Theirs Not To Reason Why: An Officer's Duty Part 20

BATTLE PLATFORM MAD JACK.

SS'NUK NEH 2238 SYSTEM

"Happy New Year, everyone!" The cheerful call came from a woman clad in Army greens. She was carrying a bin of supplies and peered around the large package as she maneuvered her way through the lobby of the transient soldiers' hotel on Battle Platform Mad Jack. The woman received several callbacks.

"Happy New Year!" "Happy New Year!" "Enjoy the last holiday for a while!"

"Happy New Year? Why in the name of mutant squirrel nuts are we even celebrating that?" someone else catcalled back. The young soldier, one green-clad leg over the arm of his chair, his head resting on the padded back, flicked his hand. "It's not even relevant, anymore. Earth isn't the only world we're occupying, and it certainly doesn't share the same solar rotation as any other planet we've colonized. Certainly it isn't on the same cycle that this miserable, slime-covered rock uses."

Done with checking out of her room, Ia grabbed the handles of her weight suit case and kitbag. Bennie, at her side, looked like she was going to speak. Ia answered the Army private first.

"Time is relative, meioa-o; that's a given. But the Command Staff says we have to use Terran Standard time, so we have to use Terran Standard time. So Happy New Year, for what it's worth." She started to move toward the lobby doors, then checked herself. "And if that doesn't suit you, then have a Happy Mutant Squirrel Nut Day."

Rather than sulking and arguing further, the young man burst into laughter. "I'll do that, thank you!"

Bennie snickered. Strolling beside Ia, she accompanied the younger woman out onto the promenade overlooking the atrium. It was part and parcel of the Battle Platform's lifesupport systems, though it was designed to look more like a pleasure garden, with its fruit trees and berry bushes, its carp ponds with waterfalls and scattering of tables and chairs. It smelled as fresh and green and sweet as the biotechnicians and botanists could make it. Ia still thought it needed the spark-smell of ozone to be complete, but instead, there was a faint, persistent odor of cleaning products.

She sneezed.

"Bless you," Bennie murmured. "Need a tissue?"

Ia sniffed experimentally, then shook her head. "No, I'm fine. And you don't have to walk me all the way to the Audie-Murphy. I'm a big girl, I can find my way."

"Hey, I told you, the bra.s.s on both sides want me to keep an eye on you," the redhead warned her. "Just because you've survived a tough Border Patrol doesn't mean you'll be just as fine on Blockade duty. So I'm supposed to mother-hen you until the last minute or whatever."

"How does one mother-hen a fellow adult, anyway?" Ia quipped. "For that matter, how does one mammal mother-hen another mammal?"

"Oh, now you show off your sense of humor?" Bennie mocked, and nudged Ia in the side with her elbow.

Ia winced and subtly covered her abdomen with the arm carrying her kitbag. Modern medicine and biokinetic abilities were fine for the physical aches, but mentally, she still missed her reproductive organs. A pair of hormone-releasing spheres in their place took care of the chemical needs of her body, but not the needs of her mind. For which, I blame Meyun, for making me think about what I was giving up...and for the implication that he wanted to have children with me.

Mindful of the woman at her side, Ia shoved away her darker thoughts. The regret-filled ones. "If you don't like it, I can always pack it away again."

"No, no, you'll need it," Bennie dismissed. "Just don't go so far into a sense of humor that you start laughing as you lop off heads out there. You might start lopping off the wrong heads, and that would be bad."

"Not in this lifetime, I promise you that," Ia murmured. The corner of her mouth quirked up. "I'll save that for my next life."

"You're a reincarnationist?" the chaplain at her side asked, reaching for the lift b.u.t.tons as they reached a bank of elevators. "I know you said you were Unigalactan, branch Witan, and your personnel file says sect Zen.o.bian...but there isn't much in the records on what the Zen.o.bian Sect believes."

"I have encountered some compelling reasons for believing in reincarnation," Ia admitted lightly, ignoring the other half of Bennie's comment. The lift arrived, and they stepped inside, joining a group of blue-clad soldiers on their way somewhere. A touch of the b.u.t.tons lifted them up a few floors.

Bennie didn't say anything, waiting as they rode the lift, exited, and crossed to the tram that would carry them sideways through the ma.s.sive battle station. When the car they entered proved to be empty, the chaplain asked, "So...care to talk about these encountered reasons? Or what these Zen.o.bians believe in?"

"Nope. They don't really matter," Ia said. The tram swayed, and both women grasped one of the poles inside, swerving with the subtle curve of the tram's circular track through the station. Catching the chaplain's wrinkled nose, she shook her head. "Bennie, while I am a card-carrying priestess of one of the local branches of the Witan Order on my homeworld, and am thus qualified to philosophize with the best of theologians, to try and debate the theological implications of a belief or disbelief in reincarnation when I am very much interested in focusing on this life would be a futile exercise in sophistry at best, and an annoyance at worst. Now, do you really want me annoyed?"

That made the older woman chuckle. "If you had said, 'do you really want to annoy me,' I might have said yes, since that can be fun. But no, I don't actually want you to be annoyed. And I'd ask you why you didn't ask for a cushy chaplain's job if you really are an ordained clergywoman, except after following your career for the last two and a half years, I know better. Have you talked with your family recently?"

Ia took the change in topic in stride. "No, but my plan is to shamelessly abuse my officer's privileges and call home from the s.h.i.+p on the military's tenth chit."

That made her friend chuckle. "Just make sure you do that before leaving the Battle Platform. No extraneous-"

"Yes, yes, no extraneous calls are to be made while on patrol, because they'd be a distraction and a potential security risk," Ia dismissed. "I did pay attention to the Standard Operational Procedures lecture when I got here. The same as you did. At least, you didn't seem to be falling asleep next to me."

"I hid it very well," Bennie quipped. "All those years of seminary school were good for something, you know."

The tram came to a stop and they disembarked into a small crowd of Navy personnel. The two waded through the mostly enlisted group. Bennie's chaplain pins, larger than her rank insignia, earned her polite nods and friendly smiles. Ia's single bra.s.s bar on each blue collar point and shoulder board earned her polite nods and a slightly wider berth than Chaplain Benjamin, despite the older woman's much higher-ranking silver oak leaves.

If she had been a normal graduate of a naval academy, Ia should have had only a small bra.s.s square as the mark of an ensign, not the longer bar of a lieutenant. Being a Field Commissioned officer with more than a month of leaders.h.i.+p in the field and good marks from her superiors let her skip the tedious "learn how to be an ensign-ranked officer in the field" stage of her post-academy military career. Of course, no enlisted soldier ever earned a Field Commission without first learning how to lead as a noncommissioned officer, whether that was as a sergeant or a petty officer, but there were instances where a prematurely advanced rank had been rescinded. The chance that she would be busted back down to ensign was slim, though.

Flipping up the screen of her arm unit as they walked, Bennie consulted the station's schematic. "Not much farther. Good. This station has a different configuration than I'm used to. It doesn't help that it's so huge."

"It's not that much different. You're just used to accessing a s.h.i.+p like the Liu Ji via the docking gantries. The Delta-VX Harrier Cla.s.s s.h.i.+ps use docking bays," Ia pointed out. "Repair work goes much faster if you can do it in an atmosphere, even if most of it's modular."

"You don't like the convenience of modular s.h.i.+ps?" Bennie asked.

Ia wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure I like everything being so uniform; once the enemy a.n.a.lyzes a component, they know the configuration, strengths, and weaknesses for that part on just about any other s.h.i.+p."

"Well, we kind of had to jump-start our stars.h.i.+p a.s.sembly system with modular units," Bennie pointed out. "Joining the Salik War with just a handful of s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps capable of interstellar travel made it vital to ma.s.s-manufacture the things. The only things that got manufactured even faster were the hyperrelay communication satellites that turned the tide of the war for the Alliance. Since the whole chain a.s.sembly thing worked out so well, why complain?"

"G.o.d bless Henry Ford, eyah?" Ia quipped.

"Hoo-rah," Bennie quipped, echoing the Marines rallying cry. The upraised fist she made drew a chuckle out of Ia.

"Nice to see the Corps is rubbing off on you. Here we are; this is the right bay." Ia nodded at the large, thick, half-silvered plexgla.s.s window next to the airlock doors. The view allowed them to see the usual suspects in a maintenance hangar, ma.s.ses of robotic equipment, engineering mechsuits, testing equipment, and the impression of a pair of oversized courier s.h.i.+ps mating back-to-back, one resting upside down over the other.

Bennie peered through the window. "So that's what a VX looks like? But...wouldn't it be rather awkward to be upside down that close to a second set of gravity plating?"

"The upper half isn't actually upside down, on the inside," Ia said. She tapped the window, tracing on it with her finger to separate each section as she explained. "When one s.h.i.+p proved to be taking too much of a pounding on its own, but constantly running two s.h.i.+ps that close together in FTL proved too risky, someone got the brilliant idea to invert the sh.e.l.ls to each other, connect them via the fore and aft airlocks on the dorsal sides, and arrange plug-in ports for everything from data streams to lifesupport."

Ia inverted one hand over the back of the other, echoing the look of the two b.u.t.terfly-like sections, then parted them as she continued, swerving her hands in imitation of combat.

"They can separate in combat to have twice the maneuverability and a little extra firepower, and if one gets damaged, the other can swoop in and pick it back up. The ventral airlocks are in the same place as the dorsal ones, so they can be matched up the other way around if need be, in case one or both sets of dorsal connections are damaged too much to connect. All in all, it's a good design," Ia praised. She outlined the swept-back, triangular wings, tracing them on the window. "Both halves are fully functional as tri-state s.h.i.+ps, too. They can fly in an atmosphere, maneuver with insystem thrusters, and each half can spark a hyperrift for OTL between star systems."

A wistful smile curved up the corner of her mouth. Bennie caught sight of it and arched a brow. "You really like these s.h.i.+ps?"

"My brothers hung up models of them, or rather of s.h.i.+ps like them, growing up. This newer model came out about...five years ago?" She shrugged, dismissing the exact date as irrelevant. Pulling back from the window, Ia studied the signboard next to the airlock door.

The signboard read, "TUPSF Audie-Murphy," followed by the jumble of letters and numbers that were its registry code, the name of its commanding officer and Navy organization numbers, the timestamp for when it had docked, the timestamp for when it was due to depart, and a scrolling checklist of redlit, yellowlit, and greenlit repairs in various stages of high priority, low priority, and completed status respectively.

"Of course, I never dreamed I'd wind up on one of these s.h.i.+ps myself, as a little girl." Resting the weight suit case on its wheels, she dug into her kitbag and fished out her Dress Blues jacket and cap. Shrugging into the former and donning the latter, she checked the faint image of her reflection in the docking bay window, b.u.t.toning and adjusting her uniform. When she was done, she faced her friend. "How do I look?"

"Officer-ish," Bennie promised. "Wait a moment. One of your piloting pins is crooked." Stepping close, the redhead adjusted one of the pins on Ia's shoulder boards, three pairs of wings forming a triangle shape around the part.i.tioned letters O/F.

The pin identified her as having been certified for atmospheric, orbital, and insystem maneuvers, plus capable of manning the helm for both other-than-light and faster-than-light interstellar travel. If it had been just the one set of wings, she would have been planet-bound, or just the three, restricted to sub-light speeds. With either an O or an F alone, it would have meant she was qualified to use one or the other, but with the slash, it meant she had pa.s.sed the exams for both. Doing so had meant spending eight and ten hours a day in flight simulators for weeks on end, on top of additional hours of theory and instruction in cla.s.s each day, but she had pa.s.sed with ratings high enough in OTL for this a.s.signment, and sufficient enough in FTL for future s.h.i.+p a.s.signments.

"There. I kind of feel like a proud mother, sending her little girl off to her first day of school. Except you're not my little girl, and you're fully capable of tearing a K'katta limb from limb," Bennie quipped drolly.

Ia groaned and rolled her eyes. "Not you, too? For the record-yet again-I did not actually rip off that K'katta's leg and beat him to death with it!"

The airlock door cycled open just as she got to the "rip off" part of her complaint. From the wide-eyed looks of the petty officer and her three coverall-clad teammates, none of them had heard the "did not" disclaimer. A quick probe of the timestreams convinced Ia it wasn't worth pursuing a correction in their minds.

Still, the petty officer was made of stern stuff. Lifting her chin, the shorter woman stepped up to Ia and saluted her, a requirement since Ia was wearing her cap. Belatedly, the three maintenance crewmeioas saluted as well. "Lieutenant, Commander. Chief Petty Officer Browne, Bay 16 Security. Is there something I can do for you, sirs?"

Ia returned the salute. "I'm Lieutenant Second Grade Ia. I'm here with orders to board the TUPSF Audie-Murphy under Commander Salish."

"Ah, aye, sir. Welcome aboard the Mad Jack, Lieutenant," the petty officer added, smiling. "We were told to expect you. The Delta-VXs jump around from bay to bay, depending on which bay is open, but the moment the Audie-Murphy came in early, they routed your clearance for this bay, today."

"Thank you. Is the Commander here?" Ia asked her.

"One moment, sir, I'll check," Browne promised.

Since she had a few moments, Ia turned to face Bennie. She held out her hand to the chaplain, but the older woman didn't bother with it. Instead, Bennie embraced Ia and pressed a kiss to her cheek. The move didn't quite twinge Ia's psychic sensitivities awake, but then the chaplain kept her touches brief.

Pulling back, the older woman gripped Ia's blue-sleeved arms lightly. "Since your mothers can't be here, let me give you a blessing in their stead. Or rather, a blessing and a nag. May the Universe protect you and keep you in the warmth of the Light, no matter how deep into the shadows your paths may take you...and if you come home with more of your own blood on you than the enemies', I am never going to let you live it down. You have a Marine Corps nickname to live up to, sailor."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ia agreed. "I won't disappoint you, sir. I promise."

"Just make sure it's not gratuitous amounts of enemy blood," the chaplain warned her, waggling a finger at the younger woman.

"I'll try my best to spill only whatever blood is absolutely necessary, and not one drop more," Ia promised, mock-solemn. Sincere, but mock-solemn.

Bennie rolled her eyes, gave her one last hug, and stepped back. "Just make sure you come back sane and whole, okay? I'll be worrying about you."

"I'll try not to give you anything to worry about, Commander." Saluting, Ia held the pose until Bennie returned it. Grabbing the handle of her weight suit case, she turned back to the petty officer, who stood ready at the airlock door.

"Ident scan, sir?" Chief Petty Browne asked, nodding at the reader by the door controls. "All hangar bays are restricted areas, sir."

Nodding, she held her arm under the projection for a moment. The lights turned green, and the petty officer nodded, unlocking the airlock with her own pa.s.scode. Ia followed her through the double doors, hauling her belongings in her wake.

"Once you've been logged into your new duty post, sir, you'll be able to enter and leave at your discretion," Browne told her as the airlock pressurized. "We do run repeated security checks on everyone posted to the Blockade at multiple checkpoints, but it's still possible for smugglers and terrorists to infiltrate personnel into the Service. Speaking of which, once you're logged in as your s.h.i.+p's cadre, you'll need to scan your hand in order to open the airlock from the inside. It's required from all personnel for going either way, unless you're accompanied by security personnel like myself."

Ia waited for the petty officer to cycle them through, then stepped into the large but crowded bay. Here lay the smell of sparks, the ozone she had been missing elsewhere on the Battle Platform, mainly from the use of arc welders. Safety stripes marked a path through the pallets of damaged and pristine components, the stacks of ceristeel hull segments, the crates of delicate instrumentation wrapped in recyclable plexi, items meant to be installed deep within the thick layers of the s.h.i.+p's carefully fitted hull.

Commander Salish was waiting for them at the gantry attached to the lower airlock. She had rolled up the sleeves of her blue dress s.h.i.+rt at some point. She also wore only the bare minimum of pins at her collar points, s.h.i.+rt pocket, and shoulder boards, but she did have her Dress cap perched on her thick, dark hair. One of her cheeks gleamed with the blue sheen of regeneration goo over a pinkish scar, giving her mouth a twisted, sardonic look. But she did smile, and returned the salute Ia gave her.

"Lieutenant Second Grade Ia, reporting as ordered, sir. Here is my transfer chip with the orders on it," Ia added, handing over the small disc. "I request permission to come aboard, sir."

Salish nodded, opened her arm unit, and slapped the disc inside for an immediate review. "Good, good. Everything's in order. Permission granted, and welcome aboard, Lieutenant Ia. We'll be in dock for two days, but there's still plenty for you to do, as they've just started repairs. Lieutenant Piezzan is still in the process of removing his personal effects. For now, you can stow your...wait, what's in that case, Lieutenant?"

"My weight suit, sir. I'm a heavyworlder," Ia explained, glancing in the direction Salish pointed.

"I know you're a heavyworlder. Master Chief!" Salish called out. One of the noncoms chatting nearby with some of the workers broke off and headed their way. "You'll be on the Audie, which is top-deck. You can set the gym closet to whatever gravity setting you like, provided it doesn't imbalance the s.h.i.+p or stress the hull. Just don't do it while anyone else is in there. Master Chief Rutgers, please issue a storage ticket for this weight suit to Lieutenant Ia. She won't be needing it-do you need anything else out of the case, Lieutenant?"

"No, sir," Ia said. "Just the things in my kitbag."

Salish nodded. "Good. Take the weight suit case, Master Chief. We run a tight s.h.i.+p, Lieutenant. Excess weight is reserved for more important things, not for useless clutter. This way."

Pausing just long enough to accept the receipt chip from the petty officer, Ia shrugged her bulky kitbag higher on her shoulder and hurried after her commanding officer.

The exterior of the s.h.i.+p was the same silvery hemat.i.te grey of any ceristeel hull. Most of it near the airlock was polished enough that she could see a shadowy reflection of everything in the curves of the composite material. Some sections were pitted and scorched, others crumpled, mainly along the leading edge of the V-swept wings below the boarding gantry. Technicians were removing the damaged pieces with the help of servo-bots and construction cranes. The majority moved with the practiced, swift pace of long experience with such maneuvers.

"As you can see, we take a lot of damage. Our hull plates are extra thick for extra heat dispersion and impact resistance. If they're not too deeply scored, they'll be taken elsewhere, ground down to a polished s.h.i.+ne, and used on other s.h.i.+ps," Salish pointed out with one hand while placing her other palm on the scanner of the door lock. "A lot of the OTL supply couriers follow a similar hull configuration, so they're able to adapt most of the panels easily. Of course, on this run, we lost a bit more than hull components. The starboard bow wing tanks on both the Murphy and the Audie took a beating, along with some of our thruster panels. We're actually in port a couple days early because of it, but it's an easy enough set of repairs.

"As soon as they extract the twisted bits, they'll take up the wing panels that are good enough for an inspection, yank out and replace the tank, and rewire new parts into place. Plus the food stores and the reoxygenators will be replenished, the recyclers and waste compartments emptied, the lifesupport filters replaced-we don't usually scrub them ourselves; we rarely have the time-various missiles and scanner probes will be reloaded, and the hydrotanks topped up. Oh, your file said you come with your own mechsuit. Halfmech, right?" Commander Salish asked her, leading her into the s.h.i.+p. "Marine Corps?"

"Yes, sir," Ia confirmed. "It arrived intact five days ahead of me. I ran the a.s.sembly diagnostic yesterday, packed it back up, then signed it off to be brought into the Audie-Murphy's docking bay. It should be out there."

"Good. Leave the packing case here on the Mad Jack, but suit up and march it on board. You'll be our designated boarding officer. I'm counting on you to be able to handle that, Lieutenant," Salish added, giving Ia a pointed look. "We won't have time to coddle you through combat."

"I have been a boarding officer before, Commander, searching s.h.i.+ps for contraband and engaging in combat with smugglers and pirates," Ia told Salish, following the older woman to an airlock-style lift. "Including nine separate engagements against the Salik, sir."

"So your file says, but not quite like this, Lieutenant. We run into the Salik every d.a.m.ned week." Salish gestured at the s.h.i.+p around them. "The two s.h.i.+ps forming the Audie-Murphy are identical in facilities, but are mirrored to each other vertically. It starts with what we call the Numbers up in the Audie, which will be your half, with Deck 1. Deck 1 corresponds to the bottommost deck of the Murphy, Deck C. The Murphy runs the Letters."

"Deck 2 would then correspond with Deck B, and Deck 3 with A, correct, sir?" Ia asked.

"Correct," Salish agreed, programming the controls. "Please note that accessing various rooms requires sticking your fingers in various openings. Do also note, Lieutenant, that it is inappropriate to make jokes or innuendos about such things...but that sometimes, for crew morale, I sometimes ignore certain quips."

They were, Ia noted, located in recessed little holes, and required a downward curl of the finger to activate. This, she knew, was the equivalent of Salik b.u.t.tons which had to be lifted away from their panels by the aliens' suckered pseudo-fingers. Salik had no bones in their lower arms; the manual pressure required to insert a tentacle-tip and press down would not be easy for them to manage.

Salish headed out of the lift without looking back, trusting Ia to follow her. "Decks 2-B contain Lifesupport, the bridge, Engineering, that sort of thing. The other four decks have living quarters, gunnery pods, and so forth. Decks 1-C, being the two broadest sections, have the most room, so they have the most living quarters, the gym closets-you can really only fit maybe four people inside at most, hence the nickname-and of course the common rooms. I do not restrict access to either s.h.i.+p, but for the sake of ensuring each s.h.i.+p is properly crewed in the event of an emergency, I prefer the two sides to keep to their own vessel, or at least keep things even.

"In particular, if you have a need to come to the Murphy side for anything that will take longer than five minutes, you will arrange to swap s.h.i.+ps with me," Salish stated briskly. "Otherwise, it's not a good idea."

"That makes sense, sir," Ia said. "Does each crewmate also have a corresponding swap partner?"

"Yes. Your quarters will be in front of the bridge, once Lieutenant Piezzan clears them out. I do encourage hobbies, but they have to be something that's quick and easy to pack away. His is painting watercolors, and he has a lot of them pinned to the walls with magnets. Do you have any hobbies, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir. I make beads." At the quirk of Salish's brow, Ia elaborated a little. "I make them from a special material crafted on my homeworld. I receive s.h.i.+pments of them, boxes at a time, from my family, tint and reshape them in my spare time, and s.h.i.+p them back home. It's a way to keep in touch with my people, and a way to contribute to the family income."

"Considering the s.h.i.+pping costs, these beads must be astronomically priced," Salish murmured, unlocking the bridge with a wriggle of her fingertips. "I read that your homeworld is on the backside of Terran s.p.a.ce."

"It is, sir. But they're special beads. There's a bit of a...religious offshoot, I suppose you could say, back home. It's a harmless religion, but the beads are considered holy symbols," Ia hedged, lying smoothly. "That they're made by my hands, a soldier serving in the military so far from home, makes them all the more special to my people. So I agreed to do it, the last time I was home. Do you have any objections, sir? I do follow the Lock and Web Law very closely while I'm working with them."

Salish settled herself into the command chair of the bridge. She transferred the datachip to the workstation and tapped in a few commands while she gave Ia's question some thought. "No, I don't think I'll have any problems with that. Provided of course that I see the beads in question, as I am responsible for anything that gets brought on board this s.h.i.+p. And provided that you do make d.a.m.n sure you obey the Lock and Web Law at all times, even while we're at dock."

"Aye, sir. I'd be happy to show you the beads as soon as I have the chance...but I do ask that you respect their sanct.i.ty as holy symbols, sir, and not mess with them," Ia bartered. "Other than that, I always follow the Lock and Web, sir. You don't serve for a year and a half in s.p.a.ce without seeing the reason why at least once."

"Good meioa," Salish murmured, praising Ia. "Okay, I'm ready for your biometric scan."

Ia obligingly leaned forward, placing first her left hand on the scanner pad, then her right.