Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty (16 page)

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Authors: Jean Johnson

BOOK: Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty
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Her only recourse was to tell the truth. At least a small, palatable part of it. Meeting his glare steadily, Ia gave him the portion of the truth he could handle. “Sergeant, this recruit is from Sanctuary. That’s why this recruit did not fall down like the others, Sergeant.”
“Explain yourself,” he ordered. The wind, a soft breeze until now, gusted a bit, tugging at the brims of their hats. She could smell the faint sting of ozone, like a taste of home. Reminded of what she had given up, Ia did her best to explain.
“Sergeant, Sanctuary has a core comprised of both molten iron and gold. This combination not only creates a magnetosphere capable of shielding its surface from the usual dangers of cosmic radiation, it also creates an
electrosphere
. An inherent electrical field,” she told both sergeants. “The planet Earth, Motherworld of the Human species, averages about one thousand lightning strikes per second across its entire surface. Including that storm in the distance. Sanctuary averages twelve
million
per second, Sergeant.”
The buck sergeant spoke up, her freckled brow furrowed in confusion. “How does
that
keep you from falling down under stunner fire?”
“Sergeant, by the second generation of colonization, after being constantly exposed to the prevalent static charges of the daily lightning storms, a few of us have already developed a certain resistance to strong electrical shocks. Some more than others, obviously,” Ia added dryly. “This recruit is fairly certain that is the reason why the stunner field didn’t work, Sergeant. At least, there is no other reasonable explanation which this Recruit could offer, Sergeant.”
The real truth was, the only two who
had
developed that level of resistance already were herself and her older half brother, Thorne. The others back home wouldn’t develop it for another two or three generations at the earliest.
Why
she couldn’t be shocked was a secret she herself had only discovered by carefully tracing the timestreams into the past. But being honest about the fact that only she and her elder brother were fully resistant would only open up a host of extremely dangerous questions right now. So Ia kept her mouth shut on that part.
“Shova v’shakk,”
Tae growled, glaring at her. “I haven’t heard
any
such thing.”
“Sergeant, this recruit is not surprised you haven’t heard anything, Sergeant,” Ia allowed. “Stunners have been banned from Sanctuary since our colonists first explored it more half than a century ago, Sergeant.”
“Why would it be banned?” the buck sergeant asked, tugging her hat a little lower against the gusting breeze. “Stunner weaponry is standard equipment on all survey missions, in case the surveyors encounter a potentially sentient life-form.”
“Sergeant, because of Sanctuary’s natural electrosphere, any stunner weapon fired on Sanctuary will automatically malfunction,” Ia explained patiently. “Seven out of ten times, Sergeant, that ‘malfunction’ manifests as static lightning striking whoever or whatever is holding the stunner gun. Two out of ten times, it will strike the target, and the remaining one in ten times, lightning will strike either both parties, or somewhere in between. The lethality of these malfunctions has caused the weapon to be permanently banned from use on the surface of this recruit’s homeworld.
“Additionally, testing in the early days of colonization showed that the natural prevalence of the static field can even trigger an
indoor
lightning attack, so stunner weaponry isn’t used inside buildings. It isn’t allowed to be used
beneath
the surface of the planet, either, because that same electrosphere goes straight down to the planet’s core,” she added. The third person referencing was wearisome, but she knew she had to wade through it, or risk unnecessary demerits. “While this recruit has never before been shot by a stunner weapon, this recruit did know about the results of those early difficulties, as they were included in the standard Sanctuarian colonial history curriculum. From there, it was easy enough to extrapolate the most probable cause as to why this recruit did not fall down, Sergeant.”
He stared at her. Finally, his thumb moved, snapping off the power supply to the rifle in his arms. Pulling out the e-clip, Tae handed both pieces back to his assistant. “What am I going to do with you, Recruit?”
“Sergeant?” Ia asked, not sure what he meant. She stayed where she was as he approached, unable to retreat thanks to the fallen, slumbering bodies of her fellow recruits. The tall bulk of Mendez had landed across her feet, pinning her partly in place, though she could have picked her way free had she really tried. But she didn’t move.
He rested his fists on his hips, studying her. “You are
good
. In fact, you act like you’ve
been
a soldier before. I don’t trust that.”
“Sergeant . . . permission to speak both freely and directly, Sergeant?” Ia asked, mindful of the passing of time. In the distance, the thunderheads swelling along the horizon were starting to darken ominously along their bases.
“Granted.”
She lifted her chin a little and spread her hands, shrugging. “I have found the place I need to be, Sergeant Tae. I’m just doing my best to fit in. If that makes me a good soldier even this early in my training, then it only supports my theory that I do indeed belong here. To try anything less than my best would be an insult to the Space Force, to the Marine Corps, and to my own sense of duty and proper effort.”
He studied her a moment longer, glanced at the buck sergeant, then sighed roughly. “You do realize I’ll now have to go
three
times as hard on you with
that
little confession, just to break you down and build you up the right way?”
“That’s your job, Sergeant,” Ia acknowledged. “I won’t hold it against you.”
His mouth tightened. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but a couple of the fallen recruits were beginning to stir. Glancing at the buck sergeant, Tae sighed again. “Well. Looks like I’ll have to haul out the hovercams for the days ahead.”
Not sure what he meant, Ia dipped quickly into the timestreams. Not strongly enough to lose her sense of the world around her, but enough to learn he meant using a hovercamera to record everything he would make her do, to make sure there were no infractions of just what he
could
do to her, and what he couldn’t, or shouldn’t.
Mendez roused, shifting off her feet with a grumbling moan. He rubbed at his head, then squinted at the other bodies, more of whom were stirring. Twisting his body, he peered up at Ia. “What . . . what happened?”
Ia glanced at Tae briefly before answering under her breath. “Sergeant Tae, in his infinite wisdom, decided to stun all of us.”
“He what?” Mendez accepted the hand she offered him, helping him to his feet. Others were rousing as well, most of them grumbling or groaning as they regained their senses. “He stunned all of us? That’s why we all fell down?”
She didn’t bother to correct the impression that she had fallen down, too. It wouldn’t do to give the others—particularly Arstoll—even more reason to resent her.
After everyone had roused, while they were still milling around, trying to make sense of what had just happened, Tae spoke. His words cut through their mutterings, some of it increasingly angry for having been attacked without warning. “Back into your places, Recruits!”
His snapped command made them shuffle back into position, with the two front rows sitting, the next two kneeling, and the last standing. All of them did so quietly except for Kaimong, who continued to curse under his breath.
“Recruit Kaimong!” Sgt. Tae snapped. “Twenty sit-ups for attitude! Recruit Johnston, sit on his feet.”
Glaring, Kaimong rocked onto his back while his squad mate shifted over, weighting down his feet for the sit-ups. As soon as he was done counting out his demerits in grunts, Tae continued.
“Some of you may be wondering why I stunned you. That’s because
most
of you don’t take stunner technology seriously. It may not be a
directly
lethal weapon, but if the enemy knocks you out, they
can
and
will
use your helpless state of unconsciousness to close in and finish you off. Stunner fire can also prove lethal if it knocks you off the edge of a bridge, a cliff, or a building, or even while driving a vehicle, just to name a few examples,” Tae reminded them. “Stunners are
weapons
, not toys, and you will treat them with all the care, gravity, and safety precautions that fact requires.
“With that in mind, you will move on to learning how to properly and safely handle the 40-MA. You will learn how to load, charge, operate, safely fire, disassemble, clean, and reassemble the Mama stunner rifle. These are the parts of the . . .”
Reality dropped away from her with a jolt. Dumped into the timeplains, Ia blinked and spun around, quickly orienting herself in the sepia-toned world inside her mind. Glancing down, she peered into the waters intersecting like vine-shaped rivulets. Her gifts didn’t activate this abruptly unless there was something she needed to see. Something which would change the course of the future, unless she acted upon it.
There—in Kaimong’s water!
Leaning over his stream, she tried to make sense of what she saw.
He . . . just stepped forward with the rest of E Squad, helping the buck sergeant to pass out the black and white rifles . . . then people fell down a few moments later. But that shouldn’t have worked; the rifles didn’t have e-clips yet. I can’t see from up here . . .
ugh
!
Gritting her teeth, Ia stepped into the water. She let the flow of his future life soak up into her senses until she
was
Wong Ta Kaimong . . . mad and hurt and vengeful.
. . . There—I’ll get that e-clip while the bitch is looking the other way . . . cover it up with this . . . I’ve had enough of this
shak
k—if this is what a “respectable citizen” has to put up with, I’d rather take my chances with organized crime—and I’ll grab that laser rifle along with the projectile one while I’m at it, just in case anyone decides to—
“. . . Recruit Ia!”
Jolted back into awareness, Ia blinked and swayed back from the tilted brim of Sergeant Tae’s hat, which threatened to knock against her own brim, given the upward jut of his chin. “Sergeant, yes, Sergeant?”
“Were you
not
paying attention to me, just now?” he demanded, glaring at her.
A lightning-fast dip into the timestreams—
her
timestream, and nowhere near the same level of immersion she had used in looking into Kaimong’s future—showed that this, too, could be salvaged. “Sergeant, no, Sergeant!”
“You . . . what?” he rasped.
Carefully, she flicked her gaze to her right, where the majority of the other recruits stood, then looked back at him. And even more carefully winked, very briefly, with her left eye. The one farthest away from the others.
Come on, Sergeant,
she coaxed silently, though not through actual telepathy—she didn’t possess that particular gift in any real strength.
Think. You want to be harder on me than the others, but neither of us really want them knowing what you now know . . .
She flicked her gaze to her right again for just a little bit longer, then returned it to him. Comprehension dawned in his dark brown eyes. The merest hint of a smile ghosted across the corner of his lips then flicked down into a scowl. Reaching up, Tae ripped her chevron patch from her shoulder. “I am
demoting
you from boot chevrons, Recruit! And twenty—no,
forty
pushups for failing to pay attention, too! Move to the far end of your squad’s line as soon as you are through. Recruit Mendez,
you
are now the leader of A Squad.”
Mendez accepted the patch, then hesitated and looked at Ia, who had dropped to the floor. Over her steady counting of her demerits, she heard him ask, “Sergeant . . . does this new squad leader have to do the same forty push-ups of Recruit Ia’s demerits, Sergeant?”
It was a fair question; all of the current squad leaders had undergone similar extended punishments.
“No. Not this time. From now on, fancy-pants Recruit Ia rises or falls on her
own
. But you will still have to undergo the same punishments as anyone else in your squad in the future, should they be so foolish as to earn demerit punishments, too. You will learn how to evoke discipline and obedience in your fellow recruits. One way or another. Speaking of which, it’s about time for the
rest
of you squad leaders to have a change in status . . . though
you
don’t have to do any push-ups.”
By the time Ia finished counting firmly to forty, all of the squad leader boot chevrons had been reassigned. The thunderstorm in the distance was drifting closer, too, though it was still many kilometers off. Only the occasional flash of lightning let them know a storm was taking place at all; the clouds were still too far away for the accompanying thunder to be heard.
Righting herself, she rubbed at her sore arms around the bulk of the tile-weighted straps webbing her limbs, then accepted the stunner rifle Kumanei passed her way. It didn’t take her long to walk to the far end of A Squad. Without immersing herself quite so deeply in the timestreams, Ia probed the near future as she walked. She didn’t want to be caught off guard by whatever Kaimong was about to do.

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