Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty (54 page)

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Authors: Jean Johnson

BOOK: Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty
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“Not really, no.” Ia glanced briefly at another man entering the bar. Clad in plain civilian clothes, his light brown hair a rumpled mess and exuding an odd, almost entirely un-minty odor, he brushed past Spyder brusquely, nearly making the corporal spill his drink. Mindful that time was running out, she looked back at the man still holding her hand and gestured with her free one at the bar. “Why don’t you tell me your name, meioa, and we’ll see if it leads to that drink?”
This time, it was Spyder’s turn to choke on his beer. He followed at a slight distance, coughing and grinning. Ia had cultivated a friends-only attitude all this time. She knew her old Basic Training teammate was amused by the thought of her actually wanting to date anyone.
“Well, my name is Darroll Rekk-Noth, and I am an independent businessman. I only have a couple of ships in my admittedly small fleet, but I do a fair amount of interstellar trade. I specialize in rarities, antiquities, and . . .”
Ia held up her hand again, forestalling him.
“Not right now, Drek,” she murmured, her gaze on the other man who had entered. That man was muttering in dark tones at the chief waitress, Rostie. She shook her head and hurried to the next table, but the fellow followed.
“. . . I
said
I don’t want you working here! Get back home, now!” the newcomer ordered the waitress.
“And I said I’ll work anyway. I
like
working here.” Lifting her chin, Rostie indicated the door. “My shift’s up in six and a half hours. Go find something to do until then.”
“. . . So you recognized me?” the man at Ia’s side murmured into her ear. He touched her shoulder at the same time, making the gesture look like a caress. “I wanted to meet the meioa responsible for so much of my business success.”
“Of course I did. I knew you’d be here,” she murmured back, eyes on the other tableau. She lifted her chin at the man following Rostie, still bothering her. “The same with him.”
“So you know I’m here to . . . renegotiate your terms?” her would-be suitor asked.
The man pestering Rostie grabbed her upper arm, jerking her around. “You are
not
going to parade yourself in here like a filthy little bar slut!”
Ia wasn’t the only one who moved forward at that, but she was prepared for it; the other Marines were still scraping their chairs back and shoving to their feet when she reached the blue-haired waitress’ side. Rostie tried to shrug free. Her spurious boyfriend squeezed harder, making her wince.
“I
said
, go home!”
“And
I
say, get your hand off her,” Ia warned him coldly as more of her fellow soldiers stood. “You’re in a bar full of big damn heroes, meioa. Think
carefully
before you do anything else, today.”
“You think I’m afraid of
you
?” he snorted, looking her up and down. In her sleeveless vest, the curves of her arm muscles were quite visible. His eyes were bloodshot, his face reddened. “You’re nothin’ but a slab of unnatural, unfeminine beef!”
“You heard the Sergeant,” one of the Marines behind him ordered. “Get your hands off Rostie, and walk away.”
Another one leaned in close, sniffing the man. “
Shakk . . .
I know that smell. You’re hyped up on poppers! My cousin tried to get me to take that
shova
!”
“Poppers is a one-way ticket to a prison-patch, for a Human,” a third Marine stated darkly, cracking her knuckles. “Particularly on a military base.”
Purpling with rage, the man released Rostie. His hand darted into a pocket and whipped out again. Ia got there first, stopping his punch with her palm. Ice-cold pain screamed up her nerves from her hand to her brain, followed by a searing hot ache. Even knowing it was coming, despite being willing, it took her a moment to get past the shock of the impact. Blinking, Ia sucked in a slow, unsteady breath.
Her attacker blinked as well. He looked down at their hands, joined at rib-height. Looked back up at her face. Blanched as she met his gaze without flinching.
Teeth clenched against the pain, gut tight against the urge to grunt, Ia slowly curled her fingers down around his. “Let. Go. I will
not
ask you twice.”
Brown eyes met amber. Short as they were, Ia dug in her nails. The move put pressure on the wound, causing more pain and more blood to trickle free, but the sting of her warning did the trick. Feeling his fingers relax and release the blade, she lifted her arm a little, displaying to some of the others what had just happened.
The blade, with the curved tip of a bone-knife culled from some kitchen, stuck out of the back of her hand. The hilt had sunk all the way to her palm. Dark crimson dripped down her forearm. The others in the pub hissed and hastily grabbed him. He struggled, trying to throw them off. Ia fisted her fingers around the hilt, squeezing out another trickle, and brought the bloodied blade up in front of his face.
“Either you go with these meioas, nice and quiet . . . or I will backhand you. Yes. With
this
hand. It’s your choice, meioa-o. Choose wisely.”
“Let’s not give him one,” growled one of the men holding the idiot. “C’mon, let’s haul this
shov
a-sack out of here and hold ’im for the Platform Peacekeepers.”
Several willing hands hauled him backwards and lifted him up overhead with just a few muttered grunts for coordination. Wending their way through the scattered tables and chairs, they carried the idiot outside to await pickup. Others clustered around Ia, eyeing her hand. A couple grabbed napkins and offered them. She accepted, mostly to wipe up the blood dripping down to her elbow, but shook her head at offers to remove the blade.
“. . . I’ll let the Platform docs do that. I’d rather not bleed freely from here to the hospital, thank you—and I can make it all the way to them just fine. I’m not about to pass out, trust me.” Nodding at her fellow soldiers, she made her way toward the front door. The businessman, Darroll Rekk-Noth, followed her. So did her commanding officer.
As soon as they were outside the tavern, Ferrar lifted his chin at the idiot still being held firmly overhead by the Marines who had carried him out. They had his arms twisted behind his back and crossed his legs, limiting how much the idiot could struggle. “There’ll be a trial, of course. Technically, he damaged government property when he struck you. With a lethal weapon, no less. Five to ten years on a penal farm, at the very least.”
“I don’t care what happens to him. I just want him off this station. If the military wishes him sentenced to a penal farmpatch far, far away, that’s fine by me,” she quipped as she kept walking. Her attention was more on bracing her hand with her other palm so that the knife wouldn’t jostle and injure her any worse. It hurt, but in a different way from a dislocated shoulder, a broken ankle, or even having her shoulder charred halfway through her collarbone. More bearable, in some ways. But it hurt. At least she had managed to twist her palm just enough so that the knife blade had shoved between the bones, limiting the overall damage.
To her relief, Ferrar reversed course as the Peacekeepers arrived. He waved her onward, letting her know in a brief flick of hand signs that he’d arrange it so she got medical aid first before being interrogated over her part in this mess.
“Is your life always like this?” the suited man pacing at her side asked her. “Getting into knife fights with random strangers? Acting tougher than tough? Or was this just something you staged for my benefit?”
“It’s not acting, and it’s not staged. I will do whatever it takes to protect innocent lives. Even if my methods aren’t . . . orthodox.” Mindful of the stares she was garnering from the other personnel, military and civilian, they were passing on their way out of the public sectors, she lowered her voice. “As for any attempt at renegotiation . . . I advise
you
to think carefully, and choose wisely. This is not the worst thing I will backhand you with, if you betray me . . . and I will know in advance and be ready for it. You have my prophetic stamp on that.
“You will do as I say, when I say, how I say . . . or I will expose everything you do, and destroy you. I have enough evidence on you, they
won’t
sentence you to a pea-patch.”
“I have more than enough evidence to implicate
you
as well, meioa,” the disguised Drek the Merciless growled back, though he kept a pleasant-seeming smile on his face. “How would your precious military react if I told them what
you
have been up to?”
“I have two words for you, meioa, that give me all the legal freedom I need to do what I need to do. The first one is ‘Vladistad.’ I’ll let you have two guesses as to what the second word is. I’m feeling generous, tonight.” She slanted a look at the supposed businessman at her side, and smiled. “Think carefully, meioa. Everything you do at
my
command gives you that legal freedom, too. Even more freedom, since you just have to point at me, and let
me
bear the brunt of explaining it all. Unless you’re an idiot, and throw it all away. In which case, I’d have to backhand you with a laser cannon in hand.”
The rapid thud of footsteps approaching them from behind warned her someone from the tavern was catching up to them. “Oy, Ia! Y’ need an escort?” Spyder trotted up beside her, then twisted and walked sideways a few steps, eyeing the floor. “. . . Or p’raps a mop?”
“I’ll be fine. It hurts, but it’s not bleeding too much. Ah . . . Spyder, this is Darroll Rekk-Noth, a businessman. Darroll, this is Corporal Spyder. We went through Basic together, and now serve in the same Company.” She lifted her chin in lieu of gesturing with a hand, and lengthened her strides. “If you’re going to come along, do try to keep up, gentlemen. I’d really rather be safely in the Platform’s hospital before I pass out from pain or blood loss.”
“Wot, from that little scratch?” Spyder teased her. He grinned when she gave him a dirty look, and matched her stride for stride. He also craned his neck, giving Drek a curious look. “So, why’re you walkin’ along wi’ us?”
“I want to make sure the lovely lady, here, will be all right. And to see if I can do anything to distract her from her pain, once she is patched up.” He eyed Ia, his smile never once slipping. “At least, I hope we will be able to see more of each other. She is . . . extraordinary. Don’t you think?”
“That’s our Bloody Mary, arright,” Spyder agreed. “Literally bloody, at times.”
The man on her other side gave her a wry smile. “So I’ve noticed.”
Ia kept her mouth shut. Grateful the timestreams had settled firmly in her favor, she concentrated on carrying her hand without jostling it. Drek had seen and heard enough to change back his attempted change-of-mind. He was too important to her plans to let slip out of her grasp. Even if he was a murderous, thieving pirate and would-be crimelord, she needed him.
 
 
OCTOBER 25, 2491 T.S.
SUBSURFACE EMERGENCY TUNNELS
OBERON’S ROCK
 
Ia paused just long enough to swipe her forehead over her red-clad bicep. It smeared the dirt around, but did reduce the amount of sweat beating on her face, threatening to drip into her eyes. Not that the tunnel was warm, but her exertions were taking its toll.
Face more or less dry, she went back to heaving rocks, working steadily despite the dust and the darkness hampering their efforts. Beside her, eight of the twelve trapped in the emergency tunnel with her grunted over the effort to move the larger stones, and hauled away the smaller ones. Behind them rested their three wounded.
Hunters and Mitchell, both of them from the 3rd Platoon, had broken bones. Their limbs had been crudely straightened by hand and left to lie on the floor for lack of any splints. Hmongwa, from the 2nd Platoon like Ia, had a badly sprained ankle and a concussion; he couldn’t see out of one eye and couldn’t really focus with the other, so he was resting with the other two. The remaining men and women were from the 1st Platoon; they were battered and bruised, but they were alive and mobile.
Their supplies were limited; the emergency sirens had sounded the alarm pattern for an imminent dome breach, and everyone had scrambled to get underground. Like Ia, the mobile ones were digging without pause in the hopes of unburying themselves. They had no food but for a couple napkins filled with hors d’ouvres, no water but a couple of plexi cups that used to hold beer, and no equipment beyond the small spotlights built into their wrist units. Unfortunately, the metallic content of the local rock was playing havoc with their attempts to call for a rescue.
So all they could do was dig. They almost hadn’t had Ia to help them. She had a bruised head and several scrapes down her arms and back from having raced through the falling debris even as the first of the bombs had struck, but she was here.
No one but Ia had known the attack, or rather, counterattack was coming. The
Liu Ji
had arrived in time to thwart another attempted invasion. The colonists, grateful for yet another rescue, had organized a party for everyone. It had just about ended when the raiders came back from wherever they had fled to just eight or so hours before. This time, their intent was to strafe and shatter the research domes. Mass murder, venting the air inside to outer space, would allow them to pick through the debris at their leisure.

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