Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  Zooming in close, mentally floating above the weave, she examined the wisps of thread-fibers where the purple taint in the slub came close to an aquamarine one. The tiniest threads connected the two. So tiny, they looked…silver.

  Feyori.

  Cursing, Ia backed up—and flinched instinctively out of the timestreams, left hand snapping up, mind snapping out. Opening her eyes, she stared at the frightened sergeant dangling centimeters from her grip and centimeters off the floor, caught in her telekinetic grip. If she had lingered in there one moment more, the middle-aged woman might have actually touched her.

  That would have been bad.

  “Y…You…” the greying brunette panted, eyes wide. “You…”

  “I said,” Ia stated, as gently as she could, “that I did not want to be touched.” Carefully, she lowered the older woman back to her feet. “I apologize for my instinctive reaction just now—and I’m grateful I didn’t hurt you with my combat reflexes—but it was either grab you with my mind, or let you injure your mind precognitively. Now, did you want something?”

  Licking her lips, the woman clutched her portable workstation in her dark brown arms and nodded. “Uh, yes, sir. We’ve completed your roster for you, Captain. All it needs is your…your…I can’t believe I’m saying this,” the reservist master sergeant muttered, her shock fading, replaced by a touch of startlement-induced anger. “This whole situation is highly irregular! We decide who gets promoted and where they go, particularly when it’s a transfer into the Special Forces.”

  “I know it’s irregular, Narine,” Ia told her, making the woman blink. Only her last name, Plimstaad, was visible on the name patch fixed to the pocket of her brown Dress jacket. “I know that very little of this is according to standard procedure. But it’s necessary. As for that list of names, do not send it yet. It’s still incomplete.”

  “The list is complete, sir,” she argued. “All you needed was a competent lieutenant for your 2nd Platoon. You have a first officer and three Platoon lieutenants. You have a Company and three Platoon sergeants, you have a full roster of enlisted and have claimed one of the best full-care doctors in the Space Force. You may be missing all of your squad sergeants, but you have every single person you requested. Dostoyervski has been selected for you, since you were taking so long in making up your mind. Standing there like a statue, no less,” the DoI sergeant muttered. “Sir.”

  “Dostoyervski won’t work for me, Sergeant,” Ia dismissed. “I’ll need to find someone else.”

  She shrugged and tapped something on her workpad. “Fine. Arstoll it is, then. Sign it with your thumbprint, Captain, and have a nice day.”

  Ia shook her head. “I won’t sign that, Sergeant. I’ve found an anomaly—a huge anomaly—and I have to track down the right way to fix it, first.”

  “What anomaly, Captain?”

  The impatient question came from the oldest man in the room, and the only soldier whose rank matched her own. The main differences between them were that he wore brown stripes on his black uniform, and that his brass eagle did not carry the rockets in its claws that hers did, making her a ship’s captain and him a lieutenant colonel. As dark-skinned as the sergeant, but with three times as many wrinkles and none of the hair, Lieutenant Colonel Luu-Smith flicked his hand irritably.

  “You’ve already taken up hours of our time this morning with a task normally left to the experts, Captain Ia. What anomaly could possibly throw everything we’ve done out the window at this point in time?” he demanded. “I thought you said you were some sort of massive precog. Shouldn’t you have already foreseen it?”

  “With respect, Colonel,” Ia returned, “I am not the only being who can see into the future, and that means I’m not the only one who can act to change the things they foresee.” At his skeptical look, she rolled her eyes. After several years of playing her cards close to her chest, ingrained habit had kept her from revealing what she apparently needed to reveal. “…The Feyori are now involved. They cannot see as far as me, but they can see, and they will interfere, if they think it will somehow promote their own positions in their gods-be-stupid Game.

  “Unfortunately, some of them are now considering me a threat. It’s incredibly shortsighted of them because I’m not their enemy, but there it is. Now, if you’ll just be a little more patient, please, I was in the middle of tracking down where the anomalies started when I was interrupted.” She glanced briefly at Sergeant Plimstaad. “And I did mean it when I said do not touch me. You do not want to see what is inside my head; I’m dealing with scales that most people aren’t prepared to deal with, at speeds that would give you a raging migraine.

  “I do thank you for your efforts on my behalf,” Ia added. “I’ll try to be quick about this, but there are a lot of lives at stake. More than you know.”

  Closing her eyes, Ia breathed deep and let it out, then did it again, calming and centering her mind. A flip of her thoughts landed her in the grass next to the waters of her own life. From there, it didn’t take much effort to condense Time back into a thin, interwoven sheet, though she did have to spend a few moments refinding the slub-nodes of Feyori influence in the future. Once she had her mental metaphor adjusted so that her conscious mind could comprehend it, she stained the lead one purple again and followed it up-thread into the past, trying to find the moment where the anonymous Meddler in question had decided to begin interfering.

  The recent past, she discovered with an unpleasant jolt. Ah, slag…The initial slip in the streams took place just thirteen days ago. That was the day I left the Solarican Warstation Nnying Yanh. More precisely, this is the Feyori whose presence I uncovered and threw off the Warstation. The same day I was tested and my father’s legacy had to be revealed, explaining the strengths of my psychic powers.

  Which was also the day I stupidly didn’t check to see what effects his abrupt exposure would have on the timelines, she castigated herself, wincing.

  She didn’t have to touch that thread to know the Feyori in question would be upset enough to try to counterfaction her. The energy-based beings converted themselves into matter-based beings so that they could meddle with her fellow sentients’ lives. They did not like it when the pawns in their great Game started playing by different rules, and they really didn’t like it when a pawn ousted a player.

  Sometimes their interference was for a Right of Breeding, which was how Ia herself had come into existence. Such things infused most of the known sentient races with psychic abilities. Sometimes their interference was less direct; the Meddlers could manipulate the thoughts of their targets via telepathy, create complex hallucinations via a combination of holokinesis and clairvoyancy, even physically change a person through massive biokinesis. Most of the reasons why they did such things gave Ia a headache trying to figure them out.

  As much as she wanted to avoid crossing factions with the Feyori, her own stupid lack of foresight almost two weeks ago had dumped this problem into her lap. Which means almost half my roster is now rendered void and useless. This purple-Meddler looks like he will have picked up…twelve, thirteen…fifteen or so major faction-groups to help counterfaction my efforts by the time I’ll need all the Feyori to swear faction to me. Slag…

  She quickly checked the chronology of the timelines. It seems he’s quite clever, too. His first real interference-node will happen six Terran years and one Terran day after I bartered with that “Doctor Silverstone” Feyori for a Right of Simmerings. And it won’t be anywhere near where I am, so it’ll be difficult for me to counter it face-to-face. Most of these slubs are truly subtle interferences, probably just telepathic suggestions…but they are enough to throw off the weft and warp of the pathways I need. Which means it’s time to rewrite the whole roster…and…ah, hell. I’ll need…

  Ugh. I’ll probably need to accept Belini’s offer to faction me in exchange for far-ranging prophecies. The Meddlers can see a little way into Time, and that means I have to plan dozens of steps in advance, limiting as many
of their counterfaction options as I can. If I’m not careful, it’ll really shift the balance of power down through the centuries, ruining plans I’ve already laid.

  At least I’ve already considered her offer as a Plan B to extend my Right of Simmerings, so I don’t have to break completely new ground in the timestreams…

  I hope I don’t have to use it, though I won’t hold my breath. I’d rather get three Feyori to admit I am the foreseen Prophet, and have the right to rearrange their Game. She double-checked the timestream paths and winced mentally. I won’t have many chances to do that, though. Miklinn technically isn’t interfering or counterfactioning by raising the point that I “really should manifest before being accepted” as one of them…and damn him for the legality of it. And damn myself for my carelessness. Slag.

  Okay, Time, she ordered silently, rippling the sheet-like weave, doubling over the threads and turning them translucent. She knew how to handle her Right of Simmerings, which would buy her more time to sway the Feyori to her side. For the contingencies where some of the Feyori were stubborn about wanting to counterfaction her, she needed a different crew. Show me which changes in personnel I will need, starting with Chaplain Benjamin, Doctor Mishka, and my choice of first officer, Lieutenant Brateanu…

  The pathways she needed to check were fairly easy, like two transparencies laid one over the other. The first layer was the Feyori-altered path at the bottom, with her current roster selections. The second layer belonged to the path she had already marked out for the future, the one that led to the one shot she had at saving the galaxy from annihilation three hundred years away.

  Deviations were quicker to see this way, but it only worked because she already had both source-paths to trace and compare. Until she had found the problem—Feyori interference—she couldn’t have made these comparisons. Good, good…Bennie’s still my chaplain; I like her. And the good doctor will still be grumpy about her reassignment to my team, but she’ll still work out fine. As for…ah, slag, Ia cursed, wincing. Brateanu is right out.

  She needed an engineer, someone so good, so creative, they could scavenge or craft parts on the fly, since there would be too many times when her ship and crew would not have the time to stop and make repairs at an actual dry-dock facility.

  Her 1st Platoon lieutenant had to be Rico, a man with a brilliant analytical mind and the ability to read and think in Sallhash, even if pronouncing it was physiologically difficult for Humans. He couldn’t be replaced. She also needed Helstead as her 3rd Platoon leader. The woman was not only the most deadly soldier on Ia’s crew roster, she could teach those skills to the people under her. Helstead came with more tricks up her sleeve than a hundred stage magicians, and Ia would need most of them in the near future.

  That left either the lieutenant for the 2nd Platoon, or her first officer. One of the two had to be good at handling combat chaos, the other had to be an outstanding engineer. Rico and Helstead were both good enough to handle combat, though one was more of a military analyst and the other a military assassin by training.

  By preference, she would rather make the combat officer a Platoon lieutenant, so that all three groups of soldiers would be led by someone competent in directing battle. The problem was, of the combat-competent leaders among the hundreds of millions of junior officers out there, most would be needed exactly where they were.

  Head hurting, Ia eased out of the timeplains. She lifted her hand to her forehead, trying to massage away the tension caused by her dilemma; physically, she had only spent a couple minutes standing there, but psychically, she had spent several. Such accelerated concentration came at a cost.

  One of the middle-aged DoI sergeants spotted the movement and sighed. “Well, Captain?” the man asked her. “Have you spotted a solution to your little anomaly?”

  “All I can do is plan for a greater level of flexibility, Sergeant,” Ia muttered back. “They’re Feyori. They’re shakking unpredictable as well as powerful, they cannot be killed or swept aside, and the only kind who could hope to back one down when a Feyori feels it’s been offended and counterfactioned is anoth…”

  She trailed off midword. Blinking, Ia stared sightlessly across the room. A moment from the past played through her mind—not a moment dipped from the timestreams, but one from her own memories. Snippets of that conversation came back to her, key phrases that now reassembled themselves in her mind.

  You’re going to Antarctica…or will be…to steal schematics for something…the Vault of Time…

  The Vault of Time. Wincing at the irony, she covered her face with one hand. Oh, God, Meyun…you were more accurate than you could’ve known. The only thing that can stand up to a Feyori is another Feyori…so it looks like I will have to raid the Immortal’s Vault on Earth. Slagging hell. That’s going to be tricky.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she steeled herself for her new task. This time, she dove back in without hesitation; this time, she had an idea of who and what to look for. Working quickly, she plucked out the life-threads of a half dozen potential-possible engineering candidates. A full dozen, flicking through their transparent life-streams, overlaid on the path she needed to take. A score.

  Too many of them had problems. Little ones, big ones, convoluted ones, butterfly ones where the tiniest flap of wings created massive hurricanes down the road…Head aching, heart hurting, Ia finally plucked out the thread belonging to her one failed relationship and laid it over the future.

  Not everything was visible; Meyun Harper was still grey-misty in several spots, key moments where her own emotions toward him would make it difficult to decide what to do. But unlike the dangerously wandering life-paths of the others, most of which started as small variants before veering wildly away from the most useful course, his consistently came back to the paths she would need.

  Absolutely wonderful. Irony of ironies. Slagging, shakking hell. God certainly has a sense of humor, doesn’t she? Ia’s Impending Doom, thy name is both Meyun and Miklinn…and such a lovely-sounding pair of names for an impending pair of pains in my path.

  Dropping back into her body, Ia struggled not to roll her eyes. Meeting the somewhat impatient stares of the others, she shook her head.

  “Change of plans, meioas. If I’m going up against the Feyori, I’m going to need several more psychics in each Platoon. I’ll get you their names in a moment, but first things first. My second-in-command”—she had to take a breath before continuing—“is going to have to be Lieutenant First Class Meyun Harper.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Luu-Smith eyed her skeptically as one of the sergeants next to him put Harper’s personnel file up on a couple of the screens. “The same one you went through the Academy with? If I recall your and his files correctly, there was a note about you having a fling with the man, post graduation.”

  “It was just a few days long, hardly worth mentioning,” Ia stated dryly. “It also happened between assignments, and we parted company as friends, nothing more. Since then, we’ve barely spoken to each other, so Fatality Forty-Nine: Fraternization does not in any way apply. I am picking him because I will need his skills in adaptive engineering.

  “There are ways to deal with the Feyori, certain energy frequencies they find unpleasant, but creating them will take a logistics officer who is clever and resourceful. I know he doesn’t have nearly as much combat command experience as Brateanu, but the fact that Harper roomed with and studied beside me for a year while we were in the Academy will lend itself to ensuring there is a quick rapport of trust and understanding in the top of our cadre,” she stated.

  One of the middle-aged women seated around the table snorted under her breath, muttering something uncomplimentary about Harper having known his roommate all too well. Ia narrowed her eyes but did nothing more. It was one of the men next to the woman who smacked his hand lightly up the backside of the woman’s head, wordlessly chastising his fellow soldier.

  Ia gave him a brief, wordless dip of her head before addressing the rest. “…More
to the point, gentlemeioas, Harper has known of my precognitive abilities for just over two years now yet has not told a soul. His sense of discretion and secrecy will be invaluable for the position of first officer on board my particular ship. I would rather have had Brateanu, but there are key decisions my first officer will have to make while I am busy dealing with these Feyori interlopers, and thanks to their future interference, I can see now that she would make the wrong ones when dealing with them.”

  “You’re calling them the interlopers,” one of the younger males snorted. “But if you really are some sort of massive precog, aren’t you just as bad a Meddler as them?”

  A chiming from one of the workstations interrupted her reply. The soft alarm cut off as the oldest of the DoI sergeants sat forward, examining her handheld screen. A few taps of the keys projected a familiar face onto the monitors lining the walls. His head had been shaved bald at some point, but she knew his scarred, broken nose, ring-edged ears, and rascal’s grin. Seeing First Sergeant Glen Spyder’s personnel file was a much more pleasant surprise for Ia than Harper had been.

  Sergeant Plimstaad glanced over the images of Spyder projected on the wall screens, then looked back at Ia. The search parameters used by the DoI apparently included flagging and popping up any file whose subject had interacted with Ia at one time or another. “Well, Captain. It seems one of your old friends has just been flagged with a Field Commission. Did you know this was coming, sir?”

  Ia shrugged. “I knew it was a possibility, but it was only a thirty-two percent chance at most, Sergeant, given his current combat situation. Given those odds, I honestly thought I’d have to pick someone else. As it is, this is relatively convenient. He’ll have his commanding officers rescued from their troubles in…twenty-nine hours, thirty minutes, give or take a few minutes, which means his Company will be out of its jam and back to its assigned Battle Platform in about fifty hours from now.”