Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty (57 page)

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Authors: Jean Johnson

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Bathed and changed into fresh camouflage Browns, her sword re-slung at her side, Ia hurried to keep up with Major Keating, chief doctor on board the
Liu Ji
. The woman had tended to several of Ia’s own wounds with aplomb in the past, but it was clear D’kora’s condition had her worried.
“She’s insisting on talking to you before we put her into the goo for the first round of regeneration treatments.” Keating stated, striding up the corridor from the lifts to the Infirmary.
Ia suppressed the urge to snicker. Most of her fellow grunts referred to the blue gel as
goo
, but it was amusing to hear a medical professional doing the same. However, this was not the best moment for her rare sense of humor to surface.
“I’m not sure if it’ll be enough to stop the swelling currently putting pressure on her spinal cord. She may need surgery, but my specialty isn’t neurology. My best hope right now is to get her stabilized enough for transport. But to do that, she has to go into the goo . . . and to do
that
, she wants to talk to you, first. Brace yourself.”
Ia nodded. She knew what was coming. They stopped outside one of the treatment wards and sterilized their hands under the scrubber rays stationed next to the door. Stepping inside, the chief medical officer led Ia up to the humming, monitor-equipped bed. D’kora had been strapped into something that looked more like a medieval torture device than modern medicine. But it cupped the older woman’s forehead and shoulders, and looked quite sturdy. Immobile, which was what the injured heavyworlder needed.
“Lieutenant D’kora, Sergeant Ia is here.” Gesturing for Ia to lean over the portable bed so she could be seen by the prone officer, Keating moved back out of the way.
Ia stepped up, taking her place. She had to place her hand on the hilt of her sword as she did so, to keep it from banging into the bed. “Lieutenant.”
“Sergeant.” The words were quiet, nearly a whisper. She couldn’t consciously draw in a lungful, but had to pause between autonomous breaths. Ia leaned closer, concentrating as D’kora spoke. “They gave me . . . a report. Three prisoners.”
“Sir, yes, sir. They’ve been stripped, tended, and locked in the
Liu Ji
’s brig. I’m on my way down to interrogate them after reporting to you, sir,” she said.
“And the rest . . . captured.”
“All twelve sergeants in attendance, the other two lieutenants, and the Captain, yes, sir,” Ia confirmed. “None of the actors, director, or theater crew in attendance were injured, other than a few bumps and bruises when they fell down. More than that . . . they came prepared with tranquilizer darts. They
knew
I’m resistant to stunner fire, sir, and knew in advance.”
“Whoever they are . . . they have their hooks into . . . the military. Spies here, or on the Platforms. Don’t . . .” D’kora paused, gathering her strength. “Don’t go to our immediate superiors. Go straight to the nearest Command Staff. That’s an order.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Just as she had anticipated.
“Major Keating . . .” D’kora flicked her eyes to the side, indicating what she wanted.
“Doctor?” Ia asked, looking over her shoulder. The major moved around to the other side of the treatment bed.
“I’m here, Lieutenant.”
“Record . . . these orders, Major,” D’kora ordered.
Ia watched as the major flicked open her command wrist unit and pressed a couple buttons. “Ready when you are, Lieutenant D’kora.”
“My last act as surviving . . . senior officer, I am . . . promoting First Sergeant Ia . . . to Acting Lieutenant Second Class. Battlefield promotion. She is in command of . . . A Company, 3rd Legion, 9th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Cordon, Terran United Planted Space Force . . . Branch Marine Corps, effective immediately.” D’kora fixed the other woman with a look that lacked strength, but lost nothing in significance. “Confirm and copy that, Doctor.
Then
you can remove me . . . from active duty.”
“About
time
, you stubborn meioa,” the chief medical officer muttered. She cleared her throat and spoke clearly, letting her words be recorded. “I, Major Keating of the Space Force Branch Navy Medical 5th Cordon, and medical auxiliary to the Branch Marine Corps 2nd Cordon, hereby concur and concede the elevation of First Sergeant Ia to the rank of Acting Lieutenant Second Class and acting commanding officer of the designated Marine Company in question.”
Lifting her unit, Keating nodded at Ia, who hastily raised her own. The orders were synched, then the doctor nodded at her wrist unit.
“I’ll imprint an official chip with the transcript and file it with Captain Sudramara. He’ll probably add his own agreement. You just go out there and get the sonovas who did this to her, Acting Lieutenant Ia. And get your superior officers back. In one piece, and alive,” the doctor added. “That includes yourself, you know. I’m getting tired of patching you up.”
“Sir, yes, sir. I fully agree, sir,” Ia said, saluting her. Keating saluted back, then shooed her out of the ward.
 
General Sranna was short, balding, and stocky, a fellow heavyworlder. Not from Sanctuary, of course, but from Eiaven. Ia had contacted him with the message that there was a Situation on board the
Liu Ji
and her superior officer had requested that he handle it.
The first thing he did after coming aboard and being briefed on the situation was to visit Lieutenant D’kora. She was submerged in goo from shoulders to scalp, sedated not only to keep her from injuring her neck, but because of the incisions on the back of her neck, in the hopes that the regenerative fluids would reach her injuries without requiring complicated neurosurgery. She didn’t respond to his presence.
After viewing her recumbent, torture device-wrapped figure in silence, the lieutenant general quietly insisted on being on hand when the prisoners awoke. So did Ia. He didn’t object. She spoke up when they reached the brig. “Do you wish to take the lead on these interrogations, sir?”
“No. Not at first,” he amended. “I checked your file. It’s become rather sticky with several DoI fingerprints. I want to see how you handle an interrogation, Acting Lieutenant. If you mess up on the first prisoner, I’ll step in on the next. If not . . . it’s your show.” Sranna nodded at the guards she had ordered into place. “So far, I like the security precautions you’re taking.”
“Thank you, sir.” She nodded at the nearer of the armed pair of Marines stationed opposite the brig door. “Open it up, Private Gunga.”
“Sergeant, yes, Se—er, sir, yes, sir!” he corrected himself. Stepping across the corridor, he typed in the command key for the door controls. His teammate, Davisson, aimed his stunner rifle at the doorway. The panel slid open and another Marine poked a white and black muzzle out the opening. Both held their fire long enough to confirm identities, then the one inside resumed his inward-pointed stance, echoing his partner. Ia and Sranna stepped inside, letting them seal the door shut again.
Captain Sudramara was already inside, talking quietly with the Navy brig officer. The swarthy, blue-uniformed man nodded at the green-garbed general. “General, sir.”
“Ship’s Captain Sudramara of the
Liu Ji
, this is Lieutenant General Sranna, 3rd Cordon Army,” Ia introduced briefly. She surveyed the trio of doors with red-glowing “occupied” lights, and panned her finger back and forth for a moment. “I’ll interrogate
this
one. Open it up, Ensign.”
She picked the door in the middle, which contained the man whose wrist she had slit. Captain Sudramara nodded at the brig officer, who saluted and moved to open it up. General Sranna cleared his throat. The ensign hesitated, glancing back at the lieutenant general.
“Lieutenant Ia, your weapon?” Sranna asked. “Aren’t you going to remove it, first?”
Both of the Marines
snerked
. The brig officer struggled to smother a smile. Captain Sudramara outright snorted. “You’re talking about Bloody Mary, sir. Medical says the man’s a lightworlder. Even if he wasn’t bound down, he’d never get to it first, and certainly couldn’t pry it out of her hand.”
“You didn’t see the mess she made of their bodies with that blade, General,” the Marine who had met them at the door stated. “The one in that cell is still recovering from what she did to him with it. The others are all very dead, sir.”
Captain Sudramara frowned at Ia. “How
did
you manage that, anyway? The security vids were at a bad angle and didn’t catch everything, but they did show several unbelievably clean, straight cuts. Plus the fact that you threw a sink, among other things.”
“Let’s save that for the coming interview,” Ia quipped, lifting her chin at the middle door. “Open it up, Ensign.”
The young man hesitated again, glancing at his captain and the general. When both nodded agreement, he pressed his thumbprint to the scanner. The red light by the door shifted to green. Ia stepped up to it and palmed the door open.
Inside, the man whose wrist she had severed sat on the plain, air-cushion lined cot. He was naked, stripped of all his clothes, and his wrists were shackled and held apart by a spreader bar. That bar was kept from being lifted higher than abdomen level by a set of chains attached to manacles at his ankles and to the foot and the head of the bed. His right wrist was wrapped with a short length of lumpy bandaging tape strapped just above the metal cuffs; the lump was actually a small regen pack, sealed over the stitched-together wound on his wrist.
“Naked?” Sranna asked. “With that . . . thing holding his hands apart?”
“It’s to keep him from picking open the wound and bleeding to death. He can’t move more than two feet in any direction, bound like that.” Ia stated, stepping inside. She met the glare of their captive with a slight smile. “Their clothes were taken away, their hair checked for garroting wires, their digestive tracts scanned, and even their teeth examined for poison capsules. Which is ironic, since we discovered each already had been dosed with a specific poison. If they didn’t receive the antidote within half an hour after attempting their attack . . . well, they would have died about twenty minutes ago.”
Their prisoner frowned at her, his jaw dropping.
Ia smiled. “Yes, you’ve been sedated that long. I suspected it when I saw you trying to kill your two companions and yourself, when your attack against myself and Lieutenant D’kora failed. While your friends were sleeping off the tranquilizers, and you were anesthetized for surgery on your wrist, the medical staff ran all those tests. They determined what you’d been doped with, and concocted antidotes for all three of you . . . since each of you had been dosed with something slightly different from the rest.”
“Clever,” General Sranna praised from behind her. “Both of you. A means to ensure no one can tell tales if they’re captured . . . and the wit to realize the possibility and stop it.”
“Oh, this idiot didn’t devise it. His masters did,” Ia dismissed. She stepped into the cell. The prisoner dipped his gaze briefly to the hilt of her sword and back. Ia smiled slowly. “I see you remember me. Did you like seeing your companions cut down by my blade? Their deaths were swift and merciful . . . well, as swift and merciful as dying from severed limbs and massive blood loss can be. But then, I am Bloody Mary. It’s an occupational hazard around me.”
He curled his lip in a sneer. “Do you think you scare me? You don’t. You have no idea who you’re dealing with. You’re nothing.”
“At the moment, I am dealing with a little
pissant
nothing who is naked and bound in a military brig. If you mean your masters, they’re not here to whip you to death.” She planted her hands on her hips and shrugged, tapping into the timestreams. “I guess that means I’ll have to do it.”
He snorted, glancing at the blue and green clad officers watching the two of them beyond the open cell door. Straining against his bonds, he leaned back against the wall on the far side of the cot and lifted his chin at her. “You can’t do anything to me.”
Her right hand snapped down, slashed out, and flicked back again. Touching blade tip to scabbard mouth, she slid the sword home again. Behind her, the general, captain, and even the ensign all sucked in a sharp breath. Ia kept her gaze on the prisoner.
He blinked, and tried to lift his hand to his scalp. The chain and the stretcher bar wouldn’t let him. Hesitating, he finally shook his head a little . . . and stared as a couple tufts of his thumb-length brown locks drifted down over his shoulder and chest. “What the . . .”

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