Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (27 page)

“I gave you all a promise when I first took on this crew,” Ia stated, meeting a pair of eyes here, a curious gaze there. “I swore that when I had the time for it, I would let you know in advance not just what we will be doing, but
why
we will be doing it. You are all about to be aural witnesses to the worst call I will have to make in the entire span of my career. Out of
respect
for the sacrifice which is about to be made . . . you will be silent, and hold all comments, questions, and noises until after this call is finished, and I have explained that very important
why
to you.”

Seating herself, she tapped the controls on her arm unit and hooked her headset over her ear. The ship’s fully repaired hyperrelay hub came to life under her remote-linked command, reaching out through hundreds of light-years of distance. She tapped into the boardroom’s commsystem, letting the 160 members of her crew listen in as the ping signal bounced and waited, bounced and waited.

It took a full minute to receive a reply. Ia held up her hand for patience as her crew started to move restlessly. A male voice finally answered.
“Var shou-desth, oua v
’T’tun S’Naith Qi-el
, harba voudas?”

“—Give me that!”
a female voice asserted.
“This is the Imperial Warship
T’tun S’Naith Qi-el
, and the Terran Merchant Reserve
Bee’s Knees
. We are under a Quarantine Extreme lockdown. Who is calling us, and what is your position?”

“This is General Ia, head of the combined Alliance Armies. Leftenant Na’Shouen will know of me as the Sh’nai Prophet of a Thousand Years. I am transmitting a text-based translation in High Imperial for the leftenant to read on a subchannel, since I know he doesn’t speak Terranglo.”

“Considering we found him in a stasis pod that was last sealed over two hundred years ago, yeah,”
the woman retorted. There was about four seconds of lag between them.
“No
shakk
, he doesn’t speak Terranglo. He’s lucky I speak V’Dan—if you’re really the Prophet, do you know what the slag has infected this crew? Can it be stopped? Is there a cure? Everyone just . . . They slowed down, they lost motivation . . . they just . . . stopped. Stopped breathing. Their hearts stopped beating. They’re all
dead
.

“Na’Shouen says it’s from some old Salik research base his ship found and destroyed, some sort of plague that had wiped out all the researchers. He originally aimed his ship at the nearest sun to destroy it, too, but it went off course after he put himself in the stasis pod, not wanting to watch his own death. He . . . He and I both had high fevers for a few days, but that was weeks ago, and we’ve been limping to the nearest star system, hoping for either a cure or . . . well, it’s the nearest star.
Is
there a cure? There
is
one, right?”

Ia clenched her fingers into fists.
“Second Rank Merchanter Altheen Donsett,”
she stated, keeping her voice steady.
“Your ship, the
Bee’s Knees
, is a duly registered Merchant Reserve Vessel. As the head of the Terran Space Fleet—head of the entire combined Alliance military forces—I am commanding you, the surviving ranking crew member, to comply with the following wartime orders. Do you understand that you are being called to active wartime service, and that you are by license required to obey my commands?”

“I . . . don’t like the sound of that. But . . . lay it out, General. I’m listening.”

“No, you won’t like it. Your orders, Second Rank Merchanter, are to adjust the
T’tun
’s heading by fifteen degrees starboard, maintain that course, and wait. You are
not
permitted to complete Leftenant Na’Shouen’s mission to destroy the
T’tun
and the attached
Bee’s Knees
in the nearest star. Do you understand?”

“No, but . . . why? This thing isn’t in the medical database! We can’t control it if we don’t even know what it is. If . . . if you’re trying to tell us there’s a cure, then
say
so, for starssake!”

“Your orders, Merchanter, are to maintain the prescribed heading. You will spend the next five hours destroying all evidence of any medical emergency, particularly any and all databanks containing recordings of what happened on both ships. And you will await capture by Salik forces, which will take place in seven hours. You will
not
destroy your ships. You will
not
evade pursuit.”

“—Capture?”

“Soudeg s’veth?”

Ia pressed on.
“You will also
not
kill yourselves before the Salik have synced airlocks and boarded the
T’tun
. However . . . at that point, I suggest cyanide caps. It will be a far better death than if you allow them to take you prisoner . . . but you will
not do so
until you are one hundred percent sure that the Salik have been exposed to this plague, and that they will have no way of discerning that there
is
a plague on board. Do you understand?”

She waited for a reply. A dozen seconds ticked away.

“Merchanter Donsett, you have been given wartime orders by a duly appointed member of the Terran Space Force Command Staff, and a duly appointed Grand General of the V’Dan Imperial Fleet.
Do
you understand what you are required to do?”

“Viidat cal-shoull ve’edeth, ni v’calsa ouen tu’t-uul pleston gaisha v’deth!”
The demand came from the V’Dan.

“Mii-stuul khanva Ki’en-qua V’Daania, n’au bistek: hetra-hetra gaina shouda vesta veshtok hetra,”
Ia replied, giving the name of the current Emperor,
and
an authorization code from the distant past.

“Va desz . . . ?”

She nodded, even though it was an audio-only link.
“The Emperor knows, and fully authorizes this sacrifice. You will
ensure
the Salik are exposed. If you do not, then your failure to follow orders will guarantee the destruction of the V’Dan and the Terrans alike.
Do you understand your orders?
These are not negotiable. I expect you to comply.”

Several seconds passed. Ia waited patiently while her crew sat and stared at her with a mixture of grimness and curiosity.

“. . . Yes. We’ll do it,”
the woman finally replied.
“We’re as good as dead anyway, so . . . might as well take out some of the enemy, right?”

“Meioa, you will be taking out
all
of the enemy with your sacrifice,”
Ia told her.
“Within two months, there will be no Salik left anywhere . . . and no one will ever have to cower in fear of being eaten by them. I’m sorry that such a victory comes at the cost of your lives . . . but I am not sorry for all the billions you will be saving.”

“That’s a cold comfort at best,”
the woman on the other end muttered after the lag-time seconds had passed.
“But . . . not like we can trust the aging meds on the
T’tun
to keep either of us alive, and my own supply is being used up at twice the rate . . . So . . . uh . . . cyanide caps? Um . . . I’m not sure where those are located.”

“Captain’s office, left side of the desk, second drawer down. Red box, yellow lettering, Emergency Use Only,”
Ia instructed her.
“Pile all the bodies from your crew into one of the
T’tun
’s shuttles and launch it at the star. There’s a system for remote piloting; the leftenant knows how to operate it. You don’t want any evidence left on board for the Salik to grow alarmed. We need them to take this plague straight back to their homeworld, and if you launch that shuttle first, as fast as you can, it’ll be too close to the star to stop and investigate by the time the enemy catches you.”

“If the Salik take this plague with them, it’ll spread. Na’Shouen says it’s a self-replicating airborne pathogen of some kind. It could be spread from world to world within a matter of hours, once it hits any kind of major atmosphere.”

“That will be
my
concern to deal with, Merchanter. You just make sure it gets into the enemy’s airspace. I am sorry . . . and I thank you for your sacrifice.”

“Plessada vu she’naivu kester zhkoukel, Ia’ n’kai!”

“No, Leftenant, I wasn’t about to stop this from happening. Your ship going off course has handed the galaxy the simplest way to get rid of an ongoing problem—as it says in the Book of Autumn, ‘In the waning days of the second war of the stars, the Prophet will look upon the Enemy and know only pity, for they shall gorge upon the flesh of Death itself, an ancient death created by their own will. So shall the Enemy slay themselves to the last soul in their rapacious, unceasing hunger.’ Those days are now upon us. I am sorry that anyone has to die—even them—but it needs to be done. I thank you both for your sacrifice . . . and yes, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but you have my gratitude anyway.”

“Yeah, well, you can take your gratitude and shove it face-first in a Salik’s mouth!”

“If I were free to do this myself, I would, without restraint or hesitation,”
Ia told her.

“Yeah, right. Donsett out!”

Tapping a command on her arm unit, Ia ended her side of the link. She sat there for a few seconds more, then rose and stood in modified Parade Rest, feet together and hands clasped behind her back. Ia breathed deep to steady her nerves, then began her explanation. “What you have just heard is the opening shot in the destruction of the Salik as a species. Unfortunately, the casualties on our own side will include far more than Second Rank Merchanter Donsett and Leftenant Na’Shouen.

“This ‘plague’ is indeed airborne-based. It is a self-replicating prionic catalyst that invades biochemical systems with electrically activated neurons—basically all forms of sentient life, including the Chinsoiy, though it propagates very slowly in their species compared to our own. It is drawn to a range of electricity found within most forms of neurological networks of brain stem size or greater, which gives it the ‘jolt’ needed to replicate itself . . . and it will slay anything it infects within five weeks or less. Its own means of destruction is solely by heating the molecules to temperatures in excess of 1,000C for twenty minutes, 2,000C for five minutes . . . and yes, we will be using the Godstrike cannon upon all infected ships, as well as every hydrobomb we carry.

“This is a very deadly disease, and I am deliberately unleashing it on the Salik. There
will
be Alliance casualties,” she repeated firmly, giving her officers a grim look as well as the noncoms and enlisted across from her. “We will have to fire upon our own vessels, both military and civilian. We may even have to destroy a colonyworld or two—luck willing, we won’t
have
to, but that threat is very real. The lives we will
save
, however, will outweigh the lives lost in ratios exceeding ten million to one . . . and that is not hyperbole, meioas.

“It is vital that we contain this plague strictly to Salik worlds alone. It would take the Chinsoiy twenty-five months to develop a binding counteragent . . . and they might survive that long, if they ruthlessly close their borders. It will take only five weeks for the Salik—and most other races—to die. Six and a half weeks, technically, for the plague to be spread, and for the remaining Salik forces to be contained on their colonyworlds, infected, and destroyed.” She let that grim statement hang in the air a few moments, then added, “But it will guarantee that seven weeks from now, we will never have to deal with them again. No one will be eaten, no colony will be invaded, and there will be nothing left for us to do but burn their worlds to slag.

“This course of action is
not
open to negotiation,” Ia asserted. “I will not destroy the septillions of lives that will otherwise be saved by trying to salvage a foe that refuses to change their uncivilized ways. They have been given the best warning I could give them, without fear of them trying to find and turn this plague upon us. With that in mind, you will
not
discuss the nature of this plague anywhere other than this boardroom, in this hour . . . and you will not resist my orders when I command this crew to open fire if and when one of our ships—or even a colonyworld—has been infected with the catalyst.

“I will have enough trouble getting the other ships in the Alliance to open fire as it is,” she added grimly. “This hour is given to you to ask questions, and to give you an opportunity to see for yourself the differences this course of action will make in the timelines between the Salik dying as a race, and the Salik being allowed to continue to plague and plunder the other sentient races . . . and this time, Private Theam,” she added to one of the women sitting in the second row, the one who had asked a few years back if there was a way for Ia to show everyone at once what she could foresee, “I have developed a way that can connect these timestream visions to the ship’s monitors without the risk of destroying anything.

“However, it’ll still be racing past at compressed time, so what you’ll be seeing is a slowed-down recording of what will be viewed, which is not the same as a real-time, interactive experience. If any of you wish to see the
why
of Merchanter Donsett’s and Leftenant Na’Shouen’s sacrifices . . . now is the time to line up, or to wait patiently for a transcribed recording. Otherwise, you are under standing orders to stay silent outside of this hour in this room on all particulars of this discussion, until such time as you are given direct permission by me to speak of it.”

Theam raised her hand as the others stirred, murmuring among themselves. Ia pointed at her. She stood and spoke, and the others fell quiet again. “Does the Admiral-General know about this plague and course of action, sir?”

“Yes, she does. Admiral-General Christine Myang has known for several months. She does not know exactly what the plague is, but she does know that the Salik are about to be destroyed.”

Absorbing that, Theam hesitated, looking around at the others. She gauged their expressions, then squared her shoulders and faced Ia again. “. . . I guess I can speak for most of the crew when I say that we’ll follow your orders, sir. We’ve seen too much not to keep putting our trust and faith in you.”