by Jean Johnson
CHAPTER 6
I only saw my family once more after that. At least, in person. Plenty of vid-calls, and of course always in the timestreams. I love them, but I didn’t try to go back because I had other things on my mind. Other responsibilities. We had to begin our prewar hunt for the anti-psi machines. Of course, the vast majority of those activities were highly classified. It was just my crew, Admiral Genibes, and other select members of the Command Staff who knew something of what we were up to, back then. You’re lucky I can mention it even now. If I or my crew had told anyone what we were up to, the Salik would’ve been more prepared.
More prepared…yeah. It’s rather scary to think of the Salik being more prepared.
Were we prepared to face them? On many levels, yes. On some levels, no. As a whole…it averaged out. The Space Force was barely ready for them. Part of that readiness was due to my disruption of their version of the Command Staff the year before the war started. It bought us enough time to increase recruitment drives, increase production of vital tools, and increase stockpiles of needed supplies.
You ask me if my crew was prepared? The answer has to be both yes and no. Prepared in the sense of trained to handle the ship and the equipment placed in their hands? Yes, for I made sure they were well trained. Ready? I don’t think all that many of them would’ve said so, back then.
~Ia
FEBRUARY 2, 2496 T.S.
SIC TRANSIT
“Are they ready for this?” Chaplain Benjamin asked her guest. She studied the woman seated across from her over the rim of her cup.
Ia yawned and nodded. “…Ready enough. They’ll make a few mistakes, but I’ve picked a soft target for the first engagement.”
“Something that could build their confidence rather than burst it, eh?” Bennie asked.
Ia nodded again. She lifted her cup to sip from it, but the caf’ that should have been inside was gone. She didn’t remember drinking it. Guess I’m more tired than I thought. Sighing, she sagged back into her seat and closed her eyes, letting the empty mug rest on her knee.
Bennie’s next question was pointed. “Are you ready for this?”
Rolling her head along the cushioned back of the chair, Ia flopped a hand. Too many long nights of trying to get more crysium wreaths and prophecies made and not enough sleep left her groggy in the morning. It didn’t help that once every three days for the last ten, she had stretched her schedule out by eight full hours. The effort of trying to keep an eye on each of the three duty watches, to be there for every single crew member, was wearing her down.
“Maybe I should’ve given you decaf’,” Bennie muttered, eyeing her.
“Maybe I should’ve court-martialed you,” Ia quipped back. Sighing, she sat up again and scrubbed her face. “I’ll be fine, Bennie. Once I get a little food in me, and maybe a jolt of electricity, I’ll be able to last until the adrenaline takes over.”
“And when the adrenaline does take over, what then?” her friend asked.
“Then it’ll be all fun and games until the Salik lose one of their eyes.” Eyeing the empty cup, she clipped it into the holder on the coffee table between them. Bennie’s office was tastefully decorated, mostly in soothing colors, but with a few bright accents found in the cushions snapped to the seats and the paintings bolted to the walls. She focused on the scarlets and blues, trying to wake herself up.
Her lack of sleep wasn’t nearly as bad as at other points in her life, but it wasn’t the long hours. It was constantly projecting confidence and competence every time someone else was in the room.
The chaplain’s job, as a psychologist as well as a spiritualist, was to keep an eye on their CO’s mental health. That meant showing Bennie she was still Human. Literally, since it was now known that half of her was not. With Bennie, here in private, she could let down her guard for a few minutes. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stop Time, and that meant she could only do it for a few more moments right now.
Her gaze fell on a painting of a bright yellow flower, more abstract than real, though she suspected it was based on one from the M-class planet Dabin. The shape also reminded her of the pentagonal installation they were heading toward.
“So what happens after they lose an eye, and the adrenaline rush fades?” the redheaded woman asked, her tone amused.
“…I start snoring?” she quipped, glancing back at her friend. Bennie snorted, covering her nose and mouth to muffle her laugh. Pushing to her feet, Ia lifted her chin at the door. “Snicker all you want. I’m going to go get something to eat, then hit the bridge.”
“How soon to combat?” Bennie asked her, rising as well.
“A little over half an hour. Including whatever it takes to find the slagging place. I’m good at judging and aiming, but we’re still dealing with interstellar distances, and this place is deep in the black.” Lifting a hand in farewell, Ia left the cabin.
Bennie’s office was one deck above her own, if farther back in the ship. It was also not far from the aft galley, though it did mean having to wait for the airlocks to cycle her through the section seal. Aft and fore were the main kitchens for preparing large meals for the entire crew; bow, stern, and amid were more for creating snacks. Ia herself could cook just enough to feed others without any accidental food poisonings, but she hadn’t inherited any spurious chef genes from her highly talented mother. She didn’t want a snack from the bridge galley, and she didn’t want to have to put something together for herself, so the aft galley it was.
The timing was between meal shifts, so the four Humans moving back and forth in the kitchen space were focused more on cleanup and prep work than on actually cooking anything. Ia’s entrance into the dining half of the large cabin went unnoticed until she came within a few meters of the pass-through between mess and kitchen.
The tall, black-haired woman directing the others on what to chop up and secure for the next meal was the first to spot Ia. Breaking off from her work, Private Philadelphia Benjamin—no relation to Chaplain Christine Benjamin—came over to the pass-through and leaned her elbows on the polished metal surface.
“What can I do ya for, Captain?” she asked, clasping her hands together.
Her pose, familiar to Ia from past glimpses into the timestreams, sparked her rare sense of humor. “Half-back on rye, black, pulled, swiss, stack the veg with watercress,” Ia rattled off. “Half a cup of slop, dash of pepper on the top—and a moo-joo, Philly, don’t spare the blue.”
Private Benjamin’s mouth sagged. She blinked her aqua blue eyes, attractive with their framing of black lashes. “How…When did you visit Benjamin’s Beeferie, sir?”
“I’ve never been to Mars, let alone your family’s restaurant,” Ia admitted. Then amended, “At least, not in this life. But it sounds good, no?”
“Hell, yeah, it sounds good!” Philly agreed, straightening up. “Hey, Gracie! Get out the pulled pork, the rye, and sandwich fixings. And a bottle of nonfat milk while you’re at it,” she added, as Private Grace Marshall headed for the cold-storage locker. Philly switched her gaze to the man next to Gracie. “Clairmont, head down to lifesupport and pick up some fresh watercress. Make it snappy. I’ll get your soup while you wait, sir.”
“Already on it, Philly,” Private Mellow called out, soup cup in one hand and ladle in the other. “Today’s special is tilapia chowder, Cap’n.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take it out here,” Ia said, poking her thumb over her shoulder. Picking a spot at one of the long tables, she settled into the chair and waited.
Philly brought the cup of soup and a lidded glass of milk within moments. Accepting them, Ia clipped them to the table and dipped the accompanying spoon into the pepper-flaked surface. It was hot, creamy, and filling. The soup was half-gone by the time the mess doors slid open again. Private Clairmont stepped through, a lidded bin filled with leafy greens in his hands. So did another man, shorter and older. The pair were apparently exchanging a joke, for both men laughed before parting company. Clairmont heade
d to the back half of the galley, while Finnimore Hollick detoured over to Ia’s table.
“Ia’n sud-dha, Captain,” he said in greeting, turning one of the deck-bolted chairs across from hers enough to slide onto it. “I wanted to thank you for the chance to visit my birth family.”
She smiled a little at that, dipping her head in acknowledgment. “I’m glad you got that chance, Finn. You’ll get one more, though it won’t be for a few more years.”
He nodded, resting his elbows on the table. Short, somewhat stocky, freckled, and sporting a fringe of thinning sandy hair, he didn’t look particularly imposing. The height and frame came from the fact he had been born a first-generation native on Sanctuary, but Ia knew he hadn’t grown up there. Every so often, a newborn infant suffered immediately from the effects of gravity sickness. Hollick was one such case; lifted off-world as quickly as possible, he had been shipped off to family members back on Earth for gravitic rehabilitation in an environment his infant body could withstand.
Like most every other member of her crew—Harper being the one exception—she had checked over the details of his past in the timestreams when selecting him to serve her into the future. Hollick had served for years on various starship crews manning the supply runs all the way out to Sanctuary, as a way to stay in touch with his birth family. After suffering three particularly strong Fire Girl Prophecy attacks, he had been contacted by Rabbit’s little gang of pre-rebels and vetted as a fellow believer. So his greeting, which in archaic V’Dan meant, “as the Prophet wills it,” made sense in that context.
Something about him, though, some hidden quality buried below the surface of his life-stream, was necessary for the effective functioning of her crew. Ia suspected it was because some combination of his greater age—forty-seven, compared to the average age being nearly two decades younger—his steady work habits, and his unwavering faith in her would have an ongoing, subtle effect on the rest of the crew.
He was already something of a favorite among the 2nd Platoon. Or at least among its galley crew. Sort of a middle-aged mascot, as it were. Philly came out from the galley space with a bowl of soup and a cup of water, beaming a smile his way. “Hey, Holli. Clairmont said you got out of lifesupport early for good behavior. Here’s some of that soup you like. I brought you some crackers, too.”
Eyeing the plexi-wrapped packets she set down next to the clipped bowl of soup, Ia raised her brows at Private Benjamin. “He gets crackers, but I don’t?”
“You are getting a sandwich, Captain,” she sassed back. “You’ll get all the carbs you need with my dough. Besides, if you’re gonna order the Benjamin’s way, you should’ve added, ‘snap the crack’ with that ‘dash of pepper on the top.’”
That made Ia chuckle. “Okay, I concede your point. So where’s my pulled pork rib meat sandwich, Private?”
“Being assembled as we speak.” Flipping a mock salute, the tall woman took herself back into the kitchen. “Your lunch will be launched in two minutes.”
Ia looked at her dining companion. Hollick was already crumbling the crackers into his soup. He offered her the last packet, but she shook her head. “So, how’s the 2nd doing?”
“Good. A little nervous about the coming fight, but I’ve told ’em you know what you’re doing,” Hollick said, mixing in the last cracker.
“We’ll pull through this one alright,” she agreed, spooning up another bite of her soup. “The Salik aren’t expecting it, they’re not heavily guarded, and we do need those comm nodes. Easiest to get ’em before they know we’re coming.”
He didn’t ask her where she found the coordinates for the communications hub. Instead, Hollick asked, “Have you been getting enough sleep, Captain? You look a little dark under the eyes.”
Ia could have lied, but she chose to be honest. She did, however, keep her voice low. “Not really. Been pushing hard to get everyone ready for this. I’ll have plenty of time for sleep after this fight,” she added, scraping up the last of her chowder. “Once we pull the nodes from the wreckage, it’ll be up to Rico and his teams to pull the information we need out of the databanks. They should be able to do it in two, three days—I know where they’re supposed to look, but not what to look for, if that makes any sense.”
“None so blind as them that see,” he quipped dryly. “It makes perfect sense to me.”
Philly came out with Ia’s sandwich. The spicy-sweet smell of barbecue sauce wafted up from the meat-slathered hoagie. Ia accepted the plate, clipping it to the table edge. “That looks great. Thanks.”
“Well, it’s not the original Benjamin’s barbecue sauce since I can’t get the right mix of fruit out here, but it’ll do,” Philly said, shrugging. She retreated once more to the kitchen.
Ia knew the other woman’s history included her family owning one of the oldest sandwich shops on Mars, and a sordid story of a criminal underlord attempting to take over the lucrative family business, efforts that had driven Philadelphia Benjamin into joining the military to escape the worst of it. The tall woman had burn scars under her plain grey sleeves, testament to the violence that could sometimes plague civilian life.
Philly also knew how to make food tasty, which was why Ia had instructed Grizzle, their Company Sergeant and the man responsible for the day-to-day work schedule, to put her in as lead cook whenever it was her turn to work in the kitchens on her duty shift. Very tasty food. The combination of cheese, toasted bread, spiced meat, greens, and vegetables vanished quickly from Ia’s plate.
Wiping her hands on the lemon-scented napkin provided, she nodded at Hollick when he held out his hand, offering silently to take her cups and plate. A swallow of milk cleared her throat, enough that she was free to pull her headset out of her shirt pocket and hook it over her ear. One last swipe at her fingers cleaned them enough to poke at the buttons of her grey plexi arm unit, echoing her voice through the mess, kitchen, and places beyond.
“All hands, this is Captain Ia. Ten minutes to combat. I repeat, ten minutes to combat. Lock and Web; lock and load. You have ten minutes before we exit the rift and engage the enemy. Ia out.”
“I’d better get back to lifesupport, Captain,” Hollick offered, stacking her emptied glass on her plate next to his soup bowl and mug. “Good luck on the probabilities, sir.”
“Thanks. I hope we don’t need any.” Nodding to him in thanks for the dishes, she headed for the door.
A short lift ride down and a modest walk forward brought her to the bridge. Entering via the main portside door, Ia announced herself this time rather than waiting for one of the others to notice.
“Captain on deck. Chief Yeoman O’Keefe, prepare to transfer helm to my control,” she stated, striding between the workstations toward the command seat at the back.
“Aye, sir.”
Unbuckling his safety harness, Spyder worked himself free of the straps. “Gimme a moment, Cap’n…uh, y’ might wanna go freshen up,” he added, nodding at her chest. “Got sauce onna shirt, there.”
Glancing down, Ia rolled her eyes. She had missed a drip of barbecue sauce, which had landed on the curve of her left breast, on the edge of her shirt pocket. “One of the perils of being female,” she joked dryly. “It’ll wait. I’m after results, not looking pretty.”
Shrugging, Spyder cleared the seat for her. He ran one hand over his short-cropped, camouflage-mottled hair. “Eh. Jus’ as well. Leave th’ lookin’ pretty t’ meioa-os like me, eh?”
“Go be a pretty-boy in the spare gunnery spot,” she ordered, sitting down and strapping in. Unlike Rico with his longer legs, she didn’t have to readjust the chair forward. Her legs were slightly longer than Spyder’s, but not enough to bother her. “Corporal Morgan will coordinate forward gunnery efforts. Lieutenant Spyder will coordinate the aft-ward vectors.”
Sighing, Spyder finished clipping into his seat, then powered the whole station around so that it faced backward. Both gunnery posts and the pilot’s station could be rotated for just such a need, so that the Hu
man inner ear wouldn’t be thrown out of balance by the disparity between physically moving one way and facing the other. Normally, Ia’s station also would have swiveled as the backup piloting position, but the security requirements for the main cannon controls had it locked permanently in place.
She activated the all-hail again. “This is Captain Ia, three minutes to combat. Lock and Web, meioas. Lock and load. This is not a drill. Three minutes to combat; Ia out.”
There were four differences between Ia’s console and the pilot’s version. One was the number of tertiary monitor screens; her seat had five of the transparent panels above as well as five below the transparent main and flanking secondary screens. The second was the control panel that released the main cannon. It was locked under a double-lidded security box, with a palm- and DNA-scanner sandwiched between the two lids. Anyone who tried to activate the main cannon other than Ia would set off an unstoppable chain reaction in the hydrogenerators, turning the ship into a brief, bright, miniature nova in one minute.
The third difference was the way that security box locked the station in place, preventing it from rotating, unlike the pilot’s seat. And the fourth was an odd, recessed socket with two exposed metal tabs, its sole purpose to provide energy when the circuit between those two tabs was connected. Nudging up the cover, Ia stuck her right hand inside and pressed her fingers against them.
Electricity snapped into her arm, stinging up through her nerves. Like a jolt of caf’ to taste buds, it woke her up, sharpening her senses. She didn’t take much, just a few seconds’ worth, then pulled her hand out and let the little door slide shut. Left hand fitted into the thruster glove, right hand on the power controls, she nodded.
“I’m ready for the helm, O’Keefe,” she said.
“Aye, sir,” the freckled pilot stated. “Transferring helm to your control in five.”
