The Chaplain's War

by Brad R Torgersen

  “How?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. Just that Captain Adanaho and the Professor both called me on the carpet about it. You’re not the only one with sins to atone for.”

  I wiped at my face and sniffled, trying to compose myself.

  “Then we are allied in more ways than one,” she said. “Padre, your Captain Adanaho once told me—by way of the Professor—that all of this was happening for a reason. She believed it firmly. Perhaps she is right. What that reason might be I cannot say. But you and I must work together to find solutions to our mutual problems. The question for me at this moment is: where do I start?”

  I considered the question, looking at her through my unexpected tears.

  “Get rid of the carriage,” I said.

  She backed away from me.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s got to be it. You said it yourself when you came to my quarters. The disc is hampering your natural perceptions in ways you didn’t realize until you had to do without a disc long enough to tell the difference. I think the choice is an obvious one.”

  “I would be a permanent cripple,” she said. “You know the carriage is part of who we are. I can no more do without it than you could do without your arms and legs.”

  “Then find a way to compromise,” I said. “Break it up. Pare back the carriage’s functions one by one until the ‘flatness’ fades or disappears.”

  She looked at me, the flush along her semi-soft chitin beginning to dissipate and her forelimbs caressing the front of her disc thoughtfully.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

  Almost immediately, she spun on her vertical axis and shot back down the length of the platform.

  “Wait!” I cried, but she was gone.

  And I’d been left to find my way back to my compartment, alone.

  I stayed on the observation deck for a few more minutes, then slowly walked back into the ship’s interior.

  CHAPTER 48

  Target planet (Purgatory), 2155 A.D.

  THE MANTIS CARRIER PUT DOWN IN A MOUNTAIN VALLEY. AS did over a hundred other carriers just like it. We were herded out of the pods like cattle. Thousands of us. The ragged survivors of a once-mighty human flotilla. With only the clothes on our backs, or what we’d been able to salvage in duffels, bags, packs, and satchels. Anything that wasn’t obviously a weapon, but which might still offer some kind of use.

  Perhaps a third of us were wounded. Some very seriously, like the chaplain.

  With mantis infantry standing watch at the valley rim, we were left to figure ourselves out.

  “No escape,” one NCO remarked bleakly.

  Chaplain Thomas was looking worse every hour.

  A Fleet nurse who’d been trying to do his best to stand in for an actual physician approached me and pulled me aside.

  “He’s not going to last much longer.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I replied tersely. “Is there anything you can do for the pain? He’s hurting bad.”

  “I want to save the pain meds for the people I think we can save.”

  I wanted to retort in anger, but realized the futility of it. If we’d had the capacity to get Chaplain Thomas to a surgeon, even his present injuries—dire as they seemed—weren’t life threatening. But the nearest surgery center had been back aboard the Fleet starship we’d left behind, and which had now obviously been destroyed, or tucked tail and run when the tide turned.

  There would be no help for the chaplain’s injuries.

  He chuckled bleakly at me when I told him the bad news.

  “Figured as much, all by myself,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish there was more I could do.”

  “You can do something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “When I’m gone, build me a chapel.”

  I stared at him.

  “I am completely serious,” Chaplain Thomas said. “If the mantes have let so many of us live, there’s got to be a reason for it. Sounds like they’re not letting anyone in or out of the valley. Which means we’re prisoners of war. And that means these people—all who have survived—are going to need somewhere to come and cry out their sorrows to the Lord.”

  “But I don’t know anything about architecture—”

  “You don’t have to know,” he said. “Noah built an ark with nothing but the power of God to guide him. Surely you can put together something with four walls and a roof? If you want to do something for me, Harrison Barlow, you will build me a chapel. Keep it clean. Keep it neat. Make sure anyone and everyone is welcome. So that they can come in, sit down, maybe talk about their problems, and seek some peace of mind.”

  “I’m not convinced there will be any peace of mind for any of us,” I said. In a matter of days, all our lives had been smashed to ruins. Earth was cut off from us. Our friends, our families. Gone. And we ourselves might as well have been dead, for how much optimism I saw in the expressions on the faces of the people around me. The surviving officers and Fleet NCOs were trying to rally. But the shock still hadn’t worn off. People milled about in little camps and circles: hollow-eyed, flinching at even small sounds, and so very, very afraid.

  My dour reverie must have been apparent.

  The chaplain snapped his fingers at me.

  “Yessir?” I said.

  “Boy,” the chaplain said to me, snagging my hand in his, and pressing his fingers into my flesh with as much strength as he could muster. “Tammy swore to me that you were a good one. The kind of fellow who could make a difference in peoples’ lives. Listen to me now. Whether or not you live or die is no longer important. You hear me? Not anymore. That’s completely in the Lord’s hands now. Which means all you need to decide is what you want to do with yourself in the time the Lord’s got left for you. Are you going to sit around and be so frightened that you can’t move or breathe? Or are you going to try to make the world a better place?”

  He began coughing terribly, wincing all the while. Bits of blood speckled the front of his armor suit now.

  “Ripping up my own lungs,” he wheezed.

  “I’ll go bring the nurse back,” I said.

  “Forget it. It’s almost over. And I’m sorry, son. I truly am sorry. For me, captivity will be short-lived. I go to my reward. But for you? The Lord’s got a trial in mind for you. And a work to be accomplished. You dodge that, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days. Such as they are. Don’t run away from it, Harry. Time to grow up and take it by the horns. Life is filled with challenges, and you’ve got a big one now. Promise me you’ll build the chapel? Promise me.”

  I looked away from him as he started coughing again. It wasn’t fair. The whole thing. The decimation of the flotilla. Getting rounded up in this valley like pigs in a pen. Having everything I’d once considered dear ripped away from me and placed light-years distant. But most of all, it wasn’t fair that a dying man was making me carry out his last wish.

  “You know what you have to do,” Chaplain Thomas said.

  “Alright, dammit,” I said. “You win. I promise I’ll build it.”

  “And keep it clean, and make sure people feel welcome.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “No one will be turned away.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “Make it a house where the spirit can dwell.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “You will learn how.”

  And with that, he laid his head back on the stretcher, took one final, shuddering breath, and died. As if he’d chosen that moment to depart. I wanted to call him a few choice names for making me promise to do something I had no desire nor intention of doing. Instead, I simply laid a towel across his face and set about seeking the best place to bury him.

  That night I found the spot. It was away from the mass grave—where most of those who’d died since our being deposited in the valley were being put. I didn’t want Chaplain Thomas’s remains moldering with everyone else’s. He’d b
een a nice officer and an affectionate clergyman. It seemed wrong to just carry him to the hole and up-end him into it, with all the others. So I strapped Chaplain Thomas’s body to the stretcher and began the painstaking task of hauling him towards a high, flat spot perhaps five hundred meters from where the bulk of the Fleet refugees had assembled themselves. The grumbling din of conversation fell behind me as I trudged.

  Every ten minutes or so, I set the body down and let my arms rest.

  To my surprise, I heard a voice call to me out of the dusk.

  “Need a hand?” asked the woman.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Seems like a big job for one specialist,” she said. As she approached me I noticed she had on a somewhat grimy flight suit. Her name tape said FULBRIGHT, and the patches on her chest and shoulders indicated she’d been a gunner.

  I relented, and let her pick up the other end of the stretcher.

  “Someone special to you?” she asked as we walked: me in front, her in the rear.

  “His name was Chaplain Thomas, and he was a good man.”

  “Too good to be put with the rest of the dead?”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? If you’re going to help me, can you do it in peace?”

  “Sorry. I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to anyone. I came down in an escape pod after the Seahawk began to break up in orbit. The mantes found and picked me up earlier today.”

  “Did any of our ships make it?”

  “Not sure. I was blazing away like there was no tomorrow, and none of my shells nor any of the missiles made so much as a dent in the mantis destroyers. They’ve got this kind of shielding that glows when you hit it. Our weapons couldn’t touch them. Would have been nice to know in advance that they had that little trick up their buggy sleeves.”

  I grunted my agreement. What we hadn’t known, had indeed hurt us.

  When we reached the spot I’d picked—the light now all but gone from the valley—I set to work with my small hand shovel.

  Gunner Fulbright got down beside me and went to work with a folding spade she’d saved from her escape pod’s emergency supplies.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked.

  “Because I need a friend,” she said. “And there’s no better way to make friends than to pick the guy who seems to be doing the most thankless work, and pitch in.”

  “Your attitude is far more positive than it deserves to be,” I said.

  She laughed at me.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But my mama always told me the Lord hates a coward, so I’d rather apply myself to something positive, than run around being afraid of my shadow the way a lot of these other survivors seem to be doing.”

  Again, I grunted my agreement.

  We dug for hours. By feel. Until we were exhausted. When we slept, we slept on the dirt—something every survivor had rapidly learned to do in the wake of the Fleet’s destruction on-planet.

  When light peeked over the tops of the mountains that ringed the valley, we got up and carefully lowered Chaplain Thomas’s remains down into the grave. Neither of us had anything particularly special or meaningful to say, so we said nothing. We simply pushed the soil and sand back over the top of the body, tenderly tamped the layer down, then levered a large oblong boulder into place as a marker.

  In fact, the entire area was strewn with stone.

  I considered the promise I’d made to my now-deceased boss. What passed for trees on this world wouldn’t be much good for cutting timber. If anything was going to be built, it would be built out of rock and mud.

  I used my heel to mark off a largish rectangle in the ground not far from where the chaplain had been buried.

  “I’m hungry, and we’d better get back,” Fulbright said.

  “You go ahead,” I said. “I want to finish this first.”

  “What for?” she asked.

  “I made a promise,” I said. “And I don’t want to leave until I’ve left behind something permanent—which I can come back to and build on later.”

  “Okay then, I’ll see you back down with the others.”

  “Hey, Gunner,” I said to her as she walked away.

  “Yeah?” she said over her shoulder.

  “You were right,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “About making friends. Thanks. For being mine.”

  She stopped. Then turned and smiled at me.

  “Any time, Barlow. Any time.”

  CHAPTER 49

  NOT KNOWING THE MANTIS SHIP’S LAYOUT, AND NOT HAVING paid attention to the way I’d come when the Queen Mother had been in the lead, I quickly got lost. Unlike before, the mantes I passed did notice me—which seemed to confirm my theory about underlings not meeting the eyes of their sovereign.

  The longer I passed aimlessly through corridor after corridor, the more acute my disorientation became. Not to mention my sense of paranoia. The mantes weren’t merely looking at me now. A solid dozen of them had stopped what they were doing so that they could follow me. At a distance, yes, but still following me. Not saying anything.

  I walked faster; they simply kept pace. Until I finally turned and confronted them.

  “May I help you?” I asked, trying to remain calm.

  “Tell us, human,” said a soldier in the lead, “by what power is it that you’re able to bend the greatest among us to your will?”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “The Queen Mother is dependent on you,” said another soldier. “We are constrained from criticizing her openly, but amongst ourselves we note this unpleasant deference to an inferior life form, and we do not like it.”

  I felt a sudden chill in my chest.

  The mantes slowly circled me until I was surrounded.

  “I am sure the Queen Mother would be willing to assuage any misgivings you might have,” I said, the sweat springing out across my body as my heart rate began to climb. Back on the planet where the lifeboat had come to rest, we’d been fleeing human troops—humans I’d at least have had a shot at dealing with. Here? On this ship? I suddenly realized that beyond the Queen Mother herself and perhaps the three technicians specifically tasked with helping me, I had no friends. To these mantes, I was not much better than vermin.

  I swallowed hard.

  “We are not permitted to redress such concerns directly,” said the first soldier. He floated forward until he was practically on top of me.

  “I have seen humans in battle. I have killed humans. I have seen mantes killed by humans. I want to know how it is that you have managed to force a conciliatory course on my people when we are in fact on the brink of total victory. Our scholars were befuddled by you once in the same manner. I know of the fool you called the Professor. I am pleased to learn he is no longer alive to spread his particular brand of pacifist idiocy.”

  “So now you intend to rid the universe of me as well?” I said.

  “I desire this greatly, yes,” the soldier said.

  “Then why don’t you do it?” I said.

  Feeling the sudden courage of action that comes with disregarding all personal safety, I reached out and pulled the soldier’s forelimb right up to my neck, the serrations just millimeters from my skin. In one raw stroke he could have my throat open down to the spine. It would be over. It would be quick.

  I waited, almost breathless.

  “You taunt me,” the soldier said.

  “Not at all. I am defenseless. I have no firearms nor grenades nor other killing devices with which to harm any of you. If you believe I am a threat, you must take action.”

  The soldier’s insect eyes stared down at me. I could almost feel the longing in him—to shed my blood.

  A sudden klaxon blared and the soldier dropped to the deck. Or, rather, his disc dropped to the deck. I jumped back, watching him and all the mantes around me drop in a similar fashion.

  “What the hell—?”

  Three shapes zoomed down the corridor and surrounded me: the technicia
ns who’d been setting up my quarters next to the Queen Mother’s.

  “What’s happened?” I asked—panting—with a finger pointed at the lead soldier, who now flopped and flailed harmlessly.

  “Disciplinary override,” said one of the mantes. “When the Queen Mother came to us to discuss her project for the slow dismantling of her carriage, we asked her where you were. Realizing her error, she dispatched us to find you—with her command override code at our discretion.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, assistant-to-the-chaplain, that so long as any mantis is aboard this vessel, its disc can be ordered to commit a partial shutdown. We have known since your arrival that not all mantes welcome your presence. Or your relationship with the Queen Mother. We are only fortunate that we found you in time to stop something unpleasant from happening.”

  I was almost delirious with adrenaline as I realized I’d been moments from certain death. How or why I’d thought it a good idea to place my head in the proverbial guillotine and shout, bring it on, was something I would have to ponder later.

  “Thank you,” I managed to say to the three technicians as they began escorting me away from the scene.

  “Thank the Queen Mother,” they said in unison. “Only her code has the power to do what we just did. Without it, we’d have merely been spectators.”

  “What will happen to them?” I asked.

  “In a few more moments their discs will all come back up to full operational capability. At which point we will be far out of reach.”

  “Is this how the mantes maintain order in the ranks?”

  “An extreme example, yes,” said one of the technicians. “I am afraid your presence here has greatly disturbed the harmony that normally exists aboard a mantis vessel. We must ensure that you are never again allowed to wander unprotected.”

  “Yeah,” I said, walking so fast I was almost running, “that’s a pretty good idea.”

  By the time we got me back to my compartment I was shaking like a leaf.

  I bade them another thankful farewell, then went to the wash basin and braced my arms on either side—muscles quivering. I splashed so much water on myself there was a huge puddle on the deck around me, and my uniform was soaked. I stripped and threw the uniform into the washer-dryer, then flopped out onto my bed and turned the lights back off.