Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty (65 page)

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Authors: Jean Johnson

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“You’re welcome, sir. But thank the others,” she added, lifting her chin at the still-intact door off to the side. “They’re the ones fighting off the rest of the Lyebariko’s private army. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to get out of this room alive.”
Nodding, he relaxed against the wall beside her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
CHAPTER 21
 
. . . Okay, fine, since you won’t let it go, I did not beat that K’katta to death with his own limbs. I just threatened him. I guess the threat was so amusing to the rest, they just kept retelling it and retelling it, until it took on a life of its own.
For the record . . . if he had forced me to climb up after him? Yeah. I would have beaten him to death with his own limbs. You don’t mess with the Marines. Hell, you don’t mess with any Branch of the Space Force. But the moment he surrendered, he became a prisoner of war. I didn’t touch him after that point.
~Ia
 
 
APRIL 2, 2492 T.S.
 
The door beyond Ia’s desk hissed open. Despite her field promotion to Acting Lieutenant, she was still the Company Sergeant, and that meant filling out paperwork on the battle that had just passed. Filling it out with one hand, since her right arm was now firmly secured in a sling-supported cast while the bone-setting enzymes did their work, but working on it all the same.
“Could I have a moment of your time, Ia?” Ferrar asked her.
Nodding, she keyed the workstation to save her files. Even without the timestreams, she could guess what he needed to discuss right now. It was something that had bugged her since the fight on Beta Librae V two days ago.
They were still in the Zubeneschamali System, handling some of the cleanup details from the fight, but mainly just waiting for Battle Platform
Justicar
to finish reaching the system. The
Liu Ji
could still fly, but she was definitely battered from her trip through the natural rift, and would need several repairs before being redeployed anywhere. The Platform would have the equipment and supplies needed to get them moving again. The rest would be taken care of at the shipyards in orbit around Mars when they swung by on the back to their regular patrols on the Terran/Gatsugi border.
Entering his office, she closed the door behind her and took the same chair she had first used roughly two years before. Ferrar seated himself, shut down his workstation, and rested his elbows on his desk.
“Now. About your sword,” he stated flatly.
She settled back in her chair. She couldn’t quite fold her arms, given her cast, but she could and did hook the fingers of her left hand into her belt. “Yes, about my sword. You acted rather strangely when I tossed it at you. I was hoping you’d go and cut the last of the others free, but you didn’t, sir. Why didn’t you?”
“When I picked it up, I saw things. Flashes of things.”
Ia sat up a little at that. “. . . Things?”
He gave her a significant look. “
Future
things. The next few moments in time. I know . . . because you took that sword and did exactly what I saw you ended up doing. And that we needed to get behind that table for cover, when the corridor blew.”
Her jaw dropped. It took Ia a few seconds to realize it was sagging. She snapped it shut, sitting up fully. “You . . .”
“You said you lost that sword in the explosion. But I remember seeing you flying through the air with it in your hand,” Ferrar stated. “ And it wasn’t in the mess we left behind in our little makeshift foxhole. So. Where did it go?”
Mind racing, Ia pondered the implications.
If he could see the future . . . why could he see it when he touched it? Crysium does have some mild precognition-projective abilities, but only in large masses back on Sanctuary. I know it’s the source of the Fire Girl Prophecies . . .
“Ia, I asked you a question,” her commander stated quietly. “I’d appreciate an answer.”
“Shhh, I’m thinking,” she murmured.
“Ia. The sword. Now,” Ferrar ordered flatly.
Sighing, she shifted and bent over, tucking her fingers up the cuff of her pant leg. When she pulled them out again and lifted her hand up into his line of view, she was holding the sword. It gleamed in her hand, sharp and transparent pink gold.
“I . . . am not going to ask where you were hiding that,” Ferrar muttered, eyeing the long, thin blade warily. “You told General Sranna it was some mineral from your homeworld. But
that
is no natural mineral. Which means you lied to a superior officer.”
“Technically, I didn’t lie. It is a real mineral native to my homeworld. I simply didn’t reveal
all
that this stuff is,” Ia replied. “As for
what
it is . . . you don’t need to know. I am, however, curious about your reaction to it back in the Lyebariko’s lair.”
Reversing the blade, she offered the weapon to him on her palm. Ferrar hesitated a moment before wrapping his brown fingers around the hilt. Lifting it carefully, he . . . froze again. Blinked. Stared, and carefully set it down on his desk.
“That . . . is something I am not meant to know,” he finally murmured, staring at the gleaming, crystalline schlager.
“No, sir. You’re probably not. But I would like to know what you saw.”
He looked up at her, mouth twisting wryly. “More of the near future. We have about four, five minutes before Sudramara pays me a visit. Put it away . . . wherever you were hiding it.”
Nodding, Ia tucked it back below the edge of the desk, drawing and reshaping it into an innocuous ankle-cuff.
“Anything you
can
share with me, Acting Lieutenant?” he asked.
“No, sir. But . . . I’ll have to figure out what this means. You shouldn’t be seeing the future like that.” Ia shrugged. “Something happened. Something involving my sword. I’ll have to give it some thought. If I can harness this . . . inadvertent precognitive ability in someone who has shown absolute zero ability before now . . .”
“That’s a dangerous-sounding power,” Ferrar warned Ia. “As much as I or any other commander would love to be able to see even a few glimpses of the future, particularly on the battlefield . . . the future is fluid. I don’t even know how you can navigate all of the possibilities with such accuracy. The rest of us would have far worse luck steering the currents. Not to mention if that power fell into the wrong hands . . .”
“Oh, trust me, I want to avoid that possibility even more than you,” Ia promised him quickly, fervently. “I’ll save experimenting with it until I get back home. Until then . . . well, sir, I lost track of my sword in the battle, and that’s the story I’m sticking to.”
“Good. That’s an order, by the way,” he added, pointing at her. “A standing order, until you hear differently from me. That way you
can
lie about it and still avoid that particular Fatality. The responsibility for this particular lie will rest on
my
shoulders . . . and I’m protected from it by the fact that a precognitive told me I couldn’t tell anyone else.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” she agreed, smiling slightly.
“Good.” Lacing his hands together, Ferrar studied her. “In the meantime, we have something else to discuss. Lieutenant D’kora will be months recovering from her injuries. That leaves me without an officer in charge of the 2nd Platoon. I have assembled the paperwork to permanently approve your Field Commission. All it requires is your authorization . . . temporal or otherwise. That . . . glimpse at the future tells me that this is a power I do not want to mess with.”
Well, at least
something
good came of that, if it’s convinced him not to rush ahead. Maybe I can harness that for everyone else I need to convince,
Ia thought.
If I can only figure out how.
“So. Do you want the field honor? And, more importantly, can you handle it?” he asked her, giving her a pointed look.
She nodded. “Sir, yes, sir. I can handle it. But I’ll want to take off for an Academy when my current duty posting is up. Actually, I’ll be required to, by military law. All field-promoted officers still have to go through Academy training at some point.”
“That’s in, what, three months?” Ferrar asked. He nodded. “Granted. By then, D’kora should be back on her feet, or if not her, the Corps will be able to assign me another junior officer to take her and your place.”
His door chimed. Thumbing a control on his desk, Ferrar opened the panel. Captain Sudramara stepped inside. He nodded politely at both Marines.
“Captain . . . Lieutenant. We just received word. Battle Platform
Justicar
will be in the system in less than three hours. Repairs are estimated to take three days, then we’ll be underway. The Command Staff has authorized two weeks of Leave while we’re at the Deimos dockyards,” Sudramara revealed. “You should be getting your official orders shortly.”
Ferrar nodded. He glanced at Ia. “Are you going to finally take some extended Leave, Ia? Or are you going to continue to volunteer for yet more work?”
“My homeworld is on the backside of Terran space, sir. The far backside, by about seven hundred light-years,” she reminded him. Their one-day stops at Battle Platforms didn’t exactly count on the vacation roster, though she had stood guard duty a couple of times in the past year-plus. “The more off-Platform Leave I can accumulate, the more time I’ll have to spend on
getting
home . . . and actually having some time to visit before I’ll have to spend the rest of it on coming back. I’ll probably take it between the end of this duty posting and heading for an Academy. Sort of a break before beginning the next phase of my career.”
“Make sure you do come back to that Academy, Lieutenant Ia,” Sudramara stated, surprising her a little. He lifted his chin. “You stood up to me and shot me down in front of my own crew. But you were in the right, and you did it within the lines. You’ll make one hell of an officer some day. Of course, my ship is battered and barely spaceworthy, but those friends of yours behaved themselves and cracked that fortress wide open for our side.”
“Just don’t go around thinking I can pull it off a second time, sirs,” Ia warned both men. “Drek’s debt to me has been repaid, and I don’t exactly have a lot more ‘friends’ like him wandering around the galaxy at the moment.”
“I just wish I knew who leaked enough information for those bastards to set us up like that. But, with luck, we’ve bloodied the noses of these so-called crimelords hard enough, they won’t come back looking for more,” Ferrar said. “You can work guard duty on the ship while it’s undergoing repairs at Mars. There’ll be a brief stop at Earth first, however. The Command Staff wishes to recognize the acts of valor and courage so many of you displayed in riding to our rescue.”
“Just doing my job, sir,” Ia demurred. She rose from her seat. “Speaking of which, I still have a ton of paperwork to wade through. At least, until you can get a Company Sergeant to take over for me. It’s a different enemy, but it still needs to be vanquished.”
“By all means, get to it, soldier,” he allowed, waving her out of his office. “Better you than me.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Nodding to both officers, Ia took her leave.
 
 
APRIL 6, 2492. T.S.
SIC TRANSIT . . .
 
A blue-clad body clipped a tray of food onto the galley table next to Ia’s, and slipped into the rotating, permanently affixed empty seat next to hers. Reaching for the salt and pepper shakers in their clip-holders, Bennie nodded politely at Ia. “Lieutenant.”
“Commander,” Ia quipped back.
Exchanging titles had become something of a joke between the two of them. Despite the large part of herself that wanted to hold back from making friends, particularly when she could learn all too easily when and how each person around her would die, Ia considered the chaplain to be one. Or rather, something of one, since not even Bennie knew about her various abilities.
“You have any plans for our two weeks’ Leave?” Ia asked, picking up her second sandwich somewhat awkwardly with her left hand. Pulling that stunt back on the planet had been a damn fool move because it left her fumbling her way through life one-handed for well over a week.
“More plans than you do,” Bennie snorted, digging into her salad. “I heard you picked up guard duty again.”
Ia chewed and swallowed. “Someone has to stay and help oversee the repairs. Might as well be me.”
“Service junkie,” the chaplain accused under her breath.
“You’re damn right,” Ia retorted, chuckling. “But I’ll finally have enough Leave accumulated to go home for a couple of weeks, plus travel time.”
“Make that three weeks.”
Ia looked at the older woman. She knew it was coming, had planned for it, but still managed to look at least a little surprised. Lifting her brows, she repeated, “
Three
weeks?”
Bennie nodded, chewing her food. She sipped from her glass of milk before responding. “The way I figured, you have the longest way to go home of just about any soldier out there, period. Probably
the
longest, since you’re the only one who enlisted from your homeworld that I’ve heard about. So, I very carefully and firmly pointed that out to your higher-ups. With a clue-by-four for my sword and the authority of God as my shield. I may not wade into a bloodbath up to my hairline like you do, but I do fight for what is just and right, in my own way.”

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