Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (28 page)

Ia bowed her head. “Thank you, Nadja. I promise you, I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t the best way to handle the Salik with the least—literally, the least—loss of lives over the long run. Even if it means destroying several worlds, and several billion lives, in the short term.” She looked at the others and tested her mental toes in the timestreams. “So . . . no one else has any questions?”

Spyder uncurled himself from his seat. He stretched as he rose, and sighed. “Nope. ’M goin’ back t’ bed, sir. Wit’
out
seein’ anythin’ in th’ streams,” the lieutenant added pointedly. He scratched his belly with one hand and his short-cropped, pattern-dyed hair with the other. “I’d like t’ get a
good
night’s sleep, ’f’s’all th’ same.”

She spread her hands and shrugged. “Dismissed.”

The others started rising and moving toward the doors as well. There was a little bit of conversation, a few murmurs here and there, a number of sober expressions, but for the most part, they seemed to just accept her word on the whole matter. Ia sank down onto her chair, unsure what to make of that broad of an acceptance. Crossing behind her, Lieutenant Rico paused long enough to clasp her shoulder with one large hand.

“We do trust you, sir. Just stay worthy of that trust, and that’s all we’ll ask.” Squeezing briefly in comfort, he headed out the door.

Stumped, Ia sat there and tried to comprehend her crew’s acceptance. It was possible; it had clearly happened, but . . . she had come here expecting protests, a struggle, a fight to get at least some of them to understand . . .

“Everything alright?” Harper asked her, leaning close.

“I . . . think so?” she said, looking up at him. “Actually, everything just went . . . really well. Too well. I think I may need to worry about this for a while.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Just accept it, Ia. If you said it’s necessary, this crew would follow you into Hell itself, no questions asked.”

“Excuse me, but
I’d
ask questions,” Helstead argued from his other side. “Like how many demons are we taking out, which ones we’re supposed to leave in place, and whether or not we’re taking over permanently or just visiting, and if so, for how long?”

That woke her up from her daze. “This crew is
not
going into Hell,” Ia asserted, pushing to her feet. “Not if I have anything to say about it. But if the lot of you don’t need me today, I have a mountain of work waiting for me, to make sure you
do
stay out of Hell—Sergeant Grizzle, don’t forget we’re boarding a shipment of hydrobombs from the
Amazing Grace
at 1700.”

The aging clerk nodded, though he didn’t lift his attention from the datapad in his hands. “Got most a’ th’ paperwork squared away. Just needs yer signature, sir. Sittin’ on yer desk in the In bin.”

“I’m on it,” she promised.

JUNE 16, 2499 T.S.
CHO VA ORBIT
CHO CHSHIEN SYSTEM

Despite having departed last, the
Damnation
was the first to arrive. Ia brought the long, narrow ship out of the hyperrift tunnel and braked quickly with pulses from the insystem field. The ship halted just beyond the outer orbit range of the Choyan homeworld. It was a predominantly water-based world, with tens of thousands of islands and several smallish continents, wreathed in wisps and streaks of grayish white clouds to the right and the darkness of city-sprinkled night to the left. Of course, they had also arrived upside down compared to what the natives thought of as north versus south. She didn’t bother rotating the ship, however.

“Huey?” Ia ordered. “Aquinar? Belini?”

“Already calling,” the pixie-shaped Meddler murmured. She had dressed herself in a strapless top and high-waisted tights marked with large triangles and diamonds of pale yellow on black, and stood out a bit against the shades of gray everyone and everything else wore, on the bridge.

“On backup, sir,” the third watch pilot murmured. She wasn’t taking over Ia’s job of manning the helm, per se, but she was watching to make sure nothing surprised them and would make minor course corrections if needed because Ia was not going to be watching their heading directly for the next little while.

“We are . . . launched, sir,” the gunnery tech stated, as a
whump
echoed faintly through the deck. “Navcomp says . . . on time and on target, achieving a stable orbit in three minutes.”

Mysuri spoke from the comm station. “Sir, I have pingback from the Cho Home System Fleet, and a broadband light-speed recast ready. The Choya are demanding we surrender or they’ll destroy us. Status on all hyperrelay bandwidths is wide open and green for go.”

“Acknowledged, Private. Light ’er up,” Ia ordered.

“Activating general broadcast on your primary in three . . .”

She lifted her finger on a silent
two
 . . .
one
, and slashed it off to the side on
zero
. A yellow-skinned, gill-pack-strapped Choya female appeared on the screen, but Ia didn’t give the admiral a chance to speak first.

“I am Ia, General of the Alliance Armies, Prophet of a Thousand Years. By joint agreement of all the heads of state of the Alliance nations, I am hereby declaring Martial Law throughout known space, and enacting a full-stop Quarantine Extreme on
all
known systems. You will cease all attempts at invasion, trade, commerce, travel, and exchanges of any sort whatsoever. You will close your borders, and you will cease all battle actions. You will refuse any packages, couriers, shuttles, escape pods, merchant vessels, battle ships,
anything
that has touched Salik airspace, even
rocks
lobbed your way by the Salik nation, or face destruction on grounds of Alliance Center for Disease Control Quarantine Extreme Protocol 99alpha. Everyone outside of the Choya nation has one Alliance Standard day to pull in everyone who cannot survive for six weeks on their own.”

“You will ssssurrender or be dess—” the Choyan commander of the home fleet began to counter. Ia continued speaking firmly, cutting her off.

“These orders will be applied to the Choya nation as well, but
you
do not have one day. You will immediately pull in every worker taking a spacewalk, every shuttle, every courier ship across
all
known Choyan occupied worlds, moons, stations, and ships, and seal yourselves for the next six weeks Alliance Standard. You will destroy any ship, package, or item that attempts to touch your surfaces, whether that’s an atmosphere or a ship hull, and you will do so using extreme force and extreme heat in excess of 2700 degrees Alliance Standard.”

On Ia’s left secondary screen, the one that showed real space instead of a tactical schematic, silver spheres started popping and streaking into existence around her ship. Some used translocation tesseracts; some swooped in at faster-than-light speeds. Ia held her gaze on the screen pickups.

“This will require the detonation of hydrobombs. If you do not have any, or refuse to use any, the Alliance and the Feyori are here to ensure that the infected zones are thoroughly destroyed for you,” she explained.

“Feyori . . .”
the alien admiral repeated, slit pupils widening in shock as she turned her gaze to the side, staring at a secondary screen of her own.

“You have exactly 137
zvikmah
Choyan Standard from . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .
mark
, to pull in your people and prepare to sit tight for six weeks Alliance Standard. This is Quarantine Extreme, meioas. No one in; no one out; no exchange of contaminated surfaces or atmospheres;
no
exceptions. Failure to comply will result in the infected ship, station, moon, or
world
being destroyed.

“This is not a threat, meioas,” she clarified bluntly, as ships started blipping into view on the tactical grid being displayed on her right secondary screen. “We don’t care that you have been allied with the Salik until now. We are here today to do whatever it takes to ensure your species survives. I suggest you cooperate.”

The admiral started to speak—and the screen flickered, shifting to an image of a brownish-hued Choyan male, his fine-scaled skin tinted slightly green in the lighting around him. He sat in a silver-gilt throne, his shoulders collared in gem-studded links crafted from platinum.

“I am Fshau, Son of Cho, Ruler of the Thirteen Chshien,” the new alien stated in the same flat, firm tone Ia had used. His Trade Tongue was flawless, lacking the usual sibilant hisses and drawled soft consonants of his race. “You have no authority here. Human. You will be destroyed.”

“I greet you in neutrality, Son of Cho,” Ia replied, dredging up what she remembered from her xenoprotocol lessons. “Your allies have released and spread a plague that will destroy all sentient life. I warned them not to go to war. I told them that if they did, their entire species would perish. They went to war anyway . . . and that plague has been released. One hundred thirty-six and a half
zvikmah
from now, the first infected ship will reach Choyan airspace. We will destroy it rather than allow it to destroy your people.”

“You will not be alive. Attack them!” the leader of the Choyan nation ordered, glancing off-screen.

“Feyori. Counter it,” Ia ordered.

A telepathic pulse from Belini flashed through her mind—and the first wave of silver soap bubbles scattered. Hundreds more were still arriving, but those first arrivals swerved outward by the scores, intercepting the ships that had started moving into firing positions as soon as the
Damnation
had first appeared. They turned dark and blocked and swallowed projectile missiles, laser fire, even enveloped single-pilot fighters.

Laser fire brightened the spheres, returning them to bright silvery shades. The fighters they spat back out, pointed back the way they had come, their engines dead and drained. The projectiles . . . remained within the depths of each Meddler. Some brightened, as if absorbing the energy stripped from the missiles. Some of the Feyori remained dark, as if merely holding on to their captured payloads, or perhaps slowly digesting them somehow.

The Choyan bared his teeth, displeased. “Cease the attack,” he ordered whoever was off-screen, and returned his gaze to Ia’s. “We do not surrender. But we acknowledge the impasssse. We acknowledge you have a reputation for truth-speaking. Speak now the truth, General.”

Ia dipped her head, knowing the Son of Cho had to be furious to let his diction slip like that, even if only briefly.

(
Just as you warned me, we do have our first conscientious objector,
) Belini told Ia. (
Here, grab him. A fellow named Dunkun.
) She handed over her tie to the Feyori in question. It was a tenuous thread of purposed kinetic inergy, psi-stuff, but that was all Ia needed to track down and identify exactly which Meddler was not willing to play along. Eighteen different individuals could have spoken up first, which was why Ia had turned over the task of looking for them to her cofaction.

“Son of Cho, two and a half Terran years ago, I told the leaders of the forty Choyan ships sent to attack the Terran homeworld that they should not attack. That they should stand down. They refused. I destroyed thirty-three of those ships. I did so while they were traveling faster-than-light, and while my ship was at a standstill.

“I say to you, as I said to them: ‘Turn back, Son of Cho. Turn back, and let go the burdens of your anger,’” she invoked, repeating the same cultural quote she had given those ships years ago. “‘Or your people will never reach the far shore.’
Turn back
, Son of Cho. Surrender, cooperate, and your people will live. This I swear to you as the Prophet of a Thousand Years.”

“And if I refuse?” Fshau asked. His voice remained flat, neutral, and firm.

Ia subtly tucked her right hand into the little alcove holding the energy outlet for her station. “My ship is at a standstill. Your exact location is
not
traveling faster-than-light. If I need to, Fshau, I will target you, destroy you, and apologize to the survivors of the resulting blast and firestorm that will engulf your capital city.
After
I have saved the rest of your race from this plague. I would rather not have to do that, but I am no longer playing by the soft-touch rules I used before. Your life is nothing. The lives of the billions around you are everything, and I am here to save as many as I can. I do not care about your nation’s actions in the Second Salik War right now, save whether it means having to find someone to replace you as leader.”

Holding his gaze, she raised her left arm, wrapped her hand around the KI-link Belini had handed her, and
pulled
the resisting Feyori through several star systems. The Son of Cho flinched at the silver bubble that flashed into existence at her side, visible on her end of the comm broadcast. Without looking at the energy-based alien, Ia laid down the law. Her law, regarding the Feyori.

(
You will
all
do as I say, when I say, and how I say, or I will remove you from the Game and appoint a new Meddler in your place. There is no neutral. There is no counterfaction. There is only obedience to the Prophet, or death.
) Seizing his energies, she pulled, twisted, and
dragged
the Feyori through the timeplains, abrading five years off his life. He screeched, sparks hissing off his sphere. Ignoring them, she looped a net of purpose around the Feyori’s energy matrices, then dragged him on the timeplains to the squared speed of light. (
This is your punishment for disobeying my first command. Do not seek the next level of punishment with a second offense.
)

Linked with Belini, Ia stuffed him into a Choyan body, then braced him with her hand around his scaled, slightly damp wrist as he landed and stumbled, trapped next to her workstation in matter-form. Addressing the other alien in front of her, the one on her primary workscreen, she lifted her chin a little.

“As you can see, Son of Cho, I have many more allies than you. Terran. V’Dan. K’Kattan. Tlassian. Gatsugi. Chinsoiy. Solaricans. Dlmvla.
Feyori.
Let
go
the burden of your ambitions. Sever your ties with the dying Salik race. Surrender, and you will be saved.