Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  “Well, we’re talking about a lot more deaths than just three, sir,” Xavine argued, as they approached the back door of the pub. It was owned and visited by friends of the FWC, which meant everyone inside would be willing to testify that the six off-worlders—Ia counted, now that she was in the military—had been in the back room all night, on the slim chance their proximity to the Cathedral had been noticed.

  “And I’m talking about a lot more deaths than just three million. Here’s the pub, so this subject is dropped. Pick a new one. Like the fact that the first round of drinks are on me,” Ia stated, lifting her chin at the far door as they entered, the one that led to the front of the tavern. “You’ve earned it.”

  Helstead wrinkled her nose. “I think not. Every time I try to drink with a gravity weave on, the damned water in the glass sloshes to the left and tries to go up my nose.”

  “Then stop drinking with your left hand,” Xavine teased her.

  Helstead pointed at him. “Watch it, meioa; we’re not always gonna be off duty, you know.”

  Wisely, he ducked behind Ia, who merely shook her head. Opening the bag slung over her shoulder, she held it out. “Give me the transceivers. I’ll get them to the right people.”

  Xavine pulled his out. He hesitated before placing the first palm-sized unit inside, though. “This is approved of by the Command Staff, right?”

  “Of course it is,” Ia told him. “Everything I do has been approved.”

  Technically, her words were true. Technically, she could say them with a straight face. Technically…she was abusing her carte blanche. But Xavine and the others didn’t know that.

  Nodding, he deposited the other transceivers into her bag. Loewen did the same, then hooked her arm around his and dragged him off to the front room for a snack run. They staggered a bit as their weaves interacted, but weren’t too fazed. Ia detoured into the kitchen halfway down the hall. Turning down the heat on his cooking unit, the short-order cook accepted the bag with a silent nod of thanks and took it into the basement.

  There was a door down there that led to an old Terran-installed bunker, which in turn led down into the lava tunnels the Free World Colonists were using as their new home. On the other side of the first door, a bored agent of their underground government waited for the promised bag. Those devices were the top-of-the-line in Terran military espionage. She had already checked the timestreams, and knew the Church had nothing on hand that could detect them.

  As for the Command Staff finding out about this little mission, by the time they did, Ia hoped to have far more important battles under way to serve as a distraction, and as proof of the justification behind her actions.

  Or to put it another way, it’s a simple case of Jack’s Law #213, she thought, amused. When all else fails, cloud the issue with facts.

  JANUARY 23, 2496 T.S.

  The last of the cargo crates hummed downward out of sight, thanks to the floor lift. Satisfied the supplies would be safe, Ia turned away. She gave her attention to the five waiting members of her family instead. First was her biomother, Amelia. Seen in the clear light of day rather than the dimmer light found underground, a lot more grey salted her mother’s curls than Ia remembered seeing before. Worry lines creased Amelia’s freckled brow, but her arms were still strong and warm.

  “I hate this, gataki mou,” her mother muttered into her chest, heavyworlder strong but heavyworlder short. “Just the one more time, right?”

  “Just once more, unless things go seriously wrong,” Ia promised. Patting Amelia on the back, she released her and turned to her other mother, Aurelia.

  The slightly taller woman squeezed her hard, then stepped back, looking up at her stepdaughter’s face. “You go out there, kardia mou,” she ordered Ia, “and you kick frogtopus asteroid, you hear me? Laser-fried calamari as far as the eye can see.”

  Fyfer wrinkled his nose. “Eww! Ma!”

  Aurelia spread her hands, shrugging. “What? I didn’t say she had to eat it.”

  Wrapping an arm around her younger brother, Ia ignored the stares of the soldiers lining up near the main entrance to the spaceport warehouse. Scrubbing her knuckles over his scalp, she mussed his carefully styled hair one last time, then hugged him hard enough to lift him a few centimeters off the ground. She got painfully pinched for her troubles, but laughed, gently letting him drop back down.

  Next in line was Rabbit, not a blood relative, unless one counted the fact she was in a complicated relationship with both of Ia’s brothers. Rabbit wasn’t her birth name, but rather the nickname she had adopted; her two front teeth, prominent in her plain, round face, made the reason self-evident. Her smile dispelled any illusions about a lack of beauty, though.

  Kneeling in front of her, Ia held out her arms; even for a heavyworlder, Rabbit was short. She was also pregnant, five months along and having the child naturally rather than via a wombpod. That would put stress on her stocky frame in this gravity, but Ia knew her old school friend could handle it.

  She did, however, caution the short woman. “You make sure you start putting your feet up three times a day, you hear? I’ll make Thorne literally sweep you off your feet if you don’t. You don’t want him to throw out his back, now do you?”

  Rabbit pushed out her lower lip. She had a brilliant mind behind those doe brown eyes and that moon-round face, but most people severely underestimated her because of her child-like size. The short woman used that illusion ruthlessly at times. Even her own parents, Church officials, thought she was still a little girl at heart. Ia wasn’t fooled by that pout and pointed her finger in silent warning. That earned her a rough sigh.

  “Fine,” Rabbit said, rolling her eyes. “Go ahead and leave me. Just because you’re sticking me with managing this whole mess doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive you for it.”

  “Hey, I conned my brothers into doing it, too,” Ia said. She hugged her one more time, then nodded downward. “Take care of yourself, so you can take care of him.”

  “And I told you I didn’t wanna know the gender,” Rabbit protested. “Stupid know-it-all prophets.”

  “Well, I’m not going to call my niece or nephew an ‘it,’” Ia countered. “Use the people you’ve gathered. Share the responsibility. You’re the chief Director, so direct the others to do what needs to be done. And put your feet up.”

  Amelia leaned over and hugged the younger woman. “I’ll make sure she does—and if she doesn’t, I’ll sic my wife on her.”

  That earned them another pout and mutter from Rabbit. “Oh, now you’re just being mean!”

  The others laughed. Rising, Ia hugged the last person in the quintet, her half-twin Thorne. The only member of the family taller than her, he had the dusky complexion and dark hair of his mother Aurelia, and the same square chin and almond eyes as their shared father. Unlike Ia, he didn’t have any active psychic abilities, just latent ones waiting to be passed on to his offspring. He had practiced the same mental disciplines as a psi, though, which meant Ia could hug him longer than the others.

  Physical contact increased the chance of her gifts triggering, which meant she rarely touched anyone for long, for her sanity’s sake. But Thorne’s future she didn’t fear foreseeing. She knew every inch of his timestream possibilities. He was the solid rock in her life, even if he wasn’t close enough to be a physical touchstone these days, save for right now. For a moment, Ia allowed herself a few seconds of rest in his arms.

  Time pressed in on her, though. Church-loyal officials were closing in on the warehouse, still upset that Ia and her troops had kept them out for so long. Nodding, she signaled him to release her. Pulling her shoulders square and her chin level, she stepped back, shrugging mentally back into the uniform covering her muscles.

  Once again she was Captain Ia, ex-Marine, ex-Navy, and currently Special Forces. A Terran soldier with a deadly-efficient reputation that had earned her the nickname of Bloody Mary. She was no longer Iantha Iulia Quentin-Jones, daughter and friend and fellow ci
vilian.

  “Directors,” she stated, nodding politely to her two brothers and quasi sister-in-law, the unlikely three-headed leadership team for a massive underground resistance movement that was still only halfway started. “Meioa-es,” she added, using the feminine form of the honorific on her parents. Off to the side, the lift was coming back up into view, all crates, boxes, and pallets removed by the men and women working in the tunnels below. “Take care of yourselves. We’ll be withdrawing the perimeter in two minutes. Peacekeepers will be here in three. I suggest you get out of sight, meioas, for your own safety.”

  Nodding, Thorne herded the others toward the lift. Turning on her heel, Ia strode toward the main entrance. The door had been rolled down halfway, just high enough for the tallest members of the 2nd Platoon to pass under it without ducking. Wrapped in his own purple web-work, Lieutenant Spyder smiled and saluted her when she came near.

  “Nice t’ see y’ got a soft’n’squishy side, Cap’n,” he joked, hand raised formally to his brow.

  “Oh, really? Well, my soft’n’squishy side just turned as hard and dangerous as a rogue asteroid again,” she shot back dryly, returning the salute. Behind her, beige-clad Chong-Wuu workers used stevedore suits to roll the plexcrete mats back into place, covering up the lidded hole where the hidden lift was once again descending. In front of her stood twenty men and women of the 2nd Platoon. “Lieutenant, run the checklist and pull in all remaining personnel. Six minutes to takeoff.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” he agreed, turning crisply on his heel. “You ’eard th’ Cap’n! Set yer ’Daptive Gravimetrics to Low, an’ board th’ shuttle. Do not double-time it,” he added, before activating his arm unit. “Spyder to D Beta through D Epsilon, pull out. Setcher weaves to Low, an’ retreat to th’ shuttle in extraction order, noice an’ leisurely. You got three minutes t’ move, yakkos.”

  Ia followed them outside, her attention on the half dozen cars approaching in the distance. An uncomfortable tingle along her nerves was her only warning. Turning back to the men and women, she hurried up between the ranks, gritting her teeth against the conflicting pulls of so many gravity weaves in close proximity.

  Catching the tall bulk of Private First Class C. J. Siano from behind, she ducked as his head flung back, almost cracking into her skull. His deep voice hollered almost painfully loud, caught up in yet another random damned Fire Girl attack. Staggering sideways under his limp weight, she guided his body awkwardly to the ground in a semicontrolled collapse. One that ended up with her bruising her tailbone on the stained grey plexcrete of the tarmac and her leg trapped under the power pack strapped to his back, but which didn’t end with him hitting his head.

  The others scattered, then surged forward to help them up, concerned by his wordless screams and thrashing limbs. Ia quickly shook her head, teeth gritted against the urge to yell as well. “—Don’t touch!”

  Even through the lumps of his weave and the mottled fabric of his uniform, she could feel the press of time trying to sweep her downstream. If the others tried to help the two of them up, it would spread, and that would be bad. Very bad, almost as bad as a mind-quake. Too many lives, too many possibilities, would overwhelm her. As it was, she had to master herself before she could dampen the visions in Siano’s mind.

  “You ’eard th’ Cap’n! Get on th’ ship,” Spyder ordered the others as she worked.

  Siano came back to himself with a gasp and a shudder, eyes blinking wide. “Wh-wha…? Oh, hell…Ransil wasn’t kidding when…when he said that hits like a shakking Battle Platform!”

  “Deep breaths, Private. Try to relax; we’ll be off-world soon,” she said, patting his shoulder. Tugging her leg free, she helped him roll over onto his hands and knees. Even with the weave wreaking havoc on her sense of up and down, counteracting some of the forces pulling on his frame, his tall, somewhat muscular bulk needed her help just to get off the ground. Turning up the gain on the gravimetrics would have aided him but would’ve churned the contents of her stomach from sheer proximity.

  Thankfully, once he was upright, the weave fields aligned enough to allow him to walk up the ramp under his own power, joining the others. Panting, Ia rested where she stood for a moment, then dusted off her camouflage trousers. As she did so, the ground cars pulled to a stop near the shuttle.

  The last pair of soldiers came walking up from the side, rifles carried loosely across their bodies, muzzles pointed safely at the ground, though she knew they could be snapped up into position at a moment’s notice. As they came near, the two privates gave the cars a curious look, then their CO. Ia held up her fingers, then flicked them out to either side, signing for them to guard and wait. Nodding, York and Clairmont took up position on either side of the ramp.

  Ia waited politely in a modified Parade Rest as the familiar figure of Customs Officer Larkins emerged from the lead car. His smug smile amused her. He thought he knew something she didn’t know. Rather than show it, she kept her expression neutrally polite.

  Stopping in front of her, he flapped a plexi printout. “As you can see, Captain Ia, I have permission from Vice Commodore Brenya Attinks to search your so-called ‘emergency war supplies,’ particularly as this is the first she has heard about their arrival—you do know who the Vice Commodore is, don’t you?”

  “Vice Commodore Attinks is the commanding officer in charge of this sector of Terran-patrolled space,” Ia stated, her tone mild. “She is, however, from the TUPSF Branch Navy, and is merely a vice commodore in rank. I am from the TUPSF Branch Special Forces. Orders delivered by anyone of any rank lower than lieutenant general or vice admiral from outside the Branch Special Forces carries zero weight within my Branch. Unless, of course, your little printout includes permission and instructions from that level of authorization above her. Yes? No?…I think not, Officer Larkins, or you would have listed a higher authority instead.”

  Larkins reddened. Flipping the printout, he scanned it quickly. Ia didn’t bother to give him time to see if it did or not.

  “More to the point, the Special Forces’ supply requirements are not the same as the Navy’s. She wouldn’t even know what to look for. But I am not an unreasonable officer, and it is quite evident you have gone to great lengths to have a peek at our business,” she added, gesturing at the large building to her left. “My orders were to secure our cargo in military storage on the planet Sanctuary. Now that it has been properly secured, my authority in this matter is at an end. Responsibility for keeping it safe and sound now rests in the hands of the duly Charter-registered colonists of this world who have agreed by said Charter and contract to guard those supplies. At least, until such time as we need it, of course.”

  Brow pinching in a disbelieving frown, Larkins looked up at her, then over at the warehouse. “…That’s it? We’re free to inspect it?”

  “You are now free to inspect the warehouse,” Ia agreed, gesturing again at the building. “I followed my orders to the letter, meioa. My obligation is now discharged. In fact, we are packed up and ready to go. You are therefore free to inspect that warehouse at any time you like. Our shuttles are still off-limits, of course.”

  “Of course…” He started to move toward the building, then checked himself. “One more thing, Captain. The two soldiers who were arrested. Vice Commodore Attinks has agreed that she and her two senior-most officers can serve on their hearing board, since you insisted so strongly that they be tried in a military court and not a civilian one. Her battleship, the TUPSF Victory Dance VI, will be insystem in the next few hours.”

  “I look forward to chatting with her about it.” Behind her back, Ia flicked her fingers, hand-signaling for York and Clairmont to mount the ramp. With her left hand, she gestured at the warehouse one more time. “In the meantime, by all means, please inspect the premises. I’m sure your warrant is perfectly good for requesting that Chong-Wuu Stevedores open up the building for you. But you’d better hurry. I think they’re locking up for the day.”

  At those words,
Larkins moved away a few steps, squinting at the building. Ia backed up, stepping onto the ramp. By the time he glanced back, her fingers were already reaching for the ramp controls overhead.

  “—Hey!” he protested.

  “Do excuse me, Officer Larkins,” she called out, crouching to keep in sight as the ramp started to shut. “I must go now, as I have a lot of Salik to slay. Good-bye!”

  Backing up, she staggered a little as the ramp shut and the overhead weave dialed up, reducing the gravity in the cabin. Turning around, Ia waded through the mix of bodies, some strapping into their seats, others passing their ammunition-stripped weapons to Sergeant Santori and Lieutenant Spyder for storage in the ammunition crates stacked near the front of the cargo hold.

  “Get ready for liftoff,” she warned them. “Don’t open the ship, even if they knock politely.” Ducking into the cockpit, she slid into the copilot’s seat next to Yeoman Yamasuka. “Run the checklist and take off the moment everything’s greenlit. And unlock the comm on my side.”

  Yamasuka nodded and touched the requested controls. “Sir, yes, sir. Out of curiosity, Captain, who are you calling?”

  “A certain vice commodore, about dropping the silliest set of trumped-up charges I’ve yet to hear on my homeworld. Though I’m afraid they won’t be the last, nor the worst. I’m also calling to warn her how bad it’s getting down here,” Ia added, strapping the harness around her body. “I don’t think it’ll be safe for the Terran military to land on the surface anymore. The space station will have to do from now on.”

  “Did we just drop some shova in their caf’, sir?” the woman at her side asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Half the locals would be this crazy even if we weren’t here—I’d blame the gravity draining the blood from their heads, but most of ’em have adapted by now. Let’s get the hell out of here. Whenever we’re ready, Yeoman?”

  “Aye, sir,” Yamasuka agreed, checking first her telltales for shuttle readiness, then a secondary screen displaying the bodies still moving around in the cargo hold. “Executing the ‘get the hell out of here’ maneuver in…approximately one minute twenty seconds, sir.”