Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship (32 page)

Ramasa normally sat at the gunnery post on the bridge of her ship for first watch, rotating along with three others so that each man or woman could stare at the boards and screens with fresh eyes. For the moment, though, they didn’t have a ship. He also didn’t have his left foot, and was making his way around from screen to screen by scooting his chair on its rollers with little pushes from the intact right one. It was certainly faster than using the cumbersome, time-consuming crutches Jjones had scrounged up for him, but he did have to keep moving to keep track of it all.

She gave him an approving nod as he pushed with his good foot from station to station, consulting the list of timings and target coordinates she had given him earlier. His job was to coordinate with the city defenses, manned in part by the Peacekeepers and in part by the Army. He was doing it rather well, too. Ia wasn’t going to interfere.

Modern medicine ensured the wound wasn’t a painful one, and it would eventually ensure it wasn’t a permanent one. Once they were on board the
Damnation
, Jesselle Mishka would work herself and her infirmary crew long and hard to replace every organ and limb lost via the new ship’s regeneration vats. Ia’s eye would have still been on that list of replacement parts needing to be vat-cloned, but she had taken care of that herself.

If she’d had any confidence in her ability to replace Yung Ramasa’s foot the same way, by Meddling deliberately, she would have. The problem was, it hadn’t been deliberate. Ia hadn’t realized she was restoring her eye and repairing her shredded clothes when it had happened, nor did she have a truly detailed grasp of biology, never mind Human male biology. She was not about to experiment upon her own crew through the awkwardness and potential horrors of trial and error, when they could simply wait a few more weeks and undergo the normal reconstructive sort of surgery, augmented by biokinetics.

“Yes!”

The shout startled all of them, though Private Ramasa only looked up briefly from his work, his eyes bulging like the Frog Prince he was nicknamed to be. Christine Benjamin, Chaplain Bennie, waved her hands in the air, dancing as she sat in her own wheel-footed chair. Ia strolled that way, smiling back at her friend’s open grin.

“We got ’em, sir! The 6th Legion, 2nd Battalion, 5th Brigade just imploded the whole complex at the Sur Chelle Vineyards, General,” she reported, while the major at her side frowned at the information scrolling across her broad bank of screens. Her task, not too dissimilar from Ramasa’s, was to monitor communications on a list of channels which Ia had given her. She touched her headset and nodded. “Scan sweeps are reporting complete collapse of all openings, and a prolapse of the hill over most of the complex. If the surviving enemy’s not buried alive, the 6th says they’ll be highly surprised.”

“Tell them they have two hours to salvage and pull out,” Ia told her. “Remind the 6th of the fighting they’ll still have to do to get the prisoners out of the feeding pens, and that there’ll be White Hearts to earn, as well as White Crosses, if they’re not careful about keeping themselves out of the enemy’s traps. Then start passing along the word to the distractionary teams to shift into rearguard action so they can pull out.”

The major, a stout, dark-skinned fellow with a receding hairline as the only sign of his advanced age, shook his head. “This is so very different from what we were doing before . . . Massive chaos over the first four days. I honestly thought the Salik were going to break through the original containment line and through the sides of that corridor you then set up for them to get all the way here,” Major Tumseh confessed. “I’m sorry to say I did not have as much faith in my own troops as you, sir.”

Ia ran a hand through her hair, wincing as another bomb exploded somewhere in the skies nearby, making the hotel windows and doors rattle a little. Her fingers trembled, and her head ached inside her skull, feeling stretched and bruised. She needed a meal and a rest soon, but wouldn’t get any food other than snack bags for another three hours. That was when the kitchens finally opened in the morning, and the nap wouldn’t happen for another five hours. Bracing herself subtly against the edge of one of Bennie’s tables, she shook her head, then reached for one of the energy drinks in the case Jjones had directed the hotel staff to leave out for the crew members on duty in the ballroom.

“It’s a failing of genius, and of supposed genius,” she murmured. “If you start believing in your own successes too much, you start believing in the hype and forget the hard work and careful thought that went into building that kind of reputation. Mattox was good at tactics and strategy, but he was also too proud of it. The Feyori played up that flaw, widening the gap between his belief in his own abilities and the realities of the situation he was in.” Giving the major a pointed look, she opened the bottle. “Unfortunately for my sense of ego, I cannot avoid seeing the results of any mistakes I make. In fact, I am forced to foresee them, as probabilities and possibilities. I am not insulated from my own failures at any step along the way, with rare exception.

“But I can and will use the reputation I have built. The moment the Salik here on Dabin realized that General Ia was the same Lieutenant Ia who destroyed their uppermost echelons back on Sallha a few years ago, I knew they’d be eager to wipe me out. Any Salik who could claim to have captured or slain
the
Bloody Mary would be given the highest honors, and the right to eat my liver one screaming slice at a time if they could catch me alive.” Saluting him with the drink, she swallowed some of it down. The flavor was chocolate, but not as dark as she normally liked. That meant it was a little too sweet for her tastes. She drank anyway.

“Yes, with a dish of beans and a glass of wine on the side,” Major Tumseh muttered, grimacing. Not getting the significance, Ia gave him a questioning look as she drank, but he shrugged it off. “. . . Classic literature reference.”

“Ah.” It was all she could say. There were many things in the universe which she just didn’t have the time to understand. That wasn’t her task this time around. Beyond the ballroom, beyond the windows visible in the corridor just outside, the first of a solid week of heavy rains was beginning. Finishing her glass, she said, “As for trusting them, isn’t that why we train our soldiers so hard and so well?
Any
man or woman can rise up from the bottommost ranks to become the next Admiral-General.
All
of them need to know how to fight, and why, and when and where and how.”

“And we as officers just need to step back and
let
them fight, once we assign them their objectives,” Tumseh agreed, sighing roughly. “A flaw in our own thinking, swept up in Mattox’s self-importance. Surfing the tide of his enthusiasm, and blind to the fact the breakers were dashing our own soldiers upon the rocks.”

Ia nodded. “That’s why you’re here with me.” Tumseh shot her a questioning look. She smiled briefly. “You’ll be replacing me when I leave with my Company. You’re the best man for the job because
you
see the flaw, and will remember the flaw, and do your best to keep it from clouding your own thinking.”

Tumseh shook his head, hands tucked behind his back. “Oh, I hardly think I’m the right man for the job. I’m an analyst, not a strategist. I’ll tell you what needs to be knocked down, but . . .” He stopped, thought about his own words, eyed the markers on the central screen showing the general placements of various Army groupings, and realized what he had just said. “
. . . Ah.
I see your point.”

“Precisely. They’re doing a fine job, now that they’re
allowed
to do their job as they see fit,” Ia allowed, watching the tiny little shifts of color that indicated enemies engaged and objectives nearing completion. “As I told one of your sergeants a few days ago, a general leading from the rear can order his subordinates to climb the nearest local trees all he or she wants, but if he expects the soldiers out on the line to climb a stingersap tree simply because it’s closer than a beech-bark, then he is leading far too much from the rear.
I
lead from the front . . . even if I’m stuck in here for the moment, coordinating the few far-flung bits that still need it.”

“You do realize that, once you’ve had a year’s full worth of service in the Army, they’ll expect you to spend a year teaching at a Camp or a Fort or an Academy?” Major Tumseh asked her.

Ia knew what he meant by that. He thought she was being groomed for the Admiral-General’s post. Christine Myang herself thought she was grooming Ia for her own post. It was a very flattering idea, she had to admit.

“Yes, I do realize that, and all that it implies.” Ia changed the subject. “Right now, however, my intent is to drive the Salik fully into the open. They will be permitted no permanent structures, no long-lasting shelters, and no self-contained atmospheres that can last longer than two days. So. As my top and most sensible analyst . . . what pockets of resistance do you think should be tackled next?”

“The Sharriah Valley,” Major Tumseh stated after only a few moments of thought. Extending an arm, he traced a route along the map on the largest screen. “Now that you’ve driven them out of the caves in the hills, that’s their fallback position. It’s deep within their territory, though. Not an easy location to reach.”

“You have a plan?” Ia asked.

“Bomb random spots to distract them sonically, form up at least three push spots along the perimeter to look like real attacks, and use sandhogs to tunnel all the way to the base under the noise and confusion.”

“Get on it,” Ia ordered. “Wait—I almost forgot.” Opening her command bracer, she programmed it for a formal recording. “As a member of the Command Staff, I hereby authorize the immediate field promotion of Major Michel Tumseh to the rank of Brigadier General, 1st Division 6th Cordon Terran United Planets Space Force Army.” Logging it with a touch of a button to include the needed timestamp, and a touch of another to issue it to the local Army database, she snapped the lid shut again. “You’ll still report directly to me and follow my orders until I and my Special Forces troops leave, but this will get people used to looking to you for leadership. Particularly with this valley plan of yours. Once I’m gone, you will report to Major General Louise Xenadra of the 6th Cordon, and be fully responsible for the conduct and effectiveness of the 1st Division.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” he acknowledged, snapping into a salute. “Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.”

She saluted him back. “You’re welcome, and congratulations on your promotion, Brigadier General. Be mindful of both your first and last duties as an officer, with equal weight and care: to get the necessary objectives done,
and
get your soldiers back home again, as alive and well as possible. But do understand I wouldn’t have selected you if I foresaw any problems. Providing you put your mind to the tasks and responsibilities ahead, and
remember
that your own strength lies in analyzing what strategies must be sought, not in what tactics must be used.”

“Yes, sir, I will remember that, sir,” Tumseh agreed briskly. “With your permission, I’ll go issue the orders about the valley.”

Ia nodded, relieved to see him go willingly to his work. He was a good soldier, and would be a better officer with those warnings in his head. He would do well here. God knew she couldn’t stay beyond the appointed hour on this world, whatever happened between now and then. Too many other worlds hung in the balance, not just Dabin. The fiasco triggered by Private Sung back in the Helix Nebula had proved that all too well.

JULY 10, 2498 T.S.

“Beware the Ides of March,” Ia murmured. She had replaced Bennie at the tactical station, which had been rigged with eight more screens forming a faceted half dome over the station. Each of the six large secondary screens flanking the main screen showed a scene being covertly scanned by a tiny surveillance drone. The images were all dull in colors, Salik campsites barely lit by the twilight of burgeoning dawn.

“The Ides of March?” Brigadier General Tumseh asked her. He sipped at the cup of caf’ in his hand, standing next to her chair, shadowing her faithfully as she continued to teach him a different command style than the previous brigadier’s. “Pardon me, sir, but isn’t today the tenth of July, Terran Standard?”

“On Earth right now, it’s either summer or winter. But right here, right now . . . we’re about to experience the full glory of a Dabinian spring.” She lifted her chin at the image on the largest screen, the primary one. It showed a close-up reddish-hued plant with tiny leaves and fuzzy stems, and tiny, bulging yellow buds, many ready to burst. “For the last four days, it has been both dry and hot, locally. You’ve been on Dabin for, what, three tours now?”

“Three and a quarter,” Tumseh admitted. “I could’ve been switched out at the end of my third tour, but the blockade hemmed us in, so Mattox kept me on. General,
why
are we staring at an enlarged close-up of passion moss?”

“Yansuun di’esh Shio-ma A’tun, na’ala bura g’jong jungen g’vesh; atta tu-shia oua V’Sh’nai melunn li-a’ethnakh soth-ve druzh ka’a’oua t’tournei g’attesh.”
At his puzzled look, Ia explained what she had learned in her cross-cultural classes as a child. “It’s archaic High V’Dan, one of the praise-prayers from the Sh’nai faith of V’Dan. Basically, it means, ‘Praise be unto the High One, for the miracle of
jungen
; we the Faithful shall live happily and well for the rest of our days with each lungful drawn in and each mouthful consumed.’ It’s a very appropriate saying for this moment, on a world that was jointly founded.”

Sunlight struck the edge of the moss, creeping over the blossoms. As they watched, two of the blossoms quivered, then snapped open, releasing puffs of orange-yellow mist. Three more followed, and a cluster of five.

With each pop-and-puff, Ia’s subtle smile grew in its satisfaction. Movement in the skies on the secondary screens drew her attention. Great spheres of vat-grown leather had just been launched into these enemy camps from special cannons hauled as close as certain Companies and Legions had dared to get them.