Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship (20 page)

PETRAN COMPANY CAMPUS

“Gotta love M-class colonyworlds,” Sunrise murmured, letting the hoverbike drift to a stop a hundred meters from the force-field fence separating the Petran Company from the rest of the planet. “Fresh air to breathe, livable gravity, and all the space you could want for sprawling out. One hundred square kilometers of homesteading territory picked from land and sea for each registered firstworlder, to be divided and inherited tax-free . . . or not divided, in the case of this company, as owned by the Petran family.”

“Yes, and all you have to do to get it is put up with the native wildlife, survive untested pathogens, endure a dearth of modern amenities for the first couple of decades, and on heavyworlds, tread carefully around the fact that tripping and falling can literally break bones and crack open skulls,” Ia agreed. “The Quentin side of the family initially snagged a big patch of coastline, before they discovered just how dangerous sea-based life is on Sanctuary. They successfully refiled their claims for the eastern side of the mountains, as did everyone else who thought to claim a chunk of the seaboard. The Jones side grabbed a solid chunk of the midplains south of the capital. But that’s on Sanctuary, this is Dabin, and we’re nowhere near any large bodies of water.”

“So how do we get in, Captain?” Mara asked, lifting her chin at the fence. “If we try to fly over that, those stunner towers will smack us silly. Or rather, they’ll smack
me
silly since I’m the one flying this thing and you’re the one with the antistunner whatsit ability.”

“And how do you know about that?” Ia asked, amused.

“
Captain
Helstead showed me your full personnel file. At least, the amount she has clearance for . . . which does beg the question of who has the other Ultra Class A clearance,” the ex-Knifeman mused out loud. “Or the Class Cs, for that matter.”

“The Class C clearances are for our trio of shiptechs who worked on the original Harasser-Class project,” Ia explained. “Their clearance is limited to ship functions only; the rest is the same as most of the crew. The two Class Bs are Harper and Helstead, and the other Class A is Lieutenant Rico.”

“Why Rico? I’d understand if it was Helstead, given what she used to do in the Corpse. Even I as a former Staff Sergeant had a higher clearance than anyone else in the Company, back when I was still a Knifeman,” Mara said, confusion lacing her tone. She even craned her neck, frowning back at Ia. “But Lieutenant First Class Oslo Rico? Why is his clearance higher than your first officer’s?”

“Rico’s the chief spy for the Admiral-General in the Company,” Ia reminded her.

“
Oh
, right,” Mara murmured. “I’d forgotten that. Sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.”

“Don’t worry about it. He has that clearance simply because if you’re going to spy on a woman with Ultra Class A clearance, you need someone who
also
has that level of trust, in case he overhears anything that would otherwise be above his pay grade. This way, he can investigate anything I get into and gauge whether or not it’s a threat to the security of the Space Force.”

“So I guess he’s sort of an honorary Troubleshooter in that sense—the man’s way too nice to be a Knifeman. Okay, so how do
we
get in there?” Mara repeated, returning her attention to the fence. They hadn’t followed a road, though there was one off to the right that led up to the gatehouse. “If they’re smart little soap bubbles, the Feyori will be keeping a mental finger on the thoughts of the security teams. We try the front door, and they’ll probably know we’re here within moments. Presuming they don’t already.”

“The thing about front doors, Private, is that the polite thing to do is to find and ring the doorbell. Which I will do telepathically, not physically.”

Sitting back from the other woman, Ia centered her mind. It had taken them barely an hour to get here, even with a quick stop for lunch. With the boost in energy from her meal, she had enough strength to divide her mind.

One part dipped into the timestreams and split in half. One of those halves looked at the current overlay, while the other darted ahead to a specific, park-like moment a handful of months ahead, before burrowing back upstream. That gave her a view of both the real universe in all its four-dimensional glory, and the false one overlaid by her future self. The other part reached outward, seeking the minds of the two Feyori a kilometer or so away.

It wasn’t easy, even with her temporal sense guiding her. In fact, it wasn’t possible. There were too many minds, and a kilometer was over her limit for telepathy. If she could use the timeplains, she could do it easily, but she couldn’t. Shaking her head, Ia pulled back into herself. “We need a power line. I can’t reach that far on my own.”

“Why power lines?” Mara asked, consulting her arm unit briefly before moving the hoverbike off to the left. Ia drew in a breath to answer, and the private shook her head. “I’m not talking about your needing to siphon energy;
that
part I get, sir. I meant, why do they have overhead lines at all? Most worlds I know of have their power lines buried for safety reasons.”

“Dabin’s still a bit young in some ways, or rather, cash-poor, to be able to afford such luxuries. The local ground is too wet three seasons of the year to bury the cables in reasonably cheap pipelines, and it’s easier for large holdings like this company to sell excess energy to the nearest neighborhoods than it is for each and every family to have its own hydrogenerator,” Ia explained. Her half brother Thorne knew more about things like this, but she knew enough to answer the other woman’s question. “In cities, it’s cheaper for the government to supply the power through a public utility that they can afford to bury in properly sealed and maintained pipelines. Most colonists go that route unless it’s a business or building that depends heavily on a steady supply of energy, such as a hospital.

“But when you get farther out, it’s cheaper to run lines. Plus, the local businesses can take the place of a public utility, if they have the funds for a large hydrogenerator plant, or the right sort of terrain for an old-fashioned wind farm or hydroelectric dam,” she added. “The Petran family runs power out to its neighbors for a reasonable fee . . . and there they are, the lines I need. Get close to the struts, will you?”

“The lines on those struts are forty meters off the ground, sir,” Mara pointed out, though she did maneuver the bike as requested. “If you fall, I’m not catching you—and need I remind you that you only have
one
good eye at the moment, sir?”

“I still have two, if you count my inner eye,” Ia quipped. As they came into range, the humming from the lines could be heard. They could also be felt, at least by Ia. Easing off the bike and onto the tower scaffolding, she balanced herself carefully and contemplated the wires. “Actually . . . I think there’s enough power in two of these, and they’re just enough within reach, I can fully manifest. You’d better back off and get grounded, just to be safe—and don’t try this at home, soldier. You are
not
a high-ranked electrokinetic.”

“I don’t
want
to be,” Mara snorted, before dipping the bike toward the ground off to the side.

Ia smiled, not at all surprised the other woman didn’t want to be a psi. Mara Sunrise was more the type to want to rely on her own skills rather than “cheating” through Meddler-bred advantages. Balancing carefully, mindful of the modest breeze, Ia reached up, first with her left hand, grabbing the high-tension cable bending its way around the insulated tower anchors. The shock of energy was indeed high, crackling over her skin with a stinging heat not unlike miniaturized versions of the pain from her most recent lasering.

She was a much better electrokinetic than she was a pyrokinetic, however. Forcing herself to breathe steadily despite the power crackling through the line, stinging her nerves, she stretched herself out, then hopped a little, snagging the other line. Energy snapped through her as she bridged the two lines with a bright, writhing flash. Fingers clenched tight, feet dangling, she let the power turn everything a glowing shade—and snapped into Meddler-form.

The first coherent thought to cross her altered state of mind was that the dual electrical current tasted vaguely like a piping-hot cheese pizza, the kind Philadelphia had sometimes baked for the crew for Wake parties. The second was that the drain on the power loop was about to be noticed by the two Feyori in the distance. Her third thought was a pulsed one, pure Feyori and very much the equivalent of a doorbell being rung . . . or rather, more like the hand of a government official knocking sternly on a private home.

(
What? Who’s there?
)

(
Who—? Oh, it’s
you
.
)

The two voices weren’t overly gender-oriented, but the latter one had a flavor of disgust and irritation that said it had to belong to the ex-stubbie, Ginger.

(
Yes, it’s me,
) Ia stated crisply, now that she had both of their attention. She tensed herself, prepared to lunge. (
Pass the word along to your little master. I call the Right of Leadership Challenge on Miklinn, faction head to faction head . . . and be grateful I choose to bypass the two of you.
)

(
I don’t have to—
)

The Feyori broke off with a yelp as Ia dove her mind across the distance between them, striking just hard and fast enough to grab and pluck on Ginger’s faction-tethers. A twist plucked at the other Feyori’s strings, and a third, longer one pulled on her own as she retreated the bulk of her thoughts back into her body.

(
I don’t give a plasma fart what
you
think,
) Ia retorted. (
I call the Right of Leadership Challenge on Miklinn. He has two local days to respond.
You
, being in faction to him, will cease all movements against me
and
those in faction to me, until this Challenge is settled.
)

(
You don’t have the rank to pull a Leadership Challenge, half-breed,
) the other Feyori stated.

He hadn’t given her his name—and a Feyori often used several over its life span, rarely just one—but Ia could sense it. Teshwun was what he called himself among the Salik. She could also sense something of the timeplains about him. He was a strong precognitive for the Feyori . . . but a lousy postcognitive, she realized. Not everyone who could read the future could read the past, and vice versa. There were plenty who could, but not this one. He was ignorant of what had happened just a short time ago.

(
Actually, Teshwun, I have over twelve hundred Feyori sworn in faction to me,
) she stated matter-of-factly. (
To
me
, not to any cosponsor or any other Meddler. It is Miklinn who is too lowly ranked to directly challenge me. But since he insists upon disrupting my Right of Simmerings, I have the right to confront him directly. Now, if the two of you are not so important in his factioning that you cannot contact him directly, I’ll just keep pulling strings, and strings-of-strings, until I find someone with enough rank who
can
.
)

Withdrawing abruptly, she returned her mental presence to the scaffolding. Down on the ground—off to the left of her sense of self, though she could see all around her, as well as up and down—Mara had lowered the bike to its parking struts and had pulled out a small datapad. Sharpening her attention, Ia probed the small, electrical glow, curious as to its contents.

It tasted like braised salmon in some sort of tangy sauce, electrically. Materially, it was something entirely different.

. . . A romance novel?
It reminded Ia of a time several years ago when she had discovered that her first official partner in the military had to smear goop on her face to cut down on breakouts of acne. Not something she’d expected to learn.
Huh. I never really thought of Sunrise as being that type. Her teammate, Floathawg, yes; that man has a romantic streak a full klick wide . . .

A dark gray bubble popped into existence at her side. It—he—dipped down between all five lines, soaking up energy until his surface brightened to a silvery mirror shine. (
Your timing is inconvenient for Belini right this minute,
) Kierfando stated. (
But she’ll be along eventually. You’re lucky that I’m free . . . and does this stuff taste like cheese to you? I swear, this power current tastes like cheese.
)

(
Cheese pizza, to me,
) Ia agreed, looking up at the power lines. (
I think it’s some subresonance in the amplitude.
)

(
In concept, the very idea of cheese is revolting, the curdled, moldering lactations of bovines and other mammalian ungulates. In practice, it is disturbingly tasty to a Human-shaped palate,
) Kier muttered, before getting to the point. (
So what, exactly, caused you to pluck our cosmic strings, little one?
)

(
Right of Leadership Challenge. I’m tired of Miklinn getting in everyone’s way—tired, and angry,
) she explained. She swirled her surface, the equivalent of lifting a chin at the buildings in the distance. (
I figure where “Ginger” and Teshwun are currently camped would be a good spot for the confrontation. There’s plenty of electrical, thermal, and kinetic energy for everyone to draw upon before, during, and after.
)

(
That’s a dangerous battleground. You’re only a half-breed,
) the Feyori reminded Ia. (
He has far more practice at drawing on energy sources than you do.
)

(
He’s becoming far too dangerous to
every
faction, Kierfando,
) Ia stated quietly. (
He has only two choices at this point. I don’t like limiting his choices to just those two, but he’s driving everything to the precipice, and
that
was his choice. All the energy on Dabin won’t be enough to help him if he refuses to give up this counterproductive grudge.
)

Kierfando swirled, a surface-style chuckle. (
You do have sparks as big as a star system, half child. Have you ever been wrong?
)