Children of Steel

by John Van Stry

  I found the quartermasters' space and went inside. The quartermaster was a Fox, which surprised me considerably.

  "Hi, I'm the new warrant, and the Captain sent me down to get outfitted."

  He looked up from his terminal and gave me the slow once over.

  "Ah, more fresh meat I see. Well come over here to the counter and we'll see what you need."

  As he walked over to the counter I noticed he had a pretty good limp.

  "You newbs are all pretty much the same, not a pot to piss in."

  "Yeah, that pretty well describes it; I guess you know how it is."

  "Nope, not me, I was a free born, not one of you crèche specials."

  That surprised me even more, I’d never run into a freeborn before, I didn’t know that the company employed them. Guess they had to work somewhere.

  He took some measurements, looked at my I.D. tag, then started to dig through the lockers and pile equipment on the counter.

  "Here ya' go. Vac suit, flight gear, survival gear, ammunition. The guns are locked up in the forward weapon's locker. Got a fighting knife?"

  "No, why?"

  "You're gonna need one here."

  "What for?"

  "Listen you're new here, and you got a good position, some of the long timers might resent that. Especially the security types, they're always looking to take down an officer or warrant. Now they can't touch a human, that'd be a quick death. But you're different; they can and will pick on you. Figure you might be easy meat. Plus some of the places you’ll be taking leave on aren’t the friendliest in the galaxy."

  "I see," I said my eyes narrowing. "What exactly happened to the guy I'm replacing?"

  "Take it easy, don't get your ears back. He got his neck broke in a bar fight."

  "So I heard."

  "Yeah, they don't know who did it, but I'd place money on it being one of our more illustrious crew mates. He was a raccoon and a little too smart for his own good. There are quite a few leopards on board so I think you'll probably get a little more respect."

  "Thanks, I'll take the knife."

  I checked the balance, spun it around my fingers a couple of times, to show him I knew how to use it, and then sheathed it and clipped it on my thigh.

  "Anything else I should know?"

  "Well you're billeted in three forward, F deck. The equipment costs will be added to your bill."

  "How much?"

  "One hundred twenty three thousand."

  "Ouch, isn't that a little steep?"

  "Not really, the Vac suit's 60 thou, the survival, com, and flight gear, plus the weapons make up the rest. It's good equipment though and while I ain't a conscript like most, I'm not going to shaft my own kind. The humans treat me just the same as they'll treat you."

  "Oh? How's the Captain?"

  "Not bad, he's a decent sort, treats his people well. Cross him though and he'll have you made into a rug."

  "Thanks," I said gathering up my gear. "I appreciate the advice."

  I walked out into the corridor with quite a few new thoughts. I wasn't too surprised when I had learned about the laxer discipline. All the military stiffness I was trained with had slacked off a lot in the last year when I was being trained by the company's shuttle people. The bit about the knife really surprised me though. A lot of animen carry knives, humans do too. Guns in spaceships could be dangerous, especially while in jump drive. In training I had rarely had to carry one though, I had always thought that the claws I was born with were more than enough. But then claws are not really that good if you have to kill someone, and in training there was always an instructor somewhere nearby.

  I found my quarters next, walked in and looked around. It was a six by eight cubical. Everything in it was designed to fold up or stow away, depending on what you needed, a bed or a desk. Pretty spacious actually. I noticed there was a shelf above my bed folded into the wall. The way it pulled out I suspected it could be made into another bed, I guess if we ever take on extra troops I'll be expected to double.

  I set about putting my gear away, it seemed strange now to have all this stuff to take care of. I'd have to get to the forward weapons locker and examine the weapons I had just bought. That was one of the drawbacks of the corporations, you had to buy everything, and it could get expensive. You could also be charged for equipment you broke or lost, but only if the corporation determined that it was your fault.

  I took out the picture of Cassandra, the only girlfriend I ever really had, and placed it on the desk. She was off somewhere working as a field intelligence operative, which meant she was probably manning some listening post somewhere, intercepting messages and electronically spying on some other corporation's people or interests. She had left last year and I hadn't heard from her since. I took out the group picture of my entire crèche group next, all the family I had ever really had. Again, I hadn't heard from any of them either, but it's about what we expected. Mail doesn't travel well from planet to planet.

  I checked the duty roster then and saw I was due on shortly, so I changed into a clean uniform, grabbed my flight gear and headed to the shuttle bay.

  It took me a little while to track down the Executive Officer, who may have been the busiest person on the ship. I finally caught up with him down in the shuttle bay where he was inspecting the ship's shuttle complement, and making sure that the necessary repairs were being performed. I walked up and saluted.

  "Warrant Ensign Rakir reporting sir."

  "Yeah, what do you want, I'm busy right now."

  "Well sir, I'm the new junior pilot onboard, and I thought I should report in to you as soon as possible sir."

  "Ah, yes my new pilot, you're trained in assault landings, not just the regular stuff, am I right?"

  "That is correct sir."

  "Good, we like to keep a full complement of combat qualified fliers, just in case. OK, just a sec. Hey Chief!" He yelled across the hanger.

  "Yeah whaddaya want sir?"

  "Come over here, I got your new pilot!"

  Out of the office across the shuttle deck strode the biggest Tiger I had ever seen, he must have weighed at least 400 pounds and stood well over seven feet tall. Definitely not someone I would want to mess with and I'm no lightweight either.

  "Chief Shandour, Warrant Rakir. He's your new pilot; I want you to check him out ASAP."

  "No problem commander, take care of it right away." He then turned and looked me over. I looked back and tried to get an idea of just how strong he probably was.

  "Well at least you don't look underfed, let's see how well you do on a check out flight. Follow me."

  We went to the equipment room, and I was outfitted with a G-suit, and a Flight helmet. The flight helmet could be used on my vacuum suit in place of the standard unit. A flight helmet was considerably more expensive then the standard helmet as it was extremely lightweight, and had a special visor on which the aircraft could display information. It and the rest of the gear also cost another ten thousand credits. I had to admit the rate I was spending money was making me a little worried, it was still only my first day.

  Twenty minutes later I was suited up and ready to go. I met the Chief by his office door. In flight gear he looked even bigger, if such a thing could be possible.

  "Well Raj, Let's go."

  "Okay chief."

  "First rule, there is no rank among flight crew once the mission starts, and it starts as soon as you leave the equipment room. Call me Ron."

  "Sure thing Ron, which one are we taking?"

  "Number 5 just finished a thousand hour overhaul and needs a check flight. This way I kill two birds with one stone."

  "Which profile do you want to fly? The full one or the 50,000 feet and below?"

  "We'll do the full one; I want to see a full assault re-entry with a practice drop run done over the south end of the field. Use the practice LZ over there."

  "Okay Ron you got it."

  At that point we came up to shuttle five. It looked pretty clea
n and was obviously well taken care of. Ron stood back while I did the walk around. My first clue that this wasn't training anymore and that I was finally in the 'real' world was that he didn't follow me around, and there was nothing 'wrong' to be found. I got out the logbook and looked at the entries to make sure the shuttle was signed off and what all the previous problems were. I made a mental note that everything was supposed to be fixed, but that the main Gyro had a tendency to experience phase lockup during small attitude adjustments and that it hadn't been replaced, just reset.

  "Okay Ron, I'm satisfied, want to look?"

  "Hell no, who do you think signed it off this morning? I know what's in there. Let's light the fire and go."

  I took the pilot seat and Ron took the Weapons Officer's position behind me. I ran through the pre-flight checklist, the pre engine start, and finally the engine start. It took me about thirty seconds, practice makes perfect.

  Engine start when without a hitch, and as I taxied carefully out onto the tarmac I felt a little nervous, while this wasn’t a test like I’d gone through in training, it was still a test of sorts. It was also my first non-training flight ever.

  I called the tower for clearance and started us down the runway for take off.

  “Ring it out a little why don’t you Raj?” Ron said from the back seat.

  “Sure thing Ron!” I replied and moved the throttles to full after burner, enjoying the way the shuttle jumped into the air. It wasn’t long until we had passed fifty thousand feet. Assault shuttles were fuel hogs, but they moved incredibly fast for their size.

  I leveled us off at eighty thousand and we ran a few speed runs and a few other tests that Ron wanted run to check the overhaul, then he told me to head for space.

  I again got clearance, then started the ascent part of the profile, starting the rockets as the turbo ramjets started to die in the thin atmosphere of near space, shutting them down and sealing them off.

  I set up orbit when we reached a hundred miles, and we killed some time as Ron quizzed me on all sorts of emergencies and emergency procedures. Surprisingly all of them had to do with combat damage for some reason.

  Then it was time to fire the rockets and head back to the field on an assault approach. These could be pretty tough to fly, and were hard on the pilot. You normally came down hot and fast and to an extremely low altitude for the speeds you were traveling at. He didn’t say much of anything during it until after I’d made my first landing and takeoff, then simply told me to knock it off and head back to the ship.

  As we climbed out of the cockpit I was pretty nervous. It had been a lot less grueling than my final exam check flight, but the results were a lot more important to me now.

  “Well Chief?” I asked as we walked back towards the equipment room.

  "You'll do," he said as we started walking back to the equipment room.

  "That's it?"

  "Yep that's it, welcome aboard." then he turned to a rather large group that had suddenly formed behind us. "Okay guys, he's one of ours now. Tank 'im."

  I tried to put up a good fight as they dragged me down the ramp in the age old tradition of flying units everywhere, but as I hit the water I had to admit to myself that it felt good to finally be part of a team.

  2

  Once I’d gotten myself a dry uniform I was put to work to help stow the shuttles for flight. They all had to be moved into their rack mechanism and secured. That took a full shift, then after that was done I spent the next few days helping to secure other things for flight, perform last minute checks, and help seal the loading hatches that were normally not used in space.

  The Astra had been in dry-dock for almost three months now, a number of the ship’s systems having to be upgraded and a few repairs as well I guessed. Once we had everything secured to the satisfaction of the Chief we were ordered to our rooms to strap in. The Astra wasn’t a planet landing capable ship, actually the part I was in was only the basic support module; it contained most of the living areas for the crew, the forward shuttle bay, and the various stations for most of the ship's crew. This was made up mostly of shuttle crews, technicians, some scientist's, security and a handful of assorted odd jobs.

  The deep space drives of the Astra had stayed in orbit when it had been brought down by tug for maintenance. That part had undergone some extensive upgrades and maintenance as well according to one of the other crewmembers. It contained most of the engineering spaces, external framework and hydroponics areas, as well as a second larger cargo hold, the bridge, and the ship's boat.

  The support module was not capable of lifting off on its own, so everything and everyone was made secure while four massive tugs linked up to us and hauled us back into orbit. With out the power from the main drives there could be no artificial gravity, so only those who had to be active were allowed to be up and around.

  The process of lifting us out of the atmosphere and docking the support module with the drive section took half a day. The ship had a superstructure that had to be attached as well. Its purpose was for mounting cargo or transport pods, allowing the Astra to haul more than its internal cargo bays could hold. It slowed the ship down when pods were added of course, but was an economical and easy way to add or remove cargo space without having to make changes to the internal cargo holds.

  The next day I was finally able to start on what would be my normal duty cycle. I headed down to the shuttle deck where I’d be spending most of my time from now on.

  “Raj, over here,” the Chief called.

  “Yes Chief.” I headed over to the entrance to the flight briefing room.

  “This is your new Weapon’s System Office, Rudy.”

  I shook hands with him; he was a possum, which I found interesting as I’d never met a possum before. He looked okay except for the lack of fur on his tail, which just didn’t look right to me.

  “I suggest you two start working on your team work, you’re up for your first training simulation in four hours.”

  “Yes Chief,” we both said as he left us there.

  “He doesn’t waste anytime, does he?” I asked my new WSO looking down at him. He came up to my shoulders.

  “Not really, can’t say I’ve flown with any leopards before,” he said as we found ourselves a spot to sit and go over our checklists and our own little preferences for doing things.

  “That’s okay,” I smiled, “I haven’t flown with any possums either. How’d you end up a WSO?”

  He snorted at me, “I should ask how you ended up a pilot, guys like you are usually the ones down in the trenches. You probably bench press more than I weight.”

  “Want to find out?” I asked a little harshly. He started, eyes widening a little.

  I sighed; this guy was going to be my teammate in the cockpit, and someone I was going to have to count on. Scaring him or pissing him off wasn’t a good way to get started out.

  “Sorry,” I apologized, “I got a lot of that in flight school from the other students. I was the first in my class in my combat school and my advanced combat school. Seeing as I had high scores on my tech levels too and good ratings on my dimensional skills they offered me a spot as a reward for my outstanding performance.”

  He nodded, relaxing once more, “Sorry, I should have figured as much. To answer your question, I scored really high on my technical tests; I was first in my class in weapon’s systems. So they offered me this. So rather than building bombs I get to drop them. Personally I kinda like it,” he grinned.

  I nodded. “Well I have to admit that being one of those guys in the trenches was always what I had wanted. But I was told I should take the training, and I’m glad I did, flying turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be.”

  He chuckled and looked me up and down, “Someone told you. I find it hard to believe.”

  I flicked my ears in embarrassment, “She made a very persuasive argument.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  I nodded, “Though I haven’t seen her s
ince she shipped out last year.”

  He nodded to that and changed the subject, “Well let’s get started on this. I’ve got a few more years in than you do, so let me show you what I’ve learned.”

  We spent the next four hours working on teamwork skills for flying then. I’d never really had my own WSO before, the guys you got in training were instructors, and they just taught you what your WSO would need or could do for you. Rudy’s experience helped, even if he’d only been on the job for a couple of years. I listened carefully to what he said, not wanting to repeat my mistake earlier and not letting myself get upset no matter what he said. I learned quickly that he was sharp, and while he’d make little jokes at his own expense or mine, there really wasn’t a nasty bone in his body. I think I made him a bit nervous too, but I was used to having that effect on people.

  We did well on the sim, and were scheduled for four hours a day the rest of the week so we could continue to work on developing our teamwork. For the most part if we weren’t talking about flying we didn’t really talk too much at all, he tended more towards the quiet side.

  I met the rest of the shuttle crews in fairly short order, most of them were fairly senior compared to me, so it was only natural I guess that I started hanging around with the other junior pilot, a Fox named Gabriel, or ‘Gabe’ for short. We actually hit it off pretty well and started to become good friends. Gabe had been in about as long as Rudy. He clued me in on a few things to watch out for as the junior pilot, and helped me learn a few of the minor tasks that now that I was the junior most pilot he got to pass on to me.

  A few days later I was sitting in the empty flight crew lounge studying some tech manuals when he walked in.

  "How's it going Raj?" He asked setting down some paperwork and pulling up a chair.

  "Not too bad Gabe, just looking over the new changes. What's with you?"

  "Same shit, different day. I hear we're supposed to make Hobson's Choice in twelve weeks. Any info on that?"