Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation, page 3
“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.”
“Then I’ll be glad you’re caring for her,” Arstoll said. He offered her his hand. When she lifted hers, he clasped it wrist to wrist, meeting her gaze steadily. “Make sure you take care of her. You promise me that, one officer to another, as well as one Squadmate to another. I’ve lost too many lives today as it is.”
“I promise I’ll take care of Garcia, Brad, to the best of my ability, and to the best of hers once I get her to believe in herself again. I’ve lost too many as well,” Ia agreed. Releasing his forearm, she clapped him on the back, then straightened, pushing away from the table. “Time for me to head to the docking bay. We still have to make planetfall, get the other two on board, and get back to the ship by the time Harper finishes our repairs.”
“And then what?” Arstoll asked her, following her toward the doors. “Or is that Classified?”
“Most of it is, and well beyond your pay grade . . . but once I have these three on board, we race for the Gatsugi homeworld. The various heads of state will be holding a meeting, where I’ll be begging for certain cross-government military powers. I’m still not entirely sure why the Admiral-General made me a four-star,” she confessed, “but she did, and it’s made my job unbelievably easier, so I’m going to run with it as far and fast as I can.”
“Hauling bus all the way?” Arstoll offered. “Like you did at the end of Hell Week?”
“Farther and faster, if I can,” Ia quipped back. “Tae says they’ve now made it an end-of-Hell-Week challenge for teams of recruits to pull a ground bus a hundred meters. And yes, they have to remember to release the parking brake, first.” She flashed him a brief, wry smile, then offered her hand. “Time to go. Good luck, Arstoll.”
“Good luck, Ia. Eyah?” he asked her as he clasped it one last time, using the sign and countersign of the Marines and their V’Dan counterparts.
“Hoo-rah,” she agreed.
AUGUST 20, 2498 T.S.
SIC TRANSIT
August Ia finished the last of her battle-guiding tasks and pulled out of the timestreams. What she wanted was a hot bath and a long nap. What she had to do was leave the comfort of her easy chair—salvaged from her old quarters on the Hellfire and installed in the nearly identical version on the Damnation—and head for the practice salles. Her mind might be tired, but her body was full of energy. A nap was therefore out of the question, at least until she exhausted herself physically.
Once again, they were working and living in twice Standard gravity, and that meant working out every day to ensure everyone on board remained combat-ready. That required daily exercise. More than that, it required daily exercise in her old weight suit. At some point down the road, she would be back on Sanctuary, fighting on its surface for the survival of the key element that would make everything she had planned actually work:
A home, a sense of culture and family for the Savior, who would otherwise have none, and who would slowly lose her humanity without one.
Ia’s new quarters—her own version of home, or at least a place to rest—were still located amidships, just behind the new, larger bridge, and were still comparatively small. Still located on Deck 6, the journey to the exercise cabins required her to find the nearest lift to travel down to Deck 12, below the cylindrical core of the new, improved Godstrike cannon, Mark II. Of course, she hadn’t fired it yet, but that was for a very good reason. The old one had required seven or eight ships in alignment, with its caloric rating of 90.3 percent. The new one reached 94.5 percent, and being palpably larger, would require considerably more care in firing it.
The needle-shaped ship hadn’t really grown much in girth compared to the old version, maybe a dozen meters in extra armor plating and a slightly larger focal core. Instead, it had grown mostly in length by a couple hundred meters. Despite that, the ship still held twenty-four functional decks spanning five section seals. That extra distance deepened the wavelength, allowing not one but two “wolf” infrared resonances to be buried in the beam it cast. Some of the extra space right outside the core had been filled with yet more Sterling engines to capture and reuse the relatively little heat that would spill free from the main cannon and that 5.5 percent loss rate. The rest had been filled with a few useful facilities for the crew and extra water tanks.
Still, since the rest of the Damnation had been built to Ia’s specifications from scratch, its cabins hadn’t suffered the forced-conversion requirements the Hellfire had undergone. The Company boardroom had been relocated amidships instead of being consigned to the far end of the bow segment just to make room for a proper Wake Zone next to a decent-sized galley. Bow and stern now contained more in the way of manufactory and storage bays as well as the shuttle bays. The new, improved Wake Zone included two different lounge areas; between them rested a dedicated galley space fancy enough to be called a dining hall, almost a restaurant.
Most of the exercise areas were located either in the fore or aft sections. One of the weight rooms had a sauna, a wood-paneled steam room—an extravagance, admittedly, but almost as good as Leave away from the ship. The other had a trio of soaking tubs. The one with the locker room where her weight suit was stored, tucked into its own storage cupboard next to the one with her exercise gear, had the sauna. It was a good place to sit and think for a few minutes, letting her body relax in the sultry heat while her mind raced.
The ventilation system was doing its best to keep up with its use, but the air was still humid and ripe with sweat when she entered the locker room. Most of the latter was coming from the aft weight room. The hiss and whoosh of hydraulic fluids met her ears as she strapped on the tile-weighted webwork she had gained all the way back in Basic Training, when she had first met people like Arstoll, Mendez, Sung, and Spyder. Some of her old training mates were still alive. Some were not. Some would still die in this war, and some would live well beyond it.
Some would only live on in legend.
Philadelphia Benjamin, Cald Feldman . . . Tugging on her weighted gloves, Ia grimly contemplated how she could use their names to inspire future generations of soldiers and civilians alike. Benjamin’s family history could inspire the working classes. Feldman . . . well, I suppose he could inspire military and civilian prisoners trying to turn their lives around like he did his. Franke’s death will be harder to make heroic . . . being eaten alive is a bad way to go, hard to put a positive spin on that . . . But Nabouleh, she was one hell of a pilot. Not a fancy flier like Shikoku Yama, but courageous under fire.
Franke and Svarson, I’ll make them both known for heroism in how they lived, not in how they died, Ia decided. I’ll have to compose some messages for the Afaso to distribute across the Alliance, so they can start spreading rumors and tales of the Fallen of the Damned. And, of course, the living among the Damned. I wonder if Clairmont and York have started composing together in earnest, yet. They’ll make a helluva good entertainment team once they do.
Tired as she was, she didn’t want to take a peek into the timestreams to find out, yet. Not when she could just ask them outright after she was done exercising. They were all in transit. She had a little bit of free time.
“General, sir.”
Ia looked up at the short, stocky, muscular figure of Alexus Kardos. His deeply tanned skin looked like it might have been due to some aboriginal blood, something either from Australian Province or Oceania, maybe southeast Asia, but his large brown curls and his aquiline nose looked more European. He looked grim, as if he had something on his mind. Ia knew what it most likely was, of course. This particular confrontation had only been a sixteen percent chance for happening here and now, but it was just as well, since it would have happened at some point anyway.
So much for “free time.” Better to get it out of the way now, before it’s had a chance to fester. Lifting her chin, Ia nodded politely. “Sergeant. I know what you’re going to say because I already know what you’re concerned about.”
“You do?” he asked, derailed by her admission. “How could you . . . ?”
She tapped the side of her head briefly. “Precog, remember? I’ve already foreseen several variations on this conversation. You’re upset by the discrepancies stirred up by the rules written into the Damned handbook, versus actual Terran Space Force regulations,” Ia stated, glad she was no longer under Restricted Leave, having to be recorded every second of every day. “You find it difficult to reconcile your duty to the Space Force, versus my standing orders to lie to our superiors about certain things taking place on board this ship.”
“Well, yes. I was raised to be honest, to act with honor. Lying isn’t honorable,” the naturalized Scadian protested.
Rising from the bench—surpassing him in height by several centimeters despite the fact they had both been born and raised on the same homeworld—Ia sighed and worked on strapping on her weight gloves. “I myself would rather tell the truth, Sergeant. But however honorable a knight may be in a duel . . . well, there comes a point where deception must be employed against an opponent in order to secure an objective. It doesn’t even have to be a melee feint or an ambush in a war. It can be as simple as refraining from mentioning something to an ally, so that the ally in question does not act precipitously or react wrongfully.
“A lot of those standing orders in the Company bible are there because of the lattermost reasons. It would simply be too dangerous for others outside this ship to know certain of our secrets.” Ia sought for a way to get him to understand why such things were necessary. “They would interfere, like a . . . like a bystander with absolutely no understanding of either architecture or stained-glass construction trying to push aside a master craftsman in the middle of assembling a rose window in a cathedral.”
“A rose window,” he repeated skeptically.
“A stained-glass window of great depth and complexity,” Ia told him. “This window I am building exists not just in three dimensions, but in four. Some things, I am free to admit to here and now. Some things, I have revealed slowly, over many months and years. And some things cannot be revealed at all. Not for a very long time, if ever. But these things, managing these secrets, is my task. Your task is simply to keep your mouth shut, serve as a Squad leader and a sergeant, and prepare yourself to serve a very worthy group of people on Sanctuary with every scrap of fighting skill, innate honor, and security-trained cunning you possess.”
“For how long?” Kardos challenged her. “How long do I have to serve on your homeworld before I get to return to Scadia?”
Oh, lovely. This percentage. Let’s see how I can make this end well. Dipping her fingers into the timestreams, Ia sought for a way to get out of this without either his resentment or a very unfair verbal fight. She rubbed at her forehead with a weight-suited hand, then sighed, stared at it, and peeled off her glove. Once it was bare, she offered it to him, palm up. “Take my hand, and come see what great deeds you would do on Sanctuary if you gave yourself wholeheartedly to the task I need to assign to you.”
