Children of Steel

by John Van Stry

  “Yes Sir.”

  I walked back over to Rysan who was watching bemused.

  “He made that look easy.” Rysan laughed.

  “Worst of all, I can’t figure out what he did.”

  “Me neither, but then I’m not one of you martial artist geeks.”

  Sure enough, as I was heading back to my room after my shift a male leopard I’d never seen before fell into step beside me.

  “Hi, I’m Hawkeye. I’m Balizar’s new Sergeant.”

  “Raj,” I said to him.

  “Care to head to the gym?”

  “Just let me get changed.” I got my stuff and came back out. We were still planet side, I was working with the loading crews when I wasn’t doing a shift flying. I’d move up to the ship tomorrow. “So where does Hawkeye come from?”

  “Old book, called ‘last of the Mohegan’s’, our nanny was a reader, and that was the book she was on when she got us. So we all got names from it.”

  “Huh, interesting.”

  “Why Raj?”

  “Short for Rajah. Asian Leopards, Asian names. Or so they said, one of my brothers is named Randell. So we never really figured it out.”

  We came to the gym then and went inside and found an open area. People quickly got out of the way; Hawkeye looked a little surprised, but didn’t comment. After all, this was fairly typical.

  We bowed in and then started sparring. He wasn’t bad, he was actually pretty good, almost as good as Herza was. For a moment I was tempted to put him away, I know I could, and a few times I almost did, but I pulled it at the last moment. He came back at me, but he started pulling his own punches as well. I stepped back then and bowed out.

  “I concede.” I said. I noticed a few who were watching looked surprised.

  “Excuse me?” He looked surprised.

  “I concede.” I bowed again, “You win.”

  “You were pulling your punches,” he said dropping his stance and relaxing.

  “So were you.” I suspected that telling him about Balizar and the spanner probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

  He shrugged and we hand bumped. “Far be it from me to complain. I have to go report anyway.”

  I nodded and watched as he walked out then went to get my bag.

  “Oh hi! I’m Danielle!"

  I turned and saw a rather attractive female black leopard walking over from the changing rooms. I smiled, this was going to be fun.

  “I’m Raj. Here to go a few rounds?”

  She laughed and nodded. “I saw you two pop in here so I thought I’d join in. Where did Hawkeye go?”

  “He said he had to report, guess you’ll have to catch him later.”

  She nodded. “Just us two I guess.”

  I nodded again and took up a defensive stance as she came on to the mat.

  It was a much more enjoyable match for me, because I could do what I wanted to. Which meant win. But I didn’t thrash her, that wouldn’t have been all that much fun when I thought about it. So I bounced her off the wall and then stood there waiting as she picked herself up.

  Danielle looked at me, and attacked again and so I bounced her off the same spot of the wall again a few minutes later.

  This time she scowled at me and came at me harder.

  I bounced her off a bit harder that time and she winced a little as she got up. She looked at me and sighed ears splayed. “I think you win.”

  I smiled back, “Let’s go hit the showers, then if you want I’ll give you a massage to make up for that last one.”

  She looked at me sort of side long, and then looked me up and down taking me in.

  “A massage would be nice,” she said after a moment and smiled, “Shall we?” and she led the way to the showers, her tail a little high flicking about as she walked in front of me, her hips making a nice counter point to her motions to keep my attention I was sure.

  We washed each other down in the showers and scrubbed each other’s fur.

  “Serious muscles,” She commented as she lathered my fur.

  “I’m a bit of an exercise nut,” I admitted while enjoying the feeling of her body as I lathered her as well.

  “A bit of a martial arts nut too I gather from your performance on the mats,” she observed.

  “Guilty as charged,” I said with a laugh.

  “Anything else you’re good at I should know about?” she asked with a giggle.

  “Why don’t we dry off and go back to my room and I’ll show you?"

  “Oh, why don’t we indeed?”

  It was a good night.

  Kyrani caught up with me when I was off shift shipboard the next evening. I was pretty amazed by her, she was actually younger then me! Fifteen, fresh out of the crèche. I was extremely gentle with her, even if the fight lasted less than the time it took to talk about it.

  She also spent the night, though she was a lot more shy than Danielle had been, and a lot more timid in bed. At first at least. It turned out I was her first, as in the first male not of her crèche group that she had ever slept with. My ego soared to new bounds that night, I think for the first time in my life I was the more experienced lover and I took full advantage of it. I almost had to peel her off when we parted company after breakfast the next morning. I had to smile as I remembered almost doing the same thing to Herza after our first night together. She had really ‘rocked my world’ as someone once put it.

  The Clan meeting was that night, we’d be breaking orbit the next day, and I made sure I got there early. I still was waiting to see the last new addition.

  “Ah Raj, glad to see you’re here early. You can help me set up.”

  I nodded and helped Sharazad move a few things around and get the pillows out for the floor. We chatted as the others showed up. Hawkeye was there fairly early too, and Danielle showed up after him. When a female spotted showed up that I had never seen before I quickly rose to my feet as Sharazad made introductions.

  “This is Selenna. Selenna from left to right you have Mist, Franz, Kate, who are too obviously a pair. Balizar who you’ve met, Lyle, Banner, and Terease, our second pair, then Hawkeye, Danielle, both of whom are new, and Raj.”

  She went down the line exchanging greetings until she finally came to me.

  “Raj hmmmm?” She purred looking me up and down, quiet obviously sizing me up, and not for what Hawkeye or the others had had in mind. She was older, probably forties I’d guess, so well past the challenge stage of leopard social life. But she was rather fit and extremely attractive. “I’d heard you were a big tom, guess the stories were true,” and she winked at me. “Makes me wonder about the other stories now as well…"

  Everyone laughed as I blushed and exchanged greetings with her then laid back down on the floor, my back propped up against the couch.

  “What, no come backs?” She said walking over and looking down at me.

  “I’ve found it better to respect my elders,” I said with a grin.

  “Elders?!” She laughed, “Hardly! I ain’t dead yet hon. Maybe we should go a few rounds.”

  She dropped down on her hands and knees straddling me, her face inches from mine as she smiled.

  “Hmm, sure you can keep up?” I purred as she settled down and got comfy there on top of me in a pleasantly and completely distracting manner.

  “If I can’t I’m sure they’ll bury me with a smile!” she said with a smirk and everyone laughed.

  I had to laugh as well.

  Kyrani showed up at that point. She was rather stiff, and formally dressed and I watched as they tripped her and mobbed her and pretty much did to her what they’d done to me when I had first shown up. They’d been right, only the young ones needed to be tripped; the others had pretty much dived right in.

  It was a good meeting, the new members told us about themselves, where they were from, what they would be doing here, and anything else they felt like mentioning. By the end of the night Lyle and Kyrani had paired up, and Danielle and Hawkeye paired up as well. Selen
na, had staked an obvious claim on me when she’d gotten there and I wasn’t complaining at all.

  I’d seen some sensuous leopards in the last few years, but none of them had anything on Selenna. That night she proved to me that old adage about age versus experience and she definitely put me through my paces. Oh I definitely left her with a huge smile on her face, and had a nice matching one of my own, but I was as tired as if I’d fought a twelve round title fight.

  We finally shipped out a day late, the Captain had been trying to get a replacement for the shuttle crew we had lost and stayed an extra day just in case. Unfortunately he wasn't successful, so we'd be a little short handed on the shuttle crews.

  The first three weeks in drive were spent on drills. With as many new people as we had on board, it was important to make sure we could work together in an emergency. At least that's what the Exec told us, I think he was just working out a small sadistic streak of his own. Or maybe we were going to start seeing more action, some of the rumors I heard from the new people weren't very encouraging. It seemed that the Auntie-anns had been more active than normal of late, and then there were our own run ins with them as well. They also had a name for them now, they were called the ‘Humanist movement’ and were suspected of having ties to some of the major Auntie-ann groups on Earth, Hobson’s Choice and some of the other settled planets.

  All in all, it was a gigantic pain in the butt. At least the available male to female Leopard ratio was slightly more in my favor, and I took good advantage of it too.

  Our first stop was Cirus, a rather plain and humdrum world. As animen our reception was normal, and so were the incidents. We only stayed on planet for three days, the Captain was reportedly anxious to make up the lost day on his schedule, and we had just come off a long leave anyway.

  Our next stop was another planet survey. The planet had been named Woodstock by the original survey team as it was covered with dense forests. They had only made a quick stop here however some four years ago, so we were being sent in to finish up. The planet was suspected to have some good minerals and the company was hoping to find some good biologicals in all those forests for use in drug research as well.

  I liked it myself. The temperature was nice and warm, there was lots of shade, and it rained at least once a day. They set up a survey team, got us situated and then left. This was only going to be a four month stay and we wouldn't be doing much geological testing. The company had supposedly already decided to put an installation here if the biological report continued to be favorable. We were here primarily to find a good location for it.

  The team that was left this time was myself of course, Dave who was now my WSO since Rudy had left, Mist who was part of the security detachment, Kate and Franz. The rest of the group was about the same make up as last time, only we had a few less geologists and a few more biologists. Klaus was in charge of the show again, and Tiberious was our security chief. The only bad part was Rasha wouldn't be there, and Marcus would.

  Now I wasn't too worried about him, we had both spent a lot of time avoiding each other since that day long ago. Rasha who I still saw occasionally, had told me that he wasn't holding a grudge, which was fine with me, I don't think either of us really wanted a rematch. As he had been stuck on the shift opposite mine on the Astra however, not running into him was fairly easy. Now we'd probably end up working together. I resolved not to be too paranoid.

  There were about forty of us total, the rest were primarily biologists and techs with a geologist and a few medical staff thrown in. Most of whom I really didn’t know well yet if at all.

  Setting up didn't take too long, we were able to use light buildings in the favorable climate and people worked quickly in the warm weather. The hardest part had been cutting back a clearing large enough to fit everything in. Landing the shuttle on the first trip had been a bit tricky as the space was extremely tight, but now we had cleared enough that we even had a decent perimeter around our base camp.

  We didn't really expect to have any trouble, but we had no idea at all what the local animal life consisted of yet. So far we hadn't seen a thing, but all the activity may have just scared it away.

  The first month was pretty enjoyable actually. We did a lot of sample collecting, and even shot a few of the larger animals after the biologists discovered that they were edible so we even had a little fresh meat. Climbing the trees was fun of course; they went up rather high too. As for the local wild life, most of what we saw was fairly small, the big ones were all herbivores, and everything was pretty much afraid of us and the camp.

  During the second month however, things began to change some what. One of the scouts got jumped and killed by a large catlike predator, and we began to see several other large predators in the area of the camp occasionally. They were getting used to us by now I guess, so everyone started being a lot more cautious.

  The animal that had killed the scout turned out to be a lot like my ancestors, only more arboreal. It could swivel its hind paws as well as the front, so it could hang from the trees that much easier. It did have some obvious differences of course, the fur was a very interesting color of greens and blacks, and its tail was totally prehensile. It also had a double set of fangs top and bottom. While it only weighted in at about one thirty it was tough as nails, taking three shots to drop it unless you hit something vital.

  Over the next three months we lost five more people, four of them off on expeditions of one sort or another. One of those was to wildlife, three due to a climbing accident in the mountains during a storm. But we did lose one inside the compound to an animal attack.

  It had happened very quickly, one of the Monkey medics had been out running along the perimeter for exercise. There was nothing strange about that, I did it myself. Suddenly a rather large predator that none of us had seen before charged the fence from the brush and cleared it in a single bound. The fence was twenty feet high, this thing was big!

  The alarms went off of course, and the automated system hit it with a burst of ten millimeter bullets, but it still lived long enough to tear her to pieces and then charge the rest of us who came running out guns blazing. We did kill it, but not before several of us got knocked around from its paws and tail. I managed to dodge, those who didn't got quite a few broken bones.

  After we had it killed the Bio's came out and gave it the once over. It was about fifty feet long, had huge hind legs and a long heavy tail for balance. It was covered with scales and looked partially reptilian. That it was a good jumper we could all testify. It hadn't been too fast after that though, but Kate thought that might have been due to the damage caused by the camp's defenses.

  We cleaned up our dead comrade and had a quick burial. The dead lizard was another problem however, it weighted at least two tons and the Biologists weren't going to let us just hack it up and cart it off. So we had to wait four days while they cut it up themselves, and then we could dump some of it. It started to stink really bad by then though, and other predators were starting to show up at the fence.

  Everybody had been surprised by the arrival of gigantor; nobody had seen his like in the four months we had been here. There was a lot of heated debate about getting rid of the carcass before all hell broke lose, but the scientist's got permission to keep it another couple of days. The main selling point of course was that the Astra was due back any day now, so they'd never get the chance again.

  Those of us doing security were all a little edgy about it though; Tiberious was personally sitting up on the night watches, and had set up an antipersonnel mine just outside the fence.

  "I wish I knew just where the hell the Astra was," he confided to me one night as we sat watch. "They should have been here last week!"

  "I'd just by happy to get rid of that damn lizard!" I muttered. The carcass had been with us seven days now, and the smell was beginning to grow.

  An alarm went off on the fence; I checked the monitor and saw another predator trying to climb over. This was the third one tonigh
t, I guess they found the smell enticing; I flipped off the safety on the turret and zapped him with a short burst.

  "Damn things are getting to be a real problem," Tiberious growled, "I don't care what anybody says, that thing is going tomorrow!"

  We zapped another four by daybreak and the fence was starting to show some damage.

  "Go get one of the choppers warmed up," Tiberious told me as he picked up the intercom handset. "I'm gonna get a sling rigged on that thing immediately."

  I got up and left the room, stopping at Dave's on the way out.

  "Yo! Wake up!" I called banging on the door.

  "It's open Raj."

  I stuck my head inside, "Hi Marie," I said, noticing Dave wasn't alone, "Get up, I'm going to need somebody to handle the winch on the helicopter."

  "Why what's up?" he said looking at the time display, "I'm not on for another hour yet."

  "We're getting rid of Gigantor, Tiberious has finally had enough of it, and I don't think he wants to give the scientists a chance to give him an argument."

  "Fine, I'll see you there in ten." he started to slide out of bed and I left.

  The helicopter was in the hanger area, with most of the other aircraft we had. This one was actually a cargo job, having no passenger compartment, but rather a module rack behind the control seats. There was no module mounted there presently, so the midsection was just the spine of the aircraft. I checked the winch that was located in the recess while doing my normal checkout procedure. I was just getting ready to start engines when Dave walked in and the Camp's alert sounded.

  "What the hell is that?" I yelled to Dave and grabbed my helmet, which I had taken off while pre-flighting the helicopter.

  He turned and ran back out the door, and I followed grabbing my rifle as I did so. It was then that I heard the alert message being broadcast through my helmet comm.

  "We have a breach of the security fence at sector nine by the carcass, all troops to report immediately!"

  I could hear the gun on the tower opening up on full auto. I followed Dave around the corner and was shocked by what I saw, it was a whole herd of those lizards! They were going after the carcass and getting shot up in the process. Rather than retreat though they just continued to advance, and even started to pick up speed!