Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  “Aye, sir,” Helstead agreed. She didn’t bother to unbuckle from her seat.

  (I’d also like to place a nexus-fold somewhere on your ship,) Belini added casually. (It’s common for those in open faction to have recall points anchored in the other’s local space, so that we can call upon each other quickly in times of need. Not that I’d expect you to call on me, but it’d make moving around easier for me. Anything over a dozen light-years away is cheaper to fold to than it would be to fly. I’m good enough at time-skimming to be able to know if you’re near where I’d want to go.)

  (It’s wise of you not to say that part aloud,) Ia returned, opening the door to the aft corridor, the one that led to the two heads, the galley, and the side door to her office. (If word gets out just how much I’m colluding with a Meddler, beyond permitting you on board, the Admiral-General would pull my rank so fast, I’d have enough power to manifest just from the energy burns.)

  Belini chuckled at that.

  Ia opened the door to her office. (We’ll put it in my quarters so that your comings and goings don’t alarm the crew. Provided the main cannon isn’t being fired, you can simply slip down through the deck, then slip out through the stern without being seen.)

  (You don’t sound too happy about permitting this,) Belini observed. (Considering what I’m asking of you is otherwise such a little thing for one with your particular skills, adding a little bit more to the deal is only fair. My faction-protection is worth more than your life, after all.)

  (I’m not objecting,) Ia replied.

  (Liar,) Belini chided her. The pixie-like woman followed her into the captain’s quarters. The front cabin was sparse, decorated only in the furniture that came with the ship, a couch, a comfortable pair of chairs, a coffee table bolted to the floor, and a large monitor fixed to one wall, which could display the news nets when they were traveling at insystem speeds, or display any of a million entertainment files stored in the ship’s main databanks when they were wrapped in FTL. Belini wrinkled her nose. (Ugh. You have zero taste in anything. Don’t you know how to play the matter-based version of the Game?)

  (I do. My entire career is my Game. This is merely a place to rest,) Ia dismissed.

  (Then you won’t mind the fold-point being anchored here. It’s more difficult to place it in a small object that moves a lot than it is to put it on a stationary spot on a planet. But both points are constantly moving regardless, thanks to the whirl of the galaxy,) the reshaped Feyori mused, pacing around the modest cabin. She finally settled on a mostly unused corner next to the bedroom door.

  (I’m not entirely comfortable with you being able to come and go so freely on my ship, true, but that’s because I really don’t want to lose my standing and trust with my superiors,) Ia stated, leaning against the doorframe. She folded her arms, watching the woman peer at the conjunction of the two walls, doing whatever it was the Feyori did when they prepared a place for their version of long-distance travel. (It’s not an objection, just a discomfort.)

  (If you lose them, summon me—I’ll put in a summoning trigger and show you how to manipulate it—and I’ll fix the problem. We are in faction, after all—you to me, and you to Silverstone, and Silverstone to me…Your telepathy really did get the short shrift, didn’t it?)

  (It’s more than overcompensated for in other areas,) Ia defended dryly. Her quip earned her a physical chuckle from the other woman.

  Swirling her fingers over the bulkhead panels, Belini did something to the metal, then tapped it with her fingers. She added a wordless pulse of thought, sending it to Ia. (Do you understand?)

  Ia squinted, thought her way through the not-words, and nodded. Moving forward, she joined the woman by the door and lifted her hand. A spark of energy snapped from her fingers to the slightly swirled streaks marring the wall. Belini stiffened, then relaxed.

  She nodded. (Well done. Triggered on the first try. Don’t let anyone degauss or alter this corner. Now, let’s go talk to your engineers about what energies they are and are not allowed to purge. By the time I’m done with this ship, no one else will board it without your permission unless they wish to counterfaction me. Or are already in counterfaction, but that’s the risk you’ll have to take.)

  (Miklinn’s already planning to counterfaction me,) Ia told her, turning back to her office door. (That means he’s counterfactioning you, too.)

  (Miklinn always acts like he has an asteroid lodged in his gut. He needs to take a dump more often and stop fretting over the matter races so much,) the alien dismissed. There was a mirror by the door to the main corridor. She drifted that way and fussed with her mop of finger-length hair. (Don’t get me wrong; fleshies are fun to interact with and observe, but just because you’re exposed by a pawn doesn’t mean you can’t reconceal yourself and try harder. His problem was that he didn’t lay nearly enough contingencies. Me? I have several identities I could assume at a moment’s notice, plus a dozen ways to hide myself in any Human-touched system I enter. Though I’ll admit this is my favorite form. I think I look cute in it.

  (Did you know I once saved the life of Jesse James?) she added, glancing at Ia. (Jesse James Mankiller, that is, not the Old Earth outlaw. I was wearing this face when I did it, too. She called me a pixie, and I gave her psychic abilities. That era was a lot of fun.)

  (Yes, I knew. This way to engineering,) Ia directed, biting back the urge to grow impatient with the chatty woman.

  Human though she might appear, Belini wasn’t a woman but rather a chessboard hobbyist with a particular fondness for the pieces being moved about the board. Ironically, Ia knew she was trying to do the exact same thing, moving her own pieces about the board. She just didn’t want to be quite so arrogant about it.

  (Nothing personal, Belini, but the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can get back to writing out my prophecies. Including the researching and archiving of the information you’ll eventually want to know,) Ia projected.

  (Yes, yes, whatever,) Belini dismissed, flicking a hand. (Relax, child. You’re under my protection, now.)

  Ia bit her mental tongue, staying diplomatically silent.

  MAY 12, 2496 T.S.

  SIC TRANSIT

  The insistent chiming dragged her awake. Disoriented, Ia unwebbed her bedding and crawled free of the covers. There was no interrupt scheduled, no emergency that she had foreseen. She was supposed to be getting at least six to seven hours of rest. A bleary squint at the bedside chrono showed she had only received three.

  The door chimed again. Confused, Ia padded out to the living room. I know I didn’t see any emergencies, no unaccounted-for probabilities…Ah, slag. That means it’s Harper. Slapping the door open, she glared at him. “What?”

  “I need to get into the timestreams,” he told her, hands lifting and gesturing in his enthusiasm. “I know I told you the new gun design is almost complete, but I think I’ve come up with a theory on a way to exponentially increase the energy output of the gun’s design, giving you more calorie for your credits. It’ll have to be wielded by psis, and I’ll need several more of those crystals, and I…ah…uhhh…”

  His brown eyes had finally drifted lower than her face. What he saw made him falter and blush. Ia had crawled into bed in one of her old, Academy-issued sets of underpants and a worn, matching tank top. The soft blue material had last been seen by him during their aborted weekend post graduation.

  “…And I think I will go wait outside while you put on a lot more clothes,” he finally muttered, turning around to face the far wall of the corridor instead of entering her quarters.

  Yep. It’s Harper. The one person I cannot predict. Slapping the door shut, she returned to the bedroom to do as he suggested. She also checked the timestreams to see if his idea would wreck the necessary paths. What she found made her frown, then hurry to finish dressing.

  Returning to the front room, she opened the door and beckoned him inside. Belini was long gone, but she led him into her office and closed the door before speaking.
As soon as it slid shut, she locked it and reached out with her mind, silencing the hidden pickups meant to spy upon him and her. “We’re safe to speak in here for the moment, but I suggest couching your terms vaguely all the same.

  “If you’re right, and I hope you are,” Ia continued, still straining, against the fog he always induced, “then what you’re proposing could be turned into a cattle prod for the Feyori and a personal-sized shield defense against the anti-psi machines. At least, for this crew and ship. I can’t trust it in the hands of anyone else.”

  He gestured at her, his engineer’s enthusiasm returning full force now that she was fully clothed in her uniform shirt and slacks. “See? That’s what I was thinking! It finally occurred to me how you were manipulating the crystal, and why it could in turn affect the Feyori—relax, I won’t tell anyone how you’re doing it—and when that happened, I had the epiphany on how the exo-EM frequencies actually worked.”

  Pulling a datapad from his shirt pocket, he headed for her desk. “Let me show you the schematic designs I’ve come up with, so you’ll know what to search for in the streams…”

  Ia followed him, a faint, wistful smile curving the corner of her mouth. The one man I cannot foresee, the single biggest threat to the future we all need…and God help me, I love him. Him and his brilliant mind.

  She didn’t let it show. Didn’t tell him. Instead, she merely joined him at her workstation and listened intently as he pointed at the figures and formulae scribbled in electronic layers all over his blueprint files.

  JUNE 19, 2496 T.S.

  BATTLE PLATFORM JUSTICAR

  ZUBENESCHAMALI SYSTEM

  Ia stepped onto the bridge just in time to hear the second watch comm tech, Kinth Teevie, saying into her headset, “What do you mean, you don’t have the parts we need?”

  The blonde-haired Private First Grade touched her earpiece and scowled. Her screens showed a picture of the exterior of the station. Whatever call she was on, it was audio-only.

  “Excuse me, sir, but those parts were ordered to be earmarked and labeled specifically and solely for the Hellfire’s use. My Captain personally assured me—”

  Teevie broke off, frustrated by whatever was being said on the other end. Ia moved up behind her, dipping mental fingers into the timestreams to see what was going wrong. That was what had summoned her from her office, the sense that something was going wrong. They should have docked with Battle Platform Justicar with no problems, which was why she hadn’t bothered to be on the bridge.

  What she found made her swear. Slagging hell! Feyori fingerprints are all over this. Miklinn’s made his first overt move against me. Shakk. I’d better check the timestreams to find the best way out of this.

  Ia listened to Teevie attempting to protest with only a fraction of her attention. The Feyori’s move was a surgically clean one, with no way to prove other than through the timestreams themselves that he had telepathically influenced the Justicar’s repairs department. No Human psi had noticed him at work as he drifted through the system a few hours ago, reaching out to manipulate just the right minds.

  The clever bastard’s been following us, and he’s good enough at radiation-eating to cloak his presence. The moment he realized we were here to fight for the Beta Librae colonists, and saw that the Battle Platform was here, he probably figured we’d stop for repairs. Which I’d already planned to do. Narrowing her eyes, Ia tapped the private on the shoulder.

  “Sir?” Teevie asked, looking back and up at her.

  “Contact Admiral Genibes, emergency channel. If you cannot get ahold of him, then contact the Admiral-General.”

  “Emergency…?” Teevie flushed. “I wouldn’t say this was an emergency, exactly…”

  “There is more going on at work here than you know,” Ia told her. “Contact our immediate superior on the emergency channel. If he is unavailable, escalate it to the Admiral-General. You have your orders.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” Teevie replied, though her tone was a little doubtful.

  “D’you want my seat, sir?” Spyder asked her, pulling his bootheels down from the edge of the command console. Since they were at dock in a post-battle zone, with the Salik kicked out of nearspace and Ia’s assurances the Salik wouldn’t come back for the rest of the day, he hadn’t bothered to latch his harness in place.

  “No, that’s alright,” she dismissed, moving to the other side of the cabin. Fetching her headset from her pocket, she hooked the device over head and ear. “I’ll take the backup comm station for this call.”

  “Receiving pingback, sir,” Teevie told her a moment later. “We’re on a one-second delay, Captain; you can have a normal conversation. Assuming anyone picks up.”

  Ia settled into the seat. Out of habit, not need, she reached for the harness straps. Just as she buckled the last set in place, the main screen lit with a view of Admiral John Genibes’s face. “Greetings, Admiral. I’m sorry to interrupt the R&D strategy session.”

  “What’s the emergency, Captain?” Genibes asked, barely blinking at her mention of what, exactly, he’d been doing.

  “I have just encountered interference by Feyori Meddling, sir,” she stated. That made him blink. “Certain individuals are moving to counterfaction me, and a particular Meddler has just drifted through the Zubeneschamali System, nudging the minds of the crew aboard Battle Platform Justicar.”

  Genibes lowered his greying eyebrows. “That’s a serious situation, Captain. And a serious accusation. How badly are they compromised, and who is it?”

  “Subtly, and so far it only affects the repair crews. You don’t need to pull them off their job details, though you should suggest to the Psi Division to come out here and sweep their minds for Meddler fingerprints,” Ia said.

  “That’s a serious problem, and it does need looking into, but it’s not what I would call an emergency,” her superior stated. “Do I need to define to you what ‘emergency’ means, Captain?”

  “No, sir. I’ve only outlined the cause of the problem. The effect of it is the repair department on board the Justicar is deliberately blocking our attempts to receive materials for immediate repair. Materials specifically earmarked for the Hellfire to use at this place and time,” Ia told him. “I need you to issue a Command Staff–level broadcast to all TUPSF repair facilities that the Hellfire has priority-one repair status, wherever we go. And if you could, to pass the word along to our allied forces in the rest of the Alliance.”

  He flushed. “That would require both the Admiral-General and the Premier backing it up. The other races won’t tolerate it without government approval. And I could hardly think you’d need to force everyone else farther down the list in every single repair situation, soldier.”

  “Certainly not, sir. Every single instance where we can spare the time, I will gladly let the others go first when it’s a temporal priority for them,” she said. “You know I will. I just need the carte blanche enforced by a formal, fleetwide statement. That way, if this ever comes up again—and the greater probabilities say it will—I can shock off the Meddler fingerprints by threatening those who balk with Fatality Thirty-Five.”

  He gave her a wry look. “Sabotage is a very strong accusation, Captain. There’s a reason why it’s a Fatality.”

  “I know, sir,” she agreed. “In most cases, the mere threat of the cane will be enough.”

  “Be careful you don’t end up on the wrong side of that carrot and stick,” he warned her.

  “I am fully aware of my double-indemnity clause, sir,” Ia said. “I have been taking every precaution possible to ensure my crew remains the most disciplined, reliable Company in the Space Force because of it. In order to remain that reliable force, I need to get the Hellfire’s replacement parts out of the Justicar’s holds and slapped onto my ship, and get it done without wasting half an hour comparing asteroid sizes with whoever’s in charge of repairs over there. If you will issue the Command Staff priority notice, that will cover it.”

  He sighed
roughly and poked at something below the pickup view at his desk. “Let me contact the Admiral-General to clear this with her. If you want it broadcast fleetwide, it’s not going to be encrypted unless you’re willing to wait a few days for all of it to be distributed. I wouldn’t think an open broadcast would be wise since it could force your Meddler foe to change tactics.”

  “Start with the Justicar and take your time with the rest,” Ia told him. “We won’t be in port anywhere for another five days at the earliest.”

  “Shakk,” the admiral muttered, shaking his head. “The Feyori are getting involved in this…Any chance they’ll side with the Salik?”

  “A few already have, but only because those are their assigned Game positions. Most of them are held in check by the positionings of the rest. They’re arrogant asteroids, but they do abide by their own rules. Thank you for the authorization, sir,” she added politely. “You know I won’t abuse it. I just need something more tangibly specific than my carte-blanche authorizations currently suggest.”

  “While you have me on the line, any suggestions for the R&D folk?” he asked her.

  Ia shook her head. “No, sir. The best options will be selected without my interference, or I’d have warned you in advance.”

  “Thank the stars for smart people and small favors. Genibes out,” he added, reaching for another control. The screen turned black.

  Nodding, Ia unbuckled her restraints. The timestreams had smoothed out. “You should have the right authorizations in about ten minutes, Teevie. I’ll forward an updated version of our supplies request to your post from my office, with the exact location of each item on board the Justicar, so they won’t be able to pretend they can’t find anything.”

  “Aye, sir,” Teevie said. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Bureaucracy’s a right pain in th’arse, innit?” Spyder quipped, putting his feet back up on the edge of his console. “Especially when you get th’ Meddlers in th’ mix.”