Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (33 page)

“You wouldn’t?” he asked her.

“It would destroy our ability to be in the right place at the right time with the right people to thwart their ancient enemy. They’ll die as a race . . . but the last of them will die
after
seeing the Savior destroy the Zida”ya. I cannot save them, but I can offer them vengeance.
If
everything goes just right. I will not make a promise to them that I cannot personally keep.” Ia took a few more moments to finish the last of the pinning, then straightened and sighed, rubbing at the small of her back. “Done. Toss the shorter one in the sonic cleaner, will you? I have to find the strength to don this thing.”

“I
did
have engineering dial back the gravity plates over the last three days, you know,” he told her. Harper raised his voice as he retreated to her head and stuffed the jacket into the cleaner, doing as she asked so that she could shrug into the heavy coat. “No matter how many medals you have, that thing will not weigh anywhere what your weight suit wears—how many
do
you have by now, anyway?”

“I don’t know . . . over five hundred? Most of them are Target Stars,” she said, nodding at the distinctive golden stars with their arced red stripes forming concentric rings. They covered most of the lower panels of her coat. “I have personally shot down a lot of enemy stations and ships. Next-most are a heavy chunk of Skulls and Crossbones for confirmed kills of officers and noncoms—most of the recent ones were from the Dabin debacle.”

“Dabin debacle. I like it.” He wrinkled his nose as he came back into view, no doubt remembering the crew members killed under his command. “I do wish all those needless injuries and deaths could’ve been avoided—and I
know
you tried your best. It wasn’t your fault, Ia.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she agreed, buttoning the heavy, colorfully pinned coat, which now showed a bit more black than the previous, overcrowded version. “But I still feel far too many regrets. I just don’t have time to express them. As it is, our guests are at the airlock and—”

“Lieutenant Rico to General Ia; we have guests at the portside Deck 16 airlock.”

Ia adjusted the fit of the headset hooked over her ear and spoke into it. “
I know, Lieutenant; the Commander and I are on our way to the fore section. Ia out.
As I was saying, they’re there and waiting impatiently for us.”

Nodding, he palmed open her bedroom door. They passed from her sitting room to her office, to the Company clerk’s office, where the still ever-efficient ex-Knifeman, Mara Sunrise, rose from her seat, pulling several datapads out from under the clips lining the edge of her workstation.

“I have all the paperwork ready, sirs,” she stated, and moved to join them as the two officers continued through to the corridor outside. The other clerks on duty kept working; unlike them in their casual Grays, Sunrise had donned Dress Blacks, striped down the sides of jacket and trousers with a single gray ribbon; the only difference between her and Harper’s uniform was that Ia had ordered the full range of medals to be displayed, which meant the majority of hers were Skulls and Crossbones, while his were Compass Roses.

“General,”
Rico’s voice sounded in her ear.
“The Admiral-General is getting impatient that you are not there to greet her and the rest. She’s also a bit testy that we’re refusing to let them board.”

“I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant. Please kindly remind the Admiral-General of her standing orders regarding unauthorized personnel and the
Damnation
.”
She caught sight of Meyun glancing at her out of the corner of her eye but kept walking. He was smart enough he didn’t need to hear the other half of this conversation to guess what his fellow officer was saying. Same with Mara.

“Oh hell no,”
Rico countered.
“
You
tell her why even she can’t come on board just yet.”

“Then just tell her to be patient. They’ll be on board before we leave orbit.”

“I’ll try. Rico out.”

“Tell the Admiral-General to be patient?” Sunrise echoed, hearing her side of the conversation.

“More like, ‘Thank you for your patience,’” Ia replied. “Oslo Rico can be quite diplomatic.”

Sunrise snorted. “You should’ve seen him on Dabin. Somehow, I don’t think using an unarmored Salik as a club to beat off other frogtopi is found inside the Alliance Diplomatic Corps’ ‘how to’ manual.”

“Oh, come now,” Harper countered. “I’m sure I remember him saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ during that fight.”

Caught off guard by the first officer’s dry wit, Sunrise snorted, hastily covered her mouth, then had to slow down and juggle her slipping pile of datapads so they wouldn’t clatter to the ground. Ia reached the lift and pressed the button. She wanted to smile since it was funny in a morbid sort of way . . . but Meyun was right. She wasn’t
feeling
much at the moment.

Sort of like those five stages of grief and loss. Though I’m not sure I’ve gone through a denial phase . . . unless . . . no, my blind acceptance of my belief that Mattox would obey, that was denial, particularly in the face of the doctor’s assessment of the patient.
She stepped into the lift with the other two, riding it down several decks.
Anger? Off and on throughout the years. Bargaining’s easy: my entire existence is a massive round of bargains against time and the fickle nature of sentient beings caught in the waters of fate.

I think I’ve already gone through acceptance, taking on the heavy burden of responsibility for everything I’ve done . . . which leaves depression. And while the classic model doesn’t quite cover it since it’s an aversion to activities . . . I am in a sense mired in an aversion to
feeling
anything, not doing anything.

“By the way, sir,” Sunrise stated quietly as they stepped out of the lift onto Deck 19. “I wanted to thank you for not making Floathawg and me bunk with someone else.”

“You have too many lethal surprises scattered around your cabin to make you shift quarters. It’d take too long to disassemble all your hiding holes,” Ia said. “I’d rather not any of the civilians hurt themselves out of accident or ignorance.”

Sunrise shrugged . . . then gave Ia a sly sidelong look. “I noticed you didn’t object to them hurting themselves deliberately.”

“That’s because I have a chaplain psychologist to handle that. I’m only responsible for their physical well-being.”

They passed through the section seal and approached the airlock that connected their ship to the capital ship that had carried the Premiere this far. Ia tucked her fingers into the control niche for the airlock and tapped the keys to unlock the inner door. The new airlocks on the
Damnation
were an improvement from those on the
Hellfire
, in the sense that there were two actual airlock chambers. Both were long and broad, both with heavily armored doors, with the outermost one tucked behind yet more layers of external ceristeel plating when not in use.

Lieutenant Spyder stood at Attention in the outermost airlock with a stunner rifle in his hands, even though it wasn’t his duty shift. Once again, he was filling in for the role of Military Peacekeeper of his own volition, simply because the Damned didn’t have anything of the sort. Normally, they never needed it. Ia made a mental note to recommend him for another Honor Cross, for attention to details, anticipating a need, the initiative to carry it out, and the willingness to attend to it personally.

Another detail that slipped through the cracks. Rico was talking about Spyder, not whoever is manning Operations right now . . . Dinyadah? Yeah, the duty swap relieving Nelson was twenty minutes ago.

Nodding to him, she moved to tuck her fingers into the last set of controls . . . and realized the timestreams were converging on a lower-than-expected probability. Hesitating, she glanced over her shoulder. Glen flashed her a grin, then raised a violet-dyed brow. His hair had been redyed in shades of blue and purple, but though the buzz-cut strands were starting to grow out enough to show off his sandy brown roots, things like dyed eyebrows took longer to replace.

She knew why he arched it. Coupled with the slight, questioning shrug of his shoulders, he was asking,
Well, should I?
She wasn’t sure if she should. Taking a split second, she probed the timestreams . . . and found his reason for why.

He wanted to make her laugh. Ia almost winced.
Hell, the whole crew thinks I’m headed toward being a robot, not just Meyun. Little details, slipping through my grasp. I still need my crew.

Though it might cause her a few problems, Ia acknowledged that crew morale was important. So was her long friendship with Glen Spyder. Instead of shaking her head, she dipped it in permission, and merely said, “Clear the line of fire, meioas.”

The commander and the private exchanged hasty, startled looks, then quickly split to either side, putting their backs to the airlock walls. Her first officer eyed her even as he moved to at Attention opposite the equally stiff-bodied Sunrise. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Ia . . .”

“She has only herself to blame for laying down the rules.” Tucking her fingers into the controls, she manipulated them, then stepped back and to the side as the airlock door hissed slightly from the pressure differential and slid open.

Her 2nd Platoon lieutenant quickly lifted the stunner to his shoulder, barking out, “
Halt!
This is a restricted zone, sir, and you are not authorized to enter it.”

Caught with one foot touching the rim of the capital ship’s airlock threshold, Admiral-General Christine Myang froze and peered through the opening at him. Behind her, her two aides eyed the gray-clad Spyder and his white-and-black weapon. Beyond them, the Premiere’s Agents, highly trained security specialists, sprang into action: two pushed him back against the sidewall of the airlock, while the other three drew laser pistols. At the back by the hoversled packed with their luggage, the Dabinian reporter froze in her tracks.

There was a little red light on the gun, bright enough to display that it was charged and ready to fire, a visual warning for anyone the wielder faced. It was almost obscured by the wide-open cone of the nozzle, but it was visible. The Admiral-General eyed it, then looked at Ia, who indeed found the tableau amusing.

“What the . . . ? General Ia, what the
shakk
is going on here?” Myang demanded, her startled look snapping into a scowl. “Why are you smiling?”

“Paperwork, sir.” Oh, it hurt physically to keep herself from bursting into laughter. She held out her left arm, medals swinging and clanking faintly. Sunrise quickly tucked the first datapad in her stack into her hand. “As per
your
standing order, Admiral-General,
no one
is to be allowed on board the TUPSF
Damnation
, Harasser Class Mark II, without the proper authorization and clearance.”

Myang opened her mouth to protest, then shut it. She sighed. “You think this was funny?
Threatening
the Premiere, as well as your superior?”

“Lieutenant Spyder is standing six meters back from the airlock entrance, Admiral-General; the standard issue 40-MA he is wielding has been set to the five-and-five, as per airlock guard detail regulations,” Ia explained patiently. She looked past Myang, the aides, and the suited men guarding the Premiere. “That means, gentlebeings, that the effective stunning distance is at most five meters long, for a duration of only five minutes.
I
am within range of his weapons fire, but none of you are, unless and until you step across the threshold. As per regulations, sirs.”

“Stand down. Everyone,” Justinn Mandella ordered his aides. He straightened his jacket as the two stopped shielding him with their bodies, and the other three lowered their weapons. “An interesting ploy, General Ia.”

“Ploy?” Myang asked him, twisting to look back at the chief Councilor.

Ia relaxed subtly, following his line of thought in the timestreams. She’d picked the right way to explain, and he had picked the right interpretation to cause the least amount of trouble.

“She knows there will be a tribunal called to question her choice to slay the entire Salik race. This is her way of demonstrating palpably she is still following all possible rules and regulations. Paperwork, as you said,” Mandella added, nodding at her.

“Precisely, Premiere. Admiral-General Myang,” Ia offered, holding out her hand again. Sunrise passed a second datapad, allowing Ia to turn both pads in her hands to face their military leader. “You have two choices of paperwork before you: We do have the time to fill out every single form required for authorizing the ten of you to come on board for this specific mission . . . or you can cancel the order entirely and sweep it under the rug of my
carte blanche
discretionary powers. I will comply with either, and in each circumstance, I will continue to defend the sanctity of this ship and its secrets. It’s your choice, sir.”

Myang eyed her, eyed the pads, looked back and forth twice more, and grabbed the one on Ia’s left, the one that canceled the standing order and put everything under her
carte blanche
. “Pain in the asteroid . . .” she muttered, scrolling through the text and scanning her thumbprint in every box that called for it to initialize each part of the orders. “It’s almost arbitrary, which orders you’ll obey and which you’ll bend or break.”

“Actually, I try follow almost every single one of them,” Ia countered lightly. “And for the most part, I succeed.”

“Well, it
feels
arbitrary. There are your orders, General,” Myang countered, scrawling her signature with her fingernail, not bothering to pull out the stylus for that part. “Now let us on board.”

“Lieutenant Spyder,” Ia called out as she accepted the datapad back and held it out to Sunrise. “Stand down and let these ten meioas and their luggage pass.”

“General, yes, sir!” Spyder confirmed, snapping his rifle vertical. “Welcome aboard, Admiral-General.”

“I ought to court-martial the lot of you,” Myang muttered as she crossed the threshold.