Children of Steel Read online

  It was a fun evening, even if there were only the four of us. We talked about nothing in particular, but I could tell they were all pretty lonely. But it looked like it'd all be over soon anyway. It felt kind of good to be sleeping in my own cabin again that night, Terease joined me and we both slept very soundly.

  The next morning I had an early breakfast, and then headed back down to the surface. This time I was the pilot, and it felt good to be flying again. I hadn't been able to do any flying since I had crashed with all the work that had to be done. There hadn't been much flying going on in the last two weeks anyway, just a flight up to the Astra every other day.

  The Astra was declared ready for jump four days later, and Terease was able to come down and see both Banner and the planet. Mostly she just saw Banner. We were all notified that we were shipping out three days later.

  I was pretty busy helping to shuttle up all the ship’s crew and our prisoners for the next couple of days. We were leaving five of the surviving assault shuttles behind, as well as the remaining cargo shuttle. They had only one cargo shuttle of their own left after the battle.

  I had several goodbyes to say myself, first of all to my sister Kali who was still recovering, then my sister Lisa, as B Company was going to be providing security for a while. And finally to Fran, the shuttle pilot from B Company, whom I was still seeing occasionally.

  I walked into the hospital and headed down to the intensive care unit, were Kali had been since I had first found her.

  "Hi Raj," she said from the bed, "I guess this is goodbye again huh?"

  I looked at her, she was doing much better now than when I had first seen her. The Doctor had even told me that they would be able to move her into a regular ward in a couple of days.

  "Yes Kali, I guess its goodbye again." I smiled wistfully, I really wanted to be able to stay until my sister was whole again. "The next time we meet you'll have your legs back and be as beautiful as ever."

  "I'm really going to miss you Raj, especially now that I'm going to be moved into a regular ward and allowed outside once in a while." she said sadly.

  "That's alright, Lisa'll be here and at least I got to be here during the worst of it."

  "You always seem to show up for the 'worst of it'," she smiled.

  "Hey, that's my job. Now I just want you to behave and get better. When I do get to come by here again I want to see you healthy, okay?"

  "Okay!"

  I gave her a hug then and we said goodbye one last time and I left. I ran into her Doctor on the way out.

  "Doctor Crenshaw," I said, "may I have a word with you before I leave please?"

  "Sure Mr. Rakir, there isn't anything wrong now is there?" she looked at me suspiciously, I know she was still mad about my behavior during the first time we had met.

  "No, no problems at all. I just wanted to let you know I was leaving and wanted to ask a small favor." I said politely.

  "Ask a favor?" she cocked her head to the side a little, "Not make a demand?"

  "Yes, a favor. One I hope you'll have no problems with either."

  "Well it depends, just what do you want me to do?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Just make sure my sister Lisa keeps visiting, and if she should stop, tell her you'll tell me about it."

  "Do you really think she will stop visiting?" asked Doctor Crenshaw sarcastically.

  "No, not anymore, but I bet you she'll ask if I talked to you about it!" I laughed, "She doesn't think I trust her."

  "Do you?" she gave me a penetrating glance.

  "I think so; she's changed a lot since leaving the crèche. Anyway thanks again for saving my sister, goodbye Doc."

  "Goodbye Mr. Rakir, and you're welcome."

  I was kind of surprised I didn't hear an added 'and good riddance', but we only really butted heads that one time.

  My next stop was to say goodbye to Lisa. We had gotten along fairly well and had only fought once. Unfortunately it was yesterday, and I had thrashed her pretty good too. I guess we all have a tendency to fall back into old habits at times. I walked into her barracks, and was surprised when a male leopard about my age stopped me.

  "Excuse me but you're not welcome here." He said eyeing me up and down.

  "Oh?" I smiled down at him, I must have had four inches and maybe fifty pounds on him. "And why might that be? Is my sister putting you up to this, or are you just trying to win points on your own?"

  He bristled a little at that.

  "She's still in bed, recovering from what you did to her yesterday." He stepped in front of me as I tried to walk past him. "I think it would be better if you left."

  "I think it would be healthier if you minded your own damn business." I snarled as my temper kicked in, I didn’t like people who messed in family affairs and I was quickly getting mad at this guy now. "She's probably still in bed because she's off today, not that any of this is your business."

  I moved to push past him, and he grabbed my arm. That was it! I spun around and gave him a back kick to the stomach without even thinking about it. He 'woofed' out his breath then, and tried to jump back for fighting space, but I had reversed his grip and was now holding his arm myself.

  Yanking him off balance, I punched him in the face a few times, then spun him around while he was still dizzy and banged his head against the wall a few more times for good measure. He was still struggling, trying to get a grip on me, but he wasn't nearly as strong as I was.

  I grabbed the belt on the back of his shorts with one hand and the scruff of his neck with the other. With a big heave, I picked him bodily off the ground and held him over my head. I'm glad that the ceilings were high in here. I then marched off to my sister's room, where I used his head to knock on the door.

  "Yes?" I heard a familiar male voice from inside.

  "Jemaal, could you please tell my sister that I would like to say goodbye?" I said keeping the still struggling interloper balanced above my head.

  "Sure just a sec." A moment later the door opened, "Come on ... what the hell?!" Jemaal looked at the guy I was holding in the air, and I could see Lisa sitting on the bed start to laugh.

  "Put him down Raj," she said laughing hysterically. "Gently, don't just drop him either!" she added as I started to toss him.

  "Just tell him to behave and leave me alone!" I said as I put him down.

  "Claude what happened here?" she asked him, Jemaal was just standing there sniggering.

  "I told him I didn't think he should be here, that's all." he glared at me, "The next thing I know, he's beating my head against the wall." He started gingerly touching his head to emphasize his point.

  Lisa and Jemaal both looked at me questioningly.

  "Hey, I gave him fair warning." I said holding up my hands. "He shouldn't have grabbed my arm that's all. Now why don't you run along while you still can?" I said the last to him.

  "I'm ready for you now," he said growling, "You won't beat me so quickly this time."

  "Claude out!" said Lisa standing up, "He could probably beat us all if he wanted to, and you were an idiot to grab him and not expect a fight."

  Claude left grumbling, giving me a dirty look on the way out. I just smiled back.

  "Should I leave too?" asked Jemaal.

  "No, you can stay." I said, then turning to Lisa, "I wasn't going to leave without saying goodbye, especially after our umm, disagreement yesterday."

  "I knew you wouldn't," she replied smiling, "and I'm sorry I baited you yesterday. And I didn't have anything to do with that idiot in the hall just now."

  "I'm sorry too," I said humbly, "and I didn't think you had anything to do with that either. There would have been more of them then."

  We all laughed a little at that.

  "You have recovered alright, brother mine. I'm still sore from yesterday. Have you said goodbye to Kali yet?" she asked changing the subject.

  "Yes, I just left there." I looked up at her again, "She's still got a lot of hard time ahead of her you know, and I'
m not going to be here to help. So it's all going to be up to you."

  "Don't worry Raj," she looked right back at me, "I'll take care of her."

  "Lisa, I always worry," I admitted. "I just wanted to make sure you were aware of your responsibility, and I want you to know that if it was you in that bed, I'd be bugging Kali about this too."

  "I know that, I'm still a Rakir you know. So don't worry about it anymore, she's my sister too!"

  "Thanks, it really is a load off my mind knowing you're going to be here." I admitted.

  "Really? Why's that?" she looked surprised.

  "You won't let the Doctor talk you into anything stupid," I grinned, "You're just as stubborn as I am!"

  She smiled at that and stood up so I could give her a hug.

  "Goodbye Sis, take care and good luck. Till we meet again I guess."

  "Goodbye Raj," she hugged me back, "Good luck yourself."

  "Take care of yourself too Jemaal," I said shaking his hand on my way out the door. "You two can go back to what you were doing now!" I gave him a wink as I left.

  That taken care of I went in search of Fran. She wasn't in her room, which was a relief I guess. I didn't want to find her involved with someone else. I finally found her in the mess area.

  "Raj, I didn't expect to see you for a couple of hours yet." she said looking up from her seat.

  "I've nothing to do until my shuttle lifts at six." I said sitting down next to her.

  "That's a good eight hours away yet," she replied looking at her watch, "what time do you have to report?"

  "Five thirty, which gives me about seven hours to kill." I looked down at her with a smile, "Any ideas?"

  "Oh, I can think of a few." she said smiling back.

  We got up and headed back to her room, where we spent the rest of my time saying a very long and enjoyable goodbye. I ended up reporting ten minutes late. I wasn't the only one who was late either, but we still got off on time.

  14

  The trip out was pretty uneventful, we had stored the prisoners in the aft shuttle hold which was empty now anyway. It also made them behave, because we could blow the hatch in an instant if they should start acting up. They didn't though, and arrived alive with the rest of us.

  For me the trip back was a lot of practicing, exercise, and all of the normal duties that I hadn't really been doing since landing. It felt nice to be back in the old routine of things, and back living onboard the ship, it was my home now. We spent seven weeks in drive on this trip, mostly because the drive was not functioning at full capacity. By the last week we were almost down to short rations when we broke out having been unable to restock any foodstuffs at Arboral.

  We were at a system called Tau Delta thirty-eight, or something like that. It had no inhabitable planets to speak of, just a couple of gas giants and some uninhabitable rocks. But it did have a very large asteroid belt, which was very rich in minerals. The company had one of its most profitable operations here, and the location was a closely guarded secret.

  It took us only a couple of days to dock inside one of the larger asteroids. They had a pretty extensive repair yard, and our ship was in need of some more drive repairs and needed to have a lot of missing equipment replaced.

  I kind of felt sorry for our prisoners though. They were all staying here until they worked off their debt to the company and some of the mines here were pretty dangerous. Balizar confided in me that the worst offenders probably wouldn't survive.

  As for the ones who had tried to minimize their bosses' excesses, and there weren't many, they would be given a chance to earn their way back home in safer jobs. One of them had been responsible for saving my sister's life and I had a long talk with the Badger he would be working for, who agreed to watch out for her.

  The entire ship's crew was then transferred to one of the main asteroids to await the ship's repair. I had never been on, or I should say in, an asteroid before. This one was known as Tiber base and was the control center for this section of the Belt.

  It was a good fifty miles across and had a lot of natural caverns inside. Unlike most company installations however, the human population was roughly equal to that of the animen. The reason for the large human presence turned out to be the large number of company research labs here. Somebody said that the company had about thirty thousand employees in the belt, and after seeing Tiber base, I had to believe it.

  We were shown to our quarters, which were the largest I had ever stayed in. I had a complete apartment to myself.

  "Why are these places all so big?" I asked the human female who was showing us our billets.

  "Two reasons actually, the first is that nobody can go outside so the company Psychs though the extra space would be healthy for everybody."

  "What's the second?" I asked.

  "The second one is that this was originally a mine anyway," she smiled, "and the more they cleared out during building, the more material they had to process."

  "I'm surprised they didn't just take it all." Gabe said looking at the veins of minerals in the wall.

  "It's kind of like a bank," she replied. "We know it's here and can get it out whenever times are hard. Until then the company would rather find and mine all of the other deposits out there. Eventually this place won't be a secret anymore, but by then the company hopes to have some kind of installation on all of the major finds like this."

  "And have mined out all of the smaller ones," finished Dave. "Smart thinking alright, I wonder how long Tri-Star will be able to keep it a secret though?"

  "Who knows?" she replied, "But by the time it's out it probably won't be profitable for anybody else to try and move in."

  "Well that is the name of the game, isn't it?" I said.

  We moved into our rooms without mishap. We'd be staying here for the two weeks it was estimated that the repairs would take. During that time we would be expected to help in those repairs, so we would be putting in eight hour shifts on the Astra, followed by four hour training sessions.

  But the fact still remained that we'd have twelve hours to ourselves each day and only a half shift on Saturday, none on Sunday. Everybody was pretty happy about the whole thing, and morale was really pretty high.

  Tiber base was a very interesting place too. The company ran all of the businesses there, so you didn't need to carry cash, you could just sign for everything. They had restaurants, bars, theaters, and shops of several different sorts. The prices weren't too bad either, considering that the company had a total monopoly on everything.

  There was even a thriving black market with some very interesting items for sale; you did need cash for that however. The company ignored the black market, as there probably wasn't much they could have done about it anyhow. I found out about it a little quicker than most as Herza set up some fights for me through it.

  I did pretty well, winning all five of the fights I was set up with. I got to see Herza do some fighting herself too. They had it set up here with a bunch of different classes; my training put me automatically into the second class, my low time on the job kept me from being forced into the first class. I was glad about that when I saw Herza, who was in the first class, take on a tiger in one of her fights.

  He was a pretty good size, standing a little taller than me and a good thirty pounds or so heavier. They went at it with a vengeance, I noticed that he started out cautiously, even with his greater size. Herza had a tough time of it, and took a pretty good beating. I was surprised that she was able to win it though; it made me realize that size and strength were not the most important factors in a fight.

  Afterwards, I collected our winnings and helped a battered Herza back to our rooms.

  "I really was worried about you there," I told her on the way back.

  "He was pretty tough, and a lot more experienced than I originally thought," she admitted. "But I still had the advantage in experience and determination."

  "I don't think I would have wanted to fight him."

  "Oh?" she
stopped than and looked me square in the eye, "Raj, determination is the most important part of fighting. Sure experience and strength are important, but it's the will to not give an inch that really counts."

  "I can see that, nobody expected you to win that fight, I was even worried there for a while."

  "You could beat him." she said looking at me closely, "If you really wanted to that is."

  "What me? I don't have half your experience Herza, I have yet to beat either you or Banner in a fight too."

  "You could, if you'd just let yourself. You've got a lot of natural talent, you train hard, and you're bigger, stronger, and possibly faster than either of us."

  "I still don't think I could, yet." I said honestly.

  "But you do think so eventually?" she asked, and we started walking again.

  "Well yeah, I kind of think so."

  "Well at least that's a start," she replied.

  That was on our first Saturday night there. I spent the next morning recovering from my fights, and helping Herza recover from hers. The betting hadn't been as heavy here as on Hobson's, but then it was a lot safer fighting here than there too. We had managed to make about six hundred apiece from all of our fights. Added to the ten percent of my salary that I actually got, (the rest I put automatically towards my buyout, I could have used less but everybody advised against it), and I was beginning to accrue a nice amount of money in the ship's bank.

  I spent a good part of the day thinking about the remarks Herza had made the night before. I had been in some pretty good fights in training on the ship. I had also been beaten up pretty well by both Herza and Banner, as well as a few others. Maybe she was correct, maybe my attitude wasn't right. The fights I had lost on the ship were to people who I didn't think I could beat in the first place, and those fights were a lot tamer then what went on in the bars.

  "Herza," I asked, "did you really mean what you said last night about my beating that guy?"

  "Of course," she replied. She was lying face down on her bunk; I was giving her a massage to ease some of her sore muscles. "You were a better fighter when you showed up here than anybody expected. You've improved even more since then too."