Theirs Not To Reason Why: An Officer's Duty Part 34

Pushing herself up from her bench, Ia leaned over the still-functional anti-psi machine. One hand rested over the sucker hand, ready to push and pull on the controls to make it work. The other lifted into the air. Energy crackled between her digits in unsubtle warning.

"Confess the truth, meioa...or I will turn this thing on, and give it extra power," she growled.

His ears flattened full, and his teeth bared. "You wouldn't dare."

"You're here for the same reason we are. Because these machines are a threat to us all," Ia stated, while the other beings in the room glanced back and forth between the two of them in confusion. "But it's not the same threat for you as it is for us. This just interferes with our gifts, and gives us a nasty migraine. To your kind, this...this anti-psi energy acts like a poison.

"Doesn't it, Feyori?" Her accusation made him growl. Ia lifted her right hand higher, brightening the sparks of energy snapping between her fingertips. "Oh, no. Don't even think of trying to counterfaction me, Meddler. You and I do want the same thing, after all: to see the source of these machines tracked down and silenced. Cooperate, and we will a.s.sist you."

"'We'?" he challenged her, pushing away from the wall and lacing his fingers together Solarican-style, like a Human would have crossed his arms. "You speak as if you werre a faction, Humann."

"My Right of Simmerings is not yet over," Ia reminded him. This Meddler wasn't the one who had posed as Doctor Silverstone during her recruit days as a Marine, but she knew postcognitively that Silverstone had told the others about her. She knew that this one was aware of her temporarily sanctioned presence in the Great Game he and his kind played. "My faction is my own, counterfaction to none. You will cooperate in this matter.

"It is in your best interest to do so, since this machine is a threat to your kind as well as to mine. Swear yourself in faction to me," Ia ordered him, "or swear yourself neutral, and go."

He glanced at the guards, who were eyeing him warily. Their hands were not on the stunner guns at their waists, but rather on the knives sheathed next to them. Physical weapons would not actually kill a shape-shifted Meddler, but Meddlers could still feel pain when wrapped in fleshy matter. And unlike a laser or a stunner, knives wouldn't feed a Feyori, either.

It didn't look like he was going to swear faction to her. Ia lifted her chin. "As you wish. We are neutral to each other. But your cover is now blown, meioa. You'll find a set of power outlets behind you. Take what you need, and go."

He studied her for a moment more, then unlaced his hands. Electricity arced from the wall sockets to his claw-tips, fluffing and sparking through his fur. The lights dimmed, and the hairs on everyone else started to rise in static response. A moment later, energy leaped across the room from several more outlets, slamming into the Solarican-and an eye-dazzled blink later, a large silvery soap-bubble floated in the air where the felinoid once stood.

The metallic surface swirled, darkening for a moment as it continued to absorb more arcs of energy from the wall sockets. Seconds later, it swirled further, as if turning, and soared through the wall, picking up speed as it left without hindrance. Wide-eyed and wary, the meioas in the room watched it go, their stunned silence speaking volumes.

The moment she was sure the Feyori had left, Ia slumped back onto the bench behind her. She rubbed a trembling hand over her face, exhausted. Not just from the efforts of proving her gifts against the nullifying ache caused by that infernal machine, but from the effort to seem strong enough to take on a full-blooded Feyori. A member of a race who could literally eat laserfire for lunch.

"So." The single chirrup from Meioa Nik'ikk fell into the silence blanketing the hall. She chittered again, the complex programming of her translator box a.n.a.lyzing and filling in the nuances for her. Mostly ones of scorn. "A Feyori half-breed. One who understands their pol-"

"Stop." Lifting her gaze from her palm, she glared at the spider-like alien. "Just stop. I will not let you poison the minds of everyone around you with your prejudices. Think about what I have done with my gifts, meioa. What, exactly, have I done with them?"

Her demand echoed off the walls. Righteous anger gave her the strength to rise, the strength to cross the meters of distance separating them. Bracing her palms on the edge of the table serving duty as the K'katta psychic's podium-platform, Ia leaned her face between the foremost legs of the alien, bringing her head within biting distance.

"Have I destroyed cities? Have I slaughtered children? Have I brought wrath and ruin? No, I have not. I have saved lives, meioa, at the personal expense of great pain and multiple injuries. I have strived, meioa, to be a good sentient being. Courageous, honorable, and compa.s.sionate. I have not sought high rank, I have not sought political power, and I have not tried to manipulate the people around me just for the amus.e.m.e.nt of some half-incomprehensible game!

"I have laid my life on the line for my fellow sentients, over and over and over, and I will not let you try to twist my actions into anything less than what I have proven them to be, over and over and over!" she snarled, leaning close enough to those flexing mandibles that the K'katta swayed back a few centimeters. "So before you chirp one more word, you will either clamp your mandibles shut and lay your life on the line for others, as many times as I have, or you will shove your personal prejudices right back up your waste orifice! Is. That. Clear. Guardian?"

Crouched low, cowed by her verbal attack, the K'katta didn't respond. Slowly, arms threatening to tremble, Ia pushed herself back upright.

"I repeat, I am not a monster. I am not some s.a.d.i.s.tic, uncaring deus ex machina, sweeping in and out just long enough to carry out some incomprehensible plot to manipulate others. I am a mortal and fallible and mostly Human being, as I have always been. I may be more gifted than others," she allowed, "but that only means I have a few more tools to work with than the average being. I make mistakes, I get hurt, but I try to do what is right. What all of us-Human and Tla.s.sian and K'kattan, all of us-agree is right.

"Now, if that is an unforgivable sin," she snapped, looking around the room, "then may G.o.d d.a.m.n you all to h.e.l.l, because my birthright is nothing more than one extra means to help me get it done."

Pushing away from the table, she headed for the door. Without a word, Chaplain Benjamin rose from her seat near the back and followed her. Ia paused a few meters from the exit and looked back over her shoulder.

"I don't expect any of you to be able to keep all of this to yourselves, but I'll remind you that the only reason why I rescued so many from Sallha is because the Salik didn't know about my abilities. And the less they know about them, the better. So I'll ask you to keep silent, and treat my Rankings as an Alliance secret...but I won't hold my breath.

"The Solarican government, which currently holds custody over the anti-psi machine, has agreed to give it into my control as my war-prize for destroying the Salik high command. I in turn will be handing it over to the Terran s.p.a.ce Force, Branch Special Forces, for a more detailed examination of its function. I don't care if you believe me or not," she added, her words edged with a slight, sarcastic bite, "but I give you my word of honor that any further research conducted on it will be shared among the member races of the Alliance, and used in our mutual fight against the Salik. I promise we will track down the scientists who created it, and stop them from producing more.

"Now, if you will excuse me, I am still recovering from my injuries. I am tired and need to go rest." Facing the doors, she found the Solarican guards standing in the way.

Ia stared at them. She turned her head slightly to the side, displaying the distinctive earring dangling from her right lobe. An earring bearing the royal seal and the Solarican symbols that marked her battle rank as a War Princess among their kind. They looked at it, glanced briefly at each other, and parted to either side. One of them even palmed open the door for her, politely letting her go.

Without another word, Ia strode through, Bennie following in her wake. Of all the races, the Solaricans themselves were the least skittish about dealing with the Feyori, mostly for reasons they refused to admit to the other races, though Ia herself knew. Unless and until a member of their imperial family revoked her status as a War Princess, Ia technically outranked nearly everyone else on board the Solarican Warstation. She was diplomatic enough not to abuse that rank, but if necessary, she would use it.

Bennie waited until they were in one of the nearby lifts before she spoke. "Well played, Lieutenant. Not just the bit about quashing any rumors regarding your 'birthright,' but the whole revelation of your gifts."

"Thanks. I think," Ia muttered. "But I'll have you know it's not an act, Commander. I'm not a monster, and the only thing motivating my so-called agenda is the chance to save lives."

"Relax, I believe you," Bennie murmured back. "And I'm beginning to believe in you. I'm not quite sure where your cause is headed just yet, but at least I know you'll do your best to keep it on the right track. You've earned my faith in you. Don't abuse it."

"Thanks." This time, the word was uttered with more sincerity. "I wish I could tell you where it was headed," she added as the lift car swayed to a stop, "but at this point, I'm still faced with my biggest fight."

The doors opened and a trio of Solaricans boarded, clothed in stained coveralls and carrying tool kits and scanner equipment. They gave the two Humans cursory looks, but otherwise ignored the aliens in their midst.

"I forgot to ask. Did you get everything loaded, this morning?" Ia asked Bennie obliquely.

"It's all stowed," the redhead confirmed.

Relieved, Ia nodded. They weren't on their way back to the Solarican version of an infirmary ward. Instead, they were headed for one of the docking gantries, where a civilian mail courier waited for them. Bennie had actually traveled on it this morning, flying from the Mad Jack, which had moved two systems away in the last few days, forced to return to its a.s.signed position in the Blockade zone.

When the s.p.a.ce Force had learned that Ia had been sold to the Salik, her belongings had been prepared to be shipped back home to her family. Very few soldiers had ever returned from a formal CPE listing, before. Luck alone had caught and rerouted them back to the Interdicted Zone before the cases filled with her few belongings had reached the halfway point. Ia hadn't unpacked much of it, just enough to don her most formal uniform yesterday. The rest, Bennie had picked up and sent to the courier ship waiting for them.

Halfway up the docking ring, Bennie slugged Ia on the arm. Yelping, Ia cupped the bruised muscles. She had only placed that possibility at less than 10 percent. "What was that for?"

"You're the precog, Lieutenant. Or rather, the postcog. You figure it out," Bennie muttered.

Ia didn't have to guess all that much. "I didn't tell you about my father because I couldn't tell you, alright? Think about it, Commander. Meioa Nik'ikk's reaction was only the tip of the iceberg. Even if I quelled some of it, everyone is going to be looking over my actions with a microscope and a fine-toothed comb, wondering if I'm a monster."

"So why reveal your background now?" Bennie her.

"First of all, there is no way with a 'bare minimum' ranking of 84 that I could keep it quiet," Ia reminded the other woman. "Something like that would always raise questions about where I got that kind of power. Second, if it had been brought up earlier in my career, I'd have been drummed out of the Service out of misguided, baseless paranoia. But by now, it has been proven, over and over again, what a ma.s.sive a.s.set I am to the s.p.a.ce Force. They can't afford to let me go, and everyone knows it.

"And third, I want people to go over my record. I want them to take a good, long look at everything I have done. Nothing about me has actually changed. I'm still the same soldier I was before my background was revealed," Ia reminded her. "But I want my Service record, both the good and the bad, to be so fresh in the minds of the Command Staff that they'll have no choice but to think about all I have done so far, and all I could still do. Specifically, of what I could do for them in the future."

"That could backfire, you know," Bennie warned her.

Ia wrinkled her nose, glancing at her friend. "Why do you think I'm so worried about winding up in the Dungeon? Come on, we've a long way to go and a short time to get there."

"Are you sure you're safe to travel this early in your convalescence?" Bennie asked her. "I'm not a doctor, if you go into a relapse."

"h.e.l.lo, precog?" Ia retorted, spreading her hands. "I'll be fine, don't worry. OTL might exhaust me silly, but that's it. Trust me, I'm disease-free. No more sepsis. At least, this year."

The look Bennie shot her was definitely not an amused one. The corner of Ia's mouth quirked upward anyway.

CHAPTER 21.

For all my courage on the battlefield...for all my willingness to face a barrage of enemy fire and mortal fear...my most daunting fight did not come when I faced down the Salik in their own banqueting hall. It came a few weeks later in a modest-sized chamber buried deep within the heart of the safest place in the Terran Empire.

Yes, even I have trembled in fear when faced with the specter of failure. I can predict everything with great accuracy, but I cannot guarantee everything I foresee.

~Ia SEPTEMBER 19, 2495 T.S.

THE TOWER, TUPSF HEADQUARTERS.

EARTH.

The weight of her fully pinned Dress Black jacket, bundled up in her arms with the lining side out, was nowhere near as heavy as the lump in her stomach. Ia glanced at the chrono on her new command arm unit, which had been issued during her convalescence, then paced nervously back to the corridor junction for another peek around the corner.

The staff desk was still manned by the same bra.s.s-eagled major, still patiently going through whatever it was on his workstation screen that lit up his Dress Greens uniform. Before he could glance her way, she paced back to where Bennie waited, ostensibly reading the history placard on the wall.

"You'll have to quit doing that," the chaplain stated under her breath. "He's going to get suspicious."

"He's already suspicious," Ia murmured back. "You don't sit any post in the Tower without looking for enemies, whether they're hiding in plain sight or lurking behind a potted tree. Particularly not in a post as sensitive as that one."

"I'm not lurking behind a tree. The tree is merely next to me," Bennie replied primly, nodding her head at the sculpted branches of the ficus next to the placard. "You're the one who looks like she's lurking."

"That's because I'm nervous," Ia muttered.

"What's there to be nervous about?" Bennie asked her. "Aren't you b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, scourge of the Salik? Besides, between what you've told me, and what I saw of the reactions from those three volunteers, all you have to do is flutter your fingers and show them what they need to know. Right?"

The very thought made her stomach churn. Ia shook her head. "No. I cannot cheat. It has to be done the honest way."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Bennie asked, eyeing Ia with suspicion. "You promised me you've been playing everything as straight as you can, so far."

"And I have, as much as anyone could in my position," Ia replied. She started to say more, but fell silent. A few moments later, a trio of officers walked past, conversing quietly among themselves. She waited until they had pa.s.sed out of earshot before continuing. "Bennie...the things I have asked of you, the things I haven't yet explained, you have understood and agreed to follow because you have faith in me. You have lived on the same base ships as me, you have served with me, you have seen me in in the cla.s.sroom and in action on the battlefield.

"The men and women I am about to face have none of that personal level of experience to back up their faith in me." That wasn't entirely true; there were at least two people in the minutes ahead who did have at least some personal experience with her. But it was true enough in the general sense. "However, the things I must do in the future will have to be undertaken on the fly, without any time to spare to explain myself in advance.

"The Future does shift, even under my feet," she confessed. "I cannot win the battles that must be fought if I do not have their trust in me. And no amount of psychic legerdemain or mental chicanery will prove they have that trust in me, unless I win it blindly. The things I must do...I am facing a forty-one percent failure rate. But I have no choice I can live with, other than to try for my best shot at this.

"If I used my gifts, I might make it on my second-best chance, but second-best might not be enough. Particularly if I am accused of undue psychic influence, farther down the line. I cannot afford that kind of stain on my record." Another check of her chrono made her clutch her jacket to her stomach. "Two more minutes-promise me you will stay out of this?"

"Since I still don't quite know what 'this' is, you're asking for some of that same blind faith out of me," Bennie quipped. At Ia's chiding look, she relented. "Alright, I promise. And if they throw you in the Dungeon, I promise to come and visit you, as you have asked. But only if you tell me why it's so important for this...this Doctor Silverstone fellow to visit you in the Dungeon if things go nova in there."

"Let's just say he owes me two little favors," Ia muttered, thinking of the Feyori she had met in basic training, and the preparatory meddling he was doing right now in the lives of his twin sons. Twins she had predicted several years ago. "But that would also be cheating. I need to win this argument on my own, so calling on him is a last-ditch effort only-it's too important for me to win, Bennie. You have no idea how much. Enough to cheat, if in the end I must, but...that would create a host of new problems. I'd rather win through on my own. If I can."

"So stop fretting, go forth, and win it," Bennie ordered her.

Sighing roughly, Ia unfolded her jacket. She placed the black cap on her head and swung the heavily weighted material onto her arms. Shrugging into it, she focused on fastening the b.u.t.tons. Bennie moved around her, adjusting the pins fastened to her sleeves and her back so that each medal and ribbon lay flat.

"You have an absolutely ridiculous number of awards and merits, young meioa-e, particularly for so few years on Border and Blockade Patrols," the older woman fussed. "If they cannot see the high value their own armed forces have clearly placed on you, then they don't deserve your faith in them. Faith is a two-way street, after all." A last adjustment of Ia's lieutenant bars, a slight twitch of the cap, and she stepped back. "There. G.o.d has faith in you. So do I. Now, go knock some of our belief into them."

Her warm words and her soft smile made Ia feel slightly better, but they couldn't dispel the knot of anxiety tightening inside her stomach. Squaring her shoulders, Ia walked around the corner. The major seated at the staff desk glanced up at her. He seemed to still be focused on his work, but she knew he was watching her carefully as she approached.

Except she didn't approach him, but rather the airlock-thick doors next to his desk.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant, but where do you think you're going?" he challenged her.

"I have an appointment to keep with the Command Staff, Major." Stopping in front of the doors, she reached for the security codes with her mind.

"The Command Staff is in a sealed conference, Lieutenant, and you are one step from being in a restricted...area..." He trailed off, frowning in confusion as the doors slid open in front of her. His hand reflexively grabbed for the pa.s.s key clipped to his waist, one of the physical components required for access on top of the ident scans, which she had not used. It was still there. "What the...?"

Ia stepped into the small room beyond the blast-proof doors, literally an airlock. She could hear the major scrabbling for the weapon stored at his desk, and triggered the doors a second time.

"That is a restricted area, Lieutenant, and you are not auth-"

The panels sealed shut. Ia relaxed marginally; at least now she couldn't be shot in the back. Shot in the face, maybe, but not in the back. One more obstacle, she thought, working the security system electrokinetically. Part of her mind was keeping the emergency beacon paralyzed, despite the repeated thumping of the major's fist. Part of her mind was focused on opening the inner doors at just the right moment without any advanced warning signs broadcast to the inner chamber.

Part of her was focused on the potential fallout from the very risky decision to cut off any warning signals from inside the inner sanctum. The rest of her struggled against the urge to either turn tail and run, or double over and lose her lunch. Except she wisely hadn't eaten any. That's the only wise thing about any of this. From this point on...the probabilities are stacked too close to each other to tell which way they'll go. And I daren't try to manipulate the system, not with a fellow psi about to watch my every move in there.

The doors slid open in time for her to hear the voice of Admiral-General Myang, right on cue. "...brings us to the issue of who will command Project t.i.ta...Lieutenant!"

Ia strode into the room, fear squashed, determined to be brave. The schematics displayed on the screens lining the round chamber flickered and blipped off. She lifted her hand in dismissal. "Don't bother, sirs. I've already seen it."

"Lieutenant Ia!" Admiral-General Christine Myang snapped. She was seated in the center of the bottommost ring of five tiers of horseshoe-shaped tables, the only person in the room clad in solid black. The others around her were clad in the Dress Colors for their particular Branches. The head of the s.p.a.ce Force scowled at Ia, face reddening. "You have five seconds to explain your presence here!"

"Actually, sir, it's supposed to be five minutes," Ia countered, feigning calm. It took conscious effort to keep from letting her hands tremble, or from balling them into fists. Right fingers flat, she lifted them to the brim of her cap, her eyes on the grey-haired woman at the center of her vision. "Lieutenant First Grade Ia, requesting permission to perform a Shikoku Yamaneuver, sir."

"I don't see a starfighter anywhere, soldier," one of the green-clad generals off to her left growled. "Request de-"

"Not that kind of Yamaneuver, General," Ia countered, cutting him off, fingertips still angled at her brow. "I'm referring to the Star of Service Yamaneuver, sir. And I don't mean the whitewashed, heavily edited version they teach to schoolchildren, sirs."

Myang studied her a long moment, then returned Ia's salute with a flick of her hand to her brow. "Do tell, Lieutenant. Which unedited version are you referring to?"

Ia dropped her arm and answered the older woman's question. "The one where the Command Staff didn't admit him willingly to their presence. The one where he broke into their sanctum because they refused to give him a hearing regarding his idea that the Loyalist AIs could be, and should be, used to infiltrate the Rebel AIs in order to bring the AI War to a swifter end. The one where he spat on his Star of Service, and said that if everything that his many medals represented weren't worth even so much as five minutes of the Command Staff's time, sir...then they could go straight to h.e.l.l, and be d.a.m.ned for dragging the rest of the United Planets with them.