Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship (29 page)

“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. They 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.

“Ship’s Captain Ia of the 9th Cordon Special Forces is hereby promoted to the rank of four-starred General and placed in direct command of the 1st Division 6th Cordon Army forces which are stationed on Dabin, in addition to her command of the 9th Cordon Special Forces—your black uniform, General Ia, will have both a gray and a green stripe, in addition to those four stars. You are hereby ordered by your peers of the Command Staff to take charge of the situation on Dabin, and do anything necessary . . . within the boundaries of your conscience, your duty, and your grasp of Time itself, as you have said,” Myang stated dryly, “. . . to amend the damages wrought by Brigadier General Mattox, and to correct the situation to save the maximum number of lives in the most efficient manner possible.”

As much as this highly unexpected promotion vastly—
vastly
—simplified things for her, and opened up a whole host of possibilities under the purview of her new rank, Ia’s conscience burned. It prodded her like a white-hot poker into speaking. “Sir, with a promotion to the rank of four-star General, and with leave given to do anything and everything that I must . . . I
will
take the bit in my teeth and run with it, sir. You
do
know that, right?”

“I know that I am placing a great deal of faith in you and your abilities, meioa-e,” Myang told Ia, holding the younger woman’s gaze over the lag-seconds and light-years between them. “Do not make me regret this decision. But do show me what you can do with no more constraints holding you back, save for your conscience, your duty, and that unholy-strong psi of yours,
General
.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Hand snapping to her brow, she saluted the Admiral-General. Myang saluted her back. The moment she was free to drop her hand, Ia snapped in a crisp left face and addressed her Company, mind racing—leapfrogging—after every possibility now opened up before her. “Attention, Damned; you heard the Admiral-General! You have exactly one hour to pack up your combat kitbags and be prepared to depart. Report back to the ballroom in whatever light armor you can scrounge, ready to travel. I will have individualized orders ready for each of you by then.”

“Capta—er, General, sir?” Commander Helstead corrected, raising her hand in inquiry as the others rose to obey. “What
will
we be doing?”

“I’m sending each one of you across the Army as tactical consultants. We are finally going to get this war done, and we are going to get it done
right
. The seven still on the seriously wounded list will be remaining behind, along with Private Jjones and myself—yes, Dr. Mishka, I expect
you
to go into combat as a consultant as well. Ramasa is still missing his left foot and is therefore unfit for combat, but you are uninjured. Everyone who can go
must
go, and you are going in his place. I will remain here to coordinate everything above and beyond the orders I will give you, and I will oversee the reorganization of the Army from this end.

“Xhuge, Douglas, and Togama, get on the comms immediately and contact every rental-hovercar agency in town. I want each and every pairing heading into the field to have their own vehicle—Private Floathawg, contact the hovercycle companies to see about leasing bikes to those personnel you know are licensed to ride. We’re going to wipe out half the rental agencies in the city, but it must be done. Clerks, file all payment vouchers on my
carte blanche
ticket with Sergeant Sadneczek.

“You have your orders, meioas. Dismissed!” Turning back to the hyperrelay as the others scrambled out of their seats, Ia nodded at the screen. “If you’ll forgive my eagerness and please excuse me, Admiral-General, you have just changed the
entire
list of game plays I had drawn up. I wasn’t expecting to be given such a free rein. If I’m to uphold your faith in me, I and my people need to get to work immediately, and I have a
lot
of plans to rewrite in the next ten hours.”

Myang was already nodding, listening impatiently to Ia’s relay-lagged words. “General Ia, you are dismissed to your new duties.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you, Generals, Admirals. I’ll try to keep your faith in me. Ia out.” Ia touched the controls again as the Admiral-General and the generals flanking her vanished from the screen. The blue-and-gold logo of the Space Force took their place, though the link was still active, if rerouted. “To the men and women at Army Headquarters, these are my first set of orders: Colonel Zirenja of the Military Peacekeepers, you will place Brigadier General José Mattox under house arrest, escort him to his quarters, and keep him there under armed guard. He will be allowed no visitors and no unrecorded communications. He may call or contact whoever he likes, but all communiqués are to be recorded or copied and shipped to the Command Staff on Earth unaltered.

“To Major Xiayan, the officer in charge of HQ Supply. Please issue me a set of Dress Blacks with the requisite green-and-gray stripes, and a set of four-star pips. Your department already has a current set of my measurements, so that shouldn’t take you long. Colonel Satsuke, have the communications department relay to all Companies of the 1st Division copies of the orders containing the change-of-command. I want them to know that
I
am in charge within the next ninety minutes Terran Standard.

“Colonel Zirenja, please also place the general’s chief assistant, Major Leotta Perkins, under house arrest as well as the brigadier general, under the exact same conditions. There’s a sixty-seven percent probability she’ll try to sabotage my orders and efforts at Headquarters. I will allow nothing and no one to interfere with the salvation of this colonyworld,” Ia stated bluntly. “Please do remember, I have just been given the authority and the freedom to do whatever I must by command of the Admiral-General herself. Make no mistake, I am in full charge now—and gentlemeioas? I will
know
if any of you fail to comply. If you do, you will also be placed under house arrest.

“Follow my orders to the spirit and the letter, and I will make you the heroes of Dabin,” she promised, staring into the camera pickups, though there was only the TUPSF logo for her to look at. “Get in my way, interfere with my calculations, and I will take you out of the equation. This is
not
the time to get petulant and commit a whole string of Fatalities, gentlebeings. Expect me at Headquarters in one hour twenty-eight minutes local. You have your orders. General Ia out.”

Shutting off the relay, Ia turned to find Meyun waiting patiently at her elbow. There was still a trace of shock and wonder in his brown eyes, but he didn’t let her abrupt promotion faze him.
This
was why he was far more suitable as a first officer than any other choice the DoI would have made. Too many off-the-wall things happened around Ia, and she knew it. So did Harper, and he of all choices had the flexibility for it, even if she still couldn’t predict most of his life.

“So what exactly
is
the new plan, sir?” Harper asked under his breath.

“Each and every single one of you will have to contact and deliver very specific orders to twenty-three Companies within the next three days. That’s per person, not just per team, which means that working in pairs around the clock, you’ll have to deliver orders to and brief forty-six Companies within sixty-eight hours,” Ia explained to her second-in-command, fingers and toes trailing mentally through the timestreams.

“That is a lot of Companies to reach,” he admitted.

“There are almost thirty-five hundred Companies here on Dabin, and they
all
need to know what each and every one of them and their neighbors can do about removing the Salik presence on Dabin—and it’s thanks to something
you
told me about that’ll make it that much easier to remove them. You handed me a brilliant idea for a shortcut to this planet’s part in the war, which will make up for all the time Mattox lost for us. Unfortunately, it will only work if they’re not entrenched.”

“Something
I
told you?” Meyun asked her, puzzled.

Ia flashed him one of her rare full grins. “Don’t worry about it right now, Harper,” she said, clapping him briefly on the shoulder. “I’ve had the civilian sector working on it for months, just like I had this hyperrelay bought and stashed for months. So long as we can disrupt the Salik efforts to entrench by breaking up their wasp nests—and we
can
; we have just enough time left for that, if we all work hard—then we can kick them off your homeworld for good.”

“I’ll trust you, Cap . . .
shakk
,” Harper muttered, shaking his head ruefully. “
General.
That is going to take a
lot
of adjustment. You have got to be the single youngest four-star General in Terran history—how the hell did you pull that off?”

She spread her hands, letting him see her sincerity, and a touch of her giddiness. “I honestly haven’t a clue! I was fully expecting to remain a Ship’s Captain, or maybe get a promotion to Vice Commodore,
maybe
even promoted to be a Commodore here on Dabin after Mattox kept screwing everything up. And I was only supposed to be a Commodore at most until at least the last few months of the Salik War, when I was supposed to be promoted to a Rear Admiral at that point. But here I am,
General
Ia . . . and I
am
going to run this war how I see fit.

“Go get packed,” she ordered, pointing at him. “Change your clothes for combat zones, grab a quick bite from the buffet, and do whatever you need to do. I’ll have your teammate assignment by the time you get back.”

Nodding, he headed for the door. That left just Private Jjones still in the Olympic Ballroom with Ia. She cleared her throat, standing in a very proper, soldierly version of Parade Rest, though she had started her military career predominantly as a surgical nurse. “Sir. What do you want me to do? You said I was to remain behind with you. Do I accompany you to Army HQ?”

Ia shook her head. “No, you’ll be in charge of our makeshift infirmary, which means you’ll stay and anchor our base as the one fully mobile member left here. I’ll be busy splitting my time between here and Army HQ. Commander Benjamin is almost ready for desk duty; when she is, she’ll take over monitoring everything from this room with Ramasa’s assistance. I couldn’t predict these injuries because of Meddler interference, but I knew I
could
plan for plenty of flexibility across the crew.”

Jjones lifted her brows briefly and shrugged her broad shoulders. “You put in some commands in my version of the Company bible way back when we first boarded the
Hellfire
, things that convinced me you really could see the future. It wasn’t pleasant to find out even you could be blinded—metaphysically, not just physically—but even so, I’ll still follow your orders, sir. You’re a good officer even without the psi stuff.”