Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (3 page)

“How do you live with yourself?” Arstoll asked her, frowning at his former Squadmate. “Seeing what you do. Knowing what you do.
Doing
what you do, and
not
doing. If even half the rumors running around the Space Force in the last few weeks are true . . . how is it that you’ve stayed
sane
?”

“I have too much work to do to go mad and not enough time to dwell on my mistakes. Or to keep track of old comrades, other than snatches here and there. You ever heard what happened to Sung, and Crosp, and the others from Basic?” Ia asked. “Spyder’s with me, and Sergeant Tae’s the uncle of my first officer, of all things, but I’ve been too busy with other concerns to check on the rest.”

“Uhh . . . Crosp got called back home to take up the reins of the family business. That was before the war started,” Brad dredged up out of his memory. “Sung . . . hell if I know. The one thing I knew, she was being shipped off from Basic to stand guard at some embassy among the Gatsugi. She’s probably still doing that. Sergeant Linley always praised her hand-to-hand and her observational skills, said she’d be great for guard work. Oh, and ZeeZee made it to Sergeant First Class last year. Wait, you said Spyder’s with you?”

Ia nodded. “Lieutenant Second Class—Field Honor, like you and me—and he’s in charge of my 2nd Platoon, plus serves as the tactical coordinator for all mass troop movements. That got put to the test on Dabin just recently, which is why I need replacements. He does say ‘hi,’ by the way. Sorry, I almost forgot to mention that. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“I can only imagine what you have to keep track of. Can you, ah . . . you know, see them right now?” Brad asked her. “I mean, see the others in our old Squad since you say you’ve got a few minutes?”

Ia lifted her brows at the suggestion, then shrugged. “I suppose I can check.”

Closing her eyes, she flipped herself onto the timeplains and searched. It didn’t take long to find the old threads from her Basic days, nor to follow them down through to the current day. Sobered, she opened her eyes again.

“I’m sorry to report that Sung died during the initial invasion of the Gatsugi homeworld. She was taken out while defending the Terran Embassy from a clutch of Salik robots,” Ia stated quietly. “She took more than a few with her, but they still took her out.”

“Damn,” Arstoll whispered, hanging his head. “I liked her.”

Another brief glimpse—since she had the time to spare for it—gave Ia another view on their old Squadmates. “I can see ZeeZee’s still a Sergeant First Class. He’ll live for at least three more years, but I cannot guarantee beyond that point. The second war front will evoke too many shifting possibilities for his sector of space. Crosp . . . has two kids, twins, and looks like he acquired a thriving munitions business with military contracts, so he’s still supporting the war effort in his own way.

“The rest are . . . still enlisted in the Corps in various duty posts around the war front, except for Kumanei. She opted for pilot training in the Navy, and is flying drop ships as a Chief Yeoman out of . . . Battle Platform
Anna Yesarova
,” Ia concluded, double-checking the name. “I can’t tell you where, though; that’s Classified above your pay grade.”

“What’s this second war front you mentioned?” Arstoll asked, distracting himself from the grim news of Sung’s death.

“The Greys are coming back. Don’t share it with your troops just yet,” Ia added, ignoring his sharp, worried look. “They don’t need to fret themselves to death over it.”

“
Shakk . . .
Ia,
can
anything be done against them?” he asked. “I don’t think our tech’s progressed nearly enough to even sneeze on them, but . . . well, we beat them back with psis last time, so we do have enough of ’em this time, right?”

She shook her head. “They’re a dying race, and they’re growing more and more desperate. It’s even odds they’ll get their hands on the Salik anti-psi machinery, and if they do, it’ll be a very hard-fought war. But we
will
stop them. I have foreseen it,” she murmured, staring across the boardroom without actually seeing its rows of padded seats.

He gave her a wary look. Ia patted him lightly on the shoulder.

“Relax, and don’t worry about it. It’s all well above your pay grade, either way. Concentrate on your
own
troops,” she advised him, nodding at the half-wrecked boardroom around them. “This corner of the galaxy is just as important as any other out there. Tell me what you think of these Scadians. I may be able to
see
them in the waters of time, and I know what I’ll need to do with them, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever dealt with them before. Knowing and doing are two different things. We learned that in Basic.”

“We did. As for the Scadians . . . They’re . . . insane. In the most
benign
ways imaginable,” Arstoll explained, or at least tried, gesturing vaguely as he spoke. “The most honorable people I have ever met. And the most stubborn in many ways. Peculiar, too. Friendly, polite, and cheerful, but odd beyond measure. Some of the
best
close-quarters fighting I have ever seen. Do not let them goad you into a swordfight. I thought
we
learned swordfighting back in Basic, but these meioas—both genders—will make minced garlic out of you.”

“Minced garlic?” Ia asked, skeptical at his word choice.

“Minced garlic, minced onions, minced whatever. They’ll slice you to shreds that thoroughly and leave you crying while they do so. The Marines have nothing on ’em with a blade in their hands,” he added, tucking his arms across his chest once more. “In fact, they could probably give the Afaso a run for their money, too. But only with a blade, or some other melee weapon. They don’t do nearly as much of the weaponless stuff.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, but it’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll be challenged anyway,” Ia admitted. At his sharp look, she explained. “I told you, have to go down to the capital city of Regnum to appropriate two of their soldiers. To do so, I have to get permission from the colonial leader, their ‘Emperor’ . . . who just might demand that
I
show myself ‘worthy of being their warleader,’ to put it in Scadian terms.”

“Which means a swordfight,” Arstoll muttered, not without sympathy. “You’re
shakked
. I remember your being good with a blade back in Basic, thanks to all that fancy Afaso training you’d had, but these meioas are beyond good, like a General is beyond a mere Captain . . . begging pardon, sir.”

“Don’t worry about me, Arstoll. Worry about continuing to help Commander Eosod get the
Leo Major
back into fighting form. Put all of C and D under the engineering department, so they have the extra hands they’ll need,” she told him, meaning the latter two of his four Platoon groups. “You won’t need them in fighting trim for the next week, when A and B will do. Hold the fort around here until late November. By that point, the Salik will have a lot more to worry about than a backwater colonyworld of historical re-creationists.

“If the locals give you or the commander trouble, remind them that every single person on this ship has given their word of honor—that phrasing exactly—to defend the lives of every single person on or around Scadia. Tell them that each one of you will die before you break your vows. That’ll impress them. Just make sure to follow through on it,” Ia warned him. “You’re representing the entire honor of the Space Force in this command, between you and Captain Eosod. Your ability to hold true to your word of honor will have repercussions on Terran-Scadian military relations for the next four hundred years, and that’s not hyperbole. That’s another reason why I wanted to keep you here. I know you can do it.”

“Then I’ll try to remember all that,” he promised. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Arstoll cursed under his breath. “Dammit . . . you can’t give me any winning lottery numbers, can you? Fatality Forty-Nine gets in the way, doesn’t it?”

Ia gave him a wry smile. “Yes, it does. I would if I could, but I can’t. Even if the regs weren’t in the way, your winning a lot of money at this point in your life would change that life for the worse.” At her words, he only chuckled. She eyed him warily. “Why does
that
thought amuse you?”

Leaning back on his palms, her former training mate shrugged. “I was just thinking for a moment you must have the most wonderful powers in the universe, to be able to see anything,
know
anything . . . but it’s not really all that wonderful because you can’t
do
anything you want, can you?” At the shake of her head, he tipped his own. “That thought amuses me. I don’t know why.”

Ia thought about it and decided she wasn’t offended by his laugh. “Maybe because it makes me Human?”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “I don’t think I’d laugh at a God, but then I’ve never met one. Stay Human, Ia. Remember that you’re fallible. That your power comes with a price, and—”

“—And a responsibility. Yes, I know,” she admitted, completing the sentence with him. “I won’t ever be able to forget my failures. The best I can do is strive to make sure they don’t happen again.”

Again, they let a companionable silence fall between them. Or rather, quiet. Sounds of repairs could be heard reverberating through the decking from somewhere in the distance. It reminded Ia of when she had first claimed command of the
Hellfire
. Finally, she drew in a deep breath and straightened, though she didn’t yet stand.

“So. While you have a member of the Command Staff a captive listener, so to speak—since I have another fourteen minutes before I’m due to meet Garcia in the docking bay—is there anything you’d like to discuss, or request?”

Folding his arms, he gave it some thought, then spoke decisively. “Space mines. Insystem, not orbital. If you cannot get us another ship, get us some repositionable mines. I’d also take a couple squadrons of fighter craft if I could, make ’em a gift to the Emperor. The Scadian Army lost too many in the last few fights.”

Ia thought about his requests for a moment—checking them in the timestreams—then nodded. “You’ll have the fighters in three days, but while I can get you the mines, it’ll take a little longer. I already foresaw the need for the fighters, so they’re on their way. Older craft, which would’ve been decommissioned and recycled for the private sector, but they’re still good enough in a fight. The Scadians will make good use of ’em. Didn’t think about the mines, though. It’ll work, but it’ll take at least seven, eight days.”

“It’ll do. Anything I can do for you?” Arstoll asked her.

Reaching behind him, she tapped the box containing his new rank insignia and the datachip she had promised, which he had set down on the tabletop at some point. “Pay attention to my suggestions. Live as long and happily as you care to. Stay Human yourself, admit when you’re wrong, and keep going. Be honest when talking to others about me; let ’em know what you thought of me in Basic, however flattering and unflattering those thoughts may be, as well as what you think of me now. I need to be a legend in order to lead everyone on the right paths to win all these wars, but I need to be a
Human
legend, with failings as well as successes, foes as well as friends. Otherwise, people won’t always believe
in
me, even if they might believe me. Anything else?”

“. . . Got any medals for my people?” he asked her next. “Or the crew of this ship?”

Ia shook her head. “Those have to be reviewed by the right departments, based on all your post-battle reports. I can’t hand them out arbitrarily. Not without risking my own hide. But there
will
be medals awarded. You really did fight hard and well here,” she promised him. “I’ll be putting down everything in my post-battle report.”

“How much damage did your own ship take?” Arstoll asked, curious.

She grinned. “We scratched the hull in a few places, enough to need swapping out the ceristeel panels so the repair teams can buff them smooth, plus three FTL panels and a shield array. But it’s nothing they can’t fix by the time I’m back on board. Of course, it’s a brand-new ship,” she added in explanation. “Commander Harper—he’s my first officer, my logistics officer, and my chief engineer all in one, as well as Sergeant Tae’s nephew—he was swearing up a storm at me for having to organize fifteen different replacement parts for the hull. You should hear him when I’ve
really
dinged our hide. If I took any of his insults and threats seriously, he’d be court-martialed three ways from Sunday on a monthly basis, if not weekly.”

Arstoll smiled at that, then frowned. “He’s covering all three of those jobs?” he asked her. “I didn’t see much of it, but isn’t that odd-looking ship of yours big enough to have all the officers you need?”

“It’s a new class, sized to crew at least 500, but I’m running it with less than 160 at the moment—161 once I get all my replacements. I keep forgetting to count myself,” she confessed. “Everyone runs at least three, four positions on board. Even the chaplain and me—the chaplain, the doctor, even our Company clerks are all combat-ready,
and
combat-proved, from tactical training to hand-to-hand combat skills. There’s a reason why my crew is now the best of the best.”

“And you want
Garcia
?” he muttered dubiously, thinking about it. “Ia . . . she’s no good here. She’s easily confused. She lags behind in a lot of things . . . I don’t know how she made it through Basic, to be honest. Are you sure you want
her
on your ship?”

“The thing most people don’t realize, Brad, is that I don’t dare pull anyone away from any other position in the known galaxy who is
needed
in that position,” Ia told him. “I can only take the throwaways, those whose lives
or
deaths wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference spent anywhere else. But on
my
ship, as one of all the men and women I’ve selected? Those lives spent
there
will finally count for something. Garcia passed Basic in the Marine Corps because she was in the right environment, with the right people around her, supporting and encouraging her. She’s failing here because she doesn’t fit in here. It’s not right for her. She will fit in again on my ship, and do great things under my care.”