Children of Steel (48 page)

Whoa! That stopped me in my tracks, I had
never really believed that Herza could be interested in me, despite
what the other's had been hinting. After all I was just some young
cub, she could do a lot better than me anytime!

"I hadn't realized you felt that way," I
admitted, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, my back felt
rather sticky and I winced. "But if it makes you feel any better,
Cassandra was the reason I decided to go. I just couldn't give that
up. As for the reasons for staying, I did lose it once down there I
guess, lost it big and helped them kill someone. They though it was
great. As for Helena, she's got more bloodlust than anyone I've
ever seen. They
train
for it down there.

"So of course I wanted to stay, the very
thing that's almost gotten me 'put down' here, is desired there." I
went over and sat down next to her.

"You know," she said motioning to the wall,
"Your back is bleeding pretty bad, I should know!" I looked at the
wall and saw a large red blot there.

"Ugh, let's go wash up. My field kit is in
the cabinet there, you can fix up your handy work." I looked at
her, "That is of course if I'm forgiven."

"Yes, I forgive you." she gave me a long kiss
then. "Now let's get you cleaned up before you stain the sheets
beyond repair."

We went to the refresher, and after a painful
shower she patched up the cuts. She had a few too, but they were
pretty small, I wasn't the one trying to do a filet job.

I did get even though; I made her do all the
work that night. The next morning as we ate breakfast together in
the mess, we were joined by Kate and Franz.

"It's nice to see that you two made up," said
Franz.

"And I can see you still haven't lost your
way with women Raj," said Kate looking at the taped up gash on the
side of my head. "I suppose there are more underneath the
uniform?"

"Of course," I sighed, "One of these days I'm
going to discover a less painful way of dealing with women. At
least I hope so."

"Stop trying to solve everything with force,"
she suggested, "You'll get bit less."

"Unfortunately it's all I know." I admitted
sheepishly.

"The sooner Cassandra takes him off the
market, the healthier he'll be," said Herza surprising me. "I get
the impression they don't ever fight."

"That true Raj?" asked Franz.

"Of course, I learned long ago that she's
always right." I paused a second, "and I'm afraid to hit her. She
gets even, usually late at night when you're asleep." I finished
dejectedly.

They all laughed at that for quite a while, I
could see that things were back to normal now and I was quite happy
about that indeed.

Our next stop was a mining installation on a
reject of a planet called Osborn.

It really was a reject too. It was about
twice the diameter of the Earth's moon, the atmosphere wasn't
breathable, there was no life at all, and the gravity was only
about one half earth normal. This of course meant that the
atmosphere was so thin, we had to wear light pressure suits if we
went outside or risk the bends. The only reason there was a mining
installation on Osborn in the first place was that it was composed
mostly of heavy elements and super dense materials.

We were going there to bring supplies, that
was what the last loaded pod contained, and pick up a load of
processed ore. The supplies we were bringing were mostly
replacement parts, vitamin supplements, some foodstuffs that they
couldn't grow themselves in their hydroponics’ section, and of
course the ever popular entertainment material.

That was one of the nice perks about working
for a corporation which had an entertainment company as one of its
original parents. They still made motion pictures too, both in Holo
and the old flatscreen style. They even had a division which
handled other forms of entertainment as well, which when you
consider that any company which does a lot of deep space work is
going to need to keep the troops happy, was a very good idea.
Profitable too when you considered that most other companies either
couldn't afford, or didn't want, to waste time with such a
division. So we made a nice profit selling to those companies, and
don't forget the public market, they did well there too.

Unloading took us about four days, the lesser
gravity helped a bit and they had a large pressurized hanger to
unload in once down.

Loading was a different matter entirely. Even
in a half G field that stuff was heavy, and that's not even
mentioning its mass, which was considerable. We worked only eight
hours a day, as everybody was pretty tired after that. We also had
to shift all the stuff from the partially full pod into the Astra's
internal holds so the ship would still have its center of mass
through its axis. That alone took three days, but at least it
wasn't heavy stuff.

So it was two weeks after we started the
loading until we were done. At that point the Captain gave
everybody two days off duty. If we had been someplace worth seeing
I'm sure everybody would have complained, but as it was we just
wanted to make our next port, which was obviously Hobson.

As for what Osborn looked like it was pretty
bleak, the surface being mostly iron. It was extremely rough
terrain, the process of erosion being unknown here. It was also
about one fifty in the shade, so I only saw it through an
observation port. I had no desire to go out in that heat.

Twenty percent of the mining was strip mining
above ground. I wouldn't have wanted to work out there, that was
for sure. But I found out the underground mining wasn't any picnic
either, casualties ran to about twenty five percent a year. With a
working crew of eight hundred or so, I could understand why the
local security detachment carried automatic weapons.

One miner actually tried to get me to smuggle
him off planet, but when I showed him the scars beneath my fur from
last year, he decided he'd rather stay.

I was surprised at first that the moral here
wasn't lower than it was, but then Dave explained it to me.

"A lot of these people either couldn't or
wouldn't learn a skill, the rest are either working for large
bonuses, or are here as punishment.

"In any case, the chances of dying here are
just as bad as any place else. The Astra's overall mortality rate
may only be about eight percent, but that's because we have a lot
of people who never leave the ship and that brings down the curve.
One good space combat though and it could jump way up there, even
to one hundred!"

I thought about that, it didn't bother me
much but I bet some people would find it hard to sleep at night
with that fact in their heads.

He continued, "So they're about as bad off
here as anyplace else. True it's a boring place and all that, but
at least there's very little chance of it being totally destroyed
in combat or lost in space due to a drive misfunction or any of the
other myriad of things that can plague a spaceship."

"I'd still take the Astra any day!" I said
smiling.

"Hell, me too! I hate mining!" Dave laughed,
and we went back to our drinking. Which was one thing we did do a
lot of in those two days. So much so that I had to be carried back
to my room that night, and got violently ill. At least nobody saw
me puking on the floor, but I got a lot of harassment from the
people who had to carry me. As they had dropped me twice, once down
a staircase, I told them to stuff it.

At least they have a cure for hangovers in
the twenty-second century, or I don't think I would have ever
survived. I still felt like crap that day when we returned to the
Astra, at least I wasn't flying.

The trip out from Osborn was real slow.
Normally with only two pods on the Astra can make pretty good
headway, and once in jump travels at about four lights. But we had
a lot of superdense material aboard so we were down to less than
three; it was going to be a long trip back, nearly three
months.

My tour on the Astra was for six years and
I’d completed almost two and a half years of it, and by the time we
hit Hobson, it would be thirty one months since I had signed on.
That would make it nearly the halfway point in my assignment.

But some people would be leaving, as this was
one of the normal times for a major rotation, and I was very
unhappy about some of those who would be going.

First of all, Rudy was leaving. He was being
sent to another ship in another sector, part of the normal
rotation. He didn't have enough time in to get anything special, so
he was at the mercy of the system just like I would be. But at
least he had an idea of where he was heading.

Gabe was leaving too, I was surprised to find
out that he had gotten an assignment on Hobson, as a local shuttle
pilot! The three of us, Dave, Rudy and myself, cornered him in a
quiet hallway at one point on the way back.

"Okay wise guy!" I snarled holding him up to
the wall, "Just how did
you
get such a good assignment?"

"Hey I just got lucky, that's all!" He
protested.

"Bull," said Dave, "Why don't you start by
tearing his arms off Raj? Isn't that one of your favorites?"

"Okay, Okay, I'll give!" Said Gabe laughing,
so I put him down. We weren't really mad, but we were curious as
all hell. This was a real sweet job; by rights he shouldn't have
been able to get it. He looked around real carefully to make sure
nobody was around.

"I bribed the local rep."

"Where does somebody like
you
get that
kind of cash?" asked Rudy sarcastically.

"Actually it wasn't cash; Karen's family
leaned on him. They have a lot of influence there."

Dave and I exchanged glances, "And just why
would Karen's folks want to do that?" I asked.

"Well I was going to surprise you with that,"
he said looking at the ceiling with a crazy grin, "We're getting
married."

The silence was deafening.

Rudy broke it when he started choking; I was
surprised I didn't myself.

"When did this happen?" Dave asked.

"Well, we decided that if I could get a
posting there, we'd move in together and see how it went. I'd
probably have a good five years there before I had to move on, and
she was going to work in the city for the first few years of her
law practice, to get experience before going to work for her
family.

"Anyway, if that worked out, we'd get married
and make it official."

"What are you going to do when your next
assignment comes along?" Dave asked, "You can't take her with you,
she's human, they won't allow it!"

"Oh once we get married, they're going to
buyout my contract. Kind of as a wedding gift, but I made it clear
I would have to work off whatever was left."

"They need a shuttle pilot on her family's
farm?" I asked surprised.

"Not on the farm, but in their business yes,
and a regular pilot as well. Right now they have to hire a shuttle
pilot whenever they need one, which is pretty expensive. If I go to
work for them as a general pilot, I can do that for them whenever
they need it and the pay is good for that kind of thing too!"

"I don't doubt it," put in Rudy shaking his
hand, "Well, congratulations and I hope we're all invited to the
wedding, when ever it is."

"Yeah, that goes for me too," I shook his
hand as well, "and I expect to be invited even if I’m unable to
attend."

"Yeah," said Dave, "it's the thought that
counts after all, and you know that I'll bust both your legs the
next time I see you if you don't!"

Rudy and I seconded that motion, and we all
had a good laugh over it.

Closer to home, Banner had put in for a
second tour on the Astra and in light of the fact that his mate was
a vital part of the engineering group, had his request granted.

That left two more people in the clan who
were at the end of their tours: Katrine and Herza.

I would miss Katrine, she was a lot of fun,
and we were very good friends. Lyle was a lot more upset over it
than I however, they had met on their previous assignment and had
been friends for almost ten years.

I was devastated over Herza's leaving
however. She was definitely the second most important person in my
life, right up there with Cassandra. She had done a lot to help me
become the fighter I was today, and had done a lot to help me in
gaining control of my temper.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do
without you!" I said one night in her quarters. I was having a hard
time keeping my emotions under control at this point, "I mean,
you've helped me keep the lid on for over two years now. Do you
really think anybody else on board is going to want that job?" I
looked at her giving her a weak smile.

"Raj, I really wish it could be different,
but we both have our separate paths to follow," I hate it when she
philosophizes, and mumbled something saying such, she laughed. "Oh
come on now, as far as your temper goes, you're getting older and
more mature now. It's lessened quite a bit since I first bounced
you off the wall in the gym."

"Probably because you stopped being able to
bounce me off that damn wall," I grumbled remembering Herza's way
of keeping me in line when I first got here. Until I finally got to
be better than her that is, though not by much.

"True, but don't worry. You'll be fine, I've
been talking to Chief Post for a few weeks now, and he's agreed to
start beating you up on a weekly basis for me, after I leave that
is."

"Gee thanks," I said doing my best not to
sound thankful at all. Chief Post was the ship's champion and not
somebody I'd ever be able to bounce off a wall, he outweighed me by
over a hundred pounds - all muscle too! "Why don't you just shoot
me instead? It won't be nearly as messy that way!"

"Oh come on, you need somebody better than
you to keep you from getting too complacent. Anyway, I'll bet
you'll surprise yourself and win on points more often than you
think."