"Try Cadet Djalu," Ia quipped back, her freed arm treacherously slipping around his waist. "She has better aim than I do."
"Nah, I figure she"ll be somewhere near ground zero when the invasion comes," Meyun dismissed, guiding her down the hall toward the common room at the center of the dorm building.
"Nonsense," Ia scoffed. "She"d be holed up at the secure fortress, up in a guard tower position with a sniper rifle and the paranoid fear that someone with an infected scratch might make it through the gate."
"Which would probably be Cadet Bruer," Meyun joked as they entered the common room.
"Do I hear my name in vain?" the brown-haired cadet asked, looking up from his hand. He and three others were playing some sort of V"Dan card game, based on the triangular cards.
Meyun released Ia"s shoulders. That forced her to release his waist. Hands dropping to his hips, he shrugged lightly. "Oh, we were just figuring who"d be the sap who tried to smuggle an infected scratch in through the fortress gates during the inevitable zombie apocalypse."
"Bruer," three of their cla.s.smates immediately agreed in near-perfect unison.
"Hey!" Bruer protested. "I"ll have you know that I"d be too d.a.m.ned cowardly to even leave the fortress in the first place. No, I"ll be the guy in the back of the bunker, hogging all of the good supplies for myself." He scooped up a handful of snack nuts from the bowl and munched on a few, gesturing at Ia with the rest. "Besides, it"d be our resident s.p.a.cegrunt, here, who"d charge into the zombies, slaughter the ma.s.ses, then come limping back to a hero"s welcome, desperately trying to hide her infected wounds."
Now that Meyun wasn"t touching her, Ia could safely tap into the timestreams. Bruer"s comment gave her an opening, a small shortcut in establishing the reputation she would one day need. Sauntering up to the table, she rested her hands on her hips, subconsciously imitating her roommate. "Now that"s where you"re wrong, Bruer."
He raised his brows at that, munching on a few more nuts. "What, you think you"d be cowering in the back with me? If you"re nice, I might let you have some of the bourbon...but only some of it."
"No, I meant I wouldn"t get scratched," she corrected.
"Pff yeah, right," he scoffed. The other cadets playing the card game with him smirked as well, not believing her.
Picking up the bowl of nuts, Ia smiled at him-and sharply flicked her wrist, tossing the contents straight up, some of them by over a meter. Eyes and hands working in coordination, she guided the falling peanuts, almonds, pecans, and hazelnuts with her left hand, guiding them back into the bowl held in the right. Catching the last nut just before it reached table height, she slid the wooden bowl back onto the card-scattered surface. She had only tossed twenty or so nuts from the nearly empty bowl, an easy catch for her reflexes, if a little difficult for a lightworlder.
"As I said, I wouldn"t get scratched," she murmured, smiling at him and his impressed cla.s.smates. Her smile deepened into a grin. "Mainly because I"d run farther and faster than the rest of you, grab the nearest fighter ship, and bombard the zombies from a nice, safe distance."
"Dibs on being your copilot!" one of the other female cadets quipped from her spot on one of the sofas. The brightly hued opening credits for the Red Is Green show were starting to roll, so Ia didn"t quite look that way, but she lifted her chin in acknowledgment.
Bruer lifted his own chin sagely. "Ahhh, yes, the old "Nuke them from orbit, it"s the only way to be sure" gambit. An oldie, but a goodie...unless you"re one of the saps still stuck out in the open, and not safely tucked away with me in my bunker."
"Tucked away with all the good bourbon, too, you lousy bastich," the cadet to his right muttered. "Just don"t hog all the scotch." He tossed down one of his triangular cards, aligning it with the other cards on the playing mat. "Three of Crystals, to the Red Keeper of the Dawn. Your move, Bruer."
Ia turned away from the card game. Meyun had moved over to the vid consoles and was skimming through the t.i.tles. He beckoned her over. Resigning herself to losing an hour or so of sleep later in order to make up for the loss of prophecy-writing time now, she joined him. It wouldn"t hurt the future too much if she socialized, and maybe even help her cause a little. She just couldn"t afford to make a habit of it, that was all.
CHAPTER 9.
There is no school for prophets. No academy, no course credits, no instructors, no textbooks. Nothing but what our common sense, our ethics, and our best intentions can offer in the way of guidance and direction. Of course, there are scam artists who claim to be prophets, those whose moral compa.s.ses have gone astray, or never existed in the first place. Thankfully the law has a system of retrospective indemnities to penalize those charlatans who try to fake precognitive powers, particularly if they try to use them for garnering fame and fortune. You can usually tell a false prophet by how often they push their supposed "powers" in your face without actually using them, and by how much they promote themselves...and by their eventual failure at prognostication.
For myself, it wasn"t a case of not wanting to be accused of chicanery and con artist games. Anyone who ever questioned my abilities to see clearly into the past and future needed only to spend a single day in my presence to have their doubts erased. Unfortunately, the sheer scope of people who needed to have confidence and faith in my predictive abilities made that an impractical, if not impossible, course of action.
So, instead, I spent my early years in the military building up my reputation as a reliable, knowledgeable, competent soldier, and slipped in the occasional piece of prophecy. Sometimes it was little, temporally localized things. Other times, it was the things that my cla.s.smates and shipmates wouldn"t think much of at first, but which they would remember years later. Only then, when the truth finally became known, would the impact of such simple things be heightened in their minds...because by then, they would already be living proof of my prophetic powers.
~Ia JANUARY 30, 2493 T.S.
TUPSF VASCO DA GAMA.
ACADEMIA DE MARINHA ESTRELAS.
The ship jolted and shuddered around them to the left, rocking with the simulated impact of projectile missiles. Cadet Bruer, seated in the captain"s chair, grunted as the restraint straps bit into his shoulders when his body slammed to the left from inertia. The black projection nodes squeezed them into place in short pulses that dampened some of the kinetic energy jolting through the ship, but couldn"t stop it all. With the ship already damaged from the start of the scenario, they had limited options left. That, of course, was the point of this exercise.
Bruer wasn"t the only one to grunt; even Ia winced at the strength of the blows from the enemy"s cannon fire.
"Engineering reports they have just enough power for either the insystem thrusters or the gunnery pods, but not both, Captain," Cadet Dostoyevska called out from her position at the monitoring station for that department.
"Ah...ah..." Bruer grunted as the ship rocked again. "Options, quick!"
"Hit "em back, Captain!" Ia called out from her position at the communications panel. "Take out their weapons, now!"
"This isn"t the Marine Corps, Cadet! We"re carrying vital intelligence that must arrive safely," Cadet Jinja-Marsuu argued back, quoting the scenario. "With communications knocked out, we have to deliver it in person. Use the engines, Captain!"
"We don"t knock out those guns, we"re dead in twenty seconds!" Ia retorted.
"All engines ahead full!" Bruer commanded. "Head for the ice rings, for cover!"
"Engines ahead, aye, sir!" Dostoyevska repeated, relaying the command. The ship "lurched" forward, some of the vidscreens showing views of the Dlmvla warship at their aft, firing once more upon them. Others showed a view of the nearby gas giant and the rings Bruer wanted to use for shelter. The rest, secondary and tertiary and lesser screens, were filled with scrolling ship"s data, missile trajectories, and so forth.
The projectile missiles were abruptly outpaced by the bright searing lines of laser cannonry. Lists of ship systems started flashing in bands of yellow and red on the screens; the simulated lasers had scored direct hits on the shield panels protecting the gunnery pods from incoming missiles. They were followed seconds later by explosions which shook the da Gama like a rat in a dog"s mouth, shuddering everything around them to the right. The da Gama jolted abruptly to the left again...and klaxons blared, sharp and sudden, making every cadet wince. The main lighting on the bridge flashed triple time in red, and the ship slowed its shaking, coming to a gentle, upright rest.
"Congratulations, "Captain" Bruer and the rest of Cla.s.s 1252," Lieutenant Commander Spada"s voice stated over the intercom systems. "The enemy successfully triggered chain reaction explosions in the gunnery pod ammunition bays. You have just successfully slaughtered your crewmates."
"Shakk," Bruer muttered, slumping back in his seat. He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Sorry, meioas. I just can"t get the hang of quick command decisions when I"m in a panic. With my luck, it"ll take ten years."
"I predict you"ll only have three, maybe three and a half," Ia told him. Behind everyone, the door to the bridge slid open. She ignored it in favor of giving him a piece of advice. "You"ll be in this exact same position, Bruer, only it"ll be against the Salik, not the Dlmvla, and you will need to tell your CO engines or guns. Go for the guns, but tell your gunners to pick their targets as carefully as the Dlmvla picked ours. Don"t just fire in a rush. In a situation like this, they"ll only get one, maybe two shots before the enemy shoots back. Those shots have to count."
Bruer snorted. "Yeah, right, like when am I ever going to be on a Blockade Patrol? G.o.d...you"d think I"d think of using the guns, with my background. I just got too focused on completing the mission."
"Your a.s.sessment of the problem is accurate, Cadet Bruer," Spada stated. His image flashed across every primary screen on the bridge. It was also being broadcast to every other cadet"s station, letting them know what was happening on the bridge.
"Lieutenant Commander on deck!" Ia called out. Everyone sat up a little straighter in their seats, but since they hadn"t been told the simulation was over, no one unstrapped. The lecture their trainers had given them on that little faux pas had been lengthy and involved the a.s.signment of more punishment details than the lifesupport filters alone could cover.
"At ease, bridge crew, but remain strapped in," Spada told them. "Lieutenant Commander Spada to all cadets, remain at your posts. We will be rerunning the simulation in just a few minutes from time index five minutes thirty seconds. Alright, Cadet Ia. You"ll get your chance. Swap places with Cadet Bruer and take command of the da Gama. The simulation will start at the exact same point as the last three tries. Let"s see if your choice was the better one...or if it was the wrong one as well. Lives are in the balance," he ordered. "The clock is ticking, and the DoI is watching."
Unbuckling her straps, Ia immediately complied. "Aye, sir."
"Aye, sir," Bruer added, releasing his own restraints. "Transferring command to Cadet Ia, sir."
Spada nodded and strode back out, not bothering to stay and watch the two cadets swap places. Then again, he had a perfectly good view of everything back in the observation cabin, along with his fellow instructors.
Hooking the straps into place on the captain"s chair, Ia punched a few b.u.t.tons on her console, changing the priority of the displays to suit her own preferences and needs a little better. "Okay, bridge crew, I want a slightly different set of priorities. The moment that ship pops up on the screens, I want a fast tactical a.n.a.lysis of its hull. Every single weak point, starting with shield nodes, gun pods by category, engines, and sensory equipment, in that order, but not the comm dishes. Relay exact coordinates of priority listed targets to all gunnery pods on whatever flank any enemy ship appears."
"On whatever flank it appears?" Bruer asked. "It"ll appear on the starboard side, like it has for the last four simulation tries!"
"I don"t care if it"s appeared on the starboard for the last fifty-six simulation tries," Ia countered briskly. "If it appears on the starboard or the port side, fore or aft, dorsal or ventral, I want this crew ready to act." A touch of her station controls connected her headset to the rest of the ship. "This is Acting Captain Ia. Prepare for resumption of simulation at time index five minutes thirty seconds, by order of Lieutenant Commander Spada. Repair teams, if you can get me a short-range communication bandwidth operational without sacrificing energy to engines or guns as needed, I"ll give the first one to pull it off my next Leave voucher. All hands, this is a ready check, greenlight for go."
Her fifth tertiary screen-the farthest right in the row of smaller screens lining the bottom of her primary and two flanking secondary screens-started lighting up a large list of names, first in speckles, then in broader swaths, most of them green. A few stayed neutral yellow for several long seconds before they, too, turned green.
"Acting Captain Ia to Lieutenant Commander Spada, we are greenlit for go," she stated.
Spada"s voice came back across the ship intercoms, though not on their screens. "All hands, brace for simulation. Resuming scenario in ten...nine...eight..."
The ship thrummed and rocked hard at zero, struck by both the bright red bolts of laser cannonry and the thumping of simulated munitions attempting to slam their way through the da Gama"s shields. Braced for it, Ia rolled with the impact, then danced her hands over the keys at her control station, setting up her counterattack.
"Ship"s on the starboard, Ca-aaahptain!" Cadet Jinja-Marsuu told her. Her voice jostled into a yelp at the end as they were struck by another attack. Now that the simulation had begun, she had dropped the "Acting" part of Ia"s t.i.tle, and was treating the scenario as if it were real, as all of them had been instructed to do. "It"s on the starboard, just like it was last time."
"The last of the external comm systems are down, Captain!" Bruer told her. "They took out the fore and aft insystem dishes."
Ia flicked on her headset with a tap of her finger. "Starboard L-pods, target and destroy all shield nodes, and only the shield nodes, fire at will! Engines full forward, get us the maximum insystem speed." Switching it off with a second tap, she called out, "Cadet Jimenez, on my mark, I want you to crack to five percent width the doors on the airlock list I"m sending to your station. Blow them, but only on my mark."
"Sir?" she questioned Ia. Jimenez had to raise her voice over the distant, thrumming pulses of their own laser cannons firing back. "I don"t understand..."
"Careful observation brings comprehension-Ungh!" Ia grunted as the ship rocked under another hard blow, hand going back to her broadcast controls. "Ventral P-pods, prepare to target enemy engines and laser gunnery pods. Do not, I repeat, do not target enemy P-pods until ordered to do so. Target only the L-pods!"
"They"re digging a hole through to Engineering, just like last time!" Jinja-Marsuu warned Ia.
"Lieutenant Harper, get those repair teams on the communications arrays, bounce it triple time!" Ia ordered. "Get me anything, so long as it broadcasts past our hull."
"I"m on it personally, Captain!"
"Good meioa," she muttered under her breath, off-mike.
"Captain!" Cadet Ng called out from his position overseeing the gunnery teams. "We"ve destroyed their forward shields. I"m ordering the P-pods to fire at will."
"Belay that!" Ia snapped, toggling on the intercom. "Starboard P-pods, hold your fire. I repeat, hold your fire! L-pods, concentrate your fire on their aft shields and take them down."
They rocked hard to the left. Jinja-Marsuu cursed. "Shova v"shhh-aft shields are gone; we"ve lost engines, Captain! Power dropping rapidly. We"re deadheaded on course, no maneuvering capacity."
"Midsection shields dropping," Cadet Smith warned everyone. "A few more hits on the starboard and we"re done for!"
"Jimenez, blow it!" Ia ordered.
"Ahh-aye, sir!" she replied, jabbing at her own controls. The ship jolted and rotated, rolling under the force of the escaping ga.s.ses from the upper starboard and lower port airlocks. "That...that"s doing it, sir. We"re rolling!"
"You"re presenting fresh shields to the enemy? It"s brilliant!" Bruer praised. Then grunted as the ship rocked again. "Unfortunately, they"re still killing us, just a little slower."
"Captain, I have EM radio online. Sending it to tertiary two."
"Good meioa," Ia praised, this time into her headset. She dragged the packet she had prearranged from her middle tertiary screen to the second screen from the left on the bottom of her bank of monitors. The look Bruer shot her through the transparent display told her she was usurping his duties as comm officer, but Ia didn"t care. "Cadet Bruer, prepare to fire off that comm packet on all available bandwidths on my mark, and ping me an open broadband cast to the enemy. Tell me the moment you get any return response. Cadet Ng, tell the portside L-pods to prepare to continue firing on the targeted enemy. Starboard P-pods are to target sector zero by two seventy and prepare to rapid fire three volleys each, five degree spread, odds on the long, evens on the lat, on my mark."
"Sir?" Cadet Ng asked, confused. The ship shook again, but not quite as hard this time; the enemy weapons were having to contend with undamaged shielding, which meant it would take more time to hammer through and cause damage.
"Careful observation leads to comprehension, Cadet," Ia repeated tersely. "Do as you are ordered. Relay those commands!"
Ng turned back to her console, fingers flying over the keys and jabbing at the screens.
Bruer looked back at Ia. "Captain, sir, broadband channel is open, tertiary one. We have received a ping from the enemy; they are listening."
Ia activated her headset again, this time broadcasting to the alien ship, ring finger hovering over the switch before cutting it off between sentences. "Behold, the doors of the Room have opened wide, and the dead were embarra.s.sed with shame, for the living had none! Cadet Bruer, fire off that data packet lightspeed only, all bandwidths!"
"Aye, sir," he confirmed. "Data packet awa-Shova v"shakk! Captain Ia, that"s the information we stole!"
"Careful observation brings comprehension-lock and web it, Cadets," she ordered, cutting off not only his protests, but any attempts from the others. "Cadet Ng, fire!"
"Firing now, sir." The ship thu-thu-thumped, jolting to the right as the projectile guns fired, following her orders. Some spread up and down relative to the ship, others spread fore and aft, following the longitude and lat.i.tude of the da Gama.
"Holy shakk-there"s a second ship out there!" Jimenez exclaimed. "I"m getting missiles impacting on their incoming missiles and shields!"
Ia flipped open the external comm again. "Greetings to the new Dlmvla warship. Welcome is your presence. Target your sister ship and attack, if you please."
The Dlmvla responded, their words filling the bridge. "Poetic is your illogic, yet requires explanation still."
Ia smiled. She loved the Dlmvla mind-set, because they loved illogic. They used logic, harnessed it for their science as any other sentient species needed to do in order to attain the stars, but they loved illogic. It was poetry to whatever pa.s.sed for their souls. So in answer, she replied by referencing a bit of actual poetry. Dlmvlan poetry, to be precise.
""The doors of the Room have opened wide." The crew of your sister ship are following orders from a faction whose acts are in violation of the Alliance Treaty. Compliance in their designs will bring shame to all your nests. The confirmation you need is in the information we have broadcast-to our attackers, I say: "Shame be upon the living, and your nests shall burn. With you in them, if cease you do not your attack on our sovereign nest.""
"Thieves! Dwell in your nests of egg-suckers!" The words came from the vessel that had started this scenario. "Enter the Room ovulations first!"
Ia bit her lip to keep from laughing. Terranglo might be the interspecies trade tongue, and there were xenotelepaths capable of implanting most of the necessary language skills out there, or at least augmenting the lesson-learned skills, but that did not guarantee mastery.
"Captain, weapons fire from the first ship!" Jimenez warned her.
"Oh, it"s far too late for that," Ia warned the unseen enemy, still amused.
The da Gama rocked. Jinja-Marsuu cursed. "Dammit-we"re about to lose portside shields! What the h.e.l.l are you up to, Ia?"