Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty (41 page)

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Authors: Jean Johnson

BOOK: Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty
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She shrugged at him. “Unless we stumble across a cleaning supply closet while we’re down here, Private, I’m just going to have to stay ‘painted’ from helm to boot.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” Estes asked her. “Your first combat, and none of this bothers you?”
“I’ve seen worse,” Ia stated flatly. She didn’t have to see through their silvered faceplates to know her squad mates were looking at each other. Mindful of their reactions, she added, “Not much worse, but the only thing I can do at the moment is clean up what I can, and deal with my nightmares later. Right now, we have a job to do, which is taking care of this mess. I’d like to focus on
doing
it, and being useful, for my sanity’s sake.”
CHAPTER 13
 
Fighting in real life isn’t like the way they show it in the entertainment industry. They show you the tensions leading up to it, they show you the excitement and the horror of it . . . and then the heroes just walk off into the sunset or whatever. They never show you the literal hours and hours—and sometimes days and weeks—of cleanup which is required, post-battle.
With good reason, of course. It’s hard, it’s gross, it’s messy, it’s depressing, and it’s boring. Usually.
~Ia
 
 
“Bloody Mary!”
Stopped in his tracks, Lieutenant Ferrar stared at Ia. Just stared. He wasn’t the only one, but his exclamation and his sudden halt in the middle of the 2nd Platoon’s prep bay captured the attention of the rest.
Since all three of the airlocks had been blown on the offside of the enemy ship, the
Liu Ji
had been forced to hook up to the far side of the
Clearly-Standing
to transfer troops and crew to the larger starship, first the injured and the prisoners, then the rest. Members of the Navy half of the ship had taken their place, swarming over both vessels to see what could be done to make both of them spaceworthy. A Squad, holding secure the vital bridge area, had been the last to evacuate.
That meant the prep bay was filled with Marines who were climbing out of their suits, cleaning them up, and checking them over for repair. Plenty of ears to hear the Lieutenant’s loud exclamation, and plenty of eyes to seek out the source of his shock. Plenty of mouths to drop and gape, too.
“Corporal Ia and the remainder of A Squad reporting in, Lieutenant,” Ia stated, staying sealed and keeping her blast plate down. By now, the gunk on her armor had congealed into a sticky brown crud which she didn’t want gumming up the helmet’s works.
“Bloody Mary!” he muttered again, eyeing her from head to toe. Craning his neck, he peered at the others lined up behind her. “Are you injured?”
“Sir, no, sir. All of this came from the enemy. Nor were any of the rest of my Squad, beyond some minor damage to Private Cooper’s armor during the hangar fight with the lieutenant, sir. The Salik bridge has been surrendered to the command of Ensign Brakk and his crew,” she reported. “Requesting permission to clean up and perform the necessary battle repairs before our debriefing, sir.”
“Permission granted.” He eyed her bloodied armor a moment more, then shook it off. “Since you don’t have a sergeant, gather the reports from your squad mates and report directly to Lieutenant D’kora for your debriefing. And make sure your armor is scrubbed and sanitized thoroughly before you leave this bay.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Turning to face the others, she gave her orders. “A Squad, you heard the Lieutenant. Clean up, repair what you can, file any replacement forms, then fill out your battle sheets. I want them in my inbox folder in three hours. Dismissed.”
They scattered. Ia headed for the decontamination stalls. The auto-scrubbers would get the worst of the gunk off of her armor, which would allow her to unseal and step out so she could hand-clean the remainder. Estes, who had gotten a bit messy herself in clearing up the bridge enough for the Navy to have room to work, followed her. She, however, was free to unseal and tip her helmet back; most of the stains on her armor were from the chest down.
“ ‘Bloody Mary,’
eyah
?” Estes asked her teammate.
“Bloody Mary,
hoo-
rah,” Ia quipped back, drawling her reply.
“Shyeah,” one of the members of C Squad retorted as they passed him. “
One
battle.
One
fight. A nickname like that, you gotta
earn
it.”
Ia carefully did not reply.
 
Polishing her armor was necessary. As was repairing it, though Ia’s mechsuit only needed a few touch-ups with a filler compound from where it had been scratched by flying debris. Polishing it slowly, buffing every single inch of the hematite grey composite of ceramic and metal until she could see her white-haired head in the shine, was overkill. She had already cleaned and polished her knife and its clip-on sheath, and had made sure even the Choya blood, which dried into a hard-to-see clear paste, was no longer present anywhere on her gear.
Further down the prep bay, she could hear two of her fellow members of the 2nd Platoon, Dexter and Adams, discussing repairs that had just been made to Dexter’s mechsuit. She could hear the slight hum and hiss as Dexter flexed his elbow joint. A third, Hmongwa, was using his suit to store heavy equipment used to make needed repairs to his own half-mech.
Even knowing it was coming, when it sounded, the klaxon startled her.
“This is Captain Davanova. We have intruders on the
Clearly-Standing
. I repeat, intruders on the
Clearly-Standing
. Several Choya have grabbed Navy personnel as hostages and are fighting their way back to the Salik vessel. All hands, report for battle! All hands, report for battle!”
Grabbing knife and sheath, Ia slammed the blade home and tucked the sheath in the waistband of her camouflage brown trousers. “Adams! Hmongwa! Dexter! Lock and load, we’re going in!” Tapping the comm link on her wrist unit, Ia spoke into it, sprinting down the bay toward the weapons lockers.
“Ia to Lt. D’kora, I need the weapons lockers released. Adams, Hmongwa, and Dexter are still in the prep bay with me; we’re on first response!”
Skidding to a stop in front of the cabinets, she waited impatiently for the red-locked lights to turn green on the security panels. Thumping noises showed the two mechsuited Marines following her orders.
“Move it, Adams! Forget your armor! Grab a weapon and go!”
“We need to wait for our Squads,” Hmongwa pointed out, reaching her side with thumping strides. “You’re A Squad, I’m B.”
“Potluck of war, meioas!” she snapped, making sure her voice carried to the back of the bay. “When you’re caught with your pants down, you grab any and all personnel—
move it
, Adams!”
The lights flicked to green.
“Corporal Ia, I’ve released the weapons lockers. You are green for go. We’ll be right behind you. Remember, we like the Navy. Don’t get them killed.”
“We’re on it, sir.”
Yanking up the largest cabinet doors, she flung two HK-114s at the two mechsuited men, who hastily caught them, then pulled up the doors to the e-clip cabinet and tossed a trio of e-clips at Adams as he came skidding up to them. He fumbled one to the floor as she opened a third locker, grabbing a smaller-seeming HK-70. “Pass those out, Adams! The three of you, follow me!”
She turned and ran—jogged, so they wouldn’t fall behind—up the corridor leading to the launch hangars. Rather than turning right toward the boarding pods, she turned left, taking the nearest gantry tube still attached to the
Clearly-Standing
. A tap of her comm link controls linked her to the
Liu Ji
.
“Corporal Ia to Captain Davanova, we’re responding to your distress call. What is the known location of the enemy?”
It wasn’t the Captain who answered, but rather the comm officer on the bridge.
“Uh . . . Corporal Ia, last position was Deck 3, Mauve Sector. That’s the section with the purply pink walls . . . Who the hell paints their walls purply pink?”
Ia grinned. She knew that last comment wasn’t meant to be on-mike.
“The Gatsugi, of course. Deck 3 Mauve, got it.”
“Mauve Sector is . . . midships starboard, close to the Salik vessel.”
“Got it. Ia out.”
Closing the link, Ia led the others into the
Clearly-Standing
. The airlock was white, but beyond that, the corridors were a soft shade of aquamarine. She ran lightly, mindful not to go too fast for either the unarmored Adams or the burdened Dexter and Hmongwa behind her. “I studied the ship schematics we were given at the debriefing. We’re entering on Deck 5. Mauve sector is on the far side of Lemon Yellow, which is the central core on these vessels.”
“If you ask me,” Dexter muttered through his external speakers, following Ia at a deck plate shuddering jog, “the Gatsugi are insane. Painting their corridors weird colors?”
“Yeah, well, at least they don’t
eat
people,” Adams retorted. “Did you hear what those frogtopuses did to this ship’s captain?”
“I didn’t have to hear it,” Ia muttered. “I
saw
it—Yellow Sector—forest green doors, that’s the lift service!” Dashing forward, she slapped the lift controls. “Up we go.”
It took a small eternity, six or seven seconds, for the lift to reach their deck. Ia and Adams ducked inside and plastered themselves against the front wall in each corner, allowing the two mechsuited men room to enter. The last thing either of them wanted was to have a foot stepped on by a half ton of moving machinery.
“Deck 3,” Adams muttered, twisting to punch the buttons. “Uhh . . . there, that should be it. Top down, left to right?”
“Correct,” Ia confirmed. “Their number 3 kind of looks like an incomplete four-point star.”
“Got it.” The doors closed. The elevator lurched upward, straining under the weight of the two mechsuits, then chimed and opened up again. Ia darted out, oriented herself, and took off to the right. Dexter and Hmongwa followed, and Adams trailed behind.
They heard the sounds of shouting, hissing, and the sizzle of laser fire striking something, though there were no screams of pain, yet. They also encountered a knot of Gatsugi, wringing their four-fingered, fourfold hands in hues of muddy yellow distress, or gripping their version of laser pistols grimly in shades of rage-mottled red. Two blue-clad Humans were there as well, one clearly dead, the other gasping in pain as a grim-brown Gatsugi did her best to bind his bloodied leg.
Ignoring him, Ia squeezed past the other aliens so she could crouch and peer around the corner. She could just make out four Choya and two hostages, one a blue-clad Human, the other a beige-clad Gatsugi. It looked like they were keeping watch both on this corridor and on the airlock into the Salik ship. Pulling back, Ia hissed at the aliens around her.
“Back/back/back! Clear/exit this corridor/hall!” she ordered, shooing them with rolling flips of her hands, Gatsugi-style. They blinked their black mouse eyes at her, then scattered. Some helped the injured Navy man retreat into a side cabin. “Hmongwa, Dexter!” she ordered in an undertone. “Four of them, just around the corridor. Two hostages, one Navy. Keep them pinned down. Don’t let them escape this way, but definitely get their attention focused on
you
. Adams, you’re with me.”
“
We’re
not armored,” Adams reminded her as he hurried after her, following her back up the corridor.
“No, we’re not.” She beckoned for one of the Gatsugi to follow her. “But if I remember the schematics right, there’s a service access panel in the bulkheads just behind where their rearguard is stationed. You, show us!”
“Access/hatchway, behind/near them?” the crewmember asked, blinking. She thought a moment, then tipped her head and gestured in affirmation. “This/This way!”
“Sneak attack?” Adams murmured, figuring it out. Grinning, he warmed up his rifle and followed. Then caught Ia by the elbow, jogging at her side. “You don’t have a weapon, Corporal!”
She shrugged off his touch. “Don’t worry, I brought a knife.”
“To a
gun
fight?” he scoffed.

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