by Jean Johnson
Ia continued lightly, letting her tone speak silent volumes on Roghetti’s trustworthiness in the way she ignored him for the moment. “Of course, I will also need to multiply that number by a factor of fifteen to twenty. Their help will be necessary when it comes time to save the rest of the Alliance from the Salik’s worst attack, which is yet to come. But as much as I want to tell you more about that, sirs, this is not a secure line or location,” Ia stated. “I’ll happily explain in more detail once we’re aboard the Damnation and can lock on with a direct link through hyperspace. Until then, I’ll do my best to win back Dabin for you.”
“And, what, I’m supposed to just sit here for the next two months?” Myang retorted.
“Well, I don’t expect the Admiral-General of the Terran Space Force to just twiddle her thumbs,” Ia returned lightly. “You have all those other battles to plan for. My crew and I will catch up in due time, as I outlined on the last set of data files I sent to you.”
Apparently thinking it would be a good moment to distract both strong-willed women, Genibes lifted his chin. “Captain Ia, who’s that behind you?”
“Admiral-General Christine Myang, Admiral John Genibes, meet Captain Luca Roghetti, 1st Division 6th Cordon Army,” Ia introduced, giving them the short version. “Admiral Genibes knows I arranged to have his Company babysit mine while I was still en route this world.”
Roghetti nodded, still standing At Attention behind her. “Sirs! It is an honor to meet you, sirs.”
Ia didn’t bother to straighten up since that would have blocked their view of him. “They’re honorable, reliable, and trustworthy, which is why I didn’t bother to ask for a private comm somewhere else. Not that I’d get one, as we’re currently on lightwave to the local hub.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Captain Roghetti,” Admiral-General Myang stated after eight seconds of lag had passed. “I sincerely hope Ship’s Captain Ia is right about breaking the bad stalemate your Division is in. Brigadier General Mattox has been assuring me the tide will turn in our favor, but then he’s been reassuring me of that for months. Ship’s Captain Ia, at least, can give me a much more exact date than that. When you can give it to me.”
“Admiral-General, I would love to give you an exact date beyond some point within the next two months,” Ia promised, “but at the moment, I have forty minutes to shower, change, and eat something before the next attack hits this camp, and I’m still in the same uniform from three days ago, which was the last time I had any chance to sleep. Until then, what I can safely say is that I’ve met my last mission’s objective, and I’m now working on the next one. May I go about doing so, sir?”
Myang studied her for more than the eight seconds of delay between them. On the other half of the screen, Admiral Genibes waited for her to speak. When she did, her tone was colored with a mix of aggravation, resignation, and admiration. “You are a royal pain in the rogue asteroid belt, Captain . . . but you do get the job done. Get it done. That’s an order. And keep me updated to the best of your ability. Try to find a more secure channel than this while you’re at it.”
“Aye, sir,” Ia agreed, thinking of the hyperrelay she had asked the Afaso Order of civilian monks to purchase and hide for her on this world. Now that she was actually here, she could get it shipped out to her. “If I can do something that’ll help this mess, you know I will. And when I do, you will hear from me about it, sir.”
“Yes,” Myang drawled wryly. “I have all those tons of paperwork and recordings you’ve sent to prove your sense of ethics, plus the black-box recordings you dumped in our laps . . . Just get it done, Captain. Admiral-General out,” Myang stated, before reaching forward and ending the link.
Her image vanished. At a tap from York’s hand on the controls, Admiral Genibes’s face filled the whole of his primary screen.
“Not to delay your orders or intentions, Captain, but I do have some good news, which has been waiting for you to check in so I could release it. The DoI and I have agreed to promote Lieutenant Commander Meyun Harper to the rank and pay of Commander. He’s been keeping me up to date on your Company’s movements for the last few days, including that harrowing drop through enemy-controlled airspace you—they—had. Between that and his other displays of leadership, he’s earned it. As per your request, he will continue to work with you for the time being, but the promotion is to take place immediately.”
“Thank you, sir. I couldn’t have done more than half of it without Commander Harper’s genius keeping my ship and crew alive,” Ia told her immediate superior. Like with Roghetti, she didn’t bother glancing over her shoulder; she knew Harper had gone elsewhere already with her orders. “He’s not here right now to hear it from you directly, but I’ll pin his oak leaves on myself as soon as I can scrounge up a set. Speaking of which, I’ll need to work on getting a local hyperrelay hub put together for a more direct link. Or at least to cut out the lightwave portion of the signal.”
“Like the Admiral-General said, get it done. Which means that, now that you are where you’re supposed to be,” Genibes added as the eight seconds of delay ticked away between them, “we need you to break this stalemate. If you haven’t noticed it in those timestreams of yours, Captain, the Dabin situation has been slipping down over the last few weeks to the wrong side of that stalemate line. Since you’re so insistent on needing to be there, I trust you do have a plan on how to break the Salik attack?”
“I should have several battle plans ready for Brigadier General Mattox’s perusal by midmorning local, tomorrow,” she promised. “If you’d call ahead and let him know those plans will be headed his way, Admiral, that would help expedite matters. I am technically outside his Branch, so he may not otherwise listen to me.”
“I’ll do that as soon as I sign off. Captain Roghetti,” Genibes stated, catching the Army officer’s attention, “you’ve been babysitting the finest Company in the Space Force. For that, I thank you. Now that their CO has rejoined them, I recommend you heed Ship’s Captain Ia’s suggestions as if they were coming from a superior in the Army.”
“Heed them as orders, Admiral?” Roghetti asked, glancing at Ia.
“As very smart suggestions, soldier. She’s technically not in the Army’s chain of command, but she’ll do her best to keep you and yours alive,” Genibes promised. “If, in your best estimation of a situation, her suggestions make more sense than your other orders, then I suggest you heed them.
“The Space Force relies heavily upon the cognizance and flexibility of the many meioas serving out there in the trenches,” John Genibes added formally, clasping his hands in front of him on his desk. “Particularly when the higher-ups are too far from the actual needs of combat to design and plan effective tactics. We’ll give you the objectives, but it’s up to you to carry them out. I served in the Army as a grunt for two years, Captain, before my transfer to the Navy as a petty officer, and my eventual Field Commission. I know what it’s like, and what it’s supposed to be like. Don’t let me down.”
Roghetti nodded. “Sir, yes, sir. We’ll do our best, Admiral.”
“That’s why I picked this Company, sir,” Ia added. “Roghetti’s got the best head for improvisation in this muddy mess.”
“I’ll let the Department of Innovations know you recommend him, then,” he quipped. “It’s good to see you alive, Ia, given what you did to your ship. Stay alive, and keep me updated. Genibes out,” he said, ending the call with a shift of his hand.
“. . . Thank you for the link, York,” Ia praised, briefly squeezing the private’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what I hoped would happen.”
He nodded and resumed the task of monitoring for Salik transmissions. “My pleasure, sir.”
Straightening, she turned and found Roghetti eyeing her. “. . . What?”
“Should I order everyone in this tent to completely forget we heard you mention the ‘F’ word?” he asked.
/> “What, Feyori?” Ia looked over at the other occupants, seated at various screen-cluttered tables. “Everyone in this tent is reliable, trustworthy, and discreet. They know their reputations are already on the line regarding their discretion while working in a command tent, and they know that the ‘F’ word, as you called it, is being monitored by the Admiral-General herself. Anyone chatting about it outside this tent would be betraying the high level of trust which you, I, and the Admiral-General herself has just placed in them . . . and everyone in this tent also knows that’s not going to happen.”
Roghetti’s soldiers sat up a little at her words, though they didn’t look up from their posts for more than a brief moment at most. The subtle shifting in postures let their CO know they’d overheard her words.
“Not to mention the Department of Innovations would end up hearing about it, sirs, and put it down as the black mark of a blabbermouth,” her comm-tech private stated. He offered Captain Roghetti a wry smile of his own, looking up briefly from his boards. “I may be content to remain a private the rest of my career, so long as I can work for Captain Ia, here, but not everyone else is.”
“The DoI doesn’t recommend loose lips for promotions when they spout off and sink ships, no,” Roghetti agreed. He looked around the tent and nodded in affirmation. “I do trust my people . . . and I thank you on their behalf for your trust as well. Mind you, we’re not used to being under the direct scrutiny of the Admiral-General. Is that a . . . a normal thing with you?”
“Captain Roghetti, my Company and I—all 161 of us—are the entire 9th Cordon of the Special Forces,” Ia told him. She gestured toward the others with one hand. “We stand or fall entirely on our own, and we have not only stood, we have run . . . with exactly one stumble along the way, so far. We have hit every single corner of this war from the far side of Tlassian territories to the far side of the known Solarican worlds, from the Choya colonies all the way to my own homeworld on the edge of Grey space, and all throughout the depth of the known galactic plane.
“You want to know if I have to deal with her on a near-daily basis? I have operated my missions with full carte blanche over the last two years, so that I may plan exactly where my crew goes and what my crew does,” she said, watching his brows rise at that little revelation. “And in the face of all of that authority, leeway, and outstanding performance, you just heard the Admiral-General herself telling me I am a pain in the rogue asteroid belt to my face, without demoting me or stripping me of my command.” Hand resting lightly on her hips, she asked sardonically, “What do you think?”
“If I were you . . . I think I’d need a drink,” Roghetti finally quipped. “Maybe two or three. Given the help your Company’s given mine over the last few days, I’d be happy to spot you the first one. Dabin’s a muddy world, but the locals have come up with some rather potable brews.”
“Unfortunately, strong psis don’t have that luxury,” she muttered. “Unless you make it a hot cup of caf’; that’s a drink I could actually use.” Sighing, Ia raked a hand through her damp hair, then grimaced at the moisture and loose hairs clinging to her fingers. Loose, greasy hair. Shifting to Feyori form and back hadn’t rid her very matter-based sense of self of the need to bathe. Looking around, she oriented herself in the tent and pointed at one of the doors. “I will take a hot shower, though. My things are . . . that way, three tents down, hang a left, and one more down the side spoke, yes?”
York and Roghetti both nodded. Private Douglas spoke up from her duty station. “Yes, sir. I overheard Chaplain Bennie saying she’d put them there herself since that’s where our officers are bivouacked. The nearest showering box is two tents down the chain from that, sir. There are signs, so you can’t miss it.”
“Thank you, Douglas,” Ia told the other woman. She looked at Sharpe, who hadn’t moved his eyes from his screens, watching the current combat in the distance via hovercam drones. “If you meioas need me, you’ll know where I’ll be for the next fifteen minutes. After that, I’ll be in the mess tent set aside for our Company.”
“We should be fine, sir,” York reassured her. “At least until those potshots come our way.”
Unfocusing her eyes, Ia checked the timestreams for a moment, then nodded.
“Harper’s off making sure the appropriate tents will be evacuated by the time the Salik start shooting at us—the one good thing in their invasion is that they’d like this planet and its infrastructure left intact, so at least they’re not dropping hydrobombs on the cities, or lobbing asteroids from afar.” Ia sighed, rubbing her forehead. Part of the fog in her mind was from fatigue. “This is not going to be an easy fight, but it will be a worthwhile one. Call me if a low probability crops up, but we should be fine for now.”
“Aye, sir,” her crew members agreed in ragged chorus.
Roghetti joined her as she headed for the correct spoke in the interconnected tent complex. “Just one more question, Captain—and you can shoot me down if this is above my security clearance, but I’d like to ask it, if I may.”
“Yes, we need the Feyori on our side,” Ia stated as they moved down the canvas and plexsteel tunnel. “No, it has nothing to do with the Dabin engagement, other than that I need the Salik pried off this planet and shot back into space, and there are some Feyori influences I will have to deal with along the way. No, I cannot tell you why we need them. If word gets out what they’ll be used for, nearly everyone in the Alliance will wind up dead.
“No, that is not hyperbole,” she continued, answering his questions before he could even draw breath to ask them. “Yes, this is so far above your pay grade, not even the Admiral-General knows one hundred percent of what is coming. And yes, I can get away with keeping quiet about what’s coming under the umbrella of the old ‘Vladistad, salut’ and the precognitive-protective statutes governing Johns & Mishka versus the United Nations, because it does involve the safety of the Alliance as a whole. Any other questions?” Ia offered lightly.
Roghetti narrowed his eyes warily. “Were you reading my mind just now?”
“Nope. Just reading the future in all its infinite variety,” Ia replied, hands clasped behind her back as they walked. The rain started drumming harder on the force-field dome, sizzling as well as spattering somewhere overhead. “Telepathy is actually one of my weakest skills, being the least liked and least utilized. I truly dislike touching other people’s thoughts. It is rude, it is invasive, and it is quite frankly unnecessary for all that I have to do. I also have far too many things going on in my own head to want to go rummaging around in anyone else’s thoughts needlessly. I’ll see you in the mess tent in about twenty, twenty-five minutes.”
“I don’t intend . . .” Breaking off, he frowned at her, then shook his head. “Have a nice shower, Captain. There’s plenty of hot water at this time of night. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Nodding in farewell, Ia headed for the tent spur that contained her kitbag, packed and shipped along with Harper and the others when they had left the Hellfire four days before. Nobody in her crew had more than a kitbag’s worth of gear and their mechsuits on hand; the majority of their personal belongings had already been packed off to the new ship to await their arrival.
Even her mechsuit had been shipped out with her Company, air-dropped with the others in a bulky packing crate two days ago and salvaged out of the swamp by her crew, since Ia herself hadn’t been in a position to wear it off her ship. Not when she had been forced by layers of circumstances to blow up that ship. Clothing, she could re-create from the constant familiarity of wearing it. Even the complexity of her officer’s arm unit was within her grasp. But the intricate mesh of machinery and electronics in a mechsuit was beyond her personal comprehension level.
Wearing it wasn’t on the schedule for the next few days. Bathing, sleeping, digging up a certain prepurchased-and-stashed hyperrelay unit and transmitting several battle plans to the general in charge of the 1st Div
ision were. Between then and now, Ia had to figure out why things were going wrong here on Dabin, why they were going to get a lot worse over the next few weeks, and fix them firmly enough that the colonists would be able to drive the Salik fully off-world.
First, though, she desperately needed a hot shower. After her long, cold jog, a barely warm enough ground-car ride, and standing around in damp clothes in an unheated camp, her flesh-and-blood body needed to feel warm again as well as clean. At least she had the time to spare for it.
• • •
Her first battle came in training, in the mud when it was raining,
Of the other soldiers, one did go berserk.
He attacked the recruits’ teachers, bloody madness in his features,
But our Mary faced him down with just a smirk.
“I’ll kill ’em all!” he screamed, and success was near, it seemed,
’Til he faced the girl with hair as white as snow;
Now he’s praying for some ice while his balls are used for dice,
For she’s sent him down to live in Hell below!
Ia laughed under her breath at Clairmont’s choice of lyrics. “That is so not how it went! The storm hadn’t even begun yet, for one.”
“Hush, you,” Helstead admonished her. The petite lieutenant commander’s duty shift was scheduled to start in the next hour and a half. She gave her CO a mock-dirty look. “I’m trying to enjoy the song.”
Warm and dry—mostly dry; she’d had to don a poncho to get through the mist seeping through the force fields to this tent—and with her boots propped up on a spare bench across from hers, Ia lounged with her back to the mess table. She clasped the remains of a sandwich in one hand and a mug of caf’ in the other, listening to the singer. After being enthusiastically greeted and quickly supplied with steaming-hot food, she had settled in to enjoy the entertainments offered by her off-duty crewmates.