Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship (36 page)

That last was stated as a reminder that Dabin was one of the many worlds the Empire shielded jointly with the Terrans, but one still under the V’Dan Imperial Shield. Bowing in her seat, Ia gave the only reply she could. “It is my honor to serve and to save, Eternity. I can do no less. My Company and I have been received with full honor and welcoming arms aboard the admiral’s ship. He and his crew are a credit to your Empire.”

“Then I am well pleased.
V’Daannia’nn sud-dha.
” A gesture ended the transmission on his side.

“As Fate wills it,” Ia murmured in Terranglo, ending it on her side. The V’Dan controls for the comm station in the conference room she had been allowed to use weren’t configured like Terran ones, but it didn’t take her too much effort to figure out how to ship a copy of her interview with the Emperor to the Terran Command Staff before closing the hyperrelay channel.

All this secrecy, with each government fighting to prevent the others from knowing things that honestly wouldn’t harm their standing . . . It’ll be a relief to be slotted into the command structure for most of the others so I can dispense with disclosure this and discretion that. In the meantime, all I can do is “hurry up and wait.” O, the joys of military life.

Without the elevation to General, I’d be forced to continue giving covert assistance to the other governments. But now . . . oh, Christine, you do not know how much easier you have made my job.
You
know I’ll continue to give covert assistance, but if the Emperor of V’Dan can pull enough diplomatic strings, the moment I can assist the others openly, this war will
leap
toward victory, not just crawl . . .

. . . Oh God.
She closed her eyes. Her mind leaped from Christine Myang to Christine Benjamin to Philadelphia Benjamin. To the others lost on Dabin.
Inyul Svarson, Helen Nabouleh . . . Helenne Franke. I liked Nabouleh. Damn fine pilot, and a damn fine cook, just like Philly . . . She made those little bite-sized puff-pastry things with the spices and the cheese . . .

Helenne Franke did knitting in her spare time. She was making all the officers and noncoms gloves for Chanukah gifts. I was planning on wearing mine, too. And Inyul Svarson . . . he kept threatening to turn off the heat in one of the cargo bays and open up a water pipe to make a skating rink for some winter-style recreation, or maybe reconfigure a misting machine to create a snowfield . . .

Good people, who didn’t have to die. Who should not have died . . . but did.
She could still hear Mishka in her head, pointing out that the “patient” of the Army Brigade was sick with some internal disease, and herself blithely brushing off the idea that Mattox wouldn’t cooperate.
It’s my fault. My arrogance. My blind faith.

I am an officer. I
know
that soldiers die.
Hellfire
, I know that civilians die! And I know, I
know
, that no matter how carefully I husband my resources, how carefully I plot and plan and contrive . . . some will die.

But it still
hurts
.

This was the corollary to her plans to save the galaxy. The hellfire and the hardship and the damnation of it. No matter what she did, people were going to die. More people if she
didn’t
act than if she did, a lot more people. But even if the mess on Dabin hadn’t happened, a lot of people, good sentients both Human and otherwise, were still going to die. Tears stung at her eyes.

A
lot
of people.

Wiping at her eyes, she let her head droop against the edge of the padded backrest. But only for a few moments. A leftenant of the V’Dan Fleet was on his way to ask for advice from the Prophet. Not for himself, but for his son, to ensure his son lived a good and long life. Ia didn’t dare refuse. For the entire time that she was on board the
T’Chu-chen Vizeth
, she had to present herself as the Prophet of a Thousand Years as well as a Terran officer, a woman whose coming was long predicted by the holy writings of the Sh’nai, the premier faith of V’Dan. The Prophet was supposed to be a beacon of strength and stability in a galaxy where the tides of war threatened to tear away the foundations of civilized life.

She had to be strong because morale was just as important to their Human cousins of the First Empire as it was to her fellow Terrans of the Second; what she had done so far and what she did on board this ship for the next seven days would be discussed all across the Imperial Fleet within a month. It was not an easy balance, because she had to be strong and persuasive, but not aggressive or forceful. She had to be confident and compassionate even when she needed to improvise on the fly. And she didn’t dare show any signs of weakness at this juncture. Not when nearly every moment she spent on board in transit was being recorded by the V’Dan ship’s internal sensors.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened in her seat, surreptitiously rubbed off one last tear, and squared her shoulders. The V’Dan analysts might see her momentary slouch in the recordings, her brief show of vulnerability . . . but they would not discuss it openly. The crew members on this ship would be left with the memory of a competent Terran officer as well as a living religious figure. Human, with a few flaws and weaknesses, but otherwise strong.

On such tiny things are great mountains built; great faith raised from a seemingly infinitesimal piece of sand, built grain by grain through hard labor, however tedious at times,
she reminded herself. Then smiled wryly, forcing herself to cheer up somehow.
Okay, I
did
want the adulation of the crowds in a great arena, listening to me perform my own songs, cheering me on as I sang. Even if I got the arenas of the battlefield and songs made of prophecy and projectile trajectories, instead of the performance kind, I’m sure it still counts.

At least Myang has given me permission to conduct the rest of my movements as I see fit in ongoing
carte blanche
. Even if I have to report in to her on a regular basis about it.
Tugging her jacket straight, she rose and crossed to the door, touching the controls that slid the panel out of the way.

“Leftenant Shung’ha, please come in,” she stated, even as the man on the other side lifted his hand to the control panel to announce his arrival. “I know why you are here, and I am willing to give you a few words of temporal advice.”

He blinked at her in surprise, then bowed deeply. “Anything at all from the lips of the Prophet would be a deep blessing.”

She stifled a humorless laugh, confining it to a slight twist of her lips. “I’ll try to make it a good one, but I can only See; I cannot change what may or may not be. It will be up to your child to live his own life for himself, by himself. Not even a beloved parent can lead it for him, never mind me. Your son is an individual with all the free will implied, and you can only guide him by suggesting and encouraging, not by dragging or demanding. You must keep that in mind as he grows, the same as for your daughter, who will come along in four more years.”

“Of course.” He stepped inside, giving Ia the room to shut the door in his wake. “And thank you for letting me know I’ll have a girl . . . but I’d still like to know, so I can hopefully help guide him. Both of them.”

“Of course. Please, have a seat.”

Originally, this was planned to be a four-book series. However, despite being carefully trimmed down, the original manuscript for the fourth novel ended up being too big. Rather than butcher it or publish a book too large and ungainly to hold, the publisher and I have chosen to split it into two books:
Hardship
and
Damnation
(the latter being the original title for the fourth book in the series).

Because of time constraints, I did not rework the ending of this section of the original story nor the start of the next section so that they could stand more on their own—technically this entire series has been written as one story, though the previous three were written to be a little bit more independent than flat-out continuous. With
Hardship
and
Damnation
, this intentional continuity is even more apparent: the story literally flows from one chapter to the next, one book straight to the next. The story has been split at the junction between its two main story arcs, so thankfully this book does have some sense of closure and the next section has its own sense of beginning.

When I posted the news of the manuscript split online, most of my readers stated their open acceptance of the plan to produce five books in this series, not just four. For those of you who might be less pleased, I extend my apologies. My publisher, editor, and I all simply want to bring you the best story we can produce.

Thank you for your patience in waiting for the second half to reach you, and thank you for your understanding.

Jean

TURN THE PAGE FOR A SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THE CONCLUSION OF THE EPIC SERIES:

THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY

DAMNATION

BY JEAN JOHNSON

AVAILABLE IN DECEMBER 2014 FROM ACE BOOKS!

What did it feel like to step for the first time onto the
Damnation
, back in August of ’98? That’s an unfair question—unfair to you, I mean. I “first stepped” onto the
Damnation
when I was fifteen. I knew every pipeline, every cabin, every cannon and every corridor on her before I was old enough to legally drive. And I knew the
Hellfire
just as well, and just as early on, long before my military career began. I have known every single ship I ever boarded long before I touched foot to deckplate, just as I have known nearly every single person I have ever worked with in advance of that first day, Harper excepted.

But I will admit I did enjoy that new-ship smell. You don’t get that many smells in the timestreams, oddly enough, unless it’s temporally important somehow. It almost never is, though. As for the
Damnation
itself . . . it was longer, better laid out, and equipped with certain amenities that some would call luxuries, but which have kept my crew sane. It’s hard to relax when you fly from one battle to the next with rarely a pause for anything else.

Beyond that . . . it’s just like being back on board the
Hellfire
. This ship is our home. In a way, it always has been. In a way, it always will be.

~Ia

AUGUST 14, 2498 T.S.

TUPSF
LEO MAJOR

SCADIA, AQAT-15 SYSTEM

The
Leo Major
did not smell like the
Damnation
. Where Ia’s ship still smelled of fresh paint, carpeting, newly installed aquaponics, and various kinds of plexi, this larger but heavily battered starship smelled of internal fires, sweat, and dried blood. It also bore the odd odor of hard vacuum, not quite metallic and not quite like dust, the smell of cold frost mingled with the scents of chilled solder and other sealants.

From the swirled bits of debris on the deckplates, they might have gotten the hangar bay functionally airtight, but it was clear there had been far more important repairs on their mind than merely sweeping up. The
Leo Major
wasn’t ready even for insystem maneuvers, or those bits of metal and plexi would have been vacuumed up by now, for fear of their being turned into lethal projectiles during a sudden vector change. The civilian spacedock orbiting the third planet from the local sun wasn’t quite prepared to service a ship of the
Leo
’s size, but they were doing their best. With the bay sealed and capable of accepting larger deliveries, the work could go a lot faster now.

Saluting the bandaged ensign who had granted her permission to board, Ia waved off the young man’s offer to guide her with a murmured, “No need to bother, Ensign; I already know the way. Please fetch a three-ton hoversled for Private Runde, and prepare to board live cargo for the life-support bays.”

“Uhh . . . aye aye, sir,” the ensign stammered, eyeing Ia as she headed into the damaged ship.

She did know the way, though she had never stepped foot aboard a battlecruiser of the Talon Class before. Three levels up to Deck 25, five cross-corridors aft to Lima, and one side trip toward the port brought her to the boardroom for the Marines Company stationed aboard. Here, the visible damage to the ship was considerably less, though the damage to the brown-clad men and women inside was quite evident.

One of the women, sporting a blue regen pack strapped over one ear, caught the movement of Ia’s approach out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see who had entered, caught sight of Ia’s Dress Blacks with its two-tone stripes of green and gray, the four stars pinned to her collar points and shoulder boards, and stiffened. “General on Deck!”

“At Ease, meioas,” Ia quickly ordered, since there was more than one soldier with an injured arm in the room. “I’m not here for your salutes. You earned my respect when you donned the Brown of the Marines, and earned it again with how well you fought today.”

Some of them relaxed at her speech. Others stood a little taller with the pride her words invoked. Most of them parted to either side a little, opening up an aisle between her and their current commander. Standing in front of the officer’s desk, on the dais in front of the sloped tiers of seats, was a man she had not seen in over eight years. He stared at her, squinted . . . and then sagged back against the table, resting his hips against the edge.

“Well, double-dip me,” Brad Arstoll muttered slowly, staring at Ia as she closed the distance between them. “It
is
you! I’d heard some wild-asteroid tales about someone with your name pulling all sorts of
shova
out there, but . . . it really
is
you, isn’t it? And a
shakking
general—look at you!”

Ia gave him a half smile and spread her hands slightly. “In the four-star flesh. I’m here on the
Leo
for two reasons. Three, if you count the shakedown flight out here to help you and the Scadian Army fight off the Salik invaders earlier today.”

“Well, we appreciated that,” he agreed.

“No thanks are needed. First off,” she stated, digging a hand into her Dress Black jacket, pulling out a small black box, “I am authorized by the DoI to confirm your field promotion,
Captain
Brad Arstoll. Effective immediately, you are now officially in charge of D Company, 3rd Legion, and not just the Acting Captain for D Company, 3rd Legion, 3rd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 4th Division, 2nd Cordon Marine Corps. This box holds a data file with the pertinent DoI paperwork . . . plus your silver tracks, of course. You’ve earned them.”

“Thank you, sir,” Arstoll murmured, accepting the package. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“I know,” Ia murmured back, knowing he meant he wished he hadn’t earned it at the expense of the loss of his CO. “Captain Ling-Bradley was a good leader. But so are you.” She tapped the box now in his hand. “There’s a second datachip in here with a few precognitive directives you might find useful. Beyond that, I know the Corps trained you well. You have my confidence, and that of the Command Staff.”

“Huh,” he grunted, a humorless laugh. “Of
course
they’d be confident. The Prophet of a Thousand Years told them so. If this is just a favor to an old Basic Squadmate . . .”

“You’ve
earned
it, so step up to the job and suffer, soldier,” Ia corrected him firmly, pushing the box against his chest. He winced a little; his ribs were taped, waiting for the bone-set serum to finish healing the fractures earned in combat. She didn’t push hard, though, and removed her hand once he got the point. “Second . . . I lost five good men and women on Dabin. Lives I shouldn’t have had to lose,” Ia admitted, jaw tightening for a moment. “I may be a massive precog, but I can’t control everything. Because of it, I need replacements. I have two already in transit to meet up with my ship in the Tilfa System, but I’m here for the other three.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take one of your Marines,” she added, glancing over her shoulder at the men and women listening with various levels of interest and boredom as the two of them had caught up with old news. Her words piqued interest even in the most bored of the soldiers. “The last two I need are serving in the Scadian Army in the Orbital Fleet. I convinced the Admiral-General to help with some premaneuverings on getting them transferred, so I have a writ from the Scadian military leadership allowing me to recruit whoever I like. I’ll still have to do a little diplomatic dancing once I get down to the surface, but it’ll be worth it.”

“
Shakk . . .
I wonder what strings you had to pull to get
that
done,” Arstoll muttered, eyeing her. “These colonists are proud as hell about serving their planet. They wouldn’t even have accepted
our
help if they’d had enough ships to cover all vectors. They don’t lack the fighting skill or the tactical smarts, and they don’t lack any bravery; they just lack the equipment to get the job done.”

“I know. That’s why I need two of them. They’re the best shot I have at filling the gaping holes the Salik blew in the best crew of the Space Force. As for the Marine . . . I’ll need your Private Second Class Julia Garcia.”

“Garcia?”
Arstoll exclaimed, eyes wide with disbelief. Other voices joined him in their confusion.

“Wrong-Way Garcia?”

“
That
piece of
skut
?”

“Sir, if you think
Garcia
is going to . . . er . . .” The speaker, the woman with the missing ear, trailed off as Ia turned to face Arstoll’s soldiers. Her hard stare silenced all of them.

“Private Garcia,” Ia enunciated carefully, with just enough volume to fill the boardroom as she shifted her gaze from face to face, “is a far better soldier, and a far better Marine, than all of you combined. In my hands, within one year, she will be the hero of a hundred fights and the savior of more than a million lives . . . and that is
not
hyperbole, meioas. I have foreseen it—speaking of which,” she added, lightening her tone as she shifted her gaze to one of the taller, redheaded men. “Private McCraery, remember to hit the deck flat out instead of just duck on the sixteenth of September, at about two o’clock local. You’ll know when. I’d rather you didn’t get your head blown off because you overestimated the height of the incoming attack. Captain Arstoll will still need you afterward, so keep yourself alive.”

“Uh . . . yes, sir,” he agreed hesitantly.

“Private Sangwan, since you were trying to be so
generous
with praise for Private Garcia,” Ia added, turning back to the woman with the regenerating ear, “you can go help her pack her things. We leave in thirty-three minutes from Docking Bay B. Dismissed. Corporal Vance, you were about to ask your CO for a priority list of mechsuit repairs, on behalf of the
Leo Major
’s manufactory bays. You will need A through C Squad functional in the 1st Platoon, followed by B through E in the 2nd. The rest in those two Platoons have minor repairs they can manage on their own. The 3rd and the 4th Platoons will just have to wait their turn on the things they cannot fix themselves—Private Sangwan, you have been
dismissed
.”

“Beg pardon, sir?” she asked, glancing between Ia and Arstoll, then at Ia’s green-and-gray stripes . . . which were on the sleeves and pant legs of an otherwise all-black uniform. “Aren’t you like Special Forces, or Army, or something?”

Ia pointed at the stars on her shoulder board, speaking slowly and clearly. “I am Command Staff, soldier.
Everybody
in the Space Force is under my chain of command, save only for my peers on the Staff, the Admiral-General, Secondaire, and Premiere of the Council. You have your orders. Dismissed.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” she muttered, face flushed with embarrassment. Turning crisply, Sangwan headed for the doors out of the Company boardroom.

“Captain Arstoll, when you have a few minutes later on today, please remind your troops how the Space Force chain of command works,” Ia stated dryly, watching the other woman retreat.

“Sir, yes, sir,” he agreed, giving the departing, flinching Sangwan a hard look. “I’ll have her checked for a lingering concussion, too. I
thought
my Marines could count four stars on their own.”

A few of the others carefully looked anywhere but at their CO and the visiting, white-haired brass in front of him.

Nodding, Ia closed her eyes for a moment, focusing, then opened them. “Sergeant Yangley, the Navy order forms for what you need to requisition materials for the life-support bays are now appearing on your workstation screens back in the clerk’s office. I’ve already filled in the authorization codes for everything but the fish stock. Scadia doesn’t have enough of the right kind of fish just yet for your shipboard aquaculture needs.

“Being aware of that, I have brought over a tank of tilapia from the
Damnation
, along with enough feed to last them until you get the cycle balanced in the second bay and it becomes self-sufficient. Private Runde will already be loading them onto the hoversled fetched for her from the ensign on duty. Make sure to sign for them. Get to it.”

“General, yes, sir,” the sergeant replied crisply, turning to leave on his appointed task.

“Good meioa. The rest of you already know what you need to do. Since I am aware of those needs, and that when you put your minds to it, you are a competent crew, you don’t have to ask your captain anything right now; you have
my
permission for the tasks at hand. Go do them,” Ia directed the men and women before her. “That means
dismissed
.”

They scattered. When the last of them had left the room, Ia moved over to lean back against the table next to her old Basic Training Squadmate. It felt good to slouch a little, good to rest for a moment.

“Rank hath its privileges,” she murmured, glancing at him. “I hope you don’t mind me sending them off like that, but they honestly can handle everything, and this is literally the only time off I’ll have from my duties for months to come, waiting for Garcia to pack. It’s not much of a Leave, but I’ll take whatever I can get. So . . . How are you doing, Brad? I mean,
really
doing?”

Brad shook his head. “Between you, me, and the bulkheads?” he asked in a bare murmur, not nearly as sure as she was that there weren’t any listeners still nearby. “Like fresh, steaming shit. I had the Captain on the commscreen when the hull breach hit our docking bay. I
saw
him get sucked outside. He was not in a pressure-suit. This is
not
how I wanted my next command.”

Ia clasped his shoulder, giving him a brief moment of comfort. “I know. I wish I could’ve helped prevent it . . . and I know you’ll hate me for saying this, but . . . you’re going to be the right person in the right place at the right time because of this. Not just today, but multiple times in the next few years. The universe needs Captain Brad Arstoll to take full command of D Company. Do good things with it. Save lots of lives. Make as good a career for yourself and the meioas under you as you can.”

“How do you live with yourself?” Arstoll asked her, frowning at his former Squadmate. “Seeing what you do. Knowing what you do.
Doing
what you do, and
not
doing. If even half the rumors running around the Space Force in the last few weeks are true . . . how is it that you’ve stayed
sane
?”