Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  Ia smiled. “Thank you, Happy, though it’s technically Ship’s Captain, not Lieutenant Colonel. And yeah, I wound up in the Special Forces. Congratulations on completing your Service with honors and on landing in a cushy job.”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Harkins agreed wryly. He sat back on the edge of his bed, the pickups following his movements. Clad in a worn yellow T-shirt with a faded joke logo and a pair of brown sleeping shorts, he plucked at the material covering his chest. “Saved the life of an attaché to the ACDC in the first month I was a civilian and got roped into bodyguard duty—the only thing worse than pressure-suit drills is contamination-suit drills. The chem scrubbers hurt worse than depressurization sickness. So…Lieutenant Colonel Bloody Mary,” he teased her, “what can this lowly ex-grunt do for you?”

  “Actually, it’s what I can do for you,” Ia told him. This was the reason she had saved his life all those years ago, on the very same first combat where she had earned her military nickname. Picking up a datachip, she showed it to the vid pickups on her end, then slotted it into her workstation. “I’m sending you a comprehensive list of Quarantine-Extreme scenarios. I need you to get the Alliance Center for Disease Control to start practicing these scenarios and implementing the suggested measures contained within them, and keep practicing them.”

  “Sir?” he asked her warily.

  “I’m a very strong precog, Happy,” Ia confessed. “I always have been. You remember my first combat? I knew I’d end up covered in Salik guts and Choya blood, and knew it before I stepped foot on the Liu Ji. I also know you’re going to have an opportunity in three days to offer these scenarios to your boss to propose to the rest of the ACDC. Make sure he proposes them.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” he hedged, hesitating. “Beggin’ pardon, but last I heard, you were winning medals right and left, not medical diplomas.”

  “You owe me your life,” she reminded him gently. “That very first mission, where I insisted you come with me, instead of heading back through that stairwell entrance? You would have died if I hadn’t rearranged our two team pairings on the fly, so that you had to stick with me. You know you would have died. I saved your life, that fight…and with these scenarios, I’m hoping to save a lot more lives than just your own. I knew Ferrar and the others would be captured, and cultivated that pirate crew well in advance, knowing we’d need their help to break into the Lyebariko’s stronghold. You’re in the right place at the right time to do a whole lotta good, Happy. I made sure you would be.”

  He stared at her a long moment, then sighed and scrubbed at his face. Another sigh, and he reached for the controls on his bedside comm. Or rather, for the drawer under them. She heard the thumps and rustles as he rummaged for something.

  “Yeah, I do owe you my life. More than once. Datachip, datachip…Here we go.” His hand loomed large for a moment as he pressed the chip into the base of the comm. A couple taps later, he confirmed the download, transferring it from the cache on his bedside comm to the chip. “Right. Show this to my boss in three days. Just tell me something in return, Bloody Mary. How badly will we need these quarantine measures?”

  “We’ll be at war in a few months, and the Salik will be throwing everything they can at us,” Ia stated. “Robotic soldiers, genetically engineered animals, microbial infections, you name it.”

  “Everything and the kitchen sink, eh?” he asked rhetorically.

  “A scummy, slimy, unscrubbed kitchen sink,” Ia agreed. “You remember what your Drill Instructors said back in Basic about using the same playbooks over and over for practicing battle scenarios?”

  He half smiled and chuckled. “That if you stuck to the same drills over and over, it was nothing but a load of shova v’shakk shoveled by a bunch of shakk-tor officers talkin’ out their brass, because it made you predictable to the enemy. That flexibility, on the ground, in the trenches, with the grunts making their tactical decisions based on what is, and not on what should be, is what will save a fight. I remember, Ia. So, if you’re really a precog—which would explain a helluva lot, back on the Liu Ji—then you’re saying we’re gonna get some biowarfare plays outta left field, and that we need to learn some new field maneuvers for ’em?”

  “These plans will help prepare the Alliance to apply the bleach to the upcoming mess in the sink in the most effective ways—from mild infestations all the way up through the absolute worst-case scenarios of having to quarantine entire planets. The ACDC’s been using the same playbook for too long, and the Salik got their tentacles on it ages ago. Better to be flexible than sorry, and all that. I’ve also tried to be thorough with each scenario presented,” Ia added, “because if you or your boss has any questions, I’ll probably be out of reach. Each scenario includes contact numbers for a couple higher-ups in the Afaso Order. They’ll have a list of answers and backup contingency plans if you do need answers. Hopefully, you won’t need them, but I like to be thorough.”

  “I don’t suppose I can ask where you’ll be when you’ll be out of reach,” he muttered, “what with you being Special Forces, now?”

  “The only thing I can tell you is that I’ll still be living up to my nickname, and keeping it fresh, Happy,” she said. “Once a Marine, always a Marine, even if they keep Branch-hopping me.”

  “Eyah?” he asked, in the old call and countercall worked up between the V’Dan version of the Marine Corps and their Terran counterparts.

  “Hoorah,” she agreed. “I appreciate your handling this for me. It’s going to be a huge worry off my mind. Sleep well, Harkins. You’ve earned it.”

  “You, too, sir,” he agreed. “Harkins out.”

  His hand swung by the controls again, plucking out the chip before shutting off the screen. On her end of things, Ia took one precious moment to sigh and relax into her chair, checking the timestreams out of habit. The future was solid on this one point; Harkins would indeed present the scenarios to his boss, after checking them over for himself. From there, the ACDC would start implementing the new “playbooks” on how to apply quarantines during a multi-star-system war.

  It was one big worry off her shoulders, but she still had a million more to go. Drawing in a deep, bracing breath, Ia shifted upright again, moving to the next concern on her list.

  DECEMBER 22, 2495 T.S.

  BATTLE PLATFORM LION’S CLAW

  EARTH, SOL SYSTEM

  The combination of the TUPSF Hellfire docked at the Battle Platform Lion’s Claw looked very much like an overgrown thistle clinging to a cigar, if both thistle and cigar were wrapped in shiny tinfoil. They were actually visible at the moment, side-lit by the blue-white glow from Luna and front-lit by the golden white glow of the Sun.

  Normally, most ships—legal ones, as opposed to silently running pirates or invading enemy ships—were identified in the black, star-strewn depths of space by their transponder signals rather than by any physical signs. All ships traveled in ceristeel skins, the highly polished, pewter grey metalloceramic material devised by the Terrans centuries ago. It provided insulation and protection from lasers, stellar radiation, extremes of cold and heat, and even some impact resistance; its biggest drawback was that it had to be properly polished to work at its most efficient, rendering each hull a dark mirror. But the elongated ship and its neighbor gleamed in the light illuminating them from the local sun.

  Ia liked the effect, even if all that reflected light was starting to put little dazzle spots in front of her eyes.

  “I’m bored,” Helstead muttered. She had strapped herself into the jump seat behind the pilot’s seat. Her smaller frame made that the best choice, though it did mean Ia had to put up with Helstead’s feet braced against the back of her chair. Shuttle seats were built to be sturdy, but the restless woman still managed to jiggle Ia a little.

  “Better bored than biological,” Harper muttered back. “I think my second cup of coffee is finally making an appearance.”

  “Shh. We’re about to descend.” Two seconds after she hushed them,
Ia’s headset sprang to life.

  “Shuttle Hellfire-One, this is Earth Orbital/Atmospheric Control. You are cleared for descent to Ridley Beach, Cape Adare, Antarctica.”

  “Thank you, Control. Hellfire-One will be descending per the filed flight plan in five seconds,” she replied. A touch of the controls ended the link. Grasping the joystick with her left hand, she gently pulsed the thrusters and adjusted the angle of the shuttle. Breaking orbit meant breaking away from that gleaming image of her ship—currently under Lieutenant Rico’s command—and pointing their ride instead at the blue-white marble of Earth.

  Adjusting their angle to match the line being drawn on her viewscreen, Ia turned up the shields and guided the ship down toward the atmosphere. Going from medium to low orbit posed no problems; the nearest vessels to theirs were a quintet of sweeper sails, designed to trap and remove from orbit any stray debris left over from hundreds of years of Earth’s near-space exploration and exploitation efforts.

  Atmospheric descent wasn’t a problem, either; by the time they reached the lowermost levels of the mesosphere, they were well over the southern Pacific Ocean, where traffic was sparse. Traversing the stratosphere, the cloud cover beneath them was thick enough that they could only see a patch of Australia.

  “Was that smoke on the, what, Australian continent?” Harper asked, craning to look out the shuttle’s half-silvered windows as the last of the continent vanished from his field of view.

  “Smoke, or a dust storm,” Ia dismissed, watching the various flight and engine readouts projected across the window-like viewscreen. “It’s summer down here, so it could be either.”

  “What, you don’t know?” Helstead asked her. “I thought you were supposed to be some all-knowing, all-powerful precog.”

  “I never once claimed to be all-powerful,” Ia replied, adjusting their angle as the view of the planet started to vanish behind the fiery glow of their rapid descent. The thruster shields were holding steady, keeping the atmospheric pressure and thus the thermal shockwave at bay, but she wanted as narrow an angle as possible to minimize heat buildup. “And I’m certainly not all-knowing. I could find out, but since it’s not important, I’m not going to waste my time trying to find out whatever problem they’re having. That’s for the local weather controllers and the emergency services to handle.”

  “And yet you’re wasting your valuable time on a trip to pick up some snow,” the woman at her back pointed out. “Hell, I’d be surprised if there was a manufactory on board our ship that couldn’t fabricate a little snow, you crammed so many different machines on board.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing. You don’t give your wife a strand of cheap plexi beads when she’s expecting genuine pearls,” Ia said. “As it is, I’m going to catch a little flak from Admiral Genibes about this trip, but a promise is a promise.”

  “Technically, you could give your wife plexi beads instead of cultured pearls,” Harper countered. Then grinned, mock-flinching from Helstead’s glare. “Hey, I didn’t say it would be a smart thing to do!”

  “Ugh. I think I can see why you ditched this guy two years ago, Captain,” Helstead joked, switching one foot from the back of Ia’s seat to the back of Harper’s. She had to stretch a little, but managed to jiggle him with a couple shoves. “No romance in his soul.”

  “I’ll have you know I have a lot of romance in my soul,” Harper retorted. Then shot a glance at his Commanding Officer. Ia didn’t look his way, but she did arch the nearer of her two brows. He cleared his throat, and added, “Not that I have anyone I’d care to spend it on right now…”

  Helstead snorted. “Hm. Practice that a little bit more, and you’ll have me convinced.”

  “Do I have to tell the two of you to separate?” Ia asked. “This is not your parents’ hovercar, and I am not your mother.”

  “Captain, no, sir,” Meyun muttered. “Shutting up now, sir.”

  Helstead said nothing, though she didn’t remove her foot from his chair until the turbulence made her shift back to Ia’s seat for better comfort. A stream of clouds heralded their descent into the troposphere. Those clouds blended into the mostly white lump of the sunlit, southernmost continent of Antarctica.

  Long minutes passed as Ia guided them toward the polar coast. As they came near, the flight-path lines projected on her screen vanished with a touch of the controls. That earned her a curious look from her two passengers.

  “You’re going to hand-land the shuttle?” Harper asked her.

  “Yes. The flight path I filed assumed we were going to land on the beach, but I want to be sure I don’t disturb any penguins,” Ia stated. “That would be rude.”

  “So where are we going to land?” Helstead asked her, toes starting to tap on the back of Ia’s chair.

  Reaching for it with her electrokinesis, Ia gently seized the black box on the shuttle. Tampering with flight recorders was a major crime, and doubly so for military equipment. She tampered anyway. The recorder “heard” her voice stating that they were going to be landing among the hills above the coastline. Her two passengers heard something different.

  “It’s more like ‘when’ are we going to land.” Dropping the vessel to subsonic speeds, she lowered it farther into the troposphere, below the clouds threatening to obscure the world. “We’re not actually stopping at the beach on the flight plan. Nor are we stopping, period, until we’re deep in the Transantarctic Mountains. We will, however, be flying beneath radar range, so it’ll be an hour-plus, and rather bumpy. If you want to hit the head, Harper, I suggest going now. We’ll be getting bad turbulence from the mountains after about six minutes.”

  “I knew it,” Helstead crowed, pushing on the back of Ia’s seat. She ignored Harper, who had taken Ia at her word and was already untangling himself from his harness straps. After a moment, Helstead frowned in confusion and nudged the back of Ia’s seat with her feet a second time. “Except it doesn’t make sense. Why Antarctica? Of all the places on the Motherworld you could go for an assignation, why here? You don’t even have the old joke of an excuse that the ‘wedding night’ would be six months long, because it’s summer down here. The local day is six months long.”

  “It’s simple,” Ia explained. “And it has nothing to do with fraternization. We’re going to gather some snow from one of the most remote corners we can find…and steal schematics from one of the most dangerous repositories of knowledge in the known galaxy.”

  That silenced the other woman. At least, until Helstead unclasped her restraints and scrambled into Harper’s abandoned seat. She did buckle herself in place, but tucked her feet up onto the edge of the copilot’s console, frowning the whole time. “…Okay. Give. What secret installation, and what schematics? Last time I checked, you served in the Terran United Planets Space Force, which serves the governments of the Terran United Planets.

  “You swore an Oath of Service when you joined up, Captain, and your home planet’s charter is just the same as mine,” the redhead reminded her. “The moment you swore that oath, you became a loyal Terran soldier. Frankly, from everything I’ve read about you, you’re loyal to a fault. So why the mucking hell would you steal from the Terrans now, of all times?”

  “I am a loyal Terran soldier. I also never said it was a Terran base, government or military,” Ia murmured. Her hands danced on the controls as they reached the coastline, slowing the ship for a moment, making it a little easier for her to fake a landing for the flight recorder. Picking up speed again, she aimed for the mountains snaking their way past the ice shelves stretching into the ocean on their left. “You’ll want to move back. Harper whines when he doesn’t have enough leg room to stretch out. Or at least he did back at the Academy.”

  “That’s why you hesitated,” the redhead observed out loud. “In your office, weeks ago. You were double-checking to make sure I’d be an asset on this infiltration team. You knew I’d want to come along if I knew what the real deal was. I thought you were hesitating because you were
going to fraternize.”

  “Actually, that depends upon you. Either you’ll be an asset, following my orders to the best of your ability, or you’ll be a liability, and sent back to watch the shuttle,” Ia said, looking at Helstead. She continued to fly the ship as she did so, sharply dodging up and over a ridge without looking. A muffled yelp came from the head, located behind the cockpit cabin. Ia raised her voice a little. “Sorry, Harper!…You might want to move now, Helstead. It’ll get a lot rougher in a couple minutes, and he’ll want his seat back.”

  Sighing, the short, stocky woman complied.

  CHAPTER 3

  I’m sorry, but I still cannot tell you anything about the speed, armor, or weaponry of my ship. You, and pretty much everyone else watching this interview, do not have the security clearance to know anything about how fast it flies, how hard it hits, or how much damage it can withstand. And yes, that includes any and all information regarding how my ship can appear to travel faster than FTL. Those secrets must remain undisclosed for another two hundred years.

  ~Ia

  Clad in pressure-suits for their thermal-insulation properties, and camouflage greys over that, the three Humans brushed the snow from their gloves and stepped down into the cave. Ia shined the flashlight attached to her arm unit on the ground. The floor of the cave was both slippery with ice and crunchy with grit worn down from the walls by wind and water. It was also not pristine. Faint footprints, a little smaller than her own, marked a trail. Those footprints went straight to the back wall…after starting at about the midpoint of the cave.

  “Okay, that is unnatural,” Harper whispered, shining his own arm-held light on the footprints. “They’re Human-shaped, but they just…start, as if the person teleported down here. Who the hell would want to come down here?”