Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (46 page)

He straightened and joined her, eyeing both women in curiosity. “So why are they on the floor?”

“The General was just about to tell me that,” Myang prodded, looking at Ia.

“Because there’s no room on the table. Once this ceremony is over, they will be donated to the Terran United Planets Space Force Museum of Military History on Earth. There are still a few more tough fights against the Greys, and . . . some nasty odds on just how much of my ship will remain intact. Lieutenant Commander Helstead wisely asked if it would be easier to send them back home from here, rather than risk the probabilities that some might be destroyed.” She smiled slightly and lied by using the truth conditionally. “Of course, I’ll be busy striving to get my crew and ship safely through all those fights, but I was shot on a less than three percent chance as a noncom, so I’m not blindfolding myself to the other possible outcomes.”

“But your soldiers
will
come through alive?” Mandella pressed.

“Sir,” she told him, reaching out to touch his arm for a moment, “believe me when I say I have been keeping my Company clerk very busy in the last few days filling out transfer orders and retirement papers for
all
of my crew members in conjunction with the end of the Second Grey War, which will end very soon.
If
everything goes the way it rightfully should. But I am not a Rear Admiral, so no percentage, however low, can be easily dismissed just yet. I don’t want to jinx the end of the war.”

“What can we do to help make sure everything does go right?” the Premiere asked her, lifting his chin.

“All you have to do, sir, is step back, relax, and don’t interfere,” she told him. Ia included Myang in her look. “It’s taken me over twelve years, but I have finally set up everything. We’ll even be able to stop the Greys, very soon. They’ll have expanded their territory, but that is a concession—including the loss of my own homeworld—which I am willing to endure giving up, to soothe their soon-to-be highly bruised egos.”

“You’re going to bruise the
Greys’
egos?” Myang echoed skeptically. “How?”

“Don’t interfere, sir,” Ia repeated. “They’re going to make a terrible mistake. I will step in and fix it, and they will stop fighting out of whatever passes for their version of embarrassment and shame. So just step back, relax, and watch the war end. When it does, my people would very much like to retire into quiet lives, rather than be paraded around as war heroes. Which is one of the reasons why Helstead suggested donating our jackets in our stead here and now rather than suffer from endless rounds of intrusive interviews and pointless parades.”

“Well, I suppose I can’t blame them about getting out of the spotlight,” Mandella muttered. “I’ll be glad when my term is up next year, and I can retire and let my Secondaire take over. So what are you going to do?”

“I’ve been ordered to report to the Admiral-General’s office,” Ia confessed wryly. “And there was something in there about having to teach for a year at some camp or academy. The exact details of my retirement from active combat zones will sort themselves out in due time, I’m sure. In the meantime, I still have a few last alien not-cats to herd . . . and our break is almost over.”

Nodding, the head of the TUP Council strolled off. Myang studied the jackets on the stage floor. She shifted her weight slightly toward them.

“I wouldn’t do it,” Ia warned her. “You mess them up, I’ll make
you
refold them.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Myang did turn away from the coats, though.

“Until the Second Grey War ends, I still technically outrank you in any combat zone, sir. This system still qualifies as a valid combat zone because the Greys will be back here to try attacking one more time in just a few more days.”

That earned her a sharp look, but Myang’s aide approached, clearing his throat. “It’s almost time to begin again, sir.”

“Relax, sit back, and don’t interfere,” Ia repeated under her breath. She touched Myang’s elbow as she had the Premiere’s. “You know how accurate and needful my precognition-backed actions have been. Trust in me to
always
do the right thing, Christine. Short-term or long-term.”

Myang narrowed her eyes at Ia’s use of her given name now of all moments, but it was time to restart the commendations. Sighing roughly, she turned to walk back to her place on the stage. Ia stood up from the table, resumed her place, and settled back into Parade Rest.

—

She had made room on her overcoat for the new alien-bestowed medals. Under the Terran Standard gravity of the
Osceola
, and compared to the standard-and-a-half of her own ship, the weight of her coat was bearable. Crowded but bearable, with the K’Katta sashes—new and old—carefully looped cordon style around each arm, tucked under the shoulder boards, and all the rest pinned in place. It felt almost like armor when she stopped next to Mandella. She tucked her hands behind her back, but out of respect for the end of the long ceremony, did not try composing any prophecies.

Mandella eyed her coat, sighed, and addressed the watching crowd. “One Terran month ago, I sat in a meeting with my Secondaire, twenty fellow Councilors, the Admiral-General, twenty senior officers of the Command Staff, and one dozen noncommissioned and enlisted members of the Department of Innovations, the cornerstone of the strength of the Terran Space Force.

“We had gone through the list of names and associated actions of all the meioas you have just seen and applauded today. We had come to quick agreement on what awards to give to the 160 members of A Company, 9th Cordon Special Forces . . . but debated and even argued for over half an hour on what to award General Ia. Half the camp insisted that this soldier had earned a second Medal of Honor—more than earned it, for her repeated actions of personal effort and bravery have consistently gone above and beyond the call of even extraordinary duty.

“Those efforts have been aided by her abilities, yes . . . but we were all in agreement that she
chose
to act. That this Human turned her hand and her mind and her skill to saving her fellow sentients’ lives. The other half of the special commendations committee,” the Premiere confessed, “did
not
want to give her a Medal of Honor.”

Scowls, puzzled frowns, and dark looks sprang up on the faces of Ia’s crew. They stirred in their seats. She shifted her hand from behind her back in a brief, subtle gesture for them to abide. Her crew members respectfully settled themselves. They weren’t the only ones upset at that thought, but they were the most important ones to soothe. The rest of the audience murmured a bit, then fell quiet when Mandella raised his own hand for silence.

“It’s not what you think. There was no doubt in our mind that she deserved recognition—in fact, from her records of combat, her entire uniform should be covered in medals for taking down individual enemy officers, noncoms, ships, vehicles, and the rescue of so many of our Alliance allies and native civilians, all things which the Department of Innovation decided to award as acts lumped under a single medal per battle, per type, even for battles that were several hours long. So it was not that she did not deserve in their eyes—and mine—a second Medal of Honor. We simply thought that it was not, and never would be, enough.”

Turning to the last box in sight, a white satin one larger than usual, the Premiere picked it up, pulled up the lid, and displayed it to the dignitaries seated behind them in the risers at the back of the stage. Moving to face the front, he allowed one of the hovering cameras to zoom in and display a close-up of the brooch that rested inside, which the cameras dutifully projected onto the screens set high over the stage.

Wrought in platinum and gold, the oval map-projection of the surface of Earth, the Terran motherworld, had been outlined in metal and inlaid with semiprecious stones: lapis for the oceans, tigereye, jade, and more for the continents. Each branch of the laurel wreath, one in pale platinum, the other in rich yellow gold, had been filled in with tiny teardrop-shaped tourmaline, with one quarter of the leaves colored Marines Brown, one quarter in Army Green, one quarter in Navy Blue, and the remaining quarter in an almost pewter-shaded but still clear and cleanly faceted Special Forces Gray.

The whole piece was about ten centimeters in length, six in height, and was mostly flat, save for a gold five-point star that rose up out of the Pacific Ocean toward the left edge of the map. That star marked the capital of the Terran United Planets, Aloha City, located in the tropical splendor of the Hawaiian Islands. Ia swallowed down her emotions, looking at that raised bit of gold; it had not really registered that she would never again return to Earth. Never again to her own birthworld, but not to Earth. Not until just now.

“When it finally occurred to us that we could
create
a medal specifically for honoring all that General Ia has done for us as a fellow Terran Human . . . we stopped arguing and started planning what it would look like. As you can see . . . I think we did a good job. Gentlemeioas,” Mandella stated, turning to face Ia and gently lifting out the brooch, “it is my deepest honor to award to General Ia the one and only Terran Star.”

He lifted it toward her chest, and hesitated. Mandella eyed her medal-covered coat, then lifted his hand and swirled his finger, point down. Obligingly, Ia turned in a circle. Military style, of course, crisp quarter turns learned all the way back in endless drills during her Marines Basic days. When she faced him again, she tucked her hands behind her back in modified Attention once more.

This time, Mandella’s sigh was a bit more exasperated than a breath to brace himself for his speech. “. . . I think we should have stopped giving her medals long ago. No offense, General, but I have no idea where to pin it. Could you please stop being so efficiently heroic?”

“Sorry, sir, but I can’t do that,” Ia countered lightly as a chuckle rippled across the crowd. The pickups caught her words and projected them, same as they had everyone else’s. “It’s not in my nature to be less than efficient. The heroic bit is just me doing my job, sir. However, I can make a suggestion, Meioa Premiere.”

“And that would be . . . ?” he asked.

Her left lapel bore her two Stars of Service from before the start of the wars, and her Medal of Honor. She tapped the untouched right one. It was the side reserved strictly and solely for the Black Heart, the one pin a soldier never wanted to earn, and a superior never wanted to give.

“That’s a little unusual, soldier,” Premiere Mandella reminded her. He eyed her chest, covered as it was with neat row after row, save for the ones most recently applied by the other presenters, and gave in with a shrug. “But, given the crowding of your coat . . . it’ll have to do. Thank God I’m not a superstitious man. This is normally reserved for the Black Heart. As far as I know, you’re not dead, yet.”

“Well, back in 2490 Terran Standard, I was briefly considered to be dead right here in this very system. My Marines Company thought I’d drowned in a flood on Haskin’s World,” she explained, holding still so he could slot the pin through the fabric. Then smiled. “I’m still not dead yet, sir.”

They turned slightly as he clasped her hand, allowing the cameras and the soldiers and handful of civilian contractors sitting in the audience a chance to have a good look.

“Kindly keep doing whatever you can to avoid dying anytime soon, General. That’s an order from your Commander in Chief,” he added under his breath, giving her a pointed look. The pickups didn’t broadcast his subvocalized words, since they were too quietly spoken.

“I will do whatever I must, sir. That’s a promise from the Prophet,” she replied in kind, holding her slight smile. “May I address the hall?”

Releasing her hand, he stepped back, gesturing her toward the clear plexi podium. “Be my guest.”

Nodding, Ia faced the main part of the multilayered hall. Concerts were held in here, lectures, and theatrical performances. It was far more than just a place where the military versions of carrot and stick were applied. It was also, at this moment, her last chance to speak to the Alliance at large. Her first chance to speak was still yet to come, ironically, though it was still a couple days away.

“You have all come to know me as General Ia . . . and I think I can safely say I’m now the single-most-decorated soldier in Terran history. In the other’s too . . . You have also come to know of me as Bloody Mary, the xenocidal militant who insisted on causing weeks’ worth of economic crashes, health panics, transport shutdowns, and many other problems. And you have come to know me as the Prophet of a Thousand Years, seeing for yourself just how temporally accurate I can be.

“A Human only lives about a hundred Terran Standard years on average—around 113 in Alliance Standard. But while the Second Salik War is gone, and technically the Blockade is no longer needed to keep the Salik contained, it will still remain in effect in all Salik Interdicted Zones for the next five years. This is to ensure that the atmosphere-bearing planets and moons which are still contaminated with the plague they created have the time needed to sail into their local suns for a final round of eradication. The Feyori—normally a collective pain in the asteroid—have pledged themselves to ensure that no scrap of it will escape those colonies and their fates.

“A Human only lives about a hundred Terran Standard years,” she repeated. “And for the moment, we are still embroiled in a Second Grey War. They have figured out how to live for thousands of years, but the means by which they have succeeded have several serious flaws, including genetic sterility. They will not be allowed to attempt to use Humans in an effort to revive their dying race. Continue to follow my orders, seek out and train new psis, and together we will continue to keep them at bay.

“I am mostly Human—fully so in my mind and heart—and my longest possible life span would be only a hundred or so years. Yet I know that roughly three hundred from now, the implacable, ancient enemy of the Greys will reach out toward this galaxy with the intent to steal all of its resources, its planets, nebulae, and stars, like a swarm of locusts on Earth stealing all the plant life they can eat. I will not live to see that day—none of the matter-based races have natural life spans that long, not even the Chinsoiy, though they may come the closest at two centuries for their eldest. But if you encourage your children, and your children’s children, to continue following my prophecies, I promise you I will guide the Alliance and its future allies into stopping them. Even after I, too, am long dead and gone.