Children of Steel

by John Van Stry

  So I went to the shower, where I had a slightly embarrassing incident. One of the female Jags got a good whiff of my body, and pinned me up against the wall with her body as she rubbed the scent into her fur. I was too weak from lack of food and sleep to do anything more than protest.

  "Thanks Raj!" she smiled as she ran out of the room, "York'll get a real charge out of this!"

  After about seven showers I went back to Herza's, and ended up picking the lock on the door to get in.

  "What are you doing here?" She snapped at me.

  "I need some sleep," I told her as I climbed into the bed. Now that she wasn't producing anymore of that dammed pheromone, I found I was exhausted. "And I'm sure not going back into my room, with that damn smell."

  "Just keep your hands to yourself!" she snarled.

  "Stuff it!" I said and grabbed her and snuggled up from behind. She hissed, but was also too tired to do anything. "What's gotten into you all of the sudden?"

  "You," she said quietly, "I'm sorry, it's just I'm hypersensitive at the moment, and I'm afraid your going to want to have sex again and suddenly the idea really bothers me."

  "Does that mean you're out of heat?" I asked yawning happily, I hadn't slept a wink in three day's.

  "It means I've conceived Raj."

  "You sure?" I mumbled sleepily.

  "I'm sure, believe me. Just be warned, I'm extremely testy. So you better behave for the next day or two." She mumbled back.

  We were both asleep in seconds.

  I awoke ten hours later, feeling famished. Herza was still out like a light, so I made my way down to the mess and did my best to eat everything in sight. I dropped her off some food on the way back, and then went to check on my room.

  The smell still lingered somewhat, so I grabbed all my uniforms and threw them in the laundry. Fortunately I had one clean one waiting in the rack to be picked up from three days ago, so I had something to wear. I then went to Balizar’s office to apologize for my behavior before heading back to work. It was about two hours into my normal shift.

  "Don't worry about it Raj," he said grinning, "I've been through it myself, it happens to most of us sooner or later."

  "I thought you didn't have any children," I asked confused.

  "Not with Sharazad I don't, but I do from an earlier relationship. It was under slightly different circumstances however. Anyway, don't worry about it. It's just one of those things that make us different."

  "Does everybody lose control like I did?" I felt real embarrassed about my behavior, or rather my lack of it.

  "Ah, you're just young that's all. But it does tend to bring out the worse in some. That's why some breeds are not supposed to come in heat onboard ship. At least not without letting me know."

  "Did Herza let you know in advance?" I asked curious.

  "Oh sure, she's not that stupid. But she was supposed to call me the minute it started, so I could make sure you'd be excused from duty."

  "Yeah, I guess I wouldn't have given much thought to work," I admitted embarrassed.

  "Work hell, you get so covered with those damn pheromones that she produces you could start a riot. That was why I had food brought to your room, to keep either of you from stinking up the ship. I had kind of hoped she wouldn't come in until we had made Hobson's though."

  He then told me that the pheromones took about a day to break down and I should be able to go back to my own quarters by shift's end, I thanked him and left.

  It was about twenty hours from breakout at that point and as I walked into the flight room I got a few snickers from those on duty, plus one or two snide remarks.

  "Someday I'm going to experience privacy," I sighed sitting down next to Gabe, Rudy, and Dave, "And the shock is going to kill me."

  "It's not so much that we're having a good laugh at your expense Raj," said Gabe cheerfully.

  "Oh?" I asked lifting an eyebrow to look at him.

  "No, it's more like our personal survival, knowing when to steer well clear of you."

  "Yeah," added Dave grinning, "The embarrassment part is just an extra!"

  "You would think those damn geneticists could have made the whole thing a little easier on the mind," I grumbled, but not unhappily. While I might feel guilty about it, I had to admit to myself at least that I had thoroughly enjoyed it.

  "Aren't instincts a bitch?" Laughed Gabe, "Glad it wasn't me!"

  "So where are we in tomorrow's line up?" I asked Rudy changing the subject.

  "Number two," he said unhappily.

  "Well that's not too bad I guess," I could see as well as hear that he wasn't too pleased about it. "So why so gloomy?"

  "Because if anything happens we're guaranteed to go out, and this being the end of my tour, I just know something will." he grumped.

  "Hey cheer up; it’s a settled system, so you won't have to worry about me eating you!" I smiled showing all my teeth.

  "Oh that reminds me, the last pack of food on your pallet is poisoned," He smiled.

  "How do you know that?" I asked amazed.

  "You think I was going to take any chances?" He laughed at my expression.

  I got up and went down to the shuttle I was assigned to for tomorrow and checked the food. I dug the bottom one off the stack and looked it over. I couldn't find any sign of tampering, but I tossed it in the waste chute anyway and went back up to the flight room.

  "Well?" asked Gabe holding in laughter.

  "I think I'm being subject to abuse above and beyond the call." I growled as I sat back down.

  "I was just teasing Raj," Rudy laughed, "You don't think I'd actually tamper with the rations do you?"

  I looked him over carefully, then pinched him on the stomach.

  "Ouch!" he said jumping up, "What in the hell did you do that for!"

  "Who knows how many of those boxes you tampered? Maybe I should just eat you first." I looked him over again, "How much do you owe now anyway?"

  "Ha ha, very funny," he glared without laughing, "I knew I should have waited till we were dirtside to pull that trick on you."

  "Honestly, I'm hurt. Do you really think I would eat you?" I leaned over and whispered to Dave just loud enough to be overheard, "What do you think? Would he be better marinated or just thrown in a stew?"

  "Stew is what I had planned for Gabe here myself," he said jerking a thumb at him, "But he keeps balking every time I try to smuggle a stew pot onboard."

  "Heeyyy!" Said Gabe turning around, "I told you I wanted to be marinated in red wine or it's hands off!" he laughed.

  "What is this? Chefs anonymous?" Asked Jerry from the next table.

  We degenerated pretty quickly into a comparison of made up menus after that. The only interesting thing was seeing who the main course was. It didn't last too long, as the Chief came in and threaten to make soup out of our testicles if we didn't get back to studying the breakout plan.

  At about twelve hours prior, everybody was sent off to get some rest. My quarters turned out to be safe, so I was pretty happy to crash and get some sleep. I was still rather tired.

  22

  We were strapped in and waiting, the shuttle's systems were all up and running, I had the engines warmed up and ready to go. We just sat there watching the countdown.

  "Bet you a week's pay we launch," Rudy said checking the systems on the two ship killers we were carrying.

  "What makes you so sure?" I asked, "And as long as you're at it check the LRGM's too." We carried four of them on the outboard stations.

  "Because we're carrying a really rich load, and everybody knows where we're going," he said as he complied and checked those as well.

  "You really think so?" I asked, and just then the count hit zero and we came out. I released the safeties then and turned to look at one of the displays that had been giving me trouble. It was working fine now, and suddenly I heard a loud "Shit!" from Rudy, and we jerked forward in the rack.

  "Pre-Launch!" I yelled, and we went through the five steps of the che
cklist in less than a second. I just had time to look up when we got kicked out too.

  I ran the throttles up to full, hit the Master Arm on my panel and yanked the key off my neck and stuck it in the slot on the right console. I then gave the display my full attention, and started to follow the vector being supplied by the Astra's com laser.

  "What is it?" I asked as I moved us into position, we were two seconds behind lead and Jerry would be two seconds behind us.

  "Looks like a medium freighter with damn big engines," we both started reading the feed that the Astra was still able to supply us.

  "Prepare to lose all communications," came Katrine's voice over the laser feed. "We will initiate laser defense in ten seconds. The ship has not been identified, but has changed its course to an intercept. It is to be considered hostile, arm all Nukes. Repeat, target is hostile, arm all Nukes. You are free to fire at your discretion."

  The nukes were our SK’s of course, five megatons each.I checked the state information that the Astra had just provided us with, and then the data cut off as the Laser defenses were activated.

  I grabbed the key, "On three! One, Two, Three," I turned my key and in the back Rudy turned his. A brief warning horn bleeped in my headset and a yellow and black trefoil lit on my armament's panel.

  "Okay Raj, everything looks good. I've got a positive track on the target, and our short range com units are registering both Klien's and Jerry's ships".

  That was good, we had short range com lasers that could track them as well, but a missile could lock on to those and really ruin our day. They'd try to jam us though, just as soon as we got close enough.

  "Alpha flight, this is Alpha lead," That was Klien calling us.

  "Two," I replied thumbing the button on the throttle.

  "Three." That was Jerry.

  "Execute tango one, repeat, execute tango one. Out."

  "Alpha two, tango one." I replied.

  "Alpha three, tango one."

  "Well, look's like we're going all the way in," Rudy said.

  "Look's like," I depressurized the cabin, locked out the uncoded radio and turned the ECM to 'active'. "It's show time!"

  We were about eighty miles from the Astra at this point, and still a good thousand from the Target. But it was closing fast, as it had to go by us to get at the Astra. We were still burning at full throttle and I started a vector change, following lead. This was to allow us to stay with the target once it closed rather than making a fast pass at it and then having to waste a long time coming back to make another one.

  It would allow us to get as close as we wanted, and use as many weapons as possible on them, even our self guiding thirty millimeter machine guns which can play havoc on a ship's sensors.

  Of course the bad part was that they'd be able to do the same to us, and we hadn't even seen a sign of their attack shuttles yet.

  "What's the Astra doing?" I asked Rudy, not wanting to take my eyes off the target, which was being displayed in my helmet.

  "Burning for the gravity well like a big dog," he fed the data to a small window on my display, "I guess the Captain decided to make for the local defenses rather than try to go back into jump. There goes Bravo flight!"

  I checked the window he had given me and saw the flash of a ship leaving the Astra, which looked more like a cloud now that the sandcasters were going full bore.

  "Any sign of the opposition's forces?" I asked.

  "Not yet, I suspect they're being held in until they close."

  They were about three hundred miles now, and suddenly their engine stopped. "Look's like they're going to flip for a deccel burn." I flipped the laser shield on the canopy down for a sec to check if the cameras agreed with my eyes.

  "They'll start launching real soon then!"

  I flipped the shield back up satisfied. "At least they don't have any high powered laser gear."

  "Yeah, or they'd be trying to fry us for sure."

  I saw several dots detach from the Target then, and the ECM's indicators started flashing like crazy.

  "Setting up a missile screen," Rudy said from the back, "I don't think it's anything we can't handle with the jammers and the disposables. I don't see their shuttles yet though."

  We continued to close the gap, but as both the target was slowing and our vector was changing, it took several minutes. It seemed like an hour. When we were about one hundred miles away, at the edge of our ship killer's range, they launched their shuttles.

  "Damn!" I breathed, "I count six, no they just launched another," I started some evasive maneuvers then as we had just reached the missile screen. Rudy handled the jammers and I tried not to let anything come too close. By the time we had gotten past the screen I could see there were seven shuttles, of which three were definitely headed our way. The other four looked like they were going to make for the Astra. We were eighty miles out.

  "Alpha Flight, start run," came Klien's voice over the radio.

  "Two," I replied and pushed the throttles back up to military.

  "Three," replied Jerry, probably doing the same.

  The plan was pretty simple now, Jerry and I were the only ones in the group with ship killers on board. Klein was loaded with about ten LRGM's and was supposed to clear a path through for us.

  We closed with the shuttles about ten seconds later, they launched at us, trying to protect their ship, and we launched back at them. Kind of cut and dried when you think about it. The next ten seconds were kind of hectic, as both sides tried everything they could to keep from getting fried.

  The end score was two of theirs to one of ours, Klien didn't make it.

  "Look like anybody alive over there?" I asked Rudy after we had passed through.

  "Couldn't tell, but that second shuttle of theirs doesn't look too badly damaged, so keep an eye on it."

  The one shuttle that had survived was looping back after us, but it wouldn't be a problem for a while. The ship ahead was a different story however.

  They started in with the short range lasers first, and a whole bunch of missiles next. I launched my first ship killer at thirty miles out just to give them something else to worry about, and started doing evasive maneuvers like crazy. The lasers were doing a job on us, but they retargeted their missiles on the ship killer, so we survived a little longer.

  I checked on the Astra while all this was going on to see that we had gotten pretty close to it by now. I saw my missile get tagged by one of the ones that had originally been launched at me, and the resulting fire ball cleaned out a lot of the others that had been giving me headaches.

  "They're opening fire on the Astra," Rudy reported. I saw several large missiles go boosting up and I even managed to tag one with my last LRGM.

  "Nice shooting Raj."

  "What are those anyway?" I didn't recognize the type.

  "Hull breechers, they don't want to kill the Astra, just cripple it."

  So it went for the next minute or so, Rudy was able to get the other ship killer within a half mile of the target before he had to detonate it.

  "Well I bet that hurt," Rudy laughed as I brought us around and started to head back towards the Astra. All we had left at this point was the thirty millimeter.

  The Astra had been doing pretty well itself, being armed with rail guns; expensive sure, but worth it in this case.

  "Hey Raj, swing back to this heading will ya?"

  "Sure, what's up?" I turned us to the heading Rudy fed me.

  "As long as we can't fight, we might as well check out Klien and see if he or Buck survived."

  "Good point," I headed us out that way, and Rudy did what he could to make us invisible.

  We watched the fight continue without us, we weren't too worried at this point, Bravo flight had sent the two remaining shuttles of the four that had gone after the Astra into retreat. The one which had been chasing Jerry and I was too far out of position now to be a player, and was heading back to its ship as well. When Jerry's last ship killer went off a quarter of a m
ile from the side of the ship, causing more damage, they broke off in earnest and started to run for it.

  "Think their shuttles will make it back?" I asked Rudy. I had our engines shut down and we were coasting ourselves, pretty low on fuel.

  "Hard to say, I guess it depends on their fuel supply. Uh oh, Captain just launched a torp, guess they weren't running fast enough for him."

  I checked the display, but couldn't see it. "Think it'll hit?"

  "Depends on how much damage Jerry did I guess. The two ships were only one hundred miles apart at launch, but they're both accelerating away from each other with everything they've got."

  Whoever was controlling the torp was good, because it hit the ship right were Jerry had destroyed the surface defenses and sensors. It blew the ship right in half, then the engines detonated and vaporized the entire rear half of the ship, kicking the front into a wild spin and breaking it into several large chunks.

  I checked to see where Jerry was, found that he was well away from the explosion and heading back to the Astra. The two shuttles that had been retreating started broadcasting their surrender on an open channel. The other one hadn't been so lucky, having been engulfed in the fireball.

  "I guess that settles that," I turned the radar back on to speed up the search. It took us about five minutes, during which Rudy raised the Astra on the com laser and told them what we were doing.

  Klein was dead when we found him, having been torn apart by the explosion. Buck, his WSO, was dead too. We went over to the crippled enemy shuttle then, it was only a few miles away but we still had to get back in and 'fly' over there. It wasn't showing any lights, but we both got out and floated over again to make sure. Nobody wants to die of suffocation in space, so we weren't going to leave without checking.

  The WSO was dead in this one, the missile had hit the canopy and his head was gone. The pilot's seat was empty however, and we found him, or rather her, in the small hold trying to get the emergency power going. From the patches that had obviously been put on her suit by herself, I was surprised she was still able to work.

  She was happy when she saw us; her suit radio was dead so we had to touch helmets to talk. She surrendered immediately of course, we didn't tell her about the ship however.