Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  She finally had to pinch him again, this time snagging a bit of skin at his waist. Jerking at the sharp nip, he acceded to her silent demand, releasing her. “…Alright! Not around the crew,” Meyun said. “Which would be my personal preference, except I’m feeling rather happy right now.”

  “There will be other rules. Only when the time can be spared. Only when the—” His finger pressed against her lips. Looking at him, Ia sighed and gave up.

  Harper nodded. “I know, I know…and it’s not like I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off to my quarters right this minute. There’s another reason for being discreet. Private Nesbit.”

  The others blinked and frowned, not recognizing the name.

  Harper rolled his eyes, giving Rico a briefly impatient look. “Oh, come on. The new member of the 2nd Platoon? Private First Class Maximus Nesbit, of E Epsilon? Hollick’s replacement? He isn’t here yet, and he hasn’t gone through what this crew has, but he will be joining us soon.

  “Harper’s right,” Ia agreed. “He hasn’t seen what we’ve seen…or made the promises to ourselves that we have. Until we know he can keep his mouth shut on this ship’s secrets, we’ll have to continue being discreet.”

  “But at least you’ll have the rest of the crew behind you,” Bera pointed out. Fonnyadtz sipped at her float again, draining the last of the soda, then unclipped a spoon from the table and poked it at the globs of ice cream in her cup. “You really do need to indulge in some downtime, Capta…er, shakk. Meioa-e. Even if it’s just talking with our favorite engineer.”

  Fa’alat flapped a hand at them. “Go on. Get out of here, you two. Go do some ‘talking’ with each other. We’re done with the two of you…and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll go off somewhere private and actually talk about this with each other. Good downtime relationships begin with talking, after all.”

  Fonnyadtz snorted. “Talking. Yeah. Just so long as they do get around to swagging each other.”

  “You know, if this wasn’t the Wake Zone, meioas, and if I hadn’t the carte-blanche authority to bend the rules for you,” Ia warned the quartet of conspirators, “you’d be in an entire asteroid field’s worth of trouble. I ought to—”

  Meyun covered her mouth with his hand and finished her sentence for her. “She ought to thank you, but I’m afraid she’ll be too busy chasing me back to her quarters, where she’s going to spend a good fifteen minutes yelling at me, while I just sit there and grin.”

  Blushing, Ia elbowed him. Or at least tried to. Her heart wasn’t entirely in it. Tugging her out of the alcove, he released her mouth, wrapped her arm around his elbow, and led her out of the Wake room. Curious looks from the others in the rec room morphed into amused looks and encouraging smiles. No one stopped or even spoke to the two of them, though.

  “Our official clutch of spies is right. I do believe we should talk about this,” he murmured in her ear, guiding her into the corridor.

  “I had half an hour set aside for the Wake. Or rather, about twenty minutes of it left,” Ia stated. Patting his arm, she sighed and released it. “All we’ll have time to do is talk…and I cannot spare half an hour every single day.”

  “Yes, but at least now we’ll have something to talk about,” he allowed. “By the way, I like the dress.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. So did Emperor Ki’en-qua.”

  Meyun mock-bristled at that. “What, the Emperor of V’Dan gets to see my commanding officer in a fancy dress long before me? Why, that’s an outrage! I demand twenty minutes of your time, Captain, in order to complain about it to you.”

  In spite of herself, Ia laughed. Grinning ruefully, she gestured at the lift they were approaching. “By all means, you can have your say. In my office.”

  “In your quarters, so you can bring out and show me everything else you’ve bought since leaving the Academy,” he bartered.

  “Shh,” she admonished him. They were alone for the moment, but she could foresee that someone was riding the belt-lift. “Not in front of the crew.”

  “Sir, no, sir. Definitely not, sir, and I wouldn’t admit I’ve even dreamed of it, sir,” he muttered. But he smiled as he did it.

  MARCH 9, 2497 T.S.

  ZARRATA VII

  SSKENTHA SYSTEM

  The man Master Sergeant Sadneczek escorted into Ia’s office was lean, average in height, and looked somewhat cocky, with slouching shoulders and an amused half smile hovering around his goatee-framed mouth. He did not come to Attention until Grizzle cleared his throat, and only lifted his hand to his brow at a second ahem.

  Ia saved her work, powered down her main workscreen, and returned the salute, though she didn’t rise. “At Ease. Have a seat.”

  Resuming his slouch, Private First Class Nesbit settled into the nearer of the two chairs across from Ia. “Cap’n. I heard you’re Bloody Mary. ’Zat true?”

  “Welcome aboard, Private Nesbit, and yes, it is. But right now, we’re here to talk about you. Understand that you have some very big shoes to fill. You will be taking over most of the roles performed by the late Private Hollick, who died a hero’s death on Oberon’s Rock,” Ia stated, folding her arms and bracing her elbows on her desk, “This crew misses him greatly. He was a middle-aged man with a steady mind and a calm personality. The Damned will take a little while to get used to you, a young man with a twisted sense of humor, in his stead.”

  “The Damned, sir?” he asked her.

  “Ia’s Damned, 9th Cordon Special Forces. My crew is loyal first and foremost to me, then to the cause I serve, which is the salvation of all life over the long-term view, and then to the Admiral-General and the Space Force. The Admiral-General knows and approves of my missions and has given me free rein to carry them out.” That was a bit of a stretch, but technically with her carte blanche being based on her precognitive abilities, it was the truth. “We have been through more combat in the last year than three-quarters of the fleet in the pursuit of that goal, and have a higher kill rating per battle than any other vessel short of a Battle Platform or a capital ship.

  “Hollick was the most loyal member of my crew, though not the best warrior. I told him the odds of success for his last mission weren’t good, but he chose to go on it anyway in order to save lives. Which he did. But however well he may have performed in combat, your biggest obstacle, Private,” she continued, “will be filling the heroic shoes Hollick wore while he was serving on board this ship during your average day-to-day duties. You will be worked harder, expected to do more, and at times serve for far longer hours than at any other point in your military career since leaving Basic.”

  “’M not afraid of hard work,” he told her, his accent not quite as thick as Lieutenant Spyder’s. He flashed her a grin. “I jus’ don’t like it.”

  “Joke all you like, but accept that that will change,” Ia warned him. “Now, I know you’ve been fitted with a mechsuit, having served two tours on the Blockade on board a Harrier-Class Delta-VX. I served on one of those myself, so I know you’re used to long hours and dangerous encounters. The nice difference about serving aboard the Hellfire is that I run three duty watches instead of two. The not-so-nice similarity is that you can and will be called to active duty at any hour, at any time. I will, however, be able to give all of you a fifteen-minute warning, save in the most extreme of probability cases.

  “The acceleration rating for this ship is approximately the same as a Harrier-Class,” she added. “So the Lock and Web Law is vital to uphold. Not just on the off chance that God rolls the dice and comes up with an extremely low probability number, but because it is important not to forget that you have left things out. I’d rather that hairbrushes and such didn’t go flying about during combat, punching holes in my bulkheads.”

  He lifted his brows but didn’t say anything, just shrugged. Her warning was deliberately chosen since it would remind him to secure his actual hairbrush within the next month to avoid that very scenario. Touching the comm button on her
workstation, Ia spoke.

  “Private Schwadel to the Captain’s office.” Releasing it, she opened a drawer and extracted a datachip. “This ship does not fly a standard patrol route. We do not have a specific sector to protect. Instead, with the aid of my precognitive skills, we aid those battle zones desperately in need of some extra help, regardless of whether or not it lies in Terran space…which you may have already noticed since you were just shipped all the way out to a Tlassian space station for pickup.

  “You have five hours to stow your things and get familiar with your coming duties. This is your Company Bible, which I expect you to study, memorize, and take to heart, just as the rest of my crew have already done,” she added, holding out the chip. “The first chapter has been appended with a note regarding the next forty-eight hours, with advice on what you should focus on first and when to do it, to get you integrated quickly into life on the Hellfire…and yes, I am that temporally accurate. Use your arm unit’s chrono to make sure you stay on schedule.

  “Three days from now, we’ll have time for another Wake. Those are the onboard parties the Damned throw because we do not have time to stop and enjoy actual Leave on other stations, domeworlds, or planets. Anything that happens within the Wake Zone is to be addressed strictly from the standpoint of everyone being a civilian, so be very careful not to address anyone by their rank.

  “As for recreation, leisure, and hobbies, I believe Private Preston-Aislingfield is the current game master for the ship’s tabletop role-playing sessions. She’ll get ahold of you soon to discuss your gaming experiences and character preferences, and will help integrate you into the group. That, more than anything, will bring your fellow crewmates to know and eventually trust you, which is why I point it out to you. Please remember to use electronic dice, not physical ones. Like hairbrushes, the physical kind can do a lot of damage during sudden maneuvers and are harder to keep track of in an emergency. Now, do you have any questions?” she asked him.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “If you’re really a prophet, what’m I thinking?”

  She gave him a flat look. “That would be telepathy, not precognition, and that would be a violation of your sovereign sentient rights to mental privacy. Not to mention my own mothers would fly out here to paddle my butt for being so rude.”

  He grinned at that, visibly pleased that his new CO had a sense of humor.

  Ia didn’t disabuse him of that belief. “Still, the probabilities of what you were about to say out loud were the number seventeen at seventy-seven percent, followed by yellow daisies at fourteen percent, fried peanut butter and banana sandwich at eight percent, and undecided for the rest. Your teammate and roommate is about to arrive. The two of you are both electronics engineers. I suggest you use that basis to start getting along as fellow workers and build trust and friendship from there.

  “You will be a member of the Damned for a long time to come,” Ia warned him. “As Private Sung discovered recently when he violated Fatalities Five and Thirteen, I can give you all the precognitive warnings in the universe until I run out of breath, but it is up to you to carry your orders through. Make sure you don’t do anything stupid, or it will be the last thing you get to do. And be mindful of your actions when it comes to corporal punishments. If you incur any strokes of the cane, I have to suffer them, too.

  “There’s a recording in the ship’s library of Private Sung’s caning, followed by my own, should you doubt me. And if that isn’t enough to warn you, the rest of my crew will be inclined to lynch you if you screw up rather than see me go through another caning because of something you did,” she told him. “I’d rather not have to fill out the paperwork on a lynch mob, but I will I if I have to, so kindly keep that in mind.

  “Other than that, welcome aboard,” she repeated, as her door chimed, then slid open. “Private First Class Maximus Nesbit, meet Private First Grade Derek Schwadel, your roommate and team leader. As far as the chain of responsibility goes on board this ship, Schwadel is senior-most between the two of you since he’s served with me longer. Schwadel, you’ll have four hours and fifty minutes to show Nesbit around before we’ll reach our next battle zone. Spend them wisely. Dismissed, gentlemeioas.”

  “Aye, sir,” Schwadel stated, and gestured for Nesbit to follow him out of her office. “C’mon, this way. Let’s get your gear stowed.”

  Ia didn’t watch them go. She powered her screen back up and resumed picking her way through the last few tangles in the duct-taped version of her goal, changing various prophecies destined for Earth and the Afaso, Sanctuary and the Free World Colony—not too many of the latter, thankfully—and assorted missives meant for targets among the various other governments and species.

  MARCH 17, 2497 T.S.

  SIC TRANSIT

  “Let’s see…power cables here…floodlights for the red, green, and blue spectra over there…and rare-earth magnets over here,” Harper muttered to himself.

  He moved around the clutch of men and women gathered in the bow storage bay that used to hold crysium sprays, and which was now lined with stacks of locked storage chests awaiting delivery. Some had been shipped off already, but others had not. Shifting MacInnes by her arms, he guided her onto some invisible mark seen only by him, then moved on to the next.

  The men and women summoned were a mix of privates, a corporal, and the petite lieutenant commander. The only thing they had in common, aside from the obvious items like being Human and members of Ia’s crew, was that they were one and all middling to strong psychics.

  “Right,” their chief engineer finally said. Clapping his hands together, he eyed their positions, then hustled to one side and opened the crates resting on the deck. They did not match the crates carrying her crysium wreaths. Instead of peach-tinted, coronet-like rings, he pulled out a variation on the crystal-mounted, brass-bound, somewhat oversized weapons he had been working on for months. It sort of looked like a stylized, oversized pi symbol shaped into a brass-and-crystal gun. “Here we go…not at all like the originals, but this should work even better…

  “Now, according to my calculations, four or five of you should do the trick, so we’ll try five to start. Better to slightly overkill than underkill, and have to retry. Helstead, MacInnes, Crow, Teevie, and O’Taicher, you are each fairly strong psychics. I need you to be psychics at this point in time. Each one of you will take up one of these guns. The safety is here, the trigger is here, and you wrap your hands around these crystalline bits,” he added, bringing over the first gun so that he could stand in front of the semiarc they made and point at each bit. “Obviously, the thing you want pointed at your target is this crystal shaft out here.”

  Eyeing each other, the men and women in question picked up the bulky, odd devices and tried to settle them like weapons. MacInnes’s arms were long enough, but Helstead’s were a bit short.

  “Sorry the front grip’s so long, but I couldn’t reconfigure it because of the resonances. You can rest this back bit on your shoulder here to help balance the gun, like this.” Lifting it to his own shoulder, Harper displayed how to hold the thing, turning so that it was pointed off to the side. He lowered it again and showed them where the eight e-clips had been already slotted along the underside of the canister-thick barrel. “These clips are just the initializers, like spark plugs for an old combustion engine—and yes, it really does take that many e-clips, Teevie.”

  She blinked at him, her lips still open to ask her unspoken question. Licking them, she asked instead, “How did you know what I was going to say?”

  “Because the Captain already showed me. Now, according to my source materials, I can get a much greater efficiency if I use mid- to high-ranked psis. And according to Helstead, who has been very helpful in testing the prototypes,” Harper added, “you will probably feel an odd tingle, and maybe hear a faint chiming or humming sound. That just means the gun is working. You will also feel drained afterward, but actually using it won’t cause any real harm.”

  Harper then han
ded the weapon to Helstead, who grinned and hefted it onto her shoulder. “Wait until you try this, meioas. If we get it right, the end result’s a muckin’ trip, and I can’t wait to see it happen.”

  Ia stepped into her own designated spot as Harper checked the grips of each volunteer. Waiting for him to finish, she caught their puzzled looks. “Harper, did you remember to tell them what they’re about to do?”

  “Nope. I didn’t want them spreading rumors around the ship. Okay,” he said, handing the last oddball weapon to O’Taicher. “Everybody, find your safety switches and flip them off. That will automatically start the weapons charging. Then grasp the hand grips where I showed you, take aim at Captain Ia, and on my command—so you do it all at the same time—you will fire your weapons at her.”

  The others exchanged very dubious looks. O’Taicher frowned at their first officer. “Are you bloody nuts? That’d be Fatalities Thirteen and Twenty-Two!”

  “If you don’t shoot me, Private, that would be Fatality Five: Disobeying a Direct Order,” Ia pointed out gently. “Besides, it’s not a case of Friendly Fire or Attacking a Superior if you’re ordered to do it.”

  MacInnes shook her head, muzzle still pointed at the ground. “I can’t do it. I won’t. Not without a direct order from you, sir.”

  “Fine,” Ia agreed. “Everyone, I order you to remove the safety locks, aim your weapons at me, and at Lieutenant Commander Harper’s countdown and command, I order you to pull and hold the triggers of your weapons, firing them at me until Commander Harper gives you leave to stop. Any questions?”

  Crow and Teevie exchanged looks. Corporal Crow shrugged and lifted his gun to his shoulder, sighting down the top of the brass barrel at his CO. “…It’s been nice knowing you, sir?”

  Ia smiled wryly at the jest. So did Harper—until he flinched, realizing he was in the way, and quickly ducked out from between Ia and the armed members of their crew. That made her grin.