Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship (31 page)

“. . . We’re off-line now, sir. Begging pardon, General, but . . . that’s a very strange set of orders. In fact, it didn’t even sound like a set of orders. Not like . . . ah . . .” He trailed off, blushing a little.

“Not like what the brigadier general loved to give, no,” Ia agreed. She removed her cap and unbuttoned her jacket, relaxing from her formal stance. “I have a degree in military history, Sergeant. Mattox’s strategies were used by Western commanders in the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Very heavy on the top-down command structure, with the generals making all the decisions from hundreds and thousands of kilometers away and not allowing for a lot of the flexibility needed to adapt to the actual situations found on the smaller scales, at the Company, Platoon, Squad, and individual team units.

“You can look at a bunch of trees, and say, ‘Hey, that’s a forest; have everyone in the Legion climb the nearest trees right now,’ but without knowing exactly which tree each Squad will face in that forest, some of your soldiers will end up facing a stingersap tree,” she told him, setting cap and jacket on the end of the table. Lifting her chin at the freckled man, who was catching and shutting down the hovercams to conserve power, Ia asked, “You’re a native of Dabin. Would
you
climb a stingersap?”

“Hell
no
, sir,” the sergeant agreed, catching another machine and stacking it with the rest on the table at the back of the small broadcast room. “Not without full protection. Not unless I wanted my hands to swell up and split open. Not even the
jungen
virus can stop that kind of an anaphylactic reaction.”

“That’s why the Space Force chose to emphasize more of the Eastern tactics of that same era, planning for flexibility at the local level. In a military two billion strong spread out across countless light-years and covering dozens of different colonyworlds, you cannot hope to give an order at the Command Staff level and expect the Squadron level to know exactly what to do to carry it out under the conditions at hand
unless
they are trained to understand
and
given leave to implement a broad range of independent, easily tailored maneuvers,” Ia said.

She stepped forward and caught one of the higher machines, finding and pressing its off button to help him shut everything down. He gave her a surprised look, but Ia didn’t stop speaking. This conversation would be repeated among the lower ranks here at Headquarters and would eventually spread outward. She wanted everyone here in the Army on Dabin to understand
why
she was so completely changing the way Mattox had run things.

“Mattox had an ego problem he was desperate to feed, and the Army here on Dabin suffered from it. I have a desperate need to get the job done, period, by the most legal and expedient means available. My ego is
not
allowed to stand in the way, not when others have the time to spare and the brains to do all the planning they need.” Catching the third hovercam, she shut it off, set it on the table, and nodded to him as she spoke. “The next broadcast will be in two days, forty-one minutes local. I can foresee you’ll do an equally good job at that time, but until then, you’re dismissed to return to your normal duties, soldier.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” he said, his expression thoughtful.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers all at once . . . and one soldier at a time,
she thought, sighing.
Eventually, I’ll get the full job done.

JULY 8, 2498 T.S.
. . . AND MARCH 19, 2497, AMONG OTHER DATES

(
Don’t exhaust yourself,
) October Ia admonished one of the other versions. Once again, she sat on the embankment of the future stream, projecting an air of normalcy over everything seen from any other point in time. (
Pace it out over several of us.
)

(
You’re not the one trying to sneak in an extra ten minutes’ help between enemy engagements,
) Mid August Ia stated. (
And this
is
me pacing it out over several of us.
)

The one from early July stooped and trailed her fingers through the stream of a lieutenant colonel, altering the words on his workstation so that he received a direct communication from General Ia, replete with security codes. There were far too many battles for just one Ia—the youngest Ia—to keep track of at the moment, not on her own. The battle with the Feyori had taught her something about herself, that she
could
use Time itself to alter time. She was therefore going to use it. To run with the bit firmly caught in her teeth, as she had told the Admiral-General.

Hopping over a cluster of thread-like rivulets, she enlarged another and touched it. This time, the headset of a private caught behind enemy lines snapped to life. Ia projected her voice—gently, ever so gently—into his life.
“Sandusky, there will be a ten-second window thirty-six seconds from the end of this transmission. You will have just enough time to grab Dostoyer and bolt for the tree line while the enemy reloads, but you both have to be ready. Thirty-six seconds from
mark
.”

The image in the stream showed the wide-eyed private babbling something to his teammate. If they didn’t move, they’d both be stunned and eaten, and several minor but still-influential sets of descendants would have their lives altered in the wrong ways. The little stream shifted as soon as she withdrew her fingers, realigning itself to correct the damages wrought to its original channel from Mattox’s efforts. She didn’t stay to see if Sandusky would move; the shifted streambed told her he would, and had.

(
Could be worse,
) December Ia offered. Like August and October, she was on a ship
sic transit
, headed from one engagement to the next. (
We could be wasting our youngest self’s breath trying to convince these people well in advance of what to do, instead.
)

(
This is only working because I used up all the time I would’ve spent fighting, verbally and physically, on writing prophecies while waiting for that verdict,
) Late July Ia stated, moving to yet another stream, this time a yeoman pressed into corpsman service, driving the wounded back from the front lines in a civilian flatbed hovertruck for lack of anything better.

(
You’re all welcome,
) Early July quipped. December, the most relaxed of the lot, stuck out her tongue. October Ia
tsked
.

Physically, their youngest self sat in a recliner chair hauled into the Olympic Ballroom by the hotel staff, wearing plain camouflage Grays, no sign of her new rank on her person. Her physical ears could hear Bennie and Ramasa coordinating things with Army Headquarters, and faintly in the distance, very faintly, they all heard the
cha-whomp
of the city’s defensive cannons firing, plus the hissing
tzzzzng
of building shields repelling projectiles that exploded like the crack-and-rumble of thunder.

The Salik were trying to press all the way to Army HQ to take out the new commander, convinced that if they cut off the head of this Human serpent, the waters of their tactical plans would be safer to swim in once again, as they had been under Mattox. The Loxana was halfway across the city from the office building occupied by the Army, on the far side of town from the enemy engagements, but she could still hear the sounds of all that battle. Thankfully, most of the citizens were safe in bunkers and cellars underground.

Army Headquarters itself had been evacuated by two-thirds, with the various departments and their equipment broken down into subunits and spread out among several other hotels. Her preferred choice was not only to decentralize the tactical command structure, but the entire chain of command. Certain towns and homesteads had been alerted in advance and evacuated, most of them along a path that was designed to
let
the Salik advance toward Landing City. Many buildings in the capital itself lay empty for the day, including the restaurant and grocery store across from Army HQ.

It had not been easy to get people to shut down businesses and hide elsewhere while their homes and shops were bombarded and besieged. But for those who would not go, Ia’s orders had been straightforward.
Stun them all, drag them off to the shelters, and let them sort through the wreckage when it’s all over and done. Homes can be rebuilt, and in worst-case scenarios, food can usually be foraged for on an M-class world, but their irreplaceable
lives
must be saved.

She had ordered, the Army had obeyed, and the civilians were safe in those shelters which she knew precognitively would not be hit. In the physical world, she was supposed to be lining up supply manifests, anticipating needs based upon the fallout from the combat taking place right at that moment in time. In the realm of the timeplains, she was doing so much more.

(
Hey, Early July,
) Mid October called out. (
It’s about time for you to go meet your March mad self.
)

(
I’m aware.
) One last trail of her fingers through a stream, and she straightened.

She staggered a little, too. Touching so many lives, altering so many streams and strands in high speed, had a mental as well as a physical cost. Righting herself, the youngest Ia headed downstream to October and twisted across the curtain just in time to feel a rippling snap from her younger self. Dipping down into her own life, she inhaled deeply to center herself briefly in her physical body, sipped from the energy drink Jjones had left for her, listened to her chaplain explaining something to one of the tactical officers visiting from the Army, and flipped back onto the timeplains when nothing needed her attention in the real world.

She could sense her younger self—March from the year before—about to dip into her own point in time, and spoke. Or rather, projected into her other mind. (
About time you showed up.
)

For a moment, she saw her younger self, still on board the
Hellfire
and startled beyond words. Waiting patiently for the younger version to return, Ia addressed herself again.

(
Don’t freak again. You really
are
hearing me,
) she added dryly. (
Your future me, talking to you.
)

Feeling the press of her own curiosity, Ia—the July Ia—pushed up out of the water and onto the grassy bank of their own stream. Seeing her own jaw drop, those amber eyes opening so wide that the whites could be seen all the way around . . . well, it was funny. She grinned at her younger self and remembered what she had said.

(
Don’t you look shocked
 . . .
wait until you can see your expression from
this
side of things,
) she added. Part of the elder Ia was amused by her own earlier amazement, reliving things from the other side. It really was funny, seeing her more innocent self being flabbergasted by this new trick. But they didn’t have a lot of time. They never did. So she held out her hand. (
Come on. Sit up. I’m going to share with you the list of things you’ll need them to buy and stash, and a couple extra places to stash them.
)

There was so much she wanted to say to her younger self, and so much she couldn’t. Even the Feyori knew better than to meddle casually with the Past. There was
always
a price to pay for such things. It was the price of entropy itself, that a balance would eventually, inevitably be achieved, pleasantly or unpleasantly—a grandparent
could
be killed before even the parent was born, since a new one would simply slip into alignment, along with a new reason to go back and slay that former relative . . . but it always came at a cost as one’s past consequentially changed. So she spoke of the few things she could address, things from her past and March Ia’s future that were the same in many, many versions of reality, plus things for the future of both of them, and more.

When the meeting between her and her first temporally awakened self finally ended, July Ia sunk back into her stream, headed downstream, and submerged in mid October. More than just the Feyori influence had to be concealed. More than just the battle to free Dabin from unwanted Meddling had to be fought. (
 . . . Right, that step is done. How’s the fight going, August?
)

(
Just a few more touches from all of us should see it done,
) December answered, since August Ia had her fingers in the waters of four resized streams simultaneously. (
I haven’t noticed any serious or sudden deviations outside our plans, so we must be doing it right.
)

August Ia let out a raspberry-snort as she straightened. (
Just because you do not see an enemy disguised as a bush doesn’t mean the enemy isn’t sitting there, clothed in branches and leaves. I’ll feel better when Early July has become Late July, and Mid August, and Mid October, and all the way to you, Eldest.
)

December Ia flipped a rude gesture at the implication that all the responsibility rested on
her
shoulders but otherwise didn’t respond.

Late July Ia finished touching a few vital life-streams, then straightened with a sigh. (
Right. That’s my part done. The V’Dan Fleet has been alerted to the exact placements of the Salik blockade within the Dabinae System. They’ll emerge from faster-than-light with guns blazing. Try not to screw things up, my other selves. The farther away we try to reach from our exact physical body and personal point in time, the more exhausting this is . . . and trying to contact the right people on a ship moving faster-than-light from several light-years out is
not
easy, even if I—if we—can access all of eternity in this galaxy.
)

(
Understood,
) the youngest of them, the one from the start of July, promised. The others nodded. Turning her attention back to the tangle of streams on Dabin, Ia felt for more knots in need of untangling in the tapestry they were trying to weave.

She emerged ten physical minutes later, not having moved save to drink sips of the vitamin-and-caffeine-laced water at her side but as exhausted as if she had been working for two hours straight in a full-battle simulation. Which in a way, she had. Stifling a groan, Ia levered herself up out of the chair, rested a moment with knees locked, then downed the last of the fruit-flavored liquid Jjones had found. Only then did she amble toward the tactical screens set up around Private Ramasa, slowly stretching limbs that felt as if they had been stuck sitting still for hours instead of minutes.