Most of us understand the concepts of honor, courage, cooperation, and the tenets of sentientarian aid, of saving lives, maintaining dignity, and alleviating suffering through acts of sharing and compassion.
The Alliance works because we recognize these qualities in each other. Yes, the Salik War and its subsequent Blockade formed our initial purpose for cooperating with each other, rather than contending or conflicting over the last two centuries. Yet the reason why we still get along and still work together so well after all these years is the realization that we are at heart—or whatever passes for the heart—the same as our alien brethren deep down inside.
Whenever the Alliance as a whole agrees upon a thing, it is therefore a most powerful realization. Powerful, and humbling. Even if you knew it was coming, as I did. But as important as it has been to make sure people know what I am capable of doing—so that they can trust me enough to let me do more of it—it isn’t about my abilities. It has never been about my abilities. It’s about the fact that I use them, and most importantly, why.
It has always been about saving lives.
~Ia
“Do you feel like talking about it?”
Silence.
“You do know you can talk to me about it…”
More silence.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
Nothing but silence.
“Well, then. If all you’re going to do is pout over it—”
“I am not pouting!” Bennie snapped, finally breaking her sullen silence. “I am sulking. There is a difference, you know.”
“Okay, so you’re sulking,” Ia agreed, holding up her right hand. She still had two intravenous tubes hooked to the veins in her left arm, but mostly to run it through a bacteriometer to make absolutely sure her blood was clean. “Do you want to talk about why you’re sulking? Or do you just want to grump and glower a bit longer?”
Bennie muttered something under her breath. At Ia’s inquisitive look, she repeated it a little louder. “Grump and glower.”
“Alright. Do let me know when you’re finished, so we can talk it over and work through why you’re so mad at me,” Ia stated calmly.
The chaplain gave her a dark look. “Excuse me? Where did you get your psychology degree?”
“School of Hard Knocks, magna cum laude,” Ia quipped deadpan, picking up her cup of caf’ for a sip. Her blood pressure had stabilized without the need for further medicine the day after her newly grown kidneys had been implanted, but this was her first official cup of caffeine since then. “I would’ve been valedictorian, but I’m terrible at speech-making. Definitely long-winded, but nowhere near flowery enough.”
Bennie chuckled in spite of herself. “That’s for certain—dammit, Ia! I knew you were hiding something from me, but this? A psychic? And one hell of a psi, given all the reports I’ve heard. Telekinesis, electrokinesis, telepathy, biokinesis—what else are you hiding under all that white hair?”
Swallowing the semibitter liquid, Ia set her cup down with a sigh and a click. “Quite a lot. But I had very good reasons for hiding it as much as I did. Now I don’t have to hide it anymore…not that I could anymore, given all those reports that you’ve heard.”
Bennie shifted in her chair, arms still crossed over her chest and looking very much like she was still sulking. “I had to call your parents, to let them know you’d been kidnapped. And then…then I had to call them again. They caught the pirates that kidnapped you, and the villains confessed that they’d sold you to the Salik. I had to tell your parents that you were now listed as Captured, Presumed Et. That is absolutely the worst task I or any other officer in the history of the Blockade has ever had to do!”
“I know,” Ia murmured, not unsympathetic to her friend’s pain. “I knew a long time ago that I needed to be captured at that point in time. And that I’d get myself and most of the others out alive.”
A snort escaped the older woman. Bennie swiped a hand through her auburn locks, revealing the grey streak forming at her temple. “Well. That does explain why they were so calm when I called and told them you’d been captured. At least, I’m presuming there’s some correlation between the two.”
Ia looked across the room at the fake window projecting a computer-generated view of a lightning-teased forest from her homeworld. She had been upgraded to the gravity ward that morning, though the pull of gravity was not yet more than an easy, gentle, 1.2Gs, something even Bennie could tolerate.
She had also been given the best amenities the station had to offer, thanks to her newly minted heroism in the Solaricans’ eyes. Some of the amenities were felinoid-specific, such as the all-body dryer nozzles built into the showering stall, but most of it was familiar enough to translate over to standard Human needs. It was a vast change from living naked for two weeks in an animal cage, waiting for her one chance to avoid being eaten alive.
“When I was three…I told my mother that she was pregnant with my little brother Fyfer, the day she conceived,” Ia confessed quietly. “She didn’t believe me. I told her my little brother would grow up short, and cute, and have curly dark hair. Three months later, a routine examination determined his gender. And when he was born, he was born with tufts of curly dark hair. He is now one hundred forty-eight centimeters tall, over thirty centimeters shorter than our older brother, and he still has dark curly hair.”
“I’ve seen pictures of your brother Thorne. He has dark, curly hair, too,” Bennie reminded the younger woman on the bed. “That much wouldn’t have been difficult to guess.”
“Thorne was born with lighter hair, almost blond. It only darkened as he got older,” Ia stated.
Needing to get up and exercise some more, to push herself to get back into shape, she swung her legs off the bed and stood. Her abdomen was still tender, but at least she had her kidneys again. Doctor Miian had offered to regrow her ovaries as well, but Ia had demurred. She had grown used to not having any biological worries in that department. Most of her energy these days was being spent on keeping herself alive, anyway. Adding children into the mix was not an option for her.
“When I was an infant,” she continued, “I would stop crying shortly after my mother began heating up a bottle of milk. If she started to put it away again, I’d start crying again, and stop when she resumed her task, even if I was in another room,” Ia stated, carefully swinging and stretching her arms, mindful of the bacteriometer and its tubes. She could now wear pants instead of a gaping hospital drape, but her shirt was a poncho-like thing that snapped in place under her armpits. Grimacing, she flapped her elbows and muttered under her breath as the fabric fluttered. “I feel like a chicken in this drape-thing…”
“What are you saying?” Bennie asked skeptically. She ignored the younger woman’s quip, still fixed on the previous topic. “That you’re some sort of precocious clairvoyant?”
“Precognitive,” Ia corrected, bending her legs in shallow squats. A few more minutes of this and she would begin to sweat. Too much bed rest had left her weak. “Not clairvoyant. Every step I have taken since my abilities matured at the age of fifteen, I have undertaken with full foresight and careful planning. I knew I would be captured. I knew I would be at that banquet as one of the main dishes. I knew I would be able to free all those people and destroy that installation. Just as I knew I would be doing most everything else I have done in my military career. Not always exactly what I would do…but I knew I would do it.”
Another snort escaped the chaplain. “V’shova, Ia. Nobody can foresee that much. Precognition is the least reliable of all the psychic abilities. Nebulous visions, metaphoric meanings, flashes of moments…and most of it can be derailed or avoided by making different choices. Even the Inner Circle of the PsiLeague won’t pay that much attention to foresight warnings unless a minimum of twelve precogs all agree.”
“Actually, it’s only six who need to agree,” Ia muttered. Bennie shot her a mock-dirty look. Sighing, Ia shifted to walking in place, swinging her arms and lifting her knees. “Look, just don’t close your mind, that’s all I’m asking. Dr. Miian has agreed to let me help run some of the experiments with the anti-psi machine we brought back. It’ll take place after the commendation ceremony. I’d like you to come along and stand witness.”
“Stand witness to what?” Bennie asked her.
“They’ve gathered several members from the various psychic organizations across the Alliance. The PsiLeague, the Seer’s Council, the Nesting of Minds…I have some ideas of my own on what to try with the machine,” Ia admitted. Her efforts were starting to make her sweat. “Part of what we’re going to do is compare the machine to a KI monitor, and see how much the one can pick up through the interference of the other, as a way to gauge just how strong the nullifying field is. While we’re doing that, the PsiLeague has agreed to give me an official rank testing, since all the various organizations have agreed their tests are the best benchmark for such things.”
“Well, it was the founders of the PsiLeague who developed the first psi-sensitive monitor,” Bennie muttered. “Alright, I’ll come along. But only to hear the results of your testing.”
Sitting back down on the edge of her bed, Ia picked up her mug and sipped at the cooling brown liquid. She sighed and set it back on the tray. “Part of me knows I’m going to take several more days to recover, even at my best pace. Part of me is just damned impatient to get back to full strength.”
“Well, don’t push yourself into a relapse,” Bennie warned her. “Dr. Miian is kind of cute for a felinoid, but I hear he’s already engaged.”
Ia chuckled at that. “Bennie, I had enough problems with my one failed attempt at a relationship. What makes you think I’m going to go throw myself into another?”
Lifting her own cup to her lips, the chaplain paused and made a few bok bok bauk noises under her breath.
“I will not be provoked,” Ia muttered. “Listen, once we’re done with this visit, I want you to go back to the Mad Jack and pack up everything. Your office, your quarters, all of it.”
Bennie choked on her caf’, coughing hoarsely. When she had regained some of her breath, she wheezed, “Are you nuts?”
“Maybe. I want you to put in for a solid week of Leave, starting September 10th. Tomorrow, the Command Staff will send orders that I am to report to them in person as soon as I have medical clearance to leave. Those orders will be rendered all the more urgent once I’ve undergone my rank testing. Everyone who’ll be here to examine it is working for one or another of the military forces in the Alliance. Well,” she amended, thinking ahead, “almost everyone…
“Anyway, when I head to the Tower on Earth, I would like you with me. If nothing else, for damage control,” Ia muttered under her breath. “I have one last, big battle to fight, before everything changes. Unlike the Salik one, the probabilities for success are far less certain. Less than sixty percent. If I do succeed, I’d like you to come with me on my new assignment. If I fail…I’m going to need you to contact somebody for me, and make sure they get in to see me.”
“Get in?” Bennie repeated. “Get in, where?”
Ia gave her a level, sober look. “The Tower Dungeon.”
The chaplain stared. She stared until she finally blinked and drew in a breath. “You’re…going to try something that will risk you getting thrown in prison? What the hell are you going to do, Lieutenant?”
“An extremely rare Yamaneuver,” Ia said. She didn’t bother to explain which one, though she did respond to the chaplain’s dubious look. “Bennie, what is the one thing that you know I will do, regardless of the consequences to myself?”
She rolled her eyes, sagging back in her chair. This was an old discussion between them, one that was all too easily recited. “You will do your damnedest to save lives, because that’s the only way you can live with yourself.” Bennie slanted her a sardonic look, mouth twisting in wry amusement. “You’re like some God-damned martyr, meioa. Except you thankfully keep coming out of these situations alive.”
Picking up her cup, Ia saluted her chaplain with it. “Hallelujah, Sister. Amen to that.”
Once again, she stood before an audience of military personnel. This time, it was a mixed audience, containing both Human factions, Solaricans, Tlassians, Gatsugi, K’katta, and even a few Choya. She hadn’t actually rescued any Choya from the suckered grasp of their mutual enemy, but that was believed by the rest to simply be a matter of Salik preferences; with their copper-based blood, the Choya “tasted bad” to Salik sensibilities.
She knew why. The average Choyan soldier, the ones sitting in the auditorium, they had no clue, but their top military and government leaders had made a devil’s pact with their fellow amphibians. That was a problem for another day, though Ia couldn’t quite stop worrying about it. My schedule never clears…It just scrolls down to the next week’s disaster, and the blank spots fill up as fast as a thought. At least I’ve pushed back the start of the next Salik War by several months. They’re still scrambling to fill in the gaping holes in their top echelons, thank god…
The K’kattan ambassador gestured for her to kneel for a fourth time. Lowering herself, Ia rested a palm on the floor as she ducked her head, permitting the dignitary to toss another thin, silk-like sash over her head. His arachnoid race didn’t wear much in the way of clothing, unless the ambient conditions of temperature and weather or a lack of atmosphere demanded it. But they did decorate themselves and each other with colorful sashes, tassels, and ribbons. Alien or otherwise, their war heroes were no exception.
Clicking and whistling, the K’kattan envoy chittered, letting his translator box explain the honors bestowed. “And this is the Sash of Sentientarian Aid, specifically bestowed upon those aliens who go out of their way to render assistance to our kind. Thank you, meioa. May there always be such acts of compassion, valor, and honor exchanged between our kinds.”
“Thank you, Ambassador.” Dipping her head, she carefully rose back to her feet. Though she had regained much of her illness-sapped strength, the weight of the medals now pinned to her jacket—all of her medals, pinned in place for this very formal occasion—made it feel like she was wearing the upper half of her weight suit instead of her Navy Dress Blacks, her most formal uniform with the blue stripes down the black sleeves and matching pant legs. A uniform she would have to remember to take with her.
“Go forth onto the plains of war,” the alien chitter-translated, giving Ia one last benediction, “but may you one day retire in peace and long life in the trees, Guardian of the Terrans.”
“Thank you, Ambassadorrr Ch’chullwik,” the master of ceremonies stated. Sent all the way from the Solarican homeworld, Prince of the Blood Nazrrin gestured for the last set of presenters to step onto the stage. “War Prrincess Ia, I prrresent to you the Secondaire of your own goverrnment, Meioa Justinn Mandella.”
The tall Human strode onto the stage with the same confidence as the last Secondaire Ia had faced. Prince and Secondaire exchanged murmurs in greeting, touching palms and pursing their lips in Solarican-style smiles, then Secondaire Mandella faced Ia, his lips still closed but now stretched wide, Human-style. “Lieutenant Ia.”
She saluted him. “Secondaire, sir.”
He returned the salute, then clasped his hands in front of his waist. She knew it had to be a calculated gesture; no protocol cabinet member would have allowed him to board an alien station without informing him of the various possible interpretations for common body gestures. It was the Solarican version of crossing his arms over his chest, one which could be interpreted as either stern or playful…and among the Gatsugi could have meant anything from mere hunger to the symptoms of cardiac arrest. “Lieutenant First Grade Ia. You have a bad habit of doing heroic things, don’t you?”
“Sir, no, sir,” Ia denied. “I simply did what anyone else would do, sir.”
“What anyone would do, were they in your shoes,” Secondaire Mandella agreed, emphasizing her choice of words, “but not necessarily what anyone else could do.”
A gesture from the Secondaire brought a black-uniformed lieutenant up to his side, a silver tray in the other man’s gloved hands. He was a match for the uniformed sergeant standing behind Ia’s shoulder, carrying the tray burdened with the paraphernalia of her honorifics from the other governments.
“For your acts of extraordinary psychic service…simply extraordinary…it is my privilege to bestow upon you the Blue Heart,” he informed her, opening and displaying the distinctively shaped medallion. Eyeing her jacket, Mandella snapped the box shut. “Normally, I would pin this on your jacket, since our records show this is your first official Blue Heart, Lieutenant. But it seems you lack the room to display it on your chest.”
“Sorry, sir,” she apologized.
“Are those all of your medals?” he asked, lifting one brow.
“Sir, yes, sir,” Ia replied, straight-faced.
Curious, he arched a brow, looking her over from head to toe. She turned around crisply, toe tucked behind heel, and displayed the ones carpeting the back of her jacket. Another about-face allowed her to face him again. The only spots not covered in medals were an inch or so from the bottom of the jacket hem, her collar points and shoulder boards—reserved solely for the silver bar of her rank—and the actual lapels of her jacket, save that the left one held her Star of Service from two years before. The only medal that ever went on the right lapel face was either the Red Heart of an honorably retired soldier, or the Black Heart, for service unto death, which was only ever pinned in place postmortem.
Facing him again, Ia spoke. “I won’t stop saving lives, sir…but I may have to ask that my superiors stop recognizing me for it. As you can see, I’m sort of running out of room, sir.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’ll just pass a note to the Command Staff to look into designing a floor-length Dress Coat. In the meantime, consider this duly pinned.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Ia agreed, accepting the box from him.
“And this one, the White Cross, for rescuing a fellow sentient being. Six White Crosses, one for each member nation of the Alliance whose people you rescued, the Solaricans, the V’Dan, the Tlassians, the K’katta, the Gatsugi, and your fellow Terrans…”
Accepting each box, she stacked them on the tray carried by the sergeant standing stoically at her side. Other awards passed through her hands, Ten Skulls, for known, confirmed kills of high-ranked Salik generals. Crossbones for the lesser ranks slaughtered when the base was destroyed. A Rearguard Star, for being the last of the two ships to flee, holding off the enemy’s counterattacks with her abilities, and another Screaming Eagle for successfully tailgating Viega’s vessel through that hyperrift without destroying either ship. A White Heart for rescuing herself, and a Purple Heart for the injuries she had suffered.
“And finally, most importantly,” Secondaire Mandella presented, “the highest peacetime honor the Terran government can bestow. As much as we have made it a standing practice of honoring the honorable and extraordinary efforts of the meioas in our Space Force and its Branches, it is a very rare individual who goes so far above and beyond the call of duty that they risk not only life and limb for their fellow soldiers, but risk life and limb for the civilians and soldiers of all our allies.
“Like its wartime counterpart, the Medal of Honor, the Star of Service is not bestowed lightly, Lieutenant. You have earned this—again—literally through the efforts of your blood, sweat, and tears. May all who see you and hear of your deeds draw courage and inspiration from your shining example of what it means to be a true and honorable soldier of the Terran Space Force. Lieutenant First Grade Ia,” Secondaire Mandella told her solemnly, “I salute you.”
Lifting his hand to his brow, he matched actions to words. It was a breach of protocol, and Ia knew precognitively that he would catch quite a bit of flak from the Command Staff for it, as well as some political repercussions from the more conservative factions in the Terran United Planets. The Secondaire and the Premier never saluted anyone in the military first. They were the Commanders in Chief during times of peace and war, respectively; others saluted them first. But he saluted her now, in a broadcast that was being streamed not just to the Terran worlds, but to every other world in the Alliance.
Blinking hard, Ia saluted him back. When she lowered her hand to accept the last commendation box, she found herself pulled into an embrace. Under the cover of patting her back, the Secondaire murmured into her ear, “You do realize you’ll have to face a Board of Inquiry regarding your gifts, right?”
“Sir, yes, sir. I’ve already prepared my defense, sir,” she murmured back, strengthening her mental walls to keep from foreseeing his future. She couldn’t block out the sincere admiration lurking behind his words, though, forcing her to blink rapidly a second time.
“If I can arrange it, I’ll be there to speak on your behalf. You may not have followed the letter of the regs, but no one will be allowed to deny or set aside the results of your efforts.” Releasing her, he handed her the Star of Service box, speaking aloud for the broadcast pickups once more. “Remember this day, Lieutenant. Let it be an inspiration to you and to those around you. May the soldiers of all nations look to you as their role model in the years to come.”
That’s the idea, sir, Ia thought, though she kept it carefully under shield, mindful of the other psychics on board. She saluted him one last time, shoulders back and chin level. The salvation of the Future is counting on it.
SEPTEMBER 10, 2495 T.S.
The aching, nauseating pain ceased abruptly as the mind-blind technician manning the sucker hands on the machine carefully tugged and pushed, shutting it off. Everyone else let out a sigh of relief, or the species-equivalent. From her perch on the table serving as her podium—since the knee-joints of most K’katta barely reached one meter high, rendering them rather short in the presence of the other sentient races in the room—Meioa Nik’ikk addressed the others, her translator box projecting her words in Terranglo over the chittering of her native tongue.
“Thank you, that should be enough for now. We now have enough information to calculate a baseline formula for the rate of interference. Meioa P’hrrn, have you calculated the numbers?”
The Solarican psi in question nodded and stood, writing pad in her hands. “Based on the technician’s calculllations, compared to PsiLeague rrratings, this machine blocks our abilities at a rratio of nearly four-to-one. At full strength, anyone of lless than eighth rrank is completely blocked…but that is due morrre to the painn of this machine, since at Rrrank 2, they could still technnicallly use their gifts to a tiny poinnt.”
“We know that prolonnged exsssposure overwhelms the pssssi,” one of the crested Tlassian priest-castes in the room hissed, his crest-spikes dipping in displeasure. “Even our ssstrongest priestesss among the captivess could not concentrate passt the first half hour, and ssshe iss Rank 16. In short durationss, I can usse my Rank 15 sskill at almost a Rank 4 rating in spite of this machinne, but not for very llonnng.”
One of the grey-clad Humans snorted. “Smack anyone with a headache that strong for that long, and see how well you’d function. We need to figure out how to counter these damned machines. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Kinetic, a Pathy, or a Clairancy, or one of the wild gifts, these devices interfere with all of it. Our psychic abilities are the one thing the Salik don’t have, the one weapon in our arsenal we can still hold over their slimy heads. But this machine changes all of that.”
Nik’ikk lifted one leg, claw-tips snapping against each other to catch everyone’s attention. “We will discuss that later. Meioa Ia had requested that, once we have ascertained the dampening field’s strength and effects on a KI meter, we test her for an official ranking.”
“Can’t we do that later?” another Human complained. This one was clad in the dark red uniform of the V’Dan military. “The problems posed by this machine are far more important than someone’s mental ego-stroking.”
Rising from her seat, Ia moved toward the center of the room, where both the KI machine and the anti-psi generator sat on a pair of carts. Still a bit weak, she moved slowly, but she moved. “As much as I’d agree with you, Meioa Jin-Palu, this machine will be necessary to help successfully gauge my rankings.”
“What I/myself want/need to know/grasp/understand,” one of the Gatsugi psis spoke up, “is who/what authority made/gave you/you/you the right/privilege of ownership/control of/over this/this thing/machine.”
“I will answer that question, meioa, after I have been tested. First, I need my gifts officially ranked,” Ia told them. “I know what they are, and I have an idea of their strengths, but I have not been officially, formally tested. For reasons you will soon see.”
Reaching the bench seat the other volunteers had used, Ia settled onto it. Each wave of headache-inducing interference had weakened her temporarily, but with her reserves slowly regaining strength, she had managed to bounce back a fair bit. This, however, would leave her weak and sweating once it was done. Nodding at the technician, she gave him silent permission to wire her forehead and hands to the KI monitor, a necessary precaution to prevent her testing from picking up too much interference from the others.
“We’ll do this in reverse order, from weakest to strongest gift,” Ia stated as he applied the sticky patches to her skin. “I need a volunteer from one of the other species to test my Xenopathic abilities.”
One of the Gatsugi volunteered. Of all the other species gathered in the room, their thoughts were least like a Human’s. Only a Choya or a Salik would have been more different among the oxygen-breathing, carbon-based sentiencies, but neither race had psychic abilities. When the four-armed alien settled onto the bench across from her and had composed himself into a light shade of calm-blue, the Solarican technician instructed Ia to begin.
“First test. Conntact the meioa-o’s mind from a distance.”
“I’m not very good at the non-touch-based Pathies,” Ia muttered in warning. Breathing deeply to center herself and settle her thoughts, she reached out, sensing the Gatsugi’s whirling cascade of thoughts. The alien obligingly kept his mental walls lowered, but did not reach out to her in any way. Politely, she kept to his surface thoughts. Not that she could have read much of anything at a greater depth; Ia simply wasn’t that strong.
“Rrrank 4,” the technician stated. “Now, trrry it via touch.”
Shifting forward, Ia held out her hand. The Gatsugi extended one of his lower arms, four digits meeting five. His flesh was cool-calm, his walls still down, his thoughts a swirl of polite welcome. (Greetings/Salutations/Hello…)
(Hello/Hello, thank you/my gratitude,) she returned, shaping the thought along his alien patterns. She had practiced a little bit by reading Salik minds during her various boarding sorties, increasing her original rank, but hadn’t been able to practice a lot, nor all that much on the meioa’s own species.
“Rrrank 6,” the tech concluded as Ia and the alien released each other’s hand. “Next?”
“Biokinesis, others. Xeno or otherwise, it’s the exact same,” Ia stated. “My ability to affect others is several ranks below my ability to affect myself.”
Nodding, the Gatsugi picked up one of the sterile razor packets on the table. Opening it with his upper fingers, he made a small, careful cut on the palm of one of his lower hands. Ia cupped his injured hand in hers and focused, pouring some of her personal energy into his biology. The bleeding slowed and the centimeter-long wound clotted faster than it would have on its own, but not by much.
“Rrank 5,” the technician asserted. “Test your ownn biokinnetics, pllease.”
Picking a fresh packet, Ia obediently cut her own hand. Compared to the headaches induced by the Salik machine, the pain was a minor annoyance at best. She had it sealed and headed toward pink in half the time of the other cut, giving her a rating of Rank 9.
The technician remained unaffected by the sight of her blood. Undoubtedly he was used to it. The technician was an honorary member of both the Seer’s Council of the Solarican Empire and a technician in the employment of the PsiLeague of the Terran United Planets. Mostly because both organizations’ charter rules stated that a non-psi should be the one to operate the testing machinery, guaranteeing non-interference with the results.
Of the thirty-plus beings occupying the chamber, only Chaplain Benjamin and four of the Solaricans—the technician, the two guards at the door, and a male felinoid who had come in with a cart loaded with fresh cups and pitchers of water—were not there as gifted representatives of the various psychic organizations in the Alliance.
To test her telepathic abilities with the minds of her own species, another volunteer took the place of the Gatsugi, a Human clad in the dark red uniform of the V’Dan Empire. This was a gift she had exercised even less than her xenopathy, and it showed during the testing. With a touch, it was a 7; without, it was merely a 5.
“Annny otherr gifts?” the Solarican technician asked her.
Razor still in hand, Ia nodded. “Pyrokinesis, telekinesis, battlecognition, electrokinesis, postcognition, and precognition.”
Scoffing noises erupted across the room. Even the chairwoman of the meeting, Meioa Nik’ikk, chittered skeptically. Her translator box obligingly emphasized her disbelief in modulated Terranglo. “That would be three more gifts than the greatest of us! No one has just one ability, yes, but no one has that many!”
Ia let go of the flat, rectangular blade in her hand. It floated upward. So did Meioa Nik’ikk, the Human volunteer still seated across from her, a dozen other startled aliens, several tables, assorted chairs, and all the unopened packets of razors. This was one she had definitely exercised over the years, pushing it as high and hard as she could make the gift grow. Sheer survival had demanded she develop it to its fullest.
“Rrrank 17,” the technician stated phlegmatically, though the tip of his tail twitched. “Is that sheer strrength, or manipulationn as wellll?”
Not wanting to exhaust herself, Ia set everyone and everything back down gently, sending the used razor into the biohazard bin. “Sheer strength. Manipulation…I used fifty, sixty glass shards to slit the throats of various enemy combatants back on Sallha. I could even play a full symphony on a concert wall harp, if we had one available.”
Craning his neck, the technician looked around the room. He pointed at the cart. “Lllevitate those cups, meioa. Individually.”
Ia nodded. Three of the stacks of cups on the water-cart lifted up, separated, and whirled around the room over their heads. Four pitchers of water followed. Water sloshed and poured, angling in long arcs that made the sentient below them flinch, though every drop hit its target. Ia brought the display to a quick end, pouring the water back into the descending pitchers as the fifty or so cups came back to a rest on the cart. All save for one, which she topped up and floated her way.
“It is still Rrank 17,” he confirmed while she caught the cup, sipping from it. “Next?”
She held up her left hand, and the air above it caught fire. That was gauged at Rank 8. She followed it, still drinking from her cup, by a crackle of miniature lightning that consumed her arm down to the elbow and glowed brightly enough to make everyone wince.
The technician, his fur fluffed by proximity to the static energy she was arcing, phlegmatically announced her electrokinesis as “Rrrrank 19.”
The V’Dan male shook his head, staring at Ia. “That’s impossible. Even Mama Mishka is only a Rank 18 at the highest. Is that thing calibrated correctly?”
The technician didn’t even flick an ear at that. “We have alrrready ascertained that it is callibrated, meioa.” He glanced at Ia. “Though I wonnder how her otherrr gifts rrrank, if these arre her weakest.”
“The remainder are considerably stronger,” Ia stated. She nodded at the Salik machine. “If you don’t want your KI machine short-circuited from an input overload, you’ll have to plug me into that thing first.”
“Well, aren’t you just full of yourself?” the Human quipped. He started to say more, but subsided under the weight of Ia’s steady gaze.
“I think we’ll have to forgo testing my battlecognition for now,” Ia said once she was sure he wouldn’t scoff any further. “I’m in no shape physically to get into a fight, just yet. Suffice to say, it’s stronger than my electrokinetic abilities. Which leaves us with postcognition and precognition. I’ll need a volunteer to help me test those abilities.”
Meioa Nik’ikk addressed that. “Postcognition can be verified through object-reading, but precognition is…nebulous,” she chittered. “Why would you need a volunteer?”
Ia looked at the arachnoid. “Come with me, and find out for yourself.” She looked back at the technician and lifted her chin at the array of salvaged headgear sitting on the table behind him. “Hand me one of the Human-sized helmets, and plug me in. Set the machine to full strength. I’ll try to make it quick for the sake of the others, but you’ll definitely want it running before I begin.”
He shrugged and twisted in his seat, selecting one of the wire-draped crowns. Taking the metallic, clunky circlet from the Solarican, Ia settled it on her head. She strapped it in place, then glanced at the K’katta heading the meeting.
“Well? Aren’t you going to come over here?”
“I should remain neutral in these proceedings,” Nik’ikk demurred. “Do we have another volunteer?”
The Solarican by the now quiescent water cart sneeze-laughed. “I will volunnteerr.”
“You will not interfere with these measurements,” Ia countered sharply. She pointed at the Solarican server. “Guards, make sure that male does not leave this chamber. Keep your eyes on him at all times.”
“You are rrrather presummptuous, Human,” one of the higher-ranked Solarican psis countered, lacing her clawed fingers together as she stared at Ia. “What makes you thinnk you can give orrders, here?”
“Aside from the fact I am now a War Princess of Solarica, and we are technically in a war zone? You’re asking the wrong question, meioa. You should be asking how he got into a closed meeting,” Ia retorted dryly. “But that can wait. Right now, I need volunteers. Preferably more than one, so you can countercheck with each other on what you’re about to see.”
“Fine,” the Human across from her offered, the one who had subjected himself to her attempts at same-species telepathy. “I’ll do it. Nothing quite like a skeptical witness, wouldn’t you agree? I’m certainly strong enough to think through the anti-machine, provided we don’t take too long. Anyone else?”
Two others volunteered, a Tlassian and a K’kattan. They moved up close enough that the K’kattan could touch Ia’s blue-clad leg with a foreclaw and the Tlassian could touch her shoulder with his callused, scaled fingers. The Human scooted close enough to grip Ia’s left hand. Nodding at the technician, Ia braced herself for the pain.
“Postcognition first,” she stated, and winced as grey mist stabbed through her head the moment he turned it on. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the minds of the three touching her and dragged them onto the timeplains, aiming each one into a point in that particular person’s past. Specifically, a strong memory from each one’s childhood…and then she swapped them, dunking the Tlassian into the Human’s stream, the Human into the K’kattan’s, and so forth…and followed them with a third swapping.
When they were reeling from that, she dragged them far, far into the past. Into the dawn of V’Dan civilization. Only for a few moments, though; mindful of her reserves, Ia didn’t join them herself. She also let them see only a few moments of the event she had targeted before she pulled them out of the river-scene. A lift of her hand and a slash of her finger instructed the technician to turn off the anti-psi machine.
Her gaze wasn’t on the volunteers, however. It was on the Solarican cart-pusher, who had slumped against the back wall, eyes wide and ears flat. If he had been Human, she knew he would have been pale and shaking. As it was, he did not look well.
Of the three volunteers surrounding her, the V’Dan was the most shaken. He gaped at her. “That…That was the Valley. That was the Exodus! I saw the Exodus…Everyone coming through the Gate of Heaven, animals, people…It was as clear as I see this room!” he exclaimed. “This wasn’t holokinesis, was it? Some sort of illusion? It had to have been…”
Ia shook her head, looking at her fellow Human. “No illusion, meioa. Just pure postcognition, projected directly into your brain. Or rather, with your brain pulled into Time itself. You were there, seeing it through the eyes of one of the overseers of the Exodus from Earth. His name was…?”
“Nahmed Ik Mann,” the Tlassian confirmed at her prompting. “He wasss counnting flockss of sssheep…but thinnking about the earthquakesss back home. The tectonnnic shifting mentioned in the Book of the Sssh’nai. But before that, we sssaw our hatchling yearsss. The day I broke my firssst tooth, the meioa-e’sss firsst hunnt…”
The V’Dan shook his head. “No…no. It’s a trick. It has to be a trick—holokinesis, telepathy, some sort of combination—well, not the first part, not my seventh birthing-day. I remember that day very clearly. But surely…”
Ia shook her head again, a slow back and forth that countered his denial.
The technician looked up from his portable workstation. “Based on the interferrrence from the Salik machinnne…my calculations place that gift, whateverrr it was, at approximately Rrrank 54.”
“Confirrrmed,” agreed another voice. It was the female Solarican a few tables away, the one who had double-checked his earlier calculations on the suppression rate of the anti-psi machine. “Her Postcognnnitive Rrrank is 54.”
That caused an instant commotion. Ia endured it up to a point. When the noise threatened to give her a non-machine-induced headache, she grabbed for their attention with a short, sharp shout.
“Enough!…Calm yourselves, meioas. The KI machine is calibrated, the calculations are accurate, given the anti-psi machine’s fully demonstrated interference capabilities, and I am that slagging powerful. Now, if you don’t mind, my strongest gift has yet to be tested. So, if we could kindly have some peace and quiet?”
“The KI monitorr registerred her gift at 13.7,” the technician stated in the silence that followed her words. “At the calculated suppression rate of approximately 3.9, the math places her Rrrrank at 54. These nnnumbers are slllightly approximate, meioas…but they do not llie.”
“I saw the meter move that high myself, even with the anti-psi machine fully active,” Nik’ikk agreed, shifting restlessly on the table serving as her podium, “but I do have difficulty believing it. Meioa Ia, you say this is not your strongest gift?”
“No, Meioa Nik’ikk. It is merely an offshoot of my strongest gift, like how xenopathy is often an offshoot of telepathy, or telepathy an offshoot of empathy,” Ia confirmed.
“Demonstrate your strongest gift to us, then,” the K’katta instructed her.
“Turn on the machine again,” Ia instructed. The Tlassian touched her shoulder and the other K’katta her leg, but the V’Dan hesitated when she held out her hand. Lifting one brow, she challenged him. “Or are you afraid of what else you might see?”
Tightening his mouth, he placed his fingers once more in hers. Waiting just long enough for the machine to spew its counteracting waves, Ia plunged them back into the timeplains. This time she brought them in carefully, yanking them out of their streams quickly and sending them racing high over the streams, like a quartet of birds flying over a swamp-soaked briar patch.
This time, she showed them everything, if from a distance. Starting with their own mist-shrouded streams, she pulled back, and back, and back, revealing the near-infinite tangle of intertwining lives, and all their side-possibilities, in near-endless configurations.
Something banged at the farthest edges of her awareness. The mist vanished, giving them an even clearer view of all the interwoven pathways. Diving back down, Ia dropped each of them into their immediate future, giving them a glimpse of three memorable moments, of conversations later on that day, moments that would convince them beyond a doubt that she was indeed able to foresee what would and could happen.
Pulling back from those intimate views, she released each mind in turn. In turn, they each drew in a shaken breath, releasing her from their grasp. They also coughed. The circuits of the KI machine had exploded, overloaded when the buffering of the anti-psi machine had been switched off. A smoky haze now permeated the room. Ia looked at the technician, who was calmly rechecking his calculations on his workpad.
“Well?” she asked him, trying not to breathe too deeply. They were lucky the fire suppression system hadn’t activated, but the smoke was dissipating. “What’s my ranking?”
“I am…not completely surrre. The meter onnly goes up to 20,” he informed her. “The needle smacked the farr side of the window. A baseline guess would be…84? Prrrrobably higher, though. You, Meioa,” he added, directing his next comment at the K’katta overseeing the meeting, “owe me a nnew KI monitorrr.”
Meioa Nik’ikk dipped her body in the best approximation her species had for an acknowledging nod. “I will pay for it personally,” she chittered, her translator box flavoring her words with the nuances of her meaning. “The experiment was worth the expense, in my thoughts. Shutting off the nullifying machine proved the excessive levels of KI emitted by this meioa-e exceed all prior experience. Whatever that gift is, pathic or clairant, it is…” She paused, then stated carefully, “It is not Human. Which begs the question of what you are, meioa-e.”
It wasn’t widely known in the Alliance where most psychic abilities came from, but these weren’t the average masses. The meioas around her were the psychic movers and shakers in their respective militaries, and there was one blatant conclusion which would leap immediately into their minds.
“You’re only half right, meioa,” Ia confessed in the wary quiet following that statement. “My mother was and is fully Human.” Lifting her hand, she pointed at the Solarican still leaning against the wall, looking ill. “But since I have no choice, I’ll admit my father-progenitor was one of them.”
The male felinoid leaning against the wall started and straightened upright. He looked around the room, eyes wide, ears back. “Me? How could I be rrrelated to him? I am not evenn the same species!”
Pushing herself up from her bench, Ia leaned over the still-functional anti-psi machine. One hand rested over the sucker hand, ready to push and pull on the controls to make it work. The other lifted into the air. Energy crackled between her digits in unsubtle warning.
“Confess the truth, meioa…or I will turn this thing on, and give it extra power,” she growled.
His ears flattened full, and his teeth bared. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re here for the same reason we are. Because these machines are a threat to us all,” Ia stated, while the other beings in the room glanced back and forth between the two of them in confusion. “But it’s not the same threat for you as it is for us. This just interferes with our gifts, and gives us a nasty migraine. To your kind, this…this anti-psi energy acts like a poison.
“Doesn’t it, Feyori?” Her accusation made him growl. Ia lifted her right hand higher, brightening the sparks of energy snapping between her fingertips. “Oh, no. Don’t even think of trying to counterfaction me, Meddler. You and I do want the same thing, after all: to see the source of these machines tracked down and silenced. Cooperate, and we will assist you.”
“‘We’?” he challenged her, pushing away from the wall and lacing his fingers together Solarican-style, like a Human would have crossed his arms. “You speak as if you werre a faction, Humann.”
“My Right of Simmerings is not yet over,” Ia reminded him. This Meddler wasn’t the one who had posed as Doctor Silverstone during her recruit days as a Marine, but she knew postcognitively that Silverstone had told the others about her. She knew that this one was aware of her temporarily sanctioned presence in the Great Game he and his kind played. “My faction is my own, counterfaction to none. You will cooperate in this matter.
“It is in your best interest to do so, since this machine is a threat to your kind as well as to mine. Swear yourself in faction to me,” Ia ordered him, “or swear yourself neutral, and go.”
He glanced at the guards, who were eyeing him warily. Their hands were not on the stunner guns at their waists, but rather on the knives sheathed next to them. Physical weapons would not actually kill a shape-shifted Meddler, but Meddlers could still feel pain when wrapped in fleshy matter. And unlike a laser or a stunner, knives wouldn’t feed a Feyori, either.
It didn’t look like he was going to swear faction to her. Ia lifted her chin. “As you wish. We are neutral to each other. But your cover is now blown, meioa. You’ll find a set of power outlets behind you. Take what you need, and go.”
He studied her for a moment more, then unlaced his hands. Electricity arced from the wall sockets to his claw-tips, fluffing and sparking through his fur. The lights dimmed, and the hairs on everyone else started to rise in static response. A moment later, energy leaped across the room from several more outlets, slamming into the Solarican—and an eye-dazzled blink later, a large silvery soap-bubble floated in the air where the felinoid once stood.
The metallic surface swirled, darkening for a moment as it continued to absorb more arcs of energy from the wall sockets. Seconds later, it swirled further, as if turning, and soared through the wall, picking up speed as it left without hindrance. Wide-eyed and wary, the meioas in the room watched it go, their stunned silence speaking volumes.
The moment she was sure the Feyori had left, Ia slumped back onto the bench behind her. She rubbed a trembling hand over her face, exhausted. Not just from the efforts of proving her gifts against the nullifying ache caused by that infernal machine, but from the effort to seem strong enough to take on a full-blooded Feyori. A member of a race who could literally eat laserfire for lunch.
“So.” The single chirrup from Meioa Nik’ikk fell into the silence blanketing the hall. She chittered again, the complex programming of her translator box analyzing and filling in the nuances for her. Mostly ones of scorn. “A Feyori half-breed. One who understands their pol—”
“Stop.” Lifting her gaze from her palm, she glared at the spider-like alien. “Just stop. I will not let you poison the minds of everyone around you with your prejudices. Think about what I have done with my gifts, meioa. What, exactly, have I done with them?”
Her demand echoed off the walls. Righteous anger gave her the strength to rise, the strength to cross the meters of distance separating them. Bracing her palms on the edge of the table serving duty as the K’katta psychic’s podium-platform, Ia leaned her face between the foremost legs of the alien, bringing her head within biting distance.
“Have I destroyed cities? Have I slaughtered children? Have I brought wrath and ruin? No, I have not. I have saved lives, meioa, at the personal expense of great pain and multiple injuries. I have strived, meioa, to be a good sentient being. Courageous, honorable, and compassionate. I have not sought high rank, I have not sought political power, and I have not tried to manipulate the people around me just for the amusement of some half-incomprehensible game!
“I have laid my life on the line for my fellow sentients, over and over and over, and I will not let you try to twist my actions into anything less than what I have proven them to be, over and over and over!” she snarled, leaning close enough to those flexing mandibles that the K’katta swayed back a few centimeters. “So before you chirp one more word, you will either clamp your mandibles shut and lay your life on the line for others, as many times as I have, or you will shove your personal prejudices right back up your waste orifice! Is. That. Clear. Guardian?”
Crouched low, cowed by her verbal attack, the K’katta didn’t respond. Slowly, arms threatening to tremble, Ia pushed herself back upright.
“I repeat, I am not a monster. I am not some sadistic, uncaring deus ex machina, sweeping in and out just long enough to carry out some incomprehensible plot to manipulate others. I am a mortal and fallible and mostly Human being, as I have always been. I may be more gifted than others,” she allowed, “but that only means I have a few more tools to work with than the average being. I make mistakes, I get hurt, but I try to do what is right. What all of us—Human and Tlassian and K’kattan, all of us—agree is right.
“Now, if that is an unforgivable sin,” she snapped, looking around the room, “then may God damn you all to hell, because my birthright is nothing more than one extra means to help me get it done.”
Pushing away from the table, she headed for the door. Without a word, Chaplain Benjamin rose from her seat near the back and followed her. Ia paused a few meters from the exit and looked back over her shoulder.
“I don’t expect any of you to be able to keep all of this to yourselves, but I’ll remind you that the only reason why I rescued so many from Sallha is because the Salik didn’t know about my abilities. And the less they know about them, the better. So I’ll ask you to keep silent, and treat my Rankings as an Alliance secret…but I won’t hold my breath.
“The Solarican government, which currently holds custody over the anti-psi machine, has agreed to give it into my control as my war-prize for destroying the Salik high command. I in turn will be handing it over to the Terran Space Force, Branch Special Forces, for a more detailed examination of its function. I don’t care if you believe me or not,” she added, her words edged with a slight, sarcastic bite, “but I give you my word of honor that any further research conducted on it will be shared among the member races of the Alliance, and used in our mutual fight against the Salik. I promise we will track down the scientists who created it, and stop them from producing more.
“Now, if you will excuse me, I am still recovering from my injuries. I am tired and need to go rest.” Facing the doors, she found the Solarican guards standing in the way.
Ia stared at them. She turned her head slightly to the side, displaying the distinctive earring dangling from her right lobe. An earring bearing the royal seal and the Solarican symbols that marked her battle rank as a War Princess among their kind. They looked at it, glanced briefly at each other, and parted to either side. One of them even palmed open the door for her, politely letting her go.
Without another word, Ia strode through, Bennie following in her wake. Of all the races, the Solaricans themselves were the least skittish about dealing with the Feyori, mostly for reasons they refused to admit to the other races, though Ia herself knew. Unless and until a member of their imperial family revoked her status as a War Princess, Ia technically outranked nearly everyone else on board the Solarican Warstation. She was diplomatic enough not to abuse that rank, but if necessary, she would use it.
Bennie waited until they were in one of the nearby lifts before she spoke. “Well played, Lieutenant. Not just the bit about quashing any rumors regarding your ‘birthright,’ but the whole revelation of your gifts.”
“Thanks. I think,” Ia muttered. “But I’ll have you know it’s not an act, Commander. I’m not a monster, and the only thing motivating my so-called agenda is the chance to save lives.”
“Relax, I believe you,” Bennie murmured back. “And I’m beginning to believe in you. I’m not quite sure where your cause is headed just yet, but at least I know you’ll do your best to keep it on the right track. You’ve earned my faith in you. Don’t abuse it.”
“Thanks.” This time, the word was uttered with more sincerity. “I wish I could tell you where it was headed,” she added as the lift car swayed to a stop, “but at this point, I’m still faced with my biggest fight.”
The doors opened and a trio of Solaricans boarded, clothed in stained coveralls and carrying tool kits and scanner equipment. They gave the two Humans cursory looks, but otherwise ignored the aliens in their midst.
“I forgot to ask. Did you get everything loaded, this morning?” Ia asked Bennie obliquely.
“It’s all stowed,” the redhead confirmed.
Relieved, Ia nodded. They weren’t on their way back to the Solarican version of an infirmary ward. Instead, they were headed for one of the docking gantries, where a civilian mail courier waited for them. Bennie had actually traveled on it this morning, flying from the Mad Jack, which had moved two systems away in the last few days, forced to return to its assigned position in the Blockade zone.
When the Space Force had learned that Ia had been sold to the Salik, her belongings had been prepared to be shipped back home to her family. Very few soldiers had ever returned from a formal CPE listing, before. Luck alone had caught and rerouted them back to the Interdicted Zone before the cases filled with her few belongings had reached the halfway point. Ia hadn’t unpacked much of it, just enough to don her most formal uniform yesterday. The rest, Bennie had picked up and sent to the courier ship waiting for them.
Halfway up the docking ring, Bennie slugged Ia on the arm. Yelping, Ia cupped the bruised muscles. She had only placed that possibility at less than 10 percent. “What was that for?”
“You’re the precog, Lieutenant. Or rather, the postcog. You figure it out,” Bennie muttered.
Ia didn’t have to guess all that much. “I didn’t tell you about my father because I couldn’t tell you, alright? Think about it, Commander. Meioa Nik’ikk’s reaction was only the tip of the iceberg. Even if I quelled some of it, everyone is going to be looking over my actions with a microscope and a fine-toothed comb, wondering if I’m a monster.”
“So why reveal your background now?” Bennie her.
“First of all, there is no way with a ‘bare minimum’ ranking of 84 that I could keep it quiet,” Ia reminded the other woman. “Something like that would always raise questions about where I got that kind of power. Second, if it had been brought up earlier in my career, I’d have been drummed out of the Service out of misguided, baseless paranoia. But by now, it has been proven, over and over again, what a massive asset I am to the Space Force. They can’t afford to let me go, and everyone knows it.
“And third, I want people to go over my record. I want them to take a good, long look at everything I have done. Nothing about me has actually changed. I’m still the same soldier I was before my background was revealed,” Ia reminded her. “But I want my Service record, both the good and the bad, to be so fresh in the minds of the Command Staff that they’ll have no choice but to think about all I have done so far, and all I could still do. Specifically, of what I could do for them in the future.”
“That could backfire, you know,” Bennie warned her.
Ia wrinkled her nose, glancing at her friend. “Why do you think I’m so worried about winding up in the Dungeon? Come on, we’ve a long way to go and a short time to get there.”
“Are you sure you’re safe to travel this early in your convalescence?” Bennie asked her. “I’m not a doctor, if you go into a relapse.”
“Hello, precog?” Ia retorted, spreading her hands. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry. OTL might exhaust me silly, but that’s it. Trust me, I’m disease-free. No more sepsis. At least, this year.”
The look Bennie shot her was definitely not an amused one. The corner of Ia’s mouth quirked upward anyway.