Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  Ia dipped her head, giving it. That did require the two of them to shuffle past her. She moved into the alcove of the L-pod’s door, but only just enough to let them by. As he came within arm’s reach, Ia held his gaze.

  “Start. Praying. Private,” she warned him, clipping off each word like a bite. Like the snap of a spark in an overheated fire. Like an ice-cold funeral pyre.

  He swallowed and looked away.

  Only when he was gone from her sight did the fire and the fury still seething within her finally die. Without it, ice-cold fear washed through her veins, prickling her skin with gut-deep dread. The horror robbed the strength from her flesh. Sagging to the deck, Ia doubled over. She struggled against the nausea, but nothing helped. It just built and built until she doubled over and retched.

  Not much came out, the smallest of blessings. It had been too long since she last ate, too long since she entered combat. Too long since she had believed she could win against Time and Fate. She heaved again and again for a full minute or more, then sagged back on her heels.

  The ship swayed gently around her, bumping her shoulder into the wall. Drained, numb but for the aching, chilling pain, Ia pushed slowly back to her feet. She didn’t know where to go or what to do, only that she couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t stop that arrowing laser, couldn’t stop that emerging missile, couldn’t stop the gaping hole in the aging Hardberger’s hull, its old-fashioned turret and its precious, progenitive cargo now utterly destroyed.

  Over and over, those last few seconds replayed in her mind. One hand braced on the wall, she shuffled forward, turning occasionally, moving sightlessly. The Hellfire swayed again, then steadied. Noises echoed down the corridor. They belonged to Togama, issuing orders no doubt relayed either from Nabouleh, who had the helm, or Helstead, who was in charge of the watch. They made no sense to her, being just a babble of noise.

  Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing meant anything anymore. It was all gone, drained away with the loss of a single, precious, supposed to be anonymous life. But that life was gone.

  Private First Grade Joseph N’ablo N’Keth. Gone. TUPSF-Navy five years, and a competent gunner. Gone. Retired from active service in five more years. Gone. Settled on his homeworld of Eiaven. Gone. Great-plus-grandfather of the Redeemer, whose life had been meant to redirect the Savior’s, so that she would be in the right mind as well as the right place…

  Gone.

  All gone.

  A long time ago, when she had been just seven or so, her mothers had shown her a beautiful, fragile, heirloom teacup. They had explained its history, how the delicate, rose-sculpted porcelain had come all the way from Earth via three other worlds. Amelia had urged her to take it in her hands, to hold for herself this relic from her family’s past.

  The young Iantha had tucked her hands firmly behind her back, shaking her head. All she could tell them was, “But I can’t put it back together, Mothers. I just can’t!” At the time, her young self couldn’t explain why all she could see was the teacup shattered on the floor, scattered into pieces despite the beige plexcrete cushioning their feet.

  In all the years since, Ia had not once touched that teacup. She didn’t even know where it was now. Didn’t know if it had survived the destruction of her mothers’ restaurant, survived the move to their new, underground life, or survived…anything, really.

  In her mind, as both a child and an adult, the teacup was and had always been forever gone. Shattered. Broken. Wrong.

  “…Captain?”

  With effort, she looked up and focused. Somehow, she had gone from the starboard of the ship to the port in her blinded movements. The last person she needed to see stood before her, concern wrinkling the brow above his worried blue eyes. Finnimore Hollick.

  He wasn’t alone; his teammate Schwadel had halted at his side, both men apparently released from their battle posts. Vaguely, she realized she was close to their quarters, but all she could see was Hollick’s middle-aged face, and a badly, badly broken teacup at his feet.

  “Captain, are you alright?” Hollick asked her gently.

  She opened her mouth. Nothing came out for a long, long moment. Teacup. Shattered. The desert that was left. All she could feel was another icy-hot rush, this time of shame as well as panic.

  “…I…I’m sorry.”

  The words escaped. Schwadel blinked and frowned, but she didn’t look at him. It was Hollick she couldn’t look away from. Hollick, who was a fellow Free World Colonist at heart. Hollick, who knew with unswerving faith that his Prophet…that his Prophet would…

  “I’m sorry…I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, vision blurring. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t…I tried,” she begged him to understand. Shaking her head, she said it again, tears now trickling down her face. “I tried! I tried so hard…I…I f…I ffff…”

  She couldn’t even say the word, but it was there, screaming in the back of her head. Failed…Failed! She broke with the weight of her shame, head burrowed into her hands to hide herself from his sorrowful gaze. Vaguely, she heard the other man mutter something; the derogatory tone in his voice only confirmed her failure. Hollick snapped something back, then gingerly touched her arms.

  “Easy, Captain,” he murmured. “This way…this way…let’s get you off the deck…”

  Shuddering, Ia went. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe through her nose, couldn’t stop the tears from seeping free. Couldn’t stop whispering the words over and over, I’m sorry, I tried, I fff…I fffff…I’m so so sorry…

  Shock robbed her of her gifts. Shock, and the destruction of everything she had strived for over the last ten years of her life. Vaguely aware of being urged to sit, she felt him wrap his arms around her, holding her close as no one else on board dared. Holding her for far longer than even her own mothers could, rocking her gently as she cried in her grief.

  It took her a while to realize he was humming a tune. It was a soothing one, and yet somehow sad. His voice wasn’t much like her grandfather’s, not quite as ragged with age, but it hummed the same melody, over and over. A song about a flower, and the impermanence of life.

  A song, she realized, which she herself had transformed years ago into an anthem for her family, for her people back home. My life I give this day to serve all others, though Hell itself should bar my way…

  Fresh tears seeped free at that. She squeezed her eyes shut, to block out the pain, but the words kept echoing in her head. Echoing across the barren, sterile desert that filled the back of her mind. My life I give this day to serve all others, though Hell itself should bar my way…My life I give this day to serve all others…My life I give this day…

  Another voice echoed across the emptiness of the timeplains. Did you know I once saved the life of Jesse James? Jesse James Mankiller that is…Once saved the life…

  My life I give this day…

  Ia stilled.

  His problem was that he didn’t lay nearly enough contingencies…Me? I have several identities I could assume…Several identities I could assume…My life I give…

  The teacup had been shattered. No rose-sculpted porcelain lay intact at her feet, no grass, no water, no life…save for the slender, spear-like tip of a tulip leaf peeking up through the shards.

  My life I give this day to serve all others…

  She sniffed, trying to clear her nose, and asked, “…Do you?”

  Easing the strength of the arms holding her to his chest, Hollick let her sit up. “…Sir?”

  “Do you?” she repeated, sniffing harder. Ia gripped the front of his grey uniform shirt. “Do you give your life?”

  It was a desperate gamble, but she knew things about the Mankiller bloodline, things she had once peeked at in curiosity. Jesse, or rather Jessica James, who married David Mankiller, had been crushed from the waist down in a ground-car accident…and yet somehow, less than twenty-four hours later, had walked out of the hospital whole and alive. I once saved the life of Jesse James…

  Hollick covered her
fingers with his hand. “I have believed in you since my first Fire Girl attack, Prophet. Even in gravity-based exile on Gateway Station, I had heard of you, and believed in you. If there is anything I can do to help you fix whatever went wrong, I will do it. As my Prophet wills it, my life—my everything, whatever you need—is yours.”

  Sniffing hard, she nodded. She nodded and sat up. It was a long shot, far longer than the shot she had fired on that first Choya invasion fleet. She still couldn’t see any life beyond that single slip of a flower leaf, but it was there, on the timeplains. There was hope.

  Focusing on him, she nodded again, more slowly and soberly this time. “I’m afraid it has come to that. Finnimore Hollick, I call upon you to give up your life…and take up the life of the man we just lost. You will lose everything that is yours. I will…I will have your body altered, and imprint his personality over your own, and…and fix it with subconscious impulses to follow every single step the real one would’ve taken and known. And…and we will fix this broken…this broken teacup…and fool the whole God-be-damned universe.”

  Lifting her free hand, she swiped away the tears that were falling again. Nodding a third time, Ia pushed herself to her feet, trying to think. She could feel the shards of porcelain cutting into her tender, young feet every time she tried to move out of the desert that had swallowed the grassy plains.

  “I need…I need to go call her, and…God…I don’t know what she’s going to want for this. I can’t see anything at the moment—but if you can have blind faith in me,” she added, turning to face the man on the couch, “then I can have that faith.”

  Sober, somber, Hollick pushed to his feet. “Ia’nn sud-dha, my Captain.” He hesitated, then asked, “What will become of my own life if I am to take this other man’s place? I mean, how will you explain my absence?”

  Ia shook her head. “I don’t know. I…I guess I’ll have to convince her to take on your form and place. At least for a few days, maybe a week or two. There are…there were fights up ahead where it would be possible for you—the old you—to die, freeing her to go about her business. You, the new you, will have already gone off on your way.

  “Things will have changed,” she dismissed, shaking her head. “Sung…shakk…He’ll have to undergo a tribunal, and…punishment. I’ll have to schedule time for that.”

  Ia closed her eyes, once again feeling ice-cold and sick with dread. Caning. Not just for Private Sung, but for herself as well. Unrestrained, and without hesitation…That won’t be pleasant. But if it works…if we can fool Time and Fate…

  God. If this works…I will bear every single lash without complaint.

  Opening her eyes, she nodded. “…Right. I have work to do. You are not allowed to discuss any of this with your roommate, with your superiors, with your family or your friends. You are to remain silent on this entire situation, and you will pretend that everything is normal…or as normal as can be,” Ia allowed, mindful that she had just spent untold minutes grieving in his quarters, “until I call for you. Is that clear, Private?”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” he agreed, squaring his shoulders and leveling his chin. “Clearer than crysium, sir.”

  Ia raked her fingers through her hair. The bangs were getting a little long again. She’d have to visit Private Antenelli of the 3rd Platoon, D Epsilon for another trim. The private had been a hairstylist before choosing to enlist.

  Thinking about getting her hair cut, an utter triviality, felt absurd. Not since she was fifteen had she felt this off-balance and disconnected from reality. Shaking it off, she gave Hollick a nod.

  “Considering I’m off to go make a bargain with a devil while holding the dirty end of the stick, that’s an apt choice, mentioning the Devil’s Sticks—thank you for watching over me just now,” she added, and held out her hand. “After the change, you will never remember, never know who and what Finnimore Hollick was…and no one else outside this ship can know where you’ve gone…but I will make sure Private Hollick is listed as one of the heroes of the Damned, so that no one else will forget that much of it.”

  He clasped her hand, and gave her a lopsided smile. “Considering I’ll be the first on the crew list to receive a Black Heart, it’s a dubious honor. But I accepted long ago that it might just come to that.”

  She met his gaze steadily, squeezing back. “So did I, soldier. I’m sorry to have to say this, but…thank you.”

  Releasing his hand, she turned toward the door. He chuckled softly just as she reached it. Turning, Ia glanced back at him. Hollick shrugged and spread his hands.

  “It just occurred to me that you’ve guaranteed me a long life, even though I won’t remember it. Um…I do get a long life, right?” he added.

  Ia gave him a lopsided smile. “You’ll die somewhere in your late eighties, survived by a beloved wife, five kids, thirteen grandkids, two great-grands, and more on the way. And the unsung legacy of having a great-plus-grandson become the Redeemer.”

  His eyes widened. “The Redeemer? The one who saves the Savior from herself? I…” He stopped, licked his lips, and tried again. “I…I think I can live with that. Stars—is that who we lost?”

  Quickly lifting her finger to her lips, Ia hushed him. “Shh. Say nothing more. This shattering will never have happened if we are very, very lucky in our attempt to trick Fate.”

  Pantomiming the zipping of his lips, Hollick tucked both hands behind his back and nodded solemnly, watching her leave his cabin in a modified Parade Rest.

  Finnimore Hollick, she thought. Patron saint of the ultimate sacrifice. A holier soul than mine, for I at least know why I had to give everything up. Shaking it off, she oriented herself outside his quarters and hurried for the section seal. It occurred to her just as she reached the door to her office that she still had more damage control to do.

  Detouring all the way to the bridge, she hooked her fingers into the controls, opening the door far more gently than when she had left. Helstead wasn’t inside, but Spyder was. He glanced her way and straightened in his seat at the backup gunnery position. Hers, the command station, remained empty.

  “Cap’n,” he greeted, giving her brief, watchful nod. “What’s th’ situation?”

  “I was about to ask you that,” she replied, moving across the cabin and mounting the dais at the back of the room. “Show me the battlefield. Give me a tactical analysis.”

  “S’all over, Cap’n,” he told her, tapping the controls. “All but th’ screamin’. Th’ Salik are dead or fled, th’ Choya what went with ’em, an’ th’ Hardberger’s been threatenin’ t’ call down th’ Admiral-General on our heads.”

  Ia studied the screen, reading the flags and accompanying texts of the attached analysis. More information was still coming in as each of the ships in the attack fleet continued to exchange and sort through information. What the Hellfire was receiving of that was passive only, incoming from all channels and functioning sensor arrays with nothing outgoing.

  “The Hum-Vee wants our records an’ analysis,” Spyder told her in an undertone. “Admiral P’thenn’s last message sounds like he’s gotten a bit testy, but then it’s been an hour an’ a half.”

  She’d cried for that long? Her time sense was that shattered? Ia blinked. She absorbed the information for a moment, then dismissed it. Her plans to kite the Hellfire out of here and go off to another location for repairs and the next fight were gone, blown up along with Joseph N’Keth. Now all she could do was pray for a strong enough roll of duct tape, and a clever enough touch with a trompe l’oeil paintbrush.

  “Maintain comm silence, other than to repeat that we are handling an Ultra-Classified Situation on board. Where’s the Hardberger now?” Ia asked, wondering what sort of remains might have survived the explosion that wiped out its P-pod 29 turret.

  “Cozied up t’ th’ Hum-Vee,” he said, pointing at the blip on the main screen in the distance. “We’re jes’ wanderin’ aimlessly ’round the more stable bits o’ the local space. Solar sail’s shot t�
�� hell, but there’s no flare or ion storm at th’ moment, so no need t’ hide behind it.”

  As he said it, she could sense the near future of the cometary knot. Nothing was destined to wash through for another eighteen hours, though in nineteen, the more damaged ships would do well to hide behind that sail. “Right. Here’s what I can tell you.”

  That caught the attention of her bridge crew. Nabouleh, Wildheart at navigation, Togama, Yé at ops, Aquinar, and Spyder all stared at her. Ia nodded.

  “Private Sung did indeed cause the incident of Friendly Fire. And he will pay for his damage to the Hardberger’s hull. But…he did not kill the gunner who was manning their turret.”

  “’E whot?” Spyder asked her, blinking.

  “I will tell this entire crew what happened at a special boardroom meeting,” Ia promised them. “But for now, you are to maintain communications silence, and you are not to speak of it outside this bridge. Private Yé, I will probably need a great deal of energy routed somewhere on the ship. Probably to my quarters. I don’t know yet. How full are the tanks?”

  “Ah…we’re at fifty-six percent capacity, sir,” she stated, glancing at the data on her screens. Ia grimaced, then shook it off.

  “I just hope that’ll be enough. Everything must be self-contained until our little Ultra-Classified Situation has been fixed.” Moving over to her normal station, Ia leaned over the console, pushed up the hatch, and pressed her fingers against the hidden electrodes. Pressed, held, and absorbed electricity until her hair crackled and rose off the nape of her neck. Eyes wide, Spyder leaned back from her, though he sat a good three meters away. She gave him a slight, lopsided smile. “Relax. You’re not my target.”

  “Ah, beggin’ pardon, but…th’ lieutenant commander said you weren’t allowed t’ kill anybody,” he reminded her.

  Her mouth twisted in rueful bitterness. “I know. If the Admiral-General calls, inform her that we still have an Ultra-Classified Situation to contain, and that it is too dangerous a situation to explain over the comms. Reassure her that I will explain in due time, then end transmission.”