Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  “Hiding heat signatures in bodies of water is a time-tested method. The squad should’ve ducked into the pond!” Jesselle argued, one hand on her hip, the other flipping at his face. “That’s what the scenario called for!”

  “Yeah, but we ain’t dealin’ wit’ yer average alien, sweets,” he retorted, leaning in closer rather than flinching away. His own hand lifted, all but poking her in the sternum. “We’re goin’ up against Salik, an’ th’ frogtopi have sensitivities f’r maneuvers in water, includin’ current patterns. So yeah, th’ water’d cut the squad’s actual heat traces down, but the Salik’d still see th’ bloody convection plumes!”

  “Oh, and you think hiding the squad in the trees is any better?” she scoffed. She snapped her hand up, pointing at the ceiling. “Salik eyeballs point up! You’d think, with all those boarding-party missions you’ve led, you would’ve noticed the Salik viewscreens being posted overhead?”

  “Human limbs’r at least shaped like most tree limbs,” he countered, shifting even closer. “Which you’d know if you’d ever tried t’ wrap yer limbs around sommat!”

  For a moment, Doctor Mishka stared at him, cheeks flushed and eyes wide with anger, her lips slightly parted as she sought for something to say to that. Their faces—their noses—were mere centimeters apart, and there was barely enough room for a datapad between their bodies. Folding her arms across her chest, Ia bit back the urge to smile. Her plan to ensure that even their Company doctor was competent at thinking strategically, forcing the woman to attend Spyder’s weekly tactical discussions, had just borne some unexpected fruit.

  Amusingly, Jesselle also folded her arms across her chest. The movement brushed her forearms against Spyder’s T-shirt-clad chest. “Are you offering me a target, Lieutenant?”

  Even more amusing, Spyder blushed, tried to speak, swallowed, then tried again. “I…er…not in front ’f the troops, a’ course. I mean, y’ might be lousy at it. Wouldn’t want t’ shake their—”

  “I might be lousy at it?” Jesselle demanded, glaring at him. “After all the training I’ve gone through on this ship, I can beat the pants off of you on any obstacle course—and make you like it!”

  Ia decided she’d had enough entertainment for now. As interesting as this little drama was, they had bigger problems to focus upon. Her revelation to the Command Staff that Lieutenant General Wroughtman-Mankiller had been subtly compromised by a Feyori had drawn attention from the growing membership of Miklinn’s little counterfaction against Ia. That meant she had to work with equal subtlety for certain plans, appearing to do one thing while in actuality aiming for something slightly but significantly different.

  “Gentlemeioas,” she stated just loudly enough to catch both their attention before they could either argue some more or kiss. They jumped a little and twisted to face her, the tension quelled between them, though not completely broken. “I have zero objections to the two of you fraternizing, since neither of you are in each other’s immediate chain of command. I must, however, insist that the only thing thick enough to cut in this room be your birthday cake, Doctor. In short, Lock and Web the sexual tension between you two. At least until you can take it to one of your quarters.”

  Spyder blushed even more. Jesselle paled, then flushed. Interestingly, neither of them denied her labeling it sexual tension. At least they’re competent enough, I can foresee any relationship between the two of them not getting in the way of their duties. Gesturing at the table, Ia changed the subject.

  “Please sit down, both of you. Lieutenant Commander Harper and Lieutenant Rico will be joining us in less than two minutes, and Private Benjamin will be bringing out your birthday dinner in two more. Commander Benjamin will join us about ten minutes in. Her third-watch counseling session is running a little long. As for your argument, the obvious solution to your squadron dilemma lies in both planes.”

  Spyder frowned at her as he toed one of the chairs back from the table by its lever. He held it steady for the doctor, then selected one for himself across from her. “What d’y’ mean, both planes?”

  “The squad in question could just as easily submerge themselves in the pond for a minute or two to cool their infrared signature, then climb up the nearest trees along the waterline and hold themselves still,” Ia said. “The Salik will most likely see the churned-up mud at the edge of the pond first, along with the thermal plumes still roiling the water, and waste their time searching beneath the surface for their prey. The foliage flanking a pond is always going to be thicker than the kind found deeper in the woods…or whatever passes for woods…so hiding at the pond’s edge in the canopy is not as bad an idea as it sounds.

  “You could even leave a couple brave souls down in the water with rebreather masks to lure the Salik down, and set up a flanking ambush from both below and above. At least, that’s what I’d do,” she stated, as the door slid open again. “Run it by the troops, Spyder, and see if they can strengthen that scenario or poke some serious holes in it.”

  The tall bulk of their intelligence officer filled the doorway. He was neatly dressed in grey shirt and slacks, his uniform crisp and clean, but his eyes were half-lidded, and a crease mark from his pillow could still be seen on his cheek.

  “Good evening, Lieutenant…or technically, good morning,” Ia greeted him.

  Rico grunted and nodded. “Captain, Doctor, Lieutenant. Ah—Lieutenant Commander Helstead says the current watch is quiet, and wants to know if she can come share the birthday girl’s supper—happy birthday, Jesselle,” he added in an aside. “I told her I’d eat quickly and relieve her, if that’s alright with you, sir. I know you don’t like leaving a duty watch unmanned.”

  “You sound like you still need to wake up,” Ia countered, watching the way he tried to stifle a yawn and almost succeeded. “I’ll be the one to eat fast. That way, my three Platoon officers can have a nice, peaceful discussion with the good doctor, here, on various combat and reconnaissance scenarios for our upcoming trip to Dabin.” Carefully, shaping and pushing her thoughts outward to catch each of the three of them, she added telepathically, (Do not forget that you need to throw in false suggestions among the true, regarding what we’ll be doing over the next few months. I’ll remind you that the Feyori are now watching not only me in the near timestreams but also you. Be grateful they can only watch and cannot read your minds temporally.)

  “Understood, Captain,” Rico muttered. Jesselle winced a little, none too happy at the unannounced telepathic projection, but she nodded.

  Spyder shrugged and covered the birthday girl’s hand. “Sorry t’ argue on yer natal day,” he apologized. “We c’n table it ’til tomorrow, if y’ like.”

  “Or take it to my quarters,” Jesselle muttered, glancing at the green-haired ex-Marine.

  That earned her a sharp look from Rico, but he lost the opportunity to ask anything as the door to the corridor slid open once more, admitting their chief engineer.

  CHAPTER 17

  I pushed the Hellfire and the Damned as hard as we could go without risking our breaking point. Unique as we were, I did my best to utilize everything we could do in an economy of action. My goal was a frugal pursuit of our enemies—and I say enemies, plural, because it wasn’t just the Salik and the Choya we had to face. The Meddlers were getting involved, jockeying for new positions, new powers. New plays in their great Game. But they weren’t the only ones, either.

  In the chaos of war, opportunities await the bold and the reckless. In the fringes, where attention has been turned from shepherding the masses in civilized behavior to defending the masses from a specific foe, certain elements flourish. Criminal elements, beings who wouldn’t hesitate to form unholy alliances if it meant increasing their own power, prestige, wealth, or whatever.

  They flourished, and they grew bold, and they seized opportunity after opportunity…until they grew just a little too reckless, listened to the wrong whispers, allied themselves with the wrong people, and stretched their resources trying to rea
ch for what they wanted, when what they wanted lay within my protection. Some, I had already smacked repeatedly back on Oberon’s Rock. Others tried a different tactic.

  When the criminal undergalaxy joined in faction with a certain group of Meddlers, laying plans to go after my most prized possession, they stretched themselves past the breaking point…and yes, I enjoyed breaking them.

  ~Ia

  MAY 31, 2498 T.S.

  BATTLE PLATFORM SARATOGA JONES

  KUIPER BELT, CS 47 SYSTEM

  Ia stared at the contents of the crate she had just unpacked. Everything was there. Power cables to hook it up, Terran-designed controls that no longer needed a sucker-hand on the boxy body of the infernal device, and a jury-rigged transmitter sphere. After pain-filled experimentation with the original captured machine and the ones salvaged from various wrecked Salik vessels, the Space Force’s Psi Division had figured out how the Salik broadcasted the anti-psi field unilaterally over a larger area than an individual victim’s helmet could.

  For the next twenty or so hours, this would be a literal headache, if a necessary one. If it blocked all but the strongest of psychic abilities, it would block attempts by the Feyori to peek through the skin of her ship.

  Sighing, she pulled the main box out of the crate, carried it over to the workbench Harper had cleared for her, and secured it to the surface. It felt a little heavy, but only because she and her crew were now living and working in 1.8Gs Standard, just about the right gravity to match their upcoming assignment. She turned back to fetch the cable and the emitter, but Harper had already grabbed those.

  Bringing them over to her, he wordlessly helped her hook them up to the ship’s power grid. All of her orders in the last few weeks regarding this day had been delivered telepathically to her crew. She disliked touching people while speaking telepathically—and had accidentally tripped herself and a few of her members of the crew into the timestreams while doing so, on those few occasions where she had to touch someone to deliver a message—but it was imperative that the Feyori watching her from their own version of the timeplains did not hear any actual orders regarding what they were about to do.

  If they knew, they wouldn’t walk into the trap she needed to set for one of them. A trap in which she hoped to snare many more.

  Harper didn’t spill the details, but he did make his displeasure known. “…Would it do any good to protest?”

  “Not a single bit. I am turning on this machine and pointing this ship at your homeworld. We will wait about a light-month out from the system, then swoop in at the right moment and destroy the blockade currently in orbit.” Webbing the emitter to the gridboard above the workbench, she glanced at him. “I know you’re not happy about Dabin’s falling to their forces. And I know you’re not happy about the genetically engineered monsters they’ve let loose on your homeworld. But we will go there, and we will arrive in time to save it, and do so in such a way that my goals will be met.”

  He looked away. She knew that wasn’t his real protest. Touching his shoulder, Ia sent, (I will survive, I promise you that. You have my Prophetic Stamp.)

  …Only because I gave you the tools to do so. Are you sure this thing will foil their vision? Harper thought back. He couldn’t project his thoughts, but he could form them clearly enough for her to read.

  (At the right setting, both machines will block their view of what lies inside each ship, without blocking their view of exactly where this ship will sit.) Squeezing his shoulder, she lifted her chin. “You’re lucky you’re not a psi. This thing will hurt like a bite from one of your Dabin swamp rats, the ones you said clamp onto their prey and don’t let go.”

  Releasing him, she turned to the machine and started it with just a few button pushes. The ache built quickly. Within seconds, her head from brow to nape throbbed. Another set of taps on the position-sensitive controls modulated that pain into a dull ache. An ache similar to the one already awaiting them on the ship docked one gantry up from theirs.

  “You have your orders, Lieutenant Commander. Carry them out,” she instructed.

  “Sir, yes, sir.” Unhappy, he turned on his heel, picked up the packing crate, and strode out, leaving her alone in the main engineering compartment.

  Without the warmth of his personality and presence to fill it, the stripped-down compartment echoed. Every sector and cabin on the ship had been stripped to its barest necessities. Ia knew the Feyori stalking her took that as a sign that they would succeed in their coming attempt. That she intended to deny them every scrap of resources she could. To them, the coming nexus point was muddied, misted over, but there was a timeline where they very well could succeed. She didn’t need to hide from the Feyori the fact her ship was empty; the anti-psi device was needed to hide that successful path from them.

  Hopefully they would be blocked by the device from reading the timestreams, given their milder abilities. That nexus was still somewhat clear to her. Mild as its broadcast was—poisonous as it was to the Feyori—the machine was already starting to mist up the timestreams ahead. She hadn’t seen any mists this strongly since manifesting. Not for the first time, Ia wondered why her half-breed life was so oddly immersed in such a vast ocean of prognostication when not even her father-progenitor could do a single percent of the things she could do.

  She took her time leaving engineering and made sure to use the port side of the ship to return to the bridge. That permitted her to avoid everyone but Lieutenant Rico, the last person on duty. Ironically, for all that he would have been loyal to her anyway after his trip into the timestreams with her, he would have strenuously protested this plan right alongside Harper if it hadn’t been for Private Sung’s indiscretion.

  But they were hers now. The Damned were solidly hers. If she said, “Jump,” they paused only to ask, “How high?” then did their best to hit that exact mark, no more and no less. Even Hollick’s replacement, Private Nesbit, was hers. He had asked plenty of questions among her crew, watched her actions and plans unfolding in combat after combat, and had developed a solid level of faith in his CO.

  After more than two years of open war, two and a half if one counted their preliminary strikes, and after enduring three to four times as many fights as any other crew, they had lost only one soldier from their Company. There was no doubt that Ia’s Damned were the finest fighting force available to the war. Two things made them that way: Ia’s trust in them to be the right people for the right job at the right point in time, and their trust in her to let them know what the right job was.

  Knowing all of that, believing in all of that, didn’t stop Rico from giving her a dirty look as he left the bridge, though. Ia didn’t have to read his thoughts to know why. As far as the tall Platoon officer was concerned, his CO was being an idiot for doing all of this on her own. Unfortunately, he had no way to escape along with her, and she wasn’t about to waste his life needlessly. He knew all of that, but it didn’t make him any happier with her.

  Settling into the command seat, Ia levered the chair forward and buckled herself in. The harness straps had long since been replaced but were starting to show some wear and tear from their constant use. With nothing to do but wait, Ia pulled a trick out of both Helstead’s and Spyder’s bags and put her bootheels up on the console. Not near anything sensitive, of course. Then again, she didn’t need to touch the controls to activate them.

  Screens flicked to life around the bridge. With her primary screen blank and thus transparent, she read the distant displays monitoring the ship’s statistics. The engines looked good, tiny little green bars indicating energy consumption was running low. The shields displayed their status in two levels, low on the starboard, toward the Battle Platform, high on the port side, standard wartime procedure whenever docked, in case of an unexpected attack. The Hellfire’s scanners were sweeping passively, collecting and collating data with the navicomp’s help.

  Lifesupport, however, was nothing more than a series of red lines and blanks, save for a few tiny gre
en bars. Plants had been boxed up, fish bagged, hens crated, and all of it shipped out. Including her precious supply of carefully nurtured topadoes, with their beautiful dark purple and sky blue striped foliage, and their tasty aquamarine roots. The ship was running purely on mechanical reoxygenators now, with the air scrubbed chemically instead of biologically.

  The emergency systems could easily reoxygenate the ship long enough to keep the original crew complement of five hundred or so alive for at least two months, though the air would start to smell a bit ozone-ish and stale after the first three weeks. With just Ia on board—well, her, and a last clutch of crew members slipping out the amidships starboard airlock with a few last-minute kitbags of belongings slung over their shoulders—the air supply could easily last a year. Food would be the biggest problem; all but the bridge galley had been stripped of everything, and even that one only had a few ration packets left.

  The Salik had already tried several times to board and capture the Hellfire. Every single time, Ia had precognitively thwarted them. Missiles had breached their hulls, but not a single ostrich-legged flipper had landed on their decks. They weren’t a concern, though. Even if they had, they’d never be able to use the Godstrike cannon.

  The Feyori…were a different matter. All they needed was a bit of Ia’s DNA and enough time to read her mind, and they could replicate her body and personality in the flesh of a volunteer, much as she and Belini had turned Private Hollick into Private N’Keth. Belini hadn’t ever mentioned that possibility, but Ia knew it could be done. Once they had a duplicate clone of herself, they would be able to access the Godstrike cannon. It was debatable whether or not they would be able to replicate her psychic abilities, since even among identical twins such things varied, but the cannon did not require that much accuracy for access. All of these things, she had carefully explained to Myang in a message embedded in that latest datachip.

  A glance at the chrono showed she had twenty hours and fourteen minutes to prevent them from trying.