Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (32 page)

“Premiere Mandella, I apologize for the damage to the Red Castle region domes on Mars, but it was absolutely necessary, sir. One of my subordinates dropped the ball on tracking a piece of the plague. As soon as I found out about it, the only materials available to stop it were a quad-sized hydrobomb and a handful of Feyori.” Her right hand flicked the controls, opening an untouched data folder. “I am sending you . . . on subchannel beta . . . information and an authorization code for using an account registered in my brother’s name. It has been earmarked with his permission specifically for paying for repairs and reparations for any damages made by mistake.”

“Your brother? . . . Right, the famous Meioa Fyfer Quentin-Jones, the lottery winner,” he recalled. “Who was lost behind enemy lines, and who will be declared dead in ten years. Nice to know he’ll be returning the money early.”

“No, he will not, sir. Most of his money has been earmarked for his lawfully designated heir, who will appear two hundred years from now . . . and as the Alliance Lottery is adjudicated and enforced by the V’Dan Empire, they are taking my word very seriously that there
will
be a lawfully designated heir in two centuries. For now, sir, you will have access to fourteen million credits. Twelve of those need to be earmarked specifically for repairing the domes and rebuilding the atmospheric processing tower.”

Another tap of the controls nudged the
Damnation
into motion and shifted the view of that slowly diffusing cloud on Mars to a view of the curve of the rocky, purplish surface of Seldun IV. Ia kept her eyes on what she was doing with the ship, though she continued to speak to the head of the Terran government.

“Those people will need their jobs stable and steady four years from now. If you get going on the paperwork and the red tape right now, construction will be cleared and funded to begin one week after the Quarantine Extreme ends.” She checked the navigation information which Balle, as efficient as Private Mysuri, fed to her on the location of the gathered canisters. “In the meantime, I wish to officially commend Private First Class Suriya Mysuri of E Beta, 3rd Platoon, A Company, 1st Legion through Division, 9th Cordon Special Forces. Her quick thinking in ordering the evacuation before I could even think to do it has saved the lives of over fifty-three thousand Martian colonists from troubles and dangers related to the local domes cracking and failing.”

“She did, did she?” Mandella asked.

Ia met his gaze and nodded. “She’s not the only one who has shown initiative, innovation, and competency above and beyond even my expectations, either. I am increasingly proud of this crew, sir,” she stated, knowing the bridge crew, sparse though it was, would spread her words to the others on board. “They have pulled together and shaped themselves into far better soldiers in these positions than in any other duty post they have ever held, or could ever have held. Every single soldier on this ship has been absolutely outstanding. As soon as the Quarantine is over, I’ll be sending in a stack of recommendations taller than my 3rd Platoon lieutenant.”

“Hey, I resemble that!”

Ia ignored Helstead’s quip. The Premiere blinked, but nodded. “I’ll ask the DoI for a summary of it all.”

“You do that, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go shoot two holes in this planet so it’ll be ready for recolonization once the current wars are through.”

“I’ll do my best to keep the regional governor on Mars from screaming at you,” Mandella promised her. “Premiere out.”

Ia nodded and flipped open the outer lid on the main gun control. Rammstein cleared his throat. “Energy spike in your cabin, General. We have our Feyori guest back on board.”

“Acknowledged,” Ia murmured, guiding the ship with tiny adjustments from her left hand, her mind seeking the right moment to fire so that the beam incinerated every last scrap of the plague. Private Smitt might not ever return to this world. He wouldn’t even look at a viewscreen while they were here, not wanting to remember where his father and sister died, just so a Gatsugi halfway across the known galaxy could convince the methane-breathing Dlmvla to join the war. But one day, it would be inhabited again.

After she burned out that nest of technically plague-free but still-dangerous frogtopi lurking beneath the ruddy violet rocks of its surface. No survivors. No exceptions.

JULY 25, 2499 T.S.
BEAUTIFUL-BLUE, SUGAI SYSTEM

“Ia . . . I need to talk to you about something,” Harper stated.

Ia finished shifting another pin up by a few millimeters and carefully stuck the next one in that row through the thankfully sturdy gabardine of her new, knee-length Dress Blacks coat. As usual, she didn’t know what Meyun wanted to talk to her about. The timestreams were still cloaked in patchy fog around him, but she could tell that, whatever the outcome of this conversation, it wouldn’t impact the future by too much.

“I’m listening,” she told him. “I’m pinning too many damned medals in place—this thing practically counts as armor by now—but I am listening.”

“Yes, you do have too many medals.”

Like her, the commander was clad in Dress Blacks. They’d both acquire more commendations before the end of the wars—and the Second Salik War was almost over—but Ia had been issued a new jacket to try to space out her awards. The Terran Space Force firmly believed in the carrot-and-stick approach. Caning was literally the stick, along with incarceration, scutwork punishments and the like; pay raises, medals, and ranks earned were the carrots. Both were handed out firmly; if a soldier earned it, if someone wrote up a verifiable report about it, that soldier received it, praise and punishment alike.

Most soldiers in combat zones went home with a dozen medals. She had hundreds. Meyun himself had a hundred-plus, many of which she had requested he receive based on all the repairs he had made, often literally on the fly to her two main ships. “So what did you want to talk about in the fraction of time I have left before the Premiere and the Admiral-General board, and I have to have this coat on and myself at the airlock door?”

“Your lack of emotions.”

Her head came up in surprise at his choice of topic—and the pin in her fingers slipped, stabbing her. Wincing, she pulled her hand free, eyeing the tiny drop of blood that welled up. Concentrating, Ia focused her biokinesis to seal the wound, then stuck her finger in her mouth as the quickest way to get the blood off, so it wouldn’t stain any of the remaining ribbons she was transferring from one coat to the other.

“. . . What do you mean, my lack of emotions?” she asked, returning her attention to fastening the pin’s clasp.

“I was talking with Bennie, and—”

“Oh, with Bennie,” Ia quipped, rolling her eyes. She shifted another Target Star, earned for accurate shooting, from the thigh-length coat to the duster-length one. “Of course. And what does our resident psychologist say?”

“Don’t be a two-fisting bitch,” Meyun ordered her. “That’s what
I
say. And
she
says that once the plague started being spread, you just haven’t . . . You’ve shown some emotions, but before you were showing grief, depression, anger, irritation—mood swings that, while a bit strong, were understandable. But now? It’s all been shut down to the bare minimum. And she’s right.”

“That’s because I’ve been too busy since then to indulge in mood swings, Harper. Nothing more,” she added, fastening the next pin. Just forty or fifty more to go, and she would be done.

“Yes, but when was the last time we made love?” he challenged her. “Do you even remember?”

That made her blush. She quickly let go of the pin she was placing on the coat, too, not wanting to jab herself a second time. Straightening, Ia gave his question serious thought. Not because she didn’t remember—she did—but because this wasn’t a subject either of them discussed out loud very much. “Not since before . . . Sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary, exactly,” he agreed, moving around to stand beside her, next to her bed. Meyun spread his hands slightly. “Ia . . . you know I don’t press, and I’m
not
pressing for that. I’m not even asking. But I am trying to point out the fact that you’re . . . closing down. Shutting off parts of your life that you should still be enjoying. Yes, even the mood swings.” He gave her a frank look, slightly helpless and worried. “What is going on inside your mind? Your heart?”

They might have settled their relationship more or less, both work-based and personal . . . but he was still dangerous to her. Dangerous because she felt compelled to answer him with the truth. Unhappy, knowing she needed to keep working on her coat, Ia stooped over it again. “I’ve shut most of it down because I don’t have time for it.”

“Don’t have time for what?” he challenged her. “Laughter? Love? Enjoyment of life?”

“Grief. Rage,” she stated. “Regret. That’s the big one,” Ia added. “We’ll have nine hours in transit after we’re done with the last of the Salik problem. Nine hours in which I have allotted myself four of them to howl in grief and five to sleep . . . and then we’ll have to face the Greys. And face the Greys, and face the Greys. And I’ll have to lock it all down again when we do because I’ll need every scrap of wit and concentration I can muster to keep ahead, or even just abreast, of everything they will try to do to us.

“They’ve scanned the plague, by now. They’ve manipulated it virtually. They’ve
learned
from it . . . and they will have captured it via their translocational technology before we’re done eradicating it. They have done so with the thought of using transloc to transport it onto
this
ship, to threaten and destroy
me
. And I don’t have time to quiver over that, either.”

“
Shakk
, Ia,” Harper breathed, eyeing her warily. “How do we stop
that
?”

“I’ll have the dubious joy of informing the Feyori they aren’t free to go. Instead, they’ll be conscripted into a vanguard for invading Shredou territory, tracking down every piece of the plague, its calculations, and destroying it all.” She looked up at him, her mouth twisted in a mild, wry smile. “A task made that much easier by the fact that I can now punish them directly if they refuse. But while I can wield the stick well enough against the Meddlers, I still have yet to provide a decent carrot. I’ll be distributing the appropriate prophecies to each Meddler where necessary . . . but still, I can’t exactly pin a plethora of medals to a soap bubble’s chest, and I can’t give all of them prophetic advice without screwing things up even worse along the way.”

“No, you can’t,” he agreed, still a bit stunned by her revelation. “Ia . . .”

“I will also have to deal with the aftermath of slaughtering the Salik into extinction. I already have a pair of legal teams worked up for that,” she said, transferring another Target Star. “One team was put together in advance by Grizzle from his contacts in the Judge Advocate General’s branch of the Special Forces. The other has been assembled by the Afaso, thanks to the ever-wonderful Grandmaster Ssarra, to handle all the civil cases that will be flung my way.

“So tell me, Commander.
When
will I have time, other than those four hours I’ve already scheduled—which I might just add to the five for extra sleeping time—to have a chance to express myself emotionally?” Ia asked. “I can’t do it right now, or I’ll stab my fingers into Swiss cheese, and stain all these ribbons with blood and tears, neither of which I am inclined to shed needlessly.”

“Ia,” he started to argue.

Her hand clenched on the pin—and again, she pricked herself. “Dammit!” she swore, jerking her hand free. “I don’t have time for this—And
no
, I am not going to display any more anger for you,” she added, forcing herself to calm down. Pausing just long enough to suck the faint trace of blood from her skin, she resumed working on the last of the transfers. “I will be
fine
, Meyun.”

“Functional, maybe,” he told her. “But fine, I very much doubt.”

She didn’t look up from her work. “Until the war with the Greys ends, and this damned war with the Salik, I will not have a single moment of peace. The coming days will be spent with the Admiral-General
and
the Premiere on board, along with two of her attachés, and five of his, and us tripping over Denora de Marco, who is dazzled with the thought of being able to record our next session live. Even if she’ll have to be content with the in-ship security cameras since hers will be forbidden from this ship.

“I wouldn’t even let the Admiral-General on board,” she added in a mutter, “if the Premiere and the other heads of state hadn’t all gotten together to insist on personally witnessing the destruction of Sallha. A fact which is going to raise some very awkward questions when the Admiral-General realizes she cannot
remember
how the Godstrike cannon was made. Yet another military court-martial I’m going to have to dodge just so I can keep fighting and keep the Greys out of Terran space.”

He fell silent for a couple minutes. Finally, Harper spoke again. “You keep saying there will be an end to the Second Grey War. Do I at least get to know
what
causes them to stop?”

“They’ll make a mistake, we’ll make a mistake, and the combined timing and collision of those two mistakes will rip a hole in space. All those fancy new nodes you’ve been designing and installing will stitch the fabric of reality back together again . . . but not until after the Shredou have scanned that rift and realized just how horrifically they
shakked
up the universe. It’s also a very, very common technology on our end of the combination, which means they’ll have to scrap their fancy new weapon or risk it happening again, and again, and again.

“And I will threaten them with flooding their home territory with that mistake if need be, so that
their
worlds are the first to go,” Ia warned him.

“That sounds a bit vicious,” Meyun remarked dryly.

“Territorial, fierce, uncivilized of me . . . another big stick. And while I can find carrots for the Feyori, it’s very difficult to find carrots for the Greys. What they want . . . I cannot even give them because it’s just not possible. They’re in the wrong galaxy, the flow of energies are all wrong, and they’re being slowly poisoned to death. And the worst part is . . . they should’ve left eighteen thousand years ago. Preferably twenty thousand or more,” she added, sighing. Fifteen more pins remained to be transferred, and she worked doggedly on them. “Unfortunately, that would take far too many Feyori lives to throw them back far enough to warn the Shredou . . . and I wouldn’t order it anyway.”