I saw, with sayings like 'We are the best, let's prove it,' or 'When we help each other, we all win!'

  When we got to the counter, Balizar made the arrangements for us, we would be taking a bus of some sort, I guess it was close enough that we didn't need to fly.

  "It's kind of weird not seeing any humans," Banner noted as we stood there waiting for the bus to be driven around.

  "Are there any here?" Terease asked, turning to the attendant behind the counter.

  "Humans? Of course there are," she laughed, "I don't think any of them work here at the spaceport however, and as it's a workday here, they're probably all at work like everyone else."

  "Well, how many live on the planet?"

  The attendant shrugged, "I have no idea actually. I know that the PM is trying really hard to get a lot of them to come out from earth, the best teachers and scientists are still human after all, and they're building a huge college out here now."

  "So, seventy percent?"

  "Oh no, more like thirty. With the war, and what happened here, well, not a lot of humans were willing to immigrate. Too dangerous they said. But now that the war is over we're hoping that will change!"

  "Wow, a planet where we're in the majority?" Terease giggled, "That's different."

  Our bus pulled up then, and we all got on and found seats. As usual, the single members congregated together, and we mated couples sat up in the front near the driver. I almost laughed about that, remembering when I would have been in the back of the bus goofing off.

  The trip out was interesting, the driver pointed out the local landmarks, talked about all the changes that had taken place in the last three years, and all of the larger changes planned for the next decade.

  "Wow, the PM here really has some pretty big plans," Cassandra said to him after he'd gone down the list. It was pretty impressive.

  The driver nodded and smiled, "He's pretty driven, I've even met him a couple of times when he came out to the landing field while traveling. He's a nice guy too, takes the time to talk to people, ask how they're doing, what they think about things. Treats you like you matter, you know? Most exec's, they never seem to care. Course I have no idea where he even finds the time to spend asking a guy like me questions. They say h
e works fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, sometimes more!"

  "Sure doesn't sound like the guy I used to know," Balizar said.

  "You know him?" The driver said surprised.

  "Knew him, years ago. Funny guy, had an interesting sense of humor, always good for a laugh, but wasn't the type to work himself that hard. Guess the war must have had an effect."

  Our driver nodded, "Yeah, the old-timers, that's what we call the ones who were here during the war, they talk about it sometimes. Say it was pretty rough and they all think he had some sort of personal grudge or something, ‘cause he was quite the hardass and would lead them into combat from the front. 'First in, last out' they say."

  "Huh," was Balizar's response and he sat back, thinking about that as the driver continued on, pointing out a few more landmarks, but we were out of the town now, so there wasn't as much to see. We got to the resort about twenty minutes after that, and all went to find our rooms.

  15

  Unsurprisingly, it turned out that the jaguar, ocelot, and lion clans from the ship were there as well. The tiger clan, being one of the largest on the ship, had reserved their own place. There were I think about fifty of them onboard now, which was almost twice as many as the rest of the cats onboard.

  We were there for five days, and it was nice to be outside and away from work to just decompress for a while.

  "So, have you thought about my question?" Balizar asked. The four of us, Balizar, Sharazad, Cassandra, and me were relaxing, sitting around a table, sharing a pitcher of some sort of drink, pretty much off by ourselves.

  "Which question was that?" I said. We'd been just talking about odds and ends, nothing in particular.

  "What are your plans? What are the two of you going to do?"

  I looked at Cassandra, and she looked back at me. We'd had a few discussions of course, but honestly, we'd never really sat down and just hashed it out.

  "I guess we don't really have a plan," Cassandra said. "We're just taking it as it comes right now."

  "Well, we have a few goals," I said and smiled, "But nothing really planned out."

  "Don't you two talk?" Balizar asked shaking his head.

  "Oh don't be such a hard case," Sharazad said nudging Balizar, "We were just as bad when we first mated."

  "What's the rush?" Cassandra asked, "I mean, do you know something we don't know?"

  "I know lots of things you don't know," Balizar chuckled, "so let's change that.

  "The people who sit in HR departments all will see you a certain way. The ones that run the intelligence department will see you in a different way. And all of that comes from some of the most inane or simplest things in your lives and your records." Balizar took a sip of his drink.

  "Now, remember Raj I told you that they, the powers that be, mess with us, and that they mess with us constantly?"

  I nodded.

  "Some of that is based on what they believes works. Some of that is just the latest cause célèbre, so they will always be trying to fit you into their expectations, their boxes, how they perceive you will determine what they will do to you."

  "So how do they perceive us?" I asked curious.

  "Well, let's start with Cassy, as she's in Intelligence. Originally, she was marked as secure, but unreliable, because of signs of posttraumatic stress. But that changed to reliable when it was reported that she had been fully rehabilitated when we arrived at Earth. On top of that, she was updated to desirable, because now that she's paid off, she can not be bribed."

  "For some reason, the humans who run the intelligence agency believe that anyone who has not made buy-out can be easily bribed," Sharazad interjected.

  "On top of that, because you're mated, they've added 'stable' to that list." Balizar continued.

  "And they just love that 'Stable' tag, don't they, Hon?" Sharazad said and grinned at Balizar, who grinned back.

  "So that makes you, 'secure, desirable, and stable'."

  "But Raj isn't paid off!" Cassandra objected, "Why doesn't that come into effect?"

  "Because first, humans really don't understanding the concept behind 'mating' yet. Second, because Raj falls under the military, and they rate things differently, and the intelligence people use those ratings." Balizar said. "Now there is one last set of rankings for you: ineffective, effective, and highly-effective. Prior to the war, you were listed as 'effective', but that has currently been removed, due to your inactivity. More on that later."

  Balizar took another sip of his drink. "Now, Raj here is rated based on different factors, when I had him last he was rated as 'loyal, obedient, fairly-stable, effective.'"

  "How come Cassy doesn't get a 'loyal'?" I asked curious.

  "Because intel doesn't use 'loyal', secure is the best they get, they use different codes."

  "I can see that causing issues," I chuckled shaking my head.

  "It can, and it does at times. Now, after you came back to us, you were rated 'devoted, attendant, solid, deadly, mated.'"

  I stared at Balizar a moment, "What?"

  "Hey, how come I don't get a 'mated'?" Cassandra laughed.

  "Because Intel doesn't understand it, but the military does," Sharazad answered her.

  "So what does that mean?" I asked again.

  "It means that when the intel people ask the military about Cassy's 'husband' they'll tell 'em that you are the corporate-damn Rock of Gibraltar, that if anyone messes with the company, or with Cassy, that you will 'take care of matters.' Then they'll ask if perhaps intelligence might wish to transfer Cassy over to them? Which of course will make the intel people want to keep her even more."

  "Seriously?" I asked surprised.

  "Oh, the military and intelligence hate each other." Balizar laughed, "It’s been going on for decades."

  "No, I meant their opinion of me," I was a bit shocked by that, the idea that they might feel so strongly about me, it was kind of nice.

  Balizar nodded, "The military is very loyal to its own. Especially the special ops troops who hung it all out for the company during the war. You get enough awards, and they will even look the other way while you date the CEO's daughter and screw his wife.

  "So what his means, is that because Balizar is not paid off, intelligence knows that they have a solid hold on Cassandra, because that's the way they think. They also know that if they send Cassandra anywhere to work, that if they send her 'husband' along with her, that her fourth tag, the one which hasn't been re-evaluated yet, will go up."

  "That's the 'ineffective, effective, highly-effective' one, right?" Cassandra asked.

  "Yes."

  "And what happens then?" I asked suddenly worried.

  "If Cassy gets an effective, they bump it to highly-effective, and they start talking to the military about 'joint-assignments' because they want to keep the two of you together, 'so could they please loan you to them?'

  "That doesn't sound too bad," Cassandra said.

  "No, it's not, but it's what happens when your base ranking goes to 'highly-effective' which would happen easily because you're so smart," Sharazad said to Cassandra.

  "I thought 'highly-effective' was as high as it could go?"

  "Because of Raj, they'll put a star on that highly-effective tag."

  "And that means?" I asked.

  "That the President, the CEO, and the Board will get a letter from intelligence demanding your immediate re-assignment to the intelligence agency, and then the two of you will start being assigned to the really tough jobs." Balizar said and tipped his drink to us, then took a rather large drink.

  "Um, is that a bad thing?" Cassandra asked softly.

  "It can be," Sharazad said. "It depends on who you work for and what kinds of jobs they send you out on. If you end up out in the field as an operative, it can be very exciting and challenging, but that's also the kind of job that can get you killed."

  "The worst part about it, is quitting," Balizar said. "If you end up dealing with a lot of corporate secrets, they're not
going to like the idea much of you leaving. Even retiring can be problematic."

  "So what do we do?" I asked Balizar.

  "Sharazad and I are working on that," he smiled. "You have a few more years of duty aboard the Astra before you'll start to come to their attention, but this is why I want to know what you two want to do. Sharazad and I both still work for intelligence. We enjoy it, but then we have a pretty good deal.

  "And when we were younger, we were both in much more dangerous jobs," Sharazad said, then added with a grin, "And we enjoyed that too."

  I was surprised that Balizar suddenly looked very embarrassed. "Now, if the two of you want to avoid that whole route completely, you need to start planning on what you want to do, so we can try and make that happen." He said.

  "But if you decide you are okay with intelligence work, you need to determine just what you kind of intelligence work you want to do, and maybe even for who in the company, or what group." Sharazad said.

  "And we'll make that happen," Balizar agreed. "So talk about it, think about it."

  I nodded, "We will."

  "Just how far up in the company are you?" Cassandra asked looking at Balizar, and then Sharazad.

  "Sharazad laughed, "Not high enough that you could work for us."

  "Well, not yet anyways," Balizar said with a smile.

  We returned to talking about less important things after that, but I could see where Cassandra and I were going to have to start making some decisions on where we wanted to go next, when our time on the Astra was over. It was definitely something to think about.

  The rest of our leave was rather nice; we stayed at the company's quarters each night and spent the days checking out the town. There were a surprisingly small amount of private stores and shops, considering how much construction there was going on and how many people lived there. I guess the smaller concerns hadn't really gotten established here yet, Iverly was growing so fast that the kind of people who opened up those shops probably hadn't even realized that the opportunity existed.

  You could see that they had pretty ambitious plans for the planet, and it wasn't just the locals doing all the building either, Tri-Star was building a lot too. I wasn't privy to the plans of the corporation of course, and to be honest, business wasn't something I knew a lot about, but it was fairly obvious that Iverly was going to be a pretty big settlement eventually. I'd say that the rumors of this being a new sector headquarters for Tri-Star were right.