Children of Steel Read online

  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.

  “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 su
re 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.

  “Hess, Marko, se
e if you can’t flank them. Everyone else pin them down!” I called over my com and popped up to start taking pot shots at the two closest to me. They put up a stiff resistance, and had the advantage of position on us. We weren’t making any progress and the ship was almost clear of the doors.

  “I need results Raj! I need them now!” Aruba ordered.

  “Charge on three!” I called on my comm. “One, two, three!” And I burst from cover firing my grenade launcher then opening up with the gun in short bursts on one of the positions. The other four moved as well, Aruba taking up the position I had just left.

  I took several hits as I moved forward, one actually penetrating my armor and taking me in the left arm. I dove then going up in a high arc to shoot down at the enemy. He followed me up with his gun, but missed as I swung my tail and tumbled sideways. As I revolved the second time however I got him, and then hit the wall behind him, sliding to the floor momentarily dazed.

  I heard Marko call out in pain over the comm, so I started crawling around towards the next guy and shot him in the back, the next guy was already dead and Hess was trying to give first aid to Marko, who had been shot in the head, his helmet cracked.

  I looked around for the other two defenders, Aruba and her half were finishing them off so I looked for an emergency shelter.

  “Take Marko in there,” I pointed out what I found to Hess, there was a control room that looked airtight, “and get that helmet off.”

  He nodded and went; I turned to Aruba who was calling the ship again. The Frigate was had cleared the hanger and was picking up speed.

  “Pan, Pan, Pan, we have a frigate launching from the base. Do you copy?”

  “Shuttle One copies, relying.”

  “Marko’s hit bad,” I told Aruba, “I’m going to check on him.”

  She nodded and I went to follow Hess, the control room had an airlock and it took me a minute to cycle through it.

  “Anything interesting in there?” Riala radioed as I moved over to Hess.