Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship

by Jean Johnson

  “In the light of my own memories of those days, how could I not give my first officer a moment of comfort?” Ia asked the quartet of officers on the other side of the relay. “He came to me to report their deaths. To report his failure as an officer. If I, who can foresee nearly everything, can still be blindsided and fail from time to time, how can I not be sympathetic to someone who cannot foresee yet still tries to do his best for his soldiers with the information and orders given to him? I may have convinced the Feyori to heed my commands as a half-breed, but I am still very much a Human being. It was as one Human to another that I gave him a moment of understanding and sympathy when he needed it most.

  “I don’t know what military you may want to run, or what kind of a war you think this is,” she stated, allowing some of her anger to show through in the way she narrowed her eyes in a frown and by the slight edge she gave her words. “Maybe you think of this colonyworld, which is just one among scores of worlds being attacked, as a list of the numbers that come in every time someone relays you a report on supplies used, objectives lost, or casualties taken. But from where I stand, I am in the trenches on my first officer’s homeworld, where the next set of casualties—the next day’s lunch—could be his own family. I am in the middle of a very tangible war, with all the psychological and emotional and physical impacts that you are not feeling. This is a very Human war.

  “Forgive me, sirs, for taking a moment to support my first officer in his hour of need.” Ia paused briefly, checked the timestreams, then added, “And I wouldn’t call a thirty-second comfort-hug in full sight of soldiers and civilians alike a moment of fraternization. Unless you want to call the one he received from Private Sunrise, who was Corporal Svarson’s Platoonmate, a breach of Fatality Forty-Nine for wanting to show she understood he had done his best as well, or the way Private Nesbit put a hand on Harper’s shoulder in sympathy, or a dozen other, similar, Human displays of sympathy, comfort, and understanding that have been expressed toward him.”

  “I would think such displays would be better suited if they came from your Company chaplain,” the lieutenant general stated blandly.

  “Our Company chaplain was gut-shot helping to extract Svarson’s body under enemy fire,” Ia returned dryly, though not blandly. “For the record, I went to her and gave her a hug, too, returning some of the same comfort and support she has given me over the years. We are Human beings, sirs, not machines. Morale is the single most important tool we have, Generals. Or at least, that’s what I learned in Marines Basic. I learned it at the Naval Academy, too. Does the Army operate with a different toolkit?” she asked, lifting one brow. “From what I and my crew observed, Captain Roghetti’s soldiers could certainly use a good dose of positive morale right about now . . . and they’re not the only ones on this world.”

  General Gadalah lifted her hands and clapped slowly three times. Leaving them clasped, leaning on her elbows, she drawled, “How neatly turned, Ship’s Captain Ia. So very neatly turned back to the problem at hand.”

  “Life is a cycle, General,” Ia said, again shifting her knees. The closet, roughly as large as her quarters had been back on the Hellfire, was fairly well lit, but the floor was a thin carpet over some type of plexcrete a little stiffer than the kind used on Sanctuary. “It is a series of circles and spirals, like the turbulence found in a stream. Some religions say the reason that we come around again and again to face certain problems is because we simply haven’t learned how to surmount and move past them yet. We don’t know how to get out of the eddy.”

  “Are you getting restless, soldier?” General Sranna asked.

  Ia debated how to answer that question. She could go with the one that her knees and legs could use the break but decided to admit a more serious concern. “I understand that at the end of the day, each of you goes home to your family, or out to dinner with your friends. That at the end of the day, each of you gets to lie down on a comfortable bed and that you have seated yourselves on padded chairs while you conduct these interrogations.

  “Unfortunately, while you take your ease, sirs—which your years and rank have rightfully granted unto you—a lot of the 1st Division’s soldiers are facing the dangers of being blown apart by projectiles, seared by laser fire, and the very real possibility that they will be eaten alive, one bloody bite at a time, tonight. Every day, every hour, and every minute this investigation goes on, with no change in tactics or orders, is a day those men and women out there run the very real and immediate risk of dying.

  “My duty is to stand here and submit to these inquests,” Ia added firmly as the leader of the four officers drew in a breath to protest. “And I will do my duty, sirs. But as much as standing here for long spans of time wears on my knees, the knowledge of just how many members of the Army are losing their lives and their limbs wears on my conscience. I wish I could be like you, far removed from the consequences, the sights, smells, and sounds of the front lines. But I am only a couple hundred kilometers from it, not a couple hundred light-years. My conscience is not comfortable with how long this is taking.”

  “Tough it out, soldier,” Gadalah ordered her, her jaw set, her brows lowered in a grim line. “We’re not done with you yet, and Mattox is still in charge. Those lives or deaths are on his conscience, not yours.”

  There was nothing Ia could say to that. She knew General Gadalah wouldn’t understand that they were on Ia’s conscience. That because she could see ways around such unnecessary things, it was her responsibility to help those men and women avoid such fates . . . and that Fate demanded she ignore far too many that she could have helped, for simple lack of time. Those who see a problem have the responsibility to help correct it. Preferably in a way that benefits the greatest number of people.

  Thank you, Mom and Ma, for instilling in me such a solid sense of conscience and humanity, she sighed mentally, part complaint, part truth. I’d go insane from this if I had the time to waste.

  Consulting her pieces of paper, the JAG officer began the next set of questions. “On the afternoon of the fourteenth of June, you encountered a ‘not-cat,’ one of the genetically modified creatures recently introduced to Dabin by the Salik. When you killed it, were you in any way envisioning José Mattox as the target of your aggressions?”

  Ia rolled her eyes. “No, sirs. All I had on my mind at the time was the desperate need to survive, since at that point in time, the Feyori named Teshwun was still manipulating the timestreams, concealing my precognitive awareness of all immediate dangers in my vicinity. Contrary to what you may expect me to feel in my situation, I do not hate, loathe, despise, or otherwise wish to harm the brigadier general.”

  “But you claim you are Human, and that you are suffering emotionally because of the war on this colonyworld,” Lieutenant General Hestin stated, pouncing on that. “So how do you feel about Mattox? For the record, Ship’s Captain. Be completely honest.”

  “To be completely honest? He is an annoyance,” Ia stated bluntly, letting her tone convey how candid she was being. “He is wasting lives, he is wasting time, and he is wasting my energies, trying to improvise time after time to perform some kind of . . . of damage control for all the harm he’s been so willfully doing to the war effort on this world. Get him out of command, and I will gladly wish him a long and happy life—Hellfire, I will give him all the information he needs to live a long and happy life! Just get him out of command before he causes the death of every single person left on this planet.”

  “Well. Isn’t that a nice piece of hyperbole?” General Sranna quipped, leaning back into the light, his mouth twisted in a sardonic hint of a smile. “Do you honestly expect us to believe he’ll cause the death of everyone on Dabin?”

  “Vladistad, General,” Ia stated flatly, giving him a hard look. “That bomb killed and harmed millions of innocent civilians . . . and I can see far, far more than Giorgi Mishka ever dreamed of in his wildest nightmares. I wish to God it was hy
perbole. The Salik cannot be allowed to entrench on Dabin. Ask whatever you will of me, but the clock is ticking on that particular bomb.”

  “We will,” Gadalah replied dryly. “Let us discuss your so-called offer to ensure Brigadier General Mattox lives a long and happy life. Are you talking prophetically guided advice on what to do with him?”

  “General, yes I am, sir,” Ia said. She paused, then added, “Of course, if you want me to actually do that right now, you’ll have to give me a minute to search the timestreams and program it into a data file.”

  “What, you don’t have it prepared already?” Sranna asked her, lifting his brows.

  “No, sir. I would rather give the brigadier general free rein to choose whatever path he wishes to take,” Ia stated. “I could pick out your life in clear detail, but that would be interfering with your right to live it your way. You have the right to rise or fall by your own actions,” she admitted. “I cannot, however, stand by in good conscience when a person’s poorest choices destroy so many other lives. I will not stay silent while Mattox v’shakks away the lives under his command and the civilians under his protection by using outmoded twentieth-century tactics coupled with such a rigid, inflexible command structure as he has imposed upon the local branch of the Army.”

  And again we come back full circle, Ia thought, struggling to hide the urge to roll her eyes. She could do so where it was absolutely appropriate, such as that absurd question about her feelings during the not-cat’s attack, but not when it would be deemed an act of insolence toward her superiors.

  Flexing her knees once more, she reached for the bottle of water someone had left for her on the table to one side. They wouldn’t be done with her for another half hour at least for this session, if not longer. And when this set was done, the quartet currently interrogating Mattox would switch to interrogating her in a few more hours, just as they had done before and would do again. All eight would eventually compare notes and observations, and like a jury, come to a decision on what to do with both the accuser and the accused.

  It wasn’t at all physically exhausting like Marines Hell Week had been, and it wasn’t nearly as mentally taxing as Navy Hell Week, but it did wear on her conscience and her heart in its own way. At least in the hours when she wasn’t being interrogated, she had plenty of time to refine her eventual tactics for this world. There was enough time to write extra prophecies, contingencies to cover everything being messed up on this one world by Mattox. Unfortunately.

  JUNE 29, 2498 T.S.

  Ia waited in front of the hyperrelay station, as tense as a wall-harp string tuned far too high. All but holding her breath for the Admiral-General’s verdict. There were several possibilities clouding the moment. Most led forward in the direction the future needed to go. She had contingency plans for a good eight or so of them already plotted out; all she needed to know was which one Christine Myang intended to choose.

  The older woman’s stare gave nothing away. She sat at the center of the screen, hands clasped lightly in front of her, with the shadowy presences of the other eight officers of the dual tribunals seated around her. General Sranna once again sat to the right, General Gadalah to the left, and the remaining six at a higher table in the back.

  “Well,” Admiral-General Myang finally stated, “you’ve certainly managed to waste our battle-planning time with this matter.”

  Ia didn’t know whether Myang was addressing her or Brigadier General Mattox, who was sharing the same relay channel so that both of them could hear the verdict simultaneously. On her side of things, Ia had moved the hyperrelay into the main part of the ballroom so that her entire Company could witness the verdict. Supposedly, Mattox was broadcasting the results of the hearing to everyone in Army Headquarters as well, though Ia knew it was actually only being broadcast to a few high-ranked officers.

  Off-screen, she heard Mattox speak. “I apologize, sir, but I really have had no control over the insanities of this loose cannon from the Special Forces save to get her out of my Headquarters. I would not have wasted your time otherwise.”

  Myang lifted one gray-salted brow. “Brigadier General Mattox. After having reviewed the evidence collected from Ship’s Captain Ia, her Special Forces Company, and several of the Army officers in the 1st Division 6th Cordon who have stepped forward with brave honesty about your actions over the last year, it is the joint decision of the Space Force Command Staff that you be relieved of your command immediately, under the charge of incompetency.”

  She paused a long moment, giving Mattox the seconds needed to reply. It came as a very subdued, “Admiral-General, yes, sir . . .”

  “When the blockade is broken,” Myang continued, “you will be extracted from Dabin to face psychological evaluation to determine whether your actions were undertaken by deliberate arrogance or by sheer stupidity, in addition to being swayed by Feyori Meddling. This charge is sustained by the Command Staff of the Terran United Planets Space Force, and sealed by my hand.” Shifting one hand to the sensor pad to her right, Myang affixed a scan of her thumbprint to the order. With that done, the Admiral-General clasped her hands in front of her. “Ship’s Captain Ia.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” Ia stated, shifting from At Ease to Attention in front of the relay’s screen, with the bulk of the hyperrelay machine placed in one corner of the ballroom. A second, much larger screen had been unfurled next to it, giving the men and women seated in the chairs lining half the chamber a clear view of the proceedings. Boots together, hands at her sides, she waited to hear which of the possible choices—almost all now in her favor—would be selected by the head of the military.

  “Captain, you have said all along that the Salik must be pushed off Dabin by a specific date in order to preserve the lives of everyone on that planet,” Myang stated.

  “That is correct, sir,” Ia said, shoulders square and chin level.

  “What would you do to prevent it?” Myang asked her. As Ia blinked and absorbed the off-the-wall question, the older woman asked again, “What would you do to prevent this great tragedy you foresee?”

  That was not a question she had anticipated. It was not only an extremely small probability, less than a hundredth of one percent, it was the exact same question Ia had been asking herself since that horrible morning back when she was fifteen. A question that came with the one answer she had decided upon long ago, the only answer she could live with for the rest of her life.

  “Anything,” Ia said, mind caught up in the memories of that fateful decision. “Anything within the constraints of Time itself, mindful of the demands of my duty, and bearing up under the weight of my conscience. Within those boundaries, sir . . . anything at all. Ask it, and I will give you every single bit I can.”

  Myang waited two and a half seconds as Ia’s reply was forwarded to her through the tiny pinhole of hyperspace connecting their two disparate worlds . . . and nodded to herself, as if expecting Ia’s answer. Ia had a strange feeling of suspension as she watched the older woman; the timestreams had turned mist-gray, though every path out of the knot led fully, firmly forward. As she watched, Myang removed her elbows from the desk and tugged on her jacket hem, straightening her all-black uniform. Inhaling slowly, she let it out and nodded a second time, just once but firmly, as if making up her mind.

  “. . . Very well. Ship’s Captain Ia, you are hereby promoted to the rank of four-star General, and placed in direct command over the Army’s 1st Division 6th Cordon immedi—”

  “—WHAT?”

  Caught in the act of gaping, Ia winced away from the speakers built into the struts supporting the membrane of the larger viewing screen. It didn’t help; Mattox continued to protest at full volume.

  “You’re making that white-haired freak a full-blown general in charge of MY Army?!”

  The one good thing about his vehemence was that it cleared the shock from her mind. It also cleared the fog from the timestreams. Th
ey stretched now before her as bright and clear as the middle of a summer’s day on Earth. Stepping forward, Ia touched the workstation controls. Sinking her electrokinesis into the command pathways, she leapfrogged it to Army Headquarters via the infrared carrier wave, and from there, sparked screen after active screen into switching channels.

  “Admiral-General,” she stated over Mattox’s continued protests, “would you please repeat both verdicts? I think everyone at Army HQ needs to hear this from you directly.”

  “—And if you think I’m going to let you get away with this madness—”

  “Our techs are no doubt trying, but can you reduce the brigadier general’s audio feed from your end of things?” Myang asked dryly over the two and a half seconds of lag, speaking as best she could through his ranting. It cut off while she was still speaking, thanks to that lag. “I presume it’s within your abilities, and that you’ll be faster at it?”

  Ia nodded. “Already done, sir. I’ve shifted it to subchannel alpha; I’m sure you’ll want a recording of whatever he’s saying. Now, if you could repeat everything, starting with your verdict regarding the brigadier general, sir? I have ensured that all of the workstations at Army Headquarters here on Dabin are receiving your transmission.”

  “. . . Of course. It is the verdict of the Command Staff that Brigadier General José Mattox, commanding officer of the 1st Division 6th Cordon Army, is to be immediately stripped of his command on grounds of incompetency . . . and possible mental instability,” Myang added dryly. “He will be remanded into Space Force custody to await full psychological evaluation as soon as the blockade on Dabin has been broken. This verdict has been sustained and sealed as of two minutes ago, Terran Standard.