Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  “That’s a small part of why we came here to help the people of Beautiful-Blue survive the first attack. To show to them how accurate I am, and how effective my ship and crew can be, so that they will become willing to follow my directives in the future. We won’t win this war in a single battle, or even a single year. Nor will it be won by a single species’ efforts. Right now, I have the solid trust of the Terrans and the Tlassians, thanks to my friendship with the Grandmaster of the Afaso Order and his connections with his home government. The Solaricans gave me some of their trust when they made me a War Princess in rank, and now the Gatsugi are starting to come around. The K’Katta, V’Dan, and the rest will come in due time.”

  “And once you have everyone on your side?” Mishka asked, shifting her hands to her hips. “What then?”

  “Then I’ll direct them in ways to save the biggest number of sentient lives,” Ia stated. In candor, she added, “Unfortunately, I cannot save every life. No one can. No soldier, no citizen, no healer can save every single life that crosses their path—you know this as a doctor, try as hard as you might. Today, we helped save that merchanter crewman’s life. Tomorrow, we may or may not be able to save others’ lives. As soldiers, fighting in a war we did not want, we will have to take away lives, too. The object is to be so good at our jobs as soldiers, we take away only an absolute few.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to set aside my regrets for all the lives I could not save and the things I could not do, and go reflect on the fact that it was a good day’s work,” Ia told her. “Since it’s also my birthday this week, I have scheduled a Wake to begin as soon as we hit FTL speeds, and I am curious to know what kind of cake awaits me in the rec room.”

  Dipping her head in a modified bow, Ia walked off, hands behind her back. A check of the crew’s timestreams showed that Mishka would soften a little bit more toward her in a few more weeks, thanks to today’s efforts. Private Warren would spread the word of what motivated their oddball captain, which wouldn’t hurt things either.

  And the Gatsugi are going to become impressed with my prognosticative prowess, particularly once their own military command reviews the precision and timing of everything my ship and my people did for them. I’ll have to remember to remind Grandmaster Ssarra to start searching for trustworthy Gatsugi monks to serve as go-betweens with the Collective in the coming years.

  A good day’s work…I wonder if Harper remembered I had the Deck 7 storerooms stocked with canisters of topado flour and other Sanctuarian foodstuffs? I know I copied some of the family recipes to the galleys’ menu files. I miss my mother’s tasty, bright blue, topado-flour birthday cakes.

  The dress was a few years out of style; straps down the shoulders and arms were no longer in fashion. But it was still bright red, and still fit her figure, if a bit loosely. Ia’s bout with blood poisoning had weakened her body. Following that up with more administrative work in the past handful of months than physical work hadn’t been enough to rebuild all of the strength she had lost. She still had visible muscles, but it wasn’t the same.

  I’ll have to eke out an extra half hour of weight training every day, Ia sighed, scraping her pale hair back from her face. Not to mention, I need a haircut. My bangs are getting long enough to get in my eyes…and I’m procrastinating aren’t I? It’s okay, I can do this. The crew know better than to touch me. They should be safe from me.

  Squaring her shoulders, Ia left her quarters and headed down the hall. The former boardroom, located one floor up from the bridge and forward enough that one bulkhead served as the dividing hull between mid and fore sectors, had been converted into a recreation hall. Or rather, a relaxation lounge.

  The banks of seats had been taken out and the tiers built up into different layers of platforms, some enclosed in walls that formed private niches, others more open to the room. Off to one side, a buffet had been set up next to the dumbwaiter system Ia had ordered installed to shuttle up food from the galley one deck down. Not just snacks, either; for a modest fee, special meals could be ordered off a single-serving menu if someone didn’t like whatever was on the day’s menu, and there was a liquor dispensary, which would dole out one hard drink or two of wine or beer per Wake-day, provided it was the start of a crew member’s off-duty cycle.

  The main floor had been converted into a dance floor, and the standard-issue monitors replaced with floor-to-ceiling enviroscreens. Smaller screens around the room displayed the Wake rules, reminding everyone this was a “civilian” zone.

  Those rules were fairly simple, too: that the use of rank and authority was strictly limited to on-duty personnel only, who weren’t supposed to be in the Wake Zone without due cause; that everyone, on-duty or off, was still responsible for the Lock-and-Web Law of space travel; that no uniforms were allowed on off-duty personnel within the designated zone; and that no law, military or civilian, was to be broken, save that all off-duty personnel in civvies within the zone were supposed to be treated as civilians.

  Today’s theme, prepared in the hours before the battle by bored crew members, was French Polynesian. The giant screens reflected a cerulean cove with a white sand beach and jungle-covered hills. Someone in Supply had dug out faux-thatching for the tops of the alcove-booths and strung garlands of bright, fake flowers around the hall. No one was dancing, but then the music being played was some variation on islander rhythms mixed with the sound of surf crashing on the projected beach, along with the occasional calls of tropical birds.

  Last week, it had been a snow-dusted Bavarian village, with the rec-room temperature turned down to simulate a decent winter chill. Drinks had been served hot, snacks were sweet, and there had even been caroling contests with group songs and solo performances echoing up and down the corridors, some good, some bad, and all of it encouraged. Her little talk with that clutch of former Army soldiers during their first Wake had spread through the crew. No one gave her fellow ex-Marines grief anymore about wanting to sing.

  Next week, if she remembered correctly, the Wake was scheduled to simulate the Athena Dome, a sports-themed amusement park on Mars; the activities listed on the roster included several ball-played sports games, plus vidgame competitions, and prizes for the highest-scoring shooters on the ship—excluding Jana Bagha and her husband Bei Ninh, to be fair to the others. They would get to be the judges.

  Ia had stayed away as much as possible from the previous weekly Wakes until now. She wanted her crew to be able to relax, to claim the space as their own. To not have to worry about the rules and regs, or even be reminded of them simply because their Commanding Officer was around. This was their fourth Wake, though, and the timestreams had showed them just comfortable enough to survive her appearance.

  They were so comfortable, in fact, that the first person to see her took in the curves of her red-clad figure and the legs bared below her midthigh hemline, and let out a wolf whistle. The noise of his appreciation drew the attention of several others in the room.

  “Nice legs, meioa-e!” James Hong called out, grinning in appreciation as he lifted his gaze from her knees to various points higher. “Nice the rest of you, too. I could definitely—oh shakk! Captain!”

  His feet came off the table and his tanned face flushed, then paled. The half dozen or so who had turned at his whistle also blanched. Ia strolled over to Hong and propped her hands on her hips.

  “You say that rank to my face one more time in this place, and you’ll get lifesupport filtration duty for a week,” Ia warned Hong, waggling one finger at him. “I left my rank and uniform outside when I put on this dress. That is the Wake Zone rule, meioa. Right now, I’m a mere civilian, just like you.” She started to walk away, then turned back and gave him a smile. “I do thank you for the compliment, though. I think they’re very nice legs, too.”

  From his surprised but amused chuckle, Ia could tell he would recover from the shock of her presence. Nodding politely to the others, she headed down the terraced levels, searching for Meyun. She couldn�
��t exactly see him in the timeplains at the moment, but then he was the one person in the universe whose movements she couldn’t entirely predict. Somewhat, but not entirely.

  Most of that, she had figured, was her mind protecting her from her gifts; she was very much attracted to the man on many levels. That in turn meant there was a chance that her emotions could sway her off course if she acted on those feelings, particularly if the consequences were personally appealing.

  His laugh hadn’t changed since their Academy days; Ia followed the sound of that familiar, light baritone chuckle down to the lowest of the alcoves. Clad in shades of blue, he backed out of the makeshift room, hands raised in mock-protest at whatever had just been said.

  Her precognition rose involuntarily within her. It swept over her like a tingling wave, dragging her down beneath the waves as she stood there, watching him. Watching a vision of his future.

  …Meyun sat in the alcove and cuddled Nueng in his arms. The young woman snuggled back, content to be in his lap. Outside the Wake Zone and the privacy of their quarters, they were discreet and professional, but here, they felt safe enough to be affectionate. Because their Captain had made this place safe, despite the chain of command that governed the rest of the universe occupied by the Space Force…

  The floodwaters of that possibility chilled her from skin to bone. Her heart hurt at the thought of Meyun finding happiness with someone else, someone not her. Someone not his Company commander. Her head wisely pointed out that it would be for the best if he turned his attention elsewhere, even though it hurt.

  Her awareness of that potential possibility happened in a flash, over and done in just a few seconds. She managed a smile when he glanced her way—and watched him give her a double take worthy of Hong’s, though without the whistle. Harper’s smile was genuinely warm as he looked at her, his brown eyes bright with male appreciation as they slipped down to her short red boots and back up again.

  “Well, look at that. You did show up. What a surprise,” he teased. “I wasn’t sure you’d bother.”

  Ia smiled back ruefully, hands going to her hips. “We established long ago that I’m a very dull girl, Harper. I came here because I know you arranged a cake. Where is it?”

  Turning, he gestured at the interior of the alcove. “Bring ’em out, meioas!” Raising his voice, Harper moved to the center of the hall. “…May I have everyone’s attention? Yes? Thank you! As you all know, we’ve got a little tradition of celebrating birthdays each week at these Wakes, if there are any.

  “This week,” he stated, as heads poked out of alcoves or turned away from conversations, “we’re celebrating three birthdays! Last but not least is Melody Nelson’s birthday, March 8. Unfortunately, she’s currently on duty, as this is second watch, so if you have a chance to celebrate it with her later on today, or at least run across her, wish her a happy birthday. Right smack in the middle is Ann Velstoq’, whose birthday is the sixth,” he added, managing the V’Dan glottal stop at the end of her name with the ease of someone who had practiced. “And there she is. Come on down, Ann; don’t be shy.”

  Gesturing for her to join him, Meyun led the way toward one of the empty tables on the lowest terrace above the dance floor. Two members of his engineering teams followed, Zedon and Svarson. Each man bore a platter with a cake on it, each frosted and iced with a name.

  “And today’s actual birthday girl, as in born on this date a mere twenty-four years ago, Terran Standard,” Meyun teased, grinning up at his target, “is our very own Ia!”

  “Shakk me!” someone swore. The voice belonged to Tanya Doedig, Ia realized, one of Harper’s engineers. The older woman eyed Ia askance. “You’re only twenty-four? I could’ve sworn you were thirty-four, Ca—er, S…Crap on a crutch! Meioa-e,” the dark-skinned woman finished, using the honorific instead of Ia’s rank or title. Doedig rolled her eyes. “Shove me out an airlock—I am not used to addressing you casually, meioa-e. I think I’ve been in the military too long.”

  “Technically, you’ve been in only one more year than I have,” Ia pointed out. She turned to Ann, who had hesitated halfway down the stairs. “C’mon, let’s go cut the cake. I’m dying to know what kind got baked.”

  Ann eyed her dubiously. “Aren’t you a massive precog? Wouldn’t you already know?”

  “Only if I peeked. And I very carefully did not look at it in the timestreams, despite great temptation,” Ia asserted.

  Halostein, a normally reserved, no-nonsense sergeant, grinned at her. “Well, you just earned my respect, if you honestly didn’t peek. I learned how to get into and out of my Christmas presents at a very early age with no sign of having opened or resealed the box. At least, until my fathers started hiding my presents at my biomom’s house, and hid my half sisters’ presents at our place. The first time that happened, I honestly thought they’d got me a dolly in a frilly dress!”

  The story got a chuckle out of his listeners, Ia included. Halostein offered her the hilt of a knife he pulled from one of his cowboy boots. Accepting it, Ia moved over to the cakes.

  “I truly didn’t look. I spoilered myself with the myth of Santa Claus at the age of five, and things went downhill until I was eight or so, when my older brother pointed out it was my own fault for peeking all the time. He scolded me and said that if I ever wanted to be surprised, I had to be strong enough not to look…so I don’t look at the things I know are going to be pleasant surprises. I always look in advance at the ones I think won’t be. It makes it easier to avoid ’em.”

  Cutting into the one with her name iced in white, she discovered from the crumbs beneath the blue frosting that it was a chocolate cake. Ia didn’t mind chocolate. She sliced the rectangle into several pieces, then served herself one. Ia wiped the blade on one of the napkins clipped into the holder on the table, and passed it to Ann, trading the knife for a fork.

  Just as she forked up her first bite, Ia saw the blue crumbs mixed into the white frosting of the other cake. She glared at her first officer. “…Hey! She gets the topado-flour cake? I’m the one from Sanctuary, Harper. That’s my comfort food you put in her cake.”

  Ann blinked, prodded at the corner piece she had cut off, and quirked her brows. “Yeah, what’s up with this blue stuff? I asked for a chocolate cake, not whatever this is.”

  “It’s made from topadoes, and it’s very nutritious and very tasty,” Ia told her. “It’s a kind of tuber that can be baked, fried, mashed, grilled, or dried and ground into flour.”

  Harper shrugged, biting his lip in the unsuccessful attempt to hide a smile. “My apologies, meioas; I guess the cakes got mixed up when they were being frosted. But there is an easy way around this problem, you know.”

  Ann looked at Ia, shrugged, and offered her untouched fork and plate. “He’s right. And I know just what to do about it. Happy birthday, ‘Ann,’” she quipped, eyeing Ia. “May you have a wonderful natal day.”

  Since she technically hadn’t eaten the chocolate one in her hands, Ia offered it to Ann in turn. “And a happy birthday to you, too, ‘Ia,’” she joked back. “Try a bite of the topado cake anyway. You might like it.”

  “After my slice of chocolate,” Ann bartered. “Nothing gets in the way of me and my birthday chocolate.”

  Moving back from the table so the others could try the two cakes, Ia found herself next to Harper. He snagged her forkful before she could eat it, and popped the blue dessert into his own mouth. That lifted her brow, but Ia didn’t protest, just took her fork back and cut another piece for herself.

  “Mm, good,” he murmured. Moving a little closer, Meyun whispered in her ear, “But I know something else from your homeworld which tasted even better.”

  Goose bumps prickled along her skin. Her former Academy roommate…her former lover…had a knack for rousing old memories she wanted to keep repressed. Ia knew that image of him turning to someone else was supposed to be the better choice, even if it hurt.

  She changed the subject. “How’s the gun project
coming along?”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about work,” Harper retorted dryly.

  “Only in an official capacity. This is unofficial, one friend to another,” Ia pointed out.

  He sighed, sagging against the railing separating the terrace and its tables from the empty dance floor below. “Lousy. I can’t make heads or tails out of the source for the focusing crystals the Immortal used. It almost sounds like potassium nitrate, given she said she extracted the crystals from her own…um, yeah. But the physics and the optical properties of saltpeter crystals are all wrong for what the guns are supposed to be able to do, so it wasn’t that.”

  “They wouldn’t work if we were dealing with an average Human, no,” Ia murmured back. “Luckily for you, I know exactly what kind of crystal you’re referring to. Get me the specs on the shapes and dimensions you’ll need, and I’ll get them for you. But be careful and thorough in your calculations. You won’t be able to alter the crystals in shape or size once you have them in hand. Only I can.”

  “If the material is as rare as the properties she describes would make them out to be, then yeah, I’ll want to get them right. Whatever your source is, it’s bound to be extremely rare, and hard to get,” he agreed.

  Rare, yes, but not that hard to get, Ia thought, forestalling a reply with a forkful of white-frosted, blue-floured, slightly spicy cake. Just sitting in palm-locked storage down by the bow shuttle hold is all.

  Someone swooped in from her left, grabbed her face, and smacked a big, loud kiss on her cheek. Those hands and lips, applied at less than a twenty percent probability, belonged to Private Second Class Yung Ramasa. He released her with a grin, spreading his already broad mouth even wider, making him look like his military nickname. “Happy Birthday, pretty lady!”