Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (30 page)

Faintly, she heard her short message being repeated on the alien’s end of the link, both versions layered together so that her words came across in proper Grey harmonics. The Grey quickly twisted to glance at whoever off-screen had replayed the message, then turned back to her.

Ia spoke before s/he could. “Leave. Take your damaged ships with you. These people do not need to get their hands on Grey technology at this time. Leave.”

“We comply. In this system,” the Grey stated, and ended the link.

For five precious seconds, Ia allowed herself a deep breath and a slump of her shoulders and spine against the padded back of the command seat. A second breath, and she ordered, “Next call, Private.”

“. . . We have ping on the MRV
Bjelik
, General,” Al-Aboudwa told her. “Two-second delay.”

The screen to the left of her primary showed the Grey ships popping out of existence, leaving as promised. The tactical screen to the right showed the navicomp markers for each ship also vanishing. Between them, the holding screen pattern, soothing shades of blue with the TUPSF logo in metallic black, shifted to an image of a bridge with control panels that looked as if they had been repaired more than once by whatever parts the crew could scavenge.

“This is Captain Bran Verse of the
Bjelik
,” the dark-haired, dark-skinned man occupying the center of the screen stated. “We’re in the middle of a salvage op. Who are you, and what do you want?”

“This is General Ia of the Alliance Armies. You have just begun salvaging a recently destroyed Salik courier, despite Alliance-wide orders to cease all such operations. You have two minutes to reprogram all salvage robots to reroute that salvage into a combat bundle and send it
away
from your ship by ten thousand kilometers, or
your
ship as well as that wreckage will be destroyed by the Redhawk Class carrier ship TUPSF
Dai-Lo
.

“The
Dai-Lo
will arrive insystem in twenty minutes. At that time, I will
know
if you have complied and will transmit orders that will either save you or destroy you. The choice as to how long you and your crew will live is entirely up to you, Captain Verse,” Ia told him. “But I
will
enforce Quarantine Extreme, and that cargo is contaminated, which means you are about to be destroyed if you choose greed over safety.

“I suggest you rethink the thoughts running through your head. This is not a negotiation. General Ia out.” She cut the connection and thumbed the ship’s intercom.
“All hands, fifteen minutes to OTL. I repeat, fifteen minutes to other-than-light transit. We will be stringing four jumps in a row, so this is your reminder to have your space-sickness bags on hand.”
Shutting it off, she checked her two secondary screens to make sure all of the Grey vessels had left, and nodded to herself. “Next on the list, Private.”

“High Nestor Zul . . . Zubwuh . . . Zulbwuhvuh?” Al-Aboudwa tried. “She or he is pinging us. Six-second delay.”

Ia nodded. “High Nestor Zlbwvwh, put her through.”

The brownish-skinned alien had hints of purple along her half-scaled skin, but the iridescent gleam of her multifaceted eyes was bright, and the gesture she gave was a common, if abbreviated, Gatsugi-style greeting between allies. She also did not speak Terranglo herself, but relied upon a translation program that printed her words along the bottom of Ia’s primary screen.
“Bright days and warm nights, General of Ia-ness. I give you cheese of admirations.”

“
Please
tell me the translator’s not broke,” Al-Aboudwa muttered from his station, monitoring the call on one of his lower tertiary screens. “It’s working on the outgoing, I
know
it is, but the incoming . . .”

“Relax, Private,” Ia murmured. Speaking up, she addressed the larger alien. “Greetings, Zlbwvwh; I accept your cheeses and offer you half-used coloring sticks,” Ia returned. “May your nestlings always draw you large and dark with wisdom.”

She had to wait a few seconds while the translator worked on the Dlmvlan end of things, as well as for the timing delay, given the vast distance between the two ships. The High Nestor did respond, however.
“Please, for calling this one Zulby is easiest. We have reached the end of prognosticated locations. What our next target is, we seek advice from the soft-skinned, fart-breathing Prophet—may you ever elude the Room.”

“The Room for the Dead will always have an extra space awaiting me,” Ia returned dryly, referencing their culture’s greatest piece of poetry. “But I will not leap into it before it is time. Your particular region’s next job is to take a two-week break, Alliance Standard. More instructions will arrive at the end of that time. On behalf of the whole Alliance, we thank you beyond words for taking care of the Salik hideouts in deep and interstitial space. I trust you have not lost too many ships?”

The alien shrugged, a gesture that was more Human than Gatsugi.
“Losing, lost, won, fought, folding like nesting sheets with wrinkled corners. It is far fewer with our thanks than attempting on our own to have produced. Your elucidations were accurate and awe-summed. Elucidation addendum—this two Alliance weeks for ourselves alone is, or fleetwide?”

“Sorry, High Nestor,” Ia apologized. “It’s only for the fleet under your personal command, with the exception of a few ships still fulfilling last-minute instructions on their way back to base. You will need to load hydrobombs and other high-yield thermal explosives onto every ship during your vacation from mayhem, before beginning it again.”

“This was stated in the elegance of your notes. Query of personal-ness,”
Zulby added, leaning forward a little. It was a slightly aggressive stance from a xenopsychological point of view, but Ia didn’t take offense at the translated words scrolling along the bottom of the screen.
“In such exactitude and elucidity, does anything surprise the Prophet?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Ia admitted, wrinkling her nose. “Even the lowest of probabilities is still a probability. But I bend and reshape like a cloud in the wind. Very little will stop me from scudding along.”

The High Nestor relaxed.
“May your scuddings fruitful and purposed be, like a berry picked and packed for persons.”

Ia smiled briefly, keeping her lips closed so that her teeth wouldn’t offend. “Next time we’re out that way again, we’d be happy to trade far better than a child’s toy for a canister of fart-fruits. Enjoy your two weeks, Zulby. Ia out.”

“Next, sir?” the comm tech asked her.

She nodded. “We need to squeeze in three more on that list before making the run to OTL. Speaking of which, Yeoman Ishiomi, you want the helm?”

“No, sir, but I’ll take it anyway,” he quipped. “Give me a minute to warm up my station and strap my hand in.”

“Take it when ready, Yeoman; we’re not going anywhere just yet. I’m ready for the next call when you are, Al-Aboudwa.”

“Aye, sir. You’ll have a ten-second one-way delay for Grand High General Pwish-Pwish-Pok-Gnath. Can’t be helped, at this distance.”

Nodding, Ia eyed her center screen. One of the bridge doors slid open, admitting Lieutenant Rico. He took a seat at the spare operations station, lifting a hand in greeting to Ia, who returned it briefly. As soon as the Salik came onscreen, she smiled. Smiled, and waited, lips closed, expression blandly pleasant. And waited, quite patient, while his eyes on their stubby stalks rotated and studied her.

Finally, he spoke. “Hhew are cleverr for a Hhhewman, Gennneral Ee Ah. Redussscing usss to Blockade worldsss. Accurate, too. Annnd topmost hhhunter. Innn charge,” he added, curling two of his microtentacles into range of the screen, though the rest of his half-bone, half-boneless arm remained down below the screen’s edge. His broad, froggish mouth curved slightly in a tooth-hidden version of a smile. “We wisssh to dissscusss the termmms of our ssurrender.”

Never losing her smile for a moment, Ia simply replied, “I don’t eat pity-meat.” Not waiting for his reaction, because the round-trip was twenty seconds for the signal to get there and back, plus the seconds it would take for him to register her words, she continued smoothly. “I warned your predecessor, the previous Grand High General—in person, no less—that any attempt to go to war against the Alliance would end in the death of your entire species.

“Tadpoles, crones, teens, and adults, everyone will die. This death is spreading exponentially fast on your homeworld, and has already infected nearly every colonyworld you have.” He reared back, in reaction to her first word, then leaned forward again, slit pupils widening into a hunter’s rage as she continued. “And by the time this conversation is over, even the last one will be plagued . . . and you will truly have only yourselves to blame. Had you stayed home, had you given up your plans of galactic conquest and
lunch
,” Ia scorned, before resuming her polite smile, “then your race would have survived, and Sallha would have continued to be the ever-flowing Fountain of the galaxy.

“So, yes, I do accept your surrender . . . your unconditional, total surrender . . . but I will not eat the pity-meat you offer. Of course, I do realize you are lying when you say you will surrender,” she added lightly, watching his pupils contract to slits as he listened to her words from twenty seconds ago. “You will realize that the Quarantine Extreme is indeed necessary, and you will attempt to launch everything you have in order to infect every world,
any
world . . . but you do not face a mere hunter, Grand High General. You do not even face a hunter-mother. You face the Prophet of a Thousand Years, and
every
scrap of this plague will be destroyed.

“I directed the Dlmvla to the
exact
locations of every single one of your bases hidden deep in interstitial space, in the vast void between stars. No matter how many ships you launch, no matter how many rocks you throw, each and every single one will be tracked down and destroyed. At most, you will take with you roughly 112 million members of the Alliance . . . but I will do my best to deny you even that much. Still, compared to the trillions still out there . . . I’m willing to face what little remaining risk you pose to their lives. Even as it dies, a
gnarp-pwish-tar
—forgive my accent—can still thrash around and knock one or two hunters out of the water . . . but it cannot kill the whole hunting pack. Accept your fate with the grace to acknowledge you have done this entirely to yourselves.

“Now, do you have any final message to give before you do the galaxy one last favor and die?” she offered, still polite, still calm.

Seconds ticked by, as he listened and reacted with growing rage to her words, spread across far too many light-years for even a pinprick-sized hyperrift to conquer quickly. Finally, he replied. “. . . Drink
sssshakk
.”

The link terminated on his end. Rubbing at her forehead, Ia lifted her chin at Al-Aboudwa. “Next call, Private.”

“Are you sure it’s wise to goad him, Ia?” Lieutenant Rico asked her. “He’ll have his people look for the plague, infect everything they can, and launch everything they’ve got.”

“TUPSF
Arkhipov VII
online, sir,” Al-Aboudwa warned her. “Six and a half seconds.”

Ia held off answering Rico. “Commodore Mikhale Baltrush, you are instructed to begin the harvesting of as much purified water as you can across the 1st Cordon, 5th Brigade, 7th Battalion hydrotanker fleet. Pull in every ship with detachable tanks that you have and start parking the filled tanks at the locations my comm tech is sending to you on subchannel alpha, along with the necessary paperwork. These orders take priority over everything. You may hold up to one-third of your nondetachable tankers in reserve for topping off the ships in your jurisdiction, but otherwise you are to instruct the majority of them to fill their own tanks.”

Baltrush nodded, listening to her as the hyperrelay lag caught up to him. “General, yes, sir. I’ll get my meioas on it right away. Though given we’re all supposed to be parked in orbits, watching for stray Salik ships trying to breach the Quarantine, nobody’s supposed to be expending a lot of fuel right now.”

“There will be some fighting in a week or two, but there are a couple of carriers already en route to help you guard those tanks from sabotage,” she told him. “Thank you for your cooperation, Commodore. I know it’ll be a tight schedule to get it all done in time.”

“My pleasure, General. I was told the Quarantine would get rid of the frogtopi,” Baltrush added, tipping his head. “If this helps, I’m all for it.”

“Personally, I’m sorry they have to go away. They created a lot of wonderful things,” Ia told him. “But their whole mind-set as a species won’t change. They won’t stop trying to fight and eat the rest of us . . . and I am not going to put up with another
shakk-torr
Blockade. Anyway, good luck. Ia out.” She glanced over at Rico while Al-Aboudwa worked on calling up the next contact on the list. “To answer your question, Rico, by goading him, he’ll do what I want, when I want.

“Even when he double-checks his actions versus his knowledge that I know what he’ll be doing . . . the Salik will still be doing what I want them to do, which is what I have planned for them to do. So long as everyone else involved follows the checklist logic-trees I made, every single scrap of the plague will be accounted for,” she finished.

“We’re cleared for departure, General,” Yeoman First Class Ishiomi warned her. “Departing
Confucius
Station far orbit . . . now, sir. Transiting to clearspace above the system plane.”

The stars on the viewscreens started shifting as the
Damnation
turned away from the last major mining hub on the back side of Terran space. Al-Aboudwa spoke up. “Still trying to raise the MRV
Mary Jane in the Rain
, sir,” he said. “
Confucius
is pinging us; they want to know if the Greys are coming back once you leave.”

“Tell them yes, but not for several more weeks. They’ll have better protection at that time. You have two more minutes to raise the
Mary Jane
,” she told the comm tech. “If you can’t, then fire off the automated message, and we’ll try again after we’ve strung our four OTL jumps.”