by Jean Johnson
“Sixteen strokes of the cane to her buttocks, for Fatality Thirteen: Friendly Fire, when the ship and crew under her command did willfully attack the ship and crew of the TUPSF Hardberger with one of her vessel’s Starstrike laser cannons, a lethal weapon. This punishment is to be followed by twenty strokes of the cane to her upper back for the crime of Fatality Five: Disobeying a Direct Order. At her request, Ship’s Captain Ia has asked for no leniency and has agreed of her own free will to undertake this punishment without hesitation or restraint. She is also under orders to restrain herself from using her innate biokinetic abilities for the next twenty-four hours.
“Sentence is to be carried out immediately.”
Someone started the sonopad drums. Ia rose from the seat provided for her behind the podium and walked across the stage to the frame, which was being raised back up to the more common striking height. She felt numb, looking at it. Just…numb. She had struggled hard to avoid this sort of possibility with every bit of cunning at her command, but now she felt nothing.
Unbuttoning her knee-length coat, she shrugged out of it as the doctor stepped up, using a hand scanner to check Ia’s vital signs. Ia focused on neatly folding her long jacket, reducing it to a neat if ribbon-lumped square.
Commodore St. Stephen joined her. He lifted his arms, palms up like a tray, and she gave him a slight nod of thanks. Placing her jacket on his hands, she added her Dress cap, and turned to the frame in her plain grey shirt and grey-striped black pants. The male caner stepped up to help secure her in place, making Ia shake her head.
“No, thank you. My orders are to use no restraints,” she said.
“Sir, the restraints are there for your protection, so you do not move,” he told her, glancing at the female sergeant who was to administer Ia’s caning.
“I know that, Sergeants,” Ia told both of them, “but I will do this without bindings or restraints. You have my word, I will not move.” She started to move toward the frame again, then pulled back and pointed at the table behind the frame, which held the case with its rotan switch soaking in antiseptic solution, and a selection of biting gags. “But I will take one of those, to protect my tongue and teeth. I may have agreed to do this, but I’m not completely stupid.”
Nodding silently, the female caner moved to select one of the gags. Ia took it from her when she returned, and fitted the slightly spongy plexi bar between her teeth. Stepping up to the frame, she lowered herself onto the slanted, padded surface and tucked her hands under her cheek. She wanted to show to everyone in the auditorium that she was there by her own free will.
I knew the very moment Myang first proposed this indemnity clause that I could turn it to my advantage, Ia thought, feeling them strap the padding around her kidneys. This will cement my reputation with the rest of the Fleet. Bloody Mary doesn’t just give a beating to the enemy, she can take a beating, too, and emerge all the stronger for—Holy God!
The first blow had two layers to it: the initial, startlingly hard sting that burned on the surface, mostly on her right nether cheek; and the bruising ache that lingered even as the stinging burn started to fade. Her teeth bounced into the gag on the second blow, and clenched on the third. It hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt…but…not as much as the shock, the pain of watching her life’s work shatter.
The strikes came at slow, measured intervals. Ten seconds between each, time enough to relax, recover, anticipate, and tense up again. Ten seconds felt like a long time between each painful smack of the antiseptic-soaked stick, a long time to endure the throbbing and the burn. Ten seconds made her upper back clench and seize up in anticipation of the suffering it, too, would soon endure.
But with each blow, the agony of it seemed to beat back a little bit more of the dust from the desert-scorched plains. Ten seconds was a small eternity, on the timeplains. Enough to watch tendrils of greenery seep slowly, patch by patch, back into her consciousness. Enough time to see the waters trickling back into their proper places at the fringes of her vision. Enough time to feel her broken mind healing itself, restoring her stroke by penitent stroke back into her rightful place.
The frame jolted and thrummed faintly, lowering itself. Ia tensed in anticipation, then forced herself to breathe deeply, to let the physical fear leach its way through her muscles and out of her body, helping her to let it go. This was where her back muscles, still dense and strong, would fail to provide the same level of cushioning as her gluteals, but she would endure.
Her teeth snapped hard into the spongy bit with the first strike. The hands under her cheek twisted and shifted free, fingers curling and clenching around each other atop the head cushion. There was more sting with these new attacks, and the dull bruise burned with upper notes. By the fifth or sixth stroke, it felt like each hard-thudding lash was being administered by a rasp.
At stroke eight, they paused. Someone plucked at her shirt. The subtle shift of the fabric felt like sandpaper on her wounds. Ia choked, breath caught somewhere between a hiss and a gasp. The pause took longer, and the next stroke fell from a different angle. New skin, new pain…and where one set of strokes crossed the other, nails were driven into her back. Old-fashioned, pencil-thick nails. Only a centimeter long, but long enough to force a grunt from her throat with each blow.
She couldn’t even hear the count anymore. All she could do was breathe and endure, breathe and endure. Seeing the infinities of the universe unfurling with each nerve-enflamed strike made her long for more. Not more of the pain, but more of the freedom, of the liberation of her abilities, of her very mind. A tiny corner of her memory realized this must have been what medieval monks had felt when scourging themselves, back on ancient Earth.
Again, they paused to pluck at her shirt, rubbing at the raw, too-sensitive flesh with a very light touch in their examinations. Ia ordered her mind to accept it like a thin, cold stream, then to set it aside. The next blow felt hard and unglamorous, but solid, a welcome relief from the pain of overstimulation.
Now the strikes crossed two lines of welts, more nails in the coffin of her back. With each blow driven home, another corner of her mind lifted free. Until she realized, after a few more strokes, the slow, steady rhythm had stopped.
Someone said something nearby. Struggling to focus, Ia opened her eyes. Everything was a golden, pastel blur. Images glowed in different hues, some stronger than others. Lines, blobs curves…they resolved themselves within two or three blinks as the doctor with her scanner, the edge of the platform, and the silently watching bodies of her crew.
Apparently the caning was through. Ia dragged in a deep breath through her nose and tensed to push herself upright. The pain at that dumb move emerged in a strangled, high-pitched whine. She cut it off, breathing in short, shallow sniffs through her nose, and waited for the frame to be lifted back to the original angle.
Her teeth were lodged in the biting gag. Her whole jaw ached, but her incisors ached the most. With awareness came a hint of blood on her tongue, seeping from her abused gums. Tilting her head, she got the fingers of her right hand into place and slowly pried. The rubbery material gradually popped off her teeth, first upper, then lower. She rested a few moments as the frame hummed and jolted to a near-vertical stop, then tried to lever herself upright again.
It hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt, oh God how it hurt, but she managed it. Balancing carefully, Ia hissed between her teeth when she lowered her arms. The male caner took the gag from her hand, and the doctor touched her sleeve.
“Captain Ia, your back is bleeding in seven spots above, two spots below. There is a lot of blood compared to most canings,” the woman added, “but you won’t bleed to death. They’ll need to be coated with an antibiotic ointment. If you’ll lie on the gurney, we’ll see that you’re treated before you’re returned to your ship.”
Breathing shallowly, Ia shook her head. Then froze. That was a mistake, one that reignited the dull-stinging fires under her skin. No shaking whatsoever. Got it.
“No,” she mana
ged out loud. “No ointment. No gurney. I’ll walk out.”
“Sir, you have multiple contusions, several lacerations, and your adrenaline spikes have elevated your blood pressure,” the grey-uniformed woman asserted. “You need to lie down.”
“No. I will walk out under my own power.” She had to. She had to, for the sake of her stunned, stricken, watching crew.
“Captain,” the doctor started to argue.
“That is Ship’s Captain,” Ia corrected through aching teeth she was trying not to clench. “And unless you are Admiral John Genibes or the Admiral-General herself, you are not in my chain of command. I will walk out, thank you.”
With parade precision, toe tucked behind heel, she turned. The JAG commodore stood just a few meters away, still holding the weight of her jacket and cap in his hands, elbows braced at his sides and sober respect in his eyes.
That respect gave her the strength to stride forward, stop in front of him, and lift her cap. She made it almost to eye level without grunting, but the last dozen centimeters hurt. Focusing her movements through the pain, Ia squared the black cap on her head, then reached for her jacket. Commodore St. Stephen moved first, unfolding it so she wouldn’t have to do it herself.
He started to hold it open for her. Instinct warned Ia that if she turned and shrugged her arms back to slip them into the sleeves, it would take too long, and she would scream. That would be bad for morale. Jaw clenched, nostrils rushing air to and from her lungs, she plucked the heavy jacket from his hands with crossed wrists and swirled the heavy black gabardine up around her head.
That hurt, too. It hurt to the point of tears in her eyes, as bad in some ways as that hole in her shoulder from her enlisted days. But the slick lining helped slide the sleeves down over her arms, allowing her to shrug forward—a less painful movement than shrugging back—to settle the coat in place. Her agony escaped as a faint grunt, but only a faint one. She had to pause a few seconds, just to be able to breathe, before lifting her fingers to the lapels to adjust the lie of it. Taking the time to button her coat in place was an act of masochistic hubris since it meant she would have to unbutton it later, but Ia did it.
Only when she was properly attired once again in her Dress Blacks did she lift her right hand to her brow, giving the commodore a salute through the ache dominating her senses.
“Commodore St. Stephen,” she growled, teeth clamped shut against the pain. “I respectfully request permission for the Damned to depart.”
He lifted his own arm in return, saluting her back. “Permission granted, Ship’s Captain. You and your Company are free to go.”
Again, she turned, this time a quarter turn to her left, to face the front of the assembly stage. “9th Cordon, Special Forces!” she snapped, her voice echoing off the walls. “Ten-hut!”
They snapped to their feet, this time with more speed and unity than they had displayed two hours ago in the Hellfire’s boardroom. Ia nodded and stepped forward to the edge of the stage, placed a meter above the main floor.
“You heard the Commodore. We need six hours to fix the Hellfire. I am giving you five! Doctor Mishka, Private Attevale, take charge of Private Sung’s gurney,” she ordered, pointing off to her right where the hoverbed waited. That hurt, too; ohhh, that hurt, but she did it. “The Damned take care of their own, and we will not leave our crewmate behind. We have lives to save, meioas. Move out!”
Stepping off the dais and dropping to the floor…was a dumb, foolish, stupid move. She caught her balance when she landed, reflexes more than adequate for the Terran Standard gravity on board, but the jolt seared dragonfire from thighs to nape, reigniting every single lash wound. For a moment, the edges of her vision blurred, bringing back that strange glow as she forgot how to breathe. With a force of will, Ia dragged in a lungful of air, squared her frame, and strode for the steps.
From the wide-eyed stares of the members of 1st Platoon A and B Squads, seated in the first row, she probably looked as pale as her hair. Wisely—or maybe out of fear—they did not offer to help her as she marched up the shallow steps of the lowest tier. They just peeled out of the seats and joined her, forming themselves into tight ranks, three Squads wide, with just a bit of murmured direction from Sergeant Halostein, who took up second place at her back.
He was joined within a dozen meters by Lieutenant Commander Harper. No one spoke, not even her first officer, while Ia led them from the assembly hall to the banks of lifts which that lead to the level attached to their gantry spoke. But as they waited in silence for the first of the elevator cars to reach their level, Meyun drew in a breath and faced her.
“No,” Ia stated, cutting him off. Knowing what he was going to say.
He said it anyway. “They shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have to be punished for our mistakes, Captain.”
She turned, still using the straight-backed toe-and-heel moves from parade maneuvers, since those moved and thus hurt her back the least. Staring into his brown eyes, she repeated herself. “No, Lieutenant Commander. Do not try this argument with me.”
“He’s right, sir.” The agreement came from Corporal Bagha. The ex-Sharpshooter moved forward, her brow furrowed in a frown. “It isn’t right. You shouldn’t have to suffer, just because—”
“It doesn’t matter!” Ia snapped, unleashing some of her pain as rage. She checked herself, breathed through her nose, and gentled her tone as the last of the Damned’s stragglers caught up with them. As did a few of the others dismissed from the assembly hall, drifting close enough for a look at the Damned’s CO in their wide-eyed, morbid curiosity. “It does not matter,” she continued more calmly. “The pain I have suffered today? Does. Not. Matter.
“I have told you what we need to do. Shown you what we need to do. A hundred lashes of the cane on my back could not hurt me more than the pain inflicted by your lack of faith. Did you join the military because you longed to follow someone’s orders? No. Most of you did join to try and make this galaxy a better place, didn’t you?” she asked. She kept it a rhetorical question, though she did let it hang in the air for a long moment. “Nothing I can do, nothing I can say, nothing I can suffer will change you.
“Only you yourselves can do that. You have the power to be the best Damned soldiers you can be.” Behind her, the first of the lifts arrived. Ia ignored it, shifting her hands. She tapped her inner wrist in emphasis, ignoring the pain from the pressure of her jacket on her back. “If I thought that bleeding myself dry could have a single scrap of effect, I’d slit my own veins and bleed away.
“But I cannot.” She hardened her tone, not so much to punish her listening crew as to make sure her words carried to as many as she could get to hear her. “If you want to know why the pain of my back does not matter, then look into your souls and ask yourselves, why did you become a soldier? Why?
“I am willing to place my weapons, skills, body, mind, and even my life if need be between all the innocent lives in the Alliance and all the horrors that threatens it. What are you willing to do? Until you do know what price you are willing to pay…? No. Do not speak of this to me. We have work to do.” Turning on her heel, she reached out with her mind, reopening the lift doors just as they started to slide shut.
Silenced by her words, Harper followed her inside. So did Halostein, and the first half of A Squad, 1st Platoon. Her last view of the others was of the front rows of her crew shuffling awkwardly toward the lift doors on either side, none of them willing to meet her gaze.
Harper did look at her. He looked away as she glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, but when he did it again, she sighed.
“…Will you be alright?” he finally dared to ask.
“I’ll make it back to the ship.” There was no room for compromise in her tone.
He hesitated a long moment, but she knew it wouldn’t last. Indeed, it took him only three floors in ascent before he muttered, “Well, I’m only asking because you look like you’re going to puke.”
The pair
of enlisted men standing directly in front of the two officers glanced warily, furtively at each other.
“That’s because I am going to puke if I move the wrong way or the car stops too hard.”
Brown eyes and blue eyes and hazel all snuck quick, wary little looks at her. The two privates subtly shifted to the left, moving more in front of Harper than Ia, who stood in the corner of the lift.
She gritted her teeth. It was funny. It was painfully, grievously funny, watching them trying to be subtle about it, and she did not dare quiver even once, or the agony invoked would erupt as nausea. She did dare give them a warning, though.
“…The first one of you idiots to make me laugh will have to clean it up.”
They froze at her growl, not even daring to breathe until the lift drifted to a gentle stop. Quiet as mice, they slipped out of the lift, giving her room to disembark. Ia focused her will on the long walk back to the Hellfire, breathing as slowly and deeply as she could in the need to manage her pain.
When her assigned twenty-four hours were up, she would be free to stop suppressing her biokinetic urges. The welts and bruises and cuts would all vanish within an hour or so, leaving healthy flesh in their wake. Between then and now, she had twenty-three hours and several minutes to wait. Compared to the pain of losing everything permanently…it was a minor inconvenience at most.
CHAPTER 15
The fight on Oberon’s Rock was a slice of replayed hell. Even more ironic, once again it wasn’t the Salik, but the pirates who attacked. How many times have I aided that damn dome colony by now? Eight? Nine? Twelve?